WELCOME TO THE WEB!

We’re delighted to welcome the newly-redesigned website of Estate Planning Attorney William S. Graves. The site, at www.WilliamGravesPC.com, helps visitors understand the estate planning process, especially the myriad of legal terms that can make the whole process very daunting.  The website introduces William Graves and his excellent legal team, and presents a warm, welcoming web presence for the organization.

WELCOME TO THE WEB!

WELCOME TO THE WEB!

We love announcing new websites and we have three that have been launched this month:

Hockey’s Resource (center) at www.HockeysResource.com is a new website that provides hockey news and information from both amateur and professional leagues around the world. Aimed at the hockey industry, articles vary from general interest to game reviews, scouting reports, camps, tournaments, drafts and more.

Desert Security (right) is a home and business security monitoring and installation company. They also provide home wiring, automation systems, networking and audio-video services. Desert Security has been protecting Arizona home and business owners for over 17 years. They’re service is top-notch and price is hard to beat. Checking out the JDE-designed website at www.DesertSecurityMonitoring.com.

www.AllHomesArizona.com (left) is home to HUD Home specialists Alex and Matt, a team of REALTORS here in the Valley who primarily serve the HUD home buyers. Their new website provides up-to-the-minute listings of HUD homes around the Phoenix area. They have a questions-answers page with a ton of useful information on it, and they also provide comprehensive real estate services for non-HUD clients.

WELCOME TO THE WEB!

THE MOST DANGEROUS SEARCH TERMS ON THE WEB

The top 10 most dangerous internet search terms (The Telegraph)

The above is a  link to very interesting article from the UK Telegraph newspaper regarding some of the “most dangerous” words that can get web surfers into trouble. By “trouble”, they mean ending up on websites where there’s a very good chance that something nasty, better known as “malware” might end up being downloaded onto the visitor’s PC.

The list that they provide is a little UK-centric, but there’s a link to a McAfee (here it is – it’s a PDF file) study from 2008 which shows the most dangerous keywords from around the world, many of which one could imagine still being in use today.

Web surfing has always been a somewhat risky proposition. In most cases, surfers are going to be okay, because most of their surfing is done on “safe” sites, but the growth of search engine browsing has been accompanied by a huge growth in sites that exist simply to respond to the latest online trends in order to infect computers with spyware, keystroke loggers, trojan horses…you name it.

The “top 10” from 2008 include some very run-of-the-mill keywords:

1. Lyrics
2. Free
3. Web
4. Gear, Gadgets and Games
5. Olympics
6. Videos
7. Celebrities
8. Music
9. News
10. Miscellaneous

From a personal perspective, the scary thing is that having security software installed doesn’t mean automatic protection any more. A recent piece of malware pops up a box in the lower right part of the screen that looks a lot like anti-virus software and tells the user to “click to scan”. That click, in essence, gives the software the permission to access the computer, circumventing (in most cases) the security and then disabling it.

Security is a game of cat-and-mouse. Anyway, the above are interesting articles and worth a read. If you don’t have security software installed then all I can say is “wow”. I would consider supplementing the traditional security suite type of application with a malware checker such as MalwareBytes’ Anti Malware or something along those lines (Spysweeper etc). As far as I’m concerned, you can’t get enough protection.

Safe surfing!

GETTING YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING BACK ON TRACK (PART 2)

Welcome back. In part 1 (here’s the link), I talked about what social media is, and the importance of communication. People have tended to lose sight of the “social” in “social media”.

There are dozens of social media platforms out there. From micro-blogging sites such as twitter to connect-with-everyone-you-ever-knew sites such as Facebook to social bookmarking sites such as Digg or Reddit, there’s something for everyone. Blog are also social media applications, as are message boards, chat rooms and even comment section of news, sports and other sites.

But back to you. Where is your time going to be spent? As I mentioned in the last post, there’s no silver bullet. Social media is going to take resources (time, effort, money etc) of some kind. If you’re fortunate enough to be able to pay someone to do it for you, great, otherwise it’s all you, and your time is precious.

Pick a platform to look at.

Take Twitter for example. You can tweet to your “peeps” all day long. It’s easy to connect to “follow” and, quite often, it’s easy to get followers. Trouble is, what kind of followers are they, and are they just following you to get their own numbers up? My person opinion is that Twitter is great if you’ve got something that a lot of people want to know about. I hate to be the one to say it, but there’s a good chance you’re not a professional athlete, movie star or other celebrity – if you are, please send me an email If you’re going to consider Twitter, I urge you to ask yourself how you plan on using it. As with much in our celebrity-obsessed world, there are a few news makers and most of the rest of us listen. Sometimes a tweet can lead to a sudden rush of followers, just don’t bet the farm on it.

