There aren’t many “scandals” that can truly live up to their name, but the ongoing investigations into the Rupert Murdoch/Fox News allegations are giving us a little bit of everything: public outrage, high-tech spying, multiple police entities from different countries, and even lots of half-denials from various people in positions of power. The only thing that’s missing is salacious details from someone’s young, foreign, and impossibly beautiful nanny.

Believe it or not, however, the unfolding drama holds a few important lessons for small business owners and online marketers everywhere. Here are three things your company should definitely learn from the scandal taking place across the front pages:

It’s a good idea to update your web security frequently. Granted, most of the story in question revolves around stolen texts and the like, but the point remains: There are people out there who would love to know things they don’t have a legal right to know. Make sure that your data – and your customers – are protected online.

Better yet, you should have someone who knows what they’re doing handle it for you. From experience, we have learned that most businesses tend to put off updating their websites, and especially hosting software and security packages, far longer than they should. If you’re serious about protecting what you have online, not to mention the future of your company, then get some expert help with the job.

The public won’t forgive you for doing the wrong thing. The biggest lesson for businesses to come out of this whole thing is that if you do something terrible you will eventually be caught, and the public will be anxious to punish you for it. This applies to high crimes, of course, but also minor annoyances like selling e-mail addresses, lying to your customers, and engaging in other shady tactics. In the long run, the men and women who buy from you are your most valuable asset; remember that and treat them appropriately.

Want help avoiding the biggest blunders in Internet marketing? Then contact eKzact Solutions – One of Calgary’s best web design and online marketing team – for a free consultation today.

If you ever have a few minutes to kill, and want to blow your mind, go to your favorite search engine and look for stats and figures on the size of the known universe. We don’t want to spoil the surprise, but it’s big – so big, in fact, that it defies comprehension. And strangest of all, a lot of physicists seem to think it’s still growing.

You might think this wouldn’t have anything to do with Internet marketing, but the reality is that it does. Why? Because, just like the area around and between galaxies, the Internet is massively huge – billions and billions of pages huge – and getting bigger all the time.

Even if you aren’t a physicist or web designer, this knowledge has important implications for your business. Why? Because as interesting as a growing Internet is from an academic perspective, it also means that it’s getting harder and harder to stand out and get the attention you need from potential customers.

Astronomers like to talk about how looking up into the sky can make us feel small and insignificant, in a good way, but there are few positives to having your small business website blend into a cluster of information. In order to have your pages and content stand out and attract buyers, they have to be more than tiny points of light, and more like the comets and shooting stars that streak across the horizon.

How do you accomplish this? By getting closer to your customers and narrowing in on topics, products, and services that appeal to a very specific kind of buyer, rather than anyone who has enough change in their pocket to make a purchase from your site. That means knowing as much as you can about the men and women who visit your pages, where they’re coming from, what they’re looking for, and why they should choose to do business with you, rather than one of your competitors.

The Internet is too huge for any one business to try to compete with everyone, even within a lot of niche markets and industries. That means that you have to narrow down in order to stand out among buyers. Once you accomplish that, though, it doesn’t matter how big the Internet gets – you’ll always be the brightest star in your system.

Recently, we wrote about community managers – dedicated professionals who update your social media profiles, post new content, and respond to inquiries. While this is still a new position in most organizations, and one with evolving responsibilities, it’s becoming clear that having one, even on a part-time basis, can be incredibly helpful.

So the question is: does your small business need a community manager to keep up social networking?

Truthfully, probably not… at lease not any more than you occasionally need a plumber, an accountant, or a dentist. That is to say, you can definitely get by without one in the short term, but is it really worth it to do all of that work for yourself?

In most of the cases we see, it’s not. For one thing, there are just too many sites, with too many new features being added all the time, to stay on top of everything. But what’s more, community managers are becoming increasingly important because of something a lot of small business owners don’t even really think about: their online reputation.

Besides just posting pictures and generating tweets, one of the most valuable things a community manager can do for you is take a look at what other people are saying back to you, and about your business. Because the Internet is becoming more interconnected – not to mention updated in real time – and it only takes one or two negative remarks to put a long-term dent in your company sales. For all of the opportunities that exist for finding new business online, it’s more than prudent to have someone who’s looking out for potential threats to your marketing, too.

So if your company is planning on profiting from social media anytime soon, and it should, make sure you plan on including community managers in the mix. They can make the whole process easier and more efficient… but more importantly, they can help protect your reputation online.

Get the most out of social media marketing by working with Canada’s premier web design and development company, eKzact. Call us today and setup a free consultation – it might turn out to be one of the best things you’ve ever done for your business.