How to Maintain a Positive Online Reputation

Posted on February 15, 2013 by Michael Boyer

Now that 2013 is in full swing, more than ever we are representing ourselves 24 hours a day, 7 days a week whether we realize it or not. Between Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, blogs etc., our names are out there for the World Wide Web to see. To each entrepreneur’s benefit, this means MARKETING. How do you maintain a positive online reputation? One of the easiest ways is to steer clear from the mistakes that businesses make to RUIN that reputation. Below is a list of what TO DO and what NOT TO DO:

Do you have a personal Facebook account as well as business account? Either be sure your personal page is strictly private or be your own monitor. You are selling yourself as well as the product/ service that your business provides. Anything you put out in the internet universe can never be removed. Deletion is an option, but once out there, it’s out there. Respect yourself and always keep that business hat on. Make sure that friendly banter between you and your cousin doesn’t cross the line and leads any potential customers astray. Same rule goes with all other social media outlets, if you would not represent your business in that light then don’t represent yourself in that light. You are your business, take pride in your posts.

Have you ever entered your own name in Google or Bing? It’s ok, everyone does it. Next time you do, take the opportunity to see what others see: search your business name as well as your name. Make note of the results. Here at ElementsLocal we use a Social Media Manager to track communications about business. The search could produce anything from customer reviews of your business, to that old website you created back in 2002. Take the opportunity to cancel any old accounts and remove yourself from any unwanted attention. Interact with customers, thank them for positive feedback and respectfully resolve any negative issues.

Do you feel very strongly about a current event? Don’t be afraid to express your opinion. Rule of thumb: stay positive. A close minded negative post could drive any potential customers away, but a positive opinion could open up your personal brand. Personable posts separate you from a faceless name. There is nothing wrong with healthy discussion about the latest controversy in the news. Negative rants on the other hand will likely steer people away. Once again, you represent your business. If you are negative, it will reflect on your business.

On the note of your opinions: be weary of talking about yourself too much. When posting, take a minute to flip the script. IF YOU were online how much do you want to read about one individual? Personally, I could talk all day if you let me. How soon would you stop caring about what I have to say? How soon until I am that post that you skip or heaven forbid, unfollow? Not to say that you don’t have an interesting life and people aren’t curious about what you have to say. They are. Just not 100% of the time. You already know how to engage your audience, now keep their attention. What would interest you? What would keep interested? References to a new article or intriguing conversation that corresponds to your business or personal interest keep your persona fresh and your followers coming back for more.

All in all remember this: YOU create and maintain your brand. If you take pride in yourself and your business, your reputation will grow in a positive way.
Google

2010 Internet Statistics

Posted on January 14, 2011 by Russ Lubin

I have been sent this article about 5 times from different sources so I guess I better share it on our blog on the off chance you might have missed it. The below article has estimated statistics of Internet usage for the entire 2010 calender year.

Some notable statistics are:

107 trillion – The number of emails sent on the Internet in 2010.
88.8 million – .COM domain names at the end of 2010.
14% – Increase in Internet users since the previous year.
600 million – People on Facebook at the end of 2010.
175 million – People on Twitter as of September 2010.
2 billion – The number of videos watched per day on YouTube.

You can read the full article at Pingdom here.

Looking Forward to Online Marketing in 2011

Posted on November 30, 2010 by Jeremy LaDuque

2010 was quite a busy year in regards to internet marketing. We saw local search become the top focus of SEO experts at the beginning of the year and we watched those same experts scramble back to basics when Google blended the local and organic results. We witnessed social marketing become the bees knees to online marketers only for them to learn that creating a Facebook and a Twitter account was not a panacea for an already weak marketing campaign. We saw Bing power Yahoo results and the emergence of Google Instant which caused a mild panic when certain naysayers prematurely declared it to be the “death of SEO”. And those are just the highlights, but as we pause to look back at 2010 it’s prudent to look to the future as well. So what can we expect from 2011?

Social Marketing

According to Hitwise in March Facebook surpassed Google as the most popular web destination in the US and as of November Facebook accounted for 1 out of every four page views. That’s an insane amount of eyes on the Facebook network which means a ton of views on their advertising platform. Facebook is now pushing out their new email platform with the intent of blending their user’s mail with IM and SMS messages; to borrow a phrase from Tolkien 1 inbox to rule them all. I remember thinking something very similar when Gmail first launched.

Borrowing from Google’s playbook Facebook is trying to become the solution to everything, to become so useful that we can’t imagine doing without it. In 2011 I expect Facebook to add more new features and perhaps even take a run at Google with search. I know that sounds kind of crazy, but Facebook is already dominating in page views so if Facebook can even take a small percentage of Google’s existing searches away from them they would become the undisputed king of the internet hill.

Some PPC (Pay Per Click) pundits already claim better success with their Facebook Ad campaigns than they have had with AdWords, mostly because through Facebook Ads they have a better ability to narrow the target demographics. Now if Facebook makes the move to search and adds purchase intent alongside that demographic targeting Facebook Ads could easily dominate the PPC landscape.

