Social Media

Making the Most Out of Google+ Business Page

by Melvin · Dec 30, 2012

This is a guest post by Amanda Green.

It’s a fact that Google+ is evolving with time and is slowly becoming an integral part of any business’s online reputation and subsequent sales. It makes your Google+ business page really important, since it reflects the online reputation of your brand.

If you’re not making the most out of your Google+ page, then you’re definitely leaving money on the table – money that you could put in the highest interest rate savings account and increase your overall earnings.

Advantages of a Google+ Business Page

Your Customers Are On It: Whether you believe it or not, your target customers are already on Google+ socializing and consuming information. So instead of interrupting them with your advertising, you can use Google+ to connect to them and engage with them.
Create More Direct Relationships: One of the plus points of using Google+ is that the social network gives utmost value to quality content. Content that you can create to establish more direct, personal relationships with your target audience.
Use Video Chat: Google+ Hangouts, the video chat feature is great to hold video talk sessions with your prospects/customers. Getting them involved will help you generate more feedback.

How to Market Your Business with Google+

Creating a Google+ business page is one thing, but marketing your business effectively using it is something else. Unless and until you’re doing your best to market it well, you won’t see results. Here are some ideas to go with:

Create a “Suggested Circles” List: One of the easiest ways to market with Google+ is to create a list of suggested circles, sorted out by priority, which is placed on the top of your profile page’s About tab.
Leverage Google+ Search: When you’re there on Google+, then make some noise. Show the world that you’re there by searching Google+ search for industry keywords, and mentions of your brands. Save these searches and monitor them daily to respond to mentions, reply to comments, etc.
Join Others’ Hangouts: While it’s totally up to you if you want to start your own Google+ hangout, you should definitely participate in others’ to understand how to effectively use it. This helps you make your own hangouts much more successful when you hold them.

Promoting Your Google+ Page

Focus on getting more followers
Make use of Google+ badges
Add your page to your sitelinks
Share really valuable information
Use Ripples to connect to Influencers
Host hangouts for customers
Promote on other social media platforms
Enable social extensions in Adwords

Remember, Google+ is not just another social network. It’s a revolution in itself, which is lead by search engine giant. So if you want your business to grow online, then see to it that you’re taking full advantage of Google Plus.

Immense Growth of Internet Marketing Companies

by countolaf · May 15, 2012

Do you ever wonder why you’re getting emails literally almost every day from companies offering internet marketing services in general? Whether it be article writing services, search engine marketing or even a simple website optimization service that includes web design and such, it’s just clear that these internet marketing companies are sprouting and growing faster than ever.

There’s a good reason for their growth and this is due to demand.

Demand for Internet Marketing Services

The growth of internet marketing companies has actually started a long time ago. Ever since late 2005, there are already companies that offer marketing services to other businesses. The only thing different these days is that it seems these internet marketing companies are sprouting faster than ever. Every person who knows a thing or two about blogging or SEO seems to be convinced that he’s qualified to do the business.

To be fair with these companies, the reason why a lot of people are enamored to do this is because there is a huge demand. The entire internet marketing hype has reached its peak and that has convinced a lot of offline business owners to incorporate online marketing to their business. Hence, the plethora of internet marketing consulting firms has started sprouting.

Regardless of how they’re charging their clients, they seem to be offering pretty much the same things. The only thing that’s slightly different is positioning. Perhaps the way they ‘position’ their offer is different but the basic concept is the same.

Positioning pitches or offers is something that companies use to their advantage. For instance, if I offer marketing services myself and just offer it as a general internet marketing service to my clients, it would be harder for me to sell it as oppose to someone offering something specific like a Pay-per click management service, who can later on build more and upsell other services to his clients.

A lot of people are even primarily offering social media consulting but it’s not hard to see that it’s the same internet marketing service that others are promoting. And as I mentioned above, you have those other companies that ‘front’ even smaller services like article writing/guest posting and webpage optimization packages.

