For April 2010, I chose to create this Linkedin Poll as a way to remind you all that Social Media can be an incredibly powerful tool to all businesses, but at what cost? Many people take Social Media and Social Networking for granted. A huge misconception about Social Media is that it’s only for tweeting what you just ate or posting a cute photo of your kid’s first steps. Can it be used for these purposes? Of course. You can technically do whatever the heck you want…it’s your profile and your space. Here’s the real question, “Is anyone listening to you?”

If your Social Media campaign is not bringing in sales…you are doing something wrong. Keep in mind, this should be seen as a long term project…unless you have a brand name that people already know. It doesn’t matter if you sell high end jewelry, a live chat service, or whatever. If it’s not done properly or orchestrated to a certain degree, then all the time you spent was a complete waste of time. I have personally seen so many of my clients come to me and ask me what they are doing wrong and usually it’s as simple as; content creation, post frequency, and content relevance.

You can’t just post photos all the time. I’m sure they are nice to look at, but Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. just can’t read the context of a photo. They may say a picture is worth 1000 words, but not to search engines. (of course if you tag your photos correctly, then that is a different story…of which is for another article.) You need content and lots of it. Posting only once a year in not the way to gain followers or fans and posting every 5 seconds will most likely mark you as a Spammer. And no one likes a Spammer now do they? Most importantly in my opinion is relevance. Your content should be about your business and should use keywords or phrases that relate to what you do or sell. Using your Facebook business page to chatter about what you did last night is not going to get you more customers…unless that is what is relevant to your business and people follow you for your perspective on night clubs or something.

Basically, think of your profile as a unique website that you have to optimize so that other people who think like you will be able to connect to you. This is why so many companies are not getting the response they are looking for with Social Media. The most important thing to do when starting in Social Media is just listen. Read the tweets. View the profiles. Look for patterns in how people communicate. Your audience is out there and they are looking for you. Are you sending out the right message and is it effective? Is your time being spent wisely. If not, then you need to re-evaluate, revamp, and reconnect.

Take my poll and let me know what you think.

There is a ton of information out there, when it comes to internet marketing and to be candid, most of it is crap. You have a gazillion self-proclaimed GURUs or EXPERTS that will tell you the “right” way to market your website online. Oh…but you have buy one of their online seminars in order to get their help. That’s their business. They sell hope just like hair tonic salesmen did for bald men in late 19th century. I have a news flash for you and your stress filled follicles…save your money and your hairline. There isn’t just one “right” way of achieving online marketing success. A seasoned SEM [Search Engine Marketing] professional will tell you that every approach must be unique and best suited for that business. No two SEM campaigns should ever be the same because the results will always vary from business to business. The Internet changes so rapidly that even the pros have a hard time keeping up with technology. With the growing trend of do-it-yourself style type of mindsets out there, many business owners want to take full advantage of all the incredible technology available on the internet, but few know where to begin. The following are 9 truly important aspects to think about before starting your own internet marketing campaign for your business. Ignorance is your worst enemy and perspective is your greatest ally online!

Time: The very first and most important aspect to consider is your time. Simply put, do you have the time to invest in managing various types of accounts across the internet? Or have the time to sit and develop intelligent SEM articles that are relevant to your business? Do you have the time to do the research? Can you really keep up with Social Media trends and postings? Can you really spend extra hours reviewing data, going back and forth, comparing, contrasting, and forecasting. Oy Vey! Trust me, the list about time goes on and on. Time is one thing you can never get back in life, so make sure you spend it wisely. Do you think your time online with internet marketing is used effectively?

Effort: Building upon the aspect of time, something that is often overlooked and is difficult to sometimes quantify when considering an internet marketing campaign is the effort that goes into it. Was the time spent worth? Internet marketing isn’t always PPC (Pay-Per-Click), PPI (Pay-Per-Impression), or based on paid search. There is another side of internet marketing that is much more subtle and deceptively illusive to the laymen. Quantification of this type of effort can be tricky. Usually a decent Organic SEM campaign involving content laden articles that are posted around the internet takes roughly 1 – 3 months to get indexed by major search engines and thus useful to said SEM campaign. Paid search is instant. You pay money, your ad shows up somewhere. You stop paying money, the ad goes bye bye. So effort is a major consideration. Is the effort you’re pouring into this going to be worth it?

