Internet Marketing Help for Business Owners - Blog

Why Your Business Needs to be Socializing More: Interview with Zeke Camusio

Thu, 22 Apr 2010 10:34:35 -0800

By Jim Gibson – Publisher, Online Media Today

As a part of Online Media Today’s continuing effort to share valuable internet marketing education with business owners, while, at the same time, allowing our readers to gain a little more insight into the personalities of professionals in our industry, we are pleased to introduce internet marketing expert, Zeke Camusio.

Zeke is a serial entrepreneur, Internet marketing expert, published author, speaker and CEO & founder of The Outsourcing Company. His company provides a full range of internet marketing services including social media marketing, search engine optimization, pay per click and conversion rate optimization. But Zeke’s real passion lies in helping business owners realize tremendous returns using enterprise social media as a low cost marketing channel and community building platform.

Looking like he just stepped off the cover of GQ (are all the social media pros like this? I cite Mashable’s Cashmore, WebSeries, Mbariket, etc.), I recently sat down with Zeke and discussed how and why local business owners should consider incorporating a social media strategy.

Zeke Camusio - CEO & Founder, The Outsourcing Company

OMT: How important is social media for smaller business owners?

ZC: It's very important. Most small business owners don't have a lot of capital but they have some free time. Social media is free and all it takes is time, so it's a great match.

OMT: What is the most important first step for a small local business that is considering a social media strategy?

ZC: Let's say that you do the taxes for small businesses in Seattle. The first step is to understand who your audience is (business owners in Seattle). The second step is to find out where these people are (look for Seattle small business message boards, LinkedIn groups, Facebook groups, etc.). The third step is to understand what they need (advice on how to pay less in taxes maybe?). Once you know who your audience is, where they can be found and what they want, all there is left to do is for you to give them what they want.

OMT: How has social media changed the way businesses market online?

ZC: Never before in history was it possible for a business owner to reach thousands of qualified prospects for free.

OMT: How does blogging fit into a social media strategy?

ZC: Your blog should be the hub of your social media campaign. Invite people to your blog for more content and on your blog, tell people how they can follow you, subscribe to your content and share it with their friends.

OMT: For a business just starting a social media strategy, which social media platforms would you recommend focusing on to start?

ZC: Start with LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Use forums too. If you want to do videos, YouTube is a must.

OMT: What metrics should a business owner consider when measuring social media ROI?

ZC: There are a lot of metrics but there is one that is more important than all the others combined: profits. Ask your clients how they found you and segment your profits by marketing campaign. Write down how many hours you've worked doing social media marketing and assign a dollar value to each hour. That will allow you to see how much money social media cost you and how much you got in return. Don't expect social media to be profitable the first month. Commit to it for at least six months if you want to see real results.

OMT: Can social media be integrated into traditional marketing campaigns? How?

ZC: It's all connected. Someone finds you on Google, sees your Twitter badge on your site and decides to follow you. A week later, he re-tweets one of your posts, his friend sees it and she happens to be a journalist. She thinks your company is really cool and writes a story in the local paper. Someone reads that story and markets your company through word of mouth. I could go on and on... It's all connected and you couldn't separate it no matter how hard you tried.

OMT: Where do you see your company in the next 5 years?

We don't want to grow much more. We're happy helping only 30 clients make a lot of money. I like working with people who appreciate the fact that we help them skyrocket their sales, and that's hard to do if you have 100 clients.

I love consulting projects because I can create step-by-step Internet marketing plans for business owners to follow and it doesn't require a lot of ongoing work from me. This way, I can help a lot of companies instead of just a few. In five years, I see myself doing a lot more consulting work and a lot less campaign management.

OMT: What area of online marketing that you are currently not servicing do you see your company moving towards in the next 3-5 years?

ZC: We won't add any more services. We believe in doing less, not more. That way, we can be the best at what we do.

OMT: What are your company’s core strengths?

ZC: We're business people. We understand it isn't about "having 10,000 Facebook friends" or just being first on Google. It's all about increasing profits. Our goal is to make our clients at least $3 for every dollar they invest in marketing.

OMT: What is your company’s primary product/service and what makes it unique?

ZC: We do Search Engine Optimization and Social Media Marketing. What makes us unique is that we measure profits, not just traffic. Driving qualified people to your site is important, but converting them into paying clients is even more important. We think as business owners, not IT people.

OMT: Relative to what you are doing today, what is your educational background?

ZC: I went to business school, but 95% of what I know I learned from trial and error, reading books, going to seminars and talking to mentors. Business school was great to network with link-minded people but the lessons they taught me there rarely apply to the real world.

