Tag Archives: Akron

About 1844 days ago Blogging and Social Media

From Blogs to Online Communities

our beautiful site

During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, you heard a lot about the “three Cs”: content, community, and commerce.  It was thought that by creating websites with a balance of all three, you had a formula for success. Then came the dot-com bust and few people had the stomach to talk about three pillars for getting rich online. Once high-flying companies were having a hard enough time just staying afloat. For a number of years the concept of “community” seemed to take the back burner. It never really went away — people just didn’t talk about community as much.   During the early part of this century, larger corporations tended to focus on commerce, i.e., building out large e-commerce stores online. For entrepreneurs and smaller businesses, much of the focus in the first decade of the new millennium was placed on (1) getting a website up and running, and (2) leveraging blogs.  Blogs are cheap, easy to set up, and within the ability of most people to write them.  No wonder they became so popular with small biz.  Blogging, of course, is largely about writing.  For bloggers, the mantra soon became “content is king.” There certainly is truth to that phrase.  Being found in the search engines starts with having relevant keyword-rich content.  Fresh content also helps draw the interest of readers and keeps them coming back. Fast forward to 2008.  An interesting trend is growing:  the buzz phrase of building “community” is back in fashion.  Community as part of a Web strategy is once again hot. What community is According to Forrester Research, “An online community is an interactive group of people joined together by a common interest. It’s also one of the most powerful tools a marketer can deploy for customer retention, word of mouth, and customer insight.”  Jeremiah Owyang, of Forrester, notes that community is related to content and commerce.  He has published his community presentation on his blog.  Content is part of community — that much is clear.  But perhaps the distinction is that content today is not so much about one-way content being pushed out to the public.  Rather, it’s about two-way conversations.  That’s key to a community — that ability for people to participate and feel involved. Sage Lewis, a search engine optimization expert from Akron, Ohio and principal of SageRock, defines it for small businesses on a more basic level in a recent video.  Community involves personal relationships and people, he notes.  “It’s not all about technology.  It’s all about people.  The point is, why would people want to come?  What’s in it for the visitors?” Lewis says. “We’re talking about very personal feelings, very personal topics.” What business can accomplish with community So why the growing emphasis on community?  Let me focus just on small businesses and offer three observations about big changes occurring on the Web that are driving this emphasis on community.  First, there are just more blogs today — and more competition.  It’s tough for small businesses to compete with so many blogs and so much choice.  We small business owners are realizing that it takes more than interesting articles to retain the attention of an audience.  People need to feel involved. Second, search engines, especially Google, are not a reliable source of traffic.  Search engines are constantly indexing new pages and constantly shifting rankings.  It used to be that you could achieve a ranking for a search term and maintain that for some time.  Now it’s harder to maintain that great ranking, even with a blog.  Small business owners are starting to feel at the mercy of search engines, and don’t like it.  Reduce your reliance on Google is now a growing chorus.  One way to do that is to build your own community of loyal followers so that you are not at the mercy of Google for your online success. Third, small businesses and entrepreneurs recognize the upside of developing relationships.  After all, most small businesses get the majority of their business through referrals and word of mouth.  As more of our networking activity shifts online from offline, we see that we CAN create relationships online and that they lead to more business.  “Community” is no longer some theoretical concept. Community is real and it can grow your business.  Shouldn’t you be thinking about community? Anita Campbell is a writer, speaker and radio talk show host who closely follows trends in the small business market at her site, Small Business Trends.

