For businesses large and small, capitalizing on social media is a bit of a no-brainer. Social networking is revolutionizing the way businesses learn about and interact with their consumers.

Social media tools like Facebook and Twitter have become crucial audience information. The likes, dislikes, tastes and trends of a company’s existing and potential consumer base are all there, ripe for analysis, targeting and retention. American consumers remain relatively energized about the interactivity of social networking. Almost 50 percent described themselves as enthusiastic about socializing via computer and mobile devices in a recent survey from the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Despite the unprecedented access and reach provided by social media, there are some limitations and considerations that business leaders should take into account. Here, we’ll spell out a few pros and cons of using social media for your business.

Pros

• Building Brand Loyalty
  Social networking allows businesses to connect with consumers in instant, nuanced ways that can strengthen a company’s position as an authority, an expert or an advocate. Social networking is also a great way to get a feel for complaints, shortcomings and other issues that might be missed or glossed over in traditional surveys or interactions with clients. It’s a simple and effective way to cultivate a degree of brand loyalty.

• Grabbing data
  Marketers are using information from personal networking pages on MySpace and Facebook to craft targeted ads uniquely tailored to a person’s tastes. During the Easter holiday, Reese’s Peanut Butter Eggs Facebook page has more than 165,000 fans. Cadbury Crème Eggs have more than 380,000 fans. Combined, that’s more than a half-million people who to some degree identify with those brands. That’s also a half-million people whose personal information can be mined for companies and marketers.

• Measuring impact
  Don’t let anyone tell you this stuff is immeasurable. Is there any way to predict whose friend of a Facebook friend will wind up becoming your biggest fan? No. But there’s a host of metrics and analytics that companies can use - some extremely cheap or free - to get a handle on the effectiveness of a given social media campaign.

• Online presence
  Generating quality content and garnering quality links are key ingredients in the ever-changing recipe for boosting a company’s presence in the search engines. Utilizing social media is a huge part of the equation. Share photos of your product on Flickr. Post videos and tours on YouTube. Get some reciprocity going among your company’s blog and those of industry commentators, opinion leaders and even detractors. Use the networking abilities of each site to tie them all together - your blog post to photos to the YouTube group. It can translate into widespread exposure.

• The Power of People
  At the day’s end, word of mouth still reigns supreme. People are simply more apt to purchase or be moved in that direction if they’re spurred by the recommendation or insistence of someone they know - and even by those they don’t. Posting videos, photographs and product descriptions invites consumers to evaluate and comment on a company’s offerings. And if you’re offering a quality product, those positive reviews can carry tremendous weight with prospective customers.

Cons

• It eats time and resources
  Social media campaigns involve a bit more than updating your Facebook status once a day or cranking out a blog post every week. Just shoveling thoughtless content into your blog or ignoring your Twitter feed will push consumers - and the search results - away. Companies have to allocate time and resources to social media campaigns, either in-house or via outsourcing. Like any sustained marketing effort, it’s a commitment. It’s also not always cheap. At larger companies, you’re typically looking at a larger, vertical integration of marketing, public relations and communications strategies and campaigns.

• The whims of the marketplace
  This one confounds corporate veterans to no end. Massaging the message is one thing, but controlling it in a social media environment is difficult once the public grabs hold. Bloggers can rip your product to shreds for giggles. A video mocking your corporate identity and ethos might wind up inextricably linked with your original YouTube piece. Beyond that, there’s no guarantee that your blog post, your LinkedIn networking fodder or your laundry list of Tweets will get any attention. Creating quality content helps, but finding those key outlets and echo chambers - think aggregators like Digg and Reddit - is what can push you into the stratosphere. And the interests and dislikes of that realm can change as the wind blows. Building a social media base is paramount and time-consuming.

• It’s still early
  As the American mainstream media can attest; figuring out the best advertising business model online is a constant struggle. No one has perfected it on Facebook or any of the other prominent social media outlets. The efficacy of paid ads in these locales is still a question mark, one that companies have to consider when examining their marketing budgets. Another wrinkle is that the return on investment can take significant time to develop, given the nature of relationship building.