OMT: What is your professional background?

ZC: I'm a serial entrepreneur. I've started seven Internet companies and I've helped over 200 business owners to grow theirs.

OMT: How long have you been involved in social media marketing?

ZC: Four years.

OMT: Do you have a mentor or someone who influenced you tremendously in your life? Is there someone who is an influence in your industry?

ZC: I have two mentors but they asked me not to tell who they are because they're really busy and don't have time for more "students" at the moment. People whom I really admire in my industry: Rand Fishkin, Aaron Wall, Eric Ward and Lee Odden. I'm sure I'm missing at least 20 people I really look up to.

OMT: Tell us something unique about yourself.

ZC: I'm weird! I travel all over the world doing the most incredible things. I spend a lot of time reading. I love sports. I don't talk much. I work too much sometimes. I'm still trying to figure out what I can do to make this world a better place.

If you are an industry professional and would like to be considered by the publishers of Online Media Today for an interview for our blog, please email us at: info@onlinemediatoday.com. One of our staff will get right back to you to set up the interview. If you are in Los Angeles and want to be included in our Spotlight Video Series, please let us know and we'll send a video crew out to conduct the interview.

About the Author:

Jim Gibson is a certified search engine marketing professional and serial entrepreneur. In addition to Online Media Today, Jim is a principal at GibSEM Group (http://www.gibsem.com) and has founded several internet properties including online B2C directory, Service Omni, Inc. (http://www.serviceomni.com) and QuakeDog, Inc. (www.quakedog.com), a network marketing company focused on the sale of personal survival gear. You can follow Jim on Twitter: @GibSEM.

Ready, Set, Go! Guide to Getting Started on Twitter

Thu, 15 Apr 2010 14:43:23 -0800

By Pauline Monot – Content Manager, Online Media Today

After reading my previous article summarizing the 5 reasons why you shouldn’t be afraid of becoming a new Twitter user, I hope you’ve made up your mind to start tweeting. Yet, even after reading my last post, some of you might ask how you should proceed. Well, there are simple steps to follow. The most important things to remember when reviewing each of these First Steps to Using Twitter is to always think like you would have when developing new face-to-face relationships.

Below are the steps I recommend following when starting on Twitter:

Learn the Basics: If you know little about Twitter, now is a good time to familiarize yourself with some of the basics and the terminology used in the twitter-verse.

Define Your Goals: You first have to determine your Twitter strategy. Twitter enables to reach a wide variety of goals. Above all, be focused. Ask yourself these questions: “What do I want to accomplish with Twitter? Which benefits do I expect from Twitter? Will I use Twitter to market my services or simply as a tool to establish myself as an industry thought leader? To be successful, which niche(s) do I have to target?” Here is the trick: even if your goals are professional, keep mentions of your personal life to occasions similar to when you would do so in the course of your normal business life.

Create Your Profile: The next thing is to jump right in and create your Twitter account. Then, establish your identity making it consistent with your strategy: fill out your name, your bio, your website, and make sure to upload your picture (Tip: know your audience and make sure your picture represents the image you want to portray). Few will want to follow you without a picture so make sure you give some thought to this. I don’t recommend it but you can always use an avatar if you are not as comfortable with a personal photo. You might also use your company logo instead. Having a personalized background is also of utmost importance to grab people’s attention. Twitter includes basic online tools that help you to do create backgrounds that fit your personality. If Twitter template leave you unsatisfied, have a look at other Twitter backgrounds to help inspire you. Social media expert, Tamar Weinberg’s, background is one of my favorites:

Tamar Weinberg's Twitter Page

Find People to Follow and to be Followed by: There are two basic types of Twitter users: the broadcasters, like marketers (and some famous people), who only push out content, and the communicators, those with whom you can expect a 2-way conversation and whose numbers of followings are more or less equal to the number of followers.

As a first step consider follow friends, then celebrities, and finally people you may not know but who are identified as people who may be interested in your subject matter. When just starting out, a good rule of thumb is not to exceed more than 20 followers. Try to mix both some broadcasters and communicators but try to avoid pushing too much of the broadcasters tweets out to the communicators in your network. Some useful online tools like WeFollow enable you to search followers according to specific criteria (industry,subject matter, etc.), but be prepared to see that many of the results will be focused more on the broadcasters.

