Social Media - I am where You are

Are they stalking you? Are they haunting you? Many a times we will see certain people joining every place where their customer sets are.  It is really the case of 'I am where You are'.

Joining spaces where your customers are is not a very bad idea. However then intruding into their every activities [comments, posts] starts to be a discomfort.

What normally takes place is that the customer has given general information since their favorite brand asked: So the customer informs that they are on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and other places. Well the over enthusiasts follows them and at the slightest chance starts to broadcast their sales messages. 

Lets be careful when we start to track and communicate with our customer sets [who are ideally known as members of community  / fan] when we are online.

Soon, the so far, the 'favorite' brand is then the 'dreaded fugitive' online.

The key here is to understand who is the customer and what is the site like. There are certain sites that may not fit your brand personality. Thus being there and creating a buzz could be harmful. It is as good as reaching customers at the wrong time in a wrong way. This could be irritating and could mean a lot of negative spread about you.

All sites may not cater and may not lend themselves to all types of brand personality influence. Add to this it may be the case where the customer may not be in the correct frame of mind to react positively towards the brand announcements.

Thus we do need to be clear on who is the target audience, what is their attitude and behavior on various sites, what is the brand personality and what si competitor doing. Once we have a good written frame work of this information then we could start our jorney online.

What is your opinion? How does your experience span across with the very enthusiasts as being the community manager.

Social Media is set for Google Wave?

Have you tried Google Wave?

It has been around for quite sometime.

It is brought by Google as the name suggests and is known for real time communication and collaboration.

It works like how you would be conversing on a forum; just that Wave has a little more flexibility and navigational support system. So far as i write this post it is not as yet integrated with GMail the way you will find BUZZ. However there are instances where with certain coding this integration is made feasible by some people. Hopefully Google should soon make this integration easily available.

The wave is said to have various attributes and aspects of web chat, email, wikis, instant messaging, social networking, and project management all this as an in-browser communication client.

So? Have you used Google Wave? What is your opinion of this offering?

Social Media and back-links

While working on Social Media it is imperative to have a Link Strategy in mind as well. Links guide the search engine towards your main page / blog / site. Links work as directional road map for the spiders and crawlers. Having said this, we need to be careful and not fall in the link farming trap. The moment we get into this zone the algorithms at search engine start to flag this as they recognize spamming actions.

Additionally you need to be careful on the part from where the links come to your page / site / blog. It is good if they come from a high traffic page. At the same time that page should not have too many links or else again the danger of neutralizing the effect comes in.  Allow me to explain: Lets consider two options. Lets call two pages as 'Page A' and 'Page B' respectively. Page A has high value traffic and too many links. While Page has good traffic not as high as Page A but is healthy traffic and has less than 20 links. When you will submit you link to both Page A and Page B you will notice that the search engine considers the trust value as equal. The reason being that too many links cause the search engine to start looking at spam information. Hence Link farms etc get into negative count.

Add to this you link should be supported by proper copy matter and keywords that point towards your link.

There are many more factors to consider before jumping into the back-link strategy.

Share in your experiences. What is your hands on experience on back-links? What makes it really work and what does not? Join in here.

Social Media - Protect Your Work With Copy Rights

How many times have you felt like posting content on the net which is developed because of your hard earned skill sets? But you have harbored the fear of it being copied? Well coping material with a link back to you is not so much of a concern as against when the copied matter gets owned by some stranger on the net. Am referring to copy right issues. You will have put in your thought, time and energy and created the material.

Copy Right enables protection to a large extent. If you scroll up on my bog you will find the copy right site link.

What do you think of this facility? Is your matter still safe?

Social Media - Get Me 1500 Fans On Facebook

What would you say as a Social Media professionals when you are 'instructed' to "'get 1500 Fans on Facebook'". Well you have two upfront options: one is to decline this task and the other is to take up this task and frantically start searching for our fans / members. Well if you have taken the second option then you may be tempted to join the fan farms [similar to backlink and linklove farms] or maybe you start the scary part - spamming. So you spam on social sites, you start off rantings on forums and all spaces that come under the click of your mouse. And yes you will be counting each member joining in. And probably start to panic when anyone of those hard earned stressing member leaves your Fan Club.

So what would you do? which option would you opt for?

Or would you discuss with your client and check to see the basis of such a request? Am sure there is reasoning to this request. However will a target such as 'get me ...' really suffice and help in achieving the goals?

This leads us onto 3 aspects namely:
Quantity [number of members]
Quality [right members that are relevant to brand]
Engagement Level [level of interaction and involvement]

While it would be great to have a huge Fan base it is necessary that the topics we communicate is relevant to them. It is equally essential to get them dialoguing with us and just not having a one way communication [only from us]. When our communication is engaging only then we can be sure to a large extent to have a desired response. Additionally we should remember that good quality of engagement would lead to a viral effect. Thus automatically leading to increase in membership which is relevant to us and to whom we are relevant and bring value into their lives.

So building a Fan ? Membership base takes time. Takes consistency. Over a period of time yes we could hope to achieve a good and healthy base.

What is your thought on the much wanted huge amount of fan base?

Is Social Media for all industries and brands?

This question is answered when you answer: Where is my target audience?

Social Media Network is a way to connect your brand with it's customer set. It is a tool that enables you to engage with your customers and connect with them. If used with consistency and with good quality content then it could lead to deeper engagement with your customer set.

If your customer can be found on the online space then definitely yes Social Media could be a part of your entire marketing plan. However if your customer does not have net connectivity and / or if they are a certain segment that does not utilize the internet services then naturally you might as well keep Social Media Network out of your business plan.

Hence before you commence with the online marketing plan it is imperative to know your customers. You need to understand the customer behavior and attitude towards the internet.  At the basic level you need to be sure that they have an online life. I repeat 'an online life'. And you also need to understand if their online life really leads to any emotional connect with them. This you could find by using direct and indirect research methods with respect to your actual customer set - not only the ideal customers that we may hope for.

Once this is fixed and you have understood your customer's behavior on the net and attitude towards the various net sites you then can start to look at online marketing via the Social Media way.

Social Media - Oh My God Where Are My Followers!

How many times while working as a Social Media personnel have you received a call asking you why have the number of followers / community members fallen [even if it means one person leaving]. Or to that matter how many times as an individual would you have looked at your follower list and wondered whatever you did or rather did not do created the follower to leave you.

Probably this thinking itself caused our fellow member to go away. The thinking as in: Where are my followers. What i am trying to put across is that thinking of our community member as 'one of the members' or as 'a follower' would be the reason why we may have not really connected with them on a one to one humane basis. Yes Social Media is time consuming not tedious though.

It is time we observe and listen to what our fellow members seek and want and respond to them. It does not take you whole day to do this. We may state that if we have member list running into thousands and more then will we stand to have the quantum of time to enable such a response based behavior. Well allow me to share that not all customers and community members  become active at the same time / simultaneously unless ofcourse there is a crises and that ofcourse would need to be handled on a mass level with humane touch to it. Even crisis management after a period of times needs to be drilled into one to one method.

In short lets attempt to treat our community members as individuals with individual identity and not as mass of receivers who have to be sent some message.

Social Media requires good SEO Management

Social Media needs SEO [Search Engine Optimization] Management. The reason to work on SEO while managing and handling Social Media is so that your brand comes up ahead on the Google and other search engines. This is not paid for and it is known as chronologically high ranking on the search engines. It is similar to Page Rank. The higher your page rank the more plausible is good ranking on search engines.

Though the search engines like Google do not openly disclose their algorithms and the basis of their calculations on how do they rank the page and how does the page come up ahead on the searches there are certain ways of doing this. The reason that the search engines do not disclose the maths behind the page rank is so that it cannot be rigged and genuinely good and healthy pages come up high on the search. This enhances the search engine's credibility. Thus when you work towards a high rank on search engines you need to be consistent in preparing and publishing good healthy pages.

