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By The Squirrel, on July 24th, 2010
 Blogging about blogging. Again.  In a previous post, we talked about Tips For Promoting With Social Media, and promised a followup post on the topic of connecting with your readers.
When I tell people I have blogs where I write articles and stories, they often give me a quizzical or blank look. Many don’t know websites are often blogs, probably because they don’t understand there is really very little difference between the two. Occasionally they’re bold enough to ask, “What is a blog?”. I used to say ‘It’s a web page on the front end of my web site where I post articles or stories I write’. Still, the blank look would persist. Now I tell them it’s a dynamic web page with constantly updating content.
That seems to work much better.
One important difference between a website and a blog is Continue reading How Your Readers Can Connect With You
By The Squirrel, on July 19th, 2010
 Facebook login page. Now that you’ve got your Facebook Fan/Like page, what do you do with it? (If you missed our first post on the topic, check out Facebook Pages, Formerly Known As Fan Pages.
Your goals should be along the lines of gaining interactions, comments, and ‘likes’ on your page as well as driving traffic to your website or blog.
These few tips should help make for satisfied followers who stick around:
1. As much as you may love your new page, don’t suggest to all of your friends they add it. This is considered guerrilla marketing and is anti-social. Instead, suggest it to those who you feel would genuinely be interested in the product or service. Grow your followers through legitimate interest rather than random clicks. That way you’re more likely to get the customers you want – the ones who actually want to buy your product or service. Continue reading 5 Facebook Page Marketing Tips
By The Squirrel, on July 10th, 2010
 Guy Kawasaki and crazed fan. Guy Kawasaki rocked the house!
He was congenial, funny, approachable, and whip smart. The man oozed charisma.
Guy Kawasaki is an entrepreneur, a venture capitalist, author of eight books, and a blogger. But first and foremost, he considers himself a marketer and referred to himself as an ‘Evangelist’, an evangelist for the product he represents at any given time.
Guy possesses that sixth sense about marketing and social media. We agreed with (and use many of) the approaches he outlined below. We also learned a few new things… some we had expressly decided not to do. We plan to incorporate these methods into our approach.
Guy on Marketing:
Guy: ‘You can’t represent crap because crap won’t sell. I was lucky and represented a great product.’ (He’s referring to his start at Apple, selling Macintosh.)
Interviewer: ‘What should entrepreneurs know to stay relevant?’ Continue reading UPDATE with Video Link! Guy Kawasaki Talks About Marketing and Entrepreneurship
By The Squirrel, on July 3rd, 2010
 Marketing Squirrel's Facebook page at http://facebook.com/MarketingSquirrel We don’t quite know what to call Facebook’s new, previously called, Fan Pages.
“Like” Pages?
It’s kind of like when Prince changed his name to that symbol… nobody knew quite what to call him so they just called him ‘the artist formerly known as Prince’. For now we will just refer to the old Facebook Fan Pages simply as ‘pages’. That is until they change them again.
Sorry, you’re on your own with what to call “the artist formerly known as Prince”.
Having created several pages for clients before the switch, I was used to things working a bit differently: You could create the page (which makes you top Admin), add the company principals as Admins, and then remove yourself as admin when the project ended. At that point, the next person under you (the second one you had added as Admin) became the chief Admin.
But not any longer. Continue reading Facebook’s Pages Formerly Known As Fan Pages – UPDATED
By The Squirrel, on June 30th, 2010
According to Mashable June 30th is Social Media Day.
What, you didn’t know?!
Ok, I like to think I’m pretty connected to these things, but I didn’t know either. I mean, really when did this start? Yesterday?
I learned this from The Bloggess. She thinks Mashable might have made it up. I’m thinking she’s right. But really, do we need a holiday to post and tweet?
I think not.
So… Happy Social Media Day! I think you should take the day off and celebrate properly.
(Guest post by Secret Squirrel)
By The Squirrel, on June 27th, 2010
 Domain name extensions What You Need To Know Before You Buy A Domain Name or URL
A friend is starting a business, and recently asked me about buying a domain name or URL. While I probably gave him too much advice, there are really only two things you absolutely must know before you buy a domain name.
