websense

If you’ve read here for very long, you know I am a fan of LinkedIn.com. I think it can be very useful in terms of networking, marketing, finding new hires, (or job searching), and whatnot. If you follow their blog, you’ve already seen this, but they have developed a series of short videos to help the small business owners utilize LinkedIn to their best advantage.
Done in a retro/80′s style, they are helpful and funny but a bit basic, tutorials to the many ways LinkedIn can be used to promote your business.

The videos, which were made in conjunction with FedEx, are a six part series with tips on everything from handling your company, your customers, your online reputation, and more. I highly suggest you check them out. They are worth more than a good chuckle, you might even get some good info out of them.

Check them out on LinkedIn’s Blog.
Here’s a link to the first one:
http://fedex.linkedincreatives.com/video/01/

Go watch the videos, I’d like to hear what you think of them –

Unless you’ve been trapped under some kind of large land mass, you’ve heard about the protests in Egypt, the fact that the government has tried to shut down all access to the web, and the fact that it is now targeting reporters, including Fox Business Network’s Ashley Webster, and Fox News’ Greg Palkot and Olaf Wiig, who were attacked and detained in Cairo by pro-government supporters.

This is certainly a major concern, and I am not up on foreign affairs enough to weigh in on the whole mess. What I did want to comment on was Google’s attempts to keep information coming out of the country, amidst government shut downs of web access. They formulated a system where people can call a hot line and leave a voice mail message that would then be tweeted.

I’m not one to give lots of props to Google. I do think they come up with useful and innovative products, but this one time, I’d like to give them props for being able to go old school a little to give a country a voice when it is needed. We’re still getting pictures and news out, so the government hasn’t been able to completely shut down the media. The in country media has been almost entirely eliminated, so while we see what is happening in Egypt, many of it’s own people would not be able to if not for cell phones and this hot line set up by Google. Score 1 for Google. Perhaps in the coming days, more ideas such as this will be needed as many foreign journalists have been rounded up and ousted from the country. I think we all need to say a prayer for Egypt.

Doing my usual sweep of online reading, I came across a great article for 2011 that basically encapsulates many of the suggestions I have made here over the last year or so, and does it in a concise little article, which I thought might be interesting to some who are planning their online marketing strategies, plotting out their marketing budgets for the year, and such.

The article: 10 Trends for Online Marketers in 2011, by John Arnold of Entrepreneur Magazine, is a nice snapshot of what I think are some pretty relevant search marketing techniques for this year. Definitely worth taking a look.

Some of the things he mentions, such as local search, I have posted about here and think is very important. Google Places, Foursquare, Facebook Places and other applications make it easy to get your business found by the people in your community. Read up, it’s gonna be what makes a difference in your bottom line this year, as consumers will begin to expect to be able to find you using these applications, and will most likely check to see if you have a mobile coupon or other discount.

Instant Search has been around for a bit now, and I actually think it’s pretty cool. I posted about it a while back, so check here for more information, and how it might affect your business.

As always, it is really important to monitor your social media marketing,
from your online reputation, to what makes your customers do a happy dance, you need to know what’s happening out there, and this gives you an instant line on what your customers think of you, and your product or service.

I think 2011 will be the year that online television really takes off. Between people becoming more aware of where their dollars are going, and the availability of online television, it’s gonna be a hot commodity this year. Thinking about ways to leverage this information for your business will be a good way to spend your marketing dollars, since advertising on the web, and advertising on web tv will have some overlapping properties. If you’d like more information on making web tv advertising an option for your business, check out my posts about it from last year. With the advent of websites like Hulu.com, more and more people have canceled their cable and have turned to these sites to get the shows they want to see.

There are so many ways to market your company on the Web. This year will be another year of expanding technology, and with it will come the expansion of ways to reach your customer base. If you take one thing away from this, let it be that search marketing needs to be in your marketing budget. Maybe defining what works best for your company will take some tweaking, but it’ll be worth it at the end of the year when you see where your web efforts have paid off.

Now here is an application for Twitter that had not even occurred to me, and I’m not sure it’ll be effective. Seattle’s police department, according to Mike Sachoff over at WebProNews, is integrating a program whereby the police station will Tweet pertinent information about a stolen car, such as make, model, color, year and plate number. If someone sees the car they can call 911, and help the owner get their vehicle back that much sooner (hopefully before it gets trashed).

While I don’t know how well this would work in our area, at least until more folks get around to using Twitter, a Web and tech savvy area such as Seattle might be the perfect place for pilot program like this. It’s a pretty good idea, really. Amber Alerts should be done the same way – any missing persons reports, actually. I think I might have started with that and worked my way down to cars and what have you.

Law enforcement is stating that criminals are using social media to set up, scope out crimes and actually brag about them afterward. The police feel they need to use social media to stay a step ahead of the criminals. I think we’ll continue to be amazed at the ways people use the Web. 2011 should be pretty interesting, don’t ya think? I think I see social media and web experts becoming full time members of the police forces across the country…

If you’d like to get the lowdown, read more about it over at The Seattle Times.

I recently read an article on Fox New’s small business that said the Facebook was like a cocktail party for small business. I have to take issue with this a bit.

We all know that Facebook can be leveraged for marketing purposes, but not all small businesses are going to get the greatest benefit from it. Take for example, the wedding photographer featured in the article. She states that for her:
“Facebook is huge for networking. As far as marketing goes, it’s the best tool,” said Guenin, 32, who promotes weddings and other events she has photographed on the fast-growing social media site. “

I can see why Facebook would be a great fit for her. Her business is highly social. She friends her clients when she accepts a project. She can upload pictures from her weddings and other events, allowing her clients to share them, all marked of course, with her logo. Free advertising. People like what they see, especially if she uploads the best or most interesting shots, gets lots of comments on them, and remember that when they need a photographer for their own events. It’s a great setup, especially with such ease of use and low or not cost. The only cost would come from the time involved in updating her profile, if she did not maintain it herself.

But, all small businesses are not so socially oriented. I don’t see this working quite so well for a dentist or a metal fabricating company. I mean, you can’t really post about the great root canal you just gave, or the awesome filling you just did. You might be able to get away with some shots of tooth whitening, but, really, who wants to shop for a dentist on Facebook? A metal fabricating company might have the same experience. Your friends and family aren’t going to “share” your pics of guys welding in helmets, or the finished product. Friending clients on Facebook might come off as strange. It’s not a natural fit, by any means.

In the end, there are Web marketing solutions to fit every small business. Some will do well with social media, while others might need to concentrate more on their email campaigns, SEO, and some local search – that dentist will want to spend more time on local search than Facebook. It’s just a better fit. It just makes sense.