Archive for May, 2009

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Embrace Social Media: A TeleSummit

Friday, May 29th, 2009

ArbLogo Would you like intensive, social media training from some of the to experts in the field? Experts like Dan McComb of Biznik, Shama Hyder of Click to Client, Dan Hollings who helped market The Secret, and some random guy named Rich Brooks?

And, would you like that training delivered to you at your own desktop, and/or saved as mp3 recordings so you can listen at your leisure and at your pace?

And, would you like to listen to it live over two days: June 10th and 11th?

Well, then have I got the telesummit for you!

I'll be part of Embrace Social Media: A TeleSummit that is being put on by A Red Bench. My topic is Managing Social Media Without Losing Your Mind, where I'll be sharing ways to better manage your time as you engage in social media activities.

Other topics include Facebook, blogging, LinkedIn, Twitter, SEO, Social Networking and Social Media.

If you'd like to learn more about the telesummit you can do so at Embrace Social Media: A TeleSummit.

Rich Brooks
That Social Media Guy

Posted in Social Media, Web Marketing | No Comments »


Technology Innovator…Wha?

Friday, May 29th, 2009

Techmaine_logo Yesterday I found out that I had been nominated for Technology Innovator of the Year here in Maine. According to the language,

Rich is a champion of social networking, and personifies the daring,
relentless energy and generosity required to bring disparate people
together and show them that they are already united in a common cause.

I think this is a fancy way of saying I know how to throw a mean tweetup, but even that credit has to be shared with Chrystie Corns.

While this is very flattering (I'm having t-shirts made up) I just want to make sure the judging committee realizes that I did not actually come up with the idea for Twitter. Or Facebook. Or LinkedIn for that matter. I did, however, come up with the idea for putting customized images on mousepads back in 1996, but two days later I saw them in the store, so I missed that opportunity.

The other two nominees actually sound like they've actually innovated something:

Tony Paine (Kepware Technologies, Inc.)
Tony Paine, Executive VP/CTO and co-owner of Kepware Technologies, has
guided the company to a position of industry leadership through
diligent and creative engineering, rational and strong management
leadership, and hard work.

Carl Spang (Falcon Performance Footwear)
Carl believes that technology can revive traditional business sectors,
and create new sectors and new manufacturing jobs. He has turned this
belief into action at Falcon, merging new technologies with traditional
products.

To see the full list of nominees for the different awards you can check out the Technology Awards Gala Finalists page, or come to the 2009 Technology Awards Gala on June 2, put on by TechMaine.

Rich Brooks
In Good Company

Posted in flyte news | No Comments »


New Author Website: James Hayman’s The Cutting

Monday, May 18th, 2009

Jameshaymanthrillers Late last week flyte launched a Web site/blog for author James Hayman in support of his new novel, "The Cutting." This is actually the 3rd site we've done for Jim, although it's the first for his new job title of "crime fiction writer."

Jim's first novel is called "The Cutting" and takes place in our little hamlet of Portland, Maine. The early buzz is good:

“An extraordinary debut and an exceptional thriller, The Cutting is
razor-sharp, heartfelt, and superbly written. James Hayman is a
tremendous new voice in crime fiction, and this book flat-out smokes.
Hayman writes characters you feel bone-deep and want to meet again and
again.”

—Julia Spencer-Fleming, Edgar Award finalist and author of I Shall Not Want

“Big-city wicked invades the Pine Tree State in James Hayman’s The Cutting. This is a stunning debut that gripped me from first page to last. A thriller of a thriller!”

—Tess Gerritsen, author of The Keepsake

If you're a fan of thrillers or crime fiction you owe it to yourself to pick up Jim's book. It comes out June 23 at your local bookstore or at Amazon.

I enjoyed reading Jim's about page and his description of how he and his protagonist McCabe differ:

McCabe’s a lot braver than me. He’s a better shot. He likes boxing. He
doesn’t throw up at autopsies. And he’s far more likely to take risks.
McCabe’s favorite Portland bar, Tallulah’s, is, sadly, a figment of my
imagination. My favorite Portland bars are all very real.

Sadly, no mentions of Jim's favorite haunts.

Flyte designed the Web site and built in on WordPress
so that Jim could update the content himself, and enabled the blog for
a two-way conversation that he could have with his readers and fans.

Rich Brooks
Maine Web Design for Maine Authors

Posted in Business Blogs and Blog Marketing, Client News, Web Site Launches | 2 Comments »


How to Set Up Goals in Google Analytics – Video

Friday, May 15th, 2009

Every Web site has conversion points; actions you want your visitors to take to move them down the sales funnel. It could be clicking on a "buy now" button, signing up for an email newsletter, completing a contact form, and so on.

