Everyone Loves ‘Before & After’ Stories!
Mar 3, 2010 Online Marketing TIPS for your Business, Web Design & Design Principles, Web Design Victoria, BC
This story involves a conference centre that has a great event space, a world class chef and stellar online marketing strategy (Twitter, Facebook, eNewsletters), but previously had no online “hub” where everything came together.
Their website was decent in that it had information about the rooms, rates and menus, and even a little bit about the business and owners. However, what was missing (from Sunstar Creative’s perspective), was a clear message about how Ambrosia could serve you – the website visitor.
Here’s the old site:
Here’s the website that Sunstar Creative designed with what we call a “marketing wrap” and custom look and feel. This involved creating a clearly defined set of “call to action” buttons, along with eye-catching graphics and dynamic and interactive sections (video, the blog, links to social media). Click on the image below to see the site in action (there’s some cool functionality on the home page that you just can’t get from looking at the screenshot).
We look forward to hearing your feedback about the site. What do you think about the transformation?
FREE Social Media Marketing Seminar, Victoria BC
Feb 6, 2010 Online Marketing TIPS for your Business
Over 187,000 people are on Facebook in the Greater Victoria area. Thousands of people and hundreds of businesses have started interacting on Twitter. Between 2008-2009, time spent on social networking sites jumped by 82%.
Are you connecting with your customers online?
Join us for a free introductory seminar on Social Media Marketing for Business to learn how social media can generate business, increase brand awareness, and position your company as a leader.
Where: Serious Coffee View Royal (across from the Casino) 1701 Island Hwy.
When: Tuesday Feb. 23rd 6:30-8:00pm
Details: Serious Coffee will be closing to the public at 6:30pm for this special event. Food and drink will be available to purchase for seminar attendees. Seating is limited to 30 ppl, pre-registration is required. REGISTER HERE.
The dawn of “Internet” – CBC Special Report
Jan 31, 2010 Online Marketing TIPS for your Business
This video clip is from sometime in the late 80’s or early 90’s and shows us where the internet began. It sure gives me some perspective on how much we’ve progressed since then – but also how many things have remained the same. We’re still using the internet as a social medium to interact with people who have similar interests – and that social component just keeps growing. Take a look:
Don’t sell – build relationships! (great video)
Jan 31, 2010 Online Marketing TIPS for your Business, Social Media Marketing Victoria, Social Networking Online
This is a great video about how consumers have changed in what they want from advertisers. We want authenticity, conversations, relationships – not a sales pitch. Take a look:
Twitter for Business Resources
Jan 17, 2010 Online Marketing TIPS for your Business
At our recent seminar on Twitter for Business in Victoria, BC I mentioned that there are several resources you may find useful in your Twitter endeavours. 
URL Shorteners:
URLs can take up a LOT of space in your tweet – sometimes more than 140 characters.
If you want to add a URL to your tweet and the platform you use doesn’t offer auto-URL-shortening, use the following site:
Find local Twitter Users in Victoria (and add yourself to Directories):
Follow Janis La Couvee’s list of #yyj Twitterers: http://twitter.com/lacouvee/victoria-yyj-twitterers
Victoria Twibes http://www.twibes.com/group/yyj
Victoria Locals Directory (on Jodie’s website) Ask to be added by @jodie_nodes
TwellowHood http://www.twellow.com/twellowhood/
Twellow (Listings by occupation) http://www.twellow.com/
Managing Twitter:
Twitter.com is not nearly as bad as it once was, so you might find you’re OK tweeting from there. I often do. Here are some other options:
CoTweet (great for companies) http://www.cotweet.com
Tweetdeck http://tweetdeck.com/beta/ (has iPhone app)
Seesmic http://desktop.seesmic.com/
Hootsuite (great for timing your tweets): http://www.hootsuite.com (has iPhone app)
See the Top Twitter Users (Superstars of Twitter):
Twitterholic http://twitterholic.com/
Free Grading Tools for your website, Facebook and Twitter accounts:
Time Management
Hootsuite (write tweets in advance and time when they get posted)
3 Tips for Time Management on Social Media
Reputation Management
Tools for monitoring the online conversation about you and your company:
Google Alerts (sometimes buggy)
Alright, that should help you to get started, but remember that I warned you – once you “get” Twitter (which takes about 1-2 weeks if you really stick with it) you may become a bit of an addict. It’s happened to the best of us. Have fun!
Dominos gets it right – Marketing 3.0 in action!
Jan 17, 2010 Online Marketing TIPS for your Business
This video is the perfect demonstration of how to listen to and show that you care about your customers – using the power of online video. It is radical transparency at its best. When I watched this I smiled and thought to myself “right on! A big corporation that realizes their success depends on happy customers!”. Watch and see how sometimes winning back your customers means making big changes.
What do you think of this demonstration of radical transparency? Will you be trying the new crust?
