“ If a customer doesn’t invite you to participate in the conversation, keep your distance” is what Avi Dan on Forbes.com comments about this sensitive topic.

Social engagement is about building better relationships with your customers, listening to what they are asking for and adapting accordingly. It’s about creating a space where you do more than just push your brands ideas or products, its about conversation, research and customer service. For true customer service we need to be able to understand our clients needs, understand customers thinking, and understand their lifestyles to ensure we are delivering what they want.

Well this is where it is a doubled edged sword; Monitoring enables all of the above but in a survey by J.D Powers is states that 43% of customers believe that monitoring is an intrusion of their privacy. 64% insist they want brands to respond to social comments only when spoken to.

Without monitoring we cant ensure effective customer service because we cant guarantee that we will be there when our customers are awaiting a response, nor will we be able to share perspective where readers deserve additional information on situations that have been addressed. Our ability to monitor our consumers changing needs would also be hindered. The biggest risk is to respond too slowly, or not respond at all.

As mentioned on Forbes.com the devil is in the detail. You cant use one solution for every interaction. While being guided by a content strategy that is based on your mission statement will ensure you keep your customers needs top of mind, you need to be able to tailor and gauge how and when to respond.

If you find yourself in a situation where you feel it is vital to respond to what is being said about your brand, ask yourself these questions. Will responding aid in quality customer service that will serve this relationship, or will this damage our relationship by destroying their trust? Are you doing it for the good of the customer or for the good of “saving face” with your brand?

I have taken great satisfaction from dropping my completed assignments into the dropbox at MMU, usually ahead of time. Now its just a case of sitting back and waiting for the results (so far so good!). My dissertation topic is giving me a bit of a headache at the minute and I am frantically trying to make my research proposal make sense. It doesn’t help that I am working 12 days on the bounce (which is my own fault). However, I have felt that my work has complimented a lot of what I am doing on the course. For instance I had an assignment to complete this week designing a website, this was going on as I was receiving training on web content and publishing. The lessons I learnt from this training could immediately be applied to the university assignment.

I think I have in the main been able to cope with work and study, and I have achieved a decent balance, although at times my social life has suffered. I always knew it was going to be a tough year but it has flown by really and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel now.

Over July and August I will have lots of free time to work on my dissertation. Although I will undoubtedly need to start looking for full time professional roles. I am looking forward to starting my career, and also having the evenings and weekends free to watch television, read, go walking, see friends, go to the cinema and generally do fun stuff again!

Network-a-rama.  (That’s why we were all there.)

Then we all went about our daily business, doing what needs to be done of a Tuesday and yesterday evening it was back for round 2 of IMAGE Tuesday at the RHA Ely Place for the official launch of Image Daily, the magazine’s new website (still found at image.ie) but now offering its users a wealth of new content on a daily basis.  Ellie Balfe, the lady driving this new web initiative, spoke passionately about the intentional focus on providing consistent quality content as the key to engaging users and keeping them coming back for more.

All the fash pack were there drinking wine, gin and tonics and nibbling niceties from Coppa Café (as one does at such events) on what transpired to be the first (possibly only) summer-like evening we have had in this country since July last year.  Temperatures reached 19 degrees yesterday and it was positively tropical to sit out in the outdoors area smoking fags, air kissing and what not. Mwah mwah…DAHLING! Isn’t this fabulous?!

The showcase of the evening was the fastest-put-together-fashion-show-in-the-history-of-fashion-shows to create an iconic shoot in celebration of the site relaunch, styled and introduced by Sonya Lennon.  Walking to the sounds of Duran Duran’s Girls on Film and wearing looks by LennonCourtney, 12 top Irish models strutted their way down the stairs, positioning themselves for the money shot:

Here’s my angle on it (and Annmarie O’Connor‘s wine glass in the right hand corner!)

All in all, a pretty great day from a pretty great host.

So to IMAGE, ta very much and when’s the next one??

Just the other day I began one of my internships for the summer as a Social Media Coordinator for a company that holds an annual technology conference in central Pennsylvania. Last summer I had this very same internship, but was somewhat new to  the social media scene, especially for business gains. However, this year I have grown to learn so many new tactics about social media that I am pushing forward with ideas to make this year’s social media campaign even better than last!

