@BasilPuglisi

Content & Strategy, Powered by Factics & AI, Since 2009

Long Island Business

Google’s New Product Ads

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When looking to buy a product on the internet, what are you most interested in finding?

Most people are interested in two things; the look (image) of the product and the price. After completing the query customers have to go from site to site, look for that specific product and do some comparison shopping. Wouldn’t it be cool if those two elements will pop up with the search results?

Google thinks so. Just in time for the holidays, Google introduced a few days ago a new type of ad to their advertisers, called “Product Ads”.

No more few lines of text based on keywords appearing in the search result. Now you can see the picture of the product and the price in one glance on the search result page. Google is stepping into comparison shopping.

The system has been tested for the past year on some 800 advertisers and is now open to all.  As a user of Google search engine, you probably have noticed it under shopping results. A picture, a price and the website.

“Product ads” marks a shift in how Google runs its business model. No more different keywords and different biddings for each phrase using AdWords. . Advertisers can now pay only when a purchase is made, not per click that directs customers to their site. The other big change is that Google chooses when to show the product.

The advertiser give Google the feed to its products and Google automatically matches queries to what it thinks the customers is looking for.

Business owners who have tried Product Ads, say they liked the results. You might give up a little on the flexibility of different keywords but what you gain is big savings and eliminating the guessing game and the risk of AdWords. If before a hundred clicks with no conversion had to be paid for, now if there are a hundred clicks and no conversion, advertisers don’t pay for it.

Google product manager says that in the test period the click through rate increased by 50% compared to text ads. The new system is different from the “image ads” Google introduced a few months ago, which show up only if customers click the images search. These are still tied to keyword search and are still paid per click.

“We think it means we’re going to have a much broader range of products in Google,” said Dennis Woodside, vice president of ad sales for the Americas. “Product Ads” make a lot of sense for e-commerce sites and follows Google’s increasing venture into comparison shopping on the search engine result pages.

Social Brand Visibility: Newsvine

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Newsvine is a mix of news gathering agency and social media. It allows its members to see the latest news from the Associated Press and ESPN, post comments on them, share and discus items, and interact with other members.

The content is updated continuously and the site gives a reflection of what people are talking about at that moment. This side of their service is called “The Wire”.

Their user generated stream, called “The Vine”, allows members of the community to post links to interesting stories they found on the web, called “seeds”. It takes some time for any users “seeds” to be accepted. There is a period of germination in what they call ‘the Greenhouse’ before a posting source is considered reliable. That is done to ward off self-promotion.

Newsvine allows its members to post original articles as well, and even shares in the revenue when those articles are read.

Members can create private groups to share the news and discussions between them or public group where all the members can see what the group members are saying.

Newsvine says its members will receive 90% of revenue from advertisements that appears on their personal pages. These earnings are based on traffic to the articles and seeds, and have a complicated formula which is calculated based on 1000 page views. Getting rich off publishing articles on the site is not guaranteed by any means. The writer usually gets a few dollars a month for his/her most popular articles. Users who invest time in writing many articles can see as much as a few tens of dollars per month.

In the US, Newsvine has 1.2 million registered members.

Since 2007, Newsvine is now owned by MSNBC.com, but operates independently.

Online Resources For Your Upcoming Business

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There are quite a few places on the internet that you can use to your advantage when trying to promote your new small business. With such a vast quantity of websites available, you are bound to find a bunch of strong outlets to let people know just what you intend to sell in a detailed and specific manner. Some of these websites are very easy to latch onto and will give you the right amount of exposure that you desire.

Facebook

One of the better options to start promoting your company is the website FaceBook. With the millions upon millions of users each and every day on that site, you are bound to have quite a few hits and inquiries about your services. The fact that you are able to create a free profile on there and also use your account as a business profile is enough to inspire people to join.

Google Places

Another great place to advertise for your small business is Google Places. Google is already well known throughout the world as being a leader in website searches and free advertising. Google Places actually takes it a few steps forward for your business as it allows you to post details about your business as well as listing it in a way that it looks like the Yellowpages. This is a very familiar and attractive way for you to get things up and running for your company and not have to spend a lot of money doing so.

Audio & Video

You are now able to integrate such things as audio and video through the Google sites that will allow you to have a more personal connection to the people that are interested in your company. This is truly state of the art and will only help in assisting those who are the driving force behind the success of your small business. Having the ability to let someone have a face to face conversation with you or one of your associates while they are in another state or even country is an amazing new tool to have for any company out there.

My advice would be to definitely take full advantage of these new and improved resources that the internet has allowed us to partake in. These new and innovative ways to show people what they need to see regarding your new company will really pay off in the long run. Even if you have a small budget for marketing, the internet will definitely fit into that budget.