Objectivity: This aspect is what can separate a novice from a professional. It might sound crazy, but certain things you might have taken as a truth might hurt you in the long run when marketing your own business online. Who knows your business better than you, right? Not quite. In the overall scheme of things, yes, you know your business better than anyone else, but when it comes to effective and highly calculated writing of SEM articles you might be writing the same thing over and over and over again and not even realize it. It’s always better to write things in the 3rd person. It’s quite rare to see a quality SEM article written in the 1st person. That is what Facebook is for! So being objective about your business is imperative. It’s not an easy task to think differently about yourself and/or your business consistently. Do you have the ability to step back and gain a larger perspective for internet marketing and your business?

Knowledge: Here is something to think about, do you even know what you are doing? Knowledge is essential to an incredible internet marketing campaign. Managing paid search accounts, writing articles, updating social media sites, and having a finger on the pulse of the internet is not an easy thing to keep up with. There are new things happening everyday that you need to be aware of and take into consideration. Do you know what keywords are relevant to your website? Do you know the demographic breakdown of who is visiting your site based upon age, sex, race, wealth, etc.? Do you know how to start and manage a Google Adwords account? It literally does not end. The more you know, the more you have to fuel and direct your marketing campaign in the right direction for your website. Do you know your business and internet marketing well enough to start your own campaign?

Writing Ability: This may sound silly to ask, but do you know how to articulate your knowledge of your business into articles, keywords, sponsored ads properly, etc.? So many people take huge liberties in their daily lives when it comes to writing. Grammar is usually the first rule to be thrown out of the window. Followed by spelling, punctuation, and context. It’s one thing to have a great idea, it’s another thing to be able to effectively communicate that idea into words, which then will be read by others. Luckily, most modern computers are equipped with MS Word or a reasonable facsimile. These programs have spell check, grammar check, punctuation correction, etc., but they can’t catch every mistake. If you misspell a word or put things out of context, your readers might scratch their heads and say, “Why should I take this seriously, when they didn’t take the time to read over what they wrote.” Put yourself in the reader’s point of view. What would you do if you read something that had errors all over the place? Would you keep reading? Would you respect the author or editor slightly less? Would you dismiss their content consciously or worse subconsciously?

Expectations: I like to call this next one, the quantum aspect. In Quantum Theory, there can be an infinite number of potential results or choices made for any given moment for; electrons, atoms, molecules, dogs, cats, You, Myself, Space, Time, etc. Yes, theoretically as crazy as it sounds, on a quantum level even electrons can make decisions that can alter reality. With that being said, there are an infinite number of outcomes and choices that you, the business owner, could make along the way. It’s important to set realistic primary goals as well as long term phases that encompass a broader context of initiative and imagination. Internet marketing has so many possibilities and potential outcomes. Some million dollar questions could be; What are you looking to achieve? Will this increase my profits or my overhead? Could I do this more efficiently and/or effectively?

Analysis: This is usually the part that business owners loathe. Going over data can be tedious and time consuming. Arghhhh! More time spent going over stuff about other stuff and how it relates to other stuff, which leads to the analysis of said stuff to make clearer and more informed decisions about future stuff. Analysis doesn’t have to be an impossible mission. Knowing what works and what won’t will maximize your time and effort as well as help get you home in time for dinner. Every business wants the same thing, which is to make money. Data analysis and the proper follow up will shape and mold an internet marketing campaign into an incredibly effective and proven tool. The main issue with analysis is where to start and where to stop. What concrete conclusions can be established by addressing and analyzing relevant data to your site? And so on…and so on. There are literally thousands of ways to analyze data. However you do it, the important thing is getting what you need to make the campaign work more effectively. The tough part is knowing which questions to ask.

