Top 3 secrets for local and small business blog marketing that you need to know
December 28, 2007 | 6 Comments
Short on time? Here’s the Bottom Line!
This article breaks down some main points expressed in a recent New York Times article on blog marketing for small business and shares three secrets to free blog marketing that can lead to increased sales for your business.
Julian Seery Gude of Local Na8ion discusses revolutionary small business and local Internet marketing methods involving blog marketing
Here are some important secrets that you’ve got to know about if you’re a business who sells a product or service via the web or to people in your local town or city.
An article in The New York Times small business section titled “Blogging’s a Low-Cost, High Return Marketing Tool” gives me a perfect opportunity to share information with you about our three-phase online marketing method that will rocket your local business to the top of free local search results on leading search engines like Google and Yahoo!.
First, here are some of the top points made in the New York Times Article:
- Blogging is an inexpensive way to promote your business and build sales.
- Only 5% of small businesses have blogs today.
- Blogs may not be for all types of small businesses.
- Blogging is time consuming and requires writing skills.
Let’s take the main points from the Times article that I’ve highlighted above and cover each one quickly and then I’ll explain my top three secrets in more detail.
Blogging is an inexpensive way to promote your business and build sales.
We couldn’t agree more. With today’s FREE state-of-the-art blog publishing platforms like Wordpress, which as it happens is the same blog platform that The New York Times uses for their own blogs, ANY BUSINESS can get their blog online in as little as a day. Not only is this online publishing software free, the blog hosting ranges from free (examples include out Wordpress.com or Blogger.com) to as low as $5 a month for a custom Wordpress installation with your own web site address (URL). That’s powerful.
According to a survey by American Express only 5% of small businesses have blogs today.
Talk about opportunity. With only 5% of small businesses taking advantage of blogs you’re almost certain to get ahead of your competition by starting a blog. As the article mentions there are direct sales benefits from blogging and we’d like to point out that there are others as well. Blogging makes you think about your business, often leading to new ideas and clarity about your own product and service offerings. It connects you directly with your customer, giving both you and your customer an unfettered channel of communication. You can use this knowledge to make more sales. Unlike today’s typical small business web site, blogs are easy to update and don’t require you to know any programming to change them. Due to this and other technical factors blogs are optimized for search engines in ways that typical web sites are NOT, which means a direct and positive increase in people visiting your web site that find you through search engines. And as you already know, search engines are the main way people find anything on the web. It’s even easier if you’re only competing with businesses in direct competition in your local town or city (local search), since the search engines only show results from the zip code, town or city the searcher is looking in (this is because the search has already been refined by geography, filtering out untold results from places your local customer doesn’t care about).
Blogs may not be for all types of small businesses.
The Times article makes a point that I partially disagree with which I’ll get to in a minute. But first let’s cover what I agree with.
“…some companies are suited to blogging. The most obvious candidates, said Aliza Sherman Risdahl, author of “The Everything Blogging Book” (Adams Media 2006), are consultants. “They are experts in their fields and are in the business of telling people what to do.
So far so good.
“For other companies, Ms. Risdahl said, it can be challenging to find a legitimate reason for blogging unless the sector served has a steep learning curve (like wine), a lifestyle associated with certain products or service (like camping gear or pet products) or a social mission (like improving the environment or donating a portion of revenues to charity).” said Aliza Sherman Risdahl, author of “The Everything Blogging Book”
Why? Aren’t people in all walks of business experts in their field? I would argue that they are, and further, that due to that expertise, business people already have relevant content in their heads that is valuable to people looking for a particular kind of product or service. You can’t get stuck on the assumption that the only benefit from blogging is from people reading your blog. For a number of reasons, blogs can dramatically increase search engine rankings due to their built in “SEO goodness”. Even if you never gain a big following of people reading your blog, you can still increase the amount of people that find your web site and buy from you if you update a blog even once or twice a month - something well within the capability of a small business.
Blogging is time consuming and requires writing skills.
