Internet Learning Curve for Business 101

Change or die? Old dogs can't learn new tricks? Fear of the unknown?

How many people have never seen, used, or even heard of the internet... I have no statistics here. All I know is that if my Mom ever bought herself a laptop, she would junk her remote and browse QVC's website all day and night long. As it is, the UPS driver already knows her address by heart.

But if you're in any kind of business and still fumbling with getting information... how to improve your website, gain traffic, acquire basic geek skills, or just learn anything, pretty much, I bet you can find all of that in whatever skill level and language you will understand. Heck, you can even take online classes at M.I.T. if you want. FOR FREE!! (No, you don't earn a degree. But the courses are the same as if you enrolled. For some of us who value knowledge over mere paper, that's freaking awesome. Thanks, M.I.T!!)

I did a three-part blog post recently about the internet being a "series of tubes" - you know, the joke that's actually true, wink, wink?? So this time, I'm going to rattle off some cool stuff for beginners. The thing with the internet is that once you start looking and finding answers, you can't help increasing your knowledge. First, you will find answers, challenging as it may be to discriminate facts if you're a casual user (or gullible). But one must acclimate oneself. Think of it as hazing for a college fraternity, haha. Then, once you figure out the difference between snake-oil and useful information, you will develop a keen method of tracking down specific information through blogs, forums, and specific communities related to what you do.

I personally feel that this routine is as important (more so) than plain networking on Facebook or whatever. If you only pay attention to output (yackity-yacking online) but seldom find input (investigating how people actually DO THINGS in your industry) then "joining the conversation" will be nothing more than being in a high school clique. If that impresses you, go for it.

I'm not knocking socializing with inter- and intra- corporate collegues, your co-alumini, and connections surrounding your field. Heavens no... But if you can't bring fresh stuff to the table or understand the lingo of your peers, you ain't adding much to the conversation.

Okay, Blogs... I have this one on my blog feeds which is pretty direct and intelligent information. You can dig through this blog to learn a little about SEO and social networking, etc, etc… Useful for brushing up on guerilla marketing.

http://www.conversationmarketing.com/

The blogger above has a particular article on Google Analytics that might help those who haven't taken advantage of that application's power to reorganize their sites. It's not just for checking how many hits a page gets. You can use the information to figure out what direction to go and make adjustments whenever necessary. Follow the links to his "cheat sheet" from this article:
http://www.conversationmarketing.com/2010/01/google-analytics-cheatsheet.htm.

What I do with blogs, simply, if I feel like following them… is add it to my blog feed, which is similar to adding favorites on your browser. This way you don’t have to deal with the person’s blog page… you just browse through their headlines and click on whatever article you might like to read.

Learn how to do stuff… Tons of sites that explain stuff!! It’s nice to have the internet. I don't care if you think the following are lame. I've been an IT guy with a couple major corporations, and I still use these:

Ehow.com
Yotube.com (for the reading challenged or time challenged)
Howcast.com (video how-to's)
Ask.com
Howtodothings.com
Howstuffworks.com

Also, search your field or industry by typing in the word "forums" along with the kind of work you do. I myself belong to several related to videography. Some forums are hosted by the manufacturers of the products I use. Those are absolutley great! Some are independent of the manufacturer. But their users/members have a huge cross-section of knowledge outside the product lines. They talk about techniques and solve problems amongst themselves which can be invaluable. Join forums like that... just stay away from the trolls. And don't be one. (Trolls are those idiots who have nothing better to do than picking fights with other members over stupid things. Or they're just interested in spamming the forum with their BS websites while never adding anything useful to the thread.)

Asking questions is always fine. Be sure to state that you're a noobie 'cos the other members will figure that out and you might get yourself embarassed. Usually, there's a noobie section in a forum. Also, you will find a section called a "sticky," which is kind of a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) thing along with general rules of engagement for using the forum. If you break the rules, you might get kicked off.

