During Giving Back Month the folks at WebFuel have decided to use our Social Media for Social Good. We believe that Social Media is an incredible tool that can be used the change the world around us. It can help share a story. Increase awareness about an initiative. Influence the community around you. Raise money. Its reach, power, and versatility are incredible, and when used the right way, can make the world a better place.

We have invited a group of guest bloggers from local and national charities to tell us how they have used their Social Media for Social Good.Our first guest blogger in this series is Stacey Diffen-Lafleur who shares with us how The United Way Ottawa is using their Social Media for Social Good.

Social Media for Social Good: United Way Ottawa

We are always looking for ways to engage new audiences, to spread our reach and get their help to make our community better for everyone. We do this by sharing stories, demonstrating impact and making it easy for people to talk with us. Social Media has made a difference in our outreach strategy and how we engage people from across our city to make change happen.

Why are we using it? It’s a community conversation that everyone can contribute to and build on.

We’ve found that Social Media opens new doors for us. Since 2009 the team at United Way Ottawa has been using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Flickr to have a conversation.

Let me be clear, it’s not all about fundraising either. Our business is engagement. We use Social Media to demonstrate results, to share stories of the lives we’ve helped to change and to invite people to interact with us all with a goal of making our community stronger, healthier and safer for everyone.

Here are a couple of examples of where we’ve seen social media really make a difference.

Reaching out to up-and-coming leaders

Schmoozefest - an event run by our Next Generation Cabinet – recently celebrated six years with a complete sell-out. Money raised goes back into the community, again helping to make a difference in our community. How did we build a buzz about Schmoozefest? Via Twitter. And the people that came to schmooze got a lot more than they expected. Kelly Rusk, a member of Ottawa’s twitter community was there and shared her Schmoozefest experience through a post at Local Tourist Ottawa’s Blog.

And that’s just one aspect of social media supporting the work we do.

Bloggers are media too

We give bloggers the same access we give media, and we give them the same materials and same opportunities to meet and interview. And you know what? They like it. They write about us, they help us get the word out via the blogosphere about the work we are doing in and for our community.

QR Codes, offering more than just a quick read

QR (quick response) codes are another new way we are sharing stories of people who have had their lives changed through the help of United Way Ottawa. This year our print ads that feature people from our community contain a QR code that takes a reader directly to their story on our website, both written and in video format. What once was just a single view before the page is turned, is now generating traffic on our website and as a result, broadening our reach. Melissa’s story, a LiveWorkPlay program participant, has been scanned hundreds of times.

Twitter – a launch pad

Twitter remains one of my favourite ways to talk with people in Ottawa – and at the beginning I devoted a lot of time to building a following – both for my personal account and for @UnitedWayOttawa, our corporate account. Today the corporate account has its own momentum and has outpaced @TheStacey by several hundred followers. It is an instant channel to share daily campaign totals – which are retweeted regularly by news outlets and the general public. We use it to share lives changed too, these also get a lot of RTs. Everyone has a hand in helping us make change happen in our community.

Social Media helps us to educate our donors, partners and our community about how we are investing their gifts and the results we are working towards. Additionally, we use it to help other companies who are holding events, doing workplace campaigns, or soliciting other kinds of support like sponsorships, volunteers or gifts in kind.

Over the next few months we’ll be rolling out a new, fully-sponsored website, and building on a grant we’ve received from Google, we’re developing a Google AdWords campaign. I am certain that other channels will appear, and some may change, but one thing I know, the conversation about our community and the potential for everyone – no matter where they work or how they want to engage – to make it better will only grow. Social Media is where that conversation is happening, I invite everyone to join.

Stacey Diffin-Lafleur, Senior Director, Marketing at United Way Ottawa has more than 19 years of marketing experience and is one of Ottawa’s social media community pioneers. She gets the Internet, she gets communication and she gets the impact that conversations – online and off – can deliver for our community.

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Social Media for Social Good: United Way Ottawa is a post from: SEO Ottawa | Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Agency | WebFuel

That’s why here at WebFuel, December is Giving Back Month.

“Giving Back” Month is all about using Social Media for Social Good. We believe that Social Media is an incredible tool that can be used for much more than sharing photos of last weekend’s party on Facebook or Tweeting about your lunch. It can be used to share a story. To increase awareness. To influence the community around you. To raise money. Its reach, power, and versatility are incredible, and when used the right way, can change the world.

So this December, we are going to use our Social Media for Social Good. What does this mean? We will be using our Social Media networks and influence to promote local and national charities. Are you involved with a charity that could use a boost this holiday season? Contact us to learn more about how we can help you recruit volunteers, promote an event, raise money or anything to support you this month.

Furthermore, we have invited a group of guest bloggers from local and national charities to tell us how they have used their Social Media for Social Good! Stay tuned, they will be posted throughout the month.

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Giving Back Month: Using Social Media for Social Good is a post from: SEO Ottawa | Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Agency | WebFuel

Thinking about this impressive and diverse lineup on my train ride into Toronto excites me, and I begin reading Seth Godin’s The Purple Cow for the second time in anticipation.

