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Business

Wrapp Your Friends: Social Gift Giving & Promotions

April 30, 2012 by basilpuglisi@aol.com Leave a Comment

With so many new interactive activities taking place on Facebook, it seems that one more company has caught onto the social media frenzy and is taking advantage of new ways to interact with your social network. A Swedish Social Gifting service, Wrapp just debuted in the U.S. that will allow Facebook users to purchase gift cards for those in their social network.  Wrapp currently has partnerships with more than 25 retailers. Some of those retailers include:

  • Fab
  • Gap
  • The Wall Street Journal
  • H & M

Wrapp launched in Sweden in November, and has since added Norway and the U.K. Wrapp also has established satellite offices in Japan, the Netherlands, Germany, Turkey, France, Taiwan, and Australia.

How to Wrapp

To get started with Wrapp users need to either install the Android or iPhone app or head to the Wrapp website. Once Wrapp is integrated with your Facebook account, birthdays and other occasions will be twice as easy to take care of with just a few clicks. Even better, Wrapps algorithm will match social profiles of targeted friends with their available partners as well as the users demographics. You can then purchase one of their preselected gift cards or add onto the amount manually. With Wrapps integration with Facebook, news feeds will also be posted when the cards are gifted, as well as when they are redeemed by the cards receivers. Physical gift cards are not always necessary. On the mobile apps for smartphones and tablets, they can actually be redeemed through the bar codes that display on the Wrapp site after confirmation that the location accepts that gift card. Codes can also be used while shopping online.

According to Wrapp, over 1.4 million gift cards have been sent out via their service in the last four months. Chief Executive Officer Hjalmar Winbladh adds,

“Wrapp is the ultimate win, win, win app. You and I get to give our friends free gift cards to great retailers. The cards we give are stored in our friends’ phones so they’re always with them when they want to buy something they really want. And the merchants get a proven customer-acquisition and retention platform built on Wrapp’s friend-to-friend marketing for conducting performance-based campaigns.”

Wrapp combines three very hot industries in gift cards, social networking, and mobile shopping.
Author:

@BasilPuglisi is the Executive Director and Publisher for Digital Brand Marketing Education (dbmei.com). Basil C. Puglisi is also the President of Puglisi Consulting Group, Inc. A Digital Brand Marketing Consultancy that manages professional and personal branding for Fortune 500 CEOs, Hedge Fund Managers and Small Business Owners.

Sources:

  • Wrapp Brings Social, Mobile Gifting Service To The U.S.; Partners With The Gap, H&M And Others
  • Wrapp U.S. Partners With H&M, Gap, Starbucks On ‘Social Gifting’
  • Wrapp Unwraps Facebook Gifting Service In U.S.

Filed Under: Blog, Business, General, Social Media Tagged With: facebook, Gap, Gift card, Hjalmar Winbladh, iPhone, Starbucks, Wall Street Journal, Wrapp

Display Ads and Tumblr [News]

April 25, 2012 by basilpuglisi@aol.com Leave a Comment

Technically, display advertising, or banner ads, are graphical advertisements on the web that pop up next to, above, blended into or under content on emails, web sites, or even IM applications. This video is very short but provides a great overall understanding of what display ads are and how they work.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUT5H723Ii4]

What Benefits Will Display Ad Networks Have on Your Business?

Just like magazines or newspaper ads, you can expect to receive the same type of benefit from display ads in exposure for your business and hopefully in an obviously increasing customer base. However, unlike magazines and newspaper ads, the flexibility of the internet lets us advertise to a worldwide community, expanding a business’s horizons endlessly. Display advertising also has distinct advantages over the more traditional formats.

  • Businesses can target specific options such as behavioral targeting options or direct choices in demographics allowing them to expertly direct ads only to their most vital audiences.
  • Performance of your ads can be tracked as part of your daily marketing campaign to allow you to measure metrics such as clicks, conversions, and impressions which will allow you to calculate your ROI.

