Internet Word Magic Blog

How to Avoid Social Networking Groupthink

 

photo from orin

I was so inspired by an article written by Robert Pagliarini, I wanted to share
with you part of it that really rang true with me. Social media is wonderful
for networking, but it can so easily put you into a mindset where you are just
searching for information to confirm what you already believe is true.

What happens is that we stop looking for new ideas or opinions and that's sad.
We close our minds and only let things in that we've adequately filtered.

Here's what Robert Pagliarini had to say on the subject:

Will you expand your mind and increase your creativity more by talking to
people just like you or with people who are different?  If you’re always
nodding your head in agreement, you’re not exposing yourself to unique or
contradictory ideas.  Here are a few ways to maximize creativity and limit
groupthink:

• Join groups and communities that are completely different/opposite from what
you believe.  You don’t have to agree, but try to at least understand their
perspective and why they believe what they believe. If the O’Reilly Factor is
your homepage, consider perusing the Huffington Post for a different view on
the same topics.
• Become Facebook friends with people who think differently and who will
surprise you and cause you to question your ideas.
• Read blogs and websites that don’t recycle ideas.
• Get into disagreements and friendly arguments by posting comments on blogs.
Just make sure you do it respectfully. I’ve found using “What if we think of it
like this…” to be a non-confrontational approach that can lead to a healthy
exchange of ideas.
• The more you are a fan of someone, the more often you need to question their
assumptions and ideas. We tend to let our mental guard down around those we
trust.

You can read the full article at http://tinyurl.com/n8qe8m.

Using Twitter to Network with Local Businesses

 

Photo from brian395.

As it goes with the Internet, I was just reading an email and started following
a trail that lead me to the coolest social media tool: Tweethood.

It's a map of the U.S. and Canada that helps you locate people in your
neighborhood who are using Twitter! What a great way to start building
relationships with local businesses in your area.

I live in Southern California. When I zoomed into California, a box popped up
to show me the cities and how many people are Twitter in each city. My
neighborhood happens to be in Irvine, which has over 1,200 people listed. But
wait, it gets better.

When I clicked on Irvine, a list came up with individual profiles for each of
the 1,200 people. Now you can browse through the list and see who would be a
good connection for your business.

This is solid gold. Oh, and did I mention it's free to get registered on
Twellow, so that you can be found in a local search? They make it easy for you
to register because a box comes up to get you registered when you are browsing
through your list of Twitter people in your neighborhood.

Here's what you read when you click on the register box, "Registering will
allow you to update your Twellow profile and categories, add links to your
other social media profiles, and create an extended bio with whatever
information and links you would like to add!

Be still my heart, isn't this the best? Get registered so you can get found and
use this tool to network with local businesses. Happy networking.

Nikon PR Mistake Becomes Viral

 

Photo from FriedToast

Social media has created a new fear for corporate employees: don't screw up or everyone in the world will know about it! Over the weekend, Nikon tried and failed (with the world watching) to create positive PR at the BlogHer conference in Chicago. The ugly details can be read on Katie Allison Granju's blog, momapundit.com.

Remember years ago when you could make a mistake and your boss yelled at you and maybe wrote you up a warning that went into your file? Good times.

Nowadays, thanks to social media, every step you take, every move you make, can come back to haunt you. The idea that employees represent their company has never had such strong meaning as it does today. Whether or not your job is PR, every employee is expected to be the goodwill ambassador of their company when interacting with the public. And, when that interaction goes wrong, it becomes instant news that travels across the Internet via Twitter, blogs and other online communication.

Consumers are becoming more powerful because they now have the ability to instantly interact with companies and let them know when they are unhappy with the company's decisions. This Nikon PR wildfire should stand as a warning to other companies that it is no longer business as usual when it comes to building goodwill with consumers (or the media).

Companies need to look at social media as just not an opportunity to promote its brand, but as a new frontier filled with landmines. They need to step carefully, or things will blow up.

Social Media and Targeted Ad Copy

Social media is definitely the big topic these days. Over the weekend I attended a free 1/2 day workshop on social media and over 200 people showed up! People wanted to not only know how to use the social media tools like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, but they wanted to know how to create a strategy. Better yet, they wanted to know "what's in it for me?" How can I make money using social media and is it worth the time?

But nobody asked the question that I think most business people are over looking, "How does my website work together with social media?"

Everyone is excited about networking with social media, but where does that get you? Sure, you make contacts, build relationships and share your expertise. But then what?

