Building Links

The topic of today is expanding your “web presence” on the internet.  You’ve probably heard about “inbound links” but how do they improve your relevancy to Google? How do you apply this idea?  Well, dogs have been using something very similar for centuries. Although it’s a crude example, it will serve.

Dogs pee to mark their territory with their “name.” The more trees they mark, the bigger their “presence”. Let’s say the dog’s named Gizmo.  Every tree Gizmo pees on, makes Gizmo’s “presence” bigger.  He moves from being Little Gizmo to being Big Gizmo (even if he’s a chihuahua.) Eventually, after enough trees, he becomes King Gizmo despite his small size.

Having just a website is simliar to having marked just one tree. Answerbag says that in a 2008 report by Google, it estimates the internet is growing by several billion pages a day. At this time Google has indexed more than a trillion unique web page URL’s.   What do we learn from this? Your web presence of one tree isn’t going to be enough. And every business owner needs a link building strategy for their enterprise social media campaign.

Link Building Strategies

That’s the bad news. The good news is you can actively make your website more findable and relevant to a small or large number of hot prospects.  You just have to locate the trees. One of the online trees you can target are other relevant blogs and social networks. By finding these blogs and socially enabled sites, engaging in relevant conversation and leaving a trail back to your site in the form of your name and your website address (URL), you can make your mark.

Google checks all the trees and makes a cross-indexed list of their locations. So when somebody wants a chihuahua, Google checks the list of trees and says, “King Gizmo is your dog.”

Having an effective marketing plan online must, must, must include building links to your site. While it’s not hard to build links yourself, sometimes finding the right trees (blogs and comments on social media networks) can be challenging. And not all inbound links are given the same value by Google. So being able to evaluate the quality of the potential link before you create it can be useful. To do that you may need some advanced software or the help of a knowledgable inbound marketing consultant that understands long tail keyword research and inbound links.

Hubspot, a leader in Inbound Marketing, recently surveyed 644 companies to ascertain the state of both Traditional Media (print ads, telemarketing, tradeshows, etc.) & Inbound Marketing. As Hubspot defines it: “Inbound Marketing is a set of marketing strategies and techniques focused on pulling relevant prospects and customers towards a business and it’s products.”

This is part 6 of a 13 part series of blog posts that share bite-size portions of Hubspot’s overall report, “The 2011 State of Inbound Marketing.” If you’d like a full copy of the report, feel free to contact me by clicking here or search for the report by name on Google.

In what appears to be an attempt to level the playing field, small business are investing less in outbound marketing, and turning to blogs and social media to decrease the overall cost of lead generation. Blogging and social media is a long-range approach, however, so if you are just starting out in social media, be sure to clarify how fast you expect results.

Sometimes results are immediate, especially if you have a large personal network already that can be leveraged into referrals and an increased network, quickly. But if your company just started, or if you are re-inventing yourself and just starting, it’s probably going take 6-12 months for your corporate social media campaign to kick in with some kind of decent ROI.  Maybe longer.

Are you planning on making the switch this year to a more concerted effort with blogs and social media? Plan on having a robust content creation strategy that utilized long tail keywords within the content. Blogs will allow you to leverage the content the most effectively when it comes to showing up well on Google.

There are loads of tools to help you implement an effective marketing plan using these new modern tools. As long as they are based around content and keywords, you should make progress.

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Interested in learning more about how The Association can help you implement enterprise social media and Inbound Marketing? Visit my resources blog for helpful videos  or fill out a request form here.

The earliest form of Direct Mail Campaigns was when a caveman would enlighten his fellow cavemen that an economic opportunity was coming their way. This was rapidly followed by print advertisements as a less risky alternative.

Postcards still work for many advertisers, but has the cost of TV commercial production dropped enough to make it as inexpensive as color postcards?

The answer is ‘Yes’. For the moment. Don’t ask during voting season, as the cost of TV air time dramatically increases!

But today, a top quality commercial from a real creative department, script, actors, studio, lights, camera, action can reach more people at less cost than postcards. (see below)

What’s the catch?  Here are the facts:

ADDED BENEFITS: You can use the TV commercials (spots) for your web marketing.

