Facebook Usernames and Vanity URL

June 12th, 2009

Facebook goes live with their username vanity URLs on Saturday at 12:01am (in your time zone).

So you might have seen a warning about this at the top of your Facebook page within the last couple days. Facebook is calling them “usernames” and people in the industry refer to them as “vanity URLs” but you don’t realize how important this can be!

On a first come, first serve basis, Facebook will be allowing you to customize your profile URL. For instance, if you are the first to claim “facebook.com/johndoe” that URL will point to your Facebook page. This will NOT change your name or anything else within your profile, it simply makes it much easier to point someone to your Facebook page.

Facebook Usernames and Vanity URLs

Why do you NEED this?

Facebook is viewed as extremely important by search engines. Meaning if you can grab “facebook.com/yourname” it will go a long way toward establishing your name on the internet, and within the search engines. For instance if your LinkedIn URL is “linkedin.com/in/yourname” and your Twitter URL is “twitter.com/yourname” and then you can do the same with uber-popular Facebook URL, you will own the search returns for “yourname”

Straight from the Facebook Blog:

We’re planning to offer Facebook usernames to make it easier for people to find and connect with you. When your friends, family members or co-workers visit your profile or Pages on Facebook, they will be able to enter your username as part of the URL in their browser. This way people will have an easy-to-remember way to find you. We expect to offer even more ways to use your Facebook username in the future.

Your new Facebook URL is like your personal destination, or home, on the Web. People can enter a Facebook username as a search term on Facebook or a popular search engine like Google, for example, which will make it much easier for people to find friends with common names. Your username will have the same privacy setting as your profile name in Search, and you can always edit your search privacy settings.

I promise you this is big new in the social media world, and there will be heavy competition at 12:01am to claim the most lucrative names. There has been lots of buzz about this all week, so don’t hesitate. Make sure you grab yours, and solidify your name and space on the internet.

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Turn Employees into Brand Ambassadors

June 1st, 2009

Looking for brand ambassadors? Turn to your employees.

AdAge recently published an interesting article on how to turn your own employees into great brand ambassadors for your company. They speak on many points, with an overwhelming conclusion that “consumers increasingly base their feelings about a company on what they know about its people, rather than what an ad agency’s creative team can portray.“

Business as we know it is becoming more and more transparent. Companies are (whether by choice or not) giving consumers a look inside their operations.  People can, and will, find whatever they can about you on the internet. You need to make sure these people are reading credible and official information about your company and employees.

AdAge sums it up, “There’s a new and largely untapped resource within corporate walls that can help companies build brand equity, and it’s your employees — specifically those employees with individual personal brands.”

Personal Branding with Social Harbor

The article goes on to emphasize the importance for individuals to have established personal brands on the internet.

As companies begin to understand the interdependent relationship between employees and profits, a new model for hiring and sourcing talent emerges. Social media will pave the way for applicants to build strong relationships with recruiters well before a face-to-face interview. Now, instead of taking traditional applications, jobs will find recruits after they have built powerful personal brands online or through other forms of recognition. Hiring employees who have established personal brands will help companies immediately inherit value and relevance in a crowded market and may lead to quicker results in meeting growth objectives.

Our own conclusion? Get yourself online! Even if you’re not the type of person who surfs the web to network, establish your personal brand out there! At the very least you need to have a presence, ensure people find the right information about you, put it out there yourself!

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Insurance Agents Using Social Media

May 14th, 2009

Independent insurance agents are a great example of a well established industry, uniquely positioned to greatly benefit from Web 2.0 and social media.

Independent Agent Magazine, the official publication of the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America, is strongly advocating that, “Agents take advantage of Web 2.0 technologies to increase sales.” The cover story of their May issue is titled, “Find Us on Facebook.”

In the article they quote Rick Morgan, the president of Rick Morgan Consulting, an insurance technology consultancy. He is also chairman of the Agents Council for Technology (ACT) committee on Web 2.0. “Social media and other Web 2.0 capabilities are creating new opportunities,” says Morgan, by facilitating communication “inside your agency and extending collaboration beyond agency walls.”

Insurance Agents Using Social Media

IA Magazine went on to make a strong point, “If most young adults use their computers and smart phones to communicate with friends, look for jobs, research products and buy or sell them, shouldn’t insurance agencies be part of the trend?”

Ed Higgins, president of Thousand Islands Agency in Clayton, N.Y., gave the magazine his view, “I think (social media) will be a significant part of our agency’s growth and a way to build customer loyalty,” he says. “The more links you have out there, the more positive it can be.”

As strong advocates ourselves of social media and Web 2.0, it’s great to see industries like this not only taking notice, but realizing the benefits and becoming proactive. It is no longer a secret that well established professionals, like these independent insurance agents, can immediately boost their business through social media on the web. The waiting period is over, this stuff is being proven right now, as you read. Get on board.

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Social Media Slow Down!

April 17th, 2009

Social Media Slow Down

What is Social Media? Does hearing social media all the time send your head into a spiral?

We’re going to slow Social Media down for you, so grab a note pad or open your word processor.

So what exactly does Social Media refer to?

