Monday, January 3, 2011
In a previous pHey Google, What Should I Wear?
Each day, Inc.'s reporters scour the Web for the most important and interesting news to entrepreneurs. Here's what we found today:
Google's haute new site. This morning Google launched its newest, and perhaps most unlikely, venture to date: Boutiques.com. The site is a place for designers, celebrities, and consumers to explore—and purchase—each other's styles. The site also uses "visual search technlogy" to determine, in algorithms, what actually looks good together on you; helpful, indeed, if not a bit creepy. The technology was created by Like.com, which Google purchased last year (that's the company that developed Covet.com and Couturious.com before the acquisition). The New York Times reported the story and noted that "you can shop in the style of, say, the actress Carey Mulligan or Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen—among the celebrities who signed up for the launch—or you can build your own boutique and amass followers who can comment on your taste."
Where in the world...? Looking for an international home for your company? Well, there's Peru, the country with the largest share of female business owners. Or Israel, where venture capital funding is best. But all things considered, a recent survey ranks Denmark above both those new-business powerhouses. But be sure to steer clear of the Netherlands (the country that costs the most to start a business) and Suriname (where it takes an average of 694 days to clear government registration for a business). These stats come from a recent SBA survey printed in The Wall Street Journal. The survey reveals some glaring differences between starting a business in the States and starting a business abroad. In Zimbabwe, the story reports, "entrepreneurs will have to fork over about 500 percent of the country's average per-capita income in government fees." Kind of makes you want to count your blessings.
Long live the IPO. With the news that travel-search site Kayak just filed an S-1 statement to propose an initial public offering, Inc. senior writer Max Chafkin writes that the IPO might not be as dead as people think. And Kayak's hoping to raise $50 million, the filing says.
How National Entrepreneurs Day was born. With President Obama issuing a proclamation on Monday officially declaring November 19 National Entrepreneurs Day, you may want to take a quick minute to say thanks to the entrepreneurs who made it possible. As longtime Inc. contributor Donna Fenn explains in BNET, the idea behind Entrepreneurs Day was largely the work of David Hauser and Siamak Taghaddos of the virtual phone service company Grasshopper Group. The pair launched a Twitter petition to convince President Obama to create a day recognizing the value of entrepreneurs, eventually landing the support of such big names as Matt Mullenweg and Jason Fried. Entrepreneurs: Check out the article for a list of some of the ways you can celebrate your newly-created special day.
Up close with Zillow.com's CEO. In an interview with the Washington, D.C., real estate blog UrbanTurf, Spencer Rascoff, CEO of the online real estate database and marketplace Zillow, opens up about the role mobile technology is playing in transforming real estate as well as the algorithm behind the Zestimate, his company's tool that estimates the current value of millions of homes nationwide. Rascoff says that on weekends, 20 percent of Zillow's total traffic comes from its mobile app. "What that means for the industry is that it's more important than ever to respond quickly to consumers," he says.
Buffett bailout backlash. Wasn't it refreshing to see Warren Buffett having written a New York Times op-ed yesterday praising Uncle Sam for working a little magic and bailing out an impossibly musty U.S. housing market via the banking system? He sounded quite genuine: "Well, Uncle Sam, you delivered. People will second-guess your specific decisions; you can always count on that. But just as there is a fog of war, there is a fog of panic - and, overall, your actions were remarkably effective." The collective "ahh..." didn't last long. After Buffett, the CEO of diversified holding company Berkshire Hathaway, expressed his thanks, the backlash bubbled up almost immediately. MarketWatch, for instance, wrote that the op-ed "misses the mark" (headline: "thanks for nothing").
Layoffs incite violence in India. A mob of 400 workers allegedly used iron rods and other factory equipment to beat an auto company executive to death this past weekend, the Indian Express reports. Yesterday Business Insider picked up the story in which the workers reportedly "attacked and chased the human resources and those on the board of directors" in protest of layoffs of their former co-workers. The execs, however, were armed with guns to defend themselves, which they then fired into the air once the attack started. "This infuriated the workers, who then went on a rampage, manhandling the officers," said a senior police officer. The police have arrested ten so far but have largely sided with the workers, saying that the gun shots were the reason the employees, "already seething with anger," turned violent.
Regulation a top issue at CEO council. The Obama administration's overture to the business community met a cool reception yesterday at the Wall Street Journal CEO Council in Washington. Administration officials, still smarting from the midterm elections, were grilled by 100 corporate leaders on issues ranging from business tax rates to new environmental rules, the Journal reports. Chief among their concerns: the administration's regulatory agenda. "If I were Congress and the president, very seriously what I would do is I'd say, '... I'm going to take the next year and we're just going to review them all, and any of them that don't support jobs" will be modified or rescinded," said Arch Coal CEO Steven Leer.
More from Inc. magazine:
Get this delivered to your inbox.
Follow us on Twitter.
Follow us on Tumblr.
Like us on Facebook.
