Friday Funk: Royal Wedding Spoof

Congratulations to our good friends, Prince William and Kate Middleton.  Well maybe not “good friends” per se, but hey we feel like we know them with all the press surrounding their wedding that occurred today at the Westminster Abbey in London, England. I personally would love to be a princess, though that may not be in my cards, a girl can dream, ey!?

I unfortunately couldn’t be there for the wedding today (swamped at work, but did wear my white Vera Wang gown), I felt this video was like being at the real thing!! I will admit, my dance moves are oddly similar to the women at :31 oh and :46! Enjoy.

Tuesday Tip: ACT NOW to Improve Visitor Response

A great way to build a database of potential customers is to use your website to generate a list of interested prospects. An effective visitor response form on your website will do the job, if you follow these quick and simple tips that will get visitors to ACT NOW:

Above the Fold – It is important to make sure your response form is simple, direct and located entirely above the fold. This means that the full form should be visible without scrolling. A form that extends below the fold may appear to be too long or time consuming. The quicker it can be completed, the more likely visitors are to use it.

Create a Connection – Don’t just tell your visitors about your business, tell them what you have to offer them. If you are able to connect your offer with their needs, you will have a much better chance of compelling them to act. Letting them know that you will not share the information they are submitting will also help you to connect with their needs.

Talk Action – Develop an action oriented headline that encourages visitors to fill in and submit the form. Instead of the headline: “Free Downloadable Brochure”, use a headline that urges action: “Download Your Free Brochure Today.” Use brief, specific copy in bullet point form to explain what benefits responders will receive by responding:

  • Increased Sales
  • Higher Productivity
  • Improved Efficiency

No Distractions – When visitors land on your response form page, you want them to stay there.  Links on the response form landing page that take visitors to other areas on your site may distract them from filling out the form. A “thank you” page, which appears after the form is submitted, is a great place to provide links to other pages.

Offer Something – Increase the likelihood of a visitor submitting your response form by offering them something immediate in return. A free brochure, guide or whitepaper provides the responder with an immediate reward. It will also provide a value that may allow you to require a little extra information on your form.

What’s the Point – Visitors should be able to discern at a glance what is being offered to them on the response form page. Make sure the headline clearly states what responders will be getting: “Download your 15-page Guide to Increasing Sales.” Replace generic submit button text with a specific message: “Download Now.” Adding an image of the guide will also help responders to know what exactly they are downloading.

 

Tuesday Tip: 5 Ways to Optimize Your NEW Facebook Page

So let’s say your company is new to Facebook and finally have gotten around to creating a Facebook page.  It’s now another way for you to expand your brand online and you want to represent yourself as the successful company that you are.  Not only that but you want your page to create business opportunities and encourage networking.   We can definitely help you with that!  Below are 5 tips that we suggest when first starting out. 

1: Select the Perfect Profile Picture

Choose the perfect profile picture that represents your business and make sure it follows the Facebook specs.

  • Photos should be 200 pixels wide.
  • In addition to having an image fit those specs, it’s really important to get the thumbnail size just right. You don’t want to pick a photo that is too big or else the automatic cropping of the photo done by Facebook will give you a no longer perfect profile picture.

 2: Create a Vanity URL

When first starting out with Facebook, it can sometimes be hard to get people to “like”  your page, especially if you’re a small business.    However, if you get the word out through email, flyers and on your website, you could get more than 25 fans in no time and be able to create a vanity URL.  A vanity URL is a way for you to easily share and advertise your Facebook page to your current customers and prospects, or anyone you want to show off to. 

Once you get 25 fans, log in to Facebook, go your search bar in the browser and type in http://www.facebook.com/username.  It will take you through a series of steps and at the end, you’ve got your own vanity URL, check out Upright’s- http://www.facebook.com/walkupright

3: Add Useful, Basic Information

On Facebook, there is an area where you can add basic information about your company, such as website, year founded and a brief description about yourself.  Be sure to fill out ALL the fields Facebook offers that will be useful to your followers.  You want as much information listed as you can without making it cluttered. 

Check out our basic information page.  Remember, depending on what type of company you are, you may have different options on what information you can share.

 

 

4: Develop a Posting Schedule

Work with your team members to decide how often you’re going to post an update to your Facebook page.  It could be just twice a week, depending upon how you want to use it, or it could be every other day.  If you post too often, you could lose fans, if you don’t post enough, people will forget about you.  Try to get a happy medium. 

** Remember, not all of the information that you post should directly market your company.  They say 80% of business Facebook posts should be industry related information or something completely out of the realm of your business, like doing Tuesday Trivia and the other 20% should focus on the online marketing efforts of your company.

5: Pay Attention to Your Insights

Facebook offers a way for you to obtain information on how your page is performing. Facebook Insights shares with you important data that allows you to better your online marketing efforts.

