@BasilPuglisi

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

Visibility

Social Media Review: Delicious

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Delicious is a social network where users can past and share their bookmarks and discover new bookmarks other members of the service have posted.

The service, which was established in 2003 by Joshua Schachter and sold to Yahoo in 2005, had, by the end of 2008 more than 5 million users and 180 unique bookmarks.

Delicious has a list on its home page categorized into “hotlist”, “popular” and “recent” bookmarks and gives the viewer a combines view of other  people’s interests, which turns it into a displayer of internet trends and memes ( In simple terms, a meme is an inside joke that Internet users are in on.)

As one of the most popular internet social bookmarks service, Delicious uses simple interface, addresses that are checked by humans, a simple REST and RSS feeds for web syndication.

The service is growing and more and more bookmarks are posted every day. It can be used by all professionals to list site they want others to look at. Whether a teacher, a CEO or owner of small business who wants his colleagues to understand what they are talking about, they can create a tag that includes all the pages and sites they are interested in other to see. For students for example it can serve as a must reading list, bibliography or just a social network where they can post pages that will help other student learn.

What can it do for businesses? It gives an excellent measure of what advertising works and what doesn’t. You get an immediate feedback and you can see what kind of users bookmarked your website or page. It’s a place that can make your product go viral when many people are bookmarking and tagging your page.

Have you Stumbled upon StumbleUpon?

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You haven’t? Not yet, you mean.

As the amount of information on the World Wide Web grew to huge proportions, things were starting to get lost in the shuffle. There are not enough hours in a day to search everything new uploaded. How do you know you are not missing something?

Enter the social media where people are talking to each other socially and can spread the word about things they like and things they don’t.

One of the latest tools is a site called StumbleUpon, where people, after registering and downloading a toolbar, can go and see what others on the network stumbled upon on the web and recommended. It is what is now called a “discovery engine”.

You are asked to put in your interests, invite your friends to join in and see what similar users have recommended. All that is being analyzed with the company’s recommendation Engine.

StumbleUpon is a mixture of social media and rating system. With these two tools they have become trend setters and a goldmine for advertisers.

The company behind it, 3 guys from Canada, founded StumbleUpon in 2001, sold it to EBay in 2007 for $75 million and in 2009 bought it back for an undisclosed amount. As of now they have over 11 million users.

StumbleVideo is another service of the company. This site allowed users without the toolbar to view videos from site like ColledgeHumor, DailyMothion, Funnyordie, Google, MetaCafe, MySpace Vimeo and YouTube.

StumbleThru is a service allowing users to stumble in youTube, The Onion, PBS and Wikipedia. Since June 2010 they extended their partnership with many more.

Since the users enter their preferences, StumbleUpon directs relevant traffic to them. Small portions are sponsored pages matching their interests. Such content in vetted by humans for quality before it is delivered. Paid accounts (called ‘sponsors’) have many more options:

  • Target the audience you want.
  • Traffic directly to your site, no click through.
  • The more users like it, the more traffic you get.

BugleMe? Social Media’s Next?

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Bugleme is a new arrival to the social media platform that uses the principal of Twitter but instead of written messages it used voice announcements. It is a subscription service that integrates audio calls and social networking in a new platform and allows celebrities to record telephone messages and have them delivered straight to their fans phones. It gives the celebrity and the fans a direct and immediate interaction. For example, here is a message on the website of the band Superchick:

“Hey Superchick fans! I wanted to let you know that you can sign up to get phone calls from me every week! I’ve signed up with something new called BugleMe… and when you subscribe, you’ll get voicemails from me sent to your cell phone weekly with updates about the band, personal life, books we’re writing, being newly married.​.​anything we’re in the mood to talk about, I guess! haha. Yes, it is really me, and I will tell you everything that is going on in my world. You can get a FREE TRIAL, so just sign up here:…”

The fans can interact with the celebrities by leaving them written or voice messages and ask questions.

Each celebrity has his own private community where their social content is placed. All the messages are archived so when someone joins in late he will get all the messages he had missed. Subscribers can post their own content within the celebrity’s community.

And with this, BugleMe opened the door to another form of advertising, where you can reach thousands of people with one post and advertise products relating to or endorsed to the celebrity.

Is your SEO or Visibility Company Wearing a Black Hat?

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Since the time when people first figured out that good placement on the search engines is crucial for internet traffic, they have been thinking of a way how to game the system.

Not really game. More, how to use the system for profit. You don’t really have to sell anything, they thought, you can provide information and link to sites that do.

Hence, a game of cat and mouse begun between Google and those thinkers. But to understand that we need a little bit of theory.

