Sunday, September 21, 2008
Corey Rollins and I were live blogging the Internet Marketing Conference in Vancouver on Sept. 11 and 12 for TechVibes.
There are a couple of posts that I want to highlight related to Search Optimization:
Erin Colbert of HubSpot presented Website Grader.
A tool that generates a quick SEO report and offers a grade on your site’s performance. Have a look at my TechVibes post on how TechVibes performed in Website Grader.
Jeff Nelson of Anduro Marketing presented The TechVibes posts shows an example site used in the demo.
SEO Panel Discussion was a great way to learn more about some local and not-so-local SEO companies:
Rodney Bartlett, Reachd, was the moderator. Panelists included Gary R. Beal, Stickyeyes, Bill Barnes, Enquiro; Omar Al-Haijar, Magnet Search Marketing, Lyn Wilson, 6S Marketing, Ellerton Whitney, Earthbound Media Group, and Alex Brabant, eMarketing101.
Visit the TechVibes blog to see what makes each of these panelists tick and ticked.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
The social bookmarking site Del.icio.us has refreshed it’s look and domain name.
Check out http://delicious.com/
Or watch this short Flickr Video on Delicious 2.0:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/deliciousblog/2718285703/
Delicious, if you’re listening. I like it. Nice look.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Online press releases can be an effective way of reaching journalists, bloggers and industry-related media sites. With online distribution your press release
may also end up on popular news aggregator sites like Google News and Yahoo News.
Still unclear about why you want to write an online press release?
1. To Drive Traffic to Your Site
A well-optimized press release can show up in organic search results as well as news results. And some services also distribute press releases as RSS feeds, which can get pulled as headlines into other subject-related websites. This means that someone searching for your type of products or services might discover you through organic listings, news listings or by RSS.
2. To Write the Stories You Want Told
As traditional print media struggles with cutbacks to funding, which means the loss of reporters and original, local news coverage, companies writing good press releases, with interesting and compelling stories, have an opportunity to attract online coverage as well as interest from journalists using online resources for story ideas and research.
Here are a couple of Online Distribution Services
PR Newswire: Big name, good reputation. Costs is $500+.
Business Wire: 8-10 percent less than PR Newswire. Also a big name with a good rep.
PRWeb.com: My favourite so far. This is an email-based service. Journalists and bloggers get a daily email with industry-specific or interest-specific headlines. Approx. $100+ depending on what type of features you want.
OpenPR.com: A free service. Ads are displayed beside your press release, which is okay unless your competitors advertise online.
Have a press release service to recommend? Post it here.
Monday, May 26, 2008
I was in Kelowna, BC, May 22 and 23 for the Meeting of the Centre for Chief Marketing Executives.
My fellow presenters included:
We talked about the growing influence of social networking websites and the implications for Canadian Marketers.
In addition to participating in roundtable discussions, I presented on “Internet and Social Media: Strategies and Tactics”. For the most part, I showed the web sites in a browser window, hence no slides to share with you. But below are my key points.
Introduction
Boxcar Marketing: how can we help your business?
We’re called Boxcar Marketing because we think about online marketing tools as boxcars in a train: you can link together any combination of online marketing tools. When used together in combinations that are appropriate for your campaign, your business, your customer base, they create momentum for your other marketing activities.
One company’s online marketing strategy might include:
Search marketing + Blogging + Email marketing
Someone else might use:
Search marketing + Facebook + Twitter + Flickr
Any combination is possible. My challenge to marketers is to go beyond your current set of online marketing tools.
Most businesses are using:
Email marketing + Websites
Some are using
Search marketing + Email marketing + Websites + Blogs + Facebook + YouTube
But what about these top social media tools:
- del.icio.us
- Flickr.com
- LinkedIn.com
- Ning.com
- StumbleUpon.com
- Twitter.com
- Upcoming.org
- Virtual worlds: SecondLife
- Wikis: pbwiki
~~~ Monique Trottier on Social Media Marketing 101 ~~~
A) Introduction to Social Media Marketing
What is it? Why is it important to you, your business and your customers? What can you do?
Why is Social Media Marketing important?
Because the media landscape has changed. Because customers have changed.
Mass marketing is harder to do effectively because of the fragmentation of attention. Media is fragmented. There are more radio stations, more tv stations, more magazine titles, more books, millions of websites.
There is a proliferation of products, meaning customers have more things to choose from. We have more devices: video games, computers, dvd players, televisions, satellite radios, TiVo, cellphones and PDAs.
With those devices we email, instant message, Google, blog, create videos, podcast. We also Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon, Ning and Digg.
As businesses, we have to care about these things because interruptive marketing is harder and harder to do.
Customers are not listening. They are busy creating content. They are producers.
