KevinNewcomb.com

When you decide to begin using Twitter in your business, you’ll have plenty of decisions to make before you begin, and more as you go along. Jumping in to start a Twitter account because you think you should be there is a sure recipe for failure. You know…”failing to plan is planning to fail,” and all that.

The first thing to decide before you begin is how you will use Twitter. There are many ways for a business to benefit from Twitter. These Twitter strategies fall into three main categories:

1. Broadcasting
2. Monitoring
3. Interacting

1. Broadcasting Twitter Strategies

Strategies in the “Broadcasting” category are (mostly) a one-way exchange of information from the business to its followers. That’s OK, as long as it’s done on a clearly labeled account, so people know what to expect. An example of this would be CNN Breaking News.

Another Broadcasting Twitter strategy uses Twitter to spread company news, such as press releases. That’s mostly the way Google uses Twitter, at least on its main account. This can also be done as part of an Interacting strategy (more on that later), but often companies (or their PR reps) will use Twitter only for this purpose. Again, it’s acceptable, if it’s made clear that this is what a follower can expect.

A third broadcasting strategy is used by companies that use Twitter to share special deals for followers. An example of this strategy is TechBargains, which uses its stream to share the deals and coupons it collects on its site.

A broadcasting strategy can be an effective alternative to an RSS feed, as long as people understand that’s the way the account will be used. The main problem with a Broadcasting strategy is that it neglects the power of Twitter to build relationships.

The expectation of most users on Twitter is that they will be able to interact with anyone they follow. If you’re not letting them do that, you may end up damaging your brand more than helping it by using a Broadcasting strategy

2. Monitoring Twitter Strategies

A second Twitter strategy for a business utilizes Twitter as a monitoring tool. Through Twitter, you can easily keep track of mentions of your company and product brands, and those of your competitors and partners. This strategy can be used in conjunction with a Broadcasting strategy, or on its own.

An advanced method of monitoring is spelled out by Marty Weintraub of AimClear Marketing. It’s called “Buzz Pocket Mining,”which uses data from Twitter and other social media networks as a form of keyword research.

It’s often a good idea to start off in a Monitoring strategy when you first get involved in Twitter. It’s a good way to ease into it, and see how things are being done, so you don’t jump in and make a mistake.

3. Interacting Twitter Strategies

A third Twitter strategy for business is the Interacting strategy. It’s what many people consider to be the “right” way to use Twitter, because it embodies the essence of social media: building relationships.

In an Interacting strategy, your company focuses on having conversations with followers. This includes sharing and promoting your own content, but it goes beyond that to include promoting other people’s content as a resource for your followers, responding to followers’ questions, and proactively engaging users on Twitter.

An Interacting strategy can be used for brand building, by increasing brand awareness and humanizing your brand (Zappos). It can be part of a customer service strategy, responding to problems before they escalate and proactively keeping customers informed when problems arise (Home Depot).

An Interacting Twitter strategy is also useful as a sort of focus group, gathering customer feedback in an efficient and interactive way. Similarly, it can help with generating new content or product ideas.

A primary benefit of an Interacting strategy is community building. Companies that make an effort to provide useful information to followers, regardless of who created it (Whole Foods), provide value — and customers remember that and reward it.

By putting a human face on your company, you can bring benefits in many areas of your business. Although it’s a new medium, the old truths remain: better relationships drive better business.

The other day, I witnessed something that made me realize just how much our society has changed since I was a child, and how little attention we pay to our everyday relationships.

I was out for a run in my neighborhood, and I saw an elderly woman approaching her mail carrier to give him something. Instead of a letter to deliver, she gave him a bag of home-baked cookies.

The look on his face went from confusion, to joy, to something like a new appreciation for humanity. That one little gesture made his day, or more likely his week, and changed his relationship with that woman forever.

You can bet that he’s going to take a little extra care with her packages, and go the extra mile for her. Not because he feels he owes her, but because he wants to be kind to her, as she was kind to him.

There was a time when such a gesture would have been appreciated, but not so out-of-the-ordinary that it sparked awe in the mail carrier’s eyes. People used to do things for each other, like share their cookies, or send over their kids to shovel snow from a neighbor’s sidewalk. Perhaps that’s still going on in some places, but I think it’s safe to say that those places are not representative of America today.

And that attitude seems to be reflected in far too many web sites as well. Site owners don’t pay much attention to users, and certainly don’t go out of their way to give their readers or customers something extra.