Instant Preview – A new Google Tool

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Google is moving ahead in full steam. Not only the search results are now displayed while you type your query, and change with each addition of a letter (Google Instant), Google Places displays businesses fist when you type in a place name.
This month Google has released Instant Preview, and you already have it in the result page.
Instant Preview provides a snap shot of the landing page on the result page without having to click on the link. If until now the search results offered a title, a snippet of the text and the URL, now it can give you a visual view of that page as well.
Next to the search result there’s a magnifying glass. Click on that and you will see how the website looks like. Once you clicked on it one time per page, when you hover the cursor over the result the page appears.
As Goggle puts it on their blog: “Instant Previews provides a graphic overview of a search result and highlights the most relevant sections, making finding the right page as quick and easy as flipping through a magazine.”
The technology behind it is amazing. No more 20-30 seconds to upload a picture. When you type a query, Google’s machines match it with an index of the entire web and present you with the results usually in under one tenth of a second. Once you click on the magnifying glass, images of the next results load up in the background without interrupting the speed.
The landing pages have become much more important now. Searchers have no longer a need to click on the site to see the content. E commerce and advertising will have to adjust.

Facebook Places- Where Are you?

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For years, since the beginning of the World Wide Web, its mission has been to globalize, to connect, to turn us into a global village. Geography did not matter much anymore.

These days the trend seems to turn inward, to localization. Google places shows businesses listings first when the query includes a specific place. Different mobile Social Media tools like Foursquare and Gowalla appeared, aiming to help friends tell other friends where they and connect with them physically.

There is no one bigger than Facebook in the Social Media world. With over 500,000,000 users and growing, it is the king supreme of virtual friendship. How ironic it is that now they are trying to help you connect locally and physically.

In August 2010, Facebook started operating its Facebook Places, an application that with the help of GPS, lets users check in on their mobile phones and show their location, in hope that if you are close, you might swing by and spend time together. That put businesses in the middle of the social game.

You can leave comments on Facebook about the places you’ve frequented. Cheers and jeers alike. You can recommend a certain dish, complain about the service or by leaving a recommendation you can introduce people to a new place.

About a week ago, on November 3, 2010,   Facebook’s Mark Zuckerman unveiled new features on their mobile app for iPhones and Androids, and this addition makes it much more interesting to business owners.

The new applications are called “Deals” and “Single Sign-On” and they aims to change the way customers and businesses interact.

Deals – this app allows business owners deliver information about specials and discounts to their customers, which are redeemable when the user ‘checks in’ at the place. It also allows customers to posts deals they have found, and when friends use the establishment they also get a discount.

Business owners can turn their customers into an extended sale force by peer recommendation on Facebook.

Businesses can also offer deeper discounts to friends who bring friends with them, or friends who heard about the deal through the first source. Each customer becomes a potential sales agent.

‘Deals’ has three different types of rewards a business can offer. It can be based on “loyalty,” on being “friends” or for “charity.”

The app tracks each time a specific person visits a store and takes advantage of a deal. This way, businesses can offer incentives to their most loyal customers.

The “Single Sign-On” app brings benefits to users and business owners and provides more connectivity. This feature allows Facebook users to log in and access other social media sites like Groupon and Yelp without having to log in separately. Those companies have now a new marketing tool and the ability to get to thousands of new customers.

Location-based technology has become an essential part of building solid, lasting relationships with the customers, say representatives of Facebook. If before business owners did not know why they have to be on the social network sites, now they have a definite reason to do so.

And it might be a game changers when it comes to e commerce and business advertising.

Can You Get Free PR?

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How to make the most of your internet presence and increase your visibility is a subject many small business owners are grappling with. With the enormous speed in which social media is evolving, you probably have this question reverberate in your brain: am I doing all that I can do to advertise my business?

Even if you don’t have a big advertising budget, there are some things you can do to get free – or almost free – PR. But you have to know how to do it.

–          Do your homework – know what is happening in your niche, what makes you different and better. Identify local publications and trade magazines. See which writer writes about your area of business and what is he writing about (personal story, facts, sales?)

–          Build your story. It has to be compelling, short and to the point. It has to entice the writer to look into your new venture.

–          Choose the date carefully. Does your business have something to do with dates? Holidays? Writers are looking for things to write about which are relevant to the date of publication. They are more likely to look into your business if it has something to do with the date of the next issue.