Being able to say “As seen on TV” on your website, adds tremendous stature, legitimacy and relevance to your web presence. It inspires confidence and trust.
If your sales department isn’t set up for a large spike of calls that occurs in the first ten minutes after your commercial airs, it’s important to set up the following:

• a live, American call center (100 calls/minute)
• an automated, email, incentive fulfillment system
• an automated email system to send leads to your sales team.
• It’s an automatic, one-stop solution to lead handling.
• COST – Between $8 – 14k depending on your requirements.

Many business owners have probably figured that TV advertising was well out their grasp cost-wise, so may not have bothered even researching it. But if the cost of a comprehensive postcard campaign is within their reach, TV can be an excellent and cost-effective part of an effective marketing plan.

Hubspot, a leader in Inbound Marketing, recently surveyed 644 companies to ascertain the state of both Traditional Media (print ads, telemarketing, tradeshows, etc.) & Inbound Marketing. As Hubspot defines it: “Inbound Marketing is a set of marketing strategies and techniques focused on pulling relevant prospects and customers towards a business and it’s products.”

This is part 5 of a 13 part series of blog posts that share bite-size portions of Hubspot’s overall report, “The 2011 State of Inbound Marketing.” If you’d like a full copy of the report, feel free to contact me by clicking here or search for the report by name on Google.

It’s interesting to me that PPC and Telemarketing suffered almost exactly the same amount of decrease percentage wise. It also appears that companies are opting for a face to face experience by investing more in trade shows. Perhaps that also explains the rise in Blogs and Social Media, since the online options are actually similar to meeting face to face.

Social media mimics to a 24/7 party. When you’re at a party, and you meet someone new under the roof of a trusted friend, it tends to be easier to accept a new relationship with a stranger. The profile information available online from social networking sites allow us to “meet” another person online and get even more data than we might obtain in person. Before we buy, we want to make sure we are headed in the right direction, and social media allows us to mine some of the relationship-type information we like to have before setting up an appointment to meet.

Are you increasing your spend on a blogging and corporate social media campaign this year? That would include the time you spend on it. Even if you aren’t paying someone to blog for you, the time you spend is worth money. What’s your estimated increase of Inbound Marketing Budget (time or money) in 2011?

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Interested in learning more about how The Association can help you implement enterprise social media and Inbound Marketing? Visit my resources blog for helpful videos  or fill out a request form here.

Note: This is Part V in an seven-part series I’m writing about Press Releases. Press releases are possibly an overlooked item in the enterprise social media toolbox, so I’m going to cover a few points and talk about how I’ve used them successfully for client campaigns.

I’m on the 1st Page of Google but I wish I wasn’t. Reputation Management. It’s not fun to have to “manage” your reputation, but it happens. Sometimes it’s because of unethical practices by the competition. Sometimes it’s an internal slip-up. Or maybe the media made a meal out of some aspect of your industry, and suddenly your product doesn’t look as healthy or pleasant as it did yesterday. And now your effective marketing plan is in shreds at your feet.

In these instances, a well-written press release by a trained Public Relations person (who also knows how to optimize for search) can save you months of work in damage control. Generally there are two ways to go: 1) Get press releases written and issued in advance of a potential hiccup, and 2) Wait until something BAD happens, and act fast to get the real story out.

Obviously, no one can predict EVERYTHING. But you don’t have to! When something good happens in your industry or especially your company, consider featuring it in a press release! For example, when it comes to dealing with money, senior citizens have been scammed often. Now there are special measures in place to protect seniors. How hard would it be for someone to get an insurance business in trouble on some kind of senior citizen issue?

A press release on how an insurance company holds the best record for dealing with seniors, as recognized by some external authority, could counter any bad publicity on that subject. If the press release was issued before your firm took a kick it looks better than issuing it after the fact.

A quarterly issued press release as part of a corporate social media campaign can  contribute a “bullet proof vest” to your image in case the worst happens. Of course, all statements in press releases should be accurate and truthful. Lies are the worst kind of backfire any campaign can suffer.

