Running URLs through a service that shortens their length is a fairly standard practice at Twitter. After all, when you only have 140 characters, you don’t want a lengthy URL address taking up most of your precious, limited space!

At the moment, Twitter uses tinyurl.com to automatically shorten long URLs that you might enter into your Tweet. There are also about a gazillion other free services on the web that let you turn a whale of a URL into minnow. TweetDeck, for example, lets you choose from over a dozen different “URL downsizing” services.

photo credit: scazon

What’s Your Favorite URL Downsizer? My favorite URL downsizer of late is BudUrl. Sure, it creates longer URLs than the popular is.gd. But I love BudUrl for its juicy, mouthwatering metrics. With my BudUrl account, I can track how many people click on my shortened link, from where, and when. When I post a BudUrl, I can check on how many people click on it from Twitter. And because my Twitter posts go directly to FaceBook, I know who clicked on my link from FaceBook. And when.

Better Metrics Lead to Better Writing. Budurl helps me determine which topics are more popular, where, and when. It also gives me insight into which “headline” techniques work better. For example, I may post the same link twice — but with different Tweet lead copy. If I get significantly different clickthrough results, I need to think about which words seem more likely to inspire action. (Hint: many of the old “direct response marketing” copy techniques that work elsewhere in life work well in Twitter. Fancy that.)

Customize your Shortened URL. As I go about my day, I realize that many folks don’t know that you can customize a shortened URL to make it more memorable. Let’s take FaceBook Profile and FaceBook Fan Pages. Those URLs can be doozies!

For example:

Here’s the direct link to my own FaceBook Fan Page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Laura-Bergells/20431199713

Who can remember that? Not me! So here’s how I abbreviated it:

http://budurl.com/lbergells
or
http://tinyurl.com/laurabergells

Shorter. Relevant. More Memorable. Better Metrics. What’s not to like? When someone emails me and wants to know my Fan Page link, I can actually remember http://budurl.com/lbergells witout looking it up! And I can put this link on my Profile Page without it looking like a lengthy, sloppy mess!

Watch the video! If you’re the kind of person that likes a demonstration of how this all looks, I posted a quick 2.5 minute “show and tell” video on my FaceBook Fan Page about shortening your FaceBook URL. You can find it here – http://budurl.com/xlongurls

Harrowing Social Media Squatting Story: Last year, I sent a LinkedIn invitation to a thrilled client after I completed a short project for her company. She never accepted.

After a few weeks, she called to talk about another small project. As we chatted, I asked her if she received my LinkedIn invitation.

“What’s LinkedIn?” she asked.

Although she had never heard of LinkedIn, her profile was up there, showing only her current position. I showed it to her.

“I’ll be,” she said calmly. “Yep, that’s me all right.”

How did this happen?

She surmised that her boss had posted a LinkedIn profile for her.

“Oh, he’s like that,” she explained. “It’s important for him to know who employees are connected to and what we might be saying about the company. I’ll bet it’s just his nerdy little way of spying on us.”

Get Smart. Her lack of concern freaked me out. The idea that someone might be posing as her and communicating with her connections struck me as abusive and wrong. Who knows how her boss might be hurting her reputation? Recruiters are all over LinkedIn — job inquiries might be handled crassly. Her customers and prospects are also on LinkedIn — how is he communicating with them? And vendors — me, for example! — are simply ignored.

The importance of social media squatting. Even if you have no interest in participating at LinkedIn, FaceBook, MySpace, Twitter or a hundred other popular social media sites — you will be interested in protecting your brand and reputation. If you don’t snap up your name now, some jerk may.

Who knows what they will do — as they pretend to be you!

It may not be your boss. It may be a competitor. Or just some opportunistic lowlife that wants to sell it back to you for profit. There’s a rife of name squatting going on in social media — leading many to believe that social media name squatting is the new domain name squatting.

Is your name taken? To find out, visit user name check. Enter your company name, brand names, and of course, your own name. This easy-to-use site will instantly tell you if your handle is still available at over 60 popular social media plays. If your name is still available: snap it up. You may not currently have plans for using MySpace or Twitter: but at least hold your name until you do!

This is not a “when I get around to it” kind of thing. Do it now!  I talked to a company owner last month — her name was already taken. Don’t let social media squatting destroy your personal repuation — or your brand(s).

Confusion abounds! There is a difference between a FaceBook Profile and a FaceBook Fan Page. My most-oft question this month concerned creating a FaceBook Fan Page for a business. First, let’s explain the difference between FaceBook Profile and Fan Page:

FaceBook Profile: This is strictly for humans. Hey, that’s you! You’re putting your “Face” on facebook! It’s your picture! It’s your name! It’s your profile! Posting this info makes it easy for you to connect with your friends! You’re posting your status updates, videos, pictures, sending messages, writing on walls, and socializing within the FB environment. For example, here’s my FaceBook Profile Page.