I arrive at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre shortly after 8am on this cold Tuesday morning to find hundreds of other marketers and salespeople eager to begin the day’s events. First up, Barbara Corcoran to talk about Sales Success and Personal Branding.

Barbara Corcoran

Real estate mogul and super sales woman Barbarara Corcoran takes the stage in a full yellow outfit, dancing Ellen style. Her energy gets the early morning crowd excited. Her topic of the day: Personal Branding. As she tells us her life story of New Jersey rags to New York City riches, Corcoran offers advice and lessons along the way. First, she stresses that perception creates reality. If you create the perception of success, and are confident with it, it will become a reality. Lesson 2 from Corcoran was that everybody wants what everybody else wants. Create demand, limit supply, and increase the price. Speaking like a true saleswoman. Next she tells us that you should always expand before you’re ready. It will act as a motivator for you to grow and succeed. She follows this by ruthlessly advising us to “Shoot the dogs early”. Give you employees clear objectives, provide support and then review after 3 months – and then cut the bottom 25%. “Complainers are toxic” she warns “They can bring down a whole team of positive leaders. Find them, and get rid of them.” Her next tip: know your strengths and your weaknesses – and then find someone who is amazing at all the things you’re bad at. She continues by discussing how competition and personal recognition are better motivators than money. Don’t grind your employees down too much. Hard work and competition is important, but fun is vital. Ensure that you foster a fun environment for your employees because fun leads to relaxation and relaxation leads to creativity.

Seth Godin

Next up is one of my favourite authors, speakers, bloggers and marketers: Seth Godin. To be honest, I consider the man a genius. Godin begins by talking about the great salesmen of our generation – Zig Zigglar, Steve Jobs, Richard Branson and even Don Draper. He says that guys like this changed how we sell. Sales used to be about 3 things: The transfer of information, transfer of brand and transfer of emotion. Today, we have the Internet. 80% of people that walk into a car dealership already know everything they want to know about a car. Transfer of information is no longer the duty of the salesperson. Neither is the transfer of brand. In a world where more is better, consumers are flooded with products. Have you developed an emotional attachment with your customers? If one day your product disappeared, would they notice? The record industry used to be perfect. Today there are more people listening to more music than ever before, but the industry is dying. We are seeing a revolution as big as we have ever seen before. Interruption marketing is done, today it is all about permission marketing. Are people expecting you message? Or are you springing it upon them?

Godin continues by delving into his well-known theory of Tribes. People like doing things with others. They don’t like to be average, but they also don’t like to be alone. Nike invented this theory of “tribes”. Before Nike, the long distance runner didn’t exist, really. But today there are literally millions of them. “The Beatles didn’t invent teenagers, they just showed up to lead them.” Godin says.”They did so by creating something new, something different. By creating art.” There are people out there waiting for you to lead them. Are you being boring? Are you following a script, or are you making your own map? Are you being an artist? “What is your Sgt Pepper?” Godin asks, referring to The Beatles.

In an online world, competence is no longer a scarce commodity. We all have access to the same information. For decades our education system has trained students to memorize. We have lost the ability to solve interesting problems. Go figure out something that no one has figured out before. People say that “failure is not an option” becuase they are afraid of it. By failing, you learn and get better at what you do. Don’t be afraid to take a chance on something.

“In times of radical change, the only people that win are the ones that are willing to do revolutionary acts” Godin says “What we need is for you to lead us. I hope you’ll do that.”

As always, Godin was thought provoking, motivating and inspirational. I highly recommend you go see him speak if given the opportunity, or read any one of his amazing best-sellers.

Keith Ferrazzi

Keith Ferrazzi is an expert in the field of building, and foster relationships and using them effectively. His outgoing nature and positivity captivates the crowd. He begins by talking about our reptilian brain, the part fo the human brains where fear comes from. The part that tells us we are not good enough or that we are going to fail. In today’s world, you are no longer selling a product – you are selling solutions to problems. Build your relationships early, and often. Ferrazzi praises tools such as LinkedIn to do so. Ferrazzi asks the crowd “Who has a to-do list?” Virtually everyone. “Okay, now who has a Personal Relationship list?” No one. Ferrzzi explains that you should keep a list of 5-10 people that you want to meet or get to know at all times.

Keith goes on to share with us his list of 7 missions to master relationships.

• Mission 1: Always ask who, no matter what the goal
• Mission 2: Prioritize your relationships. Are they very close to you, acquaintances, tarnished relationships? How can you leverage them?
• Mission 3: Expand your currency and do your homework. Make a connection right off the bat, and move forward from there.
• Mission 4: Skip over your prejudgement of people and find a way to care
• Mission 5: Build, develop, foster and grow your lifelong relationshi[ps
• Mission 6: Build your brand using Social tools such as LinkedIn, Google+, Facebook, Twitter, etc.
• Mission 7: Lead with generosity – sometimes the pinnacle of generosity is letting someone else help you.

