Are You Listed?
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If someone was looking for you, would they be able to find you?

Let’s see…

You have an office address, a business card and a website. You also have a Facebook page, and Twitter and LinkedIn accounts. Is there something else that you need?

Well… Are you listed on some of the major directories? There are plenty of free online directories where you can register your business. Some may even have you listed already and all you need to do is “claim your listing.” Following are a few directories that offer free listing services.

Google Places: [http://google.com/places]

Google states that “97percent of consumers search for local businesses online.” Google Places offers a free local platform where you can add photos, update your address and hours of service, or promote your business with advertisements. Places for Business, which is on Google Places, lets you make the most of your listing and show customers why they may want to choose you.

Yahoo Local Basic Listing: [http://listings.local.yahoo.com]

Let your customers know where you are with a Yahoo Local Business Listing. With a free business listing on Yahoo! Local you can: 1) display your address, phone number, and website 2) include your business in as many as five categories, and 3) list products, services, brands, and more.

Yelp.com: [http://yelp.com]

Yelp is an online urban city guide that helps people find cool places to eat, shop, drink, relax and play, based on the informed opinions of a vibrant and active community of locals. Yelp is the fun and easy way to find, review and talk about what’s great — and not so great — in your world.

Local.com: [https://advertise.local.com]

Local.com is a leading local search site and network in the United States. Use Local.com to look up names, phone numbers and addresses of businesses in your area or beyond. The listings include useful information such as store hours, services offered, directions, maps and more.

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In addition to the above, visit your local online newspapers. Many of them offer free basic business listing services.

Are you using LinkedIn?
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Everyone talks about Facebook and Twitter, but not much is said about LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is a networking site for professionals, so in our very “socialized” environment, it stands to reason that a more “buttoned up” option doesn’t get as much attention as the other two über social options.

LinkedIn is a great way to network with your colleagues. If you’re looking for new business and professional opportunities, LinkedIn can help you locate prospects. It also provides opportunities to asked questions via the discussion areas where liked minds often gather.

If you don’t have a LinkedIn profile by now you should. Watch this short video for an overview of what LinkedIn is and how it can help you.

LinkedIn offers useful features. You can:

  1. Download your contact information in Excel, CSV or use their Outlook Social Connector. Your LinkedIn contacts can be managed in Outlook.
  2. Add your profile to your website by embedding the profile summary card directly on your webpage.
  3. Enhance your content and show rich, personalized insights about companies featured on your site by using the Company Insider plugin.
  4. Enable users to recommend your products and services to LinkedIn’s professional audience, and drive traffic back to your site by using the “Recommend with LinkedIn” widget.

There’s also a way to set up your company page. Watch this video on how to do it…

http://youtu.be/uRGM0T43gLc

Convinced yet?

Your Facebook Data – Who Has It?
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During a business conversation with a colleague, the topic of Facebook data came up. Did you know that Facebook users have the ability to download their profile information? At first I thought this was a wonderful idea. What if I lost valuable photos on my computer? If I had them uploaded to Facebook, I could download them. Or, what if I had other content such as Notes, lists of Facebook friends or other special things on my profile – I could just download my profile data and I’d be able to keep it.

The problem with this, she told me, is what’s included in the download. What I found most interesting was how I was being tracked for advertising purposes. For example, did you know that…

  • Ads Clicked – this information shows a list of dates, times and titles of ads you clicked.
  • Ad Topics – this is a list of topics that you may be targeted against based on your stated likes, interests and other data in your timeline.

The European Government has begun to build regulations that would protect consumers’ privacy when using social media and visiting websites, including tracking methods and cookies. The EU Cookie Law, or e-Privacy Directive, is a law which applies to how cookies and similar technologies are used to store information on a person’s equipment such as a computer or mobile device. The law goes into great detail about cookies and personal data; confidentiality of Ccmmunications and spyware; information to be provided; responsibility for providing the information and obtaining consent; exemptions from the right to refuse a cookie; and wishes of subscribers and users.

