But here is where the power of InMail comes into play…  LinkedIn says “professionals are 30 times more likely to open LinkedIn InMail than other email, because they view InMail as originating from a trusted source.” In fact, you get a Feedback Score from LinkedIn InMail about how many positive responses you receive and if you don’t get a response within seven days, LinkedIn will credit your account with a new InMail. I can attest to this… InMails get opened almost 100% of the time but more importantly, I have NEVER not received a response via an InMail sent.

Here are some additional tips from Josh Loposer from Driving Traffic…

LinkedIn has evolved, and it’s quickly becoming one of the best places for generating highly qualified leads. It’s true.

Did you know that the once second-tier business networking site now has well over 200 million active users? Sure, that pales in comparison to Facebook’s community of 1 billion strong… but that’s also what makes it BETTER than Facebook (yep, I just said it).

Facebook’s community and connections are built entirely on a social framework. It’s people sharing cat photos and venting about their coworkers.

LinkedIn’s community is built on a framework that’s entirely professional. Think about it; there’s really no reason to be on LinkedIn unless you’re motivated to advance your career or business. It’s not a good venue for cute cat photos and Fail videos.

The point is that LinkedIn, by design, attracts a certain type of user, one that’s more likely to be motivated, affluent, etc. It automatically collects users that belong to a certain, highly valuable demographic. If this type of customer fits your customer profile, LinkedIn is a gold mine.

1. Create a LinkedIn Group

LinkedIn Groups are perhaps the most active corners of the entire network — and also the most underutilized by marketers. You may be asking, how exactly is a LinkedIn group going to help me generate leads?

It’s simple: Create a group in which the topic ties in seamlessly with your product or service.

For example, if your were trying to generate leads for your SEM company, you’d create group entitled “Online Marketing 101.” This gives you 2 massive advantages:

1. You get to hand pick who you invite — other LinkedIn users who you believe to be potential leads and colleagues.

2. You get to mail to the group once every week through LinkedIn Announcements.

When you create a LinkedIn Group, you’ll need to make a few decisions about how you’ll manage it. First off, will this be a “closed” group or an “open” one?

As you probably guessed, closed groups require approval to join and the conversations within those groups are not visible to the public. Closed groups are easier to manage (because there are less contributors). On the flip side, they grow much slower.

By managing a group, you can screen members, direct conversations, and set the ground rules for group posting. For example, you can make users agree not to pitch their products and services in the group.

As you post answers to technical questions in your group, you’ll be demonstrating your massive SEM knowledge and you’ll be hailed a hero. Users will take notice of your company profile and reach out to you for help on their own projects.

This strategy is one of the best lead gen strategies on social media, because it allows you to expose you to a very qualified pool of leads.

2. Join a Group

So we’ve already identified that LinkedIn Groups are full of top-notch prospects, right? Just because you didn’t create the group, that doesn’t mean you can’t tap into it…

The users in a LinkedIn group are usually there to make connections and ask questions. It’s a perfect set up for you to showcase your expertise on a subject.

Budget some time each day, as little as 10 minutes a day, and spend that time offering helpful answers and suggestions in groups that are relevant to your business. Connect with the user that asked the initial question and follow-up when possible.

TIP: Don’t be spammy. Remember that you are looking to build a good working relationship with these new connections. Offer your help, but don’t push.

3. Post Strategic Updates

The third way to find leads on LinkedIn is to post helpful tips and articles to your status updates.

Don’t fall in to the trap of thinking that you need to self-promote on LinkedIn. It’s just as effective to share another expert’s content. In fact, it works best this way. Nobody likes someone that is constantly talking about himself.

By sharing another expert’s helpful content, you’re building trust and relationships with your contacts on LinkedIn.

In the photo above, you can see how e-commerce expert, Ezra Firestone, has featured a post from Practical eCommerce in his status update.

And the post just below Ezra’s is a prominent personal trainer doing some lead gen of her own. Are you starting to see how this works?

These updates are a subtle way of reminding your contacts that:

A.) You exist.

B.) You are an expert in your field.

Monitor the comments on your posts for opportunities to answer questions and network with potential clients.

The key thing to remember when generating leads on LinkedIn is to spend a little time each day connecting with potential leads and sharing your expertise in a way that creates visibility.

Here are some additional sources to consider rounding out your knowledge on this topic!

How to Use Social Media for Lead Generation
from HubSpot, 3 years ago in Business & Mgmt
Learn how to harness the power of social media – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other networking sites – to get found by more prospects and generate sales leads for your business. Social media can be a powerful channel to attract website visitors and leads while building thought leadership for your company.

