A creative and effective way for your business to help out non-profit organizations and charities is to use your company’s online resources.  Consider some of these ideas:

• If you don’t already have e-commerce features on your site, you can easily set up a pay pal account to accept online donations without having to purchase complex a shopping cart system.
• If your site currently incorporates e-commerce, add an option at check-out to include a donation into the purchase total.
• Use your social media outlets to share your support of your organization and let others know how they can help.
• Link your organization’s website to your own site and social networks to help out their SEO.
• Have an online contest.  For example, whenever your company’s facebook page reaches 1000 fans, you will donate $X to Organization X.

By using these and other tactics, you will not only be supporting a good cause, but you’ll be building your online presence and improving your site’s SEO in the process!

You need “link juice” to increase your site’s ranking in the SERPs.  Here are a few easy, free link building tactics that can be used by any business owner!

• Donate your services to a good cause or have an event that will draw media attention.  Remember to take lots of pictures and video for posting on social media outlets!
• Write expert articles for an industry newsletter as a guest writer or even become a regular columnist.
• Run a comprehensive search of mentions of your company on the web and if you are not linked, ask for one!
• If you’ve received sincere thanks and praise from a client, ask them to post a link to your site on their personal website or profile.
• Be sure you are linked in the directories of all chambers or business organizations you’re a member of.
• Exchange links with business partners and referral partners.  Make sure you are “fans” of one another.

Love it or hate it, social networking is an essential aspect of business in the 21st century.  Social networking not only keeps you informed with regards to what your customers and competition are up to, but it is also one of the easiest ways to enhance brand awareness and credibility… or hurt it.  Pay attention to these tips that will help business owners obtain all the advantages social networks have to offer, while avoiding the potential hazards.

• We have two ears and one mouth for a reason… be sure to do more “listening” through your social networks than you do “speaking.”
• Keep it fresh.  Be sure to always have new and interesting content to keep your online audience engaged.  Try creating a routine, i.e. three facebook wall posts, three tweets, and three blog articles per week.
• Continuously build your social network by adding fans, customers, colleagues, networking partners, and other industry professionals.
• Maintain the same level of professionalism online as you do offline.
• Get involved in forums and discussions; if you read a comment about your business, respond!  Take this unique opportunity to directly interact with your customers and see what they have to say!

The following are social networks you and your employees should be utilizing:

-Your company should have a facebook fan page and a twitter account that are updated every couple of days.

-Create a LinkedIn profile for your business and encourage your employees to set up accounts to network with one another and other professionals.

-Blog, Blog, Blog.  You are an expert in your industry, right?  Well, share your expertise with the rest of us!

-Upload infomercials, promotions, or viral videos to YouTube.

-Create a Wiki for your business.

-List your business in local reviews/guides/forums.

-Add “share” links and badges to your website.

There are literally countless ways to interact via social networks.  If you haven’t already hopped on the social networking bandwagon, it’s not too late… but hurry!  As always, if you find yourself overwhelmed and in need of professional help, the experts here at WEBii are always happy to assist!

If your company is serious about seeing significant ROI from their search marketing efforts, it’s a good idea to hire an outside firm. Oftentimes, tedious hours of link building and keyword research are assigned to the intern… the secretary will tweet to an audience of three followers once a week… and every once in a while, an article will be posted to the company blog.  Newsflash: This strategy will not get you anywhere.

It is unlikely that anyone around the office has the time or skill set to manage a successful SEM campaign.  Unless your company has hired a full time, in-house SEM expert, it is in your best interest to consider outsourcing at least some of these tasks.  Consider which aspects of your SEM campaign you wish to hand over to the experts: Search Engine Optimization? PPC? Social Media?  Most firms will offer a package deal that includes all these components.

Outsourcing your search engine marketing is one of the best investments your company can make.  It will end up saving you a lot of time, a lot of money, and a lot of headaches.  Ready to give it a shot?  Call one of our SEO specialists at WEBii and get started today!

Twitter is one of the hottest trends on the internet right now. For those of you not in the know, it’s what is called a microblogging service. It’s basically a page that stores any number of text updates, limited to 160 characters maximum. It’s almost like uploading SMS messages for everyone to see, allowing you to follow what your friends and acquaintances are up to 24/7.

You may have even seen little Twitter “badges” on people’s websites. These are little modular paces of code that will display your latest tweet right on your own webpage. It’s a pretty neat widget to have if you have a personal page, or own a business and want to keep your customers updated on your latest specials, but don’t want them to navigate away from your web page.