How do you publish good and healthy pages? Below are certain ways and methods of ensuring that your page starts to get ahead on the search engines.

• First and fore mostly you need to be consistent. This is not a onetime activity. You need to work on this atleast three times a week to ensure that you are preparing pages that are consistent in quality.
• You need to have fresh content. This means that even if you have a website it needs to be refreshed. Now practically a website cannot really be refreshed thrice a week as there would be more than 5 pages to it and it is humanly not feasible to ensure freshness on this. So what do you do? There are a couple of ways in which this situation could be tackled. One is have a certain potion of the web pages dynamic in nature. Thus new press releases and new matter can be easily fed in via RSS coding. Additionally what you could do is enable a blog to the site. Thus herein you could post information and very relevant topical matter for the visitors. This enables freshness and a reason for your visitor to re-visit your site on a regular basis. This will give your site stickiness as well. Thus ensuring that search engine has fresh matter to index and the number of pages [due to posts] keeps on increasing. 
• Next you need to ensure that the key words that your visitors would use on the search engines are well populated onto the blogs, websites and social sites. This does not mean that you repeat the key words mindlessly. If you do this then at one level the search engines would define this as SPAM and would block your page. Additionally mindless adding of key words will make your visitor leave your site for good. As when your visitor will read your site your information quality will not be good.
• The keyword needs to be in all sections like your title, your images saved as, your subtitle, body copy, tags and labels. The keywords are to be intelligently utilized in tabs and sections as well. Instead of writing a section called 'About us' or 'Contact us' you need to be creative to enable the same meaning with keywords inserted. One more part that is crucial is to be remembered that if your business or brand name is not generic to the keywords then please restrain from using it all along. Searchers type generic and direct terms in search engines.
• Metatags. What are metatags? You will have come across a lot of time on this terminology being used quite frequently. Metatags is form of scripting in programming language. They are code pieces. They enable the search engine robots to crawl and index your page. Again here too we are to remember that they are not to be over stuffed with keywords. There are three types of Metatags. They are Meta title, Meta description and Meta keywords. All three are to have the key words incorporated into them. 
• What you also need to remember is that the spiders of search engine crawl from left to right of the page. So if your left side of the page has no keywords or has flash with keywords etc then you loose the robots immediately.
• Next is to submit the pages url to search engines. There are free submission pages that you can utilize. 
• Once you do this you PING the page to search engines. Pinging in simple terms means to attract search engines to your page.
• Additionally be careful about page loading. Please enable quick load. 

Ofcourse SEO has more technical side to it however doing the above would ensure some kind of progress on search engines. Do join in here and add your views and information of how to increase SEO while doing Social Media Network.

 

 

 

Happy Social Media Day to all of us!

Happy Social Media Day to all of us!

Social Media Merging Of The Minds

Many a times am asked as to what does a Social Media person 'really' do. Well does this person do blogging? Write on Facebook? Generally keeps on Twitting? Or uploads photos of products to be sold? So generally when you want to broadcast a message you start to login to all the social network sites and start to give out messages? And so you tell people to buy something and push this till doom's day? That means you give out same old message in new way? Do you have a list of sites that you generally send this message out to? Do you send this as anonymous messages? And do you keep apologizing to an angry customer!?

Well lets for a start step a little back and see the whole picture in its totality. Well it is none of the above in the way it is mentioned and yet i could be all of the above with a lot of tweaking. Well what according to you is the role of Online Social Media Network professional?

Join in here and share your views. Be a guest writer if you want on my blog.

Social Media Side Wiki

Has the controversial Google tool Side Wiki lost its prominence amongst other social media sites? The Side Wiki that permits the public to comment about any web site in a side bar displayed in their web browser. 

The tool is integrated in the latest version of Google Toolbar and works with Firefox, Internet Explorer and with Google Chrome. Ironically it was not activated to Goggle Chrome in it initial days.

Once activated, Sidewiki glides across from the left and becomes added browser sidebar, where you can compose entries in a vertical column and read the entries of other people.

Is Social Media activity to hunt and get hunted?

Many a times a speak with people i get a shocking response the Social Media can be handled just by anyone. Well if this was the case then why are we all not connected to more than atlest 10 brands as customers. In our lives we would be utilizing atleast 10 brands during a week's time. Howcome we are not Socially dialoguing with these 10 brands.

What does all the effort boil down to in the world of Social Media Network Online. Well to put it more simply it is got to do with 'connecting' and 'being connected with'. We all need to connect, be it individuals or brands. Social Media is got to do with building relationships. It is a dialogue between two parties to enable mutual benefit. Repeat: 'mutual benefit'. It cannot really be 'sales driven'. It cannot be conduced to 'being hunted' and 'hunting'. If we start to use the traditional 'push' force then we have lost half the battle. It requires an almost 24/7 dedication. Hence it will not work out if you delegate this to someone who is merely doing their 'job of being online'.

The person managing the Online Social Media needs to be passionate and outgoing. Needs to be crisp at the same time verbose and articulate. Needs to understand the sites, competition and the brand personality as well.

Social Media activity is definitely not for the faint at heart and nor is for the hunter.

Is Social Media mainline advertising or direct marketing?

Many a times we are stuck with 'this is not mainline' 'this is not dm!'. So, what is it? Well, Social Media lends itself or rather enhances the two worlds. While you connect with people who could be strangers is mainline work. And when you form a following and community you start to connect on a one-to-one basis.

Lets put it this way: it is both, the customer decides on how close or how far they want to be with it [brand]. Social Media is an integration of the way people choose to connect. It cannot be marked as 'this' or 'that'. Lets not look at it like some alien of neither world. It is what you and I do to connect online. It is what our customers are addicted to. It is happening while you are reading this post!

Tool for Social Media Network and Online Reputation Management

Online Reputation Management comprises various elements. Together they start to form a complete picture and enable our stakeholder’s experience to percolate within the system. We understand that there's a high degree of correlation between good customer / stakeholder experiences and their willingness to associate with the same organization, brand, product and service. The various points of influence are:
• Traditional/mainstream websites.
• Professional networks like LinkedIn.
• Social networks like Facebook and others.
• Consumer Review sites such as epinions, MouthShut and others.
• Social news / bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, technorati, dig and others.
• Collaborative Research sites such as Yahoo Answers, Rediff Q&A.
• Independent discussion forums based on categories and general interest by profession.
• Blogs created and managed on blogger.com.
• Blogging communities as the Open Diary, LiveJournal, Xanga.
• Microblogs e.g. Twitter.
Our primary goal when developing a social marketing strategy should be to establish conversation parameters. We cannot possibly control the direction of every conversation, nor should we try to, but we can be available to answer questions and provide honest and helpful input wherever possible. People visit social networking sites because they want to have conversations that don't involve sales pitches. In order to gain trust, we will need to create an environment in which potential and existing customers feel free to express opinion without fear of being censored, but also in which we can provide responses to negative comments that help viewers understand the reasons behind your company's actions in any particular area. When appropriate, we can point readers toward your product, but in such a way that they feel we are providing useful information rather than pitching your company.

Social Media Network and me

I started my career in mass communication, proceeded onto direct marketing and currently have established myself strongly on digital assets, online media and mobile marketing. Currently working on Online Social Media Networking as Self-Employed, Freelance Professional. I have been working in the Social Media Networking Online Space since 2001 alongside with the Brands and Clients. Am working directly with the Clients and the brands. Am also working with Agencies for their Clients as well. I can address audiences on the Online Social Media Network. I can get customers and communities to connect with the Brand on the Social Network Medium in the Online space. Currently working on the Online Social Networking, writing and managing, for brands and products. I can write and manage the Social Media Network Online space. Utilizing the online space like Twitter, FaceBook and LinkedIn. Online media, including search engines, are managed. Setting online alerts for the brand. Writing on blogs, social media like Twitter, FaceBook, LinkedIn, etc. Covering: Traditional / mainstream websites, Professional networks like LinkedIn, Social networks like Facebook and others. Undertaking work on Consumer Review sites such as epinions, MouthShut and others, Social news / bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, technorati, dig and others, Collaborative Research sites such as Yahoo Answers, Rediff Q&A., Independent discussion forums based on categories and general interest by profession.