The Top 10 Things Companies Are Doing In Linked In To Generate New Business
from forwardprogress, 3 years ago in Business & Mgmt
Just released for June – including new LinkedIN features! eMail request for a recording to dean@forwardprogress.net In working with hundreds of companies to find new business, Dean DeLisle from Forward Progress has assembled the Top 10 items that his clients are using to find new business in LinkedIN. However, don’t just take his word for it! He is having the MYeReputation Support Center share their experience on each item as well. They will cover what they can in this jam-packed

 How to Generate Leads Using LinkedIn

http://www.hubspot.com/how-to-generate-leads-using-linkedin/

Grow your B2B network and drive more leads. Download HubSpot’s free eBook ” How to Use LinkedIn for Business.”

How Marketers Can Use LinkedIn to Generate Leads: 5 Tips on the …

http://www.dmconfidential.com/how-marketers-can-use-linkedin-to-generate-leads-5-tips-on-the-dos-and-donts/

Dec 3, 2012 … LinkedIn isn’t the most popular kid on the social networking block, but that doesn’t mean it’s not an important site for marketers to know and use.

A Guide to Generating Leads on LinkedIn | Entrepreneur.com

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/220374

Oct 6, 2011 … A Guide to Generating Leads on LinkedIn … If Facebook is a rave at a hip downtown hot spot, LinkedIn is a stuffy reception with piped-in music …

If you want thematically sound, and thus structured, content then LSI is the framework to achieve that. The search engines crawl your site simply for analysis only but LSI is part of the Google search algorithm because at the end of the day, having properly themed content, is exactly what users are looking for when they conduct a search. They are looking for information on a particular keyword phrase but ultimately they want a solid picture of the overall theme of what they are really after.

You’ve done it before too… you conducted a search on a specific set of keywords strung together. But in  your search analysis, you discovered an even more specific keyword that got closer to what  you were really after and thus you modified your search term based on what you found in the first set of results.

Google wants to return thematically structured content because one keyword has dozens if not hundreds of very closely related words and those groups of words (a theme) constantly are found together, in content as part of how we naturally write and relate words to other words.

If you can wind your words together around a close-knit theme within your content on your site, you will be miles ahead of the idiot who hires someone with broken English to write a 500 word article for his site.

After all, content (still) is KING. Quality, relevant content is what we are after folks. LSI is a big piece to solving that riddle.

More research you can do on  your own below!

Latent semantic indexing – Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latent_semantic_indexing

The same steps are used to locate the vectors representing the text of queries and new documents within the document space of an existing LSI index.

Latent Semantic Indexing

http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?LatentSemanticIndexing

First, convert each document in your index into a vector of word occurrences. Now you have a Latent Semantic Index. The number of dimensions your vector exists in is equal to the number of unique words in the entire document set. Most document vectors will have large empty patches, some will be quite full.

More On Latent Semantic Indexing

http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/001481.html

Feb 4, 2005 • 8:57 am (2) by Barry Schwartz Filed Under Search Technology. Yesterday I wrote an entry named Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA). Crawl into the Google Algorithm. Where I discussed how the current theories behind the Google SERP changes have to do with a new algorithm shift for Google.

What is Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) – Search Engine Optimization for Site Owners and Small Businesses

http://www.seo-blog.com/latent-semantic-indexing-lsi-explained.php

(LSI) in simple terms and without the college degree math that is usually required. In a follow up post I will explain why LSI is not used by search engines. April 7, 2007 at 2:38 pm. Filed under News and Comment.

Search Engine Optimization

I talk to and/or meet with anywhere from 5-10 business owners every week and one thing I am continually amazed it is how many of these business owners are paying an internet marketing company many hundreds of dollars every month for what they think is “Search Engine Optimization” (SEO) being conducted on their website. Let me start by saying this, you likely landed at this page because we intended for you to find it and click through to it. Think about it… but if your website is NOT ranking in the top 3 results or producing revenue to your business, whatever search engine marketing efforts are being conducted by this company, they are not effective and you should reconsider who you have doing this for you.

Search engine optimization can be broken into two major categories: Global/National SEO (aka Organic SEO) and Local Search Optimization or Local SEO. Global or national search engine optimization is the process of optimizing a web page for for a global or national-level keyword (regardless of any geographic restriction or parameters). Local Search or Local SEO is the process of optimizing a business address “on the map” so that the business NAP (name, address and phone number) appears in local search results indicated by a map marker, address and corresponding map inside the SERP which stands for Search Engine Results Page.

There is a “blended” approach where we optimize a web site or web page for some local keyword terms such as: “Tampa SEO” or “Florida Web Designers” or “Brandon Chiropractor” or “Saint Petersburg Taxi” or “Roofing Tampa FL.” These are just a few examples of a localized keyword term which we can optimize for using both on-page SEO and off-page SEO strategies. In this type of blended strategy, when a user does a Google search for, say “SEO Tampa” you can see some great results where the website will rank for the organic keyword term AND the business will also rank well in the local search results on the first SERP.

