McIntosh Marketing Blog

If you follow the latest online buzz, you might have read here and there rumors about Google Me, which is supposed to be Google’s answer to Facebook. Facebook being the only giant able to compete with the leading search engine — a couple months ago, for the first time Facebook passed Google in terms of visitors — it isn’t surprising that Google might want to take a bite out of the social market. Of course, nothing is sure yet, but every day somebody seems to come out from the bushes to confirm this is true.

Should you pay attention to these rumors? As an Internet marketer or website owner, the answer is undoubtedly Yes! Why? Because, whatever  Google’s social network might be, be sure that Internet marketers will jump into it to take advantage of it as soon as possible.  So, with social media being such an important part of online marketing strategies, you want to be sure to have the first-mover advantage to, at least, beat competitors in your industry to the punch.

Over the last few years I have been asked for my marketing glossary several times.  Truth is, I don’t really have one.  I do have notes with definitions here and there but have never actually put them all in one place.  In fact, when I try to explain these marketing terms to someone, it seems to me that most of the time they think these terms don’t really exist!  It could be due to many of them sounding very similar to each other but trust me they have very different meanings.  I really felt the following keywords should be listed as they tend to be used most often and more commonly but for the full list with detailed definitions go to http://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/

deep linking – linking to a web page other than a site’s home page.

description tag – an HTML tag used by Web page authors to provide a description for search engine listings.

impression – a single instance of an online advertisement being displayed.*

interactive agency – an agency offering a mix of Web design/development, Internet advertising/marketing, or E-Business/E-Commerce consulting.

keyword research – the search for keywords related to your Web site, and the analysis of which ones yield the highest return on investment (ROI).

search engine optimization – the process of choosing targeted keyword phrases related to a site, and ensuring that the site places well when those keyword phrases are part of a Web search.

By taking the time to learn these terms you will not only become more knowledgeable of Internet marketing but just by reading them you will start to understand more and more of what actually goes into your marketing.  I feel this list is pretty thorough list and can help even the beginning marketer to understand the terms of the online marketing world better.  Not only will you be able to learn more about the terms but once you start to understand them you will learn more about how marketing is actually done!

As a fan of social media, I’ve always tested out the new social networks, new web 2.0 apps, any equipment or software that would put me in better and faster communication with the world.

I used the Flock browser for a while a few years ago, and liked the way I could blog directly from the browser and drag my flickr photos straight into my blog posts. Plus I had a friend who worked at Flock, so that always made it cool to use their browser, wear my Flockstar tshirt, etc.

At some point, the excitement died for me, I got busy with my art career, and did less blogging, and I went back to Firefox. But today, after reading the ZDNet review today, I was inspired once again. The fire was re-ignited and I downloaded the new version 2.6 Flock browser.

So far, it seems way more awesome than it used to be…and it was awesome then too. Here’s why:

1. By clicking on the “People Sidebar” you can log in to all your social media accounts, and have the updates appear on the left side of the browser. Let’s say you choose Flickr. From that sidebar you can check your flickr mail, click on a friend, see his/her photos, view their profile, send them a message, etc.

3. There’s also a clipboard feature that allows you to drag and drop text, photos or links to save for later use in blogging or uploading to one of your social networks, etc.

4. Flock still has the awesome blog editor tool as well, which was always my favorite feature. And with all the other features, new and old, it’s even easier to find the images and links you need, save them, drag everything into your blog post right from the browser without having to even open new tabs or windows or anything.

5. Things about Flock that I’m just discovering:
photo uploader tool
Twitter search widget
instant messaging with facebook chat
webmail
7 social network apps
3 media sharing apps
7 different blogging apps

I’m just playing around with this right now while I’m typing, so there’s a lot I haven’t figured out yet. But I can already tell you that if you are serious about your social networking, and also about saving time by not having to log into every single social account or blog you have, you should give Flock a try. You can see your Twitter friends, feed, trends all from your browser with no additional Twitter app needed. Same with Facebook, Myspace (if you still use THAT one), Youtube, Digg and Bebo.

Yeah, I’m going to be checking out these features for a while. There are a LOT of them to go through. I suggest you do the same.

Get Flock here. And if you want to see the ZDNet article that renewed my enthusiasm for Flock, here it is.

PS: To Will…I’m sorry I strayed. It’s nice to be back. <3

Recessions and tough times are good for marketing opportunities. But unfortunately most business professionals, entrepreneurs and even marketing experts have a counter-intuitive reaction to this statement. You know the old saying, “Buy low, sell high.” There is a corollary to this adage in marketing: “Economy soft, market hard.”