I’ll be the first to acknowledge that blogging can take a huge amount of time. But it doesn’t have to. Most small to medium sized businesses can blog once or twice a month, investing one to four hours in the process and still see big gains in their search engine rankings - even more so if you’re selling your product or service to a local buyer. The Times also implies that blogs require quality writing skills (”requires writing skills”), but the blogosphere has already proven time and time again that fresh relevant content can beat nicely written prose. A small business person with a high school education (like yours truly) can still be expert in their field and share that relevant information with people that are highly interested in it.
Here’s an example. If I’m looking for a local contractor to renovate my house in my town I’m typically concerned about a few main things. Reputation, quality of work, and if the contractor will finish on time and on budget. We’ve all heard the stories haven’t we! So how am I likely to react when I find a local contractor who writes tips on their local blog about how to avoid construction scams, or how to avoid cost and time over runs? Even if the blog is written in a choppy style it’s still going to sit better with an average buyer than a Yellow Pages ad or a static web site with a list of standard services and a smiling mug shot of Bob the Builder.
With these points in mind from the Times article here are the top three secrets I promised you.
Secret 1
One of the biggest benefits to small businesses from blogs has nothing to do with blogging.
I know, it sounds strange but bare with me. Blogs are actually part of a newer sophisticated set of online publishing tools called content management systems (also known by the three letter acronym CMS). Content management systems came along in the second generation of the web and replaced the method of manually creating web content and pages that required knowledge of web programming languages (like HTML). Content management systems freed web site publishers and web masters from tiresome coding and loads of redundant work.
Instead you work with a simple web-based WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor like those found in online email tools to write and publish your content. Anyone can use these tools - no coding or programming experience is needed. All your content is stored in a nice easy-to-search database. Because it’s easier to change your blog, you end up making more frequent changes and search engines LOVE fresh content. Today’s blog content management systems also use state-of-the-art distribution methods like RSS, which utilizes XML to categorize and publish content. You don’t even need to know what RSS and XML are, you just need to know that most regular web sites don’t have them and search engines love them. Here’s the best part of this secret. Blog platforms like Wordpress, which are free to use, and can cost as little as $5 a month to host, can be used to power your regular small business web site. You don’t even need to use them as a blog. Instead you take advantage of the fact that they’re free, cheap to host, easy to update, and have built in “SEO goodness” that will increase your search engine rankings. Plus, if you decide you want to have a blog, it will already be hard wired to use for that purpose when you’re ready. Worried that using a blog platform for your main web site will mean that your web site looks like a blog? It need not. Local Na8ion’s main home page and sections like our about page or services page all have the look of a modern business web site, only the blog section really looks like a blog. Local Na8ion’s site design comes from a whopping $50 investment I made by finding a designer named Brian Gardner whom I like that makes great Wordpress themes like this one. You can do the same by firing up your search engine of choice.
When I say this is a secret, I really mean it - there are very few people in the world right now who know or think to do this. When only 5% of small businesses even have a blog, how many do you think have put it together that they can use a blog platform as a regular web site?
Secret 2
Blogging DOES NOT require a high level of writing skill.
What blogs do require is you to create and publish relevant content like articles, company news, happenings, how-to articles, tips, video, pictures, or audio podcasts. Yes, some of these (like creating video content) are more involved than others. But the basics, which include writing and adding photos, are both well within reach of the typically resourceful small business. So are the tools needed to create them: The noggin riding on your shoulders, the computer and Internet connection you’re reading this article on, and a digital camera that you or a friend or family member already has. The key here is a theme that came up earlier - relevant content. Great marketing has always been about relevant content and in today’s time-starved world that’s even more true. Relevant content is QUALITY content that both people and search engines value. Most small to medium sized businesses can blog once or twice a month, investing one to four hours in the process and still see big gains in their search engine rankings - even more so if you’re selling your product or service to a local buyer.
Secret 3
Blogs are good for ANY KIND OF BUSINESS.
As long as you want more buyers coming to your web site or store you should employ a blog platform for your main web site and a blog to help you publish fresh content. You can replace expensive and ineffective methods of advertising, fire your web site programmer, and ditch the middle men that stand between you and the people you’d like to call clients by speaking directly with them through your web site and blog. When people walk into your store, call you, or email you they’ll already be acquainted with you and how you can really help them. Just from reading your blog they’ll feel like they know you and that’s a real advantage when it comes to closing the sale.
