Katherine Huske

What Not To Wear

2011-08-02T20:40:00.002-05:00

In 1 Timothy 2:9, the Lord provides guidelines that help Christian women determine what and what not to wear.

...dress modestly, with decency and propriety, adorning themselves, not with elaborate hairstyles or gold or pearls or expensive clothes

There’s a New Way to Own a Piece of Facebook Before Its IPO

2011-06-27T20:00:00.002-05:00

If you’re looking to invest in Facebook before its IPO but not privy to the secondary markets where shares of the company have been trading, there’s a new (albeit somewhat indirect) way to buy a stake.

The publicly traded investment fund GSV Capital announced on Monday that it has purchased 225,000 shares of Facebook at a price of $29.28 per share, which values the social network at $70 billion.

The investment represents about 15% of GSV’s portfolio — enough to drive up shares of GSV (which trades on NASDAQ under the symbol GSVC) by more than 30% as of midday trading on Monday.

GSV does not currently show any other companies in its “portfolio” on its site, but the firm also recently announced an investment in Kno, a digital textbook outfit that raised $46 million in a round led by Andreessen Horowitz last year.

More...

2010-11-03T11:24:00.005-05:00

In the Book of Joel this morning. Three chapters… short and powerful…. destruction… a call to repentance… the trumpet in Zion blows…. A call from God to return to Him… the Day of the LORD…

Joel wrote the book between 825 and 809 B.C. Israel would be taken into captivity by the Babylonians a couple hundred years later (“foreigners would invade her”). The Holy Spirit would be given to believers over 800 years later. God inspired him to write these amazing words.

Joel 3:16, 17
The LORD will roar from Zion and thunder from Jerusalem; the earth and the heavens will tremble. But the LORD will be a refuge for his people, a stronghold for the people of Israel. “Then you will know that I, the LORD your God, dwell in Zion, my holy hill. Jerusalem will be holy; never again will foreigners invade her.

Joel 2:29-32
I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days. I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and billows of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD. And everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved;

We don’t know anything about Joel except he was the son of a man named Pethuel and that he was obedient to the LORD to write these words down for us to meditate on today.

Hebrews 1 says, In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe.

As I read Joel, I catch a small glimpse of God’s awesome power and ultimate judgment of sin. Today I choose to obey and worship God alone.

Just Listen to the Beat

2010-01-02T10:54:00.002-06:00

I just returned from a circuit class at my gym. Yes, my new year's resolution (again) is to get in shape.... A good looking, very fit young man led the class. The mostly female class members ranged from firm teens and buffed twenty-something’s to beautiful thirty and forty something’s … some of their body parts were as hard and unmoving as the medicine balls we were tossing in the air.

The music our instructor chose to motivate and move us with was Rap. The words were absolutely outrageous. But no one seemed to care…. “ Yeah, she love it the way I put it on her… lost dog I give it to her right and she like it” . This woman was just referred to as a dog. Did anyone hear that?

“Baby…I wake her up…grab her by the butt… woke that ass up”. Now she’s just an “ass”? Hello… is anyone offended by this?

How about this one from the top 3 rap songs of 2009? “I am attracted to her, wit’ her attractive ass… maybe it’s time to put this p---y on ya sideburns”. Now my stomach is hurting and so is my head. Should I leave or does God have some cosmic reason for me to be here this morning?

At one point in the circuit I just stopped. I didn’t even realize I had stopped. I was listening to the words…paralyzed… as I looked at this group who want to be fit, firm and healthy. Our instructor walked toward me and shouted to the whole class “push harder”. That jolted me out of the foggy zone I was floating in. I turned and looked him in the eye and said “Did you ever listen to the words to these songs? This room is filled with women who want better self esteems, better looking bodies…. And the words to these songs completely degrade women.”

He smiled and said “Just listen to the beat” and walked away from me.

Does anyone see the irony in this? The contradiction of it all? Or have we all gone mad?

My heart broke. The world is broken. Have we lost our sense of self? Have we gone deaf? Maybe we need to unplug our ipods for a minute and listen to the Truth so we’ll be outraged when we hear words that undermine who we really are. We need to listen to way more than just the “beat”.

Are we that big of a mess, that we would be ok with that view of women? Have we lost our voice? Lost, broken, lonely, starving for affirmation… Is there any help for us? Praise God we have a Savior named Jesus Christ. He came to save us and to fill our mind, hearts and ears with Truth. We can listen to the beat of His heart that He poured out for us on the cross… and we can know the Words that He has given us.

Do you know Him? Are you reading the Word just a little here and there? Do you get anything out of it?

If the answer is no, it’s time to make the change. It does make a difference. Being in the Word will change your view of God and your view of yourself. It’s time to dig into the Word and discover its truths for yourself. You don’t have to just listen to the beat, you can read and hear the words of Truth for yourself.

The way you live your life everyday will change… that gnawing feeling of something being missing in your life will go away. You’ll have a peace that you can’t explain, but it’s real! Spending time with the Lord in His Word will give you a sense of stability, freedom and confidence you have never known before.

Do you want real change in your life? Ask God to give you a hunger to know Him and His Word.

"Seek the LORD your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul" (Deuteronomy 4:29).

I hear The Word now, not just the beat… because I was introduced to the Lord and inductive Bible Study 13 years ago. It’s a process of study that allows me to dig into the Truth for myself and hear directly from God, the God who has my name written on the palm of His hand.

Happy New Year my friends...

FaceBook User Name - Vanilty URL's June 28, 2009

2009-06-28T06:12:00.013-05:00

According to FaceBook:

Eligibility is limited to anyone who joined FaceBook before usernames were publicly announced at 3 p.m. (EDT) on June 9, 2009. These users will have the chance to claim usernames at 12:01 a.m. (EDT) on Saturday, June 13, 2009.

This limitation is temporary. All verified users who joined Facebook after the cut-off will be eligible to claim usernames on Sunday, June 28, 2009 at 11:59pm. Verification may require mobile phone authentication.

The original time to claim a FaceBook username for those who did not have 1000 followers was 12:01am ET on Sunday, June 28, 2009 so there has been some confusion as noted on Twitter comments.

You should be able to go to http://www.facebook.com/username/. You'll see a screen like this:

Capturing Market Share & Driving Revenue Online: Effective Internet Marketing Strategies for Recessionary Times

2009-06-10T12:38:00.005-05:00

As a member of the HSMAI Travel Internet Marketing Special Interest Group, I'm pleased to present the first of a ten-part series of white papers, as part of the mission of the group - to increase members' awareness and understanding of emerging issues, opportunities and trends.

Click here to view the first paper in the series:Capturing Market Share & Driving Revenue Online: Effective Internet Marketing Strategies for Recessionary Times

Facebook to Launch Video Chat?

2009-05-25T12:36:00.001-05:00

May 15th, 2009 | by Pete Cashmore

Telltale signs in Facebook’s code suggest it might be testing a video calling feature. Notification messages visible in Facebook’s code include “Waiting for your friend…”, “Video call denied”, “Incoming call” and “Loading video call…”.

The clues, first spotted by AllFacebook, point towards a likely move for the website. We’re open, of course, to the possibility that other developers are able to host their code on the Facebook CDN, but assuming that AllFacebook’s assumption is correct and this is an upcoming product, there’s a strong case to be made for Facebook moving in this direction.

Facebook() wants to be the single place for all your online communication - from messaging to photosharing to status updates and instant messaging. Adding video chat, then, would seem like a logical next step. The revelation follows news this week that Facebook was adding Friend lists to chat.

It’s difficult to assess the impact of such a move. When Gtalk added support for video chat within Gmail(), it seemed like a blow to video chat leader Skype(). Except that the functionality wasn’t entirely web-based - it still required a download - and your email client isn’t a natural place for video chatting, which is more of a social experience than a means of productivity.

Facebook, however, may be able to play on its advantage: the social site is a natural venue for video chat, and if they can make it function without a download, there’s likely a huge market for video chat in schools and colleges that block downloaded software like Skype.

What do you think? Would you use Facebook video chat?

Getting the Most Out of Twitter and LeBron James

2009-05-24T21:28:00.005-05:00

Let's say you are watching the Eastern Conference Play Offs....

You can use Tweet Deck and the filter tool to get just the info you want to see about LeBron James.

1. Go to www.tweetdeck.com to download.

2. If you love LeBron, set up a LeBron Filter. Go to the bottom of a column and click on the icon that looks like a little arrow pointing down. Whatever column is on the far left (usually your “All Friends” feed) will have this icon 1st on the left, all other columns will have it 2nd on the left. Click the “Filter This Column” icon and you will be presented with a few choices. First, make sure that your filter type is set to “Text”. Then type in the word that you want to see... #LeBron.

3. If you are tired of seeing LeBron (very unlikely), you can use the reverse play. Maybe you don’t want to see tweets that are talking about LeBron James. Leave LeBron's name in the filter but change the plus sign to a minus sign.

Pretty nifty.

Go Cavs!

26 Charities and Non-Profits on Twitter

2009-05-23T12:58:00.002-05:00

What is it about social media people that make them just so darn generous? Every day I read my Twitter stream and come across one or two people who are creating awareness or trying to raise money to help one cause or another.

Step back and you can certainly see how it makes sense. Social Media people are, well, social. We care about our fellow man (and woman and children and animals and environment). We exist in a system that is supported by the camaraderie and sharing of others.

It’s no small wonder then that non-profits abound on Twitter(). With the free and easy-to-setup interface, a potential to reach a vast audience, the ability to engage with people in conversation directly, and the possibility to garner an audience more open to causes than advertisements, it seems a no-brainer for any organization seeking philanthropy and recognition for their mission. Like a cadre of superheroes, these organizations are on the spot, helping people with disaster recovery, health and human services, or just to get a dog a nice home.

As Director of Communications at @ALSofGNY, I have embraced the benefits of Twitter. I follow a number of other non-profits to keep up with best practices on using the medium and to share ideas. Below are 26 charities and non-profits that are on Twitter. Tell us about your own charity in the comments.

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1. The 1010 Project

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Name: @the1010project
Website: the1010project.org
Mission: “The 1010 Project is a nonprofit organization that provides income-generating grants to indigenous development partners in Kenya and raises awareness in the United States on behalf of the global poor.”

Denver is a long way from Kenya. The 1010 Project seeks to make that span seem a little bit shorter. On their Twitter account you’ll find info on the ins and outs of working for change in Kenya. They’re really hooked in to social media and some of their staff Twitters on their own. They use Twitter to engage followers on issues of global poverty in general by publicizing advocacy events as well as interesting facts about poverty.

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2. American Cancer Society

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Name: @AmericanCancer
Website: cancer.org
Mission: “The American Cancer Society (ACS) is a nationwide, community-based voluntary health organization.”

Taking the fight against cancer to the social web, the American Cancer Society tweets about cancer research, specific types of cancer news, and information. They also connect to @RelayForLife, a Twitter account that provides updates on one of the American Cancer Society’s largest fundraising and awareness events.

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3. American Red Cross

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Name: @RedCross
Website: redcross.org
Mission: As part of a worldwide movement that offers neutral humanitarian care to the victims of war, the American Red Cross distinguishes itself by also aiding victims of devastating natural disasters. Over the years, the organization has expanded its services, always with the aim of preventing and relieving suffering.

Do you know of an unfolding catastrophe or just want to find out about some terrible event happening around the globe that is affecting the lives of millions of people? As the official account for the American Red Cross, @RedCross uses Twitter to warn and interact with people about situations that may require their help. Wherever disaster strikes, @RedCross is there to lend a hand, and they’re Twittering about it to let you know what you can do as well.

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4. Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology

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Name: @anitaborg_org
Website: anitaborg.org
Mission: “The Anita Borg Institute seeks to: Increase the impact of women on all aspects of technology, and increase the positive impact of technology on the world’s women.”

@anitaborg_org aggregates content from around the web relating to women and technology into their Twitter account to further its mission. They also promote the people and organizations that help to promote women in tech.

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5. Appropriate Infrastructure Development Group

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Name: @aidg
Website: aidg.org
Mission: “Boston-based nonprofit working in Guatemala & Haiti to get communities affordable renewable energy, sanitation, and clean water. Friend us. We’re nice.”

Another city that hosts a non-profit dedicated to helping specific poverty-stricken regions of the world. They educate on the issues that affect Guatemala & Haiti, some of them emanating from our own backyard.

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6. Cradles to Crayons Philadelphia

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Name: @C2CPhilly
Website: cradlestocrayons.org
Mission: “To provide, free of charge, low-income and homeless children from birth to pre-teen the basic essentials they need to be safe, warm, ready to learn, and valued. We also set a foundation for lasting change through the meaningful, tangible volunteer opportunities we provide to thousands of youth and adults each year.”

This non-profit uses Twitter to let followers know what they’re up to and where users can donate materials. If you have extra supplies and want to know how and where to donate, then follow @C2CPhilly. People! Kids need crayons. It’s that simple. They also need paper and scissors and clothes and books and shoes and…

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7. Create The Good

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Name: @createthegood
Website: aarp.org
Mission: “Create The Good is the network to connect AARP members, friends and families with ways to make a difference. Founded in 1958, AARP is a nonprofit, nonpartisan membership organization that helps people 50 and over improve the quality of their lives.”

With their Create The Good Twitter account, AARP uses its network to point out members of the organization who are making a difference in the world. They also help promote other organizations and the media channels making a positive impact on the lives of others. You can also learn about regional opportunities to get involved with good projects.

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8. Exploratorium Museum

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Name: @Exploratorium
Website: exploratorium.edu
Mission: The Exploratorium stands in the vanguard of the movement of the “museum as educational center.” It provides access to, and information about, science, nature, art, and technology. The Exploratorium is a leader in the movement to promote museums as informal education centers.

How can you not be intrigued by the name of this Twitter feed? @Exploratorium features updates from the museum on exhibits and other cool fun stuff, like giant bubbles! Follow along and you’re bound to learn all sorts of interesting, educational tidbits from them. Alex Smith, their social media liaison, encourages the conversation and invites followers to ask questions and send comments. To follow along with the conversation they encourage people to tag their tweets with #explo.

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9. Greenpeace

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Name: @Greenpeace_Intl
Website: greenpeace.org
Mission: “An independent global campaigning organisation acting to change attitudes and behavior, to protect the environment and promote peace.”

Greenpeace has a storied and controversial past. On Twitter they continue their in-your-face operation, challenging the status quo and then challenging the agents of change to the status quo just to make sure they’re keeping it real. If you think live tweeting a conference is cool, follow them to get live updates, photos and video as they inform about the actions of activists all around the world. Knowing their history, they’re probably somewhere on the cyber seas protecting the Twitter Fail Whale as we speak.

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10. Hemp Industries

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Name: @HempIndustries
Website: thehia.org
Mission: “Non-profit trade group representing hemp companies, researchers and supporters.”

According to a recent tweet by @HempIndustries, the paintings of Vincent Van Gogh and Rembrandt were regularly painted on hemp canvases. Follow them on Twitter and you’ll find out all kinds of interesting facts. Like the fact that there even is a hemp industry. Plus, they use the most dingbats and symbols of any Twitter account I know.
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11. The Humane Society of the United States

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Name: @humanesociety
Website: hsus.org
Mission: “The Humane Society of the United States is the nation’s largest animal protection organization — backed by 11 million Americans, or one of every 28. For more than a half-century, The HSUS has been fighting for the protection of all animals through advocacy, education, and hands-on programs. Celebrating animals and confronting cruelty.”

If there’s a chimp in a clinch, they’ll be there. If there’s a turtle in turmoil, count them in. And if someone’s hassling a hippo, they will stop it. The Humane Society is spreading the word and motivating their constituents to action through Twitter. They engage by asking for feedback and reactions on issues in the media that affect animals.

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12. Kramden

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Name: @Kramden
Website: kramden.org
Mission: “Dedicated to bridging the digital divide by awarding computers to hard-working, underprivileged children.”

This newbie non-profit to Twitter has been pretty active so far and their mission should inspire all of us here. They are using Twitter to let the world know how important it is to connect underprivileged children to the Internet and about both their successes and their needs.

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13. The LAMP

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Name: @thelampnyc
Website: thelampnyc.org
Mission: The LAMP (Learning About Multimedia Project) provides basic media literacy skills to the inter-related groups of youths, their parents and educators throughout New York City. Free media literacy workshops and events demystify the constant flow of media these three groups encounter, bridge the gap between generations, and provide workforce development skills for future generations.

These guys help out with something close to all our hearts: New Media. They tweet about issues where media and learning come together all in the name of nurturing media literacy. The LAMP also uses Twitter to engage followers in conversation about the best ways to use Twitter and what the implications are of Twitter’s popularity.

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14. LCA Trust

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Name: @preserveland
Website: lcatrust.org
Mission: “We provide emergency funding and legal support to preserve open spaces and natural resources, and promote smart-growth ideals that foster land conservation.”

Steve from LCA Trust uses Twitter to ask the community to share ideas about the areas of the world they work to preserve. He updates on the status of conservation efforts the organization is involved in.

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15. The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society

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Name: @llsusa
Website: lls.org
Mission: “The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) is the world’s largest voluntary health organization dedicated to funding blood cancer research, education and patient services. LLS’s mission: Cure leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin’s disease and myeloma, and improve the quality of life of patients and their families.”

@llsusa is a great resource for patients, their families, and supporters. They regularly provide information about blood cancer, research and events that readers can get involved in.

This is Team Mashable’s charity of choice in the Social Media Smackdown for Charity.

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16. LIVESTRONG

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Name:@livestrong
Website: livestrong.org
Mission: “At the Lance Armstrong Foundation, we inspire and empower people affected by cancer. We believe that unity is strength, knowledge is power and attitude is everything.”

