As we have written in the past, the sheer amount of work involved in Internet marketing – and especially social media – makes it nearly impossible for business owners and marketing managers to handle on their own. But, since so much of social networking involves personal communication, we are often asked which parts of your social media strategy you can safely outsource to others.

The quick answer is “anything you don’t have time to manage yourself.” Typically, that involves things like writing posts and updates, researching keywords and links, and responding to routine inquiries from clients and colleagues. In truth, you can probably outsource as much or as little of your social media marketing campaign as you would like, so long as you keep these three rules in
mind:

It’s still about your voice and brand. Although another person may be writing your posts or looking after your updates, they should be familiar enough with you and your organization to stick to a theme and voice that is similar to the one you would use. In other words, they should be working under your direction, not simply generating content.

You should still be involved. In addition to helping your social media consultant or community manager to come up with topics and ideas, you may want to step in and personally post updates and tweets from time to time. That will help your social media marketing be more authentic, and also keep you in closer touch with your customers.

Make it clear that you’re getting help. There’s no reason to shy away from the fact that you have others involved in your social media marketing accounts. That’s especially true in this day and age, where your customers and colleagues are going to expect that you have a team working for you. Be upfront about these relationships. In our organization, we designate our tweets with initials, for example, so it’s easy to tell who is posting a particular comment or responding to a question.

Social media marketing can be easy or difficult, highly effective or a waste of time, depending on what sort of professional help you have on your side. Keep these tips in mind and outsource the parts of your social networking plan that you would rather not handle or don’t have time for.

Do you need a professional online marketing and social media team on your side? Contact us today for a free meeting.

In keeping up on the local Calgary online marketing community, we’ve noticed an interesting trend: Roughly once every three days, a new job listing is posted by a major Alberta employer for a professional who can help them to manage their social media marketing.

What do they know that you might not? What can a social media consultant do for you?

Also referred to as a “community manager,” a full- or part-time social media consultant can help you grow your business online in a number of ways. Here are just a few of the most important ones:

Social media marketing content creation. Most managers and business owners don’t enjoy writing things like posts. Having someone else handle it for you can save a lot of time and take a great deal of stress out of the process.

Respond to inquiries and requests. From colleagues wanting to link with you to customers tweeting questions about your products, a social media marketing consultant can ensure that inquiries are answered quickly and completely.

Issue press releases and other statements. Are your customers getting the good news about your products, awards, and testimonials? If not, then it might be time to make sure that someone else is staying on top of these activities.

Looking after your online reputation. Internet reputation management is a quickly growing field, and there’s a great reason for it: What your customers are saying about you on sites like Facebook and Twitter – whether it’s good or bad – can have an enormous impact on your ability to increase your sales online. A community manager can keep an eye out for feedback to see what kinds of impressions are being shared, and make sure they’re accurate.

New positions for social media marketing are popping up all the time, because social networking sites have turned into big business. Who’s looking out for you and your company?

If you’re looking for a social media consultant you can trust, or a speaker who can explain the process of finding customers over Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to your audience, then don’t hesitate to contact us today.

When the subject of hiring a social media community coordinator  first comes up with C-Level Executive leaders, a lot of them will wonder if they really need one. After all, can’t an office administrator just post the corporate tweets and Facebook updates, without paying someone to do it for the company?

You certainly could, and lots of professionals do. In the long run, though, it usually doesn’t make much sense. You might not want to handle your own social media marketing for the same reasons that it doesn’t really make a lot of sense to do your own taxes, represent yourself in legal proceedings, or cut your own hair: You probably don’t have the time to learn to do any of these things, and someone else can do a better job of them, anyway.

In the first case, consider that finding new customers through sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn doesn’t cost a lot, but is time-intensive. It might seem like nothing to dash off a quick note or update, but you can easily spend an hour a day keeping on top of your social profiles. That’s an hour you could have spent running your business. Even more importantly, what happens on a day when you don’t have that hour to spend? Your online marketing plan comes to a halt. String too many of those days together, and you’ve got a social media marketing campaign that’s going nowhere.

But even if you can stay on top of your social profiles on your own, would you really want to? As personable and articulate as you might be, you’ll probably get better results from having a professional edit your posts, keep an eye on recurring themes and ideas, and otherwise ensure that you are creating content that’s interesting, unique, and relevant.

In other words, by setting the tone yourself, turning the day-to-day details of your social media marketing plan to someone else, and supplementing them with your own tweets and updates, you are much more likely to end up with the result you’re looking for: more leads and customers coming to you through social networking sites.

You might not need a social media consultant in the same way that you need a doctor or a dentist, but if you’re serious about taking advantage of one of the most important Internet marketing trends to come along recently, then hiring one is a no-brainer decision.

Having said all of this, it is critical that you remain involved in your social strategy. Need some help growing your organization or social media sites? Get in touch with us today to find out how easy it is to get started.