No matter what platform you are using, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc. it is important to develop your company and its brand through social media sites. I believe social media is one of the best platforms to do this. Through social media you have the ability to communicate with current and potential consumers as well as really show your company’s image and personality. As I thought long and hard about how I was going to utilize my new knowledge to work best for the company, I thought to myself that the more you can relate to a brand the more likely you are to want to have a relationship with that brand. By developing your brand’s image and personality I believe you can have effective communication with consumers and really develop a “feel” for you company and how consumers view your it and your brand.

Although this can turn into a complicated task, I have developed a few simple strategies that anyone apply to can make their social media platforms portray their company’s brand image and personality.

The first aspect of this job to improve on is to have a better organizational plan to develop a brand and/or “feel” for the online presence. To do this, I first needed to, in my head, on paper and eventually online, develop their online presence for the conference as a brand. I have discussed in earlier posts about allocating a name to your audience as a stereotype, of the audience your product/service is most likely going to attract. My first point of a new organizational plan for this internship is to answer this question, who is looking at your social media content? The importance of this is to pinpoint a key member of the audience so we can create content that is worthy of posting and we can be certain that our audience will be interested in.  From a marketing standpoint we can consider this the brand image or brand personality through our online presence.

The next step to take to develop the brand personality and image for the social media presence is consistency in content. Once that name and/or stereotype has been chosen for the brand, one must remember to stay consistent with the type of content that is posted. Although it is always important to shed some light and provide light-hearted posts that will provide a smile on a viewer’s face, it is important that one determines the “feel” they want  for the brand’s presence on social media. For instance, it would be difficult to have a good grasp on the feel of the brand if one post is goofy and silly while the very next is serious and technical. While I understand that in some cases it just may be like that, we should always strive for balance. After you create a post, read over it and rate it 1 to 10, 1 being very silly and 10 being very serious. If the previous post is a 10 it may not be a good idea is the next is a 2. However, creating a post rating at a 8 and the next at a 5 would be just fine. Remember develop a “feel” or personality for online presence and keep it as consistent as possible.

Once the overall brand image and personality have been established it is important to brainstorm how the content will portray each. Jotting down campaign ideas and other interesting content is important just to get your creative juices flowing. When I am planning out strategies and content to post I also remember to use different forms of media to get ideas and points across. Almost all post are text based, but adding visual may be a great touch. But, again remember to try to maintain balance, in all that you do, including visual and text based post.

Although these are just a few simple strategies, I believe with social media that these few steps can help establish a great base for your company as a brand. As you maintain these sites and stay consistent with what and how you are posting, a brand image will be developed. Not only, will an image be developed but a “personality” for your brand. These aspects of you brand are extremely important so consumers can remember and recall your brand. And with the amount of competition, no matter what industry you are in, remember and recalling a brand could be a great deciding factor.

I always like to think of a consumer and a brand as a relationship. Developing a brand image and personality that is likable and relatable to your audience should always keep them coming back for more.

Coffee + blogging = a good morning

1. 1/2 caf Americanos. Just enough caffeine to kick my rear in gear but not so much to leave me a jittery mess
2. YouTube videos by Google engineer, Matt Cutts. Learning so much cool stuff. Yes, I’m that nerdy.
3. Moving forward on projects. After stagnation on a few big projects, they’re finally moving forward again and I’m feeling really positive about them. There is actual measurable progress. Which is awesome.
4. New routines. I’m developing new routines and plans for my blogs, which is seriously exciting. I’ve blogged forever but never consistently enough. If I want to advise people on how to “market their brands” and “increase search engine traffic” and all of those other buzzwordy things, I need to actually do it myself. It’s more work, yes, but it can only yield positive results. And dammit, I find that inspiring!

That’s all for now. I’m going to try to make this a weekly thing, as I’m sure there will be at least one thing that inspires me each week. And please feel free to share what’s inspiring you this week, whether it’s something someone said to you, a particularly fun thing you did over the weekend, or a quote you read online, I want to know!

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1) Business Cards

Business cards are without any doubt the best way to market your business, website and/or Blog. Business cards have been in use since forever to promote a business or person and to make people aware of your presence, also to create awareness of your nature of work or the services that you provide.

Due to their physical attributes, that they are small and simple, these can easily be handed out and distributed all over the place.

It is sensible to always pack these with as much information as possible. Bright, colorful and uniquely designed cards are much better to grab the attention of your potential clients.

