Kathy’s Blog

We all know technical content is king.

Your website should be rich with great technical content, well written, and engaging.  We also know how much the search engine’s dig (no pun intended) that great technical content.  However, have you considered placing your technical content off-site as well?

We have seen some great results in utilizing Blogging, YouTube, Slideshare and Linkedin as places to re-purpose technical content and drive some excellent positioning and traffic in the SERPs.

I have a slideshare account where I upload, describe and tag all of my power point presentations.  In 12 months I have 13 presentations uploaded which have received a total of 2,373 views and 8 favorites.   In December 2009 for two weeks I ranked #4 & #5 for the search phrase “social media for manufacturing” in google – my blog was number 4 and a link to my slideshare account was number 5.  As of the writing of this post, my slideshare presentation was still at number 4.  Slideshare can hold pdf documents as well.  What a great place to push those white papers, industry articles and technical content.

SERP results for Social Media for Manufacturing

Brian Bluff does a great and consistent job of generating strong blog posts and traffic.  In a search for “Internet Marketing Syracuse NY” Brian’s blog ranks at the top of the organic results.

One of our clients utilzies SEO, PPC and YouTube.  With deep technical content on the site, a well built and tagged YouTube channel and a highly efficient PPC program they often appear multiple times on a SERP for key search phrases.  Below, notice that they rank numbers 1 & 2 for gear grinding, the image results are from their website, and video results are from their YouTube channel.

Google SERP for Gear Grinding

So when you are working to gain ground on the SERPs for those important terms and phrases, start thinking outside of your website by re-purposing your content, build exposure, and drive position.

With the announcement of Twitter launching an ad platform sometime in the very near future it got me thinking about a conversation we had at breakfast last month with a few of my IRL Twitter friends.    We were discussing some of the ways Twitter could monetize itself.  It was a very interesting, and somewhat heated conversation, on what people would tolerate or engage with.  Now remember these people are all actively and successfully involved in social media to promote and grow their brand and their businesses.  I seemed to hit a “hot spot” when I stated I would be willing to pay a small monthly fee for an enhanced Twitter account.  Similar to the pricing platform that Linkedin utilizes.   Now first let me emphatically state that I believe Twitter should remain a free platform – with open access for anyone and everyone.  However, I do believe there is opportunity in offering enhanced accounts.

Here are some of the features I would like to see and would have value to me:

1)   More interactive background

2)   An enhanced Twitter profile where more data could be displayed

3)   Enhanced searched features geared towards developing a more targeted audience you follow

Okay so I have indicated  what I might be willing to pay for, what do you  think?  Would you pay for a premium account on Twitter?  If so what features would be of value to you?  OR do you think this is just a crazy idea??

I am often asked – “How can you possibly have time to tweet and keep up with Linkedin and everything else out there? Don’t you have a job to do??”

First of all, engaging with social media is a big part of my job.  It has provided me both professional and personal returns in a very large way.  (Check out my post on My Social Media ROI).

But having said that, yes it is hard to keep all those balls in the air and be as productive as possible.  Here are the tools that help me manage my social media life without spending all day “being social”.

1)   News sources: I like igoogle for staying ahead of information and having fresh interesting content to share. I have found that utilizing an igoogle homepage with my favorite news sources and industry blog right at my fingertips makes it more productive to quickly scan and read things that grab my attention.

2)   Twitter & your community: I like Hootsuite.  I have tried possibly every twitter tool available.  I was a fan of tweetdeck, but finally switched over to Hootsuite because of the delayed tweet feature.  I like to consistently interact with my community so having the ability to queue up tweets for the day allows me to focus more on my work and checkin with Twitter only periodically.  I don’t like to follow people who send too many tweets at once, which I find helps me keep the more relevant communications at the top.  With the delayed tweet feature you can post several thoughts, but space them out so you aren’t burying people with your info all at once.

3)   Research and monitoring: Again, Hootsuite is great for this.  I create search columns for terms relevant to clients and prospects I am working with.  I also have search columns established for clients and their brands – One of the ways to stay ahead of their online reputation.

4)   Measuring engagement: I like bit.ly’s URL shortener with its easy click tracking, but not sure it is better than any of the others.  I like having a bit.ly account so I can monitor click activity for information I share.  It helps to know what people find valuable and interesting and what didn’t engage people.

5)   Building a quality community: To help me add valuable twitterers to my community I refernce Hubspots Grader page quite a bit.  You can research top twitters by location.  It helps to make sure I am engaging with people in my area that are relevant to my goals and objectives with social media.

