BrightCite

What does social networking mean for your company?  It changes how people can and will talk about your brand.  It changes how you can and hopefully will create community and value around your brand.

Is this important?  Review the report below and decide for yourself…

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Why do you do what you do? Somewhere in your business is a story that connects to that reason. And somewhere within your story, perhaps dormant, is your emotion.

The emotion behind your business is powerful. It cuts through advertising hype. It bypasses people’s natural skepticism that you are trying to sell them something. It’s a story so pure that when people hear it - they get it and they want to experience it for themselves.

Your website let’s you tell your story. It’s a medium that can convey emotion, move people, connect them to the energy and benefit of your business. Each day, the web is evolving in ways that allow you to share the emotion behind your business, faster, better, cheaper. You just need to start using it. Here’s an example. It’s a very worthwhile 6 minutes:

This video provides a glimpse into how social networking, search engines, tagging, widgets, blogs, wikis, video, audio and other forms of new media will revolutionize how we communicate and do business.

By: Curt Conrad
President, BrightCite Inc.

Warning.  Slight rant below…

Is Your Business Web Friendly?

Is your small business prepared for the arrival of the virtual marketplace?  For years I’ve been telling all who would listen how strategic use of the web is a critical small business asset.  I’ve been met with many glazed eyes and blank stares from small business people who just don’t get it. 

Too bad - because the clock is ticking for the small business person who is web-illiterate and who still thinks about and uses a website as only an online brochure. 

It’s going to be a rough road ahead for small businesses not actively seeking to build online assets and who lack a basic understanding of how business works on the web.

On the flip side, proactive small business owners who see the Internet as an opportunity for a business building investment will be rewarded with an exceptional rate of return on time, money and resources. 

Are you actively educating, positioning and preparing yourself and business to profit from the power of the Internet?  Where do you stand?

Quick Audit
Answering yes to the questions below indicates you are positioning yourself to build online assets that will serve you and your business well in the years ahead:

1. You have a dedicated domain name for your website and e-mail (www.yourbusiness.comyourbusiness.com) skills.
2. You have a strategic plan for your website that ends with tangible results.  These results are based on visitors taking specific actions like calling, e-mailing, registering and downloading information from you.
3. You see  analytics information at least weekly, that tracks how many people visited your site, what they clicked on and how they found you.  You use this information to improve the strategic results of your website over time.
4. You understand the basics of Search Engine Optimization and have identified the keywords potential customers are likely to type into a search engine to find you.
5. You understand what a blog is and how it works for business (just as you understand the news media and PR).  You have left a comment on a blog.
6. You have a basic understanding of what RSS is and have used a feed reader before.  You know how it’s used to subscribe to and organize video, audio, blogs and other web content.
7. You have visited MySpace, YouTube, LinkedIn, Flickr and SecondLife to familiarize yourself with social networking, Web 2.0 and network effects that govern an emerging virtual marketplace.
8. You know what a Podcast is and have listened to one.
9. You know what a widget is.
10. You have given thought to how the web is changing the rules of your business and assessed how it complements your business strengths and exploits your weaknesses.  You are actively exploring the online opportunities and threats to your business.

The more questions you answered "no" to, the less prepared you are for the rapidly approaching future.  On the other hand - there has never been a better time to start increasing your online business knowledge and skills. 

By: Curt Conrad
President, BrightCite Inc.

In my last post I discussed how adoption of feed readers are turning RSS into an up and coming online advertising channel.  The channel is relatively new and inexpensive, not to mention uncrowded.  This is a great time to get in on the ground floor and get ahead of the pack.

Here’s some info on how RSS is being integrated into online ads:

From the post: Turn Ads Into Content & They Work Better:

"In late September, several marketers — including Symantec — rolled out ad units that pulled content into ad banners straight from RSS feeds of those advertisers’ corporate blogs. I just reviewed click-through data for Symantec’s first twenty days, and the early data suggest that RSS-powered deliver better performance, both in terms of click-through rates and engagement.

Normal ads (whether they’re video ads on TV, banner ads on the web or billboards along the freeway) experience “creative fatigue” over time. Creative fatigue means, in essence, our eyes get bored with the same creative after we’ve seen it too often, and we stop noticing it altogether. If you plot the performance of a single creative execution over time, with time passing left to right along the x-axis, it’s a sad, downward slope almost every time. This is why advertisers “refresh” their creative frequently."

Blog.memeorandum.com expalins the RSS sponsorship model being used by Techmeme (A news and blog aggregator website).

"The way it works is simple. A sponsor’s blog feed is polled every few minutes, the latest post of which appears in its assigned slot (first, second, or third).

Advantages of this approach over banner advertising are numerous. "Click-throughs" can lead to the visitor browsing, commenting on, and even subscribing to the sponsor’s blog. And a sponsor has direct control over what appears on Techmeme simply by posting."

