Did You Receive a Thank You for Standing Up Against SOPA?

In a world with corporations that do not understand the value of a 1:1 relationship with their customers, customer service can be a trying experience. In the recent attempted hijacking of our Internet rights by politicians backing the SOPA bill, I was asked to take a stand. The request came from a number of big Internet juggernauts: will you sign a petition, write your congressman or congresswoman, will you stand up against this tyrannical power grab? My answer was yes so I wrote my elected representatives and signed petitions against SOPA. Of all of the organizations I supported with my efforts only one followed up after our stand. Only one took the time to write me a thank you email. Only one was smart enough to recognize the power of a simple thank you even if it’s a mass blast email. Best of all it wasn’t from the big juggernaut I thought even knew I existed.

Thank you Google!

Google’s Game Changing Search Algorithm Changes: Content Curation, Google+ the Keys to Success

Google’s announcement of  sweeping changes in the Google search algorithm promises to be a huge breakthrough for social search. The long standing status quo of link building, back links, and SEO tactics both honest and dishonest are about to be far less meaningful to ranking in Google than ever before. With this realization of a sea change in search comes a new world where compelling content along with our social connections will be the new driving force behind SEO. The first step in leveraging this new world is to understand how to curate and share content with your social network connections.

Step 1: Content

The best content is obviously your own published blog articles that showcase your expertise, provide value, and are compelling enough to keep your readers returning for more. But in many cases both companies and entrepreneurs do not author their own blog. In this scenario the next best thing is to move compelling articles from well respected sources that are related to your business niche. Help people first and they will help you in return. The following is an example list, my list for our digital business, of content providers we ReTweet, post on Facebook, update on LinkedIn, link to in our blog, and share with our social circle on Google+:

• Searchengineland.com
• SEWatch.com
• Searchenginepeople.com 
• Techcrunch.com
• Mashable.com
• Venturebeat.com
• Gigaom.com
• Compete.com
• eMarketer.com
• comScore.com
• Webguild.org 
• Engadget.com
• BrianSolis.com   
• SethGodin.com
• BeingPeterKim.com
• Drudgereport.com

Step 2: Create a Google+ Business Page

If you don’t understand the relevance of Google+ to your ability to rank high in Google then you should consider reading Mike Brooks’ excellent post “Game Changer: Google Plus Changes Search and Social Media Marketing.”  This post is your template and warning of where we are going and the importance of content and Google+.

Conclusion

Without writing your own blog content, you or your company can still take advantage of the new Google search algorithm. Begin to investigate reliable and influential blogs, websites, news agencies, and social networks. Make your master list, share content that matters, and engage with your social networking friends and connections. Just do it!

Are You Partnering With Major Companies to Drive Your Business Forward?

When looking at your business, do you have a plan for progress? If you set goals are they achievable? If your plan is progressing and you are attaining your goals what was it that helped you get to where you wanted to go?

Over the past few years Inner Architect has continued to build processes and systemsfor analyzing an organizations’ marketing efforts within the social network channels. During this evolution, we utilized a generic CRM tool that provided value but on a limited basic platform. We realized the next step for our business was to adopt the Salesforce.com  platform for our growing need for greater scalability.

We discovered that Salesforce.com has recognized the needs of it’s clients who have adopted social networks by enabling CRM integration with Twitter and Facebook via the Salesforce for Twitter and Facebook app from Force.com. This powerful app led us to our current partnership launch.

Is Salesforce the Best Platform for our Business?

We believe it is the best platform for our goals and abilities to measure social marketing efforts. We highly recommend the Salesforce platform for managing social marketing. Salesforce’s ability to integrate with Twitter and Facebook enables businesses to:

• Keep track of engagement with social connections
• Schedule and manage social networking campaigns
• Measure and analyze results
• Hold historical conversational data at the record level
• Use social data to leverage efforts in social networking
• Use social data to leverage efforts in other marketing channels

Inner Architect Partners and Red Cote Consulting Inc.: A Partnership is Born

Business partnerships are often the lifeblood of any successful organization. It is with that thought in mind that we are extremely excited to announce our partnership with Red Cote Consulting Inc.. As a certified Salesforce.com partner since 2003, Redcote Consulting Inc. has worked with a broad cross section of businesses from small startups to medium sized organizations successfully completing over 300 Salesforce.com implementations/integrations. Red Cote’s range of services include:

• QuickStart: This service rapidly has a business up and ready to utilize Salesforce.com.  Red Cote helps customers configure the application with a brief Business Process Review followed by configuration of the application. This can be done online or on site. In conjunction with configuration, Red Cote offers JumpStart Training, online or on site training, to ensure users have the necessary skills to begin using the application effectively.
• Customized Consulting: This service is for customers who have completed the basic installation of Salesforce.com but need additional ongoing support for more complex functionalities that are more iterative in nature.