Usually I stick with web development when it’s my turn to blog, but for this week, I’m gonna step out of my usual role and touch on some web design for a change. First and foremost, Photoshop is probably one of the coolest pieces of software out there; you can basically accomplish anything and everything in it. For web designers, graphics designers and just plain ole “designers” in general, Photoshop is life. With all the capabilities it has and endless amounts of graphical possibilities, there’s no possible way to ever really know everything it has to offer. So it basically comes down to trial and error, stumbling upon a cool tool and trying to figure out how to use it, or simply finding a tutorial online and testing it out for yourself.

All that being said, when thinking of a cool tip or trick to blog about, I asked myself what I personally use a lot when designing, and one of the first things that came to mind were masks. Whether it be to create a fade, an outlined shape, deleting without actually “deleting”, or just revealing only certain amounts of an image, masks are used in most (if not all) things graphical. So let’s think “outside the box” and take it a step further to something not as commonly done. When you think masks you think basic shapes, gradient fades, and possibly using them to erase portions around an object you are trying to cut out of its original image. But what about text? You can do really cool text effects as well by simply using a mask. Whether used in a banner to show a skyline, or taking a picture of a person and masking it with their name to use on a personal blog, using text as a mask can turn out really cool. And it is super easy…

1. Open up Photoshop and start with your blank canvas. (For mine, I used a 500px wide canvas with a black background.)

2. Select the text tool and write your text on a new layer. When selecting a font, take into consideration the amount of room the font is giving you to reveal the image behind it. Thicker fonts will allow you to show more, while scripty or thin fonts will not allow as much. You could also use “bold” to show more as well.

3. Bring in your image (drag and drop) that you want to use, and place it on the layer above your text. You can resize and move around once we’ve applied the mask so don’t worry about placement and adjustments at the moment.

4. To apply the mask to the image, within the layer window, hold down ALT and click the line between the two layers. When you press ALT and rollover the area between the two layers, you will see your mouse turn into an icon of an arrow and two circles. That icon is your indication you can click to create the mask.

5. This takes the bottom layer and masks the top layer behind it, spelling out your word with the image. Now that your mask is created, you can then adjust the image how you want, click the image layer and move around, resize, adjust as needed. The text layer does not move, allowing you to get your masked image in the right position.

6. To make your text effect more readable, play around with your blending options on your text layer. To do so, right click layer and go to blending options. Add a stroke, shadow, glow, whatever you think gives it that “cool” factor.

End Result:

Name Example:

Anyone who has spent more than two minutes looking into creating a web presence has at least heard about Open Source Software, or OSS.  Technologies like PHP, MySQL, and others have pushed this once obscure and often nerdy software model out of obscurity.  Many of the greatest web innovations have been fueled by this movement.

What is Open Source Software?  In short it’s software that is developed, published, and maintained for the benefit of the general public.  In its most common form, it is free to use, share with others, and change as you see fit.  The most unique characteristic, and the one that gives OSS its title, is that anyone who wants to can look “under the hood” at the source code.  Most commercially available software does not allow the general public to do that.  If you want all the nerdy details, see this Wikipedia article.

So does open source have anything non-nerdy to offer?  Sure!  For starters there is Firefox, the second most popular browser out there, GIMP, a free alternative to Photoshop, and many more.  Even big boy Microsoft has introduced an “open” product: a new Office file format, called Open XML.  While open source isn’t yet as sexy as a Carlie Beck photo, it has gained some press over the last few years.

For non-nerds here is what Open Source Software can do for you.

1. OSS can cost less.  While you still have to pay for development and deployment, you can save some green by using OSS because you don’t have to pay any software licensing fees.
2. OSS is frequently on the cutting edge.  In web circles, OSS is often either ahead of the curve or setting the standard.  Just look at projects like jQuery, Drupal, and Google Chrome (yep, this new browser is an OSS project run by Google).
3. OSS can be completely customized for your use.  As long as you have the know how or the resources to hire someone who does, you can customize OSS to fit your specific needs.
4. You don’t need to re-invent the wheel.  If there is an OSS solution that does what you want, why take the time to create another one?  You can simply customize an OSS solution for your needs and cut back on development costs.

