Notes from the Hive

It takes too much time. There isn’t enough time. I’m running out of time. It’s time to make the donuts.

When I talk to companies or groups about implementing social media as part of their marketing efforts I am always hit with the objection that it takes too much time.

Yes, engaging in social media does take time. There is the time to research and figure out where to put your efforts. There is the time that it takes to set up accounts and profiles. There is time for the learning curve of how to use the sites. There is the time to building up content and time to find things of value to share. There is the time to find the people to engage with and then of course there is the time it takes to keep up the conversations.

Yes, it takes time. There is no denying that fact. So let’s talk about ROI. There are tons of tools out there that allow you to monitor, track, research and update all of your social media from a single point. These tools number in the thousands and while some are more popular and robust than others I will talk about a few of them in the next blog entry.

So let’s talk about ROI. Marketing, no matter how you do it, takes time. It used to be that you needed 3-5 touches before a buyer would engage. Then it dragged out to 5-7 touches. Now with the deafening noise of marketing both traditionally and digitally, it can take 9-12 touches. How many cold call phone calls do you have to make to get to actually speak to a qualified buyer? How many networking events do you have to attend and how many people do you have to meet to make a solid connection? All of this takes time.

So what is the point of social media? There are a couple of home runs with social media.

First is that in an unthreatening environment you can connect to people that you might never have had the chance to meet otherwise. In a more casual way you ‘connect’.

Second is that you become part of a community. Today, more than ever people look to their groups and connections first for resources and you stand a better chance of getting referred or having someone point an interested buyer your way.

Third it reaches further than other methods and is permanent. Think of throwing a stone in a pond. The ripple of water at the point of entry keeps going out further and further reaching beyond the point where the stone landed. And the stone is now a permanent piece of that pond. It will always be there to be found. What other forms of marketing can do that for you?

Another compelling reason to get involved is knowing that everyone is talking about everything and so that means you or your company is going to come up somewhere at sometime and shouldn’t you know about that?
Think about how much time you can save by cutting a problem off before it snowballs. Think about how much time you can save by responding to a need before your competitors catch wind. Think about it and then get started.

If you don’t know where or how to begin it might make sense to hire a professional in this field that can save you time up front to get you started and coach you and your team toward success. Trust me – you’ll be thrilled you did.

One of the hallmarks of social media is the permanent impression that it leaves in the digital domain. There is a good news and bad news to this fact. The good news is that if you are engaged in social media of any kind your activity leaves a permanent footprint in digital space. This gives you the possibility of long term buzzability over a visual one shot that print ads and direct mail offer.

The bad news is that if you do something stupid or someone out there complains about you or your company, well that stays out there too.

But wait; there is more good news. This permanent digital footprint from social chatter along with all the news going digital leaves a world of opportunities for sales people to learn more about their prospects than ever before.

Today the Internet offers us a unique opportunity to monitor sentiment and reputation and do presales research in just a few minutes. This is a powerful tool that is often overlooked. I am somewhat surprised that some companies are not even using Google Alerts for their own company so I thought that maybe this post might offer some helpful tips on how to get alerts and how to do some basic research.

1. I highly recommend Google Alerts. It is free and it is powerful. You can set as many alerts as you care to have streaming into your inbox and you can even set the frequency from once a week to as it happens. Just go to google.com/alerts and set up alerts for your name, your company name and even keywords if you like. This is the granddaddy of them all as it searches social media as well as other news and listing sites.

2. I like socialmention.com because it offers a pretty thorough report at least for social media searches and has the added bells and whistles of stats that can be most helpful. In particular if you are checking to see how far out your own blog travels this source gives you some trails to follow. Their tool box offers a widget to pull the feed directly into your website or onto your blog. They also have a feed alert that will be emailed to you.

3. You can try whostalkin.com, which I found to be an attractive interface that delivers results that are far from comprehensive but does offer a nice snapshot. They offer an iGoogle gadget to bring the feature to your iGoogle home page, if you even use that feature.

4. You should try howsociable.com as well. The feature I like about this search is that it breaks the results out by images, blogs and mentions by property. I discovered pictures of me posted publically that I wasn’t even aware of. Yes, give it a try and you might be surprised just where you literally show up.

5. Yahoo Pipes – this is a complex search matrix that you first must have a yahoo email address and secondly have the time and patience to build pipelines of source feeds and filters. This is not for the lighthearted search but has a sharing feature so that your pipe can be indexed for search engines and even shared openly.

6. Even if you are not using Twitter but someone you know is, you can use perkpipe.com to get a stream of who is talking about that person and try a keyword to see who is tweeting on a topic.

7. If you have a twitter account, people search and keyword searches are very powerful right from your twitter page.

This list could go on and on but I hope that it is at least a start. I would love to hear how you use these tools and maybe even offer up some ideas of your own.

Or you can think about it in terms of asking yourself if your website is your competitor’s best friend.

We are often asked to evaluate current websites in order to offer an estimate or even offer suggestions for improving an existing site. I find this a wobbly road to follow as often there are egos tied to the current site and so anything we say can be distorted toward a criticism that is unwelcomed rather than an observation for room to improve. The other pitfall is that since we are in the business of creating and designing websites our opinions and observations could well be perceived as a sales pitch.