Some parting tips:
Did you notice at the end of The Times article that two free resources for optimizing search engine traffic and rankings were mentioned? They are Google Analytics and Site Meter - don’t be afraid, be excited that there’s more free stuff to increase your sales.
Go to the blog of one of the featured businesses in The Times article, Crowdvine. The post has some good points that I think you’ll find valuable. Also, be sure to read the web site footer and notice which free, state-of-the-art blog content management system Crowdvine uses to publish their blog. Yes, the very same Wordpress that we recommend business owners use to publish their web site and their blog on - the same system The New York Times uses for their own blogs.
How using Flickr for sharing your photos can increase local sales
December 27, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Short on time? Here’s the Bottom Line!
I have two goals for this post. First, I want to announce that I’ll be publishing my own photos on LOCAL NA8ion and I’m asking you to share your photos with us as well. More on that in a minute. Second, I’m introducing you to a technique that I’ll be writing a how-to guide on in the future (part of the connect phase of our three-phase marketing method). This technique is multi-faceted but the main point is to use web 2.0 sites and social media like Flickr to increase your search engine rankings and ultimately your sales.
I’m going to start publishing my own photos of local businesses, street scapes, city scapes, people, and commerce from my travels and from my home town here in West Palm Beach Florida. I’d love it if you would send me a picture of your business or have someone take your picture related in some way to your business (you at the front counter, you in front of your store, in your home office, etc.). Use our contact page to ask us how to submit your picture. Once we have your photo we’ll publish it on LOCAL Na8ion for everyone to see.
We use where you are is where it’s at as our slogan because the physical location of you and your customer is paramount to connecting and doing business with them. The paradox is that we use the medium of the Internet, better known for its ability to connect people and ideas all across the globe, as a conduit to meeting potential customers who live right in your town. That’s part of what makes our use of the Internet to connect with people a local nation - a nation of people in towns and cities everywhere sharing the common bond of geographic location.
I’m starting things off with this amazing picture by Jackson Myers of downtown Houston, Texas I found on Flickr, the photo sharing site that is one of my favorite online hangouts. Not only is Flickr fun if you’re a shutterbug it’s also one of the web 2.0 sites that gets lots of search engine love from Yahoo! and Google.
When you upload photos to Flickr of your own business or related products and services and tag them with relevant location and key word information such as (Florists, Akron, OH) the photos show up in image searches on places like Yahoo and Google (of course Flickr as well). They may also be included in Google’s Universal Search which can mean increased search engine rankings, exposure, and web site traffic for you from local buyers.
Sound confusing? This “connect” technique is worthy of its own post which I’ll be writing as a free how-to guide in the future so you can learn exactly how to do this for your own local business.
Timing is everything - why NOW is the time for a revolution in local Internet marketing
December 26, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Episode 2: In this twelve minute LOCAL Na8ion video I talk about the three reasons that NOW is the right time to use new revolutionary tools and methods to market your local business online.
LOCAL Na8ion Video Welcome Message
December 26, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Episode 1: Do you NEED more local customers or more of the right kind of local buyers?
Don’t have a marketing budget or you’re sick of paying for expensive LOCAL ads that don’t work?
Like to know ways to know FREE and LOW-COST methods to design and publish your web site and blog and market it online?
LOCAL Na8ion is a free resource for any business that needs to connect with local buyers for next-to-nothing, using revolutionary online tools and methods.
This is Local Na8ion - because where you are is where it’s at!
Getting Started
December 22, 2007 | Leave a Comment
We’re in beta
Welcome. We’re launching in earnest in January 2008. While we work out the best ways to design our site, organize the content, and make it easy for first-time and returning visitors to get around we’ll be publishing new articles to our blog. » Head over there now to see the latest.
You can get acquainted with Local Na8ion just by following our main site navigation at the top of our site.
What kind of information can you expect from LOCAL Na8ion
We’ll publish content every week that reveals secrets from the leading edge of Interactive marketing and publishing. Rest assured, our methods aren’t just revolutionary for small businesses with a local focus, we’ve put these these methods to work for major International conglomerates.
