LookupPage Blog | Professional Web Presence and Visibility

Social Media Tools Aid in Building Enhanced Online Visibility

As more and more small businesses begin to realize the benefits of launching an online marketing campaign with social media as the primary strategies to increase their enhanced online visibility a new industry has been created.  Social media tools are now available for a variety of tasks to aid the small to mid-size business owner in streamlining their social media marketing tactics and interpreting analytics.  For a business to truly see an enhanced online visibility taking advantage of these tools would be most beneficial.

Enhanced Online Visibility – Adding Multi-Media

There are a slew of new social media tools aimed at helping account holders integrate music, video, pictures and even voice recordings into their Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and other social media accounts.  Research has proven that pages rich with multi-media generate more interest and engagement with the community.  With so much at stake in online marketing businesses would be wise to use every tool at their disposal to help create their enhanced online visibility.

Enhanced Online Visibility – Time Savers

As a small business gets more fluent in social media and their audience grows they will quickly find themselves devoting a large amount of time to the websites.  Best practice dictates that to have a successful social media marketing campaign a business must be constantly available to respond to comments and post comments regularly.  If successful this will require a lot of time especially if several sites are being utilized.  There are many new and exciting social media tools on the market now aimed at this time issue.  They streamline the updating and monitoring process by funneling all activity from multiple websites into one, easy to understand dashboard.

Enhanced Online Visibility – Analytics

After all the hard work small businesses put into their marketing some form of analytics must be available for review.  This could not be truer for those wishing to affect enhanced online visibility through an online marketing campaign.  Several social media tools provide customizable analytics ideal for the small business.  With information presented in easy to understand formats one doesn’t have to an expert to make sense of the information. 

After a company becomes comfortable with social media (one site at a time, please) they should investigate social media tools and determine which could benefit their business and make social marketing goals more attainable.  With so many tools available now and the number increasing regularly there is a social media tool available to help any business in any stage of growth build their enhanced online visibility.

Building Online Brand Presence through Social Media, Part 1

One of the most popular ways to build online brand presence is to participate in social media.  We have suggested this repeatedly and gone to great lengths to help small businesses really gain a name for themselves and create an online brand presence while doing it.  Still, though, many businesses are faced with lackluster results and no increase in online brand presence after creating and paying diligence to their Facebook or Twitter accounts.  Faced with disappointment and frustration they may decide to quit.  Instead of throwing in the towel we want to return to the basics for a few moments. 

It’s easy to see how perhaps in all the excitement of a new Facebook account a business could forget what they learned in Marketing 101. For that reason we will review some very, very basic ideas of how to create online brand presence through social media using the exact same principles one would use in any other marketing device.

Have a Plan

We see all too often businesses jump head first into the social media pool without ever developing a plan.  An online brand presence does not come about by serendipity but rather through careful planning.  When approaching a social media website every business should develop goals in writing, then strategies for achieving those goals, followed lastly by tactics.  Goals should focus more on the online brand presence then sales.

Know the Audience

It’s tempting for businesses to want to drive the conversations on one’s social media account page.  After all they are the experts are they not?  The truth is that to really build an online brand presence businesses must let their customers set the tone for the conversations, and the topics.  By studying trends within the customer base businesses can anticipate the hot topic and steer it in their direction while appearing to let the customer hold the reigns.  That is smart marketing.

Remember Manners

If one was at a trade show they would never think of cursing at a customer or competitor.  Nor would they use vulgarity.  Some businesses forget how to behave online although the results can mean disaster for an online brand presence.  Whoever is responsible for handling the social media accounts should have stellar social skills and remember what they post lives online for eternity. 

Keeping the Date Accurate to Maintain Online Brand Presence

I’ve mentioned in previous posts the importance of keeping on top of updates on a company website and social media like Facebook and Twitter.  There is nothing more devastating to an online brand presence than an outdated and irrelevant web page.  With that said and already established I want to emphasis the responsibility of every company in maintaining the website in an effort to continually build online brand presence.

With the New Year now upon us it is the perfect opportunity for every company to set themselves apart from their competition less dedicated to maintain an online brand presence and update their websites with 2012 information.  This goes far beyond changing the dates on the website.  One would be surprised to realize that the year pops up quite frequently on a website and social media pages.