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Hubspot, a leader in Inbound Marketing, recently surveyed 644 companies to ascertain the state of both Traditional Media (print ads, telemarketing, tradeshows, etc.) & Inbound Marketing. As Hubspot defines it: “Inbound Marketing is a set of marketing strategies and techniques focused on pulling relevant prospects and customers towards a business and it’s products.”

This is part 4 of a 13 part series of blog posts that share bite-size portions of Hubspot’s overall report, “The 2011 State of Inbound Marketing.” If you’d like a full copy of the report, feel free to contact me by clicking here or search for the report by name on Google.

For the purposes of Hubspot’s survey, 9 channels of marketing were defined and each company participating in the survey defined how much of their lead generation budget would be spent on each one. The channels were defined as follows:

Inbound  Channels        Outbound Channels        Not Classified

PPC                               Direct Mail                        Email Marketing

SEO                               Telemarketing                   Other

Social Media                   Trade Shows

Blogs

Since email can be used both as Inbound and Outbound, it wasn’t classified as either. Inbound Marketing is clearly the winner here, but I predict that outbound won’t completely go away. One other outbound channel that is not listed at all is direct response TV ads. Since The Association is a film and video production company, we are trying not to take offense!

More and more the lines between advertising and inbound marketing are melting together. A web page often has advertising on it as well as Facebook share buttons options to comment, etc. Facebook provides ads that target people based on their likes, dislikes and even provides a way to “customize” your ad experience.  Who knows? In a few years, advances in long tail keyword research may result in an advertising experience so slick, we don’t regret having a constant stream of advertising.
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Interested in learning more about how The Association can help you implement enterprise social media and Inbound Marketing? Visit my resources blog for helpful videos  or fill out a request form here.

We tracked down The Association’s president Fletcher Murray (OK, he was in the next room) and talked to him about his life’s work and dedication to the Canon Boot Camp.

What do you do here at The Association?

I’m the president, director, and producer here at The Association. I started out as a still photographer and then as a DP. I love imagery, and at the root of everything, I love to communicate with pictures.

When did you become interested in film what was your first film job?

Well, I made my first film when I was eight-years-old. My career turned upwards in college when I did two films… one the first year and it won a festival. I made another one the second year and it won, too.  A producer from ABC saw the film festival results and was intrigued, and thought that he could improve their tv ratings. At the time [ABC news] was ranked number two in the market and they wanted to go for number one. They thought that if they put an interesting little piece at the end of the news each night it would draw more viewers than just more of the same format.

So I was hired to be sort of an Ansel Adams, film student, Charles Kuralt, film guy [laughs].  And so my only directive was “Go shoot cool, unusual stuff and we’ll put it on the news and see how it works.” For example, I would shoot slow motion shorts of  kids running in the park in the fall with a telephoto lens, playing in the leaves. I would interview toy makers and people who collected historic guitars, human interest stories like that. They pretty much gave me free reign, so I really liked it there.

What is your favorite camera?

I love the Canon HDSLR 5D because it puts so much in your hands for twenty-five hundred dollars. Plus you don’t have to buy film, you don’t have to pay for the processing or the telecine. It can see in low light, which is a lifesaver. The magic things in life happen in areas that aren’t professionally lit by a gaffer, so with a camera this light sensitive, you can come closer to the reality of life. The Canon 5D can shoot up to 1200 ISO. You can shoot fast and the actors are fresh (because they don’t have to wait for the lighting guy to deliver). So it’s made it very magical. You can shoot almost as fast as you can think.

What is the most exciting project you’ve ever done or worked on?

So we had six camera crews, I shot the helicopter stuff. We were flying very fast, very low. It was probably my best work. It actually got funding for a movie that was made with Nicolas Cage. He used the piece that I shot for the helicopter company, so that was exciting.

What’s so great about the association’s canon boot camp?

