Top 10 Tools
Friday Funday!
Friday’s is here! (Seems like it came really quick this week)
This week we’ve been busy working on news clients plans in Cost Per Click advertising and developing editorial calendars for social media campaigns. Since we are still working on these campaigns before we head out the door for the weekend, this post is going to be a bit shorter. I am offering just a couple of tips I’ve come across this week for your use.
Tip #1: YouTube SEO Trick
Double stack your titles in the file name you upload to YouTube. YouTube takes the file name into consideration for SEO purposes, so it makes sense to title the video appropriately. As a small business owner, its usually easy to just upload the video straight from the source of a small camera or editing software. I know because I’ve done this myself.
The second part of this tip is to double stack your keywords in an appropriate manner in both the file name and video title. For example, instead of using the title “Podiatrist Talks about Foot Problems,” you could title the video “Chicago Podiatrist talks about issues Facing Chicago Podiatrists.” This helps you in the rankings and lets YouTube and Google really understand what the video is about.
Tip #2 Twitter Research Tools
For those of you who remember an earlier post about Twitter Tactics, I mentioned a tool called klout.com. I liked the application and the way it provided intelligence on Tweeple out there. This week I found 4 more I wanted to pass along for use. They are:
twitterholic.com
tweetstats.com
twittercounter.com
twittergrader.com
Play around with them and see what you like. The best way to use these in the beginning stages of any listening campaign is to find out who the biggest Twitter celebrities in your locale are, and see which ones might be incorporated into establishing an online campaign. Offering a heavily followed Twitter user some opportunity to interact with your product is good, but having them mention you in a positive light is even better.
That’s all for this week. By this time next week the Cubs will be in Spring training, and spring will be on its way 
The Return of Friday Funday!
I missed doing Friday posts, and since I am working on building the business back up, it’s the return of Friday Funday!
Today’s post is one I have been wanting to write for a long time but because I of what I was doing workwise and because I wanted to see it play out a bit, I held off on writing until a good time. Today I want to talk about intelligence, and it feels like everything has come together on this.
Thanks to my experiences with First Health Associates, I have a better appreciation for not only establishing clearer marketing goals in campaigns but truly understanding what your product offers. Without the right intelligence that provides clear understanding on what you offer and where you need to go, developing a successful campaign is harder and less likely to provide the results you are looking for.
Product intelligence is essential because you have to not only understand what you are selling, but what the consumers think you are selling. Offering the world’s best gazpacho is no treat for someone who only thinks you sell salsa. To continue to tell that person how great the soup is only makes it worse; asking instead about what kind of tomato dishes they might be interested in and how daring they are in new cuisine is a better way to create a fan.
Perception is also a key ingredient of intelligence and if a customer perceives your product to be for something other than what you say it’s for you will again find resistance to your pitch. If your gazpacho is perceived as a health oriented product, it will not do as well as one that is gourmet that is also healthy. The difference is small but important.
Intelligence is also something that you need when responding to outside forces that may or may not affect your brand. During the fall a politician from my home state of Kansas made the mistake of singling out a teenager for a disparaging comment made on Twitter (Full Disclosure: Governor Sam Brownback beat my father in 2010 for his seat). The comment itself wasn’t worth the effort, but the response from his office took on a life of its own and caused a bigger incident than I’m sure anyone in the office meant for it to be.
Reacting without some knowledge or intelligence is a good way to find yourself in a similar situation, and as a gesture to those of you who have made it this far 
I wanted to talk a bit about Klout. Klout is an online tool that measures the online activity of one’s social media influence. For an example you can see mine here: http://klout.com/#/gthomasholland.
Had the staff of the Governor used Klout before forming a response to the situation, they would have seen that this was a High School Senior who was barely active on Twitter and not worth the effort. Operating with a bit of intelligence about the situation before hand would have saved that office some work.
Klout is also great because it shows the activity style of the person you are researching. I can look up a reporter on Twitter, plug them in on Klout and see some information about how they act online, how effective they are and what kind of audience they reach. This helps in determining how influential someone is and what kind of effort I should look at using.
That’s it for today. I am getting back to writing the new e-book and bracing for the Chicago snow storm we are supposed to see today. Lake effect snow is my word of the month.