Google+ And You

As the end of the year draws near we reflect on the recent launch of the newest social network. Yes, we are referring to Google+.   The bigger news for businesses is the launch of Google+ Business Pages that were introduced in November.

Google+ Business Pages

According to Google – Business Pages provide businesses, products, brands, and organizations with a public identity and presence on Google+. This tool is described as “a leap forward in building relationships between businesses and people.”

Four Reasons to Use Google+ Pages

1. Improve your search results with adding the +1 button

Add and Connect the +1 Button

Google+ Business Pages are similar to Google+ Profiles but there are a few differences. Google+ Business Pages automatically have the +1 Button allowing visitors to +1 and recommend your Google+ Business Page. This lets you connect +1’s from your Google+ Business Page to your website. By interlinking the two, visitors can now view their friends +1’s and recommendations on Google+ and your website. If someone +1’s your page, your +1 count will also increase on your website and vice versa.

Google+ Rich Snippets

Linking your page and your website is useful because:

• It helps you connect with your friends, fans, and customers.
• It provides Google with information that we can use to help determine the relevancy of your site to a user query on Google Search.
• If you want your authorship and picture to appear in SERPs (see image above) you can link your content to your Google Profile and vice versa
• Your site will become eligible for Google+ Direct Connect.

2. Collaborate with your customers through Hangouts

Collaborate through Hangouts

Hangouts are a wonderful feature of Google+ for Business Pages. Hangouts allow you to connect with your Google+ fans in real-time via easy-to-use video chat. You can help customers solve problems or create an insightful Q&A session. Google also recently released a new Hangout feature that lets you make free calls to the U.S. and Canada. Wherever the whims of your imagination take you, utilize Hangouts to connect and create real, face-to-face transparency with your customers.

3. Target your posts to different customers through Circles

Share Customer-Specific Information with Circles

Target your posts to different customers through Circles. Circles are a valuable way to share posts to different customer segments of your business. Whether it’s promotions, demographic specific links or creating Circle specific Hangouts – Google+ is keen on allowing you to easily share the right information with the right customers.

4. Build your business connections through Direct Connect

Google+ Direct Connect* is a new feature that lets you quickly navigate to a Google+ page using the Google search bar. Similar in function to a vanity URL or Twitter handle, if a user searches for +google or +pepsi they will immediately be taken to the Google+ page where they can then add the brand to their Google+ Circles.

*Google is still experimenting with Direct Connect and it won’t work for every Google+ page. Additionally, some users won’t have access to Direct Connect. As time goes on, we’ll make Direct Connect more widely available.

Our question is – do you have a Google+ Business Page and is it optimized for SEO? Will your brand utilize Google+ Business Pages and get you ahead of the latest convergence of search and social media?

Facebook “Profile” users are not the only ones upset about the new changes. One change that will change the marketing efforts of brands in Facebook land is the move of “like” updates to the news ticker in the sidebar.

In the past, when one of your friends “liked” a page or a comment, etc… it showed up in your news feed.  Now that these types of updates have been moved to the news ticker, (where nobody will really pay attention to them) brands will have to work much harder to spread their message and be seen.

So what can you do to make sure your brand still gets the same amount of Facebook exposure that it always has? ENTER the share button:

The share button will now be as important as the “Like” button. Encourage your fans to not only” like” your updates but to “share” them too. That way it makes it into everyone’s central timeline! Of course they aren’t going to be willing to hit the share button with every single update you make so save this tactic for your important news and updates.

Next, we will dive deeper into the new Facebook Timeline that will soon replace the wall and the new Subscribe button! Stay tuned mis amigos.

by Danielle Caird – Social Media Strategist / 2011

Are you twittering randomly in the hope that it will bring you a customer one day? And are you blogging because they say that this is the best way of putting your business on the map? In other words, have you really thought about how you are using social media to market your business?

Photo Credit: Business Academy Online

Without a social media marketing plan it is difficult to use social media effectively as a marketing tool, and you can’t keep track of the results. Without a plan you are wasting time on the wrong actions. You might be using the wrong media, or you might be doing things that have no effect on your target audience.

A social media marketing plan is not complicated to make. If you answer all of the questions below, you will have a workable plan to start with.

