With the phenomenon of Social Media in full swing, today we are seeing traditional publishers grappling with new business models as they try to find a way to make their content stand out amongst user contributed content. Even standing out against their competitors is difficult, in a world where there is no first to press anymore, because by the time you go to press, it has already been tweeted 500,000 times.

And as if that wasn’t difficult enough for publishers to wrap their heads around, there’s the whole subject of value. Even highly specialized, niche publishers are finding that their “expert voice” is not given as much value today as it was just a couple of years ago. Social media levels the playing field for small businesses and any jerk with a computer and enough brains to visit blogspot.com can create a niche blog to present their personal story about the exact same niche.  Throw in a dash of skepticism by readers who in some instances would rather trust advice and reviews from real people, and you have quite the quandary for publishers.

So what is a publisher in 2010 to do?

1)      If you can’t beat them, join them.

Resisting the social media movement isn’t going to get you anywhere but out of business. Instead, get people talking on your own website, where you have a tiny bit of control and can steer conversations.  Also, if there is a user contributed content site in your industry or niche, establish a presence there, and perhaps a partnership. Continue to refer to your source as the “expert source” but don’t devalue the user generated content either.

2)      Consider a paid content model only for the highest, most valuable content you offer.

Only if you’re a Consumers Report to your industry are you likely to be able to get away with creating a paid tier of content. By this I mean that you offer something that no one else offers as good as you. Period. Even Consumer Reports offers lots of free and accessible content to non-registered users. But the really good stuff is only viewable to paid subscribers. Remember too, that people value things they pay for.

3)      Don’t stop reminding people that you’re the expert voice.

Use social media to your benefit by using it to establish you as an expert in the field. Start a blog to share your unique knowledge, comment on user contributed content on other sites (lending to the conversation, not self-promoting), and use news releases and/or article marketing to stay in front of a wide audience, as the expert voice. Also, establish yourself in the industry by joining industry boards, creating partnerships, and supporting education overall about your industry.

The invent of social media is not unlike the invent of Television to the print publishing industry. Those who adapt and evolve will live through it.  But if you stick your head in the sand and pretend its not happening, the conversation’s going to go on without you.

For only $139, you can register for either the morning or afternoon program, which includes the Networking Mixer, admission to the Tabletop Exhibits Area upstairs, and a one-day expo-hall pass to visit the entire PMA 2010 trade show and PrintFest Expo Pavilion downstairs next to large exhibits from Kodak, HP, Xerox and Fuji. Members of DMAsc, PIASC, APAOC, APALA, AIGA-OC, WITI and other selected partners can get the same package for only $99 with a valid Registration Code. You can also attend the Networking Mixer a la carte for only $39 ($29 for partner members). And the first 100 conference registrations also include a free ticket to the Social Media Marketing Strategies lunch program with guest speaker Genevieve Branco from Social Surrogates, which is a $49 value a la carte!

The goals for the conference are (1) to educate print service providers how to profitably and successfully deliver cross media marketing campaigns consistently for their customers; and (2) to showcase several recent cross media campaigns and their results to encourage marketing and creative professionals to design more of these measurable campaigns.

Conference Session Topics are:
9:00 to 9:50am Print Service Providers General Session
• What is Cross Media & Why Should I Care?

10:00 to 10:50am Print Service Providers Conference

• Cross Media 2.0 - The Future of Integrated Communications
• Marketing in the New Media World
• Web To Print - Getting Started

• FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) Certification … an Overview

11:00 to 11:50am Print Service Providers Conference

• PSP to MSP - Not as Easy as ABC?
• Lean Print Production - a Case Study of Beckman Coulter’s In-house Printing Operations

• Top 10 Things to Consider Before You Purchase Your Next Press - Building a Production Platform to Meet the New Market Realities
• Going Green without Going in the Red

12:00 to 1:20pm Sponsored Lunch Program
• Social Media Marketing Strategies with Social Surrogates

1:30 to 2:50pm Marketing & Creative Professionals Conference

• Marketing Wellness - a Health Industry Panel
• The Next Generation of Direct Mail
• Lean Design Process - a Case Study of Beckman Coulter’s In-house Design Operations