Our proprietary SEO intelligence process we affectionately call SpyJuice™ is derived from a synthesis of  competitive reconnaissance, unique keyword intelligence, current theories on latent semantic indexing, neural network mapping, human knowledge processing and cognitive retrieval. The millions of inter-connections in human information processing (neural bridges, not unlike links) can be inferred to represent a semantic mapping of human understanding and the inter-relationships between both human and information structures (e.g., the internet).

Since search engines attempt to simulate aspects of human knowledge structures and processing –  The SpyJuice™ process provides an unique convergence between the way humans and search engines attempt to process, store, and retrieve information – which we then combine with proper keyword decision intelligence coupled with a clear understanding of what your top competitors are doing in the SEO landscape.

Think Big Enterprises founder Lane Houk has devised proprietary Keyword Intelligence and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques based on a sound SEO methodology gleaned from a clear knowledge of what the major search engines (and ultimately, your customers) are looking for when searching.

Think Big Enterprise’s proprietary SpyJuice™ methods are incredibly effective in terms of search engine rankings precisely because they are firmly grounded in the same principles the search engines actually utilize in their algorithms – which in very simplistic terms is to provide logical and meaningful original information perfectly aligned with the search inquiries of their users.

If you’ve done even a little research into SEO strategies, one thing you’re likely to have heard before is that “content is king.” This is absolutely true. The major search engines are looking for the best, most semantically relevant content related to the user’s search; and this makes complete logical sense.

Simply put, we help our clients take the special expertise they have in their respective industry and turn that knowledge and expertise into highly relevant, unique, expert content which is translated into and semantically aligned with the keywords they want to rank for to attract the specific type of clients they are looking for – which is a searcher with HIGH BUYER INTENT. We then apply additional SpyJuice™ tactics to construct your website architecture using a highly sophisticated blueprint for success and execute – month after month. 

In addition, Google is continuously scanning the horizon for the authorities in nearly every niche, in every local community. Their Google+ platform is their next foray into this quest. Smart SEO companies understand how Google+ needs to be utilized to help their clients achieve top first page rankings.

Our marketing platform includes unique computerized systems and methods for marketing companies on the Internet and, more particularly, for optimizing and enhancing a company’s visibility on the search results pages of conventional Internet search engines, such as Google®, Yahoo®, and Bing®.

We help our clients establish their authority in their respective industry. Our SpyJuice™ web intelligence products produce superior results. Period. We’ll prove it to you in a private one on one meeting. We do not disclose the entire process nor do we disclose the proprietary software we use in our SpyJuice process but you can bank on the results.

Call Think Big Enterprises now to discuss how we can help you rank your website for the best keywords which will drive more qualified buyer traffic to your website. 1-888-607-1888 ext. 0

Click here to learn more about Search Engine Optimization

JANUARY 5, 2013

1. Use the ELEVATOR PITCH LIBRARY! – there are tons of “Done For You” elevator pitch templates to assist you in in creating your very own customized “Million Dollar Message.” — below I will give you mine! Here’s the URL shortcut to the “Done For You Elevator Pitch Templates:  - You will have to login at this page and then you will land right in the template section of TBU!
2. More Transactions Section — for those of you who have been in business for one year or more – the “MORE  TRANSACTIONS” section of TBU provides you with multiple ways to QUICKLY GENERATE MORE BUSINESS - and thus more revenue! You probably have stacks of business cards, a client database of some sort (spreadsheets, constant contact, quickbooks database, etc) and even your own email contacts. I call these “FISHBOWLS” and most business owners have a couple different “fishbowls” to connect with and generate more business by marketing to them. Past clients are a fishbowl. Referral partners are a different fishbowl. Personal friends and family are yet another fishbowl.

But here’s the million dollar question: What exactly are you doing with all these fishbowl contacts? When’s the last time you sent them an email? Or a SMS/Text message? Or a card? Whatever… seriously. When?

The fact is most business owners ignore the gold right underneath their feet. Mostly because they simply do NOT have a simple, easy system in place to quickly reach out to these various contacts to prospect – whether for another transaction or a new referral.

If you don’t have a “system” in place and would like to know how to implement this all-important component of building and growing your business, call me directly and I’ll explain how.

Here’s my Million Dollar Message:

At Think Big Enterprises we provide business owners with innovative marketing solutions, competitive intelligence and technology systems that create greater efficiencies, develop market opportunities and discover new vertical revenue streams in their business. Implementing our strategies will help a business owner quickly generate more leads, attract more clients and increase their bottom-line revenue so they can be more profitable than ever before.

Watching the video below will take you on a Guided Tour Test Drive of Think Big University.

I understand…  As business owners, you and I are bombarded with marketing messages every day to buy more “stuff.”

I know business owners are often skeptical…  I’m one of them. That can be a good thing but I always make sure my skepticism
doesn’t make me “close-minded”…which is why I really encourage you to just watch the video above IN ITS ENTIRETY if you’re on the fence about whether or not to embark on this investment for you and your business in 2013.

