This morning I went to a forum at the South Metro Chamber of Commerce on a very charged issue. The forum had people with various political leanings on the issue, some who would shout their opinions from the roof tops and others who would not share without some level of privacy. Even when we are not talking about politically charged issues seeking feedback and using that dynamically in presentations and the way we interact with our customers is critical for effective communication.
At this morning’s event the team that did the presentations gave each of us a credit card sized remote with the numbers 1 - 10 on it. Many questions from demographics to opinions about the issues were asked and the skilled presenters were able to use the data to discuss the view of the room in comparison with the views of others in the State.
The software that presenter used had tabulated the results instantly, giving immediate feedback to the room using graphs. The data is also being collected so that they have an arsenal of live data to use in other forums and when lobbying.
This type of active feedback is not only important for public presentations. How would it be to have an “I Will Buy It Meter” over every prospects head? We could know so much more about how to better engage with prospects and even the casual browser who might walk out of our store and tell his friends how cool the new gadget he/she saw.
The Internet provides us tools like this. In the past I have written about analytics and how we can look at data retrospectively to understand how our sites’ visitors use our website.
New technologies like live chat and polling make it easy to find out what our customers want as they are engaging with us in our informational websites as well as online store fronts.
Think about all the great ways you can engage your clients and prospects and be dynamic.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Where should I blog?
I often get the question where should I blog or if I blog on my website should I do it with a different domain name?
The best place to blog is on your website. If you don’t have a website that let’s you easily add content without knowing code or needing a computer science degree. If this is not the
case for you then Blogger (where this blog is held) is a great free and easy tool.
Building a blog on your own website should be done by a professional. When blogs are made well they are great search engine optimization (SEO) tools. You are adding lots of new content about the topics; you want people to find you with text so Google and other search engines can pick it up.
The question of whether or not you should use a different domain name (website address) requires a little more SEO knowledge. Search engines try and make sure they are sharing the most relevant content. Mind you, we are asking a computer to define what relevant content is. One of the things that search engines use to determine the relevancy of content is its uniqueness and another is how often you update the content.
Because we want our content to be unique we want to write an article or blog post and put it in one place. We then want to link to it from many places, we just don’t want to copy and paste the same article in multiple places. For example this post is on my blog, I do not want to turn around and put this same exact post on Teach Street for example. I will however, link to it from Facebook, Twitter and other sites.
The frequency factor in determining relevancy is also very important. Blogs give you an easy tool to add keyword rich content to your site on a regular basis. Denver DataMan recommends adding content at least once per-week to any site you want to be found using search engines.
In general our goal is to get people to come to our main site. Provide value added information and by doing it in a venue where a sale can be closed is all the better. If you use an alternative URL for your blog you are gathering traffic for an address that is not your primary website. If you have your primary website address for your blog and another address for your blog you can be hit with the duplicate content problem if you don’t do it right.
In general I think that not having a separate address for a blog is a good thing. Tell people denverdataman.com/blog not someothersite.com. I think it gives you a clearer marketing platform as well as a good SEO strategy.
Now, you might ask why am I reading this article here and not at denverdataman.com/blog? Well, you see, when I built this blog I thought demonstrating a free tool was a good idea. Since then I have not been able to capitalize on the SEO value of the content I create. This is why the re-designed DenverDataMan.com will have the blog on the site.
The best place to blog is on your website. If you don’t have a website that let’s you easily add content without knowing code or needing a computer science degree. If this is not the
case for you then Blogger (where this blog is held) is a great free and easy tool.
Building a blog on your own website should be done by a professional. When blogs are made well they are great search engine optimization (SEO) tools. You are adding lots of new content about the topics; you want people to find you with text so Google and other search engines can pick it up.
The question of whether or not you should use a different domain name (website address) requires a little more SEO knowledge. Search engines try and make sure they are sharing the most relevant content. Mind you, we are asking a computer to define what relevant content is. One of the things that search engines use to determine the relevancy of content is its uniqueness and another is how often you update the content.
Because we want our content to be unique we want to write an article or blog post and put it in one place. We then want to link to it from many places, we just don’t want to copy and paste the same article in multiple places. For example this post is on my blog, I do not want to turn around and put this same exact post on Teach Street for example. I will however, link to it from Facebook, Twitter and other sites.