At some point, you would like people to want to do business with you. After all, isn't that the reason you are doing all this social media networking? Eventually, you'd like them to visit your website or landing page and be converted to a customer.

Now, before anyone jumps all over me for being too direct about things, I do understand that social media should not be focused on sales. (In fact, if you do that, you turn people off.) The advice is also to direct people to your blog, not your website, so that you can continue building that relationship.

However, what I'm talking about is not forgetting that your website is your conversion tool.  Your website is an important part of your social media strategy that is often overlooked. The branding on your website should match your branding in the social media world. The keywords you are using in your postings and your blog should match the keywords you are using on your website.

Learn how to write targeted ad copy on your website for increased sales and lead generation. Then use social media as an opportunity to build your brand and use your website to close the sale.

Here's a great video I found that will give you some tips on writing targeted ad copy:

Preventing Keylogger Malware Attacks

(photo from http://www.flickr.com/photos/dudemjk/)

Learn from my experience. Don't take your website for granted. Considering I use a PC (which is prone to virus attacks), I pride myself on being very careful when using the Internet. I only use Firefox when browsing and I have antivirus software that automatically updates in real time. I also automatically run a spyware program every morning.

I stupidly thought I was protected. Oops.

Somehow, someway, not only did my main website get compromised, but all my domains were shut down by Google! Malware was detected on my site that was dangerous to visitors. And, thus began a three week battle to find out what the problem was, how it happened and how to get it fixed. (Meanwhile, I was basically out of business.)

Evidently, the hackers had come in through my hosting company and therefore were able to attack all my domains. The conversation back and forth between my hosting company was a frustrating experience of cryptic emails that sometimes made sense and sometimes didn't. Every time I called, I talked to someone different at the hosting company and every time I received an email it was from a different person at the hosting company. Back and forth we went for weeks.

I was finally told the problem was fixed by the hosting company and told I now could ask Google to allow my sites up. So, I hired someone to get me back in the good graces of Google. Unfortunately, I hired the wrong person for the job and after a week of waiting to hear back from Google, contacted another person.

Come to find out, my website (and other domains) still were infected. My hosting company hadn't fixed the problem after all. Surprise, surprise.

But here's the good part of the story. I hired the right person this time. She was an excellent detective and quickly figured out what the problem was and how to fix it. In just a few days all my domains were up and running again. I was back in business.

Who was this brilliant detective? Check her out at Little Fish Studios.

And, what was my learning experience from this? I now realize that if you are using a PC and have what you think is adequate virus/malware protection, you probably don't. One of the most dangerous types of spyware are keyloggers that hide on your computer to record all your keystrokes. So, if you go to a site and enter your password, it is recorded by the spyware. At that point, the hackers can get your private information and use it in any way they want. We think this is how the hackers were able to get into my hosting account.

Simple Low-Tech Solution

An easy low-tech solution to prevent your confidential information from being stolen by keylogger malware is to simply not type in your user name or password on the websites you visit. Rather, put together a spreadsheet of all your user names and passwords, so you can copy and paste them into the websites. This way, you are not allowing any of your confidential information to be given out through key strokes. A simple copy and paste can prevent the keylogger malware problem.

Here's my final thought. No matter what virus protection or spyware you are running on your computer, DO NOT assume you are safe. Everyday new viruses, spyware, and adware are being created. Sometimes your luck just runs out and tag, you are it. So, get multiple antivirus, spyware and adware programs, make sure you have the latest updates on these programs and consider buying a Mac; they don't have these problems! (All you Mac owners are allowed to gloat at this point.)

How to Improve the Customer Online Experience

 

(photo from Abbyworld)

It wasn't too long ago that even big retail stores looked at website marketing as a stand alone program, completely different from their offline marketing. Internet marketing was looked at as a new opportunity, but one that was confusing at best.

Selling products from a physical store is an accepted and understood business practice. For hundreds of years, merchants have gone directly to customers to facilitate a sale.

Integrated Marketing Strategy

All the college business programs are set up to educate students about how to do business offline, but what's been missing is the Internet marketing approach. We are just now seeing business open up to the idea that companies need both an offline and online integrated marketing strategy to do business effectively.

According to Chantal Tode, of DMNews.com, "Companies such as JCPenny, Lowe's and Best Buy are just a few that have integrated their offline and online businesses into one marketing organization over the past nine to 12 months."

The Internet is giving companies more opportunities to be creative and reach out to customers in ways they never could before. Customers may not be physically coming into their stores, but retailers have a huge opportunity online to continue the sales process.

