It's no secret that word of mouth marketing is gaining popularity. With an economic downturn underway, more companies than ever will want to take advantage of social media's high impact/low cost benefits.

There are all sorts of buzz trackers out there. One that's growing on me is Addictomatic. Simply type in your search phrase, and the site pulls results from a broad spectrum of sources - Twitter, YouTube, Digg, Flickr, Yahoo Web Search, and more.

If you want to find out what people are saying about you, your company, or your product, Addictomatic can paint the picture almost instantly. Besides being fast, Addictomatic has a clean layout and is comprehensible and easy to use for people who may not be familiar with the terrain.

Give it a try. You may be surprised what people are saying ... or not saying.

Is your business on the internet or are you an internet business? There is a fundamental difference between the two that some businesses fail to see. One is simply having a presence on the internet with maybe a few snazzy applications to wow a visitor or two, the other is a business that actually derives revenue from its presence on the web.  Yes, technically you can be both, but if you don't utilize the tools available to you, you might be stuck with what is simply an electronic brochure. 

Are you ready to take the plunge, but not quite sure where to start? A little overwhelmed with the options, jargon, and acronyms that abound? Lucky for you (just like anything else on the web) there are references galore ready for you to read through - here are a couple -

- Website 101 yes, there are ads everywhere on this site, but they have to pay the bills somehow. This site offers free web tutorials for small ecommerce startups. Topics range from Domain Name Tutorials  to Third Party Credit card Processing  their tutorials are technically articles that talk you through each topic in-depth -- a good way to start your knowledge-gathering. 

-  Entrepreneur.com has a section dedicated to ebusiness. Here, you can connect with discussion groups, and see how to get started.  New articles keep you updated on the latest e-trends that specifically impact the small business sector.

Beyond the miles of articles on the web a good resource might actually be the platform/site you choose to build your business around - whether you specialize in handcrafted items (etsy.com would be a good place for you to canvass) or antiques (whether you decide on craigslist or ebay) it's always good to go beyond a "let me build a cute website" way of thinking - in most cases using a platform that is already in front of your market for your particular niche might be the best way to ease your entry quickly and effectively. A big plus is that these sites also give you ample means of researching your "competitors" in terms of pricing, products etc.

Social media, whether you like it or just find it a bother is here to stay. What used to be a realm for teenagers and tech-geeks is now a field of possibilities for the enterprising business.  In 7 ideas for Social Media and Business gives advice on how best to approach it -- 

Don't Isolate Social Media: Position social media as a component of your overall marketing plan. If you engage in print advertising, you're used to making the case that print advertising is a branding component that is used to support your overall marketing messaging. Like social media, the ROI from print advertising is very hard to measure. Social Media should be one medium you're using among many in your communication with your audience and customers.

Feedback: We're also finding success in using blogging as a method for gathering customer feedback through surveys, new product ideas and product feedback forms. Social media is supposed to be a conversation, correct? Well, treat it as such and allow your audience to participate in the future of your products. We've already received valuable feedback that rivals that of an individual order placed.

Which social media tools to use? I'm sure you are pretty familiar with some of them already (if not ask a teenager-- and they'll give you a pretty good idea). Here are a few must-haves according to Mike Sansone from ConverStations in 6 Social Media Tools Every Business Should Use.

1. RSS Feed Aggregator (Google Reader)Always start with a listening tool, and subscribing to feeds is the way we listen. Google Reader is web-based so you can use any computer - and you can now set it up to read feeds offline.
2. Blog (Typepad) Yes, I think WordPress is a great tool - but many business people don't want to mess with setting up servers and travel the learning curve that WP presents. It also has more design freedom than the hosted WordPress.com. Typepad is the blogging platform I recommend most (to businesses)
3. Shared Bookmarks (Delicious)Lots of choices here, but the new features of Delicious, along with their huge audience, make it the first one to choose.
4. ThoughtStream Aggregator (FriendFeed) Again, lots of choices -- and services like Facebook and MyBlogLog do similar things. But FriendFeed has become my most valuable tool. For organization - it helps me keep found things found. For infosumption - I can follow what others are doing/saving/thinking/saying.