There are a TON of great tools out there, and everyone has one that matches their goals, objectives, and personal style.

I would love to hear about all the tools you are using to manage your online presence and why you like them! I may even be inclined to switch .

My husband is a very “green” guy.  He is a landscape designer with a passion for what’s native and natural.   He is a creative soul and is an excellent writer.  In early 2009 he started blogging about his passion – plants, garden design, organics, natives etc..  He also started using social media as a way to learn and engage with people who had a similar passion.  Quickly he developed a group of like-minded friends and bloggers from across the country, and across the globe, through Twitter, facebook and Linkedin.   As his social media community grew, so did traffic to his website and blog.

This past December another garden blogger, Susan Morrison , asked Scott, Susan Cohan and Rebecca Sweet to join her in a bloglink titled “Do Garden Designers Practice What They Preach?“.  They idea was they would all write their own blog post on the subject, link to the other three bloggers, publish at the on the same day and time and promote it through social media – Twitter, facebook and Linkedin.  That week Scott’s blog had the highest amount of traffic and comments he had ever seen on his blog – 204 visits and 16 comments.  Prior to this the weekly average was 86 visitors.  Additionally, the traffic continued beyond that week and since then his blog has continued to see improved traffic and positioning, which he has supported with increasing the regularity of his postings.

They decided to do a second bloglink but this time they had 13 garden design bloggers from across the country discussing regional diversity in garden design.  Again, another high for Scott’s blog, 322 visitors and 36 comments.

They all enjoyed the experience immensely and decided to organize a group of designers and bloggers to bloglink every month.  Topics were chosen, a schedule was established and The Garden Designers Roundtable was born.  A facebook fan page was created and in under 48 hours they had over 500 fans and today, two weeks after the fan page was launched, they have over 700 fans.  WOW – the power of community is amazing!

It was exciting to watch this grass roots social media experience evolve.  It surprises me that people still consider the use of social media as a toy or play thing.  The potential it offers for growing businesses and establishing industry authority is significant.  What are YOU waiting for??

I would love to hear about other exciting social media success stories – please share them with us here.

When I start discussing work with my friends and family and they discover what I do, the conversation always turns to social media and people start to challenge me.  I get questions like: “You spend time on Twitter?  Really? Why?” and “Isn’t it a complete waste of time?” or “How do you know it’s worth it?”   When I start to explain why I am fully engaged with Social Media and what has occurred because of it, they really start to listen.  So I decided to share my ROI; what I consider to be the top 10 things that have happened to me as a result of twitter.

1)    People. Friendships and business connections.  Through Tweetups or Tweetcrawls (where local twitter people gather together to network, IRL) I have met some awesome people, incredible professionals, and gained a strong respect for the community of peers I interact with.

2)    New Places. Through my husband’s (@ScottHokunson) Horticulture twitter community we went on a Tweetup to the Innisfree Gardens in Millbrook, NY.  It was a beautiful place and I met incredibly talented horticulture and garden people.

3)    Business. Business opportunities have been referred to me by people I met through twitter and Tweetups.  Yes BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES!!

4)    Education. Keeping ahead of my industry.  By engaging with those I follow and following those who lead this industry, I have been lead to information and resources that otherwise may have never fallen in my lap.  It has helped me to be a stronger and better professional for my clients.

5)    Resources. I have developed resources to which I can refer my clients when what they need is outside of my scope of services.

6)    Promotion. The ability to effectively promote my events and drive traffic to them.  We have had better attended seminars and webinars because of our use of Social Media.

7)    Growth. 10 months ago Site-Seeker, Inc. was a company that was completely unknown in the Connecticut / Massachusetts market – no revenue and no clients.  We are now a known competitor with a strong reputation, a significant account base, and solid revenue and we utilized social media to help introduce ourselves here.

8)    Community Service. Fundraising has been undertaken on a whole new level.  Suzi Craig and Lisa Davenport put together a significant fundraiser for Operation Home for the Holidays in under three weeks.  With the participation and support of local celebrities – Ann Nyberg & Damon Scott and the twitter community, their one day event raised 12,000 to help bring home CT National Guard troops for this coming holiday break.  It was thrilling to be a part of such an incredible event and to be of service to our community.