So, there ya go. Educate yourself and pass it along. Practice safe cyber-surfing. Be sure to use an anti-virus.
Have fun!!

Origins, Facts, and Fiction about Web 2.0 and Online Strategy – Part Three

Organic viral videos don’t need a crew of pushers sending links out to people in Russia or Turkey, or to my mail box. Nor do they need to be posting fake comments on video channels, and all that. Organic virals are rather just interesting videos that people happily and naturally forward to their friends or repost online. If you want more specific exposure instead of hoping something will go viral, pay the fees to YouTube (or your favorite video site) to feature your video. They are the experts.

Yes, you can make online videos do some cool tricks aimed to run up the viewer counter. But one thing you can’t do is trick the hosting site. If you add commands to the video’s code (say, to make it loop) and then embed it from its original site, the powers-that-be will know you’re scamming them right away. Google employs some pretty slick programmers. People ought to be happy about that since Google controls everyone’s cyber lives now, regardless of operating system or web browser (that thing you open to look at the internet). It’s easy to add commands to a video and make it loop-play after one second, thinking you’re going to rack up the viewer count. YouTube halts the counter after about five (5) loops or auto-plays (meaning the video plays when you land on the page). They may never allow your video to count hits again, ever, so don’t experiment with a video you really want to go viral with.

Besides, Google owns YouTube. You should be really happy about that, as well. Why? Because if you upload a video to YouTube, and you give it a great title, Google will kick your search results up on ALL search engines. Um, for free. So, say you have a bike shop, and you have a website for your bike shop. You sign up for a YouTube Channel and start uploading videos about bike-riding in your hometown. You load some more videos about fixing a flat tire on a bike and other maintenance stuff. You call them things like, “Bike-riding in Roanoke, VA” and “How to Fix a Flat Tire on a Bike” and “Worst Bike Ever.” (After a while, you will learn to use silly titles. And yes, sex sells, so “Hot Girls on Bikes” might get you somewhere.)

Be sure to name your channel something relevant, such as the exact name of your store or brand. Use it in your video’s description. Use it in your tags. Tags are the words that help your video come up on a search - not only in YouTube, but on the web itself. (Google owns YouTube, remember?) It doesn’t matter if you use Bing or Yahoo or whatever as your search engine. Google (DMOZ) is the scraper that acts like a huge cyber rolodex. Now that your company name is splattered all over your video channel, an online search for “bike shop, roanoke” will display results not only for your videos but also for your website (and anything else associated with your company name, like a Facebook or Twitter page).

So how hard is that? Most of these online sites are fairly simple to use. You don’t have to get fancy. A company or business web site might be the only thing that needs to look polished. Everything else, like your Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube, Vimeo, Blogger, or WordPress pages can take its time while you get the hang of it… no hurry. I’ve heard quotes up to $300 to “make” a Facebook page for clients. Please rent a kid in your family or on your block and give them a nice bowl of ice-cream. You know, the kid you used when you couldn’t figure out how to work the VCR remote… But the more you yourself play with these “social” sites, the more you’ll understand. You can hook up most of these sites to feed each other updates so you won’t have to keep logging into all of your accounts just to tell everyone you posted one new article or uploaded a new video.

There are also a lot of extra tools (if you want to know more) that you can utilize with most any site. The most important would be to keep track of traffic, what that traffic did, who they are (in general), where they are, and how long they paid attention and to what. That will help you determine whether they liked or didn’t like something about your website pages, blog articles, videos, and so on. This is called Analytics, which Google (and its YouTube site) offers for free. Use the results to plan your future marketing efforts.

If you’re worried about becoming really popular: Don’t. Just provide good content, good products, get your business name out on various places, stay current, be accessible and be sociable. I have to quote Jeffrey Gitomer, who says, “People hate to be sold, but they love to buy.” So, knock off the sales pitch. And quit making it about “helping people” too. Barf, barf. This is the information age, not the helpless age. People want to learn for themselves and the information is there. People are no longer helpless. Information is not a commodity anymore. It’s free. (PS – where do you think most of these “gurus” get all their info from?)

