maine web development, web design, internet marketing

We all made it back safe and sound from Sage Insights. We met lots of great people and got to connect with many of our customers face-to-face (which is priceless). During the conference we got to talk shop with lots of interested parties. One major underlying theme in our conversations about social media is that it all happens so quickly.

As SMBs we are very busy and the thought of not only participating in multiple social media sites but also keeping up with the changes from day to day are overwhelming. I have mentioned before about having social media travel agents to follow and keep you in the know. This past week while we were away, I felt the way many of you told me you feel. I wasn’t in front of my computer all day and news was happening, things were changing and I didn’t have time to read about it or react to it.

With that, I want to try to do a better job at keeping our blogging audience ‘in the know’ of big things that are happening in this online space. Each week I will add to our blog schedule a short post on improvements, changes, shortcuts, fun stuff and news that will help us in the B2B and SMB space be more efficient and successful with our use of social media.

This new post series will start right now (but generally I will try to add this list every Friday):

Twitter just says no to sponsored ads by third parties – Twitter finally made the call on sponsored tweets from third parties and they said ‘no thank you’. People have been trying to figure out to make money from Twitter since its inception and it looks like this is not their easy fix. In the shortest way possible, Twitter doesn’t want to take away from the users experience by having it crowded by sponsored (commercial) tweets. This came as tough news to many startups and third-party developers who invested in capitalizing on sponsoring tweets but twitterers themselves seem pretty happy about the decision. If you want to know more Twitter talks about it directly on their blog.

Google Pac Man logo wastes thousands of hours – To celebrate Pac Man’s 30th birthday Google made their logo a playable Pac Man game with all 200+ levels. Analysts are saying this fun distraction caused millions of hours of lost productivity and cost the economy billions (bah humbug). Nonetheless it was fun and if you missed it last weekend the game is still live at www.google.com/pacman.

Facebook still tries to explain privacy issues – Facebook is still dealing with the backlash on its ever changing privacy policy, including making the cover of Time Magazine. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has promised to simplify the privacy setting and it looks like that will happen this week. If you haven’t already, you should carefully review your privacy settings in Facebook. Make sure you know what you are publishing publicly and what only your Facebook connections can see.

Google makes a more private search option – As you may know, if you look in the URL (web address) of any website you are on you can tell if the site is completely secure or not. A secure site will not scrape or save any information you enter in it. This is very important for a site like your bank, or a shopping site where you plan on entering your billing and credit card information. If the website address starts with HTTPS:// that last S stands for secure. Google is trying to give us a safer way to search by adding a SSL offering in Google search. If you do a Google search on httpS://www.google.com you can protect your search terms and search results from third parties.

Google TV – We all know it is going to happen… we are going to get less dependent on our televisions for entertainment and rely more heavily on our computers (if we haven’t already). Sites like Hulu try to give you the best of both worlds but the experience of watching television on your home entertainment system is still easier and more pleasant than watching a computer screen. Google thinks they have an answer. Last week Google introduced Google TV so you can use your television as a computer. I do not think this will be the wave of the future but it shows how people are trying to develop technology to be more user-centric. Short video below explaining Google TV.

Small Business Week – Lastly, this week is Small Business Week. Are there any special events in your area or online that you should be checking out?

That is my quick list for this week. Next Friday I will have a new list of important things that have changed online. If you see something you want me to include in this list please contact me and I will try to share it.

This afternoon Twitter had a bit of a snafu on their hands. A bug was created that could make users force others to follow them. If you had a close eye on your follow count you may have noticed that you were following more people than you chose to follow manually.

In the process of fixing the bug, for about an hour today everyone’s Twitter followers and people they were following was set to zero. No one was following anyone else. Direct messages became impossible because no one was actually following anyone else, according to the Twitter website.

Some people freaked out, while others rejoiced. Some pondered what this could mean for the internet, status and defining real influencers. Some marveled at the thought of starting over and some people were just silly with the thought that no one could read their tweets.

What you SHOULD have been thinking about

What you should have thought about was the reality that none of your Twitter followers or content on Twitter belong to you, it all belongs to Twitter. The same goes for Facebook, LinkedIn or any of your other favorite social networking sites. Your Facebook photo albums, your contact list on LinkedIn, notes, events created on these sites etc. all belong to someone else.