Putting a Twitter badge on your website is actually really easy, because all the hard stuff is done for you already. After you’ve setup your twitter account , visit this website: TwitStamp.com

Once you’ve customized and fiddled with your shiny new Twitter badge and you deem it satisfactory, simply scroll to the bottom where it says “Use it”. Click the first field that says “HTML”, copy the code, and paste the code, exactly as it is, into your website’s HTML page.

The next time you reload your page, you’ll have a widget displayed, just like it is now, after I inserted the HTML into this blog post.

As you can see, there are a variety of ways in which you can customize your badge, so have fun with it, keep it relevant, and Tweet on!

Fads of the decades:

1960’s: tie-dye, lava lamps, and ouija boards
1970’s: tetherball, pet rocks, and Farrah Faucet hair
1980’s: parachute pants, Rubik’s cube, and Jazzercise
1990’s: Tamagotchi, chat rooms, and spandex
2000’s: Crocs, Hannah Montana, and… social media??

Consider the following (adapted from Erik Qualman’s article, Social Media: Fad or Revolution?):

• By 2010, Gen Y will outnumber Baby Boomers — 96 percent of them have joined a social network.
• One out of eight couples married in the U.S. last year met via social media.
• Eighty percent of Twitter usage is on mobile devices. People update anywhere, anytime. Imagine what that means for bad customer experiences!
• What happens in Vegas stays on YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook…
• More than 1.5 million pieces of content (Web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) are shared on Facebook daily.
• Wikipedia has more than 13 million articles. Some studies show it’s more accurate than Encyclopedia Britannica.
• There are more than 200,000,000 blogs.  Fifty-four percent of bloggers post content or tweet daily.
• Years to reach 50 million users: Radio, 38 years; TV, 13 years; Internet, 4 years; iPod, 3 years. Facebook added 100 million users in less than nine months; iPhone applications hit 1 billion in nine months.

So… you decide.  Is social media just another fad, or has it completely revolutionized the way people across the globe do business, connect with loved ones, share information, and live their everyday lives?

Need help revving up your company’s presence in the social media world?  WEBii can help!  Contact one of our specialists today to talk about starting a customized social media plan for your business.

2009 is proving to be a turning point in the number of small business owners who have asked us about using audio and/or video media in their web sites.  But while awareness of these interactive mediums have grown, it isn’t always advisable to start plastering video and audio files all over your web site. Remember to go back to those standard marketing rules – who is your audience and what do they want?

How large are your files and how will they affect the performance of your site to those visitors? Do they have a fast enough Internet connection?  Will they likely be viewing your site at work when they might need to mute sound from playing?  Is the primary purpose of your web site to entertain, for brand recognition, or for making sales?  Will a video detract from another key call-to-action?

For many businesses, marketing with online videos and audio is a great tool, but it might be better served on a particular web page instead of your home page, or only on third party web sites like blogs, community forums, Google, and YouTube.  SEO and marketing consultants can often make recommendations in this area that are tailored to your campaign.  Ask WEBii about SEO Marketing Services.

Last Thursday, the first finger on my left hand somehow got smashed in the bathroom door and has been in pain ever since. (Literally, I’m still feeling pain now.) I’m not sure if it is just me being clumsy, or if I’m in too much of a rush to do everything. There is an upside to this whole ordeal, I have found my inspiration for today’s blog post. The lesson I learned is that we must all take more care with our everyday activities – this includes our professional marketing activities.

We live in a society where all we do is multi-task. It’s not normal to not multi-task. We work hard and are constantly bombarded with more items to add to our ever-growing to-do lists. It can be hard to keep up. Often times, we are rushed and can become careless with our activities. Smashing my finger is my personal case-in-point for how carelessness can effect someone. My finger will stop hurting (eventually). I’ll eventually forget it happened and my life will continue just fine. The same cannot be said for your business if you make careless marketing mistakes.

A company is defined by its personal brand, reputation, people, actions, strategies, marketing tactics, principles and so much more. Each and every company needs to take care with how they represent themselves in all professional aspects.

The first example that came to my mind was the ever-growing-in-popularity social media tool known as Twitter. Twitter is a great way to communicate with your network, both personally and professionally. However, as fun, effective and mainstream as Twitter is, businesses need to take special care with how they use the micro-blogging tool. Companies should keep their professional Twitter account separate from any personal accounts, whether the personal accounts belong to the CEO or the Office Manager. Things should be kept separate. This provides a clear distinction between which voice represents the company and which voice is representative of the employee. Any gray area can lead to miscommunication and often misrepresentation.  Just keeping separate accounts is not enough. While you want your tweets to be genuine (if they aren’t, you won’t be worth following and your message will never reach it’s intended audience), you must also set high standards for them. You need to talk in your professional voice, one that is well-represented by your company. Try using punctuation and proper grammar as much as possible. I know this can be tough with only 140 characters, but do your best.

