7 social media lessons of Mr. Miyagi in Karate Kid

Note from Lee: this guest post comes to us from Frank Strong, the Director of public relations in Vocus & PRWeb, a client of TopRank Online marketing.

   When The Karate Kid was released in 1984, social media outlets still had to be designed.  Even so, we can still learn a lot from how a character like Mr. Miyagi simplified that otherwise can be considered complex challenges.He was a teacher, a student, a mentor and friend – all characteristics that could have been done Miyagi successful in social media outlets. to this end, I offer seven Miyagi insights, we apply the social media outlets:

1. Walk left side, right side walk insurance, insurance. Regardless of the foot
… Sooner or later get you over as grapes. philosophy of City Hall was a compromise – if Daniel was to learn karate, he had to undertake to do it right.Social media outlets should be performed in the same way – confirmation. If you want to be effective in social media, then don’t consider it a part-time or an additional duty.

2. Wax on.  Wax off.
Miyagi taught Daniel through hard work and repetition. Although he appeared to Daniel he was being used as cheap labor-First vintage cars city-it really was learning karate blocking techniques. Social media is similar in that the best way to improve is through practice and hard work. Sure – you can read about best practices for media – but there is no substitute for experience.

3. don’t forget to breathe
“Breathe through your nose, mouth. Wax on, wax off.  Don’t forget to breathe, very important. ” Sixty-five percent of marketing executives find persuading social media trends “at least a bit challenging.”  Media are unforgiving; it never sleeps. Todd Defren recommends the creation of “a reasonable pace”. Miyagi might have called This breathing.

4. Balance is the key 
  Daniel was wondering how to punch, but when he asked Miyagi on him, his teacher replied, “learn better balance. Balance is the key to good balance, karate good.All good. Balance the bad, better put, go home.Understand “?  It may be tempting to sign up for every new service of media that comes-and certainly there is no harm in experimentation side. However, by focusing on some social media sites you know are attended by its stakeholders can be a better approach.”First learn booth and learn to fly. Rule of nature, Daniel-san, not mine.”

5. Now use the head for something other than destination
Is a social norm: media tends to reject the marketing.If you Tweet, indicator or post is your own content, you may end up doing more harm than good is better engage in conversation, gain the trust of their community and offer valuable content rather than sales. Seems intuitive, but people buy things from people and organizations rely.They check you out in due time: the process of confidence.

6. don’t know.For the first time.
After asking politely to be removed, Miyagi used a stamp of karate to exploit the tops off a line of bottles that a nefarious rabble rouser had put in his truck.In wonderment, Daniel asked how he did it. “I don’t know. “replied Miyagi.There is a first time for everything, even for experts. Maybe Brian Solis said it best when he noticed that we’re “forever students new media.”

7. $ 3.98 JCPenney
Miyagi was very humble to have cared how many followers, he might have had on Twitter. he might have worried more perfect his technique. instead of studying karate to build your reputation, he practiced Karate because of karate, and his reputation took care of yourself. Perhaps here the philosophy of the Prefecture also applies: when Daniel asked Miyagi that belt held (as in black belt), the master replied: “Canvas. JCPenney $ 3.98. you like?”

If Miyagi had a eighth place would be this: “Banzai!”In other words, enjoy!

You can find Frank on Twitter @ and @ PRWeb Vocus.

If you are thinking about programming or send a press release or news media this week, here’s a nice surprise for you: get 25% discount from PRWeb Premium or enhanced services: visit this special offer page. the offer is good until Friday, September 10th.

After I asked Frank if he’d be open to do a guest post, I thought it might be of interest to our readers if PRWeb offered a discount on your news distribution services, since they are so popular among search marketers and PR professionals who read this blog. I checked with Frank and he was able to make this happen in very short-term. Frank thanks!

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19 Questions determine Corporate Social Media Readiness

Even if a company sees the value of social media outlets, that doesn’t mean that the organization or its members are ready for it. You’ve got something you really wasn’t ready for? Sometimes it works and other times it doesn’t.

In order for businesses to get the maximum benefit from social media marketing, there must be a certain level of understanding about the nature of online communities, social media, web sites and applications sharing. one of the most effective ways of TopRank Online Marketing met to assess the awareness of a company, capabilities and resources of social media marketing is conducting an audit and an internal investigation.

Identifying current state of readiness of media helps determine benchmarks and sets a baseline of where you can build from this part of the development of a social media strategy and helps prevent random tests many companies are calling its “social media” strategy.