“Followers” decline as Twitter list popularity rises
Jan 17, 2010 Online Marketing TIPS for your Business, Social Media Marketing Victoria, Social Networking Online
Twitter is innovating – which is a good thing. Recently they have introduced “lists” to their platform and have partnered with Google to bring us live search and with LinkedIn to make it easier to integrate tweets within LinkedIn status updates. One thing we are going to notice, however, (that could be a bit confusing) is that the term “follower” won’t be as clear-cut anymore.
If you want to receive a person’s updates without having them clutter your main Twitter feed, simply add them to one of your lists without following them. They won’t show up as someone you are “following” this way, but the person will be able to see that you have “listed” them (unless you add them to a private list) and you’ll have to click on that list when you want to see what they’re posting. On the side of private lists, they are truly private, so some people will create a list of “competitors”, for example, that they can monitor without anyone knowing about it. There’s nothing sneaky about that either because everyone knows that when you tweet it’s available for the world to view.
I like this new list functionality because it allows me to organize the masses of tweets that come in every day and helps to ensure I won’t miss updates from those I see as valuable content aggregators and producers. I also like that I can visit the pages of those I respect on Twitter and see how they have organized people into lists. If someone has a great list called “ComediansOnTwitter” for example, I can add that list to my account. Right now I am in the middle of conglomerating a list of Eateries in Victoria so that every time I am hungry and want to grab a bite at a local restaurant/cafe/pub, I can see what the specials are at all the local food joints that tweet. Feel free to follow the list if you like.
One issue I have is that in programs like Tweetdeck where I started organizing people into lists long before Twitter came up with their own version, I now have a whole bunch of lists with duplicates that desperately need cleaning up….in my spare time! Yikes.
However – remember that if you don’t follow the person they can’t DM (direct message) you anymore and that might be a barrier to a prospective customer.
What do you think of Twitter lists?
Complete Guide to Twitter – Perfect for Twitter Newbies
Jan 15, 2010 Online Marketing TIPS for your Business
This guide (passed along by @ambrosiacentre in Victoria) is a useful tool for those just getting started in Twitter. I would argue that it’s not “complete” anymore as things are constantly changing, but it makes a good start.
Dot Tel Buzz (i.e. what is .tel anyway?)
Dec 1, 2009 Online Marketing TIPS for your Business
A few weeks ago I was reminded of a type of directory website called .tel offered by Telnic Ltd. (and available through several re-sellers worldwide). This is a very basic-looking website that serves as a home-base for all of your contact details online and offline and allows others to find you easily.
Here’s a clever .tel commercial that got me excited about owning my very own little piece of internet real estate:
After I saw this, I went out and bought terridavies.tel, thinking that it could be beneficial in multiple ways:
1) If I get caught in a situation where I don’t have business cards on me (heaven forbid!) I can just say “go to terridavies.tel and you’ll see links to my website, blog and social media”
2) Since even my business card doesn’t have links to everything I do online (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube etc.) it’s nice to have a central location for people to find this info.
3) Having an additional inbound link from .tel to my website and blog can’t hurt (and could help) in terms of their Google rankings. Plus, .tel might actually ranks all on its own one day for those searching for info about “Terri Davies, Victoria, BC” (since I’m not listed in the Yellow Pages).
However, even after all that I am still unsure that I am actually going to reap the benefits of owning this account. I’ll really need to direct people there if it’s going to be effective (like Ben in the commercial), and that sort of defeats the purpose because why not send them to our Sunstar Creative website? It would be good if I didn’t have my own website….but for a web-savvy business owner I have yet to see the real benefit. I also found that the look was really boring and I am craving the ability to get into the code and modify it!
The cost of securing my dot tel name was about $45 ($44.56 if you want the exact figure) for two years through one of the Canadian resellers called Webnames (other resellers include TuCows, Sibername.com, DomainPeople, Netfirms and more ) and this included the domain registration and hosting. What do you think? I’m happy to hear any ideas you have of how .tel can be beneficial. Here’s what Telnic Ltd. has to say in their Telegraph eNewsletter I received today (it looks like some business are trying to make it work, but it seems like a stretch to me…)
The ROI of Social Media
Nov 26, 2009 Online Marketing TIPS for your Business
A little while back we posted an excellent video from Socialnomics that went viral, and here is another one that they’ve just posted. It talks about how businesses can profit from using social media effectively.
One question that I get repeatedly when educating business professionals about social media is “how is this investment going to benefit my bottom line” and that’s a tricky one to answer because, as one of my colleagues says, it’s like asking “what’s the ROI of owning a telephone?.” Social media is a communication device, and you can use it however you like. There are both effective and ineffective ways to do that – and whether or not you’re willing to spend the time to really learn to use the tools and integrate the strategies has everything do with your success.
Look at Gary Vaynerchuk (mentioned in the video) and his Wine Library – I have been watching Gary for months now as an internet success story. He’s really done something different – he provides entertainment for free and attracts hordes of people by doing that, and only makes money when you buy his products (which he doesn’t make explicit on the site – that’s always nice, it’s not a salespitch).
Take a look:
