Let’s say your business had it all. The king of producing the perfect content, the best engagement, every review site had raving reviews, everyone wants one of your products, everyone wants to shake your hand, everyone loves your business. Everyone wants to be your best friend.

Do you love the customers that LOVE you?  Or would you select “It’s complicated” as a relationship status?

I have to wonder if Steve Jobs ever takes a moment and is filled with joy and appreciation for all customers that love their products. Is there a moment where he longs to meet these people that love Apple, love the way he dresses and truly wants to get to know them? Wonder if he wants to sit down and share a cup of coffee, tell his customers how impressed he is with their passion and devotion the the Apple brand.

I am assuming most likely not.

For small businesses in little towns like Maple Valley it is natural not a tactic for them to actively get to know their customers. This could be easily labeled as just good customer service. I am thinking there is something a bit more core about these businesses.

Here are a few facts about small businesses in the US:

Small Businesses Rock:

• Represent 99.7 percent of all employer firms.
• Employ half of all private sector employees.
• Pay 44 percent of total U.S. private payroll.
• Generated 65 percent of net new jobs over the past 17 years.
• Hire 43 percent of high tech workers ( scientists, engineers, computer programmers, and others).
• Made up 97.5 percent of all identified exporters and produced 31 percent of export value in FY 2008.
• Produce 13 times more patents per employee than large patenting firms.

- Statistics from Advocacy Small Business Statistics and Research

Small businesses understand the pure economics of their love for their customers. I can bet that most successful entrepreneurs do too.

When a great entrepreneur has an idea and brings it to life by creating a business the simple truth is, in order for that business to survive there must be customers.  There is a connection that happens with a great business and a customer, which feels a bit like – “You are what I never knew I always wanted!”

Towards the end of high school I was working for PCC, a Seattle area coop. 99.998% of all my customers were fantastic! Great conversations that stemmed from a genuine a passion for our local community, farms and world. I came into work inspired. I learned to remember customers names, their favorite sandwiches and sit down with them on my breaks like friends. We would talk about green energy, ideas around how to create more awareness about local farming and of course about cars. I was highly encouraged by the leadership to be me and connect with our customers.

Great businesses does more than take money from customers for the sake of keeping their doors open. Small businesses are the masters at listening, asking questions and improving their business not just to bring in more cash, but to make the customers happy. (Sounds like key ideas for a happy marriage as well). They love their customers. Love feeling they have helped them, made their lives better and been able to connect beyond their brand and on a personal level. They are the real leaders, the experts in keeping happy customers coming back for more conversations while sipping lattes lattes, exploring great art or while chatting up as they get their hair done.

One of my favorite businesses that have really shown their love has been Coho Cafe. From their social media efforts to in person you will feel as a customer and as part of the community you are genuinely appreciated and even loved.

How does your company show love to customers?

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Who doesn’t love a great story? Especially one about an young entrepreneur. The story of Derek Johnson and SMS marketing Tantango is becoming my favorite young entrepreneur story to tell. I am delighted to share with your Derek’s own insights into the world of being an entrepreneur, bringing an idea to life and creating a successful business. Being in Bellingham means as a normal Seattle networker you might not have had the chance to meet Derek yet. He is friendly, outgoing and full of energy. I admire Derek not only for what he has been able to accomplish, yet his dedication to excellent communication. He also has a natural entrepreneurial spirit, creating jobs for himself and others since he was a teenager.

“All people want is a reliable way to communicate to their group members or customers. That’s what Tatango does and continues to do…” - Derek

He is one of the NW best leading a revolution of being open, and accessible. He is encouraging and answers questions of aspiring entrepreneurs. Derek has made his own accessibility a priority and is incredibly generous answering emails, Facebook messages, tweets and any other question that comes his way.

“I was amazed to see you listed your personal phone number on the website. Secondly, I was surprised when you personally answered when I called. I don’t think I have ever experienced that before. So I have to admit my first impression with your company was ‘wow.’” – Mo.com

Connect with Derek!

I’m easily one of the most accessible CEO’s and I love to connect with new people.

If you want to reach me, feel free to call/text me on my mobile phone @ 206.334.4012

@thederekjohnson | thederekjohnson.com | tatango.com | Contact

From Idea to a Business

1. Start Small – Start small and you will be able to quickly see if you have something interesting before you look to expand.

2. Don’t Re-Invent The Wheel – No matter what problem you are experiencing or challenge you have in front of you, you aren’t the first person to ever go through it. Seek out advice or guidance from someone that has gone through the same thing you are going through, this will save you from making a lot of costly mistakes in the future.

3. Work your ass off - I’m serious, I don’t think there are bad ideas, I think there are only lazy entrepreneurs. Any entrepreneur that works his ass off can change a bad idea into a good one with a lot of hard-work.

SMS Marketing Win = Win for Businesses & Consumers

It’s a two way street, businesses use Tatango to send text message coupons, discounts, event reminders, etc. to the consumers that opt-in to receive them from the businesses. It’s a win-win situation for both the business and consumer.

“Did you know that only 23 percent of Americans check social networks like Facebook on their phones, and even less than that 10 percent check micro-blogging sites like Twitter on their phones? You can compare that to the 72 percent of people who actively text message on their mobile phones.” -  Derek interviewed on Marketing by Deepak

Even for Business, it Takes a Village

If I had to list everyone that played a role in getting Tatango to where it is now, it would seriously take me a few days. I think that’s a lesson though for any entrepreneur is that you aren’t building a company alone, there are so many people out there that are willing to help and will add tremendous value, you just have to go out and find them. I see too many entrepreneurs think that they are going at building their business alone, those are the ones that usually fail.

