New07 Blog Reviews

Nestle, Palm Oil and Social Media, Oh My!

cgseo — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 14:20:53 +0000

By now it’s no secret Nestle is having some issues with their social media, one of the most talked about is their Fan Page fiasco. Greenpeace began the process with a report on Sinar Mas (whom Nestle used) harvesting palm oil , which is having a direct impact on the rainforest and orangutan populations . In March of this year, Greenpeace released a video depicting a man “taking a break” by biting into an orangutan’s finger (the video might be squeamish to some). Nestle promptly had it removed from YouTube, but it didn’t stop Greenpeace from posting it on Vimeo where it went viral. From there Greenpeace supporters flooded Nestle’s Fan Page and well, here we are today. Recently the dust is starting to settle, a little anyway, but there is still a lot to learn from what’s happened. I had the opportunity to talk with Marketing Pilgrim’s Frank Reed, about a few things to take away from what’s happened and how to prevent bad PR getting the best of you online. How did Nestle ruin their online reputation? Were they even ruined? In this day and age I wonder if it is possible to totally ruin your online reputation. People have short memories and are generally forgiving. In the case of Nestle there will be many who learn of Nestle’s efforts to make the palm oil situation right but the apparent unwillingness of many of the social media “protesters” to let them tell their story could actually end up working in Nestle’s favor. What could Nestle have avoided and did any warning signs appear before hand that could have alerted them to remain cautious? Well, if Nestle was aware of what their supplier was doing then they certainly were moving forward at their own risk. It would have made a great story for Nestle if they had identified the issue, ended the relationship then told their story. Whenever it looks like you have been “found out” there will be a price to pay in the online space. When are some constructive ways to respond to negative comments? Stay on message and don’t truly engage. Many negative commenters are looking for a fight. Stay on message. Keep telling the message that is moving toward a resolution and don’t “take the bait” to get into a shouting match. You’ll lose. Should people respond to every negative comment they receive be it on Facebook or other outlet? And if a negative comment is received should the comments be deleted? You should never delete negative comments unless they are truly defamatory to you or another or are obscene. Hopefully, you have put a clear policy together and made it available to participants as to what would cause a comment to be removed. If not you will look suspicious in removing anything from a platform that is intended to be open and conversational. Nestle did say that any pictures of their doctored logo would be removed. As for every negative comment being handled? Probably good to acknowledge the comments though and ask if they are willing to engage offline. If it starts to look like a “flame-fest” it is good to bow out gracefully and call for reasonable discourse. You are the site / brand owner after all and it is your turf so you can make the rules. Most people will see a reasonable attempt to handle an unreasonable person enough effort to seem genuine. Would you advise a dose of ‘reverse SEO’ for the negative comments? Reverse SEO can have a negative connotation especially if your problems and the responses from your audience re-warranted. What companies should be doing, however, is creating as many different outlets of information for the engines to “feed on” about the brand thus making it less likely for other results to float near the top. Google has a commitment to balanced results though so you better make your alternative offerings strong. Is it too late for Nestle? Should they just start over from scratch? It looks like their Facebook page is wrecked for now but this furor should die down especially if they have attended to the issue completely. The trouble with their Facebook page is that it has become a place where others are grousing about issues that aren’t even related to Nestle thus possibly killing any chance for that particular iteration of their Facebook presence to recover. They should consider a “do over” on that one area but once again this tactic will have its supporters and detractors as well. What are your top 5 things people/businesses can do to avoid having their reputation damaged online? 1. Keep their noses clean. Do good business and problems will be few. 2. Handle yourself professionally. No matter how bad the attack it should never warrant you dropping to the attacker’s level. It cheapens your image. 3. Provide many options for the engines with a variety of mediums like YouTube, blogs, alternate sites for specific data. 4. Be transparent. Admitting an issue will do much more good than harm. Covering it up and getting defensive though? Bad move. 5.Take the action that allows you to sleep at the end of the day knowing you did the best you could to be open, honest, transparent and available. Each situation will define these actions differently but work the moral compass angle. Frank Reed is the owner of FT Internet Marketing, Inc ( www.frankthinking.com ) that provides Internet marketing, social media, online reputation and copywriting services to the SME (small to medium enterprise) market. Frank is a daily contributor to Andy Beal’s Marketing Pilgrim and writes weekly for Mike Moran’s Biznology Blog . He does other stuff too so give him a call. Three days after this interview Nestle has posted an open letter to Greenpeace . It seems they are starting to move, or appear to, in the right direction. In addition Nestle has also created a second Fan Page , which seems to be geared more towards the United States audience in order to move away from the mess on their original page. And a third Fan Page which seems to be focusing more on their care to the community and environment. I’d like to ask you the reader, your thoughts on the new release from Nestle and what do you think these new Fan Pages will do for them? Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal . Nestle, Palm Oil and Social Media, Oh