The Web is not such a mystery. There’s really not much you can do to screw it up. And it doesn’t take a genius to do Social Networking. How do you think kids do it? They play with it. So go play with it. Just remember to update your anti-virus and be sure to set your third-party cookies to “prompt.” If you want more protection, go to Adobe’s website and set your flash settings to block those invasive .sol files which by-pass your cookies security. Now you’re fairly safe to go back in the Web 2.0 water.

Nice description (with pictures) on how to set up third-party cookie handling:
http://helpdeskgeek.com/how-to/disable-first-and-third-party-cookies-in-ie8/
Here’s where you can learn about flash settings:
http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager.html

That’s it for “Social Networking” for now…
My next techie article will be a lesson on how to speak on-camera.

Origins, Facts, and Fiction about Web 2.0 and Online Strategy – Part Two

Just what the heck is Online Strategy? Do you need it? Are you good at it? Do you sell it? Do you buy it?

Sure, you can plan it or have someone else plan it for you. It’s like any other advertising strategy, only for the web. A company can help put together your business motto and logo, set you up with newspaper and magazine ads, paid articles, highway billboards, and TV and Radio spots. They can get you in the business section or on the front-page, or get you on a talk show. They can coach you or hire a spokesperson for your business.

Or perhaps you are clever enough to do all or some of that yourself. Some people can because they are quite crafty. Either way, it will take time and money. But unless you have TONS of money from the start, or you are the darling of your social club, an overnight success by way of marketing and/or advertising is not a common event. It depends on being at the right place at the right time with the right thing that people want. And you know how people are: You don’t.

It’s like everything else. If you’ve got something people will love, you need to get the word out, no doubt. Edison had to take his invention somewhere. (Okay, I know he didn’t invent the electric light bulb…) But the questions you need to ask yourselves are:

A. What do I offer?
B. Who’s my target audience (readers, viewers, buyers)?
C. If it succeeds, can I support the demand?
D. How much time do I devote to this on the web?

Entrepreneurs struggle with this the most, I think, because they are trying to run a business while wearing all the hats. Social networking alone can take up an entire day. It’s more work than cold-calling, because you can schedule your out-calls to 20 minutes a day and move on to other stuff. Online, if indeed you are interacting, engaging and responding to people, you might get stuck there for a while. That’s why some companies have Social Networking departments now. That’s also why gurus come along throwing seminars at you, hopefully making you cross-eyed enough to sign up for their services. They will handle all your Web 2.0 Social Networking Online Strategy needs. Which is fine. But are they engaged in it successfully themselves? Or do they know just enough to be dangerous? Obviously, advertising agencies don’t run commercials like Coca Cola ™ because they work behind the scenes for the client (like Coca Cola ™).

BUT… You should find out:

• Who are their clients?
• What industries are they good at promoting?
• Have they taken something from weak to profitable?
• Or do they pass the buck because it’s really all up to you? (Did they take on your crummy product and you expected miracles?)
• Do they claim to know HOW to make something happen and yet have no such thing to prove they can do it?

Let’s take viral videos for example. What is a viral video and why the heck would someone want or need a viral video? Marketing your business is one. Getting views (so you can get paid for them) is another. But there are two kinds of viral videos. Yup. One is “organic” and the other is “synthetic.” Unless you know that, it doesn’t matter. Once you know that, it will matter, depending on what your business is.

Viral means the online video file gets forwarded on to others and/or watched many times over, most likely on or through a hosting site like YouTube or Vimeo. There are dozens of video hosting sites, but those two are probably the best known.