Top Display Ad Networks

Although the list is constantly changing, some of the top display ad networks in the country include:

  • Yahoo Network
  • Google Ad Network
  • ValueClick Networks
  • Turn Media Platform
  • 27/7 Real Media
  • Adbrite

News in Ad Display  – Tumblr

A couple of years ago, CEO David Karp of Tumblr was asked what his feelings were on display ads. At that time he shared that they turned his stomach. Not something he wanted for his blogging platform. Very recent news shared that he may have found himself eating those words a bit when he shared that Tumblr plans to begin selling ad display units to advertisers. So far, the platform has survived without any ads but users will soon begin to see them displayed on their Tumblr “Featured” section of the dashboard.

Tumblr dashboard
Tumblr dashboard (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Advertisers should be able to pay for ad space beginning May 2nd. Tumblr currently hosts over 52 million blogs with a growth rate of approximately 50 million posts per day.

Author:

@BasilPuglisi is the Executive Director and Publisher for Digital Brand Marketing Education (dbmei.com). Basil C. Puglisi is also the President of Puglisi Consulting Group, Inc. A Digital Brand Marketing Consultancy that manages professional and personal branding for Fortune 500 CEOs, Hedge Fund Managers and Small Business Owners.

Sources:

  • Study: For Display Ads Clicks Have “Nearly Zero” Correlation With Conversion
  • Conversions, Not Clicks, Key To Display Ads
  • Display Ad Networks – YouTube
  • Tumblr Ads Display Ads to Dashboard
  • Nielsen’s Fourth Screen Report Shows a Huge Increase in Audience Delivered by Digital Mall Media in December

Filed Under: Blog, Business, General Tagged With: AdBrite, advertising, Advertising network, business, David Karp, Display advertising, google, Nielsen, Tumblr, Web banner, YouTube

Obama Signs Bill for Crowd Funding [News]

April 24, 2012 by basilpuglisi@aol.com Leave a Comment

President Barack Obama speaks to a joint sessi...
President Barack Obama speaks to a joint session of Congress regarding his jobs plan, the American Jobs Act (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

President Obama recently signed into law the Jumpstart Our Business Start-ups or JOBS Act. Noted as a game-changing bill, the JOBS Act is a bipartisan bill that aims to make it easier for start-up businesses to expand and hire more employees to help aid further the so far, very sluggish, US economic recovery.

This new bill will classify start-up businesses as emerging growth companies, allowing those business owners to rely on online investors who can help raise the vital start-up capital required. Sites like Kickstart offer a very similar format currently. Companies like this that allow users to raise money for start-up ventures will be able to sell up to $50 million in their own shares before being required to register with the SEC. The new bill also doubles their current limitation to now allow up to 1,000 shareholders.

During the bill signing ceremony, President Obama stated that  “One of the great things about America is that we’re a nation of doers. We think big, take risks and believe that anyone with a solid plan and a willingness to work hard can take even the most improbable idea and turn it into a solid business.” Obama signed into law the JOBS Act while flanked on both sides by Congress members as well as some of our nation’s top entrepreneurs. Many have taken this as an act proving that our politicians are beginning to better understand the role that entrepreneurs have to play in American economics.

How will this effect start-ups?

The JOBS Act is only an initial step in a much larger battle to make it easier for business entrepreneurs to create vital new business, expand their growth, hire work workers and create the economic growth our country is desperate for. It will help to increase capital formation as well as pave the way for other smaller businesses to gain more public visibility.

Start-ups will now be able to gain financing via crowd funding allowing those who participate to raise up to $1 million a year without having to do public offerings. That step currently requires state-by-state registrations that can cost business owners thousands of dollars. The hope is that this type of funding will begin to open up many more opportunities for necessary capital to begin flowing into our nation’s start-up businesses. In turn, new companies that can now create jobs will help to steer our economic perils back onto the right path that benefits each and every one of us.