Passion: It can be a blessing or a curse. When a business owner is too passionate about his/her business, it could eat away at his/her professional and private lives. Spending long hours in the office or sitting at home doing research away from family, friends, etc. It chips away at relationships. It’s not healthy to obsess over something, no matter what form it takes. The inability to allow any outside perspective whatsoever could do more harm than good. There is also the complete opposite, indifference. When a business owner is passionless about his/her business, they may pass the responsibility to someone who may not be qualified. What typically happens within a company is that a micro power vacuum is created. Someone gets to control an important part within the company because the owner is so far removed from the daily particulars of business and may not know of anything that is happening at all. Not only will the main goals not get focused on, but precious company time, effort, resources, and money would be spent in vain. That’s going on the assumption that an indifferent owner would even have the epiphany to even start a SEM campaign. Any of these scenario can’t be good by any stretch of the imagination. So, it’s hard to quantify the right amount of drive or passion required for any business’ online marketing needs. Knowing how to use your passion as a rudder to navigate and having the humility to listen to others is key. A campaign will dramatically improve because the results and the analysis will be more focused. Do you know how to apply your passion?

Money: Ahhhh…Money. Money, money, money. It’s the driving force to open up shop in the morning. It’s the very essence of business and commerce! Everything always comes down to this point; the bottom line. These days, everyone is trying to squeeze blood from a stone. Pinching pennies when it comes to proper placement online is not acceptable. Showing up organically on page thirty-one instead of page one will net you absolutely ZERO new leads. In fact, I would go as far as to say that if you are not in the top four organically, then you are toast. With the proper budget any business can create a fairly robust SEM campaign that can grow and change with time and analysis. At the same time spending $10,000 a week on PPC ads is completely insane! There is a happy medium. It can be tough to not only find it, but to stay on track. Think about this: With all of the previous aspects considered, is it worth it to do everything on you own?.

In closing, from time-to-effort-to-objectivity-to-knowledge-to-writing ability-to-expectations-to-analysis-to-passion-to-money…take time to fully contemplate what it is your looking to achieve. Then weigh your options and create a simple pros and cons list. Compare the benefits to the potential downfalls of doing something on your own or hiring a trained professional or a firm to get the job done for you. It’s entirely plausible that you or your current staff could handle certain SEM, Social Media, or follow up tasks, but the increase in workload may or may not create friction and/or lackluster results. Just as the boss may not understand what he/she is doing, the employees may have even less of an idea. Unless you have a competent in-house staff that strictly handles internet marketing, it’s almost impossible to do everything yourself. Many companies can’t afford any new hires in light of the current economic climate. It truly is a contemporary internet conundrum that modern business owners face everyday. The real question is; What is everything worth to you?

[As an ethical disclaimer to you the reader, this article is not meant as a direct or indirect advertisement for any of my particular knowledge, skills, and / or services. I am a professional internet marketing consultant with years of experience helping individuals, businesses, and groups to achieve a higher level of online ROI with internet marketing.]

I just posted a new poll over at my Linkedin account; Which form of Internet Marketing is most conducive to your business model? (Paid Search vs. Organic Search)

It’s important before starting any type of campaign to know where to focus your business’ attention to. There has always been a great debate as to whether or not a business should place significant emphasis to a paid search campaign or to an organic search campaign.

I have always said, that in the long run, a well thought out SEO (Search Engine Optimization) plan is much more cost effective and efficient. For many companies this really isn’t the perfect solution or even an option as quality SEO takes time (somtimes 1-3 months) to be indexed by many or most search engines. SEO is great in getting the main website indexed and organically ranked hirer.

Paid search is great for when time is short and every advertising dollar can be quantified to one degree or another. If a marketing campaign runs for a week or 1 month and the business wants to gauge the response…the best bet is paid search with the landing page being a unique microsite catered to that widget being advertised. The main focus would be either direct sales or lead generation for 3rd party sales.

Either way, the important thing is to know how and when use the proper keywords and content that are relevant to your website.