Large websites, especially those that provide free services, make money by tracking and targeting users and delivering targeted ads. The European Government has been trying to get Facebook to comply with the EU privacy laws for quite some time. The US is far behind the Europeans when it comes to this type of online privacy.

For more in-depth information about this subject, you can read The New York Times article, entitled “Facebook Offers More Disclosures to Users” and  C|Net’s article, entitled “Facebook Profile Download Tool Comes Up Short.”

What do you think?

Grow Your Business with Plenty of Tweets
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As the new world of social media thrives, there will always be ways to grow and gain greater experiences from social media interactions. It is a fascinating place, continuously offering something new.

Did you know that advertising can be bought on Twitter? By advertising on Twitter your presence can be increased, new followers find you and your traffic can quickly grow.

Twitter offers two advertising programs:

  • Promoted Tweets: These extend the reach of your tweets to a broader audience.
  • Promoted Accounts: These tweets turbo-charge the growth of your loyal followers.

United States-based advertisers that adhere Twitter’s advertising policies and have 20 or more followers can take advantage of these advertising programs.

To sign up to increase your Twitter presence, click here – https://tweet.twitter.com/TwitterAdvertisingRequest

There’s a video to learn more about how Promoted Tweets and Accounts work. Click and watch.

http://youtu.be/3e5H9b9IM_Q

Double for Your Trouble – 5 Easy Steps To Get More from Your Blogs
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There’s so much more to the Internet than even five or six years ago. Many new businesses, websites, bloggers, news feeds…not to mention the popularity of social networking like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest.

There is a lot to absorb. Many people are not reading everything they receive in their email. They aren’t visiting all the great websites and blogs. It’s too overwhelming.

Think of your newsletter as mini websites. Businesses created hard copy versions and mailed them. Then came the electronic versions via email (e-newsletters). People are now blogging the information – writing and sharing via social media tools.

If you are a blogger try these five easy steps for getting two for one…:

  1. Why do the work twice? Create an e-newsletter out of the blogs you’ve written the previous month.
  2. If you have upcoming events, add in a calendar.
  3. Include an RSS feed to your blogs.
  4. Include links to your social media pages and links to past newsletters.
  5. Include photos from the previous month, and a list of upcoming topics on this month’s blog.

Get double for your trouble. The information shared is always valuable. Just because the blog was written, doesn’t mean it was read. Create an e-newsletter and get it back out there in a different way.

10 Steps for Energy Efficiency
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10 Steps for Your Business to Become Energy Efficient

“It’s not easy being green…”

That song from Sesame Street’s Kermit the Frog frequently pops in my mind when I think of becoming “green.” Kermit was lamenting about the hardships of being a frog. Some people may think that “going green” or becoming energy efficient is hard.

To help with possible reservations, The Small Business Administration (SBA) has made it a little easier for you. They have provided an area on their website called “Green Guide for New Businesses” which provides information on how businesses can adopt environmentally friendly and energy efficient businesses practices. These practices provide numerous benefits for new business owners looking to control costs, attract customers and become socially responsible.

Listed in this guide are 10 steps to help you develop an environmental strategy for your business. The list is below. Click the link that follows to get more in-depth information.

  1. Comply with Environmental Regulations
  2. Develop an Environmental Management Plan
  3. Build Green
  4. Buy Green Products
  5. Adopt Energy Efficient Practices
  6. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Wastes
  7. Conserve Water
  8. Prevent Pollution
  9. Create a Green Marketing Strategy
  10. Join Industry Partnership and Stewardship Programs

For some, like Kermit, it may not be easy being green. Some changes may result in increased costs. What is important, is that eventually, we will all benefit from “being green.”

Read more in-depth details about each of the 10 steps here – http://www.sba.gov/content/green-guide-new-businesses.

10 Tips for Making Your Clients Happy
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Want to Know How to Make Your Clients Happy?

