The world of Facebook and Amazon has created a slew of review sites that are magnets for conversation about your business. Are your customers saying good things about your business? Not so good?

It is critical to pay attention and contribute to these new social properties to ensure that they are not driving away potential customers… and are in fact working for your business.

Watch this video [7:58] presented by Peter Ericson (to SCORE in Hanover, NH) to understand what this is, and what you need to do to stay on top of your reputation online:

Related posts:

1. The Foundation for Social Media Success (video)
2. Social Media Presentation to Lebanon Area Chamber of Commerce (NH)
3. Website Success Secrets – The 7 Keys [video]

This presentation was sponsored by The Hanover Chamber of Commerce, SCORE and The Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.

Watch this video (42:58) to learn what your business must be doing today in social media. Pete focuses in on 2 fundamental web activities that will drive new customers to your website and engage your current customers and fans.

Please pardon the sketchy footage of Pete as the room was a tough one to find a good camera position!

Related posts:

1. Core Social Media Strategies for your business [video]
2. Social Media Revolution for Business [video]
3. Social Media Success presented to healthcare group [7 videos]

Related posts:

1. Real estate agent – our website performance review
2. Website metrics: How to understand your website’s performance
3. Get a free video review of your website

This is brilliant… and will get your crowd talking.

Here’s how blog comments typically play out for a commercial blog post: You publish a story and enable regular commenting… but wait, very few readers actually drop off a comment. Why? Well many reasons but 1 biggie: is it’s a pain to type your name, email and website, and what are you going to do with the commenter’s email address? Spam them?

Facebook to the rescue. Take a look at the snapshot below or follow this link to see Facebook comments in action. What is happening here? You can add a comment to your blog post via Facebook! Yes you are already logged in to Facebook, you don’t need to do anything extra but type your comment. Easy, fast, social. And if you are the publisher/company each comment in facebook is automagically linked back to your blog story… and all the commenter’s Facebook friends see the comment and the link back to your blog story.

How does it look in your profile? See the 2nd image below.

This is big. Do it. Get Facebook into your comment area and watch your comments grow (and yes we’ll do the same).

Here’s what the comment looks like in Facebook. Note the nice headline link back to your blog story.

Comments? :)

Related posts:

1. How NOT to use Facebook to promote your business: Facebook Friend vs. Facebook Page
2. Facebook Page Basics: Welcome to Tabs
3. Business blog = Google magnet [video]

Peter Ericson presented a foundational understanding of what social media is, how it’s being used by organizations and why it is critical to your business’s success.

The topics include:

1. What is social media and why is it important
2. Traditional advertising vs. social media
3. Social media roles
4. Blogging for business

Related posts:

1. Social Media Presentation to WBON [video]
2. Social Media Success presented to healthcare group [7 videos]
3. Lebanon Chamber of Commerce

We formally review websites with clients and suggest to them how we together we can improve performance. EastmanRealEstate.net attracts great Google search traffic but still needs improvement in it’s ability to convince a website visitor to connect with Jeff, the agent. Watch now to see what we recommend to improve the performance of Jeff’s website:

Website performance review transcript:

Today, we’re doing a website performance review for Eastman super broker, Jeff Adie at EastmanRealEstate.net. This blog’s been up for a little while now: not quite a year. I don’t think.

It’s attracting some traffic but needs some conversion help. In other words, once people land on here, we need to keep them interested and get them to connect with Jeff in some fashion. So, here it goes. Before we start to jump into the site, we are going to take a look at some of the analysis that Jordan did here. Look at the top five pages, on the site. We have the home page, the second most popular page, area home values, and number three through five are all blog related.

We have “Things to do in Napa Valley” as a blog post. Eastman Lake is a category of posts: multiple posts. Then, another Eastman New Hampshire average cost per square foot is another blog post.

Here’s the big deal: “area home values”. The second, I should say, the most important page, after the home page, this is the one people are gravitating to is “how much is my house worth?” area home values. If I click on “area home values” and I can click here…Or, I can go down here, and click on market snapshot. I end up on a page that is less than inspiring. People are going here, and they’re going away.

They’re not going to the market snapshot. This market snapshot takes us to a form, which tells us to fill in information. Then, maybe, somebody like Jeff will get back to you. It’s a little cold. People aren’t filling it out. Now, what you need to do here is A) create some expectations for what someone’s going to get, when it comes to an area home value. Now, maybe this is an opportunity to do some list building or to get an email address to connect with somebody.