Create a Positive User Experience

Rather than concentrating on making the sale or driving traffic to the website, companies should focus on improving the customer experience on their website. It does no good to gather tremendous traffic if your website does not offer a positive user experience.

Here are three ways to improve the customer experience:

(1) Don't Make Me Think

Website navigation needs to be intuitive and require very little decision making. Moving from one page to another should be simple and hassle-free. The buttons or tabs to move you from one page to another should be clearly marked and visible. Put the most important information as bullets or lists that are easy to scan. Use internal links to logically move the visitor to pages where they can get more information if needed.

(2) Don't Overload the Homepage

The homepage is not a dumping ground for information. It should only contain the bare minimum amount of information that is needed for the customer to make a decision as to whether or not to do business with you. The ideal homepage will liberally use bullets, headings, and internal links to connect to pages that contain more detailed information.

The idea is to get the visitor to move throughout your website to get the information that is interesting to them. Let them make the decision of where they want to go when they arrive at your homepage. Give them logical routes to find the information they seek.

(3) Be the Customer

If you have a shopping cart on your website, take the time to go through the buying process yourself. How easy have you made it for someone to make a purchase?

The industry average for shopping cart abandonment is 70%! In other words, only 30% of the people who start to buy something online will complete the process.

Anything you can do to improve the shopping experience will increase your odds in completing the sale. Simply reassuring them that their purchase is safe and secure by posting security icons, is a good start. Also, let people know what the shipping charges are before they place an order.

Conclusion

More than ever, in this economy, companies need to implement an integrated online marketing and offline marketing campaign to reach their customers. "A lot of multichannel merchants are trying to figure out how to grow their Web sites and take advantage of the one channel that is growing," said Sucharita Mulpuru, senior analyst at Forrester Research.

People may not be visiting stores as often as they used to, but they are still using the Internet to shop. All it takes is some clever marketing to generate demand.

 

A New Look at the 80/20 Rule

The economic recession has made all of us rethink our marketing plans. What
used to work without fail is now either working poorly or not at all.
Companies need to go back to the drawing board and start again with the
basic truths of marketing.

One of the most consistent and true basics of marketing is the 80/20 rule,
also known as the Pareto principle. According to Wikipedia, "The principle
was suggested by management thinker Joseph M. Juran. It was named after
the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who observed that 80% of income in
Italy was received by 20% of the Italian population. The assumption is
that most of the results in any situation are determined by a small number
of causes."

When applied to business, the Pareto principle will show that 80% of
income is generated from 20% of the customer base. Or it could be stated
that 20% of your efforts result in 80% of your financial rewards. Of
course, this is not true in every instance, but it happens enough that
business owners should take a look at their marketing efforts for examples
of the 80/20 rule.

Consumers Are Slow to Spend

Most businesses have the mindset of looking for new customers to bring in
business: advertise in a journal, buy a list and send out a direct mail
campaign, or send out an email blast. But, the problem is that in this
economy, even though your message may be received by the right audience,
sales are dismal. Consumers are slower to spend because they are already
in debt and worried about job security. They are only making essential
purchases.

Rather than constantly looking for new customers, identify the 20% of your
customers who are providing the 80% of your income. Instead of putting a
plan together to reach out to loyal customers, put a plan together for the
brand to be more loyal to the customers.

Build the Brand and Drive the Purchase

A company's marketing dollar needs to be spent on not only building the
brand, but it's got to drive the purchase. Seth Solomons, Global CMO of
Digitas, had this to say in an interview with Direct Marketing News, "We,
as marketers, grew up on the direct marketing side always thinking about
getting the best customers and asking, 'How do we get them to be more
loyal to us?' We believe that in today's environment we need to be a loyal
brand vs. looking for loyal customers. Loyal brands are those that deliver
utility and value and listen harder and try to serve consumers at every
interaction. It goes back to every dollar having to multitask."

Relationship Marketing

One of the best ways to be a loyal brand is to practice relationship
marketing. Regularly demonstrate appreciation of your customers at every
interaction. Cara Wood, Editor in Chief of DMNews, suggests, "entertaining
content in marketing e-mails, timely direct mail reminders, product
recommendations in a search, landing page or e-commerce site and call
centers equipped with purchase history and product availability
information."

Reinforce the purchasing patterns of the 20% of your customers who are
bringing you the 80% of your business. Consider offering that targeted
group special offers along with regular information about the brand and
its products.

