InsightsDigital

Marketing plans usually include much more or much less than necessary. In your experience in creating marketing plans, what lessons have you learned?

Many websites have Google Analytics as their web analytics tool. Though GA is easy to use, there are many features that require knowledge and experience. Thus, how would you prepare to learn GA as soon as possible? My tips are: 1. Create a GA account and add some of your …

For me, I think social media is both a strategy and a tactic. What differentiates a social media strategy with a tactic is whether it affects the overall direction of the marketing plan or is it just one way to reach a particular segment or promote a certain message. For …

I recommend you to check out the video for Google Wave and sign up. [url]http://wave.google.com/[/url] It seems it will allow a form of monitoring Public Relations on your website - 2.0. From a SEO perspective, this may allow for monitoring your long tail keywords. What do you think?

Some time ago, I started a thread about Freemium models as a way to entice visitors to sign up. Now, I saw this very interesting post on Mashable about the various business models online businesses use to grow their community. So what do you think? [url]http://mashable.com/2009/07/14/social-media-business-models/[/url] I am working with …

It be interesting on what type of webinars and who is presenting. I have arranged webinars for my clients about a particular product and for these type of webinars, I had C-level executives. Otherwise, if it s a training webinar, I except more junior and associate level professionals. To answer …

Have you ever chronicled your site's or products launches and posted on Youtube? Has this approach helped increase the amount of targeted visitors to your site? Or are you planning to do so? Form an SEO and traffic perspective, it can be beneficial.

I think we read the same blog post. These are the issues I observed with having a thought leader within the shortest period of time: 1. Internal Acceptance within the company 2. External Acceptance within the company 3. Being part of the communication loop - it is a must - …

I actually spoke to a few vendor a few months ago about their online reputation management solution. For clients who dont have a budget, I recommend using the free tools - like Google Alerts and to include all types of alerts. In regards to the sentiments of the type of …

I know it took hours to design and finalize on the type of business card I will buy that will represent a professional business image. At various networking events, I must have received a plethora of different type of business cards that dont even fit in the traditional business card …

I actually created two very small scale dating sites - non existent now - and though I had no ads on them, from my experience, the ads that will get most clicks on dating sites are ones that have a strong sexual innuendo.

I actually agree with you. From a personal perspective, I am actually turned off from blogs or communities that are too self promoting and not really providing any real value to the visitor. I stopped following certain accounts on Twitter whom the account holder only self-plugged. I wonder how many …

I actually have a marketing friend who did this for his company's site and from a SEO perspective, it surely helped bring traffic to the site as well as helped the site appear on the first page of results. It was a for a green energy computer server. I was …

Some ad agencies partner with a sister company to provide the social marketing surveillance and strategy. Some agencies specialize in providing social marketing surveillance like VML.

Even though I dont have access to the drop off rate, I strongly suggest you to contact Jeff Pulver. He has created many live events with associated twitter accounts and a very active twitter activity right before, during, and after the events.

I actually something like what you mentioned but on an old Yahoo career group I created. The Yahoo Group did not allow for banner exchange (at least back between 2002-2006) but I did: 1. Let the associated partners to upload a brochure/file about their services 2. I wrote an email …

I saw a blog post on Brian Solis (Mr. PR 2.0 blog) about using mind maps to visualize your social media self. I am sharing this image because I know it can be very helpful in developing a social media strategy for your business. What do you think?

Have you seen this page? [url]http://bingtweets.com/[/url] I thought it was a very nifty merge between the two. From a SEO perspective, I wonder how this search engine can cause a shift in how companies tweet. What do you think?

This approach you mention is very similar to what companies were doing years ago with recruiting bloggers to evangelize their products. I do know bloggers who were paid in form of free product in exchange for the plug. But what made the difference between gray and white hat was the …

If you want to discover the most searched keywords, I suggest you to check out: [url]http://www.google.com/insights/search/#[/url] [url]http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends[/url]

Yes, I have helped develop webinairs to help increase the website's online marketing. It depends if your client wants to do a webinar on a constant basis or just one time. Some issues you need to take into consideration: 1. It needs at least 4-6 weeks of promotion. 2. Need …

Though I have never started one, I have known a few people hwo have started one and they claim it has helped them professionally. Also, I went to a career event a few months ago where the career coach strongly advocated about creating a LinkedIn group. My observation has been …