And how much do you really need to? When I speak to audiences about the growth of the Internet and online marketing, I can virtually guarantee that this question is going to come up at some point or another. It doesn’t matter whether I’m speaking to a group like Alberta Rural Development, a conference of entrepreneurs, or even a meeting of Think Local Market; people seem to intuitively grasp that there’s too much to do online, and not enough time to do it.

And so, it’s not surprising that one of the things they want to know is how often I’m actually on the Internet. My usual answer is: “Always.” I say it with a bit of a smirk, of course, and I’m obviously exaggerating… but probably not as much as you might think.

Why am I connected to the Internet on a nearly round-the-clock basis? Obviously, part of the reason is that web design, online marketing, and social media management are a big part of my career. I have to be connected to keep up with my work. Even if I were in a different industry, however, there would still be plenty for me to do just to keep up with a “normal” online marketing plan – from search engine optimization content to tweets, Facebook updates, and more.

Really, that’s what the audience members who ask these questions want to know: How can they even attempt to keep up with at all?

The realistic answer is that they can’t. There’s just too much out there. The benefits of a well-designed, continuously updated online marketing plan are too huge to ignore, and yet the to do list is more than any otherwise-busy professional can handle. That’s why outsourcing some of your online work isn’t just preferable, but practically a necessity.

Having another person or team who can look after your accounts, generate content from your direction, and otherwise keep your website and social profiles moving step-in-step with your business goals keeps the machine running. It certainly doesn’t exclude you from having any participation and input, but it takes a process that would be otherwise unfeasible and unrealistic and puts you back in control.

If you are looking for the magic formula that’s going to let you grow your business or organization over the Internet in just half an hour a day with no outside expenses, then there isn’t one. But if what you want to find is a realistic way to meet your online and off-line business goals, then the answer is to call in outside help for the activities that matter most.

To get help putting your Internet marketing plan into action, or to find out about David’s availability for a speaking event, contact us by phone or e-mail today.

If you read medical news, or happen to have high cholesterol, then you may have already seen that new tests show that the popular drug Lipitor doesn’t just improve heart health, but may also prevent other kinds of diseases, too. In other words, it doesn’t just do what it’s supposed to, but brings other positive side effects along for the ride.

Within the medical industry, these other good things that happen are called “legacy effects.” They are great if you or someone you know takes Lipitor… but what does it have to do with online marketing?

Probably more than you realize. That’s because anything you do online – from search engine optimization to social media marketing and online newsletters – tends to help everything else you do as well. In other words, if you do something that helps you attract visitors or convert customers well enough in one area, it’s likely to help you in another, too.

Here are a few quick examples, and how you can put them to use in your business:

A good SEO plan can make PPC advertising cheaper. That’s because the major search engines like Google place “quality scores” on your pages. So, the higher they rank naturally, the less you are likely to pay for sponsored traffic to your site.

Social media marketing helps SEO. With the return of real-time search results, Google and the other engines are factoring social content more heavily into their search results. So, the more you post to Facebook and Twitter, the more traffic you can receive from other sources.

Maintaining a high-quality online newsletter makes the rest of your site more profitable. That’s because you don’t just get traffic from people clicking through from your newsletter; you also get exposure from others who have been forwarded your articles, or search engines that have indexed some of your content.

The point is that a good online marketing plan is like a strong medicine. Even if you’ve instituted it to achieve one specific goal, if you handle things well enough, you’re likely to get other side benefits, as well. So, the sooner you get started, the sooner you can watch the rest of your website and company grow.

Start gathering quotes for business web design – or any professional service, I suppose – and you’ll notice right away that there will be a general range for professional work, along with a few that seem to be a little too good to be true. But, in this tough economy, the choice is clear, right? Isn’t it smart to save a little money where you can get a great deal when it’s offered?

Before I answer that question, let me point out two very important things. The first is that, in web design and almost any other business, you are highly likely to get what you pay for. And secondly, especially in business web design, what you pay for your project isn’t nearly as important as what you get out of it. In other words, a site that seems a bit more expensive now is a steal later if it ends up doubling your profits.

With that being said, the one thing to pay close attention to in any suspiciously low business web design quote is what’s not being listed.

In other words, are you really getting a great deal, or is it that they’re just taking away the “extras” that are most important to your site?

Here are at least five things that should definitely be included in any business web design quote:

A search engine optimization and marketing plan. It doesn’t matter what your site looks like, or what it does, if no one can find it. Make sure it will be accessible on Google, Yahoo, and Bing at a minimum.

Ongoing service and minor updates. What happens if you need to change a page, or find that you left a typo on your homepage? It’s important to pick a business web design team that will still be there when you need them.

Web hosting. Hosting might seem like a minor detail, but it affects your site speed, performance, stability, and even search engine positioning. Make sure you’re getting a competitive rate for high-quality hosting.

Social media links and profiles. Sites like Facebook and Twitter are more important than ever, and your company is going to suffer if you don’t have a presence on each of them.

An ongoing plan to grow your company online. Remember, your website shouldn’t just be an online brochure, but an important part of your marketing and promotion plan. What is your new business web design company doing to help you make it more successful?

