25 New Social Articles on Business 2 Community

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• Apple Consumers Are Turning to Customer Communities for Their Answers
• The Ultimate Business Blogging How To Guide
• What’s Your Social Object?
• The Necessity of Social Media
• Facebook Page Tagging – An Update
• Requirements for the Changing Landscape of SEO Techniques
• 8 Tips to Get Your Guest Blog Post Read and Published
• With Facebook’s Social Job App, Time to Clean Up
• Can You Afford Free Social Media?
• Are We Clear About Engagement In Social Media?
• WordPress vs WordPress – The Showdown
• Real-life Pinterest Board Connects the Digital to the Physical
• Which Christmas Ad Is Making Social Media Users Feel Warm And Fuzzy Inside?
• The Friday#: Leveson + Google Tax
• Switch Idea, Combines Power Of Social Media To Recruitment
• Cyber Monday: Battle of Mobile and Social Media
• Beyond Your Blog, The Power of Guest Editorials
• Reset your WordPress Admin Password When You Cannot Access Your WordPress Dashboard
• SEO: The Great Shakeout Has Begun
• Why We Love the New LinkedIn Company Page Design
• Ultimate Social Media Holidays’ Checklist
• 3 Tips for Making a Professional Pinterest Page for Business [Video]
• How Can Social Data Help Drive Brand Loyalty?
• Use to Social Media to Compliment Reality, Not Replace It
• 5 Online Reputation Management Tools to Help You Preserve Your Company’s Good Name

Apple Consumers Are Turning to Customer Communities for Their Answers Posted: 30 Nov 2012 02:43 PM PST Not everyone lives in an urban area where one of the 246 Apple stores in the U.S. are a short walk or subway ride away. Millions of people own one of Apple’s products: iPhone, iPod, Mac Book Pro, or use iTunes, and they need somewhere to turn when things get fouled up. To correct this issue, consumers are turning to free, customer communities for their answers. These communities have become a place where people can help one another with their various issues. They’re advanced in the way they support the new wave of social, where members within brand communities serve as their own experts, their own moderators, their own tech support, and enthusiastic evangelists. Many problems can arise: the iPhone backlight won’t work, it won’t sync to iTunes, it’s stuck in headphone mode, or you can’t figure out how to sync iTunes to multiple computers. Consumers don’t want to have to hit up the Genius Bar every time they have an issue. Approximately 27,500 people have participated in around more than 6,000 topics in the Free Get Satisfaction Apple community over the last 5 years. The community is 100% created and run by Apple customers, with question seekers finding the community through organic search. The community is alive with engagement and activity, which finds consumers dropping off a question or problem and getting a response in under 2 days. People enjoy these customer communities because they can connect with other people just like them: fan boys/girls of Apple products and having issues. The quick, 24/7 response time is an impressive customer service feature, which will find more people turning to quality, social support from fellow consumers rather than formal customer support. via: Get Satisfaction

The Ultimate Business Blogging How To Guide Posted: 30 Nov 2012 02:00 PM PST You can learn how to make a successful blog by reading other blogs, but often it's hard to find it all in once place. Here's my Ultimate How-to guide for your company blog with links to specific articles to get detailed information in the areas you or your business need the most help. Skim the key points and dig into the articles that address the most important topics for your company. Let me know in the comments what other sections would be helpful! Why You (and Your Company) Should Maintain a Blog Content drives social media and Search Engine Optimization. Also, you own your blog as opposed to "leasing" space on the various Social Media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Your blog builds your authority, allows you to sell 6 Powerful Ways Your Company Blog Can Drive New Business Your Company Blog – why it's still your online marketing hub Your Blog is the Ultimate "Know, Like and Trust Generation Machine" How To Differentiate Your Blog and Make It Appealing Making your blog stand out from the crowd and appealing to your target audience are two essential elements for any company or individual blogger. Charles Darwin's 12 Rules of Blogging Survival (Problogger) 4 Reasons Why Original Blog Content is Important 12 Blogging Lessons I Learned From Maxim Magazine (Problogger) How To Make Connections and Build Community Ideally, you're not "distributing" content one way – you're building a network as well as a community centered around your blog or your company. 14 Ways to Build Strategic Relationships With the Who's Who of Social Media (Copyblogger) 10 Ways To Create Community With Your Blog Readers (Basic Blog Tips) Guest Blogging To Expand Your Reach Guest blogging is a great way to connect with other bloggers, get exposed to a new audience and to build links back to your site (and there are some other benefits that you'll see in the second article… Why I'm no longer monogamous with you, my dear (blog) 6 Little-Known Reasons Guest Blogging Is Essential To Your Blogging Development Does Google Hate Guest Blogging? 9 Ways To Find Guest Blogging Opportunities (Famous Bloggers) What do Superman, Freddy Krueger and a Blogging Process Freak have in common? Common Blogging Myths, Mistakes and Misconceptions There are a lot of myths, mistakes and misconceptions about blogging. Learn about some of the most common ones below… What Do You Wish You'd Known Before You Started Blogging? 10 Common Business Blogging Saboteurs…And How To Overcome Them (DeniseWakeman.com) Three common Blogging #Fails and what to do about them How To Be More Efficient With Your Blogging and To Stay Motivated As you ramp up your blogging, you need to look for ways to be more efficient and to consistently get publish great content. How to Blog Sensibly: A Business Blogging Checklist 10 Ways to Save Time and Energy Blogging (DeniseWakeman.com) With Blogging, Consistency is King (Blog Success) Time to Renew Your Blogging Vows: 16 Tips For Revitalizing Your Blog The Best Excuses We Tell Ourselves To Avoid Blogging What Do You Wish You'd Known Before You Started Blogging? How to Write An Individual Post If you need help understanding the main elements of a post or if you want to learn multiple ways of creating content (not just writing) read on and look at the third link below. Blog Writing Checklist: Have You Covered These 8 Blogging Essentials? (Basic Blog Tips) 7 Essential Elements of a Blog Post (Video) Learn to Write High Quality Posts Quickly and Easily (course) How do use Content Curation Curation is an option to generate useful content. This post is basically an example of curating my own content, both on this blog and on others. Learn more about content curation below. Content Curation: Definition and 6 Tool Options Networking for Introverts: Resources For Shy Marketers (example of curated post) Protect Your Brand, Domain Names, WordPress, Hosting Your brand and domain name are both important. You don't want to launch a brand and not be able to grab the branded properties in social media. You also don't want a cheap-looking domain name. Lastly, learn about WordPress and hosting here. What's in a Domain Name? A lot! 4 Domain Name Tools to Get the Best URL and SEO Benefits How to Protect Your Brand Online for $99 Should I Move To WordPress? [infographic] Learn About Hosting and WordPress So Let's Get Moving With Your Business Blog! I hope you enjoyed this guide for business blogging. What other topics would you add? If you want to speed up your progress and have the best of the best packaged in one place, with support and step-by-step tutorials take a look at Fast, Easy Blogging. Please share this guide with your friends and colleagues!

What’s Your Social Object? Posted: 30 Nov 2012 01:30 PM PST Every good marketing campaign needs a social object. In essence it's the thing that brings people together. It may give people a common purpose or simply give them something to talk about. It encourages and increases sociality. And for a marketing campaign, that's key, as it gives way to virality and social amplification. (Marketers covet word-of-mouth referrals!) The most obvious non-marketing example of a social object would be a baseball: A boy and his father get some good quality bonding time playing catch in the front yard. The ball becomes the social object that allows them to do this. In the world of marketing, a great example of a social object would be Kraft's Oreo Cookie Moments Gallery. The premise is straight forward: To help celebrate their 100th anniversary, Oreo asked it's fans to share their favorite Oreo photos, videos and stories with them and they would then "share them with the world". Oreo fans would upload their own "Oreo Moment" via Facebook or their campaign micro-site. These moments were then displayed on both Facebook and the microsite, and became fully share-able across each fan's social graph via Facebook. Each Oreo Moment thus became a social object. Could the Oreo Cookie itself also be a social object? Certainly. Many products themselves are the primary social object for brands. In fact, the guy who advocated the "social object" term says that unless your product is a social object, you might as well not be selling it. Any Apple product (iPhone, iPad, etc.) is a great example of a social object. On a larger scale, well-functioning social networks must define what their concept of social object is. For example, Flickr uses user-generated photography as the social object. Delicious or Digg use URL's. Facebook uses images, URL's, and status updates. But what about LinkedIn? A convincing polemic on why some social networks work and others don't argues that a successful, sustainable social network must be focused on an "object-centered sociality". Something like collaboration itself could be a type of social object. Consider the so-called social business model. In this paradigm, a company, from product, customer service, engineering, marketing and so on, are all interconnected not only with one another, but with their external customers. Michael Brito of Edelman Digital has an informative infographic on what a social business model looks like. Social business managers must discover their social objects if they want to see their customers and employees interact, discuss and evolve their ideas into tangible outcomes. Dell's IdeaStorm is inspirational in this regard. As a social media marketer or online community manager, you must frequently uncover your community-wide social objects. How do you do this? There's no tried and true model here. My advice is to begin by acting as a group facilitator. Listen, listen, listen. Chart out the most commonly discussed topics or products, the sentiment, the problems, the positive feedback, etc. You'll then have a short list of themes to work with. Get community members involved with not only what the social object is, but what the process and rewards (if any) might be. This can be crucial to engagement. Remember that ultimately you will not control the object itself. You can, however, facilitate the process and the outcome. So what's your community's social object?

