by Guest Author on January 24, 2012
This is a guest post by Anita Campbell.
When my company, Small Business Trends, LLC, first purchased BizSugar in the summer of 2009, the best way I could describe it was as a miniature version of Digg, except that BizSugar focused soley on sharing information geared toward small and mid-sized businesses. This is still true. But as BizSugar has grown over the last couple of years, it’s also become a small business networking site where business owners can discuss issues, get and give advice, and gain insight into the ins and outs of running a small business.
As the site has changed and evolved, so have I, both in my understanding of how the site functions best, and how to help it continue to grow. If you’re considering acquiring or building a user generated content site, here are a few things I’ve learned that may help you.
by Guest Author on January 17, 2012
This is a guest post by David Rodnitzky.
Having the best prices and largest selection of products means nothing on the Internet if you don’t back it up with incredible customer service. Treat customers badly and you will be out of business – period! Bad customer service will get you banned from major advertising networks, skewered in organic results, and ridiculed on social networks. Here are the top ways consumers can crush your business online.
Advertising Bans
If consumers complain about your business, your money won’t be green enough to buy advertising online. Both eBay and Amazon uses customer reviews as a baseline metric of eligibility to participate in their marketplace.
On eBay, too many negative customer reviews will get a seller kicked off, or in eBay terms, the buyer will be declared “Not a Registered User.”
This is a preview of Attack of the Consumer! The Many Ways Consumers Can Put You Out of Business Online.
Read the full post (1130 words, 4 images, estimated 4:31 mins reading time)
by Guest Author on January 11, 2012
This is a guest post by Brad Shorr. Want more? See How to Hire Your SEO Partner from November.
After taking the social media plunge, companies quickly discover that it is vastly more complicated and time-consuming than they thought. The normal response is,
HELP!
But companies must avoid a panicky response, because hiring a social media marketing (SMM) partner requires careful study. As I’ll run down in a minute, SMM involves a wide range of activities that require totally different skills. So,
- First, we’ll take a look at what the activities are, to help clarify the type of support you need.
- Then, I’ll review your best SMM support options.
- In conclusion, I’ll offer several suggestions of what to look for in a potential SMM partner.
Social Media Marketing Activities and Skills
There are any number of ways to slice and dice social media activities. This is basically how our agency organizes the work. (If I’ve left out anything, your comments and suggestions would be most appreciated!)
Pre-launch SMM Activities
- Strategy involves competitive research, benchmarking, messaging, audience identification, determining platforms for engagement, setting overall program and conversion goals, and setting up metrics. It requires experience and analytical skills.
by Tamar Weinberg on January 5, 2012
It’s my birthday and I have some great news!
In January of 2011, I said that I’d make our Internet Marketing Posts of 2011 subscriber only. And I did. Many loyal readers have checked in on the newsletter throughout 2011 to get both evergreen content, the content that typically embraces these monthly updates, in addition to something completely new, monthly digital trends – the stuff you use for presentations and proposals, for arguing that social media and online marketing does have a firm place in today’s landscape. The newsletter, which was sent within the first week of the month, would include new research findings from surveys conducted by research groups such as the Pew Research Center, new discoveries from a marketing firm’s eye tracking study, or data that was recently culled across a multitude of SEO agency case study reports.
This year, I am pleased to bring back our Best Internet Marketing Posts of 2011 thanks to an excellent sponsor, HubSpot. HubSpot has recently launched a most amazing Marketing Grader tool to help you measure the effectiveness of your website. Please be sure to check it out as it’s one of the best tools I’ve ever seen, and I would be saying that even if they weren’t a sponsor!
by Guest Author on December 27, 2011
This last year Google brought a large number of algorithm changes to the table. Although these changes helped increase traffic and rankings to many large corporations such as YouTube and eBay, it hurt a large majority of small businesses. According to Search Engine Land, some domains saw a 94% loss in visibility, and others were left picking up the pieces after they lost 80% of their keyword positions. Consider this graph by Sistrix, created to describe where mahalo.com’s keywords landed on Google search engine results pages (SERPs) before and after one of the Google algorithm updates:
Although there were several Google algorithm changes (some with more impact than others), all of them left businesses scratching their heads. One minute their tactics were working; the next minute they must change their approach entirely. If you found your business scrambling to stay afloat during these changes, you may not realize just how much treading you had to do to stay alive. In case you missed it through all the chaos, below lists all of the crazy Google changes that occurred in 2011and just what they all meant:
This is a preview of Looking Back on the Year of the Panda: Google Algorithm Changes.
Read the full post (1012 words, 3 images, estimated 4:03 mins reading time)
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Tamar Weinberg is a social media enthusiast with a passion for all things tech and productivity. She provides consulting in internet marketing and manages Community Support & Advertising at Mashable. Tamar is also the author of 
Digital Marketing Specialist, Social Media Consultant,
and Tech Geek at Heart