Sally Hogshead

Sally is another positive upbeat presenter who captivated, and most importantly fascinated the crowd. And that’s what Sally spoke about – being fascinating. She explains that it is something that you are born with, not something you learn. You simply have to unlearn being boring. Your brain is hardwired to fascinate, and is hardwired to be fascinated. Fascination requires an intense emotional focus. It doesn’t matter that you are the best at something, if nobody notices you, if you are not fascinating them, then no one will care. The Internet has diminished our attention span as humans from about 2 minutes to 9 seconds. “Yes, we are all goldfish” she jokes. So that means that you have 9 seconds to make an impact, to be fascinating. “In marketing, stand out or don’t bother” she exclaims. “Boring messages just don’t waste money, but they hurt your brand. You can either innovate, or you can be comfortable. You can’t do both.”

Hogshead then delves into the seven ways that you can captivate and fascinate someone.

1. Power is all about authority and control
2. Passion is about connecting through emotion
3. Mystique is about arousing curiosity
4. Prestige is about increasing respect
5. Alarm is about highlighting the negatives by creating urgency
6. Rebellion is about taking the status quo, and turning it to find a different way to interpret the facts
7. Trust operates differently than the other six becuase they can be performed instantly, but trust takes time and effort and care.

Jerry Greenfield
The final speaker fo the day was Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream co-founder Jerry Greenfield. Mr. Greenfield, a very pleasant and soft spoken man, told the story of how he and his old friend Ben stumbled into the Ice Cream business, and the challenges they faced along the way. The two rebellious non-students loved food and found a niche in the college town of Burlington Vermont. An admitted “hippy”, Greenfield discussed their strategy and emotions as they became businessmen, something that they despised growing up. They didn’t want to become just another cog in the economic machine. That’s where Ben and Jerry’s corporate responsibility came in. “We’re not about making money for ourselves” Greenfield says “Yes we have been successful, but we made the most effort to share that success with our community.

Greenfield tells a charming story that ended up defining the Ice Cream company in today’s society. When they will still relatively small in the mid-1970s, Ben and Jerry’s had just been picked up by a few larger distributers in New England. One day their largest distributer came to them with some grim news. Pillsbury, who owned Haagen Dazs (the world’s largest ice cream brand) told them that if they did not stop carrying Ben and Jerry’s that they would drop them. Fiscally, the distributer had to listen to Pillsbury, despite the fact that they loved Ben and Jerry’s. The team laughed at this, and wondered why this food giant was scared of two hippies out of Vermont, and in true hippy form they protested. They started a campaign called “What is the Dough Boy Afraid of?. They printed this on tshirts which they sold for $10 a piece, on their ice cream containers, flew it behind banner planes, etc. It became somewhat of a viral campaign, similar to Wendy’s “Where’s the Beef?” It proved wildly successful and eventually Haagen Dazs backed down. Greenfield says that was the moment they knew that they were doing something special. Make an amazing product, put your face on it, support your community and be transparent. That is how you become successful.

All in all it was a great day full of inspiration and takeaways. I left The Art of Sales with many questions and thoughts as I walked into the cold Toronto streets. I’m looking forward to applying many of these skills and tactics as well as reading all of the amazing books published by these accomplished authors.

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The Art of Sales Toronto Recap is a post from: SEO Ottawa | Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Agency | WebFuel

Guest Post by James Katz

As commerce over the Internet gains momentum, the economic value of Domain Names will continue to increase. This economic value is derived from the Domain Name owner’s exclusive right to direct traffic to that Domain Name’s corresponding website, to exclude anyone else from using the same Domain Name, and from the fact that no one else can register the same Domain Name at the same time. Put another way, Domain Names have economic value due to their desirability (i.e. their ability to help guide traffic to their owner’s Internet site) and their scarcity (no two Domain Names in the same registry system are identical). It is because of this recognized economic value and the rights given to Domain Name owner’s that Canadian Court’s have recently confirmed what most businesses with a presence on the Internet already knew: that Domain Names are a form of personal property, and as such, can be used, managed and leveraged like any other asset of a business.

Like other types of personal property, Domain Names are often the subject of ownership disputes between parties. A cost effective and quick way for a complainant to seek redress is to rely on the private arbitration systems put in place by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (“ICANN”), which regulated the popular dot-com, dot-org, dot-net, dot-info and other registry systems, or the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (“CIRA”), which administers Canada’s own dot-ca system. In all cases, owners of Domain Names (termed “registrants”) are required, as a condition of ownership of the Domain Name, to submit to and be bound by these dispute resolution processes.

As alluded to in my blog post back in August, CIRA’s dispute resolution policy was recently amended to more closely mirror that of ICANN’s policy. So, since August of this year, both dispute resolution policies can now be used to cancel or transfer the registration of Internet Domain Names that a complaining party successfully proves were registered in bad faith. Under both systems, in order for a complainant to succeed, it must prove a) that it has rights in and to the trade-name or trade-mark that comprises the Domain Name at issue; b) that the offending Domain Name is confusingly similar or identical to the complainant’s trade-name or trade-mark; c) that the registrant of the offending Domain Name has no legitimate interest in the Domain Name; and d) that the registration of the offending Domain Name was done in bad faith.