Here are a few places to check for updating if creating an online brand presence is important to one’s company:

1)      Web Content - The first is the most obvious.  Make sure that all of the web content on a website says 2012 instead of 2011.  This is especially crucial for the homepage which is often the center of any online brand presence campaign.  Even though it is only a few days difference it appears to be a year different to anyone visiting the site.  That equals sloppy and an out of date website.

2)      Pricing Lists - Pricing lists cannot be forgotten!  Most companies update their pricing lists at some point during the year but not always on January 1^st.  If the pricing list says 2011 prices it should immediately be changed to 2012 prices.  If the pricing schedule runs on a different schedule than the calendar year it should clearly state the dates, i.e. June 2011 through June 2012.

3)      Social Media – Many businesses are catching on to the unique marketing power and creation of online brand presence that social media allows and advertise specials via Facebook, Twitter or Google+.  At the beginning of the New Year every social media page should be gone over with a fine tooth comb to ensure all the 2011s that need to be updated to 2012 are.

Rather than enjoy a few easy days at the office during the first week of the New Year businesses should take advantage in the usual lull in activity and clean up their online identity.  Building and maintaining an online brand presence takes time and an ongoing commitment to being better than average.

Make-Over Your Facebook page for Enhanced Online Visibility

By now everyone understands the power social media can give a business in terms of marketing and creating an enhanced online visibility. Facebook, being the most popular social media site to date should be the focus of your company’s social media campaign.  With that said there is no better time than this week between Christmas and New Year’s to do some remodeling of your Facebook page. 

Enhanced Online Visibility – Comment on Fans’ pages

Most employees don’t have a lot to do this week and busy work is a chore but necessary to any successful marketing campaign.  Unlike the typical office Facebook is hopping this time of year as people are sharing pictures and comments about their holiday festivities and New Year’s plans.  To really jumpstart your company’s enhanced online visibility for the upcoming year utilize this week by commenting on your Fans’ pages.  Once that is done every one of their Friends will see your comment and your company by default.  This is a great way to interact with your Fans showing that you value them and spread the word of your company.

Enhanced Online Visibility – Offer Something Spectacular

With everyone giddy with gift giving and getting they will jump when your company offers an extraordinary deal available only to Facebook Fans.  Of course, add a caveat that they have to comment on your company’s page or on their own page or invite Friends to either get said great deal or be eligible for winning it (in an effort to boost your own enhanced online visibility).  To make the offer enticing and stand out in a crowd of many companies vying for your customers’ money and mouse clicks, make the offer appropriate and worthwhile. Most people aren’t going to waste their time for a lousy 10% off their next purchase.

Enhanced Online Visibility – Have a Relevant Gimmick

With so many holidays packed into this time of year it’s easy to come up with a unique way to project your Facebook page into other’s lives.  Throw an online New Year’s party.  It’s easy and free and will attract attention from your Fans.  Add several reminders each day about the online New Year’s party and make sure to add promotions and discounts.  One idea is to give out prizes for the best New Year’s photos posted to your page. 

Regardless of what your company does with its Facebook page, do it now.  By utilizing this downtime during the holidays your company has an opportunity to seriously boost its enhanced online visibility and gain new customers.  

 

Social Media and Your Online Brand Presence – Online Brand Update

Every part of your business should be geared towards creating an effective online brand presence on the World Wide Web. It is not possible to escape the importance of networking and social media, so why not harness the power of social media and use it as part of your online brand identity and reputation.

As more people turn to the social networks and spend more time online than ever before, the line between professional and personal networking continues to blur. It is vital for any business to pay attention to their online reputation and how they are perceived in the marketplace and on the internet. It is not enough just to have a presence on the internet. You need to create a sustainable reputation which means that you need to be active on your social media on a daily basis. Interaction is the fastest way to build your online brand presence and reputation.

Even small businesses have found that they are able to use social media to advertise to a wider audience of potential clients and customers. You don’t have to throw a great deal of money at your social media, but you do have to be able to commit a great deal of time to make it work effectively. This is why many people choose to use professional social media marketers who have the experience and the time to help enhance your online brand presence.

