Find your way with Waze

You could use a GPS to find your way, but one of the hottest cell phone apps is using the latest technology to combine a GPS and social media. Waze is one of the hottest apps on the social media scene today. One small aspect of Waze is a GPS, but it has much more to offer its users. And Waze is free.

No one wants to encourage people to text or enter information into their phone while driving. That being said, there are many ways to get great travel information from this app while on the road.

After logging into the app, which tracks your journey, you can find gas stations, parking lots, ATMs, convenience stores, coffee, food, pharmacies, attractions, hotels and even hospitals and police stations.

Once you have logged into the app, you can not only find things, but enter them as well. Let people know the current price of the gas at any station you visit. Tell others about accidents, road closures, heavy traffic or dead animals on the road. If someone you know needs a ride, they can enter their location in their phone and you can map a route to pick go get them.

The more you use the app, the more points you accumulate. However, points seem to be meaningless for any practical purpose. Once you get to 100 points, you can tell others what mood you are feeling. Similar bonuses are available as you gather more points. You can see who has the most points among your friends.

Other Waze users are visible on the map as you drive. The only drawback to this program is for people with limited data plans for their cell phones. You will be using your data time as you use the app. If you avoid being charged with data time when you are not traveling, you can simply switch it off. Turn it on when you need it and always remember to turn it off when you are finished.

Online reviews

Every business tries to get listed on the first page of the search. One of the many criteria in ranking companies is not as obvious as most, and that is to have a lot of reviews for the business. Even if there are a few not-so-great reviews mixed in, it still helps. The more people talk about your business, the better.

Every time you complete a sale or finish a service you should send something to your client. Whether they bought a publication, took a class, purchased some of your inventory or used your service, it is important to thank them. Non-profits use this technique all of the time. When you thank someone for a donation, they are more likely to donate again. The same holds true with your business. When you thank someone, they are more likely to buy again.

When you send the thank you, include a request for a review. This is especially important for your favorite clients or customers. When using Google Places and Yahoo Local, you can write a review for a business. Yelp is a site specifically for writing reviews. If you think people will have a hard time finding out where to put their review – find it for them. They may be willing to write a review, but they are not going to spend a lot of time searching around for the place to do it. Give it to them and make their life easier. All they have to do is click a link and they are right at the review page.

The length of reviews really does not matter. I usually only read the first paragraph or two. Usually after that, I’ve lost interest and it’s on to the next review. You can tell your clients that a brief review is fine. They do not have to write a complete essay about your business.

We all have clients who, at one time or another, are not happy with us and post angry reviews. Do not try to counterbalance that and trick the search engines by writing your own reviews! They can tell where the website’s ISP address is registered. In other words, they know it is you. Spooky, isn’t it? You can however, with most search engines, respond to reviews.

Your blog is a whole different ballgame. You can do whatever you want there, and that includes deleting comments you dislike. Some people may get a glimpse of the comment before you delete it. When logged into the blog, it too knows when you are commenting so be careful what you post.

On Facebook, you can remove unwanted comments, but when they are posted, they go out to everyone who likes the page. While it doesn’t stay on the page once you take it down, it has been sent and most likely seen by some people. 

Obviously, the idea is to make all of your customers happy. Remember to always thank them. The happiest will tell their friends. If you can get people to post their favorable reviews on social media as well as write a review for one of the search engines, that is the best result you can imagine.

Affiliate marketing for blogs and websites

What is affiliate marketing?

Have you ever seen ads on the side of someone’s blog? Or, ads on someone’s website? That is usually not paid advertising, but affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is when you put ads on your site and are paid a commission if someone clicks on the ad, goes to the site and then buys something. Much less often, you get paid per click or site visit. If you get paid per click, it is usually pennies rather than dollars.

If you use affiliate marketing on your site, you now have a way to generate income, hopefully at least enough to pay for the site. Most social media, especially Facebook, frowns upon affiliate marketing because they don’t make any money from it – you do!

Here are a couple sites that I recently started with affiliate marketing:

www.PetSaver.info

www.ExtremeCuteness.com

I started them on a whim, just for fun really. I purchased the domains from Namecheap.com, which is – you guessed it – really cheap! Most sites are about $3-10 a year. I know I used to pay at least $35 for each site before I transferred all my names to them. Namecheap also does hosting.