I have been on the online digital space along with regular direct marketing. My recent endeavors have been in launching and sustaining the brand reputation across digital mediums. I write and manage the blogs and social media sites for clients and brands. I find the online and the mobile industry quite promising. In the online space I do keep in mind the SEO requisites. While writing content I keep in mind the SEO requirements so that the page / site comes up high on the search engines. If your established site has no SEO optimization in place at all, and has navigation that is blocking search engine spiders, then the site / page will not throw up on a high ranking with search engines. Mobile’s ability to provide superior targeting by age, gender, location, time of day and day of week, and to facilitate two-way communication between advertisers and consumers, make it one of the main reasons that mobile is now—particularly for reaching Generation Y. It’s their lifeline. Have built applications for Mobile as well [with tech team ofcourse].

I find Online Social Networking, writing and managing, for brands and products very interesting. Utilizing the online space like Twitter, FaceBook and LinkedIn. Managing the brand’s Online Reputation, ORM. Online media, including search engines, are managed to make positive information visible to the public and downplay any information which could negatively affect the business. Online Reputation Management comprises various elements. Together they start to form a complete picture and enable our stakeholder’s experience to percolate within the system. Setting online alerts for the brand. Writing on blogs, social media like Twitter, FaceBook, LinkedIn, etc. Covering: Traditional / mainstream websites, Professional networks like LinkedIn, Social networks like Facebook and others. Undertaking work on Consumer Review sites such as epinions, MouthShut and others, Social news / bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, technorati, dig and others, Collaborative Research sites such as Yahoo Answers, Rediff Q&A., Independent discussion forums based on categories and general interest by profession.

Specialties:
Online Social Networking, writing and managing, for brands and products

Including search engines

Setting online alerts for the brand

Writing on blogs, social media like Twitter, FaceBook, LinkedIn, etc

Work on Consumer Review sites such as epinions, MouthShut and others, Social news / bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, technorati, dig and others, Collaborative Research sites such as Yahoo Answers, Rediff Q&A., etc

How to do Social Marketing Online and Reputation Management Online

How to do Social Marketing Online and Reputation Management Online

A quick read book on sale: http://tiny.cc/t7d16 This book is specially created for all those who would like to enhance their Online Social Media activities so as to generate response and a call to action from the various customer sets that they connect with. This book brings to light a working knowledge and will enable you to actually work on your task. This book could be kept as a handy guide which enables a step by step understanding of what a Social Media expert should work towards. This book is meant for corporates, agencies, brand managers, social media professionals, public relation personnel, for people who would like to market their own name and their own business. It works great for freelancers to market themselves on the online space as well.

What has Social Media Network done to us

Well at the start let me confess that i myself am glued to the world of Social Media Network Online. So much so that apart from my personal life I have made a profession out of it and am into freelance Social Media Network Online which also takes us to the Online Reputation Management System. And so I lead my life on the Social Media Network Online.

You may have received panic chat messages to loot a certain Bangkok bank on 'Mafia Wars' to which you simply cannot disregard but end up helping. Sometimes a panic message seeps in to help harvest in 'farmville' or for a pet that needs a home in 'petville'. To which you may start to search frantically and help. This help could be to a total stranger. Irrespective of time and day if you are online you are helpful. Your concern levels are high and you cannot ignore your own pet in 'petsociety' who is starving and needs food and a little cleanup as there are virtual flies all around it.

It is difficult for most to sleep and call it a day without a peek at the Facebook and Twitter status. And ofcourse what we login to for a quick peek ends up being minimum an hour and so on. We are logged in and very concern about someone else frame of mind. Our own state of mind is not understood by us till we broadcast a post and then we also along with the world understand what is happening to us, what we like and dislike.

Viewing the profile of friends and strangers has become our prerogative online and we even go to the extent to encouraging others to post, incase they have not for a long time we may even remind them by a simple click on Facebook that says 'reconnect'.

When we do not do the above, our mind unconsciously starts to remind us about our various online commitments; starts to make us a wee bit uneasy and we start off having withdrawal symptoms. Maslow in today's world would have added Social Media Network Online as one of the basics that one needs to survive apart from food, clothing, shelter, security etc.

Well the online world enables us to be what we could not. In web 2.0 online societies you can be an astronaut, a doctor and many other avatars. No need for anything just register and select your avatar and hen go about daily activities online and get caught up in this too.

With such a state of mind and so much more openness would any brand or marketer dare to miss this world of opportunities? Online Social Network is all about meeting people in a state and scenario that they are most comfortable in. It is the right time to share with them and gently lead them to your end.

Social Media Network / Online Reputation Management

Why Online Reputation Management is suggested:

Online Reputation Management, ORM, is the practice of managing your business reputation with your online community of stakeholders within the online media space. Online media, including search engines, are managed to make positive information visible to the public and downplay any information which could negatively affect your business. Reputation and trust are earned through years of hard work and this can be damaged online, often anonymously.

While the internet has opened up a huge opportunity for us to broadcast any kind of information that we intend to share, the same internet enables our competitors, irate customers, disgruntled employees, and any unhappy stakeholder to also publicize their negative views about us. Just the way we have freedom to mention what we like, they too can exercise the same freedom and mention what they like... or rather, don't like.
The advent of social media, web communities, and networking sites, has been useful to many companies. The phenomenon has positively affected the majority of businesses by allowing them to directly communicate with consumers about products and services they offer. However social media has also opened doors to malicious online postings, which has proven to be damaging to corporate reputation.
Due to the number of people who use search engines as a research tool, online reputation management is becoming a big industry. Ruthless competitors and angry customers now have open access to blogs and web sites. They can define a person or company's online identity and their words have far reaching effects – whether they are true or not.

This is why ORM is necessary. Because it is difficult, if not impossible, to eliminate traces of thoughtless actions or malicious attacks on the web, online reputation managers disseminate positive information about their clients. The goal in online reputation management is to bring public attention to positive blogs, articles and other online media written on behalf of the company, product, brand or service. The positive online publicity takes the higher search engine result rankings, thus minimizing the damage of any attack.

Social Media an extension of the Brand Personality

Matching the Brand Personality while working on Social Media Network Online is a very important portion. We need to keep in mind that afterall the Social Network voice that we project via the various medias online needs to be in the similar tone and manner the Brand is conceptualized. Hence for the Social Media specialist it is important to understand the Brand Personality and be very certain on how this 'brand' would act and behave under various circumstances.

Additionally the brand personality is to be kept in mind while selecting which online sites the brand is exhibited in. While one needs to keep in mind as to where would the right target audience can be found one also needs to select if the site is correct and insync with the brand personality.

Social Media a CRM perspective

Social Media lends itself to Customer Relation Management. Infact Social Media enables CRM to increase the brand and customer connect, get interactive and be more receptive. Thus increasing the brand awareness, creating a positive brand perspective and thereby encouraging loyalty. This then leads to more sell and up sell. It also encourages the existing customer to become the brand ambassador and introduce new members to the system.

Those organizations willing to invest the time and resources required to develop and support a strong virtual presence are gaining practically unlimited access to consumers' steady outpouring of raves and rants, toward favorite and disliked companies and products. Tying this invaluable data into a CRM solution generates sales leads, ideas for product direction and strengthens a company's image and brand. As a result, those companies that use the strongest social CRM integrations should increase revenue; expand market share; improve their corporate image and, maybe, even fine-tune product development to offer items with the most wished-for features or capabilities.

