Mindset & Marketing Blog

Donald Trump's Juicy Advice From Last Week's Episode Of The Apprentice

Wed, 29 Sep 2010 09:43:28 GMT

Did you watch last week's episode of "The Apprentice?"

If not, you may want to check it out on NBC.com where you can

view the full episode, specifically Week 2.

In this episode, Donald Trump had some great words of advise

in his boardroom for both of the teams.

Here's some quotes of what Donald Trump had to share:

"I know so many talented people that can't sell themselves and

they're ALL Failures."

"And I tell you this as a little bit of advise..."

"I've seen people that are better than Frank Sinatra, they're

incredible entertainers, but they can't sell themselves and they

never get the shot!"

"So whether you like it or not, you have to be a salesman about

yourself...it's really important."

I couldn't agree more with Donald's wisdom here.

In working with small businesses, solopreneurs and service providers

over the years, it's been sad to see so many very qualified, resourceful

entrepreneurs that without a doubt are superior to their competition in

many ways, but consistently lose the sale to "THE OTHER GUYS"

because of Non-Existent Personal Branding and Public Relations

which help to sell themselves as Donald Trump speaks about.

I do not want this to happen to YOU.

That's why I created my Training Video, "The Power Of Personal Branding

And PR" which you can get instant access to and view for f.ree

for a limited time if you haven't done so already.

Get Access To The Video NOW!

In it, you'll also see my case study of Donald Trump's Personal Brand

which he definitely is one of the Masters in selling himself.

You can quickly learn how to model after him and other celebrities

to position yourself in your marketplace as the go-to expert or business

of choice over your competition.

If a billionaire like Donald Trump promotes and advises entrepreneurs

of the importance of Selling Yourself, don't you think it

would be worth your time to learn some practical strategies

to do just that through Personal Branding and PR?

In just a few minutes from now, you could be watching this content

rich video which exposes you to the Secret Weapon you hope

your competition NEVER Discovers!

Watch This Video NOW!

Your business and marketing budget deserve to learn some

new and innovative ways to effectively promote yourself...and

there's no better time than now to take action!

Massive Success Always,

Jason Okuma

PS: If you've already been experiencing success with Personal

Branding or Public Relations, I'd love to hear from you and share

your story (and business) with the MindsetAndMarketing.com

members and subscribers.

Simply email me your story and we'll go from there...

Why I've been Under the Radar in Hollywood, & How THIS may help your business!

Sat, 25 Sep 2010 08:58:47 GMT

I know its been a while since I've personally been

in touch with you, so I felt compelled to check

in and give you a sneak peak into what I've been

working on under the radar.

You may recall my involvement with Hollywood Celebrities

and the behind the scenes PR activities that explode

their Personal Brands worldwide.

Well, I'm done working in that scene for now,

but still continuing to study and extract PR strategies

which can work for you, resulting in low cost and many

times no cost f.ree exposure for you and your business.

Sneak A Peak At My Current Project NOW!

www.PersonalBrandingPR.com

I have to tell you, I'm so excited about

all of the resources, strategies, and Hollywood Marketing

insiders' secrets I've been learning and gathering to

finally share with you.

I know it's been tough out there trying to build

and grow your business under the current economic

conditions, banks reducing credit limits, consumers

holding on to their money...I get it. However, this

is NOT the time to be throwing in the towel and

running for the hills with your business.

I challenge you, NOW is the time to get aggressive

with your business and specifically turn up the heat

with your marketing activities, as this is the best

solution to combat lack of sales and business growth!

Summer is over and we're all heading into 4th quarter

of 2010. How are you going to finish and complete

this year...on a HIGH note or just barely make it

through December 31st?

I tell you, a wise entrepreneur would be giving it

their all right now to finish this year strong, and

would act now to position themselves and business to hit

the new year RUNNING FULL SPEED AHEAD!

When others are sobbing in the doom and gloom of

all the negative news today, YOU could be turning

up the heat and positioning yourself to dominate in

your market and scoop up all the business that is

just waiting to be picked up!

The negative entrepreneur is not taking any productive

action now and missing opportunities left and right

as their mindset is blinded of what possibilities can

be created right now.

I can only hope and pray that you make wise decisions

in the coming weeks and months ahead of us all,

and one of those wise decisions be taking full

control and responsibility of your Personal Brand

Online and proactively begin effective Public Relations

for yourself and business.

Why focus on this area you may ask?

Well, from what I've been studying, researching, and

testing out over the past couple of years, Personal Branding

and PR may be one of THE BEST SOLUTIONS for Low Cost

and many times NO Cost marketing to generate incredible

exposure for your business. (Its also so much more credible

and believable instead of paid advertising! Consumers

today are so much more savvy and prefer to make their

own buying decisions based on their own research,

not some sales gimmick or advertisement.)

While others are still paying $5,000.00 a month in

Pay Per Click advertising which may generate a handful

of lookie-lou leads, you could be interviewed on an

online talk radio show with an audience of 3 million

laser targeted and qualified listeners who are convinced

of your expertise, then have your phones ring off the

hook because they want to do business with you, and

to top it off, you paid NO MONEY for the business exposure!

Or, while others are paying $3,000.00 for a small 1 inch

by 1 inch classified ad in the back of some magazine or

trade journal, being lost in the sea of other classified

ads also competing for the same eyeballs, you could be

featured in the same magazine whose writers may do a

full 2 page featured story on you and your business

worth thousands of dollars, and not costing you a dime!

I could go on and on with examples and stories on why

I feel Personal Branding and PR is a "MUST FOCUS ON"

marketing strategy for the current solopreneur, expert,

and service provider...but I'll save my rambling

for another time.

The purpose of me writing you today is to give you

a Peak at what I've been working on which may positively

help you to get positioned in your market, build and

convey credibility of you and your business,

and ultimately generate better quality business leads

for the least amount of dollars or for F.REE!

The current project I'm working on will definitely

start to make some noise in the industry, so I wanted

to let you in on it first BEFORE word starts to get out

about what my team and I are up to.

And as a token of appreciation for your relationship,

trust, and loyalty over the years, I want you to be

among the first to have access to my 71 minute Video

Training: The Power Of Personal Branding & PR.

This Video Training is F.REE for a limited time,

so I want to insure you got access to it while I'm

making it available.

In the Video, you will Learn:

- What is Personal Branding and PR

- How Celebrities Use The Power Of Personal Branding & PR

- 7 Critical Reasons Why Experts, Solopreneurs And Service Providers Must Engage In Personal Branding & PR

- Powerful Yet Simple Tools To Setup Your Marketing Foundation

- F.REE "Do-It-Yourself" Getting Started Strategies

- And lastly, I've put together a Personal Branding & PR Action Plan which you can follow step by step to get going FAST! (You're gonna love this)

Trust me, I've never been one to put out "fluff and filler"

information, you should know that about me by now.

