Foursquare sounds like fun. We’ve said it before: as a location-based social networking platform, it is able to engage mobile users to explore neighborhoods, do “check-ins”, find friends, play social city games, unlock cool badges, win “Mayorships”, and earn points and rewards. And thanks to its innovative social mechanics, Foursquare is making city after city a social media playground. Let’s admit it, though. Foursquare doesn’t sound business-y. It doesn’t exactly have the feel of a traditional corporate strategy – and if you had to present this in the boardroom to your marketing director or CEO, you might be disposed to think you’re speaking in a language that they can’t understand. Here’s some good news. Foursquare – if leveraged properly – is as viable a marketing tool as any, perfect for boosting your business. Foursquare users check-in at all kinds of places – cafes, bars, shops, malls, hotels, restaurants, parks, homes, offices, recreational areas, day spa, and events, among many others. – Read the full article
The online advertising arena is just about to get a lot more interesting. In an announcement made Thursday on the Inside AdWords blog, Google says it is launching a new type of online advertising that will appear in its search results – called Product Listing Ads. States Dan Friedman, Google spokesperson: “We wanted to introduce a basic ad format that makes it easy for (advertisers) to promote (their) entire product inventory while still providing potential customers with high-quality, relevant results.” While Google’s text-only search ads – AdWords – have served as its bread and butter for awhile now, Product Listing Ads work slightly differently. First, they’re a lot more visual: advertisers can now list specific products with accompanying images/pictures, instead of just lines of text (“Sponsored Links”) that are placed next to the search results that are based on the keywords that people enter into their search queries. According to Google, people are twice as likely to click on these – Read the full article
Not long ago we published a blog post with essential tips on how to use LinkedIn for your small business. Since then, Facebook and Twitter continued to rise and flourish under the social media spotlight. But it doesn’t mean that LinkedIn had not gone through its own evolution, because it did. Just check out the stream of activity on the official LinkedIn blog. Or take numbers as proof: today, 80 million professionals – and counting – have signed up to exchange information, ideas, and opportunities through the social networking site. After all these new LinkedIn features and developments, we thought it would be a great time for an update. Here’s a list of tips on LinkedIn for small business – tips that may not have occurred to you just yet, but which will certainly give your online presence a huge boost. Upload that picture. Okay, we did mention this in that previous article – “brand your profile” – but judging – Read the full article
Writing content for your website, company blog, and social media networks? Unleash your inner comic. If you don’t have one, hire a writer who has one. That’s because a great sense of humor will go far in helping you get noticed on the Web. Sure, your brand may be as serious as serious can get. Maybe you’re in the business of selling insurance, or dental services, or something of the sort that makes you sit straight up in boardroom meetings, wear a crisp suit to work every day, and conclude that funny does not bode well for the bottom line. But in the age of the Internet, in the vast and competitive landscape known as social media, it’s probably a good idea to take a cue from those who can make people laugh. Why? Because humor lengthens the attention span: Thanks in part to Twitter and to our link-clicking habits, Web content has been reduced to a matter of 140-character – Read the full article
Link building is currently one of the most important methods used in search engine optimization (SEO). Websites receive high popularity ratings due to the use of search engines with relevance as a basis for measurement. As a result of this link building, a website receives quality traffic taken from relevant sites, thus making it a valuable resource. Credibility, visibility, and awareness are established and a website receives a wide search engine exposure as long as the strategy focus is with link building. The three ways in link building include a complete link, one-way linking, or reciprocal link structure. The first method is the most favorable strategy because it gets links for your site and directs those that do not require a reciprocal relationship. There is a possibility, however, that this link building method will only feature sites that are relevant to their content. This means that the link should have the same theme for search engine optimization. With the one-way – Read the full article
The Internet has provided many businesses with new exciting opportunities. We know that an increasing number of consumers are turning to the Web when it comes to purchasing products and services. As a business owner, this means that it’s vital that you maintain an online presence. You’ll want to give potential customers the best possible chance to buy your services. The first step on the road to achieving this will be to build a website. Many small business owners take that first step, but too few think about what to do next. The reality is that having a website will be of very little value unless consumers can actually find it. This is what makes search engine optimization (SEO) so vital to any business that’s aiming to succeed online: appearing at the top of the search engine rankings will give you the best chance of being noticed. Hiring a suitable SEO consultant is thus going to be important to your – Read the full article
Launching a new product? Opening a new branch or office? Headlining an event? Just won an industry award? Take advantage of the fact that you’re making news – go write a press release. Not only does this classic PR strategy earn you an opportunity to gain free publicity (so you won’t have to pay $15,000 for advertising placements); a press release also allows you to reach a wide audience through the media. You get to keep the brand fresh in their minds, and you’re able to enhance the visibility of your business, too. A press release is your opportunity to get a message through – without having to use hard-sell techniques, sales pitches, and marketing buzzwords. These days, it’s a best practice to optimize your press release for the Web. Why? Well, there are a bunch of reasons why – like reaching potential customers who don’t necessarily keep an eye out for items in traditional news media (newspapers, radio, TV), – Read the full article
Do you have your favorite WordPress plugins? I have a list of more than 10 ones that I install on every blog. Some help me backup easier, some improve the site speed and other plugins show me detailed stats of what people do on my blogs. All these plugins are great. But they are not the most important ones. The most important plugins for every serious blogger are these which help their blog generate revenue. Of course they can’t magically turn your blog into money machine – you still need to work hard and create great content. These plugins however can significantly boost your revenue – by improving the SEO and user interaction, by helping you to sell more ads, or by letting your users share the blog on social networks. Here is a list of the best ones you can install right now: 1. WP e-Commerce Now it’s easy to turn your WordPress blog into a shopping cart. The – Read the full article
