Jonathan Salem Baskin: A Picture Needs a Thousand Words?

Jonathan Salem Baskin: A Picture Needs a Thousand Words?

JSB-June-2013-300x300Is a picture worth a thousand words? Or do we need a thousand words to agree on the meaning and implications of a picture?

Our guest is Jonathan Salem Baskin, author of “A Thousand Words”. His book explores the differences between imagery and words as languages we use to communicate.

Certainly visual data is faster and easier, but why? And does that necessarily make it better than the slower and sometimes more difficult work that reading requires? Baskin dips into biology, economics, literature, and business history to figure out the answers to these questions.

41NO5wSr1KL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_Jonathan is a thought-leader on brands and marketing, and has nearly 30 years of experience putting his ideas into practice for clients around the world. He has led communications for such brands as Limited Brands, Nissan and Blockbuster, and led the PR agency on Apple’s launch of its first iMac. He has published six books, including Branding Only Works on Cattle, writes a regular column for Advertising Age, is a regular contributor to Forbes, and pens daily blog posts at Histories of Social Media.

 

 

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How Google Can Send More Visitors To Your Site – SEO Steve

SEO Steve Wiideman

SEO Steve Wiideman

With technology and algorithms constantly changing, is SEO dead, or has it been somehow resurrected?

Our guest is Steve Wiideman, otherwise known as SEO Steve, one of America’s leading SEO experts. He has more than 14 years of experience significantly improving traffic to clients’ websites through organic and sponsored placement on such search engines as Google, Yahoo! and Bing.

He’s an author, frequent speaker and panelist at marketing events, and he typically comes up #1 in Google searches for “SEO Expert”. He’s passionate about search engine optimization and management and creates products and tools that help you get higher ranking in the search engines… all by yourself without a webmaster.

Free SEO Guide by SEO SteveIn 2009, Wiideman authored SEO in a Day: The SEO Agency Killer, revealing the secrets to having websites show up on Google in less than a day. It has been adopted by thousands of small- and mid-sized businesses as a model for building websites on a platform optimized for higher placement in the search results and social media destinations.

He also wrote the SEO Guide, a free report on basic search engine optimization, designed to help people quickly start down the path to becoming a Search Engine Optimizer.

His clients include start-ups and Fortune 500 companies like Disney, TicketMaster, Expedia, IBM and RingCentral, and he’s been featured in Entrepreneur Magazine, Visibility Magazine, Response Magazine, Marketing Sherpa, National Journal and CNN Money.


Listen to internet radio with Warren Whitlock on BlogTalkRadio

How Do You Calculate ROI?

How do you calculate ROI (return on investment) for social media marketing?

Start by understanding the process, and knowing your goals

How to Calculate ROI

How to Calculate ROI

How Should You Calculate ROI?

Marketing is increasingly metrics-driven. This has been a terrific evolution for our profession because it enables us to sit at the C-suite table with equal legitimacy and credibility, not to mention the fact that we operate far more efficiently than before. Enterprise executives love anything that demonstrates achievement in concrete terms. But the discussion of which metrics to use, how to define them and when to use them is far from finished.

Marketing return on investment (marketing ROI), otherwise known as return on marketing investment (ROMI), seems like a straightforward concept that borrows from our ethren in finance. But if you peel this onion you’ll uncover a raft of questions that marketers frequently struggle with. For example:

We’re not going to play Solomon and make those choices for you, but we do want you to consider what goes into those numbers and how you should represent them to your peers in the C-suite. Sometimes you will be ordered by non-marketers to assemble those numbers in a particular way, and your options will be limited or nonexistent. In other companies, no one will have a clue. But whatever you do, transparency is your best ally. Spend plenty of time explaining your underlying assumptions and soliciting feedback.

Our own working definition is this: Take the revenue attributable to marketing efforts and divide it by marketing spend, which includes the costs associated with advertising and effort. We obviously want positive results greater than 1.

Another distinction to keep in mind: The investment portion of the calculation is not investment as we understand it in other business functions (plants, inventories, etc.).Unless marketing is buying some kind of durable infrastructure, everything is expensed. But here’s what is most important: Marketing expenditures should be understood as risk. For some people, this may be a distinction without a difference. In reality this implies that past experiences are more important for marketing decisions than it is for other functions. As an aside: The nature of risk and managing it appropriately are topics that are not well-understood by most people. This can make the discussion even more difficult.

In March, 2012 the Columbia Business School Center on Global Brand Leadership and the New York American Marketing Association undertook a study of 243 marketing executives to understand if and how they use ROI measures for budgeting. The study found that 57% do not use ROI in their budgeting process. Instead, 68% base their decisions on historical spending and 28% “go with their gut”.7% don’t use anything (except, perhaps, avado).