This group single-handedly started a nonprofit fashion trend with colorful rubber bracelets. Just like the awareness they built with those bracelets, they strive to inform the public about cancer and provide people with the tools they need to “live life on their own terms.” They’ve also used Twitter to encourage and support patients and teach people how to Live Strong in the face of this terrible disease.

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17. The Mid-Atlantic Great Dane Rescue League

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Name: @magdrl
Website: magdrl.org
Mission: “Mid-Atlantic Great Dane Rescue League. All-volunteer org. We rescue, rehabilitate and find homes for lost, abandoned or neglected Great Danes.”

Talk about a specific mission. They use Twitter to post updates about the dogs they help, including twitpics. They also send good wishes to the animals that have been rescued because of their efforts. If you want to find some pet friendly apps for your iPhone or find out the latest dog-related event in their region this is where you’ll find it.

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18. National Peace Corps Association

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Name: @pcorpsconnect
Website: peacecorpsconnect.org
Mission: “We are citizens who served in communities in more than 134 developing countries since the Peace Corps was created in 1961. That global experience defined our lives and changed our views of the world and of our role in that world. We are teachers, community activists, business leaders, government officials, members of Congress, ambassadors, social entrepreneurs, and other members of the Peace Corps family.”

The NPCA is the national association to connect, inform, and engage people impacted or inspired by the Peace Corps. Following @pcorpsconnect is the next best thing to being there. They tweet about the work and living environment of volunteers throughout the world. You can get the latest news about the work the Peace Corps is involved in right now and the issues that they seek to advance.

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19. The National Wildlife Federation

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Name: @NWF
Website: nwf.org
Mission: “The National Wildlife Federation works to inspire Americans to protect wildlife for our children’s future.”

Not only has The National Wildlife Federation embraced Twitter by tweeting under some of their own brands like @greenhour and @wildlife_watch, they’ve mobilized the troops to tweet under their own identities to help promote the mission. They also have a Twitter search stream on their website for people to see what other wildlife watchers are twittering about.

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20. Nature Conservancy

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Name: @nature_org
Website: nature.org
Mission: The leading conservation organization working around the world to protect ecologically important lands and waters for nature and people.

@nature_org provides a good summary of their blog posts, enticing you with a controversial or interesting question along with a link instead of cutting them off in the telltale sign of an RSS dump to their Twitter account. They also retweet other people’s tweets when those others reference the Nature Conservancy’s projects, which shows that they’ve got the antennae up.

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21. PETA

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Name: @officialpeta
Website: peta.org
Mission: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is the largest animal rights organization in the world. PETA focuses its attention on the four areas in which the largest numbers of animals suffer the most intensely for the longest periods of time: on factory farms, in laboratories, in the clothing trade, and in the entertainment industry.

PETA tweets the word about animal rights, making themselves heard, and evangelizing the cause. Learn who they will be protesting against or what kind of action needs to be taken. Also, get recipes for vegetarian dishes. They will go to any length to let others know about the animal rights cause. Even questioning the manhood of Twitter users to prove it.

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22. Save the Children

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Name: @savethechildren
Website: savethechildren.org
Mission: “Save the Children is the leading independent organization creating lasting change for children in need in the United States and around the world.”

@savethechildren provides readers with information on what they’re up to, issues affecting children around the world, and how users can make a difference.

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23. Share Our Strength

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Name: @sharestrength
Website: strength.org
Mission: “Share Our Strength is a national organization that works hard to make sure no kid in America grows up Hungry. We weave together a net of community groups, activists and food programs to catch children at risk of hunger and surround them with nutritious food where they live, learn and play.”

Jeff Wiedner tweets from this account on behalf of Share Our Strength, sharing great information and resources about the cause, but also partaking in conversations. @sharestrength even recently took part in #followfriday, suggesting other “hunger fighters.”

This is Team Elevenmoms’ charity of choice in the Social Media Smackdown for Charity.

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24. Stand Up to Cancer

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Name: @su2c
Website: standup2cancer.org
Mission: “Stand Up To Cancer is a new initiative created to accelerate groundbreaking cancer research that will get new therapies to patients quickly and save lives. SU2C’s goal is to bring together the best and the brightest in the cancer community, encouraging collaboration instead of competition.”

@su2c Provides helpful links to articles relating to cancer, links to celebrity fundraisers to benefit the charity and its cause, and much more.

This is Team Corbin’s charity of choice in the Social Media Smackdown for Charity.

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25. UNICEF UK

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Name: @unicef_uk
Website: unicef.org.uk
Mission: “UNICEF UK is one of 36 UNICEF National Committees based in industrialised countries. UNICEF National Committees raise funds for UNICEF’s worldwide emergency and development work. In 2007 UNICEF UK raised £41.3 million for UNICEF’s work with children worldwide. UNICEF UK also advocates for lasting change for children. For example UNICEF UK’s Public Affairs Team works to change government policies and practices that are detrimental to children’s rights in the UK and internationally.”

@unicef_uk tweets about their programs and provides calls to action, instructing readers about how they can help UNICEF create lasting change for children around the world.

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26. WWF

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Name: @WWF_Climate
Website: panda.org
Mission: To stop the degradation of the planet’s natural environment and to build a future in which humans live in harmony with nature, by: Conserving the world’s biological diversity; ensuring that the use of renewable natural resources is sustainable; promoting the reduction of pollution and wasteful consumption.

They have a cute logo. And they protect the homes of cuddly little creatures. Keep track of everything the World Wildlife Federation does. One tweet at a time, they talk about the issue that matters to us all: Protecting the Earth. From their account you’ll read about how to help save the earth, global warming and scientific reports.

Lon S. Cohen is a writer and Director of Communications at @ALSofGNY. He is @obilon on Twitter.

25 Twitter Apps to Manage Multiple Accounts

2009-05-10T13:10:00.000-05:00

It may seem like an impossible task to keep up with all the Twitter apps that have come to market as of late. Even though you have plenty of directories to help with the process, we noticed that it’s still difficult to ascertain which apps support multiple accounts.

As more and more people are using Twitter() for personal and professional reasons, the demand for a Twitter client to match those multifaceted needs is rising. Here are several options to help you tweet now or later from different accounts on your desktop, via the Web, and while on the run. We’ve also included a few browser add-ons and business-specific clients to help you find the right application to suit your Twittering needs.

More >

Digital Charity Toolbox: 50+ Ways to Get Your “Give” On

2009-05-01T13:03:00.000-05:00

As the economy goes, so goes giving to causes that need donor dollars to keep doors open. While we bemoan sacrifices of luxury goods, our global social sector is faced with shortening the line or thinning the soup – neither of which are acceptable options.

Because charities are rising to the challenge to engage us online, it’s a breeze for us – the cash-strapped consumers – to meet them halfway.

Why not buy gifts that give back when shopping online, or take a minute to sign and forward a Facebook petition? Those of us who have a penchant for technology and digital matters can go one further by integrating the “social” good into our “social” media discussions.

If you have a few dollars – or minutes – to spare in the next couple days, kick it to one of the digitally-adept causes listed below. Micro-giving trends prove that a little goes a long way, so you can rest assured that whatever you invest – time, talent or treasure – will yield a return. And of course, you get what you give: By changing the Web, you actually are helping to change the world.

More >

Social Media and SEO: 5 Essential Steps to Success

2009-05-01T11:13:00.013-05:00

by Lee Odden
CEO of TopRank Online Marketing and editor at Online Marketing Blog.

Now more than ever, company marketers are charged with improving performance with fewer resources and shifting marketing budgets from traditional to digital tactics like SEO and social media. There are significant benefits from combining search engine optimization and social media marketing tactics ranging from increased social network discovery via search to the ability to attract links for improved SEO.

Making the most out of combining SEO insights with social media marketing tactics can be accomplished with a roadmap that identifies the audience you’re after, the goals you’re trying to reach (and can measure) as well as a strategy that sets the stage for the tactics you’ll use to execute your game plan. Read on to get a better understanding of how SEO and social media complement each other and a step by step guide for creating a social media roadmap.

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The benefits of SEO and social media

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From a marketing standpoint, you can look at the benefits of SEO and social media two different ways.

First, implementing a social media marketing program without optimizing content is leaving money on the table. Useful social content (blog, video, images, audio) that cannot be discovered via search is a lost opportunity to reach an audience that is looking.

For example, The Student LoanDown, the popular blog about student loans and college financing from Wells Fargo, identifies 29 keywords in its Keyword Meta Tag and doesn’t rank in Google’s first page for 26 of them. Those that do rank are variations of the blog’s name.

While there is a generous amount of cross linking within posts, a basic blog template optimization effort leveraging keywords and other minor adjustments could improve search traffic for this site substantially – without any compromise in content quality or user experience.

Social interactions and media sharing amongst social network participants create the kind of content that can improve a brand’s visibility within search results through profiles, videos, blog posts, or other media. A good example is Stormhoek wines’ first page Google rankings including blogs, Facebook and Twitter.

On the flip side, implementing SEO programs without leveraging the content distribution and linking benefits of social web participation makes link building for SEO an uphill battle. The nature of the social web encourages participation: sharing, voting, commenting and linking. Popular social content gets exposure, traffic and can result in a substantial number of relevant inbound links.

The famous Blendtec iPhone video has attracted over 6,000 links resulting in a top ten ranking on Google for the word, “blender.”

Content + Links = Search Engine Success.

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Social media roadmap

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However you look at it, SEO and social media work well together as long as there is a framework for doing so. One way to build SEO and social media programs efficiently is to follow a social media roadmap:

1. Find the audience; understand their behaviors, preferences, methods of publishing, and sharing. Most companies that are involved with the social web in the channels where their customers spend time have a good sense of where to start. Many companies are ahead of the game by tracking their audience via social media monitoring software that identifies keywords, conversations and influencers such as those pictured in the Radian6 screen shot below.

2. Define your objectives. Objectives are often driven by marketing or sales, and SEO has long been directly accountable to substantial improvements in web sales. Social media is not direct marketing though, so different objectives and measurements apply. The role of SEO in a social media effort is to directly influence discovery of social communities or content via search. Do a search for Zappos on Google, for example, and you’ll easily find more than shoes: Twitter, Blog and a YouTube channel are all on the first page of search results.

Indirectly, social content can boost links to website content, improving search traffic and online sales.

3. Establish a game plan. The game plan for reaching objectives in a combined SEO and social media effort will often focus on content and interaction, since it is content that people discover and share. Whether a keyword-focused strategy for reaching goals means publishing new content or creating an opportunity for consumer-generated content, it must involve proactive promotion and easy sharing amongst members of the community.

4. Create a tactical mix. The tactical mix for a social media marketing effort is based on doing the homework of finding where the desired audience spends its time interacting with and sharing content. Whatever the tactical mix is, it’s an investment in time and relationships – not a short term “link dump” to promote optimized link bait. Much of the content creation and promotion for a social media marketing effort happens within the tactical mix and, of course, that means optimizing content for keywords.

Whether content is created by marketers as part of a social destination like a niche community or a promotion vehicle such as an interactive ad, keyword glossaries become useful for writing headlines, deciding on anchor text for links and outreach activities like blogger relations.

5. Measure your goals. Goals measurement should roll up to the specific objectives, both direct and indirect. Leveraging both social media monitoring services as well as web analytics can provide marketers with the insight to improve results. Radian6 and Webtrends have recently announced a partnership that will bring web analytics and social media analytics together all in one interface. In the meantime, marketers can use specific measurement tools to monitor the effect of their social web participation as well as the search engine performance of SEO efforts.

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Extend the value of your investment

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By involving SEO insight in a social media marketing effort and vice versa, marketers, public relations professionals and advertisers can extend the value of their investment. Well optimized social media content marketing efforts can attract new network participants via search. News content that experiences distribution via social news and bookmarking channels can facilitate links to company website content directly and indirectly. Advertisers that fund social media campaigns can continue to realize the traffic benefit from keyword-optimized interactive content long after the campaign has ended.

Tweet Sistas

2009-04-22T08:35:00.007-05:00

Are you in woman in business? A gal trying to learn the ropes on twitter? Want to connect with other like minded women? Add #tweetsistas to your tweets... and remember to retweet all of your "sistas" tweets. Follow others who include #tweetsistas in their tweets.

The simplest way to retweet is to use the Tweet Deck and simply click the retweet button. If you haven't downloaded this great tool yet, you can do it now at www.tweetdeck.com/.

On the Tweet deck you can set up a search for #tweetsistas and easily follow other gals on the twitter journey.

Follow me @webadvocate

The Rise of the C-Tweet

2009-04-22T08:17:00.005-05:00

Points to Consider for Twitter-Friendly CEOs and CMOs
by Jonathan Paisner

Social media has obviously given voice to employees in ways that never existed before. Early corporate bloggers were often brand enthusiasts themselves and tended to "get" the brand a gut level; soon enough, voice and tone guidelines became more actively put in play to govern blog writing. But Twitter is different. The nature of the medium encourages users to transmit an interchangeable mix of musings about life, work, daily observations and whatever else. Employees on Twitter are either designated brand ambassadors or simply have personal accounts -- and these lines of distinction help offer guidance. But that line grays with the advent of the "C-Tweet." C-level execs are part-lead ambassador, part-celebrity. Twitter accounts can build a cult of personality and extend a dynamic that has long existed for top CEOs into a broader set of C-level executives.

Zappos CEO Tony Hseih has come to be considered the gold standard for CEO tweeting, thanks to a comfortable style that leverages both the brand he helped create and his own personal voice.
Photo Credit: Bryan Haraway

Among C-level execs, Twitter holds an allure as a seemingly simple vehicle to communicate thought leadership while staying connected to the market. Yet a daily supply of profundities in 140-character increments is a lot harder to pull off than it sounds. One natural obstacle blogs offered was the demand to actually have to write. Twitter is much less intimidating -- and the immediacy and ostensible intimacy of the platform may suggest that it is perfectly alright for executives to say things ranging from "Wow that was a delicious hamburger! Jalapenos, yum" to "Holding firm in my negotiations with Yahoo right now." And herein lies the greatest challenge of the C-Tweet: Where does the voice of the brand end and the voice of the individual begin?

Notable tweeting CMOs include Jeffrey Hayzlett of Kodak (@jeffreyhayzlett) and Barry Judge of Best Buy (@BestBuyCMO) -- each of whom ties his account closely to his brand. And each interprets the boundaries between the personal voice and the voice of the brand a bit differently. Of course, each brand has different social-media agendas that these executives are trying to push forward -- with variables ranging from the brands themselves and the strategic objectives to the audiences they serve (and aim to serve) and the styles of these individuals. Is there a blueprint for doing this right?

Tony Hsieh (@zappos), Zappos CEO, has come to be considered the gold standard for CEO tweeting, thanks to a comfortable style that leverages both the brand he helped create and his own personal voice. And he has gained a reputation for responsiveness and accessibility via Twitter that has come to epitomize the entire Zappos aesthetic. Padmasree Warrior (@padmasree), Cisco CTO, has also built a successful account on Twitter, finding that balance between business and personal that offers some good, relevant insight into the Cisco brand while putting a very human voice on a heretofore more removed role. While Hsieh's efforts are overtly endorsed by the Zappos brand, Warrior's does not carry the official endorsement of the Cisco brand.

As we see more such accounts in the rise of the C-Tweet, three things to think about:

1.The objective
An executive's objectives for a Twitter account are likely a mix of the brand's interest and self-interest. A simple rule of thumb here: If it is conspicuously endorsed by the brand (via the account name or use of the logo, for example), then the objectives should directly align with the vision and mission of the brand. If the brand is merely a description of the executive's occupation, there is more room for flexibility. And, with an endorsed account in particular, have a discussion with internal counsel to set up some basic legal guardrails before you jump in.

2. The commitment
Twitter is a hungry beast. If you're truly in it, you've got to tweet. Conventional wisdom seems to have it at somewhere between five to 10 tweets per day as the minimum for an active account with a healthy following. Generating 30 to 50 compelling, pithy statements (or links or retweets) each week may sound simple, but it can easily turn into a chore. Carve out time in the day to address this need -- to feed the beast without turning this into a distraction.

3. The exit strategy
Admittedly, this is a tough one -- considering the lifespan of Twitter itself and the questions that may exist around its own future. At the end of the day, an executive's account will be more of a reflection on him or her than it is on the brand. Executive impermanence is a fact of life -- and while creating deeper connections between a brand and its key executives can have tremendous value for partners, customers, analysts, employees and investors, an executive's inevitable departure along with several hundred thousand Twitter followers is likely to sting a bit. A strong Twitter following is becoming a brand asset -- and succession planning for the future of this asset is an important consideration. It may be worthwhile to try to mirror an executive's Twitter following within a more overtly corporate account. Or perhaps encourage junior executives to build their own followings, assuming this does not conflict with the points above.

Twitter is yet another example of where brands have to accept a loss of control. In this case, it is not about putting the brand in the hands of the market but in the hands of the people for whom the brand is their livelihood. A certain amount of letting go is a necessity. We will undoubtedly see a few missteps in C-tweets, and we'll learn and move on. Ultimately, the medium may change but basics of branding still apply -- both for the brands themselves and for their executive stewards: Be true, be relevant, be transparent, respect your brand and your customers, don't make a promise you can't keep.

~ ~ ~
Jonathan Paisner is brand director at CoreBrand. He works with Fortune 500 clients in areas of brand architecture, strategic alliances and brand messaging. CoreBrand clients have included Cisco Systems, AT&T, Internet2, ADP, TV Guide, American Century Investments and BearingPoint.

Was it Something I Said?

2009-04-19T16:25:00.005-05:00

Wondering if a Tweet made folks STOP following you?

Try Qwitter and catch those Twitter Quitters.

Qwitter e-mails you when someone stops following you on Twitter with a message like this:

Joe Blow (jblow) stopped following you on Twitter after you posted this tweet:

Texas is the greatest state to live in.

It's not associated with Twitter, but seems to be a neat tool.