Twitter did fix the problem but what if they didn’t? What if fixing the bug meant you had to start over again at zero?

Many people who read this blog are using Twitter for business. How would this have impacted your online marketing strategy?

3 things to consider after today’s #followgeddon

1. Back up your information – Just like you back up your computer, network, email (you do that right?) you should consider backing up your social networking data. LinkedIn easily lets you export your network data. There are online tools to help you export your Twitter followers. Record who your Facebook fans are. What data would you want if that social network was gone tomorrow? Figure that out and save it.
2. Adding relationships to the sales funnel – How are you taking conversations, leads, connections, inquiries from social networks and recording them? If you have a CRM system, consider a point where you think it is relevant to add connections to your database.
3. None of your content belongs to you on social networks – Social networks are required to have strong privacy policies. What ends up happening is that they now own any content you put on their websites and they have the right to take anything down they want to. This does not happen very often, especially to businesses that play by the rules but, it very well could happen. Be sure you have all your content you need backed up or on your website (that you own). Social networks are a great way to get people to see your content and move them to your website but you don’t want to rely on them to be the ‘end-all, be-all’ for interacting with your content and business.

Today’s bug was good for a laugh and I don’t believe anyone got hurt but it was a good reminder that all your tweets could go up in a cloud of smoke. Protect yourself, your company and your content by keeping the content and connections that are most important to you backed up.

I like to imagine that search engine spiders are funny little cartoon characters that surf the internet and check out all the web pages it has to offer.  It’s fun for me to daydream scenarios of the spiders saying things like “Oh, is this an entire website developed in Flash?  On to the next one!”  You do this, too, right? Well, even if I’m the only weirdo imaginative one out there who does this, I’m okay with it – I’m an organic search nerd.  But my strange musings do actually lead to a legitimate question: What does a search engine see when it crawls my site?

Human Vs. Spider

Since we can’t actually turn ourselves into the cartoon search engine spiders of my imagination, luckily there are some kind (and smart!)  souls out there who have developed tools to simulate what a spider sees when it gets to your site.  Let’s take the Hall site for example:

If you’ve been to our homepage, you’ll recognize that this is a snippet of what you see when you get there.  We try our best to make our site both pleasing to our visitors’ eyes as well as informational.  But as you have probably guessed, this is not the way a search engine sees it.

Using a fun tool like SEO-browser*, you get a clearer picture of how the spiders (or bots) see the Hall Web Services site:

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Wow, that looks drastically different than what we humans see when we get there!  The only things showing are our text and text-based links.

Text is Still Important

Of course we want to make our websites look attractive and engaging when our visitors come to them, but it’s important to note that search engines really don’t “see” those design elements the way that we can.  At this time, search engines still work best with text in determining what a web page is about.  If the Hall website was built entirely in flash, or the homepage only consisted of images, the tool would reveal that the search engine would see very little about our page.  Without the text, we would not be giving our website the best possible chance to be found in the search engines for our keywords.

When adding content to your site, whether it’s in the form of videos, demos, whitepapers, etc., don’t forget to also have text on the web pages with your keywords in them.  Roughly 200 words of copy is a decent baseline to shoot for with each of your important marketable pages.  Finding the right balance of aesthetics, features, and targeted text will go very far with both your site visitors and search engines.

*SEO-browser is a third-party tool that has no affiliation with Hall Web Services.  We do not endorse this tool and cannot vouch for its accuracy.

… or should you be both, or neither?

Twitter is becoming more and more popular among businesses and marketers. People are using Twitter to connect with friends, meet new people, look for help and answers, promote products and services and so much more.

As more and more people and businesses join the fight for people’s attention on Twitter, the lines seem to be getting more blurry on whether you should be yourself or your company while you Tweet.

I hear this question a lot in meetings and at Social Media Breakfasts and here are some things to consider when deciding who to represent when you Tweet:

Let your goals, not your current place guide you. – I always think it is important to know what you want out of social media before you dive right in and start participating. Make a list of the things you want to accomplish in this space; brand recognition, use for customer service, make new relationships with people in your industry et al. Once you have a clear idea of what you are trying to accomplish, you can decide if this message is better carried out by you personally or your brand.

