We all know the old saying “If you’re failing to plan, you’re planning to fail”. And we know it’s true, right? My own experience has proved that the

best way to MAKE things happen—versus just hoping they will—is to know where you are now and where you want to go, then make a plan to get there.

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A lot of small business owners are thinking about social media marketing, but are not sure if or how to do it. A lot of them have heard about how Twitter tipped the balance in the last US election. But many business owners still are not sure.

Yesterday I was meeting with a group of SOHO entrepreneurs. To give you an idea of the crowd, there was…

• A local real estate agent
• A local gift catalogue agent (who can sell across Canada)
• A virtual assistant (Drop me a line if you want her contact info)
• A local mortgage broker
• A local home decorator/renovator

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Let’s just cut to the chase. The great bailout debate has no definitive answers for anyone. Some say it rewards bad behavior while others say it has to happen for us to continue. If you so desire, you can find support for either side then you can engage in spirited and ultimately pointless debate about the merits of your choice. Sounds like a colossal waste of time and energy doesn’t it? It is, so don’t do it.

Instead learn something today. Since the talk around Frank Thinking is about Internet marketing I always encourage people to educate themselves as much as possible regarding this important business discipline. Why do I keep harping on this? Because it’s important for anyone who owns a business, has responsibility for marketing in a company or anyone who is claiming to be an expert in the field to know more than just buzzwords. Here are some thoughts on why.

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Obviously you need web conferencing software to run your webinar. And it’s possible that your audio conferencing company provides an online interface to manage the telephone conference. But what other software applications might make it into your virtual toolkit for working with webinars? Here are a few that I have found useful in various situations.

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The Google Analytics blog has put together an excellent post detailing how and when to use custom reports within Google Analytics. The post includes report definitions, metrics that can be used within the custom reports, and how to share your custom reports. Here’s a few snippets from their blog. (more…)

An interesting post from Small Business SEM shows that overall, local search queries have been on the rise in both volume and frequency. The fact is that more people are now performing local based searches and interacting with local businesses online.

The first chart shows that local web searches have experienced a 76% increase from around March 2007 to Feb 08.

The second graph shows that local searches are also being performed more frequently, with the number of local searches per searcher also on the rise: (more…)

There are a number of reasons why any company should consider blogging. The social media opportunities, networking opportunities and ability to enhance brand reputation are all compelling reasons to participate in blogging. Often times however, these benefits are hard to quantify in a way that illustrates the ROI that is achieved through blogging. Fortunately, blogging is also one of the best available tools to improve your SEO campaign if leveraged properly. Therefore, it is much easier to justify the expense of blogging when one can show the direct SEO benefit to the Web site because search activity is much easier to tie to ROI than brand management or even social media in many cases. Here are the 3 of the top ways that you can use your blog to enhance your SEO campaign: (more…)

OK, that title seems a little redundant, right? I mean, LinkedIn is a business networking site. However, a lot of people sign up for LinkedIn but never use it beyond occasionally accepting someone’s invitation to join their network. This article is a quick overview of how to leverage LinkedIn to grow your business.

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Fact - too many businesses still need to wake up and realize that social media is not “one of these Internet fads” that will disappear. Fact - because of this mindset, too many businesses are potentially missing out on extra business that could mean the difference between staying afloat and going under. So why the problem?

One of the main reasons is that businesses - whether it’s the CEO, top-tier management or otherwise - are looking at social media as another campaign, much like PR or marketing. This is where the cracks start to appear. Because social media ROI can’t be measured in the way that an advertising or marketing campaign can be, results are looked at in the wrong way.

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I always like it when someone poses the ROI question in discussions about the social web - ‘What’s the return?’.  Recently, I have found myself responding by asking, ‘Compared with what?’. 

This may sound like a clever-clever response but it isn’t meant to be.  There has long been a sense of what different aspects of the marketing mix are good at.  PR is good at explaining complicated messages but its value is really difficult to quantify.  (more…)