A great website for 3min video intro overviews to Social Media, Wikis, Blogs etc.

www.commoncraft.com

Using Linked In for Business - Guy Kawasaki

1. Increase your visibility.

   By adding connections, you increase the likelihood that people will see your profile first when they’re searching for someone to hire or do business with. In addition to appearing at the top of search results (which is a major plus if you’re one of the 52,000 product managers on LinkedIn), people would much rather work with people who their friends know and trust.

2. Improve your connectability.

   Most new users put only their current company in their profile. By doing so, they severely limit their ability to connect with people. You should fill out your profile like it’s an executive bio, so include past companies, education, affiliations, and activities.

   You can also include a link to your profile as part of an email signature. The added benefit is that the link enables people to see all your credentials, which would be awkward if not downright strange, as an attachment.

3. Improve your Google PageRank.

   LinkedIn allows you to make your profile information available for search engines to index. Since LinkedIn profiles receive a fairly high PageRank in Google, this is a good way to influence what people see when they search for you.

   To do this, create a public profile and select “Full View.” Also, instead of using the default URL, customize your public profile’s URL to be your actual name. To strengthen the visibility of this page in search engines, use this link in various places on the web> For example, when you comment in a blog, include a link to your profile in your signature.

4. Enhance your search engine results.

   In addition to your name, you can also promote your blog or website to search engines like Google and Yahoo! Your LinkedIn profile allows you to publicize websites. There are a few pre-selected categories like “My Website,” “My Company,” etc.

   If you select “Other” you can modify the name of the link. If you’re linking to your personal blog, include your name or descriptive terms in the link, and voila! instant search-engine optimization for your site. To make this work, be sure your public profile setting is set to “Full View.”

5. Perform blind, “reverse,” and company reference checks.

   LinkedIn’s reference check tool to input a company name and the years the person worked at the company to search for references. Your search will find the people who worked at the company during the same time period. Since references provided by a candidate will generally be glowing, this is a good way to get more balanced data.

   Companies will typically check your references before hiring you, but have you ever thought of checking your prospective manager’s references? Most interviewees don’t have the audacity to ask a potential boss for references, but with LinkedIn you have a way to scope her out.

   You can also check up on the company itself by finding the person who used to have the job that you’re interviewing for. Do this by searching for job title and company, but be sure to uncheck “Current titles only.” By contacting people who used to hold the position, you can get the inside scoop on the job, manager and growth potential.

   By the way, if using LinkedIn in these ways becomes a common practice, we’re apt to see more truthful resumes. There’s nothing more amusing than to find out that the candidate who claims to have caused some huge success was a total bozo who was just along for the ride.

6. Increase the relevancy of your job search.

   Use LinkedIn’s advanced search to find people with educational and work experience like yours to see where they work. For example, a programmer would use search keywords such as “Ruby on Rails,” “C++,” “Python,” “Java,” and “evangelist” to find out where other programmers with these skills work.

7. Make your interview go smoother.

   You can use LinkedIn to find the people that you’re meeting. Knowing that you went to the same school, plays hockey, or shares acquaintances is a lot better than an awkward silence after, “I’m doing fine, thank you.”

8. Gauge the health of a company.

   Perform an advanced search for company name and uncheck the “Current Companies Only” box. This will enable you to scrutinize the rate of turnover and whether key people are abandoning ship. Former employees usually give more candid opinions about a company’s prospects than someone who’s still on board.

9. Gauge the health of an industry.

   If you’re thinking of investing or working in a sector, use LinkedIn to find people who worked for competitors—or even better, companies who failed. For example, suppose you wanted to build a next generation online pet store, you’d probably learn a lot from speaking with former Pets.com or WebVan employees.

10. Track startups.

    You can see people in your network who are initiating new startups by doing an advanced search for a range of keywords such as “stealth” or “new startup.” Apply the “Sort By” filter to “Degrees away from you” in order to see the people closest to you first.

11. Ask for advice.

    LinkedIn’s newest product,LinkedIn Answers, aims to enable this online. The product allows you to broadcast your business-related questions to both your network and the greater LinkedIn network. The premise is that you will get more high-value responses from the people in your network than more open forums.

    For example, here are some questions an entrepreneur might ask when the associates of a venture capital firm come up blank:

    • Who’s a good, fast, and cheap patent lawyer?

