Social media is one of the fastest evolving technologies on the web today. In fact, as I’m writing this, Facebook is getting ready to announce yet another Privacy Policy change. Keeping up with the changes and advancements on Facebook can be very time consuming; on top of the time it takes to develop a strategy for social media marketing, then there are the actual social interactions, and of course you still have to do your day-to-day work for your company. It’s enough to make your head spin! This is why so many businesses decide to turn to social media professionals for consulting and profile management.

But for the do-it-yourselfers, there are several resources out there that can help you keep up with the rapidly changing world of social media. First, start reading some popular industry blogs such as Mashable, The Facebook Blog, ValleyWag, and AdWeek. Some of these blogs don’t just cover social media topics so another time-saving tip is to subscribe to each blog’s RSS Feed in a news reader, like Google Reader, so you can quickly scan the latest posts from each blog and only read the articles that are of interest to you. You also save time by not having to visit each website or blog that you want to follow. If you are using Google Reader, you can take this one step further by setting up Google Alerts for keywords like “Facebook update”, “Facebook change”, “Facebook policy”, etc. to instantly receive access to all articles on the web that mention these phrases, without leaving your Google Reader. Another way to keep up on the latest Facebook and social media news is to follow these industry blogs and other social media professionals on Twitter. Think of Twitter as a modern-day news wire and use it to stay on top of what’s happening in social media.

We want to hear from you! How do you stay on top of the latest social media changes and strategies?

I started using Facebook a few months ago to promote my company. Just when I thought I had a grasp on how my Page worked, Facebook changed “Become A Fan” to “Like” and now I’m seeing a new Like button on other websites after I had already integrated the Fan Box and Share buttons on my website. Now I’m confused, what’s the difference between a Fan and a Like? Should I add this new Like button to my website too?

The recent Facebook Page change from Fan to Like really has no impact on how your Page works, how you grow your Page’s audience, or how you interact on your Page. However, this does tie-in to the other change you mentioned– the new Like button. Basically, Facebook wanted to create a universal action that users can execute in Facebook and on any website outside of Facebook. So now instead of someone becoming a Fan of your Page, they Like it, but after that everything else works the same (for now). Even after this change, Page owners are still referring to their audience as Fans because what else are you going to call them? Likers? I’m guessing that the transition to Like will take some time so for now don’t worry about addressing your audience as Fans in your promotions and communications.

I do recommend adding the new Like button to your website, but first you should understand the difference between this new button and the old Share button so you can determine if it makes since to add Like to your site. There are two main things that differentiate the Like and Share buttons– 1) What each action means on Facebook, and 2) How each action shows up in a users profile on Facebook.

Share is still an action that allows a user to automatically share information on their Facebook Wall. The shared information still includes a link to the original source, a brief description about the content, and usually a thumbnail image or video. However, with the introduction of the new Like button, the meaning of the Share action has changed slightly. Share used to imply that you liked whatever you were sharing or that you just thought it was interesting enough to share with your Friends (maybe because you strongly disliked the information or you just wanted to start a conversion about the content). But now if you read something on website that you like, you have the choice to Like it or Share it. The new Like button lets a user make it clear that they like the content they have found on a website while Share is still a somewhat ambiguous action. Although the new Like button action sends a stronger message about the users feelings about the content they are sharing, the Like action does not generate as much detail about the content on the users Wall. Unlike the Share action, the Like action appears as a message on the Wall that simply says “Joe Smith likes Keeping Up With Facebook on The Pomerantz Agency Blog” with a link to the original content but there is no description of the content or a preview image. So with the Like action it’s a stronger vote of opinion about the content but less information about the content appears on the user’s Wall. With the Share action, the user isn’t necessarily telling their Friends that they like, or dislike, the content but more information about the original content appears on Facebook.

We want to hear from you! Send your toughest marketing questions to thecoach@pomagency.com.

I want to pass the feeling that I get from this song on to you and your business. The last year and half has been tough for most businesses. Many have gone into their shells like turtles, hiding out until it’s safe to show their faces.