The Necessity of Social Media Posted: 30 Nov 2012 01:25 PM PST One of the most important forms of Internet marketing available to businesses today happens to be one of the most cost efficient, as well. Social media is used by diverse demographics for a variety of purposes. It is a huge contributor to the 24-hour news cycle, a forum for conversation about any topic, a platform for organization and a place for businesses to connect with clients. The average person uses social media to connect with others in their networks and to discover new things about the world. Content posted on social media feeds an inherent desire people have to know about things outside of their direct experiences. People can discover what is happening in their friends' lives, their communities, their countries and the world by making connections with people and organizations that interest them. Social media is a networking tool, above all, and it is imperative that businesses in today's digital age tap into this market. By creating profiles across one or multiple social media platforms, businesses can connect with and gain recognition from target audiences, connect with clientele and build relationships with other businesses and professional contacts. There is a plethora of social media sites available for businesses to use, with Facebook being the most popular in terms of consumer use. Each platform has its own benefits, so it is important to optimize content for the specific site you are using. Generally, one of the goals behind setting up social media profiles should be to obtain the attention of consumers who were not previously aware of your business. This is not an overly complicated task, but there is a science to being seen. Content posted should be relevant to your business, but it should not be dripping in sales pitches. If the average consumer can relate to your content, he or she is more likely to share it or comment on it. By posting content to bridge the gap between business and consumer, you can generate conversation and humanize your business, creating a sense of community. Also, most interaction your followers have with your business is viewable to followers of your followers. In this way, you can extend your reach and visibility. Considering the fact that there are niche communities across social media platforms for most topics, it is highly important to connect your business with its niche. Social media allows you to monitor the activity of your competition, allowing you a better chance of surpassing them. It also allows you to make and keep connections with professional contacts that may benefit your business in the future. Approach social media as a way for your business to connect with clients, but maintain your business' profiles as marketing tools. Be smart about what you post, when you post it and who you are posting for. Speak to clients in their own language, and remain interactive with clients. If you set out to truly form relationships between your business and your clients, you will gain a loyal following and an excellent reputation. Once you have established this, posting promotions and ads for your business, within reason, will be better received. You can also use your profiles to post content from your website or blog. Without a social media presence, your business may be unrecognized by consumers or surpassed by competition. Keep your clients close and your competition closer. Utilize social media to its full potential, and the results will far outweigh the small effort monitoring profiles takes.

Facebook Page Tagging – An Update Posted: 30 Nov 2012 01:00 PM PST Since I published my previous post on Facebook Tagging, I've received many questions from readers about their challenges trying to tag photos on Facebook Pages. Many are confused over the lack of notifications, who can be tagged and when. So, I did a few Facebook Page tagging experiments across a number of different Page types to see how or if tagging worked. Here are my discoveries. Facebook Page Tagging for Photos According to Facebook help, "You can tag Pages in photos similar to the way you tag friends in photos. You do not have to like a Page to tag it, but only certain kinds of Pages can be tagged, including brands, products and people. To tag a Page in an individual photo, you need to view it in the new photo viewer." I tested tagging on those categorized as local businesses and found I could tag photos on Pages that were home improvement, martial arts, a pizza place and professional services. However, I was unable to tag a local business that was a restaurant/cafe or pet services. Facebook does have a form that you can fill out to report issues to the Facebook Pages team if you feel your Page is eligible for tagging. Enable photo tagging on your Facebook Page Before people can tag photos, you need to enable photo tagging. To set this, go to your Admin Panel, click on the down arrow next to manage and select "Edit Page". Then select "Manage Permissions". Facebook Page Tagging – Managing Permissions Facebook Page Tagging for Posts When you are using Facebook as a Page, you are able to tag other Pages in a post or comment. A Page cannot tag people (Pages don't have friends). However, if you switch to using Facebook as yourself, you can tag your friends in posts and comments on the Page's timeline. Who can I tag in a Page's photo? You can tag your own friends or other Pages in the photos, but not your fans. This is to prevent people from violating privacy. Only the admins can see the list of Page fans. If I could tag my fans even if they are not friends of mine, it exposes them unknowingly to others on Facebook. Facebook Page Tagging Notifications When a photo is tagged, the people tagged get notifications and if they have tag review turned on, will be able to approve the tag before it appears on their timeline. If a Page is tagged, there is no notification of the tagging. The only way to find out if your Page has been tagged is to check the photo stream and look in the area called "Photos of Page Name". Tagged photos appear in that area. Facebook Page Tagging – See which photos have been tagged by viewing then in Photos of "Page Name" If I can't tag a photo on a Page, how can I share photos from my Facebook page to my personal timeline? Click on the photo you want to share on your timeline, hover over it and at the bottom are options to tag, share and do other things. Click on that and share it on your timeline. It will then appear to your friends, and depending on privacy settings, friends of friends. Facebook Mobile Tagging Just this month, the Facebook mobile applications for Android and iPhone added both the share button and inline tagging. That's it. Facebook Page tagging in a nutshell! Let me know if I missed anything or if you find something still isn't working for you. For those who have a Facebook Page in a local category, are you able to tag photos on your Page? Either way, list the sub-category here in the comments and whether you can or cannot tag photos. We'll all appreciate the information.

Requirements for the Changing Landscape of SEO Techniques Posted: 30 Nov 2012 11:30 AM PST Best Practices for On-Page SEO The most effective manner for On-Page SEO techniques are being altered at an accelerated rate. Taking into consideration the various Google updates and the indefinable hold of social media, getting totally familiar on successful SEO procedure is becoming quite a challenge. To be in the top rankings, websites need to adjust. In a recent discussion on websites, five outdated procedures were discussed in the promotion of important content, and previous best practices were considered redundant. These included forcing the maximum amount of keywords in a minimum space, creating unnecessary and outmoded content for supporting target keywords, buying links, sustaining used links and article spinning. Examine your website(s) and SEO techniques and if any of the above techniques are still being used, you must update immediately. The future is in considering all factors relevant to your site which must be understood and then optimizing for best user knowledge and understanding. Good Content When you produce relevant and solid content, people and search engine spiders will notice your site. On-Page SEO should be attentive to the post-click occurrence. The recent change in SEO adaption strengthens the concept that content is king. The new standard is supported on knowing your audience. There should no guessing. This can be achieved by listening, changing your SEO techniques to meet requirements, and then giving the audience what it wants. Factor to Concentrate on Progressive strategy makers are now concentrating on four major factors. This includes relevance of your SEO techniques by giving content that is reliable and trustworthy, by creating a site that can be crawled and indexed and meets current data values and principles, and gives content that impresses your audience. This means building a brand and endorsing it on targeted opportunities and be recognized as an intellectual. This will help you create sites that catch the attention of your audience. Engagement The content that you write should be accurate and without any ambiguities which can be shared socially. Display post-click knowledge contentment and fulfillment, monitor the results, assess the important aspects of your web site, and experiment to find out what works the best with your audience. SEO techniques begin by evaluating thoroughly the entire segment audience that you want to reach. It is more than checking the search performances of the current sites for how to attract audiences. Landscape Analysis This is the first step in search optimization is where audiences need viable SEO landscape to decide upon the content to base the web site upon, the manner in which it should be built and the conversion of natural searches and other incoming promotion and selling avenues. This is significant in aggressive verticals online. Natural SEO techniques include identifying your audience and deciding upon the requirements of the audience and monitoring to see who is doing it right and how you can do better. Find the most favorable conditions and the way to prioritize, your approach for availing the most favorable conditions according to current performances, aggressive landscape and the means to achieve your goals.

