I came upon such a holy grail recently that I couldn’t help but sharing. “The Art of SEO” by Eric Enge and bunch of other people. As passionate as I am about SEO, I usually approach anything that has to do with the topic with reluctancy, because lets face it, most people tell you the same crap so called SEO experts have been spewing since 1994 (the good ole days of Infoseek). Here is the crap I am talking about, the question of question that just gets under my skin, and usually asked about a brand new website… “Is the website Search Engine Optimized?”. Maybe someone forgot the definition of optimization, but correct me if I am wrong, and I very well may be, how can you optimize something you haven’t had the chance to test and tweak? The question should rather be, “have you chocked enough self important keywords into the website’s meta keyword and title tag? and doused the content full of sentences that don’t make any sense because we had to get the keywords in there?”. Not to mention the fact that SEO is no longer just an on-site affair. Please don’t get me started, back to the book.

Armed with the reviews of the smart and good intentioned folks on amazon, I embarked on my bathroom reading journey of this book. The authors did an incredible job outlining a lot of theories missed by most other examiners of the SEO topic. The book gives you more ammunition to fight with than Rambo-in- the-middle-of-the-jungle-with-his-never-ending-supply-of-bullets-and-sharp-pointy-objects-carved-from-his-knife. Moreover, they point out one very crucial thing many SEO firms fail to tell you, Every SEO campaign is almost as different as a finger print. Different brands, different goals, uneven playing field… GO figure. The thing that strikes me is that this book was actually written in 2009, but seems to be more current than some of my other SEO readings which make me think that Eric, Stephen, Rand and Jessie (I assume we are on a first name basis, even though I don’t know them) are what you call forward thinkers. I love forward thinkers.

To sum it up, your company needs to be relevant in organic search…It’s not a luxury, it’s a must. To push you in the right direction, go get this book. Nope, I am not getting paid for this post (not saying I don’t want to), so don’t get any ideas.

When I say “me” or “I”? I mean  Dwamian Mcleish .

Follow me on twitter at twitter.com/dwamianm.

Follow corner6labs at twitter.com/corner6labs

I am not your dad , your step dad or your boss in trying to tell you how to run your business. In fact, all I can do is talk to the wind and ask the question “why is your brand such a big secret?”. If I were you I would be looking at what is wrong and why this very crappy economy is kicking your a$$ more than some or your competitors. The main excuse, “well the big guns have mad cash they can throw at experiments with new age marketing, social media and other alternate forms of brand communication”, we don’t. You know what, you are right. Why would you update the way you have been approaching your consumers when what you have been doing is working so well. BTW, how were those quarterly numbers? I say bull$hit. Social media came about with you in mind. If you are dropping a suitcase full of cash into it and wondering how and when you are going to see the returns, then you are not only approaching it with the wrong attitude…but you are probably doing it wrong. Keep it up and I predict that you will be taking an eviction notice off your door in six month or less.  Who am I to be this honest? If you are concerned then I have done my job.

We keep saying the catch phrase “Social Media Marketing”, but I anticipate it will get worn out and annoying as the phrase “Web 2.0″…plus I think a lot of companies quiver at the word “social”. I am on a campaign to rename social media marketing to XY-Media Marketing or XY-Marketing (some variation of that. It’s not trademarked..so grab it while you can). XY Media is about brand adaptation and brand employment. It’s finding creative ways of mixing the old (X-Media) with the new (Y-Media), to reach the demographic that influences consumerism. Companies must learn to adapt in a climate that demands that they be more in e-touch with their consumers. These days, you just cant get away with winging it because you will suffer.

I see some old executive around his desk puffing up, fist to his desk saying “We are old school”. You know what? Old school does matter, when you are selling newspapers or 1961 Model-A Fords, but these days, you better get current and quick. I take that back, you can’t even sell newspapers or Model-A Fords anymore without being current.