–          There are few site you can go to which will cost relatively very little but will start you up on the road to a PR campaign:

PRWeb is one of them. Their site helps you create a press release and they will send to search engines, news sites, geographic location sites and 5 industry sites. Press releases start at $80 and go up to $360 if you want your release to appear in big newspapers like New York Times or USA today.

1888 Press Release – a similar service to PRWeb but more variety in pricing and more control over the message. They also have editors going over your press release to check for grammar mistakes and appropriate content.

MediaSync. A site that aggregates material according to subject or market and allows you to see who writes about your kind of business. It also lets you contact the writers or bloggers to offer them new information to write about. Their service is free. In the future they will introduce a paid subscription for going deeper in measuring the influence the writer has had.

Handle Your Own PR. A service designed for medium and small businesses, it offers PR tips, media lists and press release writing assistance.

These are but a few initial steps to increase the visibility of your small business, but these steps cost you – in time, not money. It has been said that the most expensive element a small business owner has is his time. If time is an issue, contracting a consulting firm that knows all the ins and outs of online advertising world and social media websites. There is much more that can be done to increase your business visibility.

Social Brand Visibility: Are You LinkedIn?

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LinkedIn is a business based social networking site which connects you to your business contacts and helps you exchange knowledge, ideas, and opportunities. It helps you expend the network of professionals in your field.

The site allows users to maintain a list of contacts with people related to their business. It connects users to friends of professional friends and increases their professional circle.

Through LinkedIn you can develop a professional profile which is posted on the web so you can establish an authoritative resource that allows people to find you.

Employers searching for workers can use their LinkedIn network to get first hand recommendation. It also allows job seekers to see if anyone needs their expertise.

Being free, open and friendly, it encourages people to approach you. When your contacts change jobs or change their e mail address you are still connected to them through LinkedIn.

This familiarity and wider circle of business ‘friends’ enables you to reach out to members of your group for direct introductions and recommendations.

You can upload your address book, develop relationships and maintain them. You can join a group and see experts talk about a common issue and solve problems.

You can share tweets and use their mobile application to stay connected on the road. It keeps you in touch with people that might matter to your career.

LinkedIn offers users the ability to research companies with which they are interested in working. When searching a specific company what is shown as a result are different statistics about the company; the ratio of female to male employees, what are the most common titles given by the company to their workers, the location of the company’s headquarters and a list of present and former employees.

LinkedIn has more than 80 million registered users in over 200 countries worldwide. It operates in English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. LinkedIn has 21.4 million monthly unique U.S. visitors and 47.6 million visitors globally.

Since 2008 LinkedIn launched DirectAds as a form of sponsored advertising.

In November, 2010, LinkedIn started allowing businesses to list products and services on company profile pages. It allows members recommend certain products they liked and write reviews about their finds.

If you are interested in expending your circle of business connections, talk to like-minded people, help and be helped in solving professional problems, LinkedIn is a site which will allow you do all that for free.

Startups that could affect your Marketing Strategy

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How to use social media to advertise your business has always been a game of catch-up. Inventors, investors and programmers are constantly busy with building new sites, creating new applications that will change or improve the way we connect with each other and our viewing habits.
TechCrunch, a company that started as a blog in 2005 and has evolved to be one of the biggest and more innovative companies, holds a yearly conference where they choose 25 new startups from over 1000 applications to present their ideas to the conference and through it to the world.
At the last conference in San Francisco, in September 2010, TechCrunch chose to show a few companies that might have an impact on how you advertise your small business through the web. Here are some to watch for:
Badgeville – Aims to help increase audience engagement and loyalty by providing an easy way for web publishers, media sites and brands to increase engagement with their customers. It also enables measuring and optimization of users engagement.
Gifi – Combines Venmo and FourSquare into a location based game involving real money. Recommending a restaurant or a dish becomes a social game. Users can hide money for their friends to be unlocked when they order the dish they recommended for example. It provides business owners with a simple way to deliver rewards for valued or frequent customers. Every time a customer is rewarded, the business gets exposure through the social media sites of their customer’s friends. The company received $1.2 million in seed money this year.
Gripe – A location based free mobile app.  It allows the users to send complaints or cheers about a business they frequented. The remarks are sent to the business as well and they can react, while spreading the words through friends and followers. By resolving complaints, businesses can turn detractors into promoters spreading positive word-of-mouth to everyone on their social media network.
Sumazi – was awarded by TechCrunch as the startup “most likely to change the world”. By intelligently connecting people to other people they don’t know but should, they leverage the personal and extended networks to discover, recommend and introduce customers to other people and opportunities at the right time.
Tello – another startup which aims to help companies improve customer service by providing real time reactions to their customer’s experience. It is a mobile and social application. Businesses of all sizes can improve service and engage customers in conversation, resolving issue and monitor employee ratings.
Which of these will flourish remains to be seen. Watch for them and subscribe when they become operational.