Now while I can send you a White Paper that substantiates this proposition so clearly and so emphatically, unfortunately it would not really matter how many reports, statistics or evidence I produced for many. What many of these businesses professionals are running into is not lack of evidence, but an abundance of preconceived and fixed ideas that disallow the ability to view new and more effective methodologies.

Case in point #1: Yesterday I was calling on a prospective client. I informed her what I did in that I helped small businesses like hers to effectively market themselves with internet marketing tools, such as social media and local search. She rapidly replied, “We don’t do marketing because we are a small company.” I had to suppress the laugh. Maybe it’s the other way around.

Case in point #2: Having worked for years with CPA’s, Accountants and Enrolled Agents, I have noted an epidemic amongst their industry members when it comes to a fixed idea that is literally stopping them from adapting to the new world of online marketing and social media. “We are a referral business only.” One CPA went onto tell me, “Although CPA’s are traditionally seen as having very little personality, our business is built on relationships.” I didn’t have the heart to tell him that this is the case with all successful businesses.

In these two case point above, it was not that there was lack of evidence or a lack of statistics to utterly prove that social media is referral ginseng: organic fuel for their most trusted source of marketing themselves and developing new business.

And this brings me to an important element that has been missing in the education system, our universities and within the various agencies and organizations established to help businesses. That good marketing is not an expense, but an investment; an actual part of conducting business. To succeed, any business person must not only know how to market, but must also know how to stay up-to-date on the latest developments in marketing, as there will always be better and more effective ways to market. As the world evolves, the ways of reaching, motivating and selling also evolve.

In its day, the Pony Express was pretty slick. It was the social networking of 1860. But then came the telegraph. Ponies and the adventurous men who rode them were now suddenly outdated. What was innovative one year was completely disregarded the next.

Get off the pony and learn to telegraph. Today, learn internet marketing tools and how to use them.

McIntosh Marketing’s Chief Brand Officer, Edwin Dearborn, has authored a new white paper titled, Using Social Media to Effectively Market Your Brand, Developing A Common Sense Plan. It is being broadly issued for its first time. Here is the link: SEO White Paper

This white paper details how to develop a common sense plan for any business on how to use social media to effectively develop a powerful presence on the web. This white paper also provides key web marketing tips that any business can utilize and implement to become more comprehensive, effective and thus more profitable through internet marketing tools.

McIntosh Marketing alos offers a free web marketing analysis for any business.

Facebook is now generating more user traffic than Google.  YouTube is the second biggest search engine on the internet. 80% of companies use LinkedIn as a primary tool to find employees. A US Department of Education study revealed that on average, online students out performed those receiving face-to-face instruction. Generation Y and Z consider e-mail passé. In fact, In 2009 Boston College stopped distributing e-mail addresses to incoming freshmen.

• There are over 200 million Blogs
• 34% of bloggers post opinions about products & brands
• 77% of women are more likely to look for a product in a store after reading about it on a social site
• 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations
• Only 14% trust advertisements
• Only 18% of traditional TV campaigns generate a positive ROI

The fact of the matter is the question you should be asking is not if we should develop and engage a B2B social media marketing strategy, but how fast can we become effective at it. You have three options, either one you need to initiate right away before your web savvy competitors leave you behind.

1. Start educating yourself with books and seminars, so you can start a cohesive and effective social media plan.
2. Designate a person within your company, group or religious group to become your in-house social media expert.
3. Hire a SEO company with proven results in developing a comprehensive and profitable social media strategy.

The world of social media can be so daunting that the task to get motivated and to persist in the first 6 months to a year is the most challenging task for the neophyte. One could comment here on tactics, but the skills of the “How To” in social media will take time to learn, develop and to perfect. I take that back. To be excellent, you will always be learning, if you want to stay ahead, and even then perfection is never truly reached. Social media marketing, like life itself, is a journey, not a destination.

I have often told people, “Just like your business, your efforts in social media will take some time to establish a presence and become a success.” This pithy statement makes sense and they usually see the point.

Ask any person if they expected instant and amazing success in a few weeks or even in a few months. Other than those few who are highly delusional, most business professionals and entrepreneurs know that success takes hard work, persistence and adapting to new elements so as to take advantage of opportunities, self-generated or those that appear as lucky break.

Too many jump into social media usually establishing a Facebook page and a Twitter account. Even fewer blog, and even fewer still go beyond that. When I ask how are their results, I usually hear that they are trying to get it up and running or that they do not see how it will produce a measurable result. They look back confused, yet hoping somehow that meandering within the social media circles will cure their economic ills.

