Posted on Thu, Mar 28, 2013 @ 09:03 AM
[By Emily Carter]
Before Search Engines like Google, Yahoo! and Bing became a way of life for the everyday person, it was a lot more difficult to research things. As someone who graduated from college not too long ago, my research techniques for projects in school drastically shifted from middle school through high school and college. I bet that most of you remember looking up topics in encyclopedias or dictionaries. There was no "fast answer" to tricky questions - a person usually consulted a card catalog or a librarian to assist in uncovering the truth about ancient civilizations or metric conversions.
In the days of old (you know, pre-Internet), ideas were organized a by topic, title and author...in books...in libraries. The Dewey Decimal System categorized topics to assist in quickly finding what you were searching for. Of course, these still exist today - but is it your first stop to finding answers? The earliest "Search Engines" were probably your favorite librarians bustling down the aisles to help you find something. The way that we look for information has definitely changed.
How do you find information now? Chances are, you type your question into Google and your answer will pop up within .5 seconds. Reference books are now reference websites (Dictionary.com & Britannica.com), and students now include websites in their works cited more often than an actual book.
My friends and I like to play a game where we take a screenshot of our most recent Google searches and send it to each other. It's hilarious to see the random things that you searched in a day. Thank you, search engines, for making it possible for me to find answers to the really impossible questions in life. These were on my search history from last week:
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How is the date for Easter chosen?
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What's the 10-day forecast for Las Vegas?
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When does the 2014 Kia Forte come out?
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Who was on the cast of the Real World Chicago?
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What were the winning powerball numbers?
My main girl Siri always has my back when it comes to information search.
Are you being found online? You should be.
Posted on Fri, Mar 22, 2013 @ 10:32 AM
[Guest Blog: Megan Totka]
At the end of last year, Grass Roots Marketing posted a blog detailing several marketing goals for 2013. Now that it’s getting close to April (where does the time go?) it’s a good idea to take the opportunity to evaluate where you stand on the goals that you set for your business at the beginning of the year. Typically the 1st quarter for businesses ends on March 31st, so we are already nearly ¼ through 2013.
Setting business goals can help you to strive for bigger and better things; in this case, we’re talking about marketing reach, better SEO, and website improvements. But you can also consider setting goals for sales figures, employee productivity, or social media followers. Goals, big or small, are a great way to help your business grow. Many of us have an inherent drive for competition; goals certainly play right into that drive.
Evaluating your progress through quarterly, or even mid quarter reality checks, can help businesses discover if they are going to meet their goals. Here are some ways you can evaluate your progress towards your goals for the first quarter of 2013:
Check in with your social media followers – ask how your fans think you are doing! While numbers are of course, a concrete way to measure your progress, positive feedback from your followers or fans is a great way to measure success as well. Consider posting a specific question regarding how your ideas are resonating with your fans. Asking a broad question like “how are we doing?” probably isn’t going to get as much response as you might hope. However, asking “what do you like about X marketing campaign?” probably will garner some honest feedback.
Check your analytics – the numbers don’t lie. See if you are able to check your analytics for the past few months and compare them to this time last year, or the last quarter of 2012. If one of your goals was to write more content, even something as simple as counting the posts that you have written this quarter versus how many you wrote the prior quarter will show you how well you have done.
You can also evaluate your progress in order to set further goals for the rest of the year. If your goal was to increase the amount of social media followers you have by 25%, now is the time to figure out how close you have come to that goal so far this year. This way, you will be able to set up a plan for how you will continue to meet your goals for the rest of the year.
So, let us know, have you been able to meet or exceed any of your yearly goals for your business in the first quarter?
Megan Totka is the Chief Editor for ChamberofCommerce.com. She specializes on the topic of small business tips and resources. ChamberofCommerce.com helps small businesses grow their business on the web and facilitates connectivity between local businesses and more than 7,000 Chambers of Commerce worldwide.
Posted on Thu, Mar 21, 2013 @ 02:09 PM
[By Emily Carter]
Ask that question in 1938, and they probably would have said: My Farmer’s Almanac, but of course!
But in the present day, that might sound more like this: Google, duh. What kind of question is that?
A couple of weeks ago our SVP Koleen Singerline returned home from her parents’ house with a neato relic – an almanac from 1938. It had information on sunrise and sunset times, and even a section on a new operation system that made it possible for people to call each other on the phone across the country. It made me think of the many times I wonder to myself “What did people DO before the Internet? How did we survive?”
