LinkedIn Groups

Recently, LinkedIn has added many additional features to help its’ members network, share and succeed in business.   One of these most powerful features is Groups. I find that LinkedIn groups ARE the most effective way to use your time in social media when it comes to networking.  Here you can find like-minded individuals that are in your industry and are willing to share tips, tricks, ideas, and much, much more.  With groups you can follow influential people and even become an expert in your industry. The simple structure of LinkedIn groups allows you to view both news and user discussions in the same forum.   To see the more technical aspects of LinkedIn Groups click here. What groups to join Technically speaking, LinkedIn will allow you to join up to...

LinkedIn- Importance of Your Profile Setup

The most intelligent of social networks, where 74% of users hold a college degree and 69% of users make over 60k a year.  LinkedIn is increasing by one user every second and 1 million users every twelve days.  Your Linked in profile is a piece of art that displays your professionalism, ability to communicate and can open the door to a variety of opportunities. I believe that not enough time is dedicated to this powerful network, so I am going to do my part and dedicate a few entries to helping you use LinkedIn to its potential. The best way to make LinkedIn work for you is to have a full and complete profile.  You want people to be able to find you by using keywords in your profile and making yourself “searchable” LinkedIn will happily walk you through this...

Components of a Great Website

There are so many components to a great website.  Many of these components of functionality get over-looked by design teams.  Here are the major components of a great business website. While there are so many things a website needs to include, these are major factors. Unique design- Many business owners, especially those that are franchise owners tend to opt for the corporate duplicate page.  This is not the way to go.  Not only does it not set you apart from the competition, it will not set you apart in terms of Search Engine Optimization and not allow you to stand out when someone is searching for your company.  Always use your own website with unique content to get you found. Pleasing design – You should ultimately think of your website as a...

Google+

There is a new social attempt from Google and it’s called Google+. As of now there are only limited field trials to start, but after all the kinks are worked out and it becomes open to the public; this looks to be Google’s most promising attempt to date. If you were of the lucky people chosen for a trial you might have read this: “Things may not always work as intended. By using this product in Field Trial stage, you’re responsible for protecting yourself and your data from any risks, including data loss or disclosure. By signing up, you also agree that we may contact you to ask for feedback about the product.” You may have noticed the Google plus one button on many of your favorite sites.  This button functions in similar ways to the Facebook Share...

Women: Your Target Audience

Did you know that women account for 51% of corporate buying decisions and 83% of household buying decisions? When you think about it, it really isn’t that surprising.  This one might get you.  66% of all Facebook users are women and 55% of all Twitter users are women. Not only do women make up a majority of the population in the social media world, 62% of the activity on Facebook is driven by women in regards to comments and updates.  If you want engagement on your fan page, look to women because 71% of fan activity is generated by women.  As a gender, women also have 8% more friends; so their reach is farther as well. Women ages 35-50 are also the fastest growing segment on social media. Whatever it is you sell… Women buy 91% of homes 51%of...

Google Alerts: For Small Business

Google Alerts is the Simplest and most effective way to know who and what is being talked about on the internet while also knowing who exactly is saying it. Google Alerts act as a repetitive search that returns results sych as web pages, blog posts and newspaper articles on a scheduled basis directly to your email box.  With Google alerts, you can monitor anything on the web. For a business, this means you can regularly search: Your Company Your name as well as your employees Your brands Your Slogans Your competitors Your competitors brands Keywords in your market Your neighborhood Your wholesalers, buyers etc.   Here’s how it works: Business Web Studios provides a service that creates a gmail account for you that allows you to easily track your...

The Rules of Engagement- What to Say

So in general your goal is to get people to like your site, and keep people on your sites. So How do you do this? By building Trust By being interesting By encouraging interaction   You must do all these things while staying on topic and discussing things that are relevant and important to your audience. SO why do you want people to interact? Engagement increases edge rank which gets you more visibility and more Customers! Ask people to engage: When posting something, DON”T be shy.   Ask your network to “like” your post.  There is no need to tell them why to like it or how, it is just one click, people don’t need much more incentive than a request.  For example, if you were a bike store you could post something such as, “Click like if you...