Can’t Fight the Future

Posted on March 16, 2009 by michelle.mack

I recently had a very interesting conversation with three awesome women. These three women have one thing in common that absolutely fascinates me: They’re not on Facebook.

For that matter, they’re not on Twitter, or LinkedIn, or MySpace either. They have absolutely no desire to get involved with online social networking whatsoever.

The image to the right – the Conversation Prism, created by Brian Solis and Jesse Thomas – displays the myriad ways people can connect with one another online: Blogs, Social Neworks, Life Streaming, video, music and photo sharing, are just some of the activities that tie us together in cyberspace.

The subjects:

Woman #1 – Karen
Karen is a stay at home mom to two children and a wife to a hard working businessman. In her opinion, online social networking is for creepy people from her past – old high school acquaintances and old flames – to look her up and relive the glory days or outright stalk her. She barely has enough time to keep her kids stimulated, fed and cleaned and her house organized to throw in something so mundane as wall posts or super wall giggles.

Woman #2 – Laura
Laura is an elementary school teacher with a husband an a young son. Her biggest concern about online social networking is exposing her personal life to her students and their parents. School workplace politics are rough enough without one’s student’s parents knowing what events you may be attending or what you might be growing in your Li’l Green Patch.

Woman #3 – Sarah
Sarah is a businesswoman who owns a womens’ gym and is also married with one young son (yes, we all share some commonalities, hence, the hanging out together). She has no real desire to share anything of her personal life with the world via the internet; she’s perfectly happy to rely on interpersonal communication via either email or telephone, but prefers in-person connection.

Here’s where we disagree: While they each consider online social networking to be of very little value, I consider it to be a new and better way of communicating with people around me and a source of rich information and connection. Even the BBC says Social Networks ‘are new e-mail’.

Photo: Jason Nicholls on Flickr

Back in the 1990′s when email was making its way into mainstream business practice, there were still naysayers who suggested they didn’t need it. If they needed something from someone they could phone them up; if they needed a document signed they could fax it or mail the original. And before there was email there was the telephone. When it first became available, while there were a few who jumped on the bandwagon like the tech crowd to twitter, there were many who were reluctant to see its value, preferring instead to walk over to someone’s office to talk or wait for their regular meeting. Failing that, they could send a letter or a telegram. Seems a bit archaic now, no?

Technology changes. Today, we can sit on a plane traveling from Vancouver to London while accessing the internet on our iPhones using WiFi at 37,000′ to update our networks with a twitpic of the guy sitting next to us. Not because he’s interesting, but just because we can. If he’s drooling on your shoulder and you don’t know his first name, all the better.

Photo: Christopher Chan on Flickr

Times they are most certainly changing, and it’s time to embrace the power of the internet for each and every individual. What provides value to one person might not provide value to the next, but if you look in the right place, you will find an enriching experience. Online social networks are extremely valuable in today’s society and can help with everything from job search to business marketing and from connecting with a niche hobby group to finding a local mom’s group.

No matter how obscure your interests or how lofty your goals, you can use online social networking to connect to others who share your passions and can help you achieve your dreams.

Online social network examples:

To Karen:
Online social networking can help you to connect with other mothers who share your passion for a sparkly-clean house. You can find other wives of executives that can relate to the stresses you’re under trying to raise your children while maintaining peace in your home that doubles as an office. You can also save valuable time looking for the best place to get your nails done by asking the question within your network to see what they come back with. After all… the collective response is usually pretty bang on.

To Laura:
Online social networking can help you to connect with other teachers who share your expertise to provide synergies within your class preparations – the Second Grade Teacher’s Club on Ning, for instance. You can find a welcome distraction from grading papers or build a space to deliberately connect with your students’ parents. How enriching an experience for your students if they had their own social network that you used to keep your classroom connected to one another for homework help, carpooling or group assignments?

To Sarah:
Online social networking can help you connect to your gym’s members, to make them feel special, to engage them with you and with one another. It can help you to improve sales in a time and place where everyone is searching for some spare cash. It can help you to find other adoptive moms to connect with and learn from or network with other professionals from your religious community who may not be in the same city.