I’m sorry, but social media and your blog is not snake oil, voodoo or black magic. Social media is serious business that represents real opportunities. Given a commitment to excellence, you will learn the knowledge, develop and retain the necessary skills and demand of yourself to persevere until a result is achieved. Hard facts, simple truths.

Green Bay Packer coaching legend, Vince Lombardi, once said, “The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.”

There is no book we could share with you, nor any words or wisdom or technique that someone could teach you to replace your own outright determination to commit to excellence. Either your in and will commit or you will ultimately fail, all self-induced of course.

Jerry Brown and social media are both getting older and wiser. Let the games begin.

The latest is “What has Jerry Brown done to you?”

A whole new generation of Gen X, Y and Z may not be old enough to appreciate the brand called “Jerry Brown”, but a group of Republicans are now raging the political war to oust any ability for Jerry Brown to redefine the facts as Jerry would like us to remember or understand.

You cannot avoid politics nor the scrutiny and ire that social media can bring out. Just ask BP. They are not only in hot oily water, but this is due in part to a grassroots social media buzz to get the US Government to do something swift and effective. Obama was the first US Presidential candidate to truly tap into the power of social media.

But this social media sword has two opposite and equally sharp sides. Transparency that spreads like wildfire. Dancing cats are enjoyed by millions in less time it taught the cat to dance and mommy bloggers sharing the “Swagger Wagon” video that makes you forget about Toyota’s troubled past are the crazy possibilities with social media.

And trying to control it? It may be easier trying to corral a California wildfire in the Angeles Forest. But one group of Republicans are trying to do just that. Spread a wildfire of discontent concerning Jerry Brown, trying to win the positioning war by stating theat Uncle Jerry is the “Ultimate Insider.” By the way, being an “Insider” is a bad thing, with unemployment unabatedly high and the economy about a stable as the San Andreas fault.

Only time will tell how this ends up, but it will be interesting how social media will play into today’s politically hot arena in 2010.

Although I have had the pleasure to read many helpful books on marketing, this is my first book review on our company blog. And I am quite happy to announce that I had a great time reading Halligan & Shah’s newest book entitled, Inbound Marketing: Get Found using Google, Social Media and Blogs. The foreward was written by internet marketing author David Meerman Scott, so I knew that I was in for a treat.

Both authors are top executives at Hubspot, a true industry leader in internet marketing and social media. For the last few months I have been following Hubspots’s blog postings via Facebook.

Not only was this book an easy read, it was highly educational in that it provided contemporary examples and several analogies that made their point come across with little effort on my part to discern any aspect of what they were describing. I purchased this 215 page book last week and had  it read, cover to cover, in 5 evenings of part-time study. Yet this book was full of many applicable ideas and technologies.

What I really loved about this book were the checklists at the end of each chapter. This added a simple “To Do” list that I feel inspires others to act within the pragmatic aspects of internet marketing tools that they clearly lay out in their book.

The book is simply about the basics and how to get them implemented to achieve results, namely being found. I learned a tremendous amount regarding:

• How Barack Obama really won, using social media successfully.
• How The Grateful Dead served as an excellent prelude on how to succeed as an internet marketer.
• How to build a “content factory”.
• How to do a blog correctly and how to get found, as well as knowing the #1 reason why they fail.
• How social media can fit within the B2B sales model to increase customers and sales.
• How to pick keywords and using PPC as a beta-testing method to narrow the right terms.
• What affects link value and what not to do so as not to become banned by Google.
• Basic usage tips with social media giants, such as Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Digg, YouTube and StumbleUpon.
• How to covert visitors into leads, and leads into sales.
• What one should look for in a PR agency.

And lastly, I was highly appreciated the last chapter entitled, Tips from the Trenches for Startups, that gives 26 steps on how to implement all that was detailed about in their book. I consider this book more than just a great read, but an important resource in helping any trying to increase their B2B results with internet marketing.

McIntosh Marketing has now initiated a marketing group for CPA’s on LinkedIn.

CPA’s and accountants have traditionally been lax in their online marketing efforts. McIntosh Marketing is taking efforts to educate the financial field, and their related industries, on how to attract more high-end clients through an effective educational format via their blog and an established social media program.

LinkedIn is a powerful format for B2B relations for CPA’s, accountants and EA’s in that they should take advantage of the vast resource to share their vision, passion and services through this vital social media channel.