If you're still not convinced that social media is coming of age in the business environment-- check out this abc webcast on how Comcast uses twitter to bridge a customer service gap. 

In Entrepreneur.com's article: Entrepreneurs Need Social Networking  Dan Schawbel, an expert on social networking talks about the how tightening marketing budgets have increasingly endeared the small business to "free" social marketing options. 

Earlier this year Businessweek made a good case on How "Social Media will Change Your Business". The article may have originated in 2005 but the editors of Businessweek decided to update it for 2008. Although focused mostly on Blogging - the article gives a good grasp on how big businesses are incorporating social media into their communication efforts. Another aspect of social media is also how businesses are adjusting to other people blogging about their business - topics that were once highly classified may not be anymore. Just ask Boeing.  In "Blogger Gets off Ground with 787" Blogger Jon Ostrower  goes from simply following the launch of Boeing's new 787 to actually breaking a story based on insider tips and research. 

It is a constant balancing act for companies that engage in social media - on one side is the need for "privacy" and on the other is the customer's need for translucency. eMarketer's post on "Getting Clever About Social Media" talks about this symbiosis as well as the growing social media spending within companies. 

At just over $1.4 billion, social network ad spending still represents a small percentage of total online ad spending, which eMarketer estimates will reach $24.9 billion in 2008. But marketers do not have to wait for social networks to perfect their business models before using the medium. Ms. Dyson said that marketers should also relax about the possibility of their brands appearing adjacent to consumer-created content. If they get trashed in blogs and Websites, they should listen to any criticism and respond.

U. of Massachusetts Dartmouth released research on "Social Media in the Inc. 500"  and compares corporations that have adopted social media between 2007 and 2008. According to the findings:

This research proves conclusively that social media has penetrated parts of the business world at a tremendous speed. It also indicates that corporate familiarity with and usage of social media within the Inc. 500 has nearly doubled in the past 12 months. 

The social media that continues to be the most familiar to the Inc. 500 is social 
networking with 57% of respondents in 2008 claiming to be "very familiar with it" 
(compared to 42% in 2007). Familiarity is related to usage.  It is interesting to note, 
however, that even those forms of social media less familiar to the participants are still 
used by at least 20% of them.  Just over one quarter of the Inc. 500 reported social media 
was very important to their business/marketing strategy in 2007.  That number has 
increased to 44% just one year later. 

Social Media is here to stay, regardless of what "form" it takes or how its used, one thing is certain - as people get more and more comfortable using social media tools in their day to day lives they will also expect the companies they do business with to do the same. 

I'm a big believer in "taking a step back" once in a while to look at your SEO or SEM efforts. Its easy to get lost in all the details of day to day business survival- here is a short list of "basics" that you might want to check off to make sure you're headed in the right direction. 

-  Remember, its not all about getting tons of traffic.  As an Axandra post stresses --

Many webmasters try to get as many visitors as possible. They join traffic exchange programs and they optimize their web pages for keywords that have very many searches.
Unfortunately, getting as much traffic as possible is not the right strategy for a successful website. Traffic that doesn't convert is useless traffic. If your website has thousands of visitors but only a few sales then you have done something wrong.

-  How are your social-media efforts going? This may be one of the things that get swept under the rug, but making sure that you are tapping into the right social media tool/s can be powerful if used right and often. According to Lee Odden for Online Marketing Blog's post on SEO Tops Recession Internet Marketing Tactics, a poll they conducted with over 400 business marketers showed both not-so-surprising and surprising results. SEO, Blogging and Pay per click were the top three (in that order), with the surprise being that "Corporate Website" receiving only 7% of the vote.  But overall he made a comment that he suspects that "if "social media" had been presented as a single category, it would have garnered the top spot since social media tactics involve 5 of the top ten." 