Photo: Graham Ballantyne on Flickr

You can avoid online social networks for a time, but imagine trying to live life without a telephone? It won’t last forever. You can’t fight the future, but you can make sure you’re getting the most enriching social networking experience possible.

Join Facebook. Connect with your friends. If people send you friend requests and you don’t want to invite them in, don’t. Life is too short to have to justify yourself. I don’t usually connect on Facebook with anyone I don’t know in real life and for the most part, there’s quite a close connection.

If you’re in business (or have ever had a professional job for that matter), join LinkedIn. Connect with your co-workers, former colleagues, former bosses, business contacts… You never know how you might be able to help someone out and you never know when you may need to lean on one of these relationships during a major life change like a move or a job loss.

If you have a hobby or are interested in some really interesting or obscure activity, check out Ning and see if there isn’t already a community for it. Knitting anyone? Model cars? Paddling?

Join Twitter. Just do it. I can’t tell you how much I love the connections I’ve made there. I’ve connected with business leaders in my field and moms from other countries. I’ve connected with other Vancouverites and other Ski Industry marketing professionals. If the conversation on Twitter isn’t any good for you, you’re not following the right people.

If you have friends who are not online, please help them. In the same way you wouldn’t let your best friend sport a mullet in 2009, don’t let them miss out on some of the best relationship building tools because they think it’s all going to be about awkward highschool moments they don’t want to relive.

Selling Tips from a Buyer’s Perspective

Posted on February 19, 2009 by michelle.mack

Photo: zzzack on Flickr

In my job I buy stuff every day.

I buy media advertising. I buy printing services. I buy other production services. I buy website development and computer equipment. I buy software and promotional gadgets. Sometimes I giggle at the fact that I get to go to work every day and spend other peoples’ money… But the truth is I have to spend it wisely. And I have to keep my objectives in mind.

And if you’re selling, you need to keep my objectives in mind too.

Obviously how you sell will vary based on what you’re selling, but here are a few ways I think you could make me feel like you care about my business. Caring about how I make buying decisions will go a long way towards improving your sales success.

Know who you’re looking for

If you call my company and don’t know who you’re looking for, even by title or position, you may get transferred to a few people. It happens. We have different people responsible for PR, Events & Sponsorship, Marketing, Retail etc. and sometimes there is overlap and I’m sure this is the case at other medium to large businesses. You either need to do a little digging and find out who you may need to talk to ahead of time or, at the very least, be very explicit with the Receptionist or Guest Services Agent that may answer your call so they know to whom your call should be forwarded.

If you get transferred a couple of times, keep your cool. It’s sort of like buttering up your parents before asking for the car keys. If you get angry with the person you’re trying to sell to, it’s not likely they’re even going to hear what you have to say. They’re going to hear the tone in your voice. No one wants to be told off and then pitched.

Please give those poor junior staff a break and assume they are trying their best to get you put through to the right person.

Know about my company

You don’t need to know every facet of our business, but know what we do as it pertains to what you’re selling. A simple Google search will turn up a vast amount of info on most companies. It’s so hard to say here what you should know; I’m much more inclined to write a list of examples of unpreparedness.

If you are selling advertising, know who my audience is. If you don’t know, phone me with the intention of finding out first, not selling me on your ad space regardless.

If you are selling social media consulting services, make sure my company doesn’t have a larger social media presence than your social media agency.

If you are selling hotel affiliate marketing for instance, know that my company, despite being a ‘resort’ does not actually own or operate a hotel or other accommmodations on site. Knowing the business name is not enough to pitch.

On that note, make sure you do know the business name.

It’s odd that when I tell people my email address – m evans at companyname dot com – I get people asking, “Could you spell that, please?” I’m sorry, what? It’s my company name. You need to know that before you call.

Be prepared to email a sales package

I don’t mean this to sound rude at all, but I get a lot of people trying to sell me a lot of stuff. Make my life easier by being ready to email me all the relevant details. This goes back to knowing what business I’m in and what I’m already doing.

Relevancy depends on knowing.

This should not be a giant form email filled with links to your company website; I can’t take the time to browse through. I like a nice PDF attachment – even a couple of them – with your company background, what you do, how you can benefit my company, any deadlines I need to be aware of, and unless you’re trying to sell me something really big i.e. >$20K, your rates. Please give me your rates.