How to Use a Hashtag (and what in the world is one?)

2009-04-15T08:10:00.017-05:00

by Katherine Huske

When Did Hashtags Gain Popularity?
Hashtags were popularized during the San Diego forest fires in 2007 when Nate Ritter used the hashtag "#sandiegofire" to identify his updates related to the disaster.

What is a Hashtag?
Hashtags were developed as an easy means to create "groupings" on Twitter.

How To Use Hashtags
Using hashtags is a way to add additional context and metadata to your tweets. You create a hashtag by prefixing a word with a hash symbol: #hashtag. Easy as that!

How can I Track Hashtags?
You can go to hashtags.org and see real-time tracking of Twitter hashtags. Or you can load a Tweet Deck and use the filter to pull the hashtags you are interested in. You can also Opt-in and follow @hashtags to have your hashtags tracked and see real time hashtag activity. It’s amazing site.

Twemes offers real-time tracking without the necessity of following a specific Twitter account.

How To Be A Smarty Pants Using Hashtags

1. Follow @hashtags on Twitter. They will follow you back automatically, and your hashtags will be tracked.

2. Start using hashtags in your tweets, preceding key words. Research first, to find out if the subject you're tweeting already has an established hashtag.

3. You can track other tweets on the subjects you're interested in (ie: those containing the appropriate hashtags) by browsing/searching at Hashtags.org or TwitterGroups. You can set it up with RSS feeds as well.

Follow me on Twitter @WebAdvocate... and add a hashtag #huske. : )

5 Elements of a Successful FaceBook Page

2009-03-31T12:29:00.013-05:00

by Samir Balwani

Samir Balwani is a social media marketer who helps businesses create effective web strategies. You can follow him on Twitter and get his newsletter.

For many companies a Facebook reviews fan page is an integral part of their social media campaign. But, what elements help fan pages build up large followings and what can brands do to emulate the success of others? I’ve put together a list of specific elements that I believe have helped create fan pages with large, engaged, followings.

1. Networking with other platforms

Building a large following requires a network of other platforms, working in conjunction to drive visitors to your fan page. One brand that does that well is Victoria’s Secret with their PINK line.

As you can see, on their PINK landing page they have a link to their Facebook fan page and their MySpace profile. Victoria’s Secret leverages the traffic their home page gets and pushes them to their Facebook fan page.

Many companies lack this level of dedication, expecting their consumers on Facebook to find them automatically. However, that’s not usually the case.

When is the last time you went looking for a brand’s Facebook fan page? More often than not, a consumer will stumble upon the page, either through a friend or from a hub, similar to Victoria’s Secret’s PINK page.

Understandably, the fact that the demographic targeted by Victoria’s Secret PINK, aligns exactly with the demographic that is most active on Facebook, has helped grow the group as well.

Key Takeaway: Connecting multiple social platforms and a hub from the brand website, can help funnel consumers throughout the network.

2. Creating a resource

Some pages are used as connection hubs, but others offer information pertinent to their consumers. They use the information as added value to have consumers create a connection with the brand.

Dell has done a great job with their social media resource for small businesses. Understanding that small business owners buy computers, by offering them this resource, small business owners interested in social media keep Dell top of mind.

Although, Dell can’t explicitly gauge the success of this program in ROI, it is a branding exercise. Also, since they offer deals and updates on new products on the page - the page does have a chance to convert small business owners into Dell consumers.

Key Takeaway: Offering a resource page allows a brand to target a new demographic, outside of those that already know and love the business.

3. Creating contests that include participation

For brands that want fan pages to have added value (a reason for users to join the page, aside from brand loyalty), but don’t want to become a resource portal; offering contests and coupons specifically to Facebook users can entice consumers to join.

Sears offered fans a $10 coupon to use in stores, giving consumers a reason to join. Clicking on the coupon takes you to a page where Sears collects your information and sends you information about the coupon, deals, and offers. There’s no way to make sure the coupon is given to only Facebook fans, however like Sears, brands can require an email before receiving the coupon.

Key Takeaway: Offering something to consumers to join can help build a large community. Some examples of things to offer: Coupons, free shipping, weekly deals.

4. Empowering pre-existing pages

One of my favorite stories about social media involves the Coca Cola Facebook page. The fan page was created by two users who liked Coke. What started as a fan page for fun, turned out to be the largest product fan page on Facebook.

Coca Cola, instead of taking over the page and making it their own, rewarded the fans by bringing them to Atlanta and giving them a tour of the Coke facility. The fan page remains theirs, but now they have the blessing and help of Coca Cola.

By empowering the fans to keep their fan page, Coke ensures a passionate page owner.

The Coca Cola marketing team was also smart enough to realize that letting others know what happened here would work in their favor. The fan page creators were told to make a video of the history behind the fan page, and how Coke had reached out to them and rewarded them for this.

The video shows future ‘brand enthusiasts’ that creating successful groups around Coca Cola can result in rewards and recognition.

Key Takeaway: Taking over unsanctioned Facebook fan pages isn’t always the best idea. Instead, rewarding dedication can inspire others to do the same.

5. Targeting the proper demographic

Sometimes no matter what you do, your Facebook page won’t grow. This can simply be a side effect of Facebook’s demographic. There are just some brands that will not have a strong presence on Facebook.

Understanding the demographic present can help you decide if Facebook is worth it for your business.

From Quantcast estimates, we can tell that Facebook skews towards female youths. Interestingly, 53% of users have kids and a majority make over $60k a year salary. Obviously, over 50% are college kids. The demographics that make up Facebook are changing quickly, as more moms have begun to join and the college market has become saturated.

Armed with this knowledge, Seventeen Magazine jumped on to the Facebook fan page bandwagon. Their brand targets the demographic most prominent on Facebook, meaning a fairly quick and organic growth.

For companies whose brand does not target the optimal demographic, finding a specific line that does, works.

Consider the brand mentioned earlier in this article, Victoria’s Secret. Instead of putting the entire brand on Facebook, they targeted the PINK line, a line for college students.

Key Takeaway: Some brands cannot expect huge followings on Facebook. Brands or product lines targeting the demographic most prominent on Facebook tend to see the quickest growth.

I purposely did not talk about using advertising to increase the size of a fan page, because although it can be useful to jump start a fan page, organic growth can help build a more engaged group.

Creating a Facebook fan page is simple, but getting it to work well takes time, dedication, and some planning. Don’t expect to create a page and then have a huge following instantaneously. Build good content, make it easy to share, and let people know about it, and over-time the community will grow.

A Walk Down Memory (1MB) Lane

2009-03-24T19:19:00.007-05:00

The Apple Lisa
1983
A mere $9,995 (1MB)

Where were you in 1983?

HOW TO: Use Social Media for Travel Research

2009-03-22T15:49:00.012-05:00

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by Ben Parr

Whether you’re traveling to another city, state, or continent, putting in a few hours to do your homework can mean the difference between a great vacation and a week full of headaches. Finding great local restaurants, comfortable sleeping accomodations, and hidden gems should be on the top of your travel list, no matter if it’s a one day business trip or a permanent move to Thailand.

In the past, this type of information was exclusive to travel agents and generic travel books. However, with the rise of social media and stronger interconnectivity, you can get the real story, avoid the tourist traps, and meet real locals. This guide provides an overview of tips and tools for using social media as a travel research tool.

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Step 1. Utilize Wikis and Blogs for Travel Education

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A wealth of information and tips are available in blogs, user comments, and wiki articles. These will provide you with the information found in most travel books, but in a condensed and searchable format. Blogs and wikis have a more human element to them as well - the debates users have on these articles helps combine the best information from multiple minds, instead of relying on the opinions and advice of one or two authors. Some places to visit:

Wikipedia reviews - Wikipedia goes without saying, but make sure to read the discussion on the cities and countries you are traveling to; these reveal some great information.

Wikitravel - Wikitravel is an impressive collection of user-generated guides to destinations across the world. It covers food, hotels, events, and even the safety of different locations.

Gadling - Gadling is a popular travel blog, part of the AOL Weblogs network. It is filled with a wealth of travel information

Concierge - Concierge is a Condé Nast magazine, but also has a great series of blogs for those interested in smart traveling, learning about new destinations, or even culinary delights.

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Step 2. Scope Out Locales Using User Reviews

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Picking out the best restaurants is tough, so let others do the work for you. Social media is a great way to share reviews of restaurants, tourist destinations, and local businesses. You can pick out some top destinations beforehand or at least avoid locations with bad reputations.

The most common user review website for travelers are YelpYelp reviews, and Tripadvisor. But when you’re on the ground, be sure to use Where To? for the iPhone. Where To? connects to Google MapsGoogle Maps reviews and your GPS to find points of interest.

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Step 3. Connect With Locals

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You’ve found information on the location you’re visiting, and now you’ve read user reviews of top restaurants. Now what? It’s time to really use social media to your advantage. Make new friends in the areas you are going to visit using social networks and social media.

Social media is entirely about people and the information they have. You’d be surprised how willing they are to share their first-hand knowledge. Some useful tips:

@reply locals using TwitterTwitter reviews: Twitter is the perfect platform for open conversations about locations. Use the near:location Twitter Search command to find recent tweets near any major city. And then just introduce yourself and ask some questions.

Search your FacebookFacebook reviews friends by location: Take a look at your existing network to see if any of your current friends grew up or currently live in your destination. You would be surprised to find out how many different and unique locales your friends have lived at.

Meet up with the locals you connect with: If it’s within your comfort zone, it’s always an interesting time when you actually meet the locals you talk to. Have them show you the ins-and-outs of the city or the countryside. But do your research on the people you meet for your own safety. Read their blog, their tweets, and friend them on Facebook.

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Step 4. Share Your Travel Experience

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None of this information would be available to you if it were not for the hard work of others to put it in digital form. So return the favor and add your experiences to a wiki, tweet about the attractions you visit, and be open to answering questions about your own hometown.

Social media is a great research tool, especially for things as subjective and personal as travel destinations. Utilizing the reviews and thoughts of others can make your trip a lot more exciting and a lot less stressful. Travel to get away from the stress, not to add to it.
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Facebook May Be Traffic Driver, but Won't Reap Search Dollars

2009-03-18T10:34:00.005-05:00

Why Social Media Is Complementary to SEM

Posted by Peter Hershberg

I'm a big believer in the notion that search marketing and social-media marketing go hand in hand with one another. I've seen firsthand how they interact on search results pages and how insights from one channel can have an impact on the marketing efforts for both. What does seem odd to me is that some marketers and observers seem to view search and social media as oppositional either-or propositions.

Now, knowing the growing impact of social media, it was only a matter of time until we started seeing headlines like the recent Ad Age article titled "Facebook Sending More Traffic Than Google to Some Sites." It's an interesting article and well worth reading, but what really got my attention right off the bat was this sub-headline, "Will Search-Marketing Dollars Also Shift to Social Media?"

The answer to that question is no, they will not -- at least in the short term. However, SEO may become a bigger factor in maximizing social media's impact in a search environment as the channel begins to mature and find a way to successful monetization through marketing.

Granted, the massive number of consumers using social media platforms presents a huge opportunity for marketers. The problem right now, however, is that most social networks currently offer advertising programs that do little, if anything, to align the interests of consumers, advertisers and the platforms themselves.

Social networks do drive huge amounts of traffic, but the campaigns we -- and many other marketers -- run typically don't involve paying a site money, largely because the paid ad programs they have offer no real incremental benefit to our clients (through data, targeting, etc.) above and beyond what we'd get for reaching out to people in a more direct fashion.

It's a phenomenon that can be seen in the latest Forrester Research report on social media. Forrester found that social media marketing budgets are currently incremental at best (though they are expected to increase substantially.) The real spend on social media occurs in places that can't be measured by looking at money coming into social platforms. Rather, it's in budget that's used to optimize brand profiles, initiate and monitor conversations, and to spread access to other assets like television ads on sites like YouTube.

To see just what I mean, I think it's illustrative to add context that tells us why some sites are benefiting from visibility on Facebook in comparison to Google. The specific sites the article highlights are PerezHilton.com, Dlisted, CafeMom, Evite and video site Tagged.com. As the article notes, there are a variety of reasons why Facebook has turned into a big traffic-driver for each of them compared to Google.

CafeMom has a Facebook fan page, which undoubtedly drives traffic back to its site. As for Evite, it seems fairly obvious that people don't typically visit a search engine like Google or Yahoo to see what events they've been invited to. More likely, Facebook is being used to bring a group of people together around a single event (there are currently 413 of them that show up when doing a search for "Evite" on Facebook events) and then clicking-through from Facebook to an Evite page to RSVP after they've learned about the event. Lastly, Tagged.com benefits from the popularity of video clip posting and sharing within Facebook – many of those users ultimately end up visiting the site where the original video was posted.

I suspect Perez Hilton and Dlisted appear on this list for similar reasons. People who are fanatical about celebrity gossip know what sites they're going to visit every day (or many times a day) for the latest news. And when they see something of interest, they're undoubtedly sharing links across Facebook, which ultimately drives some of the people they're connected to back the original site to read the full story.

In comparison, when it comes to generating organic search traffic, gossip sites suffer from the same problem as other news tabloids do -- specifically, witty headlines that resonate with users (e.g. "Life's a Beach" headline for a post about Paris Hilton and some guy named Doug Reinhardt on the beach), but mean nothing to search engines trying to determine relevant content. As a result, these stories typically struggle to rank well organically on sites like Google which in turn does not send significant volumes of visitors to these sites.

With all that in mind, if you agree that the Facebook traffic the article is referencing was primarily driven by shared links, then Facebook isn't benefiting from it in any way. There is no paid media component to talk about and therefore, no dollars currently being spent in search that could possibly go towards this effort in social media. Outside of fees that could have been paid to an agency, it's basically free traffic. I don't believe that Perez Hilton, for instance, is making media buys on Facebook, but people share links to his stories like crazy and significant traffic is being driven to his site as a result.

I would also bet that there is some percentage of traffic that was ultimately driven by Facebook, but actually originated from a search engine. In other words, someone went to Google, found a link to a Facebook profile, and then clicked on a posted link and ultimately through to a company's website. In this instance, search and social media are complimentary, not competitive.

Ultimately social media properties like Facebook and Twitter will be indexed by the major search engines on a more regular basis, filling the need for "real-time" search and offering more relevant content. As this happens, the traffic these sites drive across the web will be much, much greater than what we've seen to date. In the short term, I don't believe that will ultimately equate to media dollars being reallocated from search to social-media properties, but you could make a case that it leads to a greater investment in initiatives like SEO to tie these together in an more meaningful way.