Interestingly enough, OSS and proprietary software can often work together nicely (such as the content manager Umbraco, which uses Microsoft’s proprietary .NET framework).  Because of this, you can often cherry pick solutions in such a way as to provide the most impact for the least pain.

Here at lifeBLUE Media we use the power of OSS alongside other solutions to augment and enhance our development efforts.  This creates a better product for our customers and reduces development time for us.  It’s win-win.

lifeBLUE does not exclusively use OSS.  We have some very talented .NET developers and we are not opposed to purchasing a proprietary solution if it is the best option.  We use all the tools available to us to create customized solutions to our customers.  As with everything, we choose OSS or other options in order to provide our customers with the best possible product.

The first step towards implementing a successful SEO strategy is to understand your indicators. There are many, both public and private metrics, available that website owners rely on. Here we will discuss some of the most prevalent out there.

Google Analytics

Perhaps the most widely known analytics tool, Google Analytics, keeps it simple. At a glance, a person can see up to the minute traffic or view trends across months and years. Google Analytics also shows the percent of new traffic, the average time spent on site, the bounce rate (measure of users who leave right away without clicking) and average pageviews. One of the best parts is, you have the ability to graph everything, giving you a better visual representation, plus browser and user profiling.

In short, Google Analytics has been designed for user friendliness and simplicity. Also, it is totally free! The technical consideration involved is a required JavaScript snippet be included in any pages to be tracked. And while small, it will add some overhead to your page load time. Like all tools it’s not 100% accurate; a fact that becomes clear after you begin seeing the variances between tracking tools.

AWStats

AWStats is an example of a few programs which run locally on the server hosting your website. Although not as slick as google analytics, a logfile analyzer like this is going to provide the most detailed and accurate raw numbers available. Since this program falls in the realm of server management, typically the webmaster or IT are the only people who have access to it. This is probably a good idea for security reasons and business continuity. Reporting is available yet also considers most companies often keep these numbers confidential. Some other notable alternatives include Webalizer and W3Perl. Though not native, all these programs can be run on Windows Server.

Omniture

There is a handful of companies tracking general internet activity, and Omniture is a big time example. Through opt-in tracking cookies being distributed by major companies such as Apple (possibly iTunes / Quicktime) and Adobe (Flash), this Omniture has been comprehensively analyzing web traffic for greater than 10 years. Membership with them provides a suite of tools, similar to Google Analytics, but with greater depth in their reporting. There is more emphasis on keyword analytics and click-through ratios. Omniture’s staff of SEO professionals, are happy to sell you as large a customer service plan as your company can afford or requires. Working with a reputable SEO firm, or adopting their processes into your website, is perhaps the only way to comprehensively understand your site’s traffic.

Doubleclick vs Adsense

Website owners want to spend less buying ads and make more running them. Ad revenues and expenses are the only numbers some SEO marketers secretly even care about. To that end, the ad management company (or companies) you choose will provide the reporting and analytic tools by which you track those figures. The difference between Doubleclick and Adsense is like the difference between a Lexus and a Camry. Both cars are actually owned by Toyota, meanwhile both Doubleclick and Adsense are both in fact owned by Google. Also both programs basically do the same thing though Doubleclick offers the luxuries that come with greater cost.

Both ultimately allow you to purchase ad space, sell ads on your own site - and track the results online. Facebook has also moved into the game recently, offering PPC campaign deals to the public strictly on their site. And since they are number 5 on Alexa and with 30+ billion page views per month, facebook makes for an interesting side note at least.

Alexa

In short Alexa is the Nielsen ratings of the web. Surfers voluntarily install the Alexa toolbar which tracks Internet usage. Using that data, Alexa releases a near real time overall site rank list, up to the top million sites. These site rankings are not perfect. Certainly they are skewed by the disproportionate number of tech’s who run the toolbar. However, this imperfect list is still the best and most widely accepted measuring stick available.