The frequency factor in determining relevancy is also very important. Blogs give you an easy tool to add keyword rich content to your site on a regular basis. Denver DataMan recommends adding content at least once per-week to any site you want to be found using search engines.
In general our goal is to get people to come to our main site. Provide value added information and by doing it in a venue where a sale can be closed is all the better. If you use an alternative URL for your blog you are gathering traffic for an address that is not your primary website. If you have your primary website address for your blog and another address for your blog you can be hit with the duplicate content problem if you don’t do it right.
In general I think that not having a separate address for a blog is a good thing. Tell people denverdataman.com/blog not someothersite.com. I think it gives you a clearer marketing platform as well as a good SEO strategy.
Now, you might ask why am I reading this article here and not at denverdataman.com/blog? Well, you see, when I built this blog I thought demonstrating a free tool was a good idea. Since then I have not been able to capitalize on the SEO value of the content I create. This is why the re-designed DenverDataMan.com will have the blog on the site.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
You Think Tech Is Small
Ever wonder how they make that new tech thing so small? Ever complain that you laptop battery does not make it the whole flight? These are the questions that a business person might ask when they are designing new technology. When Coby Leuscke makes something new he wants to know he can make it smaller, lighter, faster and run with less electricity in the harshest conditions on earth.
Cody is the president and stunt scientist for Metanomy a nonprofit in Fort Collins that works to create technology that can anywhere for first responders in disasters and eventually anyone who wants to do extreme things with technology.
One project is BeakGeek that monitors what birds come to a bird feeder by taking pictures and then uploading them directly to the Internet. You might ask why? I did. By taking pictures of birds when they feed all over the country those interested could track birds for science or fun as they migrate around the country. This is great for science students and natural scientists and each unit can be made for around $300 including the solar panels.
Pictures from BeakGeek units are put on Flikr (a photo sharing site) where people from around the world can use social networking to comment, tag and share the images collected. This is open source science.
Another project that Coby highlighted in his presentation tonight to the CNTC group is a trailer that is designed to be a mobile command post that can make it to any disaster in the world and is smaller and costs less than anything else currently produced.
All of Coby's projects are green because the use of solar and other sustainable technologies requires them to be. When you need to make sure a computer stays on for 3 days you ought to be green!
The presentation that Coby gave on behalf of Metanomy was excellent and opened my eyes to many new things.
Cody is the president and stunt scientist for Metanomy a nonprofit in Fort Collins that works to create technology that can anywhere for first responders in disasters and eventually anyone who wants to do extreme things with technology.
One project is BeakGeek that monitors what birds come to a bird feeder by taking pictures and then uploading them directly to the Internet. You might ask why? I did. By taking pictures of birds when they feed all over the country those interested could track birds for science or fun as they migrate around the country. This is great for science students and natural scientists and each unit can be made for around $300 including the solar panels.Pictures from BeakGeek units are put on Flikr (a photo sharing site) where people from around the world can use social networking to comment, tag and share the images collected. This is open source science.
Another project that Coby highlighted in his presentation tonight to the CNTC group is a trailer that is designed to be a mobile command post that can make it to any disaster in the world and is smaller and costs less than anything else currently produced.
All of Coby's projects are green because the use of solar and other sustainable technologies requires them to be. When you need to make sure a computer stays on for 3 days you ought to be green!
The presentation that Coby gave on behalf of Metanomy was excellent and opened my eyes to many new things.
Please Keep Advertising - The Video
This is a good example of a YouTube video that is being used for commercial benefit.
The premise of this video is very true. We have to keep advertising or we will loose ground with our brand. However, given that there are shifts in the current media market that have impacts well beyond the current economic situation focusing on the right place to put yours advertising dollars is critical. Look at tools in the social media that might save money and have a better more relevant reach.
This video is a great example of a way to post an ad in a social forum and to use the social media to your advantage. The biggest lesson here is that this ad does not look like it was posted by its creator but it was still posted. If you do not use social media your clients or ditractors will use it for you!
The premise of this video is very true. We have to keep advertising or we will loose ground with our brand. However, given that there are shifts in the current media market that have impacts well beyond the current economic situation focusing on the right place to put yours advertising dollars is critical. Look at tools in the social media that might save money and have a better more relevant reach.