I have a hard time believing that any savvy business owner will have any skepticism left after watching  and learning about
what you get when you decide to invest in Think Big University.

I have spent the better part of 15 years and hundreds of thousands of dollars of my own money in being coached to grow a business
and I have learned from some of the most brilliant and successful people in the world on how to grow a business.
Predictably and perpetually.

My current business (Think Big Enterprises) grew by over 300% in 2012.

My publishing partner and I have spent the last five years and over $2 million
creating a state-of-the-art  business growth system, an educational and implementation platform if you will.

Think online business school  (like a Phoenix University) meets
world-class strategic and implementation coaching — in one seamless systematized platform.

One of my great mentors, Marshall Thurber, taught me that,
“Whatever level of success you have achieved up till today is the result of the level of thinking you have attained to date… And if you want to achieve a new level of success then you must achieve a higher level of thinking going forward.”

The problem with most thirty-somethings, forty-somethings and fifty-somethings is that we get into our job life or careers and we stop growing intellectually… AND we get really busy…
And worse, we stop implementing and executing faithfully on what we have learned IF we are learning anything new or useful at all.

On top of that, much of what you have learned about running and growing your own business

Let me introduce you to
THINK BIG UNIVERSITY

Click Here to enroll in Think Big University

I spent five years being coached by a world-class coaching company called Building Champions. I paid $550 every month for one hour of coaching from two different executive coaches, Greg and Scott. And I did it for five years faithfully. One hour per month and sending the $550 check. From 2004-2007, I spent many $1000′s also learning from Todd Duncan, one of the worlds premier sales trainers.

In 2006 I spent $20,000 to be around one man for two days, one time per quarter in Park City, Utah. Best $20,000 I ever spent by the way.
To this day, I still invest about 10% of my annual income learning and growing.

Think Big University is a fusion of everything I have learned in the last 15 years — organized, broken down into the top five profit centers of a small business and wrapped up in a complete system to follow.

Add in modules on how to craft a world-class elevator pitch, how to to turn your business card into a lead machine, how to create a revenue-generating website, how to create a drip campaign… shall I continue?

Throw in competition-crushing marketing you can steal, swipe and adapt, pre-written drip campaigns, pre-written elevator pitches for dozens of industries, $50K ad campaigns already done for you. It just goes on and on and on.

I guarantee you TBU will show you how to grow your business by 10-100% this year – and every year. Guaranteed.

Click Here to enroll in Think Big University

The only thing it won’t do for you is implement. 

We all love GPS and turn by turn directions. It’s easy, drop-dead simple. Now you have it for your business, no joke.

I also guarantee you it will show you exactly how to make $10,000 in additional income in the next 45 days.
Yes, Guaranteed. Or just ask for your money back and cancel. 

Click Here to enroll in Think Big University

And you can cancel anytime you want if you don’t feel you’re getting a whole heckuva lot more value out of it than what you’re investing.

Together, we will raise your level of thinking to a completely new plane never before achieved. I don’t care how successful you are today or how much you think you can’t do it… You’ll get step-by-step, turn-by-turn directions (aka the Business Roadmap) on exactly what to do and how to implement and execute on what you’re learning to significantly grow your business.”

Benjamin Franklin said

You will get a system of tools and resources which is simply a revolutionary new program that will allow you to generate new leads for your business, dramatically increase your revenue and profits and finally STOP trading your time for dollars once and for all as a small business owner.

And I think I’ve mentioned that your small monetary risk is

Regardless, make 2013 a year that you invest in yourself!
A year where you really decide to spend some significant time working on your business instead of working in your business like a firefighter running from one fire to another.

The Google Venice algorithm update is, quite possibly, the SEO industry’s most major shake up for 2012. However, this algo update has largely flown under the radar so to speak as Panda and Penguin gained almost 100% of the media’s attention. Heck, even full-time SEO’ers haven’t even heard of [launch codename “Venice”]. Maybe it really is an SEO Zombie Attack?

This update integrated localized results into Google’s main universal search results pages, and have drastically changed the way SERPs are presented in response to user searches based on their location. From where things stand, it has already restructured SEO as we know it. Online businesses and website owners are now trying to cope with the Venice update by finding ways to make their listings as localized as possible. That is if they even know about it and have taken the time to understand how it is affecting the SERPs. Local SEO is really a burgeoning niche within the greater SEO world.

Because most of my clients are local businesses competing for local clients, Local SEO is one of my biggest areas of focus and expertise. SEO consultants with this type of client profile best dig into Venice and learn it well!

Here are some of the weapons (alright “strategies”) you can use to fully optimize your profile and website for the new local search landscape:

1. Join Google+

Information obtained from the Google+ database are one of Google Search’s important ranking factors. As the famous mapping service Google Places has been fully integrated into the Google+ social network (renamed as Google+ Local) in May this year, it now makes more sense to join this fledgling online community to make your website visible to local user search queries.

