Twitter is allowing brands to create Facebook/Google+ style brand pages. This feature, along with a redesign focused on usability & discoverability of content, was rolled out this week
Twitter is following in the footsteps of Google who recent launched Google+ brand pages.
Jeff DeChambeau, a Senior Analyst at T4G, an IT services company, made a comment on a start-up community site (Facebook timeline is too awful to be an accident) on how Facebook is manipulating user behaviour to increase brain activity and increase susceptibility to advertising , along with a link to his personal blog.
Result: 35,000 hits in 24 hours.
Then CBS News/Techtalk contacted him and created an article on over-sharing information around the topic and quoted him.
Nice to see a positive example of an insight being spread around the Net.
Debbi Arnold of D.A. Consulting is presenting Small Business Workshops at the Miles Nadal JCC (750 Spadina Ave, at Bloor). The next two are:
Time Management: November 4, 2011. 10:30am-12:30pm. Learning effective time management skills to set yourself up for success
Marketing 101: November 11, 2011. 9:15am-12pm. Learn marketing fundamentals to build a successful business.
Each seminar is $40. Register online via Paypal at http://www.daconsult.ca/
Here’s a good article that covers the kind of things we do for Toronto Small Business clients after the essential web site optimization has been done. Content curation, blogging, white papers, photos, videos and article syndication all support the promotion of a small business’s expertise in a particular domain:
To find out more, contact bernie
While an on-line “daily deal” from the likes of Groupon can increase the exposure of your small business, there are three downsides:
For more, read this New York Times article on deal sites
Bruce Hunter, CEO of Lighthouse 360 reports that 93% of business owners have no plan on how to increase the value of their business. Much of this stems from the entrepreneur “working in the business” rather than “working on the business”.
Bruce has a useful tool on his website – a free business assessment tool that can get a small business owner started down the path of thinking more strategically around the growth and how to manage it.
The number of daily deal sites like Groupon and LivingSocial continues to grow but research shows that deep discount offers may be doing more harm than good for a small business’ on-line reputation.
According to a study by Boston University and Harvard University, small businesses that run ‘daily deal’ promotions on Groupon are likely to see their ratings on Yelp drop thereafter.
The data gathered included over 56,000 reviews for 2,300+ merchants who ran 2,500 deals on Groupon. The analysis seems to show the two sides of the deal-of-the-day website – from one perspective, the number of reviews for the business on Yelp goes up because of the daily deals (which for some could be seen as a good thing). However, the average rating scores from reviewers who reference daily deals are 10 per cent lower than scores coming from “business as usual” reviews.
There’s no explanation offered for why the customers using Groupon gave less positive reviews on Yelp, and the report leaves business owners pondering the question: is it worth running daily deals (expensive but can bring in new customers), if it’s at the expense of a lowered on-line reputation on user review sites like Yelp?
While world-wide car manufacturers don’t fit the profile of most Toronto small business (especially when it comes to social media marketing resources), I found this article instructive in showing several ways how investing time in social media actually has business payback:
BOSS System, a premier B2B Toronto business networking organization in the GTA, is having their big quarterly event this Thursday Sept 7 at the Old Mill Restaurant/Convention Centre in Toronto’s West End. There will be presentations, vendor exhibits, structured networking to build business contacts and give-aways as well.
TorontoSmallBusiness.com, in partnership with SouthCostaRica.com, is giving away one week’s accommodation at the luxury vacation Villa Mariposa as a draw prize.
For event details, visit the BOSS website
When looking at sales funnel development for a B2B web site, I am struck by the similarities between the expectations for a website and those for a human sales rep.
|
Sales Rep
|
Website
|
|
Develop Pipeline
|
Capture traffic
|
|
Differentiate Company and Solution
|
Convince visitor you have their answer
|
|
Close
|
Convert visitor into prospect
|
It follows then that the web site has to show elements that mimic a sales rep, especially when guiding a visitor down the path towards becoming a client.
Site navigation and properly placed CTAs (Call to Actions) that lead the visitor to make a commitment (such as signing up for a newsletter, webinar or whitepaper) are essential to ensuring your site becomes the lead generator you want it to be.
Follow this link to learn more about conversion
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