Google proves to be a powerful tool when it comes to finding great people to follow. Tip: to find the tweets related to your target and local geography, type in the Google search field: “specific interest” “geography” site:twitter.com”. For example, if you type sailing "Los Angeles" site:twitter.com, you will find a list of people interested in the sailing community who live in the greater Los Angeles Area.

Google Search Example

There are also other search options on Google.

Find People to be Followed by: the good thing is that you’ve already found your first followers! Indeed, some of them will decide to follow you back. Don’t worry so much if you don’t get each of them to follow you back. And also don’t forget to thank each person who follows you by sending them a personal message. You can also use your personal note of thanks to remind him/her of your goals at that time.

Listen and Get Informed of what is being said within the niche(s) you have targeted. Start reading your followers tweets and, if they have linked to an article (likely on their website or blog), make sure to read that as well. Learn what they are all about, understand what they are interested in, and how you can add value by either re-tweeting their tweets or even posting a response on their blog. This is a tremendous opportunity to engage with your followers in personal ways. Remember, social networking is largely ego driven. People want to know they are being heard. Take time to tell them what you think and you’ll be surprised at how quickly they will start to listen to what you have to say (and re-tweet your posts!).

Then Start to Interact with your Audience Before Your First Tweet. As stated above, re-tweet some relevant tweets and make sure to thank your followers for a relevant link they provide you.

Now you are ready for Your First Tweets! Start asking questions, help others by pushing their tweets out to your followers and provide feedback when it’s relevant. Tip: At first don’t tweet too much and don’t use the @ sign too often (the @ sign will be discussed in my next post).

The thing is to be patient. Don’t be too eager to tweet. You should know that it will probably take at least three months to build both an audience and a reputation. But, by following these simple steps, you can count on developing relationships with people who will help you accomplish your goals on Twitter.

Tell us about your first experiences on Twitter? How long did it take you to build an audience? What is your feedback about the methods described in this article? Did any of these tips work for you or do you have others to recommend? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

About the Author

Pauline Monot is the Content Manager and oversees Online Media Today's overall content strategy. A professional management consultant, Pauline graduated from Ecole Centrale de Lyon, a top-10 ranked French engineering and management school. She has spent her lenghty consulting career working abroad with a variety of Fortune 100 companies. Pauline segued her extensive background in leading critical business process mission into new areas such as Public Relations and online marketing. Pauline is a native of Paris, France and has recently relocated with her husband from Western Europe to Pasadena, California.

Webseries Network Grows Through Social Media and Video

Wed, 14 Apr 2010 21:25:31 -0800

By Jim Gibson - Publisher, Online Media Today

Rich Mbariket is the founder of Webseriesnetwork.com, a site that keeps visitors fully immersed and informed of current events in the emerging web series video culture. According to Mbariket, the site is the most frequently updated web series news site in the world. Mbariket uses video and social media extensively and blogs daily (and often many times within each day) in order to keep the site fresh with content for his viewers who thirst for the latest scoop in web series TV.

The Fastest Growing Site Devoted to Web Series TV

Rich Mbariket - Founder, Webseriesnetwork.com

In our first installment of our new Spotlight Series, I sat down with Rich Mbariket, to talk about his growing community that connects worldwide audiences to news and information aimed at a fast-growing internet phonomena - Web Series TV. A quaint Los Angeles café (Nats Early Bite Coffee Shop) served as a backdrop to an interview that lasted a little over an hour and gave Online Media Today some insight into how Web Series Network leverages the power of social media and how Rich uses guerilla video to build a vast community around this trendy topic.

Mbariket is active on the social web and uses Twitter, Facebook and Youtube to engage his extensive audience. This affable entrepreneur with model-like looks and charming personality was kind enough to share some of his experiences (and secrets to his success) in our interview. Here is a condensed version of our extensive discussion on how Web Series Network uses social media and video to promote their business.

Check out the cool behind the scenes look at yesterday’s video shoot. A special thanks to RMA Productions and Flip Video for helping make this interview happen. Stay tuned for next weeks Spotlight Series installment. We're headed over to Pasadena to interview a big name retailer and social media maverick.

If you are a Los Angeles business owner who is interested in being profiled in Online Media Today’s Spotlight Series, shoot us an email and we’ll call you to discuss getting your business profiled on our blog and our YouTube Channel.

Business Owners to Business Owners: Spotlight Series Debut

Fri, 09 Apr 2010 10:21:39 -0800

By Jim Gibson – Publisher, Online Media Today

To people who are already familiar with us, Online Media Today is known for our dedication to local business owners everywhere. As our mission states, we are focused on providing internet marketing education to local business owners in unique and highly personalized ways. From our digital magazine to our area live workshops, OMT delivers actionable advice for companies looking to increase their visibility online.