But what if you did? What if you could go the extra mile to make people feel good about coming to your site, or shopping at your store? It’s likely they would have that same feeling of wonder as the mail carrier, and the same feelings of loyalty as well.

So the next time you’re looking for a way to get an edge over your competition, think back to a simpler time. A small gesture of genuine respect can go a long way in changing people’s attitudes. By humanizing your site, you set yourself apart from the competition, and give yourself an edge that they can’t take away easily.

Many people are happily going about their business without ever worrying about online reputation management. The problem comes when, one day, they perform a search on their name, their brand, or their company name, and find something in the search results that they’d rather not see.

Sometimes, it’s just piles and piles of spammy sites that have nothing to do with them. Other times, it’s someone out to make them look bad, whether that’s a competitor, disgruntled employee, or jilted ex-boyfriend.

When it happens, it’s usually pretty confusing. I’ve gotten several emails that follow this basic outline:

Dear Kevin,

I ran a search for [my name/my company/my brand], and came up with several sites that shouldn’t be there. I’ve emailed Google asking them to remove those pages, but I haven’t gotten a response. How can I get Google to make those pages go away?

Sincerely,
Online Reputation Victim

I have to write them back, and let them know there’s a snowball’s chance in hell that Google is going to remove anything from their index. But thankfully, there is something else they can do: replace those junk results with more relevant results, controlled by them.

Taking control of your search results is the first step toward online reputation management. For individuals and companies that are free from scandal, it may be all they need to do for a long time.

For individuals, the easiest way to accomplish this is to create a website or a blog on your own domain name, such as www.kevinnewcomb.com. Once that’s done, you can link to that domain from all of your soon-to-be-created social media profiles, and link to those profiles from your site.

There are an infinite number of sites where you can create a profile, but some of the best-ranking ones include:

• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• MySpace
• Flickr
• FriendFeed
• MeetUp.com
• Naymz
• Google Profiles

It helps to use your full name when creating these profiles, and to fill out the profiles completely. If there’s an option to allow search engines to find the profile, make sure that’s turned on. And if there’s a place to link to your web site or other social media profiles, take advantage of that too.

Of course, there are plenty of benefits to participating in some of those communities as well, but I’ll address some of those in another post.

Often, I’ll get emails asking for a “ballpark figure” for how much it would cost to “SEO a site.” Every time that happens, it reminds me how much more education needs to be done, and I kick myself a little for not doing enough of it.

There’s nothing wrong with the question. It makes perfect sense for someone looking for search engine optimization services to ask how much those services will cost. The problem is that the question focuses on search engine optimization (SEO) as a cost, instead of looking at SEO as an investment.

It’s a bit like asking “how long is a piece of string?” The answer, of course, depends on several variables, including:

• How big is the site?
• Is it in a competitive market?
• How long has the site been around?
• Does it have existing inbound links?
• What resources are available on the client side to implement suggested changes?

Perhaps the most important question, and one that’s often overlooked, is “What are the business goals of the site, and how do you expect search to address those goals?”

When I begin an SEO consulting engagement, I’ll start with a quick assessment of the basics: check site structure, check backlinks, look for prior optimization efforts, etc.

The site review/SEO audit looks at the site to determine what on-page factors need to be addressed. This would include structural things like making sure the site is easy for the search engines to crawl, that the title and description tags are optimized, and that each page has enough relevant content on it for search engines to know what it’s about.

I’ll also look here at some very basic ranking reports, to see if the site is showing up for some of the keywords the client thinks are important. I get into much more detail on this later in the process.

All of that information helps both me and the client to understand where we’re at to start with. But the real progress in planning the next move is made once I start talking to the client about what their business goals are, and what they hope to achieve by optimizing their site.

If you keep the conversation focused on SEO, you’ll get answers like “I want to rank for X terms,” or “I want to get more traffic from the search engines.” Those are fine things to want, but they’re not business goals. They’re a means to an end, with no revenue tied to them, and no way to really tell if they help your business at all.

A better goal might be something like, “I want to drive more customers to my lead-generation form,” or “I want customers to find the phone number to call my salespeople.” Those goals can be directly linked to revenue, and can be tracked. Those are goals that we can build a strategy around.

Once a client begins thinking about those goals, we can work on ways to optimize their web site to meet them. Then, instead of thinking of SEO as a cost, they begin to realize that it should be viewed as an investment; an investment that will pay for itself several times over, when done right.