New Product Introduction

Brand loyal customers can be your best group to introduce a new product or
get their advice on a new product you are considering. As an added
benefit, they may identify a product that you might have not even
considered. One of my favorite stories about this is a company that
manufactured a popular fishing tackle box in the 90's. One of the
company's reps discovered that the tackle box was also being used by girls
for earrings and hair accessories.

The company took this information and started manufacturing the fishing
tackle box in bright pinks, yellows, greens, and blues. They renamed it
and started marketing it to tweens and it became an instant best seller,
even more popular than the tackle box product line.

This story illustrates the point that it pays to survey loyal customers to
get their opinion on what's working and what's not. This group wants your
company to succeed, so their ideas would tend to be positive, rather than
negative. Maybe they are using your product in innovative ways that you
never even considered.

Conclusion

In this economy, companies need to look at innovative ways to market,
along with clever ways to save money. Retaining your customer base is key
to surviving a recession, but even more important is identifying those 20%
brand loyal customers. Partner with these customers to make sure that they
are your priority and not lost in the shuffle to generate sales with far
reaching campaigns. Consider setting up ongoing marketing campaigns to
brand loyal customers in addition to broad based marketing campaigns to
bring in new customers.

Solving Email Delivery Problems

Have you ever sent out an e-mail and wondered if the message was
received? Sometimes there is no rhyme or reason as to what
happens in cyberspace. Black holes do seem to swallow-up e-mail
messages.

Occasionally, you will know when an e-mail message does not
reach its destination because a failure notice is sent to you.
But, just as often, you get no notification.

Filters Dump Email

Because of all the new anti-SPAM software, your message could be
dumped before your recipient ever sees it. Each of the anti-SPAM
software programs look for specific keywords in the subject
line. If you happen to put one of those keywords in the subject
line of your e-mail, you have now sent SPAM. And logic doesn’t
always work when you try to figure out which words to avoid.
Some software can be customized for the user’s own specific
keywords.

I had this situation occur with my web master. I was following
up with her to find out if she received the updates I sent her.
The subject line was: Did You Get Updates? Her anti-SPAM program
identified “get” in the subject line as SPAM and immediately
trashed the message. Who would have known? I knew not to use
words like “Free” in the subject line, but “get” never occurred
to me.

For the last three years I have been using a mass-mailing
program to send out e-mails to about 350 members of a nonprofit
group I belong to. We have never had any problems with the
members receiving their e-mail. However, in the last six months,
some of the providers like AOL and Earthlink are interpreting
these messages as SPAM because they recognize the software I am
using. The only way I’ve gotten around this problem is to make
sure all 350 members have my e-mail address in their address
books. Otherwise, the message gets bounced.

Follow Up on Delivery

So, is there an easy way to find out if your message was
received if you don’t get an error message? Sure, pick up the
phone to confirm a message was received. But, you have to be
careful when you do this. People can misinterpret your action as
being pushy—like you need an answer right now and are not
willing to wait.

A good approach is to start off by saying, “This is just a
courtesy call. I sent you an important e-mail and I want to make
sure you got it. I know you needed the information right away
and I want to make sure you have it.” This way, it appears you
are looking out for them and are only trying to be efficient.
You won’t come across as demanding and cause the person to
become defensive.

Acknowledge Receipt of Email

As the receiver of an e-mail, you can greatly help this
situation by always acknowledging the receipt of an e-mail. Even
if you can’t get the answers right away, simply select the reply
button and let the sender know the message arrived. Make it a
habit to do this. Respond with a quick reply like, “Thanks. Got
your e-mail, but won’t have an answer for you till tomorrow.”
Or, even something shorter would work, “Got your e-mail. Will
get back to you ASAP.”

If you haven’t been in the habit of acknowledging the receipt of
an e-mail, start today. Letting someone know their e-mail
arrived is easy to do and greatly appreciated.

Conclusion

Even with all the problems we have with email delivery, it is
still the most popular method of communicating in business. Just
remember, it is not the only way to communicate. Don't count on
email 100 percent. Always follow up by phone if you think an
email never arrived.

A New Approach to Local Marketing

The Internet is the first choice for most people when they are trying to locate information about a local business. What time does the store open? Where is the closest dry cleaners that does alterations? Where can I get the best price on office chairs? Where can I find a local plumber?

If you have a business that relies on "foot traffic" instead of "Internet traffic," you still need a website, but the website needs to be positioned a bit differently. Your website is not selling a product; it is a promotion tool for your business. As such, you want to reach consumers at the various stages of the purchase process with an online marketing strategy that blends online advertising with offline advertising.

Who Is Your Audience?