Purpose of Inner Architect-Red Cote Consulting Inc. Partnership

There are many advantages to our partnership with Red Cote Consulting that all support the purpose of this collaboration: to provide a unique opportunity for businesses to harness social media networks as powerful new channels that produce quantifiable returns on investment.

Inner Architect’s purpose and role in this partnership is to provide Red Cote Consulting clients and partners with services designed to help them understand, implement, and track successful social network campaigns that create positive results. We accomplish these goals offering the following:

• Businesses with Marketing Staff: we offer comprehensive consulting and training which enable the business to learn how to develop and manage effective social marketing programs from the Salesforce CRM
• Businesses without In-House Marketing: we offer full prospecting, customer marketing, and content development services provided by seasoned professionals at the fraction of the cost of hiring your own staff.

15 Places to Learn About Social, Digital, Search, News

Our social digital world, ever expanding growth through rapid adoption, continues to evolve as information is shared and created at a mind numbing rate. Whether you are a professional digital marketer, web journalist, or hobbyist, keeping up with the onslaught of news, new networks, applications, devices, strategies, and messages is a 24-7 proposition. The following list is my personal library of blogs, publications, and agencies I rely upon to keep informed and on point. Please let me know if you have a favorite.

Learning List (in no particular order)

1. Mashable: up to the minute news, self help guides, massive volume
2. Techcrunch: I miss Arrington, who would’ve ever thought. Up to the minute tech news, tell-it-like-it-is stories
3. GigaOm: Om is not scared to say it and he has a staff of excellent writers. Great fresh takes
4. RWW:  up to the minute tech news, social media news, solid writing
5. Gizmodo: Fantastic gadget posts, raw language, in your face don’t care attitude- awesome
6. Compete: great articles packed with data
7. ComScore: solid case studies with data
8. Searchenginewatch: massive volume of important search engine optimization articles, case studies, strategies
9. eMarketer: webinar offers, case studies, graphs, statistics, solid writing
10. Webguild: a bit snarky but solid breaking tech news
11. Fortune: traditional print giant with online magazine feature top business stories, case studies, social and tech news
12. Forbes: more establishment than Fortune yet still able to return great value through consistent writing and research
13. Time: once the most important news print magazine should have a place on this list
14. Searchenginepeople: excellent social media, seo articles. Nice mix of guest contributors and subject matter
15. Searchengineland: a very well written site packed with search engine optimization strategies

Learning While Teaching: Giving Back to Your Community Ultimately Gives Back to You

Giving back to your community can take on many looks, facets, and ideas. Whether you give money, time, charitable goods, or advice your effort is important. In our business at Inner Architect we are currently giving our time and expertise through free work shops to unemployed professionals in our home town. The following is an article written by Susan Hanshaw, CEO of Inner Architect, on our latest experience reaching out to our community.

Learning While Teaching

One of the ways we at Inner Architect give back to our community is by teaching  job seekers how to use digital media to support job search. Earlier this week Dean and I gave our quarterly pro bono presentation at Marin Professionals, a support and networking organization for job seekers who are 40+ years old with college degrees.

Challenges with adoption

We started speaking at Marin Pro in the fall of 2008 with a program we called “Blogging to Employment” which we delivered to a very skeptical audience. Although the group seemed intrigued, they challenged us pretty hard about the power and practicality of the tool we said could be leveraged as a vehicle for standing apart as a job candidate. Faces in the audience were looking at us like we were a couple of early adopter geeks evangelizing a passing trend.

Over the last three years, the skepticism has waned, although the group has generally remained uninspired to adopt. I am thinking that perhaps we’ve begun to see the beginning of change in the group that sat in on our presentation earlier this week as a number of heads were nodding in agreement as we gave rationale about how social engagement can open doors.

Social engagement success story

I shared a story of how one particular fan of one of our law firm clients has gotten on the radar of the managing partner simply by liking or commenting on their Facebook page 2-3 times a week. I shared that this fan has never asked for a favor, but if she did we (the people behind the firm’s logo) would roll out the red carpet to help because we are so grateful for all her support.

One more reason to adopt

I do hope to see more of my friends at Marin Professionals adopting social networking and digital media. We’ve all heard the hard facts about finding a job if you’re 40, 50, or 60+.  Don’t we all seem more youthful if we’re doing stuff that many people think is only for kids?

The New Facebook Platform: Is Your Business Ready for Change?