Include them in your business.

If you’re like me, not only do you have clients, but at times you are a client.  For this reason, it’s not too difficult to have some idea as to how to make your clients happy. A good starting point is as a client, what would make you happy? Sure, what makes you happy may not work for someone else, but in general, it’s a start.

Ten Tips for Making Your Clients Happy

  • Timely acknowledge your clients’ emails and phone calls. Even if you cannot provide them with the answer at that moment, respond that you received their email or call and let them know you are working on it.
  • Periodically call your former clients to see if there is anything you can do to help them. This may trigger a need for your services.
  • Send copies of interesting articles you think your clients would appreciate. Include a hand-written note. That personal touch is rare and slowly becoming obsolete.
  • Create a “client spotlight” on your website to highlight and promote your clients. They will appreciate the acknowledgement.
  • Hold a free seminar or workshop for your clients on a subject you think will be helpful to them.
  • Send a survey to your clients asking them for tips or suggestions on how you can make your business or services better.
  • Create a calendar to give to your clients and prospects. Include key dates and/or tips.
  • Include client testimonials on your marketing materials.
  • Update and recirculate past articles. Information that is useful is never outdated.
  • Hold an open house. The ideal location is at your office. However an offsite event will still serve the purpose for a great networking opportunity.

8 Tips to Consider When Sending Out Email
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We’ve all heard of the email glitches that can happen. There’s the horror story of replies going to the “unintended.” If you’re like me, you’ve written “see attached” numerous times when there is no  attachment.

To help you get through the email snafu’s, follow these eight (plus a bonus) easy tips:

  1. The email you send is a reflection of you and your business. Make sure to spell check, use correct grammar and punctuation.
  2. Be creative with the subject, but make sure it pertains to the content they are about to read. Don’t use a fake subject because you think they will open it faster – it will only cause frustration.
  3. When drafting your content, do not over embellish or use lots of colors or cutesy graphics. Everyone uses different email programs so they may not be able to even see it. Don’t spend a lot of time “coloring” it up.
  4. Get to the point. Be brief and don’t ramble. People hate to read a lot of garble – they want to get to the important part of why you are communicating with them so they can respond.
  5. Your tone is important. Using ALL CAPITAL LETTERS is viewed as YELLING.
  6. If the email is time sensitive, include that in your email. No one wants to miss an opportunity because they didn’t know they should respond in a certain timeframe.
  7. Double check to make sure you have attached any documents that you “attached.” Too often we are in a hurry to hit the “send” button and we forget to include the important document.
  8. Lastly, create an email signature so that they know all the ways they can communicate with you. It’s a good idea to have your mailing address, telephone and fax numbers, website, tagline and even your social media profiles (if you use those for business) in the signature.

BONUS:  Create your email before you put in the recipient. That way, you can make sure you’ve reviewed it, proofread it and attached any pertinent documents before “accidentally” hitting send.

In This Huge Sustainability World…You Matter
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Almost every day I am reminded of being a good environmental steward.  Public service announcements have President Obama encouraging home energy efficiency from the oval office.  News articles tout the value of water conservation.  In my local community, I can place my recyclable glass, plastic, and aluminum cans for weekly curbside pickup.  Since this is voluntary in my community, it feels good to know that I am doing my part in preserving life on earth.

However, various studies have shown that most utilities have a long way to go on educating consumers about smart energy and water management.  Furthermore, I notice that very few of the neighbors in my suburban development recycle.  Surely, many of my educated and professional neighbors should understand the value sustaining our planet.

The fact is that this entire “green” movement is still abstract to the average person, and it does not resonate to most of us in a way that is immediately personal.  As I engage people on topics of the environment, it has occurred to me that I spend most of the time simplifying the message for people.  At that point, I get the “now I get it” response.