The best way to reach your audience is to know who they are and how they buy. Are your customers a younger crowd who are familiar with social media like Facebook or Twitter? If so, you might consider promoting your brand in the social media and social networking sites.

According to David Berkowitz, director of emerging media and client strategy, 360i, "Digital word of mouth – where a brand actively reaches out to website editors and bloggers to promote the distribution of the brand's assets – can also drive traffic and high quality inbound links."

How Do They Search?

How your customer searches is a key component in knowing how to optimize your website for the searches. Once you know how your customers behave in each stage of the sales process, you have a better understanding of how to put together an online and offline campaign to attract the right audience.

Noah Elin, VP of corporate strategy, Steak Media, has this to say on the subject, "Once you have a good sense of who your customers are and how they behave, develop and optimize content to meet their differing needs. This includes everything from keyword identification and expansion, optimization of digital media (images, video, news, etc.), content network selection (site targeting and ad network optimization), social marketing and coordination of activities between online strategies and offline placements."

Use Offline Techniques Online

Banner ads or Pay-Per-Click ads are not the only way to drive traffic to a website. Consider placing inexpensive ads in publications that are read by your audience. These ads can be used not to sell, but to drive traffic to your website.

Another simple technique is to use digital coupons. Coupon aggregation sites such as RetailMeNot.com, CouponChief.com, CouponCuisine.com and Savings.com offer coupons from many different brands and make it simple for consumers to find the coupons they want to use. Facebook also lets you use an application from Coupons.com on your profile. With the application, users can download new coupons each week and share with their friends.

"Coupon site visits were up 33% in October 2008, according to ComScore, with 16% of shoppers saying that they don't buy in general unless they can find a coupon. Three out of four adults are more likely to return to a store that offers coupons."

Conclusion

As a "brick and mortar" business with a local reach, you can still take advantage of the Internet as a powerful marketing tool. Take the time to really know what your audience wants, when they want it and how they want it. Then use clever online marketing techniques combined with offline techniques to reach your audience.

Improving Communication to Increase Website Conversion

The average website has only a three percent conversion. In other words, out of 100 people who come to your website, only 3 will make a purchase. So the challenge is how to get those other 97 people to make a purchase and increase your conversion rate.

Just getting website traffic is not enough; they need to buy.

Relate to Your Customer

Your homepage should immediately start building rapport with your visitors. Make sure it is very clear who you are, what you do and why they should do business with you.

Think about what you need to do to start a conversation with your customer. What are the buying habits of your customers?  What language is being used in the searches to find your website?

Align yourself with your customer so that you are looking out for their best interests. Think of ways you can improve their buying experience on your website by using words that are familiar to your customer. Give them enough information so that it is easy to make a decision to do business with you.

Build Customer Relationships

Let your potential customers know that you understand their problems and that you have a solution to their problems. One effective way to do this is to put testimonials on your website. Make them feel that you can be trusted by posting testimonials from other satisfied customers. You can tell them how great your product or service is and how it is the right choice, but why believe you? It's better to have the positive statements coming from someone who has successfully done business with you.

Don’t you tell people how you solve their problems; let someone else tell the story. Testimonials are powerful and necessary to a successful web site. Testimonials not only say you can do the job, but they say how well you can do the job. And they are so much more believable than you trying to promote yourself. Let others speak for you.

Include testimonials throughout your Web site. Don’t make the mistake of having one page just for testimonials. Rarely will someone click to a testimonials page and read the whole thing. So, you are in essence wasting your time and resources with a testimonials page.

Instead, sprinkle testimonials wherever you think they might help convince your audience that what you are saying is true. Back up your statements with testimonials and you start building relationships with your readers.

Make It Easy to Find Information

The navigation on a website can make or break a website. You can have the best content in the world, but if readers can’t find what they are looking for, they will leave.

Use simple, descriptive headings and subheadings to direct visitors throughout your web site. Put keywords in the headings and subheadings so that the search engines have an easier time indexing your pages.

Think about the problems you solve for your readers and make sure you offer solutions to those problems. Remember, people are searching for information and solutions to their problems.

The easier you make it for them to find information, the more likely you will be able to entice the visitor to stay awhile. And, the longer they stay, the more likely you will gain a customer.

Conclusion

More than ever, in these bad economic times, companies need to improve communication with customers to increase website conversion. Making sales on a website is more than generating traffic. To increase the conversion rate, consider relating to your customer with easy-to understand language, build your customer relationships through testimonials and make the website navigation easy to find information.