Almost everything uploaded on the web is being looked at. Not necessarily by people, although that happens from time to time, but mainly by machines.

One of Google’s systems scans the uploaded pages. “Crawlers” or “Spiders” scan the page to look for repeated words that will help it categorize the site. It looks at headlines, Meta tags, hyperlinks etc.  After that, another system Google uses involves indexing the pages according to the crawler’s find.

That much is known. Once the ‘thinkers’ manage to figure out what works best to get their site high on the search engine page, they took advantage of it. They stuffed keywords and tags and manipulated the system in what is called Spamdex.

Google adjusted. They added a few measures, like the amount of back links and their importance to the ranking on the search engine result page. Once the ‘thinkers’ figured that out, a way was found around the measure.  By 2007 Google mounted a campaign against what is called ‘link farms’ which, in some cases, included thousands of sites created for the sole purpose of creating back links.

This game is still going on. Google announced that it has more than 200 criteria for page rank and in 2005 started personalizing the search results for each user.

That is called White Hat seo. It is a technic used to comply with Google’s guidelines and is not meant to deceive.

White Hat seo is not just about following the rules; it is about providing the costumer with the correct information. It is about creating content for searchers, not for search engines. Making the content easily accessible to the spiders and the easy to index is what White Hat seo is all about. It is in many ways connected to the web development that enables customer’s accessibility.

White hat seo means using all the tools to have an effective marketing campaign.

Black Hat seo is developing a site for the search engine, not for the user. It is an attempt to learn the system and outsmart it. With technics like hidden text (when the text and the background are the same color thus the customer can’t see it, but the crawlers can) or another method, called cloaking, when the site gives a different page depending if it is a live searcher or a machine.

Search engines might remove a site or lower it’s ranking if they are suspicious that the site is using Black Hat seo. In 2006, two big German companies BMW and Ricoh were removed by the search engines for deceptive practices. The companies apologized, changed their sites and were beck on Google. But if you are a small company, this process might take a lot of time.

In order to avoid problems down the line, you should rely on a reputable consulting firm to do the seo for your site. A company like Puglisi Consulting Group which is able to help you in all your website needs and through their visibility arm, Visibility Acceleration http://www.visibilityacceleration.com/#/seo-visibility/4541420003 advise you on the right ways to approach your world wide web visibility.

Commercials and Internet Visibility

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What can we learn from the big boys? The big firms with millions and billions of dollars behind them, and how they approach internet visibility.

The case in point is a product called “Old Spice”. You must have heard the name. Old Spice cologne and aftershave has been around since the 1930. It was the scent of America, since it started in the United States.

Through the years, when transport and import became simpler, the market was flooded by European products. Old Spice market share went down drastically.

In 1990 the company was sold to Procter and Gamble. 20 years later, in the middle of 2010, new commercials for “Old Spice” body wash started showing on TV. Many experts were behind it; P&G, an advertising company and a digital media specialist.

  • They opened a twitter account and a Reddit account for the lead character.
  • They opened a Facebook page
  • They opened YouTube channel and started putting out the 15 second spots, one after the other.

The ads went viral on the internet. Google search went up 2000%, Facebook interactions up 800% and 1.5 billion impressions (The count of a delivered basic advertising unit from an ad distribution point, according to “Basic Advertisement Measures”) since February.

The campaign was a combination of the success of social media and viral success. And it didn’t happen overnight. It took them 6 months of adjusting and changing to get to the point that the reaction was getting to where they hope it would be.

The reaction was immediate; sales went up 107% the first month and are still going up in the rate of 55% in the past 3 months.

Lately the company recorded 183 video answers to question posed by Twitter users. They are staying in touch with their followers.

What can we learn from that success story?

–          The campaign should be all inclusive. All the possible channels.

–          It might take time to develop the correct approach. Some corrections are needed in the middle of the way.

–          If the ‘big boys’ do it, and it works for them, why not do it on a smaller scale?

To see what can be done for you and your business in this new era of advertising, you might be best serve if you approach someone that has expertise and knowledge in the area. Companies like Puglisi Consulting Group at http://puglisiconsulting.com/#, that can design a campaign to your budget. Through their internet visibility arm Visibility Acceleration http://www.visibilityacceleration.com, they can advise you how to be visible on the internet and all over the world.

Social Brand Visibility – All About Hi5

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When you hear the words Social Networking, what comes to mind? Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, YouTube, Linkedin etc. But since 2003 there is another player in the social networking game that generates a lot of buzz; the name of this site is Hi5. In the beginning of 2010, Hi5 acquired a gaming site called Big Six, and is raising money (in the millions) to extend their reach.

