Image by Mike Rohde via Flickr

We consult with clients all the time on optimizing their web sites, creating new and fresh content and tips on making their web sites “sticky” and encouraging visitors to return to them time and time again. One of the best ways to accomplish all of these goals is to write a blog.

I know, you just asked yourself what in the world you have to write about. And, how will you ever find time to write a blog? Well, it’s truly as easy as this blog post by Jim Osterman makes it out to be. Just write it.

Sure, you’re first few posts may be short. They may not offer a lot of depthor comment-inspiring content, but they are a start. And, once you begin to blog, it will become easier and easier. You’ll then start reading other blogs; you’ll find out what others in your industry are saying; and then you can write about or disagree with their ideas. Other blogs are a great way to find inspiration, and there’s no easier way to find content and writing ideas. Before you know it, people will be visiting your site to see what you’re writing and reading about. They will see you as a leader in your industry.

So take our advice, and that of Jim Osterman. Just write!

Now that you’re ready to blog, read more blog tips:

Related articles:

• The 3 Main Pillars Of Blogging (shoutmeloud.com)
• The Benefits Of Business Blogging (slideshare.net)

If you’re still on the fence about social media marketing as an effective channel for your business, you may want to think again.  Take a look at this calculator that shows how quickly the medium is advancing:

When it comes to successfully marketing a business, the key is to be where your customers are, but your competitors aren’t.  Considering the hesitation some businesses have about jumping in to social media, there is a great opportunity to be one of the first out of the gate.  The reasons why your business should explore social media are endless, and so many articles explaining everything from 101-type starters to strategy models; just get out there and do it already!

Awesome first class in our Social Media Crash Course for Business series that we’re hosting with Howell Marketing Strategies! We covered the basics of social media:  why it’s important and why you should evaluate these tools and see if they are a fit for you organization.

The top 2 reasons were:

1. 3 out of 4 Americans are using Social technology
2. Social media marketing is like word of mouth…. on steroids

Here’s a copy of the slides that we presented to our 11/30 class:

Now that you know how to create URLs that can be tracked and measured, let’s get into a little more about how you can use them, and ways to streamline the process.

I use Bit.ly links for every single thing that we post on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and also in email newsletters.  The majority of this activity is posting on Twitter, so let’s start there.  That is, after all, why these shorteners became so popular in such a short amount of time.

Twitter has that glorious 140 character limit, so we need a way to post succinct links to blogs that have long, SEO friendly URLs (like the one you no doubt see in the address bar of your browser if you’re on this blog).  But wants to go back to the actual Bit.ly site?  That takes too long!  You need a Twitter client that has Bit.ly integration so that it will short the links for you, using your previously created Bit.ly account.

I personally use Twhirl as my desktop client since it has such great multi-account support, but there are other clients out there as well.  Bit.ly has a list of tools you can check out to find something that suites you.

The thing on that list that I want to point out is the Bit.ly Bookmarklet.  This might be really useful for you, since some say that the Web is still the most popular Twitter client.

Bookmarklets

According to the Wikipedia, a bookmarklet is an applet, a small computer application, stored as the URL of a bookmark in a web browser or as a hyperlink on a web page.

That means you can add this to the toolbar in your browser, and create shortened, trackable URLs with no effort at all!

So now- I hope that sufficiently explains it.  I have been getting a TON of people asking about this!  We’ll get back to the more esoteric stuff in the next post =)

I must say that I’m pretty excited about the new iPhone 3.0 software because it delivers some basic functionality that I would have expected from a mobile device, having been a loyal Blackberry user for many years.  Copy/Paste and Search were the top of my list, like most that you’ll read about.

I’m also really stoked about the ability to use the landscape keyboard in email and text screens, that definitley improves the user experience a lot in my book.

Now on to James’ iPhone tip:  have you ever wished you could tether your iPhone to your laptop and use the 3G connection to surf the internet?  I have!  I would probably only use this in the rarest of circumstances, but there has been that one freak occurence where I’m on the road and I just have to get online to check something. Tethering your iPhone will allow you use the phones connection to check email, surf the web- whatever you need.

Apple doesn’t allow this functionality out of the box, and your provider will typically try to charge you an extra fee for this capability.  I know that AT&T did when I wanted to use my Blackberry for tethering.  So- onto the tip already!

