For the majority of businesses, the answer is to start by revisiting and perfecting  their blocking and tackling.  Great football coaches are fond of saying that everything starts with the fundamentals. In football, those fundamentals are blocking and tackling. In business, it’s having a defined communication strategy, understanding your capabilities, effectively managing your time and closing the loop. A new web site, targeted social media campaign, updated e-mail marketing strategy and or major dollars spent per month on business coaching won’t make up for bad fundamentals.

Pitfall #1 – An undefined company communication strategy.

As we consult with businesses, one of the first things we talk about is their communication strategy with prospects and clients. More business owners and senior leaders than you might think are unable to answer basic questions about how their particular business interacts with their prospects and clients. Within what timeframe are e-mails addressed? How many times is a prospect called in the sales cycle? How quickly are voice mails returned? When someone leaves the business a voice mail and the business calls back and leaves a vm, what happens next? You get the idea. Core questions. Core fundamentals. The goal is not rigidity, but consistency. The opposite of consistency is variability. Variability in prospect and client communications will gradually kill your business.   Define a communication strategy for every method of prospect and client communication and execute it consistently.

Pitfall #2 – Over estimating your corporate abilities.

Business owners and thereby businesses, tend to take on more than they are capable of effectively handling. In our consulting process, one of the other initial items we consider with our clients is to what extent they are fulfilling and surpassing their current customers needs and desires. What we find is that many times the focus is on acquiring new clients. Everyone wants new clients, everyone wants to grow, right? The reality is that many businesses are not set up to effectively scale to increased demand and expansion, and as a result their existing client experience suffers.  The best source of new clients is referrals from existing clients. The key is to take care of your existing clients, while defining  at what pace you can effectively grow and adjusting your marketing and sales spend accordingly.

Pitfall #3 – Poor prioritization and time management.

This one seem like a no brainer, but it is quite prevalent . Far too many businesses focus on what is priority at any given moment versus fitting what is going on in the moment into their overall work flow strategy.   You know or potentially have had experiences with these types of businesses. The priority becomes whichever client is talking the loudest and or most at any given moment. Worse, the priority becomes the supposed high profit client at the expense of other “less” profitable clients. In the end, the aforementioned short term approaches fall flat and there is inevitably fallout from the clients for whom the ball was dropped. There are a host of proven time management and prioritization strategies available for businesses – leverage one of them.

Pitfall #4 – Not closing the loop.

This pitfall is actually a symptom of any one or any combination of the previous three pitfalls. Yet, it’s so detrimental to businesses, it deserves its own special commentary. Whether it’s due to disorganization, poor prioritization or some other issue, not following up with a prospect, client or business partner immediately damages the brand value of your business. We are amazed at the number of businesses that take this element for granted. “They’ll understand we’re busy.” “I’ll get around to it.”"Well, we really aren’t going to work with them anyway, so they’ll get that if we don’t follow-up.” You might think these are amazing statements, but we hear them all of the time in our consulting practice. The worst level of offense in this category is the failure to tell someone or another business, “no.” Typically it’s the fear of having an uncomfortable conversation that leads people to avoid telling others, “no.” The thought is, “well, they’ll just go away and I won’t actually have to tell them no, or that we can’t move forward, or that we’re going in a different direction right now.” We implore you not to fall into that trap. What business people that practice that line of thinking fail to understand, is the conversation never ends with them not saying no. Invariably, the party that wasn’t told no goes on to talk about the business that never followed up at social functions, private conversations, etc. In other words, by thinking they could get out of a potentially tough conversation by not saying anything, the unsuspecting business person has lost control of the discussion and there is almost a certain chance their personal and or business brand will suffer. They’ve lost control of the discussion and sadly, some people don’t even realize that it happened. We see it all of the time.

NeoCloud doesn’t believe in cookie cutter, one size fits all solutions. The strategy for executing the correct approach to avoid these four major pitfalls should and will vary from business to business. That said, awareness is invaluable. If you are struggling in some of your key metrics, before you spend money on something that makes you and your business feel or look better, consider revisiting your blocking and tackling.