• Life on the Edge - Exploring Emerging Technologies

3:00 to 4:20pm Marketing & Creative Professionals Conference

• Email Marketing 2.0
• Integrating Direct Mail and Online Marketing - 12 Powerful Strategies for a Breakthrough Campaign
• Print Designer’s Crash-Course for Web and Electronic Publishing

• Cross Media - Lessons from the Real World

4:30 to 6:30pm
• Networking Mixer in Tabletop Exhibits Area

Exhibitors in the Tabletop Exhibits Area at Cross Media West upstairs include XMPie, Easypurl, Kelly Paper, 4over, Presstek, MMi, Wet Ink Printing, Satori Software, Cross Media Resources, Westamerica Graphics, and OCDM Direct Marketing. Exhibitors in the PrintFest Expo Pavilion on the PMA 2010 trade show floor include KBA, MCS, Rollem, Unicor, Mailers Haven, Mailers Engineering, America’s Best Printing Products, Kelly Paper, and Tamerica Products.

This combination of events all in one location next February delivers a powerful value proposition for anyone involved in the worlds of marketing, design, photography and print.

For more information or to register, visit http://www.CrossMediaWest.com, or contact Chris Jacobson at (714) 505-0605 x102, chris@crossmediawest.com.

About Cal Events
Cal Events (http://www.calevents.com) is an outsourced event management and marketing consulting company. The company produces and manages a variety of trade shows, conferences, meetings and events for the marketing, creative and print communities, and manages monthly meetings and events for the regional Direct Marketing Association affiliate, DMA Southern California.

There is an advantage that social media marketing has over other, more traditional methods, that make this channel such a rich media source.

1. As Nike would say, just do it. Because it’s relatively easy to put messages up and then take them down, it’s easier to test. If you miss the mark with a certain demographic…just take it down. If it looks like you hit-the-mark, exploit it within that channel.
2. Communication is two-way. Unlike traditional push marketing, where your messages are pushed out into the community, and you don’t have a clear way of understanding your customers reactions, social media is just the opposite. You are interacting with your customers, where they want to be. Put something out there, and see what they say. Share ideas up front. Learn from them (and every social platform may have a slightly differently customer profile). If your customers have established behaviors or styles, understand what they are, and adjust your strategy.
3. Enhance your content. You may have a great story to share, or a project to teach, but with social media marketing it isn’t always about you. You wouldn’t go to a cocktail party and talk without engaging those around you (at least I hope you wouldn’t). Your customers want to be engaged and they probably have a lot to share. Your best testimonial is going to be from others, let them share in the conversation - they want to be heard.
4. There isn’t a ‘right’ way. Accept that what works for one company, may not work for another. Why? Your customers may not be the same as theirs. Dell may be able to sell hundreds and thousands of dollars worth of product through Twitter, but that may not work for you. Do your research, ask a lot of questions and then follow step 1, just do it.

I guess the message that you should take away from all this; don’t be afraid to try something new. If it doesn’t work, adjust your strategy and try again. If you are using social media marketing correctly, you’ll let your customers help guide you and in time, you will find the right way - your right way.

There are three big benefits to article marketing that every small business owner can count on.

1)      SEO benefit.

Article marketing sites allow for full credit to the author and website which the article comes from, including up to 3 links to your website.  The SEO benefit is that inbound links to your site created by article marketing are usually counted by search engines as quality inbound links to your site.  Not only do spiders notice the inbound links to your own site from the article marketing sites themselves, but as your article is syndicated on other websites, those inbound links are usually counted as well. Plus, because you control the linking content, you have the power to make the most out of each link by linking from quality content to quality content.  For tips on writing content for search engines,check out writing for search engines Writing for Search Engines.

2)      Establish Yourself as an Authoritative Voice in Your Industry or Market

By writing articles about topics that relate to your industry or market, you’re sharing how much you really know about it.  If this is your main goal of your article marketing, consider more targeted article marketed as described in Taking Article Marketing to the Next Step check out Taking Article Marketing to the Next Step.