8 Tips to Get Your Guest Blog Post Read and Published Posted: 30 Nov 2012 11:10 AM PST As inbound marketers, we constantly preach the power of engaging content to our clients. Well-written and keyword-rich press releases, landing pages, downloads and especially blogs continuously attract visitors to a website, eventually producing more lead conversions and sales. To help keep our content fresh and to provide varied perspectives on the latest in inbound marketing, Kuno Creative likes to publish guest posts to our Brand & Capture blog. And, as a writer, I love guest blogging as a personal branding strategy; it's an excellent opportunity for talented industry writers to gain exposure, build backlinks for websites, garner new readers, improve thought leadership and more. But just because guest blogging is a good personal branding strategy doesn't mean you should start firing off half-baked, nonsensical scribbles of ideas. Guest blogs need to be nearly (if not entirely) flawless and compelling pieces of content. Otherwise, a blog editor will scrap them after mere seconds. To help you get your guest blog posts read and published by companies like Kuno Creative, always complete the following steps before hitting "send." Create a Strategy: Guest blogging, like any other marketing tactic, needs to be strategic. Before putting pen to paper, or, more appropriately, fingers to keyboard, always ask yourself, "Why am I doing this? What are my goals?" If your goal is to increase your organic search ranking for a keyword (say inbound marketing agency), your strategy should involve integrating that keyword in all of your posts. Do Your Research: Several Kuno employees in different roles contribute to the Brand & Capture blog, which gives a nice range of topics, including inbound marketing, content marketing, SEO, social media, HTML, lead nurturing and website design and development. We do not write about marketing techniques like direct mail because we find the tactic limited. Other marketing blogs are different. To increase your chances of being published as a guest blogger, always research target blogs before submitting material. Read popular and recent posts and subscribe to their RSS feeds (if you haven't already). Read Submission Guidelines: If a blog accepts guest posts, it likely has guest post guidelines. (Even if it doesn't, use published guest posts on the blog as a guide for length, structure, language, inbound links, etc.) Nothing is more annoying to blog editors than receiving posts that clearly disobey guidelines. Case in point, we receive a lot of guest posts via email when our guidelines clearly state to submit posts using the provided form. Thoroughly reading and following guidelines can increase your chances of getting published, while not adhering to guidelines increases the chances (if not guarantees) that your post will be tossed. Write What You Know: This should be obvious, but you should always write about what you know when submitting guest posts. I know approximately three HTML code snippets so, if I ever tried to submit an HTLM post to a coding blog, it'd be pretty apparent I was full of hot air. If you don't know and understand the topics a blog covers, you're not targeting the right blog. Provide High-Quality Post: It's understandable that you want to keep your best ideas and topic for your website, but that doesn't mean you can submit low quality work. As Pamela Vaughan said in a HubSpot blog post, "If anything, the articles you write for external blogs should be even higher in quality. You need to impress the blog manager enough to publish it, and capture the attention of the new audience you're exposed to so they'll want to check out your own website/blog." Also, your post's grammar, spelling and punctuation need to be on point. Submit New Material Every Time: Every guest blog post you submit needs to be original content and not repurposed content in its entirety from your website or another blog. Blog editors won't be interested in running information readers can find somewhere else. Share Something New: We absolutely love when a guest blogger submits a case study blog with numerical results, but we understand that these types of posts are few and far between. That's why we're open to How-to and Top 10 posts, just as long as the blogger is sharing something new. We don't want generic tips we can find from a million other sources by doing a simple Google search. Check Your Post After Publishing: If your guest post follows all of the above tips and a blog editor lets you know it's going to run, remember to check it after publishing. Blog editors reserve the right to edit your post, and mistakes can be made in the editing process. Additionally, you're going to want to share your post through your social media channels and directly respond to comments. And most importantly, as a general rule, don't make blog editors work too hard, especially if you're submitting your post to a blog that gets a lot of traffic. Trust me, it's too easy for blog editors to decide a guest post doesn't meet standards rather than take time to edit and perfect it. These are just a few tips to help you get your guest blog posts read and published. What tips would you add to the list? Follow @LisaGulasy Follow @Kuno Photo credit: nicolemperle

With Facebook’s Social Job App, Time to Clean Up Posted: 30 Nov 2012 11:00 AM PST Now that Facebook has announced their Social Jobs app, it's a good time for you to consider cleaning up your profile page and making other adjustments. You've all heard advice about your Facebook profiles before – but if you're going to take the next step and use Facebook to find a job – it's time to get serious (and maybe grow up a little)! Review your privacy settings. Facebook is constantly tweaking what you can make public or not. Make sure you have everything blocked you want to. Pick the right profile picture. Your profile pic is always public, so make sure it's one that you don't mind a potential employer seeing. Clean up your photos. If you keep photos public, make sure to take down or untag yourself from the most controversial ones. Clean up your "Likes". If you're like me, you've probably racked up your fair share of "Likes" over the years. Take a few minutes to review the things you've liked and "unlike" anything that may rub employers the wrong way. On another note, if employers are promoting their open jobs to you on Facebook, then they are most likely more modern in their thoughts about social media and sharing, and will judge you less by your college party pics. Author: Mike Spinale is a corporate Human Resources leader at a healthcare information technology company located outside of Boston, Massachusetts and is an adjunct professor at Southern New Hampshire University. He has over eight years of experience in HR and management including career counseling, recruitment, staffing, employment branding, and talent management. Mike has dedicated his HR career to modern views on the field – HR is not about the personnel files – it's about bringing on the best talent, ensuring they're in the right seat, and keeping them motivated and growing in their careers. In addition, Mike is the author of the CareerSpin blog where he offers advice and opinion on job search, personal & employment branding, recruiting, and HR. Mike is a certified Professional in Human Resources (PHR) and holds a Master of Business Administration degree from Babson College. He is also a board member of the Metro-North Regional Employment Board, a board which sets workforce development policy for Boston's Metro-North region, and an active member of the Society for Human Resource Management and the Northeast Human Resources Association.

Can You Afford Free Social Media? Posted: 30 Nov 2012 10:45 AM PST As a Business Strategist I am often asked about social media and whether I am able to build successful strategies that will see my clients' businesses flourish. The short answer is yes I can, with both hands tied behind my back. However, my response is never that simple and straight forward. We all know anyone can create Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest etc. etc. accounts. In fact, it's not only easy to create one of these accounts, it's free. This is however until we remember the old saying that our parents drummed into us when we were growing up – "nothing is free". "NOTHING IS FREE" The fact that these accounts are so easily set up is a real issue for people who have no idea what they are doing when it comes to social media. The people that have taken no time to prepare neither a strategy nor a budget for the so called "free" social media quest that they are about to embark on. The fact is you can set up as many social media accounts as you like. You can tweet until the cows come home. However, your social media strategy will not work (barring some incredible miracle) without a clear strategy and a strict budget. TIME = MONEY Another old saying – "time is money" – this is lesson number one in budgeting and contains two of the most important resources responsible to ensure a successful strategy (time & money). For example, let's say you decide to head into the social media arena without a strategy, essentially entering the Colosseum blindfolded, your initial thought might be to make a member of the admin team responsible for the maintenance of your newly created "free" marketing tools. Mistake No. 1. Your admin team already have a job, administration. Unless they are literally doing nothing all day (which would be a completely different problem) their days are already taken up by the jobs that they currently do, and were assumingly hired to do. Not only that, but admin staff don't specialise in social media marketing – they specialise in admin. That's not to say that they're not capable, more to say that it's not their job. Regardless, without a clearly defined strategy they would still be blind in battle. Most importantly though – the minute that they enter that arena and touch one of these social media beasts – your social media is no longer free as two resources have been applied to it – time & money. This is the most simplistic form of social media strategy budgeting and if you are unable to budget properly then social media may not be for you. USE IT (PROPERLY) OR LOSE IT While time and money are two very obvious resources that you will need to apply to a successful marketing strategy – two equally important resources are skills & people. To be able to employ a successful social media strategy, whoever is responsible must have the right skills to be able to successfully see a strategy through from start to finish. This can and will include a deep understanding of the importance of timing, content, responsiveness & awareness. For example, if the staff member you assign to looking after your social media accounts has no prior marketing or social media knowledge – you've created a sink or swim situation where the most likely outcome is to sink. Unnecessary pressure leads to an increase in staff turnover which consequently affects the client experience. This will eventually negatively impact your business's bottom line. TO DO, OR NOT TO DO, THAT IS THE QUESTION… As a business owner or CEO, if you recognize that creating these accounts is not actually a free exercise, you know that you need a strategy and budget in place, and you know that you need the right people with the right skills to be responsible for this strategy (or at least recognize that a significant investment of time & money will need to be made to get them ready) – you should be able to decide pretty quickly away whether or not your business is ready to enter this arena. Early entrance could see your business peril at the very feet of the marketing tool you thought would see your business flourish.