More importantly, we strive to develop more personality in our approach to education by sharing not only what we’ve experienced as business owners – both in success and in failure – but also through sharing what other businesses (like yours) have learned from their online marketing efforts.

We know there is a tremendous amount of information out there however it’s not until businesses connect with businesses – and, in the process, share their experiences, will we all achieve our marketing goals. Yes there are a great many professionals in our space who can deliver great advice but we’ve found that business owners who are actually “doing it” possess a vast treasure trove of information that can help those just getting started.

That’s why we’ve decided to launch our new Spotlight Series. Online Media Today is lining up a variety of local businesses who have agreed to share their story, and their experiences, using online marketing as a new way to connect with customers and build new online communities. We applaud those who have agreed to help others learn more about online marketing and look forward to sharing their stories with you in future blog posts.

We invite you to check back regularly to see who we feature in our next Spotlight Series.

If you are interested in sharing your story, shoot us an email: info@onlinemediatoday.com. If you own a local business in LA and want to be interviewed on video, let us know and we’ll arrange to send a reporter out to your location.

Don’t Confuse Twitter with the Lottery

Wed, 07 Apr 2010 11:41:08 -0800

By Jim Gibson – Publisher, Online Media Today

Lately, I’ve been hearing a lot of grumbling from people who use Twitter who say that it’s a complete waste of time. With Twitter constantly in the news and so many people talking about it being the holy grail of social networking, it’s no wonder the immensely popular micro-blogging site has gained so much attention. Yet, you don’t have to look far to find a bevy of disenchanted Twitter users who claim the social networking site is not worth the bandwidth (both physical and mental) it consumes.

The fact of the matter is, if used correctly, Twitter represents an incredible opportunity to engage with potential customers in unprecedented ways. We all know the lottery is a game of chance with immensely challenging odds. But the problem is far too many think that just because they started tweeting, they’ve won the lottery and are immediately due the riches, in reality, only a few lucky will ever receive.

Twitter, or for that matter, any other social network, is not the lottery. Like baking a your grandmothers famous pound cake, Twitter calls for special ingredients such as patience, thoughtful consideration and a great deal of consistency. Add a little personality to the mix and you have the recipe that will make even the most ardent food critics writhe with envy.

Let’s start with the power of one and ask this simple question: If you, as a business owner, were able to use social media to influence one person to buy your product (or better yet, become a lifelong customer), would you be inclined to explore how to use social media more effectively? I thought you’d say “heck yeah!”.

Well, this is great since Twitter is really about the number one. Distilled down to the most basic element, Twitter is about connecting with one. That is, one person – not “people” – but person. That’s where so many get confused and ultimately see their Twitter experience go off the rails. The problem starts when new users think they need to immediately compete with the big boys and get the most followers in the shortest amount of time. Don’t get me wrong, Twitter is ultimately a numbers game and “people” do factor into a good recipe for success. But if you start off thinking “people” and not “person”, your strategy will lack the foundation that delivers sustainable results. Worse yet, you’ll likely become highly discouraged and quit altogether.

Let me try to explain this vis a vie my own experiences with Twitter. I started using Twitter a little over a year ago and quickly fell into the “people” trap. Against the advice of my colleague (incidentally, a guy who doesn’t even know that much about enterprise social networking), I started following as many people as I could. Blindly I went about my business of clicking follow, follow, follow… not paying attention to whom I was following but just after the numbers alone.

Pretty soon I hit the mystical 2,000 threshold imposed by Twitter and was forced to invoke new tactics. I started looking at who wasn’t following me back and un-ceremoniously “un-followed” them. That opened up some room for me to add more – which I did but this time I paid money to some fly-by-night service that promised thousands of new followers in days. It took me a little while but before I knew it, I had over 15,000 followers!

“I’m set!”, said I. “Now I can start broadcasting my message and sit back and reap the rewards”, or so I thought.   The problem was, most of my followers ended up being people just like me – marketers (since learned this is such an ugly word in social media circles) who’s only mission in life was to achieve the highest follower count as quickly as possible and to broadcast every conceivable “get rich” scam known to man. Although I felt I had a valuable message, I was immediately lumped into the marketer category and soon learned I wasn’t connecting with anyone – other than other marketers who weren’t interested in my message to begin with.

How did I know this? I only had to look to my website analytics for the answers. There they were, clear as day. For referrals from Twitter, my visitors’ average on site time was less than 30 seconds and my bounce rate was close to 95%! In online marketing speak, I was a virtual pariah.