The advantage of using a professional is that they understand which aspects of your brand need to be emphasized and when and how to highlight your strengths. They know who you should be targeting with your social media marketing.They may advise you to buy Facebook fans or Twitter followers to jump start your campaign. They may suggest content on a weekly or twice weekly basis to make sure that your fan base is able to look forward to updates and content on a schedule.

Your original content will be a big part of getting your social media strategy right. Unless you have the content to back up your Tweets on Twitter or your status updates on Facebook, you will not be creating the hype that you need.

Brand specialists don’t just look at selling your products on the web. They create a buzz about your brand name and attempt to establish your business as an authority on different sites and platforms where your customers will easily be able to find you. If the public sees that you are offering them valuable content that is original, creative and useful, they will perceive your brand as a trusted name on the web.

Creating an excellent online brand presence could be one of the most important aspects of your internet marketing strategy.

 

Manage Your Online Brand Presence – Know Your Audience

 

Managing your online brand presence is an important part of any business model. Not merely confined to marketing and SEO, your online brand presence could be the key to future growth, sales planning and increased productivity and profitability.

Your Online Brand Presence Data

Businesses need to start looking at their online brand presence as a way to gather information and accurate data about the way they are perceived in the marketplace. Many people look at SEO and online marketing as something that ‘has to be done’, but in reality it is an excellent tool that can be used in business planning.

If you can develop a keen sense of where you are right now, you are able to plan ahead and take advantage of trends, opportunities and avoid major pitfalls.

Crowdbooster, is just one software platform that allows you to monitor your social media following, and provide “detailed analytics across Facebook and Twitter” to allow business and marketing people a firm foundation for their planning.

Managing Your Online Brand Presence Is More Than a Status Update

Clever internet marketers realize the full potential of enhanced online visibility and online brand presence. It is not merely a matter of keeping people updated, but about actively engaging an audience of potential customers. Just look at the hundreds of millions of people around the world who use social media sites on a daily basis. Are you prepared to ignore them?

You need to be proactive instead of reactive. Lead trends, create opportunity and above all, listen to what your market is saying. Some businesses don’t even realize that there may be negative comment about their brand and business. Learning how to respond to a negative online reputation can boost your online brand presence.

Social media and business networking is not going away. Facebook, twitter and now the newly launched G+ from Google will grow and continue to affect and have an effect on the way that we do business. Managing your online reputation and online brand presence may become vital to the success of your business.

 

 

Managing Your Professional Reputation Online

As more and more people spend time online and on social networks like Facebook, the private and the professional are continuing to collide. In response to this collision, institutions are establishing policies about how professionals should conduct them online. Most recently, the Ontario College of Teachers released a report over their concerns that teachers are establishing relationships with their students on social media sites like Facebook.

Even though Facebook has many privacy settings that enable you to group different people together and change your settings based on the group, the teachers association is concerned with how electronic messages will effect students' relationships to their teachers inside the classroom. Facebook messages and other online activity don't allow for people to communicate as clearly as in person, and this online communication can effect how students learn, the association argues. 

At the same time, cyberbullying between students has become increasingly monitored by schools as online student relationships spur offline reactions that school officials must deal with. In some severe cases, students have been bullied so badly online that they have committed suicide -- increasing concern for school officials over social media activity. However, teachers participation in online discussions with their students are still seen as blurring the lines between professional and private and are in general still frowned upon. 

However, students are incredibly tech savvy and young people use text messages and Facebook to communicate some of their most important social actions. This means that their is also a necessity for schools to find a way that they can use social media and teach their students how to act professionally online. Many schools are now starting to have Facebook pages and increasing online presences -- making it more important than ever that they also educate their students in the classroom about how to effectively and professionally use social media to manage their professional and personal online reputations.

How to Use Your Facebook Profile to Make Your Personal Brand Sparkle

Today facebook reached over 500 million users -- that means half a billion people are now on facebook posting, sharing and profiling. Even though individuals can only have up to 3,000 friends before they are forced to open a fan page, facebook profiles are still is one of the most effective places to establish your personal brand -- if you know how to use it effectively.