- Are you keeping abreast of the latest in SEO or SEM? I know its hard to keep up with things that are changing everyday/every hour -- what you might miss out on are opportunities to save you time, or increase the effectiveness of your SEO/SEM strategy. Here are a couple of  recent "news" items to get you started --

- Yahoo adds Zip Code Ad Targeting 

- Convert your existing links on your site to "higher quality" links for free.  Matt Cutts explains how in Free Links to Your Site. By using Google's webmaster portal you get to see who is linking to your 404 (unfound) pages. and if you want, either reactivate the page or send them a new link with the active link.

Lets face it-- there is really nowhere to hide- the economy is slipping and sliding and so is everyone's meager funds. As a popular politician said, we "saw our 401ks become 101ks". According to comScore the state of the economy, among other things contributed to the 35% growth  in the financial news and research site category:

Current economic conditions - including rising gas prices, general inflation concerns, housing troubles and stock market uncertainty - have Americans seeking to stay informed about the factors influencing their personal finances," said Jack Flanagan, comScore executive vice president. "As a result, the financial news and research category has grown substantially during the past year, with strong visitor gains occurring at most sites, including above average gains at category leaders Yahoo! Finance and AOL Money & Finance.

If you're the type to be glued to your screen (vs. the type to run for the hills and cower) it might be good to ponder-- where do you get your financial information? Maybe you see one (or more) of your preferred sites on the comScore list.    

Top Financial News & Research Sites May 2008 vs. May 2007 Total U.S. - Home/Work/University Locations Source: comScore Media Metrix
	Total Unique Visitors (000)
	May-07	May-08	% Change
Total Internet : Total Audience	177,487	190,858	8
Financial News & Research	47,493	64,287	35
Yahoo! Finance	11,740	18,492	58
AOL Money & Finance	10,266	15,222	48
MSN Money	12,087	13,707	13
Forbes Property	5,497	7,014	28
Dow Jones & Company	5,177	6,613	28
CNN Money	5,242	6,040	15
BNET	166	5,563	3,261
TheStreet.com Sites	1,749	5,289	202
Reuters Sites	3,286	4,795	46
Reed Business Information	2,436	3,872	59

 

Want to check out what the "next generation" is looking into? Young Money  gives some insight on who they think would be the best financial websites for young adults ages 18 to 34: 

There are other good financial websites geared for young adults such as the Wall Street Survivor stock market game... and FastWeb.com, a scholarship search engine. Brass is another website worth checking out. But those sites are limited in the topics they cover. I really like http://www.commoditynewscenter.com because it does all of this! Videos, market commentary and easy to use charts help me to keep up with everything going on in the commodity markets!

Additional sites that help connect you to your financial research match: 

• Moneysmartz.com has a section that reviews  financial related sites and gives you overviews/profiles. 
• TimesOnline has their 50 best business blogs with rankings divided according to economics, banking and finance etc. 

Can Twitter help your business?

A year ago, the answer would have been "probably not."

Today, the answer is, "possibly."

A year from now, the answer will be "absolutely!"

On October 27, the Wall Street Journal ran a lengthy article about Twitter, which is a good indication that this mysterious social network is going mainstream.

Although Twitter's instant messages are limited to 140 characters, the ways people are using Twitter seem to be unlimited. The important thing right now, from a business perspective, is that people are using it - more than 1 million people by most estimates.Would you believe that more than 110,000 folks are following Barack Obama on Twitter? (A paltry 2,000 follow John McCain.)  And, as cell phone technology advances, mobile Tweeting is certain to increase Twitter usage enormously, for business, news gathering, idea exchange, and yes, mindless chatter.