Remote Teams Productive with Collaboration Tools

Reducing costs has been the biggest benefit of having a remote team, we’ve shaved off about 14-17% off our monthly burn by getting rid of our office and going virtual. The hardest part is still having that collaborative space to come up with new ideas and work through existing problems. To overcome this, we use Skype, BaseCamp, GoToMeeting and a few other tools.

Personal Branding Means You are Doing Business with a Person

If my promoting myself didn’t bring in extra business for Tatango, I wouldn’t do it. With the speaking events, conferences and interviews I do, the amount of new business we’ve been able to acquire has been staggering. Also, I think in the internet space, it’s always good to have a face behind a company. All of our competitors are an email address and a phone number, that’s all. How can you trust that? I’m a real person, if I was a customer looking for text message marketing, I would want to do business with a person, not a phone number or email address. It’s that simple.

Who is Derek Johnson Offline?

I’m always working, so there really isn’t a Derek offline or away from Tatango. I believe in giving 100% to whatever I do, which doesn’t leave room for anything else and I’m fine with that at this stage in my life. I started kicking into high gear working 15-17 hour days, 7 days a week the minute I received our first investment in Tatango. Taking other people’s money completely changed the game.

Find Your Own Inspiration

I’ve been told I have a condition called Hypomania, a genetically based form of mild mania, which endows people with energy, creativity, enthusiasm, and a propensity for taking risks. I’m ok with this, as these are the keys to being a great entrepreneur. I think true entrepreneurs are born with this inspiration, you can’t learn it in school, absorb it, etc. it’s just who you are. It doesn’t go away either, which made it extremely hard for me in structured setting like university and eventually lead to me dropping out to pursue the entrepreneurial lifestyle.

Selling Your Brand Beyond a College Degree.

A lot of parents question me about this one. I’ve found a unique way though to get them to see my view on this subject. Ask them what university their kid graduated from and then ask them what type of job their kid has right now. With the unemployment rate so high and recent graduates moving back home at a faster rate than ever, there is a good chance their kid has a university degree and is unemployed. That usually proves my point

In my case my business education came from watching and listening to my father and actually doing it. From a very young age I was always selling something or creating businesses here and there, and I have picked up what I my business knowledge along the way.

I have mixed emotions about college. I was actually told by my college counselor that I shouldn’t even apply to the business school because my grades weren’t high enough. On one hand I don’t believe college prepares students enough for making real world business decisions. On the other hand I think college is necessary for building the foundation in which you can build the rest of your knowledge off of. I almost see college as a necessary evil. My teachers are going to love that last quote.”  – Derek being interviewed by Entrepreneurship-Interviews.com

Don’t Let The Haters Get You Down

It feels like there is an abundance of people out there that want to see me fail. Don’t get me wrong, there a bunch of people that want to see me succeed also, but you can’t let the haters get inside your head. That’s the biggest challenge I would say.

Simple Strategy is Successful Strategy

Keeping things simple. There are so many different verticals within mobile that we could have gone, but we’ve continued to stay focused on making Tatango the easiest text message marketing tool on the face of the planet. Nothing else, period.

Staying Informed

I’m reading all of the time, wether it’s on my desktop, laptop, iPhone, I’m always trying to get more information to better gauge where the industry is heading.

Hear Derek Speak

Oh yea, speaking and conferences have been a big part of my schedule over the last year. I’m usually speaking at least once a week at some conference, university, association, etc. The one place you may not see me is at UW, I’m still a little bitter that they denied me to their undergraduate business program. There is actually a fierce discussion on Facebook about whether I should accept their speaking invitations.

Date the CEO of Tatango.

If anyone knows a women that could put up with all that you’ve heard above and is in the 21-30 year old range, have them call me.

Reach out to Derek if you have questions about SMS Marketing, Tatango or are interested in a date.

Connect with Derek!

I’m easily one of the most accessible CEO’s and I love to connect with new people.

If you want to reach me, feel free to call/text me on my mobile phone @ 206.334.4012

@thederekjohnson | thederekjohnson.com | tatango.com | Contact

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Brotherton Cadillac creates a Twitter focused campaign, Race for a Ride to raise awareness, and up to $140k for a Seattle non-profit. The idea takes donating through social media to non-profits to a whole new level, by offering one lucky tweeter a brand new car (2010 CTS).  I personally was very impressed with Brotherton Cadillac for taking the pludge into the deep end of social media to use it for good. The shiny car dealership will get a lot of buzz, and awareness, while making a difference in local non-profit and those it serves. The Race for a Ride campaign website is clean, fresh and fun. Further, type in “Race for a Ride” in Google and the first result will be Brotherton’s campaign  -  Nice SEO.

The Race for a Ride will benefit these five Seattle area non-profits:

• Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
• The Moyer Foundation
• Seattle Children’s Hospital
• Arthritis Foundation
• Special Olympics Washington

Connect:

Website: RaceForARide.com & www.BrothertonCadillac.com
Twitter: @RaceForARide & @BroCadillac

Brotherton Cadillac Goes Social

Nology Media had been providing social media services to Brotherton Cadillac for a number of months. Brad Brotherton of Brotherton Cadillac had been pushing the Nology Media team to come up with ways for auto dealers to use social tools.  We wanted to develop a campaign that would highlight Brotherton Cadillac’s community involvement and philanthropic focus – with a big return for one lucky participant. The contest took four weeks to develop from inception to launch – that included on-boarding all five charities, sponsors, legal approval and website design and development.

The Idea for Race for a Ride

The idea originated from a charity golf tournament over the summer. On one of the golf holes, Brotherton Cadillac had a grand prize of a new Cadillac SUV for anyone who could make a hole in one on a difficult golf hole.  This type of contest happens all the time and almost no one ever wins.  We looked at the contest and asked ourselves – could we do something similar, but on Twitter? Race For A Ride was the idea we pitched to Brotherton Cadillac.