Are We Clear About Engagement In Social Media? Posted: 30 Nov 2012 10:29 AM PST If you have read more than two or three articles or blog posts about social media, you almost certainly have discovered claims about engagement on social media. Whether it is specifically about customer engagement, prospect engagement, client engagement, or follower engagement, most people writing about how businesses use social media hold up engagement as the goal. Yet for all of this writing, are we clear about the meaning of engagement in social media? To engage means essentially to occupy the attention of someone. Most people would agree that this is the basic meaning of engagement. From there, the definitions can become fuzzy. For some, engagement means getting someone to read your tweet or status update. For others, it means getting someone to act on your tweet or update (beyond reading), to visit your website, to "like" you, etc. Still others want to define engagement as a two-way conversation. As a community, social media marketers, services providers, and others need to be both clear and consistent when we discuss engagement. After all, some of the social networking sites and metrics providers claim to be measuring and scoring engagement. These companies have algorithms and formulae, but are they really measuring what we think we mean by engagement? For those of us who earn our living by creating social media presence for our clients and manage their interactions with customers, clients, prospects, etc. in social media, consensus about the meaning of engagement is important. It is certainly important to our clients. The global PR firm Weber Shandwick recently published the results of their scientific analysis of engagement (http://www.prmoment.com/1120/the-10-principles-of-engagement.aspx). Here is the summary of the essential principles of engagement: 1. Engagement is a finite resource, not an infinite commodity. Engagement with one thing is always at the expense of another. Attention and effort are limited. 2. Engagement requires reciprocity. Engagement costs people time, effort and energy. The brain processes this cost in relation to the expected reward. 3. Engagement is not binary. Engagement is not a light to be switched on and off within people. How brands choose to capitalise on the right types of engagement across various channels and topics is the key issue. 4. Engagement is about what we want or what we like. Our brains process all decisions as potential rewards driven by two systems, what we want and what we like. 5. Immediacy delivers engagement. Our brains have evolved to make snap decisions based on the anticipation of immediate reward. These decisions are not always conscious. 6. Engagement decisions are post-rationalised. People are often unaware of the reasons behind their decisions. Communications equip the conscious brain with a rational story justifying subconscious impulses. 7. Engagement can be divided into "capture" and "build". For example, you can be more engaged with a piece of furniture you assemble than with a piece ready-made. Professor J Norton, associate professor of business administration in the Harvard University Marketing Unit termed this the "IKEA effect". 8. Engagement benefits from being multi-layered Neuroscience tells us that the sheer number of associations that a person has with a brand leads to a positive effect on engagement. 9. Negatives always outweigh positives. Our brains are more driven to minimise risks than seek potential gains. Studies suggest that negative emotions carry roughly twice as much weight as positive ones. 10. Engagement marries experience with expectation. Any engagement decision is shaped by an individual's personal experience and also their expectations. Over-delivery is a surprise and under-delivery a disappointment. Over time, individuals grow to expect what they have previously experienced. Discussing these rules of engagement, Adam Mack, chief strategy officer EMEA, Weber Shandwick, says that they allow organisations to amplify and direct their communications for maximum effect, which is difficult in a society where there are so many channels available to consumers, and so many types of messages: "In the UK, there are more Twitter users than newspaper readers. More video is uploaded in 60 days on YouTube than the three major US networks produced in 60 years. As Facebook nears one billion active users, it is clear that people are hugely engaged with each other – but are they really engaging with brands and businesses (and the causes they hold dear) as much as they could be? What drives people to spend time, effort and energy on some things, but not on others? Why are we more engaged with kittens on YouTube than uprisings against dictatorships in the Middle East?" Mack believes that an engaged audience is a must for any organisation, and concludes: "engagement starts with people. People choose to engage. Their choices result in advocacy, shares, attention, likes, followers and purchases." Methodology Weber Shandwick collaborated with behavioural insights practice Canvas8. The principles were developed by a team consisting of anthropologist Dr Grant McCracken, author of Culturematic, Culture and Consumption and Transformations, psychologist Dr Olivier Oullier, professor of behavioural and brain sciences at the Aix-Marseille University and neuroscientist Dr Thomas Ramsoy, head of research at the Decision Neuroscience Research Group at the Copenhagen Business School. When I asked a few of our firm's clients what they think an engagement score measures, their definition of engagement was very close to incorporating at least eight of the ten principles outlined in the Weber Shandwick study. It is also the working definition used by our staff. Unfortunately, I am not convinced that this is what is being measured and reported or scored as engagement by the social media platforms or by the metrics companies. For my money, this is the kind of attention and interaction I believe is worth measuring. The interaction/engagement is substantive and clearly requires the attention of both parties to the conversation. My question to the social media community is this: If we are measuring and reporting something less than an interaction involving the 10 principles of engagement and calling that an engagement score, what is its real value to the business owner? If we can agree that an engagement that incorporates all 10 principles is worth measuring, how do we measure it, and what shall we call it?

WordPress vs WordPress – The Showdown Posted: 30 Nov 2012 10:00 AM PST I love WordPress, but I'll never understand what sort of myopic foresight allowed this naming convention to happen: WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org. Here's the showdown. First, an introduction. WordPress is a blogging platform software. This is crucial. It is not a website. It is not a service. It's a software—that runs on a webhost to create a website. So, in the left corner we have WordPress.com. This is a community blogging website much like blogspot.com. But, instead of using Blogger (also a blogging platform software), they used WordPress. There are pros and cons to it. Blogspot tends to be more user friendly, and has quite a few more gadgets than WordPress.com has widgets. When you register an account, it becomes part of the WordPress.com community, much like when you register an account with blogspot.com (essentially, Google) you also become part of a community. So when you visit a blog within that community, you have one sign in. WordPress.com, just like Blogspot, allows you to only use blog features which they make available. That means you can only use the gadgets/widgets on your blog which the site offers. You cannot add your own. In the right corner we have WordPress.org. This is the website where you can actually download the WordPress software. You do not need to register, and it does not cost anything. However, you do have to provide your own webhost. Again, you are getting the software from them. You have to have a way to run it. And this isn't software that you install on your computer—it runs on a web server, so it can be accessed via the Internet. So, you would need a webhost, which costs, roughly, around US$100/year. You would also need a domain name (the "www-thing") which costs, roughly, around US$10/year. You will then need to upload and install WordPress into your account. Many webhosts actually have it uploaded already and you can bypass WordPress.org entirely for this part and just install it on your webhost with the files they have provided. Either way, you will still be registering with WordPress, but the account will not be part of the WordPress.com community. My blog is an example of this. You can register here if you want and log in, but that registration will not be the same as the one you register on WordPress.com even though I am using WordPress. I am not part of WordPress.com. I run my own blog using the software from WordPress.org. There's a few more things that complicate matters. One is WordPress MU. This is WordPress Muli-Site. It is, essentially, the software that WordPress.com runs. Whereas a normal WordPress installation on a webhost is a single blog (like this one), MU is a community where users can generate their own blogs (like wordpress.com). So, if you have the server space and bandwidth, and time, you could actually start your own WordPress.com type service. I don't advise it. But, they get their software from wordpress.org. The other thing that confuses many people is the the domain. Normally, a WordPress.com (community) blog has "wordpress.com" in the URL. For example http://rainyofthedark.wordpress.com would be registered via WordPress.com. Much like http://rainyofthedark.blogspot.com is registered via Blogspot. But, just like with Blogspot, you can register your own domain to point to the community blog, making it appear as if it is a webhosted (commonly called self-hosted or standalone) WordPress blog. Now, why would anyone want to go through the trouble of setting up their own standalone WordPress blog? Because a self-hosted (standalone) WordPress blog packs a punch. While wordpress.com is a great community, and sufficient for many people, a standalone WordPress blog is like training with weights and one of those crazy yoga balls. It has strength, endurance, and flexibility. There are many things that a standalone WordPress blog can do which the community one cannot. But, as with most things, the usefulness of that depends on what you want to do with it in the first place. Both serve a purpose; no one needs to tap out. Ding! Do you or have you used WordPress? Which one? What is your opinion of it?

Real-life Pinterest Board Connects the Digital to the Physical Posted: 30 Nov 2012 09:50 AM PST A California mall recently added what may be the first real-life Pinterest board, and it's a clear example of how the digital world can be connected to the physical world, like we've seen with toys made for apps and products based on apps. It also brings up some interesting strategic points that may be of interest to digital companies. The board—located in Westfield UTC mall in La Jolla, CA—features items from retailers within the mall. It includes an interactive element by being tied to Pinterest's site, where consumers can win all the items on display by making their own "Everyday Escape" board and pinning five items from the mall's own board of the same name, with each pin tagged as #WestfieldUTC. This crossing from the digital into the physical can be important for digital companies for two reasons: 1.    It presents your products in a new way. Your consumers are used to seeing your products in digital form, whether that be through an app or a Web site. Showing them a physical representation of what you've created helps give your products a fresh new take, which will hopefully renew or increase interest in your brand. 2.    It presents a different way for consumers to interact with your products. New ways of interaction can provide business opportunities that were formerly unavailable. Not only that, but it allows you to increase the scope of your brand and reach new consumers. Not every digital company is going to need to make the jump into the physical world in terms of their brand and products, but it seems that doing so is a growing trend, and one that could pay off for companies if done correctly. And since not everyone is doing it, having more physical products could be a way for you to differentiate from the competition. Would you ever use a real-life Pinterest board? It's a social web – don't forget to share and comment. Download our PPC whitepaper: “The DNA of PPC: Effective Guide to Search Engine Marketing”

Which Christmas Ad Is Making Social Media Users Feel Warm And Fuzzy Inside? Posted: 30 Nov 2012 09:38 AM PST So tomorrow, ladies and gentlemen, it is the 1st of December, which means that you can legitimately start playing 'All I Want for Christmas' on repeat whilst watching A Muppet's Christmas Carol and writing endless lists of things to buy/do/cook/wrap. We've now had a full month of festive adverts coming at us from every medium possible, as the Christmas mania started the minute the cobwebs of Halloween had been tidied away – most notably the anticipated Christmas TV adverts from all the big stores. It's sort of equally brilliant and depressing that supermarkets and department stores have managed to make some of us look forward to them trying to flog us stuff through TV ads, but that is the effect of Christmas on otherwise sane people. So, which of the stores has won in the competition to get as many festive things in one ad in order to make people feel all warm and fuzzy inside? We tracked conversation online from Nov 1st to see which of the major stores had created the most buzz with their ad, and whether that buzz was good or bad. It seems John Lewis's combination of breathy female cover song, cute kids, snow and £6 million pounds worth of production has them winning the race, as the ad is way ahead of all the others in terms of volume of conversation (although, when compared to the much-loved Coca-Cola 'Holidays are coming' ad it is dwarfed, with only just over half the volume of conversation over the same period). In terms of total volume over the period, Asda comes in at second place, followed closely by Marks and Spencer. Morrisons barely even gets a look in, with the ad rarely discussed online, and most of the other ads pale into insignificance compared to John Lewis. But, volume isn't everything. What about the sentiment of that conversation? There's been a bit of controversy regarding the Asda ad, as it has received complaints about it being sexist, and Boots has suffered a similar fate due to complaints about 'animal cruelty' (because a dog is shown being dried with a hairdryer. We'll let you make your own mind up). Asda's ad has the highest proportion of negative conversation compared to the other ads, but does also have a fair amount of positive chat. Waitrose's charity-themed ad also attracted a fair bit of negative discussion. John Lewis's ad, perhaps unsurprisingly, has by far the highest proportion of positive conversation and is the clear winner in the social media stakes, although research has shown that it has been the least effective in actually attracting shoppers. Littlewoods, after a disastrous ad last year, tried to convince us that they DID believe in Santa by including him in their offering this year, and it seems to have worked – online buzz about the ad was more positive than negative, with 17% positive and 6% negative. Compared to last year's stats (62% negative tweets, anyone?), the ad is a relative success, despite not being discussed that much. Debenhams' advert was the least successful in making viewers feel emotional, with nearly 87% of conversation being neutral. So what is it about the John Lewis advert that makes people so enthusiastic about it? A word cloud based on the emotive conversation about the ad shows that there's lots of love, both because people say they 'love' the ad, but also because of the use of the 'Power of Love' song. Most people don't really give reasons for loving it, they just do. Asda's word cloud doesn't quite have the same amount of loving feeling, although the fact that the grandmother in the ad is reading 50 Shades of Grey seems to have tickled people's fancy. If you can't get enough of the John Lewis advert and need some more snowman-based fun, then be sure to check out the spoof Twitter accounts set up for the happy couple – @john_snowman and @mrsjlsnowman

