• Eric Westerman moved from the great state of Kansas to join Beacon’s Web Marketing team last June.  After earning his undergraduate degree at Kansas State University, he completed his MBA at Wichita State.  Eric combines his technical, analytical and marketing skills to optimize SEO and PPC performance for Beacon’s customers.
• Nicole Tolbert joined Beacon’s Web Marketing staff in October 2009 and has become an integral part of Beacon’s all-encompassing web marketing project with The Princeton Review.  She brings a wealth of social media marketing experience to the Team.
• Tiffany May is Beacon’s newest Web Designer/Developer, joining the web development staff in November 2009.  After graduating with honors from GTCC, Tiffany brings her passion for design and development of medium to large scale websites and is extremely solution-oriented to improve the user’s experience.  Tiffany is well-versed in HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Flash, and now, Cascade Server. She also knows ASP, PHP, CFM, and WordPress.  As you can see, she will be a valuable addition to the software development team.
• Andrea Spaventa is an SEO expert who joined the team in January 2010. She is also the author of The SEOptimist blog which provides useful tips and informative articles on SEO, PPC and Web Marketing. Andrea brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to our top level clients.
• Heather Showstead is our newest Web Marketing Analyst /Consultant, who joined the Beacon Team in January 2010. She is a Boston native with a BS in Marketing and an MBA from UNCG. Heather specializes in marketing strategy and manages SEO, PPC and social media for many of our clients.

I saw this on the PRSA (Public Relations Society of America) blog this morning and liked the tips from Colonel Rudy Burwell, communications guru – and am glad to see that web marketing tools are really making an impact in every industry as we slowly learn what works and doesn’t work. Industries are achieving the growth and exposure they need through fantastic web marketing tools like AdWords, Google Analytics,  sophisticated retail store fronts, online merchant accounts, hosting and content management sites like WordPress. Never has the control been easier for a business owner, non-profit, university or the health care system.

Colonel Rudy Burwell, director of the Army Reserve Communications, began their foray into web marketing and  social media with a question: How can we better tell the story and put a face on the Army Reserves? Integrating web marketing, and social media elements into their traditional coverage gave reservists an outlet for their stories and a faces to the Army Reserve mission. Colonel Burwell shared this great advice on why web marketing and social media has worked for them – What Works (10 +1):

1. Real speech.
2. First person.
3. Make fan part of the story.
4. Relevance trumps frequency.
5. Great photo goes a long way.
6. Raw, real and messy video.
7. Don’t edit real life.
8. Monitor and acknowledge.
9. Robust rules of engagement on all platforms.
10. Segment if necessary.
11. If you are having fun, so will your fans.

What really came across in this session is the power of energy. Military is great for planning and processes, but to embrace and further social media, they had to engage fans on an individual level. Everyone has a story to share.

What is advanced visual data analysis?

Do you want to spot the Outliers and reveal trends? Heat maps allow us to add a whole new dimension to our analytics by showing information that would otherwise be hard to see by using traditional charts and graphs. A heat map is a graphical representation of data where the values taken by a variable in a two-dimensional map are represented in bright colors.  You can see areas where the most people clicked on your website. This tells you what’s hot and what’s not, so you can make changes that matter and  sell ad space on the most popular areas on your site.

These are great because they find out where people click based upon things like: Top 15 referrers, search terms, operating system and browser. Heat maps also give real time reporting that converts to your favorite spread sheet, shares results, even has the ability to let you block a specific persons click.

Slick!

Smith Millwork

Beacon announces the launch of the new Smith Millwork website using AspDotNetStorefront.  The goal of the redesign was to provide the web customer (which could be a home owner or builder) with a simple way to browse products, product images and manufacturers and give Smith Millwork the ability to maintain as much of the site as possible. This is a “catalog site” in that customers will not use the site to purchase items, only to browse the selection and imagery and then contact the office for ordering/purchase.  The client is excited with the new site and is looking forward to advertising at several upcoming builder’s shows.

Items of note for this project are:

• Creative design:  intuitive, custom “look and feel” using the customer’s existing print collateral
• Product data:  unable to automate the product data load from their catalog, Beacon setup all of the client’s products manually.
• Product images:  multiple rounds of image manipulation produced crisp, clear images of the products.
• Maintenance:  The client is in full control of the product data and images using ASPDNSF administrative functions.

Manufacturers:  The client can manage and maintain the list of manufacturers that they work with.

I loved this  GREAT post today on Mashable so much that I decided to share it here. Now I’m not usually this lazy about posting but I couldn’t have said it better. Here’s a great explanation as to why companies may want to get on the social media stick now instead of “waiting to see if it works.”  One reader emailed me last week saying:

“ Companies today that don’t adopt social media in their overall integrated marketing strategies will not be able to compete tomorrow. For companies that have heard the benefits of social media but have not embraced it, it is wise for them to hire a social media expert to provide an introduction to social media, to speak about the benefits, the commitment requited (time and personnel), their demographics and where they should focus their efforts and then to implement the selected strategies. Putting all this on an employee who is interested but is already working 60 hrs/week is not only unfair, but it is a recipe for failure. Hire an expert who can help you understand the marketing shift and who can implement targeted strategies to expand your reach, branding, awareness and sales.”