Setting Up Your Facebook Profile Pro Style

By this time, most everyone (500 million people to be precise) knows how to set up a facebook profile, put up their picture and basic information. However, one of the most important features people often miss is the little box under your picture that you can put links in. This little box is one of the first thing that visitors to your facebook page will see so it’s important to put the most important information there -- for example your website address, twitter contact or maybe just your title.

Segmenting Your Friends To Created Targeted Groups

Another way to make sure that your facebook profile is optimized for professional use is to segment your friends into related groups. For example, you might have one group of family contacts, another of clients and a third group of co-workers. Keeping these groups of people separated will not only help you remember your connection to people, but will help you determine what type of content to share with them based on your privacy settings.

Picking Your Content Carefully

There is so much content on facebook that sometimes friends can be overloaded. It’s important to pick your content carefully and to post it at the right time. In the morning, most people check facebook as well as around 4pm when the boredom sets in at work. If you want your friends to respond to what you post, make sure you know what type of content they like to consume and when is the best time to post it. Keep in mind that people can only consume so much content, so inundating them with more than two or three posts a day can cause people to either tune you out or hide you in their news feed.

Get Your News to the Top of the News Feed

If you want your items to get to the top of people’s news feeds, one of the best ways is to respond to comments and engage other people in discussion. The more comments you have, the more likely your content is to get to the top of the news feed. Luckily, unlike blogs, facebook comments are more likely to be tame because they are connected to people’s real identities.
However, if their are comments that you think are out of line, you can easily delete them or respond to them in an effective way. For the most part, since this is your community, you’re likely to have other friends that will side with you and support you in confronting people who comment out of line and in the worst case, you can hire a reputation management professional to help you get your message across.

How to Increase Traffic to Your Site Using Social Bookmarks

If you have a blog or article that you'd like the world to know about, you have to do your best to market it online and get people talking about it. There are several ways that you can market your articles and blogs online to attract new people to your brand and improve your online reputation. One of the best ways to do this is by submitting your blog or articles that you write to social bookmarks sites.

Digg is one of the largest social bookmark sites online, covering a range of topics from news and sports to current events and technology. As a site with thousands of inbound and outbound link, it has an extremely high rank on Google and can help bring your site to the top of the list. To submit your page is extremely simple, all you have to do is register for a free digg account, submit your url and see you’ll see your website or article show up on one of the top pages.

The second part of digg, or other social bookmarking sites, is the ability for other people to be able to “like” or “digg” your submission. This means that if other people like your article or web page that your submission will quickly start ranking at the top of the social bookmarks page, getting you increased traffic, links and weight in Google.

In addition to digg, there are several smaller social bookmarking sites like Choowawa.com or niche related social bookmarking sites. You can easily find social bookmarking sites related to you or your brand by searching on Google. Most of them work the same way, with free registration and easy ways to submit your articles or web pages. This easy, online marketing trick can quickly get your article or website to the top of Google with little effort and increase your page rank with healthy links for your online reputation.

How to Use Facebook Privacy Settings to Improve Your Online Presence

While facebook privacy settings have certainly been at the top of the news lately, most of the buzz has been about sharing private information worldwide without facebook users consent. Of course this is very troubling, especially for people who use their facebook as a private platform to communicate with their friends and family. However, keeping your facebook private is becoming increasingly difficult, as the social network provides more and more ways for strangers to network online and it becomes increasingly socially acceptable to get to know someone virtually. That’s why it’s extremely important that you know not only what your facebook privacy settings are, but have a clear strategy for using them. 

Create Groups of facebook Friends

One of the most important things that you can do to manage your online reputation on facebook is to separate your different friends into groups. Have family members that you want to have access to pictures of your new house, kids and family vacations? Create a family group for your most intimate connections. Don’t want to remove your album from the last night of college? Share it just with your friends from school. Grouping your friends allows you to determine who sees what and where so that you don’t have to worry that all your different contacts will have the same view.

Preview Your Profile

Unless your facebook profile is set to a very private setting, it’s most likely that you’re name comes up when someone searches you either online or in facebook. Make sure you know what information is being shared with the public at all times. For some people, especially entrepreneurs, politicians and other public figures,  it’s important that your profile can be found on facebook -- it’s one of the best ways to let people know what your company is up to or what is the latest piece of work you’ve published. On the other hand, it’s important to know what content is being shared publicly so you don’t mix your private life with your public life online.