    • What should we pay a vp of biz dev?

    • Is going to Demo worth it?

    • How much traffic does a TechCrunch plug generate?

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Addendum

These additional ideas came in through comments:

1. Integrate into a new job.

   When people start a new job, ordinarily their roots aren’t that deep in the new company. However, with Linkedin, new employees can study fellow employees’ profiles and therefore help them get to know more people faster in a new company. (contributed by Vincent Wright)

2. Scope out the competition, customers, partners, etc.This seems like it’s a no-brainer, but you can use LinkedIn to scope out the competition’s team as well as the team of customers and partners. For example, your competitor’s vp of marketing came from Oracle...she’ll probably believe that business is war. (Kev)

Organic Search: Inbound & Outbound linking to and from your website

Overall (dependent on your objectives), organic, long term SEO is by far more effective than short-term pay-per-click or pay-per-view advertising (PPC/PPV). Your website ranking depends on at least 75% organic search terms, and inbound linking has a massive influence towards this.

For the main 3 worldwide search engines by search volume, I have listed the simple methods you can use to find out which links are inbound to your domain and which ones are external from your domain. If anyone knows more about Bing let me know, as I'm still searching.

The best place to measure inbound links for your own site is within a Google Webmaster account, or if you can't access that or it takes too much time, try the below:

Google:

Simply type in the following in the Google search field to measure ALL your inbound and outbound links:

http://[your domain name]

For specific inbound links (to your site), enter: link:[yourdomainname.com] into Google Search.

For specific outbound links (from your site), enter: site:[yourdomainname.com] into Google Search.

Example: BBC is a great example of solid inbound links, their site has 24,500 - a massive amount in comparison to most sites. Only 1,650 for YouTube. But the outbound changes dramatically:

YouTube - 913,000,000 (Yes nearly 1billion!)

BBC - 31,400,000

Yahoo (Site Explorer)

http://[your domain name] - Allows you to sort by either of the below:

For specific inbound links (to your site), enter: linkdomain:[your domain name] into Yahoo Search.

For specific outbound links (from your site), enter: site:[your domain name] into Yahoo Search.

Bing - ?!!?

Useful link for all of the above: www.selfseo.com (Self SEO)

Then there is a big difference between powerful and not so powerful links. Receiving inbound links from popular, relevant and reputable websites is obviously a winner on this front. And one of the most important factors for achieving top positions in search engines is through your volume of 'quality' links.

Successful Email Marketing I: How to actually maximise delivery and ensure your message gets read

In light of relatively new inbound, pull and permissive marketing techniques through blogs and social media platforms, email is fatiguing to say the least, and it's much harder than ever to get your B2B email marketing message through to your audience. Some would even argue it's past the point of no return in its effectiveness. And therefore if you haven't already combed through your e-marketing techniques and analysis diligently, then you are far behind. Let's face it, even if you have opted in to a harmless, newsy, cutting edge, content focused, added value newsletter, you will probably only have time to read that occasionally, if at all. And we haven't even started to discuss pushier, catchy, sales driven (& hidden!) hook emails.

So it's fairly evident that we are seeing an increasingly fine balance today when sending out your email message, combining more and more complex elements to ensure its effectiveness. With the increasing number of email apps and web browsers out there and their sophisticated blocking tools (including WEB BASED, eg. Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail, AOL, Apple Mail, Thunderbird, etc., DESKTOP based, eg. Outlook, Lotus etc; and MOBILE, eg. Blackberry, Windows Mobile etc.), how do you find the ultimate balance for your message to get through and be read? With more and more difficulty for sure. But to maximise your message being received well, there are a number of simple methods to prevent the madness. The first is delivery, subject lines and giving yourself the best possible chance that a message actually gets read.

So what steps can YOU take to actually getting your email opened?

1. The admin basics/essentials: Add a whitelist filter link with @yourdomainname.com link AND proactively include your email address for the recipient to add to their address book by clicking on it. This will allow all future emails from your name to cut through their spam/junk filters. And their programme will subsequently identify you as legit.

2. "From" line: Use a consistent 'real' name and one which your audience recongises, this gives your email 'authenticity', test/sample different names intelligently earlier in your campaign. Well over half of email recipients the 'from' line determines whether they will delete or open an email.