Unlike traditional CRM, which creates vast internal databases of clients and prospects, social networking sites are external repositories of direct communication and indirect comments about businesses, products, people, experiences and an array of customer sentiment. Therefore, CRM software developers are creating tools that allow companies to locate, absorb and use the thousands or millions of messages about their company, products, advertising campaigns or reputation.

At little cost or effort, a business now potentially can reach far more customers or prospects. Opinionated social networking users become a virtual focus group, praising or complaining about a company's offerings, and coming up with suggestions for improvements or new products or brands. Social CRM also allows a company to track - and interact with - those who are vocal in their displeasure with a given product, service or brand.

Service calls may drop, too, as consumers reach out to their personal networks as the first round of contact for a technical question or how-to query. Savvy responders also become a company's asset, perhaps becoming thought-leaders or go-to resources in product developments.The goal is to build on the success of CRM solutions, adding the 'social' capability and enhancing the overall customer experience and revenue-creation opportunities. To accomplish this, companies should create customer-focused online communities with well-established components like blogs, forums, chats and wikis. Businesses also need to monitor social networking sites, recognizing and rewarding - often with badges, stars or other low-cost measures - those who are most proactive and communicative about a company's products or services.

In addition, social CRM should incorporate the strong workflow capabilities of traditional CRM software systems, otherwise all this important data may be relatively useless. Businesses must ensure all relevant departments and individuals have access to the information streaming into their computers via active social networks. Likewise, executives want results, they want to see if their investment has a direct correlation with the goals of increased revenue, decreased support, expanded market share and enhanced brand. So it is imperative that social CRM includes business intelligence or analytical tools that measure success and help guide any corrections or enhancements along the way.

Unlike a strong corporate website, businesses should tap the boundless, less structured and uncontrolled world of social media. Those communicating about a company or brand may never visit the company's home page, preferring to disseminate their comments, opinions and suggestions from LinkedIn to FaceBook. Social CRM then, must go to the source, not try to bring the source to it.

The Social Media Challenge

Many companies think of the internet like television: consumers are expected to sit patiently and absorb the branded message, and then act accordingly. Now, with the rise of a combination of technologies called Web 2.0, the internet is much more than a broadcast channel.

With the ever-increasing social use of the web, websites are becoming venues for discussion of ideas, opinions and transactions. Social networking is the framework in which these conversations happen. The challenge is to leverage the power of these new social networks to create innovative brand experiences.

The Social Media Strategist

Develop comprehensive social media strategy, leveraging the major social networks (LinkedIn, FaceBook, Twitter, YouTube, MySpace), blogs, video, stand-alone social newtorks, social commerce and more.
Define ROI and success benchmarks and methods to ensure business objectives are met through social media engagement

Understand how to implement digital strategies in a marketing environment, knowing the parameters and KPIs that are unique to certain industries/clients.

Author creative messaging and content for social media communications

Awareness of latest social media developments, online behavior and trends.

Research existing and emerging social / professional networking channels, platforms, blogs, and applications for new ways to reach and engage in conversation with consumers.

Energize and train account teams and clients on social media best practices

Identify new opportunities to drive revenue, and organic growth, by fully leveraging capabilities of social media platforms

Develop and distribute regular client reports regarding campaign status and social media metrics

Expert in all things digital, including: blogging/microblogging, podcasting, video sharing and streaming, widgets and gadgets, viral campaign management, mobile marketing, social networking, etc.

Provide strategic counsel to clients and account team members on day-to-day issues.

Develop results-oriented strategic plans; develop creative, interactive ideas and concepts to expand new and existing programs, resulting in superior client engagements and an increase in agency revenues
Monitor projects to ensure that deadlines and quality assurance standards are met

LTV, LC and RFM connection

LTV is a measurement of net financial value contributed by a customer, and Lift measures are like a "time slice" of the overall LTV curve expressed over time.

LifeCycles are a management framework for programs designed to affect LTV, and models using Recency, Frequency, and Monetary are used to look at a "time slice" of the LifeCycle.

LTV can generally be increased in two ways: by creating more value during the existing LifeCycle, or by extending the LifeCycle. Marketing (including Product) is typically used when doing the first, Service and Operations -customer experience and
satisfaction -are largely what can affect the second.

So it is completely appropriate to establish a unified approach to the measurement of customer programs intended to increase the value of a customer across all these disciplines, in order to ensure the allocation of scarce resources to highest and best use.

Social media marketing in India

With the penetration of broadband in India, various Indian companies have started exploring ways of marketing their products online. The market for e-commerce is growing at a rapid pace, according to NASSCOM. Companies have realized this and hence Internet marketing now forms a significant part of a company’s annual marketing budget. However, most Indian companies till recently were taking the search engine ppc marketing route to market their products online. Only recently have they realized a more effective and cheaper online marketing technique – social media marketing.

Social media marketing involves, marketing a firms products through social media sites such as offering product sampling to a target group, buying reviews from leading blogs and review sites and so on. The delay in companies taking up the social media marketing route to effectively market their products was because of a lack of a quality and reputed intermediary which would be a one stop shop for all social media marketing needs of a company. But with the emergence of companies like IZEA which specialize in blog marketing, all this has changed for the better. No wonder more and more Indian companies have now started breaking the traditional boundaries of marketing and are trying out new and non conventional online marketing and advertising models.

Email Marketing could be on principles of Social Media

The great thing about social media is that everyone can participate. People can share their opinions, ask questions, and offer advice. Everyone likes to feel like an expert. You can incorporate this into your emails by using customer-generated product reviews, customer questions, or even featuring the products that are most highly rated by customers.

• Some companies put a face on their social marketing by revealing the person behind the tweets or blog -- the same tactic can work in email
• Limiting your content to a specific audience creates ambassadors who will share your content for you
• Incorporating games or interactive applications into email can drive engagement through the roof

Ways You Can Use Twitter In Your Marketing

Ways You Can Use Twitter In Your Marketing

There are several ways you can use Twitter but here are some which can help you immediately:

Build An Audience

This is most important as you want to build an audience of followers (that's the Twitter term for people who subscribe to your posts) who are interested in what you're doing. Have a special going on? Send a Tweet. Is there an important news event in your industry that you wrote about? Send a Tweet pointing to that article. Give lots of value and make conversation, not selling, your goal.

Monitor What They Say About You

Find out what people are saying about you and your industry. This is one of the best ways to stay on top of what is really happening (not just what you think is happening).

Monitor What They Say About Your Competitors

You need to be aware of what is happening in the world. Using Twitter is one of the best and fastest ways to keep up with what is going on today.

Become A Resource, Not A Screaming Salesperson

One of the cardinal rules of marketing with Twitter and other Web 2.0 tools is to be a resource of information and not an annoying, pest selling stuff. Hey, there's nothing wrong with selling and I believe everyone is selling something. However, today you have to do it in a conversational, problem-solving way. Provide lots of valuable information (valuable as defined by your market) and people will want to be around you.

This is a beginning. Twitter is a serious business tool. Wade into it slowly and get familiar with the territory. You'll be glad you did.

How Businesses Use Twitter Today

How Businesses Use Twitter Today

Southwest Airlines is using it to let people know about flight changes, conditions and more. They also use it to find out what passengers are saying. If a delay or disruption occurs on a given flight, Southwest knows about it as they have dedicated people monitoring Twitter regularly.

Zappos is a great online shoe company. They monitor what customers are saying and what they want. They also use it to grab customer feedback -- good and bad -- and respond accordingly.

Even General (Government) Motors is using Twitter. They want to keep up with what people are saying about them and (at least in theory) help solve customer problems.

Filtering Twitter

A big complaint from many is that there is so much information they can't keep up with it all.

