News

Social Networking for Your Business: Facebook

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 05:15:00 GMT

By now everyone has heard about facebook and twitter. They are the top two social networking sites. We published an article on our blog recently about the importance of using twitter for business. Facebook with 350 million users is becoming an even more important tool for business. It's important to note that there is a difference between creating a facebook profile and a facebook page for your business.

Please ask us if you have questions about this. We've also linked to some great resources below:

From Facebook: Step-by-step Introduction to Pages (Download PDF)
Learn Free's Tutorial: Detailed Basics: Facebook 101
Article from Search Watch: Facebook 101
From Switched: Facebook 101: 25 Tips and Tricks
From Mahalo: How to Use Facebook
From eHow: How to Use Facebook: Video Series

So Why Do you Want to be on Facebook and Twitter? According to the American Marketing Association "In the last year, on average companies with high levels of social media activity experienced an 18% increase in revenue." (quoted in Network: Where Businesses Connect / Share / Learn ) See these Social Media Success Stories from Search Engine Watch

Examples of clients using Facebook for business:

Social Networking for Your Business: Twitter

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 05:13:00 GMT

Have You been Hearing about Twitter? Ever Wondered if There Might be a Way you Could Harness Its Power to Help Your Business Website? Twitter has been all over the news recently. The network daily news programs have reported on Twitter and invited viewers to follow them on it. The weekly news magazines have had stories on it. And people are talking about members of Congress Twittering while listening to Obama speak.

So What is Twitter? Twitter is a service through which you can communicate and stay connected through short simple "posts" (Tweets) that can be read on a website or a cell phone, etc. A free social messaging utility for staying connected in real-time. How Can It be Used? Many people use it to tell their friends what they are doing at a particular time. But the same format can be used to announce special offers from a company, give out new information about a business, promote a brand, announce an expansion into a new product or a change in policy. It can be used to see if one or more customers have problems with a product or service so a company gets the message and maybe changes the way they do things or explains their practices and maybe defuses situations before they do much harm. A responsive company can actually help its reputation. Two recent news reports illustrate how important Twitter can be as a supplement for your business website and a way to promote your website:

Dell reported that it has made several million dollars in orders using Twitter to announce sales and to report what items it has added to its refurbished section.
The U.S. State Department asked Twitter not to do a scheduled maintenance that would cause it to be down for one hour during the election turmoil in Iran because Twitter was being used by the people there to arrange gatherings and to warn of problems.

So what does that mean for your business? It means that if you have merchandise you want to move quickly, Twitter might be able to help. Also that if you want to communicate with your customers and prospects, Twitter can keep you in touch with people who are interested in what you have to say and want an easy way to find out what is new. Harness the value of short direct posts as the Iranians are doing about their election. Many companies have information they would love to disseminated the same way. Your "Tweets" (posts on Twitter) can even be found by keyword thus letting more people know about your company and its website. The website can be linked from a Tweet and from your profile. So How Would YOU Use Twitter? Actually, you need to think about that and then as things developed, you will probably find more and more ways of using it. Every business would be different. Get those involved in your company together and brainstorm. What information do you want to tell your customers, prospects and then general public? What would they be interested in hearing about. Where do these two things intersect? Where Would YOU Start? First you have to open a Twitter account. Then you have to announce that you have it and what you intend to Twitter about. If you put a notice on your home page that you plan a series of one day sales and you will post those on your website but for those who don't want to check the website every day to see if you have a sale, you will also Twitter about it so they might want to follow your "Tweets". For those who want to follow you on Twitter, they can just do so with one click if they already have a Twitter account. If not, it is free and easy and even quick to set one up and then follow you. For you to post a message that will go out to all who follow you, you go to your account page on the Twitter website and if you are logged in, you post a message. You only get 140 characters but it can link to a page on your site with more details. Naturally, you have to have something to say that people are interested in. Sales, discounts, new products, new information you are offering, changes in policy, cities you are visiting, speeches you are giving, articles and blogs that mention your company and your products, reports that show the effectiveness of what you offer, or something that just occasionally reminds people that you are offering what you offer so they don't get talked into getting something similar from one of your competitors because your name wasn't on the tip of their tongue. You can even create online Twitter Coupons for products and services. For every type of company and its website, what you might want to Tweet about---that people might want to follow you to find out about---might be different. And you might want to follow others or just check out what they are saying occasionally. You can either officially follow others or, if you don't want them to know you are following them as in the case of your competitors, you can just go to their Twitter page to see what they are saying. Where Can We Get Helping Setting Up Twitter? Although it is quick and easy to set up a Twitter account, you might want to get professional advice, ideas and customization MIS, Inc. is here. We can help you think of ways to use Twitter to help your business and we can make your Twitteraccount look more like it is part of your business. Some Twitter accounts we have customized:

Once you are set up and have a plan to start with, you will find it as easy to post on Twitter as it is to send a short email.

Related articles
Some Places Discovering ways of Using Twitter

New Mexico's Top Women-owned businesses

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 05:10:00 GMT

Congratulations to all the companies in New Mexico Business Weekly's list of Top Women-owned businesses published this week. Three of our clients that made the list this year:

DJ Heckes of Exhib-it Tradeshow Marketing Experts
Melanie Burns of Achievement Gallery and Flair Events
and Yashoda Naidoo of Annapurna's Ayurvedic Cuisine and Chai House

We wish all of these smart business women ongoing success.

