Company Profile

The great thing about blogs are the opportunity for dialogue they create. Blogs aren't intended to just be ramblings from the author, instead, they offer the reader the ability to comment and create a back and forth of conversation.

With blog commenting; however, there are some rules of etiquette to keep in mind:

• Use correct grammar and spelling. Most blogs will not only display your comment, but your name and email address as well so be sure that your comment is intelligent and grammatically correct.
• Provide insightful commentary. Don't comment unless you really have something thoughtful to say. "Right on" or "great" doesn't really provide much to the conversation.
• Stick to the topic at hand. Don't comment solely for the opportunity to produce a diatribe on something totally unrelated. Add to the conversation in a meaningful way.
• Don't attack the author. Certainly, you can disagree but be sure to do it a respectful manner.
• Don't ramble on forever. Be brief, and again, intelligent with your comments. No one wants to read a comment longer than the original post.
• Links - while it could be beneficial to link back to your own site in a comment when appropriate, do not spam blogs with only a link back to your site. If your site happens to provide more information on the subject at hand, and can be a source of further reference in combination with your comment, I say it's a "do". But, if your only intention is to try and drive traffic to your site from the link with no good frame of reference, it's definitely a "don't".

Bloggers post with intention of reaching out to the online audience so post when and where appropriate and be sincere and personal with your comments. Bloggers are looking to make connections and friendships with their posts and commenting is an easy way to get there. Hopefully you will have learned something from their post and in turn, are able to provide something of your own through your thoughtful comment.

Happy blogging and commenting!

Fashionista is not usually among my list top adjectives (I'm typically more along the lines of chatter box, curious, busy or animated), but for one evening, the ladies and gentlemen at Athens BLVD transformed me for their winter fashion shoot.

Showcasing a bone inspired necklace from Heery’s and a red Valentino silk shirt from Menagerie - two downtown Athens boutiques - the shoot aimed to highlight some of winter's fashion trends to feature on their new Web site, athensblvd.com.

While their choice of models may be questionable, the BLVD team is truly inspiring. In their first year of production of a quarterly Athens fashion magazine, they don't stop with just the publication - in fact, not even close. In September, the group of mostly students carried out a huge and wildly successful fashion show attracting more than 800 people in attendance and raising money for the Junior League of Athens (Here is a photo of me modeling for the show and some of my fellow Leaguers post hair and makeup but before wardrobe).

Tonight, they are helping to kick off the grand opening of P.S. Too - a new upscale thrift store benefiting Project Safe, an organization that to end domestic violence through prevention and educational programs, crisis intervention and ognoing supportive services. Later this month, they are cohosting Cine’s exclusive screening of Coco Before Chanel.

Check out BLVD and all they have going on at athensblvd.com.

Our friends at The Big Picture came across this video and sent us the link. In our collaborations, we've discussed social media and how it fits into our clients' overall marketing strategies and online presence. We've worked together to come up with solutions of how and when to integrate social media. We've talked about when it's appropriate, when it's not, how to incorporate it into your brand and where it fits as part of the overall plan.

While most clients are curious, many are hesitant - they may not see the purpose of a blog, how Twitter can impact their online reputation, how Facebook can help them communicate with their audience, etc. They also can't imagine how they'll fit time for social media into their schedules.

So, is social media a fad? I think once you watch this video, you'll know the answer:

Here are some highlights from the video:

• By 2010 Gen Y will outnumber Baby Boomers….96% of them have joined a social network
• Social Media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the Web
• 1 out of 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met via social media
• Years to Reach 50 millions Users: Radio (38 Years), TV (13 Years), Internet (4 Years), iPod (3 Years)…Facebook added 100 million users in less than 9 months…iPhone applications hit 1 billion in 9 months.
• 80% of companies use LinkedIn as a primary tool to find employees
• The fastest growing segment on Facebook is 55-65 year-old females
• 80% of Twitter usage is on mobile devices…people update anywhere, anytime…imagine what that means for bad customer experiences?
• The #2 largest search engine in the world is YouTube
• There are over 200,000,000 Blogs

**This video comes from www.socialnomics.com, a blog that is run by Erik Qualman, the Global Vice President of Online Marketing for EF Education (Lucerne, Switzerland). Prior to joining EF Education, Qualman helped grow the online marketing and eBusiness functions of Cadillac & Pontiac (1994-97), BellSouth (1998-2000), Yahoo (2000-03), EarthLink (2003-05) and Travelzoo (2005-08). Qualman holds a BA from Michigan State University and an MBA from The University of Texas at Austin.

Sources include: Trendspotting Blog, Huffington Post, www.daviddalka.com, United Nations Cyberschoolbus Document, Mashable, Apple, Facebook, TechCrunch, U.S. Department of Education Study, Jobvite Social Recruitment Survey, Inside Facebook Blog, Twitter, Metro Newspaper, TGDaily, Wikipedia, China Internet Information Center, Technorati, ClickZ Stats, SES Magazine, and more. For a complete list of sources, click here

Something I came across recently that I thought was interesting and mostly true: Facebook is for communicating with those you know; Twitter is for communicating with those you want to know - I think this is particularly applicable with overall branding efforts. So, what is the best way to reach out to those you don't know on Twitter and even gain something from it - especially when it comes to keyword research?

As Twitter has emerged as a dominant social media tool, so too has its power to aid in keyword research. With the use of hashtags (including the # symbol in front of a keyword) in your Twitter posts, posts are able to be classified and searched by topic. Hashtags are a quick way to qualify the topic of a message and they are effective because someone may refer to an event with one abbreviation and another person could come up with a second version – by using hashtags people can ensure that everyone is speaking about things the same way. And in turn, users can easily search for and find a topic of the related posts. And since Twitter posts are limited to 140 characters, hashtags tend to be short which could be different from other keywords and keyword phrases you are trying to capitalize on.