Various resources are available on the web to help you design and print the kind of business card which will be best for you and your Blog.

2) Events

Attending events such as Web related expos, award shows, community meetings or product launches are another great way to market your Blog offline and make new friends and professional contacts in the same process.

With the right amount of budget you can arrange such events on your own in support of your personal Blog and other Blogs within your category of interest.

Events are one of the sure shot ways to direct some good web traffic for your Blog. You can effectively show off your Blog by preferably visiting high profile events of the aforementioned types.

Not only do such social activities help you market your Blog but at the same time it also provides you with the opportunity to interact with and share ideas with other Bloggers, who are interested in the same things as you.

3) Magazines and Newspapers

You don’t necessarily have to advertise with the biggest and most expensive Magazines and Newspapers. Instead you can opt for the local publications which are willing to get ads and content to get noticed.

Magazines and Newspapers which are free can also be used as a powerful marketing tool. Usually such publications have a huge amount of readers because of their lower cost.

4) Stickers/Bumper Stickers

Many drivers and car owners like to put bumper stickers on the back of their cars. Stickers too can be used to get the name of your Blog noticed by people.

If you are driving or parked or stuck in a traffic jam, chances are good that a bumper sticker with the name of your Blog on it will catch people’s eyes.

As with Business cards, the design of your sticker should be of the utmost priority. Get made the best stickers that you can afford.

Start off by placing them on the cars of your friends and relatives and hope for the best.

5) Publishing Articles

Although this is very similar to submitting and marketing your articles online, it is by far one the most useful methods to get recognition and mention for your Blog. You will need to start off by writing an article for magazines and newspapers, and then try to get it published.

Although it may not get accepted right away but it is worth trying everything you can to promote your Blog. Or you can always use the article as an addition to your personal portfolio if you like.

6) Press Release

This is one method which is often overlooked as far as Blogs are concerned. But if you succeed in writing a catchy and noticeable press release it can be very useful.

Amongst the various ways to get promoted offline, this can be one of the prominent success areas if you can nail it right.

7) Create a Blog Brochure

Often you have seen people standing on the streets handing out brochures to promote all types of events, businesses and services. This is something that you can do yourself for your Blog. Design an attractive brochure and hand it out to people on the streets.

If you don’t feel like standing in the streets to do it you also have the option of using your local newspapers to get your brochures placed in the middle and sold, by paying the newspaper their required fee.

8) Branding Merchandise

Like Business cards and Bumper stickers mentioned before, placing your Blog URL and title on a cap or a T-Shirt is a trendy way to get noticed, particularly when you walk through a busy area or a shopping mall, with your branded apparel.

You don’t need to just stop at a cap or a T-Shirt, you should try branding merchandise and all types of items that we use everyday such as pens, markers, key chains, mouse mats, coffee mugs, umbrellas, laptop or school bags and even cell phone accessories such as covers and belt pouches etc.

9) Television and Radio

This is by far the most expensive way and the most traditional offline marketing domain. Placing an Ad for your Blog on TV or radio can be extremely costly, but if you are willing to spend and have the big amount of cash required for such a venture, then this step can do wonders for the promotion of your Blog and/or website, off the web.

10) Word of Mouth

Last but not the least, this is the best free way of promotion, provided by nature itself.

Telling somebody about your website/Blog, who will then pass on the information to somebody, who will then tell another person and so on.

But do keep in mind one thing; make sure that your Blog is good enough to make it worth talking about.

Seems like a very safe assumption, don’t you think? I mean one of the major advantages of conducting your business online is that you avoid the costs of conventional paperwork and printing.

And if you consider the fact; that you are based in one continent while your client is living in another (which is certain while working over the Internet), than the chances of meeting in person and exchanging business cards are very low.

But like all assumptions, it is very wise and worth it to examine them closely.

Let me elaborate my point by presenting a few questions; whether you need business cards or not depends on your answer to these questions:

•  Do all your potential clients currently conduct their business online?
•  If yes, do they know how to find your Blog/website?
•  Will all these potential clients, be able to find your site six months from now?
•  Is your Blog/website getting all the web traffic that you desire?
•  Does everyone you discuss your business or services with have a pen and paper handy so they can note down your website address?

If your answer to ANY of these questions is “No”, then my friends you need and can use traditional printed business cards very profitably.

