Replace A Marketing Strategy

Social media is powerful, but it isn’t a stand-alone substitute for a marketing strategy. Effective marketing strategies can and should incorporate social media elements. However, simply launching a StumbleUpon account or Facebook Page isn’t going to cut it.

Deliver Instantaneous Success

Creating a Twitter account and expecting a few tweets to have followers flocking to you is unrealistic and highly improbable. Social media is a marathon, not a race and it takes time to cultivate a presence and following. Be patient with social media and you’ll be generously rewarded in return.

Guarantee Influence

Just because you believe that your business, product or service may be heads above the rest, doesn’t mean that others will. Social media is a jungle and it takes an expert guide to navigate the landscape. But even the most seasoned social media consultants can’t generate an interest if the masses don’t care.

Can’t Save A Sinking Ship

If a brand or business is going down, implementing a social media campaign isn’t going to make much of a dent in repairing the damage. Remember, transparency is critical with social media. Neglecting to be open an honest with your audience can permanently tarnish your reputation.

Be One Person’s Responsibility

When a business becomes involved with social media, each employee becomes that company’s social media ambassador. It’s up to everyone to promote the brand, not just the social media consultant. Social networking can greatly enhance social media efforts and it’s important to bolster initiatives by getting involved in positive and meaningful ways.

In Conclusion:

Social media isn’t a miracle worker, but it’s a definite must-have component for any good marketing strategy.
Comments are welcomed. Thanks for reading and sharing with your busineess friends.

posted on iXLStudios

Well, if it sounds too good, it probably isn’t. So I went to PixelPipe, and opened up my free account. Yes, I said free. For now anyway. Getting started was pretty easy. Sign in, add in your info for your blogs, etc, and then hit the ‘quick post’ button to start writing. Uh oh! First thing I notice is that there is NOT a single entry. If you look at the screenshot below, you’ll notice that there are actually three tabs, File Upload, Status/Microblog, and Blog. So if you want to post a picture and post something to Twitter, and make a blog post, you actually have to fill out all three forms to do so. So much for one stop processing.

But actually, this is still better than going to all of your social media sites and blog sites and having to update each one manually. Especially if you maintain numerous accounts like I do. Right now I have this blog, the Omni Auto Blog, the Omni Advertising blog , a blog for my client BringingHope2Others.com, the Broward Technical Schools blog, and my Facebook, Twitter and MySpace accounts. So you can see how keeping up with all of them can be time consuming.

Opening page for Pixelpipe Quick Post

So, If I want to make a post to my blog, I have to go to the blog tab, and enter my title and post there, then hit the submit button.

Blog input area

And if I want to post to Twitter and Facebook and all my other miniblogs, I have to go to the Status/MicroBlog tab and do that.

Update your Status and Microblogs here

Ok, so it’s still a little bit of a pain to do all of this but much better than the alternative. If I want to post to a blog and a microsite, I still have to fill out both, but I could always copy and paste from one to the other and save myself the pain of typing it all out a second time.

The next step was to test out the iPhone app. After several test runs I’m still not getting the results I’d like. Sending a image file was easy enough. Take a picture and it goes into the Media tab. From there you can upload it to your pixelpipe account which then posts it. Be careful though not to upload all of your pictures. I accidentally hit the Upload All button and quickly canceled when I realized I was uploading over 300 files. The pictures of Harley below were the three that got uploaded before I canceled.

One thing I did notice about these pictures is that they are incased in a <div> tag. They are also automatically reduced in size, which is alright unless you actually wanted to post the larger image.

Posting on the iPhone app is basically the same process as I mentioned before. Easy enough unless you want to make a lengthy blog entry. Typing on the iPhone’s keypad can be aggravating. The one drawback to the pixelpipe iPhone app for me so far is that is does not upload to Facebook’s group or fan pages. This would be a serious drawback for some of my clients who have to update their business pages.

All in all, I’m pretty happy with PixelPipes ability to update multiple blogs and microblogs with little effort. There are still some issues to be fixed though.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Creating and keeping up with one of these accounts does require a little time but they’re pretty easy to use. Maintaining multiple accounts is another matter.

About a month after OsmonicAir.com went live we realized that the site needed to bring in more clients. The SEO methods we used were working fine for organic search results but we knew they could be better. With the help of Bruce Muir of IDS Partners, we made some design changes to the site, and added a blog. The client then decided to bring in Brookstone Marketing Group. Brookstone offers several packages for online marketing, including pay per click campaigns and Facebook and Twitter setups. I’ll be interested to see what kind of traffic is generated through these methods in the coming months.

OsmonicAir.com

The HEPA filtration systems Osmonic Air installs in your house are built to the same standards as those used for industries and businesses. True HEPA filters can remove as much as 97% of IAPs as small as 0.3 microns. These filtration systems are installed so that they trap the AIPs which flow through your homes air conditioning and heating system. This method allows the filters to keep the IAPs from recirculating through your house.

In addition to HEPA filters, the use of a Central Vacuum system can also aid in reducing IAPs. Particles trapped in carpeting or resting of floors can become airborne when walked over or picked up by air currents. Vacuuming frequently can reduce the amount of IAPs on your floors and carpets. The problem with most common portable vacuums is that their canisters are not airtight and might release the IAPs back into your home. Central vacuum systems are a better solution, since the debris is carried out of the house through a sealed system and deposited into a canister outside of homes air system, usually in the garage.