About 1844 days ago E-Commerce

From Blogs to Online Communities

our beautiful site

During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, you heard a lot about the “three Cs”: content, community, and commerce.  It was thought that by creating websites with a balance of all three, you had a formula for success. Then came the dot-com bust and few people had the stomach to talk about three pillars for getting rich online. Once high-flying companies were having a hard enough time just staying afloat. For a number of years the concept of “community” seemed to take the back burner. It never really went away — people just didn’t talk about community as much.   During the early part of this century, larger corporations tended to focus on commerce, i.e., building out large e-commerce stores online. For entrepreneurs and smaller businesses, much of the focus in the first decade of the new millennium was placed on (1) getting a website up and running, and (2) leveraging blogs.  Blogs are cheap, easy to set up, and within the ability of most people to write them.  No wonder they became so popular with small biz.  Blogging, of course, is largely about writing.  For bloggers, the mantra soon became “content is king.” There certainly is truth to that phrase.  Being found in the search engines starts with having relevant keyword-rich content.  Fresh content also helps draw the interest of readers and keeps them coming back. Fast forward to 2008.  An interesting trend is growing:  the buzz phrase of building “community” is back in fashion.  Community as part of a Web strategy is once again hot. What community is According to Forrester Research, “An online community is an interactive group of people joined together by a common interest. It’s also one of the most powerful tools a marketer can deploy for customer retention, word of mouth, and customer insight.”  Jeremiah Owyang, of Forrester, notes that community is related to content and commerce.  He has published his community presentation on his blog.  Content is part of community — that much is clear.  But perhaps the distinction is that content today is not so much about one-way content being pushed out to the public.  Rather, it’s about two-way conversations.  That’s key to a community — that ability for people to participate and feel involved. Sage Lewis, a search engine optimization expert from Akron, Ohio and principal of SageRock, defines it for small businesses on a more basic level in a recent video.  Community involves personal relationships and people, he notes.  “It’s not all about technology.  It’s all about people.  The point is, why would people want to come?  What’s in it for the visitors?” Lewis says. “We’re talking about very personal feelings, very personal topics.” What business can accomplish with community So why the growing emphasis on community?  Let me focus just on small businesses and offer three observations about big changes occurring on the Web that are driving this emphasis on community.  First, there are just more blogs today — and more competition.  It’s tough for small businesses to compete with so many blogs and so much choice.  We small business owners are realizing that it takes more than interesting articles to retain the attention of an audience.  People need to feel involved. Second, search engines, especially Google, are not a reliable source of traffic.  Search engines are constantly indexing new pages and constantly shifting rankings.  It used to be that you could achieve a ranking for a search term and maintain that for some time.  Now it’s harder to maintain that great ranking, even with a blog.  Small business owners are starting to feel at the mercy of search engines, and don’t like it.  Reduce your reliance on Google is now a growing chorus.  One way to do that is to build your own community of loyal followers so that you are not at the mercy of Google for your online success. Third, small businesses and entrepreneurs recognize the upside of developing relationships.  After all, most small businesses get the majority of their business through referrals and word of mouth.  As more of our networking activity shifts online from offline, we see that we CAN create relationships online and that they lead to more business.  “Community” is no longer some theoretical concept. Community is real and it can grow your business.  Shouldn’t you be thinking about community? Anita Campbell is a writer, speaker and radio talk show host who closely follows trends in the small business market at her site, Small Business Trends.

About 2118 days ago E-Commerce

Can Digg and MySpace Be for Business?

our beautiful site

Websites like Digg and MySpace get millions of visitors and have the power to drive traffic – sometimes large amounts of traffic. The social networking phenomenon has engaged millions of people to interact, link together, and share information. While this tool has primarily been focused on social aspects of networking, there are an increasing number of sites that focus on networking for businesses purposes. And that brings us to the next iteration of social networking: Can it be of value in driving customers to small and mid-size businesses outside of traditional channels, such as advertising and marketing? In order to find answers to this question of whether social networking has any value to small business, I recently caught up with Geoff Karcher, CEO of the Karcher Group, a search engine marketing firm, at the recent Search Made Simple conference that his firm hosted in Akron, Ohio. While Karcher acknowledged the lure of social engineering for driving business, he emphasized that there are also pitfalls. Unless your business has a clear social networking strategy in mind and the social networking sites you choose fit your target market, you could waste a lot of time and money.   “Don’t start participating in sites like Digg and MySpace just because everyone else is doing it,” he says. But there are businesses that can benefit from networking — and all small businesses can benefit from a greater understanding of this technology trend. Karcher had some great advice when I interviewed him. I asked him three simple questions and here are his answers IncTechnology: Digg and MySpace can drive large amounts of traffic. What’s wrong with that? Karcher:  With any online search strategy, you have to keep your eye on the ball.  It’s not about traffic.  It’s about conversions and sales.  Ask yourself:  Are the people who visit a typical small business website from a Digg link or who visit a business MySpace page likely to become customers?  If so, then it could be a winning strategy for your company.  But if you think the person who arrives from Digg is not likely to ever visit again, take a long hard look at why you are devoting time and energy to Digg.  Since most small businesses have limited resources, you may find your limited time and money can be better spent elsewhere. IncTechnology:  Is there any type of business that could benefit from the social networking sites?  Karcher:  Certainly.  For instance, we have seen musicians who are able to drive sales, newsletter signups, and other meaningful actions from a MySpace page.  But for something like MySpace, you have to have the type of business that appeals to the typical MySpace demographic of younger people. Sometimes there is a residual benefit through the search engine results from participating in social media.  For instance, a Digg entry that points to an article on your site may be highly ranked in the search engines.  It could result in traffic being directed to your site. IncTechnology: What should business owners focus on, if not on social networking sites? Karcher: I’m not saying that you should never use social networking sites.  Sometimes they can be an effective part of an overall strategy.  But if you run a small business and have limited time and money, I suggest crawling before you try to run.  Focus on four fundamentals: Natural search optimization. Paid search campaigns. E-mail marketing. Blogging. These four areas will bring small businesses the best return for the effort.  And they stand the test of time. Social networking, according to the experts So there you have it. An assessment of this new trend and its usefulness for small business from the mouth of an expert. As with most efforts to build your business, he advises that you don’t look for shortcuts.  There’s no substitute for focusing on the fundamentals. Don’t rush into the latest new Web technology — such as social networking or social media — without first developing an overall plan of attack. Anita Campbell is a writer, speaker and radio talk show host who closely follows trends in the small business market at her site, Small Business Trends.