3)      Generate Leads

Article marketing can be very effective in lead generation if you’re targeting the right market with your articles. The secret is to figure out what your target market will be searching for when you want them to find you. For example, if you sell windows then your target market may be home owners. Good article topics to attract home owners might be, How double paned windows save on energy costs, or How new windows increase property value, or How changing your windows can reduce outside noise and offer a better night sleep. Use the tips in the article Writing for Search Engines (mentioned above) to write with your keywords in mind and post articles in these subjects to a number of article marketing sites.  Then, in your bio at the bottom of each article, offer your readers an incentive to click over to your site and provide their information through a lead generating form. Free quotes, drawings, and free downloadable reports are all great incentives for getting people to visit your site and give you their info.

If you’re a small business struggling with the economic crunch, article marketing is a great thing to give a try. Be sure to devote at least three months to your article marketing program, with one to two articles per week on about three article marketing sites before you decide whether or not its worth continuing. If you’re interested in learning more about this or in contracting a test with us, email us at Genevieve@YourSocialSurrogate.com.

Besides online spending, overall it was a pretty decent holiday. When you look at retail sales overall, some areas saw surprise growth such as electronics and jewelry, while teen apparel and women’s apparel both saw better days.

Specifically, according to SpendingPulse, sectors that saw improved sales from Nov. 29 through year end, compared with a year ago, were:

• Online sales soared 17.7 percent. For the year, that category rose 12.2 percent.
• Footwear, up 6.2 percent. For the year, it was unchanged.
• Electronics, up 7.3 percent in December. It fell 0.5 percent for the year.
• Luxury sales, excluding jewelry, up 5.5 percent. They fell almost 8 percent for the year.
• Jewelry, up 6.9 percent in December, down 4.1 percent for the year. High-end and low-end jewelry chains fared well, but mid-tier jewelry stores struggled.

Sales at specialty stores and department stores continued on the decline that they’ve been seeing now for well over a year. Overall, spending per capita in the U.S. is still down from just a couple of years ago and retail marketers have to do more with less, and competition between retailers is fierce.

1) Word of mouth isn’t always spoken, sometimes it’s visual.

Its no secret that word of mouth can extend beyond what is said to what is seen.  What’s the old phrase: A picture is worth a thousand words? Well, that takes on new meaning in this new year in social media as thousands of companies compete in social media to grab the attention of millions of users. Visual buzz can grab attention even more poignantly than words - and faster - and the effects may even be more lasting. The trick for 2010? Make your brand more observable, states one conference speaker.

2) Clear is the new clever.

Not only are people looking for clear answers to their questions today, but people are also looking for clear companies - as in transparent - visually showing their brand with honesty and integrity instead of fancy corporate confusion.  That is the effect of social media on the world today, as we at Social Surrogates have been advising our customers for a couple of years. Social media is all about creating an honest, unique voice for your brand and yourself. No company can truly and effectively implement a social media strategy without dedication to this ideal.

3) Social media is about solving more than selling

This is my absolute favorite of the four 2010 social media truths revealed at the WOMMA conference.  As is apparent through sheer statistics, it is no longer an issue of if a company should have a social media presence, it is an issue of how companies should use social media. Which social media platforms are right for you? What is the right amount of staff to dedicate to the channel? What is the ideal purpose of social media for your brand? What should your social media marketing goals entail?

For example, take Twitter. Should your company use Twitter to spread hot, immediate news about your retail store sales? Or, should it be your newest way to handle customer service issues? Or, should you avoid Twitter all together and instead favor a blog, article marketing or an aggressive news release strategy? These are the questions worth answering - the problems worth solving - before worrying about how social media will help you sell. Many companies will find that for them, social media proves to be first about uncovering corporate problems and finding solutions. Many companies will favor social media for a fast, efficient customer service channel as opposed to a straight shot to sales. Ultimately, better customer service will lead to better sales.

4)  Word of mouth marketing begins first by listening.

Do I really have to say anything about this? If you’ve read any of my posts in the past, you’ll know I love to harp on listening. Here’s a few past posts where I mention the benefits of listening:

How listening can help you determine your own company culture.