Social Media is information content created by people using highly accessible and scalable publishing technologies. At its most basic sense, social media is a shift in how people discover, read and share news, information and content. It’s a fusion of sociology and technology, transforming monologue (one to many) into dialog (many to many) and is the democratization of information, transforming people from content readers into publishers.

OK, so then what are the different outlets?

Well it can be as simple as a blog, internet forum, or wiki. Some of the most popular specific outlets that you have probably heard around town are MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter. And while these are very fun and useful as our society moves towards transparency (even amongst large corporations), it’s important to keep business benefits in mind. Enter business social networking giant LinkedIn.

Business Social Networking? Go on…

The act of building and managing a network of business connections online, through the use of social media tools and tactics. Business social networking is the new way to grow your business and build equity in your brand online. This is the quickest way to spread your name and get people talking about your business.

For more information on how you can utilize Social Media and Business Social Networking, visit Social Harbor.

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Search Engine Optimized Profiles (and Pages) at Social Harbor

April 8th, 2009

Social Harbor

Search optimized profiles are the key to being found on the Internet. And one of the essentials to search optimized profiles is keywords.

Keywords come in all languages, shapes, and sizes. There are long ones, short ones, and even hyphenated keywords. There’s keywords that you’ll never be able to compete for, and ones that you could own within a week. Whatever your keywords are, it’s always helpful to be able to visualize them and see just what words actually appear most on your web page.

There’s a fun AND useful tool called Wordle that allows you to enter long text from a web page (or a blog URL) and then builds you a word cloud, showing you which words are most prominent on that site. For example, Social Harbor does extensive keyword research for their clients, deciding which words are best to optimize for. Below is the keyword cloud Wordle pulled for Ingenex Digital Marketing’s company page on Social Harbor.

Ingenex Digital Marketing Agency

You can see that Ingenex’s page uses the words Marketing and Digital most prominently, as these are the keywords the client wished to be search optimized for. So Wordle has shown that Social Harbor correctly and efficiently built Ingenex’s page with the keywords needed for search engine optimization.

Are the keywords you want to be found for the most prominent ones in your word cloud? Do you need help optimzing your company for searches? Social Harbor builds custom company profiles with extensive keyword research and implementation, a solution that works for search optimization.

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Internet Advertising Outpacing TV

March 31st, 2009

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) released their latest reports on Monday, layered with staggering numbers.

Let’s cut right to the chase.

  • Internet advertising set a new high in the fourth quarter of 2008 with $6.1 Billion in revenue. (almost $2 Billion more than two years ago!)
  • Search Marketing grew 20% for the year, coming in at just over $10 Billion, and accounting for 45% of total Internet advertising. (compare that to just 15% share in 2002)
  • Internet advertising revenues exceeded Cable TV for the first time, registering $23.4 Billion in ad spend for 2008

Looking into 2009, it’s already evident that television (and their viewers) are migrating to the Internet. Just about every network and cable station offers their content via the web, something that is exponentially growing. Don’t forget about those ancient newspapers falling off the deep end too (read that post here), we’ve already seen their readers migrate to the Internet.

You can read the entire article on TechCrunch.

There is little room left to argue against the rapidly gowing migration from television and print to web. If you want to reach consumers, you must compete on the Internet.

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Newspapers are Dying, Where Did the Audience Go?

March 27th, 2009

Right here. On the Internet. This is where all those eyeballs go.

Ever since newspapers started circulating, they have been an ideal spot to promote your business. Well it’s no secret that medium is being phased out. So what should you do? Where are all of those readers going now? They have migrated to the web, and you need to follow.

Need to hear it from a reputable source? CNN will tell you all about it here. A few excerpts to chew on:

More bad news could be coming this week as newspapers struggle to meet challenges posed by changing reader habits, a shifting advertising market, an anemic economy, and the newspaper industry’s own early strategic errors.

The industry’s advertising revenue in 2008 was $38 billion, a staggering 23 percent drop from $49.5 billion the year before. Print media companies are failing to achieve market expectations each quarter, scaring away investors, venture capitalists and potential buyers in droves.

Newspaper classified ad expenditures tumbled nearly 17 percent in 2007, according to the Newspaper Association of America. The recession is affecting auto dealerships, real estate companies and other local businesses, accelerating the advertising downturn.

Newspaper

If you want to compete and keep your business promotions where the consumer is looking, you need to promote on the web.

There are many ways to do this… many expensive ways. We have an inexpensive solution that is proven to work.

Essentially we create a store front for you and your business, in multiple outlets across the Internet. The result is a strong presence for your company where the audience looking, search engines.

Establish a strong, credible and professional appearance on the web with Social Harbor.

Click here to see a breakdown of what you get.

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Therapists Need to Use Internet Marketing

March 19th, 2009

Marketing for Therapists of all distinctions has long been heavily dependent on word-of-mouth. With the Internet community growing faster than ever, this is not going to change, but simply migrate from physical interaction to word-of-mouth via the Web.

When a patient can’t find your phone number or they want to pass you along to a friend, it’s pretty powerful if that client can simply say, “Just Google their name.”