The Friday#: Leveson + Google Tax Posted: 30 Nov 2012 09:32 AM PST This Week's Issue: The Sizzle: Google Tax. The Fri-Up: Leveson. The Sauce: Cheesageddon. Your weekly round-up of the hottest stories worldwide, served with a slice of topical social media analysis and a dollop of Friday fun The Sizzle: German 'Google Tax' progresses through Bundestag Internet 'cut off' across Syria WSJ: The lowdown on Apple's Eddie Cue Facebook and Zynga loosen ties Why are community managers terrible community members The Fri-Up: Leveson. The Leveson enquiry, a year long enquiry into malpractice in the UK's press has now been published. Launched off the back of last summer's phone hacking allegations, we started tracking the topics as the phone hacking allegations levelled at News International reached fever pitch. Triggering Murdoch's shut down of one of the most iconic and contentious British newspapers. We look back at how it played out across social media since we first started tracking events as they began to unfold in summer 2011. Looking back at the Brandwatch wordcloud from July 2011, we see that the discussion centred around very specific cases rather than questioning the freedom of the UK press as a whole. Fig 1. Wordcloud from July 2011 At the time, we also compared mentions of key figures in the phone hacking scandal on Twitter in a Brandwatch dataviz. We created a virtual pie throwing contest, a nod towards actions within the initial select committee hearing and Rupert Murdoch being the unexpected target of a custard pie by a protester. A year on, after an extensive enquiry, more embarrassing revelations on the government's links to the press and further claims of hacking by various celebrities, the social media landscape looks somwhat different. Fig 2. Leveson: Topics line graph from Nov 23rd to Nov 30th 2012 Although many of the same players feature, there are several new contenders into the mix. The biggest spike is provoked by Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg – going against David Cameron – recommending a new independent body to regulate the press. An honourable mention must also be given to Korean music and dance sensation PSY, who's hit Gangnam Style has managed to infiltrate yet another Friday# topic cloud. This time, worryingly, via the Liberal Democrats' Christmas party. The Sauce: Something for the weekend: Cheesageddon The future of cartoons Russians forest trampolinists Hope you enjoyed the Friday#, have a great weekend.

Switch Idea, Combines Power Of Social Media To Recruitment Posted: 30 Nov 2012 08:30 AM PST A new kid is in the game and this time with a unique idea that combines the power of social media to recruitment. We are talking about 'Switch Idea' today developed by Niranjan Yadav, a 20 year old wonder-kid in Mumbai. LinkedIn did bring about a revolution when it leveraged the power of social to your professional life and we did see hordes of people logging into it and creating some awesome profiles. Beyond that the engagement was limited and that is what 'Switch Idea' aims to cover and become a bridge between the job seekers and providers using social connections (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn). While employers utilize multiple mediums to connect with job seekers – recruitment agencies, direct calling or LinkedIn relying on manual methods for screening, SwitchIdea provides an opportunity for them to connect directly with job seekers via social channels. How Switch Idea Works? 1. For Employers: For this group, the process nearly remains the same as they do with other agencies – forward requirement, input desired skills, location and other key details. These details are fed into their system. 2. For Job Seekers: The job seekers part is where all the magic is. As a job seeker, the user needs to create a virtual card, which actually is an overview of your profile. The login is created by connecting one of your social platforms and once created, it picks up some basic information from the social profile. The best part is, you can even import your resume from LinkedIn. Add skills and other relevant details and your virtual card is ready. Once the virtual card is created and stored in their repository, the skills are matched with the existing requirement or future requirements. Relevant jobs get notified to the job seeker. Once the job seeker decides to apply for a certain position, the virtual card gets shared with the prospective employer. Based on the information virtual card, the employer can take relevant action of either going forward with the interview or dropping the candidate. How cool is it? 1. Very minimalistic and intuitive interface: Loved the way they have used the grey, orange and yellow colours. Very pleasing to the eye and one can easily view the important information. 2. Social connect: It was very good to see them pick up the existing information from social channels and even allowing the LinkedIn resume to be picked up. 3. VCard or the Virtual Card: Nice glimpse of skills & other relevant details on a single page with multiple tabs that get further details. 4. The process: I particularly liked the idea of exchange of job post & virtual card. The way particular virtual card would get selected based on the skills mentioned by employers, I see it would reduce some of the residual processes of skill matching on the employers end. Having a brief overview of the candidate can make life easier for employers. From the job-seeker point of view, they could get creative, since they know that what appears on the minimalist virtual card is their only 'gateway' into prospective employer's mind. Putting less and crisp information would be job half done. How it can be better? 1. Login creation: The process of creating a login is tad bit lengthy. Once they had decided to connect the social channels in the first step to creation of login, an extra step to have username/password was not needed. Secondly, even after giving the username/password in the first step, it didn't immediately show us the home screen. I had to re-login with the supplied credentials again, much to my chagrin. These are too many steps while creating a login and could scare away users from using it. 2. Effective progress bar: With every detail being put, they do show a progress bar proclaiming 'vCard Efficiency'. This was a bit painful, since I didn't really know what steps really constitute towards the 'efficiency' counter. Even after I had put all the basic information in place, the bar read 60% and I was clueless how I can take it further. Some explanation towards it would have certainly made my life easier. Overall, I would say it's a very interesting place to have your profile or advertise your jobs. Niranjan has indeed picked up well on the social media trend though I would have loved to see if he could have given a platform for the job seeker and employer to even 'engage' beyond the vCards. Nonetheless, a good beginning and since they are also planning to launch apps for phones, I do see it being used by a much wider base. Currently, with almost 15,000 users of which nearly 60% are US based, I look forward to 'Switch Idea's’ great Indian journey.

Cyber Monday: Battle of Mobile and Social Media Posted: 30 Nov 2012 08:23 AM PST Last week may have been Thanksgiving, but in the business world most of the talk was focused on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The past few years these two shopping holidays have gained in popularity and hysteria. This year in fact, many retailers were criticized for beginning Black Friday store hours that on Thanksgiving night; however, with all time record highs for sales it seems these business owners made the right decision. This year's Black Friday showed increased participation from consumers yet again; however, the real story to watch is the increase of e-commerce. Gian Fulgoni, comScore chairman said "Despite the frenzy of media coverage surrounding the importance of Black Friday in the brick-and-mortar world, we continue to see this shopping day become more and more prominent in the e-commerce channel – particularly among those who prefer to avoid crowds at the stores. With Black Friday online sales up 26% and surpassing $1 billion for the first time, coupled with early reports indicating that Black Friday sales in retail stores were down 1.8%, we can now confidently call it a multi-channel marketing phenomenon." The trends that took black on Black Friday were in fact indicative of Cyber Monday events – IBM's Digital Analytics Benchmark showed a 25.6 percent jump in online sales from this same time period over Cyber Monday 2011. Specifically, this year mobile shopping saw a large increase with 20.4 percent of consumers visiting a retailer's site via mobile device at 10.1% completing a purchase. As shown in the chart below, the highest shopping momentum was around 11:30 am with another surge after work when consumers had more time. In statistics released by PayPal, the company saw 196 percent more mobile payment volume in 2012 than in 2011. Since retailers increased holiday online promotions and made them available earlier, combined with the mania surrounding in store sales, Cyber Monday and mobile payments will most likely increase again next year. Interestingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, social sales contributed barely anything to Black Friday and Cyber Monday (some reports show less than 1% of sales took place on social networks). The disparity between mobile and social sales could be due to the lack of seamless integration on social networks. With smartphones and tablets, consumers most likely find it easier to shop directly from a retailer's website. However, as Tricia Duryee pointed out, "In contrast, social commerce is more complicated [than mobile or e-commerce]. Consumers may discover new products through friends, or get advice via Facebook or Twitter, but being able to track those referrals back to where they came from is not always easy." This points out the discrepancy in social analytics that businesses and marketers alike are stuck with, for now. For businesses, it seems the coming year will be heavily focused on mobile sales efforts. Nevertheless, the value of social media marketing cannot and should not be ignored. Although it is difficult to track at the moment, the word of mouth advertising that occurs socially is invaluable for businesses. Fortunately with so many new analytics tools in development, and this issue such a pressing matter for accurate results measurement, there should be a solution in 2013. Sources: Mashable, TechCrunch, AllThingsD. Contact Wild Frog Studio for your holiday promotions at 914.428.4645 or via email.