There are a number of tools free or low costs that can be used to identify current web social participation a brand, ranging from social media tools like KnowEm profile software for social search tools such as Socialable, 48ers or socialmention verification of monitoring.

With many companies, there is often a mixture of account setup, official media and unsanctioned. it is important to get a handle on their participation, which is managing the accounts if they are performed by employees or fans and that the company can learn from them. Get a handle on the difference between social as the company is and will need to become is essential for planning, training and development strategy.

As part of the evaluation process, here are some questions companies can ask and answer as they embark on a journey of marketing media:

What goals are you hoping to achieve a social media marketing effort? What measures of success will be used to assess a marketing program of social media? What are your current social media channels and Web sites/landing pages?: D you employ a Community Manager full-time? If you don’t, do various employees share the role of Community Manager? you are conducting a formal effort in monitoring social channels using a software application monitoring/analysis of social media? (Ex: Techrigy SM2, ScoutLabs, Trackur, Vocus, SocialRadar, Radian6)There is a specific business unit, Division or a product that can serve as a test case? If active, how long the company participated with social media sites and what? Blogs, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Wikis, Delicious, Digg, StumbleUpon, etcAre current involvement of media into different sites coordinated? Is a campaign management tool and control panel used for the promotion of social media content? you have noticed any specific preferences within the target audience at its participation social web? prefer specific sites? (Twitter vs. Facebook-blogs vs forums) Do they comment, contribute content, they tend to look at, they are not participating at all? have you identified and actors or networked with influentials in their target sector in social sites? The unique value current social media efforts offer clients/potential clients need? what should satisfy better than the competition? text and multimedia content regularly shared in other sites sharing social media?There is a component of user-generated content from your website?Profiles, comments, revisions, sharing content: text, image, video or audio?which departments, business units, cost centres and approved entities were involved with Social Media?There is a Council of internal social media?internal human resources that are available within the company for support and implementation of initiatives in social media marketing?(Content creation, network development, promotion, monitoring & analytics, community involvement)

It is clear that each situation is as unique as the company and its objectives, but the list above can provide valuable information about a company’s State of readiness of social media marketing, as well as causing new thoughts and concepts. businesses are more informed about the social Web, the more successful it will be in qualifying and managing agency agreements of social media marketing.

You might be wondering why I choose 19 questions when 20 would be a much more enjoyable, even? it’s because I’m curious what would be your question 20. what we are missing? what else you ask to determine the availability of media of a company, business unit or Division?

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6 ways to dive for the user experience & Analytics

This post is one of a series of liveblogs MIMA Summit 2010.

Web Analytics is an excellent way to ensure that your marketing efforts are not in vain. However, looking at Analytics without understanding user behavior can let him treading water instead of creating an awakening that its competitors will fear.

A way to bring their methods of measurement to the next level is combining Analytics with information of user experience (UX).What you stand to gain can be great if you dip a toe or ball cannon in analytical mixed waters.

To make sure that you do not sink, first understand that Analytics tells you what’s happening on the site. search user experience, then helps you understand why this is happening by gaining insight into the behaviors and motivations of visitors.

When you combine both, you can begin to understand what and why of what is happening on your site; this also allows any potential problem float up more quickly, allowing you to see the problem you need solved and changes that can do just that.

The following case study illustrates what can find when you combine the power of Analytics and user behavior:

Insurance quoting site, which had a 14 page quote and buy the process was undergoing a site redesign and decided it was the perfect time to check your form process.

The goal was to identify where funnel visitors were getting stuck and abandon the process.

After you understand the user experience and their reactions to what you are testing, data should be compared to the Analytics visitor Analytics shows that ‘ drop-off ‘ points in places such as what was identified as confusing and annoying for users?

To understand the points of delivery and not spend time on lower priority places, be sure to identify logical locations for drop-off.In this example a sense do drop off would be after the quote is delivered because you can expect some visitors don’t like quote that received and leave for a different quote or buy elsewhere.

Where you want to spend time is to identify unexpected drop-offs. such a delivery point to the form of health insurance quote was the application for a social security number. Almost all users are cautious when providing such information online, but the problem in this particular case was that the information was invited to very early in the process before the person is onslaught.

As such, they identified a item to test. After placing the request to the social security number more in funnel where the user more was invested and felt it was OK to provide your personal information, the dropout rate has declined.

The nearest drop-off point was the question of where attended some college, who – through user experience tests – found offensive and/or didn’t understand how was relevant for an insurance quote. Analytics confirmed this and showed a larger than normal delivery rate at which point the question was asked in the funnel. ask yourself, why is this part of the question Is necessary form?? If not, remove it and improve the percentage of visitors who receive more in the funnel and closer to a sale.

