Mobile is an increasingly important aspect of an effective online marketing plan. It’s not enough to have an incredible website even if the content is optimized with long tail keyword research. It’s got to be mobile-optimized. What does that mean? It means it’s got to read well on a smartphone, iPad or other small mobile device. Just because you have a website doesn’t mean it shows up well on a mobile device.

If over half of US smartphone users are accessing Facebook on their phone, there’s probably a 50% chance that your customers are also trying to access your website on their phone. Can they? Websites that aren’t optimized for mobile are harder to navigate. Paging through the site is a pain because of the extra scrolling one has to do just to navigate the site.

It also just plain looks ugly when I access a site on my smartphone that isn’t optimized for mobile, as the elements of the site can move out of place instead of being laid out with some kind of sense.

So how do you know if your site is optimized for mobile? There are a number of apps available that will tell/show you the current state of your site’s “mobileness” online. I tried some out, and the one I liked the most was http://validator.w3.org/mobile/. It gives a simple overview of where a site stands on mobile effectiveness, along with a list of where it needs to be improved.

If a site is fairly new, it’s probably on a platform that is already mobile optimized, but it’s worth checking out! Some may argue that most people still do their Internet browsing on their desktop. Stats on mobile usage indicate increasing usage worldwide. Still not sure? Well, how would you rank your own use of mobile? Is it increasing? Mine is. Sooner or later it’s mobile will be more mainstream than not, is my guess. Is your website going to be ready?

Owners of Ecommerce sites are probably going to be more interested in this statistical set of information. For those not familiar with Facebook Business Pages (like a personal profile on Facebook, only it’s for a business), Pages allow businesses to create a version of their website on Facebook. Pages are completely indexed by search engines (unlike personal profile pages), and it’s an excellent opportunity to improve your search rankings online. For a full explanation of the “Like” feature in Facebook, read Exact Target’s excellent report (mentioned in the graphic above) HERE.

The search optimization part aside, if you’re going to have a Page for customers, best to offer something! There are a variety of applications and tools you can use to provide an offer. We used Constant Contact’s new Social Promotions tool to create a simple custom welcome page on our Facebook Page. It allowed me to quickly and easily offer a free downloadable article in exchange for “Liking” the page.

Email Marketing by Constant Contact also allows you to do the following:

• Choose from more than 400 easily customized email templates—or create your own from scratch.
• Create highly visual, professional-looking email newsletters and promotions in just minutes.
• Drive more traffic to your website with focused, targeted email communications.
• Build and manage your email list: import existing customer lists, add names individually, or capture contact information from website visitors.
• Measure your email campaign results instantly-check click-through rates, review new subscribers, and see who opened and clicked on each link so you can tailor your follow-up communications.
• Send automated communications to new sign-ups via our Autoresponder tool.
• Communicate with your audience with confidence, knowing that Constant Contact will take care of getting your email delivered and keep you CAN-SPAM compliant.

Click on the link below to start a free 60 day trial.

For most business, there will be something they can offer that would give a new visitor enough of a reason to click “Like” and connect to the page. Test out different downloads, discounts or other offers and see what gets the most action.

This coming Saturday we have a special treat for the attendees of our Pro Level I Canon camera class. Locally known as “Ping,” 1st AC and DP John Pingry is coming to visit during the afternoon session to chat about rigs, following Michael Valentine, 1st AC, who will be talking to the class that morning (also about rigs).

John knows a little something about rigs for the Canon DSLR 5D. The current McDonalds campaign featuring suppliers for McDonalds was shot by John using the 5D. He has a passion for travel, and worked closely with Eric Schmidt, DP who was our featured guest speaker for the January Canon Boot Camp. Eric and John shot I Melt With You, directed by Mark Pellington, entirely on the 5D and 7D.

Knowing how to set up rigs or even build your own rig for the 5D is a crucial part of getting the shot. Come get your questions answered by 2 experts in the area, and learn everything you need to know to get your own film work. Our hands-on approach to training will get you up and running in a few hours, even if you’ve never used a Canon HDSLR before. We have certified shooters on the Canon DSLR 5D, 7D, and the 60D so if you’re looking for Canon certification on these amazing cameras, come pay us a visit on Feb 25th.