While we are on the subject of grammar and punctuation, businesses should also take care with editing the content in the marketing materials they send out. There is nothing worse than a typo or spelling mistake. This sounds like a no-brainer but people often don’t thoroughly proofread and edit their materials. Relying on spell check is not a sufficient editing method, nor is relying on a quick, five second read-through of your work. Spend time with your copy and make sure it is spotless.

Moral of today’s story … take care with your efforts and what you say.  You don’t want a smashed finger (or company for that matter), do you?

The proliferation of social networking throughout the internet has lead to a sharp increase in social marketing. Whether this marketing comes in terms of social networking profiles, viral videos, or blog entries companies are striving to meet their customers where they are–online.  While this type of marketing effort is a necessity, companies have to be careful about how they do it.  Most corporate social networking campaigns are failures because they do not understand the social dynamics associated with an effective social networking campaign.

The success of social networking sites comes from the user generated aspect of the service.  Each individual can control their own experience and create a community of friends. If companies overdo their efforts by constantly spamming people with advertisements they run the risk of alienating their audience by making them feel like they have invaded their turf.  It is similar to product placement in movies.  There are numerous examples of this technique done well but the examples of it being done poorly are the ones that are remembered.  When done correctly the placement seems minor and doesn’t draw attention to itself.  Unfortunately, when done incorrectly, product placement in movies tends to alienate viewers who dislike having their entertainment time violated by such obvious commercial interests.

The steps necessary for a good social networking campaign are very similar to those needed in a traditional advertising campaign. You must understand your audience, their needs, and what level of advertising they are willing to accept.  The difference is that you are no longer directly advertising–you are interacting with your audience and the people who follow you become your best advertisement.  So make it easy for them to advertise for you by starting a Facebook group.  Let the group members leave reviews of your service or helpful tips on your page. Interact with professionals in your field or others.

Remember that you must actively participate in social networks to maintain your presence. If you stop interacting with people they will quickly lose interest and move on. Above all, be interesting and relevant.

Personal touches make a world of difference. It builds a different kind of rapport with clients when they get something handwritten from you, rather than a sterile, cold (and maybe generic) emails. It seems simple and it seems like it wouldn’t make that big of a difference, but believe me it does. Think about how you feel when you receive something personal via the Postal Service. Maybe it’s just me, but I love getting mail! I get emails every day all day – on my Blackberry, dings from Thunderbird, on my Gmail – I’m just inundated with constant email, as I’m sure you and your customers are too.  What we aren’t inundated with (anymore) is handwritten written notes & cards. Therefore they stand out more than emails do and that is where opportunity lies for you to make a strong impact and help build your business relationships.

One way to make a personal impact is by sending out Birthday and Holiday cards. You don’t have to catch every holiday and some of them you might have to be a little politically correct on (that’s up to you) but it makes a difference to catch a few of them and recognize them to your customers. I’d especially try to keep up with birthdays, if that is possible. You might even be able to include a special holiday or birthday promotion. I know I’ve received cards in mail for birthday promotion … usually its save 10% for your birthday or get your free birthday gift in store. This usually entices me to go to the store that sent me the promotion, even if I haven’t been there in awhile or wasn’t planning a trip there in the immediate future.

Okay, so holiday and birthday cards, that is a fairly easy handwritten note to send out. But you need more than just that. You need to be sending more. Here are a few ideas for handwritten cards you can send out:

• When you meet someone new: send them a personalized note, letting them know it was nice to meet them and thank them for their time. Drop a few business cards in there, so they will have your name and your card handy whenever the need arises.
• When you receive a referral: it is always a good thing when you pay thanks to someone who has sent you a referral. Sending a handwritten note can add that extra touch and truly show that you are appreciative of the referral they have passed you. This helps show that you go above-and-beyond; this will also give the person referring business to you additional confidence for future transactions, networking and referrals.
• When you haven’t talked to someone in awhile: maybe you have an old client or a former referral partner that you haven’t talked to, seen or worked with in some time … send them a note and invite them for coffee or lunch to catch up.
• When you want to check in and just say hi: it is okay to not have a underlying meaning or purpose to your personal touches. Sometimes you just want to say hello and you should.

I’ve heard different folks say you should send 2-5 cards a week, but I realize that can be a lot, depending on the size of your network and customer base & the extra/free time you have.  To start off, I’d set a goal of 1 handwritten note per week (can be networking partner, client, someone you recently met, etc.). You can build up your numbers later. Just starting writing and building your connections.