Why You Need A Website Part II [Toon]

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Thanks for all of your feedback to my previous commentary about how the Yellow Pages are about to be completely replaced by the Internet. I received both kudos and jeers for the post, the jeers mainly coming from those of you who are already wired and think the conclusion was a “so what”.

While I also think it’s a no-brainer that this is happening before our eyes, there are many, many of us who still think the old way works! As suprising as that might be, it’s a reality, hence the post.

Today I came across the following comic / toon on the Hubspot site and simply had to share. Good stuff Hubspot, keep up the great work.

Internet vs. Phone Book

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A Note on Authenticity and Social Media

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Last week at the #BASHH (Big Ass Social Happy Hour) event that helped kick off South By Southwest Interactive 2011, I had an interesting conversation with Wesley Faulkner about authenticity.

I’ve read Wesley’s blog for a while now, and he covers some rather interesting topics on there. He has done everything from commenting on new mobile technologies, to interviewing the leadership at Klout, to commenting on his personal interactions with folks he meets online.

One refreshing thing about Wesley is that he aspires to be authentic at all times, through all mediums including in-person. We chatted briefly about this very topic, and both agreed that authenticity is the most important thing you can do to establish and sustain trust online. You have to be yourself at all costs.

Unfortunately, not everyone you encounter online is truly who you would expect once you meet them IRL.

Zappos – Authentic or Not?

Give a read to his blog post that documents his experience at a Zappos event in October. Zappos CEO Tony Hseih himself was presenting, so Wesley was excited to get a chance to hear him first hand. What followed was disappointment.

Most apparently, Mr. Hseih was nowhere near the energetic enthusiast he appeared to be online. Of course, a book tour can take a lot out of you. So Wesley introduced himself and commented about a Twitter conversation he had had recently with Tony. He then met Tony’s “stand-in”, Mimi, and began to question the authenticity of the whole operation.

Tony Hseih of Zappo's

Why Authenticity Is So Critical

Wesley’s blog post is important, but not because it calls out Zappos or Tony Hseih.

This is important because it turns the equation around completely. It gives us the view from the other side – showing how it feels to meet someone who is nowhere near what you expect of them after seeing them online.

For a thought leader whose message relies on the concepts of pursuing happiness and engaging with customers, it is crucial to “walk the walk”. Be who you say you are, right? But it gets worse…especially when you learn that they don’t even manage their own Twitter account.

A Lesson in Authenticity

The problem with all of this jockeying is that is compromises the most important variable in the whole equation – trust.
It’s not just about whether we like you; it’s about whether we can count on you to be the same person when we read your book, follow your tweets, hire you to do a keynote speech, and come up to you in public to shake your hand.

How disappointing would it be to learn that one of your all time favorite books by one of your all time favorite thought leaders was actually written by a college intern or a freelance graduate student? That’s what it is like when you hire a ghost tweeter to “be authentic” for you, so you can focus on more important things.

Be who you are. All the time. You can’t hide behind a keyboard for the rest of your life, so get over yourself and be real.

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Who else has run into this problem? Let’s make this a group post! Add your own horror stories to the comments below. Feel free to sanitize the names and faces if you prefer, but share away!

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Privacy and Social Media: Something is Amiss

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Privacy has been a sizzling hot topic for social media users over the past couple of years. The various services and websites have all taken unique approaches to privacy, some catering more to the users, and others taking liberties to leave doors open for future business and revenue opportunities.

This week, two separate topics came to my attention, both related to privacy, and I absolutely felt it necessary to share and comment here on Return On Now.

Careful Who You “Friend”

Breaking news from Raw Story this week reported that the federal government has had “persona” software commissioned. This software is to be used for “classified social media activities.” Essentially, this software can allow a user / company / government to create small (or large) armies of “virtual personas”. To top it off, these virtual personas are not only generated, but built out with additional information like life/work/education history, and even faux geo-location information such as physical check-ins on location based services.

Now, I’m not one to throw stones before understanding the full story, but doesn’t this sound a bit concerning to you? Specific issues I have with this:

  1. This is an outright violation of privacy when used to collect information about social media users.
  2. Since social media is heavily influenced by activity, buzz, viral sharing, etc., this opens a door to manipulation of public opinion and even the very messages to which we are exposed.
  3. It’s just plain deceptive! [Y'know, the kind of stuff that would've resulted in detention in our school days.]