Companies keep asking the obvious question “How do you measure ROI from this new media endeavour?”. Frankly I am sick of that question but I understand their concern. Just because it is a valid concern doesn’t make it a less annoying question. Let me ask you this, how did you measure the ROI of that $10,000 billboard you bought last month? Marketing has a lot to do with tactics and execution, so if you didn’t plan on a way to get metrics for your campaigns then once again, you are doing it wrong.

Let me wrap this up because now I am starting to rant. There may be no real purpose of this post other than to clear my head on a Monday morning, so there you have it. My thoughts exactly. Put in your two cents here or on our facebook fan page @ www.cornersix.com/facebook

Peace.

With Thanksgiving holiday coming up next week, and Christmas just around the corner…one usually finds that many companies will disappear all together from social media. It’s understandable how this can happen, employees run off to their families and get caught up in the holiday spirit, but let’s not forget to feed the bird while you are away. Now don’t get me wrong, family time is important time, but consider this, if you have down time, so will your prospects… and a lot of time, that down time translates to online time. So here are 6 ways to keep the bird fat while basting the turkey.

One. Designate, then delegate. If you are small or medium business that already has your employees involved in your online community, ask them to contribute over the holiday. (Hint) Having a little incentive to do that will also help.

Two. Set a schedule. Designate at least 20 minutes each day to find, connect, and contribute to your community. This will show that you are actually in the driver’s seat for your brand and just because it’s the holiday, doesn’t mean you lose control.

Three. Don’t be afraid to get a little personal. This one is tricky because you don’t want to get too personal, like say tweeting about how bad your wife’s turkey turned out, but giving a little high level info on your do-abouts won’t hurt either.

Four. Try to set your conversations on auto-pilot. You can accomplish this by explicitly asking for comments and feedback on the stuff you post. Once the conversation gets going on its own, you won’t have to ignore your family the entire time.

Five. Take the time to learn about how your competitors approach “down time”. You should always be learning about your competitors and the holidays are no exception.

Six. Don’t get consumed. I said keep a pulse, but don’t let it consume you. Your family demands just as much time as your consumers so ignoring them may not work out too well for you.

In conclusion, showing your consumers that you are always ready and able to listen to them, even when “the man” closes business, will show that you are in the driver’s seat for your brand and will give you a major competitive advantage.

Don’t forget to visit our Facebook fan page to drop your 2 cents @ cornersix.com/facebook. Enjoy your cranberry sauce!

#1 Sell your expertise more than your products
This one is crucial. Demonstrating that you actually know what you are talking about will boost your credibility amongst consumers of your products or services.

#2 Person to person marketing is key
The internet is now ruled by your everyday techno-savvy users. They are privy to a multitude of information. Mass forms of advertising and marketing have evolved their filters. Reaching out to them on a one-on-one basis will move them closer in a personal relationship with your brand than that really expensive advertising atomic bomb. You may be thinking that this would take a lot of time, and you would be correct. I am not saying that this should be your only tactic, but try doing something personal for your potential customers and see for yourself. It just works!

#3 Direct customer service
This one goes along the lines of number 2, but expands it into actually gathering feedback from your clients using the mass number of venues in which they gather online. Always keeping a pulse on your brand and reaching out to your consumers when they give both positive and negative feedback will demonstrate that you care about the experience you provide to them.

#4 Maximize your  footprint
Participate, then participate a little more. Enough said!

#5 Get all your employees involved
Some companies cringe at this one, but getting your employees involved in your online endeavors not only increases your resources and reach to consumers online, but it will also help to portray the culture of your company. In many cases this is a good thing. However, if you are a company that is not exactly sure what kind of culture you are (we’ve seen it) then you may want to gain insight into that first (we can help here).

#6 Keep up with the trends
Last but by no means least, make sure you keep up with the trends online. Knowing what users are into will give you an advantage in reaching them.

The main gist here is get personal. Developing a personal relationship with the current and potential consumers of your products or services will give you a selling advantage over your competition.

Tell us what you think by commenting on this post. You may also view the corner6labs website at www.cornersix.com. Until next time.