2. Signup for Google Authorship and integrate into your web pages

In essence, the search engines, and especially Google, are looking for the experts in any given industry or niche in each local market. This makes sense as it pertains to search results. Why? Well they obviously want to return the very best results for any given keyword search to the user. If Google can provide the user results that contain quality content from a local expert related to that specific search, the user will be rewarded with the highest quality content related to that search, which is really what the user wants. Kind of obvious, right? I mean, the user doesn’t want useless web pages filled with AdSense ads or useless, unrelated content. Google is scanning the local online landscapes to identify authors and experts in virtually every kind of niche you can imagine. So don’t be a zombie, be (or become) the expert!

Google Authorship is a new way to link the content you publish to your Google+ Profile and integrate this connection within your website. Doing this allows you (as an author of content) to standout in the search results. Here’s an example of what this looks like when you do it right - http://goo.gl/72Osk. Here are instructions on how to get going with Google Authorship - https://plus.google.com/authorship.

3. Stake your claim on your online business profiles.

Online yellow pages websites such as Yahoo! Local, Merchant Circle, Yelp, Apple Maps and Bing Places let users upload their businesses’ information. These online directories do receive a lot of traffic, so it’s best to claim business listings in these places as soon as possible.

4. Create original, localized landing pages.

The keyword here is original. Do not use content lifted from other parts of your website, while changing the location names at the same time, just so you can copy-paste everything into individual landing pages. Google Panda, another major Google update, is heavily penalizing websites it finds with duplicate content. The best way to get around this setback is to know who your target audience is, and to create content that is meant specifically for them.

5. Encourage users to write honest reviews, whether it’s good or bad.

As the saying goes, “Bad publicity is still publicity.” The same goes for online reviews (of course you don’t want your website reviews to be all bad, since that would be counter-productive). These reviews make your website seem reputable to potential visitors. Most local online directories lets you seek reviews directly from users; while the Google+ Local service already has a review feature integrated into it.

6. Provide your complete contact information.

And that includes your website’s full URL, physical address, contact numbers and e-mail addresses. Remember to place contact information in a conspicuous place on your website where it can be easily seen or accessed, and to put appropriate tags on it so Google web crawlers can pick it up. Also markup Addresses in Schema and hCard… This has become a favorite practice of mine and I am shocked that there are so few doing it. Use schema-creator.org and microformats.org to markup your address and business information. This helps send a very clear signal to search engines of your location and could be a factor in getting a +box.

7. Add a KML File and GeoSitemap to your website.

This is by far the least utilized tactic that will have the greatest impact with this update. A KML file is basically used to determine the exact address and/or latitude/longitude of a company. It’s like a location spotlight for your website. You can create one with this tool Geo Sitemap Generator.

8. Don’t forget keywords.

Relevant and well-chosen keywords on a Google+ profile can drive tons of traffic to the website it is affiliated with. Keywords that are specific and unique to a location will rank in local searches better than keywords that are too vague and general in scope.

9. Add visual content.

Videos and images can greatly spice up your business’ profile and will make it more attractive to visitors and potential clients. Choose a picture that best describes what your business is all about. Geotag your images and videos with your location as well!

Here’s a great video that may help explain as well…

MORE READING:

Here’s a great post on seomoz: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/understand-and-rock-the-google-venice-update

Users can still access these pages through regular Google search or maps, but all of the new SERPS (searcah engine result pages) are directing users to the auto-converted Google Places page in the new Google+ Local area – now called your Google+ Local Page. All of this information is now available on a new tab within Google+ called Local. Businesses’ old Google business profile is now a Local+ page that is the home of all important business information, including address, phone numbers, hours of operation, photos, videos and reviews.

The announcement was made by Avni Shah on May 30, a director of product management at Google.  He explained, “Today, we’re rolling out Google+ Local, a simple way to discover and share local information featuring Zagat scores and recommendations from people you trust in Google+.” In other words, Google Places is GONE and to be no more.

Business owners might not even notice the change since you will still manage your local listing via Google Places for Business – so on the back end it will look identical for now. There is mention of future changes that will allow them to “take full advantage of the social features provided by local Google+ pages” though. That sounds like a Google guarantee that they will continue to push Google+, so get used to it now. What is for sure is that your prospects/users, will for sure see your new page on the Google+ Local platform and the page looks completely different from the old Google Places pages.

How This Might Change Local SEO

You might be wondering what the difference really is if the user might not notice anything other than an aesthetic change, and the business owner might not notice big changes when it comes to managing their listing. However, there is a big difference between the old Google Place Pages and the new Local+ business profile. These new local business profiles will be indexed. That means they will show up in the search results and, when optimized properly, can be another tool used to get more visibility and a higher SEO ranking.