As concerning as this may be, we really have no way to respond except for using common sense. Don’t say anything on social media that you wouldn’t announce publicly. Exhibit control when reacting to emotional topics. And most importantly of all, only accept friend requests from people you actually know.

Facebook Friend Request from Barley Jang

Just this week, I got a friend request on Facebook from someone named Barley Jang. I’ve never heard of the name, they have no photo to show me who they are, and we have no friends in common…not a single one! In fact, after seeing the above article and receiving this request, Ms. Jang (or faux person extraordinaire, perhaps?) served as inspiration for this blog post. So at least there’s that.

But I’m still clicking “Not Now” on that one just to be safe. [Barley, if you are a real person, please reach out to me directly and I will happily eat my words.]

Petition to Google and Facebook

You may or may not be familiar with a group called Demand Progress, but you should most certainly be aware of their current hot button. Basically, Demand Progress runs online campaigns to raise awareness of what is going on in the “back room” of Congress, and helps the public get a voice in such activities.

Their current campaign is aimed at Google and Facebook. According to the website, both companies hand over personal data to the federal government for any legal request, but without ever even notifying the user of the request in the first place!

If you recall, Twitter stood firm about not revealing user information when the WikiLeaks fiasco came to a head. What did they do? After receiving the request, Twitter first contacted the users to notify them of it. Regardless of how the situation turns out, Julian Assange and the whole team at WikiLeaks had a fair chance to challenge the request before the data was handed over.

Don’t you want the same thing for your own personal data? It’s not about guilty or innocent, it’s about personal rights.

If you want to have your voice heard, sign the petition on the Demand Progress website today.

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Bid Management vs. Budget-Based SEM Platforms

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This week we bring to you another quality guest post, courtesy of my friend and colleague Gary Walker of Topside Media. I’ve already outlined my thoughts about Gary in a previous post, so I’ll leave it at that.

The following is actually an excerpt from a post he authored back in November. This hits on the high points of the original post. Thanks again to Gary for sharing his excellent work with Return On Now.

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In today’s post, I’m going to briefly compare and contrast two types of automated platforms: bid management platforms and budget based platforms. We’re going to stick to how they work and what they do (and don’t do), and [we will] avoid using company names [in the process].

What a bid management platform does

At the most basic level, a bid management platform helps automate bidding and some routine optimization and reporting tasks across multiple pay-per-click (PPC) advertising platforms. Think of these as tools that can help a person who already knows how search engine advertising works do it faster and save time on creating reports. While they can save time on routine tasks and reporting, however, bid management platforms do not perform the most complicated, but essential tasks: design robust campaigns and ad groups that align user intent with your company offering, write multiple versions of text ads, analyze and help fix conversion issues with your website, etc.

Further, some of these platforms will take a sizable bite out your budget, and require up to 5% of total spend every month just for using their online tool.

What a budget-based platform is all about

In contrast, on a budget-based platform, you tell the sales rep for the platform (or the many companies that use a private-label platform) how much money/budget you have to spend. This number is then plugged into your business category in their automated platform, and it combines traffic from multiple sources. At the end of the reporting period, you look back to see how many clicks, “web events”, phone calls, or other metrics you got in return for your money. From our point of view, a lot gets sacrificed so that this can be automated. Just one example of features lost: many of the custom geo-targeting features from Google AdWords.

Transparency, or lack of it

In bid management platforms, the cost to the search engine and the cost to the provider of the bid management tool is usually transparent.

In budget-based platforms, you are unlikely to know what percentage of your budget is spent on traffic and how much goes to commission or fees. Generally, though, the bite is a major one. Further, it may not be easy or even possible to determine how much traffic was search traffic, vs. how much was contextual or other types of traffic.

Some would argue that the results, i.e. how many calls or conversions and the associated cost, matter the most. To some extent, we agree with that point, as long as the numbers are the right ones, and they are in fact real. For example, it is also important to know how many clicks, calls, and emails come from the use of your company name as a keyword. Another key metric that is not easy to get is quality of incoming phone calls: how to filter out repeat calls, how many lasted more than one minute, etc.