Disgruntled, discouraged and otherwise disillusioned, I joined the Twitter bash party.

But then I found the power of one. I went back to the drawing board but not before I accepted the fact that Twitter is about person, not people. The first thing I did was to start going through my followers and weeding out those that I felt were really not interested in connecting with me.   Like real life relationship building, I carefully reviewed follower profiles to determine which ones I thought might be a person I could really connect (and resonate) with. It took me a long time to do this (my penance for prior egregious behavior) but soon found my follower count whittled down to a manageable number. More importantly, the quality of my followers was now at a premium.

Next, I picked one follower who seemed interesting (and who might be interested in what I had to say) and began re-tweeting their tweets, commenting on their blog and ##FollowFriday’ing them. Before I knew it, they recognized me and starting returning the favor. I picked a few more and started repeating the process. Before I knew it, I had a bunch of new connections who were listening to what I had to say. More importantly, their followers started following me and sending me @ messages with positive feedback.

As of today, I have a great following on Twitter and regularly receive and share great information with my audience. I’ve even been included in a variety of authority lists where my tweets are pushed out to even greater numbers of people by those who endorse my messages. My website analytics are breaking new records each day and, although I don’t sell anything on my site (blog), my KPIs are constantly being met and/or exceeded. I do offer free video SEO tips and the number of opt-ins has steadily increased over time.

Look, you don’t have to start off being a Rock-Star on Twitter. As a business owner, you don’t have to be Coca Cola or FedEx or Best Buy. You just have to be yourself go about your business building customers one at a time. Save your money for more lottery tickets but as far as Twitter goes, be the “Person” you want to meet and you’ll enjoy great success on Twitter.

5 Reasons Why you Should not be Afraid of Becoming a New Twitter User

Tue, 06 Apr 2010 11:02:46 -0800

By Pauline Monot - Content Manager, Online Media Today

Launched in July 2006, Twitter is now one of the trendiest social media sites, with around 75 million users according to Computer World. You may still not be one of them, but for sure, you’ve no doubt heard experts discuss the benefits you can take from Twitter to help market your business online. Maybe you are afraid of taking the plunge when everybody around you seems already familiar with it.

Well, you shouldn’t be and here’s why.

First Twitter is a very approachable social media tool. On top of that, here are the 5 reasons why you don’t have to be worried about getting into the Twitter game:

There are newcomer’s everyday

Don’t think you are the only one who is not totally familiar with twitter. Although Twitters astronomical growth has flat lined in recent months (7.8 million new users last July alone), the micro social network still attracts an average of 6.2 million new users a month. Industry pundits may be spelling doom and gloom for Twitter however according to web analysts HubSpot, average users now have more followers (300, compared to about 70 in July), follow more feeds (170, compared to 45 in July) and have sent more tweets (420 during the life of their account, compared to 120 in July).

Tweeter is a forgiving place

According to HubSpot, Twitter boasts over 50 million tweets everyday (that’s over 600 tweets per second!). Moreover, the flow of content is constantly dynamic in the sense that only the most recent tweets are displayed on one’s Twitter home page. Thus, in just a matter of seconds, your tweet will be lost in the middle of the ocean of other’s tweets. Bottom line: It’s not a big deal if your first tweets are a bit clumsy. There’s no time like the present to jump in and get your feet wet!

Twitter is a place to hang out

The two most common real-life metaphors about twitter compare it either to a cocktail party or to neighborhood cafe. It’s a place where you will find both friends and people you may not know. It’s a place where you will hear diversified topics. It’s place where people mix the professional and personal angles. If a conversation going on around you seems interesting, you first listen to it, and then join it if you can add value to the topic.

The same etiquette applies on Twitter than in the real life

There is one main thing you have to know about social media, and more particularly, Twitter: behave like you would in regular “face-to-face” relationships. Simply put, find a common ground to begin exchanging ideas and let the relationship grow as it would in real life. If you already apply this approach in real world encounters, you are already practicing Twitter etiquette. Know this, it’s all about creating value, and by listening and reciprocating in context, you will be helping each other and gaining lasting connections along the way. There are a huge number of posts describing Twitter etiquette (some of them being exhaustive, other more focused on the main rules). Read them… I bet nothing said will surprise you.

It’s not a big deal if you are not an expert in one week.

