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By JeffreyRomano, March 23, 2010 12:29 am

Last Tuesday I attended the Social Media World Forum in London. Going to an international social media conference was a first for me and going round the various exhibitor stands and attending several of the workshops was in many ways an exciting experience.

From the event it was clear that there were two main issues dominating the workshops (I just attended the free workshops not the conference). Firstly, measuring the ROI of social media campaigns was clearly on the mind of many present at the event. It is clear that the recession has put a lot of pressure on agencies and in-house marketing teams to provide hard data proving that any investments in social media marketing are worth it. Of course it’s very understandable that providing metrics for ROI purposes is an issue since companies are spending over 100k, and in some cases millions of dollars in leveraging social media.

There was also a lot of hype about maximizing the use of Facebook. If one considers the fact that Facebook now has over 400 million users worldwide, the hype is logical. Workshops focused on analytics available to Facebook advertisers, using Facebook applications to generate viral trends, and leveraging Fan pages to build brand loyalty. In terms of marketing on Facebook, it became clear that Maltese businesses still have a lot of opportunity to be innovators on the local scene.

I will be doing my best to keep my posts brief, however I shall be discussing what came out of the event in much more detail in the posts to come.  Watch for at least two entries a week on this blog from now on. Finally, please give a shout out with whatever you’d like to see discussed here in the future.

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By JeffreyRomano, July 16, 2009 9:14 pm

Following up on my previous post which explained why it is important to choose your keywords wisely, I will now explain which parts of your site you must check for proper  keyword optimization. Be sure to check your:

1) Domain Name – one reason why many companies rank for their brand name is because it is synonymous with their domain name.

2) Title Tag – this is very powerful and easy to do. The most common mistakes here is of choosing too many keywords or using words that are too generic. You can forget about ranking for ‘cars’, ‘house’ or ‘holiday’, so be more specific.

3) Description Tag – this is the short paragraph that accompanies the link to your website when you click via a search engine. You have about 165 characters to explain what the page is about, in a persuasive manner, using your keywords.

4) Headers – though not the most important factor in terms of keyword optimization, if you can include a keyword in your headers it helps. However, it’s more important to have sensible headers which enhance the overall user experience. If your header just says ‘Welcome’, don’t lose any sleep over it.

5) Body Text – having your keywords mentioned at least once in the body text is a good idea even because it makes it clearer for the user what the web page is about. Search engines like this too.

6) ALT Tags – its been reported that this has recently gained in importance recently. The ALT tag is the text that appears when you put your mouse over an image. So for example, if you have a website selling several cars, it would make sense to have the tag indicate the model of car in the picture.

7) Anchor Text – this is another big one. Anchor text is basically the text of links pointing to your page. For example, below in this article I have a link, and its anchor text is ‘Webmaster Cheat Sheet for Keyword Optimization’. So what you have to do is ensure that the links pointing to your webpage are using the keywords you want. This is not always in your power, but when it is, keep your keywords in mind.

To keep the above handy, I’ve created a ‘Webmaster Cheat Sheet for Keyword Optimization’ (PDF) which you can download for free. This will help you in the future when updating pages or even creating new websites.

Please leave a comment if you found the above helpful or if you want me to write about something in particular.

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By JeffreyRomano, July 13, 2009 11:18 pm

When thinking about keywords, there are two important things that you have to keep in mind. Keywords are:

1) The words people use to search for the content they are looking for,
2) The words that enable your website to be found by people searching for its content

The above are two very powerful facts. Facts which unfortunately are not considered enough when websites are developed, published and updated. The result is that there are a lot of websites, even of web design firms, which offer useful content but which give very little attention to keyword use. The result is that it becomes harder for these websites to rank in search engines for the words they want.

To perform ‘keyword optimization’ website owners must first decide which keywords are most suitable for their website, and then use these words to rank in search engines. How to do this exactly will be explained in later posts, though one important method is to include the keywords in the Title Tag. This is the sentence right at the top of your browser window, above the ‘Back’ button.

For now just have a look at your website and your Title Tags and see whether these include your keywords. If you are not sure, just post your website address in the comments and I’ll do my best to check it out for you.