(Note: if the two examples make it seem like we are splitting hairs, take a deeper look — results from your company name, duplicate calls, and short calls can each be 20% or more of the total.)

Use Automation Wisely

In reading this, you might assume that I am against automation. Far from it. I’m all for automation, so long as it [reduces] work or cost and does not compromise much quality of the process or results. For example, at TopSide, we recently automated two processes that, when done manually, take too much time and do not deliver added value to clients:

  1. Rather than manually testing the websites we advertise (to make sure pages load quickly), we now automatically “ping” these sites at more frequent intervals.
  2. We now have a reporting dashboard that automatically summarizes click, conversion, and other data from the search engines with data from our phone call tracking system.

Although these tools initially cost quite a bit to build, using them helps our clients, and it helps us too.

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If you would like to contact Gary directly to learn more about this topic or inquire about his services, contact Topside Media directly at 512-469-9935, or toll-free at 866-516-2301.

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Interview with Russ Somers of Invodo

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Russ Somers of InvodoHeading into 2011, I decided to shake things up a little bit here on Return On Now. Most of my topics have been national or global in nature. However, living in Austin, I’ve been rather active among the social media and marketing communities. So I decided to highlight some of the more interesting companies and people in town for others to get a little insight into what makes us “weirdos” tick.

My first taker was Russ Somers, the Director of Marketing for local video commerce startup Invodo. First, to familiarize you with the value proposition that Invodo offers, here is an excerpt from their What We Do page:

Invodo helps businesses sell more online through the power of video. We improve the way online retailers sell, brands communicate product value, and consumers shop.

This excerpt is very much in line with how Russ described the company to me (guess who managed website messaging?). During our discussion, however, Russ elaborated, “Our goal is to bring the visuals and the experience of a live retail environment to you via eCommerce. Since visuals are an an important component of that experience, video is the natural answer.”

Based on those two statements alone, you can start to imagine the possibilities of how the company’s services and technologies can really impact online sales. If you can’t see the product firsthand, how about a 3-D treatment that allows you to view from any angle? Or maybe a quick overview of the benefits and key features of the product? What if the speaker on the video just so happens to be part of the target demographic? I guess you can tell I think they are onto something here.

With a clear understanding of the offering, I was interested in hearing why Russ enjoys working at Invodo so much.

Cultural Intangibles

Russ outlined the company’s cultural mantras, and I must say, they were great! The leadership team is focused on creating careers for the employees, evangelizing the idea that this not merely a “stop” on your path to greatness. Specifically, he shared several key operating principles that the company stands for (paraphrased in my own words):

  • Customers First
  • Our Team Rocks
  • Humans Not Resources
  • Build an Amazing Company

My initial thought was, “What a company!” Of course, every great company finds a way to keep the customers happy. If that’s not part of the mission, the risk of failure is much higher, right? The rest of the concepts, though, are excellent. “Our Team Rocks” is about establishing pride and camaraderie among the employees. Some companies use the family analogy, but Invodo cuts straight to the point. Russ shared some nice stories about the whole team pitching in on all sorts of things in the early days (e.g. moving several large appliances over a weekend, where nearly everyone showed up to help).

I must say, though, “Humans, not resources” really piqued my interest. You see, I’ve always taken issue with the phrase “Human Resources”. The term is rather dehumanizing, grouping you and me together with things like computers, machinery, and materials used for manufacturing products. Invodo got it right…we’re all people who deserve equal respect regardless of position, experience, etc.

Cover of "Good to Great: Why Some Compani...

Cover via Amazon

Building a Great Company is something that all leadership teams want, but not all are able to sell properly to the entire company. The above mantras surely help set them

up for success with this objective, as does the fact that they encourage their employees to read the classic business book Good to Great. If you haven’t read it yourself, I strongly encourage you to do so.

Finally, Russ made it clear that the whole company embraces Austin as a city. “Quirky” was a word he used for something they consider a part of the company as well as the city. I must say, I’m in complete agreement!

After a nice walk through of Invodo, we delved into some other topics of interest.