With my F.REE coaching and training videos

which have been online for the past 4 and a half

years that have 100's of thousands of views worldwide,

I have a reputation to upkeep. So you know my

content is going to be worth your time.

I actually just got a Twitter Message a few

hours ago from a small business owner in Atlanta

who paused the video after just 20 minutes

into watching it to tell me what powerful

information she was learning so far, specifically

what she learned about Media Kit Marketing!

(I can't wait to hear what she has to say after

watching the rest of the 50 minutes she still

has to devour through.)

Watch My Video Training NOW!

www.PersonalBrandingPR.com

So , I'm so happy to be back in

touch with you!

You're going to be hearing a lot more from

me in the coming months.

Please let me know what you've been up to,

and as always, let me know how I can be of

service to you.

Massive Success Always,

Jason Okuma

PS: Let me know which young Hollywood female celebrity

that I show you pictures of and discuss about in

my Video Training that you think is more Powerful

in Personal Branding & PR. (HINT: one girl just

admitted to drug possession in court 2 days ago,

and the other girl recently took a lot of heat

for baring all...that is, going natural with

NO make up for a magazine photo shoot.)

Facebook Finding More Ways to Compete with Google

Tue, 11 May 2010 22:34:46 GMT

By: Chris Crum

Apparently Facebook is not content with only taking over the web, but wants to get some penetration into the physical world as well. Taking a cue from another dominant company, Google, Facebook is now giving brick and mortar businesses decals to put in their windows. While Facebook tells WebProNews the decals are currently only a test with a small number of businesses, I would expect this to be expanded in the future.

Increasing Competition with Google

Google has been sending decals to businesses as part of its Favorite Places program. In fact, they even just announced the expansion of this last week. Whereas Google's decals include a QR code pointing to the business' "Place Page," Facebook's include a link to the business' Facebook Page.

Google has its fair share of competition from a variety of angles. Apple is getting a great deal of the attention in this regard (making two big moves yesterday), but Facebook is up there as well. Facebook is already a key competitor in terms of where people spend their time online. Facebookexpanding its presence all over the web only increases that, and will likely play a big role in the diversification of how people obtain information - in other words, maybe a little less Googling. Some of us have even speculated on the possibility thatFacebook could one day create it's own AdSense-like network.

Implications for Local Search

In a recent article, we already touched upon the idea that Facebook is positioning itself to have a greater presence in how people find information at the local level. Even before Facebook's latest announcements, business pages have been a great way to engage with local customers.

In that article, I referenced a quote from Search Engine Land contributing editor Greg Sterling, who says, "It [Facebook] could do nothing in particular or it could build the single most effective local directory and search site that exists. This data will be more valuable than anything Google has or any individual local publisher-partner possesses. That includes Yelp, YPG or anyone else that joins the Open Graph and implements these new Facebook platform tools."

All of the "liking" of local businesses that will be facilitated by Facebook's new Open Graph strategy may be further facilitated by these decals. We don't know at this point how many businesses are getting these, but if this becomes widespread, it could be pretty powerful for businesses, and perhaps even more so for Facebook itself. As Facebooknotes in a letter to those who receive the decals, businesses are already including their Page URLs on various materials - receipts, napkins, storefronts, etc.

Does Facebook Want to Replace the Website?

There has been some discussion lately that perhaps Facebook was going to make Facebook Pages obsolete by putting the "like" button all over the web and changing the "become a fan" button on Facebook Pages to "like". The thinking here would be, what's the point of liking a Facebook Page for a brand, when you can just like that brand's site? I think Facebook has the opposite in mind.

As I've discussed in the past with regard to Google's Place Pages (and to some extent, Facebook Pages), maybe they'd rather make the website obsolete and have the Facebook Page (or Google Place Page in previous examples) take their place. If Facebook wants to be the new web, and it wants "likes" to be the new links, why wouldn't they want Pages to be the new sites? The decals point to Facebook Pages.

In reality, businesses are not going to be giving up their websites anytime soon and handing over full control to Facebook. However, businesses that don't even have a website may find that a Facebook Page is pretty easy to set up and can connect them with a whole lot of people (much like Google's Place Pages can). Maintenance is much less of a hassle when it comes to a Facebook Page as well, and some may find that attractive in itself.

Mashable suggests that in the battle for the more dominant decal (in terms of what businesses actually want to display), Facebook may have a leg up with its 400 million+ users and "the value of an instant Fan". While Google has no shortage of users, that "instant fan" concept carries a great deal of weight. When someone visits a Place Page on Google, they can find information about the business, sure. But if they're already at the business, how much value does that really have, when compared to the one which will put that person essentially on the business' mailing list - the Facebook version. When they're a fan, you can communicate to them and with them directly.

Facebook says businesses that promote their Page off-Facebook tend to see a 20% or greater increase in connections.

About the author:
Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Follow WebProNews on Facebook or Twitter. Twitter: @CCrum237

*Chris Crum is not affiliated with MindsetAndMarketing.com

PayPal Gives iPhone/iPad Developers In-App Payment Option

Fri, 30 Apr 2010 00:09:45 GMT

Some news from PayPal that slipped fairly under the radar this week is that the company opened its Mobile Payments Library to developers. A representative for PayPal tells WebProNews it will give developers an "easy way to get payments from within their apps."

The library is an element of PayPal's PayPal X Payments Platform, announced last year. "The Mobile Payments Library enables app developers to accept in-app purchases directly via PayPal; so developers don't need to store customers' personal financial information and customers can purchase goods and services without leaving the app," the rep explains.

A few developers have already started using the library. Examples include ShopSavvy, and Shutterfly's Wink. Baublet is the first one in the app store to utilize it.

"Being a first time developer, PayPal's quick and responsive help has been fantastic and made this task pretty darn easy," says Baublet developer Michael Robinson. "Our goal was to have the ability to create, purchase and mail a charm within a few minutes on our app. The PayPal's Mobile Payments was critical to that success."

The library currently supports iPhone and iPad apps, but will become available for other platforms soon.

About the author:
Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Follow WebProNews on Facebook or Twitter. Twitter: @CCrum237

*Chris Crum is not affiliated with MindsetAndMarketing.com

Facebook Finding More Ways to Compete with Google

Fri, 30 Apr 2010 00:06:01 GMT

By: Chris Crum

Apparently Facebook is not content with only taking over the web, but wants to get some penetration into the physical world as well. Taking a cue from another dominant company, Google, Facebook is now giving brick and mortar businesses decalsto put in their windows. While Facebook tells WebProNews the decals are currently only a test with a small number of businesses, I would expect this to be expanded in the future.

Increasing Competition with Google

Google has been sending decals to businesses as part of its Favorite Places program. In fact, they even justannounced the expansion of this last week. Whereas Google's decals include a QR code pointing to the business' "Place Page," Facebook's include a link to the business' Facebook Page.