9)    Services. I was in need of a new head shot and avatar.  Thanks to Seshu and my interaction with him on twitter, I finally had that done.  It was an awesome experience to work with such a professional photographer and it has added a new level of professionalism to my social media profiles and my events pages for our seminars and webinars.  (By the way, if you need a good photographer check out @picseshu !)

10)    People. Okay I know this is a repeat but you always start and finish with the best.  Truly the best part of social media is the people you meet and interact with, and the caliber of these people is top notch – and yes you really do interact both in cyperspace and IRL (in real life).

When people challenge me about the time I am “wasting” on social media, it is easy to show them how it is one of the best uses of time today to promote your company and your brand, to develop authority and become a trusted name in your industry.  To me, the ROI is easy to measure.

So, what is on your top 10 social media list?

The whole ROI conversation seems to be heating up. There are differing views on the conversation of ROI. Lee Odden tweeted from Pubcon that ‘it is a platform, not a tactic’ in a response to a question about measuring social media ROI.  Yet the reality is, that the time and energy being invested in social media programs requires companies to establish some level of ROI.

First lets talk about what ROI is.  ROI is the acronym for Return On Investment (okay no big revelation here).  In most cases when we discuss ROI we are talking money.  X was spent and Y was realized therefor ROI = (Y-X) / X. If you spend $10 and get back $40, your ROI is  3 times what you spent.  But lets discuss other important goals that create value and generate revenue: brand recognition, customer service, customer loyalty, industry leadership and market authority.  These are all important objectives of any business yet achieving them and measuring their true ROI becomes very difficult. We all love the easy to measure direct path of sales dollars, but most businesses don’t really know the direct path of any new customer.  They may know the final access point but have no idea of the path that got them to that point.  It is this unknown path where most often, the true value of Social Media can be found.

Here’s an example of the unknown path before social media (yes WAAY back then  . . .).  When I was working for ThomasNet.com (an industrial portal that drives highly qualified traffic to a client’s website) a client was reviewing his monthly reports and a name jumped off the page at him.  It was a significant prospect that had come to him via ThomasNet and my client was flying out to meet with him the following week.  The prospect had told him he found his information in ThomasNet.com but my client was curious to know what else I could uncover about how this prospect came to him.  In digging through his site analytics you could clearly see the path of the prospect searching over a month through Google and Yahoo! and each turn ending up at my client’s site.  The prospect used various search terms; from the machine that the service would be performed on, the actual service being performed, and finally the company name.  Clearly his presence in ThomasNet was the final certification, and the launch point for the inquiry.  But, that month long path through other search methods brought him there.   My educated guess, based on seeing similar search patterns in other clients analytics, would be that this is not an unusual process for most searchers.

So what impact would Social Media have on this path?  It will most likely be much harder to measure and identify.  Yet, clearly important.

Here’s an example utilizing social media.  In a meeting with a new Site-Seeker, Inc. prospect in May, I asked him how he found us.  He had originally sent an inquiry via our website, but I was curious to know the details.  It was unusual, but he actually explained to me how he came to contact us.  We had been promoting our presentation at CONNSTEP’s Annual Manufacturing Conference via many social media tools.  He had viewed the seminar page, linked to our website, read my blog and then contacted us.  How he was brought to the CONNSTEP page we are unsure.  Again it was that winding unknown path that supports our brand, builds our market leadership and helps us to gain industry authority – Social Media.

For those of us that are in the Internet marketing arena we must help our clients establish appropriate ROI goals for their social media programs.  We are asking them to invest their valuable time and energy, and they have to understand the goals, objectives, and return.  We need to help them to monitor and measure as effectively as possible.  While I agree with Lee Odden that it is a platform and not a tactic, it still requires us to establish ROI – whatever we determine that is.

The following article is from Mahsable.com by Christina Warren and offers alot of tips and tools on establishing ROI. HOW TO: Measure Social Media ROI

Recently I was involved in two incidents which occurred within 24 hours that all revolved around a person’s ability to “listen”.  Unfortunately, I was communicating with people who just didn’t listen.  They were polite and well intentioned, but they didn’t and wouldn’t listen and the end result was a very frustrated customer, me. 

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I spent over an hour on the phone with our VOIP provider.  For the last week we could make calls but were not receiving calls.  We have two lines with this VOIP provider one was working fine and the other was not.  At the beginning of the call I clearly identified the problem and the phone number.  I spent over an hour on the phone with their service tech and repeatedly he would ignore me and start working on the wrong the number, again.  I lost an hour of my time, missed a badly needed hair appointment but ultimately was so frustrated at this tech person’s inability to listen to me and my needs for their service.  Towards the end of the call I started mentally calculating what it would cost me to switch these lines to another provider, who might LISTEN to me.  I am always hopeful . . .