To simply put it, companies offer a specific service in hopes that the client will be satisfied and thus avail more of their services.

Who’s really your client

The main reason why internet marketing companies position their offer differently is that it depends to their potential clients or the market/niche that they are offering this to.

It’s easier to sell an SEO service to a local business that’s starting to get established online than an online business that already has some knowledge perhaps on how the internet works. I’m not saying that its easier because you’re selling something to a “fool” but rather it’s just how business works.

Flower shop owners in Chicago hire companies who provide internet marketing in Chicago to do campaigns for them not only because they’re not knowledgeable on that part but also because they don’t want to be knowledgeable and thus involved on doing those things. The same with dentists near your location, veterinarians in Alabama, or even real estate business owners in Dallas. If I’m good with taking care of cats, then how would you expect me to be good with PPC or even be interested with it?

Another good example is traditional & old online businesses. People offer the social media/web 2.0 services because they know that that these businesses might not have been involved deeply yet with social media and some of the “newer” stuff. Here you cannot offer content-writing services or copywriting because they already have people that are doing this for them for a long time.

All in all, it’s about who you are targeting to. Most companies make this mistake of just ‘shot-gunning’ everyone with their ‘general’ offers not knowing that the people they’re pitching to might even be better than them at what they do. Like how I receive emails daily from people offering me their search engine optimization services as if I don’t know SEO myself (but I’m not an expert obviously).

There’s no doubt it’s good to get as many potential clients as you can to send your services to but whether they’re really a ‘potential’ client or not is another thing. This is where most marketing companies fail. And unfortunately, this is the trend that new internet marketing companies get themselves to do as well. They just follow the herd and don’t do it the proper way.

To be fair with these companies, the reason why a lot of people are enamoured to do this is because there is a huge demand. The entire internet marketing hype has reached its peak and that has convinced a lot of offline business owners to incorporate online marketing to their business. Hence, the plethora of internet marketing consulting firms has started sprouting.

To simply put it, companies offer a specific service in hopes that the client will be satisfied and thus avail more of their services.

Does Directory Submission Still Work? Get Links Pro Review

by Melvin · Dec 10, 2011

Directory submission used to be one of the more popular link building techniques that people used to boost their search rankings. Back then, doing submissions was a must. However these days, many SEO experts seem to conclude that doing submissions isn’t worth it anymore. But is it really the case?

Well to help us answer that, let’s review Get Links Pro first, a company that does manual directory submissions and also other link building methods.

Get Links Pro Review

As mentioned above, Get Links Pro provides manual directory submissions and other link building services like blog comments, do-follow profile links, article submissions, local citations and etc.

Get Links Pro’s services start at $8 for 50 Social Bookmarks package and go up to $200 for 2000 Directory Submission package. They also provide a monthly type of directory package which costs a walking $25 for 250 monthly directory submissions. The owner told me that this monthly package was more popular than the other ones.

Overall, most of the categories are pretty flexible in which it allows you to choose from a small package up to a big package.

Aside from this, they also provide a combination of all of their services and this falls into their link building services. For this, they combined 5 different types of methods which help ensure diversity in link building profile. For example their ‘fantastic package’ provides 100 directory submissions, 50 article submissions, 15 profile links and 5 dofollow comments at an affordable price of $39. The higher end of these combinations is called the ‘Incredible Package’ which costs $1,455.

If you decide to go this route, I would suggest picking what’s suitable for you for the immediate moment. They have 9 different combinations for the link building service that you can choose from so if you’re just a small startup then obviously the cheaper one could work well for you. This is also ideal since links are coming from multiple sources which mean it’s much more diversified and less spammy.

Here is a screenshot of some of their link building packages:

Get Links Pro Website

If you arrive at Get Links Pro website, you can see that it’s a pretty simple and neat site. The navigation is good although it could be a bit confusing at the start. For example, you would initially think that they only do manual directory submissions since it’s the primary description on their site. Also, I think some packages could be named better like a ‘fantastic package’ for instance could be named as a ‘beginner package’ or anything that describes it better.