We have worked with companies who either think their sites are just fine the way they are or are unwilling to commit budgets to improve. I have written about how the search engines have changed radically and so an outdated site might not get the traffic desired but what I haven’t really emphasized is why your website is such a critical piece of your business.

If you meet someone at an event, someone refers your company to a colleague, a prospect is gathering information on possible vendors, your sales or telemarketing team is reaching out prospects, you want or have done an email or direct mail campaign – or any host of other triggers that brings you to mind, the FIRST thing that a prospect or target will do is go to your website! The very first thing that they see – your very first impression is your website.

So ask yourself – would you put a salesperson on the road to visit accounts and prospects who is wearing a suit from a by-gone era, showing coffee stains on his or her shirt and carrying a plastic bag instead of a brief case? Would it be acceptable if that salesperson didn’t know what makes your company a standout choice over your competitors or about your products or services in detail and couldn’t answer basic questions? Would it be alright if someone called into your customer service department and were put on hold for several minutes only to be told that their question couldn’t be answered at that time but that if they send an email someone will answer or respond in a couple of days? No?

Then I offer this suggestion so that you may take an objective look at your website and review it for at least appearance and function. Take the following steps and review your website – your biggest piece of collateral, your first impression and touch point – to see how well your company is being represented. You may not be ready to examine structure and coding for best practices and SEO tactics but at least you can review your site to see your site as others see it.

1. Pull out your job description for a sales person
2. Pull out your job description for a customer service representative
3. Pull out your employee review for both the sales person and a customer service representative
4. Pull out your training manuals for both your sales staff and your customer service staff
5. Interview your website for a sales position
6. Interview your website for a customer service position
7. Give your website a performance review as a salesperson
8. Give you website a performance review as a customer service person
9. Now go to your car – start the engine and drive to your biggest and most important account
10. Upon arriving go to the person who decides what companies they will work with and say to them “we are conducting performance reviews and your feedback is critical, would you mind giving me 30 minutes of your time to tell us how you experience us?” Ask them how the phones are answered when they call, how their sales and customer service representatives are performing, how about your billing and collections departments and then ask them to bring up your website and tell you what they see and think.

How did it go – is it time to fire your web site? Maybe you just need to redress your site or update some functions. Either way, don’t lose sight of the point that your website is your FIRST impression most often and even if it is a follow up step and the second impression, don’t let it be the impression that kills the deal!

When we engage with prospects and clients what it really comes down to is the experience. We pay so much attention to the marketing, the website design, the brochures and yet, what about the actual experience?

We hear and read stories about extraordinary, over the top customer service that explains how some companies grow to mega businesses. The amazing story of ZAPPOS or the over the top customer service and experience at Disney, and we nod our heads because we have either experienced it or we nod our heads as a barrier thinking that this doesn’t relate to our business.

Each business has a culture, a personality, a structure, a process, and a channel. How often do we review the interactions that any outsider would experience when encountering our companies? From initial contact to the collection call… every touch is an experience.

This came alive for me as I am still relishing the amazing meal I had last week while in Tampa on business. Part of my time away I was evaluating our price structure, our service offerings and other aspects of our company as we move forward in 2010. Taking an evening break, I went to the famed steak house Bern’s. I knew I would get a great meal and heard they had an outstanding wine collection so I was psyched to have a treat. What I had instead was a dining experience. A real dining experience that took nearly 5 hours.

Yes it was expensive and depending on the bottle of wine ordered or the country or origin for the caviar you might select you could control the amount of the total tab but once you are caught up in the experience, well reason might just go out the window. The waiter was more like a guide than a salesman or waiter, his attentiveness to answer questions and offer assistance guiding you through a wine list that reads like the novel War & Peace, was helpful. The wines ranged in price from $45 a bottle to $10,000 and up a bottle so there was plenty of room to satisfy anyone’s pallet and pocket. There was no selling, no up grading, no promoting of side dishes. Instead there was an engaging conversation that allowed the waiter to uncover our particular tastes, appetite and of course spend level comfort zone and then he made some recommendations accordingly. He got to know us and therefore tailored his suggestions to meet our desires.

Beyond the table experience, we were offered and we took part in a tour of the kitchen and of course the wine cellar. The wine cellar holds one of the largest collections of wine in the world ranging from some of the more familiar to some of the rarest. Row after row, floor to ceiling we were guided toward some of the more interesting bottles.

Once the tour ended and our after dinner stroll through the kitchen and wine cellar we built up the desire to experience even more. So we were escorted to their desert room upstairs. Here there is a maze of private alcoves built out of wine casks, to sip exotic coffees, ports, sherries while experiencing the most decadent of deserts.

Five hours later, a bill that could have paid for a weekend vacation including airfare, we did not have a moment’s regret. The experience had been well thought out, orchestrated, rehearsed and perfected from beginning to end and all designed to take you from a good meal, priced accordingly to an experience unlike any other you might have known and a price tag to match.

The receptionist, waiter, table staff, tour guides all of them knew the history and story of the restaurant and even after a long hard evening of work, each played their role with a sense of personal pride that conveyed that they knew that they were a part of something very special and wanted to share that with others.