They are busy recommending and talking about their experiences with products and services. They are reviewers. They are marketers.
Customers are more demanding and have greater expectations about how businesses should interact with them.
It is harder to get customers to come to your site because they are busy doing other things online. We have to go to them.
No online community has ever sat around saying, you know what we need? More marketers.
We have to get better at connecting to our customers online. At joining the conversation. At being more collaborative. At being an active part of a community. At speaking with our human voice, not our marketing & PR voice.
B) A Few Social Media Marketing Tools At A Glance
What is it? What are successful business uses?
Brightkite: http://brightkite.com/
- Location-based social networking. See where your friends are and what they’re up to, in real time. Meet people around you.
- Good for guerrilla marketing, ARGs (artificial reality games), treasure hunts, location-based marketing.
Digg: http://digg.com/
- A place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web. Content moves to the top based on user voting.
- Add Digg this Article to your site.
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/
• A social utility that connects you with the people around you.
• Online book clubs. HarperCollins Canada has 855 members who actively discuss new books.
Note on Facebook:
As businesses we have to keep in mind the nature of the communities we are joining. Facebook is about personal networks. It became the phenomenon that it is because it’s simple, it’s fun, it has photos, it has spam-free email, there’s very little advertising. If you want to be active in Facebook, go beyond advertising. Create value-add appllications, like the TripAdvisor map. Create fun games or quizzes or tools that help users socialize.
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/
- An online photo management and sharing application.
- Example: Nikon Stunning Gallery. Nikon contacted 16 bloggers who would use the new Nikon D80 and post photos to Flickr using the tag “nikonstunninggallery”. Other Flickr users were invited to also tag photos this way in order to be entered into a contest to win a free camera. This type of contest works because the product (a camera) is directly tied to the activities of the community (taking photos).
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/
- An online network of more than 20 million experienced professionals from around the world, representing 150 industries.
- Connect to me on LinkedIn. See my network of connections. Do we know anyone in common? Do you have a question that you’d like me to pose to my network? Looking for an expert in something? Maybe I can link you up to someone in my network.
Ning: http://www.ning.com/
- Create, customize, and share your own Social Network for free in seconds.
- See if members of your industry have already started social networks on Ning. Then join.
- Example: HotelNetwork.Ning.com is a forum for hotel owners, operators, and industry folks. “A wide range of topics are covered from a macro level such as the state of the industry to the property level with development opportunities, best practices, etc.“
PRWeb: http://www.prweb.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/
• A service for friends, family, and co-workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?
Note about Twitter: I love Twitter because it is real-time conversation, it’s easy, it’s mobile (I can send and receive Tweets from my computer and my phone), it’s business and personal. I think Twitter is the tool to watch. The integration, simplicity and mobility of this tool is key to its success.
Examples: Social bookmarketing site Ma.gnolia.com uses Twitter as a customer service and help desk. Instead of emailing the company when service is down or bugs are detected, you can follow the Twitter feed to see if they are aware of the problem and what the fix status is.
Upcoming: http://upcoming.yahoo.com
- A community for discovering and sharing events.
- Add your event. Check for networking events in your area or social media sessions or marketing events such as Case Camp.
YouTube: http://youtube.com/
- Easily upload and share video clips across the Internet through websites, mobile devices, blogs, and email.
- Example: Nick Haley, student at University of Leeds, loved his new iPod Touch so much that he created a commercial for it. Apple saw it. Was impressed. Flew him out to New York to re-create the ad, which now plays on television. Watch Nick Haley’s original Apple iPod Touch ad.
Conclusion
Where are we going? What should we take away from this presentation?
- We understand that the media landscape has changed.
- Newspaper readership is down.
- Direct mail success is down.
- TV viewership is down.
- We understand that 80% of offline purchases are a direct result of online window shopping (JC Williams Group).
- We know that the use of social networks, blogs, websites continues to hold steady or rise.
- We are going to see more social media tools.
- There will be greater integration of devices.
- There will be more conversations online, definitely between customers (and hopefully between customers and companies).
- There will be more collaboration online.
- The changes in the media landscape will continue to fragment the market.
- Smaller, more personal campaigns will have greater success and impact than larger, mass media campaigns.
- Community, conversation and collaboration will continue to win over controlled, closed networks.
- As businesses we need to remember to be human. Humans are tool users. Find the social media tools that are right for your campaigns.
About the Centre for Chief Marketing Executives
CCME is an exclusive network for Canada’s chief marketing executives that addresses marketing’s role at the corporate strategy level.