Online vs. Offline vs. Mobile

I have very strong opinions about where I think the various mediums should interplay. When I asked Russ about his take, we generally agreed. Online will continue to be online, albeit with improvements such as the Invodo offering to help improve the experience. On the other hand, offline and mobile are due to merge in the future, at least partially if not completely. Geo-based social media services have opened a lot of doors that we are only beginning to peek through, and with the growing popularity of QR codes, you can now integrate all three touchpoints in new and different ways.

Social Media: Where Is It Heading?

In digging into one of my favorite topics, social media, I learned that Russ is truly “old school”. He was getting social on usenet groups before many of today’s adults were even exposed to the Internet! Heck, I’ve been online for years and he even beat me to it. Impressive, to say the least.

We both agreed that we are already in a period focused on content. The phrase “content economy” came up at least a couple of times. What does that mean? Ask Demand Media if you’re unsure of what to think. They’ve just lined up 151M reasons to believe in the content economy.

We discussed newcomer Quora briefly, and both agreed that it really needs some structure introduced into the experience. While it is great to get answers to questions from heavy hitters like Evan Williams of Twitter, finding it can be a challenge. I asked Russ if he thought a service like Quora might threaten blogging, and he didn’t buy it. His great analogy was that a blog is like your “home base”, while all the other social sites are great ways to extend the conversation. I must say, we were in complete agreement.

Conclusion

I really enjoyed the visit with Russ Somers. He had great insights and is a generally interesting guy. I wish both Russ and Invodo the best of luck in their ongoing endeavors.

Now a question for you – Who in Austin do you think would make a good interviewee for Return On Now? I already have quite a few folks in mind, but I want to hear from my readers directly. Thanks for reading!

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How To Add A Social Network To Your WordPress Blog

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The logo of the blogging software WordPress.

Image via Wikipedia

For those of you with whom I’m connected on Facebook or Twitter, you have likely noticed that I recently launched a new WordPress-based blog, the Fretless Bass Guitar Hub. The site is intended to serve as THE community for the fretless bass playing audience, and so far, response has been very positive.

I have always wanted to make it a true hub, a place where this audience can go to converse, read tips and tricks, learn about playing bass, read about some of the most impressive players in the world, etc. To achieve that vision, my initial thought was that it needed a forum. So off I went to investigate software packages and plug-ins for that purpose.

Of course, in that effort, BuddyPress quickly emerged as the front runner. Not only are a multitude of sites using it (and raving about it), but trusted colleagues who know WordPress even better than I do all pointed toward BuddyPress.

So I investigated, only to learn that it requires a “BuddyPress-ready template”. Guess what…mine is not. I picked this template carefully and am completely unwilling to move to a new layout, so suffice it to say “FAIL”!

Back to the Drawing Board

After realizing this was the case, I went back to the research mill. Several options appeared suitable (e.g. SimplePress, BBpress), but then I came across WP-Symposium. After reading the details about what it does, it almost seemed to good to be true.

The skeptical mind that I am, the next step was a trip to their website. There I perused user feedback, commentary about the beta software (they just pre-released it, which means that all features are tested and validated except for a couple of new alterations), and their support area for more information. Finally, I did a quick Google Search to see what other bloggers and forums were saying.

One thing was immediately clear – users were loving this plug-in. So I decided to give it a whirl.

Even Better Than Expected

As with most WordPress plug-ins, installation was a snap. To locate it from right within your Admin Control Panel, go to Plug-ins, click “Add New”, and search for “WP-Symposium”.

Once you install it, you’ll notice that there are actually several plug-ins to activate. One of the nice things about WP-Symposium is that the whole app is modular. You turn on the features you want.

Here are the modules that are available:

  1. WP-Symposium Core: required if you use any of the plug-ins
  2. Forum: in typical message board format
  3. Mail / Private Messaging: similar to the messaging features on Twitter or Facebook
  4. Notification Bar: global access to login and logout from any page on the site
  5. Members Directory: searchable directory of all site members
  6. Login: connects WP-Symposium login to the existing WordPress database and login system for single login
  7. Register: replaces the standard WordPress registration form with WP-Symposium version

In addition to all of these great features, you can also set up a custom profile page for users, adding or removing profile fields rather freely. Users can set their status similar to a tweet stream, as shown in the following screenshot.

