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There are few email newsletters that I can recommend marketers subscribe to–we live in an RSS world these days–but Dr. Ralph Wilson’s Web Marketing Today is on the list! If you’re not familiar with Dr. Wilson, then I suspect you’ve entered your marketing career in just past the few years– Dr. Wilson is the grandfather of internet marketing advice. Hopefully, he’ll take that as a compliment Anyway, when Dr. Wilson asked me to jump on a video interview with him at SES Chicago, I made time for him in my busy schedule. The result? The video below will take less than 7 minutes of your time and hopefully give you a few tips for your own online reputation management efforts .

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Talking Online Reputation Management with Dr. Ralph Wilson

It is a common belief that Article Marketing strategy can be practiced only by those who are talented in writing. It is not so.  Anyone can do it. It is worthwhile to consider the following points to succeed in article marketing: 1. Give an appropriate, interesting title for the article. 2. Contents should be easy to read, but should carry depth. 3. There should be no grammar mistakes or spelling mistakes. Mistake will result in   losing the faith and the readers will underestimate your talent. 4. Give a little information about yourself, preferably at the end. Out of the millions of articles floating in the Net many of them are on article directories. Major Websites, small business owners, and those looking for free content to display on their website visit article directories regularly. With this there is so much competition for article marketers. This calls for efficient market strategy, so that your time and money are not wasted. You have to bear in mind the needs of the reader. The reader will try to know as to how useful is the article for him. How much he can gain out of the article? So your focus should with respect to the reader. Your writing should have the essence to win the heart of the readers. Obviously, you have to take some pains.  You are expected to make a good introduction, body and conclusion. You must have the writing style and skill to attract the readers. Good articles will get high search rankings. Try to write about something new. Take your time to write nicely such that your efforts bear fruit. Find out the keywords needed for the topic. These keywords are necessary for the search engines. Give an impressive title. If your article tops the list with respect to the topic, you will grow. Internet site owners will back you and your articles will establish a permanent place in the website. Try to gab what the audience is interested in. Base your topic on that. Type your ideas for every article. Make your writing style consistent so that the readers recognize you. Remember, though Article marketing is free, it will require your extreme effort to find a place in the net because of stiff competition. The proper strategy comes into play how. The following tips can be useful: Article marketers always meet at forums to discuss about latest developments in marketing. You can post a small piece of your article. Make it a point to post everyday.  • Make an e-book with your articles. Your readers should be permitted to distribute the e-book as well. • Write as many articles as possible. Then more and more people can read your article. • They will also try to get an idea on how to write, where to distribute, and so on. • Test it. How good is your article? Ask your friends to read it. Take their true opinion. • Follow their advice if any as your interest may not match with that of the readers. • Present in such a manner that readers enjoy reading it. Put bullets and numbers as required.

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Strategies of Article Marketing