Tools For the Campaign

We’re using a number of commercial and proprietary listening and engagement platforms to manage outreach and engagement. Of course, Seattle’s own RowFeeder is the official data tracker of RaceForARide.

Brand & Campaign Values

Brad Brotherton, President of Brotherton Cadillac, devotes an incredible amount of time and resources to a number of local and national non-profits.

Not on Twitter? That’s okay

People may mail in entries on a 3″x5″ card. Entry by mail details are outlined in the Official Contest Rules page of the Race for a Ride website.

Strong Support Team

Nology Media developed the concept, campaign and contest for Brotherton Cadillac. Other sponsors of the contest include Seattle Met Magazine, Pacific Place, and RBC Wealth Management.

Tips for Running a Social Media Campaign for Non-Profits

Non-profits are asking to be educated on what’s possible through social media.  Start with educating them on the power of social media first and the power of the contest second. In addition, educate them on the residual benefits of increased awareness, larger lists, etc. no matter what the outcome of the contest.

Be creative – think about what’s possible, what’s not been done before, and don’t be afraid to take risks.

Connect:

Website: RaceForARide.com & www.BrothertonCadillac.com
Twitter: @RaceForARide & @BroCadillac

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Introducing you one of my favorite characters in Seattle. Dave wins many awards in my book for being a great community organizer, supporter of startups, sharing words of wisdom all while sharing a pint at his weekly Thursday group called #Hopsandchops. My first appreciation of Dave came from how accessible he is as a leader in the Seattle entrepreneurial scene I believe he is one of the leaders who is creating a welcoming ground for young entrepreneurs like myself to stand on.

When I was thinking about what questions I would ask Dave Schappell that would be of value to you and might be fun for him as well I focused on his current startup company TeachStreet. A company that brings people with talents and skills into a community that is looking to learn those skills. From social media marketing to math tutoring you can learn just about anything from the talent on TeachStreet.

Connect with Dave!

@DaveSchappell | blog.nosnivelling.com | www.teachstreet.com

TeachStreet Elevator Pitch

We help people find great classes and courses, in hundreds of subjects, either in their neighborhood or online. You can learn anything from Spanish to piano; skateboarding to how to fly an airplane.

We have the worlds largest collection of courses, because we’ve built an easy-to-use tool that schools and teachers can use to add their classes, and manage their teaching businesses — we offer easy-to-use online payments, reviews, marketing tools and more — and we provide transparent metrics, so that teachers know what’s working, and what isn’t.

Startup Team Recipe

You need people who are passionate about the opportunity that you’re pursuing, and who are curious about life, because most of what needs to be done isn’t known with certainty. Every day is filled with problem solving and a little bit of the unknown. You need people who are not only comfortable with that, but actually thrive on the challenge. It’s important that there’s a good chemistry/fit, and that your skills complement one another, and if it’s a technically-focused startup (e.g., a website), err on the side of having more technical vs. non-technical team members.

TeachStreet Areas of Focus:

We focus most on the non-traditional learning experiences, such as evening classes and professional education. We leave the 2- and 4-year colleges, and K-12 education space to others. Beyond that, though, we’ve seen big growth in hundreds of subjects — of late, we’ve really done well with Test Prep (GMAT, GRE, SAT, etc.) and Tutoring.

Social Media Marketing

If you have a new social media tool, I’m sure we’ve experimented with it. Blogs, Twitter, YouTube/Vimeo, Facebook, Foursquare, and the like. It’s most important to us that if we’re going to engage, that it’s “real”. The only requirement is that employees speak in their own voice, and exhibit their own personality.

#1 Marketing Tool: Word of Mouth

It’s the biggest driver of growth — some part of that is “word of link” or sharing via social & other networks. We encourage sharing of popular classes, and newly listed classes, and we see much of our recurring (and highly converting) traffic coming in from these trust networks/links.

Importance of Building Long Term Trust

Not important at all — we want them to be wary of everything we do (yes, that’s sarcasm… but, really, what kind of question is that?!?). We’ve tried to be incredibly open with teacher communications, as we’ve introduce new features, prices, and other changes to their class-listing experience. We hope that this level of honesty has earned their trust and respect, even if/when they aren’t happy with changes. Regardless of the change, we try to tell them what led to the change, what feedback we included from them, and made feedback mechanisms an important part of the experience, so that we can continue to iterate based on their inputs.

Pitching to Investors

Much of an entrepreneur’s job is pitching/selling — if you aren’t comfortable with that, then you better find a good co-founder! You pitch employee prospects, existing employees (to stay excited/motivated), investors, reporters, loved ones, and more on a regular basis.

You need to be able to convey why your mission is important, valuable, non-being-done-by-others, and something that they’d want to get involved in, in some way.

Seattle Supports Success

Seattle’s just a great place to find passionate employees, and a supportive startup ecosystem — we’ve found it fairly easy to find people to join, and help, our team — and we’ve tried to give back as well.

Personal Brand Influence & Importance

It’s probably important — but I think all TeachStreet employees’ brands are important — I want anyone who comes in contact with a TeachStreet representative to come away impressed by the passionate talent that we’ve assembled to pursue our goals. So, I personally try to give back and help other entrepreneurs, and to be helpful with investors, reporters, and the like — so many people have helped us get where we are!

Blogs Dave Reads

AVC.com (Fred Wilson), pMarca (Marc Andreesen), Ben’s (Horowitz) blog, Both Sides of the Table (Mark Suster), Continuations (Albert Wenger), Daryn.net (Daryn Nakhuda), Paul Graham, Sawickipedia’s tumblr (Todd Sawicki), and the Flickr French Bulldogs photopool.

Founder & CEO Challenges

The level of ownership and ultimate responsibility far surpasses any of my previous levels of responsibility — as an employee, there was always someone above me who could/would override decisions. As the founder at TeachStreet, I have great supporters and partners, but ultimately there are some decisions that I need to make and implement, where I’m now taking full responsibility for. It’s been very humbling to see how hard it can be, and how rewarding as well.

