Use your website to showcase great customer testimonials

Word-of-mouth marketing is the number 1 response that I hear when I ask people how they market their business. Everyone lives by the customer referral; we all do. The reality is that you can use your website to showcase great customer testimonials when appropriate. If everyone feels that testimonials are a helpful way to increase word-of-mouth referrals, then it stands to reason that Read the rest of this entry »

Increasing your Sales with Linkedin.com

Increasing your sales by using Linkedin requires a commitment by you and your staff to consistently pay attention to what is going on, in order for you to make money. However, if you can manage to do this then it will surely pay off. Here are a couple steps to take to ensure that you can increase your sales at your company using Linkedin:

1. 1. Plan time in your calendar to visit Linkedin TWICE per week for 30 mins each.
2. 2. Make one session about connecting with other people that you know
3. 3. Make the next session about answer questions and participating within groups that you are a member of
4. 4. Ask 1 relevant question per week.
5. 5. Don’t ask the same question to all the groups
6. 6. Don’t ask 1 question per group per week, it’s 1 question per week.
7. 7. Reply to answers that others give you
8. 8. View connections of those that you are connected to and see who you know, then request those people as a connection
9. 9. Send out recommendation requests – They work and you will get recommendations in return if you are worthy
10. 10. Join the Sales Playbook Group on Linkedin you won’t regret it!

As you are working with your Social Media marketing, you need to consider that Linkedin has some real Search Engine value due to all the content that is on their site.  Use this to your ability.  Here are my Top 10 Tips to making Linked in work within your Social Media Campaign:

1. Consistently use the status message
2. When using the status message, link back to your website or blog
3. Setup your website as a link on your profile
4. Change the default wording from “My Website” to what you might want to show for, like “Website Development”
5. Answer questions within the site and link to sources of your answers.  The links should point to your website.
6. Make sure that your company is listed in the Linkedin Directory.
7. If you have a Wordpress Blog.  Use the plugin application in Linkedin to add that to your profile.
8. Add your Twitter to your Linkedin Profile
9. Social Media is about connecting with people, so be sure to grow your connections on Linkedin.
10. Use the status message to drive your connections to your website.  Don’t overload them or they won’t click over.

Alex Goldman of InternetNews.com writes “Salesforce Taps Into Twitter”, he goes on to say, “Customer contact centers have moved far beyond the phone, says Salesforce, embracing Facebook, Twitter, and other Web applications.”

Read the rest of this entry »

NIELSEN REPORTS , SOCIAL NETWORKS & BLOGS NOW 4TH MOST POPULAR ONLINE ACTIVITY, AHEAD OF PERSONAL EMAIL .

For months I have been on the social networking to grow your business band wagon.  We have personally seen the effects of its use here at Central Mass Web Design.  Now Nielson, www.nielsen-online.com has produced findings that show Social Networking and blogs via the internet is the fastest growing online category and is growing twice as fast as any of the other sectors.   Today, March 9, 2009, Nielsen released a report proving Social Media and Blogging are growing at a staggering rate.

Member Communities ( which includes Blogging) grew over 5 points in the past year, placing it above e-mail, and showing a growth of more than double any other.

Reports also show that time spent on social networks has increased globally by 18% in the past year.    Do you know what your employees are posting on their Facebook and Myspace accounts?  Do your employees know what you are posting on yours?

I recently gave a presentation to a local networking group on the benefits of using LinkedIn to grow their business and networking.  Part of this presentation talks about researching prospective employees via internet and social networking tools like LinkedIn.

LinkedIn Presentation

Time spent on Networking and Blogging sites is growing at over 3x the rate of all internet growth.  So much time is being spent on social networking sites it is eating into the time spent on other websites and activities.

The average age of online Community Networking Site Member has changed. Facebook started out as a service for university students but now almost one third of its global audience is aged 35-49 years of age, and growing.  Almost one quarter of all Facebook users are over age 50.

This is the way of the future, and I encourage you to get involved and grow with the times…before they leave you in the dust.  You can see the Nielsen report, in its entirety at http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/nielsen_globalfaces_mar09.pdf

Central Mass Web Design has actively been pursuing this avenue, and helping our clients to understand their Online Media presence.  All companies should be considering their Online Media presence when thinking about their website SEO.  Stay tuned for more information, on how to make MySpace, LinkedIn and Facebook work for you!

Kimberly Veautour

While you may be into politics, or not, you may just want to connect with Barrack Obama on LinkedIn. Did you know that he has a profile on LinkedIn. You can connect with him here:http://www.linkedin.com/in/barackobama