1. What do you want to achieve by using social media?

Do you want to tempt more visitors to your blog or website, establish yourself as an expert, gather testimonials and recommendations, sell information products like e-books or video tutorials, approach potential customers, or build up a network with other businesses?

2. Who is your target audience?

Draw up a profile of your ideal customer, by gathering demographic information, like occupation, education, age, and location. Next look at psychographic traits, for example, values, attitudes, and the so-called AIOs (activity, interest, and opinion). Look for patterns that match with your marketing message.

3. Where does you target audience gather?

Which social media network is your target audience using? Is it Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or another site?

4. What does your target audience need?

What kind of problems is your audience experiencing? What kind of questions would your target market like to see resolved?

5. What are you going to offer to your target audience?

You can write informative articles, make videos or podcasts, share links to other blogs, or answer questions directly on Twitter or LinkedIn discussion groups. Just keep in mind that what you do needs to speak to the problems and answer the questions that your target audience has.

6. How often will you use social media?

You could, for example, send out e-zine once a week, twitter three times every working day, and take part in a LinkedIn discussion group twice a week.

7. What action do you want your target audience to take?

You might want people to subscribe to your newsletter, or to ask about your workshop and tutorials. Or maybe you want them to register for your workshop, or react to your blogs or tweets.

Now that your plan is in place, you can start measuring the results of your social media efforts. It will take some time to find out what works best for you when it comes to frequency and even time of activity. Take into account that social networks have peak times. Peak times can be helpful to reach a larger segment of your target audience, but there might also be more distractions, so your message could be overlooked more easily. That is why it is important to measure your results on different social media websites carefully.

Managing your business’s online reputation is more important now than it has ever been.

“According to a recent study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, not only are more adults researching online before they buy, 24% of American adults say they have posted comments or reviews online about the product or services they buy”.

With the advent of new and easier ways to research travel choices, making sure your property’s online reputation is positive can be the difference between low occupancy and higher profits. What past guests say about a property is far more important than what any sales or promotional material has to say.

Reputation management is staying on top of what is being said about your brand and handling those conversations in a responsible way. Did you know that a good review can be positive or negative ? Positive reviews are wonderful and it would be great if people only left positive reviews but a negative review can be just as valuable for your business. How? Negative reviews give you  valuable information on improving the quality of service you are providing your customers. A good review is when the reviewer is being honest and fair with their review. If they had a terrible experience at your hotel, they have the right to report their unhappy experience wherever they like. It’s your job as a business owner to monitor for these types of reviews and do what you can to make it right and make sure it doesn’t happen to other quests.

Sometimes negative reviews are made by disgruntled employees or even your competition and there is nothing honest or fair about reviews made under these circumstances.  Often, the business owner will take a very irresponsible approach to try and hide bad reviews.  A bad review is a review that is fake (regardless if it has a negative or positive tone). When performing web audits, we often see evidence of a businesses creating fake reviews to try and push the negative review out of sight. Here is the problem with that tactic….people are smart and they can tell the difference between a fake review and a real one. The business now looks untrustworthy and the bad review gains strength in the eye of the reader.

As a business owner, you need  a strategy in dealing with bad reviews. Here are some tips that will help you get started:

Monitor - monitor review sites, blogs and forums on a weekly if not daily basis for conversation about your brand.

• Set up Alerts on Google and Yahoo and subscribe to TripWatch Newsletter at Tripadvisor.com for your area.
• Search your key terms in Google, Yahoo and Bing weekly.
• Monitor Twitter. Here are tools to get you started:

Monitter – A real-time Twitter monitor for up to three keywords at a time.

TweetBeep – This tool provides hourly Twitter alerts sent via e-mail. You can specify keywords, people and links to track.

Tweet Later – TweetLater has a number of features for Twitter users, and it also monitors Twitter and e-mails you a digest of the tweets that contain your specified keywords. You can also use this to track your @replies.

Twitter Search – Twitter Search was formally Summarized. It searches all Twitter activity for keywords, links or user activity in real time.

Take Action – now that your monitoring what’s being said, it’s time to take action. Respond to negative reviews immediately. Show viewers that you are more than willing to make things better for the unhappy customer. Make sure to respond to positive reviews too. Thanking people is polite! Remember that great customer service applies to the  online world too.