Social media as we know it has changed with the new developments coming from Facebook this past week. We are embarking upon a world that is becoming even more transparent with people willing to share minute details about their lives in ways never before imagined. But with this new sharing of our musical, food, cultural, literary, movie, art tastes (and many more) comes a higher level of commitment to one another. We are now committing to our social graph, the people that make up our lives, our willingness to assess and review anything if not everything. Where will this land us in the near future? Only time will tell.

Guest Post

The following is a guest post by digital strategist and CEO of innerarchitect Susan Hanshaw. Susan describes what she perceives as the meaning behind the new Facebook announcements.

Today set in motion a game changer in the world of social networking as we know it. In its F8 news conference, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other key players announced some significant changes to the platform that we see as revolutionizing the concept of social networking and will greatly impact the role of Facebook in user’s lives.

Change #1: The Timeline

Up until now a Facebook profile has been used to share updates, photos, links, etc. that go into a stream that goes back as far as anyone has the energy to click deeper into. It has been simply a stream of content you have shared since the time you began participating on Facebook.

Today Facebook announced the “Timeline”. The Timeline puts order to the shared content in a way that chronicles your life. For example, you can click on a link to a particular year where you will see the photos you shared, status updates describing what you were doing or where you went.

The Timeline is a game changer because the Timeline changes what Facebook is. Facebook has grown from being a social sharing service to a service that chronicles your life for you and anyone else who wants to get to know you.

Change #2:  Heavy Emphasis on Social Apps

Facebook’s social graph has fostered a mentality where we look to the content we see from our friends and trust their recommendations more than advertising or algorithms. Expect to see a volume of apps that are designed to enable consumers to share what they are reading, listening to, cooking, buying, etc. so that friends can be introduced from a trusted source.

What this Means for Businesses

There has been no mention of business pages in the last 48 hours since Facebook began unveiling the new platform, yet our instincts are tied to the implications that Facebook is becoming a more personally meaningful platform in the user’s eye.

We have always seen that Facebook fans are not very different than fans of fan clubs from back in the day. While fans may like your products or services, they are probably more interested in learning about the people that make it all happen. As the Timeline becomes a chronicle for your fans’ lives, consider adjusting your page content to align with that vision. Increase the content you share about your key players and team, activities and missions you’re involved with.

To succeed in this revolution, you’ll need to think of Facebook not as a place to focus on your products and services, but rather a focus on who the people are that make it all happen. What do you see that I have missed?

4 Ways to Increase Clicks and Sharing of Your Content on Twitter

The numerous, vital, and long lasting benefits of social media networking for companies today place pressure on a marketing team to deliver the right message, at the right time, to the right audience, within the right social network. Combine these “must haves” with the right testing procedures for each campaign, and companies begin to realize and uncover the ROI of their social media networking. In my opinion without question, the most powerful social network for viral marketing is Twitter the micro-blogging platform. One of the simplest and most effective strategies for companies to increase more clicks and viral sharing on Twitter is through the Retweet.

Viral Sharing of Your Content: How to Get it Done

When consumers and companies begin to recognize your brand’s content via the Retweet,  try the following steps:

• Curate Content: write a solid article and showcase it with a succinct tweet:

• Thank You Tweet: write a tweet thanking the person-brand that RT’d your content. Do not cobble your thank you at the end of their RT of your content. Instead, honor their kindness by thanking the person-brand first:

• Copywriting: after completing your thank you copy, describe (“adoption & measurement”) the post you are referencing. By referencing and describing your post, you help your RTing partner to remember their RT of your content easily. More important is the fact that this description may be viewed by Twitter users who may have missed your article when it was originally tweeted and subsequently RT’d

• Link: remember to add the original shortened link at the end of your Thank You tweet. This completes the strategy by giving those Twitter users who missed your original tweet or the subsequent RT the opportunity to click through to your content

Did You Know These 7 Social Media Statistic That Could Change Your CEO’s Mind?

For many C-level executives, statistics are often the basis of “proof” required in order to launch a social media campaign or ongoing social network marketing efforts. Everyone wants a ROI metric like conversion rates or response rates that prove the influence social networks have on consumer sales. Yet for every brand that waits for “proof” that social influences consumers to purchase their products or services, there are hundreds of their competitors engaging the same consumer audience, influencing sales for their brands, and creating a life time value metric that only comes with long term concerted marketing efforts within the social channels. What’s a CMO to do? Here are some interesting statistics worth considering at your next big meeting. The revolution continues.