I came to several conclusions after this experience. First no matter how creative our designs and marketing strategies are, if our client’s aren’t creating an amazing experience – well we might be able to get them in the door but it is up to them to keep them. If our client’s don’t have an amazing experience with us then will they contract us for more, rave and promote us to their colleagues? And of course, what makes an experience with us different from our competitors? How will prospects know that they have engaged with something very special and want our team to be a part of their team? What are we leaving to chance?

Time to think about the experience of doing business with your company. How do you make it so extraordinary that prospects can’t wait to engage and customers can’t think to negotiate price or shop elsewhere?

We’d love to hear from you about what you are doing in your company and how you have experienced ours.

Let’s face it, when it comes to marketing don’t we want to be where the action is? If we want exposure then it only follows that we go where the eyeballs are. Given the finicky and fast changing trends today on the internet it pays to keep an eye on where the traffic is flowing.

Think back only a few short years ago. Twitter was not a well known property and yet seemingly overnight it became the hottest topic on everyone’s mind and the rush to join created a landslide of followers. Although Twitter has remained a hot property for connecting, research, search and creating awareness, many have become disillusioned with the volume of noise and the crowding of the space making it harder to sort the spamming riff raff from genuine folks to connect with. Twitter is still a valid arena but the attention and explosive growth now turns to Facebook.

Comscore recently released the December 2009 metrics. Comscore is best known as the industry barometer for the digital world and source of digital marketing intelligence. According to Comscore, Facebook more than doubled its U.S. audience from 54.5 million visitors in December 2008 to 111.9 million visitors in December 2009. It went from being the #11 ranked property to the #4 ranked property. It now accounts for 7% of all time spent online in the U.S. Read this report in its entirety.

Like Facebook or not, the appeal is that you have more control over your conversations and with who you connect on line. You are not limited to 140 characters and you can upload videos, pictures, have lists to manage personal and business separately and the opportunity to create group and fan pages to be a more interactive extension of your website. Facebook is not without flaws but it is growing in popularity. One aspect that I enjoy is having a closer look at how and with whom my friends are connecting and what they are sharing. With LinkedIn you can see who is connected to whom but you can’t really see how they are interacting. Twitter and LinkedIn lack the intimacy that Facebook affords.

Growing a friend following and a fan base may take a bit more time with Facebook, but given the trend it would only make sense that this is a marketing focus that you might want to pay attention to. Less formal than LinkedIn, your corporate culture and personality have an opportunity to take root and the opportunity to be more creative and experimental with how you reach out and connect and attract. With discussions, events, videos, photos, and a wealth of widgets you are now only limited by your imagination to making marketing fun. That’s right – fun!

One other enticement to get involved with Facebook – if you want to try your hand at advertising to specific people who are the most likely potential customers, well, Facebook's advertising is a smart system. Facebook collects an awful lot of information about members and they offer amazing controls and options to insure that your message is seen by those who are most likely to be a match. Sure beats search engine plans that in comparison could seem willy nilly. If you don’t have the marketing budget to pay for tire kickers and accidental clickers cruising through the digital divide then give Facebook a try.
Become a fan of Bumblebee Design & Marketing LLC and let’s explore the possibilities!

I spent last evening at an EONY event where Gary Vaynerchuk spoke. I really wanted to see Gary speak, as he is a marketing person that I respect, primarily because he is a trailblazer and mold breaker. Second reason I really wanted to go is because after reading his book CRUSH IT I knew his vision and wisdom were not to be missed.

Gary’s energy is a turbo boost of reality delivered in passionate and caring verbal smack downs. I absolutely love it! He has a get real attitude about understanding and verbalizing what is in play now and although it might be hard to hear, it is the bucket of ice water that we all need flying in our face.

I want to share some of the points that he made so that you can understand the brilliance of what he has to share. I know that you may not want to hear some of these and may not agree with some of his views but maybe it will sink in enough that you can begin to incorporate this into your marketing and businesses. Also please understand that I am paraphrasing but I am making an honest effort to share his message.

1. SEO is dead and a waste of time. I know that seems hard to believe and you might not just disagree but be bewildered by such a statement and yet if you look at what is going on in the SEO world, it is in complete turmoil. Read my blog post on Google Caffeine.

2. Customer expectations are increasing and customer service is the game changer. Gary speaks to the amazing story of ZAPPOS and how that model of creating a culture where customer service is first and foremost built a business of an unlikely solution – selling shoes on line – to a billion dollar business in less than 9 years.

3. Word of mouth converts 80% while traditional marketing converts at 12%. I have not personally researched those statistics but from my own business experience I know that I close sales faster and more often when it is a referral over any marketing efforts.

4. Small Town Rules is a phrase he used repeatedly. Get up close and personal with your customers and prospects. Treat them well; remember their name, respond, share, and CARE.

5. The Internet is dominating. If you are marketing then you want to be where the eyeballs are and they are on the Internet. He gave an example that if you buy ad space on bus stops; look at the people walking by or standing waiting for a bus. They aren’t even looking up – they are on their mobile phones either emailing, texting, tweeting or doing facebook updates.

6. Mobile marketing has started to take hold and he projects that this is the next big play. This comes as no surprise and yet designs and applications are only now just beginning to emerge to address this issue. Just as interesting, no one ever asks us ‘so how does my website look on a mobile device?’ And few if any folks are getting ready for mobile marketing and advertising in their planning. Yet, look around you and what do you see? That’s right – everyone is on his or her mobile phones.