First, social media is simply a glorified form of word of mouth marketing. We, like others in the industry, prefer to refer to social as, “word of mouth marketing on steroids.” You like a restaurant, vacation spot or sports team? Social media allows you to share that content with hundreds, sometimes thousands of interested people, in literally seconds and at the click of a computer mouse button or smart phone key pad. The elegant simplicity of social media is one of its most alluring elements. Regardless of location, the user can and does share whatever he or her deems relevant and important. Did we say relevant? Yes, understanding the impact of relevancy is the second step on ladder to effectively understanding social media. It’s no longer what the business or originator of the conversation says is relevant. Social media is all about the reader or user indicating approval, sharing and commenting on information they deem relevant. Hence, the power of the message is magnified through virtual conversation and endorsement. Finally, in order to truly understand the why behind social media, one must have an appreciation for human psychology. At the end of the day, a basic human desire is to influence another human being. If I can share a tip, a story, an idea that shapes others decisions related to purchases, investments of time and shares, I as the user feel empowered. Social media fulfills this basic human need brilliantly.

So the next time you or someone in your circle (catch that one?) wonder why social continues to flourish, remember it’s about word of mouth marketing on steroids, defining relevancy and satisfying the basic human desire to influence.

To your continued new media success.

Enter Maverick Innovation Lab (MIL). MIL, located in Delafield Wisconsin, is the realization of a vision by Co-Founders Paul Decker and Tom Price, to impart innovative change to the way in which businesses conduct their decision making and processing operations.

Tom and Paul bring extensive and impressive career track records with them to MIL. Tom is the CEO of Price Engineering, a large firm that since 1986, provides engineering services to companies in the marine, mining, industrial and rail industries. Paul, is a business executive and government official whose past experiences include high level positions with Xerox and Bausch & Lomb. Together, these two Mavericks create a unique synergy and approach that the NeoCloud Team experienced firsthand while working on the design, development and release of the new MIL web site.

The goals of the site design, were to establish a clean, modern and socially integrated site that would serve as the new media hub for MIL’s business activities. In addition, as frequent updates would be made through blog posts, the insertion of videos, pictures and social updates, there was a need for complete ease of use and operating efficiency related to the site’s back end access.

Through ongoing, collaborative meetings with the MIL team, we were able to produce the desired result in a relatively short amount of time. “Our web site launched today, thanks to the great work of the NeoCloud Team. We look forward to a strong, ongoing partnership with them.” Paul Decker, Co-Founder of Maverick Innovation Lab.

We encourage our fans, followers and readers to visit the new MIL web site and follow up with us related to any questions or feedback on the concept and design: Maverick Innovation Lab

Pinterest offers the ability for companies to increase their brand awareness. Since social media is still growing, businesses have a great opportunity to join the Pinterest platform.

Pinterest can help businesses in three ways. It can help a company build their brand, advertise a product or service and drive customers to their website.

Helping a company build a brand

Pinterest helps provide an opportunity to share what is important and what inspires the company. It also allows the company to convey itself in a different light, perspective that consumers have not seen in the past. If you are building your brand on Pinterest, follow these simple guidelines:
1. Focus on the lifestyle of the brand and not just the services or products. If you include other pictures/videos that pair the brand in other markets, you are showing your consumer the whole package, instead of just focusing on one niche group.
2. Come up with unique ways to engage “pinners” on Pinterest. Provide a picture of a deal that you can make, for instance 10% off on your next visit.

Advertise services/products
Blend your promotional goals with branding goals. On Pinterest, the company message should never be purely promotional. For instance, Nike’s slogan is “Just Do It.” On Pinterest, they could show not only deals consumers could get, but also what the Nike shoes could do for you…running, walking, or just having fun.

Drive traffic
Creating visual content encourages users to click-through to your website. If there is no incentive, the interaction may end after looking, liking, and re-pinning the content. Rather, think like a restaurant or other food company to help drive more traffic to your site. When there is a picture of a mouthwatering burger that just looks too good to eat, people are likely to click on it to find out where they could get one in their area. Use the same methodology to entice, engage and inspire visitors to check out the content on your web site.

When you start using Pinterest, here are some simple tips to follow:

1. Use Facebook and Twitter to point users to the company Pinterest page.
2. Spend time understanding what Pinterest is and what it can do for you.
3. Above all, keep it simple. You do not want to overwhelm yourself or the users.

We welcome your comments, experience with and reaction to the Pinterest social media platform.

In fact, e-mail is one of the first forms of Social Media. Fifteen years ago, e-mail allowed people to send information to multiple people at once, to have group conversations, and to forward and share e-mails within groups of people. Connecting to people with a focus on the relationship happens through engaging communications, and engaging communications are what drive valuable relationships. Today, with new social networks coming online every month, e-mail is still the go to form of communication for business professionals (94% of internet users leverage e-mail).