Topics we will cover
- Leveraging free local online Internet marketing
- Making local online advertising work harder for your business
- News and reviews of the local publishers, media companies and service providers that you love and loathe or should just plain leave alone
- How to use web 2.0 sites, communities, and social networks (social media) to increase local sales
- Secrets to dramatically increase your free search engine rankings and traffic using web 2.0 content publishing tactics
- Methods of publishing your web site and blog for free
- Low-cost web site hosting solutions for local web sites and blogs
- Blogging to connect with local buyers and markets
- Free and low cost methods of designing your local web site and blog
Hire us Today
Not a do-it-yourself type? If you want trusted experts whose passion it is to help put our methods to work for your business we can’t think of anyone better than LOCAL Na8ion…» Services.
Make sure to subscribe to our email newsletter or via RSS.
Free your local business from expensive advertising and web site development - the local revolution
December 22, 2007 | 1 Comment
It’s Revolutionary - I’ll Prove it
How LOCAL Na8ion’s three-phase marketing method will free your local business Part I
Short on time? Here’s the Bottom Line!
Our three-phase local online marketing method is free to use, free to alter and apply for your own purposes, and free to contribute to (pay it forward) by sharing your ideas and experiences. We apply tools and principles used in the open source software movement and free software movement to create content, publish our local web sites and blogs, and connect with local buyers. If you use our methods we’d really appreciate that you tell people about LOCAL Na8ion and link back to us from your web site.
You need to know you can trust me. I know it sounds like hype when I use the word revolutionary but I’m here to prove that it’s not hype. The point of this series of posts on what I’ll call the local revolution is to demonstrate how utterly appropriate my use of the word revolutionary is when I discuss the three-phase marketing method (create, publish, connect) I want to share with you on LOCAL Na8ion. I want to make it abundantly clear that it would be easy to issue forth many more superlatives and still not capture how important and different these tools and methods can be to your business.
I want to define each aspect of this coming local revolution as they pertain to the local small business and entrepreneur and how these revolutionary tools and methods can be used TODAY to advertise or market your local business for free.
First let’s just have the headlines of each area of the local revolution I want to discuss so you have a little context for what we’ll cover.
Revolutionary:
- Open Source Software
- Sharing and distributing content - giving it away
- Self-publishing & user generated content
- Revoutionary connectors: search engines and social media
- Disruptive business models
- How we can apply the latest tools, practices, and concepts to local online marketing and advertising to ignite a revolution.
The very core of LOCAL Na8ion is built on open source values and practices so I can’t really talk with you about this local revolution without talking about open source software and the concepts and mindset that come with it.
What you need to know about open source software and concepts so you can use these methods and principles to publish and market your local business online
I’ll sum up the open source software movement like this:
- Free to use,
- open to alter in any way for your own use
- an overall motivation to share ideas, collaborate, and contribute software code.
Open source values are centered on innovation, giving freely, collaborating with peers, and reward coming from gaining the respect of your peers.
Respect is the currency you dream of and money is usually the last thing on anyone’s mind. Most contributors to open source software develop code for paid software companies during the day and go home and make miracles at home in their spare time. There’s a lot of passion in these communities.
What does this have to do with a revolution in local marketing and local advertising? The basis and spirit of LOCAL Na8ion is built on these principles.
We’re going to begin with the beginning – which for our purposes is the Internet’s world-wide-web. If you were to give credit for today’s Internet many people point to people like Tim Berners-Lee and many others that worked with him to unleash the world-wide-web to the public.
But other than people, there is probably no other larger single contributing factor to the explosion of today’s Internet than open source software. The web server software and operating system back then (and today) power nearly every Internet powerhouse from Google to Yahoo! (and yes even traditional software companies like Microsoft) run open source software. So does LOCAL Na8ion.
Our initial way of visually connecting to the web was a free web browser (remember Mosaic and later Netscape Navigator?) and today’s only serious competition to Internet Explorer is the open source Mozilla Firefox browser project. We have other thriving open source communities as well where developers all over the world contribute code, bug fixes, security patches and untold innovation to products like Wordpress and Drupal, both content management systems used to create and publish far ranging content from blogs to media publications, online stores, and so on.