Once I set up the sites, I wanted to get some affiliate marketing on them. ChaCha’s affiliate program offers lots of links, quizzes and other fun things. They pay per click, between 1.5¢ to about 4¢ per click. It depends on what the topic is how much they pay. ChaCha is a website where you type in a question and a real person answers you, like a human Google. You will not get rich with this type of affiliate program unless you get a crazy amount of hits per day on your site. ChaCha’s affiliate program adds several new links every day, so you have to check it on a regular basis. There are links in a lot of different topics.

Amazon is another company that has a really popular affiliate program. They have a variety of ads you can use. Some of them even have a search feature so people can look for what they want to buy. You cannot change the size of their ads, which is one reason they have so many versions available.

Many companies have affiliate programs, but if you want to have several ads from different companies on your blog or site, you should go with a company that serves many affiliates. I went with Commission Junction. There are tons of affiliates listed on this site. There are credit card companies, cell phone companies, dog food, magazines – anything that might interest you. Most of them make you apply to them if you want to put their ads on your site. Some accept right away, others might take a week or two to give you an answer.

The reason that I originally discovered Commission Junction was that I wanted to use Vista Print, the popular online printing company, on my site. When I looked on their site, they sent me to Commission Junction. Unfortunately, they turned me down. But I found a lot of other companies that wanted to work with me. The database is very sophisticated on their site. Each advertiser has lots of ads that are in a bunch of different sizes to fit on just about any website. Most of the time, you have to accept the ad the way it is, although some can be sized to fit.

When someone clicks on the ad, you can set it up so that it opens in a new tab on the user’s browser, which I recommend because that way the browser still has your page on display too. You can also have it just go to the advertiser’s page without opening a new tab.

Clickbank is another affiliate marketing program. They give you a QR code (see below) that can be used as a link to the ad. We’ll save QR codes for another day, but they come in very handy as you can scan it into your smart phone and avoid typing the web address.

With all of the affiliate programs, they hold on to your cash until you reach a certain threshold. For most it is $50. Then you can withdraw the money and have it go to your PayPal account.

Is this totally over your head? If you are not well versed in web design, you might want to pass along the affiliate marketing information to your designer. You need to cut and paste code and that can be confusing for some people who are used to the WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) type of designing – where there is no code knowledge needed.

Make new friends and keep the old

When using social media to grow your business, an important aspect is making virtual friends. This is not always an easy process, especially for businesses that have never used social media in the past. One of the best ways to get likes on a business Facebook page is by asking your friends on your personal Facebook page to like it. Without a personal Facebook page, this is a bit more challenging.

I have had retired racing greyhounds for pets for many years. Sometimes they can be a bit neurotic. The dog I have now was a little different than any greyhound I ever had before. He was afraid of everyone. No one, especially men, could come near him. Lots of business owners feel just as apprehensive about meeting people online. There is a stigma attached to meeting unknown people. Maybe as kids, when our parents told us not to talk to strangers, this became ingrained in our psyche.

My dog trainer taught us the command, “make friends.” Using a little piece of cheese to entice my dog to make a new friend, he gradually learned to trust people. While I’m not asking you to use cheese to make friends, followers or fans through social media, think of new business as your virtual cheese. Go and seek new likes, followers and/or fans – especially if they are unknown to you. This will help your business grow.

One way to achieve more activity is by literally asking. When you talk to potential customers on the phone, don’t be afraid to mention your social media sites. Ask them, “How did you hear about us?” When they answer, tell them about your Facebook or Twitter page. You want as much exposure for your content as you can get. And, ask your people to share the page with their friends.

When you send out email, add your page locations to your online signature. You don’t have to remember to tell people, because it will automatically be at the bottom of every email you send. Any print advertising can simply have the phrases, “Follow us on Twitter” and “Like us on Facebook” with the logos of the sites, and people will do it. If your business has online Yelp, Yellowbook or Superpages listings (and they should!!!), make sure you add links to your social media pages to the information.

You can also go out and get new followers and likes. There are websites like Twiends.com that help you get followers on twitter. Socialscube.com helps people get followers, likes and web page views. Those two are free. However, when taking advantage of the free sites, you might get a bunch of followers and then the next day many will be gone. You have to continuously add new people to keep your numbers steadily growing.

Sites where you buy followers are also available. Socialscube and Twiends both have paid programs as well as many others like twitterfollowersbazar.com. Microjob sites like fiverr.com also offer Twitter, Facebook and YouTube followers for really cheap, only a few dollars. On the microjob sites, most purchasers leave comments so you can see how happy (or not) they are with the results of each offer.

A much better way to get followers is to create an interesting page, good content and links and to have a great photo. Those things will get you organic followers who are actually interested in what you have to say. You won’t have to give them cheese like I did my dog! Just give them fresh and interesting content and they will want to be your virtual friend for a good long time.