Another thing worth-noting is that most of their category-specific packages are not done efficiently (in my opinion). You will have to scan through a long generic pack of text before you can see the pricing and the content of the package. I definitely think that the pricing and packages should be the first thing seen when someone goes in there. The text can then come below that (like their link building services page. 😉 ). Lastly, I don’t think people would want to read a long text so it probably wouldn’t harm if they decrease the text, and get straight to the point.

Support and Other Miscelllaneous Stuff

As far as support, I think they’re just doing it fine as they have 5 “I’m online” live chats. Yes 5 different live chats. Seriously I’ve never seen any service or website that lists 5 different live chats that you could talk to so as long as these chats are for real, then I think it’s a big plus on their part.

Aside from that, I think everything is fine on their end. They have lots of pages (FAQ’s, About, Affiliates, etc.) so if you really want to know them more and the services that they provide, you can definitely spend some time reading about them first. Lastly, I think the URL structure on some of the pages is quite funny as it seems to be ‘rerouting’ some pages to a temporary link or something. A good example would be clicking on their logo (i.e. has some index.php?’parameters’ instead of just the main index url).

Conclusion

So is it still worth spending money on manual submissions? Specifically companies like Get Links Pro? My personal opinion is that directory submissions are still useful and if done correctly, it can still create a diversified link profile that can rank you well for certain key terms. In fact, I know some people that rely on this alone in getting their niche sites up in the search engines. But again, submissions must be done correctly and I don’t think there’s anything better than manual submissions like what Get Links Pro does.

So if you want to get ranked and you don’t have time to do it yourself, check out Get Links Pro. I’m sure there would be a package there that would suit your needs.

Facebook Timeline and Small Business Brands

by Melvin · Oct 13, 2011

This is a guest post by Jess Wagner

The new Facebook Timeline is drawing all sorts of privacy concerns with users. When the social media network begins to make all users switch over to the new design no one will have as much privacy as they want. People will be able to see photos, status updates, videos, and oddball posts that you might have made as far back as 2004. While privacy concerns might hinder the website’s use for the average user, brands and businesses are salivating at the new possibilities the Timeline will afford them.

Customized Design

Facebook is the second most visited website on the Internet after Google. With people spending so much time on the social media network, it is almost as important to build an incredibly designed Facebook page as it acts as a secondary home page. If a brand hires an interactive agency for web design, they will want to carry elements of their site over to the new cover photo that sits on top of the new Timeline layout which is 840 x 310 pixels. This photo can contain important information or just be consistent with the overall marketing strategy.

The Big Picture

With photo blog websites like Tumblr and Instagram becoming more popular, people are getting most of their information from photos instead of the written word. The Facebook Timeline design lets photos stand out much better in profiles than the old layout did. Instead of brands relying on having conversations with their customers, they can post pictures and view the comments that are coming in. Instead of writing a detailed status update, brands can create an infographic which will rest beautifully in the Timeline profile.

Brand History

Because it is so much easier to access information previously posted, Facebook Timeline will take the pressure off brands to get featured in the News Feed. According to Zeny Huang of Mashable, the new Facebook design will rely more on content than on immediately grabbing the viewer’s attention. Brands can stick to their story instead of relying on shock tactics in order to get more people to view their profile.

Subscription Features

Users who have had a Facebook account for a long time probably have a bloated friend list filled with college acquaintances, forgettable encounters, and even some old enemies. People are beginning to filter out their profiles and delete people they do not know. With the subscribe feature, brands can get featured in the News Feed without cluttering up any friend counts, groups, or interests users might be worried about.