Not only is open source software free to use and free to alter for your own use, it’s often superior in quality and features to even the best commercial software. How can that be? Because the community of contributing developers who develop the software is so large and so expert that new features and functionality are developed very quickly. Things like software bugs and security holes are plugged with amazing efficiency. The breadth of new development and speed of updates are only limited by the size and the quality of the community. The bigger the community, the better its quality, the more chance you’ll have major ongoing innovation and development taking place.
Many people think that major software companies like Microsoft should be able to move more quickly given their impressive financial and human resources but they typically don’t. There are bottom lines to watch, investors to pander to, and red tape covering almost every cubicle in sight. This world is full of places where you can’t go for fear of losing money and losing your job. It’s not always the best environment to foster innovation.
There is a mindset that is a natural byproduct of making something for free, something that will earn the respect of others. In this process where the best ideas and the best code wins, real innovation is often sparked. This mindset where people adopt the open source code to their own use is also a critical element. It unleashes people, it removes the inhibitions that a paycheck or scorn might typically hold us back with. In their quest to make the open source code their own, open source contributors very often create something quite valuable to a lot of people.
One of the people responsible for kick-starting the open source software movement is Linus Torvalds. Linus used this mindset to help make Linux, the operating system of the web. Here’s the opening quote from his letter in 1991 to his community talking about his plans to alter minux:
“Hello everybody out there using minix -
I’m doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won’t be big and
professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. This has been brewing since april, and is starting to get ready.”
Just a hobby, won’t be big and professional turned in to the operating system powering much of the web and many other systems today. Linux is also the base for Apple’s lauded operating system, OSX as it is for many other commercialized versions such as Red Hat Linux. Which is a good point to come to for us because we’re talking about adopting open source software for our use of saving money on our publishing tools and making money with free local online marketing and advertising.
Many others besides Apple have modified the Linux operating system for commercial purposes such as Red Hat and VA Software. Both companies gave Linus Torvalds stock options in recognition of his contributions to Linux that raised his net worth overnight to twenty million dollars. It’s amazing what people can do when we stop making assumptions about what can and can’t be done.
This brings us back to the word revolutionary. There’s virtually no aspect of our world that hasn’t been touched by open source and free software and concepts. It is as much a part of the network of the Internet as the computer hardware itself. Beyond that it’s a set of principles and ideas that have proven useful in many other areas. As I’ve said earlier, open source principles and tools power LOCAL Na8ion. It is the basis for our community. It’s also an invitation to you to take the ideas and tools we write about and use them for free. We hope you to take them and make them your own and then contribute back to our community to help others like you on their quest. We can learn, experiment, collaborate and create together.
Richard Stallman, the man most credited with starting the free software movement makes this point about the word “free” in free software.
“Free software is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of free as in free speech, not as in free beer.”
How can we employ these revolutionary open source tools and methods on our own and feed our families at the same time?
We’re going to share our ideas and information in the manner of open source. We also have families to feed and I’ll recognize here openly and proudly that I think LOCAL Na8ion will help make both of us money as well. You’ll make money from applying these concepts to make sales for your business and by dramatically lowering your marketing and publishing costs. I’ll make money because not all businesses will want to take such a hands-on role, or simply don’t have the interest, time, or ability to do what I can do easily. They’ll hire me to help them.
In the future I may package up my ideas into packages that will make it even easier and less timely to put these ideas in to action. If I make these information products like online video tutorials and e-books I’ll offer them at prices that represent a radical value. If I never make money that way it will be all right with me for money is not my sole objective here at all. I’m after something much more valuable to me – your respect.
Coming soon…
Chapter two of the Local Revolution: Sharing and distributing content - giving it away.
What’s New at LOCAL Na8ion
December 18, 2007 | 2 Comments
We’ve re-launched LOCAL Na8ion in December 2007.
While we’re hard at work creating our new do-it-yourself content built around our unique three-phase system (create, publish, connect) we’ll also be publishing news and reviews on related topics so that you can find value in LOCAL Na8ion right away. Remember, LOCAL Na8ion is a free resource for any company that needs to connect with local buyers for next-to-nothing. We’ll publish content every week that reveals secrets from the leading edge of Web 2.0 marketing, publishing, and design to build your local business. Of course, you can always hire us if you’re not the D-I-Y type.
Also coming in 2008 we’ll offer low priced online video tutorials and e-books that showcase our methods with the aim of streamlining your efforts and jump-starting your business.
