Holistic Technology Enabled Internet Marketing Solutions

Not too much to report this week. In my world, all my Twitter streams, blog rolls and alerts were about the iPhone hoopla. Hopefully the dust will settle next week and I will have more to share with you – but for now, here you go:

iPhone mania and complaints – So not only did iPhone 4 come out this week but the previous iPhones were treated to an operating system upgrade. Unfortunately for both announcements, the public was generally unhappy with both. The new iPhone seems to have issues with the new screen, certain spots turn yellow and if you ‘hold it wrong’ the reception drops out on you. With this new iPhone, Apple made a smarty pants move and made the metal around the phone part of the antenna but when you use the phone your hand can actually block the reception.

If you want a full run through of the new iOS Mashable has a quick 16 minute video showing you the new changes.

If you want to see the iPhone 4 get blended to itty bitty pieces check out what those crazy guys at Will It Blend did with their new iPhone.

LinkedIn tries to make conversations better – LinkedIn realized that their Groups were not living up to their potential so they are trying out some new things. LinkedIn wants their group discussions to be more like the conversations we have at events and conferences, less stiff. They are revamping how you add news and discussions to groups to try to get more raw and less stiff. You also have more options in the Groups and can more easily see conversations you have participated in. For a tour of the new groups check out the video below.

Smart links I liked this week

• How to Use Social Media for Lead Generation
• 5 Steps for Selling to B2B Customer 2.0
• 11 Lessons For Social Media’s Future

It’s that time of the day (or week) that you’ve set aside in your busy schedule to compose your next blog post.  After exhausting all possible excuses and finding other things to do, the time to write has come.  You’ve racked your brain.  You’ve been keeping up with other blogs and news articles in your industry.  But alas, you are utterly stumped and don’t know what to write about.

Enter WordTracker’s Keyword Questions tool.

Get Some Ideas for Your Post

I have to say, I love using this tool because it is so easy!  All you have to do is pop in a word (try some different words related to your business) and it gives you a list of questions that have been searched for involving that word.  I used the word “SEO” (I know, go figure!):

Now I have a whole list of questions that people have typed into search engines to find an answer.  My next blog post could be “How Does SEO Work?”, since this is something that people clearly want to know about and I can provide an answer (most likely ad nauseam).

You can apply this same strategy to your own blog, whether your business is crm software, wedding dresses, jewelry, PR…you get the point.  When you know which topics people are looking for related to what you do, you can provide a well-written answer and further position yourself as an expert in your field.

Get Some SEO Benefit

You already know that a blog can help your SEO efforts by consistently adding fresh content to your site (which search engines like), as well as reinforce your website’s keyword targets if you include them in your posts.  Since you’re tapping into questions that were typed into search engines, having a blog post title with that question can boost your ability to be found in a search when that question is typed in.

A search for “What does a search engine see?“, a post I wrote last month, puts me on the first page of Google:

Don’t Forget the Search Engine Suggest Feature

I’ve spoken in the past about getting ideas from what the search engine box suggests to you when typing in a search.  These suggestions are based on queries that have already been typed in, so these can also be valuable content ideas.  I stumbled across this great tool called Soovle, which aggregates all of the search box suggestions from Google, Yahoo, Bing, Wikipedia, YouTube, Amazon, and Answers.com in one place, using one single search box.  I highly recommend using this tool as a topic-generator as well.

Do you have any surefire methods to cure the I-Don’t-Know-What-To-Write-About Blues?  I’d love to hear them!

As the dust settles from Internet Week last week, most of these updates are reactions and more information about all the big announcements last week. I am a visual/experience learner, like many of you; I am not going to know how new tools and updates are going to really affect my work day until I get my paws on them and see what they can do.

So here is this week’s list of what has been happening in the web world this week:

iPhone 4 is causing a stir – Everyone seems to be talking about the new iPhone and the pre-order sales are already maxed out and won’t be shipped until July! Possibly the winner of the first iPhone is this crazy guy Justin who is camping out in front of a Dallas store a week early to get his paws on the new phone.

Mark Zuckerberg might want to hand his Facebook account over to an intern – Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO, switched from a Blackberry to an iPhone and quickly went to his Facebook wall to complain about his new toy. His status said “This week I got an iPhone. This weekend I got four chargers so I can keep it charged everywhere I go and a land line so I can actually make phone calls”. The post has since been removed. I bet he got a talking to about thinking before he posts things to social networking sites.

Office 2010 is ready and Google Docs improves – As we discussed last week, Microsoft Office 2010 is targeting lost opportunities that Google Docs has taken from them. The new version includes web apps allowing for online document collaboration and online storage. The price points are now official and the three versions can be purchased at $149.99, $279.99, or $499.99. Lots of improvements from 2007 but is it too late? Have people gotten used to their current online tools? As Microsoft Office joins the game of online collaboration, Google Docs launched new updated features to their product. Below is a video of the recent changes to Google Docs.

Twitter hops on the location-based train – In the location-based app world, Twitter has announced how they are joining the game with Twitter Places. With Twitter Places you can add your location to your Tweets. Twitter Places is going to integrate with Foursquare and Gowalla. I can see this being especially useful for conferences and events to get a better idea about who is in the same location as you when they send out Tweets.

Twitter still dealing with down services and bugs – Twitter had a big week of more troubles.  Aside from losing Tweets, they also tried to explain why the service has been down off and on for about a week. Pretty much Twitter’s biggest problem is that they are just too popular.