If you are a YouTube Partner (which means you make popular videos and YouTube pays you), you have to be consistent with your video programming or no one will ever come back. Just a one-off video that gets 10,000 views will hardly prompt YouTube to offer you a partnership. But even one popular video can help you – sure, if it’s meaningful and brings you business. People who believe that it’s all a numbers game and only care that the file is passed along, no matter how insidiously it’s done, don’t realize the ineffectiveness of this synthetic viral method UNLESS view counts make you money. They’re posted in other people’s blogs, forums, Google Groups, Facebook Groups. They’re sent using spam email broadcasts, and so on. They’re set on other channel users’ rotation playlists, or posted as a response to other users’ videos (regardless if their video is relevant). Some popular bloggers accept bribes to post “viral videos.”

So, is that bad? I can’t answer that for you. What’s your goal? To get viewers – as many eyeballs as possible? How does that help you? Synthetic virals never get watched all the way through, which is why they are made to be VERY SHORT. People won’t put up with a video they didn’t ask to see. So, it better be a damned great video, because most folks already hate you for getting it in their email.

Of course, you can use all sorts of methods to boost your Social Networking on the Web 2.0. If you have the money, you can hire starving bloggers to write articles for $10-15 a piece. You can pay people to kick your stuff up onto Digg and Delicious. Did you REALLY think all those top-selling “gurus” sit around typing catchy articles every day?

But better yet, and because you want things to be automated, “bots” are the way to go. Want your YouTube video seen? Use a bot. (Just google “bots for YouTube” and pick one. I won’t advise you on which ones to use.) The same applies to just about every Social Networking site to gain friends, fans, followers, and viewers. It’s all there, free to research. No magic, no mystery, no classes to take. Reading is all that’s required. Fortunately for Social Networking gurus, most people who want to make a million dollars overnight do not like to read.

Most of all, what’s really so special about Social Networking, is that it’s a mighty database culled from billions of logged in users. Thus the internet has become very efficient in targeting better online ads to people. These days, Web 2.0 is fairly close to speaking directly at you and me. Some ads even say, “Ron, we have the perfect [whatever] for you!!” It’s all very creepy, but advertisers easily get info from what you post on Facebook in comments, “likes,” and stuff from your profile pages. Lucky for the marketing world, not everyone blocks internet tracking cookies. These stay on your machine for YEARS, patiently learning about what you prefer and don’t prefer in life, so they can market TO you more personally, with better results.

So, in that sense, if you want the very most people to see your spammy ad and spammy viral video, it’s not all that difficult to set up. There’s a sucker born every day, as PT Barnum once said. If that’s your customer base, go for it. I just won’t be seeing it.

Origins, Facts, and Fiction about Web 2.0 and Online Strategy – Part One

Okay, sometimes we really must post humorous information because the world is just too serious a place. And besides, today is Saturday. Unfortunately, for some people, we need to post a sarcasm warning. Times are tough and it stresses out sensitive individuals, particularly those who are angry that it takes so much effort to make a few million. So here's your warning: SARCASM IN EFFECT.

This article is about the origins, facts, and fiction concerning the internet. This is Part One of a series of three. There is absolutely no truth to it. As you know, the internetS is a series of tubes. (In reality, it actually is.) Here goes.

The Web (or Web 1.0) – this is online stuff. Back in the day, you went to Yahoo and AOL. Companies were tripping over themselves to get a web page created. Your phone did not ring while you surfed the Web.

Web Media – this is online stuff, too. Used to be Javascripted animation, that annoying page art-with-sound some web designers still insist upon using for the landing page of their client’s website (as an example). Sometimes you will see that Javascript thingy open in your taskbar when this garbage is coded into a webpage.

New Media - Today, it’s called New Media, and it is mostly video. It is coded better to stream better. That means it plays right away without you waiting for it to download. Professional animation geeks use Adobe Flash, but various site builders use similar intelligent coding. In reality, there really is no “streaming” done much anymore. Most people’s computers have the players necessary to watch files, or the files are linked and neatly coded in embedded players. Server bandwidth and hi-speed internet takes care of the rest. Whatever that means (tubes). How cool is that?