Develop a Plan- if you are getting a lot of negative reviews, you need to evaluate what’s being said and develop a plan for handling the problem. If several complaints state that the bathrooms are dirty in your hotel, chances are, they are! Make sure house keeping gives extra attention to these areas and leave review cards in the bathroom that specifically ask… how clean was your bathroom? When happy guests checkout, remind them to leave a review.

The bottom line on reputation management  is that it is crucial for any company that wants to enjoy resounding success. The importance of making a positive impression in the search engines and on social media sites simply cannot be stressed enough. The difference between a so-so online reputation and a glowing one can mean thousands of dollars in profit. Being in the dark about your company’s reputation is a surefire way to lose your competitive edge. Getting on board with reputation management services is easy – don’t wait until it’s too late! Contact us for more information regarding reputation management.

AMY SIMPSON- SEMINOLE NEWS- Young adults and even children have been posting updates, viewing photos and playing games on Facebook since 2004. But one group has been making its presence felt more than ever in the world of social networking: senior citizens.

According to a poll by Pew Research Center, the proportion of online adults ages 50-64 who use social networking sites almost doubled, increasing from 25 percent to 47 percent from 2009-2010.

Ages 18-29 saw just a 13 percent increase over the same period. For online adults ages 65 and up, the number doubled — from 13 percent to 26 percent.

Social networking may have begun as a haven for the young, with things such as Farmville and 140-character limits, but seniors are being drawn to such Internet communities for other reasons. They can connect with family, find groups with common interests, blog about life or find information such as recipes and sales.

Staying connected

“They don’t want to be left out,” said Hillary Bressler, CEO and founder of Winter Park-based .Com Marketing. “Their kids are posting pictures of their grandchildren and they want to see it. Most grandparents will do anything to see pictures of their grandkids, and if it means embracing technology, then they do it.”

Bressler has an aunt on Facebook, but her parents have not joined the site. “I think my aunt sees more pictures of my daughter than my mom does, and my mom lives in town,” she said.

Not only can users connect with their family, but there are also past loves, old war buddies and friends from youth that can be found among Facebook’s 600 million users, and that’s just one site.

Jean Harding, 64, from Longwood, has been on Facebook for three months. “I found four of my old friends — my real old friends — who I haven’t seen for 25 or 30 years.”

Harding is part of a small but rapidly growing group of seniors using Facebook. According to a 2011 Pew study, 11 percent of all Facebook users are older than 55.

Acquiring the skills

To help herself acclimate to this new world, Harding has been taking introductory computer classes with Seniors Now, a group that teaches computer skills courses to senior citizens in Central Florida. Since its founding in 1996, Seniors Now has taught about 7,000 seniors basic computer skills, everything from using the “Start” menu to surfing the web.

“When we opened up the doors, there was an obvious need,” said Tom Springall, who has been teaching with Seniors Now since its beginning. “A lot of seniors who had never been in the workplace didn’t know anything about computers and needed help.”

For 11 years, Rosie Chapman has taught classes with Seniors Now, and has been on Facebook for the past two years. “I think most of us just want to get on there to be observers to see what our grandchildren are doing.”

Springall noted that families have moved away from communicating through phone calls and even email. Even if seniors do not contribute much to Facebook through status updates and other posts, they can at least see what their family and friends are up to. “If you want to stay active, if you want to stay involved, you have to know computer technology these days, or at least enough technology that you can get to the Internet,” he said.

Advancing technology

The advent of tablet computers such as the iPad could be very good for seniors who want to use social media. Both Bressler and Springall spoke highly of the new technology for its ease of use and mobility. For seniors, a tablet has an advantage over a smart phone in that the screen and buttons are larger.

Former Winter Springs Mayor John Bush is plugged in to the online social pipeline through his iPhone. Senior and former Winter Springs Mayor John Bush has had an iPhone for almost two years and recently added an iPad to his arsenal. “I like technology, and I like to have the latest stuff,” he said.

“The biggest problem with city government is letting people know what’s going on,” he said. Social media has the ability to bring a city, or any group of people, together.