Using Google Analytics Goals we can track this activity at our Web site. By setting up goals we can find out not just how much traffic a search engine or Web site is sending us, but what's the quality of that traffic, and even what each lead is worth.

In the video below you can see how to set up and use goals to gain new insight into the activity at your Web site, or you can watch How to Set Up Goals in Google Analytics at YouTube.

Rich Brooks
Goal Oriented

Posted in Analytics, How-To Web Marketing Videos | 10 Comments »


Did Twitter Just “Facebook” Their New Changes?

Wednesday, May 13th, 2009

Facebook: v. To make changes to your users' experience without asking them and couching it in a "we know what's good for you" attitude.

Twitter recently made changes to their settings that seemingly will hide certain tweets from you. From Twitter's blog:

However, receiving one-sided fragments via replies sent to folks you
don't follow in your timeline is undesirable. Today's update removes
this undesirable and confusing option.

Now, the exact outcome of this is still a little murky to me as in the following paragraph @biz states:

Despite this update, you'll still see mentions or references linking to people you don't follow.

Ummm…what?

There's already a lot of negative feedback to this changes based on the fact that #fixreplies is the top trending topic on search.twitter.com at the time of this writing.

The fact that the blog post is so murky is probably part of the frustration. For example, does this affect people who are using 3rd party Twitter apps, like TweetDeck?

In any case, the handling fumbling of the issue seems to be part of the problem. Why not make this a feature that we can turn on or off? Why force this change on us and tell us because what we're used to is too confusing for us? Just doesn't make sense.

Here's to hoping that Twitter's listening to their audience.

Rich Brooks
Follow Me on Twitter

Posted in Social Media | 2 Comments »


What is Holistic Web Marketing?

Wednesday, May 13th, 2009

What is Holistic Web Marketing? At flyte we use this model to explain our integrated approach to online success. A static Web site is no longer enough; you need a coordinated Web marketing strategy to reach the widest audience possible.

Holistic Web marketing consists of four parts:

  • Attraction: How to drive quality traffic to your Web site. [Tools: search engine optimization, blogging, social media]
  • Retention: How to keep the conversation going after they’ve left your site. [Tools: email marketing, social media]
  • Conversion: How to get people to make a buying decision at your site, whether it’s clicking on a “Buy Now” button, completing a contact form, or picking up the phone. [Tools: web site]
  • Measurement: How to analyze your traffic to make ongoing improvements to both your Web site and your Internet marketing for better results. [Tools: analytics]

We believe that you need to address and integrate all four pieces of Holistic Web Marketing for long-term success.

On Thursday, May 14th at 12pm EDT, I'll be leading a one hour Webinar (plus 30 minutes of Q&A) examining how small businesses can use the holistic Web marketing model to grow their own business. We'll look at search engine optimization, email marketing, blogging, social media and your own Web site as tools to increase online visibility, drive more qualified leads to your site, and generate more online business.

The cost of the Webinar is normally $49, but if you enter coupon code "theeconomystinks" you'll save $15. That's our stimulus package to you.

Learn more and register now!

Rich Brooks
Web Marketing for Small Biz

Posted in Analytics, Business Blogs and Blog Marketing, Email Marketing, Entrepreneur & Small Business, Search Engine Marketing, Social Media, Web Design & Development, Web Marketing | 6 Comments »


Happy Birthday to flyte! (12 years and counting…)

Tuesday, May 12th, 2009

2591302962_215bf42576 It's bad enough when you forget your wife's birthday or your anniversary; a few nights on the couch will remedy that. But we here at flyte forgot our own 12th birthday.

I guess that when the president (that's me) assigns an arbitrary date as your birthday (May 1st) it's not quite the same. Still, it was just about twelve years ago when I quit my job selling Med B supplies to nursing homes (I still know how to treat a stage IV decubitus ulcer) and decided to go full time into Web design.

I never thought it would last; I figured that in a couple of years either designers would learn to code, or that programmers would learn to design, and then I'd go back to working for the man. But, as it turned out–after a few fits and starts–I got busy and stayed busy. Soon I had to hire people to keep up with the work, then we had to move operations out of the house, and we kept on expanding our offerings.

So, from the humble beginnings of a solopreneur working out of my apartment in Jamaica Plain, MA, flyte is now eight employees strong, including project managers, creative directors, developers, programmers and search engine marketers. (And me, the guy who makes the coffee.)

We continue to work with small businesses (just like us) to help them succeed and grow their business. We've expanded from just Web design to now offer e-commerce, Flash, content management systems, search engine optimization, email marketing, blogging, social media strategies and more.

None of this would be possible without the ongoing contributions of the flyte crew (both past and present) and the entrepreneurial spirit of our clients. Thanks to everyone who's been involved.

As it says on every proposal that goes out of our office, At flyte we don't build Web sites, we build businesses.