Previewing your profile can also be extremely helpful if you’re interested in how a specific person may view your facebook page. Luckily, facebook has built a special feature into facebook’s privacy settings that allows you to see how each individual views your page -- simply type in their name and you’ll be able to see their exact view and capabilities.

Limit User Capabilities

Part of your privacy settings, which is typically overlooked, is the ability to change how your friends can interact on your profile. For example, perhaps you want your profile to be very professional, so you limit your facebook friends from posting to your wall, but allow them to comment on your posts. Another option is to give specific people the ability to post to your wall, while restricting the ability of other people who may post spam or irrelevant posts / private information.

How to Connect Your Online Identities and Optimize Your Brand

Today, most people have several online identities online and in different social networks like LinkedIn, facebook, LookupPage and Twitter among others. However, many people rarely make the effort to effectively connect their online identities -- making their online identity appear incomplete and disconnected. Today, we’ll share with you some tips about how you can connect your online identities not only to improve your reputation, but also to help you build your network.

Blogs

Blogs are a great way to improve your reputation. Writing articles, or having a ghost writer, produce relevant content for search engines means that new people who are interested in the same areas and interests as you will be able to find you and your work easily online. If you consistently update your blog, two to three times a week, you’ll be able to maintain momentum and continue to draw new readers to your blog.

However, the power of blogs doesn’t stop there. Today, blogs severe as a extended business card where people can google your personal and company brand and find additional information about you online. In addition, a blog should be connected to your other online identities, for example facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, so that readers of your blogs have a casual way to get to know you a bit more intimately.

Social Networks

Social networks are a great place for you to connect with new people and improve your online reputation. While facebook used to be a social network for real friends to connect, today it’s become much more professional and even serves as a micro-blogging platform for many high profile personal brands.

For people who are a part of more than one social network, facebook allows you to add the urls of additional websites that you are a part of so that your facebook friends can connect with you on other social networks like LookupPage, LinkedIn, Flickr and others.  By connecting your online identities it makes it easier for people to find you and follow up with you online -- expanding your network and building your brand across the web.

Guarding Against Online Sabotage

With the growing importance of online reputation, it makes a great deal of sense that an entire industry would have developed around sabotaging the reputations of competitors. The tactics used ranged from the simple to the incredibly ornate, but because of the nature of the internet even the simplest attacks can be very difficult to protect against. One of the most common tactics, and the most potentially damaging, is that of impersonation.

Online Impersonation

The vast majority of blogs and services allow users to register under any name, without any verification that you are who you say you are. Of course, this makes sense – with the exception of systems such as that used by Amazon, which requires a credit card to confirm your identity, it is virtually impossible to know who someone is online. But it creates an enormous potential for unscrupulous individuals to easily pretend to be you, and do and say whatever they want online under your name.

The first step, if someone has impersonated you online, is to contact the authorities. In most jurisdictions impersonating someone online for negative reasons is against the law. In many jurisdictions there are specific laws protecting your identity on social media sites, blogs, and other specific online forums, and in others more general umbrella statutes against impersonation will protect you. Many areas have special cyber crimes divisions, which can hunt down your impersonator to bring them to justice.

You may also wish to try to track down the impersonator yourself, to inform them that what they are doing is illegal, and to give them the opportunity to reverse the damage themselves. If you contact a blog on which an impersonator has posted, for example, you may be able to explain the situation to them and receive the poster’s IP address, which can help you track them down.

You’ll also want to find out the extent of the damage. A number of services, such as NameChk.com, exist to help you quickly determine whether your name is registered on an enormous range of social media sites. If it is, and you haven’t signed up there, you may want to investigate and see if it is simply someone else with your same name, or if it is a competitor pretending to be you to undermine your online reputation.

Once you know the extent of the damage, and you’ve informed the authorities so they can pursue the impersonator, you can either start to approach websites about removing the negative information, or have an online reputation management company work for you and create positive information to bury the negative results.