There are all sorts of ways to spiff up the new business profile, but here are some basic guidelines to help you create a page that appeals to your visitors and the search engine:

1.Keep the About section brief. The introduction section is one of the areas where you can include keywords about your business. Just make sure they fit naturally into what you write there and keep it concise. The address, contact information, hours of operation and category tags show up under the intro, and then the reviews of the business show up under that. Reviews and recommendations are often the biggest influence in people making a decision, so don’t crowd those out with a long-winded explanation of your business. There is a new rating system as well. Zagat’s 30-point scale is being used to score all types of businesses instead of Google’s previous rating system of five stars.

2.Ditch the stock photo. The flexibility of Google+ gives you the option to really display your business. Take advantage of it by showing visitors the new office renovations, a photo tour of the facility, the staff hard at work, or some of the products your business sells. You can now integrate a FULL HD VIRTUAL TOUR of your business right on your Google+ Local page using the new Google Business Photos platform. Contact us if this interests you as we are fully integrated with Google to offer this brand new service offering.

3.Start asking satisfied customers to leave you a review. Some businesses have had problems with their reviews getting lost in the transition between Google Places to Google+ Local, an issue that Google has acknowledged in the forums. However, there doesn’t seem to be a resolution to the problem at the moment, so focus on getting new reviews. Let your customers know that their feedback is important and valued. Don’t be afraid to make a direct request that specifies what you would like instead of hinting around. Most people aren’t going to be offended by, “I’m so glad to hear that you’re satisfied with the service you received! We would love it if you took the time to write a review on our Google+ Local page that explains what you needed and how we were able to meet that need.”

4.Don’t ignore your reviews. The point of the page is to be social, to develop a following, to discuss and interact. Negative reviews are going to happen. The way you respond to them is the opportunity to define the business. Reach out and try to resolve the problems. Best case scenario is you convert a disgruntled customer into a loyal fan, but if nothing else you are showing all the other potential customers that you genuinely care enough to respond thoughtfully to complaints.

5.Find the Posts’ section sweet spot, somewhere between abandoned looking and spam city. The Posts section is where the action is at, and theoretically where the interacting happens. Don’t let this section sit untouched-the time stamp showing that your last post was four months ago, but try to avoid the mistake at the other end of the spectrum too. Posting link after link to content you’ve posted elsewhere or posts simply promoting yourself is spammy. A conversation should go both ways, so keep throwing “conversation starters” out there.

More Reading

• How to claim your Google+ Local page

With 170 million registered users Google+ is finding a niche among young, tech-savvy professionals who like to post and share content.  One of the unique characteristics is that pictures are what Google+ users share the most.

On Facebook, the photo-sharing feature is ranked 4th behind “likes,” status updates, and comments. Facebook users spend more than seven hours per month on the social network, engaging with one another on a personal level.

This may be why Google+ is better for promoting content, while Facebook works well for traditional marketing aimed at a broad audience. The most popular brands on Facebook are consumer favorites like Coca-Cola, Disney, and Starbucks; while Google+ favors its own products, like Android and Chrome, as well as the tech blog Mashable.

Here’s the Infographic… hope this helps you decide where to focus your time!

It is pretty much accepted that people are affected daily by what others think and say about them – especially online.  Reputation matters and has mattered since the dawn of our society.  As we move further and further into the digital and information age, online reputation matters more than ever and is becoming increasingly difficult to manage.  In fact, the vast majority of business owners and professionals do nothing to actually manage their online reputation.

While reputation management might sound intimidating, it is simply a marketing approach that can easily become the best friend of an individual, a product, or a business. In short, online reputation management boosts the prominence of “good” information on the web while burying the “bad.”

What is an online reputation and why should it matter to you?

An online reputation is the collective mentions and reviews of you and/or your company brand on the world wide web. It consists of reviews left by customers or other people, mentions of your name or company on other websites or online media sites and any proactive mentions of same by you, your company or reputation management firm you’ve hired to proactively manage your online reputation. Of course it also consists of anything you post about yourself or company in the social media landscape.

Like it or not, you have an online presence in today’s internet world – whether through online directories that have found your business address, reviews, a personal website, professional organization or through something as simple as a social media platform like Facebook you are out there as a ‘brand’.  All of the information you create, articles you write or push, comments that you add to other peoples work, tweets, posts to Facebook, +1s on Google+, Likes, Check-Ins, Reviews by your customers (or worse, your competition) are catalogued, indexed and available for anyone to view.

Just like any other brand or company, you must manage your personal brand in order to ensure that the information you post or information that is posted about you isn’t costing you money, or worse, destroying your reputation. Having negative information online can cost you sales, a job, promotion, a deal, or even a friendship. Any common-sense person knows that people pretty much believe what they read.

According to this great Infographic, 56% of adults don’t think about the consequences of what they are posting online.  That is a scary statistic given the fact that 78% of recruiters check search engines before hiring an employee.  That is almost four out of five recruiters.  Information on the internet does not degrade over time and disappear.  That information is indexed by the search engines, indelible and will never go away.  These recruiters, and anyone else with a computer, have access to EVERYTHING you have ever posted and EVERYTHING that has ever been posted about you by others.

