Cascade Server CMS has built in tools, called Connectors. These connectors allow Cascade Server to connect directly to 3rd-party applications. Currently, there are two Connectors available to choose from, WordPress and Twitter. Once a Connector is setup correctly, any page you publish using Cascade can automatically be posted to your twitter or blog. This can reduce the hassle if you manage your Twitter, WordPress blog, and website content separately. Both of the Connectors are easy to setup.

To setup a new WordPress Connector:

1. Navigate to Connectors in the Site Administration area
2. Click “Create Connector“
3. Choose “WordPress” as the Connector type
4. Click “Submit“
5. Fill in the WordPress Connector’s name, parent folder, and URL (pointing to the WordPress instance to be used)
6. Fill in the Username and Password for your WordPress account.
7. Fill in the Content Type (under “Content Types” tab). Note: Each Content Type determines which Page Configuration is published to the WordPress post.  The Content Type also maps Metadata fields to Categories and Tags for the post
8. Click “Submit” to save your WordPress Connector.
9. You need to verify that the connection with WordPress is successful. Click on the “View” tab, and click the “Verify” link.

To setup a new Twitter Connector:

1. Navigate to Connectors in the Site Administration area
2. Click “Create Connector”
3. Choose “Twitter” as the Connector type
4. Click “Submit”
5. Fill in the Twitter Connector’s name, parent container, destination (The Destination to which a Page must be published in order for a tweet to be generated)
6. Fill in the Content Type (under “Content Types” tab).
7. Under “Parameters” tab, fill in the Hashtags (eg. #BeaconBlog) or Prefix that will be published with each tweet.
8. Click “Submit” and save your Twitter Connector
9. Click on “Click here to allow and Verify again.”
10. A new window will open up, type your Username and Password and click “Allow”.
11. Close that window, and go back to your Cascade Server Connector window. Click “Verify” again and it will be all set.
12. You need to verify that the connection with Twitter is successful. Click on the “View” tab, and click the “Verify” link.

If you need further help, check out Hannon Hill’s Knowledge Base at: http://www.hannonhill.com/kb/Connectors/ OR leave a comment below.

Blogging is considered easy, right? Everyone has access to tools to communicate original ideas and topics that catch our interest as blog posts. Now that blogging has been around for a while, what’s next? Normally, a blog post includes a topic of interest, some pros and cons, an image or two and some links. What is the next step one might wonder?
Well, Twitter definitely changed the game when they brought us “micro-blogging”. Your “post” on any topic must be contained in 140 characters or less — brief text and maybe a link. As we iterate blog best practices, consider what “nano-blogs” may look like. I can see a temptation to skip the content and just share links — maybe a brief headline with the link.

This already exists today to some degree with sites like ping.fm that broadcasts your “posts” to multiple sites. I like that ability to aggregate accounts, post to one site and move on. Other services that allow us to repost such as “Add This” or “Share This” provide a quick way to share content. Other sites have the various share icons at the bottom of the page. As we continue to progress forward, will using any of this count as a blog post?

Could the next blog progression involve a trail of the sites I liked or viewed for more than 5 minutes? The time duration can be argued, and I will leave the privacy issues aside for now. Point is how does it get easier to indicate what catches my attention that I want you to be aware of?

What would make blogging easier for you? What do you think are the key factors that will drive blogging to progress even further? Is there a list of requirements or a common view on new features somewhere?

The relationship between social media and search is very real and is not going away.  It is now helping to fuel the search engines’ fire to provide us with the best results and does so by using social media data as cues to better match what the search engines think we are looking for in the location where we can best engage with the information we require.

Search engines are achieving this goal by integrating social popularity in their organic search algorithms.  This popularity section seems presently to be the mix of social media relevancy and click-through rate.  Such has been more and more noticeable with Google’s expansion of Twitter feeds in their results.  In fact, even if you delete all of your tweets and your account, your tweets will still exist because Google assigns a number to every tweet.  (Just thought I would throw that tidbit of info out for everyone that assumes hitting “delete” is the end to unintelligent late-night posts).

Bing has also been utilizing Facebook’s Like buttons in their organic search results.  Their current factors of influence as to the relevance of the social mediums to use are the number of followers, fans, and brand names/keywords passed around the social networks.

This information is important! Search engines are no longer just regurgitating results; they are making assumptions from your Internet usage and applying your preferred means of obtaining data to push information you search back to you.  They are actually listening to their customers and providing them with what they really want, not just what has the best PR due to keyword density, URL age, etc.

It has been necessary for the search engines to keep up with all of these social networks that now take up more chunks of users’ time online, especially when you look at Twitter, who now has a real time search box.  While results are not always perfect, they are still improving every day, and if people continue to spend more time on social networks, the search engines must keep up.

No matter how popular social networks continue to gain strength and popularity, they will never prevent the need for search.  Seventy percent of online customers still find the sites from which they make purchases through search, but they also now spend a quarter of their time online in social media networks.

Trends will always be changing on the web, but have no fear, for the folks at Beacon will continue to be your guide in these new unchartered territories.

Social Media… It seems to be one of the buzz words that online marketers love to throw around.   What does it really mean and is it really important for your business?   I started out in the business in SEO several years ago before the phrase “social media” really existed and my goals were about getting more qualified visitors to a website where they would interact with the content.

Before there were social media giants like Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter people would generally start their web experience at a search engine.   These served as the best portal to access information online so people “congregated” there.   What these new social media websites provide is another portal to the web where users interact with networks of people they know.    Several aspects of our daily lives are being digitally organized so we interact with the web in such a way that it consistently provides information that is more relevant to our daily lives than when we just search for a specific piece of information.

As social media and traditional internet continue to blur their boundaries, the availability of online reviews has never been higher.  You can read about people’s experiences with given companies in blog posts, on forums, in countless yellow page directories, and even on Twitter or other social media.  Have you searched for you company in Twitter yet?  You may find what your customers are saying about you to be very interesting and/or surprising.  Good reviews offer free online advertising, but bad reviews may be even more valuable!  If the latter part of that statement seems odd to you, read on…

There are three primary benefits that a bad review can offer.  You might be able to think of more, but I think most can fit under these large umbrellas:

• First, bad reviews add credibility to the good ones.  If I see a product listed on a retail page that has 100% glowing reviews, I tend to take it with a grain of salt.  No company leaves its customers 100% satisfied.  This leads me to believe that these responses are fluff and possibly even bought and paid.  However, a site that shows a product/service to have 85% positive reviews has more credibility.  Here, it is less likely that the site manager is screening or cherry picking reviews.  There is an acknowledgment that the product/service may not be for everybody.  As a consumer, I still learn that the vast majority of the customers were happy with their purchase and the information is more believable.
• Second, bad reviews show you where your company can improve.  This follows the old adage that we learn more from our mistakes than our successes.  Your customers may see your business much differently than you do.  Learn from this – odds are that one bad review online represents many angry customers overall.  If you are not meeting their expectations, you may have to adjust your business or how you are marketing/presenting it.
• Third, and most important from a web marketing perspective, ANY review offers exposure.  By reading reviews, SEOs can learn what keywords people are linking with a brand  Getalistic has a good methodology to follow for using reviews to improve your product/service descriptions:  read here.  Sometimes, reviewers will even link to your company’s site.  The search engines do not care that this is a bad review, that link still has clout for your Google rankings.  At the end of the day, people talking about you and your company is far better than being forgotten or ignored.

None of this is to say that ALL publicity is good publicity.  JetBlue was once seen as a legitimate competitor to Southwest Airlines as the king of airline efficiency, but its image still has not fully recovered from stranding thousands of passengers (including leaving planes on the runway for up to 8 hours) after a snowstorm in February of 2007.  This came just two years after Thomas Friedman raved about their efficient information systems consisting of mothers-working-from-their-homes-across-the-entire-country in his best seller The World is Flat.  It turns out that it was a great system…as long as everything was working perfectly.  When it fell apart, the results were disastrous and JetBlue saw its stock price fall 70% over the next year.

Take all this advice within reason.  If you are getting 5-15% bad reviews, use them to build and improve your business.  If you are getting 80% bad reviews, go back to school and learn a new trade.

Finally, I leave you with this takeaway – encourage all your customers to write and publish reviews online, even the dissatisfied ones.  Put a link to your Twitter or Facebook feed on your site, or send people to your favorite yellow pages directory and ask them to review their experience.  Do not try to act as a censor (provided that it is not obvious spam or an attack from a competitor), encourage free expression and feedback.  Your ego may take a hit, but your business will love it.

-EW, follow me on twitter: @ejwestksu

Last year location-based applications started popping up everywhere and had everyone speculating.  2009 was the year that location applications became user-friendly and widely available. Networks like Foursquare offer real time location information and larger networks like Facebook and Twitter are starting to include their own location-sharing features. What does this mean for businesses?

Unlocking the power of location can give many businesses a boost. Foursquare and now Google Buzz allows its users to “check-in” at various locations and recommend activities, nearby businesses, or local products to other users. This serves as free viral advertising and can be very effective. Twitter has started offering a location feature as well. You can choose a location for a profile, which helps other Twitter users find it. Also, simply submitting your business to local search engines makes sure your business appears when customers are looking.  Another way to use location to better your business is to segment email communication by location in order to provide relevant information to your customers. Gathering location data about your customers can help avoid high unsubscribe rates resulting from sending irrelevant information.

One final tip: Stay informed. New location applications and features will continue to roll out. There are plenty of great blogs and news sites available that stay up to date on tech trends. Learning about new location applications and features is the only way to start using them!