We all like to save money, and it’s tempting to go with the rock-bottom business web design quote. Before you do, however, make sure that you aren’t spending less at the expense of your company’s future.

If you want some of the best Calgary web design and online marketing, contact eKzact Solutions for a free consultation today!

One of the great tragedies in life, and business online, is that nothing lasts forever… and that very few things even last for very long. Get a fantastic haircut, and you’ll quickly find your hair hasn’t stopped growing; buy a wonderful suit, and you’ll notice that it’s only a matter of time before it has to be taken in or out because you’ve either gone on a diet, or need to.

In some ways, it’s the same with your small Calgary business website. Even if you invest in a high-quality design that fits your company perfectly, impresses visitors, loads correctly across all kinds of browsers, and helps your company to make more money, it’s probably going to need to be tweaked or updated eventually.

The good news is that great websites don’t have to be completely replaced very often. In fact, it’s often a matter of just making a few small changes when you need them. Here are a few things you should definitely add or review on your business website, even if you aren’t ready for a major redesign:

Social media links and integration. If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you already know that social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are big business. It’s important that you have links to your profiles and content on these sites, since they can make it easier for people to find you outside of your business website, and vice versa.

Search engine optimized pages and content. Moving onto the first or second page of the results for your most important keywords on Google, Yahoo, and Bing can be an enormous boost to your business, but it’s getting harder to improve your search engine rankings all the time. For that reason, it makes sense to review your pages from time to time, to ensure that they’re optimized, and that you are still emphasizing the right keywords and phrases.

Product descriptions and prices. It goes without saying that accuracy, especially in product descriptions and prices, is an important part of the upkeep on your business website. Still, there are a surprising number of companies that regularly fail to keep this kind of data current. Whether you’re using a content management system or not, be sure that your site is up to date.

FAQs, contact information, privacy policies, and other details. More and more, people are basing their online buying decisions on how certain they feel that you’re going to do what you say you will, how quickly they can expect their order, and what they think you’ll do with their personal information. Make it easier for them to buy with clear, customer-friendly details on your business website.

For a lot of meeting planners, regardless of whether it’s their full-time job or a temporary assignment, choosing a professional Canadian speaker for a business meeting or association event is a little bit of a mixed bag. If they get it right, they’ll look good to peers and supervisors; bring in a dud, and they may not be trusted with such a big decision for a long time in the future.

For that reason, a lot of men and women I talk to about keynote presentations and breakout sessions want to find someone who’s informative and dynamic… but also want to play it a little bit safe and be sure they don’t choose the wrong person. That’s completely understandable, and I can promise you that it is entirely possible to do both.

To make it easier, here are three things to look for in a Canadian professional speaker, no matter what kind of event you’re planning for:

The right topic. All the charisma in the world won’t help you if you choose someone who doesn’t have a topic that’s interesting to your audience. When in doubt, try to stick with universal themes, like better business management, or cutting-edge marketing techniques. These are topics that almost everyone is interested in, meaning that your speaker will have wide appeal.

Membership in the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers (CAPS). While booking someone with CAPS membership doesn’t guarantee that you’ll find the exact right fit, it does allow you to have confidence that you aren’t going with someone who hasn’t given lots of presentations before, or will struggle to make their point effectively. Because CAPS has some fairly rigorous standards in place, you can feel comfortable knowing you’re going to get a professional presentation.

Humor and energy. Depending on what kind of time you have your speaker slotted for, your attendees may be tired, distracted, jet-lagged, excited to see colleagues for the first time in several months, or all of the above. It takes a special kind of stage presence to overcome these factors, meaning that your speaker’s style is as important as their topics are. Remember that, and choose wisely.

Psychologists will tell you that there are large groups of people who feel overwhelmed by “information overload,” or the ever-growing and expanding amount of data that’s available on the Internet. We regularly meet with small business owners who seem to be suffering from a similar effect – one we might call feature overload – where they aren’t sure which of the “must-have” tools and technologies need to be integrated into their next web design.

In other words, they often aren’t sure exactly how new a new business web design actually has to be in order to be an effective marketing tool.

Even though it might run contrary to a lot of thinking within the industry, we’re going to go out on a limb and say for the record that having the latest and greatest features on your business site isn’t always all it’s cracked up to be. Don’t get us wrong, there are definitely some fairly-standard features – like a good content management system, social media integration, search engine optimization, etc. – that can make your company more profitable in a hurry. But there are also a lot of things that just add to time and expense of your business site, make it more complicated for people to use, and generally get in the way of good usability.

Good design is classic. The way we code websites might change, but the basic ideas and information that most customers are looking for has remained fairly constant for thousands of years. In other words, you might use an online video to tell a potential buyer what you would have explained in a brochure 10 years ago, but the focus still needs to be on the right message, rather than on any one specific web design tool.

A good, high-quality business web design can easily last 3 to 5 years before it needs any major changes. If you find that you’re needing to redesign your business website a lot more often than not, it could be that you aren’t investing in quality layouts to start with, or are being too distracted by small changes, rather than concentrating on your most important business goals.