Throughout the past few decades, the way that we find information has changed dramatically. Everyone uses the Internet now to find answers to the difficult questions in life (you know, like “What is a Hoya?” “Where is St. Tropez?” and “Why are you supposed to pee on a jellyfish sting?”). Our devices even have changed to revolve around the Internet – I can’t tell you how many times I’ve asked Siri to look something up for me on the web.
How many times per day do you use the Internet as a source of information?
Because of the ways that information search has changed, business and marketing have changed too. Wanna learn more? Check it.
Posted on Thu, Mar 14, 2013 @ 12:51 PM
[By Emily Carter]
Think of what it would be like if we never moved past dial-up Internet. In the morning, you’d have to arrive at work earlier than normal just to give your computer time to connect to the Internet. You would have to buy a separate phone line for your company, or else you wouldn’t be able to use the phone while connected to the Internet.
During the 1990’s, the main way that the everyday Joe accessed the Internet was through their phone line. This required disabling your phone while you peruse this newfangled thing called the Internet – and let me remind you how slow it was. Reminisce with Walter and I for a minute….
Luckily, this is a thing of the past. Being connected to the Internet is a way of life nowadays. Have Google at your fingertips is often something that we take for granted. Businesses (like Grass Roots Marketing, for example) rely on having a fast and reliable Internet connection to operate. Our patience and day-to-day lives were put to the test when GRM lost power for 10 days after Hurricane Sandy. Living life with slow or no Internet is ancient history. In 2013, we can do it all: I frequently check email on my phone while working on my computer and answering the phone – all at the same time.
Dial-up Internet….what a throwback.
Posted on Wed, Mar 13, 2013 @ 11:32 AM
[By Fred Strahl]
After conducting some statistical research, Facebook decided to make changes to the layout of the News Feed. They found that 50% of all content posted on Facebook was visual. This includes pictures, albums, videos, etc. Facebook has decided to take advantage of the statistic and update their News Feed accordingly. However, changes in your social media strategy must come with the change of the News Feed in Facebook. Here is what you should do to prepare for the update.
Pictures, Pictures, and Pictures (Oh and did we mention pictures?)
90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual and visuals are processed 60,000 times faster in the brain than text. Facebook took these statistics into consideration when deciding to update the News Feed. What this means for your social media strategy is that the content you produce must involve many visuals – pictures, graphics, charts, diagrams, etc. Whether you sell a good or service, make certain that you post many images of your product or service at work. While it may be easier to post a picture of a good; the advantage that service industries have is the ability to present “before and after” images that resulted from your service. If you do repair work, show the before and after shots. Even if you are a marketing agency you can show screen shots of a client’s new website or their improved ROI through an analytics program you are using. However, if your product can’t be captured in an image, you can turn text into an image.
Turn Your Text Posts Into Images
A quick text update with a link won’t cut it anymore in the new newsfeed. You will have to save them for Twitter. Turn your text updates into images in order to get them seen more prominent on the News Feed. Here is an example;
It is not difficult to create an image like this. In fact, this image was created in 5 minutes with Microsoft Word and saved as an image. The extra time you put into developing images like this will expand your reach on the updated News Feed drastically.
Share Pinterest Posts on Facebook
Using Pinterest consistently will help you optimize your new Facebook Strategy. Pinterest is an image heavy social media site and it connects with Facebook. If you regularly post photos to Pinterest and share the content onto Facebook, it will help you promote your company in the new News Feed. In addition, Pinterest has been proven to increase sales. In fact, 21% of people who use Pinterest said that they purchased a product after seeing images of the product on the social media site. By sharing your posts on Facebook from the already proven selling machine, you will increase your reach and chances of gaining business through social media.
Optimize Your Profile’s Cover Photo in Facebook
When someone likes your page on Facebook, all of their friends will see it in their News Feed. It will show your cover photo and logo as it appears at the top of your company page. Make sure that it is a great representation of your company and what your company does. You will have a great looking billboard that will appear on hundreds of other Facebook News Feeds.
Create Engaging Images and Promote Sharing
Your content will be ranked in the new Facebook News Feed based on how many other people shared your content. It is similar to how many other news sources rank their content. Post things that will compel the people that “like” you to share your posts.
Contact Us to discuss how you can optimize your entire social media strategy.
Posted on Thu, Mar 07, 2013 @ 10:05 AM
[By Emily Carter]
If you are like me, you probably find yourself thinking of “the good old days” from time to time – you know, when you were 9 years old playing Pogs on the sidewalk with your neighbors, after watching a solid episode of Zoom? Regardless of whether you grew up in the 1990’s (like I did) or not, you probably have some crazy-vintage memories of things that are totally outdated today.