This is why experienced Twitter users (called "Twitterers") use tools to process the filtering. TweetDeck (www.TweetDeck.com - free) is a commonly used tool to monitor key streams. You can set up a search for your company name or your competitors' names and receive notifications whenever something is said. This helps to manage the torrents of information coming through Twitter. With TweetDeck You can monitor not only important Twitter mentions but also update and monitor what is happening that is relevant for You on Facebook and Linkedin. This gives You a "command module" to keep up on the important things in Your world.

HootSuite (http://hootsuite.com/dashboard - free) is another tool to monitor what is happening. It is also useful to schedule messages you'll send to others (called "Tweets"). This way you can schedule a message to go out a few times a day. Hey, the cable news networks repeat the same stories because they know their audience changes every 20 minutes -- or less. Yours does too and a tool like this helps to reach more people with your message â€Â" when it is convenient for them!

Twitter posts come on Google Buzz after 8 hrs.

Twitter posts come on Google Buzz after 8 hrs.

Facebook's new layout

Now that we have another Social Media [Google Buzz] there needs to be facility for single interface for practically all Social Medias. Looks like Google Buzz first victim is Twitter. Google Buzz seems to be buzzing. With Google Buzz and Social Networking - chats seem to be passe. Google Buzz: http://www.google.com/buzz.

Facebook has a new layout

Facebook has a new layout: good to navigate?

Social Media purpose?

Is Social Media a rambling of the mind with purpose?

Online Reputation is not just TLDs

Managing your reputation isn't what it used to be. It's about Online reputation management (ORM), a concept that has become an industry unto itself with all the accompanying accoutrements–experts, gurus, online tools–one expects from the modern internet.

ORM is "the practice of consistent research and analysis of one's personal or professional, business or industry reputation as represented by the content across all types of online media" You may have your own personal website and blog, Facebook and Twitter profiles, and professional site and writing all out there on the internet, and it all has a story to tell about you. One of the oldest tricks in the ORM playbook is the practice of purchasing top level domains (TLDs) associated with your name or products. There have been many instances over the last decade of companies suing to gain control of TLDs that reflect trademarked names. TLDs rank highly in search, as do official pages on social network sites.

Tweet your way

1.   Who do you want to connect with? What are they interested in? What are they searching for?

2.   Find your Voice. If you are using Twitter as part of your client attraction strategy, think about your 'Twitter Positioning'. In other words, what do you stand for and how do you want to be seen by other Tweeters? This will lead to your 'Twitter voice'. For example: informative, helpful, relaxed and humourous.

3.   Be a Giver. People will follow you if you have something to give them. For example, helpful, useful and interesting tips and ideas.

4.   People first, business second. Twitter is first and foremost a social network, so be sociable!

5.   Reveal something about yourself. You are a unique and interesting human being. We want to know more about you, as a person.

6.   Be Helpful. Recommend other Tweeters. ReTweet interesting stuff. Answer questions. Connect people to each other.

7.   Engage with people, by joining in and becoming part of the conversation.

8.   React now! Twitter works in real time. It is a continual flow of conversations, feedback, ideas and chit chat. Become part of the flow and react quickly to what's going on in the Twitterverse.

9.   Your website. Upload helpful, useful and interesting material to your website, using a CMS (Content Management System). For example, 10 top tips, 'how to' guides, and case studies. From time to time, Tweet about this content and point your Twitter followers towards your website. Ask them to ReTweet (RT) these messages.

10. Commitment. Use Twitter regularly, i.e. every day.

Social Networking at a glance

Social networking media can be a helpful tool for companies to generate more business, marketing experts say.
The most common sites for business purposes are Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, experts say.

Twitter: A free, real-time messaging service that lets users send out messages, or "tweets," of up to 140 characters to "followers" who sign up to receive the tweets. Authors can choose to send tweets to only their friends via the Web site or they can let anyone read the messages.

Facebook: Users can post information and pictures of themselves and communicate with other users, known as "friends." Users send their friends brief messages, Web site links and other bits of information through the site.

LinkedIn: A business-oriented networking site where users can put their resume online for other users to see. Professionals can find other professionals by typing in key words on the Web site to find people in their network who have information that can help them with their business needs. There are more than 50 million professionals on the site.

Authenticity and Transparency Are Social Networking Cornerstones

The words "authenticity" and "transparency" may seem trite, but I believe they remain the cornerstones of this new media-marketing paradigm. Be real. Be open. Be honest. Admit mistakes when you make them.

Content Is Still King, but Conversation Is Queen (and Conversion Is the Prince)

Nothing beats well-written, informative, entertaining content in all its forms: blog posts, tweets, videos, podcasts, images, webinars, or whitepapers. Place yourself in a position of being a knowledgeable expert (assuming you are, of course). Community is the context.

Moreover, keep content and commerce separate. Never the twain shall meet is a good rule of thumb. Editorial and advertorial content should be distant kin, if related at all.

Salesforce.com Introduces Chatter

Salesforce.com has announced that it has developed a collaboration platform that brings social networking into the enterprise -- Salesforce Chatter. And for the more than 60,000 Salesforce.com customers, Chatter should be something to talk about.

Chatter will be more like the other social networking tools many people are already using in their personal lives. With functionality similar to Facebook, Salesforce Chatter allows employees to set up their own profiles including contact information, photo, work history and area of expertise. Users can also pull in any existing information from Facebook profiles.

Employees will then be able to collaborate internally through real-time status and content updates, similar to the way friends do on Facebook. Business applications also have a place in Chatter to keep everyone up to date on inventory, for example. Well, only those you want to stay in the loop. Chatter also allows you to filter certain information to the appropriate employees.

Slide Share updated Account Types

At Slide Share previously there was just one type of account, namely an Individual Account. Now the team of Slide Share have realized that there is more to it. That there are companies, NGOs etc all onboard. Hence now we can select the type of Account we have from the below:

New Account Types:

• Company
• Non Profit / Gov
• Ad / PR / Marketing Agency
• University / School
• Professional Speaker
• Presentation Design Firm
• Event Organizer

Personal Branding on FaceBook

Facebook is growing fast and as their list of users grows so does the list of people getting hired, fired, embarrassed and shunned.

Globally, as you can see there are vast opportunities on Facebook for personal branding but the opportunities for tainting your reputation or losing your job are even more vast. In fact, nearly 1 out of 10 employers globally now admit to firing employees because of their activities on Facebook [The actual number is much higher because many employers would never openly admit to doing this, even in a survey.]

Don't use Social Networking loosely

1. Don't use social networking to make a generic sales pitch to thousands of people.

2. Do start a dialog of conversation by sending updates that will be interested to people. Offer valuable information.

3. Don't use public forums for private messages.

4. Do ask people if they want to receive your FREE newsletter before you start sending it to them.

5. Never, ever post negative comments on other peoples blogs, profile pages or websites. You always want to be positive.

6. Don't rely on one group or one website for all your networking needs.

7. Be sure to read other people blogs, tweets, websites to keep up to date on industry changes as well as staying connected to like minded people.

What are Google Alerts

What are Google Alerts?

Google Alerts are emails automatically sent to you when there are new Google results for your search terms. You can also choose to have your alerts delivered via feed to the feedreader of your choice (e.g., Google Reader or add the feed to your iGoogle page). We currently offer alerts with results from News, Web, Blogs, Video and Groups.

What are the different types of alerts I can sign up for?

Google Alerts currently offers 6 variations of alerts - 'News', 'Web', 'Blogs', 'Comprehensive', 'Video' and 'Groups'.

• A 'News' alert is an email aggregate of the latest news articles that contain the search terms of your choice and appear in the top ten results of your Google News search.
• A 'Web' alert is an email aggregate of the latest web pages that contain the search terms of your choice and appear in the top twenty results of your Google Web search.
• A 'Blogs' alert is an email aggregate of the latest blog posts that contain the search terms of your choice and appear in the top ten results of your Google Blog search.
• A 'Comprehensive' alert is an aggregate of the latest results from multiple sources (News, Web and Blogs) into a single email to provide maximum coverage on the topic of your choice.
• A 'Video' alert is an email aggregate of the latest videos that contain the search terms of your choice and appear in the top ten results of your Google Video search.
• A 'Groups' alert is an email aggregate of new posts that contain the search terms of your choice and appear in the top fifty results of your Google Groups search.