This video is a great example of a way to post an ad in a social forum and to use the social media to your advantage. The biggest lesson here is that this ad does not look like it was posted by its creator but it was still posted. If you do not use social media your clients or ditractors will use it for you!
Sunday, May 17, 2009
The New Denver DataMan Website
I am starting to work on the new Denver DataMan website that will be done by the end of the summer if not sooner and it is helping me refine my process that I do with my client in helping them develop their websites.
When a client comes to me they have an idea what they want from a website. They say things like I want it to look good and be found on Google or maybe they say it they want it to have a blog. I am not much different, I know I want it to look nice, be easy to navigate, have lots of valuable content, be found on search engines and many more nebulous things. Now, I have to take these goals and make a plan for how execute the new site.
Some the key areas that will be tackled in the new Denver DataMan website will be:
Better navigation will also make it easier for visitors to find the content that is on the your site that right now goes unused or underused. Moving the DDM blog on to the main website rather than hosting in on this Google Blog Spot will help provide more content for Google to index.
Having better event registration will make the site more valuable as a business tool but also be easier for my clients to register for events.
With the site upgrade DDM will be on the new version of the content management tool (Drupal) that we use for websites and there are many more tools for integrating with social networks for us to use. Being more connected with social networks makes it more likely that visitors will share the site with others.
Developing a new website is not easy for reasons far beyond the technical challenges of moving content, users, design, etc. It is hard because if you don’t take the opportunity to make sure you are telling your story better then you are wasting your time.
When a client comes to me they have an idea what they want from a website. They say things like I want it to look good and be found on Google or maybe they say it they want it to have a blog. I am not much different, I know I want it to look nice, be easy to navigate, have lots of valuable content, be found on search engines and many more nebulous things. Now, I have to take these goals and make a plan for how execute the new site.
Some the key areas that will be tackled in the new Denver DataMan website will be:
- Better design with more graphics
- Better navigation
- Integrated Blog
- Better event registration
- Integration with social networks
Better navigation will also make it easier for visitors to find the content that is on the your site that right now goes unused or underused. Moving the DDM blog on to the main website rather than hosting in on this Google Blog Spot will help provide more content for Google to index.
Having better event registration will make the site more valuable as a business tool but also be easier for my clients to register for events.
With the site upgrade DDM will be on the new version of the content management tool (Drupal) that we use for websites and there are many more tools for integrating with social networks for us to use. Being more connected with social networks makes it more likely that visitors will share the site with others.
Developing a new website is not easy for reasons far beyond the technical challenges of moving content, users, design, etc. It is hard because if you don’t take the opportunity to make sure you are telling your story better then you are wasting your time.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Welcome to Now
Today I clicked on an ad on from Facebook for Sprint and I got to the new Now Widget which is one of the coolest/strangest things I have ever seen. From this talking widget you can see how many sticky notes are being created, top words being used online, Google searches as they happen and news. This disying aray of content is put together to promote the Sprint Now Network.
I wonder if Sprint will see sales from this site? This site just goes to show you that there are many things left to try with social media and the Internet.
I wonder if Sprint will see sales from this site? This site just goes to show you that there are many things left to try with social media and the Internet.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Way To Long
It has been way to long since I last posted on my blog. I am breaking my own rule that companies should blog at least once per-week. Blogging is good for establishing yourself as an expert in the community as well as for providing food (information) for Google to eat up (index).
Now if I was to just right that first paragraph - that would be a cop out and not a valuable post. So, I will tell a story about a photographer I am helping build their potential blogging strategy.
The photographer who will remain nameless is hesitant to blog because he does not know what to share. This is often a common problem with bloggers. You will find that if you make an effort to think about opportunities there are more than enough and you don’t have to be boring or give away trade secrets.
Remember if the data makes you look like an expert, tells a story and is interesting then it will be read and help you define yourself as an expert.
Now if I was to just right that first paragraph - that would be a cop out and not a valuable post. So, I will tell a story about a photographer I am helping build their potential blogging strategy.
The photographer who will remain nameless is hesitant to blog because he does not know what to share. This is often a common problem with bloggers. You will find that if you make an effort to think about opportunities there are more than enough and you don’t have to be boring or give away trade secrets.
Remember if the data makes you look like an expert, tells a story and is interesting then it will be read and help you define yourself as an expert.
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