It's Not About You - It's About Them | Digital Product Launch Pt. 3

So - we’ve got an album that no-one knows exists, we have no access to or influence with industry gatekeepers, we have no budget to significantly impact awareness and our plan for circumventing the music business failed because it required too much work from people we had no relationship with.

Nice problem huh!?

Re-Focus On The Market

So we stopped thinking like a record label, like a business, and for the first time started to think as altruistically as possible from the perspective of the people who are actually grieving.  What is it they need, and how can we help them get it?

I’m oversimplifying here but, the thing that most helps people dealing with grief is connection.

They may not know it and the way they connect may be unique and different from yours, but the underlying behavior that helps to alleviate grief is some type of connection with other human beings who have experienced something similar.

The True Problem

There’s too much information.

Whether you’re looking for music, for political news, for the right trainer or lawyer or insurance agent, or even help with your grief - there’s just way too many options out there.  Google does a pretty good job and social connections help, but finding what you need is becoming harder not easier.

Curation - A Global Trend

The fully digitized music world has already made the transition to playlists - curated indexes created by taste-makers.  As local businesses we strive to be reviewed and featured in Yelp, Foursquare, and Google - again, nothing more than indexes “curated” by customer feedback.

These things exist because they work, because they create value for the end user by saving them time.

So how do we serve people who are looking for help with grief?

Next Week: The Grief Directory

Dealing with Loss or Grief? Listen to this, it really helps you feel better.

Image Credit: Unsplash

Are You Mobile Friendly?

I know - if I’m not banging on about Video I’m ramming mobile down your throats but trust me on this one, it’s important.

I’m not going to bore you with the detail behind Google’s projected separation of mobile from the search index or what AMP means, or how to determine what percentage of your target demographic are looking at your site on a phone.

What I am going to do is encourage you to put your website url into this link:

https://search.google.com/search-console/mobile-friendly

If you don’t get a big green check mark - well, you should probably do something about that.

Oh - and if you are interested in finding out which which sections of your audience use mobile and developing an appropriate content production, site design and sharing strategy - then, get in touch.

Feeling a little down? Listen to this, it really helps you feel better.

Image Credit:  Gilles Lambert on UnSplash

Don't Do It - Don't Ruin Your Reputation

I’m going to double down on a point from last week’s article on content quality versus quantity:

Don’t publish, post, share or re-tweet anything that you haven’t read or fully understand.

Just don’t.

You might experience a short term bump in traffic due to your increased posting frequency but eventually it’s going to bite you in the ass.

Here’s why...

It’s About Trust

As human and machine curation tools get better it’s going to be increasingly easy to publish more.  And while this content promises to be of high quality and relevant to your audience, you’re publishing information that you haven’t read.

Whether I find your content on Google or Facebook or whether I’m already on your digital footprint and I’m looking to see what kind of business you are - if what you publish and share wastes my time, I’m not going to give you my money.

The minute you put your business’ reputation behind a piece of content that doesn’t reflect your brand, you are weakening your credibility and undermining your authority.

In the coming content wars, trust and authority will be everything.

Find yourself procrastinating and avoiding your work?  Listen to this, it really helps you get things done

Image Credit: Don’t Do It!!!!!!! By Greg Andrews on Flickr

Time to Revisit Facebook

I’ve not been a particular fan of Facebook for business.  Sure it was amazing in the beginning but over time if you didn’t have a huge budget and content team - it was tough to see any kind of ROI.

But as with everything in the digital marketing world - things change, check these facts out:

• Last year about 20% of the world’s population logged into Facebook - on the same day!
• Business’ organic reach - which has been steadily declining for years is now back on the rise
• In some markets, Facebook is sending more traffic to websites than Google

Google Ads Vs. Facebook Ads

Google grew because its core product - selling ads - worked and businesses made more money.

But what was Facebook’s core product for businesses?  A place for them to hang out & meet customers?  The ability to organically move their annoying message into the news-feed?  No - it was and is again - Ads, but for years Facebook Ads sucked.

Facebook Ads No Longer Suck

Whether it’s the amount of people, the easy to use interface or the incredibly granular control that allows you to target all single female nurses between the ages of 25 and 33 who have a passion for bodybuilding and theme parks, love beer, own a dog and have just got a new job,  I’m beginning to see Facebook Ads work for small businesses again.