Google has its fair share of competition from a variety of angles. Apple is getting a great deal of the attention in this regard ( making two big moves yesterday), butFacebook is up there as well. Facebook is already a key competitor in terms of where people spend their time online. Facebook expanding its presence all over the webonly increases that, and will likely play a big role in thediversification of how people obtain information - in other words, maybe a little less Googling. Some of us have even speculated on the possibility that Facebook could one day create it's own AdSense-like network.

Implications for Local Search

In a recent article, we already touched upon the idea that Facebook is positioning itself to have a greater presence in how people find information at the local level. Even before Facebook's latest announcements, business pages have been a great way to engage with local customers.

In that article, I referenceda quote from Search Engine Land contributing editor Greg Sterling, who says, "It [Facebook] could do nothing in particular or it could build the single most effective local directory and search site that exists. This data will be more valuable than anything Google has or any individual local publisher-partner possesses. That includes Yelp, YPG or anyone else that joins the Open Graph and implements these new Facebook platform tools."

All of the "liking" of local businesses that will be facilitated by Facebook's new Open Graph strategy may be further facilitated by these decals. We don't know at this point how many businesses are getting these, but if this becomes widespread, it could be pretty powerful for businesses, and perhaps even more so for Facebook itself. As Facebooknotes in a letter to those who receive the decals, businesses are already including their Page URLs on various materials - receipts, napkins, storefronts, etc.

Does Facebook Want to Replace the Website?

There has been some discussion lately that perhaps Facebook was going to make Facebook Pages obsolete by putting the "like" button all over the web and changing the "become a fan" button on Facebook Pages to "like". The thinking here would be, what's the point of liking a Facebook Page for a brand, when you can just like that brand's site? I think Facebook has the opposite in mind.

As I've discussed in the past with regard to Google's Place Pages (and to some extent, Facebook Pages), maybe they'd rather make the website obsolete and have the Facebook Page (or Google Place Page in previous examples) take their place. If Facebook wants to be the new web, and it wants "likes" to be the new links, why wouldn't they want Pages to be the new sites? The decals point to Facebook Pages.

In reality, businesses are not going to be giving up their websites anytime soon and handing over full control to Facebook. However, businesses that don't even have a website may find that a Facebook Page is pretty easy to set up and can connect them with a whole lot of people (much like Google's Place Pages can). Maintenance is much less of a hassle when it comes to a Facebook Page as well, and some may find that attractive in itself.

Mashable suggests that in the battle for the more dominant decal (in terms of what businesses actually want to display), Facebook may have a leg up with its 400 million+ users and "the value of an instant Fan". While Google has no shortage of users, that "instant fan" concept carries a great deal of weight. When someone visits a Place Page on Google, they can find information about the business, sure. But if they're already at the business, how much value does that really have, when compared to the one which will put that person essentially on the business' mailing list - the Facebook version. When they're a fan, you can communicate to them and with them directly.

Facebook says businesses that promote their Page off-Facebook tend to see a 20% or greater increase in connections.

About the Author:
Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Follow WebProNews on Facebook or Twitter. Twitter:@CCrum237

*Chris Crum is not affiliated with MindsetAndMarketing.com

Use SEO Strategies to Improve Web Traffic

Thu, 29 Apr 2010 23:47:27 GMT

By: Enzo F. Cesario

Every new technology adopted widely by society brings about a number of new opportunities. The movable type printing press created affordable print information, the telephone and radio created the concept of instantaneous communication over great distances. Today, the Internet has unified both of these concepts into the information explosion that is the digital age.

Consider this article alone - a mere forty years ago printing even fifty copies of each page would cost either a chunk of change or at least a suspicious look from the boss as you hovered over the office copier. Now the information can be sent to thousands of people within the time it takes to brew a good cup of tea.

Of course with every technology comes a system to make the best marketing use of that advancement. The radio gave rise to the modern commercial advertisement, which was refined by the television and still persists on the Web. The telephone gave us telemarketers and the first concept of communication networking. For making the most of the Internet, the strategy of the day is Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
What is SEO, again?

In short, SEO is the presentation of a webpage in such a way that it consistently ranks highly in particular search engine results. While fads and sensations can quickly boom online from "word of mouth," they don't produce the same reliable success as a balanced, systematic approach.

Very few businesses, after all, want one rush of attention that leads to a website crash, followed by an equally quick slide into the various forgotten graveyards of the web. Therefore, SEO uses a combination of elements to make the site increasingly relevant to the various searches that Internet users perform, to bring it up again and again among the best results.

Key SEO Strategies

1. Set Goals

Identify what you want your SEO campaign to accomplish. While any SEO-conscious writing and page design can contribute to a site's search engine rankings, an unfocused effort will simply waste time and money. After all, a business promoting athletic clothing and footwear may not benefit too much from showing up in searches for evening wear. Is your goal simply to improve your site's visitor traffic? Do you want to generate more sales of a product? Is it part of an effort to promote your digital brand? Each of these goals benefits from different aspects of SEO technique.

2. Link Up

Link building is one of the cornerstones of any SEO effort. Many search engines are spider-based, meaning they use automated processes to collect and categorize information on various websites. When a large number of websites provide links back to your business, or when a particularly high-traffic site does so, the spiders take notice of it and raise the relevance of that link in searches related to those sites.

3. Get the Keys

Keyword writing is consistently stressed as a requirement when websites look for content writers. Keywords are just that, words and phrases chosen for their popularity and relevance to key searches.

There are dozens of theories about keyword writing. In the earlier days of SEO writing, it wasn't uncommon to see pages that were nothing but long strings of repeated variations on a few keywords. This has evolved into more organic writing that fits in keywords with the article as a whole.

Whichever strategy is chosen, care must be taken to avoid the temptation to abuse keyword searches. Yes, a proper keyword density will bring up your search rankings over time. However, Google can and does ban pages from its index when they determine it to be a keyword-abusing effort. So consider your keyword choices carefully, and seamlessly integrate them into your entire strategy.

4. Be on the Right Page

One aspect occasionally neglected in SEO is the architecture and design of the webpage itself. Search engines and their ranking systems (be they spider or human based) are growing more sophisticated all the time, and look at many different factors in their decisions. A site that buries its keyword-rich articles on interior pages behind dozens of subsidiary links will not perform as well as one with strategic keyword-oriented material right on the front page. Have an SEO-conscious designer look over your page, as well as your articles.

Remember that every business is a multi-faceted whole. Many failures occur when people attempt to compartmentalize too much. You can't consider SEO as some sort of 'event' that you do every so often, just as a business can't put off routine maintenance of their equipment and expect it to function properly. Integrate your efforts into the entire process, and give them the same focus as any other effort in the business, and they will return their investment much more reliably, quickly, and ideally.

About The Author
Enzo F. Cesario is a Copywriter and co-founder of Brandsplat. Brandcasting uses informative content and state-of-the-art internet distribution and optimization to build links and drive the right kind of traffic to your website. Go to www.Brandsplat.com or visit our blog at:www.brandsplatblog.com.