Well, there is a fundamental difference between the way we teach and the way a college professor teaches. With a college professor it’s mainly lecture. You just sit and listen for 50 minutes, you may get a chance to ask a question or two, but it’s kind of all about him or her. We assume everyone here wants to learn a skill. The reason people take our boot camp is that they want to be able to pull off a shoot on their own. It’s not about me, the presenter, unless I have a story that applies to what we’re trying to teach them. Our main purpose is to empower them to make their movie and not screw up [laughs]. So it’s all about them, it’s about their questions; it’s about their confusions. Most people I see doing those sixty-minute PowerPoint shows don’t even look at the audience. The people could be asleep, yawning, totally baffled, lost, and the presenter just steams forward with their show. We have three or four people who are trained in the cameras and ready to answer any questions that people have. As soon as a person hits a point when their lost we get them back on track. Also, we ask our students to demonstrate what they were just told. We want them to be able to apply their knowledge in the real world. The boot camp is all about the student; we’re just here to help.

Hubspot, a leader in Inbound Marketing, recently surveyed 644 companies to ascertain the state of both Traditional Media (print ads, telemarketing, tradeshows, etc.) & Inbound Marketing. As Hubspot defines it: “Inbound Marketing is a set of marketing strategies and techniques focused on pulling relevant prospects and customers towards a business and it’s products.”

This is part 3 of a 13 part series of blog posts that share bite-size portions of Hubspot’s overall report, “The 2011 State of Inbound Marketing.” If you’d like a full copy of the report, feel free to contact me by clicking here or search for the report by name on Google.

The question in my mind is, if over half the company’s involved in Inbound Marketing are increasing their budget, where does that leave the companies that are not involved at all? I run into companies all the time that just haven’t started participating.

Obviously there is a pretty significant barrier for 71% in terms of the economy.  I guess. But since many of the tools are free to use, how inaccessible can inbound marketing be? I’d be very curious to know what kind of corporate social media campaigns these companies are running that the cost is prohibitive. Interestingly, only 3% say they are decreasing their Inbound Marketing budgets due to past success with Outbound Marketing! ONLY 3%! That’s a pretty low number.

Is your company increasing spend on Inbound Marketing? If your company has an outbound marketing campaign, what do you find is most successful? What challenges does your company face in either area?

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Interested in learning more about how The Association can help you implement enterprise social media and Inbound Marketing? Visit my resources blog for helpful videos  or fill out a request form here.

Note: This is Part IV in an seven-part series I’m writing about Press Releases. Press releases are possibly an overlooked item in the enterprise social media toolbox, so I’m going to cover a few points and talk about how I’ve used them successfully for client campaigns.

I’m already on the 1st Page of Google for my name. Why do I need a Press Release? Getting on the 1st page of a Google Search for a specific person’s name, or a company name, is fairly easy to do without a press release. If you need more than a name to show up, such as a distinction or niche that sets you apart from the competition,  a press release is one way to accomplish 1st page recognition for that niche.

Once time we featured a CPA’s “Enrolled Agent” status and explained in the press release the advantage his clients would had when it came to dealing with the IRS. At the same time we started a referral campaign using social media. In the 3 months following, he received nearly double the number of new clients from referrals than the entire number of new clients from referrals the previous year! He had been in business in his area for 20 years, so he wasn’t new news. However, we were able to take his status and turn it into news.

Incidentally, although the press release was a one-time cost, it’s still showing up on the 1st page of Google for the two keywords the client requested, over a year later! Long tail keyword research carefully nailed just the right phrases, so that press release paid for itself almost immediately with new clients from referrals.

If you simply want to dominate your own name on the 1st page of search engines, you may do it yourself by getting on a number of social networking sites. I’d still recommend investing in some long-tail keyword research, so you can include words and phrases that cover your industry, products and services. Your name will show up anyway. Common names like “John Smith” are problematic, so consider including your middle name or a nickname to set yourself apart.

If you are willing to wait 4 to 12 months, profiling yourself on 10-20 social networking sites will pay off in search engine visibility. If you can’t wait that long, press releases are a great alternative.

