I just caught a webinar today on Mobile Marketing. We have been following the explosion of mobile devices and the need to connect your communications to your audience. That said, it's a rapidly changing environment to say the least. Most people are aware of text messaging - the stat that really opened my eyes was that there are 3 BILLION text message users in the world. We think Facebook is big & growing fast with 350 million + users, that's nothing compared to phone/text message users. 2010 is said to be the year of MOBILE and we are following with a keen eye on the opportunities. Mobile email, SMS, Mobile websites and Mobile SEO - you'll be starting to see more of these terms creep into your marketing radar screen.
I just tried a new service called Mofuse.com
They allow you to convert your blog to a mobile blog for FREE.
I just put my SkiDayBlog on as a test.
Here's the regular Blogger site: (sorry, Blogger wouldn't allow a new window to open)
http://skidayblog.blogspot.com/
Here's the NEW mobile friendly version:
http://skidayblog.mofuse.mobi
Seems to work pretty well - even the Youtube video feeds!
Mofuse Free version is ad driven so you will have some sort of ad popping up. The premium version can be ad free. There is also some revenue sharing opportunities like Google Adsense.
Stay tuned as we play some more here at PTR Labs --
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Monday, January 11, 2010
Fast Start 5 Series - Start Looking & Listening
We've heard it all too often from clients & prospects who tell us they 'want no part of Facebook', and 'twitter is a waste of time',and 'who's got time for blogging'?
We'll I'm here to help you get a new viewpoint.
Facebook is exploding and could surpass Google for daily visits in the near future. Twitter is just jamming with all kinds of info and opportunities. There are millions of blog posts added each week. LinkedIn is growing and becoming a must have service for business people.
So today's post on the Fast Start Series is about 'looking and listening'. Before you go charging off into the land of social media it's quite helpful to get a look around, learn the etiquette and listen to what going on in your industry - not to mention what's being said about your company.
#1) go try out Twitter.search.com
Plug in your company's name, your keywords or the main problem you solve. See how many people are talking about your target words. Find your competitors on twitter, who's following them?
#2) Blog search. Go to Google Blog Search and plug in your industry, your keywords, even your name - what do you find? Probably lots of people talking about 'your stuff' ! As you get your website up and running and you begin to seek out linking opportunities to build your credibility and page rank, you need to find blogs where you can comment and hopefully develop relationships and quality backlinks to your website or blog.
#3) SEO Basics. It's about time for a good quick read. Google SEO Basics and start with Googles report. You'll need to understand how SEO works from an 'On-Page' perspective and on 'Off-page' perspective. Much more on this later, but start to build a knowledge base on this important subject as it will be critical to the survival of your website!
#4) PR search. Finding good PR opportunities is another key component in online marketing.
Getting yourself showing up on news articles, blog interviews, even Radio & TV is a HUGE accomplishment. All those articles you see in the newspapers or online don't neccessarily magically appear. Someone likely worked hard to sell a story to the news outlets or media. When you show up with good PR your are percieved as 'the expert' and it brings an additional level of credibility to your efforts. We follow HARO (help a reporter out), HARO sends us multiple updates per day with reporters looking to find info on stories that have deadlines and need immediate help - you can provide that help!
#5) Advanced Search. This will turn into multiple blog posts as it's such a big area. On the social media side, you can dig much deeper into both LinkedIn and Facebook by doing more advanced searches. In Facebook you can look for companies and see who works there that you know. Same goes for LinkedIn. Twitter too can bring you down some interesting search pathways as you investigate who follows who. Then there's Google and Bing. You can find anything you want if you search for it correctly! As you get deeper into SEO, understanding the difference between Broad - Phrase - Exact matches will tell you a lot about how your site is doing for ranking on keyword phrases that drive traffic to your on-line sites.
We'll I'm here to help you get a new viewpoint.
Facebook is exploding and could surpass Google for daily visits in the near future. Twitter is just jamming with all kinds of info and opportunities. There are millions of blog posts added each week. LinkedIn is growing and becoming a must have service for business people.
So today's post on the Fast Start Series is about 'looking and listening'. Before you go charging off into the land of social media it's quite helpful to get a look around, learn the etiquette and listen to what going on in your industry - not to mention what's being said about your company.
#1) go try out Twitter.search.com
Plug in your company's name, your keywords or the main problem you solve. See how many people are talking about your target words. Find your competitors on twitter, who's following them?
#2) Blog search. Go to Google Blog Search and plug in your industry, your keywords, even your name - what do you find? Probably lots of people talking about 'your stuff' ! As you get your website up and running and you begin to seek out linking opportunities to build your credibility and page rank, you need to find blogs where you can comment and hopefully develop relationships and quality backlinks to your website or blog.
#3) SEO Basics. It's about time for a good quick read. Google SEO Basics and start with Googles report. You'll need to understand how SEO works from an 'On-Page' perspective and on 'Off-page' perspective. Much more on this later, but start to build a knowledge base on this important subject as it will be critical to the survival of your website!
#4) PR search. Finding good PR opportunities is another key component in online marketing.