Well, I gotta feeling that things are looking up for the economy and business overall. I see businesses every day that are pumped up and ready to get out there and go after it. They’re taking a hard look at their market positioning and determining if there are ways they can make themselves more relevant in today’s world. They’re getting real about their web presences and realizing that they need to do what it takes to have a stronger site that is search engine friendly. They may not get what search engine marketing is all about but they know they can’t bury their heads in the sand about it anymore because their competitors are showing up and they are not.

Yeah, I realize that our economy is complicated and one thing impacts another and so on. But Americans are resilient people and we get bored sitting around waiting for the sky to fall so we start coming up with new ideas and ultimately roll up our sleeves and get busy. This is what I am seeing every day with companies all over the country. They’re gearing up to kick some serious booty.

What’s it going to take for you to “get the feeling” that things are going to be good for your business? I say do whatever it takes to wake this feeling up because chances are, your competition is already feeling it.

While we’re all eager to make the sale, there is a courtship that must take place between us and our prospective new client. And, it all begins with a first date. The question is: how do you score the first date?

It’s not so easy these days. I’ve talked to agency veterans that remember the old days of wining and dining prospective clients in order to build relationships with them. It was a good way to get to know each other and, let’s face it, most people are going to take a liking to someone that is eager to treat them well. We all like to be wooed.

I’ve thought about this first date idea a lot in my own sales process. When I connect with prospective clients at networking events or even on the phone or email, I ask about their company, their role, their challenges and their goals. I try to be a really good listener and reflect things back to them so they know I get what they are saying. I spend about 90% of the time listening to them and 10% telling them what my company can do for them. Then when I ask for the first date, more often than not, they’re amenable to it because they felt “heard” in their communication with me. Who isn’t going to want more of that feeling?!

So the next time you’re reaching out to a prospective customer, instead of being overeager to tell them all about your wonderful products or services, take an interest in them. Be patient. Listen. Make them feel heard. Then, ask for the first date. You will find that this approach works wonders.

Here’s the short answer to your question: dialing for dollars doesn’t work.

Think about it. How often do you actually answer your phone at work? Be honest. Don’t you let it roll into voice mail more often than not? And, if you do answer it, don’t you want to ring the person’s neck if they’re a sales call? I know I do. Once in a while, I’ll be nice but mostly I find them to be a big annoyance.

Now with this said, there is a place for the telephone as a part of your integrated lead generation mix. Note the word “integrated”. It is key for success. Here’s a brief summary of how integrated lead generation works:

1. Make sure you have a targeted list of suspects that fit the criteria of your ideal customer. If you don’t have a list, get one. Do research on the Internet. Use a database service like Hoovers.com. The best lists are the ones that are built from scratch. It’s not easy — especially finding email addresses — but it works.

2. Know your audience’s pain points and address them. Why should your target audience give you the time of day? What problem(s) are you going to solve for them better than anyone else can?

2. Define your goal. What do you want from your target audience? While we would all like a signed contract upon hello, it’s not reality. Do you want a meeting? A call? Do you want them to attend an event? Be clear about the outcome that you want.

3. Once you know your goal, you need to figure out what you’re willing to give to get. You need to give something of value — especially these days. Is it a whitepaper about your product? A case study? Some sort of complimentary evaluation? You need to figure out a way to prove yourself.

4. Now you’re ready to get busy. Craft a series of three or so emails that you can customize with the recipient’s name and company name. Keep your subject lines simple. Have the content of the emails build upon one another. Hit your pain points. You can send the emails using an e-marketing tool so that many can be sent at one time but use an all-text, simple format. Simple is better.

5. Ideally, link to a page within your website that also includes a form where the recipient can review more information and respond to your request.

6. Between emails, leave a voice mail or two. Keep these simple and not annoying. Tie your message into the same messaging you’re using in your emails. Maybe you’ll even get lucky and land an actual, live person. If you do, you’ll have something of substance to say to them and something to give so you’ll be in good shape.