So You Want to Start a Business Blog….

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A paradigm shift (shift in habits) has been happening in the last year as far as blogging is concerned. It was not surprising to find that according to a research done by Hubspot, blogs are the most critical platform for businesses, more than social media.

75% of the respondents said they consider blogs ‘useful’ and 31% said it is ‘critical’ to their business.

According to the survey businesses with corporate blog generate more leads than businesses which don’t have one. And it is true not only for business to customer relations but also for business to business.

As long as you post quality content which addresses your specific target audience, business leads are almost guaranteed.

The quality of the content, posting frequency and having an interesting and easy to read design, have to be consistent to ensure effectiveness.

Before you embark on a blogging adventure you have to ask yourself several questions:

–          What are your strategies? Experts have found 4 different kinds of blogs that are used for businesses advantage:

 Building brand awareness through leadership. It requires businesses to share their thoughts and opinions regarding their industry. The aim is to be a trusted source, to be considered an expert in the field and come up with blogs about new developments, opinions about old ones and guidelines. (For example: http://edelmandigital.com/page/1/)

Another kind of blog deals with the corporate culture – helping others understand the company and what motivates it. (http://blogs.zappos.com/blogs/inside-zappos)

Connecting with leaders – is another kind of blog written by the CEO or another head of company. It helps connect the leaders of the company with its employees and the customers. It creates familiarity that has disappeared from the corporate culture as companies grow bigger. (http://www.blogs.marriott.com/)

Branding – a blog that establishes a brand image. (http://www.openforum.com/)

The content must reflect the reason for the blog.

–          Set Goals – Think what you want to achieve with the blog and how are you going to be able to see if you accomplished that goal.

–          Management – Someone in the company has to be responsible for the blog. If you don’t have an IT to build the blog for you, you can go to hosted blogging services such as WordPress. That is for the look of the blog and the ability to upload it quickly, but managing the content is another issue. Have an “editor” designated to working on the blog and generating and evaluating the information that comes in. Have more than one person post blogs especially if you want to publish on a daily basis.

–          Post interesting blogs. Make them easy to read and informative. You’d want people to spread the word through Tweets and the readers own social networks.

Small Businesses and their Banks

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How many keyboard strokes have been used to write about small business and the banks? Too many to count.

Promises were given, rules are being written and debated in Congress and  the Senate, ideas become laws –  and still the economy is not moving forward in the desired pace.

Small business owners blame the banks for making it difficult to get a loan and expend the business. Banks are saying they have been burnt enough with bad loans and there are less and less applications for loans. In the last quarter the numbers of loans given by the banks went down 12%.

It seems like a ‘Catch 22’.

Are we doomed to continue this cycle forever? As with everything else that triggers the American ingenuity, there are solutions, even when it comes to banks and lending.

A recent poll by J.D Power and Associates wanted to check the current relationships between small business owners and their banks. They conducted a survey in July and August 2010 among over 6,600 financial decision makers in companies with revenues between $100,000 and $10 million, about their relationships with their banks.

The loyalty factor of small business to their bank has been declining drastically. If in 2008, 34% of small business owners said they will definitely go back to their bank, in 2010 the number dropped to 19%. Less than a quarter of people who do business with banks will not go back. In any other business it will be a cause for a major alarm.

The biggest complaints small business owners have is that they are not getting the support they need from the bank.

The poll shows that small business owners want a few simple things;

They want a point man, someone they can talk to. Someone that understands a bit about their business and someone that is available, either physically at the branch or through E mail.

They want to know in advance what the fees will be. Small business owner don’t expect to get something for nothing, but many complain about being blindsided by additional fees and charges they were not aware of when they signed the contract.

It looks like the big national banks are the ones who fail their customers in those two areas.

The list of the “Least Satisfied With” banks starts with Bank of America, Chase and Citibank. It continues with Wells Fargo and the rest of the big banks.

According to the poll, the ones who did get a good loyalty rating were the small regional banks like SunTrust in Atlanta, KeyCorp in Cleveland and Huntington National Bank because they are headquartered in Columbus Ohio as local banks.

I for one have used Suffolk County National Bank and Suffolk Federal Credit Union. These two are located in Suffolk County New York and still have a great personal feel to them.

Big banks have lost the human relationships with their clients. It may be high time to leave those big ones and go with the smaller local banks, with bankers like George Baily in “It’s a Wonderful Life”, a movie we will soon be seeing again on TV, come Christmas.