About Speaker Monique Trottier
Monique Trottier is President of Boxcar Marketing, a marketing and communications firm with expertise in online marketing, web design and search marketing. Monique is experienced at bridging social interactions on the web with offline conversation. She’s adept at helping companies understand and respond to how their products or services are represented online. Talk to Monique about in-house consultations, public speaking and presentations.
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
Swamped already? We are only days into 2008!
Check out these 5 time saving workflow tips.
For Firefox and Safari users:
Tip 1: See an interesting phrase on a web page you are visiting, rather than re-typing that phrase into a search bar, simply highlight the phrase and right-click or control-click. You’ll get a pop-up menu showing Search Google for [phrase here].
Estimated savings: 5-8 seconds
For Microsoft Word users:
Tip 2: Instead of going up to the Tools menu > Word Count, simply check the bottom of your document. Those numbers at the bottom are telling you how many words are in your document. For example, if you’re at the bottom of a 4 page document, you’ll see:
Page 4 Sec 1 4/4 | At 3.3” Ln 9 Col 1 | 0/1083
“1083” is indicating that I have 1083 words in my document. If I highlight my last sentence (9 words), it would appear 9/1083. The selection is a word count of 9, the full document’s word count is 1083.
Cool eh?
Estimated savings: 8-10 seconds
Tip 3: Hate when Word auto selects an entire word, even though you’re trying to select only a few letters?
Change this in the preferences. Preferences > Edit and deselect the checkbox for “When selecting, automatically select entire word”.
Estimated savings: 4 seconds
Tip 4: Loathe Word making every URL and email address a web link? You can change that too.
Tools > AutoCorrect > AutoFormat As You Type. Deselect the checkbox for “Internet paths with hyperlinks”.
Estimated savings: 1-10 seconds and a significant reduction in teeth clenching
For email marketers:
Tip 5: Alex Dunae has created a cool little program called Premailer. If you have a web page or text document that you want converted to email-ready HTML, you enter the URL of your file and out comes the code with the CSS styles converted to inline style attributes.
http://code.dunae.ca/premailer.web/
Estimated savings: hours-months (depending of course on your technical know-how)
For entrepreneurs:
Bonus Tip: There are 168 hours in a week. If you spend 56 hours sleeping, 10 for hygiene, that leave 102 hours. That’s not really a lot of time for doing all the things that need to get done. So delegate and eliminate. Look at all the things you have to do the next day and after each item note whether it’s the best use of your time. If it’s not, delegate it to someone else. If it’s not even worth delegating, eliminate it from the list.
Don’t have someone to delegate to? Look for volunteers, co-op students, friends, neighbours, family members. In Vancouver, there’s GoVolunteer Probono, which takes applications from organizations needing skilled volunteers. If there really is no one, examine how you’re prioritizing tasks. There’s always something that can be eliminated.
Have a good time saving tip? Post it in the comments below.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
PRWeb.com is one of the best press release services I’ve found on the web.
Why is it great?
For a small donation, $100 USD, or a large donation, $$$, you can get your press release distributed online in a number of industry categories and on Google News and Yahoo News.
Why is this great?
Because it boosts your website traffic, brings you qualified leads, and allows people to easily put your press release on their site or share it with a friend.
It’s free to set up an account. Go to PRWeb.com and create an account.
Then you’re ready to upload your press release.
You want to make sure your release is optimized for relevant keywords. Before you start plugging your press release into PRWeb make sure that you’re telling a good, coherent story, and that you’ve thought about the keyword phrases people may use to search for exactly this type of product, service, event—whatever your release is about.
You need an editorial score of 4 in order for your release to be on Google News and Yahoo News.
And don’t forget the add-on features. Depending on your contribution (payment), you’ll be able to attach files to your press release or select additional industry categories.
And the PRWeb support desk are there to help you along the way.
UPDATE: Our friends at Common Craft have produced a video to help explain PRWeb.
Monday, July 09, 2007
Tech 101: Books to Read
Some people learn by doing, some learn by watching, some learn via tutorials, some via videos, some via books. For those of you who like a good book and like to learn, here are a couple of books that I recommend. Each gives a different perspective on online markets, web 2.0, and that thing we call the internet. See the book list.
Word for the Day: Brightcove
PC Magazine has an article on video sites that gives a good introduction to the benefits of the various sites. YouTube is the most common, but if you’re looking to upload videos online you should also know about Brightcove and Blip.tv. Find out more about videos.
Ask for Support
Is some piece of technology driving you mad? Are you a non-techie in need of support? Email me your questions for next month’s newsletter.
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See Also:
Underwire Newsletter for June
Work Industries Blog
Monique’s Personal Blog
Monique’s Upcoming Events:
July 17:
SFU Summer Workshops: Book Marketing Online
July 27:
SFU Summer Workshops: Magazine Marketing Online
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