3. "Subject" line: Must be kept short and simple -> 40 characters max with spaces, 5-8 words (short subject lines significantly outperform longer ones) and incorporate the immediate benefit of 'opening' the email. You can see what not to do by collecting a bunch of SPAM emails and do the opposite! If you must capitalise and punctuate do this carefully. I'd also TEST, TEST & TEST(!) subject line variations splitting your audience data. And then don't forget to analyse the trends after at least 3-4+ days lag time.

4. Scanning Emails before sending: In light of the various and differing email app formats/web browsers mentioned in Para 2 above, you can run a compatibility test by using your own email software to run a scan on recipient email apps/web browsers. Most decent programmes will have this tool and although it might come at a small cost, it will save you lots of time/cash in the long run. So failing to prepare here is preparing to fail!

p67tvigwau

Advertising on Google

You might be overwhelmed by the online advertising landscape, as there are dozens of providers. How do you really get the best bang for your buck? How long does it take for a campaign to bring in positive results? Which provider will give you maximum ROI?
Using Google Adwords and AdSense is probably your best place to start.

GOOGLE ADWORDS TUTORIALS - UK & US DEMO:

CASE STUDY - HAPPY HOUND:

GOOGLE ADSENSE TUTORIAL:

Google Wave!

Oh one very important development I forgot to mention below is Google Wave. Check this sh*t out: http://wave.google.com/

The best 'quality' knowledge resources for online marketing

The internet is over cluttered and there are hundreds of sites and portals out there on the web with varying info on best practice re: online marketing techniques. However, after over a year analysing a few (through newsletters and webcasts and 'free' white paper access), I'd like to share the following, which I have found the most useful - if you are a aserious online marketer i'd sign up with them and get involved asap!

1. HupSpot - www.hubspot.com (USA)

2. B2B Marketing Magazine - www.b2bm.biz (UK)

3. Marketing Profs - www.marketingprofs.com (USA)

4. Linked In - www.linkedin.com (Select 'Groups' and type in your online marketing criteria in the 'find group' search field)

5. Any Google Product - www.google.com/products

6. E-Newsletters from various international marketing associations and their official, affiliated journals/magazine.

Eg. CIM UK (The Marketer - www.themarketer.co.uk) and;

American Marketing Association - www.marketingpower.com etc.

Search - goes without saying:

www.google.com

www.wolframalpha.com

www.cuil.com

If you really have to:

www.bing.com

www.yahoo.com

Please feel free to add to the lists above, as I'm certain there are more 'quality' sites.

Six simple things you can do today to increase the return on your email marketing

In tough economic times, you need to do more with less. Here are six simple, inexpensive things you can do today to increase the return on your email marketing efforts this month.

1. Increase your email list growth

Your email list is an asset; the most qualified sign-ups you get, the larger your list will be. Your company’s Website is a good place to start. Make sure you include a benefit-oriented call-to-action to sign-up for email on every page. No one 'needs' more email, but they do want information to help them do their jobs better, enjoy their hobbies more, save them money, etc. Make sure you include these benefits in your call-to-action.

Once they are interested, your registration page should encourage them to complete the process, not drive them away. In general, you can ask for five to seven fields of information without causing people to abandon the process. These typically include email address, first name, company name (for B-to-B), zip code (which is helpful for geographic segmentation) and one or two additional fields to allow you to provide relevant content based on the subscriber’s interests.

2. Make the most of your welcome message(s)

When someone signs up to receive email from you, they’re looking for a relationship. You’re in a honeymoon period with them, so make the most of it! Make sure your welcome message invites them further into the relationship with you – and furthers your business goals.

If your goal is direct response, provide an incentive for an immediate purchase. If it’s lead generation, use your welcome email to further flesh out the benefits of your product. If you have a long sales cycle a series of welcome messages, sent a few days or a week apart, which include benefits and customer testimonials, can be a cost-effective tool for moving prospects through it.

3. Optimize your preview pane view

A recent MarketingSherpa survey found that 64% of people use the preview pane to decide whether or not to read the full email. Make sure you are making good use of this 'prime real estate'. It should engage the reader and include your key messages, including your brand, a benefit-oriented headline, a personalised salutation and a reason for them to read more.