Having a new website for your company can be very exciting, but having one that helps you make more money month after month is usually a lot more rewarding.

As the owner of a growing web design company and one of Canada’s more popular (not to mention modest) technology speakers, it might not surprise you to know that I give dozens of keynotes and workshops on topics like search engine optimization and online marketing every year. What may surprise you, however, is that the majority of them aren’t for technical groups at all, but business associations and trade groups filled with plumbers, dry cleaners, florists, and more.

Do these folks really need to worry so much about finding customers online?

Believe it or not, they do – and in fact, the competition on the web within these industries, and most others, is getting fiercer than ever. This isn’t necessarily because the professionals and business owners in question are groundbreaking, but that they’re doing the smart thing and following their customers.

With the Yellow Pages and other forms of print advertising in a steep decline, there is a seemingly a reversible trend towards consumers looking for products and vendors online… even within their own local geographic areas. That means that businesses of all types and sizes have to be familiar with the basics of Internet marketing. Otherwise, they’re just going to have to sit back and watch their competitors quickly pull away.

Luckily, most people can learn the basics of Internet marketing in an hour or two; it doesn’t have to be a massive marathon effort. And so, for a meeting planner who would like to get a presentation that is impactful, the trick is to choose a web marketing speaker who is experienced and knows all the right concepts, but also can make it accessible by emphasizing the big picture and adding a little bit of humor.

Obviously, if you’re looking for a speaker for an upcoming industry or business event in Alberta or beyond, I would love to be that person. Regardless of whether you consider booking me, however, I encourage you to find a great technology speaker for your event – it can be a fun topic, and it’s a great thing for your attendees and the future of their businesses.

Not long ago, it was announced that the President of the United States would be opening up an official Twitter account, making him probably the last mega-famous personality on the planet to sign up for one.
Along with being an interesting factoid on the growing importance of social media and the effect it has on public opinion, the move also raises another issue that’s closer to home for most of us: You no longer have an excuse not to keep up on social media marketing.

Let’s face it: If the Commander-in-Chief of the United States can find time to send 140 characters now and again – or at least delegate it to someone else – then can you really claim you don’t have the time to do the same? After all, he’s got state dinners, economic crises, military strategies, and even a reelection campaign to contend with… and he’s doing it all on a government salary. Most of us aren’t having to make time for Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn under those kinds of constraints.

Of course, we are being a little bit silly with this idea, but the point is that saying you don’t have time for social media marketing is similar to saying you can’t spare a few minutes to send out invoices, or have time to talk your best customer. It’s very likely that you are incredibly busy, but you make time in your day’s activities because they’re the ones that will keep money coming into your business every month, not to mention growing and successful for years to come.

With more than 700 million people regularly logging into Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, social networking sites represent a market that no business that’s bigger than a man and a donkey selling fruit on the side of the road can afford to ignore. They don’t just allow you to reach more people, but also to forge better relationships with the customers you already have, and encourage them to send referrals your way. How could anyone be too busy for that?

Take our advice, and the President’s example, and get started with social media marketing if you haven’t already. It is another habit you’ll have to add to your daily routine, but one that could ultimately pay you back several times over.

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.

It can be easy to get the itch to imitate something you’ve seen a competitor do online, especially when they’re sitting well ahead of you in the search engine rankings, or expanding their company at a time when you’re treading water and are struggling to get by. In fact, we meet with small business owners every day who are motivated to make a change in their website or online marketing plan simply because they’ve seen someone else do the same.

There are times when a competitor’s move can inspire or necessitate doing something different, but take care that you don’t choose a losing Internet marketing strategy.

Why do we point this out? Because not everything is as it appears from the outside. Unless you have a great deal of personal insight into your competitor’s books, there’s nothing to say that they aren’t pouring a lot of time and money into the wrong things. Or, it could be that they’re drastically increasing their Internet marketing budget simply because the rest of their business is doing so badly. It’s surprisingly common for struggling companies to turn their efforts to find new customers after it’s already way too late.

To keep you from copying someone else’s mistakes, here are a few quick things to look for when examining a competitor’s website or online marketing campaign:

Run the numbers. Take a hard look at what the other company is doing and try to make an educated guess at what kind of return they’re likely to be seeing from it. You won’t have all the figures, naturally, but by talking to your web design team in thinking about prices and percentages, you might be able to come closer than you think.

Imagine what a similar activity will cost you. If you were to try the same thing, or something similar, what would the cost be? Compare that to a conservative estimate of what you think it’s earning them, and then try to decide whether it’s an idea that’s even worth considering.

See if there’s a better or more efficient way. Often times, the first business to try something isn’t the one that gets it right. See if there isn’t some way to improve on your competitor site or idea, and you might just make the breakthrough that they weren’t able to find.

Effective online marketing takes a lot more than a small business website. Contact eKzact – One of Calgary’s best web design teams – today to find out what we can do for you.

Amazing as it seems now, there was a time not so many years ago when no one, except the most tech-savvy small businesses, had regular access to a webmaster or IT professional. Granted, those people were around, but you generally called on them when you needed something fixed, not because you wanted one on staff. Now, of course, nearly everyone has an internal or contracted team to keep their small business site up and running and their technology online – to go without would quickly put your company at risk.