It’s not that hard, but it takes some effort. When President Obama ran for office his second term, there were countless commercials touting the effects of voting. “Yes, in the grand scheme of things your vote does count…” is what we heard. And it does. Every little bit counts. The same goes for recycling. Every bottle you recycle, every plastic bag that gets reused, every light that is not turned on…matters. The people need to know, and need to know the way they understand.

Messaging and strategic communication are critical.  Government entities, utilities, and major community stakeholders have to simplify the message.  We are told to get ready for the Smart Grid or to reduce our carbon footprint.  If we are to really prompt public behavior modification, then we have to put an end to the esoteric jargon.   This necessitates effective public relations and strategic communication planning.  When you can explain to a 93-year-old grandmother exactly how reducing her carbon footprint can require less of her fixed income, now we are onto something. In This Huge Sustainability World…You Matter

The Power of Success…Do You Have It?
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I “officially” started Visibility Marketing Inc. in April, 2000. I say officially because many years before then I was working my passion without having a real business.

Becoming an entrepreneur was a dream since I was ten. I spent many hours with my uncles who were business owners. When I visited my father in Puerto Rico, I spent time with him at his chemical business. I can’t say exactly what made me, a little girl, want to do what she only saw men do, but I did.

It was the women business owners and successful women that I looked to and studied to help me through this entrepreneurial journey. That’s why this video, “Success Secrets of Power Women” is powerful. It’s the snippets of women at the top telling us how they carved their brand of success.

It’s all too familiar when Meg Whitman, Hewlett Packard; Christine Lagarde, IMF; Ann Sweeney, Disney ABC Television Group; Debra Lee, BET; Arianna Huffington, Huffington Post Media Group; Oprah Winfrey, OWN and others talk about how help from family and friends, fear, passion, guilt, balance, desire, the ability to say no, … is what successful women experience and have to work through in order to realize the dreams within us.

Be More Visible – Your Information…Can Visitors Find It?
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I recently visited a website looking for a particular article. I looked throughout the landing (home) page for a “Search Box.” I looked in the header, footer, body, sidebars…nothing!

The site didn’t offer a way to search the website! A search box is extremely important if your website is content-heavy. If new content is added regularly, it’s very important to have a way for visitors to search for information not found on the landing page. Don’t depend on navigation for visitors to locate information. Unfortunately, I didn’t find what I was looking for and I probably won’t go back to that site to look for anything else.

If you blog or provide news, an “Archive Page” is a must.  The archived information is sorted by month and year. A good example would be someone who may remember an article from June. They may not remember an exact date, but by clicking June in the archive, they can quickly browse to find what they need. The archives can be added to the navigation or a jump box (drop down box) on one of the sidebars can provide easy access.

Another great feature is the Site Index or Site Map. A site index (or more commonly called a site map) is an outline of the structure of the content on your website. It’s laid out in a hierarchical form and offers branches from one level to the next. The site map serves three purposes:

  1. To help search engines crawl your website for new or updated content.
  2. To provide an “at-a-glance” view of the website.
  3. To allow visitors to use as a website navigation tool.

There are two types of site maps – one which is seen by the user on the website (HTML format) and one hidden behind the scenes, which is used by the search engines (XML is one popular format). I recommend using both as it also can assist with Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

One more great resource, which serves two purposes, is an RSS Feed. Really Simple Syndication is a way to publish updated content such as blogs, news, and headlines in a standardized format. Many web browsers and email programs offer RSS feed capabilities. You will see an orange feed icon when visiting a website. Upon clicking, a browser window will open up a page and ask if you would like to subscribe to this news feed. Once selected, whenever new content is added to the website, it will be sent to your news reader.

Another way to use RSS feeds is as a news aggregation service. For example, you have a favorite blog or news site you follow and would like to share it with your visitors. Some blogging systems offer an RSS widget to use to feed information into your site. By having an RSS feed available to your visitors, they too can feed your information into their websites.

The main purpose of your website is to have visitors see what you have to offer. Your information doesn’t stop at the home page. You have useful information on the inside too.

Your visitors should be able to find it.