Take the poll and let me know what your opinion is.

How can I say this succinctly? Of course it is! How can you NOT do internet marketing? The real question is: What is the right way to market your business online?

That is the 1 trillion dollar question…or is it?

A successful internet marketing campaign can be as illusive and enigmatic to a small business owner as finding the fabled needle in the hay stack. Plus, between the myriad of techniques, applications, and options available, there are many that are apprehensive it will cost them an arm and a leg or that they will have to work harder in some way or another. Still others worry about the basics like: wasting valuable company time and money, while others are vigilant of being scammed. All of these qualms and more are real and valid.

I wish I could say that internet marketing will always be easy or that one thing that worked incredibly well for one company will do exactly the same thing for another, but I can’t. There are few guarantees in any kind of marketing. It’s not an exact science, but the key is to keep a finger on the pulse of change. The important things to have are: data, imagination, perspective, and most of all passion.

A truly kick-ass online marketing strategy starts with an honest conversation between the business and the business owner(s). The days of licking thumbs and holding them up to the wind for market direction are truly over. I’ll put it to you this way, if Charles Darwin himself, were somehow alive today and needed a new profession outside of the realm of biological science, he’d be an internet marketing consultant or analyst.

But seriously, all metaphors aside; real internet marketing, when properly planned and precisely executed for a given business will actually pay for itself and then some over time. There is working harder…and then there is working smarter.

Have a question about something or need advice?

Skype me:

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock somewhere in the middle of nowhere, you have heard of LinkedIn.

It’s one of the largest and most popular professional social networks on the planet. Recently, LinkedIn relaunched their website with a completely fresh and friendly perspective. It looks and feels so much more organic and “now” or contemporary. Upgrades to searching, commenting, connecting, and much more have solidified it’s place as the “black and white” tuxedo of the Social Media world.

With progress comes unexpected “surprises” that most people are not aware of or even know how to ask to become aware. One of which could be considered disturbing to some who value their personal privacy and to others who could most likely care less. Are you asking yourself, “What is the “surprise” you speak of, Andrew?”

Well, here it is.

I recently noticed that LinkedIn now tracks your every click. We all know that every action of a click means something, to someone, somewhere. Here’s the catch…when you surf their site and you click to read someone’s profile or do anything…the URL will change. So far doesn’t sound too odd or off…right? I mean, technically speaking, every page you visit on any site is a unique URL that is within another URL. Well, watch what happens when you check out another person’s profile just after viewing something on a previous profile page you were on. The URL now includes that action as part of the URL and so on and so forth. So eventually LinkedIn will be able to backtrack everything you do on their site. Concerned yet? Many are.

I completely understand why LinkedIn would want to have it this way. A great reason would be to keep track of Spammers that have recently infiltrated LinkedIn like termites to wood. LinkedIn would be able to see how many profiles someone has looked at and how often they are sending email out to people outside their own network. Spamming is becoming such a problem on LinkedIn because anyone can open an account and claim to be someone from a company that either exists or doesn’t exist. It’s really getting bad and if you are on LinkedIn as often as I am…you’ll know what I am talking about. It’s terrible.

Another good reason they are doing this, in my opinion, is to help out with relevance and ratios. Just because a profile has the right keywords now, doesn’t mean it’ll be relevant and you will show up on the first page of LinkedIn anymore. (again this is only my theory.) It does make sense if you think about it. An algorithm based on keyword search, click through ratios, and possibly even amount of time spent on that page. Many new aspects of ephemeral data are becoming more and more relevant to LinkedIn.

So it’s up to you the viewer to decide whether this new LinkedIn layout and functionality makes for better business or for a Big Brother complex. I suppose it all depends on what side of the aisle you are on: are you on LinkedIn to indeed link in with other professionals or are you a Spammer on the verge of getting caught? heh.

One thing is for sure, LinkedIn is an amazing Social Media tool, that when used properly can be incredibly profitable.

[Side note:] I have suggestions for LinkedIn and how they can make their site even more incredible.