Author:

@BasilPuglisi is the Executive Director and Publisher for Digital Brand Marketing Education (dbmei.com). Basil C. Puglisi is also the President of Puglisi Consulting Group, Inc. A Digital Brand Marketing Consultancy that manages professional and personal branding for Fortune 500 CEOs, Hedge Fund Managers and Small Business Owners.

Sources:

  • Obama Signs ‘Game-Changing,’ Crowd-Funding JOBS Act
  • Obama Signs Bill Focused on Crowdsourced Investments
  • Obama Crowd Funding Bill Signing

Filed Under: Blog, Business, General, Nonprofits & Fundraising Tagged With: Barack Obama, business, Chief executive officer, Executive director, Obama, Startup, Startup company, United States

Group Commerce for Publisher-Based eCommerce Solutions: #SocialCommerce

February 19, 2012 by basilpuglisi@aol.com Leave a Comment

Recently, I sat down to an impromptu interview with the CEO of Group Commerce, Jonty Kelt, to learn more about what publisher-based ecommerce solutions can offer to more traditional form of media that may be lacking digital presence.

What is Group Commerce?

Group Commerce is a platform for publishers who want to integrate ecommerce into a successful element of their business. Group Commerce serves three groups that help to make their ecommerce program work.

  1. Consumers
  2. Merchants
  3. Publishers

Group Commerce’s technology was designed to support, from the ground up, the unique lists of needs that brands and media companies require. Their enterprise-grade platform doubles as a command center for a publisher’s ecommerce program as well. There is nothing else like it anywhere.  Group Commerce understands exactly what it take to succeed. The professional services offered provide all of the needed elements to ensure that their publishers succeed in ecommerce.

Founded in 2010, Group Commerce is backed by several popular names such as Carmel Ventures, Lerer Ventures, Spark Capital, and Bob Pittman. Group Commerce has some top-notch clients in names such as Chegg.com, Boston.com, CBS Local, DailyCandy, the New York Times, and many more. Based in New York City, Group Commerce now has over 100 employees in 11 major cities.

When asked about the publisher based ecommerce solutions provided by Group Commerce, Jonty Kelt shared with me, “We created group commerce with a mission to enable audience owners, to succeed in ecommerce. This is anyone with an audience, website owners, newsletter businesses, TV, radio, print and more. The brands have to engage with intelligence and integrity, so that they add value to their relationship with their audience. This can give traditional or ad based media companies more revenue stream, more engagement with their audience, attract new audience members and for some solid media based businesses, it can give them more relevance in a digital world.”

Before we wrapped up our interview I definitely had to pose to him a question that is near and dear to publications like DBMEi.

Since there is such a huge market now for content relating to the practices of digital marketing, social media and other similar services, how do you see Group Commerce fitting in for the smaller publishers? How can you begin to monetize platforms such as multi-blogger sites like DBMEi?

Jonty Kelt: We currently have an initiative in our engineering department focusing on building a ladder of service solutions which will enable smaller publishers such as bloggers, smaller websites and audiences to turn ecommerce onto their sites as well.

How Can I Get in on Group Commerce?

Group Commerce is rather picky about the publishers they work with. For the most part, applicants must have several of at least six unique qualifications.

  1. Verticality
  2. High brand engagement
  3. Strong local voice
  4. High user transactional intent
  5. Size
  6. Locally segmented

Since its launch, Group Commerce has raised millions in funding and Kelt plans to continue to expand the company’s reach into 2012.

Sources:

  • Business Insider: Social Commerce Summit
  • GroupCommerce
  • Basil C. Puglisi
  • Transcript from Interview

Filed Under: Blog, Business, Business Networking, Conferences & Education, General, Sales & eCommerce Tagged With: brand, business, commerce, ecommerce, Social Media

#SocialCommerce: Jonty Kelt Interview Transcript

February 7, 2012 by basilpuglisi@aol.com Leave a Comment

Business Insider hosted the Social Commerce Summit on Feb 7th, 2012 at Chelse Pier, during that event I had a chance to sit with Jonty Kelt, the CEO for Group Commerce. Here is a transcript from that interview with a general article to follow on Feb 19th at 5pm, right here on dbmei.com.