Web 2.0 – this is online stuff, too. As recent as this past decade. This means all those cool “interactive” sites and applications that everyone uses is brainless to the naked eye. It incorporates New Media and Social Networking. Biggest experts are five year-olds and internet entrepreneurs. It is a mystery to everyone else, including politicians and people who get graduate degrees in Computer Sciences. After all, the Web is one big happy world-wide market. Programmers are just a necessary evil.

Texting – this is the 21st Century version of Morse Code. You must learn the correct abbreviations or no one will understand you. Applies to tweeting, also.

Social Networking – this is the “interactive” stuff mentioned above. I use quotation marks, because I really consider user-participation online to be bi-directional, not “interactive.” Examples are Facebook and Twitter. The ancient versions were instant messenger services (Windows, Yahoo, AOL), chat-rooms, and things like MySpace (which basically started the revolution of online “friends” as some sort of popularity contest, and became a great way to market to a particular demographic).

Viral Marketing – this is what happens when WHAT you do or say or offer online takes off like a hot potato. There is no magic internet fairy. It can be manipulated for a cost (time, money, human resources) or it can be quite organic. More on this later.

SEO – stands for “Search Engine Optimization” (or, "Something Everyone Offers") and was very huge in the dark ages of Web 1.0, whatever that means. You could buy SEO software to help you set up keywords and submit your site to 100’s of search engines. These are useless today. Google, or DMOZ actually, “crawls” over the content of your web page. But if you’re not saying much relevant to what you are trying to convey or sell, your site will be buried way Off-Off-Off Broadway into the swamps of New Jersey. Yes, title and description matter, too. Refreshing your website with new content is helpful. Content is king. You can pay someone to “trick” your site up for $5,000, but much of that doesn’t work anymore.

Blogging – this is kind of Web 1.5 in a way. Considering people, especially Westerners, are all afflicted with ADHD, the blog has moved back into its rightful place as the personal web page of the early 1990’s. Most people and businesses that start a blog will let it fall off after a few entries. Successful blogs do continue to emerge, for sure, as it is useful for alternative news from the more serious writers. (The Huffington Post is one example.) Work-from-home bloggers that make money through click and affiliate programs have flooded the blogosphere. The better ones have something useful to say and sell. The rest… well, if it looks like spam, smells like spam, tastes like spam…

Forums - Many techie people still keep blogs, but you’re better off joining a serious forum where these folks are most helpful talking shop with other forum members. This is where you will learn lots of useful stuff about whatever subject you’re interested in. There are forums about everything imaginable.

Vlogging – this is blogging using video or at least adding videos to your articles. It helps to keep your readers entertained, so throw a video at them now and then.

Podcasting – this is a kind of amateur broadcasting, but online, as it has become available for anyone to do. Lots of people (and companies) will stream audio, like an interview, on their websites or blogs. Radio stations and newspaper media use it on the web.

Tweeting – ah, finally. The 140 characters that killed the blog. Twitter may be the best or the most annoying thing to have ever come online. Now THAT’S the kind of stuff that makes something special – ya gotta either love it or hate it. You need private citizens and commercial interests alike on social media like this one (and Facebook), because after all, if it can’t generate money, why bother?

Facebook – Use this or go back to the chat room… which both Twitter and Facebook may one day turn into after something cooler takes their place. But because so many application creators have invested in making cool stuff for these sites, it may take a while… or maybe not. You can invite hundreds and thousands of "friends," but if you do it all at once, Facebook will get mad at you. They prefer you become a paid advertiser.

Smartphones (Mobile Web) – this is where it’s all going real fast. Third World countries are computing and communicating almost 100% by smartphone. Get with the program.

Online Strategy – this is my favorite and combines all of the above. This is like watching a hockey game and commenting on the great strategy even though the puck changes possession every two seconds. More on this later.

If you want to add your own Web definitions, that would be awesome. (Keep it Rated G.)

The next segment will expound on "Online Strategy." Hope you had fun reading! Please come back.