Add pizzazz to social media pages

As more businesses jockey for position to be the best, they use their social media pages to gain popularity. Some have one time offers, others contests and still more have funny pictures. No matter what strategy you employ, you must do something to attract new clients.

Lots of web pages have “suggest a caption” contests. Those are fun because people think of the most outrageous things you would never think of on your own. Viewers often share these funny photos. Come up with something that is thought provoking. Remember that you either need permission to use a photo or have taken it yourself to avoid copyright infringements.

You can do a lot with videos. They do not have to be professionally done. Many people use their laptop’s webcam to create video content for their site. People love watching videos and looking at photos. It is so much more interesting than straight text. Even if your website is devoted to something very serious, you can always find some tasteful artwork to go with it.

There are programs like Picasa and Instagram that will help you manipulate photos you take and make them look a little better. By using your own photos, you know no one else will be using the same image. If you don’t have the skills to take photos worthy of your blog or Facebook page, subscribe to a graphics service in order to get copyright free material to use on your site. Companies like istockphoto.com will sell rights for individual photos. Sites like graphicsfactory.com offer a year-long subscription and rights to use any graphics or photos on the site. Both are reasonably priced.

Even creating a meme, some having no artwork at all, are gaining in popularity. A lot of times they are old fashioned looking photos or artwork with a catchy phrase. In the case of I Can Has Cheeseburger, and the LOL cats seriously lacking in their knowledge of grammar, the text is often misspelled. I am told it is because cats can’t spell. Many times, unfortunately, I believe there are misspellings not done on purpose.

A meme is defined by Bing:

meme

 [ meem ]   

1. cultural characteristic passed down generations: any characteristic of a culture, e.g. its language, that can be transmitted from one generation to the next in a way analogous to the transmission of genetic information.

Making your social media pages look more interesting will help get page views, likes and retweets. When you have that kind of interest, your business will grow. The more people who view your information, the better the odds are for you to get new business.

Don’t be afraid to add some zip to your Facebook or other social media pages. Jump in, and build up the page with artwork and maybe even video. You will quickly discover how much new attention you will get.

Grow and nurture your Facebook audience

Once your business has a social media presence, it is now time to grow your audience. Sounds simple, right? Well, maybe it sounds easier than it is.

Growing your audience doesn’t happen overnight. It takes a lot of posting, tweeting, forwarding, sharing of your information. Maybe it is something that you need to hire someone to do for you, wink, wink, hint, hint…

I spoke to someone who owns a pest control company the other day. I asked him if he had a Facebook page. “Of course!” he answered, like he was shocked that I would ask such a ridiculous question.

I looked at the page. It literally had three likes and had not been updated since 2011. Seriously? This is not a Facebook page. It is a sorry little, shriveled up plant that no one ever waters. This page is doing nothing to help his company build a brand, have recognition in the community or anything else. It is just a placeholder. There were no photos. It contained absolutely no information other than a location and phone number. Yes, he might get one call a year from that – although I think I’m being generous.

This pest control guy could do so much with that Facebook page. He could increase interest by adding photos, maybe showing the difference between a flying ant and a termite. That is content people can use. Posting a photo that would give useful information to his audience would be fantastic. This guy does nothing, except complain about a lack of business. Adding posts that discuss flea control, roaches, ants, mice or other pests would help people. And more than that, it would attract new customers. The saddest thing is, the person knows this information like the back of his hand and would take him no time to put on his page.

It costs nothing but your time, to set up and use a Facebook page. Every business can benefit from having one.

But, and this is big, you must keep the momentum going. As people like the page, you have to post on it. A page that has no activity is not going to be popular. A page with no information is not even going to get likes.

If you spend just a few minutes each day nourishing your Facebook page, you will see amazing growth. Post on the page. Keep it active. Many businesses put special offers on their Facebook page that are found nowhere else. The offers encourage people to check back with the page to see if there is a new discount.

Use the Facebook address on any communication, whether it is snail mail, videos, newsletters – absolutely everything. It will attract likes to the page. Add it to your email signature line. Then, every email you send, may result in a new like on the page. For sure, if no one knows your page exists, they will not visit it.

Sometimes the Facebook page address is a very long list of random numbers and letters. If the address is to long for people to easily remember or type, check out tinyurl.com and shorten the web address. It is a free service that comes in handy with those long URLs. You can let the site pick a shorter address or you can customize it. If you want to tweet the address, this will leave a lot more of the 140 characters allowed by Twitter, to punch up your message.