Business cards are among the most versatile, affordable, portable, and accepted marketing tools that you can use. You meet people all the time at church, the grocery store, the school function, the tradeshow, and so on. One of the first questions you’re probably asked is “So, what do you do for a living?” You tell the person about your online business, right?

Suppose this acquaintance is really impressed. They want to check out your Internet business. So you eagerly spell out your website URL. That’s great, but … do you think they’ll remember it after the game or after the meeting, when they get back to their computer and actually have a few minutes to go check it out? Sadly, they probably won’t.

And say your product or service intrigues them, but they have no need of it now. Could they find your site again in a few weeks or a few months? Maybe, if they remembered to bookmark your site. No guarantees, though. And they probably won’t bookmark your site anyway if they don’t anticipate the need for your product or service in the near future.
So a business card would sure be a handy way to give that person your URL. And if your URL changes, they might even be able to find you the old-fashioned way (through your postal address or phone number!)

A business card is also a terrific way to generate more interest in your site, simply because there are so many ways to prospect creatively with business cards. You can tuck a card with your URL on it in all your “snail mail” correspondence. You can introduce yourself with your card. You can tuck your card in related books at the library. You can post your card on bulletin boards. And you can hand your card directly to that really hot prospect you just met, with a big sincere smile and a firm handshake.

Finally, like it or not, having a business card “legitimizes” your business in some people’s eyes. It’s concrete evidence that your business is real and that you take it seriously.

At this point it is also very important to mention that not only do you need to have a good business card, you must also be knowledgeable to know how to make your own business cards.

You might think, “Why go through the extra work when my job/company gives them to me?”

Consider one real-life scenario, If you get laid off, having a good business card (and personal Web site that functions as a digital resume) can make the difference between finding freelance work or not.

Nigel French in one of his very informative video available at Lynda.com recommends that you first consider what to include on your business card long before you think of design. These might include:

• Company name
• Tagline
• Logo
• Your name
• Phone number(s)
• Address
• E-mail
• Web site

“You need to decide which of these elements are appropriate to your business,” French said.

If you’re a freelancer or Blog owner, what is and isn’t appropriate will be different than what you would include if you worked for a company. Your name will be your company name. You may or may not have a tagline about yourself. I would include, however, what you do.

This doesn’t mean you list all your skills. It means you list in general what you do. So, if I look at your card, I’ll know that you’re Tom Smith the Web developer from Washington, D.C. and this is how I can view your work (the url of your personal Web site!) and get in touch with you.

So my friends in the end; do I think you as a Blog owner, need business cards? …Only if you want more business !

However, around 2007 I needed to increase my income substantially. I was moving out of my parent’s house and couldn’t just rely on writing for magazines to pay the bills. At that point, I’d done a few content projects here and there. I wrote ebooks and press releases and all of that. Just not as much as I do now.

In fact, for the past five years, I’ve spent most of my time writing web content, SEO, and doing work for companies like crafting white papers and company bios. Still, I never lost my love for the editorial style and it pleases me greatly that my work has once again shifted toward writing for publication.

I already blogged about my gig with Fit-Journey.com, which is exciting and allows me to really stretch my creative writing muscles (see what I did there?) but I’ve neglected to mention my work for other fitness and health sites.

As a contributor to Demand Media, I write articles for several sites including The Nest, AZ Healthy Living, The Bump, eHow, and Livestrong. I will be writing about this more in the future, but I just wanted to mention it now since these articles take up a significant portion of my workload. In fact, I went on a pinning rampage on Pinterest the other day and found I’d written over 500 articles for Livestrong covering health and fitness, beauty and skincare, credit/taxes, and business. Isn’t that nuts? All this time, I was worried I didn’t have enough content to share with you all but I was obviously mistaken!

As I move forward in this niche, I was wondering if any of my readers had preferences as to the subject matter I covered? Is there any area of health and fitness that you would like to see more attention paid? I’m always looking for new angles to cover so feel free to share!

Thanks to the internet which is providing limitless opportunities for people, who maintain interest in doing such things seriously. As we all are aware of the fact that every business takes some time to get established and to generate profit. So if in the start of your freelance endeavors, or even at any other time, you don’t get the desired results or benefits, then don’t lose hope because this article will provide you with some very useful tips to get you started and up to speed, in the field of freelancing and to help you become a better I.T. freelancer.