FaceBook Fan Page: Now that you have a FaceBook profile, use it to create a Fan Page for your business. This is where you can post business information: events, videos, photos, specials, promos — and encourage your fans to post testimonials and help spread your business stories. (Since I’m also my own business, I started a FaceBook Fan Page. I also create & administer Fan Pages for other folks & businesses, too.)

Got it? One FaceBook account can create several Fan Pages and assign administrators for different businesses. No need to create separate accounts for each business you rep! But now you want to know — what’s the business advantage of a FaceBook Fan Page?

Energizing and Supporting. A FaceBook Fan Page can help a business find its best customers. The business can then energize its best customers to engage in word-of-mouth marketing. Further, a Fan Page can also be a place where customers can support each other.

Here’s a favorite example of how a FaceBook Fan Page lets the customers of a small business:

a) energize the business with powerful word of mouth marketing and

b) support each other with after-visit care.

The Dolphin Journeys Energizing + Supporting Example. About 14 weeks ago, I helped create a Fan Page for my client, Hawaii-based Dolphin Journeys. Here’s how the customer self-support function of a FaceBook Fan Page works: when you go on a dolphin or whale tour in Hawaii, you often don’t get a great shot from the boat — maybe you’re too excited or having too much fun! But chances are, someone else on the boat captured a terrific video or photo. When you become a fan of Dolphin Journeys, you can upload your terrific shots — and share them with other folks on the boat.

When customers share photos or videos on a Fan Page — they can also spread stories to THEIR friends and families when they return from vacation. And people who didn’t get the shot? They become fans, too — and share the videos, photos, and stories with their friends. And of course, there’s a Wall on the Fan Page where people can write about their experiences — authentic stories that can help spread the word that Dolphin Journeys is a terrific vacation experience.

But wait, there’s more! A FaceBook Fan Page also lets you track metrics, so that you’ll know the number of visitors to your Fan Page and their demographic data. You can also incorporate reviews, events, notifications and more into your FaceBook Fan Pages. Worried about administration? Don’t be. You can assign several administrators, so that when you go on vacation, someone else can be in charge of the Page.

For many businesses, a FaceBook Fan Page may make a great deal of sense. It depends quite a bit on a) how ready your audience is to participate and b) your business objectives.

How has a FaceBook Fan Page helped YOUR business?

If you know all about RSS, skip this post. You won’t need it.

Otherwise:

RSS stands for Real Simple Syndication. If you see this icon in your browser address bar — or anywhere on a site — it is RSS enabled.

So what, you say. Big deal. Why the heck would you care? Two reasons:

• If you’re interested in saving time and absorbing more relevant information, more quickly than ever before, then yeah. You should care.
• Oh. And if you market a business or an organization online, then yeah. You should care.

Otherwise, seriously:

Skip. This. Post.

RSS is For Smart and Creative People. People who are passionate about spreading ideas are acutely interested in RSS! These kinds of folks love new ideas. They don’t just have new ideas or read new ideas: they also often want to share their ideas. So these creative, inspiring folks add fresh content to their sites. Specials maybe. Or perhaps they’re smart business folks who answer late-breaking, gotta-know questions. Or they clear up misconceptions. Or upload how-to videos. Or keep their public informed with an updated media area…

The point is: with RSS, smart people everywhere are interacting and responding with their online audiences of prospects and customers. The RSS-savvy build a base of subscribers who elect to hear more about what they have to share.

They’re participating in quality conversations that lead to trust. And relationships. And sales.

They’re not “marketing to” prospects.

They’re “talking with” customers. Interacting.

And that’s the power of RSS over static, do-nothing, portfolio / brochure websites.

So: if you don’t understand RSS, get hip quick.