Revolutionizing local Internet marketing, web publishing, and design for the local business and entrepreneur
December 3, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Short on time? Here’s the Bottom Line!
This article covers the major motivations and reasons that led to our re-launch as a resource for local marketers that want to learn about free and low-cost methods of online marketing and publishing. Read this article if you’re sick of the status quo from local media publishers and service providers.
Why I started LOCAL Na8ion™
by Julian Seery Gude
Editor of LOCAL Na8ion and President of exceler8 Corporation
The old ways of marketing never worked that well and they’re getting worse all the time
I have a lifetime of experience in exploring the leading-edge of technology and after 20+ years working in the local publishing and advertising industry I’ve learned a lot of what there is to know about how companies large and small can connect with buyers using both traditional and state-of-the-art tools and methods. I’ve learned a lot about the local buyer that wants to buy products and services in their city or town. The Internet and social changes in how we interact through the web have fundamentally changed the landscape in every facet of life; and yet there remains a visceral physical connection that we seek out in everything from our personal relationships to the people we associate with and the stuff we buy. Along my life journey I’ve found myself acting in personal and professional capacities where, regardless of my title, I’ve sought out the best in people and the best in technology. That passion has led me to form a belief that maximum human performance and business results can best be achieved using tools and technology the right way where human factors are front-and-center and our focus remains on the results we want to achieve, rather than the sexiness of the gadget or tool being employed.
In the advertising business I’ve worked to help both local and national marketers but I’ve seen far too many dashed dreams and wasted money spent on ineffective ads that did nothing more than drain my client’s bank accounts and leave them searching for the truth of what truly works in marketing their business.
Traditional forms or print, broadcast, and even online media (like banner ads) are becoming increasingly irrelevant with consumers who we’ve made wholly skeptical by our outrageous marketing claims. People are now more time and attention starved than at any time in history which makes us increasingly reliant on good products and services that solve our problems but ever more guarded about marketing and sales pitches. While this is happening there are new, less expensive, more trustworthy, and more human ways to connect with customers directly (without the middle man). You might think that as a marketer I’d be shaking in my boots but nothing could be further from the truth. We’re finally starting to realize an ideal that we’ve always yearned for, that truth take center stage in the best marketing campaigns and practices.
Independent, beholden to none, and dangerous
A little over two years ago I struck out on my own, leaving behind Corporate America and the security of a fat paycheck and rich health benefits. For my leap of faith I won some freedom, but most importantly, I got rid of the company line, the one I’d been carrying around like a ball and chain for 20 years. I’ve worked for many of America’s largest local publishing and advertising companies, including GTE and Pacific Bell Yellow Pages, and SBC (now AT&T) along with Knight Ridder, formerly the second largest U.S. Publisher of print and online newspapers, publishing 32 daily newspapers across the U.S. including prominent newspaper and online publications like The San Jose Mercury News, The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Miami Herald.
Like many other entrepreneurs I’ve been doing my best to attract clients, build sales, and handle my business operations (oh yeah and take care of two little kids). Like you I have to find new customers (or else) balance a meager “bootstrapped” budget and make sure I use the best free or inexpensive tools I can get my hands on. My background and hands-on experience in marketing, technology, the Internet, and the wave of web 2.0 tools, services, and publishing methods have given me a real competitive advantage.
Not long ago, after learning the hard way from making my own mistakes (in areas where I’m not nearly so expert) I realized how I could best help people while still feeding myself and my family. I realized that I had the expertise and desire to help entrepreneurs like me make a better life for themselves by combining my love for the application of technology with my traditional and new media background. We all have unique talents and I am among those that believe that it’s our place to use these qualities to better our lives, that of our family and friends, and for the greater good.
My best work has always come in bringing together people and technology (using technology in smart ways) and I’ve tried to combine this talent with marketing in new and inventive combinations. Up until the mid 90’s my passion for computers and technology and my career in advertising were largely separate. Then the Internet happened and I was working right at the epicenter of the Internet revolution that started in Silicon Valley. Finally, the dream that led me to pack all my belongings in my car a decade earlier and drive across the country to live and work in technology in Silicon Valley came to pass. But it was my practical experience from my ‘diversion’ in local advertising that connected my two worlds of technology and marketing and soon I was busy transforming the largest print Yellow Pages and Print Newspaper companies into their new online equivalents.