Submitted for your approval, the following case study:

The companies Rockler and Woodcraft offer an interesting comparison involving Twitter.  Both companies are stalwarts in the woodworking industry, roughly the same size, have similar web sites, and both started tweeting almost a year ago (Rockler began in December 2008,  Woodcraft got started in January of 2009).  However, it is in their Twitter strategies that we see a huge difference.

Woodcraft has used Twitter almost extensively as an advertising component.  Nearly every tweet they put forth is pushing a sale, discount, or product line for emphasis.  They rarely receive any tweets from their followers.

Meanwhile, Rockler has used Twitter as an opportunity to engage its customers and followers.  Roughly 80% of its tweets are NON-COMMERCIAL.  They ask questions of their followers (i.e. what is the best music to put to wordworking?)  and respond to questions or comments that are posed to the company (which occurs many times every day).

The results:  Rockler has more than three times as many followers as Woodcraft (2500-800).

So, what can we take from this?   By being more engaged with the customer and finding ways to keep their tweets interesting, Rockler has developed a much bigger and more involved following.  When they do tweet about their products and/or sales, they are reaching a significantly larger audience and more interested audience than Woodcraft does.  If every message is pushing a product, it is too easy for the followers to dismiss the company’s tweets as spam.

It should be noted that without access to the accounting books, it is impossible to say definitively which company is seeing a bigger return from Twitter.  Yet, it is probably safe to say that any salesperson in the world would take the much larger and more captivated audience over the opposite.

Social media is looking more and more like a viable business model every day, but it is important to never forget the social aspect of it…or your customers might forget you.

-EW

Beacon Technologies’ close relationship with Google often grants us access to many of their education initiatives like the live Google AgencyLand webinars which are open to qualified Adwords companies and their clients. We recently attended one of these team trainings entitled “Five Rules of Consumer Engagement,” taught by Google’s Jim Lecinski and inspired by research conducted amongst Google customers in the Fortune 100. Lecinski asked the group an essential question to set the stage and because his answer will help many of Beacon’s customers, I feel it’s worth sharing. Q: How do you know when your company is ready to tackle the next phase of online engagement?

If you’re like most marketing directors, you’re feeling immense pressure to experiment with whatever hot social media tool everyone is talking about these days whether it’s Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, or bebo. And although it’s true your brand shouldn’t fall victim to a trend; before you encourage customers to form an online community geared towards self-expression and entertainment, be sure you’ve mastered the first two phases – Digital Brochureware and Online Sales Channel.

In the mid-90s, companies mostly used their website as a place where potential customers could get more information, almost like an online brochure that made it easier for visitors to know what you have and what you do without having to hunt down a sales representative.

The next iteration of the web happened when companies started enabling their sites with eCommerce functionality, which was the next logical step; they now see what you have, let them buy something from you. A handful of brands led the way like Amazon and eBay and revolutionized online shopping; while others cling to their brick-and-mortar only strategy and have yet to develop an online sales channel. Perhaps their hesitation is due to regulatory reasons, but often it’s the hefty price tag of the necessary software to do it right that many shy away from, which is why Beacon recommends using BeCommerce.NET, our branded version of the AspDotNetStorefront for an eCommerce solution. Completely search engine friendly, BeCommerce.NET provides all the latest features, bells and whistles and integrates nicely with third party software like accounting systems, inventory control systems and in-site search. Depending on the cost of your products and/or services just a few online sales can justify your investment into this type of long term technology.

Lecinski recommends that companies only enter the third phase with social media sites, an initiative he dubbed “Creating a Community for Self-expression and Entertainment,” after they’ve focused on their financial goals first by offering the ease of doing business on the Web. Because no matter how exciting it is to have diverse groups of people engage with your brand and insert it into their daily fodder, you want and/or need to sell something, right?

According to a recent Luxury Vehicle study conducted by Google, customer conversion on the Web was 23 percent more likely if the dealer targeted clientele with pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, i.e. paid placement on search but also utilized the power of boosting organic rankings. I have yet to hear of a Twitter campaign that resulted in that type of sales increase, although any online marketing tactic from email blasts to links into your site from Facebook can be tracked if your site is properly configured for Google Analytics. The lesson here is not to be blinded by the hype so that you replace your paid online advertising budget in your marketing plan with monies for social media efforts. Just have all your “fishing lures” working together and then use Google Analytics to gauge your plan’s total effectiveness based on online conversions, sales and in the case of some of our SEM clients, more foot traffic into stores.

And once you start thinking across sales channels, i.e. using the Web to drive traffic into stores and/or tracking traditional marketing success via vanity URLs, you enter into a league with best-in-class retailers who can access a single view of all customer data whether it comes from eCommerce, stores or call centers – everything is integrated in one database. Having this high level view paints a truer picture of brand engagement which will allow your company the opportunity to segment your multiple channel customers which are often your most valuable consumer group.

So don’t settle for tweets and chatter only, follow steps 1-2-3, focus on the right business decisions first and you’ll reap the financial rewards – contact Beacon to find out more about BeCommerce.NET, Google Analytics, email marketing campaigns and PPC.