Here’s how to get hip with RSS, in five ridiculously easy steps:

1. Get your bad self a free RSS reader. Try Google Reader. There are others, but Google is a trusted brand, so go there. Sign up. Start the account.
2. Find a site you like that is RSS enabled. This is not too tough, since most savvy businesses know to RSS enable their sites these days. This site, for example, is RSS enabled. You can see the icon in your browser bar. If you can’t see it there, it’s because you’re using some kind of weirdo browser. It’s OK. Just look for words like  “Subscribe with RSS” or the icon that stands for “RSS” on a site. Once again, it often looks something like this, only smaller:

   

3. Click the RSS icon. You’ll get led to what’s known as “the feed” page. Often, this “feed” page will ask you if you want to subscribe. You do. Say yes by clicking the icon that says “Add to Google Reader”. If that’s not available, just copy the URL in the address bar and paste in into Google Reader where it says “Add Subscription”.
4. Ta-da. Consider yourself subscribed with RSS. Notice: you didn’t enter an email address, so subscribing with RSS is 100% spam-free! Hurray! You give up zero personal info to subscribe via RSS! You get all of the content you want, with no irritating side effects.
5. So go find more RSS sites to subscribe to. There are many ways to do this, but for starters, go to Alltop.com. This site is like a big magazine rack with “All Top” RSS feeds arranged by subject matter. Whether you’re interested in Autos or Zoology — you’ll find an RSS feed for topics you truly cherish.

OK, so at this point, you’re still saying “SO WHAT?” What the *#@%$$!!  did I just do, and why do I care? Two BIG FAT RSS benefits:

First benefit: you just saved oodles of time while boosting your intelligence by the power of 100. Don’t believe me? Read on:

When you subscribe to the RSS enabled sites you’re interested in, you don’t have to waste time visiting every site trying to figure out if anything has changed! You visit your Google Reader. You scan your list of subscriptions. If your subscribed sites are un-bold, nothing new has happened. You move on. You don’t waste time. However, if something is bold, it stands out. Something’s new. You click. If the headline hints at something interesting, you read further. (Hint to business owners: learn to write compelling headlines and mouth-watering copy. Otherwise, you’re dead.)

Second benefit: it hits you like a high-voltage spark from the snappiest synapse in your noggin — your online survival depends not on having a flashy, gimmicky website, but one that provides compelling, relevant, helpful, and frequently updated stories and useful information for your visitors.

After you spend a few weeks scanning your RSS feeds, you really start to “get it”. The sites you trust are the ones that consistently give you quality, relevant, timely, and/or entertaining information. The sites that “market at” you are invisible. They’re little more than tired brochures that haven’t changed since 1999. And if they HAVE changed, you don’t know — because they aren’t on RSS. They aren’t on anyone’s radar!

And slowly but surely, these sites will die. Will the businesses they represent die with them?

Marketing 101: People don’t care about you — your product or services — until you’ve established what you can do for them.  Use RSS to find and listen to experts you can trust. Then, think about how your own business can harness the power of RSS to spread your own expertise and authenticity.

What does wearing cologne have to do with web design for businesses?

Read the following 381 words.

Every time you read “cologne” — substitute “Flash”. Here goes:

photo credit: Adriano Agulló

Cologne was invented to cover up bad hygiene or mask a foul stench. Many believe that cologne is an attractor, but it isn’t.

You’re attracted to someone long before you experience their cologne.

Whenever I experience cologne in public, I often wonder:

“What’s this person trying to hide?”

or

 “Whew! I bet their B.O. would smell better without the heady cologne!”

If I experience your cologne in public, I will try to escape as quickly as possible. Before I become nauseated.

I write this, because lately, I’ve been exposed to people using too much cologne.

Way too much.

Never, ever use cologne under these two circumstances:

1. Don’t use cologne at the gym… or where people will be working hard. While working out on the ellipse machine, a guy starts working out next to me. Within a minute, he starts exuding a sweet-smelling stench. I’m breathing hard, so I have to inhale his sick odor. I get a migraine. I have to leave. If you’re using cologne where people are trying to work hard and fast, hard-working folks will get upset and flee.
2. Don’t use cologne on the airplane… or where people can’t easily escape. You’re trapped in a small space with others, so show courtesy. Practice good hygiene. Shower. No one should be forced to sit through an unwanted, lingering cologne stench that never seems to end — even after the ride is over.

If I can smell your cologne, you’re wearing too much. Your cologne is for you alone to enjoy. And maybe someone you are already intimate with. That’s it.

It doesn’t count if you WANT to develop closer relationships! Cologne isn’t going to help you attract! Most likely, cologne overuse actually repels. If you want to attract: try being a good person. Have a sense of humor. Keep yourself clean and comely. Work on telling interesting stories.

These tactics make a much better impression than cologne — no matter how expensive the cologne is!

Don’t force your cologne on others. Remember, you might like the smell of your own cologne — but honestly. No one else wants to experience it.

Three business people asked me the same internet marketing question within a month, so I reckon this warrants a blog post! The question, roughly translated, is this:

Hey! My stats show that I’m not getting as much search engine traffic as I did a few months/years ago! I’m still in the top 10 for most of my favorite keyword terms, so what gives?”