A few days ago my father emailed me the above video. It’s from a project called the The Fun Theory . The Fun Theory is basically a group that is using various crowd sourcing techniques to help brainstorm ideas that make common everyday tasks fun–in an effort to change people’s behavior for the better. It can be for the betterment of the environment, your neighborhood, or yourself. I like the concept because they ask one of the most important questions, that is often times left out of the equation, “is it fun?” Before I started my own business, I was the IT guy at a real estate company. One of my tasks while there, was to develop an internal lead management system that we could use to evaluate incoming leads. The primary person responsible for using this system was a woman that had just returned to work after suffering the tragic loss of her teenage daughter in a car accident. From experience I knew that data entry is a very dismal task even for someone that hadn’t suffered a devastating life change. Therefore, I decided to code this system a little bit differently. After she had input a new lead into the system, the application would literally tell her a joke. All of the jokes were very corny and most were scraped from stupid websites, but despite that it worked! She loved the system, and it ended up being one of the tasks she would complete first during her day. The system was not only functional, but also fun. OK so don’t worry, despite the fact that I have already admitted to being a hippie. I am not going to force you to sing kum bi ya and hold hands. No, I have not forgotten, this is a marketing blog and we need to talk about money. Is fun profitable? I don’t have any numbers to support this theory (give me a break I am a snarky blogger, not a scientist), but I am willing to bet that fun can be extremely profitable! Let’s take a look at a few examples: Google Image Labeler – This is a cool little game , developed by Google, where the user is paired up with another and both must try to guess the same tags of an image shown. It’s incredibility addicting, and if you are as geeky as I am, fun too! However, “fun” isn’t the function. Every time you add a tag to the image you are inadvertently helping Google tag and organize all of the images in its index, thus improving Google’s Image Search feature. Funny USB Drives – You know those little key chain sized USB drives? Well, some companies have started to develop them in the shape of all sorts of things. Take a look at this one and tell me that isn’t fun! Disney – In this example “fun” is the function! Pretty much everything that Disney does is entertainment centered. When “fun” is the function, the rules change a bit because we aren’t marketing the product through a fun experience, rather we are creating a fun experience only. Volkswagen – So the most obvious example of fun from Volkswagen would be its classic Beetle . If you talk to anyone that owns one of those they will tell you that they absolutely love it. But if you want a more recent example of how Volkswagen is using fun, go back to The Fun Theory that we discussed above and you will notice that Volkswagen is the project’s chief sponsor. Um, why would Volkswagen sponsor a silly project like that? Because, it helps them continue their brand as the feel good, fun loving company that hippies love! And, because it gets them exposure! Remember when I said that my dad sent me that video? Well, when I say video, I mean it! He didn’t send me the YouTube link. He sent me a 7MB video file, attached!! He took the time to figure out how to do that (I have no idea who taught him) because he wanted to make damn sure I got it! That type of brand exposure is extremely powerful! All of the above are examples of Experience Marketing ( via ). Experience Marketing is a tactic that puts the consumers’ experience at the forefront of the design and development process. For folks that dabble in Experience Marketing, function isn’t the only end use. Details such as aesthetics, design, and concept also play a crucial role. These products are meant to be “experienced” just as much (if not more) as they are meant to be “used”. So, if you want to try out Experience Marketing for yourself, take a look at your products and ask yourself, “are they fun?”

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Cup of Joe: Naughty USB Drives, Mickey Mouse, & Volkswagen all Teach a Lesson in Fun!

In Radically Transparent , we talk about the importance of finding your “centers of influence.” This is particularly true when it comes to online review sites. Those that are unhappy with your products or services will find their way to an influential review site, without much difficulty. Those that love your service, tend to just accept that you met their expectations and move on–they rarely take the time to leave a review. So, if you’re facing a poor score on a review site, what should you do? Well, you should follow the lead of photography accessories company Steve Kaeser . I recently ordered some equipment from them and used Amazon.com, because I knew that if I had any problems, there would be a resolution system in place, that I trust. Not only did the order arrive on time and meet my expectations, but as a reputation management consultant, I was impressed by the two notes that accompanied the order: Neither was too pushy, but both touched on the essentials of building positive reviews: 1. Thank You – the blue card is a simple “Thank You” card. I don’t remember the last time a company took the time to include a specific note of thanks in with the order. 2. Feedback – the white label is very simple. If you love our products, please leave a review on Amazon. If you have any problems, “please contact us immediately so that we can make it right.” Want to improve your online reviews? Try these two simple tactics.

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Two Simple Tactics to Improve Your Online Review Scores

There’s a growing interest in online reputation management. Over at Wildfire Marketing, I answered some reputation management questions for their Thought Leader Thursday series. Here’s a taster… What are some of the biggest mistakes you’ve seen people make when it comes to responding to a reputation management crisis, and how someone salvage the situation if they’ve already made one of these mistakes? The biggest mistake is simply not having official channels in place to allow your customers to complain. Most disgruntled customers post to blogs and Twitter because they feel like they are not being heard by your company. They get frustrated with your lack of customer service and they think to themselves, “I’ll show them, I’ll post a negative review on Yelp/Twitter/Blog.” If companies would simply look at how they’re listening to their customers, and how they escalate and resolve customer service complaints, many of the reputation problems you see would never make it to the web. Perhaps the second biggest mistake is not apologizing soon enough. We tend to get too defensive, when we screw-up. We want to try and resolve the problem without accepting blame and without putting our hands in our pockets. When your business faces a legitimate complaint, move quickly to resolve it. Don’t think about the few dollars in refund demanded by the customer, instead think about the thousands of dollars in lost revenue, if the customer creates a reputation headache for your business! Head on over there for the full interview .

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You’re Facing a Reputation Crisis, Now What?