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Granted, there’s more to an effective marketing plan than a single picture. A tremendout amount of work goes into creating visual treats that communicate a client’s message to the target audience. For example, similiar to how a great chef communicates with foods, sauces and spices, a video production company’s “kitchen” prepares visual treats. There are different kinds of sous chefs: researching chefs (who find out what people’s eyes like to see and what their ears like to hear) and creative chefs (who devise custom recipes called scripts and storyboards).

Then, there are chefs who specialize in lighting, props, wardrobe and casting. There’s the head chef, the director, who watches that all the ingredients combine into a moving image that tells the story. The Director of Photography captures the images of the fine actresses and actors. And lastly, there’s the producer, who makes sure the “visual meal” for the eyes gets to the table on time and on budget. Oh, and one more chef. The editor takes all these ingredients, assembles them and, with the Director, puts the final touches to them.

But it all starts with the image.  How did the Canon come so far so fast? Two big milestones.

When Shane Hurlbut, the D.P. of “Terminator Salvation”, shot “The Last Three Minutes” on the Canon 5D, Hollywood held their breath. In what most would consider a risky career move, Shane took the first “official” step of proving the Canon 5D’s visual beauty and economical cost and size was a godsend for video production crews.

When Gale Tattersall, the Director of Photography on the award-winning TV show “House, M.D.” shot the entire season finale with Canon 5D’s, we really knew the game had changed…forever. All kinds of cameras can be used to produce aesthetic images the audience can’t resist – from Cinemascope, 35mm, Hi-Def all the way down to lipstick cams on airplane wings.  But the Canon brings a special new look with new capabilities. The Canon 5D Mark II has a huge sensor (larger than 35mm motion picture frame).  It captures gorgeous color and has the beautiful shallow depth of field video cameras have never had.

Below is an example from our Pro Level Two Boot Camp students, who shot a film noir look with the Canon 5D.  The Canon held the rich blacks and pure whites. Normally you’d have to sacrifice something with video. Either the white of the nun’s habit would blow out or you could stop down and lose detail in the dark shadows. The Canon kept the whites from blowing out and at the same time gave great detail in the dark shadows. This is something a video camera just doesn’t do. Certainly not one in Canon’s price range.

The Canon’s also extremely light sensitive. It can deliver rich images (no “sparkling dots in the black shadows”) up to 1000 ASA (ISO).  The nun image above was lit with one light overhead bouncing off a white table below.  What this means is that if you like the groovy look your nightclub location already has, you don’t turn off all the lights and bring in twelve lights, extension cords, flags, filters and three electricians to recreate what’s already there. This saves time, money and produces more realistic scenes.

5 Benefits to Using the Canon 5D DSLR for Custom Video Production

Benefit #1 – You can move 50% faster. This saves you money, but it also gets better performances from a number of people as detailed below.

Benefit #2 – For a Director and his actors, the Canon’s a dream come true.  If they’re “in character” and delivering the performance of their life you don’t have to stop them and send them to their trailer for two hours so we can light the next shot from scratch.

Benefit #3 – Gaffers (a gaffer does the lighting) love the Canon 5D because they can concentrate on the fine touches they never have time to do because they spend most of their time putting up lights to make the scene bright enough for older cameras to see. But with the Canon 5D, most of that work is done. So, the gaffer can add the cool touches and get that eyelight just perfect and lay a kiss of light on the girl’s cheek.

Benefit #4 – The Producer and the Assistant Director are happy because they’re able to stay on schedule! No more freaking out, rushing the director and yelling at the gaffers to hurry up.

Benefit #5 – Bottom line is that you save money and get a better product in the end. And when you find out that you can get the look of 35mm fillm for 85% less you’ll see that happy days are here again.

The image above was shot on the Canon 5D Mark II for Producer Karen Dixon’s client, Brainzoo.

Canon 5D has put serious filmmaking in everyone’s reach. Stunningly gorgeous images can be yours.  The Association trains people how to use Canon cameras in our Canon Boot Camps. We have one coming up March 26th for experienced camera operators, directors of photography, and grips. If you’d like to see some of our work with the Canon 5D, visit our YouTube channel.