Start getting more out of your site by diving deeper into the following 6 areas using Analytics and user experience:

1. landing page optimization
Analysis: Bounce Rate, conversion rate
UX: why do people convert.

2. site navigation
Analysis: Top content
UX: How they get there

3. completion of form
Analysis: Abandonment, page reloads
UX: Specific objections

4. Content
5. Analytics: time spent on page
UX: It is to hire?

5. test
Analysis: A/B test
UX: What to Test

6. Terminology
Analysis: Search logs
UX: How people use language-what is your target markup using the search for you

In case you need to dip your toes, go old-school and simply sit behind someone and watch them navigate your Web site Where they go first, second, third, that they avoid? Ask why. Some data is better than no data.

Thanks Fred Beecher and Andrew Janis of Evantage Consulting to present case study and tips about UX and Analytics up during the MIMA Summit 2010.

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The business value of Social Media & SES Hong Kong

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Next week I’ll get to experience two firsts:  A visit to Hong Kong for the first time and speaking at an all new Search Engine Strategies conference for Asia. SES Hong Kong includes a great mix of expertise and leadership on all things search and social media. The opening keynote on day 1 features Avinash Kaushik, Author, Blogger, Analytics Evangelist at Google and day 2 will feature Tianfang Feng, Chief Consultant, Search Engine Marketing at Baidu.

Hong Kong at night – Photo credit: Steve Webel

For my part, I’ll be participating on a panel, “The Business Value of Social Media” with: Scott McBride, Regional Business Director, 360 Digital Influence Asia Pacific, Ogilvy & Mather Asia Pacific and Eden Lau, Co-Founder & Managing Director of North Asia, Brandtology.

Our session is to discuss the answers to some pretty important social media questions that companies are asking world-wide: How do you listen to what is being said about your products or services? How do you unlock the economic potential of social media? How do you measure ROI?

While my copanelists will be focusing on social media insights for companies operating in the Asia Pacific region, I’ll be covering the answers for regional companies that want to engage the U.S. social media market.

As a new SES conference for Asia, this is an exciting opportunity for all, especially as our agency, TopRank Marketing engages more international consulting clients operating abroad in English speaking countries or that are looking for expertise to enter U.S. markets using social, SEO and content marketing.

Here’s a preview of my thoughts on the three main questions to be answered in the presentation:

How do you listen to what is being said about your products or services?

Knowing why you’re listening in the first place is essential before embarking on a social media monitoring program.

Understandably, many companies “don’t know what they don’t know” so it’s important to begin a structured and managed listening effort as soon as possible. Refinements can be made in keyword tracking and reports according to data that is collected and analyzed. IBM realized millions of dollars worth of sales leads from its listening efforts.

Free tools range from Google Alerts and socialmention.com to very low cost and useful such as Trackur.com. There are also premium monitoring tools for corporations that need more comprehensive monitoring such as that offered by Radian6, Alterian SM2 or Vocus. (PRWeb, owned by Vocus is a TopRank Marketing client)

A social media monitoring strategy will provide pre-campaign social insights as well as ongoing reporting and analysis as social content is created and networks are developed.

How do you unlock the economic potential of social media?

There’s what you “could do” and what you “should do” when answering this question.  Listening, research and participation should reveal the channels, media types and preferences for content and topics of most importance to your customers. Many companies rush into the social web with specific revenue growth goals in mind.  Without understanding the community, many of those efforts fall flat.

In Hong Kong for example, comScore reports that 9 out of 10 netizens watch online video with 447 million videos watched during March 2010. Within the Hong Kong video marketplace, Google sites (mostly YouTube) has a little over 52% share followed by Tudou and Youku which are each at 3.6%. Facebook has just under 3%.  That insight in concert with conversation and media tracking via social media monitoring may reveal that videos and video sharing/social networking sites are an ideal channel to engage your customers.

Unlocking the economic potential follows by leveraging video content to reach and engage customers, communicate the value of your products and services and stimulate discussion amongst the community you’re building. That’s exactly what PiperSport did with their video centric campaign that also involved Facebook and Twitter, resulting in the sale of several PiPerSport aircraft (which start at $140k each).

Another example is Minneapolis based Best Buy, and their “Twelpforce”, which is  made up of 2,500 volunteer social-media savvy store associates that leverage Twitter to answer questions on topics ranging from how to hook up a new TV to making gift suggestions. The real-time nature of Twitter allows Best Buy to engage with many more customers in a short amount of time using a platform that costs them virtually nothing.