The threshold element for exerting ownership over a Domain Name is demonstrating to the arbitration panel that you have acquired and maintained trade-mark rights in the words that make up the Domain Name itself. This means that you will have to prove that the words that you are seeking a monopoly over act to distinguish your business’ wares and services from those of others in the marketplace. In Canada this is most easily accomplished by registering your trade-marks with the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO). Once a business has a registered trade-mark, the registration acts as prima facie proof that the trade-mark in question is valid, and is the property of the registered owner.

Although registration of a trade-mark is not a prerequisite to being successful in a Domain Name dispute, proving that you have acquired “common law” trade-mark rights will require that you, as the complainant, file additional evidence, such as proof of sales and other sensitive business information, with the adjudicating body.  This will also add to the time and expense required to make out your claim, which will far outweigh the fairly low cost of obtaining and maintaining a registered Canadian Trade-Mark.

The lesson is therefore clear:  if you are serious about properly controlling your business’ Internet presence, you should, at the very least, register your business name as a trade-mark in Canada.  Even with only a Canadian Registered Trade-Mark you will be more easily able to secure ownership over a confusingly similar Domain Name held by persons in other countries.

It also goes without saying that protecting your online presence should also include purchasing all available Domain Names that are, either by how they are sounded or appear, closely resemble your trade-name or trade-mark.  Given that Domain Names can often be secured for a nominal fee, there really is no downside to putting this type of protection in place as soon as you contemplate an online business presence.

One final note on this topic: using the dispute resolution procedures set out by either CIRA or ICANN is not your only remedy should you have a Domain Name dispute.  Depending on the facts of a given case, the Superior Courts of the provinces (such as the Ontario Superior Court of Justice) will adjudicate Domain Name disputes, just as the Courts will adjudicate over any other dispute concerning property.  In fact both CIRA and ICANN policies allow for this to take place, and those organizations will defer to the judgment of the Court.  The major drawback to initiating Court proceedings to rule on a Domain Name ownership issue is the higher cost associated with launching a Court action (relative to proceeding under CIRA’s or ICANN’s policies), the length of time it takes to achieve a result (often many months or years), and the danger of having to pay the other side’s legal costs should your claim be rejected by the Court.

In closing, unlocking your online business potential includes understanding the ownership rights and potential of your Domain Name, so that, if needed, you can properly exert those rights in order to protect your online business presence.

James Katz is a lawyer with the Ottawa law firm BrazeauSeller LLP. His practice focuses primarily on Internet, Social Media and Trade-Marks law.

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Domain Name Disputes: From a Canadian Perspective is a post from: SEO Ottawa | Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Agency | WebFuel

Delaney Turner, originally from the radio world, now works with IBM as their Social Business Strategist. He commences his presentation with an up-beat video celebrating IBM’s centennial. Delaney talks about how IBM is evolving into a Social business while keeping their core competencies of intelligence and the emphasis on thinking. He claims that they are much more dynamic and entrepreneurial than most people believe. He even references some mock acronym meanings that people have associated with IBM, such as “I Block Momentum”. Turner ensures us that this is definitely not the case. “Our world is becoming smarter – it is now instrumented, interconnected and intelligent” says Turner.

IBM began their internal social movement back in 2003 with a board called ValueJam which they crowd sourced behind the firewall. From there, they continued to grow socially. They understand that Social Media is like any other new technology. He gives the example of the phone. Don’t restrict it. Allow people to learn, discover and use it efficiently. If you treat people like adults and give them autonomy, they are more likely to use the tool responsibly.

Turner goes on to talk about the limitations of email, and how it is inefficient, and in a way, anti-social. “Email is where information goes to die” Turner says. It is a closed, limited and siloed was of storing and sharing information. Instead, IBM has integrated Social into everything they do. Every morning they have meetings with all of their brands and subject matter experts to strategize how to use Social more effectively.

Next, Turner explains the value of blogging. He says that through blogging, IBM employees have been able to create an enormous amount of buzz and awareness by increasing social interactions and ranking higher in search results for specified keywords. Given the tools and autonomy, IBM employees have been able to share their expertise and capitalize on the power of the Social space. Today, not a single campaign or event goes out the door without a huge social component.

These are some of the things that are making IBM an Social Business. There is an important distinction between Social Media and Social Business. “It’s not just having a Facebook Page for your brand.” says Turner, “A Social Business embraces networks of people to create business value. It is engaged, transparent and nimble.” In order to encourage social integration into everyday business at IBM, they implemented education resources for employees interested in engaging with Social Media. Provide them with the tools to do the job and you will see results.