Mobile Marketing

For years we have been claiming that mobile will be the next big thing, but as the number of smart phones increase exponentially each year we still are not seeing mobile web traffic driving revenue as we have expected. According to Cisco’s estimates mobile traffic will increase 39-fold by 2014, so the traffic is there or soon will be but the real question is where are the sales?

Many experts in the mobile market predict that mobile driven revenue will be derived from location based services like Foursquare, Gowalla or Facebook Places, but while the number of competitors in this realm increases (e.g. Google Places, Yelp, Twitter) the usage by mobile users is still quite low. Pew Research Center found that only 4% of online adults use location based services and it only accounts for 1% of daily internet traffic.

I think in 2011 we will see companies better integrate location based services by driving users to local check-ins with deep discounts & incentives and then somehow integrate these location based services with social media platforms. While it is useful to know that someone has checked into one of their business locations, it is even more useful if you can track those check-ins alongside their social demographics. Understanding the age, sex & interests of those customers that are visiting a location, what times they are visiting these locations and how often they are visiting these locations will allow marketers to drive more sales through time-specific incentives advertised specifically to the captured demographic audience.

Now, what company is in the best position to leverage the mix of check-ins and demographics tracking? Facebook is, because not only are they the largest social network on the planet, but they already have the Facebook Places location-based check-in service in place. While Facebook Places is not currently very popular – mostly because of growing pains and a rush to market – I predict that in 2011 more users & businesses will begin to use the service. Based on what I’ve already seen of Facebook’s tactics in other segments I believe that Facebook Places will allow for integration with Foursquare and maybe even Yelp’s new check-in service allowing marketers to track check-ins across the multiple networks and appropriately target the demographic sweet spot through Facebook Ads delivered to these mobile devices.

SEO

Just recently Google’s “everything” search blended together their original organic style of results with their somewhat new Google Places’ results and placed those blends on the very top of their search results. These results replaced what SEO experts had previously termed the 1-box, the 3-pack & the 7-pack which used to display a group of relevant local results with a map of those locations above the original organic results based on the searchers location. While I believe the blended format of search results will stay throughout 2011 what I do believe will change is the way those results are laid out.

When Google first launched the blended results there was much talk about the new layout as they pushed the map of the blended results into the right-hand sidebar which forced the sidebar placed AdWords advertisements down below the map. Not only does the map now dominate the searchers attention rather than our AdWords advertisements, but it also seems out of place in its’ current location. The blended results are generally bigger than purely organic results which means that with several AdWords listings above the blended results only a few of the blended results will be seen above the fold of the page which means less clicks for everything below the 3rd ranked website (see above image).

In 2011, Google will address these issues by changing their results layout. How do I know this? Because Google is already experimenting with different result layouts. One of the experimental layouts drops the AdWords in the main results column from the top of the page to the very bottom of the page. While this is good news for those with blended results, this is bad news for advertisers as now both AdWords areas are pushed down below the fold. In another experiment Google has dropped a 1-box display of a local result that includes a map to that location below the blended & organic results. My feeling on this is that the Google team still sees value in the 1-box – and perhaps even the 3-pack – and they are looking for ways to integrate them back into the results page while still giving precedence to the blended results.

The problem is that Google has too much information to pass out in their search results and too many good ways to deliver it. So what do I think the results display will look like in the next 12 months? My guess is that by default blended results will be streamlined and made thinner, the map will disappear from the main search and there will be less advertising at the top of the page. That being said I also believe that Google will allow searchers to instantly switch between different styles of search result displays with the simple click of the button. Perhaps there will be three thumbnails of each result style at the top of the page. Hovering over each will produce a pop-up preview of the result’s format similar to what the magnifying glasses do to a result in the existing search. Clicking on the thumbnail will change the results display style without needing to refresh the page. This is all speculation of course, but it’s a pretty good option that would allow Google to maintain a quick & streamlined results display and yet give users the options to see more information that they have to display within the results like maps and Google Places information without having to leave the results page.

Conclusion

As far as online marketing goes, I expect 2011 to be a very interesting year with a lot of changes – many of which I will fail to predict – very similar to how 2010 played out. That being said there will still be things online marketing will entail in 2011: best practice SEO, local review harvesting & citation generation, engaging social media campaigns, progressive thinking in regards to mobile campaigns, and good old fashioned hard work. Some things never change.

ELEMENTS Launches New Technology: Franchises Can Automatically Create and Control Facebook Fan Pages for Every Location

Posted on October 15, 2010 by Jeremy LaDuque

San Luis Obispo, CA, October 15, 2010 — ELEMENTS, Inc., an industry leader in franchise online marketing and developers of the ElementsLocal™ online marketing solution announced today the release of its latest technology enhancement that allows Franchise marketers to develop and control branded Facebook Fan pages for every one of their franchisee location.

“This is a breakthrough technology for Franchise marketers struggling to launch a successful Facebook marketing campaign. Today, Franchise marketers fear issues like protecting their brand and successfully providing franchisees Facebook Fan pages,” said Jeremy LaDuque, CEO of ELEMENTS.