How do you measure ROI?

Let’s pick a measurement KPI, shall we? CPC, CPL, CTR, CPM, PPC, PPL, PPS, ROAS, ROI, UV, PV and the list goes on. For a great perspective on social media ROI, you must check out this now classic presentation from Olivier Blanchard.

My favorite response to the social media ROI question is another question: How do you measure the ROI of having a phone system in your office?  Or an internet connection? These are communications platforms that are capable of achieving a number of goals according to how you use them. The same is true with the social web.

In a previous post, I shared a basic format for social media SEO strategy that any business could implement. You can’t measure anything if you’re not creating, sharing and engaging, so it’s important to get started with Listening > Content Creation > Promotion > Measurement.

In the course of implementing those 4 tactics, which are cyclical, there will be opportunities to influence and achieve business outcomes ranging from increasing word of mouth referrals, to unsolicited media coverage to an increase in web site visits and sales to attracting more candidates to hire or solving customer service issues more quickly.

Measuring ROI of any communications effort is in accordance with goals and the success of intended outcomes (like referrals, mentions or sales) as well as opportunistic outcomes that are revealed in the course of social web participation (Ex: promoting a discount or special offer for something a competitor is getting negative flack for on the social web).

I think the essential answer to the social media ROI question is to focus both on the performance of reaching intended outcomes as well as being agile enough to take advantage of opportunities that reveal themselves.  Direct opportunities are possible, such as Dell Outlet generating millions in sales on Twitter or BlendTec boosting sales 5x through their now famous “Will it Blend” Videos on YouTube.

Companies that get hung up on treating social media and the social web as a direct marketing channel without community insight and participation will create a new key performance indicator acronym: ROF return on frustration.

In a little over 24 hours I have a very, very long flight ahead of me and Monday’s post will come from ORM expert, Andy Beal. I hope to liveblog some of the sessions from SES Hong Kong and get a few video interviews as well.  If you have tips on visiting Hong Kong (I have 2 days open) please share in the coments.

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How to: use Social media for B2B Lead Generation

Kipp Bodnar, HubSpot

This post is one of a series of liveblogs MIMA Summit 2010. 

B2B social media can be surprisingly successful with a specific focus on lead generation.  If social media is to be taken seriously for B2B by marketing decision makers, it needs to keep focus on business objectives and driving sales vs. “fluff”.

B2B companies really are in a much better position to use social media as a marketing channel than B2C companies.  They usually have a much clearer expectations for the client does and what they want.

B2B companies also has deep internal knowledge.  It is not uncommon for the largest B2B companies employ specific leaders in its sector. However, there is a solid argument for many B2B companies, online marketing and social media may not be a fit. 

 If you have a small client base (maybe you have only 5 clients).If the people you’re trying to reach cannot access the Internet. many people in regulated industries cannot access the Internet outside of work.  (i.e. some military/electrical industry).If you or your organization does not have a lawyer who can help you. Velocity and volume – hard for social media at the beginning. You can potentially create fast but rapid volume would be difficult if you have a lack of resources, you should not become involved in social media outlets. This seems to be a major pain point for organizations.If you don’t have the time or resources makes it difficult to be successful.

 It is important to classify what exactly is an advantage. Second Kip, leadership is clear when someone expresses an interest in working with your company.If someone downloaded a white paper and gave full contact information, Kip sorts that a potential customer.  

First of all, it is important to have the basics in place.If the site is not usable and there are no initial pages to collect information of lead, media will have much less impact because traffic won’t engage and convert with your content. 

 The content is the Foundation for all online marketing as a B2B companies need to know how to talk to prospects in a way that is not promotional, solves their problems and provides value to them.

More content, in General, equals more entry points that should lead to greater leads.  Content creation correlates with organic growth of lead. A way to perform conversions is to ensure there are action plans along with content.

Takes the result of several social channels depending on the industry and strategy.  Discovering where your audience is. remember that the contract is not a goal, is something you do that helps facilitate a goal and must be measured as a KPI, not an outcome. 

  Blog has been crucial, because it is a platform for creating and publishing content over many different networks and attract new visitors.

  Headlines win-never before in history had so much information.People are subscribing to blogs via email, Twitter, LinkedIn, RSS, etc and headlines are the main plan of action for the content.  They are the detail all if people read Content or not. HubSpot has found that many of its titles the most successful article have numbers on them because people know they will be scanable.

Always optimize content with keywords that you’re gaining more organic visitors from search engines.