Screenshot: WP-Symposium Profile Page on Fretless Bass Guitar Site

Did I mention that it offers extensive control over CSS (colors, fonts, etc) as well? Meaning, you can use ANY WordPress Theme and color scheme, and you should be able to find a look and feel that will work on your site. For those of us who are less technical, this plug-in is simply the best I’ve found for incorporating forums and other social networking features on your existing WordPress site and theme.

Summary

All-in-all, this plug-in has every one of the key features I would have put on my wish list for a basic social network. If you want to check it out for yourself, feel free to stop by the Fretless Bass Guitar Hub, or check with the WP-Symposium website for references to other sites to see how others are using it.

Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with WP-Symposium other than the fact I use it on my own blog. These opinions are mine and unaffected by compensation or other influences.

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Nonprofit Mobile Fundraising With Tech

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This week I offer you a great guest post by my friend and colleague Janet Fouts. She is very active in the online marketing for nonprofits area, and I thought it would be a great idea to interject another voice between local services businesses commentary.

Plain and simply, Janet “gets it”. If you need strategic advice or insight into anything related to social media, mobility, marketing, and related areas, she can help you. You can view her website at http://www.janetfouts.com.

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Hauling a credit card machine to a rally isn’t the best solution to collect funds in the field, so nonprofits have accepted checks or cash and probably missed a lot of transactions and new members to their cause. Technology for mobile transactions has taken a giant leap in the last couple of years though, and it’s a whole lot easier to sell merchandise at an event or accept donations on the fly. Here’s how.

The Square

The Square payment service is incredibly simple. You download the free application for Android, iPhone or even an iPad, set up your account and enter the sales and card information on your screen, have the user sign on the touch pad, send and you’re done. You can also use the card reader which attaches to the audio port of your device. Honestly it takes a little practice to swipe cards quickly, but once you get the hang of it, it’s simple and fast. Square takes 2.75% of the transaction for swiped cards plus a 15 cent transaction fee and the balance can be auto-deposited into your bank account. There is no set-up fee or monthly service fee involved.

Paypal

Paypal is dumping a lot of energy into mobile payments and at the Developers’ conference in October they announced an $8 million dollar round of funding was going to Appcelerator which helps developers build mobile applications. Currently iPhone and Android users can use Paypal Bump to transfer funds from one account to another. Simply tap the two phones together and enter the amount to send. Paypal also has a “pay by text” service which allows you to request or send money by simply texting the amount and the other person’s phone number to Paypal. Paypal’s fees are quite low, starting at 2.9%.

mGive

mGive is probably best known for raising over $37 million for Haiti in MTV’s “Hope for Haiti” campaign. mGive works with any phone that can send text messages. Register your non-profit and donors simply send a text message to make a mobile donation from their cell phone. Donation levels can be pre-set for ease of use. For example if you want to send a donation to the American Diabetes Association, just text “ACT” to “27722″ to donate $10. mGive has several pricing plans to choose from based on the number of outgoing messages and other services. Here’s the pricing.

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Are The Yellow Pages Obsolete?

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Yellow Pages: This Dinosaur Is About To Be Extinct

Yellow Pages: This Dinosaur Is About To Be Extinct

Following on my previous post, Local Services Businesses: Why You MUST Have a Web Presence, let’s take a few minutes to dig deeper into my assertion that the yellow pages are an unsustainable model for driving leads and business.

This topic applies differently to various business types. Many companies have already made the move to an online-heavy model (e.g. the travel industry). On the other hand, local services businesses can often still generate decent returns from this tactic. While that model has worked to date and may still have some value, the money spent on it could be used much more lucratively.

Massive Shift To Mobile Phone Use

Surely you have noticed the significant pace of adoption of mobile phones. According to Wikipedia, there is an active mobile phone in use for 91% of the US population (286M mobiles, 309M population). In many European and Asian countries, the ratio is even higher, suggesting that a subset of the population uses multiple cell phones. Clearly, you wouldn’t have two mobiles as well as a land line, so this also suggests a shift away from traditional telephone usage overall (or a complete leapfrog to mobile in traditionally technology-lagging markets).