1) Update your portfolio

Creating a professional and detailed portfolio of your work and then keep on updating it is the primary task that you need to undertake and is also one of the most important things which you will need to accomplish as a freelancer.

Many freelancers overlook the importance of a good portfolio and/or don’t create and update portfolios. Often because they find the process overwhelming or they think that maybe their work is not good enough to be included in and marketed as a professional portfolio.

Assembling and putting online your portfolio is not at all a daunting task, although sometimes it may become time consuming. Numerous websites and web services exist that can help you create professional and eye-catching portfolios. So if you are out of work or have some spare time on your hands then creating and updating a portfolio of your work, is the best way to utilize your free time.

The importance of a portfolio cannot be denied in any case, because this is the most effective way to demonstrate to the people out there and potential customers about your I.T. skills and capabilities.

2) Look at your marketing efforts

When you create something and want it to be known and reachable to everyone, what you need to do is to advertise your creations in an effective manner. Like here, as we are talking about working as a freelancer, you should have a look that how you are marketing yourself, your skills now. And what needs to be done more, so that everyone should get to know about your capabilities. For example you should make it sure that you are represented in social media, try making new and attractive offers etc.

3) Try to Target on Potential Niches

It is a reality that a person usually uses less than ten percent of his capacity to think and to use his brains. This means that if a person can find the right illumination or encouragement, there is a lot of room for more creativity and thinking. A person who is alone can’t think that much because he only has his own ideas to spring back. But if that person will be in a group can come up with some new ideas like if we talk about freelancer, if he’ll read blogs of other writers, it is possible that some new ideas might popup in his head which he would not have thought of while thinking alone. Brainstorming sessions are sure to come up with plenty of ideas that can be used for a business like freelancing.

4) Contact Recent Clients

This is such a thing which shouldn’t be missed by any freelancer as it really helps you out in reminding others of your work and also reminds them of things they have that need to be done by you. Secondly such clients also get very happy with this contact because it gives them a feel that they are remembered and honored in such a way. So you shouldn’t miss contacting such clients in your slow days.

5) Update your own Blog and/or Website

This is such an activity which needs to be done if you have your own website or a blog. Updating the website is very necessary thing as you want the interest of your readers to be built for your website. In addition to that many missing things which you thought once to add in your website to make it more attracting but couldn’t, because of lack of time. So you should take the advantage of your dry times to update your website/blog.

6) Enhance Your Skills

It is a fact that no one is perfect in this world, though you may have many skills and capabilities but still there is a room of improvement. So in your dry times what u need to do is to enhance your skills by going through internet, reading magazines, watching videos related to your work of interest so that you can get different and innovative ideas which you can utilize in future by working as a freelancer.

7) Work on long-time projects

At times as a freelancer, you might get a lot of work to be done on short notice, because of which it gets difficult for you to finish the long terms projects which u got already with deadlines. So in such dry days, you get a good opportunity to finish such kind of long projects which will keep you busy.

8) Work on personal projects

As a freelancer, the kind of blogs for which you are working, might be you got other interests too for which you can work. So if you don’t get work routine wise then you not need to worry about. Start doing work on projects of your personal interest, then you can publish them too and can earn money. In addition to that you can also add this thing in your portfolio which can show that you are very versatile.

9) Apply Your Self as a Web Content Writer

If you want to make new connections and want world to know you then internet is the right place. Being creative you can work and write on many things of your interest as you can get many opportunities to be hired as a freelancer. So in such dry days don’t sit idle, rather start writing on different quality things because they can benefit you sooner or later.

Typing other people’s articles (Guest Writing)

You must be surprised to read this as a creator why should you write other people’s articles. But the main idea behind this tip is if you not feel like writing on your own, then you can write other people’s articles of your choice just to warm you up for writing something on your own. Another benefit of this tip is that you can get different ideas and styles of writing from other people’s articles.

Edit older articles

Another idea for refreshing your writing skills is to edit your older articles. In this way you can warm up yourself for writing the new ideas. It might be possible that you forgot your older articles that what you wrote in them. So in this way you can make them better too and will be able to make yourself prepared to write a new one.

10) Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate’s marketing efforts. However, you’ve got to have large-scale audience otherwise you wont be able to make good amount of money.