Do Negative Headlines Work?

cgseo — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 14:16:08 +0000

If you’ve dipped a toe or two into copywriting, one of the first things you’ll learn about is the power of negativity. Words like “Don’t” or “Stop” or “No” are powerful motivators when used correctly. But at the same time, they can be overkill when a message that’s designed to provoke actually leaves your readers feeling cold. If you read a blog post with the headline: 5 Easy Ways to Improve Your Photography Skills It might tickle your interest. But throw a dash of the negative in there and you’ve got something like: For Best Results: Don’t Ever Take Pictures from This Angle Which one would you be more likely to click on? When Negative Headlines Work

How To Motivate Employees to Contribute Content

cgseo — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 14:10:22 +0000

Sometimes it can be like pulling teeth to try and get others in your organization to contribute to your content development strategy. Of course the excuse is inevitable “I have no time” or “I am still working on it”, amongst probably hundreds of other reasons why employees can’t help. But its funny how when you add an incentive with it, everyone can somehow find time to contribute. Like magic, peoples schedules suddenly free up or that post they have been working on for 2-3 months, is finished the next day. Lets face it, many people are not motivated unless they are compensated for their time. Which is understandable. If someone is going to take time out of their day or work on something at night or on the weekend, they should see some reward or gain from it. Before we get into the different ways you can encourage employees to contribute content, it should be said that you should set standards to keep only high-quality content that is being produced. If you just say, we will give each employee $25 per post…you will be amazed at what will get put in the queue to be approved. Depending on your blog or type of content you are looking to create, try to make sure there are best practices being implemented. Internal Linking to Other Posts Write About Topics That Have Not Been Covered Yet Add Relevant Images and Videos Minimum Word Count (debatable depending on the post style) Ok, so now lets talk about the different ways you can go about motivating your employees to help contribute to your content development strategy. Performance-Based

Advanced SEO Requires Good Analytics Information

cgseo — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 14:00:13 +0000

Good quality analytics (such as Google Analytics or another paid analytics software packages) provides good and very useful information. If you pay attention to it you could very quickly increase the overall efficiency of your website. You just have to look at the numbers and list to what they tell you. The proof is in the pudding as they say and if you ignore your analytics information you could be missing out on a great deal of potential business and traffic. Here are some basic areas for you to review in order to find any holes in your website and to help you decipher data that you learn from your analytics: Conversions: In case you don’t know, a conversion is a completed action on your website, such as lead, sign up, sale, etc. The most important factor (I think) to learn from your analytics software is the conversion data. Understanding and learning about how and where you conversions come from can help you make much more educated and better SEO, PPC and Social Media marketing decisions. I can’t tell you how many people I still speak to think that the best goal for an SEO campaign is rankings or positioning. Sorry to break it to you, but it is not. Increasing conversions (and visitor growth) should be the starting goal(s) of your SEO and search marketing efforts. I won’t get too deep into that as that is not the main point of this post J Bounce Rate: Whether you are looking at this overall or down to a single page if your bounce rate is really high try to figure out what is turning people off from that web page. It could be a variety of things depending on your business so take a deep look at your page. Is it too much info? Or a lack of info? Do you have too many ads on that specific page? It could also be a combination of all these items. It might just be that your page needs to have a serious over haul. Bounce rates vary for each client and industry but understanding what yours is and try to improve your bounce rate is very important. Visitors: When you start to really get into advanced SEO techniques you will need to understand even more so where all of your visitors are coming from. Visitor quality is just as important as visitor growth. You never want to rely on just one stream of traffic because if that stream dries up so does your business. You have to understand where your traffic is coming from because often times it might be from an area that you least expected it to come from. Analytics information allows you to find new locations along with locations of where you might be able to place yourself to find new traffic. Keywords: Analytics information will tell you what keywords your website traffic is using to find your website. This is a potential to really open things up for you as you grow your business online. As new keywords develop you can capitalize by finding new variations on those specific keywords and using them throughout your website. You have to look at your analytics information very closely otherwise you won’t find those windows of opportunity to help improve your SEO and overall search marketing efforts. Analytics keeps your approach to marketing your website efficient and smooth. It is all about finding opportunities that could already exist right in front of you. Data and information that you can get from your analytics allows you to find those areas where you can really maximize your efforts in the online world. Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal . Advanced SEO Requires Good Analytics