7. Content – create content daily. He urges that you follow your passion and your brand DNA. If you are a good writer, write a blog daily and write anywhere and everywhere you can. If you are better at talking then it is time for you to start a podcast or video blog. He assures the audience that it is not about the polish it is about the passion.

He passionately urges everyone to start now building your content. He notes that this shift is being underestimated and that if you don’t go out and get it – someone else will!

8. He is driven by gratitude. Be grateful for everything, be open enough to share your gratitude and make it apart of your brand experience any way that you can and instill this into your corporate culture. Not insincere gratitude but genuine passion to care for the customer more than anything else.

And so I suggest you buy his book CRUSH IT and check out his blogs – he has several. Just Google his name, Gary Vaynerchuk and you will find them all. Let it sink in and then pull out your keyboard or your flip cam and get started right away.

I am currently reading Mitch Joel’s book Six Pixels of Separation, Everyone is Connected, Connect Your Business to Everyone. I am an avid reader and read a lot of new books coming out all of the time regarding social media, marketing, business and I often go back to some older books that serve as refreshers for business. I also spend a lot of time reading blogs by thought leaders and industry specialists as well as some general interest blogs - the wealth of knowledge and accessibility to great ideas and learning is a new phenomenon made available with the internet over the past few years.

But at this moment, I am reading Joel’s book and it is one that I recommend for every entrepreneur and CEO. There are several books out today that are excellent resources to help understand the new mediums, changes in the market place today and the opportunities that are unfolding.

If you have not begun to rethink your business model since the crash, then I suggest that you take some time NOW and begin to rethink how you are doing things – what you are doing and why. Reading Six Pixels will be a good starting point toward that endeavor.

I have been thinking a lot lately. My industry is flooded with competitors, it is changing at a speed that is dizzying on a slow day and when I think back to when I started in 1996, my company isn’t using any of the same tools, software or services that it did then. If I had been unwilling to change with the times I would be on government subsidy now.

The bashing that our economy has taken and the long road ahead for many to climb out of the slump and into profitability should not be a hard road to survival but the impetus to redefine everything for a greater tomorrow. One of the things that I like in this book is a recounting of how far we have come and in a relatively short period of time. The Internet is not the Wild West that it once was but it is now a wide-open landscape much like the Land Run of 1889.

There were already people living out west and doing well, but land grab opportunity was an open invitation for the pioneers who took to horseback and covered wagons, to claim prime land to settle in for a brighter future.

Social Media has been changing the landscape of business and human connection for several years now and it will continue. The rush is not showing any signs of slowing down and there are savvy and spirited entrepreneurs conquering old stalwarts of industry and creating new and exciting markets.
To not get involved would be like driving 1908 Model T today in the Indy 500. Sure you will make it to the finish line but you won’t be first or second, in fact you will be coming to the finish line about the time that the audience has all left the field.

Yes, a strong sales team can and should still bring in new business and some traditional marketing can still drive interest and attention. Yes direct mail and email campaigns should all still be a part of the program. And being realistic, no - you won't get into social media and be an instant success or an overnight celebrity. But to not take into account where the world is going and get on board – you might find that the ship has sailed and you haven’t even arrived at the dock yet.

If you are on Linkedin, take it up a notch. If you are on Facebook, give your brand a page, if you are making notes or thinking about things, start blogging. Stake your digital claim, get a foothold in the digital domain, explore what it going on and be open to new ideas – you may find that a new aspect of your business can take hold and grow.

Pick up the book Six Pixels of Separation – it will help you begin putting things into perspective, give you some ideas about how to get started and begin to understand what is evolving out there today. These are exciting times. You are a part of a great revolution – or an evolution of a new economy – based on trust, transparency, connectivity and engagement. All these delivered desktop to desktop and domain to mobile phone.

Hopefully you have had a chance to pull out your business and marketing plans from 2009 to evaluate how you did and will be adjusting accordingly.

I realize that 2009 was no ordinary year. Some companies got hit harder than others in this economy while other companies took off like wild fire. These unsettling times make it difficult to forecast, but knowing your numbers and having a plan are essential.

It is common for smaller companies to not have plans in place. Some companies have been in business for years and have let this slip away while younger firms have been in survival mode and just haven’t had the time. This past year was a wake-up call for many who were forced to reckon with two things: first, to survive in troubled times you have to market and second, marketing is entirely different today than it was just a few years ago.

As a prospect vendor I am often asked to provide a marketing services proposal. There are many things I need to know in order to put a proposal together that will make sense. First I need to understand what has been done so far and how did that work out; next I need to understand what internal resources are available to participate in the marketing efforts and it is helpful to know what, if any budget has been allocated so that the proposal can be structured to spend wisely.

When I ask about budget I get one of two answers. “We don’t have a budget.” (they really don’t), or “We don’t have a budget.” (they fear I will find a way to spend it all).

The next set of challenges in establishing a marketing proposal comes when a manager or entrepreneur decides it is time to jump into social media and they want a proposal. Here is where it can get messy. This is a relatively new niche so you have talent coming from many different aspects of the industry and therefore each has a different approach and a different fee structure. Entrepreneurs and managers are forced to evaluate apples to watermelons in proposals and further challenged with not really understanding what they are buying or how to evaluate the talent they are interviewing.