Technology makes it easier for businesses to derive value from customer relationships.
E-mail is one of the best technologies for connecting with your current customers in order to build a steady stream of repeat and referral business. E-mail has high potential for engagement, due to the fact that so many people regularly engage in e-mail conversations.

If you do it correctly, e-mail will work to help you grow your business. If you do it incorrectly, people will think it is spam. People hate spam, and spam reports will shut down your e-mail communications. To avoid spam, be sure to deliver your professional e-mail communications to an interested audience (opt-in) containing information they find valuable.

The basic e-mail marketing best practices your business should consider:
1. Set proper expectations with your audience (how many, how often, what information are you sharing).
2. Deliver on your promises (provide relevant content).
3. Abide by the CAN SPAM Act.
4. Gain permission from your list (opt-in).

Seek the advice of professional e-mail marketing service firms, like NeoCloud, if you have any questions related to your e-mail marketing strategy. Remember that it takes time to develop relationships, both online and offline. On average it takes 7 touches to acquire a new customer. E-mail is a great tool for making some of those touches.

Despite the buzz about social media and the current competition among companies to have the biggest or most effective social media presence, a surprising number of business people are “anti-social media.”

How can you tell if you’re among the “anti-social media”? You might be anti-social if . . .

• You are a person of influence in your company and you’re not encouraging the appropriate use of social media.
• Your company isn’t doing anything with their existing social media presence or strategy.
• You don’t think social media will benefit your business.
• You’re fearful of the sharing and openness required by social media platforms.

If you find you are “anti-social media,” the good news is you don’t have to remain that way. The first step to moving beyond the anti-social mindset is to be aware of your concerns and uncertainties about social media. For many, social media seems as vast and uncharted as Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek universe, with unexplained anomalies and hostile alien forces around every corner.

Having an experienced navigator to guide you through the social media universe helps ensure smooth travel. Leveraging professional consulting services can help you understand, participate in and ultimately capitalize on social media for the benefit of your business.

Social media platforms have tremendous power to educate and influence customers, business partners and industry allies. Enlisting help from social media experts can help you harness this power to grow your customer base, enhance your company’s corporate image, and even influence your entire industry.

Jennifer Sturm and Karina Stuke, are the two managing members of Eat Play Live. Having earned educational credentials in the fields of nutrition and personal training, Karina and Jennifer became determined to share their knowledge about a better way to achieve lasting results with those who are confused and frustrated by failed attempts at dieting and exercise. They started the company with the goals of educating and offering support to families about the simplicity of improved health through whole foods nourishment, fun through movement, and living a full life. Eat Play Live is not a diet or fad, it is a fundamental shift in the way in which people can achieve lasting results related to diet, exercise and overall life enjoyment.

NeoCloud helped Eat Play Live by creating a polished, clean, search engine friendly web site, along with providing strategic direction related to overall social media communications. An optimized social media strategy, effectively integrated within a business web site is a fundamental element of SEO (search engine optimization). For Eat Play Live, targeted presences on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn will prove to be critical social platforms that will allow for effective communication between the EPL experts and their fans.

We invite you to visit the new Eat Play Live web site:

Visit Eat Play Live LLC

Where families can go to learn the truth about nutrition and optimal health.

A few months ago, members of the NeoCloud Team had the pleasure of meeting Kelcey Liverpool at a networking event in the Greater Chicago area. Kelcey is a mother, a military spouse (Rudy Liverpool, US Navy) and entrepreneur. As we quickly learned, she also has an intense passion for supporting the development of physical, emotional, intellectual and social skills in today’s military children. The military family lives a unique lifestyle. Deployments of a parent overseas, multiple moves for the entire family within a short period of time and days or weeks of not seeing a father or mother due to job duties, are just a few examples of situations that make life more complex for the military child.

Enter KidsRank. Rudy and Kelcey created the concept of KidsRank in 2008. Initially, the goal was to devise a program to assist their young children in adjusting to their fourth duty station within a couple of years. Rudy and Kelcey created a recognition system to reward and encourage behavior in their children that aligned with the five key attributes of Adaptation, Bravery, Courage, Determination and Endurance. As they accomplished specific tasks and activities, the children would earn credit toward colored ribbons that symbolize the aforementioned core attributes.