A recent client recognised a 220% lift in leads generated, with no decrease in lead quality, through inexpensive changes I recommended to the preview pane view. Another client got an equally impressive 75% increase in online orders thanks to optimising the preview pane section of the email.

4. Strategically resend email

Many organisations would be very happy with a 1.4% conversion rate on an email campaign. But by resending strategically, you can do even better. A resort property which got those results on the initial send did a strategic resend, just to the people that had clicked-through but not booked a reservation.

The open rate on the second send was more than double that of the initial send; the conversion rate for the second send was a very impressive 36.5%. The second send incorporated an incentive, which was in the first email but not featured prominently, into the headline. Otherwise, they were identical. The additional bookings more than paid for the cost of the second send and lifted the ROI significantly.

5. Incorporate marketing into transactional email messages

Transactional email messages, which are the result of a purchase or other action, have higher click-through and open rates than any other type of email message. As long as the primary purpose of the email remains transactional, CAN-SPAM allows you to you include a marketing message.

For a great example of this look no further than the receipts iTunes sends – they include a list of recommendations for music favored by others who made the same purchase. It’s a marketing message that many recipients see as a customer service.

6. Confirm your email deliverability

If your email isn’t getting delivered to the inbox, people won’t be able to act on it. Bounces don’t tell the whole story; many filters that block email don’t let the sender know.

There are a number of websites that let you check your deliverability for free, including SenderBase.org. The best time to check is shortly after a large send. If you find you have a problem, your email service provider should be able to help you resolve it. If you’re sending email from an in-house system, Pivotal Veracity and Return Path both offer help with deliverability.

More and more companies are turning to email as a cost-effective channel to generate direct sales and leads. By spending a little time and effort, you can get even more from your email marketing efforts.

Useful Links:

MarketingSherpa: www.marketingsherpa.com 

Senderbase.org: www.senderbase.org 

Pivotal Veracity: www.pivotalveracity.com 

Return Path: www.returnpath.com

Source: Jeanne S. Jennings

Consultant, Email Marketing Strategy

JeanneJennings.com, Inc.

ARTICLE: 10 Tips for Using Twitter and Email Marketing for B2B

Here's another useful top 10 tips list., which focuses on what all the Twitter fuss is about. Take note all you B2B tweeters out there!

1. Add a link to your company's Twitter account to all mass email communications.  

2. Link to a form landing page from your company Twitter account. 

3. Use Twitter content in your email newsletters. 

4. Post links from your email newsletter articles on Twitter.

5. Ensure that all email newsletter article authors have their Twitter account listed on the email. 

6. Provide instructions in your emails about how subscribers can follow conversations about your company on Twitter. 

7. Ask email subscribers for their Twitter ID when they sign up. 

8. On your email preference page, indicate to those who may want to unsubscribe that they can still follow you on Twitter. 

9. Add a link in your emails and/or on your website that allows email subscribers and web visitors to easily tweet about an article, event or promotion.

10. Conduct Twitter interviews and use this as content for your email marketing. 

ARTICLE: Top 10 for Online Marketing Success in 2009!

Time to stop procrastinating on your online-marketing efforts and kick off 2009 with these 10 fantastic guidelines, that will soon have you on your way to success, courtesy of Aaron Kahlow. 

10. Borrow and Share

9. User-Generated Content as a Strategy

8. Cost-Conscious Search

7. Email With Purpose

6. Analytics for Real

5. Plunge Head-First Into Social Networking

4. Stop Twittering, Start Working

3. Budget for Customers

2. Education Is Always the Key

1. No Fear

VIDEO: Seth Godin explains what Web 2.0 means for marketers

This is a great 6min summary from marketing expert Seth Godin, explaining how web 2.0 and social networks can help marketers build a new kind of relationship with their customers.

NEWS: Old media will never be as profitable again, warns WPP's Sorrell

LONDON - The profit margins within traditional media, including television and newspapers, will never be the same again, according to WPP chief executive Sir Martin Sorrell.

Speaking to more than 250 media and advertising professionals at an IAA event yesterday (January 21), the leader of the group behind some £15bn in revenue last year, warned the media sector continues to be "disintermediated" by low-cost business models.

"The painful thing for old media is it will never be the same again," Sorrell said. "It will never be as profitable as it has been."