by Jon Wuebben

Did we ever think that two college students with a gift for rhyming could hi-jack the advertising and promotions department for McDonalds for a few weeks with a clever rap about mcnuggets?  It happened.

Welcome to the Democratization of Self Expression.

What does this mean? It means that your brand is out of your hands. And it should be if you think about it. Your customers are important. What they think has always been important. It’s just that before, corporations loved being able to dish it down people’s throats. And look how far it got us. Chrysler. GM. Others. It doesn’t work, it’s never worked. The reason why Toyota came out of nowhere in the 70’s and 80’s and then eventually went on to dominate the auto market is because they listened to their customers. In a way, they were on the forefront of social media. They gave their customers a voice before they were able to have one on their own! With any news, we can now question it, put in context, analyze it and comment on it. Continue reading →

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Scott Fox has done it again with his latest book, “e-Riches 2.0”, putting together an easy to understand, thoroughly comprehensive “how-to” on all the latest online marketing tools and strategies. Like Scott, I believe that there is a huge opportunity to provide this type of instruction to the millions of small businesses out there who may be challenged in the online marketing space. There are still many business owners who feel overwhelmed by all the stuff coming at them when it comes to Web 2.0.

I love how he emphasized the importance of social media and attempted to allay any fears that businesses might have about this exciting and very important type of new marketing. The “Top 10 Reasons You Need to Be on Social Networks” is a must read on page 102.

What else did I like? Continue reading →

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So of all the types of content out there, which would you say is the one that delivers the most?  Which one – day in, day out – helps tell your story, generates more leads and provides you with the best new business?  As if the title of this post isn’t enough of a give-away… YES… it’s the testimonials from your previous clients.  These little juggernauts of positive opinion can take any small startup and put it on a one way flight to success.

Of course, we all know the exponential growth and benefits of social media, the tried and true power of email marketing and other important tactics, but ask yourself this: are any of these coming from someone else? (ie. Not you)

People love hearing what other people think. It’s that simple. Look at epinions.com. How about Trip Advisor or Amazon reviews? What would they be without those trusted opinions?  Rule # 1: It’s got to come from a third party. (ie. your clients)  This is what gives it the power.

A Few Helpful Reminders when it comes to Testimonials: Continue reading →

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So tell me, have you ever Googled your name?  Come on, I know you have. Who doesn’t?  It can be pretty interesting and even entertaining to see what’s out there – both what you have authored and what others are saying about you… both the informed and uninformed. And as I recently made another cruise through the pages that donned my name, I was reminded of something very important:

Content can live forever on the Internet.

This is a critical piece of information, especially for those who are new to the web and haven’t practiced restraint when they have decided to spout their opinion, weighed in on a hot debate or maybe surfed the web and contributed something when they were a little less than coherent. Or perhaps wrote and published some articles that had wrong information in them. It happens. But, do you really want this stuff following you around for the next 50 years?  I think we all agree that when you publish something on your blog, on a PR site, on Twitter or wherever, its critical to make sure its reviewed a few times… by a couple different people… before you launch it to the world.

But what I really want to stress are the benefits of this “forever available” online content: Continue reading →

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I don’t know about you, but I’m getting tired of something I have been reading for a while now. It pops up in various blogs, articles and even at important trade shows like Search Engine Strategies. And I know people naturally want to promote “the new stuff” and be seen as a trailblazer or hot researcher or even as a plain and simple contrarian, but the continuing comments re. SEO not being as important as it was… or that it’s not important at all, is bad information. And it’s actually doing people a disservice.

The final straw for me is when I read this post in Copyblogger today:

The author said, “What About SEO Copywriting? Forget about it. Seriously. If you focus on writing clear, concise and compelling copy, you will naturally write keyword-dense copy. You’ll naturally write for the search engines.”

Say what?  Continue reading →

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Ladies and gentleman, I know I’m not the first person to tell you, but we are in the middle of a Twitter Revolution.  And I’ll admit, I’m new to the whole movement myself, having only been on Twitter for a few months. But here is a statistic I read today that startled me: Twitter has grown 1392% in the past year. (Data courtesy of Nielsen)

Say what?  Yes, that’s right, a full 1154% more than Facebook! And with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on The View, on the nightly news and everywhere else, all we have heard about it how fast Facebook is growing. Well step aside “other” social media sites…”tweeting” is the coolest, hippest new verb in the world.  Quick and easy content is taking over the airwaves folks.

Since it seems I’m hearing something cool or new or interesting about Twitter every few minutes nowadays, I thought I would share a few with you: Continue reading →

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So, you just wrote an incredible group of blog posts that you will use for the next couple weeks… you’ve posted a couple of them and you think you did a great job…that you are on your way. Or perhaps you just re-did your entire website to be more search and conversion enabled. It is now optimized, user friendly, has calls to action in place and everything looks great. So, all is good, right?  People will get in touch, love you and become clients forever. Well, not exactly.

Ask yourself this: What do I do when someone contacts me? This is an important question and also, where many companies fall down. They work their butts off making everything look great on the front end, making their site look cool, creating the ultimate lead machine. But when the leads start coming in, they fumble the ball, fall on their face and die a slow death. Not good.

So what should you do after the content is posted?  Continue reading →

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As I have used Twitter over the past couple months, I have realized something that recently was confirmed by Hitwise: It’s a great compliment to your blog. It gets others to go there, it gets others to join up for your email updates, it influences the conversation and it also helps you find cool things on other peoples blogs.

Yes, some would say that’s an obvious conclusion…Twitter and blogging go hand in hand. But here is what I am saying: If used effectively, Twitter is the BEST promoter, distributer, and awareness builder for your blog. Better than Stumble Upon, better than sending out to your list and promoting your RSS feed, better than anything really. It’s lightening fast and getting better every day. Plus, Twitter is still growing…by leaps and bounds.

And I think it’s important to bring up because we really should study this phenomenon to see what happens over the next few months. It’s very interesting and could have potentially far-reaching impacts. Continue reading →

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They say that the enduring nature of Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence is the way the words move like poetry across the page. The sentences flow, the adjectives describe and the ebb and flow of the spoken version spawns a deep feeling inside whoever is listening. Such is its majesty – and such is its artistry.

So what do you think the conversion analytics would have been if Jefferson had put the Declaration online in 1776?  He could have had a “Find out more” button on the page and measured response.
Do you think it would have done well?  Could he have generated some interest?

I think we can all say that it would have been a firestorm of activity. So, yes, when we write for the web, we definitely want to put some flair into the content. How? Continue reading →

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They say that body language is 70% of communication.  The way people say things, their facial expressions, what they are really saying behind that smile…are all critical to the communication being understood, for the exchange to be meaningful. Of course, in the online world…via email, instant messaging, social media sites and the rest, where we don’t see people in front of us, there is no way we can duplicate this right? Right.

Or maybe not. Think about it –  Because we have the opportunity to so expose ourselves online, in many different formats and unique ways and – here is the kicker – via online video, we are now able to communicate almost identically to how we do it in person, and some would contend, even better. At least more efficiently!

So, the future: We all have less time. We all will need to do more with less. We all will need to communicate with each other. Could the Twitter dynamic…that of short, but substantive, in your face interaction be the template for future content and future communication?

I think, yes.  Why? Continue reading →

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