eBusiness Resolutions for a Healthier Business in 2010

If you’re a retailer, after the busy-ness of the season, you now have a little time to reflect on your business and how you’d like to do things differently or better in 2010. If you have another type of small business, you are looking at your successes and wondering what you might do to make things even better in the coming year. If successes have been thin on the ground, then you’re looking at ways to improve. This brings me to my eResolutions.

eResolution 1: Crawl before Sprinting

Most of us have had an experience of diving in and trying to fix everything at once. How did that work for you? Right!

So start small. If you’re a retailer, consider setting up a Twitter account. You can start following other people and seeing what’s going on while you plan the next part of your strategy. You can read more about Twitter on this blog in this series of posts on Twitter strategy.

eResolution 2: Put your Website on a Diet

Unless the name of your business is, All Things to All People, then you know that you have to specialize. Does your website reflect this. The average web home page has about 80% too much stuff on it (my wild statistical generalization). Remember, people who search for you have searched for something specific. Give it to them. Statistics show that you have 2 to 3 seconds to give them what they want or they’ll leave. This is even shorter than the average window shopping experience. You can read more about this on my Landing Page posts from last fall.

• It’s what you do with Traffic to your website that counts.
• Landing Page Optimization for Small Businesses on a Budget
• Landing Page Optimization – the best video from youtube.com/

eResolution 3: Make Good with Google

Google has numerous free tools to help you manage your online presence. You can access them once you have a Google Account (free). Here is a list of useful Google tools as well as posts on Google.

• Google Webmaster Tools
• Google Adwords
• Google Analytics
• Google Local Listing – how to get listed
• Add a coupon to your local listing in Google

eResolution 4: Face up to Facebook

I suggest that you set up an account and think about how you might use your “Page”. Take a look at my articles on using Facebook to see how to get started.

• Setting Up Your Page on Facebook, Part I
• Setting Up Your Page on Facebook, Part II

eResolution 5: Make social media an integral part of your business plan

Take a look at this post; 5 Ways to Integrate Social Media in Your Marketing – a Presentation by Jason Baer. It’s worth your time.

Bonus eResolution: Consider what you might be able to do with YouTube.

Youtube.com is one of the most visited sites on the web. Good, fun and interesting video attracts audience. It can be a good way to raise your profile. In future posts I’ll address this issue in more detail.

Here’s wishing us all a happy, healthy and prosperous new year.

I welcome your questions. Please question or comment via the “Comments/No comments” link below. If you found this article useful, please share via your networks. Thank you so much.

Although social media has become a popular way for people to communicate with friends and relatives, the technology hasn’t caught on with most small companies.

Youssef reports on a study by Citibank and GfK Roper. The report found a low percentage of small businesses are finding social media sites to be useful tools for marketing, advertising and creating more business.

There’s a bit too much hype by PR professionals but Youssef includes some stories from actual business people.

Read the complete article here; The business of social networking.

What do you think of the article? If you have any questions or comments, please connect via the “No Comments/Comments” link at the end of this post.

Search Trends of 2009

1. The most searched for term: Michael Jackson – there was a big spike in search for his songs and his name around the time of his death.
2. Fastest rising global search terms after MJ?
   1. Facebook
   2. Tuenti (popular Spanish social media site)
   3. Twitter.
3. The three fastest falling search terms?
   1. Beijing 2008
   2. euro 2008
   3. heath ledger
4. Vancouver 2010 does not show up on the fastest rising search terms for sports. No, l’equipe football is number ten with Olympics no where in sight.
5. In food, acai berry is number one and peanut butter recall number 6.
6. The top three recipes searched for? Chili, meatloaf, cheesecake. Does that say anything about a recession?
7. Top five how to’s globally? How to kiss, draw, knit crochet and flirt. Does this mean people are staying home more and want someone to stay home with?
8. For Canadians, how to kiss, draw, flirt and meditate come ahead of crochet. Maybe Canadians already know how to crochet.
9. Are Canadians obsessed with their health. Of the top six News category searchs, three are related to the flu: swine flu, H1N1 and simply flu.

Probably the greatest predictor of search fame is that you’re already famous. And, you can see that plumbing services does not top the year’s search terms. That’s good. How is it good? Well, the term is a lot less competitive and you have a greater chance of being found. Also, with Google increasingly putting weight on local search, your plumbing business is even more likely to be found by the people you want to find you.

For 2010, having a fast loading, easy to navigate site will be extremely important. If you’ve been thinking about revamping your website, now might be the time. A student of mine was surprised to learn that there are fashions in web design. There are and if your site is loaded with Flash entries and busy pages, it’s out of fashion. People have become much less patient and if you don’t give them what they want now, they’ll leave and never come back. You can learn more about thoughts on landing page design from my series of posts on landing pages.

If you’d like to read the whole report from Google. you can find it here. Be prepared to browse for while. It is a window into what we’re thinking and it’s fascinating.

Can companies really “engage” with consumers in a meaningful way?

However, it’s not always easy to find interesting things to say. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and reading about social media. The buzz word these days is “engagement” but can companies really “engage” with consumers in a meaningful way?

Why do they follow you on social media?

According to Razorfish’s (Razorfish specializes in digital marketing) FEED report,

44% of consumers who follow a brand on Twitter do so for deals and,

37% of consumers who “friended” a brand on Facebook and/or MySpace do it for deals.

So if you thought they did it because they love you, then perhaps you need to recognize the truth. They do it for your deals.

An idea for your business – create your own version of Cyber Monday

Here’s an idea for your business. Is there a day in the week when traffic is slow and sales low? Perhaps you could create your own version of Cyber Monday (or Tuesday, or Wednesday) and let your Twitter and Facebook followers know that on that day there will be a special, perhaps a printable coupon, an extra discount, a two-for-one or something else that is exclusive to your social media followers.

They may not love you but they still want to know that they are special to you.

If you want to see the whole Razorfish presentation, I’ve included it below.