Google Place Results in AZ

We will continue to track the changes in Google Place's so check back for more information on the issue soon. 

As we mentioned in the last blog, we thought it was a good time of year to address planning for 2011.  We've already covered the reasons for planning and tips for getting started.  This blog focuses on tips for planning your mobile marketing strategy.

Mobile - The overwhelming popularity of mobile devices is really driving the local trend in online marketing.  For starters, we suggest you make sure your website has been optimized for mobile devices.  More and more people are accessing web sites, conducting searches, and connecting on social networks via their mobile device.

If you haven't already done so, make sure you install the apps you use (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Hootsuite, Foursquare etc.) onto your mobile device.  That way you are always in touch and you can better understand how your customers are using these apps, giving you ideas for your maketing plan.

Whenever communicating with your customers via social networks, it is important to think mobile.  Chances are good that your customers are connecting with you from their mobile device.  For example, recent research indicates there are 150 million mobile Facebook users.

Next, we suggest doing some research on social networking apps that offer some really great marketing opportunities when enabled on mobile devices. A few that we suggest are worth checking out include;

• Foursquare
• Yelp
• Facebook Places

So, how can these apps be used for marketing your small business?  They could open up exciting possibilities for local advertising tie-ins, coupons, offers etc.  As a small business you may have the ability to display an ad, offer a coupon, give a reward for checking in to potential customers when they are currently near/at your business.  With some apps, such as Facebook places, you will even have the possibility of knowing their specific likes so you can further customize your message.

If you'd like more information on implementing mobile marketing or setting up your online marketing plan, contact us at OrganikSEO.com

If you develop an annual plan, great, we offer tips for streamlining your plan and things to consider with the ever changing world of online marketing.  If you haven't done any formal planning for your online marketing in the past, these tips should help get you started.

If you are like many small businesses, sitting down and putting together a comprehensive marketing plan is not at the top of your list.  But, we can't say enough about how important we think this step is.  You probably wouldn't set out on a road trip without a road map, GPS, Google maps etc.  A road map for the marketing of your business is equally as essential.

Spending some time now to discover more about your customers, your competition, what is working and what can be improved can not only give you tremendous insights but can also be a lot of fun and, we bet, rewarding.

Ok, hopefully we have you convinced on the importance of this step.  So let's get started.

(1) A good place to start is with a review of 2010.

• Actual performance vs. goals
• What marketing programs worked & why?
• What marketing programs didn't work & why?
• How much did you spend on marketing? Was it allocated properly?
• What was your ROI on marketing spend?

If you don't already know a lot about your customers, consider doing a survey.  Some of the things to find out;

• who are your customers?
• what do they like about your product/service?
• how did they find out about you?
• what else they would like to purchase from you?
• what could be improved?
• what social networks are they active on?
• are they following you? If not, why not?

Once you've done a good review of 2010,

(2) Set your goals for 2011.

(3) Establish your marketing budget.

We think the good news here is that if you are not already using social media or it represents only a small part of your marketing campaign, you can get a lot of mileage with social media for relatively low expense. More about that in the next blog in this series.

Of course we realize that every company and business will have unique needs and develop unique online marketing strategies.  However, we have developed the following points to consider as you build your marketing plans for 2011.

The buzz indicates that some key trends for next year will be Location, Mobile and Social.  We believe it will be important to incorporate these into your online marketing plans.

Today we will focus on Location based services.

There are an increasing number of applications and technologies that enable location based services for online marketing; Google Places, Facebook Places, Google Local Business Search Results, to name a few.  Make sure you claim your business on all of the location based services and then optimize your listing to ensure your business stays on top of lists and facilitates engagement with your customers.  If you haven't already done so, you might want to check out apps like Foursquare or Facebook "Places" to see if you can tap into the local online opportunities.  Click here for a good review of Foursquare.

Where the location based services become really interesting and powerful from a marketing perspective is when they are enabled on mobile devices. 

So, how could this be used for marketing your small business?  These tools could open up exciting possibilities for local advertising tie-ins, coupons, offers etc.  As a small business you may have the ability to display an ad or offer a coupon to potential customers who, through their profile, you know like the type of products and services you offer when they are currently near your business. Wow - we think that could be really powerful.  Click here to read our blog on using Facebook Places.

Look for upcoming blogs where we'll cover tips for incorporating Mobile and Social into your online marketing plan.

If you have any questions or would like help in optimizing your local business listing or developing your online marketing plan, contact us at OrganikSEO.com

Over the past couple of weeks we have provided insights into how social media can help your small business and tips for getting started.  Today's blog focuses on measuring your return on investment.