About the event:

Since the immersion of social media into digital commerce, incredible opportunities and options have opened for business owners. Socially marketing your products and services can come with its own challenges though, so the Social Commerce Summit, or SCS, has a focus on presenting some incredible tips and tricks along with the best practices common to businesses successful in this form of marketing.

The SCS will provide the platform for experts in their industries to share their own best practices and ideas that have been built upon cutting edge trends and technologies and are the products of incredibly successful Fortune 500 campaigns and strategies.

The Interview: (Recorded by Basil C. Puglisi, Transcription done by Joy Lynskey)

JK: Started the company 2 years ago with a vision for media companies that are publishers, that they should engage in ecommerce.  They have great brands, reach, authority over some topics with certain groups, engaged audiences. Those things we believed could be translated into an ecommerce business, alongside the traditional types of advertising businesses. We created group commerce with a mission to enable audience owners, to succeed in ecommerce. Being as broad as possible. This is anyone with an audience, website owners, newsletter businesses, TV, radio, print. The premises of what we are saying here is that the brands have to engage with intelligence and integrity, so that they add value to their relationship with their audience. This gives ad based or ad revenue fueled businesses, the opportunity to have an ecommerce business alongside of it. This can give traditional or ad based media companies more revenue stream, more engagement with their audience, attracts new audience members and for some solid media based businesses, it can give them more relevance   in a digital world.

We have only been live for about 15 months and currently have about 15 live  , all of them traditional media companies. [name companies] A lot of the brands mentioned began with one or two people managing which has now, a year later, turned into teams of 20 or more employees managing their ecommerce. Now that they have seen it can work, many are now aiming for 9 figure revenue businesses.

BP: So what group commerce is offering is the opportunity for them to survive in the digital era with obvious subscription services failing, people are less willing to pay for subscriptions but instead prefer to get content for free. So this is a way to kind of fill the gap ?

JK: In some cases that is true. Some of our customers were already digital, such as Daily Candy, and this is just tacked on. Other services do not have much of a digital business presence and this can be a way to augment their traditional business and help them to survive in a digital world.

BP: So what are some of the verticals that you guys are seeing, in ecommerce that’s targeting general vs specific.

JK: So very simplistically we have two target segments, vertical such as; thrillist.com for young men, dailycandy.com for young women,  active.com for endurance athletes, and then local media, which tends to be more horizontal,   the new york times for new york, boston.com for the boston area. The vertical ones are leveraging vertical authority, such as dailycandy is an expert on what young women want, that brings to bring great content and comments. Different than boston.com doesn’t have a specific audience. They have everyone, young and old, uptown and downtown. so they have to use their local authority to find the best merchandise and present it to the best audience.

BP: Do we see a higher conversion rate with vertical specific content versus the general content. We talked a bit about how Boston was able to generate something relevant to Boston being Boston based locations. I imagine some of the verticals when they’re talking about how to sell products outside of geographical limitations

JK: So local is normally services, nationally is normally product.  A local can offer local services, and even local product. National, we see more products since national cannot usually offer local service.

BP: Mike Wallace was a big speaker over at Boston.com, you guys had him join you, what does it mean to bring this type of person into your fold?

JK: Our company is about 100 people right now. In order to pull off what we are focused on we have to have really high-quality people with different disciplines, technology, merchandising strategy, sales, finance, hr, account management, and Mike Wallace was actually a customer of ours at Boston.com.  Mike is a born leader, he has executed on the vision extremely well at Boston.com, and we got on extremely well. He loved the vision we had. After about a year and a half of working with Mike, we had conversations with him on having him help us with our business. We wanted him to use his knowledge on how to actually build a program for boston.com in a group commerce setting.