Social Media Usage

• Small Business: the use of social media  has grown in recent years, rising from 12 percent in 2009, to 24 percent in 2010 to 31 percent currently Search Engine Watch
• Facebook Users: the ubiquitous social network of our times, so far, now has 750 million users Techcrunch
• Google Search: Google handles over 11 billion queries per month comScore
• Social Media Advertising: spending for advertising will quadruple from $2.1 billion in 2010 to $8.3 billion in 2015 Direct Marketing News
• Buying Habits: online users say they are more likely to buy from a brand that answers their questions on Twitter Techcrunch
• Mobile: 40% of US subscribers regularly browse the internet on their phone 60 Second Marketer
• Mobile Purchasing: 12.5% of all e-commerce transactions will be performed on a mobile phone by the end of 2011 60 Second Marketer

CNET Increases Social Media Reach 5x Through Organic Growth Strategies

The following is a guest post written from the archives of Innerarchitect and modified for deansguide. The study centers around social media ROI and case studies of success stories within the tech and media industries. The example below, CNET’s successful campaign which yielded a five times increase in social network growth, is further proof and indication that social media activities can lead to profits. What is most important to remember is that ROI studies must examine specific actions taken by marketers within a strategic framework.

Are you are in-charge of your company’s social media marketing program? If so you have a difficult decision tree to maneuver.  You must figure out if you should rely upon a massive ad campaign to drive consumers to your Facebook page and follow your Twitteraccount? Or should you instead implement a grass roots, multi pronged, organic approach that utilizes fundamental principles with testing as the backbone of your program? The decision was easy for CNET’s new social media manager Nathan Bransford: go organic and don’t throw cash at the challenge.

CNET Social Media Program Results

Since his hire and take over of the CNET social media marketing program in December of 2010, Nathan Bransford has accomplished the following growth by utilizing a grass roots, advertising cost free, organic social media program:

• Facebook Page: increased likes from 69,000 to 430,440
• Twitter Followers: increased from 24,000 to 106,222

Organic Social Media Marketing Strategies

The following are some of the strategies implemented by Bransford

• Facebook and Twitter Buttons: include these buttons in your sites toolbar and make them available on every page
• Customize: optimize the size and look of the Facebook and Twitter buttons
• Testing: monitor what works and what does not work aka test and observe
• Over messaging: post no more than 4 to 6 times per day on Facebook and tweet between 10 to 20 times per day on Twitter (Note: in the case of a media firm posting 4 to 6 times per day on Facebook is permissible but this is a violation of Facebook etiquette for virtually every other business niche)
• Interact: social media is about interacting with people not simply and repetitively broadcasting of your message
• Tools: use Hootsuite and Bit.ly to schedule posts and track links
• Competition: utilize Wildfire to understand how your competition is performing on Facebook and Twitter

Inner Architect Testing Tips

We believe the most important strategy highlighted by Nathan is testing. The following are some tips to keep in mind when testing your messaging on any channel:

• Subject Lines: do you utilize email as a channel to engage your customers? If so testing copy for the subject line can make the difference between a consumer opening your email or sending it to the trash
• Time Frame: do you analyze the best times and days to post your Facebook messages, Tweets, blog posts and other communications?
• Call to Action: do you test your call to action copy to determine the best method to ask for a consumer to perform a specific act?
• Control Group v Test Group: are you setting up your testing with the correct parameters? You should have your control group, consumers receiving messaging you have utilized, and test the results against a test group of consumers who receive new messaging
• Keep Your Laboratory Clean: assuming you are utilizing a control and test group to understand the effectiveness of your testing, are you keeping the “laboratory clean” by ensuring each group is the exact same sized population? Are you sending the messages out at the same time on the same exact day?

Marketing Opportunities: Shared Online Interests Across Demographic Age Groups

A recent, excellent and instructive Pew Research survey showcases some interesting results for marketers to consider. Although Millennials have been leading all online age group demographics in web, social networking usage, older generations are beginning to adopt and use at a rate that is encouraging. The following are points from the Pew survey about Millennial online habits and the shared online habits of each age demographic. Do you see any opportunities?

Millennial Online Habits

According tothe Pew survey (chart at bottom), Millennials are “more likely to access the internet wirelessly with a laptop or mobile phone.” In addition, they still clearly surpass their elders online when it comes to:

• Reading blogs
• Use of instant messaging
• Use of social networking sites
• Using online classifieds
• Playing online games
• Participating in virtual worlds
• Listening to music

Shared Online Interests Across Demographic Age Groups

Yet there is a continuing change taking place as both Millennials and their elders are beginning to share some of the same interests in a way never seen in the past. The following are online activities that are becoming “uniformly” popular across all age groups:

• Email
• Search engine usage
• Searching for health related information
• Getting news, breaking news
• Travel reservations, purchases
• Buying products, services
• Performing online banking
• Seeking religious information
• Giving to charities
• Rating products, people, services
• Downloading podcasts