Reading Making the move to a “Premium Service”, you mentioned the “importance of transparency and clearly communicating the company’s vision. How do you make sure to keep that value as TeachStreet grows?”

As a company, we try to be incredibly open with each other at our Monday afternoon team meeting — there are almost no metrics or discussions that I’m not happy to share with the team (usually to the point of talking endlessly), if there’s a way that it can impact their job, or make things easier to understand (why we’re doing something, what the risks are, how much cash we’re burning, etc.). In addition, we have a part of that meeting each week where a different team member brings a recent story/link/video to bear that reminds us of our company vision — it could feel hokey, but we’ve found it to be an effective reminder.

Who is Dave Schappell Offline

A very boring person. Very similar to the guy you see blabbing online. And he likes ice cream.

Thank you to Dave for his insight into the world of startups, being a leader and an overall cool French Bull dog owner. Connect with Dave and checkout TeachStreet

Connect with Dave!

@DaveSchappell | blog.nosnivelling.com | www.teachstreet.com

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Strong, talented women are amazing. Sarah has found a way to make her life full of her passions from fitness to assisting those around her with their marketing efforts. She is in her element when it comes to using social media to communicate, marketing to express the complex in simple ways and at the core when it comes to maintaining and managing excellent health. Sarah is currently the Online Community Manager – Fitness/Sporting Goods (FitClub) – Sears Holdings Corporation.

I feel honored introduce Sarah Hoffman! Be sure to connect with her, read her blog and she has some excellent insight into the world of online marketing.

Connect with Sarah!

@sarahkayhoffman | Contact | Linkedin
www.digitalmention.com | www.sarahkayhoffman.com

The Professional Sarah: Digital Mention

Digital Mention is my “professional” website for all things digital, social media and integrated marketing related. It was built with my belief that the future of digital (and the world in general) is an online mention married with engagement, interaction and conversing. I basically “geek out” with it!

Marketing Sprinkled with Social Media

I love that it’s a form of marketing, and that it’s the form based around “social interaction.” I have been passionate about Marketing since high school, when I went to nationals for DECA. And as soon as I dabbled into the social media part of Marketing I never looked back!

Sarah’s New Web Adventure:

My brand new website sums it up perfectly: www.sarahkayhoffman.com
I am a total health/fitness/foodie and full-of-life individual. I wear a cowgirl hat a lot. I love country music. And I’m a homebody. “My cup floweth over” when I’m with my husband and our two dogs!

Two People Sarah Admires on Twitter:

@NikisNotes – She is a girl who mixes brains with passion, beauty and a huge heart, and tweets about a combination of topics that give an overall sense of “goodness.” She will tweet about philanthropy, eco-fashion, people, health and wellness. read more …
@digitalroyalty – She truly delivers happiness all over the digital world! With 1,323,643 followers and counting, you would think the DigitalRoyalty has no time for daily interaction. But she does. And I believe that gives her even more credibility among her followers, clients and potentials clients. read more …

Responding to Social Media Hesitation

I don’t respond right away. I find out why, hear them out and then make my case as the “devil’s advocate” to what they’re saying. At the end of the day, if I haven’t persuaded someone then I probably don’t want to converse on the topic with them anyways. They don’t “get it,” and that’s extremely unfortunate to me because there is a whole new world of opportunity with and through it!

Advice on Building Your Personal Brand

Stay consistent! If you are going to use @iamsocool for your Twitter handle, then you should use that in ALL networks (or as many as you can)

Be real! Write, tweet, talk, post, connect, engage, etc with the things that actually interest you. Don’t put out things you think people want to see because once you choose to do that, people start associating your “brand” with those things.

Check out: #MakeMeMarketable

Social Media Opens Doors

Social media has opened a million doors for me. I have been fortunate to network with so many great people and then capitalized on those relationships via IRL meetups! Professionally, it has landed me everything I’ve had in the past couple of years. It landed me with Sears!

Tools to Stay Organized

I have so many! Here are some of my most favorite “Tools:” Hootsuite, Tweetdeck, Rapportive and SocialOomph.

Connect with Sarah!

@sarahkayhoffman | Contact | Linkedin
www.digitalmention.com | www.sarahkayhoffman.com

Read More Interviews

Non-Profit Full of Fur, Feathers & Social Media
Mark Thompson – CEO of Search Creatively
Eric Goldstein – CEO of Amplify
Kyle Lacy – CEO of Brandswag
Mack Collier – Social Media Consultant

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The northwest is a magnet for amazing non-profits utilizing social media. A treat to share an excellent example of  a non-profit using social media to support current marketing efforts as well as strengthen their community. Since 1967 PAWS, a northwest non-profit has been the human voice for cats, dogs, bunnies, birds and even bears. Entering into social media looks to has been a natural transition communicating their support of animal welfare and northwest wildlife, raising awareness for events, adoptions and even beginning to use social media to support donation efforts.

Throughout my life I have looked to PAWS for when I found an injured wild animal and has always been at the top of my list when recommending places to adopt a new furry family member. I am delighted to share with you an interview that Brian Thurston generously took the time to share.

PAWS Social Media Presence

Our social media efforts are led by Mary Leake Schilder, Public Affairs Manager, and Brian Thurston, Online Communications Coordinator, with assistance from 6-8 other “front line” bloggers who write about their experiences working hands-on with animals or educating the community.

PAWS is a regional organization located in Lynnwood, WA serving Washington State, primarily the Puget Sound area.

We also have a cats-only adoption center called PAWS Cat City in the Greenwood neighborhood of Seattle. I think our services are summed up nicely in our new mission statement (just approved by the board Tuesday night!):

PAWS is a champion for animals – rehabilitating injured and orphaned wildlife, sheltering and adopting homeless cats and dogs, and educating people to make a better world for animals and people.

