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Let's say you're a butcher, a baker or a candlestick maker. You want to get up to speed on the social media activity in your market, as fast as you can. Or perhaps you want to sell things to candlestick makers online, or you're a journalist writing a story about blogging butchers, or maybe you've got some kind of weird baking fetish or academic interest. Is there any way to ramp up your knowledge of these fields, fast, other than the "Google and wander" method? We think there is. Below you'll find step-by-step instructions, with screen shots, for the process we use when we want to get smart about a new field in a hurry.

The value of a product for users shifts as it moves through the product lifecycle. Initially it is about new functionality, later it is about user experience and price.

In one of our most anticipated episodes of this internet business podcast we have our guest Brian Kaldenberg - President of Kaldenberg Consulting. Brian's company does e-commerce consulting and PPC campaign management. In this episode we talk about researching and managing effective PPC campaigns.

In one of our most anticipated episodes of this internet business podcast we have our guest Brian Kaldenberg - President of Kaldenberg Consulting. Brian's company does e-commerce consulting and PPC campaign management. In this episode we talk about researching and managing effective PPC campaigns.

There's something very straight-forward about Google's branding. It doesn't complicate the experience with flowery user design or site mascots. It offers exactly the type of experience you'd expect to receive from a company that showcases its name in mostly primary colors. However, when Google announced today's additions to the "Google Services for Websites" suite, it took us a minute to remember what the company blog post was referencing. In a world where even browser names conjure images of animals or finely tuned cars, the company's simply named "Google Services for Websites" is extremely useful but often easy to forget.

There's something very straight-forward about Google's branding. It doesn't complicate the experience with flowery user design or site mascots. It offers exactly the type of experience you'd expect to receive from a company that showcases its name in mostly primary colors. However, when Google announced today's additions to the "Google Services for Websites" suite, it took us a minute to remember what the company blog post was referencing. In a world where even browser names conjure images of animals or finely tuned cars, the company's simply named "Google Services for Websites" is extremely useful but often easy to forget.

In continuing with my series of quick social media tips (check out 5 tips for LinkedIn) I'm covering some tips for business use of Facebook here. I've actually written about some of these tips in great detail before, but this can act as a quick primer for folks who like their info snack sized like this.

In continuing with my series of quick social media tips (check out 5 tips for LinkedIn) I'm covering some tips for business use of Facebook here. I've actually written about some of these tips in great detail before, but this can act as a quick primer for folks who like their info snack sized like this.

About web page content writing

Great insight on changes coming to Google's algorithm. This has the potential to have huge impacts on your SEO and overall Web Strategy

Google's about to make search engine optimization (SEO) into marketing, for good. How? They've been slowly adding user behavior to their ranking algorithm. Bet on far bigger changes after January 1st.

nice hack. quality boost.

This is good stuff. We can't complain about the quality of Youtube anymore! HD streaming is available with this hack. We're testing now.

If you run an ecommerce site or have clients that do so, this is a great resource for analyzing and configuring your landing pages based on the motivation of the customer.

Today I want to look at motivation from a different angle. I want you to choose a landing page that is top priority for you to optimize. For example, your most profitable product with the highest abandonment rate. I want to get you thinking about which customer motivations are most likely to match your business, your products, your typical customer and your landing page presentation.

Excellent post - thanks for sharing Shey

Social Monitoring Tools, Keyword Targeting, Noise Elimination, Refined Mentions, Analysis, Take Action... The Social Media Monitoring Funnel is a great guide

The following is a guide to social media monitoring. Before I get into the nuts and bolts of the article, I want to emphasize that each company needs its own strategic thought and implementation - and that no two companies should have identical forms of monitoring. Each brand is different, each website is different, and where people talk about your company and what is being said is going to vary. With that in mind, I present to you the Social Media Monitoring Funnel.

This topic is constantly coming up... How can you measure the ROI of social media?

It is easy to predict that we will be talking a lot more about social media measurement and ROI in 2009. The question of ROI becomes more important when there is a market transition from an established form or investment (i.e. traditional media) to an emerging form like social media. Even though the ROI of current or traditional investments may be no less certain, the test is always a higher one to justify a change.

Bloggers like numbers. Big numbers. Yes, we want a lot of traffic. But, we also want the usual status indicators: (1) Big RSS count, (2) Big Email List, etc. So, how do you go about converting a random visitor to your blog into a subscriber who will continue to come back? Here are some simple tips that you should probably execute.

Luckily, you don't have to keep up with every detail. But there are some important SEO trends you should know about as we go further into 2009. I'll break the list down into two sections - Strategy and Tactics and Industry/Big Picture Trends - and then turn it over to you at the end.

Great tips on developing an organic SEO strategy - aka the BEST SEO STRATEGY

When you set out to build your site content, keyword research and educated guesses about keyword relevance are often necessary initial steps.

According to a report on search engine results from Forrester Research: "on the keywords for which Google offers video results, any given video in the index stands about a 50 times better chance of appearing on the first page of results than any given text page in the index." Not only is video invaluable to getting your web presence better exposure in search engines, but video is the most compelling way to tell your story and inspire potential visitors.

Pancheros, a burrito restaraunt, is briding the gap between social media and its brick and mortar operations. Excellent web strategy

As far as I know Pancheros has become the first national chain of fast food restaurants to integrate Twitter promotion with their physical store locations. I am pretty happy about it, I feel like I helped get the effort going. I wonder how long it will be before McDonalds, Burger King and Taco Bell follow their lead.

At a recent social media workshop a participant asked me to reveal my social media routine - how I track, converse, communicate and otherwise curate all my various social media activities. I paused to think about it for a while because I never really considered what I do a routine, but it occurred to me that, in fact, I do have a systematic approach to social media. (No surprise really, I'm a systems thinker and I just do it habitually - ask my wife, I have a system for making the bed and loading the dishwasher.)

It's a great idea to create social media systems, or "processes" that allow you to automate some research and setting time and tasks for different aspects of social media - whether listening or interacting.

In it's simplest form Word of Mouth (WoM) Marketing is tapping into the conversations that occur between people to sell your product. The Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WoMMA) defines it as: Word of mouth marketing: Giving people a reason to talk about your products and services, and making it easier for that conversation to take place. Effective WoM strategies cultivate and amplify these conversations, understanding that they are the most powerful way to convince a consumer to buy your product.

With floods of e-mail arriving every hour, most people are ruthless about deleting anything they even suspect won't interest them. Not only that, they're also just as likely to report unwanted e-mails as spam as they are to delete them. So if you're not writing compelling subject lines that get the e-mails opened, all your hard work is lost. Here are five tips for writing effective e-mail subject lines that can easily double the open (and click-through) rates on your next e-mail.