What gives at the search engines? Generally, a decline in search-generated visitation (when your search positioning hasn’t changed!) can indicate one of two situations:

1. Your industry keywords aren’t as popular as they were before. This can be seasonal — a quick look at Google Trends for the keyword phrase “tulip festival” shows that searches for this term tend to spike in spring and all but disappear in autumn. Naturally!

Other than a decline from seasonal search, you might have to face a harder truth: your products or services may be in market decline. For example, as new technologies become more popular, searches for the term “iPod Shuffle” became less popular. You’re still likely to see “iPod Shuffle” searches spike during the holiday shopping season — but probably nothing like what we saw in 2005.

So ask yourself: is your product seasonal? Or is your product or industry in decline? Because if the answer is “yes” — of course you’re going to get less visitation from the search engines for your search terms!

But if the answer is, “no” — you’ll have to face findability fact #2…

2. People are expanding internet search far beyond Google. Vertical search is certainly becoming more popular. By vertical search, I mean search by industry or topic area. For example, back in 1999 or 2000, you might have thought of “Google” to begin an online “used car” search. Not anymore! Today, you might be more likely to think, “Autotrader.com” to begin your online search for a used car. Notice how the gap narrowed — then crossed. Autotrader.com did not squander its search engine capital — and successfully branded themselves as a top site in automotive vertical search.

Aside from vertical search, social media and other valuable information/networking sites are also fragmenting the amount of searching that your audience performs at Google. When I want to get advice about new products, for example, I find that I am more likely to ask my friends on Twitter or FaceBook or LinkedIn for their advice on where to go and what to try. Google has become my second choice.

Google is becoming the second — or third — choice for many online researchers and buyers as they look for information to help make purchasing or business decisions. If you notice that you’re spending more of your budget and time on search engine marketing for your website — and getting less of a return — it’s certainly time to take a look at your overall findability strategy!

It’s not 1999 anymore! There’s more to findability than Google and Yahoo! Update and diversify your findability strategy for 2008. Vertical search and social media may become an important part of your overall findability and engagement plan.

I’ve been noodling with the delightful Wordle.net application for a few months now. Initially, I used Wordle to create word clouds that I use as art in PowerPoint presentations.

For example, I entered my opening remarks on a presentation about Social Media for Business, and Wordle generated a unique and relevant welcome slide image. The main subject of the presentation “pops” — with supporting words adding meaningful visual subtext.

Two More Reasons Web Marketers Will Love Wordle. Since my initial Wordle experiment, I’ve managed to find two other terrific web marketing uses for this simply delicious product:

1. Try the Eye-Popping Web Copy Exercise. On occasion, prospects will call to tell me that they’re all about “enter product / service here“. When I go to visit their websites, however — I often struggle to find any words that support their claims! So, when I enter web page copy into Wordle — and the name of the product doesn’t “pop” — I have a visual demonstration of a potential copy writing problem that may be damaging to web marketing success. Try this exercise with your own website!
2. Dig the Most Amazing Brand Exercise Ever. Ah, the pricey “brand brainstorming” mission. Ad agencies generate Scotch-fueled words to present as your new corporate “vision and values statement” or “the cornerstone of brand messaging”. Rubbish. Instead of disconnecting from your customers, use your customers’ very words to discover your REAL brand image, as it exists today. Pump your latest testimonials and product reviews into Wordle. Which words pop? (That’s your real brand, not something made-up and wildly out-of-touch with reality.)

Brand Reality Check. As a personal example, I popped in my LinkedIn recommendations and a few offline testimonials I’ve received for my own, personal “Laura Bergells Brand” reality check. You can see the results below. I’m a smidge dismayed by the hugeness of the word “work”. I always thought my work product appeared playful and effortless.

Turns out, I’m delusional.

I’m also alarmed that the word “creative” is absent — but the words “hand” and “months” are in there — eh? It appears I have some work to do on my image!

Sales psychology 101. If you use your customers’ words in your messaging, you’re more likely to resonate positively with your audience. You’ll be in harmony. You’ll also appear more authentic and credible. Trustworthy.

All these qualities are important for online marketing!

What creative uses have you found for using Wordle? If you have a Wordle brand exercise or other creative use you’d like to share, point me to it!

People ask me about “traffic” all the time. As in:

“Laura, how do I get more web traffic?”

Somewhere, somehow, some folks seem to have forgotten that traffic is undesirable!

Sometimes, lots of traffic is stinky, smelly, and annoying!

photo credit: SignalPAD

Don’t get caught in traffic! There are about a zillion attraction and marketing tactics that can lead to the dubious goal of “more traffic.” Search Engine Optimization (SEO), press releases, ad networks, participating vociferously in social media — the list of online marketing tactics can go on and on. Which ones will work best for you and your site?