While the average user might be complaining about the constant changes and privacy abuse Facebook deals to its users, there is no doubt brands are going to be able to adapt to the new layout with ease. Small businesses will also be able to document the history they have with the community with the easily accessible Timeline feature. Whatever opinions users might have of the changes, Facebook has adapted to compete with other social media websites.

What’s Your View on Facebook Timeline?

by Melvin · Sep 28, 2011

Mark Zuckerburg announced in F8 Conference that the profile page in Facebook will change dramatically and the change will be known as Facebook Timeline. Little later after that, Techcrunch posted a trick that will make you enable your Facebook Timeline even though its not released yet. The limitation though is that only your ‘fellow’ testers will see that effect on your profile. But even still, lots of people rushed into it just so they could try. Obviously I was one of those many people.

Facebook Timeline has received a bunch of chatter over the past few days. Some people think its heading towards Myspace wherein its starting to clutter itself more and more while some others plainly just like the new timeline.

Aside from this, let’s also not forget that Facebook implemented some new designs on their homepage that drew ire from lots of its users. The biggest concern regarding the new design is the fact that it gives little importance to privacy and that it seems it would benefit stalkers a lot. Also its very easy to get lost in the process considering there’s too much to look at the same time.

Considering all those things, truth is Facebook has been successful in forcing us to adjust to ALL of their changes. People who are currently complaining will only do that for about 2 and a half weeks up until Facebook rolls out new changes again. I guess its a cycle.

Views on Facebook Timeline?

I first saw the Timeline from a beautiful woman named Lisa Bettany who happens to be a contact of mine in Facebook. When I first saw it I was like ‘are you kidding me’. I researched for it and like many of you, I was able to do so successfully.

I view the timeline profile positively. To be honest, it instantly made me melancholic and emotional. I joined Facebook in mid-2008 and for me to see my old posts so easily, that’s so appealing to me. I laughed a bunch of times when I saw some of my ‘retarded’ posts in those old days, when I was just getting started with this blog and spam promoting the hell of my friends, when I was bullying some college friend of mine, there’s just a lot to look back.

I know there’s a lot of people on the hate bandwagon of this new Facebook Timeline thing but for me I view this new feature entirely positive. Sure there’s a bunch of bugs and flaws for now, but that’s fixable. Also, it made Facebook much more cluttered but I’m sure people will adjust, just like forever. It’s not like its really like MySpace where you can put a bunch of widgets and glittered images right?

Lastly, productivity issues will always count. I wasted like 1.5 hours just by scanning my entire timeline and while we’re not gonna look at it everyday, we’re still going to use Facebook as how we’re trained to use it. Nothing’s changing as far as Facebook being a big distraction.

That’s my view on the Facebook Timeline. How about you?

Google Plus. That Damn Thing

by Melvin · Jul 13, 2011

I know its too late now to post about what Google Plus is and what I think about it but screw it, I’m gonna post about Google Plus anyway. 🙂

Google Plus was launched last June 28 although it was just like a week after before i got aware of it. Truth is it was just this Saturday that I got an account with it thanks to a very very beautiful lady named Pao (she gave me an invite). So I started using it and exploring it and quite frankly, its confusing. I mean just imagine how its so different coming from a platform like Facebook and then moving on to Google Plus and then thinking it just works like Facebook.

Anyway here’s my Google Plus account and you’re free to add me up if you think I deserve it. 😉 As of writing this blog entry, its already my fourth day using Google+ and I can definitely see its potential and how its so different from Facebook and Twitter as far as usability and worthiness are concern, yet they’re on the same plate when talking about ease of use. I see it as a combination of Facebook and Twitter plus LinkedIn. You can pretty much imagine it as something like Facebook yet with a professional ‘semi-corporate’ touch. With that, I don’t really see myself posting as often as I do on Twitter/Facebook as with Google Plus.

Google Plus for Internet Marketers

Well a lot of marketers and bloggers have already expressed their thoughts on how they can use Google Plus to market more and tap into a more “confined” audience. I would say I can’t agree no more.