Look at the people you’re trying to connect with. What are they going to be using? Perhaps it’s Twitter after all, but then you should ask, what they’re using it for.

The same goes for Facebook to some degree, although I think the evolution of Facebook pages is changing that paradigm dramatically. If you plan on using, or already are using Facebook for business, please have a Facebook page set up for that reason. A Facebook page is much like your Facebook wall, except you have a lot more control over what goes on it, and you can keep your personal and professional lives separate (Separation of Church and State).

Sites such as LinkedIn are also growing in popularity, especially in the business-to-business realm.

So, pick an audience, and pick a couple of platforms. There’s a great Wikipedia page (here’s the link) on some of the different social media sites out there.

In the next section, we’ll look at finding the right audience to work with.

ALMOST A THIRD OF THE WORLD USES THE INTERNET : 2,000,000,000 USERS

Wow. According to Internet World Stats we’ve hit 2 billion users. The Last time I wrote about this was just over two years ago (link below) and the number of Internet users had just hit 1.5 Billion.

These are incredible numbers. As one might expect, the biggest growth has been in Asia where they’ve added almost 400 million users in the past couple of years. Everyone else has been growing at a less rapid, yet still impressive rate with Europe adding 100 million and the use a mere (!) 30 million.

Percentage wise, Latin America and Africa are showing the biggest growth, almost doubling in population of web users.

So, with a third of the world online in some way, shape, or form, there’s certainly a lot of potential website visitors for anyone looking.

The top 10 list of most popular sites on the web include Google at number 1, Facebook at number 2 and YouTube at number 3. Twitter, Wikipedia, Yahoo and Live are also up there. So, as the web continues to explode, it seems as though searching for information coupled with socialization and entertainment are the “big use“ areas.

Now, all you have to do is find a way to connect what you do with what they’re looking for. Let me know when you find it, and I’ll do the same

Link to my previous article
Link to World Internet Stats
Link to Most Popular Websites

GETTING YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING BACK ON TRACK (PART 1)

Part of any worthwhile online marketing presence has got to include social media of some sort or another. Let’s face it, it’s not going away. Companies such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Digg, Reddit, you name it, are being gobbled up or are IPO-ing like you wouldn’t believe. They’re also growing like you wouldn’t believe either.

To many people, there’s still confusion when it comes to how to integrate social media into your overall strategy. Last time I checked, there were still 24 hours in a day. Work has to be done and there’s little enough time as it is. Adding to the problem is how to go about it. It’s one thing to be a proactive Tweeter…if you’re Oprah or Ashton…but what about you? By now, you’ve probably set up that Twitter account. You may have set up your Facebook page too (if you’re using your personal Facebook account for your business change it now). Got a blog? When was the last time you updated it? What about the website?

Still there?

Deep breath.

The first thing to remember about Social Media is that it’s “social”. That means interactive. It’s unfortunate, but as SM has developed, it’s remained a very one-way street for many people. It’s often treated like TV or Radio, where one side speaks and everyone else listens – if there is anyone else out there.

Consider a business meet-n-greet. A big room. No one knows each other. Someone breaks the ice and talks to you. They ask you a question. You answer. Normally you ask a question back. They answer. Dialogue initiated. Social media works the same way. Sure, for some people, the ability to speak and be heard seems to be natural. For nearly everyone else it’ll take work.

Like your business or personal network, social media takes effort and communication. Otherwise are you really any different from that annoying tele- or door-to-door salesperson? You’re not going to be able to (unless you are very lucky or have a gift of some kind) to just start shouting out your message in various forums and expect people to come running. Isn’t that what SPAM is all about?

So, consider the kind of person you want to ultimately deal with (sell to). What common ground (other than what you’re selling) do you have in common? What can you do to get to know them? A REALTOR I know set up a blog (365phx.com). In it she talks about things to do in Phoenix. When she has time she posts odds and ends, events and that sort of thing. There are some links to her website and she has a Facebook page. She actually enjoys writing about things to do in the area, and she’s attracted quite a following, including write-ups in local media. Oh, and she’s got a high search engine ranking, averages 1,500 visitors a month…and sells homes.

She found something of interest to all people concerned. It’s a more gentle approach. It takes time. It takes effort, but it’s a seed that will grow, with a little care and nurturing.

In the next post I’ll talk about integrating your various Social Media programs and working up a plan.