1. Live Chat software in realtime to connect with that person whose profile you are viewing.

2. Private Conference chat rooms where people need a code to get in.

3. ClickToTalk technology, where someone can click a connect button and that person would be called on their cell phone or work phone.

The benefits to these ideas include: Instantly discuss ideas, presentations, make deals, ask questions, customer service, etc.

With less and less advertising revenue going towards all forms of Old Media and more going towards Social Media and SEO/SEM, business owners have had to adapt. I have a 2 part question:

1. Over the next 2 – 5 years, how much emphasis will any business put into their online presence?

2. If almost all your customers have visited your site at one point or another, how important would it be to have 24/7/365 online support?

Live chat support that could: Answer FAQ’s and relieve the phone burden on in house staff, book rooms, connect a ClickToTalk instant phone call between the end user and the hotel staff (while the customer is still surfing the site.), process realtime feedback on hotel experience, etc…

The business of business has changed. What will you do to evolve?

Whew! After many hours of testing and retesting our system. The issue has been resolved. This is the first and only time that this has happened. What was the issue? Well…if you just need to know:

It turns out there was a glitch in my VOIP phone from a power surge from a storm the night before.

I had to do some fancy foot work, but we’re up and running.

So feel free to connect with me now. No, I mean it, right now. Call me with the Click To Talk button. If you have any questions about: LiveChatAgent, ClickToTalk, Social Media, Social Netowrking, SEO, SEM, Google Analytics, Dashboards, Site Abandonment Rates, CRM systems, Online Marketing, Internet Search, Keywords, etc., feel free to contact me. I’ll be more than happy to answer your questions and/or lead you to the right direction for your business.

[How does live chat change the way we search, consume and share online?]

This is a great question I’ve been thinking about for quite awhile.  The way people around the World search, consume and share online is rapidly changing because of live chat.

Imagine if the great gold rush of 1849 in California had their version of a live chat upgrade. Andrew, what on Earth are you talking about? Well, let’s look at what happened during that time and what could have been if they had certain technological advancements back then. Miners in dirty denim overalls would come from halfway around the World and sift through thousands of pounds of dirt looking for gold. Some miners eventually started their own mine shafts looking for the precious “golden” content. Without the proper tools a miner’s search would have most certainly ended almost as fast as it had started. Miners became more and more adept at finding ways to search and finding what they were searching for. They created elaborate connecting tunnels to search. The dangers and perils of a miner were that if a collapse within these tunnels from an implosion.

What if these miners were able to find the gold instantly with a GPS handheld device that allowed them to pinpoint the very locations and depths of various gold deposits? One thing is for sure, there wouldn’t have been any wasted time spent on digging tunnels that lead nowhere. The miners that would have had this technology would have put all the other miners out of business virtually overnight. Imagine that if there was something so simple, yet had the power to instantly change the way an entire industry operated. Are you seeing any similarities yet?

Web search is just like that 1849 gold rush. There are millions of “golden” nuggets of content out there to be found that people are searching for. Over the years the techniques and technology to search have become more and more advanced. Having live assistance online can only help expedite and extricate that frantic dig for content. Yes, there are obvious differences between searching for gold in the ground and the use of a live chat agent for a website, but the correlation towards something that helps site visitors search, consume, and share is valid and real.

Searching for some specific content on the web is not supposed to take all day, but for many it does. Information should be instantly available on a site. No ifs, ands, or buts.  Sometimes there is so much content on a site that people actually leave and bounce off to a site that has a more direct layout of content. Live chat helps save precious time needlessly spent on online search, but having live chat software on a website is only part of the solution.

The Internet is online day and night, but website functionality is limited to the hours of operation of a particular business. Not anymore. The endless search for content is over with real online customer support. A 24/7 live chat company, in particular, has radically changed the functionality of websites, live chat software and its implementation. LiveChatAgent enables visitors on a website and mine for “golden” content with real Live Chat Agents as their guide 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. The very act of searching, consuming and sharing will never be the same again.