In the long term, all of this might change as social media platforms discover ways to monetize that brings marketers and users together to the benefit of all of the parties involved.

~~~
Peter Hershberg is managing partner at Reprise Media @hershberg on Twitter)

How to Get Things Done with Twitter

2009-03-15T01:47:00.003-05:00

Post written by Leo Babauta. Follow him on Twitter @zen_habits

Let’s face it: a growing number of people are using Twitter these days, spending a lot of time on Twitter, and still need to get things done on Twitter.

If you want to spend a lot of time conversing with people on Twitter, that’s great … but many people still need to get their tasks done. Let’s take a look at how to do that.

Why use Twitter to get things done? Twitter isn’t necessarily the best platform for getting things done … but if you’re already using it a lot, it might be easier or faster for you to do things while still in Twitter. Note: I don’t take responsibility for any of these services — if they don’t work well, check with them! :)

Here’s how:

1. Reminders. Need a quick reminder that you have an appointment, or need to follow up on something later? Follow “timer” on Twitter, and send it a direct message with a reminder time and it will ping you at that time. For example: “d timer 30 pick up Chloe”.

2. To-do list: A couple of popular to-do services are on Twitter: Remember the Milk (on Twitter) and Nozbe (on Twitter). Follow them and send them direct messages to add things to your to-do list, or to check the items on your list.

3. Calendar. If you use Google Calendar (gCal), go to Twittercal, then follow gCal on Twitter and add events by sending direct messages to gCal. For example: “d gcal meeting with paul tomorrow at 7pm”.

4. Delegate. If you’re going through your to-do list or email and find a task that’s better suited for someone else, sending that person a direct message (assuming they’re on Twitter) can be quicker and easier than sending an email or making a phone call.

5. Follow up. The same applies to following up. I’ve done it a bunch of times — instead of opening up your email program, composing a new message, typing in the person’s address and the subject line, and then writing the email … you can just direct message them on Twitter: “d zen_habits don’t forget to answer my interview questions, you berk!”

6. Accountability with goals. Want some extra motivation to achieve your goals? Announce through Twitter or on your blog that you’re going to post your progress updates every day on Twitter. For example, if you’re trying to eat healthier, you can post everything you eat on Twitter. Trying to exercise? Post your workouts on Twitter. It’s great motivation, and you can get some support and encouragement from your Twitter friends.

7. Get info or ideas quickly. If you have a good Twitter network, you can ask a question and usually get a few responses quicker than many other methods. I’ve gotten website and service recommendations, ideas for a post I was writing, restaurant recommendations, people interested in a job, and more.

8. Do real work. It’s possible to do real work on Twitter — people have written stories or posts by writing them in little chunks in Twitter. It might be worth a try. But if that doesn’t work, my strongest recommendation is to turn Twitter off when you need to do some real work. Then, when you’re done, reward yourself with 10 minutes on Twitter.

Other useful Twitter services:

Tweetbeep: A service to keep track of keywords through alerts that you set up. You’ll get an email notification if anyone mentions you or your brand or your blog posts in their tweets. Note: It looks like this service is down right now but they say they’ll be back soon.

StrawPoll: create a poll. Your Twitter contacts can participate in the poll by simply sending an @reply message.

TwitResponse: allows you to schedule delivery of your tweets — very useful if you want to set up a bunch of tweets in the future.

Zen Habits: Yes, you can get updates on the latest Zen Habits posts, as well as The Power of Less Tips of the Day, and more.

TwiTips: An excellent blog with dozens of tips for using Twitter, from one of the great Twitter power users, Darren Rowse.

How to Sign Up for Twitter

2009-03-15T01:28:00.003-05:00

1. Twitter.com Click on the "Join the Conversation" button in middle of the page.

2. Fill out basic information. This will include your full name, preferred user name, password and e-mail address. Remember that the user name is what people will see with an "@" symbol in front of it.

3. See if your friends are on Twitter. After you fill out basic info, you'll be prompted to look for friends in your Gmail, Yahoo, MSN, Hotmail or AOL accounts so you can begin following them if they're already on the service.

4. Twitter's suggestions. Twitter will suggest some people for you to follow as well. Check to see if anyone of them are relevant.

5. Setting up your profile. Click on "settings" in the upper right hand corner of your Twitter home page. You'll be brought to a tab-based menu that helps you build your profile and adjust settings.

6. Fill in the fields. Of particular importance is the "one line bio" under the "Account" tab. You have 160 characters to present yourself to the Twitter community. Many people choose to state their profession, and then maybe something outside of work that interests them as well. My bio for instance is @WebAdvocate Recommended by 9 out of 10 people who know me. Optimist. Business Owner. On Line Marketer.

7. Start looking for followers. Regardless of how many people you found through e-mail search and Twitter's suggestions, start looking around for people you might find interesting. Use search.twitter.com.

Selective Twitter

2009-03-12T15:14:00.006-05:00

If you don't want EVERY tweet to show up on your faceBook account, try Selective twitter.

Selective Twitter Status lets you update your Facebook status from Twitter - BUT you can choose which tweets you want - just end a tweet with #fb when you want to post it as your Facebook status - simple!

Sign up at Selective twitter.

This helps to avoid confusing your Facebook friends, and you don't swamp your FB profile with too many updates.

More Twitter Tools

2009-03-12T02:20:00.005-05:00

Twitter Grader: Learn your Twitter grade, your local Twitter Elite, and find new people to follow through Twitter Grader.
Twitterholic: Check out the top Twitter users and find out your Twitter stats on Twitterholic.
TweetStats: TweetStats offers a graphical analysis of your Twitter stats.
Twitter Friends: Carefully measure your Twitter conversations using Twitter Friends.
Twinfluence: Twinfluence will measure your Twitter influence based on reach, velocity, and social capital.
Tweetwasters: Find out how much time you and other users waste on Twitter.
Retweetrank: Find out how many retweets you and other Twitter users have through this service.
Information Gathering

Time Management in the Age of Social Media

2009-03-11T13:56:00.002-05:00

David Allen talks about ways you can make Facebook and Twitter work for you on the job

These days I'm asked frequently about the role of social media in personal and organizational productivity. The question is timely, as the major social media applications have millions of users and are still growing fast. Also, the phenomenon is closely tied to e-mail, which itself has presented major challenges to professionals in time management and keeping an appropriate focus in their work and life.

The most obvious issue about social media: Is this a useful way to spend your time, or is it a sinkhole of attractive distraction? It could very easily be one of those one minute, and the other the next! It all depends on why you're doing it, and this must be evaluated moment to moment. It's an important distinction to make for yourself, because focus is probably your greatest asset that you can control. You must be judicious about where you place it and what you let grab it, thus reducing your effectiveness.

Bear in mind that the most potentially productive activities (e.g. meetings) can undermine your control and focus if they're not carefully managed. And some pursuits that are commonly viewed as "time-wasting," such as random Web surfing or Facebook socializing can be productive, if you use that term in the broadest sense of achieving something you want.

Someone noticed that I was now on Twitter and said: "How can you be productive on Twitter?" My simple answer: "If I want to have Twittered, then it's productive!" I wasn't trying to be facetious. The truth is, if you're taking a vacation to relax and you don't relax, then it's an unproductive vacation.

Why would I (or anyone) want to "have Twittered," or be involved with any of the social media at all? There is inherently some sort of magic between the lines in much of it that seems to have struck a chord in so many of us. I attribute this to the transparency, connectedness, and immediacy that social media offer, which are key attributes of quality relationships—something humans crave at a basic level.
Looking at if from a more tactical, practical perspective, it seems there are three main reasons that it can serve people well:

You're an incorrigible extrovert, and you just love to schmooze.

If so, social media may be right up your alley. You simply need to be careful with balance, and whether your virtual social life is detracting from your physical one, or from your other responsibilities. You may need a prenuptial agreement that it's O.K. to disappear for hours away from your real-life partner to chat with people you'll never see. But if you're wired to get inspirational juice from multiple relationships in that way, it can be productive.

You have an agenda that is supported by this kind of connection.

If you need to know what's new and what's happening, moment to moment, social media can provide a competitive advantage. If you are building a global brand, as I am, and leveraging your personality and having a following is part of that strategy, playing in this arena is smart. I've only been on Twitter for a couple of weeks, but already it has invigorated lots of great discussions and a sense of connectedness with thousands of people in and around my network.

If having some sort of immediate communication from me helps reinforce the best practices that my methods represent for people's work and life, then there's lots of goodwill as well as good ideas spreading virally and quickly. Or, if you're in a business that excels with its "now-ness" in the market and culture, such as entertainment or consumer high tech, you'd better be on board. Or if you're out of a job, this hugely expanded Rolodex may be your best resource for your next opportunity.

You're researching.

You're intrigued, maybe a little intimidated by the early adopters and the popularity in the media about these media, and you're curious about what all this is about and want to find out whether and how you should engage. That's probably the majority of us, and I think there is still much to know about this world. You'll be in testing, trying-out mode. I'm still very much in this space, attempting to not miss out on whatever opportunities might lie waiting while at the same time not letting myself get too sidetracked along lines that start to require more energy than they deliver back.

It's not an easy call, because I've discovered that the proof is in the pudding. That is, I've got to participate in order to really know what's going to pay off and what isn't. The experience in Twitter was unexpected; and it took quite a bit of experimentation to get a feel for what was going on, and how to find a groove there.
The big key is to stay very clear about what your agreements with yourself are, relative to your engagement with such things as LinkedIn, MySpace, Twitter, and the like. The opportunity that the various social media offer is the ability to quickly communicate, collaborate, and get feedback from a large and previously inaccessible number of people, with varying degrees of filtering capabilities.

The challenge is that each of those social media involvements can represent another virtual in box, with an implicit assumption that you should think about and deal with what lands there. If "processing" those additional streams of input is simply a matter of scanning to see what's of interest to you, that may not take much time; and you can simply drop in and out on a whim. That's no different than channel surfing, other than the added seductiveness of interactive rabbit trails to pursue.
But if you are expected—by yourself or others—to be more familiar with the content, or to contribute and respond to content directly, you're going to have to be judicious in how you manage your social media commitments. It's not as innocuous as another cable station, unless you have specifically downgraded your expectations of how you're going to be involved.

Depending on your personal and professional interests, you can choose from the variety of social media the ones that fit for you. If the productivity best practice is to target your social media very precisely to attain your goals, then the productivity worst practice would be to indiscriminately hook into multiple sources of poorly defined static. To use social media effectively, just be sure that you aren't putting more effort in than the result you're getting.

David Allen is the internationally bestselling author of Getting Things Done, Ready for Anything, and Making It All Work. He is the chairman and founder of the David Allen Company and is a leading authority on developing personal and organization capacity.

Finding the Right “Brand Voice” on Twitter

2009-03-10T16:13:00.011-05:00

March 9th, 2009 | by Kai Turner

Kai Turner is head of Information Architecture at Agency.com – London.

When businesses open an account on Twitter, they must consider the right “Brand Voice.” One that is appropriate for what they want to say, and who they want to reach. This is a different sort of voice than the one companies have been familiar with in their traditional print and broadcast media channels, as it’s a more open and authentic form of communication.

While there is no established roadmap for launching a brand on Twitter, I’ve made some observations about some approaches to follow and pitfalls to avoid.
1. DO see it as a branding exercise

Companies already understand the importance of creating a strong brand identity for marketing and advertising. However, it is the expression of the brand identity that needs a new approach when working with Twitter.

Typically, when a company is planning a marketing campaign for broadcast, print or the web, the brand identity will have travelled from its conceptual and strategic origins through a process of formalization until it arrives as clear and well-defined guidelines to be put into a brief. This can be effective in carefully crafting a static piece of communication but, much like bringing a script to a dinner party, formal rules can’t be applied to casual conversation.

Instead, companies should return to an earlier exercise in developing their brand identity – that of describing their brand personality. These are the human characteristics of the brand. Many brands fall at the first hurdle on Twitter, which is, simply: sounding human. A company’s “Brand Voice” should reflect the personality traits of the brand. If your brand personality is meant to be “refined and sophisticated”, does it sound refined and sophisticated, or does it sound like a door-to-door salesman?

The Brand Voice of Starbucks is the voice of Brad, who posts on Twitter for them. Here he’s posting a picture of himself with some colleagues, just as any group of friends might do on Twitter.

2. DON’T imitate the voice of the community

What makes people interesting is that everyone is unique, and everyone has their own voice. Brands often go wrong on Twitter by thinking that in order to appeal to a certain demographic segment they need to somehow imitate that group. This is most obvious when brands go after the youth market and awkwardly pepper their language with outdated slang and a tone that is meant to sound ‘trendy’ or ‘urban’.

Companies make the wrong assumption– they believe that they need to wear a disguise in order to speak naturally to people. In fact, people want an authentic conversation with brands that speak as we would expect them to. People don’t want brands to be their friends, or to be overly familiar with them, but they do want a dialogue with brands whose products or services they enjoy using. Brands that feel the need to adopt a false persona, in some ways, are using it as a defense mechanism. After all, you can’t criticize the brand, you can only attack the false persona.

This post is both conversational, and informative. It’s what you would expect from Capgemini.

3. DO let it all hang out

The hardest thing for large companies to accept is just how exposed they are on Twitter. If there has been something negative in the press, your press conference begins as soon as the news breaks amongst the Twitterati. There is no time to prepare a statement.

Again, however, the rule is that the Brand Voice is a human one. And just as people have their own foibles, and make mistakes, a company on Twitter needs to accept its flaws, own up to them, and then it can begin repairing its mistakes. Hiding away from this conversation only makes matters worse, because then it becomes a one-sided argument without any representation from the company.

You can’t hide. Motrin had a PR disaster with their Motrin Moms campaign. The problem was only compounded by not having a voice on Twitter. In this example someone, pretending to be Motrin, continues to make jokes at the company’s expense.

4. DON’T just use Twitter as an RSS feed

The Twitter audience is a tech savvy bunch. They know how to read RSS feeds, so repurposing an RSS feed for Twitter isn’t adding value. You can post links to recent news and updates, but have a real person contextualize it. The link is interesting only if the person posting it is credible, and making a judgment call about what is or isn’t worth posting.

This Adobe developer posted about the product he’s working on, and since we’re getting a behind the scenes view of his work, it’s much more compelling than just having the link on its own.

5. DO define your communication channel

Before you can find the right voice, you need to know what it is you want to talk about. Is it a brand awareness and engagement channel? Is it a news and information channel? Is it a customer support and response channel? Each of these would need a different tone of voice.

DELL has over 20 distinct, and well-defined Twitter channels. Notably, the authors behind each account have been named so that a connection can be made with a real person.

6. DON’T just talk about products & services

Again, think of the real world. A person who speaks about one thing, and one thing only, is either incredibly dull or clinically insane. If you are passionate about your business, industry, products then share your passion. I was recently working on a project where I was told about a tech specialist who constantly improves the image quality of a camera lens. He could explain all the little details that go into creating a perfect image with such enthusiasm that you would be drawn into his world, and a topic you wouldn’t have guessed would be exciting– suddenly is.

Adam Denison, “A PR guy at Chevrolet,” talks about cars without always directly promoting Chevrolet products.

7. DO have a casting call for your Brand Voice

So you know what you want to say, and how you want to say it – but the biggest question is: who will be saying it? Most likely it will be someone from the marketing or the PR team. Maybe even a junior intern who has been given a list of things to post on Twitter.

A more successful tactic would be to find someone, internal or external to the company, who is already on Twitter and speaking naturally in a tone of voice that matches your Brand Voice.

An online travel agent or airline could benefit from having a serial traveler like the TwitchHiker working as their brand evangelist.

8. DO have a voice on Twitter, but first have a listen

If nothing else, big brands need to get on Twitter and start following people. Test the water. We don’t bite. Usually.

FAQ Pages Could Boost Your Google Rankings

2009-03-10T14:53:00.001-05:00

By Chris Crum

Catering to Intent-based Search the Key
In a recent report, Hitwise said that the length of search queries has increased over the past year. Longer search queries, averaging searches of 5+ words in length, have increased 10% from January '08 to January '09 they noted.

Ask has an interesting blog post up interpreting this data, and the gist of it is summed up with this paragraph from it:

In a nutshell, users are now expecting search engines to not just index the Internet, they are expecting search engines to process the data on the Internet. Searchers don't consider their query to be just keywords; they are starting to expect that the search engine will understand the intent of the query better. Expressing a query with intent requires more words, and the user's investment of more words means that his or her expectations on the search engine are higher. We are clearly experiencing a transition in the way that people are using the Internet.

Intent-based search. We've been hearing the phrase dropped more and more. In a popular WebProNews interview with Bruce Clay, late last year, he spoke of where search was headed and a good deal of that had to do with personalized search. The SearchWiki side of that has gotten the most attention in this area, but he had some things to say about intent-based search as well.

More WebProNews Videos
He talked about Google looking up your IP and revising results based on it while making assumptions about the intent of your search. This would have an affect on SEO, obviously. "The page that ranks for a shopping query is an entirely different architecture than the page that ranks for a research query," said Clay.

It's a topic SEOBook author Aaron Wall and I discussed recently as well. Aaron noted that Google CEO Eric Schmidt said in a recent conference call, "Wouldn’t it be nice if Google understood the meaning of your phrase rather than just the words that are in that phrase? We have a lot of discoveries in that area that [we] are going to roll out in the next little while."

Aaron Wall The idea of relevancy based on intent is a fantastic one, but chances are the search engines are still going to have to rely on the content that users create to increase search relevancy, at least in this manner. Google still has "a long way to go to get where they want to be with relevancy, but some of the issue of search is simply creating the incentive to make people want to create the content that really answers search queries well in a good format," Wall told WebProNews.

"Sometimes I see Matt Cutts post great how to posts about how to do different things in Ubuntu," he continued. "I believe he does that in part to feed answers into the search engine, especially if/when it did not provide an answer that was as good as he would like."

What is another great way to feed answers into a search engine? Keith Hogan, VP, Technology at Ask offers a piece of pretty sound advice for online businesses: "Web business should take notice of Question/Answering sites that have been built and SEO'd to fill the search engine rankings for these types of user questions (e.g. Q&A aggregators like WikiAnswers, AnswerBag, and Yahoo Answers). While this content is generally very relevant, content directly from companies could be more authoritative. Web businesses may benefit by creating FAQ content that is targeted at answering real user questions about their products."