If trends continue, early next year Facebook should reach over 600 million members and over 3 million businesses will be marketing through the Facebook platform. Nobody denies the benefits that a well-managed viral inducing Facebook campaign can have on any given product or brand, but what most miss is that Facebook can be leveraged to build awareness for your brand, drive traffic to your website and generate new sales for your business.

ELEMENTS, supports clients such as Maaco, Sport Clips, Glass Doctor, and franchisees of Jiffy Lube and Curves, and plans on releasing this technology to its current clients this month.

“Franchisors will be able to do things they’ve only dreamed of,” says LaDuque, as the new technology will support:

- Automatically creating a Facebook Fan page for every franchisee;
- Giving the Franchisor Administrative rights over all Fan pages;
- Allowing the Franchisor to take down or put up any Fan page at will;
- And allowing the Franchisor to post to all franchisee Fan pages at once.

Franchisors are searching for ways to use Social media to increase sales, Elements feels one of most valuable features of its new technology is the ability to redirect anyone searching for your franchise in Facebook to individual franchisee websites that contain their own Facebook Fan pages, where customers can engage with that franchisees website.

“As search engines, social media and mobile marketing converge to create more and more opportunities for businesses, franchises in particular are increasingly challenged to maintain their brand, monitor their reputation and leverage new opportunities to their advantage. This new technology is a great leap forward to allow franchises to control their brand and provide more marketing opportunity to their franchisees,” says LaDuque.

October Is All About Facebook

Posted on October 13, 2010 by Brandon

There’s some big Facebook news out there this month and it just so happens to coincide with Elements Inc focusing this entire month to Facebook. If you haven’t already read our blog post on Facebook as an SEO Tool you should take a look at it as it goes over some very simple steps that can be beneficial to your corporate website.

On October 27th Elements CEO Jeremy LaDuque will be presenting a webinar on the 7 Steps to Socializing Strategically which will focus primarliy on Facebook. Sign-up immediately because it is first come first serve and there are a limited number of spaces available.

As for the Facebook news: Earlier this month Facebook anounced a couple of changes that could have a big impact on how people use Facebook. The first was their addition of a new Groups feature which lets Facebook users segregate the dismination of their social news. This would allow discusssions of last night’s kegger to be shared with people in your ‘friends’ group, but not in your ‘work’ or ‘family’ group. The other feature Facebook announced that has received less visibility is the ability for users to export all of their Facebook information, including pictures and videos.

Just today Microsoft announced that Bing will integrate Facebook like data into their search engine results. Bing users will now see customized content based on their likes and the likes of their friends. Bing will now also be able to recommend Facebook friendship connections based on mutual friendships and similiar likes as well.

Again, don’t forget to check out our social media webinar at the end of October, details can be found here.

Should Your Facebook Presence Be Part of your SEO Strategy

Posted on October 11, 2010 by Russ Lubin

Should your Facebook presence be part of your SEO strategy? In short, yes!

Social media platforms are all the rage nowadays because they provide an easy and mobile solution for users looking to socially express their thoughts and statuses. If trends continue, early next year Facebook should reach over 600 million members and over 3 million businesses will be marketing through the Facebook platform. Nobody denies the benefits that a well managed viral inducing Facebook campaign can have on any given product or brand, but what most miss out on is that Facebook can be leveraged to drive traffic to your website and brands through search engines as well.

In fear of becoming antiquated Google is adding more social media content into their search results.

… we’re excited to share a few new innovations in the areas of real-time, mobile and social search that we feel are important steps in the evolution of information access.

.. Of course, none of this would be possible without the support of our new partners that we’re announcing today: Facebook, MySpace, FriendFeed, Jaiku and Identi.ca – along with Twitter, which we announced a few weeks ago. The Official Google Blog

That being said, a company planning to create a Facebook presence should put some best practice SEO methods into their social media efforts.

Currently, search relevant Facebook images can be found near the top rankings in Google Images and sometimes in the general results as well. It makes sense to upload images to your Facebook albums on a regular basis that have optimized image names with a splash of relevant keywords in the comments below the picture. That possibly means more views on your brand coming directly from ‘search’ which is known for its’ great goal conversion ratio. It’s also possible to get the company’s Facebook Wall or other informational Facebook page listed highly in the search engine results as well. The Facebook and Twitter accounts of well entrenched or unique brands often land on the first page results in Google.

Facebook is also a great example of leveraging offsite optimizations to increase the view-ability of your company’s websites. Facebook itself has a very high authority ranking and is a trusted source which means that links to your corporate or franchisee websites inside of a text rich status update or comment can inject a little bit of Facebook’s link juice into the destination website, and every little bit of link juice helps.

While applying best practice SEO methods into your Facebook campaign will not make you rich overnight, any planned Facebook marketing strategy should include optimizing your text, links and images for maximum benefit.

Our Elements Local platform allows a franchisor or their franchisee’s the ability to manage Facebook campaigns directly through the content management dashboard built into our software. Our built in Facebook tools maximize the benefits of the company’s Facebook campaign strategy with a minimal amount of training and effort.

The ElementsLocal Blog

Tag Archives: Facebook