I have spoken with creators of their own online social networking sites and all these 3 entrepreneurs told me that they had hundreds of contents and information on their community by the time of launch. One creator told me she had over 300 articles she wrote on her community before …

I have monitored social media buzz on particular keywords and brands via qualitative measures and it is time consuming. I found some good approaches like: 1. Google Trends 2. Google Alerts 3. Going to Twitter Search Someone recommended Viral Heat. But its a pay service. But if it saves time …

Hi I have grown a few online communities in the past and I noticed that if you are trying to plug a service or increase awareness of something through an online community, you also need to track a few metrics. For example on yahoo groups, I not only cared about …

Have you used Google Trends to access keyword trends? I have used it and it was interesting to see the results for Michael Jackson on the day and time shortly after his death. The results correlate with news reports that Google and Twitter encountered slow connection due to excessive traffic. …

Hi What do you think of the Freemium model? Most websites providing e-services provide a freemium model to entice visitors to become members and then upgrade for additional services. Even a few years ago, most e-services were pay or no service. Now, consumers expect a free service. What do you …

Have you ever optimized your landing page? If so, how did you do it? Did you do a A/B split testing or just changed variables around your website intuitively? Which software do you use?

In a few groups I belong to, I have seen very active discussion on members accusing posters that their posts were spams while the poster insist they are just informing. I also have noticed this on Twitter. Some members do not post any thoughts but just a bit.ly link while …

I recommend checking into Joomla or Drupal. They are both open source CMS.

First of all, you need to improve the rating of those sites. I received a huge warning sign on my web browser that said "WARNING: This website has very poor rating."

There are a number of different paid and free tools available to track web traffic and web related trends. I have used a number of them and many of them have their strengths and weaknesses. The choice/s of your selected web analytics software depends on the purpose of your website …

Assessing the different types of customers who visit your website can help business owners understand how to best cater to them. Thus, I often appreciate Quantcast's behavioral report for websites. I understand Compete Pro will also have this type of information. For the internet marketers in this community, have you …

This graph is representative of companies with over 250 employees. With smaller companies, it is usually a one person role. In other companies I have seen, it is an integrated approach in a small operation. What do you think of the graph?

Im sharing some values from eMarketer. Despite the recession, small businesses are spending more on advertising on online networks rather than mobile advertising and podcasting. My question for the small business advertisers is: How has it been the ROI for such marketing tactics?

Is your site still in development mode? Either way, your site may benefit from some usability tweeking on the home page. The home page needs to entice the visitor to want to learn more about the site and to stay on the site. It needs to be engaging.

To answer your question, I personally prefer a daily podcast with smaller tibbits of 2-5 minutes. I personally have produced a talk show on technology and culture and the research that goes behind each show can be time consuming. So my question for you is, "Do you currently have resources …

If you have not created a Facebook page for your business, start doing it soon. If you have created one for your business, what has been your experiences? [url]http://www.facebook.com/advertising/?pages[/url]

From my understanding, Google is constantly updating its algorithm and consequently, it affects the website's PageRank.

I strongly recommend you to use Wordpress since it grants you more control.

I found this very interesting blog post on this issue. I am still wondering how this will impact long term. [url]http://www.seomoz.org/blog/link-consolidation-the-new-pagerank-sculpting[/url]

When someone follows you on Twitter, do you send them a thank you email? I am trying to access a best practice discussion here. The information available from social media experts range from one extreme to another.

A popular option nowadays have been to include a facebook page and twitter account to promote your business. But the issue is, just because it exists does it means that one has to advertise there. I noticed so many accounts on Twitter that are business related but hardly have any …

I also found that Ebay is a great online site to find cell phone accessories as well.

What Do You Think Are The Best Three Ways To Promote A New Business? I would say, it all depends on your type of business and what is the goal, but it is always good to have:: 1. Website - non Flash 2. Blog 3. Online Advertising

Link directories are also known as link farms. Linking to link farms is not recommended since many of them may not be relevant in content to your site and will be rated accordingly by the search engine crawler.

Don't be surprised if Google will announce a bigger and better Google search engine in the near future in response's to Microsoft's Bing.

I recommend looking at the different columnists on the online version of Entrepreneur's and Inc Magazines. From my understanding, these columnists do have links to their websites/businesses. I recommend you to check out the Internet Marketing section and see how these columnists use backlinks to their businesses.

How can this situation be prevented?

As a user, I actually have accessed the site map of content heavy sites. By accessing the site maps, I have been able to access the information I want very quickly.