We are not surprised by these numbers. But there’s no one to blame. Marketing measurement science (for lack of a better term) is still in its infancy, even though we speak frequently about being “metrics-driven” and the evolution of our thinking over the last decade or two. There are lots of good ideas out there, but our profession has a long way to go before we reach even a modicum of standardization. The chaos notwithstanding, you still need to emace ROI calculations to show your bosses and peers that you are taking seriously the need to demonstrate marketing’s value to the enterprise.

5 Tools Send Marketing Opportunities to Your Inbox

Once I got my email inbox organized, I found that it’s the best place to get regular information and marketing opportunities.

I’m now adding tools like the ones show here and each day find marketing opportunities coming to me.

Marketing Opporunites Sent to Your Inbox

Are you tired of checking multiple analytics accounts, social networks, ranking monitors, and other tools on a daily basis? Whether you are a small business owner trying to run your business, a marketer managing several client accounts, or anyone looking to increase efficiency and productivity, you will want to try out the following tools that…

Are you tired of checking multiple analytics accounts, social networks, ranking monitors, and other tools on a daily basis? Whether you are a small business owner trying to run your business, a marketer managing several client accounts, or anyone looking to increase efficiency and productivity, you will want to try out the following tools that will deliver your online marketing updates straight to your inbox.

One of the easiest ways to monitor mentions across the web for your business, your clients, or your competitors is by setting up alerts. Google Alerts will send you email whenever a new page on the web with the keywords you are monitoring appears.

Talkwalker Alerts is a similar service if you would rather use something other than Google, considering Google’s history of shutting down their products. While Google hasn’t announced the end of Google Alerts, they are shutting down Google Reader, a product that was tied directly into Google Alerts RSS subscription options.

Whether you are managing one website or multiple websites, yourself or your clients, it’s tough to keep up with all of the new followers, friends, updates, mentions, etc. across multiple social media accounts along with your analytics.

SocialReport.com connects all of your social media information and analytics in one place. Best of all, you’ll receive a daily email with a summary of all your activity. This includes your new Twitter followers (along with their bios), Twitter mentions, LinkedIn connections, LinkedIn company page and group activity, Google+ activity, Klout, YouTube activity, and Google Analytics.

People who sell through Shopify, Ebay, and Etsy can also connect to those accounts to monitor their sales activity. Everything is organized by project, which makes it easy to manage multiple websites and related accounts. When you log in to your tool, you will get even more details about all of your account activity in individual reports and summarized in a graph so you can see if a spike in Twitter activity also results in a spike in website traffic.

There are certain types of activity that you might want to get notified about immediately, such as activity on your Facebook page. A part of beating the EdgeRank algorithm is to encourage engagement, and the faster you respond to comments on your wall posts or pages, the more discussion will happen.

AgoraPulse is a Facebook CRM tool that allows you to monitor your Facebook page analytics, updates, and competitors. They send you emails in real time when your Facebook page receives a new post, comment, or other update.

Getting immediate updates can also help you respond to reputation management issues, such as negative comments, as quickly as possible to diffuse a bad situation. It can also help you monitor your Facebook pages for spam comments and have those removed (and the users banned).

(WIN A PRIZE) Using a Contest in Your Social Media Promotion

Want to get into Tracky early? Go to Tracky.com now and use this code “ontracky”

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Once you know you have something of value to offer, profiting from social media is simple

  1. Create great content
  2. Make it easy to share
  3. Listen and Love

At ProftiableSocialMedia, we like to focus on profitable ideas to help you grow your business, but sometimes all you need is a sponsor with a super prize. Read the sponsored promotion, then let’s talk about how you will use the 3 steps above to profit.

Tracky is Giving Away This Kindle Fire

a Rafflecopter giveaway.

When the clock runs out, we award the prize. Tracky is a start up using the 3 simple steps to promote their upcoming launch. I saw a demo last year, and now I’m using Tracky myself (this promotion is coordinated on Tracky). Tracky has created great content. Once you sign up, you’ll see this. and want to share it. I know the people at Tracky know the value of listen and love,so they are already using the steps. But how do you get those first customers to see your product’s value? You sponsor a giveaway!

