small business marketing – Page 2 – Small Business Odyssey

February 7, 2012February 9, 2012

The Challenge of Daily Blogging and the Need for Improved Personal Productivity

There are many things that work against you when you attempt to achieve daily blogging.

However, the effort to maintain a daily blogging schedule is well worth it. I noticed that since I have missed a few days of publishing Small Business Odyssey, the Alexa ranking has changed from 860,000 to 1,100,000 – in other words, my web traffic has dropped.

Daily blogging enables you to build momentum both with your writing and your blog traffic.

Photo Credit: cambodia4kidsorg

Creating a related blog – How to be productive

Sometimes you may need an infusion of new ideas or a new perspective on your blogging. This can come through creating a related blog and using a drip-feed automated process.

Over the past week I’ve been building another WordPress blog, a productivity membership site:

http://www.how-to-be-productive.com

Whilst the membership site was pre-built in terms of its drip-feed content, I decided to develop audio content for the first 9 lessons via Audacity. Again, once I gained momentum in creating these recordings, I found the task easy and enjoyable. I was able to produce the audios (MP3’s) for the membership site on personal productivity in two sittings – one involving three recordings, the other six.

The associated task of inserting the audios into blog posts was made so easy by the very clever, free software, podPress, discussed in an earlier post.

So while I was not writing and publishing on my Small Business Odyssey blog, I was developing and refining my productivity membership site hosted on a WordPress blog.

Personal productivity and daily blogging

While the creation of the new productivity site may seem like a diversion from this blog, I believe that it actually reinforces the Small Business Odyssey blog. Personal productivity underpins much of what I am writing about on Small Business Odyssey. Fundamentally, if you can’t improve your personal productivity as a small business owner, you will have real difficulty engaging in any form of small business marketing. Worse still, you may end up doing the wrong kind of work (e.g. wasting hours on Twitter, reading and writing Tweets).

One of the core challenges involved in daily blogging is, in fact, finding ways to improve your productivity. To make the time to achieve a daily, published blog post (a minimum of two hours taking into account locating images and editing), you need to find ways to improve your use of time.

There are numerous things that can distract you or consume your time as a small business owner and it is easy to fall into old habits ( e.g. reading emails for hours) – with the net result that you do not make time for blogging.

Over the past three weeks, for example, I have been engaged with others in creating four tender submissions for our human resource consulting business. a mind-numbing task but essential for business survival and growth in the current economic and political climate.

It would have been very easy to give up daily blogging but I had to find a way to schedule my blog writing at a time when my productivity and creativity were at their best – early in the morning.

To engage in daily blogging, takes a huge commitment but it is rewarding both intrinsically (personal satisfaction and sense of achievement) and extrinsically (increased web traffic and income).

February 2, 2012February 9, 2012

How To Be Productive: The Internal Challenges

If you are a small business owner engaged in small business marketing, it is absolutely critical that you learn how to be productive.

There are many demands on your time through email and phone communications, staff management, stock control, product and service development, accounting and taxation, relationship building with clients and strategic planning – to name just a few demands.

On top of these demands, you may be faced with the all-consuming task of developing tenders to generate new work from existing clients or to expand your market to capture new clients. If you are engaged in writing tenders, you will often have to demonstrate nowadays that you have a Business Continuity Plan and a Business Sustainability Plan (as well as policies for every conceivable area of operations).

So just to operate effectively and profitably, it becomes important to learn how to be productive. Improving your productivity becomes even more critical if you are trying to grow your business through your small business marketing online,

However, there are very real internal challenges that you have to face if you are to learn how to be productive for the sake of your business and its development.

The things that block you from learning how to be productive

There are many internal things that get in the road of you increasing your productivity – being able to do more with less. Fundamentally, they come down to your fears. Here are some ways that your fears may be manifested:

Fear of failure – you tell yourself that if you are not successful at your endeavour, then people will think ill of you or you will think poorly of yourself
Fear of success – you are worried that success will bring increased visibility, unwanted attention and major changes to your lifestyle which, though desirable, are themselves very challenging
Procrastination – you put off things that you know you should do to be successful, but there are often more attractive things to do
Being busy on the wrong things – you spend all your time on things that are not important for your small business but you feel productive doing them (e.g. wasting hours on YouTube or Facebook or spending hours talking to your neighbouring business owner)
Perfectionism – this is a hidden form of fear and relates to fear of success or failure as it stops you short of achieving your goals or dreams
Feeling overwhelmed – this can be because you are anxious or fearful and are not prepared to make a commitment to a course of action.

Unless you learn to overcome these internal challenges in the form of your fears, you will not be able to be productive.