Does it really matter? The answer is a resounding YES.

*Data from a Microsoft Study released 2012

• 14% of adults surveyed have experienced negative consequences due to online activities of others
• 21% were fired from a job
• 16% missed out on getting a new job
• 14% missed out on getting accepted to a college they applied to
• 16% lost their health insurance
• 15% were turned down for a mortgage

What this means for CEO’s, business professionals and business owners

In this highly social, digitally connected age the lines have gotten blurry between who you are personally and who you are professionally.   This is a very important concept to understand because as a business professional you make your living based on building positive relationships.   Negative comments about you online create a clear perception that you cannot be trusted; they can make you look unprofessional and can instantly tear down the good reputation that took so long to develop.

Further, and even more important, just a few negative reviews about you can have dramatic effects on the cost of Professional Liability, Malpractice and/or E&O Insurance. Negative reviews could potentially cost you your license if a complaint is filed against you as well if the investigating committee finds a slew of scathing reviews about you and/or your business. These are things that you cannot mess around with. You MUST handle these issues now and, going forward, have a reputation manager as part of your professional team.

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Consider these stats…

• 80% of all consumers surveyed stated that negative online reviews made them change their mind on their buying decisions!
• 87% of consumers say positive reviews online reinforced their decision to purchase a product or service recommended to them.  

Once a negative review is out there it is there to stay save for an extremely rare instance where one of the review directories will take it down but that is extremely rare and I would never count on that happening.  Those reviews will hurt your business if you do not manage this proactively. You cannot hide from these reviews.

92% of buyers check online reviews before they make a purchase.  

What do you want them to see?  If they see a list of mostly, if not all, negative reviews and you have not responded to those reviews and solved those issues your potential customer will see you as untrustworthy and choose to buy from someone else. The statistics are emphatic about this.  It is also a fact that Google is now penalizing businesses in the local search rankings for negative reviews that have not been responded to and rewarding businesses who have more positive reviews than the competition.

Even more challenging is managing your online reputation for if your personal persona is also your business persona.  These are folks such as doctors, lawyers, dentists, consultants etc.  Your businesses rely more strongly on relationships and trust than most.  If your personal reputation online is less than professional, your potential customers will choose someone else. Period. Professionals like these simply cannot afford to NOT actively manage their online reputation and ensure that their customer experience is carefully crafted and by design, not by accident. This includes ensuring your employees are specifically trained to deliver a great experience.

This is becoming more imperative with the introduction of Google+ Local.  Google purchased an online review company called Zagat last year and they are now including reviews and scores in search results for doctors, lawyers, brands, stores and restaurants.  We as humans trust what others say about brands and people a lot more than what websites say about brands and people.

I have personally witnessed many negative reviews where it was clear and apparent that the reviewer was still at the business location while leaving a scathing review of that business. With the advent of internet-enabled smartphones and tablets, consumers are empowered to leave reviews on the spot while in the midst of their “customer experience.”

These reviews will have an impact on your business whether you like it or not.  Now is the time to see just what is being said about your personal brand or your organization so that you can create the right kind of reputation management strategy.

So what is Online Reputation Management?

Online reputation management (ORM) is the act of monitoring, addressing or mitigating SERPs (search engine result pages) or mentions in online media and Web sphere content. ORM primarily involves tracking what is written about a client on the Internet, then utilizing sophisticated online and offline techniques in promoting positive and neutral content, while at the same time pushing down those links the sponsor (in most cases business or individuals) may not want to show when their name is searched.

Rather than working to raise link results with a particular search term in order to (ostensibly) generate more commerce or page views, the goal of ORM is to push already highly-ranked negative posts off the results pages so that they are seen by fewer people, thus creating a more positive results environment for the sponsor of the effort. ORM is the specialization in prevention and repair of online reputation threats, and has less to do with directly promoting businesses.

The term arose from recognition of the importance that influencing how someone or something is perceived based on an internet search is critical to a business and it’s long-term sustainability. As the amount of user-generated content on the internet grew, it began to affect internet search results more meaningfully, and the desire to change those results naturally followed.

Reputation management services also include consulting around the implementation of a system to regularly and proactively survey your customers to elicit their “review” of your business and encouraging or incentivizing them to take actions to leave these reviews online thus developing a positive reputation by design rather than leaving things to chance.

At Think Big Enterprises, Reputation Management is one of our areas of expertise and we have very specific solutions to help businesses with online review management along with offline or community-level reputation matters.

If you are a business that is dealing with negative reviews about your business online, call us now at 813-438-2428 to discuss how we can help!

Social media is still such a new animal in the marketing world figuring it out can sometimes make you feel like you are chasing a moving target.  There are so many different social platforms available it is a challenge to figure out where to focus your efforts.  Not every business needs to be present on every media.  This article will show you the benefits of Pinterest and Google+ to business.