How listening helps drive future product decisions.

How listening will help you choose your social media marketing tactics.

How listening will help you grow a base of online evangelists.

For the complete article about the four 2010 WOMMA conference solutions, visit http://promomagazine.com/news/marketing-influencing-ideas-1217/PromoMagazine.com.

Happy New Year!

To write a great article optimized for search engines, it just takes a little pre-planning and some careful wordsmithing. Here are ten simple tips for writing for search engines (writing for SEO), without interrupting the user experience.

1.  Choose 1-3 key words or “key phrases” for your article, carefully.  Most people either do no key word research at all, or obsess over it far too long. There are many simple ways to do key word research. One easy way is simply visit Google’s key word tool and type in a word or phrase that you think you want to have as a keyword for the article. For example, if you wanted to write an article for Internet marketing, you would simply go to the key word tool above and type Internet marketing into the box marked Enter one keyword or phrase per line:. Next type the captcha and hit get keyword ideas.

What you’ll find is a number of suggested keyword ideas related to the term Internet marketing.  All you should do is simply choose from the list a word or phrase that gets a decent number of searches, but has as little competition as possible.  For example, I would not choose Internet marketing tools, even though it boasts an impressive 550,000 searches per month. Why? Because my little article wouldn’t have a chance ranking for such a heavily sought after term.

However, one term that does catch my eye is strategy Internet marketing because it has much fewer searches, but half the competition as well. (Note, though, that although there is little competition in the ad words space for this term, if you do an actual search on Google you’ll find this: Google Results 1 - 10 of about 32,700,000 for strategy internet marketing. So I’m thinking, hm… maybe that’s not a great key word after all.)

But let me give you a better example - impact wrench sockets got only 1900 searches this month, but the bright side is that only 300,000 pages rank in Google for this key term. Beating 300,000 pages is WAY easier than beating 32,700,000.  So I think you get the idea.

2.  After choosing your key words or phrases, its important to remember that it is the repetition of these key words that make the most impact on search engines. I suggest trying to write the key word(s) into the article body at least 3 times, in ways that do not hinder the flow of the article or the reader’s experience.

3.  Think about your meta title tag which should contain your key word(s) typically once. Remember to use your key words or phrases exactly as you researched them. For example, if you were trying to rank for impact wrench sockets, you wouldn’t be wise to use wrench impact sockets in your title tag. Titles are typically 40 to 80 characters in length, and there is a great deal of deliberation over whether or not key word density still plays a factor in how your title tag is seen by search engine spiders. Some theorize that having fewer words overall in your title tag may make your key words more “dense” in the title, having them stand out more to spiders.

4.  Write a meta description that includes your key words at least once. If you can work a key word or phrase into your description two times, great!

5.  Understand and use header tags. Header tags, starting with H1 and going down to usually H5, tell spiders that these words are headline words for your article. In many cases, people write the title that users see (if it is different from the meta title tag) as the H1 tag, then they break up their content with keyword rich H2 tags or even H3, H4, & H5 tags if the article is lengthy enough. What is important to understand is that header tags are coded on a website to appear a certain way. For example, an H1 tag might make the text appear in font size 40, in green. And H2 tags may appear in 20 font in italics, etc. If you’re not aware of how the header tags may effect the appearance of your text, ask your I.T. person to advise you, or test it out and see how it looks. Often times, header tag appearances can be adjusted in the CSS code to reflect fonts that are more appealing to the articles. Or, if that can’t be done, then effective use of H3s or H4s instead of H1s and H2s can work just fine.  Another thing to note is that H1 tags are typically only used one time in an article, but H2s and other header tags are often used multiple times.

6.  Link! Everyone knows that inbound links are a significant factor when ranking for search engines. But when you’re writing for search engines you should also consider placing outbound links within your article body, and having the anchor text match your keywords or phrases. You can do that by creating what is called an h ref tag in the body of your article. It looks like this: <a href=”www.websiteaddressyouarelinkingto.com“>anchor text which is your key phrase</a>. You can link to other expert articles or other areas of your website - both have value.