In other words, maybe there’s something that, Jeff, that you can do to require an email address. Then, connect with that person to provide them with some sort of basic information, for the area. I think that would be a good thing. Imagery would be good here. Some beautiful Eastman photo would warm this page up quite a lot, but I think this is a area for people. It’s going to require some information for them to understand what’s going to happen if they either A) connect with this market snapshot and fill that out.

In other words, to encourage them to fill that out. Or, B) maybe you’re going to do something yourself, to connect with that person. Maybe there is a report you can send them or perhaps you can do a little legwork for somebody who takes the time to give you an email address. But, in any case, you end up with an email address. That’s a list building opportunity. You can communicate with them via email. So, that’s the second most important page on the entire site.

OK. Let’s go back to the home page here real quick. This site, from the beginning, this is nature of blogs. It’s very content rich. It’s text heavy. There’s a lot of information here. By definition, it makes it a little difficult to get around. One thing I’d recommend is possibly just add a block here, right in the middle of the website, with a nice image or maybe a nice video of the Eastman area that helps to sell Eastman.

Then, maybe under that block, you can have some of this more benefit text for the potential buyer or lister. But, breaking this up, visually, I think it would go a long way to making this easier to consume. OK.

By the way, Jeff, if you would send Jordan Brown five to 10 beautiful Eastman photos, we’ll build you a free video for that section. How’s that sound? OK. That’ll see if you’ve actually watched the video.

OK. Next thing here. One thing that I missed about area home values: I think a great thing to do would be to create a category, a blog category called “area home values” or “Eastman home values.”

Something that is specific to any article your write about, maybe its sales statistics, but that really said. What we can do: we can feed that one category into the area home values page. So, not only will somebody get information about how to get a sense of what a home is worth. But, they’ll also see related blog posts of all the articles that you’ve written that talk about the value of homes in general, in the Eastman area, which helps build the trust factor and will motivate people to connect with you.

OK. I want to go into a blog post here, and we’re going to shoot down to this one here. OK. One of the things we see is that people are coming to the site, and they are looking at 2.3 pages here. Pages per visit is 2.3. It’s OK, but we want to bump that over three or more is really what we want to do. We want to keep people on the site, digging through the information. An easy way to do that is we have this plug-in called “related posts.” We plug it in, and what it does is it looks at the category of the Eastman Lake land, with 160 foot posts and says, “What category is that in?” It will serve up all other blog posts that are also in this category.

So, related blog articles will show up, along with this one, at the bottom. So, if I finish reading this – I find it’s interesting, and I see that there are three other articles or five other articles that have to do with this category, Eastman real estate – then they will show up as well. That’s an easy thing to do. The other thing to do – it’s very important at the end of a blog post – is to create a call to action. Right? So, you want somebody to come to the end of the article and do something.

Now, there are lots of calls to action. You can become a Facebook fan. You can subscribe via email. In this case, you can get more information on this piece of property at your other site, which is OK.

It takes the person off your site. It’s a little confusing for the customer, because now they’re on a whole different site with a whole different layout. But, you’re contact information is here. That’s pretty easy to get to.

I think it’s a good short-term solution. However, what if someone just wants to connect with you now? Why not give them the ability, every time you write an article, along with the link to your other site, always have, invite them to contact you for more information or to talk about their buying needs or their listing needs. Have a sentence here that says, “Hey, if you’re interested in talking a little bit more about Eastman real estate, I’d like to chat with you. Then, you can contact me here”. Give a link, at the end of every blog post to your contact page.

You always giving people a chance to get there easily. The last thing you want to do is make people work to get to you, because they’ll quit. OK. While we’re on the contact page, let’s talk about this a little bit. This is a cold contact page. There’s basically information here and a form, and it’s not telling me anything. “So, I don’t really know what to do. I understand that you want some information here, but it’s pretty cold.”

Why not warm the person up? Why not write a nice paragraph or one sentence or two sentences: “Hey, I’m in Eastman everyday, and the market is changing daily. Why don’t you get in touch with me, by filling out the form below, by contacting me by phone?

We can chat about your needs”. Something on top of this form to warm it up. Another thing that I would do is add a nice, beautiful picture of the Eastman Lake here or something like that: something to just warm this up. People are moving into Eastman, because they’re excited. They want the woods, the beauty, the lake, the golf course, or whatever. We need to add some of that in here. OK. So, we covered that.

I’m just checking my list here. We talked about that. OK. Let’s talk a little bit about the sidebar here. We’re looking at this website here, on the average, older laptop screen. The resolution is 1028 by 764. What we have here is a sidebar that’s really crammed with stuff, but you’ve got to scroll down to get to it. This is really the challenge: how to leverage the most important things in this sidebar. What I would do is move…

First of all, what makes me a great realtor doesn’t really help me. Why I can help you or what’s the benefit to me, as a buyer, is really what I’m more interested in. So, rather than talking about more about you, you can sort of just flip the language so it’s: “if you’re looking for the best realtor in Eastman, this is my specialty. I’ll help you, not my buyers.” It helps to just use the you language and make it a little more personal, a little more benefit oriented to the potential buyer/lister. Then, I would take this information and move it.

Move it on to the home page. I’m going to give you that nice video here, in the middle. Put that information right under the video, which describes the benefits of working with you. You’ll have yourself a super friendly home page, with that sort of main benefit information right in the middle, on the home page. Then, you can move everything on the sidebar up.

What I would do is: I’d take this Facebook icon, and I would move it down below. You have a Facebook connect up here. This is great and all, and it should be there. But, I think you can move this down below, probably, below the tags.

We’ll talk about that in a second. But, what you want to do is: you want to show people that there’s a lot of information here. You can get to it easily, because that keeps them on the site and keeps them using the site, as a resource, as a database of information.

So, you want to get these categories of information up to the top. So, people can go in and jump in and see this. Now, let’s talk about clean up a little bit. There’s a lot of duplicate information here — Eastman highlights, Eastman ownership fees, Eastman real estate. It’s hard to read, and it Eastman, Eastman, Eastman. We know we’re Eastman. This is an Eastman real estate blog.

Let’s make it easy for people to figure out what it is. Just change the names to highlights and ownership fees and Eastman real estate. That seems a little broad. But, maybe it’s land for sale, condos for sale, houses for sale. Those are probably three very good categories. I’m not sure if you’ll need general real estate information. Home financing, that’s a good one. Home sales statistics, that’s a great one.

Maybe that’s an area home values related and uncategorized. Jordan pointed out you have maybe almost 30 articles that are uncategorized. So, I’d get those articles categorized.

On the tag front, we have…Try to limit your text to 20. See if you can do it. You’ve got too many texts going on here. It’s impossible to get through. You really need to think about a tag, as a top-level category, so that they’re several articles in a tag line.

Golf is a great tag. You can have several articles under golf. Grantham, New Hampshire. This is, maybe, the town of Grantham. That’s a good one. Home values, you’ve kind of covered that in a category already. You probably don’t need that. Maybe just a category called lake. Not lakefront and lake but just lake. Anything having to do with the lake. Lakefront land is important. Maybe it should be lakefront land.

Sunapee, that’s a good one. So, that’s a little off target. Newbury, that’s a good one, but it looks like you have Newbury/Newbury, NH. That might be a duplicate. New Hampshire home sales. I’m just trying to help here. Post and bean, That’s not a bad category. I like that tag. That’s a good one. Springfield. Then, Springfield NH. That’s a duplication here. You should clean that up. NH, New Hampshire views. How about Eastman views? That might be a better tag, but anyway…Here’s waterfront. So, you have lakefront and waterfront. These are duplicate tags, unless you’re talking about waterfront outside of Eastman.

But it’s still lakefront. So, then, Wilmot. Wilmot, NH. This looks like a duplicate tag as well. Let’s see if you can cut these tag in half. You really want to make it easy for people to cruise through. If your covering organization through your sort of table of contents here, with your categories, don’t duplicate it in your tags. Use tags for sort of more unique things like golf and financing and lakefront views and just sort of interesting, difficult to categorize tags.

OK. That’s so I covered that, and I think that covers it, Jeff. So, let me know if you want to talk more about the suggestions in the video.

Related posts:

1. Real Estate Agent Website Coddles Clients: TeamClifford.com
2. 5 minute blogging success for businesses that serve real estate
3. Your Website Performance Review – what’s it all about?

Peter Ericson presented to a NH/VT group of Hospital Facility Managers on the topic of social media. Information covered in the presentation includes:

• What is social media?
• Why is it important?
• What are it’s roles?
• How can hospitals leverage it for their organization?

Social media websites covered are: Facebook, Blogs, Youtube, Twitter, Linkedin, and Yammer.

1 – Why is Social Media critical your success?

2 – Roles of Social Media – your blog, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn all have a distinct purpose, find out what they are.

3 – Social Media in Action – some great success stories

4 – LinkedIn – business networking success

5 – Yammer – the new casual conversation for your team

6 – More Social Media Examples

7 – Conclusions – what should you focus on 1st?

Related posts:

1. Social Media Presentation to Lebanon Area Chamber of Commerce (NH)
2. Social Media Revolution for Business [video]
3. Website Success Secrets – The 7 Keys [video]

Now that you’ve got your website and blog up and ready to build your business, you’ll probably be confronted with the age-old scourge of writers everywhere: the blank screen with that horrible blinking cursor. You have every intention of posting two or three times a week, but how on earth are you going to figure out what to write?

The trick is to look outside of your office for inspiration–to your customers, your audience, and to other people who write about your field in blogs and other media. With a little bit of research and curiosity, you can unearth a world of appropriate topics that will grab the attention of potential clients and the all-important Google.

Pay Attention
Start simple: Write about the questions your customers ask you.

What’s the best native plant to fight soil erosion?
What do you do as the caterer if your luau gets rained out?

Provide the answer if you have it or–sometimes better–take your readers along as you investigate a knotty problem, taking suggestions, tips, or follow-ups as you go. You’ll be proving not only that you know your stuff, but that when your customers talk, you listen to them.

Get Inspired
Ideas are contagious. And if you read what other people are saying–in your field and elsewhere–you’ll have a lot more to talk about. Read your morning paper or your favorite blogs with an eye for stories that might apply to what you do. Or better yet, set up an RSS Reader (Google has a free one) to pull your favorite bloggers, columnists, or publications into one page where you can scan headlines and look for ideas. At the very least, you’ll be totally up-to-date and able to write on what’s new in your industry; and at best, you’ll be able to highlight the importance of your services by relating them to hot topics and recent news.

Think Strategically
How do potential customers find you online? Chances are, they type a search term (or keyphrase) into Google–say, “cambridge ma hotel”–and click on what they find. There’s a lot of complex strategy behind getting to the top of the search results, but one piece of the puzzle is the use of good keyphrases in your blog posts. And a great list of keyphrases should also inspire some ideas about what to write.

It’s important never to cram those terms into your writing–post titles like, “Window Treatments, Window Dressings, Curtains, Blinds, and Window Shades NH” will turn off human and Google alike–but smart and organic use of them, maybe even linked to a hot news topic–“Window Treatments and Your Summer Electric Bill: How Curtains Keep You Cool”–can help you stayed focused and score some points with Google at the same time.

The most important tip is to keep at it. Putting up a new item once, twice, or three times a week can sound daunting, but once it’s a habit, you’ll be able to whip out a post with your morning coffee, and inspiration will strike as you go about the rest of your job. When you pay that good idea forward, your potential customers may just be inspired to give you a call.

Not blogging yet?  Or need more help?  Contact us for information on WordPress Construction and advice on how to grow your company through web design and strategy.

Related posts:

1. Business blogging basics
2. The 40/400 blogging rule
3. Payroll Business Generates New Clients From Website!

Blogging builds trust, attracts Google searches and takes time. What if you could cut the time portion down to just 5 minutes? You can.

Watch the video below to find out how to easily and quickly produce fantastic video blog posts for your website that will show off your work and expertise, and generate leads for your business.

Real estate blogging success transcript:

I was talking to a couple of folks involved in real estate, a landscaper and a real estate broker. They both blog and they both realize that blogging is good for their business. It attracts natural Google search and it builds trust with the visitors that land on their blog, showing them as experts. The big question is, how do you blog in a time effective manner? I get a lot of whining from people saying, I understand blogging is great, but I just don’t have time to do it. So we came up with a solution, one that would just knock your blogging out of the park and it involves video. Now the first thing you need to do… The big secret here is you need to get a smartphone. Get an iPhone or an Android Phone, but the smartphones today have the ability to record a video. I know that the iPhone makes it extraordinarily easy to upload the video directly from your phone to your YouTube channel. So what you do is you go set up your YouTube channel. Upload your video to YouTube.