When a customer join the Hi5 network, he create a profile that includes his information, interests and he can upload pictures to create a photo album that is all his. He can also play games online and interact with other users. Just like in other social media sites, he can send his friends a friendly request to join, which can be accepted or declined. If the friend accepts the request, they are now connected in the 1st degree (direct friends). It is possible to be connected in the 2nd degree with friends of friends or in the 3rd degree with friends of friends of the direct contact. 67% of the users of Hi5 social network site are between the ages of 18 and 34.

As back as 2008, Hi5 was the third most popular social network, as far as unique visitors go.

Why didn’t you hear about it? Because Hi5 is most popular in other countries outside the United States, especially in South America. It is connected to Gmail and will send an invitation to join to all the Gmail addresses in the user’s address book.

Hi5 enables the user to express yourself, use avatars, share music, find friends, play games, give gifts, and if you so inclined, flirt on line.

Today, there are about 30 million users of Hi5, and about 200 million pages are served up every day.

With so many users worldwide the site offers innovative options and precise targeting with viral marketing techniques.

So what can Hi5 do for you as a small business owner?

–          Offers unique and engaged audiences who spend on average 20 minutes a day on the site and view 50 pages per day. It is aims at young audiences that like to share and talk about what they saw.

–          The site enables advertisers to target audiences based on interest, demographics, gender, language and other factors.

–          A range of advertising products: Banners, media placement, games, video pre-rolls, viral promotions, contests and sweepstakes.

–          It allows for homepage takeover, where the background of the sign-in page advertises your company, event of movie.

–          Interaction with customers that creates viral awareness.

–          You can insert ads that appear directly in conversations.

–          Place video ads before online games.

–          Mobile ads

–          Enables you to create or sponsor an online game.

–          It has standard ad units for home page, photo pages, game pages and friend’s pages.

Hi5 is another venue in social media that is able to raise awareness to you product. There are other sites that do that, but to get all the information about your possibilities, it is best to contact a consulting experts who are familiar with all the venues, like Puglisi Consulting Group (http://puglisiconsulting.com/#) and their specialty arm Visibility Acceleration (http://www.visibilityacceleration.com/) who can customize an advertising campaign that fits your budget and needs. They are experts who keep updating their knowledge with all the new methods of online advertising and visibility.

Untraditional Ways to Create Buzz for Your Business

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Let’s face it, advertising in today’s market is tough. There is a lot of noise out there and a lot of different companies and brands competing for the same consumers. But creative companies are finding untraditional ways to create buzz around their products. See if any of these unusual strategies might work for your business.

Make It a Stunt

Create an unusual event or contest for your business. If you own a restaurant, have an eating contest and award the winner with a year of free meals. If you own a TV repair company, hold a “World’s Strongest Man” competition and see who from your community can complete various strength tests involving old televisions. Award the winner with a free TV set.

The benefit of these types of stunts is two-fold. First, you are attracting new potential customers to your business. Obtain contact information for all contest entrants, and provide losing entrants with coupons that entice them to return to your establishment. Second, you are creating the opportunity for free media coverage. Invite local television, news and blog outlets to your event. You can save thousands of dollars in advertising through just one stunt event.

Attract a Celebrity

It’s no secret that celebrities grab headlines. Get a local celebrity to come to your business and watch the customers roll in. The key is to not only attract a celebrity client, but to get the client photographed or televised in your place of business.

Luckily, the popularity of reality shows has made it a bit easier to get celebrity coverage. Pick up the phone book and call any reality shows that might fit with your product. Be creative; remember that reality shows have very low budgets, so any service that you are willing to provide for free might get you a bit of on-screen time.

Make it Funny

You need look no further than Old Spice’s highly successful “I’m On a Horse” commercials to see the power of humor in advertising. Whether you are posting in-store signage, creating a newspaper ad or shooting a television spot, infuse humor in your marketing to attract customers. If your advertisement makes people laugh, they are more likely to remember the advertisement and your company.

While some types of businesses lend themselves better to unusual marketing than others, it never hurts to take a moment to think outside the box and reconsider your existing advertising strategies.

Why do customers turn away from your website?

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Everybody is talking about internet presence and internet visibility and thinking of inventive ways to increase it. But let’s face it – the purpose of your website is not only to get visitors to your site. The purpose of your website is to turn visits into clicks. You not only want to be visible, you want to make commerce.

There are many reasons why customers that get to your site turn away from it, after one page. To understand what is wrong and change it, takes expertise. But it is a change worth making.

Here are some of the reasons why it might happen to your site:

It’s Booooring – like reading a very long advertisement or brochure. Too much technical information, too much information in general turns people away. The customer knows it will be tooting the horn of the business but he can’t find the important information that is relevant to him.