Allow me to offer some suggestions how one might go about planning for this coming year.

The Budget:

The rules of thumb vary by industry and by market. One cannot simply say that your marketing budget should be ‘X’ and be confident that it the magic formula. Both the Counselors to America's Small Business (SCORE) and the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) define the variable for a proper marketing budget to be between 2% and 10% of sales, noting that for B2C, retail and pharmaceuticals, these budgets can exceed 20% during peak brand-building years. You can find the complete article with this citation on SCORE's website.

Marketing efforts should have a direct impact on revenue and so it is prudent to spend on marketing, the trick becomes spending it wisely. You have so many options and things are far more complicated today that the options are overwhelming and I find many companies frozen in place. They aren’t spending in advertising because they aren’t sure what anyone is reading and they aren’t spending on banner ads or PPC (pay per click) campaigns because it appears to be a science run by snake oil salesmen and they aren’t participating in social media marketing because they just don’t know where or if it is even worth it.
Everything shouldn’t be done at once and so planning where and how to best invest for the year should be determined by where you are in the process.

Where to spend:
Entrepreneurs tend to be impatient and forced to focus on too many things at once so are A.D.D. (Attention Deficit Disorder) either from birth or by necessity. You cannot go through a day without being faced with social media marketing and networking as the hottest topic in how to grow your business, so it goes without reason that everyone ‘knows’ they have to be involved. And I would agree. However there is one caveat to that, if you aren’t ready, don’t start there!

Social media marketing has become the gold rush for business but it is a mistake to think that this is where you start and business will flow like the mighty Niagara River. Social Media Marketing is a component of an overall plan and effort that can positively impact your revenue. At the very least it delivers brand awareness and grows your audience. But you must be ready with a strategic plan that is interwoven with the rest of your marketing efforts and your overall business operation.

What does it mean to be ready? Think about hosting a party in your home. Is the house clean and presentable? Do you have food and refreshments ordered and are they going to be prepared in time to serve? Do you have ample room for guests to mill about or sit and relax and mingle with other guests? Have you thought about how best to introduce guests to one another who might not know the others? You get the general idea.

1. Your Website: If you have a new website that is optimized for the new search rules and Web 2.0 then you can move on to the next steps. However, if your website is not new or revamped – within the last year, then you need to start with your website. Regardless of the road you take, email campaigns, print ads, social media, they all will point to one place first – your website.

This analogy then suggests that the first place to invest is your website – this is your home base – the central piece of equity that establishes your brand, your identity. It is the doorway to your company, services, products, and staff and how you operate. It is your reputation, reception desk, waiting room, library and sales and customer service center. No? Well it should be.

2. SEO (Search Engine Optimization): If your web designer is not up to snuff on the latest – and I mean the latest changes that are happening everyday in search technology, then hire someone or a combination of vendors who are. Your marketing dollars should include on-going updates and maintenance to your website toward building fresh content, links and adding to resources available on your site. There are code modifications and other considerations that should be brought into the makeup of your website and marketing efforts. You should not think about your website like print collateral – it was designed and went to print and therefore is complete. Your website should be an ever evolving lead resource – constantly being tended.

3. Research: Another critical place to focus your spend dollars is with research. This doesn’t have to be an extreme investment but some time, effort and dollars should be spent to understand how your market is behaving today. Get to know Who is out there and Where are they engaging on the internet. What your competitors are doing and identify Where your prospects are and When do they search for solutions, what issues are they congregating around, what networks are they participating in and what exactly are they searching for. And let us not forget Why do they buy? What are their triggers?

4. SMM (Social Media Marketing): Now that you know where in the social networking world you are going to engage, building your profiles is the next step. No matter if you are B2B or B2C this is about P2P (people to people). Companies have people who make buying decisions and so it is people doing business with people they know and trust. It would make sense then that the managers and staff in your company have an on line presence and so profiles for the team and the company should be developed and branded. This could include LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Plaxo, Ning and others.

5. Blogging: a hot and critical topic in all of this marketing planning. Blogging baffles many. A blog needs fresh ideas and content on a regular feeding schedule. Comments are solicited and require a response and other’s blogs require comments. All of this blogging activity is a critical component of search engine optimization and marketing. Can you hire someone to do it all? Get you started? Help you along the way? Or can you and your staff tackle this aspect of your marketing efforts?

6. Listening: A critical yet often overlooked aspect of marketing is learning to listen, setting up systems to gather the flow of information and then responding, participating and ‘feeding the beast’ with new and interesting content. The budget dollars and resources that will tend these ripe fields is another area where you need to balance internal and external resources.

7. Other: Add to the list email campaigns, print ads and promotional items along with other activity that you think will come into play. We suggest that you also include development of policy and procedures, training for management and staff as to best practice and policy with regard to participating in the social arena and of course monitor and tracking.

Now with this summary review you can begin to flush out a budget and plan for 2010 marketing. Create a simple spreadsheet listing the topics covered in this article.

Spend wisely; choose your resources even more wisely, and best wishes for a grand and successful new year!