Twitter is about building relationships in a slow and logical manner. It takes time to create a following/follower network and a conscious effort to increase your reputation online. A good rule is to test out different strategies to find the one that works for you. You can’t be a Twitter expert in a short time. But that’s the great thing about Twitter: you don’t have to! Every tweep (i.e., a person using Twitter) has experienced this learning curve. Even the most successful ones started slow.

What about you? When did you start to tweet? What kind of fears did you have before starting to tweet and that prove to be false? Do you also think it is not a big deal if you are a newbie? What example can you give that illustrate the cafe neighborhood twitter metaphor? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

5 Burning Questions (Part II): Which Blog Platform Should I Use?

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 14:19:27 -0800

By Jim Gibson – Publisher, Online Media Today

Being that I am an intense hockey fan, it only seemed fitting to take a page from my friends at NHL Home Ice (thanks Boomer!) and adapt their regular feature to the world of online marketing.

Last week, I posted the first in a series of blog articles in what we hope will become a regular component of our blog - our “5 Burning Questions”. The article titled “Love Your Blog” naturally focused on blogging and was geared towards those new to blogging in general. I discussed the increased use of blogs for business and in asking the first of the 5 Burning Questions, “Why Blog?”, outlined what I feel are a few great reasons why it’s so important to get in the game now.

This week, we’re going one step further and answering the next important question: Which Blog Platform Should I Use?

Since there are quite a few blog platforms available, each with unique advantages (and disadvantages), I have broken them down to hosted vs private hosted applications. This article will focus on two of the most well known hosted blog platforms Blogger and TypePad and will discuss features and benefits of both.

Blogger

If you’re just starting out and want a really quick way to get your blog up and running, then Blogger is for you. As one of the first dedicated blog-publishing tools, Google’s free blog platform can be set-up in minutes (no downloading required) and doesn’t require a great deal of technical expertise to manage. Blogger offers a modest degree of customization and provides a variety of template designs that help to create blogs on the fly.

One of the great things about Blogger is its’ drag-and-drop page elements and its support of photo management. Users with little to no technical experience can easily click and drag on-page elements and link to photos (Hosted on Google’s Picasa); making it very easy to manage your blog. Although Blogger is a hosted service where your URL is a sub-domain of Blog*Spot (e.g., myblog.blogspot.com), you can also have your blog point to your own top level domain (e.g., myblog.com).

Blogger also supports online community building by adding a Followers gadget to your blog, allowing visitor Feedback and a blog feed subscription so readers are notified whenever you publish a new blog post. In addition, Blogger offers advanced MoBlogging features that allows you to post to your blog from your mobile phone.

There are, though, some potential downsides to using Blogger. Depending on your business goals and anticipated traffic growth, Blogger can be somewhat limited. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a critical factor in promoting your blog and requires certain features that are not available in Blogger. Blogger doesn’t support the effective use of Tags, RSS and well known 3rd party SEO plug-ins and therefore limits users’ ability to leverage key SEO components that help to drive organic traffic to your blog. Another downside is the in-ability to pass page rank up to your company’s main URL – in other words, even if you were to link your main company website to your Blog*Spot URL, the content you generate on your new blog will not help your main websites page rank with Google.

One more thing while we’re on the subject of negatives. If you think you’ll need support, other than browsing online FAQs or random help forums, there isn’t much in the way of live person help. But if all you need is a basic and simple-to-start blog tool to communicate with your customers, share helpful information about your products or services, then Blogger can be a useful platform and an effective way to quickly get into the world of blogging. In other words, if your goals are modest, then Blogger can help.

Blogger vs TypePad

TypePad

TypePad is the second of the two hosted solutions we’ll discuss and provides blog owners with a wide array of advanced tools to help make for a more effective blog platform. Originally launched in 2003 by Six Apart, Ltd., TypePad is a subscription service ($9-$90/mo) and is based on the company’s Moveable Type platform (more about that in the next article) and shares many of the great features that have made Moveable Type so popular amongst tech enthusiasts. Primarily marketed to non-technical users, TypePad offers a great deal of flexibility and tremendous ease of use. Like Blogger, TypePad provides Point, Click & Publish technology that makes starting a blog a snap.

Other features include the ability to incorporate templates or for more sophisticated users, the opportunity to fully customize your blogs’ look and feel (HTML, CSS & JavaScript). If your goal is to optimize your website for search engines, TypePad gives users full control over SEO and even feeds your content directly to search engines for you! Moblogging is a standard feature as well as the ability to integrate advertising, widgets, podcasts and direct social media connections.