There’s not much going on in the internet marketing industry this morning. I suspect everyone ate too much candy. While they recover from their belly aches, I’m going to do a little "belly aching" myself. I’ve noticed–as have others–that there’s a growing number of people referring to themselves as social media "gurus," "experts," and "geniuses" (OK, maybe I made up that last one). What’s interesting is that many–note, I said "many" not "all"–of these self-labeled gurus have achieved nothing more than fame for being famous. In other words, peel back that first layer and you discover that they’ve not actually accomplished much in their social media guru career. In fact, many of them remind me of Lovelace from Happy Feet. He was in the right place, at the right time, and managed to convince his peers that he was a wise and gifted seer. The same goes for many social media penguins. Sure, they have lots of Twitter follower, but that’s easy to do–when you follow everyone back. Yes, they share lots of links, they speak at lots of conferences, and are the first person to whip out their iPhone at a Tweetup. But, ask them about their business successes and all they can offer up is that they helped such-and-such to "engage" their followers, or added a 1,000 friends to Company X’s Facebook fan page. Whoop-de-doo! Where’s the increase in revenues? Point me to some of your client successes. Heck, show me where you’ve personally made money from your social media skillz! Not that there aren’t any social media experts out there. Of course there are, they just don’t go around telling others how connected they are. They simply roll-up their sleeves and get on with it. They are in the trenches. They’ve used Facebook to add actual dollars to their bottom line. They’ve created a blog that increased the number of newspaper mentions. They’ve measured a decline in customer service costs because of their Twitter account. In other words, they’re so busy making social media work for them, they don’t actually have time to care about becoming the Mayor of the local Starbucks on Foursquare. So, why am I writing this? As I said, it’s a slow news day. OK, seriously, why am I writing this? Because I see far too many people that are the real experts in social media, but feel dejected, deflated, and despondent, because they don’t have 100,000 Twitter followers, don’t speak at the latest "we’re all great social media pros" conference, and don’t get the recognition from their boss–let alone their peers. So, this is not so much an attack on social media gurus, but a pat on the back and an "attaboy" or "attagirl" to those of you that have much to show for your efforts–even if the only Twitter List you’ve made it on, is your own. You’re doing great. You’re as much as a guru as anyone else . Keep at it! As I write this, I’m fully aware that the above is in some ways no different from the "SEO snake oil" commentaries I have been quick to attack in the past. If you feel that’s the case, go ahead and attack this post. But keep in mind, if you have the time to critique this opinion piece, you might just be one of the ones that I’m talking about. Those that are truly the social media experts are busy building their business, so don’t have time for debates such as this. PS. I am not a social media expert or guru. I just try to get the job done.

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Don’t Read This, If You’re a Social Media Guru

The other day I clicked a link on Twitter to a blog post everyone was talking about. I did like everyone else and read the post and then left a snarky comment. But then unlike most everyone else, I right clicked the margin and selected “view source”. Why did I do that? I am not really sure, I honestly did it without thinking. Looking at other people’s code has become something of a habit for me. I find myself sometimes getting more out of analyzing the blog’s HTML, than the post itself! Anyways, on this particular site I was shocked when I saw the HTML. It was horrible. I mean it was really really bad. It looked like this site was coded by a drunk monkey in 1998! And, to be honest, it really got my angry. Angry? Yes, angry! You see this site isn’t just any site, this site happens to be the corporate web site for a very recognizable brand. This company is known for their excellence in their industry. Furthermore I know a few of the folks that work for this company, and they are all really awesome people that do good work and believe in what they do. And because of that, it mad me angry that their site is so haphazardly put together. It made me angry that a company that I believed in, wasn’t taking my profession seriously. The folks that I know that work for this company deserve better, they deserve the best site money can buy, and trust me, this company can afford it. So I started asking myself, why? Why would a company that has earned so much respect, developed such a strong brand, and have such awesome employees, have such a horrible site? I ask myself these types of questions a lot, because unfortunately the story above isn’t uncommon. There are many good companies with strong brands that don’t care enough to build a good web site. And, I will freely admit that I have extremely high standards when it comes to web development. So why does this matter? Why should these companies care what a geeky code monkey thinks? They should care, because I am not alone! They should care because as leaders in their industries people look to them to set the standard. They should care because their competitors know they can do better and are prepared to prove it. But most importantly, they should care because their clients and customers expect the best in everything they do, and if they find out the truth, then they can find another company to do business with very quickly. And no I am not naming names, but if you think this post is about your company, get in touch with me and I would be happy to give you a free site audit.

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Cup of Joe: You Aren’t a Drunk Monkey, So Don’t Act Like One!