What kinds of topics make for interesting Google Alerts?

Well, if it's interesting to you, it's a good subject for a Google Alert. We've found that many alerts are set up by people who are:

• monitoring a developing news story
• keeping current on a competitor or industry
• tracking medical advances
• getting the latest on a celebrity or sports team
• watching for new videos that match a specific topic

How to Write a Great Article for the Internet

Article writing is one of the best ways to get your knowledge out and provide you with great free exposure for your business or your website.

Here are seven simple tips and some examples that will teach you how to write a great article for the Internet:

1) Create a catchy title
Your article's title can be a make or break for readers. A short, attention-grabbing title will pique reader interest and draw them in. Be sure that your title remains relevant to the topic you are writing about.

2) Keep it short
People are reading your article because they want information on the topic at hand. Get right into the meat of the article after a brief introduction. Effective Internet articles tend to be relatively short as people are turned off by seeing too many words on their screens. An ideal article for SelfGrowth.com contains approximately 500-1500 words.

3) Keep it simple and straightforward
Keep in mind your main purpose for writing the article to express your points as clearly as possible. Use language that is easy to understand and conversational in tone. Maintain a clear and organized structure throughout the article, and ALWAYS proofread and edit your article before submitting it.

4) Include a beginning, middle, and end
Every good article has a clear beginning, middle, and end. The beginning should be a short introduction about main focus of your article. The middle, or body, should contain the meat of the article: all of the important facts, ideas, instructions, etc. And an article should always end with a conclusion that wraps up or briefly restates your main points.

5) Write what you know
Be sure to pick a topic that you are knowledgeable about. It is much easier to write about something you are familiar and comfortable with, and your expertise will shine through in your writing. Plus, you will enjoy the writing process!

6) Teach something new or at least teach it in a new way
What point is there in sharing information that has already been brought to the table countless times? Teach your readers something new. Your knowledge is unique: Let your readers see this. If it's a popular topic, try to put a fresh spin on it or explore an area of your topic that is not commonly written about.

7) Include a short bio
Give yourself credit for your work by writing a brief bio. State who you are and what makes you an expert on your topic. You can also use this section to include links back to your website or contact information.

Are you in favor of SideWiki?

Google has set up a controversial new tool that permits the public to comment about any web site in a side bar displayed in their web browser.  Guess this tool will open a wave of problems with spammers talking rubbish about great sites, there is also nothing stopping someone's competitor using this tool under lots of Gmail id's and creating a hate campaign against its rivals.

The tool is integrated in the latest version of Google Toolbar and works with both Firefox and Internet Explorer but ironically, not yet Google Chrome. To use Sidewiki, download the most recent version of the Google Toolbar and set it to enhanced.

Once activated, Sidewiki glides across from the left and becomes an browser sidebar, where you can compose entries in a vertical column and read the entries of other people. To activate Sidewiki, you simply click on the Sidewiki button in your Toolbar menu or the little talk bubble on the left hand side of your screen.

Tips for Making a Corporate Blog Stand Out

Talk about something other than yourself. Too many corporate marketers make the mistake of creating blogs as purely another mechanism to talk about their products and services. While increased sales and improved brand visibility may be two fundamental goals of a corporate blog, there are more effective ways for achieving those goals that just pushing product.

The most successful corporate blogs leverage product and service information with relevant industry news, human interest pieces, case studies and other useful information. That balance is what keeps readers coming back time and again.

Keep your blog focused. Whatever message you chose to deliver, stick with it. Unfortunately, some corporate blogs lack a clear message and include posts on topics all across the board. Because goals were never defined, these blogs have a difficult time gaining readership.

Blogs gain strong, consistent followings by giving readers the information they want and expect to find. A reader might visit a shoe retailer's blog expecting to find information on the latest shoes styles and celebrity fashion news. If the readers have to sift through information on travel, home décor, and health & fitness in order to find what they're looking for, they may not return.

Give your blog a distinct personality. Whether you choose to feature just one blogger or multiple bloggers, let the blogger's voice come through in the posts. Without a distinct personality, your blog will be just like every other faceless corporate blog.

Let your readers see behind the corporate and marketing jargon, and instead discover the real people behind your organization.

Have some fun. Another effective method for letting a corporate blog stand out from the rest is to infuse some humor and excitement. Granted, this technique may not be appropriate for all corporate brands. But if you're able to, consider creating a blog that can be light-hearted, relaxed and at-times funny. It's just another way to humanize and personalize the brand for customers.

Provide readers with something they can't get anywhere else. Use a corporate blog to announce company breaking news or highlight original research in order to make the blog truly unique. Assuming the information is interesting and useful, readers will keep coming back for more. The simply can't get it anywhere else. Plus, your customers can form a close connection with your brand because they feel as if they're gaining an inside look or exclusive information.

Data: Screening, Diagnosis and Treatment

Screening Phase

Examine data for five different kinds of possible errors:

1. Lack of data – Do some questions have far fewer answers than surrounding questions?
2. Excess of data – Are there duplicate responses?
3. Outliers/inconsistencies – Are there values that are so far beyond the typical that they seem potentially erroneous?
4. Strange patterns – Are there patterns that imply cheating rather than honest answers?  For instance, does a respondent alternate between ratings of 4 and 5 on every other topic in a matrix question?
5. Suspect analysis results – Do the answers to some questions seem counterintuitive or extremely unlikely?

Diagnosis Phase

From the Screening Phase you have highlighted data that needs investigation. To clarify suspect data, you often must review all of a respondent's answers to determine if the data makes sense taken in context. Sometimes you must review a cross-section of different respondents' answers, to identify issues such as a skip pattern that was specified incorrectly. 

With this research complete, what is the true nature of the data that you've highlighted?  The five possible values the authors give:

1. Missing data – Answers omitted by the respondent or questions skipped over 
2. Errors – Typos or answers that indicate the question was misunderstood
3. True extreme – An answer that seems high but can be justified by other answers (e.g., the respondent working 100 hours a week because they work a full-time job and two part-time jobs)
4. True normal – A valid answer 
5. No diagnosis, still suspect – The verdict is out on this "idiopathic" data. When it comes time for the Treatment Phase, you may need to make a judgment call on how to treat this data.

Treatment Phase

You've screened the data and tried to come to a verdict on whether suspect data is guilty or innocent. You have three choices for what to do with suspect data:

1. Leave it unchanged – The most conservative course of action is to accept this data as a valid response and make no change to it. The larger your sample size, the less that one suspect response will affect the analysis; the smaller your sample size, the more difficult the decision.
2. Correct the data – If the respondent's original intent can be determined, then I am in favor of fixing their answer.  For instance, perhaps it is clear from the respondent's explanation for their ratings that they reversed the scale in their minds; you can invert each of their answers to this question to correct the issue. Some statisticians will argue for imputation, replacing the answers with imputed values, such as the mean for that variable, but the techniques for imputation can become quite elaborate and are best left to professional statisticians.
3. Delete the data – The data seems illogical and the value is so far from the norm that it will affect descriptive or inferential statistics. What to do? Delete just this response or delete the entire record? Whenever you begin to toss out data, it raises the possibility that you are "cherry picking" the data to get the answer you want. 

However you choose to treat the data, make sure to document in your survey report what steps you took, how many responses were affected and for which questions.

Screening Phase

Examine data for five different kinds of possible errors:

1. Lack of data – Do some questions have far fewer answers than surrounding questions?
2. Excess of data – Are there duplicate responses?
3. Outliers/inconsistencies – Are there values that are so far beyond the typical that they seem potentially erroneous?
4. Strange patterns – Are there patterns that imply cheating rather than honest answers?  For instance, does a respondent alternate between ratings of 4 and 5 on every other topic in a matrix question?
5. Suspect analysis results – Do the answers to some questions seem counterintuitive or extremely unlikely?