The idea was an immediate “hit,” as the Liverpool’s children began to immediately look for creative ways to live and demonstrate the five core attributes, thereby elevating their individual KidsRank. Over the next several years, the KidsRank concept consistently evolved and branched out to include additional children and additional families. Beyond helping the military families themselves, with more participation came the ability for the KidsRank Club to conduct elevated charitable functions, most notably their annual “Hero Pack” drive. The Drive encourages donations of items that are meant to help military children with a parents deployment. The items are placed in back packs and sent to military mothers and fathers deployed overseas.

The NeoCloud connection. Rudy and Kelcey knew that in order to take the KidsRank message to the next level, they needed to effectively leverage new media. After conducting a few listening sessions to really understand the background, goals and needs of the organization, NeoCloud created a series of actions steps designed to effectively reestablish and elevate the KidsRank’s presence online. As a placeholder site existed, the first step was to increase KidsRank’s social media presence to include a broader use of Facebook, Twitter and Google+. In concert with the improved social strategy, we created a new polished, clean, search engine friendly web site – KidsRank.org – to serve as the online hub or home of the organization. Regardless of the nature of your business, it is highly likely that someone’s first impression of your business will be online. Having an effective, targeted new media strategy, including an optimized web site and social strategy is no longer a nice to have, it is a requirement.

We look forward to continuing to help KidsRank drive increased interest and participation in their organization through the strategic use of new media. We invite you to learn more about them via their new web site:

http://www.kidsrank.org

“1. What’s new: The format of Timeline for brands is quite similar to Timeline for personal profiles. It employs a cover photo at the top of the Page, and the Page is separated into two main columns by a dividing line, which represents the passage of time. This format provides brands with new options for self-expression: They can outline their corporate history with milestones (such as product launches, store openings, etc.) to construct a narrative for their audience.

Recommendation: Milestones present an important and dramatic opportunity to educate the public, humanize the brand and remove a perception of corporate anonymity. Our analyses of Page engagement have continually shown that brands posting content that depicts behind-the-scenes activities, exclusive updates or promotions encourages user interactions and promotes higher engagement rates. Using interesting milestones to craft the story of the brand over time (and updating the Timeline with new milestones as they happen) can help to stimulate conversations around major achievements.

2. What’s new: The new Timeline format does not have the left-side panel of links, which could include hundreds of different tabs. While applications still exist, they’ll display differently, in rectangular panels underneath the cover photo. The width of the Timeline and the space allocated for native apps like Photos means that only three tab panels are viewable at any given time. To see more, users must expand the tab panel by clicking a drop-down box.

Recommendation: For marketers, this major change means that the three above-fold tab apps need to be considered carefully — this will be one of the first things users see when interacting with your brand on Facebook. Brands will want to switch up which tabs are visible “above the fold,” according to current company objectives or project popularity. A good Page analytics tool will be useful for determining which tab to promote on a day-to-day basis.

3. What’s new: With the new Timeline Page format, you will no longer be able to set a default landing Page, a favored feature for many savvy brands. The option was one of the primary ways to control the first (branded) impression a user encountered. Since there are no more tab Pages, there is no way to set one as a default. This will drastically change user impressions when they first visit a brand’s Timeline Page.

Recommendation: You will need to apply new and careful attention to all the top messages in the Timeline, as they will be the first objects seen by visiting users. Likewise, Facebook ads for brands will become ever important, as ads will be one of the major ways brands on Facebook can control a user’s experience. Setting up an advertising campaign for a Facebook promotion or new application will be the only way to guide new and clicking users directly to that application (as landing on this Page cannot be achieved by default).

4. What’s new: One major new feature that marketers will love is the ability to “pin” certain posts to the top of the Timeline. Similar to marking a blog post “sticky,” so that it remains at the top of a blog for a specified period of time, pinning a post to the top of Timeline allows it to precede any other content. A pinned post is distinguished by a small, orange flag. Brands can pin only one item at a time, and the pinned item then exists in two locations — as the top item on the Timeline itself, as well as within its chronological place. Once unpinned (which happens automatically when a new item gets pinned, or the item has been pinned for more than seven days), the post remains in the chronology of Timeline posts, but there is no visual history that it was pinned in the past.

Recommendation: Since you can no longer create a default landing Page, pinning items to the top of the Timeline will become every marketer’s go-to strategy for highlighting new and interesting content. We will begin to see savvy brands design posts specifically to be pinned, whether images, a well-designed call-to-action, a statement about brand value, or a message calling for the user to click one of the tab panels under the cover photo.