Why did PAWS decide to use social media?

While we had been using our website as a repository of information, it was not a living, breathing, constantly changing source of information. Our rebranding and new website in 2009-2010 gave us the perfect launching point to delve into social media to better keep our supporters and the public up-to-date on our work to make a better world for animals. Venturing into Twitter, YouTube and Facebook has really allowed us to reach more people where they already are, rather than depending on them to come to our website.

Social Media Conversations

We’ve been able to have great conversations around animal welfare issues simply by putting forth PAWS’ stance or a call to action, and responding to questions and comments (both for and against our position). No matter how someone responds online, it opens the door for our supporters to have a conversation amongst themselves, and allows PAWS to chime in when needed to fill in gaps with our expertise in animal care or animal welfare issues.

It’s also been a fantastic way for us to showcase the beautiful, fascinating, and unique animals we help every day. Not only does this help the animals get adopted or get financial support for care, it also helps our supporters and the public feel more connected to what we’re doing. Since most aren’t able to make it to our campus every day, and some areas (especially wildlife care) are not public, it’s a great way to really help people understand what we’re doing and why it’s important.

Starting Social Media

We developed the Online Communications Coordinator position last fall specifically to be the point person for taking on the joys and challenges of social media. While the job also does website maintenance and technical tasks, its central role is to help our staff and volunteers tell their story online via the best media possible.

Funding, Donations & Adoptions

PAWS receives more than 80% of our funding from private donations. While our efforts in social media are too new to see any statistical trends toward increased donations and adoptions, we have anecdotally seen many of our existing donors coming closer to PAWS and the animals through social media interactions, and have also had many more online volunteer applications coming through.

Can you share some frequently asked questions you receive through Facebook and Twitter?

We get a little of everything, from people wanting updates on the animals we’ve featured online to people wanting to know what to do about a wild animal visiting their yard.

Staff & Volunteer Involvement

PAWS staff and volunteers are contributing bloggers, and they also help spread the word to adopters, visitors and the public about our great new website and social media outlets.

We are currently developing a social media policy for both staff and volunteers. While it hasn’t been completely finalized, it boils down to common sense: don’t start or engage in arguments or negative talk online, share only knowledge and photos that are public already (i.e. don’t break a story on your Facebook wall before PAWS has a chance to do so officially, with all the correct details), and be a positive, enthusiastic ambassador for the animals at PAWS.

Determining Online Marketing Success

We track several statistics such as click-through rate for posted links, number of page views on our blog, and number of times a video has been viewed on YouTube. Ultimately, though, we measure our success in the overwhelmingly positive reactions we’ve received from our supporters, volunteers, staff and the public. Even if we only get 10 clicks on a particular link one day, if it brings one person closer to our work and turns them into an advocate for the animals, it was a successful endeavor!

Connect with PAWS!

Facebook and the PAWS Blog are where most of our action is at right now, and they can also subscribe to our e-newsletters. Oh, and I also highly recommend registering for PAWSwalk on September 11, 2010. It’s a really fun event with more than 1,500 people and their canine friends. Anyone can register online! The online fundraising tools available once you register include social media integration on your personal fundraising page.

Participate in Supporting PAWS & Animals

Spread the word about our social media outlets, register for PAWSwalk online and use social media to help bring in donations for the animals, and share our posts and videos with your friends and family!

PAWS blog, Facebook Page, Twitter and YouTube

Thank you for reading about PAWS and their social media journey. I encourage you to learn more about PAWS at their website and if you are ready to for a new furry family member consider adoption first.Similar Posts:

• Panning for Social Media Gold
• What Social Businesses Have Learned
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Pleased to introduce to you an entrepreneur in the online marketing world. One who understands the benefits of search marketing, social media and collaborating with a strong supportive network. As you get to know Mark you will find his dedication is second to none, fearlessly diving into the world of his own business while running one of my favorite search marketing blogs StayOnSearch with incredible success. Mark is also a frequent writer for the well known search marketing blog Search Engine Journal.

The journey of online marketing has taken many marketing professionals through quite the storm, while Mark has been able to ride the wave and share and apply his experience to inspire and create true measurable success for businesses.

Connect with Mark!

@m_thompson | www.searchcreatively.com | stayonsearch.com | Contact

Bio:

I am originally from Buffalo, went to college in Syracuse then followed some friends down to Raleigh after I graduated college. I absolutely love living in Raleigh (not to mention the weather) and it is a great place for young business professionals. Once I moved down to Raleigh, I found a job with a SaaS company in their marketing department. Little did I know that would be the job that got me hooked onto Internet Marketing. They gave me control of a $60k/month PPC account (which I probably had no business working with at the time) and they let me learn the ropes of Google Adwords. Once I started to learn how Adwords worked, I became addicted to learning how to drive traffic to websites.

My next two jobs were both with Internet Marketing agencies where I really improved my skills as an SEO and overall marketer. I was able to take the things I have learned through reading various industry blogs/books and put them to use.

Just recently I just started my own internet marketing company called Search Creatively about 4 months ago and am in the whole entrepreneurial mode. I will say that running your own business is a lot different than just the normal 9-5 job, but is has been a fun adventure!

About StayOnSearch

I started StayOnSearch in 2008, as a way to not only help other internet marketers with things I have learned throughout my experiences, but to actually practice what I preached. As I started working with clients, I would always say you need to be adding new, fresh content to your site. When a client asked me…”Well where is your blog?” I said it was about time to start doing what I was recommending to clients.

Over the last 3-6 months, the blog has grown so much in terms of content creation, daily traffic and subscribers. I have also launched the Link Builders Toolkit, which is a an awesome reference for anyone who is involved in building links for their website or clients websites. Personally, I am really excited about the direction it has gone and have a number of great things in the mix that will be getting rolled out soon.