You can track how many new fans you’re getting, how often they are interacting, what posts receive the most feedback, and which tabs people are viewing most often (it could be your Wall or Videos)

Below is a snippet from Upright’s Insight page:

There is ALWAYS more you can do to help better your Facebook page, but these tips should get you started.

Google Tags Expires – Need a Boost?

After only one year, Google is discontinuing Google Tags.  Tags was a tool that enabled local businesses to promote specific areas of their business for $25/month.  Are you running a Tag currently?  Here are examples of how these bright yellow call-outs appear in local Google results:

Announcement

An excerpt from Google’s brief email notice to Tags users: “We are retiring Google Tags for all users on April 29, 2011. No action is required on your part, and your Places account and listing will continue to work as usual. Effective today, no new tags can be created, but all active tags will keep running to the end of April for free.

Reasoning

Many argue that the axe of Google Tags is simply a transition in lieu of Google Boost, which also supports local small businesses.  Like Tags previously, Google Boost enables business owners to create online search ads from their Google Places account.  The main difference is that Boost ads use a unique blue pinpoint marker, and ads are eligible to appear both within Google Adwords sponsored listings and beside the map in local searches:

In addition, its payment plan differentiates Google Boost from Google Tags.  Boost bills users on an automatic pay-per-click basis, versus a monthly standard cost.

Resources

  • For setup instructions and to read pros/cons of Google Boost, please click here.
  • For Google’s official Google Boost manual, please click here.

Friday Funk: Mel’s Hidden Talent

YouTube is the most popular video-sharing website where users can watch and upload videos.   Topics range anywhere from how-to sew to the wackiest ways to play the best pranks.

You are probably familiar with the site and have watched anywhere from a dozen videos to hundreds.  Many popular videos, like “Charlie Bit Me” and “David After Dentist” have reached millions and millions of views.

With that being said, sometimes it’s kind of fun to find and share funny videos you’ve watched recently.  This morning while I was catching up on my latest social media news, I came across the latest viral video sensation where a young girl makes every animal noise imaginable and does a really good job- maybe too good.  Enjoy!

Side note: Once I finished watching the video, all I could think of was the time it took for her to practice and perfect this “talent”. Kudos girl!

Bing Business Portal

UPDATE: Are business listings you created in Bing Local missing when you log into the new Bing Business Portal?  We’ve noticed across several clients that business listings claimed before April 1 have not migrated into the Bing Business Portal.  Others have also noted this in Bing’s forums.  Bing recommends that you fill out this online form if previously-claimed locations are missing from the Bing Business Portal.

ORIGINAL POST: Microsoft, a multinational corporation, has released its newly upgraded version of Bing’s directory of local businesses, which allows users to update, claim and manage their business listings for free.

What was once called Bing Local Listing Center is now being referred to as Bing Business Portal Beta.  The platform is in “beta,” which means it’s still in the testing phase.

The portal allows for business owners to dress up their listings by adding their company logo, photos and basic information.  In addition, you can add store hours, parking availability, and types of payments accepted.  This might sound familiar because you could do this in past versions, but Bing Business Portal has added even more features:

  • Mobile Products (refer to first image below)- where you can add product descriptions to your profile page for mobile use
  • Specialties (refer to second image below) - where you scan decide a percentage portion of your business efforts
  • Facebook – enabling users to post information from the portal to their Facebook page
  • Coupons - the option to share your best deals with the public

…plus MORE!

Like other prominent search engines (i.e. Google and Yahoo), Bing has created this tool to assist businesses in obtaining professional relationships with those in their local areas, online.

We will keep you updated on any new changes the Beta version has in store for us!  We encourage you to explore your account, and if you don’t have one- it’s easy and free to sign up.

List of Banned Terms in Google Places

Are you a small business owner who’s seen this ominous message in Google Places?


Eeek, it’s scary looking right?!  The Google Places forum is full of posts from people who have received this error after using correct, official business data in their listing.  They do not understand which terms within their listing are banned.  We may never know why certain terms are banned, but we now have a pretty definitive list of banned terms.

All thanks to our friend, Local Search guru Mike Blumenthal…we present:

The Comprehensive List of Banned Terms on Google Places

Enjoy, and avoid using any of the banned terms in your Google Places listing.  If you find any others not on the list, please comment below.

Upright’s NCAA Bracket – “Winning!”

Everyone at the Upright office has complained to me about their trashed NCAA brackets.  They’re full of “coulda, shoulda, woulda”s about their picks.

I have no sympathy– I say get a grip!  That’s because I won our bracket bigtime and predicted UConn to win the whole thing. YES!

I can hear cheers for myself out in the blogosphere.  How sweet the sound.

Final Upright standings are below.  (I’m collecting enemies for next year’s payback, I know!)

Hope all of you fared just as well or better (possible?) than me.  And that you are big UConn fans.  Go Huskies.