Here’s how they’re doing it. (Notice the sponsored posts on the right coming from the advertisers Blog Via RSS feed)

This is an exceptional ad model because it hits the intersection of Consumer and Advertiser value.  The consumer can self-select meaningful content that stays relevant because it’s constantly updated.  The advertiser’s product and services then become next in line for the consumers attention.  Even if no transaction takes place, a consumer clicking through to the advertisers blog can set off a chain reaction of back end marketing value through list building,consumer comment feedback, community development, analytic analysis, inbound links, social networking and SEO impact. 

We’ll keep our eyes on this as it evolves.  But there is no doubt RSS has and will continue to develop into a powerful online marketing and advertising tool for small businesses. We’re working on integrating a similar model in our upcoming Xtenda™ release.  Stay tuned…

By: Curt Conrad
President, BrightCite Inc.

If the "Web 2.0" reference hasn’t come across your radar screen yet you should familiarize yourself with it pronto.  I’d like to offer my assistance…  (Warning: this post is link heavy and can take you off on interesting tangents that may offer creative breakthroughs for your business.  Travel off this page at your own risk)

Web 2.0 is really a meme (Meme is another concept you should know).  According to Wikipedia (itself an example of a Web 2.0 application)  Web 2.0 can be defined as:

"…A supposed second generation of Internet-based services—such as social networking sites, wikis, communication tools, and folksonomies—that emphasize online collaboration and sharing among users."

I add to the above definition something especially relevant to small businesses:

Here are 5 principles of the Web 2.0 phenomenon as articulated by O’Reilly with my definition for the small buisness:

1. The Web As Platform - The Internet itself is the basis for software application.  This turns the tables on cost.   Free "Open Source" models flourish in the naturally collaborative Web 2.0 environment.

2. Harnessing Collective Intelligence - Ask one person to help you solve a problem, they may or may not have the answer.  Ask 1,000 people to solve a problem and chances are at least one person has faced that exact problem before and has a detailed explanation of how to solve it.  Web 2.0 enables this type of instant, low cost access to the wisdom of crowds.  This dynamic creates a network effect.  As more people join a network its value increases exponentially but, the hard cost to plug into it remains the same or even decreases.  This is a major advantage to the small business.  Once access to filtered and indexed information was cost prohibitive, not anymore.
   

3. Data is the Next Intel Inside - Web 2.0 is about capturing, organizing, combining and mining data to create new value for company and customer.  This can be seen in the development of widgets, mash-ups, start-pages and dashboards that enable you to see micro and macro relationships instantly.   These data collections reveal emerging patterns by tracking behavior.  Web 2.0 makes it easier to understand what your customer wants.  Instead of contacting them (Which costs time and money) you simply watch how they behave on your website as captured by what they click on or download.  With Web 2.0 each action has a compounding data reaction.  How your business model uses, transfers and transacts on this data will determine your future success.
   

4. End of the Software Release Cycle - Web 2.0 "software" evolves and releases in semi-real-time.  It’s web based agility and distribution allows instant upgrade and incremental feature releases.  Your small business gets better functionality and systems integration.  Plus, you get it far faster and at much less cost when compared to software following 1.0 release cycles.  It’s amazing how cost efficient you get when you eliminate shrink wrap disk distribution and provide web based ASP software access rather than 1.0 computer based software installation on individual machines.
   

5. Lightweight Programming Models - Open source code lets programmers be legally free to combine existing code from multiple programs in useful combinations.   And an affinity for syndication have created programming methods that provide innovation by default not on purpose.  When you use web 2.0 applications you have the ability to profit, customize and synthesize from the future value inherent in the philosophy behind the application’s very programming. On other words, these programmers are inviting and encouraging users to improve what they have built.  In this environment, everyone wins.
   

6. Software Above the Level of a Single Device - No longer are you separated by or limited to an individual desktop or laptop or cell phone or  T.V. or  iPod or stereo or car or radio.  Web 2.0 has the ability to cross platform, to be accessible when and where you need it.  This translates into great reduction of overhead for the small business.  With Web 2.0 you no longer are held hostage by compatibility, size, device, or location.
   

7. Rich User Experiences - Ajax, Java Script, standards based CSS and XHTML all enable a web browser to behave with the continuity and fluidity of a desktop program.  Instead of waiting for pages to load, Web 2.0 applications allow the user instant gratification and smooth interaction that the Web 1.0 browser experience simply couldn’t provide.  No longer is quality of user experience and program performance exclusively reliant on a powerful computer or it’s processing speed.  Small businesses who have benefited from falling hardware costs can now reap even greater cost reduction benefits. The chains to desktop software efficiency are broken by the increasing richness of the Web 2.0 experience.

So let’s tie this all together.  A great way to understand Web 2.0 is to compare it to Web 1.0 - which most small business owners are familiar. 

I find an example again supplied by Tim O’Reilly.    In a blog post (a Blog is another example of a web 2.0 application) entitled "What is Web 2.0?" he offers a clear evolution from web 1.0 to 2.0.  As you review it ask yourself how Web 2.0 can enhance your business today…  Ask yourself why Google, MySpace, YouTube, Digg, Linked-In and dozens of other Web 2.0 companies are changing the way we meet, interact and transact…  Ask yourself how Wiki’s, RSS, Open Source software, Blogs, Tags and social software can be applied in your business.  Your opportunity awaits…