Characteristics of a Good Business Website

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 21:43:00 GMT

These are some characteristics of a good business website:

The look and feel (first impression, navigation, general appearance)
1. Professional design - not too busy or complicated. The first thing a viewer sees is the "design". It needs to reassure the viewer that he/she is dealing with a professional business. But it also needs to allow viewers to get the information they are seeking.
2. Navigation needs to be simple and to offer the viewer access to the pages they want or need. The design needs to work with the "buttons" or "navigation". Sitemaps are good for the search engine but viewers often do not use them. So from the home page and from all other pages, a site needs to offer the viewer the main pages the viewer is most likely to want or need.
3. Naming your pages. It doesn't hurt if you name your pages (like about.html or faq.html) with keywords (for a site about dogs: about-dogs.html or dogs-faq.html).
4. The presentation of the text needs to be considered. Text needs to be large enough, with enough contrast to its background for your target audience to read easily. Headers and subheaders need to introduce and break up the text.

The text ("content is king"):

Text that is about the viewer's needs and your credibility.. Text is the way people will find your site and the way you answer the questions that your viewers have about what you can do for them and why they should choose you over all the others in the universe that can offer them the same kind of product or service. The most important text in the website (for the search engine and the viewer) is the text on the home page, which will determine if a viewer goes into the site or within a few seconds goes back to find another site to do business with. Do not make the text a "Mission Statement" but about what you will do for the viewer (potential customer).
Use the words that the target audience is searching for. A site that doesn't use the words people are looking for is unlikely to be found in the search engines. And usability studies have shown that a site that uses the words someone thinks they want will keep that person longer than if they use words that are similar to the words someone has in their mind. Main places to use those words are in the title, the headers, the subheaders, the body text, lists, and the links to other pages. There are ways of researching what people are searching for.
A site needs fresh content on a regular basis. A blog can add fresh content. Or you can constantly add information to regular pages, etc. Google likes sites that add information on a constant basis - not radically changing the information that is there but adding to it.
Establish credibility. Unless you are IBM, Amazon, or Disney, many, if not most, of your viewers may not know whether you are a legitimate business or just out to steal their money or their email address, etc. Include contact information (preferably also a street address and phone number) in the footer of every page as well as on the contact page. You want to quickly tell viewers how long you have been in business, etc.
Answer the viewer's questions quickly and easily. If you don't tell your viewers that you do what they are looking for, they will use their back button to find a site where they do not have to guess whether the site offers them what they need. You can do an FAQ page (make sure the list of questions is at the top).
To measure how a site is doing, a site absolutely must have "statistics". Statistics should include how many people came to the site, what pages they accessed, what search engine or other site they came from, what words they searched for to find your site in the search engines. Without this information, you do not know the basics of how your site is doing.

The Search Engines:

If you do all the above things, you will be "optimized" for the search engines, but in addition, there are the following points:
1. Buy your domain name for more than one year (Google will actually notice).
2. Submit to the major search engines, of course.
3. Get links from as many other places as possible.
4. Have a links page so you can recommend other related sites and maybe get them to recommend you on their links page.
With a new domain you will usually get into Yahoo and MSN long before Google will pay any attention to you. Google doesn't trust new sites. A new site usually doesn't come up decently for a competitive term for at least six months and often for a year. In that time, you may want to consider Pay Per Click.

The day after we wrote this, the New York Times came out with an article entitled How to Make Your Website Sing for You that made some additional points:

"'Users spend 30 seconds reviewing a home page,'Mr. Nielsen said. 'A business must encapsulate what they do in very few words.'"
"If a site does not answer a user’s questions about a business, then you have scored one for the competition."
“'The most important rule in Web page design is to eliminate unnecessary design,' Mr. Flanders said. He recommends not adding large, spinning graphics that take a long time to download."He also advises business owners not to add introductory splash pages that force a viewer to watch a video or animation."
"In the end, getting a prominent placement in a search engine is the only way to ensure that your site will be seen by those who can increase your business."

A few ways to get some more traffic to your website

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 22:28:00 GMT

In order to get traffic you should follow these steps:

Make sure everything you publish, write, etc. lists your website address: letterhead, business cards, ads, signature file on all email you send off (almost all email programs will allow you to specify a signature file that will automatically add itself to the bottom of all email you send off and will have your name, address, website address, phone number, fax number, email address and maybe a slogan.
If you have the time visit forums and list servs where your target audience "meets". Check the posts until someone asks a question that you can answer. Post your helpful answer. If the forum or list serv doesn't allow you to link to your own address, they may allow a signature file. Check for their rules on these things.
Check other websites in your field that are not in direct competition with you. Check to see if they have a link page. If they have a link page, add a link to them from your website and email to tell them that and to ask for a link back - also ask if they want to send you a few words of explanation to go with your link to them. Send them your full link, the words that should be clickable and a few words of explanation (if they allow that to others on their link page).
If you have more money than time, consider pay per click.
Add a blog to your site. Google subscribes to blog post notification services and likes websites that have blogs that are continually updated.

We We Calculator

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 22:12:00 GMT

If you're in the business of serving customers then your website content should reflect that. If your website is all about how great you are but doesn't say anything about your customers then you might be sending the wrong message to your audience.

There is a website that offers a free tool that will analyze your text and tell you if your text is focused more on you or your customers. It's called the 'We We Calculator.' I tried it using the text on our homepage and I'm happy to report that we got an excellent rating! We talked about our clients twice as much as we talked about ourselves.

You should try it out with the text on your website too and see what you get.

We We Calculator