Future Canon camera classes are listed on the right side of this blog, so check out our upcoming dates there, or visit www.canonbootcamp.com for more information on the classes. Or just pick up a phone and give us a jingle. We love to talk about the Canon Boot Camp!

Below is one of the videos John shot for McDonalds. Stunning work. Come shoot with the Pros and book your own work with Canon DSLRs.

The research report (click on the pic above to access the full report) is very interesting and informative. While user-generated reviews have a strong impact on the decision making process, how they get to those reviews is a different story. Here’s an excerpt from the same report:

The above chart seems pretty accurate to me. I generally start with Google no matter what I am researching. I know I am more likely to find user-generated content (also known as “organic”) in the search results. Often there are blogs and forum results (especially if you use the word “reviews” in the search request). Most of the time I ignore the manufacturer ‘reviews’ as well as any advertisements, which only have a 14% trust factor, generally speaking.

IF I think about it, I’ll ask my social network for their opinion. Usually that works well too, I just don’t always remember to ask.

So for an effective marketing plan, what’s the best course of action to take to maximize both aspects? Social and Search? I’m glad you asked. The simple answer for nearly every corporate social media effort is blogging.

Without getting too technical, blogs allow you to add 2 known “online visibility factors”: pages of content to your website, and backlinks. Google likes more pages, and backlinks (other sites linking to yours) gives your site more authority. Other sites will link to you if they feel your content is engaging and well-written. If you can solve problems for others (on your blog), your chance of engaging, lead conversion and customer acquisition increases over time. You future customer will appreciate your written efforts and recommend your content to others.

To add social to the mix, make sure to share at least some of your content to your social network. Most blogging platforms have that capability built right in to their system. If you have a newsletter already, it’s often a simple matter to re-purpose newsletter content into blog posts, saving time and money. To maximize your efforts, get a knowledgeable person to do long-tail keyword research and include those keywords into your content regularly. Over time you’ll see more and more results!

Is your brand on Facebook?

Well, if you’re still searching for a good reason to get a business Page on Facebook, the corporate version of a personal profile, the graphic above might be a good start. Are you where your visitors want you to be?

These days getting hip on Facebook isn’t as hard as it looks. There’s a fair number of template tools and companies ready and willing to get your page up fast. The problem has become, which solution is the best one to choose? An obvious answer is “the one that is the most effective!” I know, I know, which one is that? Unfortunately, one must try out different solutions and see what works best for your particular situation.

At the Association, we use a 1-2-3 punch approach. We create content on our blog, share it through social media, and also promote the same content through our Constant Contact newsletter. One of the reasons I appreciate Constant Contact is its consistent effort to provide value on the social media front. In addition to simple and easy to understand training videos about social media, their platform offers easy to use add-on tools that make creating a Facebook Page a snap. I’m not thrilled with the current templates for Pages, but I expect these will improve over time.

Meanwhile, it beats waiting for your IT guy to fiddle around with getting your Page up with some kind of meaningful call to action. If your company doesn’t have a newsletter, today is a good time to start. Most newsletter platforms have a free trial. Give them a spin, see what features you like or don’t like. Call their customer service and try it out. Maybe even ask for an extra trial month if you’re not sure. Once you’ve settled on a newsletter, use it to keep it touch with current clients, gather new potential customers by capturing email addresses, and drive blog visibility by promoting your blog content.

This kind of interactive effort can create an effective marketing plan using enterprise social media paired with your regular content creation. Good luck!

Looks like the social media landscape is shifting yet again. While that’s probably not much of a surprise (Facebook à la the new Timeline feature), this time it’s on the consumer side of the spectrum.  Which is also not a surprise, considering the overwhelming amount of information pumped out by literally millions of social profiles.

Enter Social Media Spam. After all, how much information can we really process in a day? The above graph illustrates that our favorite consumer isn’t all that keen on getting updated every other day anymore. Probably this doesn’t apply as much to daily deal type sites, if someone’s really keen on a particular brand or loves to eat out. But I know I’m a lot less accepting myself of constant data streams as I just don’t have the time to read it all.

What does this mean for enterprise social media users? How does your average small business and large business translate their social media efforts into something effective without miffing their faithful consumers? First off, I would ask your social “constituents” how often they expect an update. They just might surprise you!