Twitter is still very much experimental, a work in process with companies trying it out in various ways. Zappos, the mega shoe e-tailer, uses Twitter extensively - for intra-company communication, to announce promotions, and much more. Zappos even boasts a CEO page with more than 16,000 followers. Businesses can communicate via Twitter for a multitude of purposes -

• To announce sales promotions and new products
• To report company news
• To provide customer support
• To ask for feedback and ideas
• To join conversations on relevant topics and find new customers
  
• To coordinate logistics at events and conventions
• To communicate with stakeholders and the public at large
• To monitor conversations about the company and the competition
  

Twitter has the potential for making corporations more "human", more responsive, and more tuned in to changes in the marketplace. And given the low cash outlay to particpate in Twitter (zero), current conditions point to more users, more experimentation, and ultimately, great results.

 

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For people outside the search engine marketing industry, the field can be rather baffling. The reasons for this include -

• Overuse of acronyms
• People's inherent fear of computers and technology
• A lack of industry standards and no universally accepted definitions of terms
• Continual and rapid evolution of services and technologies

SEM (search engine marketing) and SEO (search engine optimization) are terms folks get confused about all the time. These terms can be defined any number of ways, but here's how I like to think of it.

SEM and SEO are both practices employed to increase a company's visiblity on the Web. Both use a variety of techniques to steer internet users toward particular Web pages.

SEM is geared toward human readers. SEO is geared toward search engine "readers".

When a human reader looks at a Web page, he will be influenced to act based on the design and content of a particular message. For SEM practitioners, the goal is to create the most persuasive design and content and then place it on a Web page where it will attract the most potential qualified readers. A well written, well designed pay per click ad, well positioned on the right Web page, leads to the greatest number of conversions.

SEO is concerned with how the search engine spiders are reading a Web page. A spider sees value in things such as internal links, inbound links from highly ranked Web pages, and keywords used in titles, subtitles, and anchor text. Various programming techniques can make a page difficult or easy for a spider to read. For SEO practitioners, the goal is to create Web pages that are optimally readable for specific keyword phrases by Google and other engines.

These definitions are overly broad and incomplete, but I think helpful nonetheless. Obviously SEM and SEO go hand in hand. Without having a keyword strategy, it's pretty hard to conduct effective SEM.  SEO takes time to produce results, whereas many SEM activities, such as affiliate advertising, can produce immediate results. A good a markerting program needs both - short term and long term programs to build a strong Web profile.

In early September Google released Google Chrome, its first Web browser. After a lot of initial buzz, its popularity has been underwhelming. A 1.5% market share would make a lot of people ecstatic, but it doesn't make much of a dent in Microsoft Explorer, which still rules the market share roost.

Chrome has a few handy attributes, including speed, access keys, and streamlined search. Not bad, but nowhere near compelling enough to start a stampede away from Explorer or FireFox.

Still, it's way too early to count out Chrome. It'll be interesting to see how Google integrates their browser with apps like Google Docs, Reader, and Gmail. If Google can bundle all these tools together in a way that makes life easy and complete, Chrome might become quite popular as an add-on or even an afterthought.

Google is making a lot of progress in developing a full set of business support tools. In this area, Microsoft is still the Cadillac, in every sense of the word - sophisticated, high quality, expensive, and past its prime. If Google is the Toyota Scion (or whatever up and coming car), they should position Chrome as the floor mats. 

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Search Is Changing, Are You? It's a good question, and this post from Dr. Peter J. Meyers summarizes what all these changes are, and when a business should adapt. The answer isn't the same for all firms, and as with anything, there tradeoffs. There's a risk in waiting, and there's a risk in jumping in to new search engine marketing strategies too early.

A solid, pithy tip from George Ajazi on PageRank sculpting. Links within yourself can have a great deal of impact on Google PageRank, but how many firms have an internal link strategy? Here's a way you can get an edge on the competition.

Ann Smarty details 16 Examples of Huge Brands Using Twitter for Business. For those who view Twitter as a cross between alchemy and voodoo, this post will be illuminating. The fact is, Twitter has huge potential as a way for large and.or highly niched firms to enhance customer service and sales.

 

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