Using social media for non-profits

One of the best things about using social media is the cost. Many times the cost is low or non-existent. Non-profits, and really anyone with a limited budget, can take advantage of these sites and make the most of it.

About a week ago, I spoke to someone who runs a small non-profit organization. He told me that his organization does not ask for money at all. The entire financing is based on a one-time donation made in the 1960s! Every now and then a board member makes a donation. One died recently and left a few thousand to the organization. They do not solicit anyone for money because they don’t want to spend money on fundraising. YIKES! All of the money is tied up in stocks and mutual funds. They lost almost half of their principal during the stock market crash a couple years ago and have done nothing to build it back except invest in more stocks.

I know my eyes were bugging out of my head as the president of the organization told me about this. It was the first time I met him and I didn’t want to tell him that he was crazy – but is exactly what I was thinking!

I’ve worked for several non-profits and they all used social media, even though it was on a limited basis. It was years ago and not as commonly done as it is now. Just setting up a Facebook page or a blog that tells people to visit the website can help.

I set up a PayPal account for one non-profit and added theie “donate” button to the organization’s website. From that alone, we took in hundred of dollars a year in completely unsolicited donations. While that is not a lot of money, it cost absolutely nothing to set that in motion. And, we received much more when we actually asked for donations. There is nothing more beautiful to a non-profit than seeing a random email from PayPal that says, “You’ve got a donation!”

This might sound like common sense, but be polite. Always send a thank you note for every donation, no matter how small. Research shows that people are much more likely to donate again when they are thanked!

Another no-brainer… Always put your website, blog, Facebook and Twitter addresses in the signature of your emails. You never know when someone might click on one of them just out of curiosity. It could result in a donation. Anything you have printed like business cards, letterhead and any print advertising should also contain your web address and Facebook page.

Through use of newsletters, postcards, ezines, blogs, LinkedIn, Facebook pages, Twitter sites and other social networking sites, think of how many people your business or non-profit can reach! If you post on an ezine, Facebook or Twitter and ask people to forward, share or retweet – the number of people you reach is astounding.

You haven’t spent a penny on advertising. Maybe you are paying someone to send the original message, but that is nothing compared to what bulk mailings, yellow pages, radio, t.v. or magazine ads cost. If your Facebook post is forwarded, it is probably done by someone who knows and trusts your brand. When you advertise in the newspaper, you don’t know who is reading it, unless it is geared toward a certain market.

Give it a try. Set up the PayPal account and add the “donate” button to your non-profit web page. It will probably take a total of about 10 minutes to do that. You will see an amazing return on that investment.

SEO marketing made simple

The first thing you need to understand is how Google, and the other search engines, rank websites. With Google specifically, they have paid advertising on top of the page and if there is a local connection, there is a map with various businesses marked with a “pin” on the right.

The paid list is just that. People pay to be in that spot. They have a PPC, or pay per click, price where businesses can be listed. Every time someone searches and then clicks on the link, the business is charge a small fee. Those little fees can add up quickly, so the businesses have a limit as to how much they will spend each month.

On the map section, things work a little differently. Google has many criteria for ranking businesses in the map section. The ideal position, of course, is to be at the top of the list. The biggest reasons for being ranked on the map include how many times the site has been visited and the location of the business -- if you are not located within 50 miles of where the person is, you will not show up on the map. This is very important for mobile phone users. Citations are another big factor. They are basically reviews written by customers.

The bottom part of the search, called organic search, is where you hope you will be listed near the top (known as above the fold). In order to get in that first position, or at least on the first page, is to have a lot of words that people use in their search on your site. Keywords, or words people use to search, are crucial to your site popping when someone searches.

SEO (search engine optimization) marketing is writing good clean content for your site that has perfectly chosen keywords on the page. For example, if you searching for a dog trainer, you might search the words, “dog training” and your city name. Or, you might search, “train my dog.” Maybe you want a class, so you search “dog training classes.” Other terms include: housebreaking, destructive behavior, dog lessons, dog behaviorist, obedience, obedience training, etc. All of those phrases should be in the content of a dog trainer’s web page. The bots, the programs searching the internet and categorizing everything, are looking for those keyword terms. If you do not have keywords on your page, you are missing out on lots of business. Let’s change that!

On the dog trainer’s site, there should be some content that discusses how the training helps with housebreaking problems. Using that keyword about 4-5 times within that page is helpful. Using the terms naturally and without forcing them can be difficult.