That’s how I’m starting to feel about community managers – men and women whose job it is to keep your online content and social profiles up to date and moving forward.

Why? Because as with all things on the Internet, change is coming faster than most of us had anticipated. Social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter aren’t just gaining steam – they are bulldozing any previous notions we had about how customers find us and communicate with us. The profiles you have on these websites affect everything from your repeat business to your online reputation, and even search engine optimization. To go without them means to give up valuable ground to other companies who would love to take new accounts away from you.

The way a community manager fits into this mix is by making sure your posts and profiles are all up to date, on point, and keeping your online marketing efforts in sync with one another. That’s why, here at eKzact, we’ve made our community manager a big part of our ongoing work, and invite you to take advantage of this service. The web (and especially social network marketing) has simply gotten too big, and too important, for most of us to keep our hands around while still running our companies – why not let a professional help us keep things moving in the right direction?

When social media was first taking off and gaining steam, Facebook didn’t really have much in the way of competition, at least when it came to users’ attention. MySpace had gotten there first, but was mainly used by the younger crowd, and Twitter didn’t offer the depth of communication and connection that a site that allowed you to connect with your friends, relatives, and colleagues did. And so it was no surprise that when Facebook announced plans to add advertising features to its site, companies of all sizes lined up around the block to give it a try.

Now, just a short while later, a lot of what made Facebook unique is starting to wear away. Other companies, like Google and Bing, are finding ways to integrate “likes” (through +1 and similar add ons) into your profile and share preferences with other users. But despite these changes, Facebook still represents a completely unique advertising environment, and one most small businesses should at least try. Here’s why: Facebook doesn’t just market based on what it thinks it knows about you – it works off of data users provide about themselves.

This might seem like a minor difference from search engine optimization, or pay per click advertising, where searchers indicate what’s on their mind at the moment. But when you think about it on a deeper level (or have worked with search engine marketing strategies for some time), you often find that what people type into Google’s query box isn’t always exactly what they meant. And with new auto complete features coming into full swing this year, it’s even harder to tell whether someone meant to find your website, or just something that was vaguely similar.

Search engine optimization and other forms of online marketing aren’t going anywhere soon, and we’re not even going to argue that Facebook is “better” at finding customers than anything else. What you should know and remember, however, is that the fact that it pulls information that people give themselves makes it one-of-a-kind… at least for now. For some products and services, that’s an online marketing edge that just can’t be matched anywhere else.

If you’re wondering whether Facebook could be a great online advertising platform for your company, contact one of Calgary’s best Internet marketing partners – eKzact web design – today for a free consultation!

There are a lot of things social networking sites are great for, like sharing news, advertising online coupons, and reaching out to new potential customers. When small businesses first get involved with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and social media in general,  however, they often don’t use them to their marketing potential.

In order to get more out of social media sites, you can’t do all the work yourself. Here are a few ways you can make your profile stronger by getting your customers in on the act:

Ask customers to submit product photos and stories. If you sell something that people interact with regularly, or depend on as part of their day-to-day jobs, then they might be able to say far more about your products than any marketing copy ever could. The more other buyers can see customers using your merchandise, the stronger impression it’s going to make in their minds.

Hold contests to find the next marketing tagline or offer. This is a great way to get customers involved for two reasons: one, you give them the chance to tell you what they’d really like to see you offer in terms of products and pricing; and two, because you subtly alert them that a big sale or event is around the corner. Why not offer a coupon or gift certificate to the customer who can help you come up with the next great social marketing idea?

Get feedback and testimonials from buyers. Obviously, few things help you sell online like positive reviews and feedback. But even if all the news isn’t good, you still win. That’s because you don’t just find areas where you could improve your company and service, but you also show potential buyers that you’re willing to listen and that their concerns are important to you.

Give discounts for passing your name along. In the same way, giving premiums, gifts, or bonuses for referrals isn’t exactly a new concept. But by making these offers on social media sites, you’re making it a lot easier and more convenient for your customers to take advantage. Give them an incentive to tell other people about the great things you do, and you might persuade them to go out and do it.

Need an online marketing team that knows social networking sites inside and out? Try one of Calgary’s best by contacting eKzact today!

That’s actually a little bit of a trick question; the reality is that they have been for a while. With major search engines like Google, they are factoring in real-time results from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social media sites, the trend of merging SEO and social networking began quite a while ago. And now, with Facebook’s introduction of more search features, Google’s +1 rollout, Google Buzz, and the gaining popularity of public profiles, it’s starting to show itself in a way that the average web user can recognize.

So what should you do with this knowledge?

There are two definite courses of action. First, you want to be absolutely sure that all of your content – including and especially social media profiles and updates – is optimized just as a webpage would be. That means paying attention to your keywords, using filenames that can increase your search positioning, constantly adding new updates, and generally paying attention to the ways people can find you. Google alone figures more than 200 factors into their algorithm for each and every search; you can bet they’re paying attention to what you post on Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking sites, and will continue to do so going forward.