Search engine optimization, or SEO for the cool kids, is one of those subjects that always give people the quivers. There is so much information out there that it can overwhelming to people who are just looking to get their name out there. Guess what?… I don’t have good news. SEO is not getting any easier because you can get buried in the multitude of information especially since we are living in a time in which real-time information rules the internet.

There has been a lot of talk recently about Google and Bing’s new deal with social media powerhouses, Facebook and Twitter. If you haven’t heard, then let me bring you up to speed. Google and Bing recently struck a deal to include live social media feeds in their search results. There are a lot of positive implications of this, one worthy of mentioning is the undeniable admission that social media is here to stay.

Aside from the obvious implications here,  we decided to uncover some other quasi-obvious outcomes of these and other moves related to mainstreaming social media. Here is how to get started:

Do what “they” do
One of my very favorite SEO tools is Axandra’s Internet Business Promoter (IBP) . I have been using it for years and have been very impressed with its’ ease of use and power. An overlooked part of SEO is one of the things that IBP does very well, figuring out what works for a particular keyword. When you choose keywords, see which other websites perform well with those keywords and what kind of presence they have, even if they are not your direct competitors. Look at it this way, if they have your keywords, they are your keyword competitors. Mimicking them will not necessarily make your website have immediate success, but it is a very good base to start from when it comes to your SEO campaign. As a note, you will notice that IBP still walks you through setting your meta keywords and descriptions…I said they are not as powerful as they use to be, not that you shouldn’t still do them.

Always have up-to-the-minute, up-to-date content! This one is simple… always having fresh content means that search engines will have a variety of content to establish your relevancy. This will also make your website more appealing and attract repeat visitors.

Broadcast yourself
If you haven’t done so already, make sure you check out the most common social media platform in Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and the ever so important Blogging platforms such as WordPress. When I say have a look-see, I mean just that. If you are new to social media, it would be futile for you to sign up for all of them, especially if you don’t have the means to maintain them. Getting on the social media platform with no good strategy to maintain it is almost as bad as not getting on it at all. Instead, join one or two to get a feel for things, then start branching out once you have build up some confidence. If you are in doubt, we usually recommend starting with LinkedIn since it serves a more professional purpose, then move on to Twitter, because of it’s social simplicity. Facebook is also a great tool, but it will require a lot more interactivity than the two previously mentioned.

Aside from maintaining your own social media presence, you should participate in as many discussions related to your industry as possible. A good place to find and/or fuel those discussions is LinkedIn’s question and answer platform.

One other avenue of social media presence that companies usually overlook is encouraging their employees to fuel discussion about the company. Putting a system in place where your employees can help to maintain your social media presence is vital in distributing the responsibility and the workload of branding your company through social media.

Always link back to your website
This should be an obvious one, but I don’t know how many companies we have talked to that don’t do this. Linking content back to your company, will increase your relevancy and  reputation on search engines. Search engines love “linkbacks”, in fact, many SEO experts believe that external links to your website are one of the major contributing factors of SEO.

What’s the word on the street?
The most important concept to grasp is that you must always be monitoring your company’s reputation. Not all comments about your company will be positive, so it is important that you find the conversations people are having about you and respond accordingly. Search engines will find those conversations and without a voice, you are subject to the opinions of the masses instead of making people understand that you care.

In conclusion, you may have read this and thought this had very little to do with SEO in general. The truth of the matter is this is SEO in it most up to date form. Gone are the days when it was just changing a few tags on your website and exchanging a few links. Participation in the social media ocean brings recognition, recognition creates relevancy, relevancy drives traffic, and traffic bring sales.

Let us know what you think by casting your vote on this post. We also welcome your comments.

There were speakers from several powerhouse companies such as Mike Volpe from Hubspot (one of my favorites by the way), Wade Burgess from LinkedIn, Erik Johnson from Saber Holding’s Cubeless Networks, and Will Pinnell from Handango. The field was rounded off by highly respected social media marketing  gurus such as Laura Fitton who is the author of “Twitter For Dummies” and Paul Dunay, Author of “Facebook Marketing for Dummies”.