Web 2.0 and Social Media
Then came the second wave of the Internet – the much-heralded Web 2.0. With Web 2.0 we ushered in revolutionary interactive online tools that have transformed online publishing and brought people together. This is the revolution in personal publishing you’ve heard so much about that is largely driven by tools like blogs, trusted social networks like MySpace, Facebook, Linked-in, and Second Life, user generated content on sites like YouTube, and everywhere communities of like-minded people, informing each other and organizing themselves around like-interests and passions.
These new tools that enable interaction, collaboration, and connection between people, are called Social Media. Most of them are free to participate in but they’re not meant as vehicles for your ads. They’re highly participative and interactive in nature. You don’t just throw your fishing line or business card in to the waters of social media with the expectation that fish will clamor to jump on your hook! You build your reputation and your brand with these tools and establish your credibility and this positions you to win new business. These tools and communities represent an opportunity for connecting:
people with needs and people with solutions,
people in search of answers with people who hold them,
people who are experts with people who are novices,
people who are buyers with people who are sellers.
If done the right way, openly and honestly, and relevantly, you can use these tools, social networks, and communities to help make new connections and strengthen existing ones.
Like many new tools, early uses of social media for marketing backfired because companies and marketers tried to use the new medium in an old way. That didn’t work out so well for the companies who used traditional marketing tactics like subterfuge and manipulation to win over consumers. But as things are maturing these practices are being used less and less and more people are realizing that something new and positive is afoot.
Perhaps the most exciting news to local advertisers who don’t have large ad budgets to support ‘branding’ campaigns like Coca-Cola, is that social media are now driving significant traffic to web sites in the form of improved search engine rankings. Today, it has become realistic to use social media and search engines to build a thriving local business without buying paid ads.
The role of search engines - local buyers looking for local sellers online
There is another aspect of the web that is separate but interrelated to social media and it speaks more to the direct sales or fishing line analogy I used previously. This is the place where you put your fishing line in the water and if you’ve done your job with your product and your web site, your brand, and your social media, you can expect to land some big fish. They come to you. Search engines like Google, Yahoo! and MSN Live and their local versions are intended to connect people, including local buyers and sellers. These tools represent an opportunity to connect with your customers very efficiently. You can do this at no cost by tapping into organic search engine traffic, or at a very low cost (compared to traditional media) with paid local search engine traffic. You can’t order a mechanic up from India to work on your Ford in Des Moine. And Zappos.com and Amazon.com can ship you an order for shoes or books but they can’t get them to you today, before you hop your plane on a business trip.
The problem with you - the local marketer
Online methods of publishing a business web site and marketing your company online to local customers haven’t kept pace with gains seen in big business. There’s a simple reason, you’re not worth all the time and effort. Old and new media companies alike spend all their time going after the big national advertisers that have local locations (think Best Buy) or super regional businesses like Car dealers, appliance stores, and mega real estate developers. Frankly, you’ve been left out in the cold and subjected to lame service and cookie-cutter product offerings.
Meanwhile for big business, the Internet revolution has ushered in previously unheard of profits, along with major increases in capability, quality, and service. The problem with the old publishing and marketing powerhouses, be they Yellow Pages publishers, Newspaper companies or TV and Radio networks, and the ad agencies or service businesses built around them, is that their offerings and services are based on outmoded models, cost structures, and tools that don’t pass on the advantages and savings of the latest Internet technology. That and it would seem outright greed. It’s like working on making a better horse carriage when the rest of the world is already moving on from the combustion engine to alternative powered vehicles.
Old media companies and newspaper publishers can’t get out of their own way fast enough and as a small business owner or entrepreneur you’re the one who is paying for it. In most cases these content and media companies have simply re-purposed print or old broadcast methods online - including the crappy ads that don’t work anymore. This isn’t innovation and it doesn’t represent what your business needs today.