*Enzo F. Cesario is not affiliated with MindsetAndMarketing.com

Social Media May Get Much More Convenient for Businesses

Wed, 28 Apr 2010 22:44:08 GMT

By: Chris Crum

As we reported last week, some significant news was announced regarding the open web, and the direction social networking is headed in. Cliqset andStatus.net announced that for the first time ever, the users of two independent, public web entities are able to communicate with each other,without being on the same service as the person they are communicating with. These two services accomplished this using the Salmon protocol, a technology that's already onGoogle's list to implement with Buzz.

I reached out to Google's own open web advocate, Chris Messina, to get his thoughts on this milestone and its significance for social networking, and for businesses.

What's it Mean for Social Networking?

"I do think that Salmon is a very important building block technology for the open, social web," Messina tells WebProNews. "It basically provides a mechanism for what I would call 'personal trackbacks' or 'social pingbacks' — to borrow the blogging term."

Imagine: If Facebook, Twitter, Google Buzz, and MySpace all implemented Salmon in the way that Cliqset and Status.net have. Users of any one of these services could communicate with users on any of the others without having to be part of those other communities. For example, if I'm a Facebook user, but not a Twitter user, I could respond to a tweet from somebody from my Facebook account, which they would see on Twitter. All the while, I do not have a Twitter account. They could then in turn respond to me, and I would see that in my Facebook account.

Right now, social network users can't do this, unless they're using Cliqset and Status.net, but depending on how widely this gets adopted, it could become more of a standard in the future, which would make for increased competition in the social network space. People wouldn't necessarily have to join Facebook just to stay in touch with all of their friends and family who use it. If they liked MySpace better, for example, they could continue using that as their preferred social network, and still communicate with anybody else. As Marshall Kirkpatrick recently suggested, this would mean social networks would have to strive to innovate more, to keep users from simply moving elsewhere.

"This is a great demonstration of Cliqset's larger vision of social networks being siteless, and we think it's going to be the future of how all services interact and, more importantly, how users of these services interact," Cliqset told us earlier.

"With the ability to mention someone on one service and then send a verified ping to the recipient's service, we get one step closer to decentralizing social networks in the same way that email was decentralized a decade or longer ago," Messina says. "For today, this means that if you prefer to use Cliqset, and I use Status.net — but I want to talk to you without signing up for Cliqset — Salmon will make that possible!" (emphasis added)

"Put another way, let's say that I post a photo to both Flickr and my blog, and let's presume that I would like to have one unified set of comments for that object — rather than two distinct streams of comments," Messina adds. "Salmon provides the mechanism to sync those two channels so that, once again, Flickr users can use Flickr, and my blog readers can read my blog."

What Impact Could This Have for Businesses?

Social networking has become a significant part of marketing, customer service, branding, and engaging with customers. It only makes sense that if social networking were to become more open in the way that widespread Salmon adoption would allow, business communication channels could open up along with them. Communication would improve.

"The benefits for business become clear then: produce quality content, syndicate to any number of services or aggregators, and then use Salmon as a way to host distributed conversations across the web — rather than in several disconnected contexts," says Messina. "This means more engagement and higher convenience for publishers — and a more familiar experience for content consumers."

What are the odds?

A lot still has to happen for social networking in general to reach this point. Right now, we're really only at the beginning. Cliqset and Status.net are hardly representative of social media as a whole. However, Google Buzz, while certainly not as dominant as say, Facebook, will be implementing Salmon sooner or later, and you can bet others will follow. Kirkpatrick made the point that because Salmon is open source, any service can implement it without formal business relationships.

"If a substantial portion of the technical community implements Salmon, Facebook could be under a lot of pressure to do so as well. (As it was with OpenID, for example)," he says.

Facebook's best interest, however, is to keep users using Facebook itself. Considering Facebook already has such a significant share of the population, you have to wonder how much it would really lose if it adopted this. It may also be in Facebook's best interest to keep users happy, and that could potentially include tearing down a wall for users who don't want to be closed off from the rest of the world.

Time will tell if this all comes to fruition, but Cliqset and status.net have shown that it can be done, and that's an important first step.

On the subject of social media getting more convenient for businesses, enterprise software company Salesforce.com made some significant announcements this week involving integrating social media more into the enterprise. Read about our discussion with the company about that here.

About the author:
Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Follow WebProNews on Facebook or Twitter. Twitter: @CCrum237

*Chris Crum is not affiliated with MindsetAndMarketing.com

Google Creates What Twitter Search Should Be

Thu, 22 Apr 2010 02:04:14 GMT

By: Chris Crum

Google has launched a new search option that allows users to look at an archive of tweets on any given topic in a timeline format. Users can essentially "replay" the public Twitter conversation in th order in which it each piece occurred.

To utilize the feature, users can go to "show options" on a search results page, and select "updates". There's a chart at the top of the page that lets you select the year, month, or day, or click any point to view tweets from that time period.

"With the advent of blogs and micro-blogs, there’s a constant online conversation about breaking news, people and places — some famous and some local," says Dylan Casey, Google's Product Manager for Real-Time Search. "Tweets and other short-form updates create a history of commentary that can provide valuable insights into what’s happened and how people have reacted. We want to give you a way to search across this information and make it useful."

The chart also lets you see how much Twitter activity took place around that topic at any given time. Naturally, you're more likely to get more information during these spikes.

"By replaying tweets, you can explore any topic that people have discussed on Twitter," says Casey. "Want to know how the news broke about health care legislation in Congress, what people were saying about Justice Paul Stevens’ retirement or what people were tweeting during your own marathon run? These are the kinds of things you can explore with the new updates mode."

"All of us are just beginning to understand the many ways real-time information and short-form web content will be useful in the future, and we think being able to make use of historical information is an important part of that," he adds.

The feature is in the process of rolling out. It will be available around the world in the next few days. If you can't wait, you can check it out here.

About the author:
Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Follow WebProNews on Facebook or Twitter. Twitter: @CCrum237

*Chris Crum is not affiliated with MindsetAndMarketing.com

Google Wants to Help You Expand Your Twitter Network

Thu, 22 Apr 2010 01:52:19 GMT

By: Chris Crum

Google has launched a new Labs project called Google Follow Finder. It's designed to help you expand your Twitter network.

To use Google Follow Finder, you can enter your Twitter account name and see a list of people Google thinks you might be interested in following (our own Twellow has a helpful suggestion feature too). Google's tool will also let you enter other people's Twitter names and get suggestions based on that.

"If you see someone you want to follow, just click 'Follow on Twitter,' log in, and they’ll be added to your following list in Twitter," explains Associate Product Manager Aaron Wise. "This integration is based on Twitter’s new @anywhere frameworks, which make it easy for any site to add Twitter functionality. We’re using the frameworks to provide dynamic information about Twitter accounts and one-click following."

It's quite interesting that Google is this into getting you to expand your Twitter network, when you might think they would be more interested in getting you to use Buzz. But since your Twitter network can be integrated into your Buzz account, it's probably just as well, for the sake of Buzz use.