BP: So his official title is..?

JK: Vice President of Publisher Sales which means finding new publishers who would like to participate in this. Finding new publisher partners is his main focus right now.

BP: So one of the things we are talking about when looking at ecommerce is that we have a lot of conversation about daily deals, selling locally, lot of conversation of the push vs pull. Push being here is an opportunity or offer, I may take advantage of it later. Vs the I am standing in the middle of boston right now. Push vs pull mentality, selling in advance, vs I’m standing here I am looking for something to do, where is the best deal or value for me? So have you guys seen the platform showing that push vs pull.

JK: We have been very focused on push. Our customers, Boston.com, New York times, they have very powerful media, they have a voice in many touch points, social media, email list, web page, printed editions, so they are leveraging that and the fact that they have ecommerce now and are offering great stuff. With respect to the on demand, I am in the middle of boston and looking for a great deal right now, that type of pull is not the type of commerce we are currently offering, because we have been more focused on the push.

Groupon and LivingSocial are two of the things that you are referring to with respect to standing in the middle of Boston and having thirty things available around you, is just not reality yet. That is something that we have not been focused on, specifically because we have been more focused on the push. I like to consider the word pull being that when the customer is aware that dailycandy now has stuff on their website to buy, they go there of their own volition, it’s pulling them there. Rather than them having to be interrupted with an email. And that is the holy grail really, for what we are trying to do. We are using a public outlet to push awareness of what are the deals in front of them, which creates buying behavior.

It takes time for our customers to educate their audiences, some of them have only been going now for a little over a year.

BP: There is this huge market now for content relating to the practice of marketing, social media, etc, how do you see you guys fitting in for the smaller publishers? How do you start to monetize platforms such as multi-blogger sites like this?

JK: We have an initiative in our engineering efforts to build a ladder of service solutions, which will enable smaller publishers, bloggers, small websites, etc to turn ecommerce on.

Filed Under: Blog, Business, Business Networking, Conferences & Education, General, Sales & eCommerce Tagged With: ecommerce, interview

Digital Marketing: Why Your Businesses Phone Number is Crucial to Success (Part 1)

January 18, 2012 by basilpuglisi@aol.com Leave a Comment

“Name, Address and Phone Number, oh if you have a website or social media page you can add that two, but we don’t care” the Internet!

Phone Numbers are Crucial to Success!!! They are more important than domains!

It used to be you used a fancy 800 number to look impressive or to develop branding, take 1-800-FLOWERS for example. 1-800 Flowers was a great branding campaign that generated massive brand recognition for a referral service.

Google really brought the attention back to local when it launched Google places. Google used both the local phone number and the address to enhance its search results to bring business back to local merchants and while it sent SEO professionals scrambling, local business owners were thirsty to learn more.

The PhoneWhy Phone Numbers are Crucial!

Take any listing service or data set and you’ll find three consistent elements to how it organizes its data, first is the name, second the phone number and third is the address. Website domains and social media are nowhere to be found now, nor will they in the future. In fact, when Patch Media launched its local directory for Merchants and Business Owners the AOL local sensation had one problem, no address no listing… Google places needed that three digit identifier to decide if the address matched phone number, and Yelp listed businesses by name, phone numbers and address.

Branding Trend: It’s All Local!

In a time when people are being frugal with their money, they’re a lot quicker to call a local number then an 800 number. The fact is people actually avoid 800 numbers because they prefer to have someone local and hesitate at the thought that the number will be routed to India. Local is the big Brand in the United States right now, take a look in both Traditional and Digital Media and you’re bound to see the word Local at just about every other turn.

Phone Numbers: How Do I Get Them, Use them, Keep them?