Beyond Your Blog, The Power of Guest Editorials Posted: 30 Nov 2012 08:07 AM PST Publishing a guest editorial in a respected trade journal or on a third-party blog can add instant credibility and reach to your Thought Leadership programme. Building relationships with bloggers and journalists should also be seen as the vitally important first steps in a wider public relations strategy. You should target publications and blogs that are of interest to you and your potential client base. If you are unsure how to select these target publications, ask a small group of customers which publications they regularly read and which journalists/bloggers they respect. Writing your first guest editorial As you write your first guest editorial you have to bear a number of issues in mind: Is this article relevant to the readership? How advanced is the readership of the site or publication you are hoping to submit to? There is little point in offering a beginner's guide to an advanced group of industry experts. Similarly, if you over-pitch to a readership of enthusiastic amateurs you will probably disengage them. Am I adding value to the conversation? It doesn't matter what angle you take as long as you are adding value to the debate around a particular topic. If you are turning over old ground or reaffirming someone else's Thought Leadership, it's time to rethink your article. Get to the point: Does the editorial have a clear and actionable point? Don't waste the readers' (or journalists') time with articles that go nowhere. Always make sure you challenge the reader to take action (even if that is just to reconsider their current behaviour). Does this sound like an advertisement? Advertising copy does not make good Thought Leadership but it is always a good idea to work a call to action into your copy. The fact is, websites, magazines and journals will not feature editorial that doesn't conform, within their guidelines, to the above points. Journalists, editors and bloggers are all busy people, and they love it when someone they know and trust can provide them with good clean copy that they can publish after a cursory glance. If you send them something they have to work on, the chances are they'll never read another submission from you again, so make your submission a good one and you may be asked for more material in the future. The above abridged text is taken from  the book Becoming THE Expert: Enhancing Your Business Reputation through Thought Leadership Marketing available now from Amazon and the Apple iBookstore.

Reset your WordPress Admin Password When You Cannot Access Your WordPress Dashboard Posted: 30 Nov 2012 08:00 AM PST When you have too many websites like me, sometimes you have to reset your WordPress admin password. Yes this happens to me all of the time. Normal people can simply click on the "forgot password' link, but I often do not even know the email address I have actually used. I know this sounds crazy, but I am sure you will have your own reasons for needing to read this tutorial. How to Reset your WordPress Admin Password? Yes you can reset your WordPress admin password but you will need a few things first. What do you need to change your WordPress admin password? To reset your WordPress admin password you will need access to your server. This is the website hosting where your website is located. For example, I use Hostgator for my website hosting and would go to my Cpanel to change this password. If you are hosting more than one website in the same location you will need to know the database name that particular website you want to log into. You will need to have access to the Internet to login to your server and to create a new MD5 encryption. You will need to open a notepad so you can copy your new MD5 encryption password, and to note what this code interprets to. Basically you should have all these things if you are running a website. We all need an Internet connection if we are involved with websites. How to reset your admin password for WordPress I have made a detailed video tutorial on how to reset your admin password but I will also list a quick set of instructions. 1. Login to your server Cpanel and look for the databases section. Look for the phpMyAdmin icon. 2. Double-click on this icon to enter. See the screenshot below. 3. Once in phpMyAdmin select the WordPress database from the drop-down menu on the left. If you are not sure which database to choose, scroll down below to find the instructions on how to see which database you are using. 4. Then when you have entered the right database, you need to look for the username. This will be the account that you want to change the password for. 5. You will then need to click on the edit link to actually change the details for this user. See this screenshot below. 6. Now you will see more details and be able to change them. Where it says user_pass, this means we need to change these details. 7. Go to Google and type in MD5 encryption or you can try this MD5 hash website. You will need to generate a new encrypted user password. 8. Once you have generated a new encrypted password, paste it into the user password section. 9. Click on the GO button to submit the query. The best way to learn how to change your WordPress admin password is to watch the video below. How To Find Your WordPress Data Base Name? Lets say you have 20 websites installed on your Hostgator server. This creates a small problem when trying to edit the data base user details as you need to know which data base to enter. You could enter them all until you see something that looks familiar but this is a waste of time. Before going to the phpMyAdmin section in your hosting, you need to go to the root of your domain and look for your wp-config.php file. 1. Login to your cpanel hosting. 2. Scroll down to the files section and look for the file manager icon. Double-click on that icon. See the screenshot below. 3. A file manager directory selection box will appear. You will need to make a few choices here. you need to select document root for: You need to tick the box that says show hidden files. You need to choose which website from the drop down menu. After all of this you can press the go. See the screenshot below. 4. Now you can look for your wp-config.php file and select it by making it blue. 5. Then right click on the blue selection and choose "view" from the menu. 6. In this file you should see something like " ('DB_NAME', 'mydb_wrdp30′); 7. That means that mydb_wrdp30 is my database name. If you have problems resetting the password yourself, ask your website hosting company for help. I'd definitely know that Hostgator would help out in a situation like this as I have always got fantastic help from them, even though the problem had nothing to do with their hosting.

SEO: The Great Shakeout Has Begun Posted: 30 Nov 2012 07:57 AM PST I recently watched on YouTube a gathering of SEO celebrities discuss the current state of Search Engine Optimization in the aftermath of the latest updates to Google's Penguin and Panda algorithms. I could only shake my head at what I saw, because it seemed to me that there is actual resentment and anger at what Google is doing, in trying to add maximum value to its own customers.  Many SEO Consultants still believe that their job is simply to get their client a high SERP (Search Engine Results Pages) ranking. Thanks to Google, those days are over. Today, the job of SEO is to help clients EARN that high ranking because they DESERVE that high ranking.  If the client does NOT deserve a high ranking, it is the job of the SEO consultant to explain the reasons to the client.  SEO Consultants need to illustrate the gap between where the client is, and where they need to be with respect to their messaging and its content. They need to talk about content with respect to how and WHERE to deliver it for maximum business effectiveness, IN ADDITION to a high SERP placement for a given keyword.  It is time that SEO Consultants figured out that, they are now a key part of a business' marketing team, and they must contribute more than just backlinks and on-page tweaking. Ultimately, Google is working to create a result- where if your business sucks your SERPs will suck too, and that there will be nothing you can do about it, except to improve your business.  If SEO Consultants want to be a part of that future, then we had better start focusing on how we can help businesses improve, and in so doing, improve their SERP rankings at the same time. It was never supposed to be about you, anyway. Let us consider the Google value proposition for a moment? Google's ambition is to help searchers find what they are looking for within its Results Pages.  Now, let me be clear; Google has no interest whatsoever in helping its users find – businesses which only CLAIM TO BE what the user is looking for. From the moment that Google released TBPR (Toolbar PageRank) back in the year 2000, SEO Consultants have been looking to game the system for positive client results.  Customers wanted to rank, with no regard to whether sitting on top of SERPs meant that the customer was providing the most value to the person who found them. It was all about attrition, all about traffic. The more people saw you, the more people would be converted. It worked. Never mind that in the early days, businesses were serving up Bounce Rates in the 70 to 80% range. That means that 7-8 or 10 visitors to a site did NOT find what they were looking for, and left the site without looking at another page. Google is not a non-profit organization. To sell advertisements above those SERPs, they needed to provide much better relevancy to those searching its index.  If a vendor was going to buy an ad, there needed to be a better match between buyers and sellers.  Therefore, Google, seeking to provide better relevant performance, created increasingly restrictive rules on what businesses could do with their websites. Businesses need to comply with Google's rules if they wanted a high SERP ranking, traffic to their pages, and eventually customers from Customers via Google's index. SEO Consultants complaining about the severity of their algorithm changes completely miss the point. It is not about them, and the fact that SEO Consultants have been able to charge confiscatory rates to businesses not inclined to understand how to rank on the Search Engines. Some SEO Consultants now find themselves struggling, and looking for new ways to game the system.  Like VARs that get upset when a supplier sells items directly, SEO Consultants that add little value against Panda and Penguin algorithms are screaming bloody murder. Without Backlinks, can you feed yourself? Let me be clear. If you sell backlinks, no matter how relevant you believe them to be, you are cheating, and I hope Google kicks you in the ass. Backlinks should be gained organically. Sites that rock earn backlinks quickly and consistently. Sites that suck do not.  It is usually these same sucky sites, which really have no interest in attempting real improvement in providing value to their clients, which ultimately purchase backlinks. Yeah, I said it. If you buy backlinks, you suck like a bodybuilder who takes steroids. He may look great for a while, but you know he's going to eventually end up with an appendage that would not excite a horny gerbil, and eventually, his liver is going to explode.  Is that what you want for your website? Is that what you want for your business? A website should represent who a business REALLY is, and what a business can REALLY do. If a crappy business ranks, because they bought a ton of backlinks, to Google, that site's high SERPS placement is an unmitigated LIE. It should not be there, and it serves to diminish Google's value to its customers, period. Purchased links are nothing more than SEO Steroids. Over time, they will bite your SEO client in the ass, relevant or not, because with significant traffic from high SERPS a lousy business can only piss off a large number of potential clients at a faster rate.  They will fail, or do a poor job, again leading Google to wonder why that site sits atop its SERPs.  Google is still tweaking their algorithms, and will do so, until with every SERP, the business that sits on top, is not just a place with perfect SEO, but a real business that in everything it does, is positively badass. If it is not #RCS, it's crap, and you know it. Okay, so what is a badass business? A badass business is one that handles all aspects of its business in a professional and productive way. A business provides benefits to their customers in all that they do.  In their marketing, sales, customer service, and products/solutions, they remain top-of-mind with those who need what that business offers.  In short, they do #RCS, or "Real Company Shit". They take the time to determine and profile who their customers are, what they want, and they set about giving it to them. Companies that practice #RCS do not have to worry as much about pricing as businesses that provide no added value. Example:  NewEgg.  (www.newegg.com) As a business goes, NewEgg has it wired.  I am a geek.  I am NewEgg's target audience, and they set about making me happy. Are they the cheapest? Almost never, but I could not care less, when what I get from NewEgg is often worth more than I pay for their products in mere Customer Satisfaction.  In my former home, I was surrounded on three sides by Fry's Electronics stores equal distances away. I buy from NewEgg, because I can wait a day in most cases, and NewEgg ships by FedEx by default.  BINGO.  (FedEx is another #RCS company) As far as Organic Search Engine Optimization, NewEgg does not do anything that any other business with their revenue can't do. They do a hell of a lot that other businesses either can't or won't do to make me happy. In the image above, I ran that query three ways – Local, Worldwide, and Incognito.  With at least 20 places near me that I could get Computers and Electronics, NewEgg sat atop the SERP each time. Do you think BestBuy cannot afford killer SEO? Or Tiger Direct? Or Fry's? Case closed, baby. It is now a relationship, dammit. That's right, you can't leave now, Mr. SEO Wunderkind. You can't just plug in your magic and move on to the next low SERP disaster.  SEO consultants need to stay and accept some of the pain involved in helping a business succeed.  It can take weeks or months for Organic SEO to show positive results, but those results are lasting, and you need to stick around as a resource.  SEO must be part of a business' overall marketing solution. You must help with Adwords. You must help with PPC. How many business owners understand the term "Long Tail Keyword"?  You need to stick around in case of negative SEO attacks against your client. As a professional, you should be on retainer to assist on a constant basis. You are the person who understands Analytics; do you expect the business owner to pick it up at a glance? You have to be there to -explain the results of ALL of your client's efforts online.  With SEOMOZ or Traffic Travis, I can teach a child OnPage SEO in a few days. Are you worth that big-ass consulting check? Are your clients schooled in Google Authorship? Do they know WHY some pages need Canonical tags and others do not? Are they going to be de-listed from Google's index due to all the Link Farms and Article Spinners you signed them up for? Do you have the slightest interest in helping protect and enhance your client's Brand? It's called adding value, Bunkie.  True Organic Search Engine Optimization is not a job, but a skilled profession, one where SEO Consultants need to constantly be learning, and enhancing their own abilities. SEO has been redefined; Get over it. When I watched that group of SEO celebrities bemoan Google's algorithm changes, and what those changes meant to their SEO practices, I cringed a bit, because I don't think they understand the wonderful opportunity these changes represent.  If they as SEO Consultants can help turn weak businesses into stars, imagine the potential benefits to their own practices! SEO will never be a true profession without professionals. We in the SEO field should be licking our chops, because if we really are as good as the checks we cash, we can look forward to doing memorable stuff that actually makes a difference. I am personally thrilled that Darwin is about to take hold of SEO, and shakeout the cheaters, and the pretenders.  We should align ourselves with Google under the same goal of helping our clients' businesses improve, and get the word out to the clients who need them. Businesses used to think about SEO like they did about used car salesmen.  We can do better, and frankly, I am glad that Google is forcing us to do just that.