Be persistent with a hint of thick skin

I have ongoing relationships with people who have been trying to sell me stuff for a long time. Publications who really think I should be advertising with them; website who really want me to list there; printers who really want my business… there are sales people I’ve been speaking with for years but have yet to buy from. Now, that’s the extreme case, but I don’t mind talking to them and hearing them out when they tell me about updates to their product or company because I know they’re interested in finding a real fit and developing a relationship with me and my company.

You need to be persistent but not overbearing. I admit you may need to speak to me many times before I’ll feel confident enough in you or your business to align my brand with yours.

Leaving voicemail messages

Effective voicemail messages are essential. You need to leave some information about why you’re calling. Simply leaving a name and phone number is not a good idea, especially if followed by an abrupt, “I would appreciate a return call.” Click. You wouldn’t speak to someone face to face like that, so it’s best not to speak like that in a voicemail.

Give me a quick rundown of what you’re calling about and let me know what you’re looking for from me. Are you asking for time to meet? My email address so you can send me a package? Are you asking if I have any interest? Please ensure you say precisely what you mean.

If you say, “Feel free to give me a call back if this is something you think you might be interested in,” I will only call if I’m interested. Please don’t take offense if I don’t call; I’m doing precisely what you asked of me. If you want a call back, say so: “I’d love an opportunity to discuss this further. Please call me at … If I don’t hear from you, I’ll follow up with you next week/month/Tuesday” or whatever. Then do follow up if you don’t hear from me.

The follow up goes along with the persistence I mentioned earlier. Do be persistent, but please be kind. If you can only be bothered to phone me once or twice and expect to close a sale, sorry. Maybe I need more hand holding than that.

Putting it all together

I really do want to hear about good opportunities that will benefit my company. I want to know about new publications, new printing methods, innovative technologies, your photography portfolio, etc. I want to see all these things, but I only have time to look at what’s really relevant.

Know who to contact: Even just call a customer service rep, receptionist or someone with the title you think you might want. Then ask some questions. You can say “I have a product that I really think can benefit you, but I want to make sure I get it to the right person…” and go from there. Most people will be only too happy to help you find who you need.
Know my company: Check out my company website, do a Google search, check a Google Blog search, Twitter Search or a combination of these. Know what I sell and to whom I sell it before you put together your pitch.
Prepare your pitch: Customize your pitch based on what you find out in step 2. Send me info that’s relevant to my business and my objectives. If you don’t know, call me and ask me first. Phone up and ask for some time – it may be immediately it may mean scheduling a longer phone call for another day – but I would rather you ask me for some time and ask some questions first so you can figure out what part of what you’re selling will benefit me. Then when you do call to pitch me, be prepared to send over the custom pitch by email. I need time to mull it over and discuss it with other members of my team. I don’t tend to make decisions alone.
Be persistent: Your priorities and my priorities are vastly different. Please be understanding and do call back if you haven’t heard back from me. Keep in touch. Send me updates about what you’re doing. I work on a one-year planning cycle. Just because I am not buying this year doesn’t mean I won’t plan it in for next.
Leave effective messages: This really doesn’t only apply to voicemail, but to email as well. Make sure you give enough information that I don’t have to dig for more. You want me to know about your product; please do tell me the parts that will benefit me, and let me know what you’re looking for as a response from me. Please be very clear about your expectations of me.

Now let’s do business.

6 Super Simple Tools for Small Business

Posted on February 7, 2009 by michelle.mack

Photo: UrbanShore on Flickr

If you’re in business, you may have heard lately that you should be doing “Social Media”… “Web Two Point OH”. You should have a YouTube Channel. You should start a viral video. You should write a blog.

Um, why exactly?

I’m sure when you’re already working 14 or 16 hours a day on your day to day business operation, the last thing you want to do is sit down at the computer and add more to your task list. If your business is small or local – you own or manage a coffee shop or have a small fitness studio or an urban retail store – you’re already trying to do a lot with a little. Besides, the web is for big business right?

Wrong. It’s for everyone.