Despite their efforts, IBM still has some challenges when it comes to Social. Do these efforts lead to more sales? How do we effective measure the ROI of all this? As a global company, how do we approach Social across different languages? What is our strategy for dealing with negative feedback?

This morning’s talk was very interesting and thought provoking. I left the event with a flurry of thoughts and questions in my mind.

Thanks to Delaney Turner of IBM, the organizers, The Great Canadian Theatre Company, Cara Rowlands for her incredible muffins and to all of the attendees a for making this another very successful Social Media Breakfast. Stay tuned for the next Social Media Breakfast Ottawa on November 23rd with Sean MacPhedran. I hope to see you there!

You can follow Delaney Turner on Twitter at @DTurnerBlogs and at @IBMSoftware.

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Social Media Breakfast Ottawa 25 Recap: Delaney Turner is a post from: SEO Ottawa | Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Agency | WebFuel

Last night marked the inaugural SEMPO Ottawa Meetup at The Hard Rock Cafe in the Byward Market. Dozens of Ottawa area marketing professionals and students gathered for a night of networking, education and discussion. WebFuel in association with McGill Buckley and SEMPO Ottawa hosted Google Canada’s Agency Lead Nectarios Economakis who spoke about the emergence of Mobile Marketing and why it’s still not too late to be early. Working the registration table I got a chance to see a lot of familiar faces, as well as meet many new people. Thank you to everyone who made it out, and for those who couldn’t attend, here is my recap of last night’s event.

Mobile Marketing: it’s still not too late to be early

The event’s MC Steven McGill of McGill Buckley took the stage at 7:00 pm sharp to welcome everyone to the event and to introduce our speaker, Nectar Economakis. Dressed in a sharp suit, he exuded confidence. Despite some minor microphone problems, Nectar captivated the crowd with his calm nature and strong voice. Nectar began by asking the crowd “Who owns a smartphone?”. Pretty much everyone. The majority had iPhones. Another sizeable chunk were BlackBerry users and one or two people used Android. But remember, this crowd is unique – we are mostly marketing nerds and geeks (sorry, but it’s true). Look at our entire population as a country – by the end of 2014, half of Canadians will own smartphones. That’s pretty incredible. Furthermore, mobile is expected to exceed desktop usage in the next 3-5 years.

“Mobile is ramping up faster than any other technology we have seen in the past” – Mary Meeker, Kleiner Perkins

He goes on to explain that in past years, the trend with desktop usage is that it drops during the holidays – people are busier, they are out shopping, at family events, etc… But so is not the case with mobile. In fact, Mobile usage actually increases during the holidays. People’s mobile device have become their own personal shopper to help them find stores, items, best prices, reviews, etc. Also, how easy is it to pull out your mobile device at the table and show everyone a funny Christmas commercial on YouTube? Very easy. The thing with mobile is that it is always on, and is always on us. It allows constant connectivity.

So how is Google adapting to this shift?

Google operates under the assumption that people carry their mobile device with them everywhere. Based on that assumption, Google wants to build applications that will allow people to be more productive and entertained. Bottom line is that mobile should always come first. The mobile device has become an extension of the body. The camera is it’s sight, the microphone enables hearing, the speakers enable voice and the screen allows touch.

Nectar went on to show us a few video examples of how people are being both productive, and entertained using some of Google’s mobile applications. My favourite example was a video that featured a group of kids playing the classic game “Chubby Bunny” using Google Voice as the referee. Not only did this video make us laugh, but it showed the power of Google’s apps.

Key Mobile Trends Moving Forward

What does Google see for the future of mobile? The first has got to be entertainment. People don’t stand in lines anymore. They stand in lines and browse their smartphones. Here are a few stats for you – 125 years of Angry Birds is played everyday and there are 200 million mobile playbacks a day on YouTube. Wow!

Mobile is also immediate. At any point in time we can pull out our phones and make a call, write a review, send an email, book a hotel. We have so much immediate power at our fingertips.

Mobile compliments other media. During the SuperBowl in February, mobile searches on GoDaddy.com increased 315 times compared to 38 times on desktop. Why? People saw the ads and were intrigued. But when you’re sitting in the living room with your buddies watching the game, you’re not going to get up and go to your desktop – you’re going to pull out your smartphone.

Mobile is local. In fact, 1 in 3 mobile searches are local. After looking up a local business on a smartphone, 61% of users called and 59% visited. That is pretty amazing.

Last but not least, mobile is the ultimate shopping companion. 74% of users have purchased due to using their smartphone while shopping and 79% of smartphone users use their smartphone to help them shop. Whether it’s reading reviews, finding directions to a store or comparing prices, your mobile device is hands down your best shopping companion.

Three purposes for accessing the mobile web

1. Entertainment – make the brand experience fun with a game or engaging video content
2. Information – provide consumers with information about brands and product categories
3. Transaction – help consumers get what they want, faster and easier

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SEMPO Ottawa Google Event: Mobile Marketing Recap is a post from: SEO Ottawa | Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Agency | WebFuel

Are you credible? Do you have the knowledge and expertise on the topic for which you are trying to be influential? TSN Hockey analyst Bob McKenzie has an enormous influence on hockey fans through his Twitter account (with over 209,000 followers), blog and TV programs. Why? Because for the last 25 years, MacKenzie has lived and breathed hockey at every level in all corners of the earth. He is extremely credible on his topic of influence, hockey.