FAQs as relevant results to intent-based searches about what your business offers. What a concept. And considering the emphasis Google seems to be putting on brand (although Matt Cutts says it's not so much about brand exactly), it sounds like a can't-miss.

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Facebook Sending More Traffic Than Google to Some Sites

2009-03-09T12:46:00.002-05:00

Will Search-Marketing Dollars Also Shift to Social Media?
by Michael Learmonth

Published: March 09, 2009

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Marketers spend billions to attract search traffic from Google, but late last year Facebook started becoming a bigger source of traffic for some large websites, according to analytics firm Hitwise.

It seems inevitable that, given Facebook's sheer scale (180 million registered users and counting), it would at some point start referring a lot of users to some sites, but the development is surprising. Web users go to Google to figure out where to go next; they go to Facebook to, well, hang out.

Facebook gets a little more than a third of Google's unique visitors in the U.S. (50 million vs. 149 million in January, per ComScore); since last summer, registered users have been growing at a double-digit rate.

Where they're going
But since the beginning of the year, Facebook has become a bigger referring site than Google to a number of sites, including gossip sites PerezHilton.com and Dlisted, mom site CafeMom, Evite, video site Tagged.com, and, yes, Twitter.

There are good reasons for some of this: CafeMom has a Facebook fan page, which no doubt helps drive traffic, and users can synchronize updates with Facebook and Twitter.

It's hard to know why two gossip sites are on the list, aside from the fact that they tend to be places people spend a lot of time. Since the beginning of 2009, gossip site PerezHilton.com has received 8.7% of its visitors from Facebook, compared with 7.6% from Google, according to Hitwise. The same didn't hold true, however, for gossip site TMZ, which got 12.2% of its traffic from Google, compared with 3.8% from Facebook.

Big source for video sites
As NewTeeVee points out, Facebook has also become a big source of referrals for video sites as users post and share clips. Traffic from Facebook accounted for 3.3% of visits to video sites in February, according to Hitwise, up from less than 2% in February of last year.

It all points to the growing power of content sharing; the question is how to harness that and what it means for the future of "search" marketing. Companies spent $12.2 billion in 2008 on search optimization and marketing to get traffic from Google, according to eMarketer.

But Peter Yared, CEO of marketing firm iWidgets, said he thinks some of that spending is going to shift to where the viewers, and the traffic, increasingly are. "Soon the [search-engine marketing and search-engine optimization] spend will start to follow the eyeballs and transition from Google to social media," he said.

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10 High-Impact, Low-Budget Ideas for Marketing in a Down Economy (Part 1)

2009-03-08T16:45:00.003-05:00

by Jonathan Kranz

When the going gets tough, the tough get... cheap. Today, a good marketing idea has to be as inexpensive as it is clever. In part 1 of a two-part series, I offer five inexpensive suggestions that can lead to productive results.

1. Use all of the buffalo

The buffalo was more than a source of meat. Hides became clothing and shelter; bones became tools; sinews became bow strings.

Think like a Plains Indian and get the most use out of every marketing effort possible. One case study, for example, can serve as

Spider-food on your website that boosts SEO and provides meaningful content:

A direct mail insert in lieu of the traditional product brochure

A tradeshow handout to jump start conversations

A leave-behind for sales calls

Bonus
Exploit the public relations potential of a big project such as a whitepaper or e-book. If the content is genuinely valuable (not merely promotional swill), you may be able to pick up good press on the cheap.

One of my clients got a half-page article in the leading trade magazine for its industry—and scored a seat at the executive leadership table in the industry's dominant professional association as a result of the great press.

Target appropriate editors/bloggers/reporters with your content and include a quick note explaining its relevance to their audiences.

2. Choose your social-media weapons carefully

What's that background hum? Oh, it's the swarm of expert wannabes chattering endlessly about Web 2.0, social media, the death of print, etc. No matter what the technology or medium—whether blogs or mobile devices, Facebook or Twitter—the message is always the same: You gotta be there—or you're a dumb-dumb... or worse, a dodo.

Look, no doubt some of these may have real value for your business. But the hard truth is that you can't do ALL of them well. Nor should you. Concentrate your resources on the ones that:

Are likely to be used or welcomed by your target markets

You can excel in

You can sustain on a regular basis

Don't impose unrealistic burdens on your resources or budgets

Bonus
A client of mine leveraged social media to help a branch of the armed services meet its recruiting targets. But instead of chasing the latest social media fads, they focused their efforts by doing two key things: listening to the online conversations already in progress and creating open content that their target audiences could freely share. Result? They've hit their recruiting numbers every month.

3. Go organic

Place greater emphasis on your organic SEO rather than simply dumping money into Google AdWords. It's not only cheaper, it can be more productive; I've read various analyses on the Web suggesting that natural listings attract 60% or 70% of clicks as opposed to 40% or 30% for paid listings.

Successful organic SEO requires

Aggressive identification of keywords that should be optimized for each significant page on your site

Development of deep content that feeds search engine spiders and attracts incoming links

Constant monitoring of your site statistics to track trends and progress

Bonus
Don't neglect your titles and meta descriptions. "Titles" are the words that appear at the top of the visitor's Web browser. Search engine spiders take titles seriously, so be sure yours include keywords. The "meta description" in your HTML is what the search engines use to describe your site when it appears as a response to search query; write yours to appeal to potential customers.

4. Play to your strengths

Many years ago, as I was starting my copywriting career, I met a businesswoman who shared what she described as the best advice she ever got at a motivational seminar: Don't try to improve your weaknesses; just concentrate on developing your strengths.

I think that's wise. For us, it means focusing our business operations on our most productive, profitable areas and focusing our marketing efforts on those strategies or tactics at which we most excel.

It's not a matter of what works, but what works for you. If, for example, cold-calling simply isn't effective, drop it. If you're good at networking, plan on investing more of your time and money on networking opportunities this year.

Bonus
So many of my clients get hung up on this so-called "elevator speech" thing—that 30-second pitchoid that each of us is supposed to have at the ready. The problem with these things is that they sound every bit as contrived and unnatural as they really are. So forget about them. Instead, think about questions, things you can ask new prospects that can jump-start conversations and lead to a natural introduction of your products or services.

5. Profile your best customers

Consider this reverse-engineering for marketing. Think of your best customers. What do they have in common? Is it an industry or role? A similar problem or challenge? A quality of temperament, habit, or attitude? The answers form a profile of the kind of prospects you should pursue.

Then think about how you attracted your top customers. Did they come to your Web site first? Or respond to a direct mail campaign? Or meet you at a conference? Again, whatever worked, do more of. And consider trimming back the rest.

Bonus
Be prepared for surprises. You may have started your business with the intent of serving one kind of customer with one kind of need, but in retrospect you may find that your best business comes from an entirely different kind of client with a different need.

I work with a company, for example, that started out in the business of providing inexpensive security for PDF documents. But, over time, it found that the real interest lay in offering PDF analytics—and they've shifted their efforts accordingly.

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Strengthening Your Online Presence: Now is the Time

2009-03-07T13:54:00.006-06:00

by Vinay Bhagat, Founder & Chief Strategy Officer, Convio

Many nonprofits are feeling the impact of the financial crisis — in particular those reliant on corporate gifts. Others are bracing themselves for challenging conditions. In difficult economic times, it can be a natural reaction to stop all new investments. Yet, building strong constituent relationships and acquiring new donors to replenish losses is more important than ever.

Nonprofits must adopt a strategic approach to their fundraising investments, cutting less efficient areas and investing where gains can be realized. The traditional fundraising model has been in decline for some time. The financial crisis and competition for donor dollars has heightened the imperative to change models today, re-allocating investment from waning traditional fundraising approaches to new approaches that incorporate the online channel.

Challenges with Traditional Fundraising Channels
Direct mail-based donor acquisition has been getting more difficult and more expensive due to postage rate increases, mailing list fatigue, postal mail delivery challenges, and shifting consumer preferences. The Target Analytics Index of National Fundraising Performance, which tracks some very large nonprofits, shows donor counts have been declining consistently for the past two and a half years. In the first quarter of 2008, for the first time in two years, overall revenue declined as well. Revenue fell 1.8% from Q1 2007 to Q1 2008.

Until now, increases in revenue per donor compensated for donor declines, allowing overall revenue to continue to grow. In the most recent quarter in the analysis, however, continued revenue per donor growth could not make up for the donor decreases nor prevent overall revenue from declining. For most organizations, overall donor declines have been due primarily to a decrease in new donor acquisition. New donors declined 2.3% from Q1 2007 to Q1 2008, on top of a 5.3% drop over the same period one year before. Additionally, telephone fundraising is growing more difficult in the wake of "do not call" regulation and the substitution of land lines for cell phones. In this context, nonprofits must find more economic ways to source new donors and enhance their lifetime value.

The Shift Online
As direct mail-based fundraising has become less effective, online fundraising has grown significantly. According to the Pew Foundation, 75% of all Americans are now online at home or at work. According to The Online Marketing (eCRM) Nonprofit Benchmark Index Study, published by Convio in 2008, the median online revenue growth rate across sectors was just over 26% from the first half of 2006 to the first half of 2007, with some sectors, namely Environment and Wildlife, Visitation (museums, zoos/aquariums, and performing arts) and Higher Education growing at over 50%.

Much of the online fundraising growth has come from new, younger donors. Online donors are typically 15 years younger than direct mail donors. In addition, usable email files grew 32% in the same period, showing that nonprofits are successfully developing online prospect lists for future supporters. A first-of-its-kind national survey conducted for Convio by JupiterResearch, a Forrester Research company, shows that of the 175.6 million online adults (age 18+) in the US, more than half (51%) plan to donate to charities during the upcoming holiday season.

If there is a silver lining in the economic cloud, it is that consumers and nonprofits are aligning around the online channel. Given its growth, it is imperative that nonprofits invest appropriately in the online channel to realize its full potential. In fact, according to the Direct Marketing Association, nonprofits are on average growing their online marketing spend four times faster than their direct mail and telemarketing spend.

Power to the People
Today, constituents are taking a more active role in their philanthropy. Many want to see the direct impact of their giving, others are eager to participate in a movement. Increasingly, people are donating because of being asked to do so by their friends or family versus a nonprofit organization itself. The Internet has accelerated these trends which represent a shift of power to the constituent.

A majority of prospective donors will visit a charity’s website to learn more before making an initial contribution. A growing number of people will research charities on sites like Charity Navigator or Guidestar before giving. Direct to beneficiary giving portals, such as Kiva and DonorsChoose, which give donors unprecedented control over where they direct their gifts, have grown exponentially. At Kiva, a donor can make a micro-loan directly to a specific person in a developing country. At DonorsChoose, donors can support a specific funding need posted by a public school teacher.

Online peer-to-peer fundraising tools like Convio TeamRaiser™ and Tributes have enabled nonprofits to turn their most passionate supporters into prolific fundraisers. Convio’s extensions for Facebook and widgets for other social networks like MySpace have extended the appeal of peer-to-peer fundraising to Generation Y.

The Integrated Effect
The value of online marketing should not be measured solely by money raised online. There is increasing proof that online marketing attracts new donors and influences existing offline donors to give more. At the 2007 Convio Client Summit, Jeff Regen, VP Online Marketing & Communications at Defenders of Wildlife, shared how the organization uses online advocacy as a way to attract new constituents, and subsequently deploys a multi-channel approach using email, direct mail and telemarketing to convert non-donor activists to donors. The cohort of new non-donor activists recruited between January and March 2006 contributed over $90,000 within 16 months after being exposed to a multi-channel fundraising effort. About 78% of the donations were ultimately yielded online.

In addition to being a source for new donors and a feeder channel for direct mail and telemarketing acquisition efforts, online marketing also enhances donor loyalty. Convio's joint study with the analytics firm StrategicOne in 2006 demonstrated that online engagement enhances the lifetime value of a direct mail donor through growing both gift frequency and donor retention rates.

Online marketing is emerging as a strong source for new major donor prospects as well. Defenders of Wildlife has found that about one-third of all new major donors are sourced through their online marketing efforts. The Wired Wealthy research that Convio conducted with Sea Change Strategies and Edge Research confirms that mid-level and major donors are increasingly wired, and online communications can help augment and enhance less frequent personal contact.

Now is the Time
Current economic conditions indicate that competition for donors will intensify. Economically sourcing new prospects, converting them to donors, and maximizing their lifetime value is more important than ever. Savvy nonprofits will make the strategic changes and investments required to succeed online, to align to a world where power has shifted to donors, and to implement multi-channel marketing strategies. Money raised online can now more than justify the start-up costs of online marketing efforts, and is a fraction of the true value created by effectively integrating online marketing with direct mail and major donor development efforts.

More >

Non Profits and Social Media

2009-02-22T19:47:00.005-06:00

The Center for Nonprofit Management at Robert Morris University has been doing a biannual survey of nonprofit technology benchmarks for its regional nonprofits for the past ten years.

A few highlights related to social media:

23% use social networking sites, but 68% of those use them "rarely"

20% use blogs, but 64% of those use them "rarely"

11% use RSS feeds

11% use podcasting

My personal feeling on Social Media is it is not just for larger national organizations. Smaller non profits can have a web presence with the big boys if they implement an active social media optimization plan... and all the tools are free.

Read complete report>

How to Get Started On Twitter

2009-02-12T12:31:00.004-06:00

Don't understand what all the Twitter fuss is about or why you might want to use this social networking tool? You're not alone, but you may be missing out on useful information and professional connections. Check out our quick and easy guide on how and why to get started with Twitter.

Twitter remains a very nascent social network, so if you don't know how it works or what it does (or you haven't even heard of it), don't feel bad. In fact, you're still in the majority. But we're here to help you reap the benefits of Twitter with this quick get-started guide.

Jeremiah Owyang (@jowyang), a senior Forrester analyst who researches social media and who pens a blog on Web Strategy, says that while Twitter doesn't release exact numbers, he estimates that three to six million people use Twitter, compared to 150 million for Facebook.

Here is an (appropriately) short explanation of Twitter: Twitter is a free service that allows users to publish short messages of 140 characters or less. These messages are read by "followers" — people who make a conscious decision to subscribe to your messages and have them delivered to their own Twitter home pages.
Each message you post is known as a "Tweet." In the social media and social networking industry, Twitter facilitates a process known as microblogging or microsharing. Every user is identified by putting an "@" sign in front of their name (for instance: @cglynch).

Joining Twitter has value for many people, but it can also be a waste of time if you don't understand how the medium works and how best to utilize it. We take a look at suggestions from social networking gurus to help you determine if adding Twitter to your daily tech diet is in your best interest.

Do You Belong on Twitter?

The Wild West view of social networks proposes that you should just try them out and see whether or not you like them. But in a world where most people already belong to existing social networks (such as Facebook or LinkedIn), on top of using long-established technology like e-mail and text messaging, allocating time for another outlet should be considered carefully.

"Think about why do you want to do it," Owyang says. "Do you want to join because there's buzz about it [in the media] or because President Obama is on it? Especially now, you need to spend your resources and your time well."

Twitter should be place where you want to share common interests and ask insightful questions, and, ideally, read the interesting answers you get back, says Laura Fitton (@pistachio), who runs Pistachio Consulting, which advices people and companies on how best to utilize Twitter.

Though some people use Twitter to keep people in their personal life updated, Twitter has developed a business following. People in a particular industry (say engineering, software development, or public relations) often use Twitter to keep up with news, opinion and happenings in their field, for example. Once you get going with Twitter, this information will come to you. More on that in a minute.

What You Can Gain and Share With Twitter

If many Twitter evangelists looking to broaden the service's demographic had it their way, they might want to change the site's official branding a bit. When you go to Twitter to sign up, it says, "Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co-workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?"

"The best way to make the most use of it is not just answer what are you doing now," says Owyang. "Instead, answer: 'What's important to me?' That changes the conversation and makes value. It takes away some of the minutia and shows you want to talk about something that's more useful and interesting."

In other words, the "I'm running to the store" messages might not be as compelling amidst the noise of Twitter messages as "I just read a book on [insert some topic that's interest to you]." If you have room in the 140 characters, state an opinion or analysis of it.

It's about "what has my attention right now?" Fitton says. "The point of Twitter is what do we have in common or having some kind of shared experience."

HOW TO SIGN UP FOR TWITTER

1. Twitter.com Click on the "Join the Conversation" button in middle of the page.

2. Fill out basic information. This will include your full name, preferred user name, password and e-mail address. Remember that the user name is what people will see with an "@" symbol in front of it.

3. See if your friends are on Twitter. After you fill out basic info, you'll be prompted to look for friends in your Gmail, Yahoo, MSN, Hotmail or AOL accounts so you can begin following them if they're already on the service.

4. Twitter's suggestions. Twitter will suggest some people for you to follow as well. Check to see if anyone of them are relevant.

5. Setting up your profile. Click on "settings" in the upper right hand corner of your Twitter home page. You'll be brought to a tab-based menu that helps you build your profile and adjust settings.

6. Fill in the fields. Of particular importance is the "one line bio" under the "Account" tab. You have 160 characters to present yourself to the Twitter community. Many people choose to state their profession, and then maybe something outside of work that interests them as well. CIO's C.G. Lynch (@cglynch), for instance, has the following: "Staff Writer at CIO, New England Sports Fan."
7. Start looking for followers Regardless of how many people you found through e-mail search and Twitter's suggestions, start looking around for people you might find interesting. Use search.twitter.com.

Who to Follow on Twitter?

The early users of Twitter have turned the issue of followers into a bit of popularity contest, and the PR and marketing professionals follow thousands of people in some cases to help tout their brands over the service.
But following a lot of people can create unnecessary noise that will render the service useless to you.

"The people you choose to follow should bring something compelling to your life," says Fitton. "I feel sad people think that's important to follow a ton of random people or have people with a lot of followers to be important or get value from Twitter."

Owyang suggests starting with people you know. When you sign up for Twitter, you will be promoted to search for friends from your Gmail or Yahoo Mail accounts and show if you are on the service. Also, he says, you can use Twitter's search tool to look for people that might be twittering in your field.

You don't need to know people personally, but they should relate to your interests. You also might want to look for luminaries in your industry who often publish links to things they're reading with short comments on it. If you're into biking, you might follow Lance Armstrong (@lancearmstrong). If you're into politics, maybe you follow party operatives like democrat Joe Trippi (@JoeTrippi) or republican Karl Rove (@KarlRove).