This is not merely speculation, as USA Today reported a similar statistic last month. High points of the article included:

  1. At least a dozen states have abandoned production of white pages altogether
  2. Consumers have been disconnecting landlines at a rate of approximately 10% per year

Online is Displacing the Yellow Pages

There was a time when consumers decided they wanted a product, and then picked up the yellow pages to research who offers said class of products. In the pre-internet days, that was our only option other than asking our friends and coworkers for advice.

Now, we have a multitude of online resources in front of us. You can find listings of all businesses in any industry with a quick Google search or by looking at a directory. Heck, Google even puts the stuff in front of you that their algorithm suggests might be the best match for what you are seeking, and in real-time (via Google Instant)!

You can get on social media sites, forums, or other community venues to compare notes with others. You can read rankings and reviews, product feature documents, and freeform blog posts to learn what real people think about the product or service you’re seeking. Basically, you can manage all parts of the sales process yourself, and then make the purchase via the internet too if you please! Even for local services businesses.

Younger Generations Are Forcing the Issue

I’ve covered some of the generational gap issues between Baby Boomers, Generation X, and GenY / Millennials here on Return On Now. Those issues are even more noticeable when considered with this topic in mind.

We are currently in a major transitional period between generations. First, let’s look at the actual sizes of each group:

  1. Baby Boomers (born 1946 – 1964): 80M
  2. Generation X (born 1965 – 1983): 50M
  3. Generation Y (born 1983 – 1995): 80M

As you can see, Generation X is truly a “sandwich” generation, as many have come to call it. With 80M Baby Boomers and and equal 80M of GenY (sometimes referred to as “Echo Boomers”, as most of them are the children of Baby Boomers or early Generation X), the passing of the torch of adulthood will be a major event in our lifetimes.

Many Baby Boomers, who are closer to retirement than college, have managed to survive without the internet, cell phones, and other new technologies so far.  Generation X is beginning to drive the bus a lot more in business, and GenY is beginning to come into their own as adults.  There are big differences between the way each of these groups thinks, operates, and behaves.

Generation X has the highest percentage of college graduates and advanced degree earners in history. This generation watched what the Boomers did, incorporated a new way of thinking about and using technology, and accelerated the pace of innovation greatly. This group is delivering the technologies that create all the excitement in GenY, and most of those technologies are dependent on the internet to operate!

The Millennials are the first generation who would be hard-pressed to remember life without the internet and mobile phones. They want everything now, in a convenient fashion, and for it to be as easy as possible to do everything. They are more liberal minded and comfortable with relinquishing control. And they will be the majority of the population within 10-15 years.

Conclusion

The Yellow Pages may not yet be obsolete, but they are running on fumes. As Baby Boomers begin to retire and the younger generations begin to represent an even more significant percentage of the population, everything will move online.

If you are still depending on the Yellow Pages, enjoy it while it lasts. Because it won’t be long.

Local Services Businesses: Why You MUST Have a Web Presence

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Much of the material I’ve covered on here to date has focused on higher level concepts such as social media, marketing, public relations, entrepreneurship, etc. However, in recent discussions with local services businesses (electricians, auto mechanics, etc.), I learned than many of them do not truly understand the power of the internet over old contact methods such as the Yellow Pages.

Now, for those of us who are comfortable with and well versed in the online world, this may seem like a surprise. If you work in a high tech hardware or software company, a Fortune 2000 enterprise, or any profession that relies on the exchange of data or information, your business simply cannot operate without an online presence. But for local services businesses, the most common sources of leads mentioned to me were the phone book, word of mouth, and local advertising.

So, if these businesses are seeing success with the old school, tried and true methods, why am I insisting they go online?

Forget the Past; This is About Tomorrow

Sometimes, a change happens and we simply need to be on top of it. That’s what is happening now.

20 years ago, you could do everything in print. Word of mouth was offline, typically in the form of verbal referrals from one customer to another prospect. There was no simple way to scale this process, and most certainly no way to push yourself to the forefront of the yellow pages, except for buying premium space in the print publication. In the end, everything was based on purchasing ad space, and then hoping you did good enough work for your customers to pass along the word.

Now, there is a wellspring of opportunity before us. Your website can be set up and left to gather leads on your behalf. Potential customers are out there searching for the services that you do…when they are already ready to buy and interested. And those searches are moving online at an alarming rate, as evidenced by the financial difficulties we are seeing with many of the providers of business phone books / yellow pages.