I found a way to configure your iPhone for tethering that doesn’t require you to jailbreak your iPhone, and doens’t require you to pay your carrier for the service either.  On your iPhone, go to the iPhone Help Center and you will be able to download a config file to your phone that will enable tethering.  Just follow the instructions- it works like a charm!  Be sure to read the warnings, but from what I can tell- this appears to be a solid way to get online without having to buy a wireless access card and the accompanying $40/month service!

Today I attended a great conversation about Social Media, hosted by Howell Marketing and the Memphis Daily News, that was aptly titled “Joining the Conversation.”

There was a great keynote from Dave Chase of Altus Alliance (and formerly of Microsoft), and the panel was comprised of notable names from FedEx and Pinnacle Airlines, among others.

I was struck by something that Doug Shockey, COO of Pinnacle, mentioned when answering a question from the audience about how to plan a successful social media strategy. His comment echoed one that I’ve heard often from people in business who are trying to wrap their head around this new channel: you have to create a sustainable platform for using social media.

I couldn’t help but think about how the opposite is true. Social media is changing so quickly that finding a sustainable model for using some of these channels would be an exercise in futility. This whole online conversation is accelerating and spiraling upward, so I would almost advocate that a truly sustainable model for marketing on the social web should not be your goal at all. At least, not in the sense of using one particular service or network.

The cost of getting involved with social media is so low (free in most cases, with the only cost being your labor, or the cost of your agency) that you don’t have to worry about a long term commitment to one platform or another.

So what if Twitter isn’t sustainable as a marketing platform? It’s a powerful platform now, but what about if they start charging $9.95 per month? “How many people do you think will continue to use it then?” as Ken Woody from Innova, a Memphis VC company that invests in medical and life sciences start-ups, said today.

My Take-away from the panel

At first, what I took away from this conversation about the online conversation made me feel like I got stuck with a crappy gift from a dirty Santa party. I should have learned something valuable from these smart guys in marketing and business, right? Well maybe I did- I just didn’t realize it at first. The realization that planning your social media strategy to death can be fatal is pretty interesting, once I started thinking through it.

Don’t get me wrong here- before we even think about launching a social media campaign for one of our clients, we always define the goals and objectives. But beyond that- you just have to dive in and watch the conversation unfold. Why? Because it is conversational. You don’t script every personal conversation you have, so why would you try to do so for the online conversation?

I spoke with a long-time friend at the event who works for a Fortune 1000 organization in their PR/Communications department. She’s been urging them to get a social media strategy in place and at least join the conversation. But that idea gets mired in the corporate red tape, so nothing happens since they can’t iron out a corporate-wide communications plan for all their brands. Meanwhile, I can’t help but wonder what that organization’s competitors are doing. Are they being just as cautious, or has my friend’s company missed the boat?

Social Media represents a new marketing channel, so the first one out of the gate will likely reap the lion’s share of the reward. Marketing 101 says to be where your customers are, and your competitors aren’t. There is an opportunity now that hasn’t existed for decades, simply because mass media has always held all the keys and guarded all the doors.

Don’t over-think your social media strategy;  define your objectives, and jump into the conversation. Be transparent, produce good content, and follow the 12:1 rule of putting in more than you get out, and you’ll be just fine. Trust me- I’m on Twitter, so that means I’m a social media guru!

I presented last week to the Young Adviser’s Team in Memphis, which is a part of NAIFA (National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors), about how to use Social Media for Business.

This is a common speaking topic for me, and I’ve started giving some consulting and coaching sessions on this to some local organizations who want to get their sales team up to speed.  This group was pretty unique and challenging in that regard because they are so closely regulated by compliance issues that they can hardly say anything at all about their business without getting into trouble.

This obviously presents a major issue if anyone in the financial world who would like to start communicating through some of the new social media channels available.  And when I say that it represents a problem, I mean a big one – to the level that some of them can’t even have a LinkedIn profile that is not approved.

That being said, we had some great discussions about unique ways to utilize LinkedIn, Twitter, and blogs that would involve more listening and conversational interaction.  Since social media marketing is basically a conversation that takes place online, my feeling is that these compliance organizations will have to get with the times before too long.  In the meantime, however, using tools to listen and engage may be more effective (and allowed) than trying to start a blog about financial planning.