Although he warns new users not to get too sucked in to social media, he encourages seniors to take advantage of the new technology available, saying, “You can never be too old to learn to do it.”

It’s been a long time since I’ve encountered a Twitter contest that sent shivers down my internet marketing spine, but the latest one from Water.org did just that. Water.org  is surrendering its Twitter account, @water, for an entire week to the user who racks up the most votes on its site. They are calling it a “Twakeover“!

Why does this contest send shivers down my spine? Well, @water has 425,000 fans that’s why! That’s 425,000 people the winner can promote themselves to, over and over again, for an entire week! Let’s Face it, Twitter contests have become down right predictable and sad. I see at least a hundred “follow us and win an iPad” contests per week.  Those are  just boring and have been played to death. The Twakeover is simple and very powerful. I suppose that’s why I love it so much.

Currently, @water is up by almost 7k more fans since August 1st.  A thousand fan a day gain isn’t too bad.

Here are two more Twitter contests that have given me spine shivers over the months:

The Threadless

• This idea is being successfully executed at Threadless.com
• If you see a Tweet you like, you can submit it to the contest
• It is then voted on by the Threadless community
• The best Tweets end up on T-Shirts and the Tweet author gets sweet cash.

Why I like it:

• It’s incredibly fun and engaging.
• It’s super-viral.  I found out about it because someone nominated one of my Tweets: “We received a check that said, “paper clip” ads  in the for area”. This was funny because it’s supposed to be Pay Per Click…hahahaha
• Threadless is cool, and it is fun to be associated with a cool brand.

The Moonfruit

• Moonfruit ran a good promotion where you can use the hashtag #moonfruit in any kind of Tweet.
• They selected a random person every day and gave away a MacBook Pro.
• It resulted in the #moonfruit hashtag being a trending topic and gaining over 30,000 followers.

Why I like it:

• It was very easy to enter
• It was viral because you wonder why your friends are all talking about Moonfruit!

Are there any Twitter contests that have re-energized your faith in humanity’s ability to create unique and interactive social media contests? Please share, I need more spine shivers.

Author:  Dani Caird, Social Media Strategist at .Com Marketing

My associate, Danielle Caird, asked me this morning “How many of your Facebook friends would you invite over for a party?” Good question. Luckily I’ve been planning my wedding, so I have at least a ballpark number: 100. That’s out of 287 friends I currently have on Facebook. I’ve always thought of that as a relatively low number, my fiancée has 444 friends, but after visiting the official statistics page on Facebook I realized I was actually above average (the average is 130). I seem to be quite the social butterfly…at least where social networks are concerned.

Now, I’m not one of those people who obsess over their Facebook friend count, nor do I hold to the misconception that everyone I’m friends with on Facebook is a close friend. I do try to be select, though, when adding someone, but adding people is easy; it’s removing them that seems to take more effort. I’ve never been one to announce my housecleaning, but every now and then I get a bee in my digital bonnet and peruse the list to see who needs trimming. A system I adopted last year is tied to birthdays: If I really have to think about whether or not I want to post a happy birthday message on someone’s Wall, then they likely should be uncoupled from my account.

Still, though, how can I possibly be all that close to 287 people? Isn’t this indicative of the Age, where numbers replace actual relationships and we’re all just statistics? Well, maybe, but in my travels across the Ethernet I’ve come to realize that knowing someone doesn’t have to include face time with that person. In the Real World you run into instances every day where the people you’ve “known” for years suddenly turn out to be someone completely different.

What Facebook and other social networks have done is bring back the age of the pen pal. Now that really interesting person you met at a cousin’s wedding in Chicago is just a click and a few typed words away. A simple “Like” on a status update can speak volumes to the person whose status it is and keeps that connection in place. You should still be select about who you’re friends with, but that holds true for any medium. The more friends you have who are engagers, the more you’ll feel like engaging.

Before you know it, you’ll be wishing virtual strangers happy birthday on Facebook with a smile on your face and a good feeling in your heart.

Author: John-Patrick Alexander, SEO Specialist at .Com Marketing

Author: Kathy Moore, Office Manager at .Com Marketing

The SEO tool box is a crowded one, and growing. Tools are helpful, there is no doubt about that. However, tools are generally only as good as the person using them. We’d love to know what tools you use and why, so please let us know in the comments after the post.