One of my writing clients works in the field carpet cleaning. I had to use the term “carpet cleaning Michigan” in the body of the text I wrote for him. It had to be used a minimum of two times. While “carpet cleaning in Michigan” would have been easy, that was not the keyword phrase he wanted me to use. I ended up saying, “When carpet cleaning Michigan style, you…” Maybe that wasn’t the best way to use the phrase, but the client was happy and I got his keywords into the text. It was a challenge!

There are places where you can find lists of keywords for various topics. There is no punctuation in a keyword phrase, so in the example above, I could not have used the phrase, “If you are looking for carpet cleaning, Michigan has some great companies.” You would have to make it into a run-on sentence and not include the comma.

Adding an “s” to the word will make it into a different keyword as well. In the dog training example, you would want to both “dog trainer” and “dog trainers” in the text of the page.

I have even been asked to misspell words in SEO articles. They were words that are commonly misspelled and people search the misspelled words almost as often as they do the correctly spelled version.

Clear as mud, right? If you are having problems finding online keywords or lists of keywords, you can simply search for a known keyword. If you use Google, towards the bottom of the page, you will find a list of related terms.

I searched “obedience training” and this is what Google suggested:

Searches related to obedience training

obedience training for dogs

obedience training classes

petsmart obedience training

obedience training cost

obedience training tips

dog obedience training schools

german shepherd obedience training

obedience training for puppies

These keyword phrases are commonly used in searches. Therefore, they would be great for a dog trainer to use in his web content.

Do your homework and figure out what SEO keyword phrases work best for your business. Add lots of content to your site. The more information you give your customers, the better you look.

A call to action

The best part of social media is the “social” part of it. When you send a tweet, post on Facebook, etc. many people say where they are or what they are doing. They might tweet a link to a web page because they think their friends might find interesting. Those types of messages are not a call to action.

One type of call to action is the limited time offer. Have you ever heard those t.v. commercials that say, “Call before midnight tomorrow…?” There might be a special that is valid for one day only, or one week only. Posting information about that creates a sense of urgency to the reader. They might think, “I was going to go to that store, but now I’d better make sure I go today.”

On a website, there might be a big, bold graphic that says, “Download me now!” That is a call to action we see all of the time on web pages. This tactic is a win-win. It attracts people to some kind of offer and then the site owner collects the name and email of the person for their own mailing list.

You can also ask people to subscribe to a newsletter, blog or ezine. A similar call to action would be to sign up for a webinar or conference call. The consumer is becoming an active participant in your business. You want to keep them engaged with the information you give them.

In a call to action, you connect with the people reading your post and they may respond. Instead of writing, “Went to the ballgame today. Go O’s!” You might say, “Watched the Orioles win today! Adam Jones was awesome. Who’s your favorite?” In the second example, you pose a question. That may cause people to comment about who their favorite player is. Now you are being “social.” You have started a conversation.

Take another step and relate it to your business. Let’s say you own a bakery. A post might say, “The aroma is incredible. Fresh Danish just came out of the oven.” You might try instead, “Our Danish, fresh out of the oven, smells incredible. If you were on a deserted island, what pastry would you crave?”

In your blog posts, you should encourage people to make comments. That is another way to keep people interested. If at all possible, respond to all of the comments. By answering, you demonstrate to readers that you too are engaged and involved. Ask them to spread the word – share it on Facebook or tweet the information. It sounds like shameless promotion and maybe it is. But, if you do not remind people that the option to share the information is there, they might not forward your content to others. To be effective in your social media, you want to reach as many people as possible.

Make your mark

In today’s business world, everyone has to use social networking in order to grow a business. Whether you are a freelancer working out of a spare bedroom or a brick and mortar business, the internet is extremely important in today’s market. Creating a brand that is all your own, is the best way to make your mark.

Social marketing helps get your brand out to the masses.

What makes your business stand out among all of the others in your field? There must be some reason that you are unique. It’s the thing that attracts a client to you, rather than someone else. You need to bank on that one thing, that uniqueness that is all your own. Build on it and let people know that you are the one person who can help them with your products or services.

It does not matter whether you own a restaurant, create artwork or own a law firm. You have something special. As an entrepreneur, you have already set yourself apart from the majority of people in this world. You are brave. You take risks. You stand at the edge of the cliff as pebbles tumble down into the great abyss. You look beyond it, toward your goals. You might be afraid, but you will never let anyone else know about it. Business owners face their fears every day.

The way to start social networking is to get your business known to as many people as possible and as fast as the internet will carry you. There is help available, you need only look for it.