Then what you’ll have a video ready to go for your blog. You can embed this video easily right back in a new blog post. So imagine if you are a landscaper and you’re looking at a beautiful project that you just completed, you whip out your Smart Phone. You take a quick video of the nice landscaping that you did. You talk about the process you went through. Maybe a little before and after description and there you have yourself a great video. So once you put your video on your blog you still need to add text.

The secret here is that Google needs text to be able to understand what that blog article’s about so it can rank that article in Google search. So here’s the secret weapon. It’s a website called castingwords.com. Castingwords. What you can do is, you can literally copy the address of your video into Castingwords here. And they will give you a transcription, a written transcription of your video from the audio in your video, that you can copy and paste straight back into your blog.

What do they charge? They charge $0.75 per minute. So let’s say you spent two minutes, which would be a pretty good long description of a property whether it’s for real estate or landscaping or if you’re a plumber or electrician or roofer. Anybody involved in real estate can use this technique.

You’ll spend a grand total of $1.50 to get the text and the video on your blog as a new post. And you’ll have a Google friendly way to transparently show your expertise, very quickly… and yes this transcript was brought to you by castingwords :)

Related posts:

1. Real estate agent – our website performance review
2. Real Estate Agent Website Coddles Clients: TeamClifford.com
3. Website Success Secrets – The 7 Keys [video]

So you saw the Social Media Revolution video and you read about Sprinkles Cupcakes, and you’ve finally decided that Facebook isn’t a flash in the pan. But now that you’re ready to set up your business page, you’re not sure what the deal is with these tabs across the top below your page name. Is there more to Facebook than just the wall?

Yes, and hurray for that. The wall is the backbone of your Facebook presence–it’s where you will most publicly build relationships with your customers–but additional tabs can make your page as multifaceted as a website. The trick, as with most things, is to start out simple, and do simple well. So before you go hunting through the app directory, get a handle on Facebook’s default tabs.

The Wall
You know this one, right? The wall is where you post updates, links, questions, offers–anything you want your fans and the public to see and respond to. The key word here is public; if it goes on your wall, whether it’s your post or a friend’s comment, anyone who likes your page will see it in their news feed. Great for demonstrating your sharp wit and killer instinct; probably lousy for an endless debate on industry minutiae.

Info
Appropriately named, this is where you want to put your URL, contact info, company mission, and, when appropriate, hours of operation. The fields in this tab will vary with your business type, but the gist is straightforward: someone wants to know the who, what, where, and why of your business. Considering that they might want to hire you or buy your products, you should probably tell them.

Photos
Amazingly (and thankfully) people still read. But you’re on Facebook to add some flavor to your business, so you’re going to need some pictures too–but of what? Your products, storefront, charities, local events, giveaways, trade shows, you name it. Anything that conveys the personality of what you do. Organize your photos into descriptively titled albums (“2010 Boston Marathon” or “2011 Renovations”), and give folks a visual way to keep an eye on what you’re up to.

Discussions
Remember that debate on industry minutiae? The beauty of the discussion tab is that you and your friends or the public at large can have a discussion without every comma being blasted out to news feeds. Maybe you’re asking for constructive criticism or offering technical support; maybe you’re coordinating volunteers for an event, and your customers don’t need to know what time Annie is going to show up with the crock pot. The content of your Facebook page is still public, but discussions exist to allow some chatter to go unbroadcast.

Depending on your business type, you may have other tabs–Reviews, Links–and as you make Facebook a daily part of your business outreach and marketing, you can add features covering everything from videos to e-commerce. Just make sure that you are a pro at the basics before you bite off the next chunk.

Related posts:

1. How NOT to use Facebook to promote your business: Facebook Friend vs. Facebook Page
2. You Can’t Afford to Ignore Facebook
3. How to choose a Facebook fan page address

So you’re sold on the marketing value of social media, and you update your company twitter account at least once a day.  But your 140 characters of sheer brilliance don’t seem to be yielding any new customers–or even leads. What gives?

The first painful truth about Twitter is that building it doesn’t necessarily mean they will come.  Sure, your hot tips and well-chosen links may turn up in client searches or Topsy results, but that’s a scatter-shot approach to what should be a science.  Rather than waiting for the twitosphere to find you, you can take charge of your Twitter following by identifying people who should be following you–and following them first.