For more information about how Osmonic Air can help you protect your home and family from Indoor Air Pollution, visit their site, www.osmonicair.com or call 704-200-4001 to schedule a In-Home consultation and  Free Indoor Air Pollution test.

SportsmansDaily.com static version

I’m a little late in getting this posted but, a couple months ago I was asked to convert the html version of The Sportsman’s Daily over to a Wordpress templated site. The site was already using Wordpress for it’s blog, but the client’s wanted to re-design the blog to resemble the main site, thereby carrying over the design and enabling them to maintain and update the content themselves.

My first thought was, “What about all the work I already did on the site?” I had spent months creating the original design and another six months maintaining it for the client. Then I realized that converting the site again would give me another challenge to overcome and more skills to add to my arsenal.

Objective #1 was to take the ’static’ html design and adapt it to the ‘dynamic’ design employed in Wordpress websites. Luckily Wordpress has extensive documentation as well as a very active community forum. Sure, there were some hits and misses along the way, but in short time I was able to figure out what needed to be done. Some of the bigger hurdles was figuring out how to edit some of the php code to do what I wanted to do. Why a hurdle?? Because at that point I knew nothing about php. I’m still not a php guru but after completing this project I felt pretty good about getting around the basic php code.

Some of the major goals in the design was to take the header and the two navigation bars and bring them into the template. This actually proved easier than I thought. I just had to find the correct php pages and place the html code into the appropriate places. Of course I had to edit some of the original Wordpress template html and css code to make sure that everything worked correctly. Integrating my css into the template css proved tricky, but I eventually got it going.

Objective #2 was to redesign the left content column. The static site had employed a area inside a iframe to display the four most recent stories. This was a real PITA to maintain, since it actually rotated five individual pages inside the iframe. Since the client’s would not have the photo editing tools to resize pictures, or the ability to edit outside of wordpress, an alternative was needed. The basic Wordpress template already lists posts in chronological order, but the client wanted to have a section above the posts to display a the most recent story in the “Breaking Sports” category. They also wanted a section below that to highlight some feature posts. I tried using some pre-existing templates, like the Magazine template, but wasn’t getting the results we wanted. We finally compromized by not including the features.

Since the redesigned site went live, The Sportsman’s Daily’s numbers have started to rise again. I was then asked to create a “After Dark” template. This proved to be a lot easier as it only needed the header edited and some of the side panel.

Mission accomplished! The client’s are happy that they are now able to update the site themselves. In the process I got the opportunity to learn some PHP and how to create a Wordpress template. Of course, now that I’ve learned a little PHP I find myself wanting to learn more. Ah, technology! “Learn or Become Obsolete” has become my mantra.

A lot of my website design business is through word of mouth. That is how Robert found me. After a brief consultation we formed a plan to create a small website to target his primary business services: Clearing and Grading, Hauling, Demolition, Retaining Walls, and Concrete & Brick work. Richard pointed out a couple of sites he had seen for me to reference and I went to work.

The design process went relatively quickly and in a few short days I had a comp for Richard to see. Except for a couple of small item he was please with the design. A few days later I had the site cut up and the html pages and CSS files ready to go. All in all the site was up in less than a week.

Of course, getting the site posted to the web is just a small part in the battle against the search engines. I followed all of the guidlines posted by Google and the SEO “experts”, including descriptive page titles, metatag description and keywords and the robots.txt file. I also submitted a xml formatted sitemap to Google. Then I submitted the site to MSN and Yahoo as well as the DMOZ.org directory. Now the wait begins to see how long it takes to get indexed into the search engines.

Since my last post I’ve learned a couple more things about SEO strategies. After watching a online webinar I realized that I had already been following a majority of the points presented. Such as graphically designing a site to focus on priority items. Using larger text for more important things. Using unordered lists (bulleted) for navigation and high level lists. It was no shock to me that perhaps the most important thing is a descriptive title for your page. It doesn’t make sense to title your page Welcome if your selling shoes or boats now, does it?

Some of the things I didn’t know, or may not have realized were important, included using broader words in keyword phrases. For instance, use a plural of a word and Google will automatically associate it with a non-plural word search. Don’t over repeat keywords in your text, using only 1-2 keywords per page. And when it comes to inbound links, quality over quantity will win out every time.

Search engine optimization is a big hurdle in getting your site on the first page. It is a ongoing process that is often confusing and sometimes aggravating. Following the guidelines helps ensure  that your site will have a fighting chance of being placed higher in the search engines.

This was the challenge posed to me by Chris Freeman. Chris is the owner of a small local business, Iron Man Detailing. He is trying to grow and asked me to make a website for him so that he could have an online presence. We decided to create a single page and optimize it so that people in the area would be able to locate him online. Based on his ideas, I wrote a couple paragraphs peppered with the keywords we agreed on. I also titled his page to target his services and the surrounding towns he would offer his services in.

Now, less than two weeks after posting his site online, IronManLKN.com is coming up on the first page. Since Chris offers Marine and Residential Detailing, and Gelcoat and Fiberglass Repair in and around Lake Norman and Lake Wylie, I was fairly certain that these phrases and keywords would have good results. I did not however expect to have such great results in only two weeks.

If someone tells you they can guarantee to get you on the first page, or even anywhere near the top of the first page on a search engine, they’re lying. Good SEO results are not always so easy, especially when the search engines are constantly changing their algorythms to keep the cheaters at bay. Most often, depending on your site, services, location, etc., it could takes months to even get anywhere near the first page. I’ve put a lot of time, research and practice into learning about SEO practices. And I am happy to say my last few sites have certainly benefited from it.