Starbucks has WiFi! – Starbucks is FINALLY offering free WiFi. That is all I have nothing else to say about it except, it is about time!

WordPress 3.0 is available – WordPress 3.0 is now available with lots of new features. I am excited to try them out and see how I can use the new tools. The new upgrade is called Theloniuos and the default theme Cubit is being retired (finally! You know the one with the blue header?).

Videos and Links I want to share – I am not sure if I will do this every week (this recap thing is a bit of a work in progress) but there were a few really useful posts I read this week that I wanted to share.

• Chris Brogan’s 50 Power Twitter Tips
• Recent B2B Marketing and Social Media Posts from socialmediab2b.com
• 5 Objectives for Social Media Measurement from Brass Tack Thinking

Lastly, I wanted to share a video full of stats about social media for B2Bs (below).

I have the opportunity to speak to lots of groups about new tools for marketing their business. These tools include blogs, social media sites, search engine optimization, email marketing and more. I am so excited about the line of work I am in. I think this marketing shift is a powerful thing to be a part of. By marketing shift I mean more control, opportunity and techniques to measure your own businesses marketing efforts and becoming less and less dependent on third party marketing services.

At most group discussions I am a part of there is at least one comment, usually at the very end, of someone saying “Well don’t you think this is just a generational thing?”

Short answer: Probably, yes but there is more to it than that.

How each generation works is different than the generation before them

A large point for more experienced workers is that they don’t consider participating in social media as “work”. Those who use social media tools don’t consider it “work” either. We consider it a tool for communication, like the phone, fax machine or email. Millennials and Gen Y’s are under the microscope from Boomers because how they are choosing to work is vastly different than those before them. They are using new tools, have new ways of reaching out to customers, work different hours and blur the lines between what is work and what is not.

Redefining what we call work

The Millennials, who are coming right up in the work force, is the only generation that doesn’t cite work ethic as one of its “principal claims to distinctiveness”. The same percent that cited work ethic also cited clothes as a claim to distinctiveness. This will probably change as it did with the stereotypes Gen Xers had to deal with.

What IS true is that what is defined as work is changing. The traditional 9 – 5 is getting stretched to its capacity. First it was 8:30 – 5, then 8:30 – 6 and now many of us are checking our email, preparing content and speaking with clients at all hours of the day.

I spoke with a nice gentleman recently who told me he ‘didn’t know how I did it’, carrying around my phone all the time, making time to tweet and write, checking email at all hours of the evening, etc. I told him the same goes for me to him. The thought of coming into my office and checking the emails that have piled up over night causes me anxiety. If I get 30 emails overnight, my whole morning is ruined with just checking emails. Now I know what is coming in and can plan out my day better. I feel like I hit the morning ground running. That is what works for me and it doesn’t work for him. I am not wrong and he is not wrong.

The term ‘weisure‘, work+leisure, was developed to describe this blurring of the lines of work and leisure time. Are we more willing to work on our free time because work is more fun? Or maybe we just have more work to do then can be done in a traditional work week?

“Social networking as an activity is one of those ambiguous activities. It’s part fun and part instrumental in our knowledge economy.”

Dalton Conley via CNN article Welcome to the ‘weisure’ lifestyle

Blending Work and Pleasure means losing your privacy

As we work more in our leisure time and we participate in social media sites while we work – the lines are getting blurred between the two. Most people have a public version of themselves and then they have a private one seen only by their family and friends. As we use Facebook to connect with business partners or add tidbits about our weekend life on our Twitter stream everyone needs to consider what they and their company are comfortable sharing on social networks and in their personal lives. Younger generations seem more comfortable on social networking sites with countless pictures and videos of them and their friends. At some point that content will be reflected on when they join the workforce in a more professional sector. We work with businesses often about setting social media policies to outline exactly what the business and the employees are comfortable sharing publicly. Whether or not you make a policy, these are important discussions to have with your staff.

New Tools mean new workspaces or lack thereof

With smartphones, online meeting services, social networking sites, real time searches, video phones and web cams does this mean people who are comfortable using these tools still see value in sitting in an office from 9 – 5? Gen Xers and Millenials are more apt to look for businesses that offer a work from home option or more flexible hours.

Work Shifting is the popular term for people who web commute to their jobs often, if not daily, and work from coffee shops, restaurants and hotels. In a recent article from Work Shifting ‘How Millennials Are Shaping the Future of Work‘ the author tackles some of the major things Millennials have contributed to change the way we work. She points out how technology and human interaction go hand in hand, marketing is a two way conversation and change is just part of the way the world works now.

Technology and Social Media keep changing

Millennials seem more able to change than any of the other members of the workforce. This generation grew up with quick advances in technology, unlike the ones before it. Change seems to be a way of life and not an unwanted inconvenience. As we have discussed on this blog before, not all the changes (very few honestly) will have a major impact on your business. If you are going to incorporate technology and take control of your own marketing align yourself with an Internet Marketing Travel Agent or someone you trust who is inline with your company goals to keep you in-the-know about advances in technology that will affect your business. For example I do a weekly recap of internet news that I think may influence the small to medium-sized businesses and B2B businesses that we work with.

Those are just a few of my thoughts on the changes in how we work through generations. So yes, I do think ‘it’ is a generational thing but the ‘it’ isn’t social media, the ‘it’ is how we work. How we work is different and social media is just a new tool to communicate in our workday. How we incorporate it (or don’t) is up to each organization and each person.