This is the second Twitter-related announcement to come from Google today - the first being the replay feature in Google's real-time search, which archives tweets and lets you browse them on a timeline.

On a related note, the @anywhere platform from Twitter is now available for anyone to use. Twitter co-founder Biz Stone talks about this on the company blog.

*Chris Crum is not affiliated with MindsetAndMarketing.com

Getting More Facebook Fans and Monetizing Them

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 21:39:38 GMT

By: Chris Crum

Turning Facebook Fans Into Buyers

It seems like Facebook is controlling more and more of users' online time, and that doesn't appear to be on pace to change anytime soon. Facebook is already on the path to controlling more content, online retail, and online identification, and who knows what all announcements we'll see come out of the company's F8 developer conference this week? To what extent Facebook will dominate these aspects of our web use (it's grown a great deal in search too by the way) is yet to be seen, but the point is, Facebook is giving users a lot more reasons to use it, and in some cases it's not really even a conscious decision. See the recent South Park episode for a good illustration about how Facebook continues to suck more people in. Facebook is where the people are online.

We've written several times recently about Facebook's role in e-commerce. WebProNews spoke with Christian Taylor CEO of Payvment, which has been offering a Facebook storefront application to retailers since the beginning of November, and is now giving them a way to get people more interested in buying from them. It's simple really - if a Facebook user comes across one of the retailers utilizing Payvment, they will be able to get discounts on merchandise for becoming a fan. That ought to drive some interest in Facebook e-commerce and user engagement with retail brands.

"As Facebook’s F8 conference approaches, many companies still wonder how they can transform Facebook from a "soft" relationship and marketing tool to something that will actually have an effect on their company’s bottom line. ; For the first time, this new e-commerce solution will allow that to happen," Pavyment says.

Sidenote: ;A new study finds that questions businesses have about how they should be using social media havechanged quite a bit within a year. Last year it was more about tactics. Now businesses want to know about ROI.

First, it's important to understand how Payvment's Facebook storefront app works. Unlike some of the other Facebook e-commerce apps out there, Payvment:

A. Doesn't take users away from Facebook, and lets them pay via PayPal or credit card through PayPal (most likely Facebook credits as well before long)

B. Is completely free (in fact, Taylor tells me "it will always be free no matter what happens.")

C. Acts as a network of retailers from which customers can make multiple purchases across, all in one checkout process (money is then divided up among the retailers on the back-end)

D. Provides users with a way to discover additional retailers on Facebook as each retailer's page provides a gateway to additional brand pages for shopping.

Now back to that new incentive feature. A retailer using Payvment can go in and simply set a certain percentage they want to offer as a discount in exchange for the user becoming a fan of the page. Here's what a page utilizing the platform might look like to a fan and to a non-fan, respectively:

I raised the point that when a Facebook user "fans" a brand, Facebook automatically alerts that user's friends that they have become a fan of said brand. I wondered if that might be looked upon as something of an endorsement, and if a fan is getting an incentive in the form of a discount to for being a "fan" of that brand, how would the FTC view that in light of its much-publicized guidelines on endorsements?

Taylor made the point that Payvment and its retailers aren't actually giving the user gifts or paying them anything. They're just taking money off for becoming a fan.He equates it to becoming a member of a club or joining a mailing list. Mailing lists don't alert all of the friends of the person who signs up that they are fans, however. Taylor maintains that Payvment does not create such alerts, implying that this would be more on Facebook to address, if it were considered an issue at all. As we see more Facebook e-commerce platforms become available as I'm sure we will, and others copy this strategy (which also seems likely), this may indeed become something Facebook would want to address.

Either way, Payvment has a pretty interesting concept on its hands. "While Facebook has become an excellent platform to build or strengthen brand awareness and communities, companies and their enthusiastic fans have been unable to take that final step between being a fan and being a buyer," says Taylor.

The new version of Payvment's Facebook e-commerce application lets Facebook users add comments and reviews to Payvment-enabled storefronts. The feature includes spam protection, so sellers can control inappropriate content in the comment and review section of their storefront.

Due to Facebook's terms of use, Payvment users are not permitted to sell questionable content, alcoholic beverages, tobacco product, ammunition/firearms, items that promote hate, criminal/terrorist activities, or items that infringe upon the rights of a third party.

On a related note, Facebook recently partnered with two offer providers so users can earn Credits without having to pay directly. As InsideFacebook's Eric Eldon noted, "For users, this means another way to get Credits without paying — this may increase spending on Credits for social games and other applications on Facebook."(emphasis added)

Taylor expects a lot of talk about Facebook Credits to come out of Facebook's F8 Developer Conference this week, and he said that Payvment would definitely integrate Credits into its system.

Whether you are going to use an app like Payvment or not, it shows you that monetizing Facebook fans can be done, and if social media ROI is one of your concerns, here is a good example to look at. Again, I would expect this kind of thing to become more commonplace within the Facebook ecosystem, which is growing across the web in general.

*Chris Crum is not affiliated with MindsetAndMarketing.com

Tips For Busy Experts, Speakers, Trainers and Solopreneurs

Thu, 15 Apr 2010 01:55:00 GMT

Social media marketing strategies are very popular now because of the fact that it has been seen as one of the most effective and the most cost effective way to actually reach a vast number of people. It is slowly starting to take hold of organizations, companies and brands all over the world. While there people that are becoming very successful in their online social media marketing campaigns, there are still a lot of people having a problem with it because from the way it looks. It seems to be very simple but in reality it is simply harder than it looks.

One of the key elements in having a very successful social media marketing campaign is that like any other marketing campaigns you need to able to determine your target market so that you can find out how you want to talk to them. You would also need to find out what your objective is and what the goals of your brand and or your organization are. By being able to do this you will be able to determine what kind of campaign you would want to do and what are the things that you actually need to do in order to capture your market. By being able to spread your corporate message as much as you can, your company will be able to reach millions of people. Information and third party reviews are also very important because most online users will have to look at you and your company’s credibility when it comes to some things.

In social marketing, being exposed as much as you can is a plus. Have you heard the saying “Any good publicity is good publicity?” For social media marketing, this is actually very true. You need to get exposed so that more and more people will actually find you online and so you can be tagged as an expert in your industry. You can create a facebook page that can be accessed by millions of people with just one, post status updates, photos and all sorts of options. You can even create a Twitter page if you want so that the people that are “following” you will be able to get an instant update every time you send a tweet. The most important thing to remember is that you need to be as visible as possible. You have to memorable in your client’s mind. You can also create an online video channel on YouTube which will allow you talk directly to your clients or potential prospects. The most important part of social media marketing is that you need to be seen as an expert and that you really know what you are talking about. Posting on trade forums and creating a blog of your own are simply but “effective” social media strategies!