Not long after you join, people will begin following you. Before you follow back, make sure you're going to get something substantive out of their tweets, Owyang says.

Other experts advise you think more broadly, at least to start. Stowe Boyd (@stoweboyd), a social media consultant who writes the /message blog, suggests following at least 100 people right away. He agrees with Owyang and Fitton that you should look for quality people, but believes it's important to throw yourself into the Twitter environment and see how information moves differently.

With Twitter, information flows to you, in contrast to more traditional mediums such as a news website, where you must click around and seek out information on your own. On Twitter, after you select followers, the information just comes to you.

"The point is getting in the flow, and having it wash over you," Boyd says.
Remember, You're Publishing: Google Will Find Your Tweets.

It's important to remember that Twitter is a publishing medium. In many cases, Tweets can be picked up by Google. So remember what you say, especially if you tend to talk business over Twitter (as many people do).

An executive from a PR agency that works with FedEx published a tweet where he spoke ill of the shipping company's hometown of Memphis, Tennessee..

The tweet went: "True confession but I'm in one of those towns where I scratch my head and say 'I would die if I had to live here!'"

FedEx responded to him with an e-mail expressing its disappointment in the post.
"What you say can affect your blog or business. Your boss, competitors, wife or future wife," Owyang says. "You need to remember, it's publishing."

Another caution: because a Tweet is so short, it's even harder than with say e-mail for people to pick up context or tell when you're being sarcastic versus serious, Fitton says.

"You need to think carefully about how you put it and how it sounds," she says. "Think about not only your immediate followers but your potential audience, which is the whole Web. Tweets get googled pretty prominently."

By C.G. Lynch

Seven Words That Will Make Your Web Site Worth Viewing

2009-02-12T12:22:00.001-06:00

Seven. A number like any other. But it does seem to come up on a fairly regular basis: the Seven Wonders of the World, the Seven Deadly Sins, and the Seven Dwarfs: Happy, Sneezy, Sleepy, Bashful, Doc, Dopey, and (my favorite) Grumpy.
Phone numbers have seven digits. And may say the optimum brand name should be no more than seven letters long. Seven, it seems, is a magical number, because the human brain can grasp only seven things at a time (on average).
So I've been thinking, What are the seven most important words associated with Web-marketing? I'll give you a hint: Search, engine, and optimization don't make the cut.

So what words do make the list? What are the seven words that will make your Web site worth viewing?

Words Can Move You

By someone's count there are 171,476 entries in the Oxford English Dictionary, plus another 47,156 words that have fallen out of favor, but not counting the 9,500 additional permutations that don't deserve their own special attention.

Half of these words are nouns, one-fourth are adjectives, and 14.285% are verbs; the rest consist of all those other things the purpose of which most of us long ago forgot.

Others may find fault with these numbers, but no matter what the total, it's a lot of words.

Of the tens of thousands of words to choose from, most people recognize less than ten percent, while teenagers seem to only be able to handle about half that amount; of course, that doesn't count slang, instant-messaging jargon, or the ever-popular four-letter variety.

Why the heck are there so many words if we all refuse to use them? I mean, why waste all those perfectly good words on English teachers and college professors?

Here's the thing: Words have meaning and impact, and they provide the emotional context of our communications; and we add subtlety and nuance by how we deliver them, using tone, cadence, and gesture.

That is, as important as words are... the way they are delivered is even more important.

What Web Site Design Is Really About

The other day I was listening to a local all-news radio station. It is mostly rip-and-read wire-service stuff that they repeat over and over like some kind of psychological torture, but they do provide traffic reports on a nauseatingly regular basis. You have to wait only 10 minutes until they repeat everything. So if you want to hear what traffic snafus to avoid, just wait a few minutes. But here's the problem: The announcers talk so fast that no matter how hard you concentrate, you can never quite get the particular information you need; and if you're driving, you have other things to consider, like the idiot in the Hummer who just cut you off.
None of these guys ever uses a period, let alone a semicolon or comma. Either they have very small bladders and are under pressure to finish quickly, or they're late for their afternoon pilates class. They seem so intent on rushing to the commercials that they never deliver the content in an appropriate manner.
Your Web site just might have the same problem.

Too much information is as bad as not enough. Information overkill leads to information anxiety, buyer's remorse, reduced satisfaction, unattainable expectations, and purchase-decision paralysis.

Web site owners have been told that visitors won't wait for anything, that they are impatient, and you've got to get to the point fast, make the pitch, and close the deal. Well, that approach just isn't going to work with any sophisticated product or service.

Your Web site presentation needs to slow people down so they hear what you have to say, and you have to say something worth hearing.
Web site design is about more than layout, markup language, and technical wizardry. Web site design is about communication; it's about turning advertising into content, and content into an experience that viewers will remember.
Seven Words to Remember

1. Communication

People are always asking us what's wrong with their Web sites, and the answer in the vast majority of cases can be summed-up in a quote from the movie Cool Hand Luke (1967): "What we have here is a failure to communicate." Communication is the key to success, and that doesn't just apply to your Web site—it applies to almost everything you do both inside and outside your business life.
If your Web site isn't communicating on both a rational and an emotional level, if it doesn't provide the psychological and emotional context of your marketing message, then exactly what is it doing?

2. Audience

I can't think of too many people who actually like being sold to. In fact, sometimes customers get so irritated by sales tactics that they end up not buying the thing they came specifically to your Web site to buy.
Solving the problem is merely a question of altering your perspective. The average buyer is predisposed to dismiss and ignore high-pressure tactics and meaningless sales pitches. So instead of treating customers like customers, try treating them like an audience. Audiences want to be engaged, enlightened, and entertained. And that is the most effective way to make a sales impact.

3. Focus

All too often, Web sites inundate their Web audiences with facts, figures, statistics, and an endless list of features, benefits, options, and whatever else the sales department can think of throwing in. But all that stuff just confuses people.

Focus your message on the most important elements of what you have to say. If your Web site can embed that single idea in an audience's mind, then it has done its job.

4. Language

The words used, and how they are put together, provide meaning; they inform personality; they provide mental sound bites; and they turn whatever you are saying into something worth remembering.
Language is one of the critical elements of "voice," the ability to convey personality. Writing that doesn't have "voice" is instantly forgettable.

5. Performance

Even the most articulate prose can be lost in befuddled delivery. Communication is more than words; it's a combination of language, style, personality, and performance.

Things are rarely what they seem. Even our memories are a stylized versions of what we've actually experienced. Creating a memorable impression is about managing the viewer experience and providing the right verbal and non-verbal cues that make what is being said memorable.

6. Personality

Every business has a personality. The first problem is that few midsize companies ever attempt to manage that persona, and as a consequence the buying public forms its own opinion. And that opinion is often not the way you want to be regarded.
The second problem is that companies either don't have a firm grasp of who they really are or, if they know, they are afraid to promote it. If your company's identity isn't worth promoting, it is time to think why that is... and change it.
The bottom line is that a company without a personality is a company without an image, and that makes you instantly forgettable.

7. Psychology
The most important feature you can offer your audience is psychological fulfillment, not deep discounts, fast service, or more bells and whistles.
The real reason people buy stuff is that it makes them feel something. Cosmetics make women feel attractive or sexy, while cars make men feel they've achieved some level of status. Even services make people feel important, as in "I've got a guy who does that for me."

Finding the psychological hotspot in your marketing, and promoting the hell out of it consistently and continually, should be your primary marketing goal. All those features and benefits are merely the excuse for a purchase, not the reason.

The Web Is Fast Becoming a Video Environment

Web sites are not just marketing collateral; they are not just digital brochures. They are a new presentation medium that requires specialized communication skills, and knowledge of how best to use the medium.

You may be a great salesperson and nobody knows your business like you do... and you may even be skilled at delivering speeches at conventions and seminars... but performing effectively in front of a camera is a whole different ball game. And for most people it's way out of their comfort zone, let alone their skill level.
The same old methods that used to work won't work any more. You're no longer competing with just the company down the street; you're competing with the entire world.

Web-based businesses may never actually meet their customers face to face or even talk to them on the phone, so it is imperative that they use marketing presentation methods that deliver an experience worth remembering.

by Jerry Bader
Published on February 10, 2009

I Just Want Someone To Listen To Me

2009-02-11T09:19:00.006-06:00

From CancerRecovery.org

That’s all I want …
someone to listen to me.
Just listen.
Merely listen.
No advice.
No fixing it.
No judgment.
No telling me not to feel this way.
All that can come later
if it needs to.
But first,
I need to say it.
I just need to let it out
and let it go.
I need the burden to be lifted.
I’m not looking for pity or even complete understanding,
because I know no one can really, totally,
understand
what I am going through.
But I just need an ear,
an ear,
attached to a heart,
filled with a little patience and a lot of
love.
It’s rare,
frustratingly rare,
to find someone who is
strong enough,
open enough,
to hearing me out.
I need someone who
can plunge into the depths with me
and
who won’t blanche
at my rawest emotions.
When I need to speak of
anger,
pain,
fear,
disappointment,
resentment
or
heartbreak.
I need someone who
will just let me say it.
It is in saying it
that much of the
anger,
pain,
fear,
disappointment,
resentment
and
heartbreak
begin to melt away.
It is when someone else
gets it,
gets that I need them
merely to listen,
that I begin to heal.
And then,
yes, then,
I begin to hope.
Again.

Visit CancerRecovery.Org for great resources for cancer patents, family members, care givers and medical professionals >

25 Signs You Have Bad Client

2009-02-10T13:53:00.001-06:00

Great article>

What Not to Say on Twitter

2009-02-07T19:00:00.004-06:00

What Not to Say On Twitter

Six Hotel Internet Marketing Experts Share Best Practices

2009-02-06T16:14:00.004-06:00

By Jitendra Jain

2009: This year may well go down for some as the year that the worst recession since World War II hit the world economy …and threw travel off-balance. Others may remember this year for the exciting challenges posed, opportunities seized and progress made towards a brighter, more profitable and tech-savvy future. Whichever way you chose to remember it, there’s no denying the fact that as travel and hospitality professionals, we’ll all have to break some moulds, get creative, optimize use of resources and collaborate like we’re never done before!

This document was inspired by a similar effort in the field of Online Social Media, initiated by Peter Kim, where prominent bloggers and authors collaborated to share their thoughts on the future developments they saw in 2009. My natural reaction was… collaboration should be a natural fit for the hospitality industry right? After all, we’re all about people! Thus this initiative was born…and I set out to seek the knowledge, thoughts and advice of prominent industry leaders and bloggers, on what they saw as important developments and tips in the field of online hospitality marketing this year. Of the 18 or so people contacted, 5-6 were kind enough to respond and share their remarkable thoughts.

* Professor Dimitrios Buhalisis, Deputy Director at the International Centre for Tourism and Hospitality Research (ICTHR), School of Services Management at Bournemouth University.
* Todd Lucier, creator of Tourism Keys Internet Marketing for Tourism blog, podcast and learning materials
* Patrick Landman, Hotel Revenue Management, Online Distribution and Internet Marketing Guru and the Founder of Xotels
* Jan Tissera, President, TravelCLICK International (Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East, and Africa regions)
* Guillaume Thevenot, French Londoner based at Amadeus and founder + editor of Hotel-Blogs.com
* Jitendra Jain (JJ), Online Marketer at Starwood Hotels and founder of The Talent Jungle Network, YoungHotelier.com and HoteleMarketer.com

Common themes that seem to emerge include:

1. It’s time to get back to basics and cover these well
2. There will be an increasing reliance on online technology in the year ahead
3. We’ll have to work together, both offline and online, for the best results
4. Utilization of mobile and on-the-go marketing will increase moving forward
5. There will be a renewed focus on internationalization and destination marketing
6. ROI measurement and analytics will become keystones to online success
7. A better understanding of our customer needs, niches and experiences will be required
8. There will be an increasing use of rich media and online PR in hospitality
9. The Hospitality industry will start experimenting with social media in earnest
10. Creativity and common sense will reign supreme (or so it ought to!)

A big Thank You to those who’ve taken the time to share their thoughts, ideas and insights in this document. This just wouldn’t have been possible without you.

THOUGHTS on 2009

Professor Dimitrios Buhalis

Hotel Online Marketing Predictions 2009: What do you think are the 3 key internet developments and online opportunities the hotel industry is likely to encounter & benefit from this year?

1. Technology to assist cutting costs
2. Location-based services and geography mash-ups increasing
3. Tour operators investing more in bedbanks and repackaging the package further

Leveraging technology to bear the recession: What are your Top tips to Hotels hoping to leverage Internet tech to beat the recession?

Many friends and colleagues have been asking me what to do in their tourism business during these difficult economic times. Here is the advice I gave to a hotelier friend recently:

* look after your customers better - engage with real CRM and work with you client base
* look after your domestic markets and people who can visit you within 90 minutes drive/train/ferry
* identify markets that are less affected or their perception is not affected as others
* create events and work on your value added propositions
* enhance your PR footprint
* work closely with your intermediaries and do not always believe that demand will be at the level they would have hopped
* expand the number of intermediaries available
* work closely with your staff to go reduce costs and to save through operational management
* work closely with your local suppliers to bring local products and reduce transportation, logistics and storage costs
* open your distribution channels as much as possible
* use technology and the internet to be in front of both your individual and trade customers as often as possible
* address you cost base and cut any unnecessary costs throughout
* reduce fixed cost - even if you pay higher variable costs for production
* work with local associations and clubs to organise events, conferences, charity gatherings etc
* be prepared but be cheerful - we have seen it all before !

Professor Dimitrios Buhalis is the Deputy Director at the International Centre for Tourism and Hospitality Research (ICTHR), School of Services Management at Bournemouth University. Email: dbuhalis@bournemouth.ac.uk Blog: http://buhalis.blogspot.com

Todd Lucier

Hotel Online Marketing Predictions 2009: What do you think are the 3 key internet developments and online opportunities the hotel industry is likely to encounter & benefit from this year?

* Blogsites will replace Websites as the principle marketing tool
* Handheld devices will start to play a significant role in the travel choices of travelers – i.e. en route planning for meals and accommodations will be much easier.
* Travelers will expect free wifi, but handhelds and 3G access will be more important to the digital traveller.
* Consumer influences on one another will be much more pronounced with wider acceptance of social media and giving and receiving advice on tools like Twitter, Tripadvisor and Facebook.
* Tourism businesses better be good and have ways of encouraging good word of mouth and monitoring the attitudes of visiting guests.

Leveraging technology to bear the recession: What are your Top tips to Hotels hoping to leverage Internet tech to beat the recession?

Partner, Partner, Partner: Collaboration will be the single most effective way to counter global economic upheaval. We're all in this together. The stronger presence your community has - via partnerships, co-marketing and raising word of mouth marketing, the better positioned your community will be to compete.

This requires significant trust and care for those we normally compete with. It might sound counterintuitive to the idea of seeking as much business as possible, but it is what is required to succeed in tough times.

Todd Lucier is the creator of Tourism Keys Internet Marketing for Tourism blog, podcast and learning materials. Since 1999, he’s been showing tourism businesses and communities how to make the most of the Web in seminars, hands-on workshops and with keynote presentations that inspire, motivate and transform thinking about the Internet. http://www.tourismkeys.ca/blog

Patrick Landman

Hotel Online Marketing Predictions 2009: What do you think are the key internet developments and online opportunities the hotel industry is likely to encounter & benefit from this year?

I have but one advice for most hoteliers during challenging times. And that is going back to basics. Lets not try to move forward with websites, implementing so much new technology.

More important before doing so is making sure the bare necessities are taken care of. Unfortunately too many hotel websites are still in too poor of a shape in terms of relevant content, site structure, meta-tags etc.

Lets go back and look at the hotel websites from a guests perspective. What does he want, how will he be able to find your hotel website. Stop thinking as a hotelier and become more of a destination marketer...

In the end they are most likely not coming or looking for your hotel. You are merely a consequence of the trip.

So lets sell what they are coming for, target the motive of the trip. We have to speak to consumers from each individual micro-segment!

Patrick Landman, a Hotel Revenue Management, Online Distribution and Internet Marketing Guru is the Founder of Xotels. http://www.xotels.com/

Jan Tissera

Hotel Online Marketing Predictions 2009: What do you think are the key internet developments and online opportunities the hotel industry is likely to encounter & benefit from this year?

2009 will be an important year for Online Internet Marketing strategy. As marketing budgets tighten and are increasingly placed under the microscope, more emphasis than ever will be placed on tracking the return on spend. Online Marketing offers hotels the most trackable and cost effective means of marketing their rooms direct to the consumer.

The three major areas that I see developing in 2009 are as follows:

1. Social Media Optimization and Online PR - The Search Engines are not the only channels used now to find information via internet. Channels such as YouTube account to 10% of total internet traffic. Social websites such as Facebook are increasingly popular, highly visited and used to find information and links. The search landscape in Google has also changed to include maps, blogs, news, images, videos etc all provided by Web 2.0 and social media websites. With all these developments, it will be essential for the hotelier to implement a professional strategy to embrace such developments and maximize the benefits given by exposure to such channels.

2. International Approach to Paid Search - Many hotels are now successfully running Paid Search campaigns but are ignoring a huge potential market. Running campaigns internationally does not only mean checking a box to show ads across the globe. To attract visitors and tourists from other countries requires a specific strategy and game plan. Once you have outlined your likely feeder markets, research needs to be conducted to ascertain which keywords they will use to find your type of hotels. Also, Translated landing pages and keyword creative’s need to be produced and of course, if possible the hotel booking engine should feature the appropriate languages to encourage conversion. Making the effort to reach travelers in their own language can seriously improve conversion of paid search campaigns and attract a whole new market to your hotel. Most importantly increase hotel occupancy using a direct, cost effective and measurable channel.

3. Search Engine Optimization & Geo Search - One of the most cost effective methods of driving traffic and reservations online is a robust and effective SEO strategy. There is no charge per click, once an initial investment has been made, the sky is the limit for the benefits achieved through SEO. It's wise to work with a company that knows the marketplace and will support, edit and amend keywords and strategy through the year for optimal impact and quality traffic. As with Paid Search, it's also important to consider a multilingual strategy for SEO not only considering language nuances but also the variety of Search Engines used to find information. Integral to a successful SEO strategy would be a consideration of the Geo Search, i.e the increased usage of mapping tools to locate businesses. Hotels need to make sure that they are registered as a minimum with Google local and Google maps and all of the correct information is present within their listing. Hotels that have successfully optimized a map listing were able to jump to top position in Google for broad keywords like "Hotel in [Insert City]".

Leveraging technology to bear the recession: What are your Top 3 tips to Hotels hoping to leverage Internet tech to beat the recession?