NoSQL ? The Trend for Databases in the Cloud? (websphere.sys-con.com)
| Internet - Web Development Stories, World News, RSS Feeds and Widgets via Feedzilla.Sunday, January 2, 2011
Top Twitter Techniques (or 9 Good Excuses if you want to Ignore Twitter)
In my view Twitter, like many marketing and social media tools, is basically a stage. How you present yourself upon it depends on what talents you have and what you're trying to accomplish.
Below, I've outlined 9 methods of interacting on Twitter. This list should either allow you to comfortably ignore Twitter because none of these methods of interaction are feasible or meaningful for you, or recognize an opportunity for yourself or your business.
The Personality
This applies both to actual celebrities, and people who are building a brand that can be clearly defined as having a "voice". People like Perez Hilton, Oprah Winfrey and Tony Hsieh of Zappos immediately come to mind. All of them have Twitter feeds and each of them has a very distinct voice. "In waiting room at doctor's office. In addition to magazines, they should offer a selection of paint so people can watch it dry." A recent post from the CEO of a company with projected 2008 revenues of $1 billion. People follow these feeds for a variety of reasons but mainly because they receive something emotionally satisfying from the postings.
The Guide
The Guide is typically a person or people assigned to seek out messages posted by people who have a question related to your business, products or services. Here is a great case study of a company who did just that and has shared their results. Note that to maximize their efforts they have someone spending 30 minutes per day on Twitter in this role.
The Brand Watchdog
Someone proactively seeks out mentions of their company name or product name and responds personally to each post. Two companies that immediately come to mind are GeekSquad Founder Robert Stephens (thanks @DanielRiveong and @britopian) and ComCast's Director of Digital Care Frank Eliason @ComCastCares. Companies can win big brownie points by having very senior staff members respond to customer service questions. The idea here is that by providing direct access to someone who really knows what they're talking about, companies can prevent damage to their brand from disappointed customers.
I Can Email You With the Next Update
Click here to get notified of new posts to "The Internet Strategist" by Email
The Customer Support Rep
Very similar to the Brand Watchdog, this too is focused on watching for and responding to customer service questions. But while I would put Frank Eliason in the Brand Watchdog category, this category is usually filled by the unsung Twitter heros (Twiroes?). They are likely handling questions in other (non-Twitter) venues and have added Twitter to the ways they communicate. The catch here is that the expectation is that Twitter customer service reps will actually help you resolve your issue. We'll see how long that lasts!
The Publisher
People and companies will often use Twitter as a way to simply feed followers information about their area of influence. A lot of news is now breaking on Twitter before it hits major publications. But you don't have to be first, just relevant and somewhat consistent. A really interesting take on the publisher model is The Brooklyn Museum who is monetizing their social content and their community by offering memberships to a "socially networked museum membership" for $20 per year.
The Promotion Channel
Unfortunately I think both spammers and ecommerce sites fit into this category. But the ecommerce sites I've seen use Twitter in interesting ways to do promotion and inform customers about products they are interested in. Take a look at Amazon on Twitter. Their feed is a little bit all over the place in terms of content and they don't have an individual person that followers can connect with (which limits conversation and can limit your follower numbers) but they've still managed to collect almost 4,000 followers as of this article. Contests, Twitter only discount codes, free giveaways are all part of the promotion channel arsenal.
The Conversationalist
Many of the most popular "tweet"ers are those who actively engage with their followers. In essence this is what really makes Twitter unique as a communication tool, although it's also what scares the bejeezus out of small business owners. Being the Conversationalist can be very time consuming, but the rewards are high in terms of building a loyal following and truly connecting with people who are interested in what you have to offer, from whom you are interested in learning and with whom you can build strategic relationships. We're talking several posts per day many of which are directed at specific people.
The Curious
There are many people who don't post to twitter at all. They use it as an information resource, watching the "twitter trending topics" to "crowd source" their news or following people they find interesting or informative. This can be a great way to use Twitter and learn a thing or two. The key here is to be careful about who you follow — you want people with a high signal to noise ratio usually with far fewer posts but each post is a gem.
The Entertained
Again here it's not about posting information but consuming it. There are many feeds on Twitter (The Onion is one of my favorites) that are purely about entertainment, putting a smile on your face or making you think.
As you'll no doubt notice, some Twitter strategies combine these methods.
The Conclusion
If you are not interested in any of the 9 methods above then Twitter is probably not for you. But really the best way to find out is to use it. Sign yourself up - it takes only a couple of minutes to sign up and if you're looking for somewhere to start, start following me and then look at other people who follow me. You don't have to know someone to follow them. You can even sign up under what I like to call an "incognito name" — a name that won't be associated with you or company so that you can experiment without worrying about making an embarrassing mistake. After a few weeks drop the incognito account and sign up with accounts branded for you and/or your company.
The Future?
On a more serious note, I can't help noting how many meaningful events have occurred in the last few weeks, and the very different way we experienced them. I am struck with the realization that every real moment can be played out near real time on a global scale.
These little 12-17 inch screens and keyboards we've become so intimate with, that bring close the lives of far away friends, over the last two weeks opened up a world of individuals sharing their grief, and made a political maelstrom that might before have seemed "far away," personal in a way many of us have never experienced.