Hastags.org will show you what the popular trends are on Twitter in real time, citing the number of mentions. It can give you a good idea of what people are talking about and help you discern where you or your brand fits into the conversation.

In addition to traditional keyword research will indicate the search volume of relevant keywords and keyword phrases that may pertain to your Web site, Twitter may be able to help identify keyword trends in the social media arena - something you definitely want to pay attention to.

Search engines such as Google and Bing are already indexing tweets (although not in real-time) so Twitter pages and even individual tweets have already started appearing in Google search results. Some say that Google or other search engines could give high visibility to a Web page that contains tweets or other data for a particular hash tag.

Other SEO Considerations with Twitter

• Like your Web site's title tags, it is believed that the first 42 characters are a factor into each tweet's title tag making it identifiable to the search engines so what you say first matters most. This is where you will want to concentrate your keywords in addition to the hashtag.
• While urls inside of of Twitter posts are no-follow (meaning they will not count as part of your Web site's link popularity) links can still drive a lot of traffic to your Web site and give you a lot more mileage than 140 characters.
• Advance your branding and SEO initiative using your Twitter page and posts by continuously and consistently using your keyword phrases so your Twitter page and posts will be shown in search results.

So as Twitter continues to grow in popularity and relevance, I think it's a good idea to pay attention to the trends and data it is able to provide us with and use it when appropriate. To me Twitter is all about getting out there, joining in the conversation and being part of the dialogue - especially when and where it concerns your brand. So if you can benefit from the use of hashtags or what those hashtags reveal, go for it. It could even improve your SEO efforts and search engine ranking.

Earlier this week, Stephanie and I huddled together at my computer streaming the local news/talk radio station live to listen to the final press conference about the triple murder 'suspect'/former UGA professor. But low and behold, the radio station wasn't broadcasting the news conference live. And, none of the local or Atlanta newspapers or television stations were posting any information on their Web sites about it while it was happening.

The only way we were able to stay up to date with the latest news coming from the conference was through Twitter. Even with all of this media at our fingertips - audio, video, Web sites, etc., Twitter was the sole channel providing live updates via tweets posted by The Red & Black reporters who were attending the news conference.

Tracking Twitter updates via Tweetdeck on my computer and through updates on our iphones, we got all of the information that ACC Police and other officials released - well ahead of time that other news organizations finally got around to posting their stories on their Web sites. This is the beauty of Twitter - immediate updates on topics you are interested in from people and organizations you follow.

Wikipedia defines Twitter as a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read other users' updates - also known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length which are displayed on the user's profile page and delivered to other users who have subscribed to them (known as followers). Since its creation in 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Twitter has gained extensive notability and popularity worldwide. It is often described as the "SMS of Internet," in that the site provides the functionality (via its application programming interfaces) for other desktop and web-based applications (like Tweetdeck, Tweetie, Twhirl, etc.) to send and receive short text messages, often obscuring the Twitter service itself.

As Microblogging becomes more and more popular, many seem to be lost as to how it can fit into their overall marketing and promotion plans. But the opportunities are endless. It seems like most everyday we are explaining the benefits to clients and encouraging them to incorporate Twitter as a strategy to promote their Web site and their business.

Here are some examples of how Twitter can improve your Web presence, drive traffic to your site and complement your marketing.

Announce Newly Added Content to Your Web Site

Twitter is the perfect avenue to publicize a new blog post, news article, event or other form of information that you have just posted to your site. If you are not proactive about attracting visitors to your site, then you are basically just sitting out there waiting for someone to stop by.

Stream Updates From Interesting Events

Are you attending a conference, meeting, sporting event, or performance? Provide live updates via Twitter to let your followers know what is happening from where you are. Our friends at the Leon Farmer and Company were recently touring breweries out west and kept us posted with photos and updates from their travels via Twitter.

Follow Industry Leaders and Experts

Use Twitter to find and follow the people you respect in your industry. You will gain valuable information, links, news and other information from this practice.

Advertise Sales, Promotions and Special Events

Broadcast information about sales, specials and events through Twitter. It's easy, fast and most importantly free and may reach an audience that your traditional advertising isn't.

Reach Out to Media and Consumers

To me, Twitter is a passive way to keep in touch with people. You are letting others know about your brand, company or organization without personally bombarding them with press releases, email or other direct contact. It complements traditional media relations and could catch the attention of someone you don't normally communicate with.

Monitor Your Own Brand

About a month or so ago, after waiting at home for the cable guy to show (late of course) for the 4th time in five weeks, I posted a tweet about it (it might have expressed my frustration). Within seconds, I had a direct message reply, an email and my phone was ringing. Turns out Charter is on Twitter and monitoring what is said about their brand. They did remedy my situation and I even got a Hallmark card in the mail from them - how's that for customer service?

Communicate with Friends and Colleagues

As a form of social media, Twitter also has a "fun" element. It's interesting to know what your friends are up to, what is going on in their day, where they are vacationing, where they eat lunch (by the way, @brianbrodrick is always at Taqueria Del Sol!)

So if you're not already, try it out and don't be scared - we're only talking 140 characters max per tweet.

And be sure to check out the Plexus Crew, @plexusweb, @ssharp, @natalieglee, @kellyjones, @travisroberts, @kimlandrum, @charliebomber, and @andrewreifman.