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By JeffreyRomano, June 12, 2009 6:18 pm

In less than a day, Facebook (FB) will allow its users to choose a username for their profile. There has been quite a bit of fuss about this development, even though it might not seem significant to the average joe. To use a cliche’,  what’s in a (user)name, right?

Well in this case, the username FB users choose will help simplify the URL that points to their FB profile. To take my profile as an example, my current URL is http://en-gb.facebook.com/people/Jeffrey-Romano/563707463, quite a handful for my liking. Using the new username system the whole thing would look much simpler. To give an example, this is the profile page URL of the White House (they get a username before us normal people) www.facebook.com/whitehouse. 

This change in profile URLs is pretty significant because it means that when somebody types in your name in Google, Yahoo, Bing or wherever, there is a better chance of your FB coming up. This can be a good thing, especially for businesses.

However, if in your profile you have loads of fun pictures and videos you posted when you were at one of those end of exam bashes last year, then I’d suggest thinking twice about making your FB profile more visible. Considering that the people who normally look up other people in search engines are future employers, prospective clients, etc., then it is hard to justify why you’d want to show them how much fun you can be after you downed an x number of beers.

In all honesty though, regardless of your name, you can pinpoint a lot of people on FB if you know their name and where they live.  If you do not want your private information to be visible, then go through your privacy settings and set everything so that only your friends can see your details. After this, I would still be careful about what I post on FB.  Mainly because you and not Facebook are responsable to what happens to the content you post, and yes this includes deleted information. Check this for more info.

Does this change my attitude towards Facebook?

Well in a way, this move has made me more aware that FB wants to make it easier for people to get to specific profiles more directly. I’m not totally for this because I prefer it when people access my profile through the news feed or something. It somehow feels less like someone is stalking me. After all, why should someone want to know my profile URL?  If the answer is ‘no reason’, then there is exactly ‘no reason’ why I would want my profile URL to be easy to remember. If the answer is ‘to know more about me’, then people can visit my LinkedIn profile. 

When I started using Facebook, it was never my intention to share information with people unknown to me. I encourage people who see FB like me to think twice about Facebook URL vanity.

My advice, unless you want to be found, don’t make it easy for other people to find you. According to FB, using your nickname as your username is completely legit (hint hint).

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By JeffreyRomano, June 8, 2009 1:22 pm

Recently, I had a bad experience with a company selling training material. I had ordered a particular product and had mistakenly been provided and charged for another more expensive one. Naturally, I was not too happy about this, especially since I was not sure what the benefits of the more expensive product included.

So I opened a ticket with customer support complaining. I also complained on Twitter. After a few hours, to my complete surprise, I receive an email from customer support titled something like ‘Follow up on Twtiter complaint.’  The company apologised, gave me the correct product and provided me with an explanation of what the benefits of the more expensive product were.  

Turns out both products are pretty cool and I won’t be asking for my money back again. I might even buy something else from them in the near future. Customer Support managed to turn an angry customer into a satisfied one. Mission accomplised. Naturally, they also earned some Twitter praise too.

Conversations on Twitter are very often ‘branded’ in the sense that a very high percentage of conversations (if not Tweets) center around brands and what they are doing. This fact is very important to customer support departments in particular, who are now increasingly listening in on what their customers are saying in contrast to simply acting on direct complaints they receive.

My personal definiton of customer support is “the way in which the brand meets its customers’ needs after a purchase has been completed.” Taking this into consideration, brands can benefit a lot by seeing what their customers are saying via Twitter’s search function. In my case, a recognition of my complaint and one email turned me from this to this

Another useful tool is the Google feature allowing you to see what new online content related to your brand has been generated within the last day, week or any other time period.  This can be a very helpful tool not only for reputation management but also to spot unhappy customers. It is a more time-consuming process than just following Tweets, though it can be very effective and impressive on the customer.

This creative use of the expanding social aspect of the web is increasingly becoming expected by customers. When I complained on Twitter I half expected some kind of recognition of my complaint and this is partly because more and more companies are using Twitter for customer support. For more information on companies which use Twitter for this purpose, check out this article by Sarah Perez. If you are interested in implementing Twitter in your company’s customer support, read this How To article on Mashable.

If you have valuable insights or links on this topic, feel free to contribute via the comments section.