11) Sell Stock photos

If you think you can sell, you can make money selling stocks. These stocks include WordPress themes, Vector images, icons, Photoshop Brushes and much more. If you take a look at some sites on the internet, they sell premium themes, brushes etc and make huge sums of money.

12) Sell Fonts

If you love typography, you can create premium fonts and sell them. There are companies on the internet which release fonts commercially. But one thing you should keep in mind is that your font has to be good and different. Otherwise, if it’s similar to any other font which is also available for free on some other website, it will be a waste of time and effort.

13) Make Money by becoming A Reseller

Reselling is basically when you purchase goods or services with the intention of reselling them rather than consuming or using them. One such way is to partner with a company and resell their product. Reseller Hosting can be taken as the best example in this case. There are many websites which provide reselling services and allow designers to set their own price. This means that the company charged you $10 for something but you can sell it to some other client for $20 dollar. If you can sell the product, you can make good amount of money.

14) Provide Consultancy

Consultancy is another way to help designers make money. For example, if you are expert in a certain field, you can charge people for consultancy and make some decent amount of money. But finding clients can be a difficult job if you don’t have good network/channels. You can make your network using different websites, blogs, social networks etc to advertise about your expertise in a specific field and consultancy option.

Conclusion

So after reading the above mentioned tips, you can conclude that it’s not that much difficult to spend your dry times while working as a freelancer because you can utilize your skills in many different ways. Creativity is such an art that never ends unless or until you leave it in darkness.

There are so many valid reasons why owning and operating a professional website is important. Reaching your target market in your own area is one thing, but having a website allows you to reach your target market world wide. Many more individuals and companies are becoming computer and internet savvy, this means to stay atop of the competition, you need to have a website that is not only informative but functional and professional. If marketed properly you should have sales or contacts via your website that are valid and valuable.

A good advertising campaign is the need of every business today, and including your current website in that is vital to success on the internet. It’s not good enough to just have a website; you need to invest time and money into your online business. Between pay per click advertising and the search engine marketing, it is more important than ever to keep the online public aware of the services and goods you provide. Whether you decide to hire out these tasks to a web design or marketing company or do the job yourself, it is the most important factor to getting your website awareness out there to the public and possibly inspiring them into action!

Now there are many aspects to succeeding online but the nature of business hasn’t swayed. Maintaining a professional image and providing a great service for your clients is as important as establishing a professional online presence. Undoubtedly having Meta tags, links and all the other wonderful Search Engine friendly includes is important and imminent but equally important is not to lose sight of the bigger picture. True success from all aspects can only be achieved if your website compliments your business ethics and vice versa.

Put your heart and soul into it

Most entrepreneurs have that essential vivacious approach to starting up a business and the truly successful ones will maintain that level of excitement to help cultivate a healthy and steady growth. A web site can help establish your business as a serious contender or just another hole in the wall. Which one would you wan to be? Some businesses place more emphasis on what they’re going to have for lunch rather than the image they portray to their clients. Your excitement about your business shows in everything you do.

When getting a web site for your company be certain you place your trust and hard earned money with a design firm that is passionate about their work and has a proven record of accomplishment. You will have a much better project if the designer has the foresight and desire to see their work succeed and not just become another bank deposit.

If you surf online and scoop out the millions of companies, it is amazing to see how many tired looking sites you’ll come across. I can’t imagine a company that sells from a brick and mortar store, allowing the front of their building to become decrepit with their sign barely hanging on by a couple of bolts. Not a good way of attracting customers off the street and into your establishment.

Never forget the heart of your business

Do what you do best. Sell the products and services that define you and earn the capital. Promote your business in the best way possible, keeping honesty and integrity at the forefront. Do not sell yourself short. Invest into your growth and future developments.

There are countless articles on Search Engine Optimization and how to make money quickly. Have we forgotten the core of doing business and how the market is stimulated? There are plenty of ways to promote your business online and expand your demographic just be sure to focus on the important facets that make a company great. More than just attracting customers to your web site you want to retain long lasting relationships which will only draw more clients as time goes on.

The need to make it Search Engine Friendly

No doubt search engine optimization is an extremely important aspect for the success of your business but one can’t stress enough the importance of having a solid image tie in. What many articles fail to point out is that SEO isn’t the only thing to achieving online success. The focus tends to be on one aspect and never the whole picture. Business like everything involving human interaction revolves around the senses.