1. Make sure that Hotel Websites are current and optimized for conversion. This involves making sure that your Hotel website is based on a CMS system that allows internal staff to update the website content, news, offers and images with ease. The visitor should arrive at the website and find reassurance immediately that they have arrived at the right place. Information such a prices, photos, offers, room types and booking should be easy to navigate to and above the page fold. It's important to keep the website current and create offers that will attract users convert online. Also of high importance is the ability to offer visitors a "Best Price Guarantee". When users arrive at your website, they should know that they don't need to go anywhere else to shop for prices. Most users will prefer to book direct with hotels when assured that they are getting the best deal. Higher conversion generally leads to higher ROI and happier website owners!

2. SEO - Work with a professional company to optimize your website for increased performance within the Search Engines. This is a cost effective means of driving increased traffic to you website. A good SEO company will work with you to make sure that a professional and effective revenue driving strategy is in place and you are getting good return for your initial outlay. Regular reporting and campaign analysis should be conducted to achieve optimal performance and benefit tracking both ranking and more importantly traffic gained from the Search Engines. Don't ignore the opportunity to create individual SEO strategies for countries that could potentially produce a good stream of bookings to your hotel. Working with a company that has experience performing SEO across countries and continents can be of great benefit when expanding your Search Engine reach.

3. Use the Data from Web Analytics - Whatever web analytics package you are using, make sure it is set-up correctly to record numerous conversion metrics. Regularly review and more importantly act on the data and information that you receive from the reports to increase conversion, quality traffic and customer experience. Doing this will increase the effectiveness of you website to maximize the potential for conversion that each visitor to the website has. Learn to understand what the reports mean for you and your hotel and what actions should be taken as a result of the information gleamed. Using such data can also allow you to evaluate the success of various internet marketing efforts that you are carrying out. Proactive analysis and action based on your web analytics can offer a real edge over your competitors.

Jan Tissera is President, TravelCLICK International and directs TravelCLICK's sales activities in the Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East, and Africa regions. An experienced international hotelier and hotel industry consultant, Jan advises clients on how to maximize their performance in electronic distribution channels. www.travelclick.net

Guillaume Thevenot

Hotel Online Marketing Predictions 2009: What do you think are the key internet developments and online opportunities the hotel industry is likely to encounter & benefit from this year?

Online Marketing gets better ROI
In 2009, the hotel industry has better control about the ROI on their online advertising than offline, it’s a fact not a myth anymore. Online analytics tools are becoming cheaper if not free, and they should be used to understand where your traffic comes from and how your visitors behave on your hotel site. Also hoteliers can target better the audience they want to reach. For example, there is a community of bloggers who share a lot of travel tips on their site that becoming a more important voice to the consumer’s eyes, so why not sharing with them what your hotel is about. But this needs to be done with a personal touch, forget the traditional press release.

Engage with your customers
Today, you have to be stubborn to avoid all the online hotel reviews available to the consumer and the social communities built into travel. You have to engage with your customers by responding to their hotel reviews when something wrong happened at your hotel. Also don’t hesitate to share with them your blog where you can feature the latest events happening at your property. Finally, only embrace social networking sites if you are comfortable with this and try to find somebody in your team who understands these sites and can be the ambassador of your hotel. It could be your receptionist or a housekeeper. But remember you need to allocate some time in the week to engage with these sites.

Understand how search engines behave
There have been some dramatic changes in the way search engines behave recently. No more you have the results page with only paid listing and organic results. Today, you can find in the results page links, videos, pictures or local business results. You need to be there, hence why you should use sites like YouTube or Flickr to feature your hotel in all these media portals.

Leveraging technology to bear the recession: What are your Top 3 tips to Hotels hoping to leverage Internet tech to beat the recession?

#1 Be clever with who you work online
Make sure your contract gives you the flexibility to close down inventory if you believe you can sell direct. Also look carefully which online travel agent or hotel booking agent can bring you guaranteed business for the year. Don’t hesitate to ask them how many bookings they could deliver you this year. Finally, ensure that the commissions you pay to your online distribution partners don’t affect your targeted margins.
#2 Choose the right booking engine on your site
There are many players in the online tech industry who say they have a fantastic booking engine for you. Be careful about what you choose. Customers like simplicity when booking online. So if they are ready to book on your own website, it has to be clear, fast and efficient. If you are unsure about which booking engine to choose from, ask a trial phase for 2 weeks and run another one for another 2 weeks and compare how your visitors behave on your site. The look to book ratio is still very important to measure.
#3 Be honest with you customers
Whether it is on your website or with your online distribution partners, please be truthful with what your hotel can offer to consumers. Upload recent pictures with all room types and not necessarily the most beautiful one. Make sure your customers have a more positive surprise than a negative one. If you have a camcorder, make little films about your hotel and conduct interviews with your team and share this on your website and online video portals. Consumers will feel the atmosphere of your property more than just reading a formatted text description.

Guillaume Thevenot is a French Londoner working in the Online Hospitality Industry. After graduating from ESSEC/IMHI with a MBA in International Hospitality Management in 2000, Guillaume decided to live in London with his wife and work for online travel companies such as Priceline and Active Hotels. Besides being the founder and editor of Hotel-Blogs.com, a leading blog for the hospitality trade, Guillaume also works for Amadeus - a great European travel technology company. His passion towards the Internet and the hotel world has helped him to discover different ways of doing business with hotels and the travel industry in general.

Jitendra Jain (JJ)

Hotel Online Marketing Predictions 2009: What do you think are the key internet developments and online opportunities the hotel industry is likely to encounter & benefit from this year?

I think the time is right for the following radical shifts to occur this year…hopefully we’ll see moves in this direction as far as the hospitality & travel industry is concerned:

1. The emergence and adoption of Experience Engines: Hotels, destinations and OTA’s break down the units of guest experience and start building superior experience engines that allow for total revenue management as well as maximum personalization.

2. Utilizing hotel guests as a distinct and structured distribution channel: CRM and the world of electronic social networking collide to provide hotels with a first look at monetizing and rewarding guest referrals.

3. Stepping beyond the boundaries of traditional interaction: Hotels step up from behind the curtain and start interacting with their guests in earnest, both offline and online. Corporate and brand hesitation is no match for the voice of the customer…and the hotelier that wants to hear it and respond to it.

Leveraging technology to bear the recession: What are your Top 3 tips to Hotels hoping to leverage Internet tech to beat the recession?

1. Get back to basics and get these right – There are plenty of hotels who still haven’t got their feet wet with the online revolution. These hotels will have to make haste to capture the benefits they’re missing out on (all possible at low costs too!). Those that are at the top of their game will need to go through their ‘basics’ checklist and ensure everything is ticked off and super-optimized.

2. Measure everything – The year of ROI. Every penny will be spent wisely, measured to go the distance and the whole exercise analyzed for future improvement. Invest in good analytics and more importantly USE the results!

3. Get out of your comfort zone – Hoteliers will need to cross the barriers of ePhobia and embrace the ‘e’ revolution. Luckily, like swimming, once you’ve made that jump and floundered a little…the rest to follow is easy and quite enjoyable!

At work, Jitendra Jain (JJ) is employed with Starwood Hotels & Resorts in Dubai as an E-Commerce Manager and handles hotel online marketing & distribution. At play, he is the founder of various online initiatives like www.hotelemarketer.com, www.thetalentjungle.com and www.younghotelier.com (among others) that dream, connect, educate and share all that is glorious about hospitality, technology and most importantly...the people that define our times.

Source> hotel-online.com

Better Than Free

2009-02-02T06:51:00.002-06:00

The internet is a copy machine. At its most foundational level, it copies every action, every character, every thought we make while we ride upon it. In order to send a message from one corner of the internet to another, the protocols of communication demand that the whole message be copied along the way several times. IT companies make a lot of money selling equipment that facilitates this ceaseless copying. Every bit of data ever produced on any computer is copied somewhere. The digital economy is thus run on a river of copies. Unlike the mass-produced reproductions of the machine age, these copies are not just cheap, they are free.

Our digital communication network has been engineered so that copies flow with as little friction as possible. Indeed, copies flow so freely we could think of the internet as a super-distribution system, where once a copy is introduced it will continue to flow through the network forever, much like electricity in a superconductive wire. We see evidence of this in real life. Once anything that can be copied is brought into contact with internet, it will be copied, and those copies never leave. Even a dog knows you can't erase something once it's flowed on the internet.

Copy-Transmission

This super-distribution system has become the foundation of our economy and wealth. The instant reduplication of data, ideas, and media underpins all the major economic sectors in our economy, particularly those involved with exports -- that is, those industries where the US has a competitive advantage. Our wealth sits upon a very large device that copies promiscuously and constantly.

Yet the previous round of wealth in this economy was built on selling precious copies, so the free flow of free copies tends to undermine the established order. If reproductions of our best efforts are free, how can we keep going? To put it simply, how does one make money selling free copies?

I have an answer. The simplest way I can put it is thus:

When copies are super abundant, they become worthless.
When copies are super abundant, stuff which can't be copied becomes scarce and valuable.

When copies are free, you need to sell things which can not be copied.

Well, what can't be copied?

There are a number of qualities that can't be copied. Consider "trust." Trust cannot be copied. You can't purchase it. Trust must be earned, over time. It cannot be downloaded. Or faked. Or counterfeited (at least for long). If everything else is equal, you'll always prefer to deal with someone you can trust. So trust is an intangible that has increasing value in a copy saturated world.

There are a number of other qualities similar to trust that are difficult to copy, and thus become valuable in this network economy. I think the best way to examine them is not from the eye of the producer, manufacturer, or creator, but from the eye of the user. We can start with a simple user question: why would we ever pay for anything that we could get for free? When anyone buys a version of something they could get for free, what are they purchasing?

From my study of the network economy I see roughly eight categories of intangible value that we buy when we pay for something that could be free.

In a real sense, these are eight things that are better than free. Eight uncopyable values. I call them "generatives." A generative value is a quality or attribute that must be generated, grown, cultivated, nurtured. A generative thing can not be copied, cloned, faked, replicated, counterfeited, or reproduced. It is generated uniquely, in place, over time. In the digital arena, generative qualities add value to free copies, and therefore are something that can be sold.

Eight Generatives Better Than Free

Immediacy -- Sooner or later you can find a free copy of whatever you want, but getting a copy delivered to your inbox the moment it is released -- or even better, produced -- by its creators is a generative asset. Many people go to movie theaters to see films on the opening night, where they will pay a hefty price to see a film that later will be available for free, or almost free, via rental or download. Hardcover books command a premium for their immediacy, disguised as a harder cover. First in line often commands an extra price for the same good. As a sellable quality, immediacy has many levels, including access to beta versions. Fans are brought into the generative process itself. Beta versions are often de-valued because they are incomplete, but they also possess generative qualities that can be sold. Immediacy is a relative term, which is why it is generative. It has to fit with the product and the audience. A blog has a different sense of time than a movie, or a car. But immediacy can be found in any media.

Personalization -- A generic version of a concert recording may be free, but if you want a copy that has been tweaked to sound perfect in your particular living room -- as if it were preformed in your room -- you may be willing to pay a lot. The free copy of a book can be custom edited by the publishers to reflect your own previous reading background. A free movie you buy may be cut to reflect the rating you desire (no violence, dirty language okay). Aspirin is free, but aspirin tailored to your DNA is very expensive. As many have noted, personalization requires an ongoing conversation between the creator and consumer, artist and fan, producer and user. It is deeply generative because it is iterative and time consuming. You can't copy the personalization that a relationship represents. Marketers call that "stickiness" because it means both sides of the relationship are stuck (invested) in this generative asset, and will be reluctant to switch and start over.

Interpretation -- As the old joke goes: software, free. The manual, $10,000. But it's no joke. A couple of high profile companies, like Red Hat, Apache, and others make their living doing exactly that. They provide paid support for free software. The copy of code, being mere bits, is free -- and becomes valuable to you only through the support and guidance. I suspect a lot of genetic information will go this route. Right now getting your copy of your DNA is very expensive, but soon it won't be. In fact, soon pharmaceutical companies will PAY you to get your genes sequence. So the copy of your sequence will be free, but the interpretation of what it means, what you can do about it, and how to use it -- the manual for your genes so to speak -- will be expensive.

Authenticity -- You might be able to grab a key software application for free, but even if you don't need a manual, you might like to be sure it is bug free, reliable, and warranted. You'll pay for authenticity. There are nearly an infinite number of variations of the Grateful Dead jams around; buying an authentic version from the band itself will ensure you get the one you wanted. Or that it was indeed actually performed by the Dead. Artists have dealt with this problem for a long time. Graphic reproductions such as photographs and lithographs often come with the artist's stamp of authenticity -- a signature -- to raise the price of the copy. Digital watermarks and other signature technology will not work as copy-protection schemes (copies are super-conducting liquids, remember?) but they can serve up the generative quality of authenticity for those who care.

Accessibility -- Ownership often sucks. You have to keep your things tidy, up-to-date, and in the case of digital material, backed up. And in this mobile world, you have to carry it along with you. Many people, me included, will be happy to have others tend our "possessions" by subscribing to them. We'll pay Acme Digital Warehouse to serve us any musical tune in the world, when and where we want it, as well as any movie, photo (ours or other photographers). Ditto for books and blogs. Acme backs everything up, pays the creators, and delivers us our desires. We can sip it from our phones, PDAs, laptops, big screens from where-ever. The fact that most of this material will be available free, if we want to tend it, back it up, keep adding to it, and organize it, will be less and less appealing as time goes on.

Embodiment -- At its core the digital copy is without a body. You can take a free copy of a work and throw it on a screen. But perhaps you'd like to see it in hi-res on a huge screen? Maybe in 3D? PDFs are fine, but sometimes it is delicious to have the same words printed on bright white cottony paper, bound in leather. Feels so good. What about dwelling in your favorite (free) game with 35 others in the same room? There is no end to greater embodiment. Sure, the hi-res of today -- which may draw ticket holders to a big theater -- may migrate to your home theater tomorrow, but there will always be new insanely great display technology that consumers won't have. Laser projection, holographic display, the holodeck itself! And nothing gets embodied as much as music in a live performance, with real bodies. The music is free; the bodily performance expensive. This formula is quickly becoming a common one for not only musicians, but even authors. The book is free; the bodily talk is expensive.

Patronage -- It is my belief that audiences WANT to pay creators. Fans like to reward artists, musicians, authors and the like with the tokens of their appreciation, because it allows them to connect. But they will only pay if it is very easy to do, a reasonable amount, and they feel certain the money will directly benefit the creators. Radiohead's recent high-profile experiment in letting fans pay them whatever they wished for a free copy is an excellent illustration of the power of patronage. The elusive, intangible connection that flows between appreciative fans and the artist is worth something. In Radiohead's case it was about $5 per download. There are many other examples of the audience paying simply because it feels good.

Findability -- Where as the previous generative qualities reside within creative digital works, findability is an asset that occurs at a higher level in the aggregate of many works. A zero price does not help direct attention to a work, and in fact may sometimes hinder it. But no matter what its price, a work has no value unless it is seen; unfound masterpieces are worthless. When there are millions of books, millions of songs, millions of films, millions of applications, millions of everything requesting our attention -- and most of it free -- being found is valuable.

The giant aggregators such as Amazon and Netflix make their living in part by helping the audience find works they love. They bring out the good news of the "long tail" phenomenon, which we all know, connects niche audiences with niche productions. But sadly, the long tail is only good news for the giant aggregators, and larger mid-level aggregators such as publishers, studios, and labels. The "long tail" is only lukewarm news to creators themselves. But since findability can really only happen at the systems level, creators need aggregators. This is why publishers, studios, and labels (PSL)will never disappear. They are not needed for distribution of the copies (the internet machine does that). Rather the PSL are needed for the distribution of the users' attention back to the works. From an ocean of possibilities the PSL find, nurture and refine the work of creators that they believe fans will connect with. Other intermediates such as critics and reviewers also channel attention. Fans rely on this multi-level apparatus of findability to discover the works of worth out of the zillions produced. There is money to be made (indirectly for the creatives) by finding talent. For many years the paper publication TV Guide made more money than all of the 3 major TV networks it "guided" combined. The magazine guided and pointed viewers to the good stuff on the tube that week. Stuff, it is worth noting, that was free to the viewers. There is little doubt that besides the mega-aggregators, in the world of the free many PDLs will make money selling findability -- in addition to the other generative qualities.

These eight qualities require a new skill set. Success in the free-copy world is not derived from the skills of distribution since the Great Copy Machine in the Sky takes care of that. Nor are legal skills surrounding Intellectual Property and Copyright very useful anymore. Nor are the skills of hoarding and scarcity. Rather, these new eight generatives demand an understanding of how abundance breeds a sharing mindset, how generosity is a business model, how vital it has become to cultivate and nurture qualities that can't be replicated with a click of the mouse.

In short, the money in this networked economy does not follow the path of the copies. Rather it follows the path of attention, and attention has its own circuits.

Careful readers will note one conspicuous absence so far. I have said nothing about advertising. Ads are widely regarded as the solution, almost the ONLY solution, to the paradox of the free. Most of the suggested solutions I've seen for overcoming the free involve some measure of advertising. I think ads are only one of the paths that attention takes, and in the long-run, they will only be part of the new ways money is made selling the free.

But that's another story.

Beneath the frothy layer of advertising, these eight generatives will supply the value to ubiquitous free copies, and make them worth advertising for. These generatives apply to all digital copies, but also to any kind of copy where the marginal cost of that copy approaches zero. (See my essay on Technology Wants to Be Free.) Even material industries are finding that the costs of duplication near zero, so they too will behave like digital copies. Maps just crossed that threshold. Genetics is about to. Gadgets and small appliances (like cell phones) are sliding that way. Pharmaceuticals are already there, but they don't want anyone to know. It costs nothing to make a pill. We pay for Authenticity and Immediacy in drugs. Someday we'll pay for Personalization.