Internet marketing for a small business can be a daunting task. First, there’s the Web site to be built, which can be a huge job in itself…but once you get your site up and running, what’s next? The online marketing space can be a scary place, even for seasoned offline marketers and savvy small business owners.

There are so many online marketing ideas to choose from, and so many unscrupulous consultants looking to make money online at the expense of your small business, that it can get to the point where many small businesses avoid Internet marketing altogether, and stick with their tried-and-true Yellow Pages listings.

There are far too many marketing opportunities on the Internet for you to consider them all, and many of them are not the right choice for a business that’s just getting online. To cut through some of the confusion, here are some small business marketing tips to help you get your business online:

1. Create a Web presence. The first step for most small businesses is to register a domain name and build a Web site. Try to pick a domain name that’s easy to remember, and doesn’t have lots of dashes. Get a dot-com domain whenever possible. Choose a reliable host that allows you to set up an e-mail address using your domain.
2. Build a Web site. Your small business Web site doesn’t have to be an elaborate site, with all the latest bells and whistles, but it has to look professional. If you’re not a designer, hire someone who is. Remember that for most service businesses and local retailers, your Web site’s main purpose is to inform potential customers about your business and convey a professional image. If you create a Web site for your business that does that, you’re ahead of the game. Make it easy to find your physical location (including city and state), your phone number, and your e-mail address (but only if you’re going to answer it by the next day, at the latest). If you service other towns or regions, make sure you mention those areas on your site, so that users searching for those locations will find your site.
3. Get listed in Internet Yellow Pages listings. See, you don’t have to step far out of your comfort zone after all. Start with the Yellow Pages providers you’re already working with. They’ve all got an online version by now, and you can get listed in many of them for free, or nearly free. They also offer “preferred placement” or other premium services, but you can begin with a free listing and move on from there. Start with Yellowpages.com and Superpages.com. These services supply data to several search engines and directories as well, so they are the best place to start.
4. Create a profile in local search engines and city guides. Like the Yellow Pages directories, you can also get free listings from local search providers. For example, Google, Yahoo, Bing Local, Local.com and CitySearch all provide a simple interface to add or update a listing.
5. Submit to the major data suppliers. Many directories and local search engines use data from one of the top data suppliers to fill out their listings with local business data. You should check to be sure you’re listed correctly in the databases of Acxiom, InfoUSA and Localeze.
6. Add or update your profile on local review sites. Chances are, some of your customers are using sites like Yelp, Insider Pages, or OpenList to find and rate local businesses. Make sure you’re listed there, and then consider asking your satisfied customers to write a review of your business. You could tie it into a promotion or giveaway, or offer some kind of coupon for users who go to the trouble of doing so.
7. Submit your site to quality directories. Gone are the days when quantity won out over quality. Don’t waste your time submitting to hundreds of directories, or paying for a service to do that for you. They won’t help you, and they could actually hurt your site’s rankings in the search results. There are about a half dozen general directories worth paying for, including Best of the Web, JoeAnt, GoGuides or MassiveLinks . Look around for local directories and vertically targeted directories in your niche.
8. Build quality links. Start with your existing business partners, professional organizations, satisfied customers, and even your competitors. Remember, it’s about quality now, so forego the random reciprocal link exchange, be cautious with paid links, and spend the time to build links for the long haul. Deb Mastaler offers a terrific guide to link building for new Web sites on a budget.
9. Test out a small pay-per-click (PPC) campaign. A PPC campaign, in the form of search ads or contextual text ads, can drive targeted traffic to your site. You decide how broadly or narrowly to target your ads, using keywords, location, and other factors. You bid on the per-click price you want to pay to have your ad appear in the search results for each keyword, and set a budget so that you won’t spend more than your limit. The PPC platforms, like Google AdWords, Yahoo Sponsored Search, and Microsoft AdCenter, make it fairly easy to create a simple campaign. If you’d rather not take on the management of a search or contextual advertising campaign yourself, you can take advantage of a growing number of a managed PPC providers, which offer packaged deals for marketing a small business. Providers like Inceptor, Leads.com, LocalLaunch and ReachLocal all have solutions tailored to the small business marketing needs of local businesses.

So right there, you have 9 ways to promote your small business Web site. And that’s not even counting an advertising campaign.