1. Let Twitter search your contacts for people you already know. Yes, it’s a no-brainer, but the folks you’re already talking to should know you’re on Twitter, and if you follow them, they’ll most likely follow you back. Remember: your first task is to get more than 1 follower.
2. Search Twitter for people tweeting about your field or topic. See that search box in the Twitter sidebar?  You can start there–or pick up one of the many Twitter clients, from Hootsuite to Tweetdeck.  Then search for the phrases that you think your audience is using, identify folks who seem particularly interested in the topic, and follow them.  Better yet, follow them and then go through their lists of followers and followees; the odds are, you’ll find a ready-made network of people who’ll want to hear what you have to say.
3. Plunder the competition. Does your competitor have a head start?  Great.  Take a tour through their Twitter connections and start following them.  You may come to the attention of folks who didn’t even know there was competition.
4. Set up running searches for your topics, keyphrases, and name. Another truth about Twitter is that you can’t build it and walk away.  Get alerts from Tweetdeck or another Twitter client when your terms are tweeted, and actively follow people who catch your eye.

That will get you started, but in order to keep your momentum, you have to remember one final rule: Engage. Now here’s something people forget about social media: It’s not all about you.  Yes, you should tweet your own interesting content.  But you should also reply, direct message, retweet, and chat. At its best, Twitter is a relationship tool, not a megaphone.  Listen, follow, participate, tweet valuable information, and reap the benefits.

Yet another helpful tip from the tech junkies at TCW, specializing in WordPress-based NH web design.

Related posts:

1. How to start using Twitter
2. What is Twitter – and why should you care?
3. Add your business to Twitter Directories

Did you post something this week on your blog to help your customers or future customers?

Do it right now. Answer a question that a recent customer asked you. I bet others have the same question. Write it in 40 words and you will please the next visitor to your website. Write it in 400 words and you will also attract new visitors searching on that topic.

Publish 40 or 400, either way works!

Related posts:

1. Blogging for Business – But What Do You Write?
2. Business blogging basics
3. Why you must publish your company news on your website

Here’s someone who will write your blog post for $5 bucks. Too good to be true? Maybe… but getting your business news and happenings on your website’s blog is priority #1 today to keep your site fresh and Google happy.

That’s right there is no excuse!

gtangjr: I will create one piece of content for your blog, website, or what have you for $5 at Fiver
www.fiverr.com
Maximum 150 words, any subject, and normally complete within an hour, depending on the circumstances. I promise to provide you with well-researched, well-edited, coherent, cogent (where necessary), original, insightful content as often as you require, with each instance being another $5. …

Related posts:

1. The 40/400 blogging rule
2. 5 minute blogging success for businesses that serve real estate
3. Video: Google Alerts – How to find out what’s being said about your business

Once you hit 25 Facebook fans you can create a short, catchy web address to promote your business with. Watch the video to find out how.

Related posts:

1. How NOT to use Facebook to promote your business: Facebook Friend vs. Facebook Page
2. Go get your permanent Facebook address before it gets taken!
3. Facebook Page Basics: Welcome to Tabs

This is a very cool tool to show off a listing, your hotel, restaurant, products, retail space, anything that you would normally use rotating images or build a slideshow for. The video I made below honestly took 10 minutes to put together! Check out http://animoto.com to try it for free

What do you think? Any other uses you can think of for this video technology?

Related posts:

1. Video: How to get found in Google in 10 minutes (Local business search)
2. 10 (Inexpensive) Internet Marketing Tips that will Build your Business
3. Inexpensive Internet Marketing – 10 Tips that will Build your Business

What is a Facebook Friend? What is a Facebook Fan? Watch this video to find the very important difference between the two and how to effectively use Facebook to promote your business.

Related posts:

1. How to choose a Facebook fan page address
2. Facebook Page Basics: Welcome to Tabs
3. Add Facebook comments to your WordPress blog to increase… yes, commenting!

If you’re ready to start participating in social media — and want to know how to make the most of it — then enjoy our recent webinar: Core Social Media Strategies. We cover Google, blogging, Twitter and Facebook.

Webinar comment from -Patrick Kermond, Burnham Boat Slings:

I just wanted to thank you for the webinar last Friday. I thought it was very helpful and pretty eye opening. I think it is an excellent service that The Complete Website offers by holding these type of webinars. I wanted to let you know if you were to hold more in the future you could count me in.