Pinterest

Pinterest defines itself as an online ‘pinboard’ where people organize and share things they love.   It is a very visual media and given that human beings are visually oriented it makes sense that Pinterest is now the number three social platform behind Facebook and Twitter.  It is important to note that according to Tech Crunch 68% of Pinterest users are female and most of them are moms.  It is also important to remember that the women hold the purse strings in most households so getting your brand/service/product in front of them can be very productive.

Why use Pinterest for Business?

• Pinterest users have disposable income.  The average household median for Pinterest users is $100,000/year. (Mashable)
• Pinterest has 1.36 million visitors a day and that number has grown 125% since January of this year! (Shopify)
• Buyers referred by Pinterest are 10% more likely to buy than buyers referred from other social media. (Shopify)
• Buyers referred by Pinterest are 70% more likely to buy than buyers referred by a website. (Shopify)
• People spend money with companies they trust and Pinterest is trusted by the women who use it.  (AdWeek)
  • 81 percent of women trust Pinterest,
  • 67 percent said they trusted Facebook
  • 73 percent said they trusted Twitter
  • Pinterest drives more traffic to websites than YouTube, Reddit, Google Plus and LinkedIn combined. (Social Media Examiner) – this is HUGE!

The fact that Pinterest is so visual bodes very well for brands.  Human beings get passionate about brands they love and will ‘pin’ images of those brands to creative pin boards that express their style and personality. The more passion people feel around a brand the more loyal they are and the more they spend.  Brands that recognize this and develop a strategy that includes intriguing images for consumers to pin will benefit greatly from Pinterest.

 Google +

Google+ is Google’s social media platform.  Saying that, however, doesn’t capture the whole story.  Google+ is a platform where social media integrates with the many other Google services that people have come to use regularly.  This helps streamline social workflow and communication in a more seamless way than other platforms.  When deciding how to use Google+ it is important to note that according to Plus Demographics 2012 report 62% of Google+ users are tech savvy males with at least a bachelor’s degree.

Google+ has recently become much more relevant to businesses with its announcement of Google+ Local.  Google has melded Google Places into its social platform integrating location, information and consumer reviews from Zagat, which is also Google owned.   As a result, it is important that you not only claim your business on Google but you need to also monitor the reviews and comments already being posted about you.  These changes have made Google+ a crucial element in local search and as a result businesses cannot afford to ignore the platform.

Why use Google+ Local  and Google+ Pages for Business?

• Your business is being reviewed whether you know it or not! Zagat reviews now come up in search results regardless of whether the business has been claimed.  Businesses need to get proactive by managing and reacting to positive and negative information being posted.  According to Nielsen, 70% of consumers trust peer reviews which makes the addition of reviews to search results very powerful.
• Google+ pages and posts get better social search engine rankings.   It is Google, after all and they give you preferential treatment for being there. – Forbes
• Mobile works better on Google+ than Facebook.  As a result mobile developers focus their attentions more strongly on Google than other social platforms. - Web Pro News
• Google Hangouts allow you to video conference for free.  They are easy to use and can help businesses work collaboratively and connect remotely.
•  Google Circles allows for much more targeted marketing than other social platforms.  A brand can set up different circles for different types of consumers allowing for a more specific conversation. 
• The Plus 1 button, similar to the ‘like’ has an indirect effect on your SEO rankings.  -Mashable

Google Plus pages for business are less than a year old but are getting more popular each day.  Google is working diligently to move the consumer base to their platform by introducing such things as social reviews, hangouts, and circles.  Google plus also has a more seamless mobile platform, which is something Facebook is struggling with greatly.  With the tremendous growth in online purchases that take place on phones and tablets, having a fast and feature robust mobile platform will be an absolute draw.

Also, Google+ pages have a big leg up for Search Engine Optimization strategies. I am seeing many +pages ranking high and quickly so Tampa businesses looking for quality, white-hat SEO strategies should seriously consider creating an optimized Google+ page for their business.

Bringing it all together …

It is easy to see that both Pinterest and Google+ have a place in marketing and relationship building for businesses.  They each have very different presentation to the consumer and as a result have very different demographics and uses.

Brands with products that are visually pleasing and marketable to women are a no brainer for the Pinterest platform.  Other brands are finding their way as well, remember Mom buys for the whole family, not just for herself.

While Google+ is currently a male dominated platform and most of those men are college educated, Google is working fast and furiously to bring more consumers to the platform.  Google’s new local search features that include reviews will help with that goal by driving a broader demographic of consumers to the platform.  Businesses and brands that want some control over what is being said about their organization will need to be present to listen and be proactive to ensure that what is seen and heard about their business is primarily driven by them and not left to chance.

And if you were wondering about how Facebook stacks up against Google+, here’s a great Infographic that should help you understand more on that subject….