This may be a harsh analogy but if was sick I wouldn’t wait to see if the same medicine worked for someone else before trying it on myself. So read below and let me know your thoughts-

Listening and responding is only as effective as its ability to inspire transformation, improvement, and adaptation from the inside out. Survival does not hinge solely on a company’s social media strategy. The social element is but one part of an overall integrated strategy. It’s how we learn and adapt that ensures our place within the evolution of our markets.

Social Media as embraced in the earlier stages is not scalable. The introduction of new roles will beget the restructuring of teams and workflow, which will ultimately necessitate organizational transformation to support effective engagement, production, and the ongoing evolution towards ensuring brand and product relevance.

Adaptation: In order to truly compete for the future, artful listening, community building, and advocacy must align with an organization’s ability to adapt and improve its products, services, and policies. In order for any team to collaborate well externally, it must first foster collaboration within. It is this interdepartmental cooperative exchange that provides a means for which to pursue sincere engagement over time.

Organizational Transformation: The internal reorganization of teams and processes to support a formal Social Customer Relationship Management (sCRM) program will become imperative. As social media chases ubiquity, we learn that influence isn’t relegated to one department or function within an organization. Any department affected by external activity will eventually socialize. Therefore, an integrated and interconnected network of brand ambassadors must work internally to ensure that the brand is responding to constructive instances, by department. However, at the departmental and brand level, successful social media marketing will require governance and accountability. Organizational transformation will gravitate towards a top-down hierarchy of policy, education, and empowerment across the entire organization.

In November, Denise Wakeman, (http://www.biztipsblog.com/) a wizard at all things social media – (follow her, no really – do it) did a 10 question social media use survey that grew out of  the success of  the Future of Social Media webinar she held in October. The most asked questions were regarding how to use social media successfully to build credibility and gain influence in your industry.The two areas participants asked about most were content creation and syndication. People seem to be wondering what kind of content, and how much content to produce, and then, also, how to distribute their content most efficiently across the social media platforms.

I have taught classes to groups of people, both individuals and for corporations  on this very thing. Social media takes a certain type of person to set it up, and another type of person to keep it going. This is the challenge, but how many people are missing out because they don’t utilize any sort of blogging? Blogging is the key to social media as it is a place to park your content and send it out. It’s your chance to be the expert, give ideas and tips away free.

Along with this, people had questions about growing their Facebook and Linkedin community, using remote blogging sites like Posterous, and how to set up their own content syndication streams.

A couple of shocking stats to note:

* 70% classified their use of social media as moderate to very high
* 63% indicated a desire to learn how to monetize social media
* 62% want to grow their email list

Most shocking of all…about 40% of respondents are NOT blogging at all. Considering this is one of the most powerful ways to syndicate content, build a list, and attract new clients, we were surprised.

More than 300 people responded to her survey, and you can get the results via opt-in/download. We’ll be using some of this info to build asocial media coaching program which we will launch in this January. Stay tuned.

Here’s the link to get the results:

http://www.mindsharecorp.com/go/socialmediause/

If you don’t understand how to blog or  set up a WordPress or similar content management system to blog from, now is the time to learn. If you don’t have the time or the savvy to post, hire someone who does. It takes time but is a “must do”. What other platforms are you going to use to get the word out?

Think of social media as your financial portfolio. You move around stocks and try different combination’s. Some preform better than others, but as a whole they do the job with power and if not you mix it up to hit on the right combination. And remember, it takes TIME.   Do you say to your broker, “If I don’t see a big  return in a month or two, I am pulling out 100%.” No. As long as you are not loosing a ton of money- stay put for the long haul and watch it ebb, flow and eventually grow.

Tips:

1. Think strategically, if this is for business or a cause. Ask yourself what you want your reader to do next. Try to write from that point of view.

1. Mix it up. Keep an editorial calendar and note what kinds of posts you’ve written lately. Thought posts? Lists? Interviews? Make sure you’re mixing up the type of post you’ve written lately.

And remember the number one rule in blog success -  consider your audience but write from your passion!!

IBS Billing

Beacon announces the launch of the newly designed Intelligent Business Solutions website. This in another great example of a small, static website produced by Beacon’s creative and web design staff.  The site utilizes a nice color palette and displays the site’s content in a sophisticated and professional way.  The website promotes IBS’s mission of offering a dynamic, integrated EMR and Billing solution by revealing the depth of its services, the focus of its staff and by keeping everyone up to date regarding events and news items.