First, and most importantly, do not let someone else purchase your domain name for you. If you only ever know one thing about buying a domain name, let this be it. If you intend to hire a web designer or graphic artist to create your site, whatever you do DO NOT let them purchase it for you. The purchaser is the legal owner and should be the owner of the company, product, or service.
We have a client who allowed the web design firm purchase all of his now very popular domain names. When he hired us for additional services not covered by the design firm, I asked for needed access to the website, etc. I came to find out no one in the company knew any of that information, not even the Marketing Director. No one at the company had any access to the website – everything was controlled by the web design firm. I asked who owned the names, and while the Marketing Director said the company owner did, a little further digging proved this to be incorrect. The web design firm purchased the domains. While they did it on behalf of and at the request of the company owner, by doing so the design firm became the legal registered owner. Continue reading Read This Before You Buy A Domain Name or URL
By The Squirrel, on June 20th, 2010
 Social Media Promotion These days everyone needs a website, and just about everyone over the age of twelve has one, or three. However inaccurate, it lends a certain level of authenticity and legitimacy to you or your company, which in turn provides a sense of comfort to your visitor and prospective client.
But having a website isn’t enough. Even if people happen to find it, you want them to keep coming back. You need to offer more than just good content, and some freebies. Instill the idea in your visitors mind they will get something good by regularly coming back to your site.
The trouble is people have short memories. Tell me, can you remember what you had for breakfast yesterday? Most likely it took you several minutes to remember. Probably because you have no emotion attached to that event. But what about an event for which you have attached emotion? You can probably remember every detail, down to the color of your socks, of major events. The trick is to get your visitors to attach an emotion, hopefully a positive one, to visiting your site. Continue reading Tips For Promoting With Social Media
By The Squirrel, on June 14th, 2010
 Do you know who's talking about you? Do you monitor your company’s presence on the web? Or your own? If someone wrote an article about you or your company, or mentioned your name how would you know?
I recently wrote an article about a crazy experience I and a friend had as kids. This was a woman I had lost touch with 30 years ago; I had no idea what had happened to her since. Within 6 hours she located the article and emailed me. The first thing I said was, “Got Google Alerts, huh?” We laughed.
Hopefully, you already have a Social Media Policy in place, one that includes steps for monitoring your presence on the web, as well as steps to deal with negative content. Continue reading Google Alerts Me – Monitoring Your Web Presence
By The Squirrel, on June 8th, 2010
 What is this 'blog' and why should I have one? You already have a website, why should you have a blog? That’s what you’re asking yourself, right?
Let me tell you why I now have one on each of my websites…
About a year and a half ago I started one website (without a blog), six months ago I started a second (without a blog), and three months ago I started a third (with a blog). On the second site, I had a little help from a SEO (search engine optimization) guru. On the third, three-month old site I, knowing next to nothing about it, did my own SEO with a little help from GoDaddy.
On the 1.5 years old site, and six months old site which had a little SEO help, I got no traffic.
Zero. Zip. Nada. Continue reading Why Should I Have A Blog?
By The Squirrel, on June 4th, 2010
 Blogging about Blogging This is the first post in a series for Beginning Bloggers.
New to blogging?
First, “What “is” a blog? A blog is a type of interactive software you can add to an existing website, or it can operate as a stand alone website. This allows you to have a dynamic and constantly changing website. Dynamic websites get better ranking in Google and Google tends to send more traffic to them.
Welcome to what’s likely to be your newest addiction hobby!
When I started blogging professionally a few months ago, I had no idea how addictive it would be! I knew nothing about blogging. Nothing at all. All I knew was I had stories in me that needed writing. I now have three blog sites of my own, and guest blog for others. Before you get scared and run off because of my use of the word ‘addiction’, just know if you already have an interest in blogging, it may just be too late.  Seriously, it’s a lot of harmless fun and even has the potential to make money for you. It’s also a marvelous way to express yourself and build internet friendships. Continue reading Resources for Beginning Bloggers
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