Imagine you are going to a work networking do and you don’t know a soul. If people already know who you are, then its not so bad and just being there will get you noticed by some. If you are ‘a nobody’ be ready with a plan before you start a conversation. You can see where I am headed here. We talked about blogging all last week. It’s the year of the blog people, recognize. AND content is KING! Both social media and blogging are critical ways for a company to be active o

In my opinion there are a few things to pull your attention to: Making sure that people notice you Being an innovative thinker And forming relationships The example I used yesterday about the Bridesmaids DVD works here to. Also take a look at McDonalds Facebook Page. I mean, would you think that people would go on this page, let alone have a ‘relationship’ with it!? The answer is Yes! Take a look ! What they do best is relate to their employees and their employees friends.

As we mentioned on Monday, if people trust people and are less likely to trust companies the personal brands of people, possibly within a company are really worth exploring. They can portray a personal and trustworthy message and become assets to that company. Look at the Halifax man , Howard Brown! A usual employee of The Halifax Bank becomes a superstar! (As much as we immediately took a dislike to him, everything he stood for was ‘the man next door’). It will be rememb

Imagine your brand as the camera on your iPhone 4s. One side of the lens you have the consumer and the other, you. This is where you both interact. How you present your company, how perceptions are made and how connections merge to create the substance that is your brand. Mostly you are judged on these 4 things; The definition of your brand How you communicate How you interact and network And lastly, the way in which you present yourself and deliver As we touched on yester

This week is all about Digital Branding. Kind, grade, or make, as indicated by a stamp, trademark, or the like: the best brand of coffee. Or as David Ogilvy said; “The intangible sum of a product’s attributes: it’s name, packaging and price, its history, its reputation and the way its advertised.” The father of advertising’s mantra followed these four basic principles, Research Professional discipline Creative brilliance Results for clients With online PR taking such a great

We’ve talked about blogging this week.  You should now be at a point where you can safely post something up online consistently.  Sharing your blog is the next step. There are now great sites to help you distribute your blog. And this year is it ALL about GREAT CONTENT!  I’ll talk about this more in the coming weeks but PLEASE take the time and write good stuff!  Really give this a lot of thought and look at what your competitors are blogging about.  Make yours better, richer

If you are an advanced blogger, start thinking about your yearly campaign. If you remember, back when we were talking about ‘ planning your time ’ it’s so important to plan before you write. Anyway – back to you guys that are just starting out. You need to decide; a) What do you wish to achieve from your blog? b) How you wish your blog to be perceived? c) Will you write a monthly and give out a lot of info? d) Will you write a daily bite size offering? e) I

Welcome to 2012! How’s the head?! OPT have talked mostly about social media and how it can help your business.  We hopefully all know now that it is unavoidable.  You just have to make the decision to either employ someone to look after it or adapt and introduce new jobs into your daily routines. Let’s begin this year, by hammering home some mega easy and positive steps towards getting your business out there online in 2012. Honing its online presence and giving your baby a r

I would like to thank our followers and wish all our readers a very happy and restful Christmas and a prosperous New Year! I also hope that I have started an informative and exciting development service for you to add to your weekly reading lists. If you would like to provide content on this blog or collaborate in any way, shape or form. then please get in touch! Here’s to 2012! Andrea #socialcommunities #SmallBiz #thinkandtweetlater #Twitter #socialmediaplanning #onlineprtip

There are many pros and cons to choosing your own name for your business.  I have struggled with this question for years but stuck with my own personal name for many reasons. The most important being, that I had a ready-made audience. Obviously your name gives a certain personality to a company, product or service and many clients prefer that personal touch. Therefore it can work in your favour in many industries. If you remember my blog ‘The Art of Self Promotion (1 of 5) ’

If you are using the wrong domain name for your business, product or service, you should seriously think about changing it now! You could be missing out on quite a hefty amount of free marketing. Ask yourself these questions: Is it easy to spell and remember? Is it your own personal name that is hard to spell and remember? Does it contain a dot or slash in it anywhere? Does your domain name contain word repetition? And are the words spelled differently? Is it similar to anoth

We have discovered that your name is really important for online marketing but how does it actually affect your strategy? Simple.  A good name will allow you to be flexible and creative in your marketing plans.  This is not about design, although if you are a business that is lead by good design, this will also need to be reflected in your name. We loved this article” Pandecta Magazine http://www.pandecta.com , although written in 2009 – many of the issues remain the same. Bu

As mentioned yesterday, your business name/domain name could be the only thing that is holding you back from getting the traffic you need to succeed online. I have spoken with brand experts who believe that names should be almost a blank canvas, in which to build the image of your business upon.  Some swear by a coined name that are made up of ‘halves of words joined together. I believe that any name can be fabulous, as long as it is justified with an appropriate marketing s

As we hit the silly season, over the next 5 days I will be discussing the importance of your domain name and will be answering the following questions: How important is the name in business? How does the name of your business affect Online Marketing Campaign? Should you change your domain name? Should you use your OWN name for your domain? The name of your business could make or break your success. It should speak of the expertise, value and uniqueness of your product, servic

Websites are also a huge part of the broken chain s .  Just because you have spent time and/or good, honest money on what you think is a decent website, doesn’t mean that you will automatically rise through the ranks on Google and be at the front of the shop window for all to see. Some of the most basic web pages, with full SEO rich content are the most popular, because of the SEO work that has gone into it. So many people spend all their time on a great website. Flash and ot

In our last post – we asked;  ‘ if your content lacks good, strong keywords then how do you expect others to find you? ‘ Keywords are basically the words that your customer/client would type into Google to find you.  If you were a catering company, I would take a guess that ‘catering hire’, book caterer’, ‘party food’ and ‘event catering’ to mention a few are up there towards the top of the keyword ladder. They are vital words and mostly come in pairs, to add into your conte