When you want to grow your practice and attract qualified patients looking for your specific expertise, multiple online profiles are key to spreading your name.

When you want to project a professional image, hiring experts to build and manage profiles is an inexpensive solution with extremely valuable results.

Therapists

Business Social Networking service Social Harbor gives you and your practice an IMMEDIATE professional online presence. It helps new customers find you without the expenses and headaches of building a web site. Social Harbor profiles include a map to your office, phone numbers, office hours, practice areas, anything YOU want! The most valuable part? Their experts help you choose which key search terms you want to be found for! They do the research, they do the building, they do the managing, you focus on your practice.

It doesn’t just stop at physically building and optimizing all those profiles however. Social Harbor continues their services to help you navigate the waters of Business Social Networking and using Social Media to help grow your business. Read more about it here.

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Internet Marketing for Attorneys and Law Firms

March 9th, 2009

“Our firm needs to get on the web.”

It’s an obvious next step, but not so easy to execute.

Most lawyers and law firms have a website, and that’s a great start. But how successful can that website be in converting leads if people can’t find it? Creating multiple avenues to your firm’s site is the most concrete way to spread it throughout the search engines.

Expand Your Reach

By creating several third party profiles which showcase your practice and team members, you can effectively expand your reach throughout the web. Think in terms of your headquarters and satellite offices. The main website is your firm’s internet headquarters, the hub, and great at attracting clients around the area. Now, the credible and professional profiles that you create around the web are the firm’s satellite offices, reaching more clients through new avenues… expanding your reach.

Drive More Traffic

Drive More Traffic Through Google

If your website looks pretty, that’s a plus for prospective clients. However, Google thinks of it like your parents taught you, it’s whats on the inside that counts! The search engines read algorithmic language to find your website. Social Harbor writes your profiles to specifically appeal to this language. You get several well dressed professional profiles built from the ground up, built to speak to Google in their language. These are new avenues that are visually appealing to prospective clients, AND contextually appealing to the search engines, effectively driving more traffic to your firm’s website.

The Results

You get credible outlets that are promoting your firm and individual attorneys, outlets that drive prospective clients to your website. The whole idea is that someone searches Google for a person of your expertise, the results are several professional profiles which all promote the same strong message from you and your firm. When a person searches for you right now, what comes up? A Social Harbor client is assured their prospective customer doing preliminary research will find great things about them, with quick and easy ways to get in touch.

Ready to get started? Have more questions?  Contact us today!

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I Already Have a Job, Why be on LinkedIn?

March 2nd, 2009

“Why would I want to be all over the Internet if I’m not looking for a job?”

This question comes up all the time, and it’s not a bad one, but…

To me that’s like saying. “I already know some people, why would I go out and meet more?”

If you are any kind of business person, you know the key to business is connections. Whether you follow the old adage ‘It’s not what you know, but who you know’, or you just realize the benefit of having people talk about your business, Social Media is the next sure step.

For starters, there is no cheaper or faster way to spread the word about your company, brand, message, whatever, than via the world wide web.

So if you’ve got any kind of product or service you are trying to sell, getting yourself out there in such places like LinkedIn can be extremely beneficial. Make connections at the highest levels for things like partnerships, all the way down to making connections with potential or current customers. If you are selling something, you want to be found, and online profiles like LinkedIn really spread your business across the web.

More People

OK, you’re not selling a physical product or service necessarily. I have a family member who is a stock broker. On average this person deals with folks aged well out of any web generation, and besides, who picks someone to manage their money just by going online? Good point, so why be on LinkedIn? Well I learned a long time ago that word-of-mouth is the best promotion (or demotion) a business could ever receive, and word-of-mouth is more prevalent on the web today than anywhere else. Here’s a very plausible everyday situation:

“Hey Bill, it’s pretty obvious everyone is losing some money in this economy, but I’m just not confident in my stock broker anymore. Seems to me he’s making some bad decisions with my money. Do you know anyone who I might be happier with?”

“Well Frank, I handle mine personally, but a few of the guys at the club rave about their brokers at XYZ Firm. Not sure who they use exactly, or if they would be able to help you out, but that’s all I know.”

So Frank goes home and checks out XYZ Firm’s website. No broker profiles, or even individual contact information. Enter LinkedIn. Frank can either browse XYZ Firm’s LinkedIn Company profile, looking through all the brokers who work there, or he can find individual brokers’ profiles. All of your information is there for Frank to make his intial selections. The most valuable part? Recommendations. Frank can read what other people have to say about you, without ever meeting them!

“I’m not selling anything, and I don’t want any new clients, so what’s the point?”

Portable Equity.

Sure, you’ve got a job now, but can you really be certain about anything going forward in these trying times? Even if you are not expecting to ever move from that desk, it is important that you are always ready.

There is absolutely no harm in having a presence online (especially if it is professionally built and managed), it can only help you. Why? Because it is your personal brand that you can take with you wherever you go. If nothing else, at it’s bare bones you can utilize LinkedIn as a electronic Rolodex.

You meet a lot of people at your current secure job right? Wouldn’t it be nice to always have those people litterally one click away should you ever need anything? It’s quite powerful.

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