We are also looking for part-time bloggers to help contribute to StayOnSearch. Please contact me via the blog if you are interested in becoming a part-time blogger.

Small Businesses & SEO

Small businesses should be paying attention to SEO and Internet Marketing in general more than ever before. Here is the reason…Google, Yahoo, Bing Local Business Centers, Foursquare, Gowalla, Loopt, Groupon, LivingSocial, Twitter, Meetup, and the list keeps going. We are seeing that internet marketing is becoming more localized and targeted than ever before.

I think one of the hardest tasks for an agency to do, is pull small-business owners away from what they are comfortable doing. Shifting their mass-market mentalities into extremely relevant and trackable marketing. Someone who has been doing Yellow Page ads for years, is starting to see that it is not doing what it once was for them. So as Internet Marketers, we need to be educated them on the new tactics small business owners can take to reach out to their target market.

Easy SEO Wins

This probably has been said only a thousand times, but having keyword-rich title tags. Especially for a small, localized business you may be able to add a local keyword-rich title tag to your homepage and your site may show up on the 1st page of Google (of course it is not always that easy).

The other would be content, content, content….it really needs to be something that every business owner should work into their daily schedule. Have a place on your website where you can share industry ideas, events going on, company news, specials/promotions, basically anything that would help build your overall credibility and keep the site fresh and dynamic.

Social Media SEO Tips

Recently I wrote a post titled How SEO and Social Media are Joining Forces which speaks directly to the question you are asking. But to answer your question in short, it goes back to again…CONTENT. Yes social media is a way to build relationships with other people in your industry, but it is also a great way to spread your content and keep people coming back to your site. If you have new blog posts, tools, whitepapers, videos, inforgraphics, etc…you can leverage the social media presence you have been building to drive people to your site/blog.

The other thing would be to try and optimize what you are saying in your Tweets and social profile updates. Mention other peoples Twitter profiles (@twitterhandle), share other peoples content, use keyword-rich titles along with headlines that are compelling. Don’t forget many social profile pages and upates are being indexed by the search engines, and I only see that playing a larget role in organic search in the future.

Mark Thompson Offline

I got married last year and have two awesome dogs (lab/retriver mix and aussie/boarder collie mix).

I am a huge sports fanatic (unfortunately it is the Buffalo Bills, but at least I am loyal) so I tend to be watching some sporting event going on.

I love to travel when I have the opportunity and visiting new places I have never been before.

Two People to Follow on Twitter

Kristi Hines
Twitter: @kikolani
Website: Kikolani.com

Ann Smarty
Twitter:@seosmarty
Websites: MyBlogGuest.com & SearchEngineJournal.com

Two people who are extremely genuine and love to help others in the industry. Personally I try to surround myself with positive people who are passionate about what they do. Kristi and Ann are definitely two that fit the bill and I have enjoyed getting to know them both.

Connect with Mark!

@m_thompson | www.searchcreatively.com | stayonsearch.com | Contact

Read More Interviews

Eric Goldstein – CEO of Amplify

Kyle Lacy – CEO of Brandswag

Mack Collier – Social Media Consultant

Nadine – Owner of Curious Light

Raven Pratt – Search Marketing Expert with Raven Tools

Joanna Lord – Director at SEOmoz

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Font and center here is a CEO of ion interactive and leader of experience design team Justin and his insights into the world of conversion rate optimization and what ion is doing to make the lives of marketers a lot easier and more fun.

Justin has a impressive resume and his experience working with some gladiator companies like Yahoo!, Samsung and Office Depot just to name a few tells me that Justin has successfully been able to live his passion. Justin writes, speaks at conferences and universities and breathes marketing.

I am impressed with Justin’s passion, his down to earth approachable nature and the fact he and I believe usability is core. Justin was kind enough to answer my long winded questions which I am delighted to share with you. Connect with Justin and learn more about ion interactive, and Liveball!

Connect with Justin!

@JustinTalerico | @ioninteractive | www.ioninteractive.com | Email

Background

I started my first company in 1992 a couple of years out of the advertising program at the University of Florida. In 1994 we developed our first large-scale website for Samsung and I was quickly transformed into a user advocate. By 1996 we were exclusively focused on web marketing and technology with user-centered sites under our belt for Fujitsu, Office Depot and others. I became fixated on the idea that what’s best for the user is best for business and brand as well. In 1998 we merged with Scott Brinker’s software company and began blending marketing and technology in new ways. We developed a content management system that we deployed to enterprise clients through 2004. At that time we saw a common need among our clients to improve their online marketing ROI. In 2005 we dropped everything else to focus on what we termed post-click marketing — the pages and experiences that come next after a participant clicks on a campaign link. We launched our LiveBall platform in 2007 with the intention of empowering marketers to take control of their campaign results. My odd background of marketing, design and technology helps me focus on making LiveBall a powerful, but marketer-friendly optimization tool.

ion interactive Focus & Passion

It’s all about the user. I mean that on two levels: The ultimate participant online must truly be the center of where and how resources are allocated. But making that happen gets us to my core passion which is empowering marketing people to run campaigns as agile as the markets they’re chasing. There are two users — end users and the marketers who put good stuff in front of them. I believe in pushing technical clutter out of the way of message and brand.

Importance of Conversion Rate Optimization

When I was in college, print advertising was moving from the domain of a few technical experts into the domain of many more empowered creatives. Technology made this move possible. Today, the web is moving from the domain of a few technical experts in IT to the domain of many more empowered marketers and creatives. For me, this is the heart of CRO. Optimizing conversion rates is all about getting the best-fit user experience in front of each participant. In order for that to happen, the focus must be on what is being created instead of how it’s created or deployed. Many try to execute CRO beneath a burden of ineffective layers of clutter. It’s nearly impossible to be successful in that mode. Once marketers are in direct touch with their participants, they can cater to their needs and make them happy. That’s CRO for me. I’ve seen it deliver the ROI again and again. Of course you still need to execute… test, test, test… and assume nothing.

