Using Vine for Business

Brand new video-sharing app Vine is making a buzz on the internet. What is Vine? It's the Instagram of video - just press and release the screen to take clips for a 6 second video that is then socially shared with followers and via hashtags. With some quick thinking, your business can be one of the earliest adapters to this fun new social channel. Here's how:

• Take videos showing off new products. Moving toys and quick videos of models showing off clothing are good examples.
• Run a contest on your own personal hashtag. Pick a topic and offer a prize to the winning video.
• Take behind-the-scenes videos of your business. Funny or entertaining videos will be best at attracting attention.
• Get creative and make a 6-second introduction to your brand.
• If your business runs events, take quick clips during each event and show it off on Vine.
• If your business depends on tourism and travel, take videos of the landmarks in your area.
• Be sure to share all of your Vine videos on other social media, like Twitter and Facebook.

Today's webinar - 7 Tips for Increasing Blog Traffic

Due to technical difficulties last week, we were unable to present the webinar "7 Tips for Increasing Blog Traffic." We've ironed out all the kinks and assure you that today's webinar will really help you increase traffic for your blog!

We all know how important blogs are to a business' online marketing strategies. You're reading a blog right now, and hopefully it's giving you some much-needed information. Sometimes blog traffic just isn't what it should be, but there's no need to fear! With the right techniques and tips, your blog can start gaining a faithful reader base sooner than later. Matt Wooddy, host of the IMC Wednesday Webinar series, presents this effective webinar on increasing your blog traffic. This webinar will teach you to: 

- Target the right audience
- Generate real interest in your products
- Increase web traffic and engagement across all social platforms

Click here to register for FREE (1-23-13 at 12:30pm EST)
http://bit.ly/V2gens


About Matt Wooddy:

For the last five years, Matt Wooddy has used his social wizardry to completely turn around the online presence of over 200 brands. Understanding that social media is more than just a place to promote your business, he uses personal interaction and entertaining messages to improve the branding and interest of any given company. He is also a lead editor and writer for alternative lifestyle print magazines.Click here to register for FREE (1-23-13 at 12:30pm EST)
http://bit.ly/V2gens

Quick Tip for Organizing Your Homepage Google+ Circles

If you are trying to play in the world of Google+, you are most likely still learning the ropes and trying to figure out the most effective way to manage your presence. Although a quick and simple tip, you will find this to be extremely useful.

Lately, I have been focusing on optimizing my stream experience to manage the noise. But, I have found it difficult to do so as my homepage favorites bar wasn’t in the exact order I needed it to be. Thankfully, there is a way to remedy this predicament.

While signed into your Google+ account (not from your mobile), go to your circles page and reorder your circles so that your favorites are first in the specific order you desire. As a result, the first four circles will appear in your favorites bar, respectively.

Do you have any tips to share with the community? Or, are you experiencing a situation with Google+ that you need an answer to? Go ahead and leave your comments and questions below.

Like this post? Connect with Erika Barbosa on Google+.

InternetMarketingClub.org Presents: 7 Tips to Increase Blog Traffic

We all know how important blogs are to a business' online marketing strategies. You're reading a blog right now, and hopefully it's giving you some much-needed information. Sometimes blog traffic just isn't what it should be, but there's no need to fear! With the right techniques and tips, your blog can start gaining a faithful reader base sooner than later. Matt Wooddy, host of the IMC Wednesday Webinar series, presents this effective webinar on increasing your blog traffic. This webinar will teach you to: 

- Target the right audience
- Generate real interest in your products
- Increase web traffic and engagement across all social platforms

Click here to register for FREE (1-23-13 at 12:30pm EST)
http://bit.ly/V2gens


About Matt Wooddy:

For the last five years, Matt Wooddy has used his social wizardry to completely turn around the online presence of over 200 brands. Understanding that social media is more than just a place to promote your business, he uses personal interaction and entertaining messages to improve the branding and interest of any given company. He is also a lead editor and writer for alternative lifestyle print magazines.
Click here to register for FREE (1-23-13 at 12:30pm EST)
http://bit.ly/V2gens

What Do Catfish and Football Have to Do With Online Security? Plenty…

This week, the country was swept up in the story that college football sensation Manti Te’o was “catfished” when it was revealed that his girlfriend, who supposedly died of leukemia, didn’t actually die and was not even a real person. College football fans and sympathizers routed Te’o on during the BCS National Championship in January after learning that he had lost his grandmother and his girlfriend within the span of one day.

Beware the Catfish!

Now, it seems that the whole thing was a hoax and that this girlfriend never actually existed. Te’o had an online relationship with this woman and it is not yet clear if he was part of the elaborate scheme or just a victim of someone’s sick games. Either way, the term “catfish” is now certain to become a mainstream word for someone who engages another in a fake relationship online.

The word comes from a documentary called Catfish in which a man thinks he is falling for a woman he met online, but it turns out to be someone else. At the end of the film, it is explained how catfish were used to keep cod active in their tanks while being shipped overseas. This was compared to some people in our lives who might not seem beneficial, but are the ones who challenge us. Catfish is now also a TV show on MTV in which the filmmakers help young people in online relationships discover the true identity of their virtual crushes.