About the author: Jason Okuma is the Founder of MindsetAndMarketing.com, a resource website for Experts, Trainers, Speakers, Consultants and Solo-Preneurs. Jason Okuma has a desire to make the entrepreneurs’ business more effective by providing them with powerful support tools, services and information that will help in thrusting their ventures to the highest levels. Get your FREE subscription to their weekly IntelReport at www.MindsetAndMarketing.com

The Best Free Resources You Can Use Now!

Thu, 15 Apr 2010 01:55:00 GMT

There are a lot of free resources that you can use on the internet in order to create your personal brand. Picking the right one to use is highly dependent on the market or the niche that you want to tap into. You need to be able to research on the best channels for communication to your target market. You also need to know what your target wants.

Social media platforms are very popular because the “World of Social Media” already have a lot of subscribers, which will help you reach a lot of people. Facebook, Twitter and a Personal Branded Website are good places to start just because of the sheer number of people that use them today. Also, many consumers and potential clients are now looking at social before doing business with you or purchasing product because of the fact that almost all the information that you have given them are online and they can verify it. They can also see what kind of lifestyle you live and who your contacts are. Another free resource online such as YouTube will allow you to actually post videos of yourself. You can position yourself in such a way that you are seen as an expert in your industry. You can even have your own Personal Branded blog or where you can write about current trends in your market and anything that your target market are wanting to read online. If you are not that experienced in creating websites, you look for Personal Brand Development specialist that will help you create a long-lasting online Personal Brand. Note: when looking for Personal Brand Development be sure to keep an eye out for the ones that have the “Done For You” services.

If you feel that your market is not really that internet savvy, then you need to have access to Online PR specialist that can help you market your Personal Brand online manually. There are a few specialist that you can search online that offers Personal Brand Development and Online PR services that will help you create an online branding kit so that you don’t need to create one by yourself and they will help you zone in on your target market. Online Personal Branding will help you be visible in your market. If your community is very close then you can easily sell your brand to them. Helping people out in your market is another way of branding yourself so that you can be known as the “Go To” person. You need to determine your target market first before you create a marketing plan. This will help you figure that best way to position yourself in your market.

Quick & Easy Personal Branding PR strategies that Get Results Fast!

Thu, 15 Apr 2010 01:50:00 GMT

One big problem of businesses today is that their marketing strategies are not working anymore because of today’s very tough economy. The problem lies in that there are just too many competitors in the market today and that there are just a few brands that are being patronized by a lot of people because of the fact that these are the companies that have been noticed by tons of people. Standing out from the crowd is becoming much more complex because there are just a lot of companies that are selling to the same number of people. It may seem such a daunting task because your budget might not be as big as it was before and you are confused on how to actually talk to your audience. You may or may not know but you have to be able to define your target market first so that you can directly communicate to them about the product and or service you are offering. Also, you need to find out how the best way to communicate with them so you can be as exposed to your target market as much as you want to be exposed.

One thing is for sure, in today’s interconnected world, one should have a strong online presence through personal branding so that you can continually expose yourself to you clients. You need to be able to create very interesting contents and useful information that lures in your potential client into wanting to find out more about the product and or service that you are offering. By creating a personal branded blog or website, you can make new contacts each and everyday. Having a personal branded blog or website is giving your potential prospects a chance to get to know you through your daily blogs and activities. In the end, having your potential prospects get to know you first will create the “Trust” factor that will eventually help increase your opportunity to sell whatever you are actually selling.

Mailing lists are also an effective marketing strategy but one main problem with this is that people sometimes look at it as spam and just delete them from the inboxes without even looking at it. One should be able to create personal messages so that you can introduce who you are and what your company is without having the negative impression that you actually spamming them. One effective medium is to create newsletters that are directly emailed to them so that people can read about what you or your company are all about. When it comes to email marketing strategies, many find this to be the fastest way to communicate to their clients and prospects.

Overall web presence is very important. Personal Branding is something that can help you make your company known in a much larger scale and attract interest that can result to creating more business for you and for your company. Personal Branding helps you in almost every aspect of your business without having to spend thousands even hundreds of thousands of dollars which is pretty much an advantage for a lot of companies.

Effective Offline and Online Tips to Getting Massive Exposure Fast!

Thu, 15 Apr 2010 01:50:00 GMT

Getting massive exposure for your online or offline business is actually pretty easy with all tools that are available in the market today. Having a blog or website will do wonders for any type of business. The first thing that you have to remember before you start any marketing plan is that you have to define your target audience. Your marketing strategy should actually start from here because not all types of media outlets are being patronized by every age group. There are still those people that are still patronizing old school methods such as newspapers and magazines and there are some that have gone completely online. Asking the question, “Does my market patronize certain types of media?” if the answer is yes, then should determine what type of media they actually like to use and if they have access to that certain type of channel of communication.

Offline methods are very successful however; they require more work since you to have a list of local media outlets that are being patronized by a certain demographic. Create a list of media outlets, offline and online, in order to figure out what would best benefit your demographic. If you are targeting an older demographic then it would be that you use offline outlets of communication such as newspaper or magazines or even radio shows. Also, you need to visit the place or area were majority of your prospective client hang out. You need to figure out what places they go to and ask if you can place advertisements there. You can also create a list of publications that specialize in targeting a certain demographic such as an alumni newsletter, a church newsletter or even a library newsletter. You have to find their contact information and also their deadlines.

Online social media networks are also very important because millions of people have actually access to it and most of the time, they belong to a younger demographic. Having your own website or blog site is also very important because a lot of people now, are actually searching the web first before they actually buy something and before they purchase some sort of product and or services from someone. You need to make them feel that you are some sort of expert in the field or market that you want to target so that you will look more credible than you are. You will be able to this by posting on industry related websites or blog sites or you can post articles about a certain product online. Remember, facebook and Twitter are excellent social media accounts that you can use because they automatically increase the number of people that you actually reach with just one post.

Offline and online exposure can do wonders for your business if done correctly. Using both offline and online methods at the same time will give you the best results in exposure, building your list and promoting your products & services!

7 Solopreneur Survival Tips for being more Productive Working from Home

Thu, 15 Apr 2010 01:45:00 GMT

You are one of the many solopreneurs out there, and you just know that the competition is really stiff, so every morning, as you wake up, the first thing you do is sit in front of your computer to begin another day’s work. As you check through your emails, you notice a ton of work facing you, and, although rather daunting, you are totally satisfied that your attempts to do some online personal branding to promote yourself are working. In fact, it is so successful, that you almost feel like a personal branding expert! However, somewhere in the back of your mind are the million and one things that have to be done and around your home, and, as reluctant as you are, you tear yourself away from your computer to get stuck into those boring household chores.

Okay, so you don’t have to be a personal branding consultant to do them, but they nevertheless HAVE to be done. Just like any other day, you rush around trying to get as much done as possible, and in between the laundry and the dishes you rush back to your computer to check emails, all the time wishing that there were more than 24 hours in a day. It is very obvious that to become more productive, you need to divide your time between your work as a solopreneur and everyday life duties.

