Biz Buzz

Webbiquity?

Tom Pick, who calls himself an online marketing executive, coined the phrase, "Webbiquity," to describe being ubiquitous on the web. It's also the name of his company. His own definition, from his blog: 

Webbiquity: 1) The fusion of SEO, search marketing, social media, reputation management, content marketing and interactive PR. 2) Being omnipresent on the web for the search phrase that uniquely describes you or your organization. 3) The place to find help with all of this. Webbiquity – be everywhere online.

He gives some examples:

For example, Jill Konrath is webbiqitous for the phrase “selling to big companies,” holding all 10 spots on the front page of Google for that phrase. The results include her website, blog, a link to her book of that title on Amazon, and articles she’s written. Ardath Albee is almost as dominant for her unique phrase, “marketing interactions,” placing in 7 of the top 12 spots on Google, including the top four. And if you Google “sales management thought leader” in quotes, six of the top ten spots belong to the same sales leadership guru. Interestingly, a Google search for “world’s largest online bookstore” doesn’t display the most obvious result anywhere on page one. Maybe a company with $20 billion in sales and a $600 million annual marketing budget doesn’t need webbiquity, but smaller enterprises without Super Bowl-size advertising budgets can certainly benefit from it.

What will you do to gain more presence this year? Maybe you won't own a spot on Google (well, you will own a spot whether you want to or not) but what will you do to get your name known and to make sure you are not the best kept secret in town? Let's hear it!

 

Social Media Policy Examples

57 examples of social media policies from Dave Fleet. Also you can download his 16 page free social media ppolicy e-book.

This site rocks. Thanks, Dave!

To Text or Not to Text

What do you think? Best Buy's CEO uses blogs, Facebook and Twitter to communicate with customers. Here's the most recent tweet from Twitter, regarding how to opt in to a rewards program.

RT @RZGamersClub Text GAMER to 332211 to opt into SMS alerts & pretty cool Bioshock 2 offer that will be sent out via SMS tomorrow

Would you use this? Would it work?

Radical Marketing Idea

OK, Seth Godin never surprises me anymore--because I have come to expect brilliance at least once a week. Check out his version of a great marketing idea:

One way to think about running a successful business is to figure out what the least you can do is, and do that. That's actually what they spent most of my time at business school teaching me.

No sense putting more on that pizza, sending more staff to that event, answering the phone in fewer rings... what's the point? No sense being kind, looking people in the eye, being open or welcoming or grateful. Doing the least acceptable amount is the way to maximize short term profit.

Of course, there's a different strategy, a crazy alternative that seems to work: do the most you can do instead of the least.

Radically overdeliver.

Turns out that this is a cheap and effective marketing technique

1000 True Fans

Kevin Kelly could work in Contract Training (CT). He doesn't. He's blogs over on The Technium and he's Senior Maverick and co-founder at Wired magazine, among other things. Recently he wrote a post about what LERN calls your STAR clients. He called them the "True Fans." Here's what he said:

A True Fan is defined as someone who will purchase anything and everything you produce. They will drive 200 miles to see you sing. They will buy the super deluxe re-issued hi-res box set of your stuff even though they have the low-res version. They have a Google Alert set for your name. They bookmark the eBay page where your out-of-print editions show up. They come to your openings. They have you sign their copies. They buy the t-shirt, and the mug, and the hat. They can't wait till you issue your next work. They are true fans.

OK. We know he's right. Let's translate this to CT. First of all, you don't need 1,000. You need 100. Good news. And no one's going to buy your stuff on eBay. What's the CT equivalent? Who are the ten True Fans you have today? How can you nourish a stronger relationship with them? What if you only got one more? If your average contract value is $5,000, you'd be $5,000 up, plus you could count on their referrals. Let's say that's worth $10,000. If you got 10 more True Fans, that's $100,000 and a Whole Lot of Fun.

True Fans LOVE us. So c'mon. Go print out a list of the 20% of your clients who are giving you 80% of your income and take some action. Tell us what you did.

Get Yourself There for 2010

Get yourself there--wherever you want to go--in 2010. Here's a simple, crisp method by blogger and social media expert Chris Brogan. Get yourself a cup of coffee and get this done--before the bottom of the cup!

He summarizes the method:

Determine 3 guiding words for my efforts in 2010.

List 1-3 paths to accomplishing those goals (aka strategies).

List distractions that might possibly scuttle my efforts.

List the steps for each path (these are the projects that map to the goals).

List what the “finish line” looks like.

List what comes next, should I actually accomplish something major along those paths.

This snippet is fun, but read the whole poste. You'll like this site.

My 3 words for 2010:

Vision, Contact, Pause.

Vision:  I am going to get clear this year about the next 10. I want my work and my personal time to be guided by a clear sense of where I am going and why. To the degree that my vision is clear, my actions will also be. My own clarity will help guide others in tangible ways.

Contact:  I want to reach more people this year. More customers. More friends. I already speak, teach and train for a living and I come into contact with a few thousand people a year. But with technology, I think I can reach more. I want to know where my leverage points are. What can I do that will take a handful of good ideas and get them out to others who can make good things happen with them?

Pause: I love work hard and play hard. This year I am also going to build pause into every day, every hour, every month. I want to have strategies to make sure I am also resting, recharging and just plain stopping. Something in 'pause' makes the forward momentum more intentional, more clear and potent.

What are your three words?

6 Types of Twitter Users

Thinking of using Twitter to tweet your CT biz?

Check out Guy Kawasaki's (yeah, Apple and then some) recent article on the 6 kind of users on Twitter and how to reach each one.