It’s Easy. Just Click to Win

Tracky want you to sign up free for their service. I’d like you to profit from the content I create. We both win when you are more profitable, so we went to RaffleCopter and created this simple contest. All you got to do is click on the buttons to share. Something I you would do anyway. As you click on the buttons to share, you will find more of the content. Even though it feels like you have seen this before, it’s very common that readers miss great content. I hope you’ll see some of the social media news, informative interviews (not just Social Media Radio) and more fun. Of course, it’s very likely that you’ll see Tracky pop up on some of my favorite sharing sites. We all have some fun sharing, you start thinking of how the 3 steps will profit you and projects get done faster by millions of people using Tracky. The world will be a better place

Did You Enter? Great. More About the 3 Steps

I like this age of authentic transparency. Once I got used to you seeing my “warts and all” and letting everyone inside to see how things work, I enjoy not having secrets. And, I discover that the more you share, the more you get Smile

Whenever I take on a new client, set up a joint venture, or create a promotion. I use the same structure I shared in the Social Media Profit Checklist. First off, I had to check to see where the profits on this promotion. Giving away a Kindle will get some extra visits to my web site but that would be worthless if I did not have the book and business behind it. Tracky is run by some great people, is wonderful software and is at the heart of what I think is the nexus for future growth in the Las Vegas economy. The sponsored promotion they are doing with me fits, but that’s not a reason to be in business.

Fortunately, I’ve been through the Simple Social Media Profit Formula and know how valuable each reader can be. The contest was a no-brainer for me.

Usually, I tell clients to avoid buying readers with a contest, but the content of this contest was a match and I saw how I could tailor it to a message I want to share with you (you’re reading it) and stay consistent with my brand. Easy sharing is built into the contest by Rafflecopter. Even so, I like offer you a easy sharing on anything here. There’s a floating bar to the left to click whenever you want, and the meme I talk about are specifically worded to make them sharable.

Again, it’s pretty easy to say “prize” or “free” but I spend more time writing headlines and tweets than anything else. The message need to be as simple as bacon and eggsThe other secret to sharing is reciprocity. Make sure you are sharing more of about other people than you share about yourself. This has a huge added benefit in that everyone you know plus everything you read is way more interesting than what you are selling. It’s like Chris Brogan says:

“Always have something to sell, but don’t always be selling it.”

I’ve saved the best for last. These two words sum up what I think will be the best business strategy for the future. It’s been taught in many ways for thousands of years as the way to live. Finally, technology allows us to listen and love like never before.

LISTEN: Every customer, phone call, email, comment, tweet is an opportunity for a conversation. If you listen, you will hear people looking for help. When you help them get what they want, they invariably will be more prone to get you what you want. We were taught business in the 20th Century, a unique time when one way communications made broadcasting and marketing a game of big towers and giant numbers. There wasn’t a way to listen to the TV viewer or newspaper reader in real time. Today, all that’s changed. And you are in on this early. Learn to listen and you’ll be ahead of the competition

LOVE: It simple. Treat people like you would treat the people you love. I’m not talking about romance here. I’m talking doing what you know is right. Sometimes, it’s as simple as that. Think about a time when you called a corporate office, got put on hold, then transferred to a phone that wasn’t answered. When you tried again, you heard “that’s not my department” Is this how you want to be treated? No one else likes it either.

Once you have learned to listen, you’ll know what to do. Put yourself in the other person’s shoes. Think about the experience that they have with you, your social media content, your sales process, products and company. Make every interaction with anyone a reason for them to say WOW. Like @Zappos says, you want to be delivering happiness.

Best Selling Authors Train Las Vegas Business Owners On Internet Marketing

On April 17th, Warren Whitlock will present a "lunch and learn" training for Las Vegas business owners with web marketing authority Brian Williams.

The workshop (which includes catered lunch), "Three Steps Any Las Vegas Business Can Easily Implement to Guarantee New Customers and Get Existing Customers to Buy More Often" is geared toward the business owner who knows that the Internet, social media, search engines and mobile devices and changing how business is done but leery of the way new technologies are preached as "cure-all’s."

According to Brian Williams,

"The goals of business have not changed. We want more customers, and more business from existing customers. Once we peal away the mumbo jumbo and tech jargon, there are some real tools that any business can use to grow in this economy."

Williams mission is getting real business results from new technology. His short seminar was designed to help business owners learn how to evaluate vendors and marketing programs so that businesses can focus on delivering their valuable service rather than needing to become a marketing expert.

The "Lunch and Learn" event is limited to 20 Las Vegas business owners. Tickets are available online at http://brianwilliams.eventbrite.com, or by calling 702-582-9366.

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"Lunch and Lean" seminars are produced by Warren Whitlock, social media marketing strategist and best selling author of Profitable Social Media: Business Results Without Playing Games to bring new ideas and profitable strategies to our fellow Las Vegas business owners. Whitlock is the host of "Social Media Radio" and is presenting a these events to train business owners strategies to profit.