7.  Use alt tags on images. Whenever you can, you should use alt tags on images that include your key words or phrases.

8.  Use “strong” tags instead of bold tags to indicate that certain words are “stronger” in an article than others. You’re user won’t know the difference, but the spiders certainly will discern the strong tags from the rest of the article.

9.  Create inbound links to your article with your keywords or phrases. It seems that inbound linking is becoming more and more important to search engines - but relevant key word linking is even more important. Ask sister websites to link to you, and provide them with the h ref (mentioned in step 6) that has your article URL and your key words as the anchor text. Ask other industry sites for links too, but give them the h ref to use to link to your site as well.  Here’s another great idea for inbound linking too - write a companion article to the article posted on your site, with the same key word(s), and post it on article marketing websites, linking it back with a relevant h ref to your article. You can also send it out to specific sites, and ask them to link back using your h ref. Or, write for other industry blogs for free, and link back from each post to the article, with the correct key words as the anchor text. You’ll be surprised how quickly you’ll build relevant inbound links to your article(s) with this strategy.

10.  Understand the order of importance of all the above tags. Here it is, as far as I understand.

• #1 - Title Tag
• #2 - Meta Description
• #3 - Header Tags (H1 first, then H2, then H3, etc.)
• #4 - Strong Tags
• #5 - Anchor Text in Outbound Links
• #6 - Alt Tags

Now you know the ten tips to writing for search engines. So before you spend a fortune on SEO companies to come and optimize your content, do it yourself!  Good luck, and feel free to contact us if you have any questions and we’ll help you out.

No one would argue that 2009 was a tough year for our national economy. Small and large businesses have felt the pain and unemployment is at a striking high.  But how did that effect marketers and advertisers in 2009, and how will 2010 be? Lets take a look at some expert analysis and projections.

According to the Nielsen Company, overall U.S. advertising spending declined 11.5% in 2009, or $83.4 billion. (January through September 2009.) Here’s a summary of some of their findings.

Cable TV: 9%
Spanish Language: 37%
Radio: -10%
National Sunday Newspaper Supplement:  -13.6%
Local Sunday Newspaper Supplement: -48%
Local Newspaper: -14%
National Magazine: -21%
B to B Magazine: -33%
Outdoor (Billboard): -15%
Internet: -0.5%
(Note: Internet advertising expenditures only included CPM based, image based advertising such as banner ads. This does not include paid search, text, performance based campaigns, sponsorships, affiliate programs, pre-rolls, messenger applications, email campaigns or house advertising activity.)

If there’s one thing you’re probably noticing when you look at the list above, it’s that advertising in general was down in 2009. Unfortunately for many of our friends and colleagues that has meant job losses for many. In fact, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 15.4 million people are unemployed currently - or 10% of our total population. Media, marketing and advertising sectors have not been spared from this brutal decline in jobs, and in fact many times when there is less money to be spent in advertising and marketing, companies need less people to spend it; resulting in higher job losses in those sectors.  All this would come after a decade that created relatively few jobs: a net total of just 464,000. By contrast, 21.7 million new jobs were generated between 1989 and 1999.

But despite the fact that ad spends were down, there were two big winners in 2009.  The two winners were search marketing (”search engine marketing” or “SEM”), and mobile.

In quarter three alone the quarter over quarter SEM spend increased by 10%, which represented SEM budgets for multi-channel marketers that were 40% higher than the same quarter, 2008! (SearchIgnite.com)  Search engine marketing can include natural SEO (search engine optimization) and paid search marketing such as pay-per-click.

The other big winner in 2009 is mobile marketing. Mobile marketing is just beginning to really grow, but let me put it to you this way - in January 2009 the total number of mobile phone subscriptions on the planet reached 4 billion!  SMS text messaging is by far the most widely used data application on the planet. Today SMS has 3.0 billion active users worldwide.

Further, advertising spend is shifting as well. The total mobile content industry is now worth 71 billion dollars in annual revenues which is about the same size as the total internet based advertising and content revenues put together. Or to contrast, “the mobile content revenues have in only ten years grown to be as big as the global Hollywood movie industry box office revenues, plus the global music recordings industry total sales, plus the videogaming total software sales - combined.” (Read more about the size of the mobile industry.) Mobile content is by far the fastest growing media category and it grew by 41% in late 2008 through early 2009.