Google Adwords Overhaul!

cgseo — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 16:07:23 +0000

If any of you were looking at Google Adwords the past few days, you may have noticed a few interesting things. Google has decided to add some new features into the mix. Because relationships with advertising agencies are changing, they find it only fair that they shift and change with it. in regards to the GAP Program: The GAP (Google Adwords professional) program will now be replaced with a Google Adwords certification program- with more extensive, up to date and comprehensive strategy focused training. The certification exam will now consist of more practical applications rather than just a memorized test like one you would do in college just to get it over with. You actually have to know your stuff. Advanced level exams for the certification, which will highlight your competency for things like reporting, search, analysis and display. There is a redesigned ‘Certified Partner’ badge!! Everyone loves a redesign. One big thing I noticed, visually, was the “category” section in the keyword selection tool area. There’s tons to select from. Aside from this, Adwords API pricing has been introduced. This means that Google Adwords certified partners, who manage client Adwords accounts, will be able to use the Adwords API free, depending on their managed client spend . If you’re interested in applying, please make sure that you have an active agency profile and that you are complying with the Adwords API terms and conditions. Thanks Google! Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal . Google Adwords

Social Media Time Saving Tip

cgseo — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 14:20:43 +0000

What I am going to share with you is not new, but I am surprised at how many people do not use this time saving source. Ping.fm is a resource that I want everyone to know about. If you aren’t using it then you need to rethink the reason why. If you are using this wonderful tool then maybe I can share with you some more helpful tips to help in your successes. In there own words: “Ping.fm is a simple and FREE service that makes updating your social networks a snap!” To me the best part is that the service is free and you can post from anywhere with their mobile, instant messenger and email apps. They also work along with hundreds of other 3rd party apps to make updating your status simple and fast. Ping.fm was recently acquired by Seesmic making the service much more powerful. You can send an update and it can be submitted instantly to 50+ social networks including Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Ning, WordPress, TypePad, Yammer, Status.net and many more. My favorite part about using this valuable resource is that I can post from my iPhone from anywhere sharing with my friends and family something cool. For example, I recently sent an update to all my friends to over 20 of my social networks right from my phone. The update was sent from the beautiful mountains of Utah stating that I had just finished a Half Marathon. Here is a very short video I created showing how easy it is to sign up and start using Ping.fm today: There is also a trick to update your Google Buzz account via Ping.fm and here are the steps: 1. Of course you must have a Ping.fm account, sign up here – http://ping.fm/ 2. Add Gtalk by clicking “Add Network” at the http://ping.fm/networks/ page 3. Next enter your email address and password associated with your Google buzz account then click submit: 4. And for the last step, you need to add Gtalk as a connected service by logging into your Google Buzz account. See images below for steps: That is it, your Ping.fm posts will now automatically post to your Google Buzz account. Most other social networks are much easier to add as you can see in the video I shared above. There are some things you need to know with using Ping.fm as a social media tool. You need to remember that it is simply a tool that will help save you time. It is not an automated tool that will make you millions or get you more followers necessarily. I see many people abuse the tool to the point that they are not being social anymore with their friends and followers. As we know, Social Media is all about the conversation and being social. If all you are doing is submitting updates and not a part of the discussion then you will loose out on what social media really is. Here are some helpful tips and reminders to save time but still be social: Only use Ping.fm as a status update service and not your only means of connecting to your social networks Post your status updates and make sure you still login to your social network profiles to be a part of the dialogue Don’t overdue it with your submissions, you will loose a lot of friends and followers this way Use other tools to help you in the conversation (e.g. Seesmic , Hootsuite , or Tweetdeck ) In conclusion, Ping.fm is simply a tool for us as marketers and individuals to use to help us save time when conversing and sharing stuff with our friends and followers. This free resource has the ability to help us be more productive if we use it correctly and wisely. Bear in mind that any tool can be abused, so just be careful. Also always remember to have fun. Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal . Social Media Time Saving