The second thing you can do is get full leverage out of your social media profiles. In other words, since search engines are going to factor them in and point to them anyway, make sure that potential customers can find lots of great things about you and your LinkedIn profile, Facebook fan page, and other social networking destinations. In a perfect world, one of your social profiles would do just as good a job selling you as your company’s home page would.

The lines between SEO and social media are blurring, but if you get into the habit of optimizing your content on both ends, that can be a great thing for your business.

Is your business falling behind on search engine optimization and social media marketing? Work with Calgary’s best to get back on track – contact eKzact Web Design And Internet Marketing for free consultation today!

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.

If you’ve noticed something new about your Google search results today – and not everyone will, since the changes being made are gradually across different locations and browsers – you’re not alone. Google has recently announced that they’ll start adding “+1″ buttons to listings.

What does +1 mean? It’s most similar to Facebook’s “like this” tab, which allows users to point out which pages are destinations they consider to be most helpful. The results are then made public to your Gmail contacts, although this may expand in the future, and Google has some tentative plans to collect aggregate +1 data for sites and pages to see which ones are most popular.

As a web user, this might seem like a neat little feature to share which sites you enjoy. But as an online marketer, it should alert you to some deeper truths and trends. Here are three things you definitely need to know about Google’s new +1 addition:

It’s further blurring the lines between search and social media. By essentially following in the footsteps of Facebook’s like this or Twitter’s “retweet” option, Google is positioning itself less as a pure search engine and more of a social hub. Expect that these Internet giants will continue to battle it out for the lion’s share of your attention.

Online marketers will try to one up each other. You can bet that, as soon as +1 becomes widespread, companies will be trying hard to one up each other with more +1′s. Not only will it make them seem more popular and possibly spread their marketing message, but there’s the chance that it could even help their search positioning down the road, if Google (logically) decides that sites with more approvals should get higher rankings.

Quality content is more important than ever. Ultimately, what +1 does is place more control into the hands of searchers. And what sort of sites and pages will they reward? That’s right, the ones with the most helpful – and most interesting – content. Having high quality writing and video on your small business website has become more and more important in recent years. That trend is only going to continue.

Need a Calgary Web design and online marketing partner who can help you stay on top of the latest web trends? Contact eKzact today. We’ll show you what’s going on in the online world, and how your business can take advantage.

It makes a lot of sense that when clients are looking for the very best in Calgary’s Web design, they tend to focus on the actual designs they see. But while looking through samples might be a good way to pick up on someone’s artistic flair, know that great web design doesn’t end once your site goes live… in fact, that’s really only the beginning.

Granted, the process of going from concepts to code, ideas to an actual, fully-functional website can be intense. But what happens once you’re online? A lot of business owners and marketing managers don’t think past that moment, even though it’s a virtual certainty that more help will be needed.

That’s because there are always going to be issues with the coding or design, updates to your company’s products or features, new security patches for your hosting software, e-mail and server issues, or any one of a thousand other things that will eventually lead you to pick up the phone. And that, as they say, is where your web design team is really going to earn its money.

What’s more, there could be challenges with your company’s website that don’t even have anything to do with “problems.” It could just be that your site becomes more popular and you need to find ways to promote it through social media, or that you are performing well in certain search engine terms but not others. Again, this is the place where the list could be endless; the only thing you can be sure of is that you’re going to eventually want some assistance.

There’s nothing wrong with evaluating designers and other creative teams first and foremost by the creative work they do. If you really want the best for your business, however, be sure to look beyond the design — because that’s where your web design project begins, but not where it ends.

If you’re looking for a team to design your company’s next website, make sure it gets found by potential customers, or simply get your business moving in the right direction online, contact eKzact — Calgary’s premier web design and online marketing partner.

Google and the other major search engines have reported in the past few years that “image result” queries are on the rise. This isn’t all that surprising — lots of people check out pictures of nature, super-models, sports events, and more — and might seem like it has nothing to do with you and me.

The reality, though, is that people aren’t just looking up celebrities and postcard landscapes… they’re also searching for images of friends, colleagues, and vendors.

What does this have to do with you, or your online marketing? It’s simple, the bigger and better you get, the higher the odds are that someone is going to decide to try to put a face with your name and Google you for image results. Or, the more pictures there are of you online, the more likely it is that someone searching your company is going to come across one of them. In either case, think carefully about what they would find. Is it something that would help, or hurt, your professional image?

If you aren’t sure, then your first step should be to perform a similar search yourself. Many people do this and are surprised at what comes up. For one thing, there might be a lot of photos of another person with the same name but (whether obviously or not) isn’t you. And for another, you could come up with photos you haven’t seen in years, snapshots where you have been tagged on other people’s social media profiles, pictures from old jobs or news articles, and so on.

Regardless of what you find, there are two things you deftly should do: first, try to remove anything that might harm your long term professional prospects; and secondly, make sure there are at least a few places where people can find a nice, comforting, professional photograph of you. In fact, go ahead and spend a few dollars having one done if you need to — it’s a small investment with a potentially large payoff.