5. What’s new: The new Timeline layout displaces Facebook’s existing Page tab configuration (including a tab’s 520-pixel width), and replaces it with a new 810-pixel layout. As a result, existing Page tab content will look centered in the middle of the 810-pixel layout without any adjustments. All applications that remain on a brand’s Page will need new application icons (the new dimensions are 111×74).

Recommendation: The most pressing updates for brands will be to update the images and tab functionality of the above-fold two apps. As these are the first tabs users will see, they will likely be the first to be interacted with, or entirely ignored if not optimized for the new experience.

6. What’s new: Finally, brands will be able to send and receive private messages with users. This allows for much deeper consumer interaction, and will also enable Page managers to take extended customer inquiries off the Timeline and into a private message.

Recommendation: Be mindful of noise in the Timeline. Since the real estate allocated to each post depends on how engaging it is or how much interaction it has received, it can be easy to clutter your Timeline with customer inquiries. When these inquiries can be better serviced in a more one-on-one manner, reach out to the consumer with a private message and resolve her question. It’s a good opportunity to yield both a happy user and a clean Timeline.

”

We couldn’t have said it better ourselves, so we didn’t. Thanks again for the outstanding summary Victoria.

At NeoCloud, we think the evolution to the timeline view is a good thing, that will ultimately prove to be a very powerful branding and sales tool for businesses savvy enough to deploy an updated, targeted messaging strategy.

I must admit on the surface without any careful consideration the thought of an ideal density makes sense.  However this is just not the case.  KD tools are not useless altogether.  They might inform you that you haven’t used your keyword at all or you might be overdoing it.

 Outside of that there is no real value in the measurement.

Dr. E. Garcia clarifies this principle in his paper The Keyword Density of Non-sense, and I highly recommend you read it.  The flaws of considering density become glaringly obvious.  You must take into account how many other pages use the keyword, how often they use it, and then normalize the equation to account for page size and repetition issues.    In a nutshell term weight considers the overall database (search engine index) while keyword density looks only at your page.  I hope this makes some sense.

Here is an example from Dr Garcia’s paper:

“If two documents, D1 and D2, consist of 1000 terms (l = 1000) and repeat a term 20 times (tf = 20), then a keyword density analyzer will tell you that for both documents KD = 20/1000 = 0.020 (or 2%) for that term. Identical values are obtained when tf = 10 and l = 500. Evidently, a keyword density analyzer does not establishes which document is more relevant. A density analysis or KD ratio tells us nothing about:

1. the relative distance between keywords in documents (proximity)
2. where in a document the terms occur (distribution)
3. the co-citation frequency between terms (co-occurrence)
4. the main theme, topic, and sub-topics (on-topic issues) of the documents”

Why then are there so many tools and SEO’s out there that measure keyword density?

For whatever reason misinformation has beat out mathematics and logic and people still believe in this nonexistent metric.   Dishonest “SEO’s” propagate this myth.  The theory of keyword density is easy to understand and sounds believable.  Anyone who hasn’t been otherwise informed should buy into the concept.  Unfortunately it just isn’t true.

The only exceptions I can see are best explained by Rand Fishkin in a post on the topic.

“…I realized that term vector theory and term weights actually validate the positive results that people claim to get (me being one of them) when it comes to increasing keyword density/frequency.  In less competitive markets and when going after long tail terms, the math actually makes sense.  Consider that in these markets the document frequency doesn’t fluctuate or grow at the rate of hyper-competitive markets.  That said, changing the term frequency can have more of a dramatic impact, especially when considering competitor sites probably aren’t well optimized on page and probably don’t have great link strength. 

     If the environment doesn’t change much, the effect of the number of total documents is little; it’s the document frequency’s stagnation that allows for a (seemingly) sustained advantage in this non-competitive market.  So, if you’re in such a market, by all means, fiddle with your keyword density/frequency, you might see some serious results through improving your term weight”

It makes sense in small niches that a higher keyword density can have some benefit.  Depending on how fine a niche we are talking about, using a keyword twice could theoretically double the term weight.  It is most likely that this is not the case for most.

So what can we deduce from all of this information?  Search engines have evolved to the point where they truly recognize good writing.  A well written page needs the keyword only once or possibly not at all!  Cramming keywords takes away from the readers experience as you will either insert them to the point of sounding robotic or delete valuable parts of your content to reach a certain “sweet spot”.  The moral of the story is focus on good writing, not on the amount of times you can cram a keyword onto a page.

In closing, let’s hear what Matt Cutts has to say about it.