Staying Relevant

I live it everyday. I personally run our paid search from click to revenue expressly to stay in direct touch with the state of the market. I also supervise our full-service clients’ creative work. I don’t actually get to do much of that anymore, but it all runs through me, so I stay in close touch with a pretty advanced group of online marketers. We limit full-service to about ten clients at a time, but the roster includes great brands like Anthem, emusic and others. They all demand absolute excellence in terms of CRO performance and branding. It’s exhilarating to see their successes. They inform everything we do on the platform.

ion Clients

We actually have both clients and customers. We have hundreds of customers from startups to Fortune 100s. Our customers license the LiveBall platform and run it themselves (with our support). Then we have about ten clients that use us as a full-service solution. That essentially means that we run LiveBall on their behalf. We handle their post-click marketing from strategy through conversion. We have account teams and creative teams that run that business and we keep it limited to about ten at any one time.

Working with CRO Hesitation

Everything we do is tested, so they’re not here unless they’re on board with that. We do a lot of A/B/n testing to sort diamonds from coal and we refine those results with in-page multivariate tests to polish the diamonds. We provide a lot of pre-sales and client education and we have the ROI credibility to back up our position on this stuff. We can launch tests in minutes, but depending on traffic and the scope of differences between alternatives, it make take quite some time to come to a conclusion. We educate clients about the sometimes painful waiting and about the dangers of jumping to a conclusion based on a trend instead of a statistically significant result. I think our customers are surprised at how easy and fast testing is with LiveBall. It’s naturally a less resource-intensive proposition and so they are more willing to experiment.

Liveball Makes CRO Easier

To run LiveBall you need one thing from IT — a subdomain. Once you get them to invest that 30-minute nugget of time, you’re IT-free. You create your landing experiences — landing pages, conversion paths, microsites or whatever you want to call them — with LiveBall’s WYSIWYG content management interface. To test one against another (A/B) you check boxes to indicate which ones you want to test for each source of traffic. You can test as many as you like, so A/B is a misnomer. Then you can test content within pages as well (MVT). I just recorded a sneak peek to prove just how effortless it is to vary text, images and forms within LiveBall. You have to try it. We spent nine months of R&D on this MVT feature to make sure it was truly effortless. You can launch multivariate tests in literally less than five minutes. And you can run A/B + MVT, MVT on multiple pages, MVT within Flash for dynamic text and images… the list goes on and on, but it’s all IT- and code-free. Really.

Importance of Usability in Conversion

It’s everything. When a user turns into a participant by taking that first click in your landing experience, they cross a huge psychological chasm. If your UX then breaks the promise it made to earn that click, you’re cooked and your brand is damaged. If your UX keeps its promises, you’ll get a high percentage to the finish line. People convert when they’re happy, comfortable and when you’ve earned their trust. These emotions come from your messaging and usability.

Working at ion interactive

I think we provide a great environment. It’s super fast-paced. There’s never a dull moment, that’s for sure. We’ve been (at least) doubling our revenue each year and that makes for an exciting day-to-day. In addition to our own pace, we operate in an ever-changing nascent market. So we’re moving fast in a fast-moving market. Neat combination. Our team is passionate and committed. When you put a bunch of like-minded people like that together, there’s a palpable symbiosis. We have a soundtrack, we have foosball, team lunches and a billboard-size ‘THINK BIG’ in bright orange across one wall. Maybe that helps paint a picture.

Two Common Mistakes

Serial testing and jumping to conclusions. Both are testing problems, but they truly are ubiquitous. It’s hard for marketers to understand that serial test results cannot be compared. Controls must be run in parallel to take environmental differences out of the equation. Likewise, jumping to conclusions is tough to stay away from, but you have to. A trend is not a result until it’s reached whatever statistical confidence level you deem adequate for your situation. I’ve seen hundreds of tests trend one way and end up another. Making decisions based on a trend is super-expensive guessing. You paid to test, but then guessed anyway. Bad all around. I’m gonna add a third common mistake… doing nothing in the name of doing everything perfect. Marketers must get started and begin to see results. Everything doesn’t need to be done at once, and everything will never be perfect. So start testing already.

Improve CRO Knowledge

Well I’m biased toward #CROchat. Aside from that, there are some great conferences and blogs out there. Most importantly, they need to get started. It’s not rocket science. It’s about finding out who your participants are and giving them what they want. It’s amazing how fast you get the hang of CRO once you get started. @MeganLeap posted a great list of CRO resources on our blog at inoninteractive.com/post-click-marketing-blog.

Justin Talerico Offline

I’m a dad with two kids (boy 11, girl 7) and a great wife (@AnnaTalerico). I play a lot of tennis. I’m a foodie who collects and drinks a lot of wine. I love boating & watersports.

I serve on the board of advisors of my kids’ school (@PCS_panthers). And I coach baseball. I’m passionate about modern design and fanatical about details & quality.

A big thank you to Justin for his time and I hope that like me you are impressed and inspired about CRO, marketing and learning more about ion.

Connect with Justin!

@JustinTalerico | @ioninteractive | www.ioninteractive.com. | Email

Read More Interviews

Eric Goldstein – CEO of Amplify
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Nadine – Owner of Curious Light
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Joanna Lord – Director at SEOmoz

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Eric and Wife Dana

When it comes to web, here is a man that understands how to create the perfect foundation to build a great future upon. I am pleased to introduce to you one of my personal entrepreneurial inspirations – Eric Goldstein. Coming from a legal background, Eric  sees the big picture while always remaining grounded as a family man. Eric is the founder and CEO of Amplify, the company that created Clipmarks.com. He is a man of generosity, creativity and passion for Amplify.