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By JeffreyRomano, June 1, 2009 10:35 am

Often, when I speak to people about optimizing their online web presence, they have a very vague comprehension of the process this involves. Unfortunately, many businesses are still under the impression that because they already have a website, then they do not need to do much more in terms of online promotion.

In reality, developing a website is only an early step. What businesses must understand is that, just like traditional marketing, Internet marketing also needs to begin with a plan. Therefore, the first step is defining the business objectives. What does the business hope to achieve by investing in online promotion? Setting short term targets like generating x amount of sales or visits is very helpful.

When this has been done, a website can be developed that takes these goals into consideration. For example, developing an e-commerce website is different from developing an educational website.

After the website is done and it is published online, the process of generating a return from it begins. I call this the Online Promotion Process, which is made up of four steps:

• Attraction – Making people come over and visit
• Analytics – Seeing how poeple are interacting with your website
• Conversion – Getting them to do what you want on your website
• Retention – Strengthening the relationship with customers increasing their lifetime value

Keeping the process in mind is helpful when seeing how to increase the return from your website, be it more demand for advertisiing space or simply more subscriptions to your online service. In other words, the process helps you better understand and serve your target market.

I shall be writinng in more detail on the above steps in the near future. In the meantime, if you can add value to this article, please share your thoughts in the comments section.

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By JeffreyRomano, May 25, 2009 2:24 pm

Today May 25th, is Geek Pride Day. In an ideal world, this should be a day when geeks and non-geeks come together to celebrate ‘geek culture’ and how much this community gives to mainstream society. Geeks are innovaters, early adopters, and many times bright and passionate people.  

It is not always clear what is meant by ‘Geek’.  Julie Smith describes a geek as  “a bright young man turned inward, poorly socialized, who feels so little kinship with his own planet that he routinely travels to the ones invented by his favorite authors, who thought of that secret, dreamy place his computer took him to as cyberspace—somewhere exciting, a place more real than his own life, a land he could conquer, not a drab teenager’s room in his parents’ house.” This is a limited perspective.

Geeks have become increasingly relevant to the Information society that we live in. This is even recognized by the fashion industry. A few months ago I was in and around Edinburgh and Dublin and was surprised to see that ‘Geek chic’ or ‘Geek fashion’ was very much, ‘in’ and ‘happening’. Geeks are influencing the world and popular culture.

Merging Passion with Business

However, it is not in fashion where Geeks come into their own but in technology and increasingly, business. Through the Internet one can find countless examples of geeks who have become successful because they were able to transform their skills and passions into real hard cash. Although geeks do what they do because they are passionate about it, there is no contradiction whatsoever in converting what many times are personal innovations into business opportunities. And this is exactly what is needed.

An example is Matthew Inman (I dunno the guy but I fancy he’s a geek), who amazingly built a dating website in 66.5 hours, transformed it into a big success and then sold it to a competitor.  A web designer, web developer, viral marketer, the guy managed to combine his knowledge and creativity to bring innovative ideas into the market. I fancy he has a nice bank account by now.

Big Thinking

Going beyond the norm and creating, modifying or acquiring stuff that is superior or unique is central to Geek culture. Especially in these tough economic times, we are becoming increasingly dependent on Geeks for their enthusiasm, their focus and their innovation. To quote the Geek Manifesto, it is a Geek’s responsability to ‘take over the world.’  How’s that for thinking  big?  Bill Gates founder of Microsoft, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen founders of YouTube, and Kevin Rose founder of Digg, definately all thought big.

Increased Collaboration

The Geek stereotype is that of a thin or overweight guy, wears glasses, has very little concept of hairstyle, may be unhygenic and doesn’t have much of a social life. The thing about stereotypes is that many times they paint an imprecise picture of real life.

In reality, many geeks have thriving social lives, both online and offline. Fact is that many geeks are well connected, many times with similar folk and this is why we can speak of a Geeks as a subculture. It is this socialisation and collaboration between them that is so important because it has the potential for amazing things. The collective intelligence of a crowd is better than that of an individual. Think Wikipedia, and you’ll get my drift.

Will geeks ever rule the world? That is improbable, but one better believe that in this increasingly technology-based society, one will see their influence gain importance. To quote the self-proclaimed change agent Seth Godin, “today the people who got made fun of in high school – they are the ones who matter so much. They’re the ones shaping new technology that diffuses to the masses.”