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Shortly after that I received a call from a very lovely southern woman from a business office of a small college.  She was very pleasant and polite but she talked in a constant stream, barely stopped and never allowed me to ask my questions.  Again, that call ended with me frustrated and without the answers I needed.

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Of course, this got me thinking.  I am in sales and there seems to be this common misperception that a good sales person is someone who can “talk”, when actually a good sales person is someone who can listen.  And really a good business person is someone who listens.  Really, any good friend is a good listener.  Why??  We need to be heard.  We need to know that, whether in a personal relationship or a business relationship, that the other person really heard what we needed, that they truly understand what our issues are, and how we hoped to resolve them.

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No sooner had I mulled this through than the phone rang from a frustrated client.  He was frustrated with some numbers he was seeing.  I was frustrated he didn’t get what a good job we were doing.  When I sat down and met with him, I took a deep breath and asked him to walk me through what he was seeing and how he interpreted it.  It was very enlightening.  I hadn’t listented to what was important to him when we set goals, so his frustration was valid.  What also happened was that when I started to discuss with him some other things that the numbers reflected he was more open to the conversation – because he had been truly heard. 

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I began wonder how often I do this to my clients, talking without listening, and more importantly – without understanding.  I often talk as though everyone understands exactly what it is I am saying.  As Internet Marketers we are very conversant in an industry that offers complicated and fluid services like SEO, SEM & Social Media.  But often our client’s don’t understand and do we take the time to make sure our clients really understand and are we really listening? 

I would be happy to LISTEN to your comments!!

Okay so this is going to go off the path of my normal blogging focus – Internet Marketing.  But it is relevant to today’s “Social Media Culture”.  I will probably offend some of you and, I apologize if I do.

One of the things that people are constantly commenting on is the new etiquette for different Social Media venues.  There are twitter etiquette rules, check out how many blogs and articles there are on this google results page for “Twitter Etiquette” http://bit.ly/IaGmV.  And don’t forget the Linkedin etiquette guidelines http://bit.ly/V3qCC .  And soooo many more etiquette rules and guidelines that we haven’t even touched on.  With today’s marketing and sales focus shifting from push to more pull and engaging in these new Social Media venues, our online community felt it necessary to develop the social dos and don’ts.  This is all good, but here is what I am wondering – what about basic interpersonal social etiquette??  I mean seriously, we are so worried about interacting correctly, and using the right etiquette for these social media sites over a faceless inhuman computer.  Yet, we behave like boors in public where people really see us, know who we are, remember our faces and most importantly, where we really offend them.

Cell Phone Etiquette: The ability to communicate in motion with family, friends, co workers and clients is AWESOME,  but please use some restraint…  Just because you CAN doesn’t mean you should.  Stop talking on your cell phone while checking out or at a customer service counter;  Stop walking through the store in a full conversation with your phone;  And STOP walking through a store on a speaker phone in full animated conversation.  This is awkward for everyone around you, it is rude to the employee at the counter,  and we aren’t interested in your personal life.  Sit in your car, stand outside the store – anywhere else that is not sharing your conversation with the strangers around you.

Texting, emails and smartphones: Pulling out your phone, your smartphone, your blackberry, your iphone – whatever, while you are at dinner is rude to your companion.  It screams at them “YOU ARE BORING”.  And if you are both doing it, then why are you even out together?  Sure a quick check while you are in the restroom is okay, but seriously, for most of us we don’t do anything that important that we need that email or that text the very minute it arrives.
Look, I am not a saint.  I have broken some of these basic etiquette rules myself.  But as I find myself being subjected to it more and more, I am learning to stop.  When we have reached the point that they have to post signs at store counters that say  “No Cell Phones at Counter”, then it is getting to be a larger issue.    And I realize this is still a minority not a majority, but what scares me is that it is a growing minority.  So stop worrying quite so much about your twitter etiquette and start employing basic social HUMAN etiquette.  You know I’m right.
Okay I have now put my soapbox away.  Thanks for listening.