Another great feature TypePad employs is the ability to add traditional web pages to your blog. With TypePad, you can now turn your blog into a fully functional website with standalone pages that describe your company, your products and services, FAQs and other helpful website content.

If you want to make money with your blog, TypePad offers blog owners ways to incorporate ecommerce and advertising into blogs. TypePad blogs can connect with Amazon, eBay and PayPal or serves contextual ads from Google and/or Yahoo. You can even join the Six Apart Advertising Program and control the ads that are served on your blog.

Although TypePad is a simple point and click, hosted blog platform, don’t let that fool you. This blog service is used by many large corporations and media companies to host their weblog. Among the most notable, GE, Coca Cola, Rubbermaid, ABC, MSNBC, and the Los Angeles Times each employ TypePad as their primary blog. TypePad is a great service for companies both small and large and, for the price, offers the greatest degree of control of any of the current hosted blog solutions.

My next blog post will round out the most popular blog solutions as I delve into the private-hosted blog platforms. If you have any comments or thoughts I may have missed in this article, feel free to leave a comment below.

Hashtags: 7 Twitter Tools to Help you Find the Most Popular Tweet Trends

Mon, 29 Mar 2010 09:39:58 -0800

By Pauline Monot – Content Manager, Online Media Today

As I outlined in my last blog post “An Introduction on the Use of Hashtags on Twitter”, hashtags are becoming more and more popular on Twitter. Indeed, they prove to be powerful tools to keep abreast of what is being said in particular communities and also to extend your reach on Twitter. Any business owner, even those with limited online visibility, can leverage hashtags to improve communications with followers and even help to promote their brand.

Yet, success ultimately hinges on choosing the most appropriate hashtags. When it comes to monitoring online communications, a good hashtag enables you to lock into what is being said and ride the coat-tails of current trends within your community. As for your own tweets, choosing the right hashtag allows you to quickly grab your audience’s attention and gives people the ability to easily follow popular topics.

Fortunately you don’t have to look far for great hashtag resources. The easiest way to find some of the trendiest hashtags is by looking at your main Twitter dashboard (in the panel along the right side of your main Twitter page). The hashtag resources listed below can help you find some of the hottest tweet trends on Twitter. NOTE: these sites are constantly updated as new trends are identified so make sure to check often for new hashtag ideas.

The following sites offer some of the most prominent tools that can help you in your quest to find the best hashtags.

Twitter Search

Twitter Search

A basic tool that helps you track some of the most prominent hashtags is Twitter search. If your need is confined to finding the most current and most trendy hashtags as well as to read relevant Tweets, then this site should work for you. If your expectations are higher, than you will have to use some Twitter third-party tools.

#Hashtags

#Hashtags is best at helping you to monitor the frequency of a particular hashtag you are studying. Also #hashtags shows you the trendiest hashtags (less than 10) of the moment, but you might be better off trusting some of the other tools listed below for that particular aim.

Wthhastag

Wthashtag.com proves to be the Wikipedia of the hashtags. It provides a lot of information about a hashtag (meaning, date of the 1st use, context, etc…). It also shows you a short list of the trendiest hashtags based on the time period you are interested in (last 2 hours? 7 days?), as well as some of the most recent ones.

What The Trend

Whatthetrend

What the Trend? is a handy and eye-candy appealing hashtags directory. You can adopt it as a way of finding of the trendiest hashtags relying on the desired period (currently trendy, the day trendiest, the week trendiest), and understanding why a particular hashtag is popular. It also provides you a list of suspected spam hashtags.

Twubs

Two great things about Twubs is that it not only helps with hashtag research by category you are interested in, but it also makes available pictures corresponding to the hashtags. A negative is that it doesn’t provide any monitoring features.

Tagalus

This tool is a user-generated dictionary for hashtags. While typing a hashtag in the search panel, Tagalus suggests some hashtags including the set of letters you’ve written. If your spelling can’t be found in the database, it often recommends some “did-you-mean” hashtags.

Tagdef

Not only supplying defined tags generated by users, Tagdef also shows you unusual lists of hashtags (the current trendiest, but also the popular, the new ones as well as tags at random).

How about you? How do you use these tools? Are there other hashtag tools you would like to recommend? Which one do you prefer to use when tracking hashtags trends? I’d love to hear what you think!

Keep An Eye On Your Competition!

Thu, 25 Mar 2010 20:44:19 -0800

By Michael Gier - Publisher, Online Media Today

One thing I love to do with any business I own is keep an eye on what my competition is doing.

I do this because I want to know what they are offering or changes they are making or new programs they are implementing that could take business away from me.