Market Basket Analysis

Market Basket Analysis is used to identify or gain interesting insights into the way customers buy items. It finds out the combination of items which are most likely to be bought together. For example buying milk and bread together can lead to buying butter. Identifying such patterns from the transaction data collected over the years provide new window of opportunity to explore and understand the purchasing behavior and thus can be used to increase sales through cross selling and targeted marketing. Market basket analysis is not limited to retail sales but are applied to a wide range of areas like analyzing credit card purchases, fraud detection for insurance claims and so on. Data Mining technique called association rule mining is usually used. Algorithms like FP-Growth and Apriori algorithm are usually used for mining the transaction data to get the desired patterns.

Dos and Don'ts: Online copywriting

Consumers interact differently with copy on the Web than they do with traditional marketing media. Transferring copy from a printed brochure online is not a recipe for success. Web copy must embrace online consumer behavior and be relevant to the audience's needs.

Don't: Forget to listen

Make sure you are creating a dialogue, not a monologue. Give the audience a part to play. Be attentive. With every reaction and interaction, they're telling you something about themselves. If you haven't given them anything relevant or a way to engage/respond, you'll lose them fast. Use this information to lead them through click by click. Are they looking for cold, hard facts? Do they want to be entertained? Make the information accessible, easy to understand and interactive. Listen and learn.

Do: Optimize your copy for people in addition to search engines

Sure, having searchable words and targeted keywords is crucial if you want the search engines to find you, but you don't want to lose your readers in the process. Selling is about connecting with people and building relationships. Your words are your virtual handshake, extending to those who probably trust a stranger more than they trust your brand. What you write needs to inform, educate and entertain, but it also needs to connect and build trust. Your readers want to know that you get what's going on in their lives and that you actually care about them. So get to know who they are. And then write the way they speak. People instinctively trust those who speak like they do. Keep it conversational, concise and simple. Big words may impress, but your job is to communicate and engage. Avoid words that sound like you're selling something because it will just sound like you're selling something. And the only thing that will build is resentment.

Don't: Try to retrofit a static piece of offline copy into an interactive medium

You're now speaking to an impatient online reader or, more appropriately, an impatient online scanner. Gone is the luxury of the beautifully crafted setup. On the Web, your reader wants the conclusion up front. Think the "inverted pyramid" approach to writing copy. Every word has to hold their attention and move them toward whatever it is they're looking for. Headlines have to be meaningful rather than clever. One idea per paragraph is a good rule of thumb. Speaking of which, stay away from clichés. Include searchable words and targeted keywords so the search engines will find you. Of course, there are rules in the offline world that also apply to the Web. Know who your target is and convince them of what the product can do for their life rather than how many cool features it has to offer. And when you have figured out that magnificent amalgamation of the traditional and the technological, don't let a typo be the thing they remember.

Do: Try writing your next line of copy in 140 characters or less

If you look back four to five years ago, people interacted with Web copy in a somewhat passive way. They would navigate to a Web site or see a banner and then take action – hopefully click and buy. Today we are consuming digital content in a completely different way; one that is short, dynamic and increasingly personalized. The task in front of us as digital copywriters to get our complex and sometimes long-winded thoughts condensed into smaller segments. To start, the approach needs to maintain some fundamentals like understanding the audience, being concise and most importantly bringing a sense of humanity into your work. When constructing the line, script or piece of Web content, remember the consumer is time-starved and success lies is in making each word count in the Facebook and Twitter world.

Easy Database Marketing

Some business owners assume that database marketing requires a level of sophistication that is beyond them.

While it is certainly true that some systems can be quite complex, there's one powerful database strategy that is within everyone's grasp. The concept of Recency.

As long as you have a database that records customer transactions, you can use this powerful concept to help market to people most likely to respond. This will help reduce your overall marketing costs while increasing your response rates.

Determining Keywords For Your Web Pages - Research on Google Key Words

Determining keywords that are profitable is one of the most important techniques you can master as you bring your small business online.

Just in case you haven't heard the term "keyword" before, here's a brief explanation.

Any time someone uses a search engine, they type in a word or phrase. This word or phrase is known as a keyword (even though it can be longer than one word.) The search engine goes out and retrieves all the web pages that focus content on that particular keyword or keyword phrase.

The more relevant the web page is to the keyword, the higher the page ranks in the search engine. Each web page contains a place in the HTML coding to insert these keywords. This helps the search engines determine page content. This is a bit of a simplification as search engines use many other criteria to rank pages. However, keyword focused content pages are the most important on-page criteria.

Deliver poor content that is not keyword focused and you will have a difficult time ranking highly in any search engine.

So, the questions becomes this. How does one choose the proper keyword for any particular web page? The answer is quite simple. You research keywords that pertain to your business and choose the ones that have a high demand and low supply.

The Demand of a keyword is a measure of the number of times people have searched for that keyword in a particular period of time. The Supply of a keyword is a measure of how many total web pages focus on that keyword. Keywords with a high demand and low supply will allow your page to rank higher in the search engines and will drive more traffic.

The best way of determining keywords is to use a good keyword research tool. The purpose of these keyword research tools is to allow you to enter a specific keyword related to your business and then see how many times people searched for that keyword (keyword demand) as well as how many web pages are focused on that keyword (keyword supply.)

In addition, a good keyword research tool will come up with new keywords related to the initial one you typed in, giving you ideas for branching out and coming up with dozens of other high quality keywords.

Meta Tags

It's very simple - if you don't optimize your web pages, the search engines will have a difficult time figuring out your content focus and you can forget about increased website traffic.

These are the things you build into your web pages so that the search engines find your site and rank it favorably. You should also know that there are many dozens of off-page criteria that the search engines (SE's) look at as well - but that's a topic for another article.

How does an SE know that a page has relevance to a particular search term? They use one or more of the following on-page criteria.

1. File Name
2. Page Title
3. META Keyword Tag
4. META Description Tag
5. H1 Headline
6. Keyword Density
7. Links
8. Image Alt tag

While various search engines rank the importance of the above criteria differently, you should be consistent in applying all of them to your pages for increased website traffic.

Understanding Google PageRank

Understanding Google PageRank is not as mysterious as some would have you believe.

So what exactly is PageRank and how does it affect your rankings in the search engines? This article will set you straight on this often misunderstood topic.

PageRank is essentially the measure of a web page's importance relative to all other web pages. While no one knows the exact algorithm Google uses to calculate PageRank, one of the major factors is the number and quality of inbound links pointing to the page in question.

The key to understanding Google PageRank is to realize the democratic nature of inbound links. A link to your page from some external site is really a vote or "thumbs up" for that page. The more votes (i.e., inbound links) a page gets, the more important the page must be.

While your Meta tags and main page keyword help determine the relevance of your page, PageRank determines the importance of that page. When Google returns search results, it wants to return a page with the highest relevance AND the highest importance.

Polish Off Your Reading List for Freelance Writing

We all do know that unread piles of books, magazines and papers sitting around your office would make you nervous. And anxious. A fresh start entails catching up on your reading list. Magazines like Writer and Poets & Writer are excellent selections to read monthly for fresh ideas and new instruction, but they don't do you any good if they pile up and cause anxiety.

Get a Better Understanding of Customers via DataBase

Most companies have a base of regular customers, but few know why those customers keep coming back. Quality, price, delivery, convenience; these are some of the factors that could explain why a customer continues to buy from your company but, unless you understand the factors behind your success, you cannot plan a customer retention strategy for the future. The discipline of building and using a database helps you concentrate on these important issues. By bringing this information together in a single database, you can get a comprehensive view of individual customers and customer groups and assess the effect of different marketing activities on their purchasing behavior. This is the kind of customer and market profile you can develop using database techniques:

• Which market sectors do customers and prospects fit into?
• How many are in each sector?
• What products do they buy?
• What other products could be offered to these sectors?
• Which sectors offer the best growth opportunities?
• Which are the most valuable sectors?
• Who are the key customers in each sector?
• How profitable are the key customers?
• What is the cost of each customer?