What do you get when you combine equal parts Social Media and throwback memories? Throwback Thursday (otherwise known as #tbt or #throwbackthursday). Most commonly seen on Instagram, the trend of posting an old photo on Thursdays has caught on as a popular way to relive old memories through social media.
Like most of our lives, the marketing industry also has some old school aspects to it. The landscape of businesses and marketing has changed so much in the past 20 years. Remember what life was like before Google?
Grass Roots Marketing’s throwback Thursday series presents several marketing techniques or lifestyle changes that have shifted the way we live our daily lives. Take a minute with us each week to relive (and laugh at) some of the things that used to be normal.
Remember when Cold Calling Was Effective?
There was a time when reaching out to prospects via telephone to attempt to sell to them was effective. The term “cold calling” refers to the fact that the person on the receiving end of this call was not expecting it. Telemarketing centers specifically aim to acquire customers using this method of outbound marketing. Not only that, but some call centers are located overseas, which means that you could be speaking to someone both literally AND figuratively foreign to you. My brother used to love messing with the telemarketers who called our house. It was a downright hobby to reverse prank call these people.
Now that we’ve learned better, we at home screen our calls using Caller ID and answering machines, and companies have taught their administrative professionals to become gatekeepers for the organization. We make the conscious effort to weed out these solicitations, which means that they are unable to give us their pitch at all. Customers have more power today to regulate how they are marketed to, which is why cold calling is a thing of the past.
To follow #throwbackthursday with us, like GRM on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. What outdated marketing techniques are you leaving in the dust? Let us know by commenting below!
Posted on Mon, Mar 04, 2013 @ 12:47 PM
We talk a lot about how to market your company via social media and the internet. But how about marketing yourself? I would argue that with the advent of social media, every person has the opportunity to become their own brand. Whether you are looking for a job, keeping your resume current, or a business owner, building your brand online is equally important.
In order to be visible to others, you should be a part of at least a few social media networks. Some of the most popular for professionals are of course Facebook, and also LinkedIn and Twitter. Having a personal website or blog is a great idea as well, depending on what you are trying to market yourself for.
Here are some reasons that you should have a presence on social media and build your personal brand:
Facebook – Facebook offers a unique opportunity in that you can promote yourself and your business in several different ways. In order to build your personal brand, you should have your personal page up to date. Include what you do for work. Keep your page work-appropriate – now is the time to delete any unflattering photos from college where you may or may not be holding a red plastic cup and/or doing something that you wouldn’t want your professional connections to see. Some people choose to make a second Facebook page just for professional connections, but beware, this violates the terms of service for the site and can cause both of your pages to be shut down.
LinkedIn – I recently wrote a post detailing how to keep your LinkedIn profile current. It’s important for your profile to be complete if you want potential employers to consider you. Many employers are turning to LinkedIn to check out an applicant’s job history. LinkedIn also gives you the opportunity to be a bit more creative. When building a personal brand, it’s great to show your personality. While you definitely want to showcase your professional accomplishments, people should be able to see that you are a human, and an interesting one, on the other side of the computer.
Twitter – since Twitter only allows for short, 140 character posts, it’s a great place to post interesting links, articles, photos, or infographics that you find. These can be related to your personal interests or your profession. This way, people can see that you take the time to be knowledgeable about what is going on in the world. You can also use Twitter to communicate with professional connections as well as companies that you might be interested in working for.
A website or blog – having a website or blog can help you build your personal brand by letting people learn more about you in a broader way. Your website can include samples of your work, places you’ve been published, even personal anecdotes or recipes. Anything to build your web presence. A blog has similar uses; even a personal blog helps to expand your online repertoire.
It’s a good idea to work on building your personal brand even if you are not currently seeking employment. You never know what opportunities may come your way through this different form of networking. It’s nice to be able to refer people to your online pages without having to worry about cleaning them up or updating them before they are seen. By keeping everything up to date, you will be in a great position to show off your talents.
(Image Source)
Megan Totka is the Chief Editor for ChamberofCommerce.com. She specializes on the topic of small business tips and resources. ChamberofCommerce.com helps small businesses grow their business on the web and facilitates connectivity between local businesses and more than 7,000 Chambers of Commerce worldwide.