Google will be introducing its new search engine named Google Caffeine. It is going to be more like double espresso if they have things working they way it is intended. More than just an updated engine, Caffeine is really a spanking new search engine with all new formulas and calculations and factors that affect your site. In other words, if your web site WAS optimized, it might not be when Caffeine rolls out.

Google’s spokesperson, Matt Cutts, previously stated that Caffeine will be rolled out after the holidays. They were being kind and didn’t want web site owners and masters of the web universe to have to work feverishly to revamp websites in lieu of celebrating. The other consideration of course was to not disrupt holiday internet buying for on-line retailers. Thank you for that.

There was a beta version available over the summer but it is not available now. Web site owners and operators will have to begin digging into the documentation and testing to learn how to adjust to keep their websites from falling from grace.

There are some little secrets that are already known that you should prepare for. The newest contestant in search engine optimization is SPEED. That’s right – speed. If you have a slow loading site or a flash introduction that takes a bit to wind up for play, this will penalize your site rankings. Anything else such as large improperly sized graphics or complex navigation systems can also slow your site down.

Page quality and broken links are two more aspects that will now affect your page rank. Google doesn’t want to be sending their searchers to a poorly designed, unprofessional looking site or page of information where the links aren’t working. It is not as though Google has become a snob, but they rely on ad revenue and so it is important that they pay attention to where they send their searchers. The better the quality of a search, the more likely you will select Google over a competitive search engine. This is a simple formula for good business.

Since on-page factors will be impacting rank, it is time to revisit your overall web design.
• Is it designed well and attractive?
• Do you have unique content?
• How is your navigation? Please tell me you aren't using flash or other unreadable codes.
• Do you have your titles, meta tags and descriptions containing your keywords?
• Do you have alt tags on all of your images?
• Have you gotten rid of frames and started using CSS?
• How are your incoming links? Are you tracking if you are getting social bookmarks?
• Have you been watching your traffic, bounce rates, pages viewed and time on site stats?

Social Bookmarking is going to become a major factor in page rankings. Search engines are living up to their pledge of a democratic web "for the people and by the people." We can expect to see page rankings affected by rating sites and social bookmarking sites such as Yelp, Stumbleupon, Digg and others. This is great news really. It levels the playing field in that you no longer have to compete with mega corporations with mega budgets buying links. Now, you just have to get people to like you.

What To Do In 2010
All is not lost. If you have already invested heavily in search engine optimization efforts or redesigned your web site, you are probably in good shape for starters. Your site age and reputation should still serve you well. If you have a keyword domain name, this too should continue to be valuable. However, things are changing fast and radically so you will need to revisit your site to insure that you have covered the items above and please read on as there is more.


Google and Bing are Loco for Local. Google knows who is searching and where they are searching from. They probably already have an idea of what the searcher wants. Data mining and technology have become both a comfort and a bit invasive. However, the important thing here is to understand that your website should have features that help the search engines determine your geographic area of interest.

The following are a few things you can take care of to help Google offer you up in a local search result.
• Have you registered for Google and Bing local business?
• Have you maximized those listings with keywords and complete information?
• Do you have a Google map on your website depicting your location and area served?
• Do you have a complete mailing address and phone number on every page of your website?
• Have you installed hcards in your code?
• Are you registered with other local business associations with back links to your site?

Give the Search Engines What They Want. I am not recommending that you design and write for search engines, however, if you are doing it well for your audience and are attracting traffic that actually stays on your site and engages, then the search engines will take notice.

Now might be a good time to invite colleagues, friends and family to go through your website and give you an honest evaluation. Is it pleasing to look at? Is the navigation logical and easy to follow? Is the content readable, unique and interesting? Is your site intuitive, meaning visitors know what to do, where to look for the information they seek and do they know how to reach you and engage with you?

Get to know Google better. Knowing how Google thinks and works will be a guide for you and your web and marketing teams to develop a stronger relationship with the mighty search engine as you work your way up the page ranks. Understanding how Google categorizes their rankings for example, did you know that they are divided into five possible categories: Info listings, Video listings, News Listings, Shopping Listings and Corporate Listings. Make sure that your keywords and content are addressing as many of these categories as possible.

Blogging. If you aren't blogging on your website, all I can say is "WHY NOT?" Search engines love blogging. Bloggers love other blogs, audiences want to get information and get to know you and your company. You have to begin blogging. If you don't think you can, hire a professional to help you get started and sustain a regularly scheduled blog. Get your staff and managers to blog with you. Do whatever it takes to get going! And remember, blogging is not sales promotion, it is information sharing.

Go Social. This is the year to pick up the pace on social media marketing and social networking. Build your fans and followers, engage with conversations, share good material and resources, be helpful and reach out and touch as many connections as possible. Step it up this year because those audiences are the ones, if your content is worthwhile, who will retweet, digg, flag, and rate your site and your material. These are the signals that the search engines will be watching for to rate your site for ranking in searches.

2010 will require that you stir up those creative juices, stimulate your creative teams, try new things, explore new social sites, explore and engage. Tweet freely, link lavishly, and share great content where ever and whenever possible!

You have seen war and military movies and seen soldiers squawking on their radios "10-4" and "over and out". This is real military radio protocol. I have a client who answers emails with 10-4 and this got me to thinking about email as it continues to be the main communications mode in getting business done. Faster than a letter, more efficient than a phone call and allows for documentation if you save your emails.