But over the long term, for most companies engaged in any sort of corporate social media program, keep in mind that many of your new customers are likely to come from Google searches. By establishing a blog and providing lots of great content, long term visibility will develop that just can’t be beat in terms of cost (very cheap) and ease of use. And ownership. Remember, you don’t own Facebook. But you CAN own a blog. Where do you want to host all your hard earned content?

Stay tuned for more information on blogging! I’ll be covering how to create great content to maximize your visibility online. After all, if potential consumers can’t find you, what’s the point of being online at all?

All jokes aside, anything that can speed up editing and importing video is obviously a boon to the existence of any filmographer. If you have to render after every single cut or move, download the Canon plug-in for Final Cut Pro.

For the benefit of our Canon DSLR 5D and 7D users (not to mention everyone attending our Canon Camera Classes!), we have created a video to show you how to access the Final Cut Pro Plug in. Enjoy, and please let us know how you like the video or if there are other how-to videos you’d like us to create.

For the link to the article mentioned at the very beginning of the video, click HERE.

Using the Canon FCP Plugin from Fletch/The Association on Vimeo.

Creating content is part and parcel of maintaining an effective marketing plan. It’s also the most challenging. As if we didn’t have enough to do to forward our respective companies already. And now we have to come up with unique ideas to write about that someone might want to read and thus engage our services.

Fortunately, the benefits of creating online content far outweigh the challenge. Really.

If one thinks of the time and money spent creating a postcard and sending it out, only to have all that work vanish the same month into garbage cans (the same day it arrives in the mail box, just to rub it in), the fact that our blogs and articles remain on line forever makes it worth the effort. Consistent organic content creation is a cost effective way to break the visibility barrier online, and it will pay off in the future.

But how do we get there? We still don’t have the time to write content every week, much less daily. And the budget for staff writers just isn’t there. And my cousin Jimmy is a terrible writer. What now?

Now there is Zerys. Zerys is another word for “Awesome.”  That’s capitalized on purpose.

Zerys is the eBay of writing. Need an article? White paper? Blog Post? Custom content for your corporate social media campaign? Zerys has you covered. Create a free account, outline what you want with their step-by-step “I will hold your hand” user friendly approach, and submit your content requests. Writer’s accept the work, write the content and submit the work for your approval. If you don’t like it, you don’t pay. Easy Peasy. The writer’s can even optimize the content with your long tail keyword research.

After a while, you’ll find the writers you really like, and negotiate long-term pricing with them to create your content. Ta-Dah! You have your staff writer! Or writers. The pricing is fair, regular content can be created at about 4 cents per word. So your average blog post costs about $20. Obviously, more complex writing requiring heavy research or very technical concepts will probably cost more, but if you limit those to once a month, it’s still very cost effective.

I’ve been looking for a solution like Zerys for my clients, so I’m very excited to introduce them to you. Check them out here:

Paying for performance is the way to go. Now you can get quality content created of any type, while continuing your normal duties uninterrupted. Well, at least uninterrupted by having to write content! Not sure what kind of content you need to write? Do you avoid words like “long tail keyword research” like the plague? I can help you set up your Zerys account and get started. Drop me a line anytime.

Many of you are probably wondering what really goes on behind the curtain at our now famous Canon Boot Camp. So we created a video from our January Boot Camp to share with all y'all.

If you watch the video, you will see we have a lot of fun! The reformatted class is hands-on, more so than ever before, and you learn everything you need to know to set up the camera and shoot. We assume that you have a job booked for the following Monday, so we stress proficiency and skill while you're at the class so that you get the job.

Maybe you have a job booked, maybe you don't. But you're going to know how to use that Canon DSLR by the end of the day, that much is for sure. We even give you our own Canon Certification on your Canon DSLR 5D, 7D or 60D, whichever one you bring along, complete with certificate. Don't have a camera? That's OK too. Sometimes students share a camera with another Boot Camper, or rent a camera for the day from our industry partner, EVS Studios. Most Pro Level I courses are hosted by EVS Studios, so it's super convenient.

Here are the graduates from the Pro Level I Class in January:

Jenna Spellman
Cris Judd – Choreographer, Producer
Stan McClain – FilmTools
Rick Apichairuk
J. P. Brennan
Hannah Murphy
Chad Baldree
 

We are looking forward to their future Canon HDSLR projects and will share them as soon as we get them! For future Canon Boot Camp dates visit our website or click on the future class dates listed to the right of this blog post.