There are questions as to whether or not Catfish the documentary and TV show are real or fake. But one thing is certain either way – Catfish and the Manti Te’o story are wake-up calls for people to take online security more seriously. With the abundance of social networking and photo sharing sites, you never know who you’re really talking to. It’s not difficult to do some research online and discover if things add up or just warrant more questions. As we see in Catfish: The TV Show, it’s pretty easy to reach out to mutual friends and ask about the person, do a Google search or even use free facial recognition software to match photos with social media profiles and accounts.

In this day and age, people need to be savvier about the online world if they’re going to use social media as a way to connect with people who are not part of their inner circles. Some are even calling for universities to educate their athletes on social media so they know how to protect themselves better online, especially as public figures. Assuming that Manti Te’o was “catfished” by this fictional girlfriend, I’m sure he’s embarrassed and extremely hurt. And he’s never going to take someone’s word for it online again. 

Image credit: BFS Man

Facebook Introduces Graph Search

A new search engine is coming to town, and it's Facebook. The company has recently announced graph search, a social search engine that allows you to search on any topic that has been shared with you. What does this mean? Now, if you want to know which of your Facebook friends might be interested in watching Breaking Bad with you, you can search to find out just who and how many of those friends have it listed as one of their favorite TV shows. This offers a lot of new possibilities for the direction of this social media giant - will Facebook create a new PPC ad system based around its search capabilities? Will this feature draw new user activity to Facebook? Facebook's search engine is currently on preview for English audiences only, so definitive answers for many questions are still in the future.

However, Facebook has provided new advice on SEO for Facebook pages - all the better to get your business found through the search engine. Here are the top tips as explained by The Next Web:

• The name, category, vanity URL, and information you share in the “About” section all help people find your business and should be shared on Facebook.
• If you have a location or a local place Page, update your address to make sure you can appear as a result when someone is searching for a specific location.
• Focus on attracting the right fans to your Page and on giving your fans a reason to interact with your content on an ongoing basis.

What do you think is the future of Graph Search? Let us know in the comments.

Do Google+ Communities Influence Your Organic Rankings?

As Google+ continues to roll out features, Google+ Communities is the latest to be premiered. Google+ Communities are places for people to gather together, have rich conversations, and explore the interests they share. Perhaps you can even think of them as modern-day forums. Resembling LinkedIn Groups and Facebook Groups, Google+ Communities appear to be a valuable element to your overall Google+ presence.

How can Google+ communities help your organic visibility? The content within Communities is public by default (although there is an option for private). This affords you with the opportunity to give Google fresh, relevant, and valuable content for indexing. If you can create and fuel a Community that its members are active in, you can exhibit your authority on the topic and can potentially impact your Google rankings.

Google+ isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Google has plenty of capital and resources to dedicate to the platform and has clearly demonstrated just how invested they are. Now is the time to evaluate your overall Google+ strategy while it isn't saturated with your competitors.

What opportunities do you envision for your business with Google+ Communities? Please leave a comment below.

Like this post? Connect with Erika Barbosa on Google+.

Image credit: egorick

InternetMarketingClub.org Presents: How to Manage Your Online Reputation

Online reputation has become somewhat of a taboo topic among marketers and the general public alike. Despite not being a central topic of discussion, it does affect how customers and connected individuals view your brand. Whether you know it or not, you already have an online reputation for both your personal brand and your company or product brands. You can leave it up to the search engines and your customers to create and maintain your reputation online, but why would you?
Join Jamie Maloney for a webinar about online reputation management, including:

· How to track your current online reputation
· Strategies for managing and maintaining your online reputation
· Tactics for combating a negative online reputation

Click here to register for FREE (1-16-13 at 12:30pm EST)
http://bit.ly/TBkr44

About Jamie Maloney: 

Jamie Maloney has an MBA and over 12 years of experience in marketing and branding. Her love of agency work derives from her interest in learning the intricacies of different industries. Internet marketing is her passion with a strong focus on social media strategy and online reputation management. Other areas of expertise include: client relations, project management, web and print copywriting, website development and brand activation. Offline, you can find her playing with her tennis ball-obsessed Boston Terrier, Bruce Lee, and going to live music shows with her rockstar husband.

Are the Results from Facebook Exchange Really Promising or Really Skewed?

One of Facebook’s partners, Triggit, has released some stats for the new Facebook Exchange (FBX) advertising network for real-time bidding and retargeting. The numbers from the testing phase may have some marketers and advertisers getting really excited, but we’d caution them not to start jumping for joy just yet.