The speakers gave general advice on how to approach social media as a company, except for the LinkedIn guy, who was mainly raging about how awesome LinkedIn was (I guess I can’t blame him, it -  is -  awesome). There was also a panel discussion where the speakers got to answer questions from he audience.

So what?… well, I highly recommend you look one of these conferences up and check it out ASAP, because if you are just entering the social media marketing scene, then you will attain great insight young grasshopper. Or, if you want to hear us wax poetic on our knowledge around the transformation of corporate social media involvement, and why it’s relevant and important? then drop us a line.

Now let’s have a discussion shall we?…Shoot me an email, or just drop a comment on how do you see social media transforming the landscape of product and service consumption, now, and in the future?

The other day I was talking to a friend and I was asking him about how he likes the blog posts. His reply was “I really think you write well and the posts you have are informative” but he followed that up with “but so what? You need to add something more engaging and interactive”. Now some of you may have gotten offended by that, but not me. I love my friends for their honesty. His reply made me start to think about how to present the information I have trapped in my head in a more engaging format. I will spend the next few weeks thinking of just that. In the meantime, I would love to hear your thoughts on how you think I can spice hings up a bit.

Until next time

Now back to the matter at hand. In my last post, I started talking about a topic that seems to get the better of people on a daily basis, planning.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not professing that I am the dilai lama when it comes to planning, but I have picked up a few tricks here and there over the years (as a side note, I am quickly approaching my 31st birthday as of this writing….scary stuff). I must admit that from a programmers perspective and with the fast adoptions of methodologies such as “Agile Development“, my planning techniques have been tweeked here are there, and though this series is not particualary specific to application devlopment planning, the underlying concepts remained the same. I think this is a good time to introduce todays tip:

Scenario Planning

When planning, you should always develop outcomes or scenarios. This means that you have to ask yourself, whats the best that can happen?, whats the worst that can happen? and even some things in between. Many skeptics think this is an indicator of paranoia, but ask yourself, shouldn’t you be a little paranoid if what you are planning for is important?

If you borrow from the logical IF…ELSE operators in most programming languages, creating scenarios using this form will prove invaluable in the future. Think in outcomes and steps. What are the possible outcomes of my mission? IF everything doesn’t go right, THEN, How can I adjust? Write them down in short note form.

Now, I know you can’t possibly plan every scenario, but having an idea of how you will react to an outcome will make it easier to adapt and achieve a graceful outcome. Having these scenarios in mind, and outlining the steps to achieve what you want to achieve, will result in a critical part of any mission (desired outcome), your tactics.

Number 1 – Map It Out!…Mind-Map that is

You may have already heard of the term “Mind Mapping” but have never explored it.  According to Wikipedia,  “A mind map is a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks, or other items linked to and arranged around a central key word or idea“. There have been times that I have used some form of mind mapping technique, but I recently discovered a set of methodologies and free tools related to the subject.

Mind Mapping helps you organize your thoughts into a very powerful visual representation of a central idea. You start with a central keyword or phrase and branch out to related items for that keyword.

As a developer, the concept of mind mapping followed nicely with the way I have always done the preliminary architecture of an application, or even how I approach Object Oriented Programming through class definition. In fact, I recently applied the mind mapping technique while ideating (I term I first heard on an IBM commercial) classes for an application I am building. By focusing on one class, and one class only per map, you can derive the functionality you need to encapsulate within that class. From there, it was pretty easy to know the methods required to make the class work.

With the use of dedicated mind-mapping software, I was able to use the fact that I am a visual person, which for me, translated into more efficient planning sessions.

Here are some of the other reasons I like software based mind-mapping

1. I can ideate visually
2. Easy to learn
3. You can personalize them
4. Digital format for easy archiving and retrieval

There are many uses of mind maps, and when used properly can turn you into a mean planning machine.

Do you have comments on ways to be more efficient with planning? Drop me a comment. Let me know