There are a few tricks that can help local business owners stretch their influence and presence. Take MagicJack, a nifty little device that sells for $20 and provides phone service for $20 a year! After Google Places launched black hat SEO professionals started buying these as fast as they could. You see they take the MajicJack, register the phone number and then connect a local name to the local number and give it a local address through something like a UPS Store.

i.e. The Actual business is a plumber in Parkland, Florida with a 954 area code number. The blackhat SEO Pro would buy (5) five MagicJacks with local phone numbers, then open a UPS Box in towns around Parkland that the plumber served. Five Splash Pages later, that plumber looked local in English: Google Nexus S - Samsung Android Phonesix locations but really only existed in one.

If you’re a digital or virtual business, then the issue is the same. The phone number is crucial to looking local and you may be in NYC, but with the right number you now appear to be in LA, Moscow, Paris, Chicago, Miami etc. If your using a service like Regus and their Virtual Office, you can set the Magic Jack or Vanity number to forward to that location until you have an office or employee to forward it to later.

Port a number! Always Port a number, I inherited a phone number 4 years ago and I still get calls for children’s clothing from some company that had it before I did. If I sold children’s clothes I be rolling in free leads.

KEEP YOUR NUMBER!!!! The Android and Mr. Number Effect

Want to know what’s really pissing off telemarketers and collection agencies?

Android and Mr. Number! Android phones from version 1.5 have had a feature that allows people to save a contact and set the contact to forward directly to voicemail. Mr. Number is an application on all devices that blocks suspected spam (set by community feedback), unknown numbers and numbers you blacklist! So before you give up your number and get a new one, better think twice. If you do get a new number check it against the Mr. Number database, if its listed as a spam, credit collection or telemarketer get rid of it!

(Part 2 – Using Phone Numbers to Track Marketing Success)

Sources:

  • Why Your Phone Number Is A Crucial Search Marketing Component
  • Google Tests Phone Numbers In AdWords Ads
  • Google Makes All AdWords Phone Numbers Clickable for Mobile
  • Get a Virtual Phone Number for Better Time Management

Filed Under: Blog, Business, Digital & Internet Marketing, General, Search Engines, SEO Search Engine Optimization Tagged With: FLOWERS, google, google places, MagicJack, Phone Number, Telephone number

What’s the key to a successful digital media strategy?

January 9, 2012 by basilpuglisi@aol.com Leave a Comment

Websites, especially for Search Engine Optimization should defiantly be doing this. A successful Social Media campaign has this as a crucial characteristic. This one defining element or practice is an absolute must for anyone who wants clients and customers whorepeat business and develop long-term relationships. In fact you probably find this to be as true for personal relationships as you would for any aspect of a business before and during the digital age.

Be Genuine!

Websites that develop a structure that take user experience and align it with their purpose find higher conversions. Don’t build a site for a plumber that looks like iTunes. Let that sites experience be what mirrors the genuine experience that is that service or product.

SEO success is defined by the genuine nature of the sites target and content. Search Engines are in the business of helping people find what they are looking for, build the content and keyword targeting around your clients, services and or product.

Social Media is all about the culture that your organization has, what’s your social media personality? Social Media isn’t about hard sales, its about relationships, find ways to develop social media strategies that support who or what you really are beyond what you sell or do.

Jump on Match.com, eHarmony, or have a friend set you up on a blind date, it’s just like business. You’ll get someone new in front of you, but if you want to get beyond the first introduction you better be who you are, pretending to be what your not will scare away your valuable long term relationships and leave you with a short sighted one night stand. Remember, 20% of your customers may provide you with 80% of your business, but if you find a way to build long-term relationships that develop from your genuine culture and services you’ll find value in every interaction.

If you want “world of mouth” opportunities, find a brand perception that matches you or your organization. Don’t try to control it, facilitate it by being genuine.