Okay so your site gets to the top of the search results and gets a click thru. Upon arriving to your site, which lacks any sense of presentation is quickly scanned, forgotten and on to the next site they go. The attention span of the surfers is on the decline. Yes you must have relevant content but it must be presented in the best possible way so when your competitors are visited by the same potential customer you stand out. It’s all about standing out and making your presence known. When you first write your business plan (you do have a goal right?), one of the main things is to define your sole purpose and what the business hopes to achieve and how you stand out from everyone else.

Building that niche

It is ideal to focus your efforts and find that little pocket where you can shine and grow. This is very helpful when creating your online image. Custom designed graphics, tailored to your business will help secure your position within your chosen niche market. A beautiful looking web site will not help your ranking but it will help secure client interest and entice sales. Many SEO specialists overlook the importance of branding, which is number one in order for a company to separate themselves from the pack. Don’t allow customers the chance to forget your name, instead try to be remembered and maintain your presence.

One of the most important reasons why you need to maintain your website is that it’s your profile on the net, which is helping you in converting your site visitors into your customers. Thus it is essential to maintain this profile of yours on the net to continue to achieve profits.

Websites nowadays are subject to cyber crimes like phishing, spamming, virus attcks, compromising people’s personal accounts etc. which are instigated by hackers with destructive intentions. In order to deal with such anti social elements maintaining the websites have become imperative. Company websites are generally maintained by their own IT department or EDP division. Some times the work is outsourced to service providers who specialize in the domain of maintaining websites.

Although there are numerous factors involved, a few of the more important ones are discussed in this article, which you must consider when it comes to website maintenance.

1) Website Traffic

To understand the popularity of your site it is necessary to analyze the site traffic. Site traffic relates to the hits received daily by your website from different sources. This report gives an in depth analyses of pages on your site that are more popular and also tells you about the sources from where it is being visited. Based on these reports the website can be refurbished ensuring apt site promotion.

2) Link Validation

Link validation is the most common part of the web maintenance regimen. This includes checking all the hyperlinks on your website ensuring that they all are intact and in working condition. Having dead links gives a bad impression to your site.

3) Revising Content

Content on any website is updated on regular basis depending on the type of industry and variety of visitors. Details like new address, phone number etc are regularly updated irrespective of the industry type. A company needs to make these minor but important additions to their existing content. Generally article publishing sites add graphics to their websites.

4) Optimizing Images

Images make websites more attractive. However these images take up lot of space on the website. To ensure the image downloads faster on the visitors page maintenance is essential. Optimizing the images is highly necessary as it affects the loading speed and the overall performance of the website.

5) Link Popularity

This is done by search engine optimization or SEO. SEO relates to exchanging links with other websites of related domain. Link popularity is measured on the basis of the incoming and outgoing links on your website. Greater the number of links on your website, the higher is the page rank. Maintenance helps in making the website more search engine friendly.

6) Content Archival

Article or newsletter websites are rich in content. These sites should adopt a mechanism by which old content gets archived and is available on request. Such websites have huge databases of content which has to be managed accordingly. However in such maintenance cases people specializing in maintaining databases are required. This is a highly significant and time consuming job profile of website maintenance.

7) Web Server Maintenance

Server is the home of your website. Most of the companies have third party hosting their websites. The hosting company handles the technical maintenance of your company. The routine maintenance of your server includes monitoring disk space, data transfer and efficient performance. This type of maintenance is a regular affair and quite easy to undertake.

8) Changing Layouts

Layout changing is not a normal routine of website maintenance. Layout changing includes changing the entire design and the structure of the website of either the homepage or any particular pages. They may include additional graphics, flash, images, content etc.

The objective of any company web site maintenance program is to keep the web site appealing, up-to-date and to attract and retain visitors. Company web site maintenance is a full-time and highly responsible job, especially for web sites that have constantly changing content. Also, being a very highly technical job, a lot of software tools have come up to automate the process, but the uniqueness of each web site does not aid the automation fully.

The focus of maintaining a website is to keep it looking fresh, up dated and appealing to its visitors. Maintaining a website is a highly serious business as you deal with a company’s entire persona on the net.

I’ve decided to launch a full social media marketing campaign to promote my services as a freelance copywriter. Now I already have a blog, Linkedin profile, Facebook page and Twitter account. However, my presence on these networks is rather unfocused to say the least. Also, I haven’t been keeping them up to date which is rule number one on the social networking scene. Bad Memma.