If you're like other small businesses you may be asking, if I am going to invest my time in social media or hire someone to assist me with social media, how do I know if I am getting a good return on my investment?

If you are just starting a social media campaign or ramping up an existing one, a good place to start is to establish some baseline measurements.  One type of performance indicator to look at is how much you or your brand are being talked about online within your industry.  You can easily set up monitoring systems to give you this information.  Following are several that we think are worth consideration.

Google Alerts - easily set up a daily alert to see mentions of your company or brand

Twitter search - type in your company or brand to see tweets about you and your company

Tweetdeck - receive a notification every time someone tweets about you or your company

Technorati - join their site, claim your blog and then monitor the ranking of your blog over time

Another, we hope obvious, method of monitoring the return on your social media campaign is to ask your customers and prospects. Some questions we think that you will want to continuously ask and monitor are;

• Are they following you?
• Have they shared any of your posts?
• What do they like about your online presence?
• What else would they like to see?

Hopefully after implementing your social media campaign you will see more quality followers and more of your posts will be shared with the end goal being increased sales.  If you aren't seeing the results you desire, you can easily engage your network to identify improvements and then monitor the impact. 

One final note, implementing a social media campaign takes time.  You may not see results immediately but if you are patient, engage your network by providing frequent and valuable content, the results will follow.

If you would like more information about creating and monitoring your social media campaign, please contact us at www.OrganikSEO.com

Did you know that you can customize your social media channels to help build your brand? 

As an online marketing company, we continually monitor how small businesses are utilizing social media.  One thing that really jumped out to us is that many small businesses are not taking advantage of the ability to fully customize their pages and promote their social networks.

For example, you can customize your Facebook Fan page or Twitter page to incorporate the same graphics that you use on your website, business cards etc.  Your branded background can also include your website, blog and other social media information.

Click on the link for an example of a custom Facebook Fan page Belly Up Tavern

This custom page helps to reinforce their brand image and engage their fans.

Now take a look at their Twitter page.  Belly Up Tavern

If you are interested in finding out more about creating custom pages, please contact us at OrganikSEO.com

As a small business owner, you probably know that you need to have a social media campaign and that you need to attend to your social networking sites on a daily basis.  But, if you are like most people running a business, it can be difficult to find the time to effectively manage your social media campaign.

One question we get all of the time is, how many hours per day should be spent on managing a social media campaign.  There are many opinions about this and, of course, it depends on many factors including the campaign goals, number of social media channels being used, and how well organized the campaign was set up in the beginning.  The good news is, in our opinion, that you don't need to spend 6 hours per day.  Our experience indicates that a social media campaign, once properly set up, can be effectively managed with 5 - 10 hours per week.  This would be the average for a basic campaign that includes 3 - 5 channels such as Twitter, Facebook, Blog, YouTube and LinkedIn.

There are a number of time saving tools to help you manage your social networking sites. Below is a brief summary of several these tools.

Hootsuite - Allows you to create one message and post to multiple sites.  Includes the ability to schedule posts for future dates.  Handy for monitoring activity on multiple sites.  We love this tool and couldn't live without it.

FriendFeed -This site allows a specific group of people to share anything from photos and links. It also features the ability to pull in updates from other websites.  You can use this tool to publish your feed to other social networking sites.

mysocial247 - This is a column that runs alongside the Firefox browser.  It allows users to manage all of their social networking sites, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc. in one place

TweetDeck - This site provides statistics and local trends. It features the ability to schedule posts in advance.

These are just a few of the tools out there.  Let us know if you've found one that you really like.

If you'd like to find out more about these tools and other services for managing your social media campaign, get in touch with us at www.OrgainikSEO.com

Not surprisingly, consumers are spending more and more of their online time using social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.  According to The Nielson Company, global consumers now spend nearly 25% of their online time in social networking activities.  However, the percentage of online time spent on email continues to decline.  But wait, don't give up on email yet. The exception to this trend is that email use on mobile devices is on the rise.

As a small business owner, it is important to follow these trends and follow your target customers.  As your customers spend more and more of their time on social networking sites and transition to accessing the web via mobile devices, it becomes clear that you want to increase your presence in these areas.

The Nielson Company also reported that U.S. consumers are spending an average of 6 hours per day on social media sites.  Wow! Only one other country spends more time on social networking - Australia.