Most of us aren’t famous enough that we have tons of adoring fans searching out our photos online. That doesn’t mean, however, that we can afford not to clean up our image online.

Need common sense advice and uncommon Internet marketing results? Get in touch with the team at eKzact — we’re one of Calgary’s leading web design, online marketing, e-commerce, social media, and everything else you need to keep your business moving ahead on the web.

As spring weather starts to move in, a lot of us will turn our thoughts to green grass, warmer temperatures, and maybe getting outside on the evenings and weekends. But if you can manage to focus a little bit of your time and energy on online marketing as the warmer days come, you might be surprised at how much you can accomplish while the rest of the world isn’t paying attention — and how much easier your summer months will feel with the hard work out of the way.

Here is a quick reminder of four areas where you might think about tuning up your business website this spring:

Refresh your search engine optimization plan. If you’re not showing up on one of the top few spots on Google or Yahoo for your most important keywords, then it’s very likely costing you a lot of money. Now is a great time to think about optimizing your site for the future.

Gather some steam on your social media profiles. More followers, better profiles, and frequent updates all make it easier to use sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to secure new customers. Make it your goal this spring to add one or two new contacts every day.

Add more online videos to your company’s site. Online videos don’t just help you sell more, but also create stronger brand awareness, decrease customer-service expenses, and improve traffic to your site. Why not take advantage of the new season by shooting a few high-quality clips?

Plan for some new web content. This is often the part of the year where all the grand plans and ideas people had at New Year’s start to lose some of the momentum. Take advantage of the warmer weather and give yourself a mental break, but also assess how you doing towards reaching your long-term goals and make a firm plan to get back on track if you need to do.

Want to start making your company more competitive online this spring? Find out how eKzact Web Design has helped so many other businesses in and around Calgary to meet their bottom-line goals.

If there is one thing nearly every eKzact client would wish for, it’s more marketing exposure. After all, isn’t that what search engine optimization, social media marketing, and even web design itself are really all about?

And yet, the majority of businesses and professionals miss out on one of the spots where they could put a welcome tagline for their business and have it seen by thousands of people every year: their e-mail signature.

Think that it’s not a powerful place to include an offer or reminder? Think again. Not only is it one spot where you probably have repeated access to customers and potential customers, but it’s also something that’s seen when your e-mail is printed or passed on to another person.

Here are four ways you can use the valuable space at the bottom of your next e-mail to help your company market itself better:

Promote a product or special. If you have something your customers might be excited about, like a new product or discount pricing, that they might’ve missed elsewhere, this could be the perfect place to give them a reminder.

Include links to social media profiles. If you’ve read this blog at all over the past few months, you already know how important social media is to your overall marketing plan. Encourage people to join or follow you online by including links with each e-mail.

Highlight a piece of recent news. Did you win an award, snag a major contract, or otherwise do something professionally that you’d want customers to know about? If so, include a quick headline and a place for them to click through.

Offer a special report or white paper. Downloadable information pieces work well because they let people know you’re an expert on your subject. If you have one, your e-mail signature can help more people find it.

Need new online marketing ideas for your company? Get in touch with eKzact, Calgary’s premier web design and Internet marketing partner.

Amongst the things business owners and marketing managers are quickly learning about social media marketing are that it’s important — Facebook alone has more than 500 million members and growing fast — and that it’s hard to keep up with.

Between the profiles, updates, tweets, and LinkedIn requests, managing your company’s communications can quickly become a part-time job.

And in fact, in some circles it has.

More and more businesses are relying on “community managers” to keep their social networking communications professional and consistent. Whether they are in-house or a paid vendor, this person is responsible for keeping your accounts up to date, managing the impression you create, and keeping an ear to the ground to see what sort of results you’re getting.

Sound interesting? Here are four things a community manager can do for you:

Keep an editorial calendar. Instead of simply posting messages randomly, a community manager can make sure you hit the right topics at the right intervals by helping you plan ahead.

Post and tweet regularly. We all know how easy it is to lose track of what you’d like to do in a day because you get busy with other tasks. A big part of the community manager’s job is making sure your posts and tweets go online when they should.

Manage feedback. Want to be sure the conversation keeps going? Your community manager can approve and even encourage feedback from visitors to your Facebook fan page and another profiles.

Keeps you updated. Want to know how many followers you have, whether they’re joining at the rate you expected, or if your social media marketing is paying off? These are metrics your community manager can easily gather and report back to you with.

As you probably noticed, having a community manager for your social profiles can be a great way to fill in some of the gaps in your online marketing plan. If you have wanted to do more with sites like Facebook, twitter, and LinkedIn, but can’t seem to find the time, then consider adding one to your team. It could be someone on your staff, and outsourced professional, or a member of your web design/online marketing team. What matters isn’t where they work, but that they keep your social media marketing on track and moving forward.

Want to see better results from your social media marketing? Try working with our team — we have helped dozens of companies in Calgary, just like yours, to turn Facebook friends and Twitter followers into loyal customers.