Google Plus made it a lot easier to connect to the right people/demographics with the use of circles w/c is basically just like groups. The idea is that when you add people, you are allowed to place them inside these circles. So if 10 of these people are family members, then obviously I would place them inside the family circle and so on for the other groups.

With this you can ‘segment’ people that you are following and are following you and then share to them accordingly. Let’s say I’m voicing in something about internet marketing or a make money online tip, then what I will do is simply just allow people in that ‘circle’ to see it. The same way when you go personal and you don’t want your customers to see what you’re violent ramblings are. Now bare in mind that this is possible to when using Facebook, only that Google Plus has done a good job making this feature much more intuitive.

With that in mind, I’m seeing this tool as something that could potentially be in the same level as emails as far as marketing is concern. Because I feel that right now we’re getting into this point that a lot of people are getting more and more tired of the ‘usual’ marketing stuff and that they’re slowly tuning it out.

So does that mean Google Plus will be a good way to tap into a slightly different way to reach out and market to people? Absolutely! What’s remains unseen is how effective and worthy it could be since right now Google themselves are limiting people who can join and obviously they’re not gonna let marketers take over Google Plus. Google’s definitely not the easiest company to game with.

That’s my take with Google Plus and how it could impact us overall. How about you, what do you think of it? Perhaps, it might be a better idea to add me to Google Plus so I can test it out thoroughly and then let you know my findings. 🙂

Image credit goes to Dream Grow

Give Your Blog A Facelift!

by Melvin · Jul 10, 2011

Starting a blog is the simplest part of the process, but where it becomes difficult is holding onto the following that you have built. With so many people out there blogging, it’s hard to stand out from the white noise of the blogosphere. Many times it’s due to no fault of the blogger and more to do with the competition and viewers wanting something fresh and new. If you’ve noticed a lagging readership and a following that’s dwindling, consider giving your blog a facelift.

Reviving Old Posts

You’ve likely put a lot of resources in time and effort into coming up with each post. Though you’ve used them in the past, if the material is relevant, consider going back through your archives and pulling from the wealth of information that you’ve already offered to past readers. If it was a topical posting, then you probably should consider the shelf-life of it, but there’s no reason why good content shouldn’t continue to work for you. You don’t have to repurpose them and try and pass them off as fresh material. Use Tweet Old Posts. It might end up getting you some extra attention from people who didn’t follow you a year or two ago. The idea is to introduce new readers to older work. You might find that re-posting an article will get more traffic than when you were first starting out.

Socializing

We all know the power of social networking and when you put the power of information in the hands of people, it spreads like wildfire. It’s like taking the pulse of a demographic by getting their opinions trough something like a survey. Companies like Survey Head get in touch with people to see how relevant the content is. You want to be relevant to people and you should expose people to you content and allow the to freely react. By allowing readers the tools, on your site, to share your work with others you’re not only connecting to them but also their networks. It all snowballs from there. Tools like the Facebook Like feature are all about sharing information and making easier for people to interact and share content. Encourage readers to use these features and you’ll be amazed at what it will do for you numbers.

Guest Blogging

This approach works very similarly to social network. It is, in fact, a form of networking. Just as Facebook puts you in touch with a greater readership, making connections in the blogosphere could prove most beneficial for your success. You may have an excellent approach and opinion but you should realize that yours isn’t the only one. Consider this as a kind of free PR. By writing on other blogs as a guest, you’re getting your personality out there and connecting to an entirely new network of users that might not have otherwise ever heard about you. You’re trying to sell yourself and neglecting this avenue is a bad choice. You should also be commenting on other blogs. This is not a waste of time. Stay up to date and active in the blogosphere.

Try some of these approaches and try not to get disheartened. If you’ve been contemplating giving up because you’re just not seeing the excuse to keep it going, use some of these devices and see how it works. It might be just the thing you need to revitalize you lagging numbers and get your blog noticed.