What is a social media manager?

A common question since the field is so new.  What really is a social media manager? Social media sprung onto the business radar screen many still haven’t defined it within their corporate structure.  Remember when “webmaster” had a similar effect on the executives at your firm in the late 90′s?

Let’s cut through the noise and define what a social media manager is.  A social media manager, regardless of the firm they represent, is an individual familiar with the tools and techniques to set-up and monitor the different venues for exposure on the Internet. Most often, this simply means setting up accounts within Twitter, LinkedIn and/or Blogs and monitoring them as well as your top competitors.  Studying the competition and listening to your customers is an age old business fundamental, just that social media has opened up addition “digital” opportunities to do the same.

 

How Long Does SEM Take?

I read a great article on searchenginemarketing.com.  Basically, this question comes up a lot.  How long does it take to see results from SEM.

I answer it as follows: It depends.

1. How established and how long have you had your domain and current site?

2. What type of resources do you have in-house to write text and/or manage PPC expenditures?

3. What type of viral efforts do you have in place already?

Based on the answers of the above I can generally say that I’ve seem some companies get results in 3 to 4 months, but I would argue that is rarity, not the norm.  Most firms, with at least a bi-weekly update of content and some resource who is managing and segmenting their lists for e-mail communications will see good, quality progress in about 6 to 9 months.  If you are starting, completely from scratch I would say, be prepared for at least 9 mos. and up to 1 full year of effort.  Hope this helps.

 

SEM Results, I Stand Behind Them

I recently met with one of the executives at the consulting project I am working on, www.thelockup.com.  They were very pleased to see that for certain keywords, we organically come up #1 and have good listings in the local business listings for Google.  This needless to say, was done with a number of techniques and ‘buy in’ from the executives.  They are pleased with the progress. Needless to say, moral of the story, content, white hat tactics for SEM and maybe a little creative flavoring do pay off in time.  Next is to report the ROI and benefit of the successful listings. Stay tuned.

 

What is an Evergreen article?

What is an ‘Evergreen’ article?

Read an interesting post about SEO versus Evergreen content.  In short, SEO content, is content more specifically written for SEO purposes and is usually short and directed towards a high keyword density.  Evergreen articles or writing is more specifically related to larger or global issues or items. The main difference when considering the approach of which to follow, it is usually meant to write SEO articles for the short term, while building longer, more valuable or insightful articles on macro issues for the long-term.  In other words, Evergreen articles are articles that are meant to last a test of time and geared towards more perhaps more “long tail” keywords and content for an endeavor or approach.  A healthy combination of the 2 approaches will certainly help your organization position itself as an industry or ‘thought leader’ for its specific niche.  Feel free to let us know if you agree or have sucessufully implemented a similar SEO content strategy.

 

Google Wave – Next Gen of Social Media

I recently read an article about Google Wave. It’s an interesting concept that seemingly will take social media and collaboration to the next level.  (wave.google.com).  The aspect that I particularly find interesting is that aspect that, Google wave proclaims to integrate multiple collaboration efforts together.  This will be a nice change if in fact it is true.  In contrast, some of the social media solutions like Facebook and MySpace lack the professional feel and require that you have a login and account. Most apprehension with our consulting clients is the fact that it seems to “childish” and that it seems to isolate you and your data from the rest of the world.  Although, there are some tools to post and push content to multiple social media websites, they are not very robust.  Also, getting data out of one social media tool and into another is cumbersome.  It will be interesting to see if Google can pull this off.  Stay tuned.

 

B2B vs. B2C Best Practices E-Mail Marketing

We ran a recent e-mail marketing campaign and despite the research that mentioned that B2C e-mails should be sent out preferably on Friday through Sunday.  We ran a comparison test and found just about the opposite effect.   We staggered a e-mail campaign to send out over multiple days. The majority of the list comprised of B2C leads and prospects.  What we noticed was that the exact opposite was true.  B2C had a higher, click and open rate for the mid-week emails.  All emails had exactly the same content. The only difference in this test was the time and day of the week.

 

How to use twitter professionally

Although most of us are new to using twitter, I would like to propose some best practices on how a company might use twitter in a professional manner.

Don’t just talk about your firm, talk about trends and industry insights.

Don’t ignore the people that engage you, that’s what social media is all about right?

Try to stay professional and don’t shy away from criticism, after all feedback is what drives innovation.

Keep on top of posting new, and relevant information about your own offerings. You don’t have to brag, but can simply post a sentence with a link to your site, for additional information.

Don’t waste time telling followers, that you are “eating lunch” or “brushing your teeth”. I really don’t think they care.

Most of all realize this is just a manner to express your news and thoughts in a professional setting. Many people utilize twitter for personal updates, which is fine too, but for professional purposes, the above guidelines should give you a good start at using social media in an appropriate manner.  Enjoy.

 

OneClickDinners.com Overview

OneClickDinners.com is an online, free, subscription based tool for customized meal planning.

What is customized meal planning? It’s like having a personal chef, who understands what your family likes to eat, plan your dinners. One Click Dinners organizes your week with a personalized meal plan tailored to fit your family.

The solution allows subscribers to personalize their meal plans by adding their own, and selecting published recipes to prepare a menu for a week.  The system also allows you to track ingredients selected as well as create a grocery list.

 

Can Microsoft make a dent in the search engine space?

On again, off again. We keep hearing these talks with Yahoo and Microsoft.  I for one am a big Microsoft proponent.  Sure, some of their products might be rushed to market, but all in all, I find them pretty good and constantly improving.  What I wonder is how do they plan to tackle the Google beast?  If history has anything to tell us about Microsoft, I think the lesson learned is, when they set their mind to it, they can accomplish anything.  Google currently owns approximately 69% of the search market, but I think with the ever increasing cost of PPC and the backlash and “want to take out the big guy, because he’s the big guy”, Microsoft is going to put a dent into this market eventually. I for one, love both Google and Microsoft, but also am for competition.  Stay tuned.

 

When good intentions end up badly.

Biggest reason a project or endeavor can end up badly – change requests

As many people have been involved in big or complicated projects, I reflected upon both the good and bad projects over the course of the last 10 years.  I have come to the conclusion that no matter what the endeavor the necessity to nail down and adhere to a strict set of rules of functionality from the onset is critical.  The minute a project spec or change request enters the mix, you end up on a slippery slope.  One change request turns into another and another and another. Before the development is able to react and get back to completing the main objective money and time has been sunk into a project that is nearly doomed to failure.  No matter the good intentions of the parties involved (both on the business and technical side), the end result will be lost money, time and relationships.  Even attempting to provide a “time and materials” approach,  to ensure that all parties involved are clear that changes are going to cost money, many times don’t keep a project focused and on target.  The solution; we’ll I’m sure there is a single-statement solution for when projects get off track, except to say that the technical leadership MUST push back and not allow the change requests without 100% clarity of expressing how dangerous the change request might be to the overall success of the project.  It takes  a strong technical leader to push back, and many times good guys, are not the right choice for such assignments. Good intentions can lead to additional problems and issues.  Lesson learned.