7. The ultimate key to success is mixing it up. No one thing works better than another but it all works better together — much better than dialing for dollars.

If you’re inspired by what you’ve just read but can’t fathom doing all of this yourself, learn more about Pomerantz’s Lead Generation Services. We’ll do all of this for you…and more.

And while business has gone on thanks to conference calls and email (if you had power), if you happened to be a company that had some of your biggest business-driving events in the last week, you are out of luck— big time. It turns out this was the situation for one of our clients. They had not one but four events scheduled within the last week. All four have a proven track record of bringing in new business. All four were cancelled. Needless to say, they are bummed.

We learned about this because we had a conference call with them yesterday to discuss the plan for revamping their website, optimizing it from top to bottom and getting a program in place to use all of the tools that are now available to transform their site into the lead generation machine it’s meant to be. They are committed to this project and the philosophy behind it like never before. They see the value in investing in their website and using it as the hub of their marketing strategy.  Even when it snows four or five feet within a four-day period and they can’t get out to fill their sales pipeline the way they know it needs to be filled, they will be able to count on their website to reach out and bring them leads. Maybe there needs to be a creed for the Internet now. Hmmm.

But the logo exercise actually was easy compared to designing our new website. This required us to dig deep because we had just brought on a new Internet Marketing specialist to our team and needed our positioning to be more focused on this arena but we also didn’t want to lose the reputation we have built as an award-winning creative shop. Needless to say, we figured it out because, well, we always do. We have to.

Next, we needed to “act like a client” to Amanda, our new Internet Marketing specialist, so we could learn the ropes of what is involved in optimizing a site properly in order to sell the services and to do right by our website. Amanda had the patience of a saint (one of the reasons she’s a good match for us and our clients) and she took us through the process step by step. We reviewed our current analytics to understand them the best we could. We weren’t using Google Analytics at the time so they were kind of a mess. We poured over lists of keywords to identify the ones that best fit the strategic direction of our agency. We looked at our competitors’ keywords. We learned about site wide optimization, on page optimization, pay per click campaigns and how to use Google Analytics to guide our online and offline marketing efforts. We also learned about social media communications including Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter and blogging and how they fit in the marketing mix. It was a total immersion in web marketing because we used our new site as the learning tool.

Now, several months later, we get leads off our website on a weekly basis – much more than ever before. It’s a very satisfying feeling. Amanda and I work together regularly to “feed the machine”. This is really what it takes in today’s business environment. Your website has the power to be an incredible business-driving machine for your business but putting all of the pieces together requires dedicated people with the right skill sets and insight into the systems and processes for keeping things running.

So, if a marketing person that is in the trenches doing this stuff everyday tells you it’s not easy, it’s really not. If I were you, I’d outsource it to someone like us.

For decades, business owners and marketing professionals have had to rely on some pretty unreliable sources to determine the success of a marketing campaign. Guestimates, gut instincts, and the always reliable answers to “How did you hear about us?” were usually the best we could do. Today, with the accessibility and affordability of website analytics tools, those days are long gone.

At Pomerantz, we strongly believe that a website is the hub of all marketing strategy; it’s the being that supports your sales and marketing efforts. So if you have a website, it doesn’t matter what type of marketing campaign you are initiating– email, direct mail, social media, print, pay-per-click, banner advertising– everything and anything can and should be measured. Tracking campaigns using an analytics tool, such as Google Analytics, will give you insight into each marketing campaign’s impact on leads, revenue and ROI, as well as the ability to compare the results of different marketing activities to determine where you are getting the most bang for your buck. You will be able to determine which campaigns send the most qualified visitors to your website, assess campaign performance by product or region, discover if new visitors or returning visitors convert more often, and predict future outcomes.

Unless all you care about is website traffic, which hopefully is not the case, the catch is that you can’t track the effectiveness of your marketing strategies if you don’t use analytics goals. A goal, or conversion, is any action that you desire a visitor to your website to take, such as filling out a contact form or completing a transaction. You could have one goal or many goals, it’s up to you. Once you establish your goal(s) and set them up to be tracked in your analytics application, you can start tracking the conversions generated by your marketing efforts.