If you have a “NO SOLICITING”  sign on your front door I wonder if you really mean it and really understand the full implications of it.  We must sell what we make or what we do in order to be successful, in fact in order to survive as a company.  A “NO SOLICITING” sign on your front door may convey an attitude about your business.  Maybe it discourages new customers too, not just sales people making cold calls.
What about your website?  Take a really close look at it, have you put a “NO SOLICITING” sign there too without realizing it?

Here are a few examples of what a virtual “NO SOLICITING” sign might look like:
1.    Phone Numbers- small, in light text and located down in the footer of your website.  Many new prospects may miss it or sense that you really don’t want to be called.  If you want the phone to ring, put the phone number at the top of the page in BIG BLACK LETTERS where it can’t be missed.  Ask them to call you, let them know you really do want to do business with them.  You do don’t you???
2.    Address – many businesses believe that if they put their address on their website that they will be perceived as a local company.  That will only be true for prospects who only want a local company. For the rest of your prospects who probably don’t care where you are are, but want to know that you have a physical presence, they might get a sense of uneasiness over the missing information.  All you do is frustrate everyone; the guy who does want to work locally because he doesn’t know that you are local, and the people who don’t care if you are local – they just want to know you are real, with a real address.  Tell everyone where you are, they want to know.
3.    Contact Form – okay this one is a biggie…  Where is your contact form? A prospect or customer should never have to leave their current page to figure out how to contact you.  Make the form and your phone number accessible from every page.  The length of the form and number of mandatory fields can make or break the use and submission of the form – basically scaring away new prospects.  When someone calls your company, you don’t demand all kinds of information from them before you speak to them.  The information is given when they are ready to do business with you.  This same thought process applies to your website.  Keep the form short and sweet, the only mandatory form should be an email address.

Take a look at your website from your prospects and customers point of view.  Ask a friend to review your site and figure out what you do, where you are, and how to contact you.  It is time to take down all of your “NO SOLCITING” signs, from the front door of your building and, most importantly, from your website.  Change your attitude and open the doors to new business.

Not sure how to remove that “NO SOLICITING” sign?  I know an excellent Internet Marketing / Web Development company that can help you!!

I try to be a “glass is half full” kind of girl. So sometimes, it is really hard to hear client’s comment about why they shouldn’t engage in social media. As they make these comments all I can think of is that they are burying their heads in the sand.

Here are a few comments I have heard – I bet many of you have heard these, or some very similar:

1. Well if I am not online then nobody can say anything bad about me . . .

2. Nobody uses Social Media for B2B . . .

3. We don’t have time so we will wait until it has a stronger impact on marketing efforts . . .

Let’s talk about a few examples of the first one . . .

A few months ago I was invited to speak to a dozen CEO’s, from local area businesses, about Social Media. So I did a “Social Media for Dummies” type of presentation. An overview of what Social Media is, why it is important, what some options are, and some examples of what happens when you engage in it. I discussed the positive power that a well managed Social Media program could generate for a company and quickly enhance their marketing efforts. When I asked for questions a CEO of a very cutting edge manufacturing industry explained that they were staying away from any of this so that nothing negative could be said or published about his company. After my stunned silence evaporated I explained to him that whether or not he chose to be online, people could and probably would, say something negative about him, his company and/or his services. Let’s face it, eventually it happens to all of us. And that if he didn’t get online and engage he wouldn’t even know if it was happening. If he did get online he could work to repair the situation immediately, before it became a problem. AND by the way, utilize and maximize all the powerful and POSITIVE things social media could do for him and his company – you know “the glass is half full”!!

Another client of mine has worked hard to market his brand and he has done an excellent job of it. He is a smart savvy internet guy. I started to do some research and found a huge amount of buzz for him that he had nothing to do with. Youtube, twitter, facebook – it was awesome. When I approached him about a Social Media program to harness and maximize the buzz that already existed, I was stunned at his response. His fear of the possibility of viral negativity outweighed the incredible impact this could have for him. (Now, I was able to sway him, and I think he will engage with the strength this offers.)

Now look, I totally get it that Social Media offers the complainers, whiners and people with valid grievances a powerful tool to vent their frustrations. However, the positive power and energy that you can create through a well managed campaign has greater positive power for you and your company. Everything you do has a downside or a negative possibility. You can’t live in fear of the bad things that could happen or the bad things people can say.

The Social Media Glass is half full, grab it, drink it and enjoy it!!

A few recommendations for reading on this subject:

Lisa Barone and Rhea Drysdale of Outspoken Media.

Check out these links:

Online Reputation Management Guide

When Social Media Becomes a Weapon