Posted on Fri, Feb 22, 2013 @ 03:47 PM
[By Emily Carter]
Many businesses struggle to grasp the many ways that they can and will use social media. What good is a Facebook page when you’re trying to boost sales? There are a plethora of reasons why social media accounts are beneficial to both small and large businesses, including SEO, content generation, inbound links, customer service and brand awareness. The early adoption stage of social media for business is over – by now many of you should know and understand the value of having an account. However, when moving forward with a social media strategy, it’s important to know the power that social media has.
In a crisis, social media can be super handy. I have a couple of honest-to-goodness examples of the ways that I’ve seen social media help or seriously hurt a business in a crisis.
The Good
This week, I have been spending most of my days geeking out over the awesome lineup at the Firefly Music Festival coming up this June in Dover, Delaware. It didn’t take me long to know that I simply had to go to this summer festival. Early bird tickets went on sale Thursday at noon. A tantalizingly few tickets would be sold at a cheaper price for those lucky 5,000 patrons who bought their ticket RIGHT when they went on sale. Guess where I was?
12:00 rolled around, and the website crashed. No biggie, I told myself, it’s just overloaded and will refresh properly in a few minutes. However, two and a half hours later, I and all of my friends were still having trouble accessing the website. It was hard to tell if we’d be able to buy tickets at all, let alone at the early bird price.
Then we began to notice that the Firefly Music Festival Facebook page was posting updates the entire time that their website was down. Their posts ranged from “hey everyone, we’re here and we’re working hard,” to a flat out apology once the website fiasco was resolved. We were able to receive real-time information on what was going wrong and what would be fixed soon. While many customers were undoubtedly angry, having those regular updates kept my friends content to buy the next available tickets. We knew that despite their website issues, they were on their game.
The Bad (& The Ugly)
Last week was the day of love, Valentine’s Day. One of the most common gifts given on V-Day, as we all know, are flowers. 1-800 Flowers is one of the more well-known flower companies, and unfortunately last week they became well-known on Facebook too. About halfway through the day, I noticed that many of the friends on my news feed were talking about the many negative comments on the 1-800 Flowers Facebook page. Curious, I checked it out.
All I saw were angry customers. Everywhere. At the time (about 5:00PM on Valentine’s Day) I didn’t see any responses from 1-800 Flowers. The complaints rolled in, and the high volume of negative posts by users became a bit of a joke. Here’s an example:
Keep deleting my complaint. go ahead. I can and will keep posting it all night long. DO NOT ORDER ANYTHING FROM 1-800 FLOWERS!!!!! The roses I sent my girlfriend today were dead. They offered her some crappy rainbow bouquet of flowers cause the roses that I ordered are no longer available plus some pathetic 30 dollar credit. She was on hold for over an hour. Now I’ve just been on hold for over an hour and they just hung up on me. SUPER HEATED!!!! And to top it off I‘m freakin deaf from the extremely loud hold music they had playing. Tomorrows phone call is gonna be a bad one. Please pass this on to everyone you know. See how they like it when social media works its magic. DISLIKE! DISLIKE! DISLIKE!
Ouch. Checking back on their page today, it looks like the company has since been reaching out to respond. As someone wise once said, it’s too late to apologize.
The lesson learned here is that social media can be a godsend in a crisis. Be sure that you have a plan for when that happens, and you will end up bolstering your consumer base once you’ve cleaned up the mess. If you’re lost when it comes to Social Media Management, download our Social Media Checklist to take care of the basics. Need help developing a Social Media plan? Contact GRM to learn more.
Image Credit: Sarah Klockars-Clauser 2010
Posted on Fri, Feb 01, 2013 @ 08:05 AM
[By Fred Strahl]
We are almost a full month into the new year and some companies still don‘t have an internet marketing plan. Internet marketing has become extremely vital to generating leads and sales. Here are some basic questions that you need to ask yourself, as a business, if you are preparing to exceed all of your sales goals!
Do you have an internet marketing strategy?
Most likely you have a website at this point (You do, right? Good.) However, the days are gone when just having a website was sufficient. Every day you don’t make updates to your site, add new content, write a blog, or increase your social media presence; your competitors do. According to HubSpot, 89% of marketers are maintaining or increasing their inbound marketing budgets.
Are you familiar with inbound marketing?
Inbound marketing is the philosophy to have leads come to you. Cold calling, direct mailers, mass emails, and other outbound methods are out of date and no longer efficient in time or investment. The ROI just isn’t there. Here’s a fun video that explains the ineffectiveness of outbound marketing. (I think fans of Alanis Morissette will enjoy it) Read our free white paper to learn more about the topic and keep an eye out for live webinars in the near future.