The truth is that these new tools and methods are accessible to anyone; you just need someone with a vision of how to put them together to tell you the truth about how to do that. Why hasn’t that happened? Mostly because people are too busy trying to fatten their own profits at the expense of yours. For the entrenched companies their stockholders or profit models are built on things being the old way and their only option is to hold on to what they’ve got for as long as we’ll let them (Moooo - that’s the cash cow calling). They’re counting on you remaining in the dark.
What are we to do about it? Plenty.
We’re not going to let that happen. What’s true today is that individuals with these new powerful self-publishing tools have already proven that we can’t be kept in the dark and fed who know’s what. We don’t accept this any more today than we will blindly accept a politician’s campaign-trail-rhetoric or a television network’s sensationalized version of ‘news reporting.’
Dummied-down
There’s another smaller but troubling problem in the local web site publishing and marketing world. Companies and service providers like my former employers and big Internet players spend a huge amount of time and money dummying-down their products and services to small business based on an incorrect assumption: that small business people aren’t smart enough or capable enough to do it themselves. If they only knew. Even if this is well intended, it often has the effect of excluding you from the cutting edge technology and advertising solutions that represent your biggest opportunity. They also put a big fat tax on their services that you end up paying for. Not only do you pay for them governing your capability with dummied down tools (think AOL) it also introduces unnecessary layers of costs, bureaucracy and technology that you don’t want or need. What’s even sadder is that these “simplified” products are often just as complicated as their “professional” counterparts.
So basically they’re all evil, does that cover it?
After talking about all these negatives it may sound like we don’t see any value in paid local marketing methods or media. That’s not true and we’ll be writing about local media and services that we know DO work. When we do write about local marketing and media services you can rest assured that we’re telling the truth because we don’t take advertising from these companies and we don’t get paid if we recommend their services. Although we perform ad agency functions we won’t take a typical agency commission if we end up placing ads on your behalf either - instead we’ll just pass along those savings to you.
Unbiased and Free to speak our minds
Local Na8ion is unbiased in our recommendations about the tools we recommend because we’re not beholden to anyone, any company, or an old business model that we have to protect. We won’t accept ads from service providers or media companies that we review. And we also know what the big guys know because we worked for them.
We will give you useful free content that we believe will be very valuable to you. That’s good because we want to establish trust and our credibility with you. In fact we depend on it since we’re upfront about how we make money. Speaking of us making money that’s simple enough. We’ll sell some ads to companies that have no conflict of interest with our offering, we’ll offer you our consulting and contract services if you want them and in 2008 we’ll offer low priced online video tutorials and e-books to streamline and jump-start your efforts.
Where are we going
It’s my goal to establish Local Na8ion as the #1 online community to turn to when you want to know what really works in local online publishing and marketing. If it’s about using free state-of-the-art publishing tools to relaunch your company web site or blog then I’d like you to think about LOCAL Na8ion. If it’s about real experience and knowhow in employing the most efficient and inexpensive online marketing methods to drive new sales, come here, learn here and contribute. We’re working out on the edge and we know we don’t have all the answers all the time but we know that figuring them out for ourselves is a hell of a lot better than being fed the B.S. on the regular menu.
Getting involved, come read and come contribute
If you like the sound of what we’ve got to say than I say Local Na8ion is a community for you. Come ask your questions, tell us what you’re doing that’s worked, and what’s bombed. One of the best parts about local advertising is that the ideas that work in one town for one type of business can work elsewhere - and sharing your knowledge is unlikely to hurt you. You do more good in learning from your contribution than hording your knowledge as if no one will ever figure it out.
Not the do-it-yourself type? Hire us.
We understand. While we fundamentally believe anyone can use the information and tools we champion to empower their business we also know that it doesn’t always make the most business sense to do so. Let’s put it this way, I’m not real big on accounting and I’m happy there are professionals who can take care of my books and Uncle Sam so I can focus on doing what I do best.
Local Na8ion’s experts can employ our three-phase marketing and publishing method for you for much less than you might think. We don’t have any high costs to pass on to you because our business is powered by the many free or low cost tools we herald. We wield these tools and employ our methods with the same kind of expert touch that a master craftsman would in building your home. Our prices go to paying for the best craftsman, doing their best work – nothing more. In the future we also plan to offer our community low priced online video tutorials and e-books to streamline and jump-start your efforts.
All the best!
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