Sources:

  • 5 Tips to Creating Genuine and Personalized Content
  • Digital Point Forums: Genuine Content and SEO
  • How Genuine is your Social Media Presence
  • Importance of Genuine SEO Techniques
  • What Is The 80/20 Rule And Why It Will Change Your Life
  • The New 80?20 Rule in Customer Satisfaction

Filed Under: Blog, Business, Business Networking, General, Sales & eCommerce, Search Engines Tagged With: advertising, business, Marketing, Social Brand, Social Media

Customer Engagement for Small Business

January 8, 2012 by basilpuglisi@aol.com Leave a Comment

Telling business owners that they need to have some plans for customer engagement is easy. However, once they have absorbed that tidbit of helpful information, many may be lost as to what customer engagement can actually entail. Most likely, there is nothing that you in particular are selling, that can’t be found somewhere else. So what can the small business owner do to show that their product is the right choice for the consumer?

Be a Customer for a Day

Spend a day emulating the actions that your prospective consumers do.

  1. Call your customer service number.
  2. Go through the motions of purchasing your own product.
  3. Fill out your contact forms.

Make sure that your customer experience matches your outlook and ideas.

Build Communication Options

Not everyone uses Facebook and Twitter believe it or not. Make sure you have traditional methods of communication as well as digital ones. List phone numbers and a physical address for your business, even if it is online based.

Exercise and Act on Your Listening Skills

It isn’t enough to reply to customers questions or request with generic terms. When prospective consumers ask for discounts or other beneficial options, show them you are listening by enacting them. You will get no better word of mouth advertising then having a consumer who can say “I asked for a discount, and they gave me one!” This doesn’t mean you have to offer that discount to everyone who asks, but you should never outright ignore those request.

Show Your Integrity

Since bad news can travel with light speed on the internet, you may need to go out of your way to show your customers that not only are you expert at what you do, but that you back that professionalism with personal integrity. Show your customers that the people behind the brand care.

Let Your Customers Advertise for You

Anything that you can do to get your consumers to share their product or service experiences with the public will provide you with two benefits. Obviously it will give you the valuable advertising you are seeking, but it will also provide you with media that you can post to help build top-notch links for your site. Don’t expect your customers to do this for no reward though. Their time is valuable too. Try to run contest for the best written or video reviews of your project. Reward the winners appropriately for their time spent talking about your products and services.

Above all it is important that any consumers approaching you for your products or services walk away with the sense that you are a brand they can trust and rely on.

Sources:

  • Customer Engagement for Small Business
  • High-Impact Customer Engagement Ideas
  • The Present and Future of Customer Engagement

Filed Under: Blog, Branding & Marketing, Business, Business Networking, Content Marketing, Digital & Internet Marketing, General, PR & Writing, Publishing, Sales & eCommerce, Traditional Marketing Tagged With: advertising, business, Customer Engagement, listen, Marketing, small business, Visibility

Understand the Basics of SEO: Why Geo and Subject Domain Names Rock!

January 5, 2012 by basilpuglisi@aol.com Leave a Comment

Search Engines are in the business of helping a user find the content they are looking for! If you keep this in mind you’ll start off with a great relationship with the Search Engines and the Visitors to your site.

Websites have three main areas you’ll want to really pay attention to:

  1. Structure
  2. Content
  3. References

[slideshare id=7181167&doc=seo101-110307150053-phpapp01]

As a website owner you’ll want this to be how you operate your lead generation through the search engines. Unless you’re an adult site, gambling or daily deal, people will not generally respond to a website about Plumbing when they were searching for Pizza.

Time and Money are important, you’ll get alot further if you concentrate your resources were they should be and where they will produce the highest rate of conversion. If you’re going to chase down multiple areas and categories do it in a way that provides unique, useful and provides a genuine experience for the user.

SEO Tip: Geo & Subject Domains > Brand Domains

An example of how this has been done is through domain masking and forwarding. Take the Domain PapaJohns.com, now that’s a great domain because people looking for “papa john’s” will find exactly what they are looking for, but will they still find it if they put in “MyTown Pizza” like “Brooklyn Pizza”, “Chicago Pizza”?