5 Types of Link Building

cgseo — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 13:58:21 +0000

There are many reasons to build links to your website, and sometimes, it is hard to determine if one link is better than another, or if it is worth anything at all. For example, a dofollow link is better than a nofollow for some purposes, but not for others. And a redirected link may hold no value for SEO, but may still prove valuable. Here are the types of links that you can build to your website, and why you should take advantage of a mixture of each. Traffic Generating

Track Any Page Changes in Google Chrome

cgseo — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 13:26:57 +0000

We are pretty good at tracking page changes at FireFox already. I did a detailed overview of all the addons that track any page for changes and notify you in various ways. I also mentioned that those tools are awesome for various purposes: You can track Google SERPs (especially the newest results that change daily) and thus easily see your brand name mentions; You can track social media sites like Digg or Sphinn to get timely notified about new hot stories on any category page (or new search results); You can use page trackers instead of an RSS reader to monitor new front page stories, You name it! So while we can do that in FireFox, some (many?) of us may have switched to Google Chrome. So the good news is that they can do the same thing there as well! Page Monitor is a fun Google Chrome extension that allows your browser to monitor changes to web pages. The great features of the extension include: The ability to monitor any number of pages for changes. One-click adding of pages. Smart comparison system that ignores ads and code changes. Highlighting of changes that happened to a page since the last check. The ability to set separate check interval for each page. Get it installed in seconds and notice a tiny icon in the toolbar (next to the page address). The icon is used to add new pages to monitor as well as to notify you of the number of updated pages: So when on any page you want to monitor, click that icon and easily start tracking the page changes: Now whenever this page changes, the monitor icon will display a notification on its badge. Of course, you can repeat this for any number of pages. If you want to see the actual changes on the page, click “View changes” (see the screenshot above) and you will be able to see what has been added (green color) and what has been removed (red color): The tool offers to customize some settings as well. To access options, right-click on the icon and select “Options”. From there you can: Stop monitoring any page or rename any page record; See how long ago the tool checked the page; Set the checking interval; Set tracking changes to particular elements on the page (e.g. a price tag on a shopping site) by specifying a CSS/jQuery selector or regular expression to match against the page’s source code (the result of applying this selector/expression is compared). Of course, this feature requires that you know how to use selectors or regular expressions . Set some general look and feel (highlight color, sound alerts, sorting, etc); Import and export the list of pages to monitor: Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal . Track Any Page Changes in Google

Lionheart Assurance Solutions Asks Is Your Identity Safe On Social Networking Sites?

admin — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 02:04:09 +0000

Social networking sites have become so popular that if you don’t have a MySpace or Facebook page, people may consider you a little odd, at least if you’re under a certain age. These sites are certainly popular and many find them to be endlessly entertaining; but these sites also present a problem in terms of protecting your privacy.

When you sign up for an account on these sites, you need to provide a lot of personal information, something which hasn’t escaped the notice of identity thieves and hackers. These criminals are finding ways into these systems, stealing personal data and using this information to defraud users.

Scams on social networks are becoming increasingly common as the user bases of these sites continue to grow. Making the situation especially dangerous is the fact that many younger users who grew up with the web are quite a bit more trusting than their older counterparts. These users will often provide a lot of personal information right on their profile page, making the work of scammers even easier.

According to PC World, the average user of social networking sites lists at least three different types of personal information on their profile pages which can easily be exploited by criminals. These include their name, address, date of birth, phone number, the names of their parents and other information which an identity thief needs in order to commit fraud.

The overwhelming majority of social networking users are not even aware of the fact that they can adjust the privacy settings associated with their accounts in order to restrict access to these kinds of personal details. It’s also the case that most users don’t know who can look at this information on their pages and that most people use the same passwords for everything and rarely, if ever change these passwords.

Most instances of identity theft over social networking services happens as the result of adding someone who you don’t know as a friend on the network. They may be listed as a friend of someone you do know personally, but before you go ahead and click that invite button, you may want to ask someone if they have any idea who he or she is.

It’s important to not only know that there are privacy settings which you can configure but to actually use them to prevent access to your profile by anyone except people you actually know and have added as friends.

Other ways to keep your personal data safe on the web:

You can get a credit freeze to secure your credit, preventing new accounts from being opened under your name. This can be done by going to the website consumersunion.org and following the directions given for your state.