You can buy as many guides, tools, and accessories as you like but in the end it is your skill that determines the success or failure of a project (building a deck or building a website). Skills can be harnessed, but tools do not overcome a lack of skill.

SEO tool fatigue is a real issue for some people. They spend a good time of their productivity on testing or trying out new tools, or even using so many tools that their implementation and interpretation of data suffers a great deal.

The first thing to realize is that most of the data from tools (excluding analytics and such) are basically estimates of estimated data, or are directly from Google’s various estimation-type tools (Keyword Tool, Trends, Insights, and so on), or driven off what the tool builder thinks are important or reliable metrics to build your research.

You are not going to fail miserably if you decide not to do days of keyword research with multiple tools and then spending more days comparing different datasets. Research is important, but there is a limit.

Picking a Core Set of Tools

From a cost and time standpoint I’ve found it really helpful to pick a core set of tools and stick with them rather than bouncing around to get an extra feature or two.

Again, research is important but there is a sweet spot and it’s a good idea to get some kind of system down so you can focus on doing “enough” research without doing harm to the time it takes you to get sites up and running.

Author: Danielle Caird, Social Media Strategist at .Com Marketing

Twitter is really growing and it is my goal for the rest of this year to help people get the most out of their tweets.

According to the Washington Post, people are now sending 200 million tweets per day across the service. This is up from 65 million tweets per day a year ago, or about 200 percent growth in a year. Way back in January, 2009 people were only sending 2 million tweets per day.

Want to tweet better?  Before you send a tweet to your followers, ask yourself:

• What’s the purpose of this tweet?

• What audience are you trying to reach with this tweet?

• Are you trying to make your followers laugh or show them that your mom isn’t the only one who thinks you’re clever?

• Do you want to share your wealth of knowledge on a topic you are an authority on?

• Are you spreading the word about a blog or article?

• Are you sharing a picture or a video?

• Are you asking a question or wanting your followers’ opinions?

• Are you trying to start a conversation?

These are just a few suggestions and in no particular order, but discovering the main purpose of your tweets will help in the way you structure that tweet. You only have 140 characters to work with; how you word it changes the way in which people react or respond to it because they will then know what it is you are asking of them. Again, it all depends on the purpose of the tweet. In doing this, it will help in gaining and retaining the attention of your followers and will increase the amount of quality followers you gain over time.

If you would like to discuss your Twitter social media strategy,  please contact us today. 1.866.266.6584

Author: John-Patrick Alexander, SEO Specialist at .Com Marketing. Today is Social Media Day, where we celebrate all the technological advancements of the early 21^st century that have fostered the growth of social networks, the global social consciousness and the evolution of media within this new social landscape.  On Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and, for a select few, Google+, the moments of this day will be sent out across the world by any and all who are connected, whether at in-person meet ups or from the comfort of their homes.

Why is this important? Isn’t this just a made up “holiday” by an online news site that reports on this exact subject? There are some who are still convinced the Internet is filled with nothing but noise and videos of cute kittens or of teenagers falling off of ledges while doing tricks on their skateboards. It’s much more than that, though: it’s a platform for building connections, sharing ideas and breaking down the traditional barriers between not only people, but between people and industry.

In a world such as ours it’s more important than ever to communicate clearly and concisely. In the blink of an eye trends can change: being too verbose means by the time you finish pontificating your audience has moved on. Staying relevant can be a full time job when it comes to engaging your audience, so make sure you know who your audience is and start having discussions with them.

Communication is more than just telling people what you do, it’s listening to them as well; if you don’t know what they’re looking for, how can you provide the best service to meet their needs?

My associate, Danielle Caird, touched on this when she discussed how to involve and nurture your Facebook community and provide good customer service on your social media stage; our fellow associate, Tommy Grobmyer, talked about “building social rapport” as a part of an overall marketing strategy. They’re spot on with their insights, so be sure to check out their posts.

Though technically this is a made up “holiday,” it showcases exactly how powerful social networks and social media are. By knowing their audience intimately, Mashable has been able to launch a global celebration of the connections that bind that audience together. Are you paying attention?