Maintaining generatives is a lot harder than duplicating copies in a factory. There is still a lot to learn. A lot to figure out. Write to me if you do.

Source > Kevin Kelly

New Project Updates

2009-01-28T17:22:00.005-06:00

I am really excited about a new project for one of my hospitality clients. They have asked me to review their 2009 Marketing Plan and provide an Executive Marketing Report of recommendations and/or affirmations about their plans. I love doing this! I had the wonderful opportunity recently to do a similar project for the Park Hyatt Beaver Creek.

Keep me in mind as you finalize your 2009 plans. Sometimes an outside set of eyes can provide insight that will help you meet your 2009 marketing objectives.

A recent client of mine told me the one thing that tipped the scale for them to choose me was my willingness to teach their staff through the process. My background is teaching, so it is a natural part of what I do. It's one of the reason my business has been successful for the last 9 years.

As Jay Leno said “Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime. Teach a man to create an artificial shortage of fish and he will eat steak.”

Social Media Marketing: Why a Holistic Approach Pays Dividends

2009-01-22T16:56:00.003-06:00

Case Studies from Carnival Cruise Lines and Southwest Airlines
22 January 2009

Increasing we are seeing travel companies who aren’t just gently participating in user-generated content, or dipping their toes tentatively into the social networking pool, instead, they are investing full-throttle in a multi-faceted social media strategy. They are participating in a variety of non-travel sites, in a variety of formats simultaneously. Between them, Southwest Airlines and Carnival Cruise Lines now have a presence on all the major social networking and photo/video sharing sites. They have pages on YouTube, Facebook, Flickr and Twitter. They both have their own blogs and their own social networking communities, all of which have been incredibly successful.

So what can travel companies learn from companies such as Southwest and Carnival, when it comes to their social media strategy? Can you work with one site, like Facebook, or do you need to have a presence on all of them, at the same time? How do you manage a multi-faceted social media strategy? And what benefits have Southwest and Carnival seen, by taking a holistic approach to social media?

Read on for an overview on the holistic approach Carnival and Southwest have taken to social media. Jeremy Jameson, Corporate Strategist – Strategic Planning for Southwest Airlines, will be offering a deeper insight into Southwest’s social media strategy at EyeforTravel’s 2nd Social Media Strategies for Travel Conference, being held on March 10-11 in San Francisco. For more information visit www.eyefortravel.com/social-media

Carnival has set up their own cruise-centric social networking community called CarnivalConnections.com. This has been created specifically to bring family and friends together by helping them plan and manage their cruise vacations. The site features an “e-invite” electronic invitation tool that can be tailored family reunions, girlfriend getaways and other groups.

John Heald’s Carnival blog has had attracted 3 million visitors. Through his blog, Heald offers candid and colorful commentary on daily shipboard life, sharing interesting and often poignant tales of the guests and crewmembers he comes into contact with on a daily basis, all with his trademark brand of humor. This enormous amount of traffic creates good brand exposure for Carnival and with 25,000 comments it’s a proven customer-interaction tool.

In terms of videos and photos, Carnival as its own photo stream on Flickr, allowing customers to upload photos, and they also have their own channel on YouTube. On their website they have created a virtual tour, FunShipIsland.com, with sharing options, personalization tools and downloadable content.

Carnival was also an early adopter of Twitter – exploiting it to monitor their brand image, listen to questions from customers, communicate promotions and share experiences

A pioneer in the on-line marketing arena, Carnival’s new Web-based initiatives are designed to provide a effective and innovative means for reaching out to consumers and travel agents. Both FunShipIsland.com and CarnivalConnections.com continue to achieve unprecedented success, with each exceeding the one million visitor mark in 2008.

Southwest Airlines implemented a social media strategy three years ago and, like Carnival, they have taken a holistic approach, participating in numerous sites simultaneously. They currently have a presence on popular sites: Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn.

Southwest produces new video content for YouTube on a weekly basis. By creating new and unique content they are reaching out to a vast and growing audience of people who are watching online videos on a regular basis. This strategy will also have a positive impact on their search engine rankings.

Their blog “Nuts about Southwest” is a real success story. A team of 30 employee bloggers regularly keep the site updated with new content and as a result they receive a massive 70,000 unique visitors each month. “Nuts about Southwest” was also winner of the 2008 PR News Platinum PR award for blogs.

As well as a loyal following of blog-readers, Southwest also have a huge following of 8,000 people on micro-blogging site, Twitter. Twitter allows its users to send and read other users' updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length.

Finally, Southwest Airlines is a heavy user of LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional network. They currently have 3,000 active employees connecting their professional networks via this site.

No other US airline has participated in such a multitude of social media sites in such a short space of time. And it is obviously paying dividends for Southwest, not just in terms of brand awareness but also generating huge volumes of traffic. Southwest continues to be one of the most successful airlines in the world posting a profit for 35 consecutive years -- something no other American carrier can boast.

“Our brand is suited to social media because it’s a natural progression of our 37 year commitment of having authentic relationships and conversations with our customers” said Jeremy Jameson, Corporate Strategist – Strategic Planning for Southwest Airlines.

The majority of Southwest’s’ customers are online, and if recent statistics are to be believed then those people are inevitably interacting with social networks. Customer service and transparency make up the DNA at Southwest; social media channels provide a compelling way to bring the brand promise to life. Although Carnival is less dependant on online bookings, their online image presents a down-to-earth attitude with top management communicating directly with customers.

Southwest and Carnival are both “fun” brands with loyal followings so are suitably poised to take advantage of the social media revolution. They both have a mass appeal and a positive, less-than-corporate attitude. Most importantly they are both brands which consumers feel they can easily engage with, and want to engage with.

Jeremy Jameson, Corporate Strategist – Strategic Planning for Southwest Airlines will be speaking at EyeforTravel’s Social Media Strategies for Travel Conference on March 10-11 in San Francisco (www.eyefortravel.com/social-media). He will be joined on his session by Jeff Hanson, Regional Director of Marketing & eCommerce - Western Region, Marriott International, Juston Parker, President, Parker Hospitality Group and Kevin Fliess, CEO, TravelMuse.

For more information on Social Media Strategies for Travel on March 10-11, 2009, in San Francisco, click here: www.eyefortravel.com/social-media

You Can Live to Be 100

2009-01-12T08:15:00.002-06:00

So you want to live to be 100? Join the party. And quite a party it’s getting to be. An estimated 73,764 Americans were 100 or older in 2004, according to the US Census Bureau. And that’s a whole lot more than there used to be and a whole lot less than there’s going to be. There were about 3,000 centenarians in the US in 1950 and 37,306 in 1990. The US Census Bureau estimates that there will be 1.1 million in 2050. Live right and you might be one.

Longevity is ? about your genes and ? about lifestyle, says Steven Austad, one of the country’s foremost experts on aging and author of the book, Why We Age. He believes the person is alive today who will be the first human to live to 150.

20 Tips for Living to 100

1. Be positive. Cheerful, optimistic people decrease their risk of early death and poor health by 50% over sourpusses, according to researchers at Mayo Clinic.

2. Learn to manage your stress. Stress can damage your health, from your heart to your digestive system. Figure out the best way to manage it, be it exercise, yoga, meditation or eliminating the causes of stress.

3. Learn to say no. If you don’t want to do it, if it’s going to stress you out, then just say no. You can’t do everything, and you can’t always make everyone happy. Look out for number one (without being a jerk, of course).

4. Dance, sing. Find something that makes you feel euphoric, and then do it, and keep doing it. Dancing is great exercise too.

5. Be smart about and and how much you eat. Eat more fruits and vegetables and less red meat and fries. And when you’re full, stop eating.

6. Exercise. If you can’t manage 30 minutes a day of aerobic exercise, then do what you can. Just start, then work to make it regular.

7. Exercise your brain. It needs exercise just as your body does. Solve puzzles, take classes, play chess or bridge, learn to play an instrument. Retain your curiosity. Never stop learning.

8. Stay active. Get out of that chair and off the couch. Go for a walk, go to the mall, work in the garden, mow your lawn.

9. Stay connected. Maintain a network of friends. Be friendly with your neighbors. Isolation leads to depression.

10. Read a newspaper. There is no better, easier way of finding out what’s going on, of staying interested and involved.

11. Quit smoking. How many times do you have to read or hear that smoking can kill you? Just stop. Please.

12. Drink in moderation. Studies have shown that a glass of red wine or ale every day reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease.

13. Get, or stay, thin. Researchers have extended the lives of laboratory animals by drastically reducing calorie intake. They say that thinner is better if you want to live to 100.

14. Limit exposure to the sun. The sun will not only wrinkle your skin, but it also can cause skin cancer and that can kill you.

15. Find a good doctor and get regular checkups. Preventive medicine, including follow up tests such as mammograms and colonoscopies, are your best bet for catching potentially fatal diseases in their early and treatable stages.

16. Keep track of your medications and take them. If you’re having trouble keeping them straight, let someone help you. Don’t be stubborn. If you can take your medications, you’ll have a better chance of remaining in your own home. If you can’t, then somebody is going to force you into assisted living.

17. Dump the dead wood. Hang out with cheerful people. Grouches bring you down.

18. Get a pet. Pets keep you smiling and can keep you active. They are good companions too. But don’t forget the human contact.

19. Learn how to use a computer. Web sites are loaded with information about health, fitness, money and food. Just don’t sit in front of it too long.

20. Remember it’s never too late. No matter how old you are, you can benefit from a healthier lifestyle.

5 Bonus Tips from Centenarians

1. Throw out the bad memories. “Hold on to only the good ones,” says Ethel Willson, 100. “I think the longer we’re happy, the longer we’ll live,” she says. “I couldn’t be happier. I go to bed each night the same way: I’ve had a good day.”

2. Love people, Willson says. Make new friends. “I can hug ‘em as fast as I can say hello,” she says.

3. Look on the bright side. “Don’t complain,” says Mary Horton, 101. “Just take life as it comes, the best you can.”

4. “Don’t smoke. Don’t drink. Don’t stay up late at night watching TV,” says Ethel Yarbrough, 100. “Sing and pray. I pray all the time, thanking God for everything He’s done for me.”

5. Be lucky. These three centenarians say they never planned on living to be 100.“I don’t know what I did to be 100,” Horton says. “I never thought about it. Then all of a sudden, here I am.”

Cancer Recovery>

My Favorite Mashups

2008-12-20T21:48:00.002-06:00

Someone told me today that about 10 new mash-ups are hitting the web every day. It’s probably a lot more than that.

What’s a mashup, you say?

Wikipedia says it best … a mash up is “a web application that combines data and/or functionality from more than one source”.

Sounds simple, doesn’t it?

Someone comes up with an idea… Wouldn’t it be nice if I could view a Google map of say Vail, Colorado? While I am looking at that, I want to see all the photos of Vail that have been uploaded on Flickr. I also want to know about the best books on Amazon.com about Vail… and I want a special events calendar that will show me all the happenings there. I love this… it’s all about me! Oh did I say I want the weather too… and I’d like to socialize with other people who are interested in Vail too. Voila – just go to mapdango.com. It’s an amazing combination of a load of useful sites.

Here are a couple of my other favorites mash ups…

VibeAgent.com – Hotel search, user reviews, plus a Q&A section, and links to real-life people. You get trustworthy hotel recommendations written by people (or as they call them, agents) who share tastes and preferences.

Kayak.com – searches over 100 airline, hotel and vacation booking sites, often finds the best deals.

TripIt.com – Cool site that lets you gather your flight, hotel, car, dinner, etc reservations into one tidy itinerary and then share it with others.

Importance of Key Words in SEO Writing

2008-12-20T15:53:00.001-06:00

Having a good website is not a guarantee that people will visit your website. One of the primary reasons why your website will not be noticed is because nobody can find it in the first place.

Note that there are about 80 million websites that people who go online to shop will not really find your site unless it is ranked among the top ten search results. In most cases, people who are reaching for something will not really go to the next page of the search result so there is a slim chance for you to be noticed if you do not make it to the first page of the search result.

Use Powerful Triggers

People who search for something online use keywords and key phrases to find what they want. In most cases, the keywords and key phrases used in the search are those words that are closely related to their field of interest. To drive traffic to your website, you should put SEO articles in your website using powerful triggers that could put your website on the top search results.

To be able to write good SEO articles, you should learn the language of your trade well. When writing your article, use keywords and key phrases that would most likely be used by people who are looking for products and services in your area of expertise. The placement of the keywords and the key phrases in your article is very important.

It is not enough that you put in the keywords and key phrases; you should also make sure that everything make sense so that the search engine will pick up your article and rank you higher than the others.

When placing keywords or key phrases in your article, use these words on the title of your article and then use the same keywords a few more times on the body of the article.

Source: SEO Copyrighting Blog

more>

Take Time To Plan

2008-11-11T09:50:00.002-06:00

Small business owners may not have time to develop a strategic marketing plan. They are buried with day to day operations. It is well worth the time and energy to stop and get your vision and objectives on paper.

So whether it is your overall plan or a target plan that focuses on your web and social media marketing, develop the plan! Take the time to build a strong foundation with measurable goals, a timeline and detailed budget.

Here are a few guidelines in creating a plan.

By the way, some things work and some things don’t, but if you don’t write it down and manage the process, you will be shooting from the hip and using gut feelings instead of quantifiable results.

John Wanamaker once said that he knew half the money he spent on advertising worked! He just didn’t know which half.

Start with the basics…

What are your Business Objectives? Are you launching a new product? Is the goal to beat a competitor? Generate “x” amount of revenue?

What do you want to communicate? What do you want to compel people to do in order to achieve the business objective? Click on your website? Visit your business? Join your e-community?

Who are your target markets? Who are you talking to? Give that target a personality? Not just an age range. It always surprises me when I see a market defined as “Women 25-35”. Are they working moms, stay home moms, athletic, computer savvy, travelers, single, married… you get the picture.

What are your USP’s? Rosser Reeves coined the phrase Unique Selling Proposition. It’s what sets you apart. What makes you unique.

If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Build your house with a strong foundation and it will last!

Visit HUSKE.com for client testimonials and more information.

What is rich media and how can I learn more about its accessibility?

2008-10-28T16:10:00.002-05:00

The term rich media was coined to describe a broad range of digital interactive media. Rich media can be downloadable or may be embedded in a webpage. If downloadable, it can be viewed or used offline with media players such as Real Networks' RealPlayer, Microsoft Media Player, or Apple's QuickTime, among others.

The defining characteristic of rich media is that it exhibits dynamic motion. This motion may occur over time or in direct response to user interaction.

Two examples of dynamic motion that occur over time are a streaming video newscast and a stock "ticker" that continually updates itself. An example of dynamic motion in response to user interaction is a prerecorded webcast coupled with a synchronized slide show that allows user control. Another is an animated, interactive presentation file embedded in a web page.

Elements of rich media are increasingly used in education, in areas ranging from distance learning to web-based teaching and instructional tools.

Not surprisingly, rich media presents numerous accessibility challenges. However, rich media can be made accessible if all the elements are developed with accessibility in mind and the end product is used or viewed on accessible media players. Accessible rich media typically includes captioning, audio description, and navigation using a keyboard.

Accessible media players are those that can be operated by all users, including those using screen readers. They must also provide authors with the means to add captions, audio descriptions, extended audio descriptions, and subtitles. The current level of accessibility for media players creates interesting situations. Some media players allow video descriptions to be created and played but have an inaccessible interface that users of screen readers cannot operate. This results in the primary audience for audio descriptions not being able to select the PLAY button.

Another issue is that captions may look different when created on one player and then played back on another. For instance, captions developed using QuickTime may look fine when viewed in QuickTime but then appear larger or smaller when later viewed in RealPlayer.

While much still needs to be resolved, considerable improvements in accessibility have been made. A free captioning and description tool, MAGpie, is now available for adding captions and audio description to video and audio files.

Several media players have also made considerable progress in improving accessibility of their products. To learn more about accessible rich media, visit the National Center for Accessible Media Rich Media Accessibility web page. This web page includes a showcase of accessible rich media; tutorials on captioning audio, descriptive video, making maps and other forms of rich media accessible; strategies for dealing with player and cross-platform issues; links to tools for rich media authoring and viewing; links to latest news; and much more.

Source:University of Washington

Courage to Fail

2008-07-07T15:04:00.000-05:00

Love this video on YouTube. Trying new things with your website may not work all the time, but don't give up!

Don’t Be The Weakest Link

2008-06-27T10:25:00.002-05:00

by: Katherine Huske

Links into your website are an important component of your web strategies. In bound links are like votes that promote your site. Just like an election, the site with the most votes wins and comes to the top of the search engine results.
One best practice is to beef up your in-bound links.

Back- Links. You can check who is linking to you (a back-link) with several free tools available on the web: wholinks2me, AddMe, Yahoo! Site Explorer and MarketLeap. Back-links are like votes- they validate your site and help improve the site’s popularity.

Web Directories. Getting your website listed on web directories with back-links to your site is important. A web directory lists and categorizes links. Web directories include Yahoo! Directory and dmoz.

News Releases. Posting news releases on your site and elsewhere (like PR Web or PR Leap) is a great tool to increasing links to your site.
Submitting Articles. Writing and submitting articles to web directories like Buzzle, EzineArticles, GoArticles, Articles Factory and WebProNews is a great way to have your links dispersed on the web.

Social Media. Your profile on a social networking site such as LinkedIn or Facebook allows you to post a link to your website — and to invite visitors to visit.

Blogs. Starting a blog is so easy. Links from your blog to your website can boost traffic tremendously.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. To find out more about improving your website contact Huske & Associates- Your Internet Marketing Advocate.

Top Travel Social Networking Sites

2008-06-25T21:03:00.004-05:00

WAYN

Tribe

Couch Surfing

TravBuddy

Trip Connect

Free Web Analytic Tools

2008-06-18T22:27:00.002-05:00

Google Analytics - set up goals to measure conversion rates or use the Site Overlay tool to see a visual breakdown of visitor paths.

Woopra - new tool on the block and still in beta. Offers real time visitor analysis and built in chat tool, both of which are not present in Google Analytics.

Clicktale - more of a recording tool that allows you to record and playback what your site visitors do. Free version allows 100 recordings per week.

Crazyegg - allows you to see exactly where people click in the form of heatmaps and other visual indicators. A more advanced version of the Site Overlay tool in Google Analytics. Free version allows 4 pages to be tracked with 5,000 visitors per month.

Enquisite - Focuses on search traffic analysis and provides reports detailing both organic and paid search traffic. Includes in depth LongTail reports.

Top Ten On Line Marketing Tactics

2008-06-11T12:26:00.002-05:00

Great link. It's a survey poll that shows the top ten tactics Web Marketers plan to use in 2008.

http://www.toprankblog.com/2008/02/top-ten-online-marketing-tactics/

For local Web Marketing in Aspen, Snowmass, Vail, Carbondale and Glenwood Springs, Colorado visit www.huske.com - affordable tourism, medical and financial web marketing.