Why We Love the New LinkedIn Company Page Design Posted: 30 Nov 2012 07:45 AM PST LinkedIn's newly redesigned company pages allow for a much more visually engaging, interactive, and personalized interface—a welcomed upgrade we were eager to take advantage of! Using our own company page as an example, we've highlighted some of the things we are particularly excited about. The home page features a large photo banner, making it easy for companies to brand their company page in a visual way. We chose to feature a photo of our office space, but some companies feature photos of employees, logo design or other brand-related images. The "Recent Updates" feed allows employees to feature content of their choosing, even highlighting certain stories or articles over others so that they are more visible to visitors of the page. Each shared story includes an image, and tracks the impressions, clicks, and engagement of each post, so administrators of the page know what content has been more successful in engaging page visitors. At the bottom of each company page an 'About' section allows companies to provide a brief overview of the company, including company headquarters, website, company size, industry, and specialties. We love how easy it is to repurpose images and content from our website and incorporate it into our LinkedIn page. For example, in the 'Services' page we were able to visually customize each service area by including a photo, brief description of the offering, and provide bullet points of each specialty that falls under the selected service. We were also able to link relevant content to each service through the 'Get more info" module on the right side of the page. By linking to one of our whitepapers from our website through the module, we are able to point prospects to relevant content and keep the conversation going. The services page also includes a photo banner feature, where we selected 3 images created and designed by our very own creative team. The module on the right side of the page also allowed us to feature our company film reel, which is also on the homepage of our website.   Overall, the new LinkedIn Company Page design provides a visually compelling platform for starting conversations with prospective clients and recruits. As in any synchronized marketing strategy, the real opportunity for B2B marketers in today's connected marketing environment, is to keep the dialogue going and growing by leading the prospect through the conversation at multiple touchpoints, ultimately landing at the sales sweet spot: consideration for his or her short-list. To learn more about LinkedIn's new company pages, click here. This post was originally posted on BrandEd, a B2B branding and marketing blog from DeSantis Breindel.

Ultimate Social Media Holidays’ Checklist Posted: 30 Nov 2012 07:42 AM PST Ultimate Social Media Holidays' Checklist It's the most wonderful time of the year… While holiday preparations at the office once focused on sending festive cards and gifts to your clients and people taking well-deserved vacations, today, social media provides companies a wonderful way to show their online communities that they too have the holiday spirit by posting fun or creative online campaigns! Getting organized is the best way to ensure your online communities enjoy the 'holiday cheer' they find online. As I was preparing to put my Christmas tree up earlier this week, (Yes, I put it up early at the request of my four-year-old son!) I reflected that preparing for my own holidays is no different from a company preparing a holiday social media campaign. In other words, prepare, plan and then enjoy! Whether your social campaigns are big or small, the importance of social media, like all holidays, takes good planning, time and creative energy. Read my holiday checklist and tell me if you agree or not. Best practice indicates that properly planning your family's holidays begins two months before by putting vacation information in a calendar, booking flights, baking, and creating holiday card lists. So should your company's holiday campaigns. Start by brainstorming creative ideas that could be built upon, promote, and share during the holidays. Encourage your team to come up with festive social media ideas that aligns best for your company. Then start gathering that special content the same way that you would buy important gifts well in advance. It is never too early. For example Starbucks' #RedCupsChallenge began weeks ago, engages coffee lovers to tweet pictures with their coffee cups and their Rekindle website is lots of fun! Look for potential areas that could bring more coal than gifts. Do you have any negative issues bubbling within your company or online community that would influence a holiday campaign? Have someone working on the campaign without much Christmas spirit? Find the right holiday person in your office to avoid any 'Grinch-iness.' Once you reach the beginning of December, the time has come to launch and promote your social media holiday campaign in earnest and have a little fun. Fill your social media channels with fun and festive messages that help engage or inform your customers! Prepare the wonderful visuals and messages that can be shared this time of year with the same care you would give to special gift-wrapping. Think of sharing images of office Christmas trees and decorations or your employees' children at a parade or wearing festive hats. It is also time to share information on any social initiatives your company may undertake. Are you sponsoring a family or donating food and toys to the local food bank? Tell your online communities about it. If you do not have plans to, it is not too late to find a good cause to support. In today's transparent world, all companies should help their communities not only because it is the right thing to do but also because it can help strengthen your company's reputation. As the night before Christmas approaches, focus on having a 'clean house' by finishing off important projects so that you or your team can concentrate on 'spreading the word' about your holiday campaign. Start planning your content early to ensure there is a calendar full of wonderful information especially during a period where people can be a little distracted. Know when you will have less staff and have someone provide timely responses as your customers may still be posting online messages during the holidays. The last and possibly most important piece of information to share with others when planning your holiday campaign is to give your online community the gift of yourselves! Be human! Share the special moments you and your employees are enjoying with their family and friends. Take time to explain or post photos of holiday traditions and special moments. Want to read more? Wondering how important social media really is during the holidays? Learn more about why 2012 is social media's best holiday season yet! Here is another good post on Five Holiday Social Media Campaign Essentials. When the holidays are over and your company has successfully engaged with your online communities, the work is far from over, especially when it comes to social media! Check out these 20 Social Media Resolutions for 2013 and have yourself a merry little Christmas and a Happy New Year.

