I was chatting with a friend last week who told me he didn’t enjoy Spin Sucks as much these days. He said it used to be much more intimate and now we have different voices from people he doesn’t know so it’s hard for him to care. He said, for him, it’s just more online noise.

That got my attention. More online noise.

While the goal for the blog is to eventually monetize it, it’s equally important to maintain the culture we’ve created. But how do you do that as you grow? Continue Reading »

Last week Mashable did a story on how few people are using Foursquare and that, perhaps, business owners should wait to do any marketing through the location-based program. At the time, I was in a hurry and tweeted it with, “Not sure I agree with @mashable on waiting until later to do location based marketing.”

I’ve had some time to think about it and now I’m really sure I don’t agree with the story…or rather, the study that prompted the story. The study was conducted by Forrester to show that only 4 percent of Internet-using adults use Foursquare and, of those people, only 1 percent check in to a location at least once a week.

Let’s put this into perspective.

Worldwide, nearly 2 billion people use the Internet and, in North America, there are more than 265 million. If 4 percent use Foursquare, that’s 80 million people worldwide and nearly 11 million people in North America. If you break it down even further and say you only want to reach the 1 percent who check in at least once a week, that’s still 800,000 worldwide and 106,000 people in North America. Continue Reading »

Guest blog written by Harry Brumleve

So you’ve set up a blog that you’re passionate about and you’ve written your first few posts.   Who has seen it?  Your friends? Who is going to see it?  Your mom?  Likely if you’ve taken the good time to post your thoughts, opinions, and feelings, you are looking to share them with the world.  Or at least the world who also cares about your passion.

There are only so many people you can tell.  You only have one mom.  How can you get more people to read your post, to keep coming back, to leave comments, and to tell their friends?

Wouldn’t it be great to get Google to help you find those people?

Well I have a surprise for you …

Hooking into Google and getting listed on their search result pages is easier than it seems, but it does require an hour or so of work.  Tailoring your blog to be picked up by Google is called Search Engine Optimization or SEO.  Here are a few basic tips to get started:

1) Go to the Google Webmaster site and login using your Gmail account information (if you don’t have one, you’ll need to create one). In the middle of the page is a button that says, “add a site.” Click on that and add your blog URL. Then follow the directions to get your site verified. If you need help, this is a great video that walks you through the process.

2) Optimize your content.  Sure, you should write what you are passionate about, but there’s nothing that says you can’t cheat a little bit to attract more readers.  All you have to do is find out what people are searching for on Google and incorporate it into your posts.

With the Google keyword tool, you can enter a few key phrases from your blog post and find out which terms are being searched, then nudge your post in that direction … go on, try it.  It’s fun.  There also is a tutorial to help you figure out how to use this tool and you can find it here.

3) Recently Google started placing tweets near the top of its search results and is beginning to index Twitter users’ homepages more frequently … that means you need to not only use Twitter (Gini will tell you how to do this next week), but also optimize your tweets.

Just like in the second step, you should tailor your tweets to use popular search terms.  Here is a great set of tips from Mashable on SEO for Twitter. Optimized tweets will send more people to your Twitter account and likely to the links you post there.  Which brings us to …

4) Measurement.  Most blogging platforms, such as WordPress or Blogger, will let you add Google Analytics to your site so that you can track who comes to your site and what they do once they get there. There is a big blue box that says, “Access Analytics.” Underneath that is a link that reads, “sign up now.” Just like the Google Webmaster tools, you’ll need a Gmail account. Enter that information and it’ll take you through the steps to add your blog.  Here is another tutorial.

With these simple steps, you’re well on your way to attracting readers who search Google for your blog topic. It’s not hard; it just takes a little bit of time.

For those of you already optimizing your blog, what would you add to this for beginner bloggers?

Last night I had a mini debate on Twitter about the death of the corporate Web site.

What prompted my question, “Is the corporate Web site about to die?” was an article on Mashable about social media making corporate Web sites irrelevant.

I am here to tell you, the corporate Web site is about to die.

Do I think corporate Web site URLs are going to go away? No.

Do I think corporate Web sites are going to change and be more interactive and engaging? Yes.

In the offline world, we had the ability to write PR canned messages and push our brands to the masses without getting any feedback.  Our experts were reporters and influentials and we had to have relationships with a handful in order to affect how our messages were delivered.

With new media, the brand we’ve paid (in some cases millions of dollars) for doesn’t always equate what people think about us. People now have the ability to change behaviors as soon as they see something better, which creates less loyalty than in the offline world. In one of my favorite books, Groundswell, they say “Your customers have always had an idea of what your brand signifies; online they now have a forum to discuss it.” Today we have to have relationships with ALL of our customers.

So how does this relate to the death of the corporate Web site?  Your static, PR canned message Web site is dying.  Your new Web site must allow connection and engagement with your customers – the evangelists and the detractors. A great example of how this should look is Gary Vaynerchuk’s site.  It’s fluid, you can comment and connect, and you have multiple choices to engage with him.

During last night’s debate, I was challenged to shut off armentdietrich.com. Not yet, @stevecunningham! While our home page is static (for now), the innards are fluid, engaging, and allow people to connect with us. By the end of 2009, our entire site will be set for new technologies so we can focus on relationships with our current clients, prospects, and potential candidates. Mark my words.

Do you think the corporate Web site is taking its last breath?