Your site’s Alexa ranking should be taken with a grain of salt. Still, if you can get a handful of frequent visitors to install the toolbar – it can dramatically improve the score for small or new sites. A bustling side-project type website might find itself anywhere between 100k and 300k. The competition begins to stiffen as a site passes the 100k mark. In other words, the frequency of sites actually spending money to promote begins to increase. Meanwhile the top 1,000 places are mostly dominated by companies with infrastructure to support a web business of that size.

Summary

The task of reviewing this data is best if shared between a marketing decision maker and the webmaster. The accumulated information not only provides realistic perspective on your site but will likely drive your SEO strategy. The services described above are only the tip of the iceberg.

SEO programs, applications, websites and strategies are a thriving and highly competitive business that has become dense with experiments, theories and sleight of hand.

The flavor of the day it seems right now across the Web is Twitter. It’s getting a lot of attention from the mainstream media and is riding that virtual wave of social networking that Facebook and MySpace created these past few years. In fact, we here at lifeBLUE launched our own tweets and there are a lot of curious toes dipping into the twitteriffic waters just checking it out for the first time – not sure yet if they’re ready to dive in. They’ve heard about it, don’t quite understand it, but are willing to take a look around to see what all the fuss is about. On the surface, Twitter may seem like a place for exhibitionist-type digital hacks who have more time than the rest of us to update all those who care about their incredibly important and interesting lives. That’s the knee-jerk synopsis from the skeptics and from those types of folk who continuously show up late for the party (not fashionably late, just unforgivably late). The reality is that Twitter is a viable networking, educational, informational and marketing tool … among many other things. It’s rapidly evolving as more and more users jump on board and the potential of what Twitter will eventually become is hard to imagine right now.

If Twitter is still a mystery to you and you’re more of a visual learner, here’s a great YouTube explanation to help out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddO9idmax0o&feature=player_embedded

Twitter can definitely be a marketing goldmine for small businesses and large corporations. The big companies have their own crew of Twitterers these days monitoring what their followers (supporters and critics alike) are saying and opening up the lines of communication. It can be a very effective link between the public and the company. A perfect example is Scott Monty http://twitter.com/ScottMonty. He’s the head of social marketing at Ford (you may or may not have heard, but Ford has been in the news A LOT lately and Scott could be called a fireman more than a social marketer after all the heat he takes from shareholders, customers and red-blooded taxpayers) Scott has a following of more than 15,000 fellow Twitter dudes and dudettes. He goes back and forth with them about any subject, but mainly discusses Ford-related topics and answers questions. He also helps generate excitement about the brand and its products (which is desperately needed these days). Take for example, the Fiesta Movement. A Twitter-spawned promotion that gives Twitter-types a chance to win a free Ford Fiesta just by creating a short YouTube video about themselves and why they want a new, FREE car http://www.focusfanatics.com/forum/showthread.php?p=2668859 . Pretty good marketing project from my perspective because I can’t think of the last time anybody got very excited about a Fiesta … free or not. When Ford doesn’t get much credit these days for anything, and deservedly so, they’re attempt to reach out to the public through social media channels and generate excitement again about their brand is commendable. And my Twitter hat is off to Scott for being in the trenches.

Just as the huge, multi-billion dollar companies are realizing the benefits of Twitter, so too are the small entrepreneurs like Mark Manguera, owner of Kogi Korean BBQ. A cult-like following has been built in southern California by Manguera and his legions of Twitterers and bloggers who have helped turn his restaurant-on-wheels into a crowd-causing phenomenon. Wherever his roving vehicle goes, the tweets start and the crowd follows – showing up in droves of 300-800 people wherever it parks (often several times per evening). I know of many big-chain restaurants that would love to serve 500+ people per night. Imagine the marketing and advertising dollars Manguera has saved because of Twitter and blogs – the definition of word of mouth. It also helps to have large media outlets write about his unique story. Among others, his story’s been in BusinessWeek and the L.A. Times.

http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo-kogi11-2009feb11,0,159741.story

 “The truck and its staff of merry makers have become a sort of roving party, bringing people to neighborhoods they might not normally go to, and allowing for interactions with strangers they might not otherwise talk to. A constant Twitter feed connects truck-followers and updates them about whether Kogi is going to be late to its next stop. Occasionally, a negative Nelly will rain on this love parade by asking the Kogi truck to park elsewhere; when this happens, legions of Kogi-lytes rally to find a desirable new location.”