Do you have a keyword strategy in place?
This is the first step in developing an inbound marketing plan for many reasons. Even the most efficient keyword strategies are going to take time to develop traction with Google. However, some argue this point just like the chicken and the egg. Should you develop your keyword strategy first to generate traffic as soon as possible or develop a great site first for when the traffic arrives? My opinion is this, due to the fact the keywords take time to gain traction, you should develop your keyword strategy first. You will have time to improve your website while the keyword list begins to gain traction. To learn more about developing a keyword strategy, contact us!
Are you present on social media pages?
Did you know that United States internet users spend 3 times more time on social media and blogs than email? Just like a website, it is no longer sufficient to just create social media pages. You must be consistently updating the pages and interacting with your audience. According to Aberdeen Research, the top 20% of B2B marketers in social media lead generation have increased revenue by 20% in 2011. These results don’t come by simply creating a page. A lot of work must be happening on your end which includes consistent posts, engaging content, and interaction with the visitors of your page. In addition, having a great presence on social media with boost your rankings in Google. The Google algorithm has recently been updated to analyze social presence as well. TIP: Some studies have shown that companies with a Google+ page get a great boost in SEO…surprised?
Are you able to blog consistently?
My favorite quote about blogging is from Freelance Journalist Kevin Anderson;
“The bottom line is that blogging is like sex. You can’t fake it. You can’t fake passion. You can’t fake wanting to engage with the public. If you do, it will ultimately be an unsatisfying experience for both the blogger and their readers.”
This quote is spot on. Similar to social media, blogging is all about engagement. You have to create engaging articles that will spark interest and discussion. At the very least you have to ensure that people are reading them. If you have a low amount of hits and subscribers to your blog you have to rethink your strategy and content.
I hope you were able to answer yes to all of these questions. If not, there are many things you can do to improve yourself! You may be behind now but don’t continue to fall behind. As General Erik Shineski said “If you don’t like change, you are going to like irrelevance even less.”
Image Source: Carolyn Frith
Posted on Wed, Jan 23, 2013 @ 07:38 AM
[By Megan Totka]
Many companies are turning to the world of mobile apps to try and drive their sales and marketing campaigns to success. With hundreds of thousands of apps available in the Apple App Store and the Google Play store, companies are wise to try and take advantage of mobile marketing, which has become a necessity.
More and more people are replacing more traditional computers, such as laptops or desktops, with mobile devices. There are so many different types of mobile devices available – smart phones, tablets, and hybrid tablet/phone combinations. Companies must target these users specifically and be a part of the mobile revolution to stay current. A traditional website is perhaps not the best way to go, as some sites are distorted on mobile devices, and in Apple’s case, Flash is not supported.
One way to capture these primarily mobile users is to have an app. Many large stores and companies have apps where customers are able to buy merchandise right from the app. These companies include Target and Amazon. Many deal of the day type sites also have mobile apps. 
Groupon and Living Social are popular examples of these sites. Lots of smaller companies have their own apps as well. Consider creating an app with a purpose, even if you don’t use it for direct sales. Getting company information and/or signing up for emails is a good way to engage a mobile user with your app.
Apps are also being used more and more as a physical selling device, as well. Apps like Square and its competitors allow users to download their app and order a small credit card reader for free. Then, the app charges a certain percentage per transaction, every time that the app is used as a card reader. This is a huge development for small businesses who can’t afford to pay what are sometimes exorbitant credit card fees. These apps are used by businesses such as food trucks, independent hair stylists, and so many more. You could even get a reader in order to take credit cards at a garage sale, that’s how easy it is.
You can also use mobile apps to help your company’s sales force be prepared at all times. Storage apps like Google Drive or Dropbox can hold presentations, sales materials, and contact information. This way, everything can be easily shared on the go. Anyone who asks for more information about your company can have it, instantly, rather than having to wait to go home and check a website (at which point they have probably forgotten all about it).
The use of mobile apps for sales purposes will only continue to grow. As we all know, hundreds of new apps are created every day. Many of these apps will help to improve sales, lead generation, and information sharing. If you have a business, it’s critical to keep up with the newest apps that are released. Who knows, an app that is created tomorrow may be the perfect sales tool for your business.
Megan Totka is the Chief Editor for ChamberofCommerce.com, an online business directory that offers small business solutions. Megan also specializes on writing small business tips across the web.