Ever wonder how many emails you send and receive in any given day during the course of business?
We are all multi-tasking, texting and im'ing so fast that proper spelling and even social etiquette gets abbreviated. Every email doesn’t need an answer but there is another person on the other end of the correspondence left to wonder if you got the email and read it. Email has its strengths and its weaknesses. One challenge is the spam box and the other is competing with volume and a busy executive’s attention.

Sometimes I don’t reply right away because I have to focus on what I am doing, I am preoccupied in a meeting or on a conference call or I make a mental note to address it later and it gets filed and risks falling into a black hole of my brain that doesn’t see daylight often.

As a child of a military pilot I watched my dad speak on the phone with “yes sir” and other military formalities. We also occasionally got to speak to him through radio transmissions while he was in the cockpit flying to or from missions. Those conversations were always marked with phrases that seemed stiff and awkward to me as a child, such as “10-4” meaning he got our transmission and instead of saying good-bye, we got “over and out”.

The point was that each and every communication was acknowledged as received and even though the language sounded awkward, it in fact was useful to know that through the crackling of the radio he heard us and the message was received and understood.

My client who acknowledges every email I send with and immediate “10-4” is effective as often nothing else need be said. He got the email message, understood it and we move forward. I love it! When you are knee deep in a project and the emails are flying back and forth with information relevant to the project, it is helpful to know that the message was received and read. You move onto the next issue or topic and the flow of the project smoothly continues. Although the message may appear to be lacking in etiquette and formality of thank you very much, it gets the job done and I find it oddly comforting. Maybe because of my upbringing, maybe because I hold some jealousy that I cannot incorporate “10-4” but am left to struggle with wordy thank-you and awkward replies that I find difficult to text out on my phone. 10-4 would be so much easier. I have resorted to THX or THNX on an occasion and often wonder if that has the same impact as 10-4.

Do you acknowledge someone’s email when no real reply is needed and if so, please let us know what phrase or words you use?

Now this is a list I can get enthusiastic about!

Everything is about lists these days. Shopping lists, to-do lists, Twitter lists and on and on. Twitter introduced lists and all though there seemed to be a lot of tweeting,news articles and blogs about it, I still fail to see the value other than a popularity contest with search engine ramifications.

I can get excited about my to-do list as I cross things off and I feel like I am accomplishing things, and even my shopping list holds some excitement as my hopes of coming home and not facing the sinking feeling that I am left without the thing or things that I forgot to purchase – key survival items such as coffee, toilet paper or dog food.

But now another list has appeared that gives me cause to get excited. Facebook has had lists but now they enhanced the feature so that as you post an update you can actually choose who sees that post! Isn’t that terrific? So if your Facebook friends are family members, business associates, lovers, neighbors or maybe bridge club groups, you can post and decide who sees what! That is a useful tool if you use it! You can even customize the list to be sure that you have segmented all your groups.

If you were worried about getting onto Facebook because you didn’t know what you could say that would be all right for everyone to see, problem solved! Come on in – it is safe now.

Thanksgiving Dinner with the family and the food and laughter was flying. One would think that I would have been engrossed in the banter and sweet corn soufflé while digging through turkey and all the trimmings. But my mind kept wandering to what Thanksgiving is about on so many levels.

1. A time of thanks and acknowledging all that I have to be grateful for from family and friends to mentors and business associates and all of the blessings in my life.
2. The beginning of the end of the year and the long list of what has to get done to meet the year end goals and commitments.
3. The long list of year end tasks such as holiday greetings, gifts, bonuses, and the closing of the books.
4. The list of projects with year-end completion dates.
5. The list of pending projects that should be closed before year end.
6. The list of things to be launched first quarter 2010.
7. The dusty list of things that need to get done around the house that kept getting put off for a time when there is more time.

And time marches on. Seeing my nieces and nephews – taller, more mature and getting adult like characters was an eye opener. As I sat on Amtrak for nearly three hours on my return journey from Baltimore to New York City all of these thoughts ran through my mind. The lists, the memories and the family around the dinner table provided the perfect wash over the concept of balance. There doesn’t seem to be enough hours in a day or days in a week and yet when I reflect on what we have accomplished, it is impressive.

Typical of any entrepreneur, I ask myself if impressive is good enough and where can I find more hours in the day or better efficiencies in the process. This year has been a very good year for us. We out did ourselves in 2009 and the goals we have set for 2010 are challenging. And so the race is on to close the year out, to get properly aligned to launch 2010 with adjustments from lessons learned, changes to keep up with evolving trends, focus on improved processes and balance.

With less than 20 days remaining in 2009 what can we accomplish? I am counting on a lot! I would love to hear how you are facing the last few weeks of 2009 and the plans you have for 2010.

One evening, two great Social Media Marketing talents. This past Thursday night I was privileged to be a guest at EO24 where Chris Brogan and Peter Shankman sat in overstuffed living room styled chairs and spoke to a group of entrepreneurs from NY’s Chapter of EO.

Chris and Peter have such different styles that at first I was surprised to see them together but they worked really well with one another. It was apparent that they trusted and respected one another and I can only assume that they know each other personally as well. Chris is Mr. Mellow and Peter is – well, Peter is Mr. Hyper, both are polite and considerate, both have a wonderful sense of humor and generous mindsets, and both are icons to everyone in the Social Media Marketing and PR worlds.