1. A good place to start is to make a list of all your household chores, decide on which day you are going to do them and at what time, and then stick to the schedule.

2. Put your list onto your refrigerator where it is the first thing you see in the morning. Concentrate on your list of chores, and get them done in the time you allocated yourself to do them.

3. Make sure that you stay focused on the job on hand, and don’t think about those emails that are waiting for you.

4. If you are fortunate enough to have a laptop, make your work more interesting by working away from home sometimes – at the local park, at the beach or at any of your favorite spots.

5. Very importantly, if you, as a solopreneur are serious about your work, make sure that friends and relatives know how serious you are, by telling them that you are not available during the hours that you want to work.

6. Remember to take frequent breaks during your working day – this will keep you refreshed and more able to stay focused on what you are doing.

7. Working from home can sometimes result in you becoming one of those people who live their work – DON’T let this happen to you – set time aside each week for yourself, to get away from your projects and the household chores. In other words, have some fun in between all the work that you cram into each day.

About the author: Jason Okuma is the Founder of MindsetAndMarketing.com, a resource website for Experts, Trainers, Speakers, Consultants and Solo-Preneurs. Jason Okuma has a desire to make the entrepreneurs’ business more effective by providing them with powerful support tools, services and information that will help in thrusting their ventures to the highest levels. Get your FREE subscription to their weekly IntelReport at www.MindsetAndMarketing.com

Blogging For The Business Expands Your Business

Thu, 08 Apr 2010 20:38:52 GMT

Why do you’re thinking that business owners or business managers would want to target blogging if it will not be useful to their business in the least ? You’re right. You could already say that there ought to be no additional question on why more and a lot of business owners are gearing towards doing blogging for business.

It’s obvious that blogging has proven its value as way as any business is concern. Blogging has slowly and surely picked up speed as a lot of and more business homeowners are realizing the advantages that blogging brings to business. Here is blogging defined for us to raised perceive why more and more business owners are into blogging for business nowadays.

Delineating Blog

As Pyra Labs Blogger has put it, a “blog” is truly a internet page composed of some short and concise, often updated posts organized by order of the dates posted. It absolutely was originally called “weblogs” in 1997 as thought up by a bound Jorn Barger. These weblogs started gaining popularity in 1999 when quite a variety of firms along with developers came out with blogging software and tools that will build blogging a lot of easier to use. And since then, the amount of users patronizing blogging has boomed from simply a thousand to concerning a hundred million of bloggers.

Business Blog Category

There are 2 types of blogging: the non-public blogs which are a mix of a private diary or journal with some postings on opinions and where research links are gift ; and therefore the business blogs which is considered more of as a communication tool for promoting business to existing purchasers and prospective or new and potential customers.

Blogging For Marketing Purposes

Blogging for business is additionally typically created as a venue for promoting merchandise and services, communicating the special options and benefits of every product or service. It’s slowly yet captivatingly seized the eye of the global business community what with the dramatic increase in the amount of bloggers recorded. Truly , blogs are a good technique a business owner can use for sharing or campaigning its expertise and business portfolio. These, while at the identical time boosting the positioning ’s traffic and connecting with new prospective customers as well.

What’s In It For The Smaller Businesses Then?

As for small enterprises or businesses that have simply recently started and recognized the benefits of blogging on their business, there are known benefits to them that embrace the subsequent :

Very Simple To Use

Primarily , jot down your thoughts, link your website to different various resources, and after which you should publish to your blog, in just a few push of the buttons. You will try using the Blog software applications like the Movable Type , Blogger.com and Typepad since they’re all known to produce user-friendly blogging tools for your business.

WordPress is an even better platform to use offering amazing functionality and flexibility all for free whilst retaining complete control over the content and website, unlike Blogger and other similar sites. Learning to use WordPress is relatively easy if you have high quality WordPress tutorials to hand.

A Low- Value Various

Putting in your own blog website on the Web can not even hurt your pockets. It is a terribly value -effective different to indulging into advertising and marketing promotions. As we understand these advertising and marketing endorsements will value your business a nice deal of cash simply to promote your product and services. And particularly for tiny business owners who do not have a lot of resource yet to learn blogging for business, you’ll simply hire a Net developer or do not have the time to find out concerning web html, then settle with the cheaper suggests that of obtaining your business’ name visible online.

Setting up a business blog using WordPress makes sense so get yourself the best wordpress tutorials today.

5 tips for SEO Beginners

Tue, 06 Apr 2010 21:08:59 GMT

Over the last few years, more and more new webmasters are coming to the internet. Whether you just want your blog to get some traffic or you have a product to sell, a few simple SEO tips can go along way in determining your online success.

1) Research your targeted keywords with Google Keyword Tool

Though the tool is not perfect, it will help give you an idea of the search volume for many keywords your targeting, as well as giving you hints at advertiser competition with Google Adwords. If Keyword A is only searched 200 times per month and Keyword B is searched 2,000 times, being ranked for Keyword B may result in up to 10 times more monthly traffic. Generally expect more competition and difficulty being ranked top page the more searches a term has.

2) Write quality meta tags, especially Title and Description.

Having your targeted keywords in your meta information will help search engines see that there’s a relationship between the search term and your site better. Do not fill the meta with only keywords, but write creatively to include you most important phrases.

3) Produce new content regularly

Nothing helps a website grow more than by adding quality content and lots of it. Try to add a new page daily or a few times per week. Get in a routine where your site doesn’t go long between updates. If you allow comments, stay in touch with your readers by responding and staying active in your site. This will keep readers interested and your site growing over time. Think about how you feel about a site once you see the most recent post was 2-3 months ago or you ask a question via comment, and its never returned.

4) Add a sitemap and robots.txt file

A sitemap is a list of everything on your site, written so that search engines can easily find your content to include in their rankings.

5) Backlinks

Begin to find backlinks from websites in your niche. An easy way to get a few free links is by adding your content to dofollow social media or directory websites. Remember that each link could be a future customers first impression of you and your site, so take the time to write quality information where your backlink will be found.

Obviously these tips alone will not get your ranked 1st page for all popular keywords. By following these steps and continuing to learn about more advanced SEO, a new webmaster will be on their way to seeing more natural search engine traffic.

- Brian Jackson – SEO Florida

*Brian Jackson is not affiliated with MindsetAndMarketing.com

Are You Getting Your Content in Front of News Seekers?

Mon, 05 Apr 2010 21:33:39 GMT

By: Chris Crum

Don't Overlook the Different Forms of News Search

Getting press coverage can mean a great deal for gaining traffic and overall exposure for your business. That said, there are also ways to take some initiative yourself in getting some exposure from news search.

Is news search part of your strategy? Real-time? Social Search? Press releases? Discuss here.

News Search Optimization

As Lisa Buyer of the Buyer Group talked about with WebProNews at SES last week, news search optimization is getting more powerful with social media and real-time search. Add these to older tactics like blogs and press releases, and there have never been more opportunities to get news-related content discovered.