CTA (calls to action) – with a business blog, there are many different ways to get people to become the “leadership” of a visitor.For example: including buttons in the sidebar to speak with a representative or text links within the content to White paper landing pages or download content. HubSpot found successful to add calls to action at the end of the content.

We found that most jobs lead generation have not yet been published recently. older content is generating leads.

It is important to remember that your customers are more important than you are.For example, HubSpot has a client in Virginia that installs the pools and spas. all he does is share what someone might want to know when installing a pool.He does not sell its products directly, but this is good.Even if people aren’t willing to buy, publication of value added content adds them to the account section.

Involve all members of staff in company blog is crucial. people want content of people, not necessarily only companies.Getting different people from different departments – i.e. research or product, enables marketers to expand relevant information discussed on a particular blog to appeal to a larger subset of customers.

Business blogs drives leads and serves as a hub for research and visitors from social media. He did not feel that they are visiting a site that has not yet been updated in years.A blog provides context for a much better deal.

According to research from HubSpot of their own customers, B2B B2C is lagging behind in terms of customer acquisition in social channels direct. B2B is just earn in one tool: LinkedIn, which makes sense. B2B organizations are to acquire customers through social channels, not just at the same rates as B2C.

Email is the final test bench for social media outlets because for most people starting out in social media outlets, e-mail is the greatest example. Email isn’t being replaced by social .you can use it as a testing ground for amplifying the success of other marketing campaigns.CRM tool is essential for tracking. looks like a leadership comes in, as he was converted and how it goes through the sales process By having your system., sales and CRM associated analytics, gives a clearer picture of the visit to lead, which is essential for tracking.Lead source – it’s important to understand what takes you transfer of different online channels to identify what sources are effective or not.Measurement – with analytics to measure and provide insight around lead sources, you can discover where to allocate budget, especially if you can measure the customer visit.Social + CRM is how you should think about ROI. If you can have your Web Analytics and CRM talking, you can have an understanding of how people are coming to your site and how the different channels you are performing, measuring it until the client level.Acquisition cost Reduction:Social media can be equal to more customers engaged and lowest cost.

Thanks to Kipp Bodnar to present the session up during the MIMA Summit 2010. Kipp leads the team in content marketing HubSpot and writes for the blog, Social Media B2B.

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Making Cash with Adsense… What's that all about?

Making Cash with Adsense… What’s that all about?

Are you tired of the continuous stream of ads coming your way every time you search the internet for something? If so, then you may be interested in learning more about the various Ad Blocks that will prevent this from happening. Your computer will also run faster without all of those ads and you will have more privacy regarding where you go on the internet. Most Ad Blocks work by blocking out the host files. Others work by using a list of host names. You can choose to ad new names to the list and take others off. You would continue to get ads from hosts that are not on your blocked list.

There are many types of Ad Blocks to choose from. The one that is right for you depends on why you want to block them and if you want the option of letting some through from a particular host or not. The market is saturated with various spyware and pop up ad software that block these ads out. Make sure the product you use has automatic updates as things change and is

compatible with the other software you operate on your computer.

SuperAdBlocker is considered to be the most reliable product out there. It is able to remove more than 100,000 adware and spyware components. This means regardless of the method the advertiser is using your software will likely prevent it from getting through to your computer. You will also be able to block banners in the area of instant messaging. This software comes with free updates as well as excellent customer support that is available

24/7 at no charge.  SuperAdBlocker is available for only $29.95.

Mozilla is a type of Ad Blocker that allows you to make the choice of the advertisements you are exposed to as you go. It has a built in command called “block images from this server”.  It is very simple to use. When you run across an ad you want blocked from your computer simply right click. Double click the “block images from this server” option ad the ad will disappear.

Those who advertise with AdSense aren’t happy about these various ad blockers as they feel they will make their effective marketing tool a waste of time. Those who advertise for Adsense are worried to because they don’t know how those blocked ads will make their website appear to the user. They can rest easy because all the user will see is a blank spot where the ad would
have been.

Will Ad Blocks affect the vitality and economy of the internet?  I guess it depends on who you ask. Some researchers believe Ad Blocks simply give the consumer some choice over what they are exposed to just like any other mode of advertising. We all have the right to turn the TV channel if we don’t like what is on.  The same with the radio station. Other researchers believe that Ad Blocks will hurt the internet and cost consumers more in the long run. This is because the advertisers will have to find new methods of reaching the consumer but it will cost them more.  That additional cost will be passed on to the consumers. However the world of advertising and consumers continues to evolve and there are always new ideas being introduced. It will be interesting to see what happens next.

If you want to earn a strong income with adsense, consider looking at my

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