The in-house analyst at Triggit, Hyunyoung Choi, who has previously worked at Facebook, Google and Hyundai, reviewed campaigns from seven different advertisers in retail, travel and printing over a six week period in November and December 2012. Here are some of the numbers:

• Consumers were 240% more likely to return to an advertiser’s website after being retargeted on Facebook.
• FBX drove 36% more conversions than retargeting on other platforms like Google Display Network, AdMeld, Pubmatic or Rubicon.
• 96% more people converted upon view-through as compared to those who never saw an ad but organically re-visited the site and converted.
• Dynamic creative ads yielded 43% higher click-through rates and one-third lower cost per acquisition compared to static ads.
• 93% of dynamic creative conversions occurred within the first 50 impressions.

While the possibilities for retargeting and placing dynamic creative in Facebook Exchange certainly seem promising, the test period was during one of the busiest times for e-commerce and the stats come from the retail, travel and printing industries. Hmmm… We may wait on doing the happy dance.

Top 5 Reasons to Have a Blog for Your Business

Based in Cambridge, HubSpot is a pioneer in the concept of inbound marketing. For our Ten Golden Rules book club I’m currently reading HubSpot co-founders, Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah’s, Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media and Blogs. There’s lots of actionable information packed into this book all focused on harnessing the power of inbound marketing. Below I have extracted 5 tips focused on why you should have a blog for your business. For those of you contemplating the idea, learn why you should have a blog with these 5 reasons:

1. A blog will establish your company as a thought leader.

2. Due to its dynamic nature and the fact that you’re creating new content on a regular basis, a blog will change your website from an online brochure to a living, breathing hub for your marketplace.

3. A blog gives your potential customers a way to engage with you versus being hit with a premature sales pitch.

4. The idea is to pull your industry in with neutral, brilliant content in the hope that prospects connect the dots down the road, and see that you are the most thoughtful person in your industry on the topic, and eventually buy from you.

5. The great thing about a blog article is that the page, the Google rankings, the links, and the subscriber are all durable assets. A blog is a durable asset that delivers durable value that lasts.

The key to inbound marketing is to create lots of content that your potential customers will find valuable. In essence, you will function as a magnet to your potential customers. You want to make your company is so irresistible to your visitors that when they have the need for your service, they automatically have your business top of mind.

Why do you believe blogs are important for businesses? Please leave your comments below.

Like this post? Connect with Erika Barbosa on Google+.

Image credit: Doug Waldron

InternetMarketingClub.org Presents: Top 5 Link Building Tips for 2013

It's a new year, and with that comes new changes in the online marketing landscape. Where did 2012 take us, and where are we headed in 2013? With recent updates in search engine algorithms, and Google’s now famous (or infamous) Penguin update, the link building landscape changed vastly in 2012. So how can you be sure that you're up to date on all the latest link building techniques for your website to stay relevant? Join Margie Schneider, VP of Operations at Ten Golden Rules, as she presents this intuitive presentation on link building. 

Join the webinar to learn the most effective link building tactics for 2013: 

- What are the healthiest links and how to get them

- The most important link building tactic you should be doing

- What to do about “bad” links pointing to your website

Click here to register for FREE (1-9-13 at 12:30pm EST)
http://bit.ly/Tx9a4H
About Margie Schneider: 

Margie Schneider has been involved with the interactive medium since 1994. She has participated in everything the Internet has to offer: developing, designing and delivering web sites; online advertising and promotion; search engine marketing: SEO and PPC and community and electronic communication. Her specialties include: social media, search engine optimization SEO, PPC management, online reputation management, project management, personnel management, strategizing web development and design solutions; as well as experience marketing across all media types.Click here to register for FREE (1-9-13 at 12:30pm EST)
http://bit.ly/Tx9a4H

[Today] InternetMarketingClub.org Presents: The ABCs of SEO

Author of The Ten Golden Rules of Online Marketing and Founder of The Internet Marketing Club, Mr Jay Berkowitz will share the ABC’s of SEO. The core
principles of Search Engine optimization will be discussed in this hour-long presentation. If you're an Internet marketing enthusiast, you cannot afford to miss this webinar!


In this webinar, you will learn:


– the core strategies for getting your website listed in
Google and other search engine results
– Key website design elements for search engine success
– The power of ‘backinks’ links form other website TO your
site, and how to get them
– The critical components of what to include on your website
to appeal to the search algorithims

Click here to learn more and register:
http://bit.ly/Z9PlEf

About Jay Berkowitz:

Jay Berkowitz is an author, an educator, an International keynote speaker and an award-winning thought leader. A senior online marketing professional with over twenty years of marketing experience, Mr. Berkowitz has managed marketing departments for Fortune 500 brands: Coca-Cola, Sprint and McDonald's Restaurants, and he has developed online and offline strategies for AT&T and leading health and fitness website eDiets.com.

Mr. Berkowitz is the author of The Ten Golden Rules of Online Marketing Workbook, the Founder and CEO of www.TenGoldenRules.com, a strategic online marketing consulting business based in Boca Raton, Florida. He is the host of the Ten Golden Rules of Internet Marketing Podcast, an Adjunct Professor with the University of San Francisco Internet Marketing Course and he has been profiled in the Wall Street Journal, The Business Journals and he was interviewed on FOX Business TV.
Click here to learn more and register:
http://bit.ly/Z9PlEf