You have the opportunity to help them fix whatever problem they have that suits your skill set. All you need to do is find a way to get in front of them at this important time.

What Does a Web Presence Give You?

The vast majority of these types of searches have already moved online. But Google is getting smart and starting to parse out search results based on where you are or where you want to find a service provider. There are a variety of ways to get your business listed in the local search results, and there are proven methods to move yourself to the first page of the rankings. That is where nearly all of the leads go – to the vendors who show up on page one.

The trick is not just to launch a website blindly and hope it works. If you go about that incorrectly, very few people will find the site without you providing them the URL. Considering this is a way to generate new business, that’s clearly not how you want it to work.

What you need is a properly structured and built website, with everything optimized for the search engines to place you among the top results in your locale. You need to be included in the right online services and directories. Other websites must link to you, but only the right websites with relevant content to your topic area or profession. And you need a supporting marketing strategy to harvest the leads from the website, nurture them along until ready to hire you, and close the deal.

Summary

This is the first in a series of posts I will be authoring, all focused on the opportunity available today for local services businesses. In this series, I will dig into many of the topics that need to be addressed in detail to get this right. Bookmark Return On Now today (or sign up for the RSS or email list), and come back to follow along with the series as it plays out.

I am also available to help you implement the strategies I’m about to lay out for you. If you want to investigate working together, please contact me directly via email: tommy (at) returnonnow (dot) com.

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10 Reasons to Give Thanks

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Thanks a million!2010 has been quite a year so far, with its fair share of good developments, curve balls, and surprises. I’ve been a bit spotty on updating Return On Now, primarily because of a couple of difficult curve balls that have come my way over the past 60 days. But as they say, put that behind you and move onward and upward, so let’s get ready for 2011.

But first, let’s take a moment to reflect on some of the good things, those things which have been both fortunate and welcomed, over the most recent months. It is far too easy to focus on the most pressing concerns, and we should all take time during this celebratory week to reflect on everything that is going RIGHT in our world.

In honor of Thanksgiving, I am thankful for…

  1. All of my friends and colleagues in Austin, TX, some of whom I’ve known for a long time, and others whom I’ve met in the past several years. Austin does a great job of balancing “small town” connectedness with a bigger metro mindset, and I’m proud to call it my home.
  2. The TRUE online marketing and social media experts, most of whom are humble enough to avoid adopting the narcissistic term “expert” or “guru”, for pushing the limits of what we know, striking out on new ground and sharing what they learn, and for keeping the faith as the space continues to be overrun by snake oil salesman.
  3. Every single one of us who understands that social media is not just a list of shiny new toys, but a true evolution of how we communicate in today’s technology-heavy world.
  4. The thought leaders who are finally espousing one of my key messages more widely – it’s time to stop bandying about terms like social media, social marketing, and a list of other overhyped phrases, and to start looking at them as simple tactics that must be considered within true business strategy.
  5. The fine folks who contribute to the WordPress platform, which has revolutionized web management and brought more control and capability to the masses.
  6. All of my online colleagues who are kind enough to help me make referrals to spread the good will among others, and who are kind enough to recommend me as a contact/friend/follow for others.
  7. The brave entrepreneurs who continue to churn out new ideas that interest, excite, and stimulate our imaginations with new tools, toys, and capabilities (hey, it’s not all about the tools, but at the end of the day, I love them as much as anyone!).
  8. The fantasy sports industry as a whole. In addition to providing me hours of enjoyment on a weekly basis, it inspired me to pursue my dreams of being a writer, to start a business and learn valuable insights about entrepreneurship, and to dive into social media more aggressively.
  9. My beautiful wife, precious children, and everyone in my close circle who takes the time to support me, exchange ideas, and generally participate in the daily growth and maturation that allows us to continually make progress toward becoming the best we can be.
  10. And finally, I give thanks for each and every one of you, the faithful readers of this blog. You provide me a platform to work out new concepts, to exchange ideas, to consider new and exciting viewpoints, and to generally express myself in a productive and enjoyable way.

Life is good, and I look forward to what it has in store for us in 2011. Thank you for reading, and I look forward to sharing more with you over the coming months.

Namaste,

Tommy Landry, Return On Now

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