What DataBase provides

The information in your database provides you with a detailed picture of the market and allows you to answer questions such as:

• Who are our most important customers?
• How many are there?
• What characteristics do they have?
• What other prospects have similar characteristics?
• Are we generating the maximum amount of business from each customer?
• Are we maximizing the business opportunities from each customer contact?
• Do we really know what our customers want?
• What factors and marketing activities affect their buying behavior?
• Can we identify every product our customers might use?
• Do we know every transaction they might want to make?
• Is information available to everyone who might need it?
• Is our organization giving the right information to the marketplace?
• What would happen if we varied our marketing spend or used different marketing channels?

Database marketing is used by most Marketers

One of the most successful forms of marketing used by marketers is database marketing. Database marketing is essentially about sending targeted promotions to any segment of the customer and prospect lists and measuring the value of each individual customer and tracking the promotional efforts, measuring responses, purchases, and the return on investment for the spent on the promotional efforts.

Database marketing is essentially the technique of gathering all the information available about your customer, leads, and prospects into a central database. This central database is then used for the information, and it is this information then that drives all the marketing efforts.

This information collected in Database marketing is stored in a marketing database and then can be used at both the strategic and tactical levels to drive targeted marketing efforts.

A company that chooses to utilize the concept of database marketing for their marketing efforts continually gathers, refines, and analyzes data about its customers, their buying history, prospects, past marketing efforts, demographics, and etc.

The company also analyzes the data to convert the data into information and it is this information that supports all their future marketing and sales programs. Some of the more enlightened marketing companies also use customer and prospect interests and preferences, which are generally gathered from their web site, to tailor design the marketing efforts to the individual level.

Database marketing can also further be defined as a way of organizing a company's customer and prospect data so that it can be used more in a more effective manner in a direct marketing effort. Database marketing is also a way of organizing the whole marketing process. Database marketing allows the company to choose what to market to whom and when based on the sum total of the knowledge and experience that lies with a customer or prospect.

Get That Prospect Off Your List

Congratulations!  You've got a real live prospect on the line.  Your first task is to start selling, right?  WRONG!  At the very beginning of the sales cycle, your most important task is to find out if you can eliminate the prospect completely from your to-do list.

Yes, you heard me correctly.

Many sales pros (particularly novices) are so thrilled simply to be talking to a real live prospect that they don't want to burst the happy bubble.  So they pretend that the mere fact that a prospect has shown a little interest (by not hanging up) means that they're a potential customer.

Nothing could be further from the truth. There are at least half-a-dozen reasons a prospect might show interest but never buy. For instance, the prospect may:

1. feel bored or lonely and just want to talk to somebody.
2. hope to have the offering…someday in the far future.
3. be looking for a catspaw to play against your competitor.
4. be confused about their firm's real needs.
5. think your pricey offering fits within their teeny budget.
6. be looking for new contacts for a future job hunt.

Look, the last thing that you want to do with your valuable time is to waste it on somebody that's who NOT going to buy.

So it's a BIG WIN for you, if you can eliminate a prospect from your to-do list.  And it's an even BIGGER WIN if you can do this within the first five minutes of talking to the prospect.  Here's what you need to know:

• Do they really need your offering?
• Is the financial impact big enough to justify a purchase?
• How do they buy this kind of product?
• Do they have a budget or can one be secured?
• What's their time frame for addressing this issue?
• Who says "Yes" and who can say "No"?

If you can't get a decent answer — or a process to get an answer — to any of these questions, then you're WASTING YOUR TIME.

On the other hand, if you can get answers — or a process in place to get those answers, you've got a real opportunity.

But let's be clear: if that prospect ain't gonna buy, you wanna exit ASAP.

Should You Let Your Interns Manage Twitter?

Would you let a 21-year-old intern work the phones without training? Then why would you let one manage your company's Twitter account, where they have direct contact with loads of extremely vocal customers?

Fresh joinees are often given charge of a corporate Twitter updates because they tend to be Web savvy.

But their lack of experience can be a drawback, especially when they're dealing directly with customers.

They may struggle to pick up on the culture, image, direction, and goals of a company in the short time they are there. And when they leave, they take their Twitter skills and style with them, leaving the company to find fill that void every few months.

Here are four tips to ensure your Twitterer is adding value:

Find the best people for the job. Interns are not your only option. Your company probably has people who are using Twitter. Find them, and recruit them for the task of becoming your official Twitterers. Already being familiar with the service will give these people a leg up.

Train them. Give them the same basic customer training that you give to the rest of your customer service team — how to interact with customers, what the company wants to communicate, the language that works best, and the image it wants to convey.

Let them become experts on Twitter. Give them the time and resources to learn the ropes. Twitter is a tiny bit more technical than working the phones (though you would train your phone reps on your phone system, wouldn't you?). Especially important is Twitter etiquette — a backlash on Twitter spread across the Web can be damaging to your reputation.

Keep them in the loop. Give your Twitterers the same information you'd supply other customer service reps — promotions you're currently running, as well as any ongoing product or service issues. A customer who Tweets a complaint is just as important as one who calls one in, and if your Twitter-er is in the dark about the nature of the complaint he or she could just make a situation worse. Remember — an angry phone call can't go viral.

Incentivise the role. What kind of reward can you offer your Twitterer for interacting individually with a set number of customers, or generating a certain number of re-tweets.

Backlinks to your websites

We all need backlinks to our websites.

A backlink is an inbound html code that points to your website. You are probably wondering why you would want a backlink.

If you have many websites with one-way links to your website, the search engines interpret this in your favor. You want to make sure that your website is at the "hub of the wheel" so to speak -- all the spokes, or links, are pointing to your website.

Your goal should be that the search engines view your site as an "authority site". If a website provides excellent, interesting articles and other content, and has many readers, that website could be called an "authority site". Websites mention and point to, or refer to, articles and videos on the authority site.

Let's step back a bit and explain links in an example:

If Sally's site links to you, then you have one inbound link. However, if your website links back to Sally's site, the links balance each other out and no one wins - that is called a reciprocal link. Don't look for reciprocal links. You should look for links back to your website from other websites where you don't have to link to them.

Now who is going to do that? Any website marketer who has been around for some time does not want reciprocal links. He wants one-way links to his site.

Sources of Inbound, One-Way Links:

• Links from directories
• Links from articles you write

Are You Socially Acceptable?

One reason social media sites have caught on like wildfire among users is that, by and large, they operate on basic principles of social decency. always have a check on: Do your social-media skills match the subtle standards set at sites like Twitter and YouTube?

Not sure? Well, here are a few site-inspired rules to help ensure your online outreach efforts are socially acceptable:

Don't stifle the conversation. It's easy to react negatively when you spot a negative review at a social site, but first take a deep breath. Consider this: do the comments have merit? If so, acknowledge them and commit to making a change. If they are silly or mean, it's probably best to let them go.

Bring something besides your product to the table. People don't want just a pitch, they want a person. Don't spend precious social-media time pushing your wares; pass a little time with your audience. Let them get to know you and your brand.

Be responsive. Agencies have spent decades trying to get people to cultivate emotional connections with logos and labels; it's only natural that, now that they have a soapbox, users demand to know why they should ally themselves with you. Demonstrate that you care what your customers, donors or clients think: Follow their discussions, engage them in dialogue, express interest in who they are.

Suggest: Toe the social line. Social media sites are about being natural—in acceptable ways. Make sure your outreach—no matter how fun or creative—always shows consideration and respect.