Every industry faces challenges when it comes to how to best use social media, and the Internet in general, for marketing.  I was pleasantly surprised by the number of great ideas and discussions that this group brought up.

Take a look at the presentation I gave them:

Its been a great week so far!  We found out today that our proposal was accepted by a unamimous vote by the board of The MED Foundation, so we’re very excited to welcome them as Valeo’s newest client.  We are really jazzed about this project becuase we are going to really flex our skills and tie our marketing efforts into their site by producing a highly interactive site that is going to quickly and effectively involve the community, which is just what the doctor ordered (horrible pun intended).

The new MED Foundation site is going to allow us to show off some of our recent progress by developing a site that uses Facebook Connect to truly take advantage of the viral nature of the Internet.  This will tie in perfectly to all of our marketing effforts that will begin once the site is completed.

In other news- I’ve also been voted in to the Board of Directors for the Sales & Marketing Society of the Midsouth to serve as the Director of Social Media.  I’m honored to join this organization in a newly created position to help bring a new viewpoint on how we can reach new and current members through effective and innovative uses of social media.  More to come on this in the coming weeks.  I’ll be working with the other board members to try to define exactly how I can best serve the board and the organization.  I’m sure much of that will be posted here or on Twitter, so I’ll keep you posted.

Where’s the marketing tip in this post?
Oh yeah, I’m supposed to offer a nugget of Internet marketing wisdom! I need to get out of here so I can get some dinner, so I’ll keep this brief:

Stay away from social networks that you’re thinking of joining just because you know someone else on them.  Narrow your focus and make sure you’re not deluting your time with social networks that don’t help you further your goals.  In English:  don’t waste time on MySpace if you’re trying to market your corporate insurance company, etc.

Ok, that’s it for tonight.  Be well!

I’ve been talking to a lot of people in the last few weeks who have a need to develop a more established presence on the web. This is a pretty common question in online marketing: how do I develop a website that produces results?

The answer is different things for different people/businesses, but you can rest assured that higher levels of traffic is practically a sure-fire strategy. So how do you build a following for your site? Blogging is a great way to get involved in the conversation online but that is a difficult for some businesses. First, there is the most obvious problem- the time required to generate unique and interesting content.

A couple of businesses that we talked to this week are either so bogged down in bureaucracies or regulated by compliance issues that blogging in a timely manner isn’t really an option. Sure, they could get 6 months of content together and approved and then roll it out in a phased manner (which is actually one of the strategies we’re suggesting), but let’s assume for the sake of this post that you can’t get your blog on.

A great strategy for developing a following on your site is to build a community around it. This is exactly what Ning was designed for- to allow anyone to build their own social network. Great idea, but I’m not sold on that strategy for most of the people we talk to. Primarily because you still have to rely on building your own following from the ground up. That can take a lot of time and valuable resources that you might otherwise invest differently, given the choice.

Here’s what we’ve been suggesting to a few companies lately: use the tremendous success of Facebook to take advantage of the viral nature of the Internet. FaceBook Connect gives us some amazing things that we can do on YOUR site so that you’re piggy-backing off of the fact that so many people already have FaceBook profiles and lots of friends on those profiles. Why start from scratch when you can just plug into that??

You can find out more about FaceBook Connect here. If you need to develop a following for your site, this is a great place to start! Granted, you will probably have to get some development resources involved to do so, but you’re still going to come out much better in the long-run than by trying to build your own ’siloed’ social network with its own profiles, users, friends, and logins. This is the direction that you’re going ot see social networks moving in the very near future. Its already happening for some of the clients that we’re going to be working with!

To find out more about the future of social networks, check out this presentation on that topic on SlideShare:

If you want to learn more or just want to talk over some ideas, give us a shout! This is interesting stuff, we love hearing new ideas and being able to talk about how we can help push social networking to the next level.

I don’t know if you have ever had any screen capture needs, but Camtasia is the coolest software ever for this. I just recorded a demo of a content management system and I was able to do some callouts and narrate my video with the utmost ease.

Very cool software! You can export to about any format needed- flash, most noteably. Definitely check it out!