Trust

How much will you trust someone you’ve never met in person? Would you ever buy a product because someone online told you to? Gary Vaynerchuk is a great example of someone who has used a transparency and honesty to develop a strong level of trust among his followers. Vaynerchuk is well known for his video podcast “Wine Library TV” which featured weekly episodes in which he would sit behind a table and reviews wines. Vaynerchuk’s honest and laid back style during these episodes gained him a large following and turned him into one of the most influential wine reviewers in the world.

Relevance

Are you giving your audience what they are looking for? A lot of people fail to achieve a great deal of influence becuase they miss the target here – their audience is misaligned and their message is all over the map. I am a reader Avinash Kaushik‘s blog – he is influential on me. Why? Becuase he blogs about analytics. That’s it. That’s why I follow him, and that’s what I expect to read when he writes a new post. If one day he decided to blog about horse racing, I would be confused and I would leave. Relevance is huge.

Timing

Timing is key. Can you deliver your message to your audience in a timely fashion? Sometimes being timely can make or break your influence with a certain audience. I rarely use the same example twice in one blog post, but this is an exeption. I’m going to use Bob MacKenzie again for this one. He is always the first one to report anything hockey – a trade, suspension, a healthy scratch, what Daniel Alfredsson is having for lunch…okay maybe not that much, but his ability to report detailed hockey news in an extremely timely fashion is staggering – and one of the main reasons I follow him religiously on Twitter.

Alignment

Are you in the right place? Aligning your message with your target audience is one of the most overlooked aspects of building influence.  Should you be using Twitter? LinkedIn? Google +? Take Justin Bieber for example. He went from a simple teenager in a small Canadian town to one of the World’s most famous and influential pop stars by using YouTube. His target audience (probably 95% teenage girls) are heavy users of the video sharing site. He is the perfect example of gaining influence through strategic alignment.

Measuring your Influence

So how much influence do you actually have? Who do you influence? What topics are you influencial on? Well there are a few free tools out there that help you determine your online influence. The most well known is probably Klout. If you haven’t heard of Klout, here is how they describe themselves:

The Klout Score measures influence based on your ability to drive action. Every time you create content or engage you influence others. The Klout Score uses data from social networks in order to measure: True Reach (how many people you influence), Amplification (how much you influence them) and Network Impact (the influence of your network). 

So first of all, Klout will give you an overall score – mine is 54. Secondly, they provide you with a Klout Style – I am a specialist – meaning that I am “not necessarily a celebrity, but within my area of expertise my opinion is second to none. My content is likely focused around a specific topic or industry with a focused, highly-engaged audience.”

Klout then breaks down individual scores for the three aforementioned elements: True Reach, Amplification and Network Impact. They also provide a list of topics for which you are influential. Apparently, within my network, I am influential about Small Business, Media, Beer, Ottawa, Facebook and SmartPhones. I can then break it down even further. I can see which specific people I influence the most, and on which topics. Similarly, I can see who influences me the most, and on which topics. For example, my biggest influencer is Chris Brogan, and he influences me on Blogging, Social Media and Marketing.

Understanding your influence is key to Social Media success. Are you in the right place? Are you influencing who you want to be? Are you missing the mark? Tracking my Klout score has personally helped me fill in the gaps where I am missing out, and realign my Social Media strategy.

How will you become influential using Social Media?

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The Importance of Social Media Influence is a post from: SEO Ottawa | Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Agency | WebFuel

Not only does Facebook now have over 800 million users worldwide, but earlier this month half a billion people used Facebook in a single day. Now that’s a lot of traffic. Not only have sign ups and visits increased for Facebook, but so has engagement. Social Networking has become a ubiquitous tool used by millions of people around the world to stay connected. Now that all of these connections are in place, we are entering a new era of Social Apps and engagement.

A noticeably excited Zuckerberg takes the stage and begins to describe the new updates to Facebook.

Timeline

Zuckerberg begins by explaining that the Profile is the heart of Facebook and that people have a very strong ownership over it. All of the changes to Facebook over the years have been centered around the Profile and as it evolved, people shared more than just their basic information – who you are, where are you from, where did you go to school. Now people are sharing many more tidbits about their lives – photos, stories, experiences etc. The problem is that as more sharing occurred, those stories vanished at a faster rate. Up until now, you would have to go back and search for those updates. All of the most important moments that you have shared were buried away somewhere.

Introducing Timeline.