That’s where “strategy” comes in. The last thing you want to do is spend your time chasing internet marketing tactics without a strategy in place.

Dogs chase traffic.

Smart business people don’t.

photo credit: thetorpedodog

Take a look at what you’ve got. When business owners bark, “More traffic!” — I encourage them to take a hard look at their stats. Too many times, we find that “more traffic” is a lousy goal. In fact, many times, “more traffic” can be the kiss of death for the business. Why? Consider this all-too-typical scenario:

The Case of the Website Abandoners. Let’s say the website gets X number of visitors per month — yet averages less than 10 seconds per visitor. Further, the stats reveal that over 97% of the site’s visitors never return. So — what’s the point of getting “more traffic” to this site? To scare away even more customers?

What to do instead. When a site suffers from a high rate of abandonment, something’s amiss. It might be a simple technical glitch– or a systemic problem with the structure, content, imagery, navigation, or offer. Next, carefully look at the referring site for the visitors. Did visitors come from an irrelevant link, or a badly placed ad campaign? If a website is turning off visitors when it has only a little traffic , find out what the problem is — and fix it — before aggressively pursuing “more traffic”.

Get off the ego trip. It’s really hard to explain to a Creative Director at an ad agency that we need to tweak a few things at a newly developed site — even if it’s merely A/B testing a headline approach or swapping out some pictures. And it’s even harder to tell a business owner that they have a systemic problem that needs complete re-development. In both cases, this is what I’ve heard (from time to time!):

“Nonsense, Laura — if we only had more of the right people who understand what we’re trying to do here, we’d be fine.

Now, how do we get those people to come to the site?”

Gimmee, Gimmee More Traffic!

Woof! Woof! Woof!

photo credit: doublej11

Face the stats. When business owners refuse to face their stats, I’ve discovered there’s not a whole lot that I can do to help them. Web analytics teach us volumes –not just about what works online, but about our offline messaging, brand, competition, and customer behaviors, as well. In fact, web stats can often give you more useful information than what you’d learn in a focus group. After all, it’s real and it’s raw! It’s customer behavior! Your stats don’t lie.

More traffic is not the answer... When a site isn’t resonating with a small audience — the last thing you’ll want is “more traffic!” Instead, set appropriate numeric goals — including acceptable bounce rates, conversion rates, page per visit, time on site, percentage of return visitors — and test how well your site performs with limited visitation. In other words, analyze the heck out of your site!

Tweak, test, repeat. When your site successfully meets numeric goals with a small audience, you’re more likely to be in a position to attract more qualified visitors. Instead of “getting more traffic” — you’re more likely to “attract more customers.”

And isn’t that a much better result?

photo credit: dyanna

I love the work of usability expert Jakob Nielson. I really do.

His latest UseIt Alerts are must-reads.

One alert takes a cranky old man’s slap at bad web design. Bad content, bad navigation, big bad badness.

Another discusses middle-aged folks and our declining web performance.

Both contain awesome analyses. Couldn’t agree more.

But keep two things in mind:

1. Criticizing is always easier than creating. Spotting bad design is easy. Creating great design (or content or navigation or anything, for that matter) is tougher. (And more rewarding.)

2. I’m middle-aged. I know how fun it can be to criticize the work of others. Especially whippersnappers.

So please do enjoy and appreciate Mr. N’s work — and his unique style of presenting it!

Where’s my computer guy?

Earlier this month, I mentioned that there’s “a guy” missing from my Rolodex.

(Relax! “That guy” can be a gal, too!)

photo credit: loosepunctuation

“That guy” is apparently shy about implementing some effective word-of-mouth marketing!

Worth noting: “that guy” might be willing to spend $10,000 on a website — or an all-tell, no-sell brochure. And “that guy” might very well fall prey to a pitch from an aggressive cutie-pie account rep from a who-reads-it newspaper or no-one-visits-it website.

But “that guy” won’t spend 2 minutes to pop me a comment or drop me a line. “That guy” isn’t that comfortable with making a human connection, or starting a conversation.

“That guy” will likely invest in a foolish ad campaign that feeds his ego — but it won’t feed his family!

Man! Some folks will do anything to avoid interpersonal communication!

But without that crucial skill, how long can “that guy” stay in business?

It’s little wonder that “that guy” gets picked up by big organizations, who supply him or her with teams to fill in the interpersonal marketing gaps.  “That guy” has great tech skills, but little interpersonal savvy.

One more time: word-of-mouth marketing can pay big dividends. If you can’t make conversation — hire someone who can.