What type of content will you be producing? – When you sit down to figure out what you want to accomplish with social media, think specifically on the types of content you will be producing (the tweets). If this was an in-person conversation, would the content be better from a person or from a brand representative?

What are you going to be an expert on? – One of the best ways to succeed in social media is to establish yourself as an expert in something. Be the go-to guy or girl on something. Much like above, would this type of advice and content be better delivered from a person or brand representative? If you are establishing yourself as an expert versus establishing your business as the go-to place for these types of services, then perhaps you want a personal tone.

Think about what could go wrong first – I don’t mean to scare anyone but it is better to think about what could go wrong and have a plan for it before something actually does go wrong. Set company policies on what you want people who are representing your brand to adhere to. Determine what content is out of bounds and what content you want more of.

Be honest with yourself – Think long and hard about your 1, 3, 5 year plan. Are you going to be at this company for a long time?

Two scenarios to consider:

• You spend your time tweeting as your brand or company and you leave that organization – The content you produce on behalf of your employer, belongs to your employer (most likely). You may have 4,000 followers and when you walk out that door you have to leave them all behind and start over.
• You spend your time tweeting from a personal account making it be known where you work and you leave the company – Will you audience/followers want to make the transition with you? Will they want to follow you through starting a job search or new business? Did you sell yourself as a marketing expert and then take a job in accounting?

Can you be both personal and professional on one account? – I have a few stories to tell about people who tried to both represent their brand and their personal life on one account and it all went up in smoke in minutes. Your personal life could bring down your organization. Even if you work for yourself, carefully consider what content you are going to produce and stick to the specific content.

Being personal doesn’t automatically equal business – I recently overheard a conversation between two people who are heavy Twitter users. One brands herself as her business and the other as himself. She told him he wasn’t very clear about what he did for work or that he was looking for business. He was surprised. ‘Well isn’t that how this all works? You get to know me and then you are curious what I do for work and I get business?’ Well… no. Yes being likable and sharing information about your town, children, activities is a good way to get some followers but if you aren’t staying on message you could just be clouding the water.

“The trick of being in a personal brand is that there’s a big difference between being known, being known for something, and also being able to turn that into business.”

Chris Brogan – When YOU Are the Brand

What we do

I am not saying what we do here at Hall is ALWAYS the best scenario (although I usually like it) but I did want to share with you what we do here and how it has worked for us. We have been using Twitter for a few years and it took some trial and error but I really like how we are sharing content on Twitter. It is effective and a bit more organized.

Our company account is maintained by one person. We use it to announce new blog posts, webinars, share useful links we find online and answer any questions people may have for us. Yes, it is used more for sharing our news, like a broadcast tool.

If people are looking for a more personal connection with Hall on Twitter we have a large number on our staff who tweet regularly. Each employee who is going to tweet about our business or establish themselves as an expert in our field, has a long conversation with the management team about what is and what is not acceptable, about the responsibility going along with tweeting for our company and we define a niche they are comfortable tweeting about.

As a group we often Retweet each others content, not to broadcast but because we genuinely appreciate the content our co-workers are putting out.

Following Hall on Twitter

If you want to follow Hall on Twitter for news, updates, useful links, new blog posts and webinars: @Hall_Web

If you want to follow Amanda on Twitter for all things social media, blogging, Maine living, Social Media Breakfast Maine, trying to live a healthy lifestyle and for things I find funny: @amanda_pants

If you want to follow Kyle on Twitter for tips on web design, random quips from a Massachusetts native trying to live in Maine, Social Media Breakfast Maine: @kyyuulle

If you want to follow Kasi for all things SEO related, some cute dog pictures, random dance party inspiration: @kasi_marie

If you want to follow Alayna for all things CMS related, WordPress, Drupal, content marketing and upcoming events and webinars: @CMS_Girl

If you want to follow Jenika for all things web marketing, channel marketing, tips, and random things that make her laugh: @Jenika29

I hope you find this post helpful when trying to decide who you should be portraying when you tweet. There is no exact science at this point. Please feel free to share with me things that have worked for you and your business as well. Our Hall example is just one of many options. I learn best by seeing what other people are doing so I wanted to share that with you.