Here’s the thing: There is so much information online already, that you stand to gain a wealth of insight from it. And many of those people putting in their two cents are your customers… they may just not know it yet.

Here are a few super simple tactics that can help you use some of today’s web-based tools to tap into that information, streamline tasks and grow your business. I’ve broken them down into 3 categories: Listening, Building Relationships, and Home Base.

Listening

Google Alerts

Google Alerts allow you to track what’s happening in your industry by allowing you to conduct a search for keywords or phrases of your choosing and then sending you every article written about them in real time. You can search for your company name, your competitors’ names and industry keywords or prases. You can have the results sent to your email or to an RSS feed (more about these later).

Here’s the super simple way you set up a Google Alert:

Go to google.com/alerts
Enter your first search term (your company name, likely) in the text field
Select “Comprehensive” – this will look for news, websites, blogs, video, and even some forums
Select how often you want to receive them (if you’re sending to your email, once a day may suffice)
Enter your email address and click “Create Alert”

It’s as simple as that. Google will send you an email with what looks like search results, only everything in the list will include the keywords or prases you requested.

If you want to receive alerts for multiple keywords or phrases, I recommend creating a Google account (you may even have one already if you have a Gmail account, Google Analytics account, Blogger account etc.) and creating a more comprehensive alerts system. But a simple email alert for your company name is a great start.

Twitter Search

You’ve probably heard the word Twitter. Twitter is all abuzz in the tech/marketing world but it has yet to reach the mainstream. Having said that, the people on Twitter are almost exclusively bloggers and influencers by the very nature of their extensive social networking.

Knowing what these influencers are talking about and finding a few in your industry or location is never a bad idea.

If you don’t want to sign up to Twitter, that’s fine. It can be a life suck anyway – if you joined Facebook you know how much time that can take up if you’re not careful. But you should use the Twitter Search function. And just like setting up a Google Alert, it’s super simple.

Go to search.twitter.com and enter a keyword. Now, keep in mind, people using Twitter only have 140 characters to talk to one another. The keywords will pick up exact words they are including in their ‘tweets’. What you’ll get in the results is a list of statements from people using Twitter to communicate. A quick browse will give you an idea of what people are saying about your business or industry.

Building Relationships

You need to make sure you have an ongoing relationship with your customers. It doesn’t matter what business you’re in, encouraging repeat business takes less effort than acquiring new business. Repeat customers are the ones who become your advocates. Repeat customers keep your business open. Sometimes all it takes is a friendly conversation… in person or online.

To build and grow that relationship, find a way to connect with your customers – either via email or mobile messages – and then offer them information that’s relevant to them in the way they want.

Side note: I believe marketing can help people to improve their lives via your product. I don’t believe in selling people something they don’t want. I don’t believe in shoving information down peoples’ throats. What I do believe in, is providing relevant information via relevant media that simply show people how they can benefit from a product or service.

Email Marketing

While email marketing in general seems to be on a decline because of the prevalence of other communication methods, it’s still the most comprehensive way to share information with people who want that information. Blogs with an RSS subscription present another way to share that in-depth type of information with your customers.

You can use a simple tool like Vertical Response to collect and store contact information. You can create different lists based on whatever attributes you like – types of purchases, gender, age category – and then send them updates that are relevant to them: new product lines, special events, sales. Vertical Response has a huge set of pre-made email templates to choose from, they send in both HTML (with pretty pictures and stuff) and text so no matter what type of email your customers receive, your message will be intact. And, you only have to pay for what you use – there’s no monthly fee. You can also use it to conduct surveys or, if you collect full contact information, you can even use it to send direct mail postcards.

The cost starts at just $0.015 per email you send e.g. if you have a list of 1000 addresses, the whole email will cost you only $15. If your list is larger, the cost per message goes down from there. Or, you can pay a monthly fee based on the size of your email list and send as often as you’d like – currently for up to 2,000 addresses in your list it would cost you $28/month.