There’s 3,500 people on the planet, using Facebook, who meet the above set of requirements.  Think about what image you could put in their mobile news-feed to grab their attention!

Huge Mobile Ad Distribution

One recent campaign we did for a local business saw less than 3% of click throughs come from the desktop- whereas 48% came from the mobile news feed and 47% came from off-Facebook mobile apps and networks.

Try It Out

You can get in the game for as little as $150, so long as you get creative with your Ad imagery and have a decent landing page that will convert.  If you need a hand - get in touch.

Written while listening to: Music to Grieve to - Acceptance #1 by music2work2

Image Credit: dinero facebook by Esther Vargas on Flickr

Here’s How Local Search Works

Aside from the whole “Organic SEO” bit, (which if you don’t fully grok, get in touch ‘cos it’s really important,) here’s the fundamentals behind being visible in local search results.

NAP & Digital Footprint

I’ve written about NAP before, (if you don’t understand what it is and how it affects your visibility, get in touch,) but it’s not just NAP - it’s about visual branding, about imagery, about standardized language and about knowing where and how to apply these things.

Top 10 Directories

Links back to your website are perhaps the biggest factor in online visibility, (see Organic SEO above,) however in the local world there is a category of links called “Citations” - these are links back to your website from online aggregators.

• Google is an aggregator - it aggregates the world
• Facebook is an aggregator - it aggregates friends
• YP.com is an aggregator - it aggregates businesses
• Yelp.com is an aggregator - it aggregates business reviews.
• Citysearch.com is an aggregator - it aggregates local businesses

This is not about having a blog post linking to your site with cleverly devised anchor text - this is a simple listing - your NAP (see above,) a link to your website and occasionally some photos and language.

You need a citation to your business from the top 10 aggregators at the very least - 5 of which are listed above - and citations are generally free.

The Next 50 Aggregators

• IRS.gov is an aggregator - it aggregates Tax information
• NAEA.org is an aggreator - it aggregates Tax Professionals
• CSEA.org is an aggregator - it aggregates Californian Tax Professionals
• TaxMama.com is an aggregator - it aggregates discussions between Tax Professionals

I’m using the word aggregator on purpose but you could substitute it for Directory.  There are thousands of websites that list or curate information where your business could get a citation.

Note that - as with organic links - not all citations are equal.  A link to your website from IRS.gov is going to have exponentially more impact than the flattering blog post on bryanslegoblog.com.

Researching the right sites for your business, creating the citation and following up to make sure it has been implemented correctly, all takes time.

It’s Not Rocket Science

I know that for my clients it’s not that they can’t do it or couldn’t learn how to do it, it’s that they don’t have time.

So the question becomes, who is going to do it?

If you’d like to get a jump on your local visibility get in touch - I have some solutions.

Written while listening to: Sadness Development by music2work2

Image Credit: Citation House, Worcester by Duncan Hull on Flickr

Gift Horses, Mouths and the Network You Should Revisit

Back on the 11th of this month Justin Bieber had his wisdom teeth pulled, 3 days afterwards a sole tweet consisting of the hashtags #pain and #wisdomteeth had over 83,000 strangers wishing him a speedy recovery.

I’m guessing you’re not a Belieber - but have a think about that - what does it mean for your business?

Straight from the horse’s mouth

Twitter is about strangers - it’s about opening communication between people who don’t know each other, without filters, direct to the individual.

If you’re in the market for new customers and clients - Twitter’s ½ billion users would seem like a good place to look.

What’s new with Twitter

Here are three things that have got me looking at Twitter again for my own businesses:

New Analytics

Twitter’s new analytics interface is super clean, easy to use, focuses on the key metrics and makes compiling KPIs a dream.

Google Indexed Tweets

A recent study a few months after the Google / Twitter deal showed that tweets are now 4 to 5 times more likely to appear in search results.  And while those tweets tend to belong to authority users, it’s a clear indication that Twitter’s becoming more visible again.

Persicope

The moving selfie (thanks @lizmarshall) is here and it’s just going to grow, here’s a great article explaining what Periscope is and how it works.  

With Twitter buying periscope they’ve turned themselves into the #1 network for streaming video.

When was the last time you looked at Twitter?

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Written while listening to: The Bench 163 V 1 by music2work2

Image credit: Horse Macro_5251 by Kit Logan on Flickr