Come and join Ulistic starting on May 18 for a Canadian tour hitting three cities in 3 weeks.  Ulistic will be sharing the art of Search Engine Optimization with small business in Calgary, Toronto and Niagara Falls.

Interested in learning how to manage your own search engine optimization?

Want to learn how social media can aid in SEO?

Five years ago, most website owners didn’t even know what Search Engine Optimization or SEO meant. Today a growing number of people understand the importance of showing up in Google search results pages… but are at the will of their “web people” to get them there. Search Engine Optimization is a skill that can be learned. There is no secret sauce or mystical club, to join, in order to have a website perform on search engine results pages.
Book now.

• Calgary, May 18th, 2010 – Calgary Search Engine Optimization Workshop
  
• Toronto, June 9, 2010 – Toronto Search Engine Optimization Workshop
  
• Niagara Falls, June 12, 2010 – Niagara Falls Search Engine Optimization Workshop

Invest a day and take away an abundance of information who can put to work in your business immediately.

There are many experts telling you that your business needs to be on Facebook or on Twitter, we question the why? Is this important? Is this where your customers are? Many different types of business, many different types of plans. What makes sense to you and your business is what many forget to think about.

About Ulistic

Ulistic is an Internet Consultancy that has a focus on educating clients. We take business owners and managers from being people that have websites to people that own their website. Our core services revolve around a great understanding of Search Engine Optimization combined with the power of Social Media Consulting.

April 1, 2010 eKzact Inc., a Calgary Social Media consultancy and search engine optimization service have opened a registration site. The new registration site is where eKzact will feature upcoming training workshops.

Currently workshops, scheduled and ready for registrations include;

• Search Engine Optimization
• Social Media for Business Owners
• A Social Media Breakfast for Real Estate Agents
• LinkedIn for Business

The iAmPlace.com approach to internet consulting is based on empower the client to take ownership of their online presence through education and support.

A practical “newbie” training…‎ By Sandy – Mar 30, 2010

I have been privileged to take two of eKzact’s social media courses and they have helped me overcome my fear in this area. They taught it in an understandable, hands-on method so that when I left, I felt confident that I could do this. Other courses left me feeling overwhelmed, rather than equipped. Though they’re very experienced in this field, they didn’t make me feel that my questions were silly. I felt very comfortable during the course and excited to try it out for my business. Thanks, Guys!!

Would you do business with a person who didn’t tell you their name or hand you a business card when you met them?

Would you consider requesting a proposal from an online service that does not include a phone number, contact form, or address on their website? It is not difficult to find websites on the internet where there is no information about the owners or key stakeholders.

Does your website have your phone number on the home page? How about a page that has information about your company directors? A detailed contact page is important – it certainly would encourage me to give you a call.

The Social aspects of the Social Networking craze that is sweeping the internet has to have an impact on how you write for your marketing website. Earn some trust by providing good information, make a clear call to action, and identify yourself. The days of doing business with corporations are slipping away… people want to do business with people.

If your marketing website is more than a few years old, it will be missing key elements that a modern website should include. It may be time for a website review with an Internet Consultant.

David A. West

Connect with me:

This is pretty brilliant – this YouTube video explains how Ikea used existing tagging capabilities of FaceBook to encourage syndication and interaction with their online gallery promoting the opening of a new store.  Watch the video…

Has the economy slowed your business down?

I talk to a lot of small business owners in a week and the general consensus is that most companies have seen a decline in revenue over the past 12 months. You really have two choices to make when your business is slow – cut expenses or increase sales.

Do You Want More Leads from Your Website?

You may have the ability to increase the leads that your website generates.  Have you heard of Search Engine Optimization – my guess is yes. It’s quite a buzz right now. That and “Social Media”… things like Twitter, Facebook and Linked In.

What does all of this SEO, social media stuff mean?

If you are even slightly confused or feeling overwhelmed trying to both understand and implement an online marketing program – we have a solution for you.

What does it do for your business website?

If you cause enough banter online and direct the focus of the various media to your marketing website, the search engines respond by showing searchers links to your online presence. The louder you banter… more traffic.  A well designed website with clear conversion goals will convert those visitors to potential clients.  That’s what search engine optimization, social media and video syndication can do for your business.

I’d like to Introduce you to eKzact

I would like to introduce you to ULISTIC Inc. Our focus is completely on internet consulting and marketing.  Here are some of the things we want to help you with;

• Managed social media, yes we can do it for you. Become a part of a growing Twitter pool and let work at driving traffic to your website or blog
• Search Engine Optimization, get your website showing up on Google for the important keywords and phrases that will generate new leads.
• Website conversion goal review and optimization. Getting traffic is only one part of the big picture… is your website really ready to greet guests and compel them to call you?
• Social Media Coaching and Setup. One and one setup and design of your Facebook company page, LinkedIn, and Twitter account. Setup to automatically cross syndicate you blog writing, tweets and status updates!
• Internet video production and syndication – with a focus on getting traffic!