It has Typos – You want to be trusted, don’t you? Having your landing page written by someone who doesn’t speak the language well, is a turn off. Make sure it makes sense and look at it more than once. If you have many pages it might be hard to weed out all of the typos, but you must try.

It is not enticing and not specific enough – It doesn’t say why you are better than your competition.

It has not been updated – The web technology moves very fast and you have to keep up with the innovations. A site that has been up for 5 years needs a facelift. In web-talk it’s your grandfather’s generation.

It’s confusing – and difficult to navigate.

Not enough information – People want to know who you are. “About” page is important as is providing a real address.

There are no pictures and no endorsements – What people say about you is very important to add credibility to your site.

The best course of action for the business person who wants to make sure all the advantages of the internet have been taken, is to contact a company that deals with those solutions, like the Puglisi Consulting Group and their Visibility Acceleration division to get advice and design a campaign that will turn your visitors into clicks and registrations.

Obtaining Funding: The Basics

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Funding can make or break your business. Start-up funding can get your business off the ground, and ongoing funding can keep your business afloat during tough economic times. Before you reach out to investors or banks to ask for cash, follow the steps below to make sure that your business is prepared to face potential investors.

First, incorporate as an S-Corp, C-Corp or LLC. Unlike sole proprietorships or partnerships, these forms of organization allow equity to be shared among multiple investors. Hire an experienced business lawyer to help you determine the proper structure for your company and obtain proper documentation and registration.

Second, register your intellectual property. Obtain trademarks and patents for any intellectual property that your company has developed, including proprietary trade names and inventions. Again, seek the aid of a qualified lawyer to help navigate the trademark process.

Third, clean up your financials. Prepare an easy-to-read set of historical financials that includes all relevant detail and backup data. Make sure that your company’s financial data is well-organized and easy to sort through in case investors ask questions. Prepare a set of financial projections that are reasonable and grounded in fact. Make sure that you can back up the financial projections with market data or company history.

Fourth, get the right people on board. Hire employees that have relevant backgrounds for your company’s industry and product. This is especially important in very young companies; when investors look at early stage companies that have little operating history, they are often investing on the strength of the management team, not on the historical performance of the business.

Fifth, create a professional website and online presence. Potential investors will turn to the internet to research your company, and you want to make sure that your web page puts your company’s best foot forward. Add the company’s products and management team. Highlight any key customers or recent accomplishments. Keep the website up-to-date and professional at all times.

Sixth, keep an updated business plan. Business plans change over time based on business performance and market dynamics. Update your business plan to reflect these changes so that you are ready to discuss your company’s operations with investors at any time.

While the six tips above are a must for any business seeking funding, nothing “wows” investors like a highly-successful and well-regarded business. Be sure to continue to build your business as you incorporate these funding tips into your company’s goals.

How to Make your Small Business Grow?

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Sometimes it’s good to look at other small businesses and see how the owners made them grow.

Samy Liechi is a young entrepreneur out of Switzerland. At the age of 30, he had an idea for a business – he is going to sell exclusive man’s socks.

Today, 11 years later, he has sold over one million pairs of socks all over the world. How did he make it happen? Here is some of his advice for the budding entrepreneur.

Don’t wait too long – if you think you have a great idea, act on it quickly. Don’t overthink the business and don’t wait until everything falls into place. Do the design of the site the best you can, but not everything has to be perfect. 80% is good enough. You will learn the rest as you improve. It’s never really finished, is it?

Start Selling as soon as you can. A few small orders a day, even as few as 2 from family and friends, will start the business going and will put you in the mode of selling.

Make a plan – have company meetings every week and meet with your sales people for at least half an hour a week. Set those schedules ahead of time then you won’t have to waste time by trying to schedule a meeting. Everyone will have his weekly plan that will not change from week to week. Make a plan when you look at your finances. Looking at it every day might make you too anxious.

Have a marketing campaign – new business owners often make the mistake of thinking they can do it all by themselves. Outsource your work to experts but don’t think that with this your responsibility ends. Marketing companies need your leadership and your input to make things right.

And don’t stay behind the curve. Innovate your products and your website. If something is not working, think of ways to fix it. Consult with experts whose  job is to stay updated. Is there another way to do what you have been doing? Other venues that you didn’t think about?

If you are an entrepreneur, or just started up your own small business, you should contact the consulting firm Puglisi Consulting Group (http://puglisiconsulting.com/#), which through their visibility Acceleration arm (http://www.visibilityacceleration.com/) are doing what every business should be doing; checking what works and what doesn’t, adjusting, finding out better ways of achieving the goal and having the tools to measure the results.