Of course, to generate the swell of fandom for a product or brand like Manguera has done with Kogi Korean BBQ won’t be possible for all business owners. He has a unique business model that’s perfect for Twitter, but it shows the possibilities and that a creative marketing strategy is critical for success in today’s tough economic climate.

Now let’s re-visit the potential of Twitter and where it could possibly go. Recently, the outspoken and tech-savvy owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, Mark Cuban, also a known Twitterer http://twitter.com/mcuban, stood atop his soapbox while posting a tweet to criticize the officials following a game against the Golden State Warriors. The suits at NBA headquarters learned of Cuban’s comments on this thing called Twitter. After asking for help to find this Twitter thingamajiggy, the suits read his comments, didn’t appreciate them and fined Cuban $25,000. What does all this mean? Cuban and the NBA go together like oil and water, yes, but it also means that high-profile business owners and celebrities have turned to Twitter and, in doing so, have learned they can circumvent traditional media channels like newspapers and TV to voice their comments without the risk of being taken out of context (something they vehemently hate). We already receive the news of the day differently today than we did 10 years ago – mainly through online media channels, blogs and social communities.

Now that Twitter is involved, we have the opportunity to hear directly from the newsmakers themselves…something the news reporters don’t appreciate. It’s hard to investigate and develop a news story if you can’t get your quotes. When celebrities and business owners turn to their tweets first to talk to the masses, that leaves the news outlets with the short-end of the stick … it just won’t be “news” once they put their stories together. This won’t happen overnight, and it likely won’t spell the end of traditional media outlets during the next decade – but it shows that a shift is possible and likely to happen at some point in our future. You can also count on more and more instant news from Twitterers on-the-scene of natural disasters and accidents (i.e. “Plane Lands in Hudson”) – this is something the news outlets have staked their reputations on throughout the years and Twitterers are invading on their territory.

Ironically, it’s Twitter that’s trying to find its way right now. Where will it go? What will it become? Investors are knocking on the door, potential buyers are developing high-dollar offers, the owners are testing advertising options on their systems in Japan … things are happening fast but not too fast where you’ll be late to the party. It’s a perfect time to dive in and discover a new life of bite-sized, 140-character tweets that can help your business or your social life.

A list of people and companies on Twitter
Barack Obama – BarackObama
Lance Armstrong - lancearmstrong
Mark Cuban – mcuban
Shaquille O’Neal – THE_REAL_SHAQ
Dave Matthews – DaveJMatthews
Britney Spears – britneyspears
Ashton Kutcher - aplusk
lifeBLUE Media - lifeblue
Southwest Airlines – SouthwestAir
Exxon Mobile – ExxonMobilCorp
Apple –appleinc
Comcast – comcastcares
Dell – DellOutlet
H&R Block – HRBlock
Whole Foods - wholefoods

Syllabus

University of lifeBLUE Media
College of Web Design
Department of Business Administration
LBWBB101: Web Business Basics for Optimal Online Presence

Professor: Dr. Blue
Class Times: Approximately every 4 weeks.

Office Hours: M-F 9AM-5PM or by appointment.
Office Phone: 972-984-1899
Email: accountservices at lifeblue.com
Website/Blog Address: www.lifeblue.com & http://www.lifeblue.com/blogs/

Course Description
This course is designed to meet the needs of website owners in terms of taking simple, often overlooked principles of website practices and bringing them to focal point to provide long term results. The impact of utilizing a strong web presence will make significant strides in separating successful and growing Enterpreneurs from run of the mill websites. Some basic familiarity with computers, Internet, and websites is required, however resources can be provided by visiting during regular office hours.

Learning Objectives
1. Ability to dissect and implement simple strategies for an effective online presence.
2. Learn how to grow online business opportunities to maximize investment.
3. Introduce important concepts that the average student can accomplish and likewise what should be left to web experts.

Reading
Check back every 4 weeks for future online posts.
Read other blogs posted by web professors at lifeBLUE Media.