A great site called ChangeDetection.com provides page change monitoring and notification services to internet users worldwide. Anyone can use their service to monitor any website page for changes. All you do is fill out a form and they’ll create a change log for that page and alert you by email when they detect a change. The best part…it’s free!

ChangeDetection.com

Another great tool that most of us know about is Google Alerts. Create an account, type in the words you want Google to keep an eye on and they’ll sent you emails, with links, that show you anything that talks about that topic, company, or name.

Google Alerts Set-Up

Keeping a watchful eye is not only helpful but also a must if you want to beat your competition.

About the Author:

Michael Gier is one of the publishers of Online Media Today and also owns a production company, Silver Dove Productions, LLC, and an online membership to help people avoid becoming victims of Fraud and Identity Theft, Protect Yourself, LLC.

Love Your Blog: A Beginners Guide to Blogging Basics

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 14:19:08 -0800

By Jim Gibson - Publisher, Online Media Today

Imagine for a moment you are able to connect with millions of people – your customers, partners, employees and even the media. What if you were able to instantly tell your new audience something about your company, product or service they didn’t know? Or, what if you could listen to what people think about your business or more importantly, your advertising? Would that interest you? I bet the answer is a resounding yes!

Does this sound too good to be true? Actually, it is true and it is a real possibility for those who have adopted blogs as a way to communicate with audiences around the world.

Increasingly, blogs are being used by business owners to reach new audiences and have quickly become the de facto way to interact with brand enthusiasts online. To understand the impact blogging has had on business marketing you don’t have to look further than the statistics that illustrate the explosive growth of blogging in general. According to former Technorati Chairman, Dave Silfry, as of mid 2006, approximately 175,000 new blogs are started each day (that’s 2 per second of each day!). Blogs generate in the neighborhood of 100 million unique visitors each month with over 57 million US Americans reading blogs on a regular basis. Of the 70 million (and counting) blogs worldwide, up to 30 million reside in the US.

I realize these statistics may be a bit dated but the fact is the number of blogs are expanding and, more and more, people are relying on this form of communication to get the information they are looking for. The question is not whether blogging is something your business should consider (it is!), rather it is more a question of how to quickly get into the blogging game. Fortunately, there are an abundance of blog tools to help you get started and depending on your budget, you could literally be up and blogging in a matter of hours.

By far not a comprehensive list, this weeks 5 Burning Questions starts with some of the basic elements of starting a blog and what you should consider. This week we’ll focus on the number 1 question:

Question 1: Why Blog? If statistics aren’t enough to convince you that blogging is here – and here to stay, then maybe these facts will help:

Dynamic Content: If you are like most website owners (ecommerce excluded), the likelihood of any of your website’s page content changing with any degree of frequency is highly unlikely. Blogs, on the other hand, are likely to be updated regularly with new content. A fundamental rule of proper Search Engine Optimization (SEO) revolves around content and frequent updates provide not only great SEO value but, in the process, present the opportunity to generate tremendous backlinks to your site as your new content is shared across the web.

Search Engine Friendly: Expanding on the notion of the inherent SEO value in creating dynamic content, blogs represent the best opportunity to develop search engine friendly subject matter. In fact, blogs are truly built with search engines in mind. As dogs like trucks, search engines love blogs and the value of using blogs as central to your content distribution strategy should not be underestimated.

Two-Way Communication: Like forums, newsgroups and social media platforms, blogging facilitates two-way communications in meaningful and dynamic ways. Blogs enable companies to keep an ear to the street while offering an excellent venue for people to share experiences with both the company and others who may be interested in the brand.

Brand Awareness: Blogging represents one of the most cost effective ways to generate brand awareness for your products or services. As long as your blog consistently provides value (devoid of constant sales pitches), readers will continue to see your brand as they consume your content.

Thought Leader: Journalists and other experts in your niche are always looking for additional resources and getting thought leaders to read your blog is a great way to generate tremendous exposure for your brand. The opportunity to share valuable information about your industry creates the opportunity to establish your credibility and helps to identify you as a thought leader in your space.

User Generated Content: Directly tied to two-way communications, the comments readers make to your blog can have a profound impact on search engine placement. As spiders comb the web indexing content, user comments can add to the value search engines place on your website. User Generated Content can help to influence search engine placement as well as giving you direct feedback on your company, products and/or services.

Stay tuned for the next installment of 5 Burning Questions: Love Your Blog: A Beginners Guide to Blogging Basics as we cover which blog platforms your business should consider when thinking of integrating a blog into your website.