If you're looking to build your own business why not give flyte a call today?

Rich Brooks
What a Long Strange Trip It's Been

Photo from Malomemory

Posted in Entrepreneur & Small Business, flyte news | 8 Comments »


Autoresponder Limits on Constant Contact

Tuesday, May 12th, 2009

On a long ago post I talked about Constant Contact vs. some other email newsletter services. Recently, "DannyeW" left the following comment:

According to the woman at Constant Contact, they only allow 5 messages with their autoresponder system….CC is much better which is why I was
hoping to use them for my ezine and to build my list. However, I also
need more than 5 message to send out ecourses, etc.
Advice?

Since my original post is so old, I figured I'd "elevate" the comment to a fresh post.

I hadn't used the autoresponder yet from Constant Contact (CC) so I went to investigate. It appears DannyeW is right: there is currently a limit of five messages (emails) you can send out from a single autoresponder. Although I'd like CC to remedy this, here's something you can do yourself.

If you have more than 5 messages you'd like to send via autoresponder, employ the cliff hanger approach: in the fifth email tease the answer or solution you offer, but only to those who sign up for the 2nd batch of autoresponders.

I wouldn't try this more than once, and I'd let subscribers know that they won't have to resubscribe again.

Not a perfect solution, but you will find that those who sign up for both autoresponders will turn out to be your best prospects.

If you'd like to give Constant Contact a free spin you can do so now.

Rich Brooks
Email Marketing Guy

Posted in Email Marketing | 2 Comments »


How to Write a Review At Google Maps

Monday, May 11th, 2009

As Nicki Hicks, over at the Maine SEO blog reports, good reviews may improve your local search visibility. Before we talk about how to get these reviews, let's talk about how to leave them for other businesses.

Start with Google maps and enter in the business name, town, and state. My example is: "market street eats, portland maine".

Gmaps1

Hit "search maps" and you see:

Gmaps2

If the business has a particularly generic name you may have to search through some results. Once you've found the business you want to write a review for you should see a link called "Write a review"; click on it.

Gmaps3

You can give your review a title, choose from 1 – 5 stars, and leave a detailed review. Then click "save." A few seconds or minutes later your review should appear.

Gmaps5

That review is now available to anyone searching for the company in question, and can appear in Google maps as well as Google's local search. (And who knows where else, down the road.)

Whether reviews impact the search engine visibility of your business (seems to me that it's pretty easy to game the system), or if it just encourages some prospects to contact you, positive reviews are a good thing. Here are some suggestions on how to get your customers and clients to write them for you:

  1. Do a good job. Seems obvious, doesn't it? But if you're not doing a good job, then there's little chance people will want to go out of their way to write a recommendation or a positive review.
  2. Ask for a recommendation. Talk to your most satisfied customers, engage guests at the front desk, include the suggestion on a takeout bag.
  3. Show people how to leave a recommendation. Either write up your own how-to, or just print this post in part or in whole. Your call.

Also, don't lose sleep about a couple of mediocre or even bad reviews. Recent studies have shown that products and companies with mostly positive reviews do better than ones with only positive reviews. A perfect record can come off as authentic as astroturf.

And, if you're feeling generous (or even if you're not), feel free to review flyte new media. Let us know how we're doing.

Rich Brooks
Market Street Eats Fan

Posted in Entrepreneur & Small Business, Search Engine Marketing, Social Media | 27 Comments »


FriendFeed: Questions and Answers

Thursday, May 7th, 2009

 Rich,

I have a two part question:

  1. I am not clear on if I should accept requests from people I don’t know on FriendFeed.  Any tips?
  2. It seems like Ping.fm lets you post everyone at once…and FriendFeed lets you look at media from lots of sources.  Is that right?

Flumoxed About FriendFeed

ImagesDear Flumoxed,

I'm far from an expert on FriendFeed, but let me see if I can help you out.  First off, FriendFeed works more like Twitter than Facebook, so the emails you receive are alerts that someone is subscribed to your feed. You can then choose to subscribe to their feed. That's different than Facebook, where there has to be mutual "friendship" for you to see each other's information.

However, if the requests you're receiving on FriendFeed are from the widows of deposed Nigerian royalty then by all means, accept them!

Secondly, your description of Ping.fm and FriendFeed are accurate. You can use Ping.fm to update your status across multiple social media sites; it's like a multiplier for your megaphone. FriendFeed, on the other hand, pulls in updates from multiple social media sites into just one place for one feed to rule them all. It's a collection of your online activity, or at least as much of it as you want to share.

You can also follow people who have set up profiles on FriendFeed if you want to learn more about them, and what they're doing online.

You can subscribe to my FriendFeed by clicking on my signature below:

Rich Brooks
Feeding My Friends

Posted in Social Media | No Comments »

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