Again, not surprising, Facebook and Twitter were the fastest growing social media sites.  Of the sites included in the Nielson report, only MySpace showed a decline in terms of consumer's time spent on the site.  And with Apple's recent introduction of their Ping social networking site, the decline in MySpace is only expected to accelerate.

The information from this report is just one more piece of evidence why, as a small business owner, it is so important that you develop and manage a social media campaign - with Facebook and Twitter as being the essential building blocks.

These stats on how/where consumers spend their online time also peaked our interest. 

How much time do you spend on social networking per day?  Are you a power user pushing the averages higher or are you on the other extreme of the scale?  Post a comment and let us know.

If you have any questions about this blog or your social media campaign, please contact us at www.OrganikSEO.com

Let's talk about Facebook specifically. How can Facebook help you, as a small business owner, build your brand, develop a loyal following and generate sales? 

Start with your contacts/current customers and begin to form stronger relationships with these people, converting them into fans.  One of the best ways to build stronger relationships is to engage with your contacts through conversation.  Facebook allows you to set up a company "Fan" page where you can share valuable content, videos, company information, upcoming events etc.

Setting up your Fan page is a simple and quick. However, in order for this tool to be effective, you must add valuable, relevant content frequently.  Before creating your Fan page, it is a good idea to brainstorm ideas so that you will have a well thought out theme and plenty of content so that you can regularly and frequently engage with your contacts and fans.

So why do you want to have Fan's?  It's no secret that loyal customers will buy more from you and more often.

If you haven't already set up a Fan page, now is the time.

If you have any questions or would like help in setting up you Fan page, you can reach us at OrganikSEO.com

We think this feature could not only be fun to use, but could also become a great tool for marketing your small business.  Following is quick overview of what it is and how it could play an important role in social media marketing for small businesses.

Facebook describes the feature as a way to help people share;

• where they are
• who is around them
• what is going on
• new places to go

Basically, you "check-in" using the Facebook "Places" feature and your activity shows up in your Facebook newsfeed.

If you use Foursquare or Gowilla - "Places" is based on a similar idea.

Where the "Places" feature becomes really interesting and powerful from a marketing perspective is when it is enabled on mobile devices.  The "Places" feature is currently enabled on iPhone and is in the works for Android and Blackberry.

So, how could this be used for marketing your small business?  This feature could open up exciting possibilities for local advertising tie-ins, coupons, offers etc.  As a small business you may have the ability to display an ad or offer a coupon to potential customers who, through their Facebook profile, you know like the type of products and services you offer when they are currently near your business. Wow - we think that could be really powerful.  To get started with "Places" for promoting your business, you first need to claim your Facebook Place page.

There is a lot of buzz about this new feature, both positive and negative. As with any location based service, think Foursquare or Gowilla, privacy issues are always a conern.  It remains to be seen how far and wide the "Places" feature will be adopted.  We'll be watching this closely and keep you updated as this new feature evolves.

If you have any questions or would like help in claiming your Facebook Place page, contact us at OrganikSEO.com

The web and the way we use it have changed dramatically in the past decade. The web experience is increasingly mobile and social. This means that the way people "search" for information, and the tools you need to get your small business noticed, must also become mobile and social.

Let me illustrate with an example. Let's say you want to start taking a yoga class.  Five years ago you simply Googled it. Today, you might still Google it, but increasingly you are also reaching out to your social network for information and recommendations. This could take the form of posing a question to your friends on Facebook or sending a Tweet, just to name a few.

A couple of statistics provide further evidence of this shift in our use of the web. Facebook now accounts for 17% of all time spent online worldwide, while 10% of our online time is spent on YouTube. Additionally, new software is continually being developed to help us manage our social networks. For example, tools like HootSuite and Flipboard take all of your Facebook updates, Twitter feeds, all the new sites you subscribe to and turn them into a constantly updated and personalized news magazine. Tools like this make it less and less likely that you'll need to "search" for anything.

The expanding footprint of Facebook and other social media channels are also offering advertisers an alternative to Google. As consumers are spending more and more of their online time on social networks, advertisers are following them and say they are looking for more and more ways to plug into these channels. Advertisers will spend $1.28 billion on Facebook this year.

So what does all of this mean for your small biz?  If you already have a SEO budget, you may want to look at allocating some of that budget to social media marketing.  If you are just starting out with your online marketing program, you should consider incorporating social networks into the mix.  Not only is the trend social and mobile, but social media marketing can also be a very cost effective component of your marketing mix.

For questions about this information or to learn more about how you can put social media to work for your small business, contact us at OrganikSEO.com