Implement identity theft protection and prevention:

There are identity protection monitoring services available which provide round the clock monitoring by scanning public records daily, alerting you if any suspicious activity is detected. In the event that your identity is stolen, there are even services which help you to put a stop to this crime and repair the damage identity theft can cause.

The important thing here is to be aware of the risks of giving out too much personal information on social networking sites; especially if you don’t take advantage of the privacy features these sites offer. Protect yourself from identity theft and fraud by knowing the risks and taking action to avoid becoming a victim of criminals and scammers.

About Lionheart Assurance Solutions, LP:

Since 1997, Lionheart Assurance Solutions, LP is a unique business services firm specializing in employee legal plans and identity theft restoration benefits for employers of all sizes nationwide.

Organizations that proactively educate their employees about identity theft threats can reduce their chances of a costly data breach. Lionheart Assurance Solutions’ training is designed to impact the way employees think. Changing the way employees think can result in a change in behavior that could reduce the risk of security breaches leading to identity theft.

Guided by a senior management team with more than a century of proven business success, Lionheart Assurance Solutions, LP offers employee legal and identity theft restoration plans designed to enhance worker productivity by helping employees keep their focus on their work instead of on personal problems.

For small to medium-sized clients, Lionheart also offers a full range of plans that help small businesses to “level the playing field” by providing access to the kinds of legal and consultative advice that typically only a large corporation can afford.

Visit www.lionheartassurancesolutions.com for more information.

Majon International One Of The Most Globally Popular Internet Marketing And Advertising Businesses Today

admin — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 01:54:55 +0000

Since being established in 1988, Majon International has been leading the way for many businesses with its exclusive, universal marketing, advertising, public relations and promotional services. They have enjoyed helping many entrepreneurs and businesses of all sizes launch various dynamic new and novel products, both nationally and internationally. They have the ability to clearly focus on marketing and advertising. They have been most beneficial in exposing interested consumers and businesses to large foreign manufacturers as well as their products and service to those in the United States and Canada as well as other worldwide countries.

Over the years, their exclusive means of marketing new and novel products has developed a rich history with their ability to enter each product and service item into distinctive target-marketing channel and marketing segment all over the world successfully.

Their transition to meet the coming needs of clients as the worldwide shift intensified began in 1995 after discovering that a new marketing model was rushing to the horizon with its own unlimited flow of online marketing and ecommerce opportunities. Majon International deals exclusively with online advertising and unlimited marketing procedures and programs.

Using an online format with the aid of the Majon International staff, its proprietary technology and software, they collectively provide marketing and advertising services for online businesses. Their many services continually evolve and update as they meet the increasing dynamics of marketing and advertising online. Majon International services have been providing successful aid to numerous business entrepreneurs to assist them in achieving their many marketing and advertising goals successfully. See our many customer testimonials!

Majon International ( http://www.Majon.com ) is one of the most globally popular internet marketing and advertising businesses today. With the helpful knowledge and skill of the Majon Staff, many businesses can successfully achieve their online marketing goals. Matthew Hesser is the Director of Majon International. He holds a dual – bachelor in science degree in economics and finance, and a minor marketing degree. His accumulated professional business knowledge and experience is 20 years. The collective business marketing and sales experience of the entire Majon Staff is 80 years. The majority of the staff and personnel have a minimum of three years with this particular company.

Many large businesses recognize the expertise of Majon International as a popular online marketing and advertising business, including such businesses as Google and Yahoo.

Majon International is fully integrated. They are more than happy to offer you and your business a complete set of marketing services that continually updates and develops to help you to achieve or even exceed your sales goals with extraordinary results. Using their methods of online marketing and advertising will make it possible for you to convert real viewers into real company sales. They take pride in being the champions of businesses of all sizes. They do assist small, medium and large business that take advantage of the various benefits of their services.

With the help of Majon International you can launch your online business and promotional campaigns successfully, and at a price you can easily afford, regardless of the size of your business. Their measures are effective and can help you build a successful business.

As an up and coming entrepreneur, you can use the skillful assistance of Majon International. We really do know what we are doing, when it comes to marketing and advertising online. You can be successful when you invest in their assistance, since they provide a clear focus for conducting your business online. Visit Majon International today to learn more about marketing exposure and boosting your business potential.