Here is an example of how we use forwarding on Digital Brand Marketing Education, the publically promoted domain is dbmei.com and that makes sense because it is short and simple. It makes for easy emails and sharing in social media without having to shorten the domain. However When you land on the site, you notice the actual domain changes to digitalbrandmarketing.com

Search Engines give a lot of value to domains, after all if you’re naming the site that, then those words must be relevant. In our case we want people looking for “Digital, Brand and/or Marketing”  to find our publication and those keywords fit perfectly with our content.

If you own Jerry’s Seafood.com, and your restaurant is in the town or geographic location of East Hampton, you might want to think about masking or forwarding the domain to easthamptonseafood.com or easthamptonseafoodrestaurant.com.

This is just one tip to help with your sites SEO, obviously you want the title tags, content, etc to all also fit this search term.

 

Sources:

  • Why Keyword Domains Are Better for SEO
  • Domain Names in Action
  • Keywords in the Domain Name

Filed Under: Blog, Business, Business Networking, General, Sales & eCommerce, SEO Search Engine Optimization Tagged With: domains, geo seo, local SEO, Search engine optimization, Search Engines, search leads, SEO, seo domains

Time to Get on Google +: How to Set up Your Google + Brand Page

January 4, 2012 by basilpuglisi@aol.com Leave a Comment

I think for many of us, when Google + came along that it also came with a bit of that new social network feel and its accompanying apprehension. Most smart networkers at least made their way there to grab their own vanity URL’s and at least get the virtual networking ball rolling in the right direction. However, with Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn usage, many networkers have already found themselves pushed to the limit in either the time or resources it may take to keep all three fed and running properly.

To date, Google +’s numbers have posed absolutely no dangers to Facebooks user numbers, but it has recently passed through a 55% increase in users during its strongest month ever and is focused on reaching the 400 million user mark by the end of 2012. Considering that Facebook didn’t pass the 60 million member mark until almost four years after its creation, these are actually still quite impressive numbers. So if you haven’t taken the time to reserve and build your businesses Google + Brand page, now is definitely the time.

Building Your Google + Brand Page

There are already some incredible Google + Brand pages out there to take important lessons from.

  • Angry Birds Google + Brand Page
  • Dallas Cowboys
  • Pepsi
  • Toyota
  • Mashable

After a few moments of looking over the above pages, you should have a relatively good idea of what your aesthetic and functional options may be. Sign into your Google account and then head to the Google + Business page to get started.

Create a Page

On the creation page you will need to simply select the category your business falls under. If none of the options seem an appropriate match, choose the other option at the bottom left.

Business Info

  1. Next you will add your businesses name and website URL.
  2. Next select the additional category that best suits your business. The sub categories are dependent on the main category chosen.
  3. Lastly, select who, by age group, is allowed to view your Google + Brand page.

Photo and Tagline

You only have ten words to create the perfect tagline for your business page. Put deep thought into this process taking into consideration the most vital keys for your SEO needs.

The Sharing Begins

On the next page you can begin to share your page with your personal Google + circle, or save that task for later.

The Social Media Drill

Google + Brand pages are not so different from Facebook fan pages when it comes to management. If you have even basic knowledge of how to manage your Facebook and Twitter accounts, you can pretty much rely on a try or two before you are just as familiar on Google. Don’t forget, Google + is currently experiencing novel rises in its user base, don’t miss the chance to increase your brand awareness via this format in 2012.

Similar Article:

Google+ Pages Open the Doors for Brands and Businesses

 

Sources:

  • Google + Sees Massive Membership Increase
  • How to Set up Your Google + Brand Page
  • Google Brand Pages are Showing Up in Search Results

Filed Under: Blog, Business, Business Networking, General, Sales & eCommerce, Social Brand Visibility, Social Media Topics Tagged With: brand, business, google, Social Brand, Social Media, Visibility

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