Timeline is the story of your life, and it had 3 main components. All your stories, all your apps, and a new way to express who you are. Zuckerberg claims that with Timeline, you can tell the whole story of your life on a single page in a very intuitive and visual manner. You now have the ability to jump to any moment in your life and see what was most important to you then. For example, you can quickly and easily go back to the summer of 2007 and see updates, photos, comments, links, etc. that tell the story of what you were up to in that period of time. Furthermore, you can also add content into the past. If you recently came across a photo from a wedding a few year back, you can scroll to that moment in time and add it to your personal Timeline.

With Timeline came a new type of content: Major Life Events. With this, you can add just that – major events in your life. Marriage, baby, graduation, new pet, bought a house, etc. Another new feature rolled out with Timeline is Map. This allows you to show on a map where you have been and when. For instance I can show that I have spend a lot of my life in Ottawa – but also that I made a lot of trips to Vermont to ski, went to Chicago and Boston last summer, spent 3 weeks in California when I was a teenager, lived in New Jersey as a kid and spent four years in school in Lennoxville.

Social Apps

In order to help Timeline reach it’s full potential, Facebook has also introduced a whole new class of Social Apps. Now this is really cool. Zuckerberg explains that people love using apps to express themselves. With this new series of apps, you can easily share what you’re doing. In the past you could “Like” things. Well now there is a whole series of verbs you can use to share what you are doing with your friends on these Social Apps. For example there will be Social Apps to share what you are watching on Netflix, what you are listening to on Spotify and what you are cooking using Foodily. Zuckerberg believes that Facebook is no longer a Social Network, but rather a platform for story telling. The integration of Timeline and Social Apps will better allow users to share the story of their lives – and give them the power to be the curator.

Ticker

With the introduction of sharing via Social Apps comes some problems. People don’t want to overshare with their friends. They don’t want to annoy them by flooding their News Feed. This is where Ticker comes in. Ticker is a lightweight stream. It is a smaller, live rolling feed of lighter, maybe less important items that your friends are sharing and it will show up on the upper right hand side of your News Feed. The idea is that maybe an item in the Ticker will catch someone’s attention, but since it is constantly streaming, that information won’t overload or annoy your friends.

So what kind of Social Apps will their be? Zuckerberg defines 4 types of apps. The first two naturally appear on the more social end of the spectrum: Communication and Games. But now, Facebook hopes to introduce two more types of apps that are also social by nature: Media and Lifestyle. These apps will accomplish two things. First, it will help you fill out your timeline and secondly, it will help you discover new things through your friends. This will be accomplished in three ways:

1. Frictionless Experience – When using new Open Graph apps you will be able to add your activity to your Timeline without being prompted to do so every single time. This falls into your lightweight activity. The whole idea is that if you adding a Social App, you inherently want to be sharing that activity. That is why the middle step (the prompt to share) will be eliminated. For example, if you add the Spotify App to your Timeline, every time you listen to a song it will be shared on your Timeline automatically. And, of course, you have the ability to set your privacy settings. Frictionless Experience.
2. Real Time Serendipity – This is where the discovery comes in. If your friend is listening to a song, you can hover over that item on your Ticker and join in and listen to that same song with them. This will be added your Ticker so that your friends can see what you are listening to.
3. Finding Patterns – So let’s say you are interested in a particular friend’s music taste. You probably don’t want to spend the time searching through every song they have ever listened to – you want to see a summary of the songs, bands, albums, and genres of music they listen to. By looking at patterns in your friends activity, you can discover a lot of cool new things.

As you listen to a song with a friend, you can live chat with them about that item. It’s very intuitive, and very cool. This is a great way to learn new things about your friends – their likes and interests, and things you have in common. Zuckerberg believes that developers are not only using Open Graph to rethink music, but to rethink the whole music industry. They are beginning to move away from blocking you from listening to songs that you havent bought yet, and towards allowing you to discover so much more new music that you will eventually buy. And who better to give you a recommendation on a song or new band than a friend who you trust.

But it goes beyond music. Open Graph can even be used to discover other new content like TV shows, books, movies, recipes, etc.

Zuckerberg finishes by stating that “We exist at the intersection between technology and social issues. The next five years will be defined by apps and the depth of social engagement.”

It will be interesting to see these new features rolled out and the reaction from users. Will people get overwhelmed by these changes? Or will they take the time to learn how they can improve their overall social experience on Facebook?

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Facebook f8: Zuckerberg Announces Updates is a post from: SEO Ottawa | Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Agency | WebFuel

Guest Post by Stephen McGill

First of all by way of full disclosure, when I started my career in marketing and branding there was no world wide web. In fact there was no email, fax machines or mobile phones either. Yes there was electricity. And mass media – plenty of them.

As much as things have changed dramatically since the late 70s when I started out, the tenets of brand building have (in my opinion) remained remarkably similar. Branding has never simply been about beautiful logos, catchy slogans, award-winning television ads, welcoming storefronts, and glossy brochures or (these days) cutting edge websites and Search enhanced Social Media properties.

Instead branding has always been about delivering great products or services all wrapped up in the kind of positive and consistent experience where customers are driven to say – “Why would I go anywhere else?” It’s about making people prefer your offerings to all others available.