Here’s an example of how to integrate analytics and goal tracking with a marketing campaign:

Company A launches a marketing campaign consisting of direct mail and email marketing. All pieces drive recipients to a microsite specifically dedicated to the campaign which has the conversion point front and center on the home page of the microsite and on all interior pages on the site. Google Analytics works behind the scenes on this campaign to track visitor behavior and the data obtained allows Company A (or their marketing agency) to quickly determine the success of the campaign and gain insights to help finesse the strategy for future purposes.

The bottom line is– you should not run a marketing campaign without being able to understand and evaluate its success and learn from the results. Take the guesswork out of marketing and let data drive your strategies. Google Analytics is free so there is absolutely no reason not to!

Dear Marketing Coach,

I’m considering search engine optimization for my website, but I’m not sure if it’s something that is really worth spending money on. Can you tell me what kind of results should I expect and how long it will take before I see the effects of SEO?

When it comes to search engine optimization, exact results can vary greatly, which is why so many business owners have a hard time justifying the cost of SEO services amidst budget cuts and company lay offs. However, if your website hasn’t already been optimized then you should expect to see an improvement in the quality of traffic you receive (which can be measured by an increase in qualified leads or sales), an increase in traffic from search engines, or if you hired a skilled SEO professional you will hopefully get both. Although exact results may vary, SEO campaigns can be measured for success using an analytics tool so it is pretty easy to determine the return on your investment, which we all know is what matters most.

Keep in mind that there are a few things you can do to contribute to the success of your SEO efforts. First off, SEO should be seen as a long-term investment in your business and not as something you do once and then you don’t have to worry about it again. Even if your budget doesn’t support a full-blown SEO campaign, it is a good idea to come up with a 6-12 month SEO plan in order to achieve your goals. With SEO, best results are obtained by first optimizing your website and then focusing on off-page optimization, such as link building, and content creation, which should be done on an ongoing basis as part of your marketing efforts. It is also important that you set proper expectations because SEO results don’t happen overnight. Depending on the competition surrounding your target keywords, and how well your site was doing in the search engines before you started your SEO campaign, it can take more than 6 months before you see a significant increase in search engine rankings. But don’t despair, you should start to see some initial results within a month. But if you are really eager to get a boost in traffic, consider launching a pay-per-click campaign while you are waiting for your SEO efforts to kick in gear.

Do you have a question for the Marketing Coach? Go ahead, just ask! Email thecoach@pomagency.com or leave a comment to have all of your marketing questions answered.

How is a website optimized to make it “search engine-friendly”?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a website from search engines. This process focuses on 3 main areas of optimization: On-Page, Site-Wide, and Off-Page. When a website is optimized to make it more “search engine-friendly”, the focus is strictly on the On-Page and Site-Wide optimization, meaning the SEO enhancements are made to the actual website. Other external factors also influence search engine traffic and rankings, which is when Off-Page optimization comes into play.

On-Page and Site-Wide optimization techniques ensure that your website is fully accessible to search engine robots so your web pages can be rapidly indexed and appropriately ranked. On-Page optimization concentrates on improving the “search engine-friendliness” of a specific web page whereas Site-Wide optimization addresses the more technical issues that affect the entire website. On-Page optimization includes writing keyword-rich page titles and meta tags for every web page, adding keywords to the content on the site, and weaving hyperlinks throughout the content to link to other internal web pages. Site-Wide optimization identifies and resolves issues with site maps, 404 error pages, page URLs, directory structure and file naming systems.

If your website doesn’t use proper On-Page or Site-Wide optimization tactics, then search engines probably won’t be able to find all of the content on your website. This can result in your site missing out on opportunities to show up in search engine results, which limits your site’s exposure to potential customers on the web.

Do you have a question for the Marketing Coach? Go ahead, just ask! Email thecoach@pomagency.com or leave a comment to have all of your marketing questions answered.