The following free course on how to be productive helps you to identify and address these fears:

http://www.how-to-be-productive.com

This e-course on productivity is like dipping your toe in the water to see what it’s like. If you want to make a real commitment to becoming productive and to realizing success, you could wade into the water and try out my productivity membership course:

http://www.how-to-be-productive.com/join

Audio on how to be productive

If you want some idea of what this course on productivity covers and how it will help you, listen to my introduction for subscribers to the membership course (4.56 mins):

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I have added audio to many of the lessons of this how to be productive membership course so that you can download them and listen to them at your leisure (on your morning or evening walk?)

January 25, 2012February 9, 2012

Google Plus Hangouts: Video Chat with Staff

Google Plus Hangouts offer you the ability to video chat with family, friends and acquaintances who are part of your circle and who, in turn, have reciprocated by making you part of their circles.

The benefits and options associated with Google+ Hangouts are extensive and growing as Google refines this facility and small businesses find new applications for hangouts.

{Photo Credit: Birgerking – Chat like mad]

Using Google Plus Hangouts for Internal Communications with Staff

Helen Barrett of The Guardian recently reported that Google+ has attracted considerable interest from charities. In the report, she identifies some key uses by charities:

including primary keywords for posts in their Google+ stream (to increase their search engine rankings)
sharing technical/medical/scientific information in the Google+ stream to attract a early adopters to improve their lifestyle and/or participate more fully in the charity’s work
using the Google Plus Hangouts for internal communications

The potential applications of Google Plus Hangouts for staff communications include:

provide information about product updates
maintain contact with work-at-home staff
develop a training program
conduct a brainstorming session
share planned marketing activities
facilitate project team communications or undertake project planning
connect with staff in remote localities
maintain contact with volunteers (public sector or charitable organizations)
share YouTube Videos for training, for fun or creative endeavor – everyone can watch the same video but have different volume controls (including mute) and anyone can change, play or pause a video.

Peter McDermott has provided a very useful Beginner’s Guide to Google Plus Hangouts that will enable you to further explore the potential of this tool for staff communications:

Charities have already started to realize the potential of Google Plus Hangouts for marketing – it is time that this tool was used effectively by small businesses for staff communications.

January 24, 2012February 9, 2012

Google Plus Hangouts: Video Chat with Your Friends, Customers and Other Circles

Google has taken video chat to another level with its Google Plus Hangouts. Commentators report that this feature is the real groundbreaking aspect of Google+. Unfortunately, Google+ Hangout has not really taken off yet as Google+ members are still trying to come to grips with the many features and implications of Google Plus.

Google continues to innovate in this area and has recently created further refinements based on user feedback. Google Plus Hangouts provide many opportunities for small business marketing through connection with your customers or clients. You can also connect with your friends and staff.

The only requirement is that the people you connect with on Google+ Hangouts have to be in your circle and they have to have you in their circle – so this requirement is a basic privacy element of Google Plus. There is also a limit on participation numbers – at the time of writing the limit is 10 participants.

How to start a Google Plus Hangout

The button for starting a Google+ hangout can be found on your page along with your Google+ stream. You will see a button in the right hand column with the words, “Start a hangout’ and related icon:

If you have not used this facility before (or used Google Talk), then you will be asked to install a plugin which enables Google+ Hangout to interact with the audio and video equipment on your computer. The plugin request will look like this:

You will be advised when the installation of the plugin is successful and you will have the option again to setup a Google+ Hangout.

When you have the plugin installed and click the “start a hangout” button your will be taken to the Green Room – effectively the waiting room before you go on air (you can even check out your personal appearance beforehand!).

The Green Room for Google Plus Hangouts – the waiting room

Google Plus has created an interim space, called the Green Room, so you can check out your appearance (if you want), ensure your audio and video equipment are functioning and invite people to join in your Google+ Hangout. Once you click ‘Start a hangout”, you will be taken to the Green Room which is illustrated in the image below:

From within the Green Room, you can add individuals or circles to your Google Plus Hangout. You click on the ‘+Add circles or people to share with” button and you will see a drop-down menu of your circles so you can specify which circles you want to communicate with (this is where setting up and naming your Google + circles becomes really important, e.g. creating a customer circle for customer communications and surveys).

You can also invite individuals by adding their name to the field that appears once you click the ‘+Add circles or people to share with” button. You can choose to place a name in this field and/or add specific circles. When you add a circle you can also add individuals by clicking on the field ‘Add more people” and entering the individual’s name beside the Google+ circle displayed as shown below:

Adjusting your settings for Google Plus Hangouts in the Green Room

In the Green Room, as illustrated previously, you will see icons for audio, video and settings (working from left to right). If you click on the audio or video icons, you will mute the relevant equipment.

The settings icon enables you to advise Google Plus of the source you wish to use for your video (webcam), audio and volume controls. You will be able to choose from the dropdown menu for each of these pieces of equipment. From my experience, Google Plus automatically activates my webcam when I click on “Start a hangout’ (even when I have not switched the webcam on myself). Remember to click the ‘Save Settings” button when you have finalised your settings.