What the last twenty or so years have delivered to us as branders is an explosion of ways to create, build and sustain brands within a completely different landscape. I speak of course of the wonderful wide world of the web and the absolute avalanche of technologies and brand delivery options that have come along with it.  These are exciting times indeed for people who work with brands.

In my work as a brand development consultant I always state at the outset of working with clients that a brand should accurately reflect the true culture, personality and attitudes of a company or organization. It must also deliver a positive experience across all the points at which it connects with its customers and potential customers.

For brands of all sizes these days the most important (and sometimes only) point of connection with customers comes on the web. Quite often the web is now a crucial first point of contact. It is where consumers are getting their first brand impressions. Simply put the web is an incredibly powerful tool for connecting with customers, delivering a brand personality, building brand loyalty and enhancing brand experiences.

But here’s the thing I believe – you need to have a strong brand period before you can have a strong brand on the web. It used to be thought (just a few short years ago) that brick and mortar brands and online brands were somehow different. That is no longer the case. They are one and the same in the minds of consumers and – so they should be.

Amazon has become an almost ubiquitous shoppers brand because it consistently delivers what its customers want – great selection, competitive pricing, shopping convenience, copious amounts of product information and always-dependable service. All these things are hallmarks of a strong brand. The fact that Amazon does all that almost entirely over the web is irrelevant to most people. What Amazon has done better than most from early on is both understand the web and what it takes to build a powerful brand. That is a powerful combination.

So, which brands on the web do you think are getting it right like Amazon?

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Branding on the Web – How is it different? Or, is it? is a post from: SEO Ottawa | Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Agency | WebFuel

As the mobile platform continues to evolve and grow in popularity we are faced with the question “What is the impact of smartphone use on the work/life balance?” In her research, Ladner found that not only are people bringing their work life home with them, but they are also bringing their domestic lives to work. Ladner not only examined what this shift means to marketers, but also how smartphone use is changing social interactions.

Over the years technology has changed. Ladner reminises to the days when her family was the only one on the block with an answering machine – now virtually everyone owns a cell phone, the majority of which are smartphones. This technological shift is changing the way we communicate. With mobile, you are no longer contacting a place, you are contacting a person. Twenty years ago you would pick up the phone and call someone’s house – or send a letter to their physical mailbox. Today, we call people. We text people. We email people. We send calendar invites to people. We Facebook and Tweet people. All of these channels of communication are going right to the individual – right to the smartphone in their pocket.

While we now have more channels to contact others, the social context in which we do so is also becoming more complex. There is no longer a distinct barrier between home life, work life, liesure life, etc. They now overlap each other. Yes there are people who check their work email after dinner, or call their coworkers for last minute changes to the morning presentation before bed. But at the same time, we are responding to personal text messages and checking our fantasy sports team, for example, at the workplace. But it doesn’t end there. We now have our time between work life and home life – called “interspace”. Sitting in traffic, during our lunch break, etc. This is where much of the overlap happens.

So what impact does this have on our social interactions? The problem with this shift is that most of us are now sending information to others without understanding the social context on the other end. Is that other party at work? In a meeting? Eating dinner with their family? At a hockey game? On vacation? We don’t know. And most of the time, due to the aforementioned overlap, it doesn’t matter. They will respond regardless.

But with this, other problems arise. You are now expected to always be available for communication with your various social groups. Family. Friends. Work. They all feel entitled to be able to communicate with you at all times. And because of this, many people are finding themselves “slaves” to their smartphones. Does your smartphone sit next to your bed? Do you check your texts or emails in the middle of the night? While some think this is normal, others suggest “parking” you smartphone in a specific location overnight, outside the bedroom.

However, we cannot put all the blame on the technology. Sure, the smartphone’s capabilities is what allows this to happen. But it’s our changing culture – the “panic culture” as Ladner puts it. We have this sense of urgency that we must always be available and respond in the most timely manner possible. While some people may view this as productive, Ladner argues that organizations tend to have more speed than sense. Most people will respond to an email right away rather than sitting back and thinking about it. “Your organization cannot innovate if you don’t give it time to reflect” says Ladner.

Ladner undoubtedly hit home with the majority of the audience this morning. I observed many people, including myself, nodding along to the points she was making. Are you ever just sitting around, waiting for something – the bus let’s say – and you pull out your smartphone for no reason. Unprompted. Just to look around? I do that all the time.

As the technology continues to evolve, and mobile becomes more of our every day life, how will we adapt? What impact will this continue to have on our work/life balance?

Thanks to everyone who came as well as the organizers for making this another very successful Social Media Breakfast. Stay tuned for the next Social Media Breakfast Ottawa on October 19, 2011: Social Business Strategies with IBM. I hope to see you there!

Follow Sam Ladner on Twitter @sladner and her project Mobile Work Life @mobileworklife

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Social Media Breakfast Ottawa 24 Recap: Sam Ladner is a post from: SEO Ottawa | Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Agency | WebFuel