Getting yourself showing up on news articles, blog interviews, even Radio & TV is a HUGE accomplishment. All those articles you see in the newspapers or online don't neccessarily magically appear. Someone likely worked hard to sell a story to the news outlets or media. When you show up with good PR your are percieved as 'the expert' and it brings an additional level of credibility to your efforts. We follow HARO (help a reporter out), HARO sends us multiple updates per day with reporters looking to find info on stories that have deadlines and need immediate help - you can provide that help!
#5) Advanced Search. This will turn into multiple blog posts as it's such a big area. On the social media side, you can dig much deeper into both LinkedIn and Facebook by doing more advanced searches. In Facebook you can look for companies and see who works there that you know. Same goes for LinkedIn. Twitter too can bring you down some interesting search pathways as you investigate who follows who. Then there's Google and Bing. You can find anything you want if you search for it correctly! As you get deeper into SEO, understanding the difference between Broad - Phrase - Exact matches will tell you a lot about how your site is doing for ranking on keyword phrases that drive traffic to your on-line sites.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Pre-Season Fast Start 5 Update
If you are familiar with the 30 Day Challenge, you understand what I mean by 'Pre-Season'.
As for the PTR, I have found that many of my beta-testers are having issues with just getting their computers and web browsers to work correctly. So this post is a pre-emptive strike to get folks alert to what they are doing with their computers. Again, learning how to do this yourself is a critical outcome - if you are having trouble - 'just Google it', and see if you can find the solution.
#1) go check if you have the latest windows updates! If you are not up to speed here you will not be able to upgrade your browser. It's very important to have the latest security patches on your machines.
#2) go check your virus software! Do you have any? Is it up to date? It's easy to ignore it until you download a virus and then you can't get into your machine or online to get the latest update to kill off that virus. I have had great success with Avast. They even have a free home addition.
#3) go check your spyware protection. Do you have any? Is it up to date? Same thing goes here, keep it up to date and it will save you some huge problems. Whether it's a virus or a 'malware' problem - it will ruin your day (& your computer if you are not up to speed with the latest updates. I have had good success with 2 programs, Super Anti-Spyware and MalwareBytes. They have saved the home system a number of times.
That said you should have these all on auto-updates so you get the latest & greatest as it happens. When I get a virus, I run one program after the other until they give me an 'all clear'.
There have been times it's taken multiple cycles to quarnatine the problems.
#4) Update your Internet Explorer browser. You should have IE8 on your machine and have it up to date with the latest patches. When I hear about sites not looking right or slowness problems, here's a good place to start.
#5) Do you have backup? I bet ya don't! My computer guy turned me on to Carbonite after testing out a couple of others that sounded great. Carbonite is VERY cost effective and gives you off-line backup to cover worst case scenarios.
#6) BONUS. Go get an additional hard drive. Hard Drive prices have plummeted! Years ago we bought a Terabyte back-up server for $800. A couple of months ago I picked up a 'Tera book' backup for $99 & the shipping was FREE! Yea!
You'll be SO HAPPY when you can access your back-ups after the big crash and get yourself going again quickly. How many songs do you have on iTunes? How much is that music worth?
As for the PTR, I have found that many of my beta-testers are having issues with just getting their computers and web browsers to work correctly. So this post is a pre-emptive strike to get folks alert to what they are doing with their computers. Again, learning how to do this yourself is a critical outcome - if you are having trouble - 'just Google it', and see if you can find the solution.
#1) go check if you have the latest windows updates! If you are not up to speed here you will not be able to upgrade your browser. It's very important to have the latest security patches on your machines.
#2) go check your virus software! Do you have any? Is it up to date? It's easy to ignore it until you download a virus and then you can't get into your machine or online to get the latest update to kill off that virus. I have had great success with Avast. They even have a free home addition.
#3) go check your spyware protection. Do you have any? Is it up to date? Same thing goes here, keep it up to date and it will save you some huge problems. Whether it's a virus or a 'malware' problem - it will ruin your day (& your computer if you are not up to speed with the latest updates. I have had good success with 2 programs, Super Anti-Spyware and MalwareBytes. They have saved the home system a number of times.
That said you should have these all on auto-updates so you get the latest & greatest as it happens. When I get a virus, I run one program after the other until they give me an 'all clear'.
There have been times it's taken multiple cycles to quarnatine the problems.
#4) Update your Internet Explorer browser. You should have IE8 on your machine and have it up to date with the latest patches. When I hear about sites not looking right or slowness problems, here's a good place to start.
#5) Do you have backup? I bet ya don't! My computer guy turned me on to Carbonite after testing out a couple of others that sounded great. Carbonite is VERY cost effective and gives you off-line backup to cover worst case scenarios.
#6) BONUS. Go get an additional hard drive. Hard Drive prices have plummeted! Years ago we bought a Terabyte back-up server for $800. A couple of months ago I picked up a 'Tera book' backup for $99 & the shipping was FREE! Yea!
You'll be SO HAPPY when you can access your back-ups after the big crash and get yourself going again quickly. How many songs do you have on iTunes? How much is that music worth?
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