The thing to remember is that the Green Room is for setting everything up for your hangout (even yourself). You or your Green Room are not visible to others until you click on the green ‘Hang Out’ button in the Green Room.

Google Plus Hangouts provides a great opportunity for small business marketing by enabling video chat with your circles (including your customers and friends).

January 16, 2012January 17, 2012

Google is Integrating Google+ With Search Engine Results

Google is changing the whole landscape of Internet search through integration of Google+ with organic and paid search results.

A number of prominent Internet marketers have reported recently that they are seeing this integration of Google+ in the search results and have screenshots to prove it. Mike Brooks, for example, shows a screenshot where a number of paid search results are shown above the organic search results, but on the right hand side are the results from Google+:

Game Changer: Google Plus Changes Search and Social Media

He points out that Mari Smith, because of her Google+ activity, holds the number one spot in the right hand column for the search term, ‘Internet marketing’ – a spot usually held by people who pay $100 per click via Google Adwords. It is likely this positioning of Google+ results will change. However, it shows that Google is experimenting with the integration of Google+ with its paid and organic search results.

It also means that Google is seeking to give prominence to its own social network as a source of quality information. This understandably is upsetting both Facebook and Twitter. It is interesting that my own observation, and that of a number of my connections, is that the information shared on Google+ to date is more focused and of a higher quality than that shared on Facebook or Twitter – it tends to be enlightening, educational or practical. From what I have experienced from the circles I have created, Google+ posts tend to challenge my assumptions and expand my thinking. This may be a function of the fact, that because it is early days, I have been able to include people in my circles who are prominent elsewhere but excluded from access because of their number of followers.

[Image source: Pixabay.com]

The Implications for Small Business Marketing of the Google+ Integration with Search Engine Results

As many commentators have pointed out already, the implications of this Google+ integration move by Google are not entirely clear for a number of reasons. We do not know what the final configuration will look like – only some people have access to the new format which is in a testing mode at the moment. We do not know how Facebook and Twitter will respond, but respond they will! We are uncertain whether the Google+ results shown will be just those from your own circles or those from Google+ generally. What we do know so far is that a lot of old assumptions and processes about search engine optimisation (SEO) will need to change.

We can also assume that some of the implications for small business marketing will be:

if you are not on Google+, you will be at a considerable disadvantage when it comes to search engine results in the future – you may actually disappear from the search results that you are currently achieving
when you share on Google+ via your stream, you need to ensure that your content matches the primary niche(s) or keywords that you want to be visible for in search engine results
it will no longer be enough to be on Facebook only – it is interesting that Mari Smith, known widely as a Facebook guru, is prominent in the new Google+ search results (she has around 50,000 people in her Google+ circles)
Google+ is effectively integrating list building with search engine optimization (SEO) – through Google+ you will not only build your list, you will also increase your chances of appearing in Google’s integrated search engine results
Google’s shift from page rank to people rank is happening in earnest – another level of integration will be when Google integrates Google+ results with organic search results based on people rank
small business owners will no longer be able to ignore social media if they want to appear in Google’s search engine results
your Google+ business page will assume greater importance in terms of how often your business will appear in search results and what keywords/search terms will influence the search results for your small business
your images on Google+ (photos, graphics, illustrations) will feed Google’s integrated search results and feature in its increased focus on multimedia
the Google+1 button will assume even greater importance because of its indication of how your content is valued by your connections
your personal profiles on social networks will become even more important (you need to integrate them into your Google+ profile to strengthen their capacity to demonstrate your social connection)
social connections along with quality content will assume even greater importance – it will not be enough just to create quality original content, you will also need to be connected to people who “value” that content.

As Mike Brooks commented, a core meaning of the integration of Google+ with search engine results is that we are facing the era where “content and connection is king”.

We have moved over time from thinking of Internet marketing as a linear process to a circular process (with web rings, blog rings, lens rings, etc). I think we now have to visualize Internet marketing like concentric circles formed when a drop of water lands in a pool of water (as the image above shows).

Internet marketing can now be visualized as concentric circles formed when content is dropped into (shared with) our pool of connections.

The integration of Google+ into Google’s search engine results has profound implications for small business marketing that cannot be ignored by small business owners.

Postscript: Since I wrote this blog post, top Internet marketer, Bill Guthrie, has come out with his Google+ Manifesto, where he asserts that, “We’re witnessing the quick death of SEO as we know it” and that “Google+ is now mandatory”. He released his PDF Manifesto as a Warrior Special Offer (WSO) which explains the principles behind Google+, their implications and offers heaps of tips and ideas to take advantage of this massive change which will change small business marketing and affiliate marketing. You can grab your copy at the WSO discounted price here:

http://www.warriorplus.com/linkwso/4kbjzp/7888

Grab your copy now so that you can get in on the ground with the game-changing Google+ which will influence the course of small business marketing into the future and have a serious effect on your search engine results.