So, I have decided to start all over again with a renewed vigor for social media marketing. Over the course of the next few months, I will:

• Set up a brand new Twitter account solely for my copywriting services
• Tweak my existing Facebook and Linkedin accounts
• Explore and utilize the benefits of social media management tools such as Hootsuite

I will also look in to setting up a brand new website complete with blogs, newsletters and informational articles. I’ll also be revealing my findings from this experiment on the site.

What Am I Hoping For?

The whole point of this experiment will be to see how much exposure I can get by implementing good social networking practices. I want to know how easy it is for somebody (like me) who doesn’t have much experience with social media marketing to make a success out of it.

At the end of the experiment, I hope to have gained valuable business leads and successfully promoted myself as a respected freelance writer for the health and beauty and self help niches. I hope that by marketing myself successfully, I will be able to offer existing and future clients a competent service using the same tools. If all goes well, it will be a win win situation.

So then, without further ado, I will start my very own social media campaign from scratch.

I’ll update this post with the link to my new website when it’s up and running. I hope to see you all there!

Every company wants to create original web content that gets people excited enough to share it with family and friends. How is this achieved? I’m a believer that certain YouTube videos and memes have an inexplicable X Factor. Gangnam Style, for instance, could have been written off as bizarre, but it skyrocketed in a way that few videos ever have. And sure, a picture of an angry looking cat is funny, but why are memes of Grumpy Cat so incredibly popular? I truly believe that both of these online hits have a kind of star quality that is beyond explanation. It may be hard to achieve this level of success, but there are still many factors that can be implemented to create successful digital content.

The first is genuineness. Internet users share content under the belief that they’re all part of one large community. The internet is a place where it’s a good thing to be a nerd because being a nerd means being honest with yourself and sharing your passion with others. This makes it cool to sing aloud to Call Me Maybe. It makes it cool to dance foolishly to the Harlem Shake. And it means that if you’re posting a video or blog, your genuine love for something needs to come through. Put it all out there, and be honest; or the internet will reject it.

People want to see things that excite them, make them laugh, and tell them something they didn’t know before. Content that does this is always rewarded by internet communities. However, no matter how witty your content might be, it will suffer if it’s not also short and simple. Twitter’s 140 character limit and the success of memes prove that this is true. The internet challenges us to not only compete with our wit but to do so as concisely as possible. Will Sasso’s series of Vine videos where he chokes up lemons is a great example of this. Not only are these videos strange and funny enough to catch your interest, but their simplicity and repetition make them stick in your head. It’s these succinct but memorable things that have the highest chance of being circulated and watched over and over.

Finally, there’s audience engagement. Post coupons and giveaways to your company Facebook page, and you’ll have a short lived spike in visits and likes. Follow Etsy’s example, and you’ll have long term results. Etsy doesn’t simply market their products; they provide original, fresh content that gets people revisiting their web pages. Etsy posts everything from real wedding blogs to recipes. They offer fantastic ideas and share great stories. This engages people on a deep level and builds company-consumer relationships in a way that keeps customers for the long run. Users want to be inspired, come across unique ideas, tell jokes- they don’t want to feel like they’re being marketed to. Companies that understand this and can create content of personal value to users have the best shot at online success.

The part I hadn’t looked more in depth into was adding a social feature within the project. I learned that users like to engage in social media while viewing content…no matter the content. This is why I decided to create a Facebook page around the webpage along with a Twitter hashtag. These features will be embedded within the website to allow users to tweet from the site or read tweets or posts related to the website.

The problem that I am having with this is how exactly do I engage an audience when I don’t have an audience to engage. How exactly does one get followers on their page without eliciting the help of their very own Facebook friends? This is what I am learning. I have researched Facebook based fan pages devoted around the target audience I am trying to capture. I share on their pages only for my post to be deleted by the page admin. So far this isn’t working. I don’t want the page to go viral but my fallback plan is to post funny (science-based) photos that I find on Google in order to get more people interested in the page. All of the top fan pages are humor based. I am also going to create a page on Google+ so that the page can be found in search engines. I am also promoting the page on WordPress since it is searchable in search engines. This is when it is truly beneficial in understanding search engine optimization.

Hopefully by my next post I will have a stronger Facebook fan base than the one great fan following me right now.

-Ashley Deese