Connect with Eric!

@EGoldstein | @AmplifyTheWeb | egoldstein.amplify.com | Email

Background

Shortly after graduating law school in 1999 I became enamored by the web’s ability to connect people from all over the world who were reading the same thing at the same time.  I desperately wanted to create an environment on the web where news and ideas could serendipitously be shared, discovered and talked about.  Through another project I had worked on I met a great developer and we started working on it.  The first site we created, Clipmarks.com, went live in 2004.  Then, in 2009, taking into consideration the fast changing nature of the social web and everything we had learned from Clipmarks we decided to start from scratch on a new site aimed at connecting people around news, ideas or anything else they wanted to talk about.  That’s when Amplify.com was born.

Eric Goldstein's Girls

Eric Goldstein Offline

I’m a happily married father of 2 young girls.  Aside from spending time with my family, a  few of my favorite things to do are playing sports, drinking red wine, making fires in the winter, taking naps, engaging in deep conversation and reading books.  I also love the change of seasons you get in the Northeast… constantly keeps you on your toes.

“I especially love when my kids are at the games.  I get such a kick from seeing them on the sidelines rooting for me.” – Eric

The Beginning of Amplify

The core idea of providing people an environment to connect around things they want to talk about has been on my mind for a decade now.  Working out all the specific nuances that go into getting it right is something I’m still working on.  Prior to going live with Amplify, me and the team that created Clipmarks spent weeks in a room with a white board plotting out our ideas.  In the Spring of 2009 we made Amplify live in a very nascent stage and decided we would take a very iterative approach to developing it while people were using it.  Since then we’ve worked hard to get the end product to match the vision we have for it and recently I’ve become very excited about how its coming along. 

One of the first elements of Amplify I notice is the clean design, easy interface and great content. How did the Amplify team going about design and interface for Amplify?

A clean design is something I’m very committed to.  We try hard to let our users and the content they post be the dominant presence on the site, so when we think of design, we prioritize the ease and simplicity of the user interface over the aesthetic qualities of the page.  By doing so, I think we end up with a clean design that doesn’t compete for attention with the content and conversation on the page.

Amplify Community

The community seems intelligent and extremely passionate about what they’re sharing as well as eager to hear what other people have to say.  On many social media sites you see a lot of trivial communication taking place.  I don’t have a problem with that, but I don’t think the web needs another one of those.  So we’ve tried to position Amplify as an environment for people to talk about things that are on their mind.  As a result, you don’t typically get location updates, personal photos and other trivialities in your feed.  The result, in my opinion, is a pretty high signal to noise ratio that is sort of its own self-filtering mechanism because people are inspired to think about and communicate intelligently in response the what’s being shared.

Add-on for Firefox, synchronization to Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed, Delicious and Tumblr and more!

Well, we’ve recently enabled full blogging on Amplify as well as something we refer to as Thought Updates (500 character messages that contain no titles or formatting).  I hope the combination of Thought Updates, Blogging and the ability to share URLs and web snippets using our browser add-on gives users a one-stop-shop for expressing themselves across the social web.  We haven’t really done anything to encourage submissions, but hopefully once people start using Amplify, they won’t need much encouragement.

Businesses Benefit from Amplify

Well, in any business it’s imperative to get the word out and react to whatever is being said about you or related to your business.  I think Amplify gives businesses a great way to curate news, add their perspective and share it throughout the social web.  A lot is written about the importance of businesses getting involved in the conversation on the web.  I think Amplify provides a natural way for businesses to not only get involved, but to spark conversation as well.

Are there any thoughts about integrating with additional social media venues like Foursquare or Sphinn?
Well, we already integrate with Twitter, Facebook, Posterous, Tumblr, Ping.fm and several others.  And I’m sure we’ll continue to add more as we go.  I’m not too inclined to integrate with FourSquare at this time because I don’t think location updates fall under the umbrella of things people would typically think about or want to talk about.   I don’t know Sphinn too well, so rather than give an answer about that one, let me reserve judgment and look into it.

People That Inspire

Jason Fried of 37Signals and Matt Mullenweg of Automatic are extremely impressive.  The services they have created and the consistently and authenticity of their vision are remarkable in my opinion.

Connect with Eric!

@EGoldstein | @AmplifyTheWeb | egoldstein.amplify.com | Email

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Justin Talerico – CEO of ion interactive
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There are one man bands and then there are one man Justice Leagues. Here is a man that truly has an entrepreneurial spirit. In the arena of social media he focused on Twitter and wrote a BOOK “Twitter Marketing for Dummies”.

Kyle is world renown for his presentations and speaking at social media events, and working with students.  He also supports some incredible causes, like Envolv. If being a being a social media consultant, speaker, youth idol, writing and publishing a book isn’t enough he is also the CEO of Brandswag. A socially creative business that understands their customers need guidance in the social media landscape. With an emphasis on word-of-mouth marketing, Brandswag knows the internet is becoming the marketing landscape to engage customers.

Connect with Kyle!

@kyleplacy | @Brandswag | kylelacy.com | Contact

Here is what Kyle had to say:

Personal Branding

My personal branding is built around my personality as well as my industry. Personal branding is all based around how you tell YOUR story. How do you interact with people? How do people view you intimately and from a higher view…? Personal branding is the basic perceptions and realities on how other people view you as an individual. I love social media and I love writing. There is nothing that pulls my heart strings more than training a group of people on how to use social media.

Kyle’s Marketing Mantra

Sometimes it’s better to be socially creative

Connect with Kyle!

@kyleplacy | @Brandswag | kylelacy.com | Contact

• The Perceived Brand Identity
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