3 Tips for Making a Professional Pinterest Page for Business [Video] Posted: 30 Nov 2012 07:30 AM PST Last week I shared the news that Pinterest launched business pages and I created a video tutorial on how to set up a Pinterest business page. If you’ve got a Pinterest page or are thinking about setting one up, you may be wondering what to post. Essentially, the sky’s the limit in terms of what you pin, but you want to make sure your pins appeal to your target audiences. Based on a review of a number of Pinterest pages, I’ve noticed 3 types of Pin Boards that are successful in being professional while staying true to their brand. Check out the video below for our 3 tips and some examples of excellent Pinterest boards and pins. Quick summary: Tip #1. Don’t make it all about you While you do want to have pins that link back to products or services on your company website, your boards shouldn’t be all about your business. Think about how you can highlight things other people are doing, such as the Chobani board that shares customer recipes. Tip #2. Be helpful Many people turn to Pinterest for inspiration and ideas. Provide helpful tips that relate to your industry, but that don’t necessarily come from your site or business. For instance, Mashable shares tech tips and tricks from all over the internet. Tip #3. Show off your brand personality Have fun!! Pinterest is a great way for you to showcase your brand’s personality. Whether it’s having a “humour” pinboard or sharing inspirational quotes, there are a variety of ways for you to inject some life into your brand. What other ways can you use Pinterest to reach your audience? Share in the comments! ps. Come join us on Pinterest! If you’re not on Pinterest yet, don’t forget to watch our 2 min video on how to set up a Pinterest account.

How Can Social Data Help Drive Brand Loyalty? Posted: 30 Nov 2012 07:10 AM PST While a consumer drives down their road, what triggers their decision to go to Tesco as opposed to Sainsbury's? As they switch on their laptop to shop online, is it Ocado.com or Waitrose.com they visit? While the flat economy keeps consumer consumption weak, retailers are looking to pull levers other than just price to build brand loyalty. Short term vs. long term customer loyalty Price differentiation is clearly unsustainable and confusing for consumers in many cases. Whilst price matching might be good for the consumer in the short term, it negatively impacts the bottom line and does not lead to increased loyalty in the long term. In a recent study by loyalty360 it was revealed that 84% of respondent retailers use some form of loyalty strategy, but surprisingly less than half (48.8%) believe their initiatives are working. Therefore, what can drive loyalty in the longer term? Having a single view of the customer is increasingly challenged by consumer uptake of multichannel. A consumer expects to be able to research a product or service using one channel, order it via another, and potentially take delivery via a third, with the expectation that the retailer is aware of each and every activity and delivering a consistently seamless service. Consumers also expect the same authentic brand experience whether they are communicating via a brand's website, social network, or speaking face-to-face with a representative. How can social data be used? So how can brands use social data to drive loyalty? How can it help make every moment memorable for the customer, while still affordable for the retailer? Beyond responding to customer service queries in twitter and other social networks where else can social build customer loyalty? One way is by using social data to anticipate future customer behaviour. For instance, by seeing what is trending and delivering a better marketing message accordingly. This could take the form of tweaking a website in real-time, with the intention of more prominently displaying items customers are discussing online and showing a propensity to purchase. In this way the brand is clearly identifying with its customers in real time and using that data to make it easier for them to find the things they like. Another example is if a customer has a goal to lose weight, their supermarket could use the data they have collected through a traditional loyalty programme (in relation to the customer's food purchases), and make that data available to them to calculate their calorific intake. This data powering an app could then be used by the customer to manage their diet, making them more likely to continue shopping with that supermarket in particular because it is collecting their data and using it to benefit them. These are just a few ways in which social can play a big role in driving and maintaining customer loyalty, and ways which give the customer benefits beyond discounts for being loyal. Image credit: Karen V Bryan

Use to Social Media to Compliment Reality, Not Replace It Posted: 30 Nov 2012 06:25 AM PST Have you ever seen "The Matrix"? There is a scene where futuristic human beings are laid out in pods, stagnant, and living in a virtual environment which is far from reality. While I love this series of movies, I try to steer clear of living this lifestyle, no matter how tempting it may be. Humans are meant to make eye contact, hear each others' voices, maybe even hug or shake hands. We are wired to be social. Now putting my own opinion aside, I can tell you from experience that: 1. Putting social media in a vacuum doesn't work without the help of other marketing channels. 2. Expecting social media to do all the "social work" for you will limit growth. The point I am trying to make is that social media is used to compliment real relationships, whether you use it for introductions or relationship nurturing. I believe this is true for anyone, no matter what industry you are in. It just so happens that I've made it work for ME. Instead of using the telephone to make introductions, which seems further away from best practice nowadays, you can now use the so called "social telephone". It's less obtrusive and gives people a chance to do some investigative work before they respond. Here's an example: You are subscribed to a blog, and you really like the content that one of the authors creates week in and week out. Since, you like the content so much, you take great pride in sharing it with your followers/friends. They really like it too. The author gets exposure, and they appreciate your willingness to share their work. A relationship has been initiated. For the next few months, you find some commonalities and begin to take the relationship to the next level. Sounds a lot like dating right? It is VERY similar to dating in fact. Before you know it, you find that you are going to be in the same location as the author, and you decide to set up in-person meet up. The meeting goes really well. The two of you have some laughs and get to know each other on a much deeper level. Eye contact, hand shaking, viewing each others' facial expressions, maybe even a hug is icing on the cake when crossing the digital divide. This is where real work and opportunities arise, only with real world contact. Give it a try. I promise you, won't be disappointed! I would love to hear some examples of your experience of using social media to compliment real world relationships. I might even put your responses into an e-book with your name and link to your website attached! image credit: military times

5 Online Reputation Management Tools to Help You Preserve Your Company’s Good Name Posted: 30 Nov 2012 05:50 AM PST Web 2.0 has revolutionized the way news is created nowadays and the way it’s shared across the Web’s communities. Sometimes, it takes just one tweet for a piece of news to spread like wildfire. Now, what if that wildfire involved your brand? And what if you found out too late? To be prepared for situations like these and to be able to deal with them effectively, it’s important to be familiar with the basics of online reputation management. Handling your brand’s reputation on the Internet usually includes: daily tracking of online news and social conversations about your brand; joining discussions that could hurt your business; promoting positive sentiment about your brand; being active at social networks on behalf of your company. However, doing all these tasks on a daily basis by hand sounds a bit of a formidable job. Luckily, there are online reputation management tools one can use to always stay on top of what people are saying about their brand and act on those conversations, if necessary. 1. Google Alerts Google Alerts is probably the first and the simplest online tool that comes to mind when you think about reputation management. It allows you to create an alert for a particular search term (your company’s name, the name of your product, the name of your CEO, etc.) and receive notifications to your email each time the keyword is mentioned on the Web. Google Alerts also allows you to use advanced search options: You can use quotes to avoid getting alerted for synonyms/auto-corrected words: “Natalie Portmanteau” (so that Google doesn’t automatically change it to “Natalie Portman“) You can exclude mentions that are most likely not what you need: doors -band You can get  alerts for mentions occurring at particular websites: Business2Community site:twitter.com 2. Google Discussions Another great tool to use for online reputation management is Google Discussions. Unlike Google Web search, Google Discussions lets you discover relevant conversations happening specifically at blogs and forums. When using Google Discussions, you can also resort to Google’s Search tools to refine the results you get. For instance, go to All Discussions and choose Forums (to get the results from forums only) or Q&As (to get the results only from Q&A sites only). Besides, by clicking All time, you can choose to see conversations that were added in the past hour, in the past 24 hours, in the past week/month or year. Why use Google Discussions? Whenever a scandalous piece of news about your brand goes out on the Internet, forums and blogs are likely to pick it up. So, by locating such conversations early on, you can join them just in time to provide your side of the story. For instance, this is what Dan Thies did when a negative SEO attack on his site was being discussed at TrafficPlanet. 3. SocialMention SocialMention is another handy tool you can use to keep track of what’s being said about your company online. In addition to providing links to different social posts mentioning your company, it also shows you the keywords frequently used in those posts and estimates the overall sentiment those mentions have. Besides, SocialMention apparently lets you create email alerts for your keywords. However, when I tried to do it, the service said that the feature was temporarily unavailable, and that it would be back in about a week. 4. Whos Talking Whos Talking is a service that is similar in its functionality to SocialMention. It helps you find online conversations, images, videos and other content that is relevant to the keywords you provide. What’s inconvenient about Whos Talking, though, is that it lets you see only one type of mentions at a time. For example, you can see a feed that only contains Twitter mentions. If you want to see your Facebook mentions, you have to switch to another feed. 5. BuzzBundle BuzzBundle is a multi-platform dashboard, using which you can track brand-related social mentions in real time. The software also lets you reply to individual posts right from the dashboard, retweet tweets, send direct messages, and more. Besides, you can log in to your social accounts via BuzzBundle and see your self-published posts in a separate stream. The SMM tool also lets you add important conversations to favorites and browse your favorites in a separate workspace. Best practices of using BuzzBundle to manage online reputation have been put together into a comprehensive Online Reputation Management Guide. It shows how one can effectively create and sustain positive online sentiment for their brand with the help of BuzzBundle. Bottom Line Keeping track of what people say about your brand on the Web is an important part of any online promo campaign. However, the number of social networks has become so big these days that it’s virtually impossible to stay on top of things without resorting to any tools. One can use the 5 social media management tools I just mentioned separately or in combination with one another. Either way, the software is bound to reduce the amount of time you spend managing online reputation for your brand and help you reach larger audiences with your social media promotional efforts. Image credit: kzenon via iStockphoto

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