Chris’s recent book co authored by Julien Smith, TRUST AGENTS is one that I put on the must read list months ago. I have given this book out to clients, prospects and attendees at my workshops. Social Media is so misunderstood and misused and this book is one of the best that I have read that delivers the message that the key ingredient to Social Media – is the SOCIAL! If misused as a broadcast system, you are sure to be frustrated with lackluster results and can even risk being shut out all together.

Some of the highlights or key points that they drove home last night are:

GROW BIGGER EARS. You should be listening to what is being said about your company, your competitors, your clients, and your industry. Peter shared a story about being stranded on a Delta flight and although he tweeted continually, called and reached out, no one from Delta was listening or concerned. However, Southwest contacted him and got a bus over to move the passengers to their flights and honored their tickets. So who do you think all of those passengers are going to book flights with next?

GIVE FIRST. Chris and Peter both encouraged that you give first and give value. If you want to attract attention your generosity needs to be real. Helping others is an open invitation to engage and build trust.
FORGET B2B or B2C. This is about people, not companies. Be a person, talk to people. It is people that make decisions not companies.

RESPOND. If you are listening, and people reach out to you, you need to respond. Developing relationships requires dialogue. Be polite, be real, and be gracious.

WE ARE ALL CITIZEN JOURNALISTS. Peter used this term and it is a powerful message. News is now transmitted instantly by pedestrians and product and service reviews are instantly generated by customers. Are you listening?

These are just some of the key notes from last night. To learn more – read the book TRUST AGENTS. I promise you it will be worth the read.

You can now stream your Twitter feed into LinkedIn. That is the latest hot news and the chatter about this new feature is getting a lot of attention. However I caution you that this might not be a good thing. LinkedIn members might not appreciate a flood of tweets. It might be a good idea if used strategically. They probably felt pressured to catch up with Facebook, Plaxo and other networking sites.

But is this really necessary? Think before you pull your Twitter stream into LinkedIn. If you tweet a lot this might not be appreciated by your network. When people agreed to link to you, is this what they signed up for? Believe it or not, not everyone is a fan of Twitter and the interactions on LinkedIn tend to be more group driven. That means join groups on LinkedIn, post questions, answer questions, comment on posts, and start a dialogue. If you think one of your connections would benefit from a particular group you joined – suggest to them that they join as well but not everyone is going to have the same interests so be selective, keep it relevant to the person you are connecting with. Don’t treat them all the same.

Don’t lose site of the purpose of social media. Social media is to ENGAGE not ENRAGE with a pounding stream of marketing messages. If you are planning on making the Twitter-LinkedIn connection and your tweets are plentiful and useless, you can bet your bottom dollar that I will be unlinking real soon.

Think before you Link! How will your LinkedIn audience react?

I was recently asked to speak to a group of executives and business owners as an inspirational keynote. This invitation came completely out of left field. I speak publically on marketing and social media, but inspiration? I said YES without any hesitation even though in the meanwhile my heart stopped beating and my head felt like it was going to explode.

I do have a personal story. It is not something I share or bring into my business world except with those I come exceedingly close with. This may come from a fear of being judged or classified in some way or from the possibility that it would chip away at the professional persona of successful bliss.

I keep my personal life and my professional life separate. The line does blur now and again but I avoid telling my story. So now I am going to be standing front and center in a room, in front of executives from large and small companies telling a very personal story. Am I an inspiration? Am I an inspirational keynote? This is so far out of my comfort zone and yet part of what I am supposed to convey in this speech is that stepping out of your comfort zone is exactly what you need to do. To this end, I’ll need to offer up my story as an inspirational example.

So what is the point to this blog entry? It is about getting out of your comfort zone. Now I don’t know what is going to happen as a result of this speech, but I do know that for the past 15 plus years I have had to continually step outside of any comfort zone to take the next steps. Personal growth, growing the company and my own professional growth have all required stepping into fearful moments. Some big steps and some small steps have required that I step off that solid platform in the safety zone and step out into an uncertain field to play an uncertain role.

It isn’t often that I sit back and say wow, what was I afraid of? But the truth is that we all often step out with our fears rather than step out of our fears. There is a difference. If you lead with fear you are weak, if you step out of the fear and trust, you lead with power and thereby empower others. Don’t let fear stop you and don’t take it with you. Let fear be the indicator that you are about to experience change, and possibly growth. I think this is what is meant when you hear someone profess ‘embrace your fears’.

This is when I think of my dad. He was a pilot for 30 years in the military. A fighter pilot in WWII and a C130 Troop Transport pilot for two tours in Vietnam - that is over 4 years. He flew into battles where people were shooting at him with the intention of killing him. I always wondered how he did that day in and day out for so many years. I heard him say once in an interview “when I stepped out onto the tarmac I had to leave everything I cared about behind and just focus on flying”.

Innovators and game changers all have this inherently scary scenario in common. They must step onto the tarmac and focus on the mission. So if you are sitting tight, fearful of any choice or decision you are contemplating – just tell yourself that fear is good – it will keep your senses sharp and get on with what you know you have to do. Good luck and may your spirit soar.