MyFanMachine

Making Your Business Social

Google Plus For Business – Quick Tips You Can Use Today

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Google+ Services Integration
All Things Lead to Google+

Has Google+ become an afterthought in your social media marketing plan? When is the last time you even took a look over there? You may even be asking yourself if Google+ is or ever will be a viable tool for your business. You’re not alone because many are still divided whether or not to even spend any time or effort on Google+.

Why we feel it’s worthwhile now and in the future!

It’s being shared that Google+ is now outpacing Twitter. Even though this in no way “feels” true, it quite possibly is. Just the proliferation of Gmail and the simplicity of having Google’s entire suite of web services displayed the same time has probably sealed the deal. Not only that, but since Google Plus Local Listings already features such small business services as Zagat, StreetView and Google+ User ratings, it has effectively replaced Yelp.

Also, Google Hangouts has a direct influence on where Google+ is headed as well. The advantage of using a Hangout, as an alternative to perhaps Skype, to do video conferencing is a major plus (no pun intended). Yes, we realize that Hangouts is still a tad clunky and a pain to figure out, however if you do, it’s by far the leader of the pack. Just the integration and automation that Hangouts shares with YouTube is worth the price of admission. (Which of course is free!)

So how are businesses using Google+?

There are a number of uses of Google+ in your small business. Here’s just a few:

  • Build networks of like-minded individuals with Google+ Circles
  • Use #hashtags to allow posts appear in Google search
  • Be sure and Link Google+ to your blog or site, and enjoy the Google Authorship benefit in the search pages
  • Do live video chat with Google Hangouts
  • Use tags in Google+ to reach out to people directly

To experience a wonderfully comprehensive selection of strategies and infographic for Google+, see this post on Copyblogger. Google+ may not feel like it’s worthy of effort just yet, but we feel as though it is both in the present and future!

What SEO Should Startups Make Sure They Do?

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BusinessConflict_Small
Arguing About the Right SEO?

When you say “SEO” to a business owner or manager, it’s hard to know exactly what they are going to think of. It’s a craft that’s rather inexact and challenging to define, much less implement. The idea of the “right” SEO has changed over the years.

A lot of startups tend to ignore it as they get going.

This is a significant mistake.

The key reason why is that it gives Google the wrong impression right from the start. They try to index pages, and without some semblance of SEO, often times they’re either unable to index, index the page incorrectly, or because on-page and internal SEO is such a large part of the search ranking algorithm, bury it so far down the search results it is useless.

That’s a shame, as there are some solutions to begin to do SEO that don’t require a graduate of MIT to accomplish.

Heard about Minimum Viable SEO?

The folks at Priceonomics.com coined the term, “minimum viable SEO“, which means exactly how much SEO can you get by with to start. While not an ideal strategy, it sure beats not doing anything. Here are a few of the items they mentioned, with a few of our own thoughts tossed in because I couldn’t help myself!

Decide on a keyword strategy – This will help you see not just what your site structure will look like, but also how quickly you’ll be into profit. One option is to go after the long tail of search, meaning keywords which are commonly 3-5 words long, often with product or model numbers. They don’t get a ton of searches everyday, but are infinitely easier to rank for. Add a few thousand of these up, and you win. Another way to go is to go after a single keyword, like “auto insurance San Diego” you’ll typically be attempting to rank only your home page. For those who have a business with a local presence, make sure you have local geo-modifiers on your keywords, as in the previously mentioned example.

Use breadcrumb navigation – You’ve seen this before. It is simply a set of links that show where you’ve been on the site, and where you are now. This really is of great help for the searcher, (which Google likes) and takes care of a good deal of internal linkage. Here is what it typically looks like: Home > Tablets > Apple > Ipad 2 3g

Use accurate title tags – Making sure the title tag on your page is accurate, which means it is or contains the keyword you would like that page ranked for, is probably the most important SEO task you can do. Using local geo-modifiers is very important here too.

Performing minimum viable SEO is a good way to start, and infinitely better than doing nothing. Just don’t let it end there!

Have You Googled Yourself Lately?

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If you run a local business in Bellingham it might be worth it for you check out what people are saying about you online. For example, I just did a search for “bellingham mexican restaurant”. In this case, being at the top of that search isn’t necessarily a great thing, especially if you read the customer feedback.

One restaurant at the top of that search result, Dos Padres, has 2.5 stars out of 5 on the Google reviews. When you read the actual reviews, it’s pretty clear people are not happy. The entry at the top of the review page says:

Food was WAY over priced, Rice tasted like it came from a box, tortillas were not homemade, beans tasted like the can version etc…

The rest of that review, as well as all the others on that review page, do not make this restaurant look like a good place to bring your family for dinner.

Another restaurant a little further down is Pepper Sisters. That happens to be one of my favorites in town, and I always get the “Pinky Blue”.

So I was a little surprised to see all the negative reviews that have floated to the top of their Google places page. There are positive reviews there too, but they are older and fewer than the negative reviews.

What can a business do about this?

First of all, if the criticism hits the mark, then do something to fix the problem. This social aspect of business is not going away. It’s only getting bigger and businesses that do not serve their customers well are being called out on it publicly.

Next, let the people who left the review know that you appreciate the feedback and are working to fix the problem. Even offer a free meal or some other gift to help make up for the poor experience. Business have the ability to respond publicily to reviews right on the same review page. Future customers can see that you really do appreciate their business and want them to have a good experience.

Finally, ask and encourage your customers to review your businesses online. This could be through the Google places reviews, your business’s Facebook page, Yelp, or some other online social tool.

Now go Google yourself and let me know what you find!

Getting Facebook “Likes” – Why It’s All Wrong

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What Value "Likes"?

An article came out recently that said businesses will spend more on social marketing this year. And most of that will be for getting new “likes”. What a huge waste of money. Here’s why…

There are a number of companies that will sell “likes” for your Facebook Page. You can easily buy thousands of them if you want to. But why would you want to?

I can think of two reasons why you would want to buy bulk “likes” for a page.

The first is that you want to get your first 25 “likes” so you can claim a custom URL for your Facebook page. I can see the reasoning in that, but honestly it shouldn’t be too hard to get those first likes if you’re providing good information for your market on your page.

The other reason is to make it look like you’re more popular than you really are. This is just deception piled on deception. Not only are you getting people to like your page who really don’t care about what you say, but any legitimate customers joining because of that inflated number will soon realize that there is nothing going on within your page to make it worth staying.

And when people who are your true “fans” don’t interact with your page by leaving more comments, the posts that you make are less likely to show up at the top of their news feed. Then you have spent all that time, energy and cash for nothing.

The best strategy is to update your page regularly with content your fans will appreciate. Occasionally ask them to spread the word and the amount of interaction with your page will increase organically without any tricks.

What’s your take on focusing on number of “likes” rather than the amount of activity with your customers?

Ranking Posts on Facebook

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One of the factors in Facebook’s ranking algorithm is how engaged your fans are with your page.

“What’s that”, you ask? “Facebook has a ranking algorithm?”

Indeed they do.

Facebook doesn’t just show all of the content from every page (or person) you friend or like. They give everything that could show up on your news feed a weight.

The more you interact with a page the greater weight it has and is more likely to show up in your news feed.

The takeaway here is that not only should you post regularly to your fan page, but you should make the effort to make posts that your fans will want to comment on.

A couple of popular ways to do this is to make posts that are funny or get some other emotional reaction. You can also ask your fans questions about what kinds of products or services they would like to see you provide.

This has the extra benefit of giving you insight onto what your customers want and the key to making more from your business.