First let me say that I am far from perfect.  I make mistakes often, however I know my weaknesses and spelling is one of them.  I run things through spell check!  I run things by coworkers and people I know that can proof read.  Does everyone else do this as well?  Twice now, within a week, I have found two major typos.  I consider them typos because of the purpose of the text to which I found the typo.

The first typo was in an email newsletter subject line.  NOT GOOD!  I chose to not even open it just based on that fact.

The second was on a Facebook Ad.  Below is the typo.  I just don’t understand how you can be advertising something to the masses and have a typo in it… (I hope we don’t have any typos on our site!)

I recently received an email from Corel promoting one of their sales.  I am a huge believer in email marketing however in this case, the Quality Assurance folks at Corel missed something critical…..they spelled Alert wrong!

Oops!

Just a reminder folks, that the subject line is of major importance when sending out bulk email.  It alone determines whether someone will open your email or not.  In small business, you cannot afford to make these mistakes!

When you are working to grow your social media marketing, you need to keep in mind to use all avenues available.  Twitter is an excellant resource to assist you in getting your message out to people.  Here are 10 ideal tips you can use to ensure that you are utilizing Twitter correctly:

1. Be informative and become and expert
2. Limit your sales posts
3. Customize your background to include more contact information
4. Always link your tweets to something, ideally your blog
5. Provide resources for your followers
6. Follow others
7. Be Patient
8. Be professional, tweets are carried onto Google’s search results pages
9. Make time each week to tweet
10. Always disseminate the same message through all your social media channels, including twitter.

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!

NBC just launched a new Social Media campaign for the show “Chuck“.  The premise is that they have created a game using Social Media, to drive mentions of their show and the winner will be the person with the most mentions by the deadline.  The winner will get their photo appear during one of Chuck’s mental flashes according to Reuters and THRFeed.com.

I have never watched chuck.  Nor do I think I will start.  I do however, commend NBC for their efforts in utilizing social media to spread the word and I will monitor how they handle this.  It will be interesting to see if they announce how many mentions they got during the whole campaign.  I can only imagine how crazy some people will be who like the show and want to see their photo in his mental flash.

For my purposes, I will use this as an example of how to use Social Media to your advantage.  It gets people involved, educated about your product, and spreads the word like wildfire.  This is going to be a great case study in how to use social media and frankly I think it will work.  Stay Tuned!

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.

By now, you’ve heard that Facebook and Twitter are almost essential when marketing your business online. Not only has Central Mass Web Design encouraged the idea, but it’s on news websites everywhere. Social Media is a bandwagon that you don’t want to fall off of. It’s helping businesses everywhere with their online marketing and strengthening relationships with their customers.

For those of us who are currently utilizing the free services of Facebook and Twitter, we’ve got some big news! (And for those of you who are not on these social media sites, read on. You might find yourself registering by the end of this article). Both Bing and Google have recently announced that they are joining forces with the social media craze. A few days ago, Bing publicized their decision to take your tweets and status updates and pull them into their SERPS (Search Engines Results Pages). Shortly after, Google proclaimed a similar deal with Twitter. They too will pull your tweets into their SERPS.

So, what does all of this mean? Well, first of all, if you are not currently using social media to expand on your business horizon, it means you are clearly missing out, go register! And secondly, it means we owe big congratulations to those who ARE using social media. If you are keeping your status updates and tweets fresh, you should start seeing an increase in traffic to your website (that is, if you are linking back to it within your updates – which is a must!)

If you are not taking advantage of the social media sites out there, please feel free to give us a call! We currently assist our Search Engine Marketing clients with their social media and we can help you too. Call 978-632-5300 or email us at Info@CentralMassWebDesign.com.

The SB2 small and home-based businesses support group will be holdings its first workshop of 2009 on Wednesday, May 6th at the Chamber offices from 6-8pm.

This month’s topic will be Internet Marketing, facilitated by Matt Ward of Central Mass Web Design, Inc.

Topics discussed this evening will include:
o Identify and refine your market using the internet
o Identify your competitor and their price points
o Search Engine basics
o Web-based Marketing Strategies
o Social Networking Basics
o Effective Email Campaigns
o Pay-per-click

About our presenter:
Mr. Ward founded Central Mass Web Design in 2002 and has since directed the operations of the company and its growth. Ward has continued to direct a team of seasoned professionals in the design and development of countless websites. From small business sites and non-profit organizations to larger-scale projects that enable companies to establish a corporate presence, Ward and his team have a proven track record of delivering high-quality work. He brings to each and every client the knowledge and expertise of his work with industry icons as well as his skills honed in working on hundreds of internet based projects

The event is FREE and open to EVERYONE. We do ask that you just pre-register by clicking here.

This NCM (North Central Mass) Chamber program is available to both members and non members interested in benefiting their business.