Related posts:

1. Social Media Revolution for Business [video]
2. The Foundation for Social Media Success (video)
3. Social Media Presentation to WBON [video]

It’s official: you can’t afford to ignore social media any longer! A recent study shows companies that make smart use of social media achieve far greater financial performance than those that don’t. Advertising alone doesn’t cut it in today’s competitive environment. As Ford Motor Co. chief marketing executive James Farley famously observed: “You can’t just say it. You have to get the people to say it to each other.”

If you’re ready to start participating in social media — and want to know how to make the most of it — then join us for our webinar, Core Social Media Strategies, on December 4, 2009, from 1 to 2:30 p.m.

Our discussion will include:

• The dos and don’ts of using blogging and Twitter to help build your business.
• An introduction to search engine optimization, or SEO: the art of inserting key words and phrases into your online communication to help attract traffic to your website.
• A free key phrase list designed just for you, based on a phrase you provide us that describes your business.
• A question-and-answer session to address your company’s unique concerns.

Enrollment is limited to 20 participants on a first-come, first-served basis and we still have some spots left. Reserve your space now — and find out how to take advantage of social media’s power, while avoiding its pitfalls!

For reservations, please email Jordan@tcwebsite.com.

Related posts:

1. Social Media Presentation to WBON [video]
2. Social Media Presentation to Lebanon Area Chamber of Commerce (NH)
3. Core Social Media Strategies for your business [video]

This video is required viewing around our parts. It explains why all businesses cannot afford to ignore Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, blogs and other social media websites. Yes, they are talking about your business!

Related posts:

1. Core Social Media Strategies for your business [video]
2. Social Media Success presented to healthcare group [7 videos]
3. Social Media Presentation to WBON [video]

Does your business have a website? Of course it does. These days, it’s a necessity if you want to compete and thrive.

Does your website have a blog? Chances are, it doesn’t, especially if yours is a small business. You’ve been meaning to start a blog, but haven’t had time. Or maybe you’ve got one, but you don’t post on it very often.

Big mistake! A website without a healthy, active blog is like a retail store without a sign out front. People drive right by. Or if they do notice your business, they can’t tell if anyone’s home.

Blogs play a significant role in drawing traffic to your website and raising your search engine rankings. That’s because unlike the rest of your site, your blog is updated frequently. Fresh content encourages visitors to come back multiple times, instead of just clicking once and not returning. If your customers really enjoy your posts, they’ll share the link with their friends — and now those people are regularly visiting your site, too. Search engines love this kind of thing.

Still unconvinced? Check out this short video that shows how a blog post on a country inn’s website attracted precisely the kind of visitors the innkeepers were looking for.

Blogs also offer your customers a chance to comment, offer feedback on your products and services, and participate in a conversation. Remember those old general stores where people used to gather and trade ideas and opinions? A blog can create a similar community of loyal fans who come to you when they need expert help and advice.

If you’re new to blogging, here are a few keys to success:

• Commit to posting something at least once a week, if not more often. If you don’t keep things lively, people will forget to drop by.
• This may sound counterintuitive, but your blog is not a platform to advertise your products and services. Visitors can go elsewhere on your site for that. Instead, make your blog informative and fun to read. Give away a bit of your knowledge without expecting anything immediately in return.
• Keep a running list of ideas for posts. It helps to carry a little notebook and jot down topics whenever they pop into your head. Avoid deadline pressure by writing your posts a few days in advance. Even better, stay one or two posts ahead of the game in case you get busy and don’t have time to write.
• Don’t be afraid to give your blog some personality! Use your own experiences or those of your customers (with their permission, of course) to help illustrate your point. At the same time, stay on topic. People visit your site to read about your company’s activities, not to hear about your grandchildren.
• Allow people to subscribe to your blog through email alerts or an RSS feed. That way, they’ll be notified of new posts and won’t need to remember to check your site.
• If you don’t enjoy writing or are just too busy to keep up a blog, consider hiring someone to write for you on a regular basis. A good ghostwriter will brainstorm with you, gather your ideas, and bring them to life. Make sure to ask for a few samples of their work to see if you like their writing style.

For more ideas on running a business blog, check out this article. And don’t hesitate to contact us for help in setting up and maintaining your blog!

Related posts:

1. Blogging for Business – But What Do You Write?
2. The 40/400 blogging rule
3. Payroll Business Generates New Clients From Website!