As people, we know instinctively that how the world makes it's way into our lives is changing, dramatically. And not just how it reaches us, but where it comes from, who filters it (if anyone), how we seek it out and find it, that we can share it, comment on it, alter it and then pass it along. As people we struggle with concepts like authenticity while trying to grasp the ever-slipping confines of the personal within the ever-growing realm of the public.
And while those lines are being blurred and redefined, as businesses we must be careful not to loose sight of the very human, once personal context in which we're operating more and more. I think it's keeping sight of this context which in part keeps us authentic and relevant - regardless of the tools we use. While some debate whether or not Twitter is useful, others are simply putting it to work, filling a need, and reaching an audience they would never have reached before.
I thought something I read recently put it well:
"Asking when Twitter will end is like saying, 'When will the cell phone fad end'?...The value of cell phones can't end, it only can be replaced by something that provides the same value and more. Once we have a capability, we never want it taken away from us." -- David Spark, founder of Spark Media SolutionsWhile you definitely can learn from how others are using tools like Twitter both successfully and unsuccessfully, keep in mind that a) the communication is still yours b) the content is still yours c) everyone is still figuring this stuff out so don't be afraid to dip your toe in the water and don't be afraid to make a few mistakes d) do try to remember that there are humans on the other side of that message. There is something they probably want and want from you. What is it that they're looking for?
Related Articles:
Facebook Demystified: Profiles and Pages and Groups (oh my)A Guide to Social Media Tools and their UsesThe Weakest Link - Your Social Media Marketing "Killer App"The Marketing Skills You Can Learn from Obama
10 Tips to Avoid the Biggest SEO Mistake
I started this Search Engine Marketing Series with a definition of the two SEM areas — Search Engine Advertising and Search Engine Optimization. Last week we focused on SEO with SEO My Web Site in 3 Easy? Steps. We discussed the three elements of SEO and what I call their "blind spots".
As we learned last week, the first of those 3 elements is your keyword list. Your keyword list is critical because it is these keywords that will be used for optimizing your your HTML code & programming and build your incoming links. When you start doing SEA you'll find that your keywords are critical there too.
So what are keywords?
Keywords are the word or phrase that someone types into a search engine to find something they are looking for — like "buttermilk pancakes" or "cannon digital camera".
When a searcher types in one of these phrases, a "search engine results page" (aka SERP) is returned with a list of Web sites that the search engine has decided best fits that phrase.
Here are the SERP pages for "buttermilk pancakes" on Google (top) and Yahoo (bottom):
So let's say you own a diner in Durham, NC and you'd like anyone who searches for "buttermilk pancakes" to see your diner at the top of the results page.
That sounds pretty good, right?
I mean the #1 ranking, I know the pancakes sound good and yes — that was a trick question.
In fact, choosing "buttermilk pancakes" as your keyword phrase could not only waste a lot of your resources, it could also cause problems for your business.
I Can Email You With the Next Update
Click here to get notified of new posts to "The Internet Strategist" by Email
Here's why.
First — there is such a thing as too much traffic. How many phone calls do you need from someone in another state trying to place a delivery order or asking you'll mail them your pancake recipe? If your staff time get's maxed out by inquiries from people who won't ever do business with you, your staff won't have time or energy for the people who will.
Second — you will have devoted valuable time and money on a top position for a keyword that may hurt your business rather than help it. Those resources could have been spent far more productively elsewhere.
Unfortunately, many small businesses fall into the trap of choosing the keywords based on volume — thinking the ones that provide the most traffic will be the best investment. But what you really want is to focus on the keywords that will bring you the most business, even if they bring a small amount of traffic.
So how do you do that?:
Skip Generic Phrases - tire kickers love generic keywords. As in the example above, try to make your keyword phrases 3 words or longer.
Iterations - try using what I call "iterations" like locations. "durham nc" "north Carolina" etc.
Is it soda or pop? — there may be more than one way to say the same thing. Use Google's keyword suggestion tool to choose the most popular term and maximize your reach.
Do a Search - for each keyword you're considering, make sure you actually look it up in the various engines. You'll glean really helpful data from this.
Know your neighbors - know what kinds of results you'd be surrounded by. Ranking on some keywords can hurt your brand by association.
Know your competition — your search competition — who is at the top of the list for the keywords you want, how big is their site and how well optimized is their site?
List Length - for SEO the size of your list should depend on how much content you have to work with and how fierce your competition is. Start by looking at the keyword density of your competition as a target. For example 5% density means 5 repetitions for every 100 words. You can then figure out the potential size of your list by taking the keyword density you're aiming for vs. the number of words you have available per page and the number of pages on your site.
Product & Brand names — these can be highly valuable. If your customers know them, don't forget to optimize for them.
Don't forget Misspellings — of brand names, product names, location names, your company name, names of prominent staff etc.
Have you been burned by keywords or have they been the path to success?
Share some of your keyword tips below!
Tools to stay up to date: