Social Media Plan Campaign and Monitoring For SMB’s

Posted on November 30, 2011 by ianotr

As much as your website is critical to your business success in creating an excellent first impression with your prospective clients, it is also imperative that you maintain and grow your brand through continuing interaction with your clients.

One method we use here at OTR with our own sites as well as clients sites is as follows:

• Create a corporate Blog (WordPress is a popular one that can be hosted direct with WP or on your current website server using your own domain name such as www.otronline.com/blog ) with articles of about 400 – 600 words at least once per month. Your blog article should not be blatant advertising about your company, products or services, but should provide relevant information about a segment of your industry.  In other words and for example, if we are going to talk about web design we should write about the attributes of good design and how it is critical that you create an excellent and memorable first impression. At the end of the article it is ok and good to have a call to action that makes a statement about your services.
• Create a Facebook corporate page and if you are writing one article per month then go through the article and write 12 Facebook status updates of about 80 to 400 characters (a short phrase or sentence is more likely to be read) and include at the end a link back to your Blog page. Again we are not creating blatant advertising here but phrases that relate to the article. Using the web design again for example we might write, “Poor web design will drive traffic away. Make the time and resources to do it right.”  As opposed to “Contact OTR Web Solutions today for an excellent first impression website!” Note … We are not going to enter the Facebook status updates yet … hang on we will get there.
• Create a LinkedIn page and include the same information as you have on your Facebook status updates (most likely this is going to different people) again don’t make the status updates as yet.
• Create a Twitter account and write about 22 short phrases (remember no blatant advertising as we want people to follow the link and read the article and blatant advertising will push your readers away producing a negative impact) each no longer than 80 characters and again include a link back to your blog post page.
• Invest in a Social Media management tool. There are a number available such as Postling, HootSuite, SocialOomph or Sendible.  At OTR we have used all of these resources and found that each has its good and I wish that could be improved aspects.  All of the tools above will schedule posts to your WP Blog, (however HootSuite will not post to your hosted WP blog,) Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn Social Media accounts. Scheduling is very important as this is what allows  you to publish custom status updates and tweets on a scheduled basis. Sendible also allows for extensive monitoring of your Social Media exposure and will send an email to you making you aware of mentions of your name .. both positive and negative which allows for direct interaction with your clients.
• Choose your Social Media management tool and then enter and schedule your blog post/article and individual status updates and tweets. Using the single blog post/article per month above we would take the 12 Facebook entries and schedule them at the rate of 3 times per week over the course of the month.
• The 12 LinkedIn entries we would also schedule at 3 per week over the course of the month.
• The 22 Twitter tweets we would schedule at 1 per day over the course of the 22 work days in a month.

Around the middle of the month you would prepare your next blog post and repeat the process above … scheduling everything in as required for the ensuing month. I would then however move the original 22 Twitter tweets into a separate random schedule of 3 or 4 tweets per day thus keeping your blog posts active and not overwhelming your readers with massive amounts of tweets. Just a note … if you do not want me to “Follow” you on Twitter then write and automate numerous tweets per day. The first thing I do is look at how often you tweet in your Twitter Profile and if I find a lot per day … I say goodbye!

Social Media Management is a vital task and cannot be left undone. It takes time to write and monitor articles and interact with your clients. If you understand you need to have good Social Media exposure then you are on the right track but you must be consistent in your approach. What I have written above is a basic minimum and that will take dedication and a person that has been specifically tasked with the project and with the appropriate skills.

Our experience over the years has been that most businesses in spite of their good intentions do not have the manpower to consistently manage their Social Media. That is where OTR Web Solutions comes in with our Social Media division. OTR can write everything we have listed above (and more) as well as manage the results, all for a cost effective monthly fee.

At OTR we do not just research and write but we take the time to interview you and determine jointly the article for the blog, inserting the correct key search engine phrases (SEO) and writing captivating copy from our professional copywriters. One blog article per month is a minimum, however articles and subsequent status updates can be as often as 3 time per week … in which case OTR would write one Facebook status update per blog post to keep within the 3 posts per week.

Contact OTR now for more information at service@otronline.com to allow us to help you with your businesses Social Media campaigns.

Ian Conklin
OTR Web Solutions Inc.

Posted in Corporate Branding, Social Media Integration | Tagged | Comments Off

Social Media Content Marketing – Now find the time

Posted on November 28, 2011 by Postling

 

Social Media Content Marketing is a must for business; but many SMB’s will not spend the time necessary due to varied internal constraints.

We all have the best intentions when we read an article or blog post on what we need to do to make our business better by reaching out to customers, answering their queries and expanding our brand. We say we have to do this … but then we get busy running our business and we just never get it done. Maybe we even assign someone to look after the Social Media component but it is in addition to their other work and well it seems that the job just never gets done right. That at least has been my experience with many of our clients … good intentions but a lack of time to make Social Media work for them successfully.

So what are your alternatives? I think we can all agree that the status quo is not going to cut it so where does that leave your business? You can:

  1. Do nothing … there is just no time for this Social Media stuff
  2. Do it yourself and just make the time … oh and learn how as well
  3. Delegate to another staff, train them and move some of their current responsibilities to another person
  4. Hire a new staff person whose sole function is Social Media and Content Marketing
  5. Select and hire a firm to look after your Social Media and Content Marketing

The Lead Copywriter at OTR recently wrote an excellent blog post about the difficulty in extracting copy from new clients and how we resolved the issue with the end result of creative market ready copy in a timely manner for our client web sites. A positive “win-win” for both the client website and our copywriter’s sanity.

This concept of direct personal client interviews and in-house research followed by effective and creative copywriting that portrayed the brand and message of the client company has proven very successful. The natural progression was to migrate this same concept through to our Social Media Content Marketing for our clients creating another “win-win” service.

If you can effectively develop, write, monitor and manage your Social Media and Content Marketing campaign within your company then you are well ahead of the game. If not, then you can look to a company like OTR Web Solutions to develop, write, monitor and manage your campaign for you … and at a reasonable monthly cost.

OTR will provide you with your own control panel to review and add Blog posts, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and many other Social Media platforms as well as the scheduled posts we will make for you. OTR offers professional Social Media management.

 

OTR Web Solutions Inc

service@otronline.com

Posted in Corporate Branding, Search Engine Optimization - SEO, Social Media Integration | Tagged | Comments Off

I Can’t See You – Is Your Business Invisible?

Posted on November 12, 2011 by ianotr

Quoting from a recent Google initiative -

“A business with a couple of dozen employees is a small business. That same business without a website isn’t even a small business. To potential customers, it might not even exist.

Visibility is a problem for most small businesses in the digital marketplace.

According to a study commissioned by Google Inc., 59 percent of small businesses in Michigan do not have a website.

And nationally, 63 percent of small businesses lack a website, said the same study, conducted by the French research and marketing company Ipsos. The study defined small businesses as those having 25 or fewer employees.

About 23 percent of Michigan businesses do not have any Web presence at all, said Michael Miller, director of online sales and head of Google’s Ann Arbor office. That means no social media, no online local listings and no presence on maps such as Google Maps, where close views show the locations of businesses and other landmarks.

“They’re completely invisible if someone is actually going to do a local search or trying to find a product or service online,” Miller said. Becoming visible represents an economic development opportunity for the region, he said, given that most jobs come from small business.”

You might recall an ad on TV where a customer comes into a bake shop and munches away on their samples … all the while telling the owner of the store that she is invisible to him and the many like him. He disappears out the door of the store as though he never existed and all because they had no internet presence. Great ad and I wish I had the budget to do one like it!

It is not self serving of me to say your business NEEDS a web presence.  If 63% of business does not have a website … well that seems like a statistic that suggest now is a good time to position your business in the forefront of your market.

There are some simple steps available to get you started such as Social Media including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and an online Blog. Social Media will get your business at least out there where people can hear about you and your brand.

Local Search … local people or people coming through your town need to be able to simply and efficently find your business. Listing with Google Places Business is a great place to start to get your business listed in their maps.

Website … that one goes without saying. Here is where people find out who you are and what you have to offer.  There are template web hosting providers if you have the skill set and time available to write your own content. Remember though … you only have one crack at a good first impression. If you cannot do it right then you are better off to outsource and get a professional to do it for you.

Copywriting … one of the more critical aspects of your website aside from the actual design is your web copy. Research into Search Engine compatible key words and phrases and the integration of those phrases into your site architecture and web copy combined with delivering your companies message and brand are essential to your online web success.

If all of the above seems a bit overwhelming or if you just do not have the time to make it happen then contact us at OTR and we can help bring your business to the forefront. OTR delivers.

Ian Conklin
OTR Web Solutions Inc

Posted in Social Media Integration, Web Copywriting, Web Design | Comments Off

What do copywriting and dentistry have in common?

Posted on November 11, 2011 by Theresa

A number of years ago I spent time perusing writing forums in search of help and inspiration. Trying to extract information from my clients was like pulling teeth.  I wondered if other copywriters were having as much difficulty as I was. I discovered many of them were experiencing the same woes with their clients.

For the most part, business owners are a busy lot and the tyranny of the urgent always seemed to override my pleas for content notes.  Unless the website had been assigned to someone specific at the company who had been tasked with corresponding with me, my questions and emails usually went unresponded to.

Ideally, we would meet with our clients, tour their facilities and then build their website.  However, the international scope of our clientele would necessitate travel and lodging and thus an added expense that both we and our clients didn’t feel was warranted.  A solution needed to be found because the slow and painful extraction of information method I was using was not working.

When was the last time any of us used a tape recorder?  For me it was the 8th grade and I was recording the top 10 count down from the radio or something.    While my techie boss is somewhat appalled at the use of such a dinosaur as a lowly tape recorder (he wants his “word nerd” to be a little more savvy in matters of technology-after all we are a web firm), even he admits that the result has been impressive.  The reward has been a copious supply of copy notes in a concentrated amount of time. I am able to get a “feel” for who the client is and effectively deliver their message in the web copy we produce, without the expense of traveling to them.  Because I am able to build a personal rapport with key people in the company, I have prompt responses to any follow up questions.  A process that used to feel like months of pulling teeth has been pared down to a few simple 30-minute telephone interviews.  Now that the value of this new method has been proven, I have no doubt that the boss shall force me into the digital age.  Until then, does anybody have some blank cassettes lying around?

Theresa Conklin BA Ed Hons is a copywriter for OTR Web Solutions Inc

Posted in Web Copywriting | 1 Comment

SEO – Search Engine Optimization

Posted on October 8, 2011 by ianotr

It seems that a day does not pass by that someone contacts me either by email or phone on how they can make my website rank number 1 on Google. They all claim to use “white hat” optimization techniques and NEVER would use the bad “Black Hat” processes of their evil competitors.  You get the calls and you can hear the hissing noise in the background of an overseas Voip call as they tell you what good things they can do for you and your website.

I tend to ignore them all and mistakenly thought that OTR clients would do the same … I should have known better.

I got a call from a client a bit back as they told me of the changes we had to make to their website so that they could be ranked number 1 in Google. I asked them who had called and they told me it was our phone company, so intrigued I said to send me the changes in an email and I would go over them and to include the phrase it was that they were going to make work for them. The client sent me the information including the key phrase for their industry and how much they were paying for this service.

There was nothing really wrong with the changes they were asking for and so I had no issues there either for or against. However the phrase they were going to make them number 1 in Google for … well they were already number 2 for that phrase and also on the first page for a number of other phrases. The client had already signed a contract for 1 year for the SEO services and was now paying around $500 per month for them to “fix” their website … so I made the requested changes.

The results … they did in fact move them up 1 position from number 2 to number 1 on Google for the requested phrase. I loved the emails that came in from the SEO company reporting on the progress and how they were so pleased that they had moved up in the page rankings for the key phrase chosen. On the downside all of the other key phrases had either disappeared or were now well down the list. Overall the client will have paid $6,000 to reduce their overall impact from an SEO perspective.

The truth is that SEO begins with:

  • The initial strategic plan of your website
  • Research into copy and key phrases that people search
  • Interviews to determine your business and how to deliver that message effectively
  • Site architecture that makes sense to website visitors and to the search engines
  • Insertion of the key phrases into the appropriate tags within the site
  • Insertion of the key phrases into the web content in a readable manner
  • Analytics of the results
  • Social Media Integration and Management

So do  I blame the client … no I blame me and my company for not letting our clients know that at OTR we already build their sites with SEO in mind and we can add analytics to the hosting package …  AND that we offer ongoing SEO including Social Media integration into their web presence. We can write your Tweets, write your Facebook comments and write your Blog articles.

So the next time you get a call and think, “Hmmm this could be a good idea” make sure you give us a call first and we can help you through the processes.

Ian Conklin
www.otronline.com
OTR Web Solutions Inc

 

Posted in Search Engine Optimization - SEO, Social Media Integration | Comments Off

Pretty Websites – Is that Enough?

Posted on September 27, 2011 by ianotr

You see it time and again as businesses write about their new corporate website … they are so pleased with how it looks and as a consequence pleased about the money they spent. They see value because they have in some cases created an excellent first impression and of course that is good. The problem that arises is that a pretty website is just the beginning … well in fact it wasn’t the beginning but actually a few steps down the process of creating an effective website that “works”.

So what are the steps to an effective website? First we need to define your brand. Who are you and what does your company represent. What sets you apart from the rest of the pack? From those interviews we can get a feel for your company and begin to develop the message.

We need to determine the target market, as there is little sense building a corporate  executive site for a client whose target market is teens … no matter how pretty we make it look.

Site architecture … what makes sense for your visitors and where do we want them to go after they visit a particular page? Is a static website best suited for your company (where the design firm maintains artistic control over the content) or is a CMS system such as Drupal the best alternative for your business?

About here we are beginning to have a good idea as to what the site web design should be … we know the target market, we know the brand concept and we know about how many pages and sections we are going to require and so can build the navigation scheme.

Then we need to research key words and key phrases and see how those can be worked into your web copy and carry on with the interviewing of key personnel. Our copywriters then take the notes from the interview process and combine that with the key phrases and begin to write copy for the web pages … again paying attention to the target market and the various calls to action.

The designers then create the look and build in the navigation for each page and section of the website, and then begins the SEO work from the back-end. This process makes it so your website can be found by the search engines … for words and phrases that actually matter to your visitors.

It takes all of these components and more to create an effective website that works for your visitors, your sales team, your support team and anyone else that has a  vested interest in your website. We didn’t even talk about online stores or integration of software or developing hooks into your database or reservation systems … the list goes on.

Lastly when the site is done we need to look at updates, Social Media interaction and ongoing copy and of course analysis of the web pages. Are your visitors going ot the pages we wanted them to end. Does this page “A” work better than this new page “B” and why.

All of this is why when you build a website you need more than a web designer … they are a part of the web development process. It takes a team effort to make a website that “works”.

Ian Conklin
President
OTR Web Solutions Inc

 

 

Posted in Social Media Integration, Web Design, Web Development | Tagged | Comments Off

Customer Service and Branding

Posted on September 14, 2011 by ianotr

Customer Service and Your Brand
Often when we think of our company’s brand we think of the logo or other distinctive trademark, but there’s much more to our brand then just a distinctive and recognizable mark.

One morning I walked into a department store wearing my well-worn brown leather jacket. I was looking at some dress slacks and shirts and when I took my jacket off, the clerk noticed that the inside lining of the jacket was showing signs of wear. He immediately checked and came back to tell me that they could replace the lining and have it ready for me later that day. I was of course impressed with the attentive service and asked how much this would cost? His reply was no cost, as that is a service we provide for our customers. I then said, but I didn’t buy the jacket from your store. He gave me that look that said, you don’t think I know my own stock? And replied, I know this is not from our store but you are a customer and this is a service we provide for our customers. At that point I didn’t want to say, but I am a visitor from Canada, as I did not want to get that look again, this time saying, you think I didn’t recognize your accent?

I then went on to purchase a couple pairs of slacks, a few shirts and a pair of shoes.  Interestingly enough I never did get the lining of my jacket replaced as we were leaving that afternoon to head back home and there was no time. It has been well over 20 years since that particular incident took place and as I sat today to write this article on the relationship between customer service and branding, that day and that store was what immediately came to mind. You can imagine how the favorable perception of the store, the clerk and stores brand has been implanted (or branded) in my memory.

In an era when companies are now charging for every perceived “extra” such as a few inches of extra legroom, or your luggage or your in-flight meal, (just picking on airlines). It makes one wonder how this impacts their brand, how their customers perceive them? The word that comes to mind is, “cheap”. That is not how I want customers to think of our company, as I am sure it is not how you would want customers to think of your business.

You hear people say, well everyone is doing it, and I think what an excellent time to set your business apart from the rest. Unless you have some proprietary product that everyone needs and can charge and do whatever you wish, then the only thing that we as business people have to offer is exemplary customer service.

Think about your brand as more than just your look, but rather the overall customer experience with your business. Place yourself in the customer’s shoes and imagine dealing with your company and envision that experience and determine if you would like to go through it. I think the CEO of our auto club should try to order travel insurance by calling into a service center. You’re greeted with a pleasant recorded voice saying thank you for calling the Motor Association; please listen carefully as our options have changed. Press one for this, press two for this, press three for that, and press four lastly for what you wanted. Finally I will get to speak to someone, but alas I get the voice, thank you for calling the Motor Association insurance division, please listen carefully as our options have changed. This time I’m greeted with seven separate options! At this point I’m wondering if my existing insurance covers suicide, as I wish to slice my wrists or at least cancel my trip.

Okay they saved a few bucks, but at what cost to my perception of their business and brand?

Of course it is a good thing to review your brand from every aspect. Is your creative consistent across your entire organization? Is the same “look and feel” consistently deployed across e-mail, marketing, newsletter, tradeshow booth, corporate webpage, pricing sheets, sales proposals, business cards, and any other branding opportunity? However you can do all that exactly right, consistent everywhere, and all people are reminded of is cheap because they are charging me for my bag, or they saved a few dollars by not having a receptionist.

By all means review your brand but at the same time review your customers experience.

Ian Conklin – President
OTR Web Solutions Inc
http://www.otronline.com

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