Grading
25% on design, structure and layout of website.
15% on content and consistency of updates.
25% on website usability and functionality.
25% on website conversions.
10% on course comments for specific course posts.

Attendance
All courses are mandatory for full course credit and certificate of completion.

Course Policies
In order to track attendance, all attendees must comment on the course posts within the lifeBLUE blogs section.

Additional/Miscellaneous
Please refer any questions to the comments section below.

Any professional chef will tell you that a dish is only as good as its ingredients. Quality and freshness often can make the difference between a signature dish at a 5-Star restaurant or your mother-in-law’s “Chicken Surprise.”

A similar edict holds true for you and your Web site. There are many ingredients that go into making a great Web site, including cutting-edge design, efficient site applications and, perhaps most importantly, quality and fresh content.

In my 10 years of managing Web site projects, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen new Web sites with the latest bells and whistles - fancy Flash intros and dynamic menu systems that pop and zing at you from every direction – only to fail at getting any significant traffic. The reason these sites ultimately failed was simple. They neglected the most important ingredient of all – good content.

Users scour the World Wide Web constantly looking for something interesting. Once they find it, they need a reason to keep coming back. There is no better way of bringing people back to your site than updating it with fresh, timely content.

So what does that entail?

First, your content doesn’t just have to be text. There are many different types of content that you can utilize to make your site special. These might include pictures, videos, software downloads or a variety of other things. Take a look at some of the most successful sites on the ‘Net like YouTube or Hulu and you can see that you don’t have to have a degree in journalism to provide something that users want to come back to see. Find out what your users want to see and provide that to them. It’s that simple.

Secondly, your content needs to be relevant. In other words, it needs to make sense to your audience. If your site provides tips for the average golfer, obviously you don’t want to put up an article about the newest advances in bowling ball technology. But beyond the obvious, make sure your content is staying up with the times. You want your users to come to your site to find out the newest information so don’t play catch-up with old, irrelevant content.

Finally, your content needs to be organized and well-managed. Fortunately, almost every Web site owner these days has the option to use a content management system to create, organize and display their content. Make sure you take advantage of this. Using a Content Management System, or CMS, allows you or your staff to update and add new content to your site without knowing much about HTML or Web development at all. Most CMS software packages include a simple editing screen that allows you to easily manipulate your content. Additionally, a typical CMS will allow you to post articles from multiple users, approve them and then provide a publish date that might be days or weeks in the future. Work flow is dramatically improved and your users get access to the latest content in a timely fashion.

Creating a successful Web site isn’t easy. It takes a lot of planning and a huge time commitment from you. Planning out a successful strategy, including quality content, can play a huge part in that success. If you keep the basics in mind, including variety, relevant and well-organized content amongst other things, you’ll see your traffic numbers increase and see your user base continue to come back for more.

Some would argue choosing a domain name is the most important first steps you will taken when setting up your online presence. Here are some tips to take into consideration when picking the perfect domain name:

1. Make it two words or less. Think of some of the most used or visited sites… www.apple.com, www.nike.com,  www.starbucks.com, www.google.com, www.facebook.com… you get the picture.
2. Try to stay away from using numbers. You don’t want to take the chance with confusion. People will not know whether to spell out “eight” or write “8″.
3. Register your domain name NOW! You don’t want to get stuck with “the-domain-name-no-one-wants.us”
4. Don’t include a location, unless you only serve that specific location. Even if you do ship nationwide, you may never get the chance to let customers know that.
5. Dot what? Dot com is probably the way to go.
6. Try to get em’ all. Once you have nabbed your-amazing-domain.com, try to get the .net. If you have “yourname.com” and “yourname.net” no one else can take it. **You don’t need a separate website for each domain; several domains can point to the same site.**
7. When you have settled on several available name choices, see what your friends and clients have to say. A name that may make perfect sense to you may be too hard for others to remember. Is your name easy to say? It is hard to spell? Do you have to explain why you chose the name?

These are only a handful of things to take into consideration when choosing the right domain name for your new website. Overall, just make sure it’s short, sweet and to the point. Chances are if you have to think too hard about it, so will your clients. The more self explanatory the domain is, the better your chances in getting lots of hits!