And of course, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention social media. Despite the recession, more than 50% of marketers increased their spending in social media in 2009. Although not addressed specifically by Neilson, social media is a channel that can no longer be ignored or considered a “nice to have” strategy.

So - what does our future in marketing hold?

Most economists say it could take at least until 2015 for the unemployment rate to drop down to a historically more normal 5.5 percent. And with the job market likely to stay weak, some also foresee another decade of wage stagnation.  But marketers should not be discouraged. Instead, adaptation is in order! Re-education into mobile marketing and Internet marketing channels is the perfect solution to job losses for marketers.

In fact, despite economic projections for 2010, Small Business Trends found the following in their recent survey of business owners when asked how their marketing and advertising budgets would change for 2010:

• 74.1 percent will increase their email marketing spend.
• 68.3 percent will increase their social media spend.
• 23.8 will avoid search engine marketing.
• 54.2 percent will not invest in banner advertising.
• 79.6 percent will not run television ads.
• 72.7 percent will be not run radio advertising.

(SmallBizTrends.com)

And mobile marketing is also projected to grow. It is estimated that we will have 100% mobile phone penetration in the U.S. by 2013. (Mobile.engadget.com) Holy cow!

Microsoft has forecast further growth in the mobile advertising sector over the next five years as well, thus their strong showing in mobile technology with the “Droid” series.  (MediaPost.com) And one report I found stated that in 2014, the mobile channel will account for at least five per cent of advertising spending across the world.  (Velti.com).

The bottom line is that the outlook for marketers is positive, as long as we’re all ready to adjust, learn and grow! The best thing about the Internet is that education is at your fingertips, and so are lots of experts in these fields so don’t hesitate to ask for help.

Happy New Year!

I don’t know about you, but from tomorrow night, straight through to Christmas, I have something planned every single day. It doesn’t help that both mine and my sons birthdays fall within days of the big day.  Trust me, I’m the queen of a busy schedule, but I’m going to share with you how to not lose your marketing momentum or your mind during the holidays.

1)      Schedule your blog posts and Tweets.

If you’re managing a busy schedule you should be doing this anyway, but never is it more important than during the busy seasons of your life. Growing your readers and followers occurs with consistency in posts. If you know you’re going to be shopping all day Friday and attending the Smith’s annual Christmas party Friday night, don’t be delusional to think you’re going to come home and have energy at 11pm to blog. It ain’t going to happen.

2)      Choose your commitments wisely (and don’t over promise)!

Take it from me, the queen of volunteering; I put the Y in yes and the O in overachiever. But as I get older, I realize that I have to be more selective in my commitments. I’m not only talking about personal commitments; I’m talking about your business commitments.  As you evaluated your December schedule a month ago, you should have already been contiensious of the fact that at least 1 week of December is, well, kind of shot. Unless you’re a retailer, it’s going to be hard to get your customer’s attention in December. Your clients’ will be too busy to receive your feedback and your vendors will be on vacation. If you over promise for the month of December you’ll find yourself working late on Christmas eve, alone.

3)      Plan to get year-end help.

Yes, I said the ‘H’ word.

Help.

Year end brings lots of extra work. There are reports to be re-written for the new year, books to be closed, tax documents to get prepared, year-end statements to be passed out, etc. Meanwhile at home there are parties to host and attend, Holiday cards to be written, decorations to put out, cleaning, cooking, baking, shopping, and more! But you’re not an island. Let me tell you a true story… this year, my husband wrote 60% of our Christmas cards.  Not only did I have to let go of my standards in order to allow him to do it his way, but I also had to humble myself to ask him for help in the first place.  In my business life, I hired a temp to do year end filing.

‘Tis the season for a little chaos, a little insanity, and a lot of fun. Don’t worry - we’ll get through it.

Enjoy his social media marketing video on YouTube, and if you’re just getting started in social media I’d suggest you spring for a book.