Press Releases

Press releases can still be a great way to spread the word about any announcements your business might have. They can also drive traffic, particularly from search engines.

Back in the summer, PRWeb shared a case study with us, involving a firm that typically sees a boost in search engine rankings and a 50% spike in web traffic after they issue a release. In fact, for one release in particular, the firm saw a spike of 400% on two different Web sites, and the firm doesn't believe they were from the same users. They also incorporate social media tools like Twitter to extend the "shelf life" of press releases, and say that drives additional traffic.

"When we included a link to our press releases on Twitter and other social media networks, we saw these both expanded the scope of distribution and the extended the longevity of the announcement," the CEO of the company behind the case study had said. "With other news releases we saw an initial spike in Web site traffic on the first two days and then it dropped off. With these features we've seen increases in traffic up to five days after the news release was issued."

Remember, Google News indexes press releases as well.

Real-Time Search

You're probably already using social media in some capacity at this point. Real-time search presents an added benefit to talking about timely topics using channels that you are already using (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, blogs, etc.). That doesn't mean spam. Spamming won't get you very far here anyway, because Google is pretty good at filtering this. We went over a few basic tips for real-time search optimization a while back. The recap is below, but you can find them elaborated on here.

1. Use keywords
2. Talk about timely events
3. Have a lot of followers (who can share your content)
4. Promote Conversation
5. Include Calls to Engagement

Real-time search is much more than just Google. There are an increasing number of players in this space, and with the rise in smartphone usage, mobile apps are giving consumers a lot of choices in how to obtain their information.

Social Search

Another great benefit of using social media means you get to show up in your friends/followers personalized social search results for numerous queries on Google. Newsy topics are frequently the ones that trend, and that means lots of people searching. If something big happens, there's a chance that some of your social network contacts will search for something related to that, and if you have something to say about it, there's a good chance they'll see it in their results.

Of course people search with the social networks themselves as well. Facebook search queries were on the rise last time I checked.

Google News

Last September, we ran down a number of Google News SEO tips here. Google shared some tips of their own on the subject as well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg8xgoULIIE

Optimizing for news search means more shots at showing up in search results period. Do you have other ideas about getting in front of news seekers? Share here.

*Chris Crum is not affiliated with MindsetAndMarketing.com

Is Facebook Going to Change the Face of E-Commerce?

Mon, 05 Apr 2010 21:28:54 GMT

By: Chris Crum

App Maker Talks Facebook Product Listings

Over the years, Facebook has grown into much more than a social network, including a place to shop. More and more brands are placing product listings on their Facebook Pages, a phenomenon, we've discussed more than once within the last week or so.

WebPronews had a chat with Doron Simovitch, co-Founder, President, and CEO of comparison shopping site Sortprice, which has a Facebook application for product listings that recently surpassed 1,000 stores.

We asked if it is an exaggeration to say Facebook is going to change the face of e-commerce. "We don't think it's an exaggeration at all," replied Simovitch. "Facebook is now the most-trafficked website in the country, with an audience of hundreds of millions of people that is growing every day. That's an enormous base of potential customers that cannot be ignored by online retailers. And they're not. More and more retailers are experimenting with tools to reach these Facebook users, and incorporate social networking into their operations overall."

"As online shopping continues to gain popularity, social networking sites will increasingly be brought into the fold," he added. "This integration, then, is definitely something that is going to change how e-tailers do business."

More e-commerce platform vendors are no doubt going to begin offering Facebook apps, making the space more and more competitive. "We were pretty much the only game in town when we rolled out our merchant application in late 2008, but since then we've seen others follow suit with similar tools," said Simovtich. "For the same reasons we stated above, vendors recognize there is great potential in selling on Facebook and other social networking sites. Plus Facebook is pretty receptive to new applications that are of value to its users."

"We expect more product listing applications to emerge and continue to evolve with new features and tools," he continued. "Our team at Sortprice is always thinking of ways to upgrade and improve the Merchant Store application because we want it to remain the best retailer application on Facebook. But overall, as more people realize the e-commerce potential that Facebook offers, the more tools and applications you'll see emerge for both shoppers and merchants."

We've seen that customers are starting to get more comfortable making purchases from their mobile devices. We wonder if customers will be as quick to find comfort in making transactions through Facebook. A retailer operating a store on Facebook via Sortprice's app is providing product listings that are tied to their own site, as is the case with other e-commerce Facebook apps. Still, Facebook has shown that consumers can buy physical goods through the social network with its virtual currency, which could become more commonplace in the future, particularly as major players compete to dominate the mobile payment platform space.

We also wonder if Facebook's enormous popularity, and the e-commerce potential that comes along with it has the ability to threaten search engines as the preferred way to find products to purchase.

"As more people learn about shopping opportunities on Facebook, the more they'll start to look at it as a viable means of shopping online," Simovitch said. "That being said however, no one will ever confuse Facebook for a shopping-only resource and thus, it's not a threat to shopping search engines."

Perhaps it will help Facebook continue to boost its share of the search market.

"We think of it more as an alternative or even something retailers can use in conjunction with their existing shopping portals," he said. "The interactive nature of Facebook is what makes it such a good complimentary tool for retailers--they can offer users the ability to build product wishlists that their Facebook friends can comment on, as well as give shoppers access to product reviews and images. Some of our merchants have run contests or giveaways through their Facebook fan/store pages as well. It really enhances the research side of shopping online in a constructive and even fun way."

Last week, we talked to Mitchell Harper, CEO of BigCommerce, which just launched another Facebook e-commerce app called SocialShop. Have you tried either of these products or other similar apps? Which do you prefer? Is listing products on Facebook worth your time? Tell us what you think.

*Chris Crum is not affiliated with MindsetAndMarketing.com

Hitwise Dubs Facebook "Most Searched On Brand In U.S."

Mon, 05 Apr 2010 21:23:50 GMT

By: Doug Caverly

It looks like Mark Zuckerberg is going to have to make more room in his trophy case. Hitwise has devised a new metric termed "breadth volume," and Facebook is beating brands like Google, Yahoo, and Craigslist is this respect by quite a lot.

First, here's an explanation of exactly what we're talking about: Hitwise's Bill Tancer wrote, "We're now able to provide a new search metric beyond volume (search volume for a specific term over all term volume) and breadth (# of search term variations over all search term variations), our new metric which I'll call breadth volume, sums the volume for all variations on a root term."

As for the actual rankings, Facebook came in first for the week ending March 27th with a breadth volume of 2.80 percent. Google came in second with a breadth volume of 2.40 percent, and then things really dropped off as Yahoo, Craigslist, and MySpace showed up in the rankings with breadth volumes of 1.60 percent, 1.10 percent, and 1.10 percent again (in a tie).

Tancer even created a graph to show how Facebook is extending its lead over the competition.

This could translate into more good news for the social network in terms of attracting advertisers, investors, and users.

*Doug Caverly is not affiliated with MindsetAndMarketing.com