Tagga Mobile Marketing

Tagga is a really innovative new tool that allows anyone to use SMS or Text Messaging for any reason they like. You could create a tagg (or an SMS message) that people can text in to receive. You change it whenever you’d like and let people know they can text KEYWORD (whatever you choose, provided it’s not already taken) to 82442 (TAGGA) and they receive your message to their mobile phone. Alternatively, you can set up a subscription where people text in the keyword to 82442 to subscribe. You then send out a message to your subscribers.

You can pay for service and use the full 120 character text message for yourself – the cost is about USD$0.20 per message – or you can opt to send your messages using only 80 characters and pay nothing; a sponsored message (using the remaining 60 characters) at the end of the text will cover the cost. Note: it is really hard to squeeze a message into 80 characters, but at only $0.20/message with no month to month cost, it’s a great way for a small company to get in on mobile marketing.

Where mobile is really effective is last second deals to improve upon low yield times/days.

You own a bakery? Blow out the end of day inventory at a discount – send a message at 4pm that says “Get 25% off today’s baked goods at XYZ Bakery before 5pm today” (that’s only 62 characters, incidentally). Empty coffee shop? Send a message saying “Large coffee for the price of a small at Tasty Coffee Company; today only.”

Your Home Base

WordPress.com

I know, I know… I said earlier you don’t need to blog. And you don’t. BUT, if you don’t have a web presence at all, WordPress.com is a quick and easy – and FREE – way to create one. Just sign up for an account at wordpress.com for free. Then, select from a number of visual themes, upgrade to a custom URL (it’s only $15), purchase your preferred URL from a domain name provider (I like Namespro.ca) and redirect your ‘site’ to your custom URL.

You can use wordpress.com as a free web content management system by using the ‘Pages’ functionality to create all the pages your website may need (see above where it says “About Michelle”? That’s a page – if I add more they’ll make a line across the top). You can then go into the settings and redirect your home page to one of the pages you’ve created and you don’t actually need to blog at all… unless you want to.

RSS Feed Reader

The last thing I want to mention is using RSS to keep track of everything. Almost everything is accessible with RSS nowadays. RSS allows you to take the content of blogs, media sites, twitter, google searches, and any RSS enabled website and aggregate that information in one place.

I use Google Reader. When you find an RSS link – like the one at the top of this page that says “Subscribe in a reader” – you can click the link and add it to your Google Reader (or another feed reader of your choosing). You can, incidentally, sign up to have your Google Alerts also go to your Google Reader. You can also sign up to an individual’s twitter stream, a twitter search stream, your favourite news site etc.

The benefit to doing this is you go to only one site to read all the information you want to see. I go to my Google Reader and get something that looks like this:

You can see I have 579 unread items that I can review by topic; I have categorized my subscriptions into Social Media, Tourism, Vancouver, Snowboarding and the ones at the bottom of the list are uncategorized at this point. If I open any one topic I get a number of sources and I can review by source, by topic, or the whole list.

This, incidentally, is my personal reading list; I also have another Google Account for my work and have another reader account with everything I read pertaining to my employment.

I know that may look overwhelming, but I usually access my reader by utilizing the web browsing on my mobile phone and read whenever I’m waiting for something or have a few moments to spare.

Clear as mud?

Hopefully I haven’t overwhelmed you. This is meant to highlight just a few very inexpensive ways you can get involved no matter what your business or your budget.

If you have any super simple solutions you think I’ve missed, please do leave them in the comments. Alternatively, if you are looking for help to develop a plan further, you can contact me at michelle [at] imseekingbalance [dot] com.

The Sweet Sound of Serenity

Posted on February 4, 2009 by michelle.mack

Photo: just.K on Flickr

I’ve been noticing more and more how music is a unique and vital part of my life. It’s what moves me, what relaxes me, what compels me and what frees me from the world around me.

Music has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. When I was little I’d wake up to my dad playing beautiful classical or big band jazz on his stereo; he had a giant record collection. Sometimes he would play the radio, but whatever was on added something that warmed our home and all of us in it. That’s actually one of my fondest memories of my childhood: waking up to my dad’s music and seeing him sitting at the dining table, grading papers or writing report cards.

I started playing piano when I was 6. I always grumbled about practicing, but I loved playing duets with my brother and my friend Sarah, with whom I took lessons. The first pop music I remember was the release of Michael Jackson’s Thriller album in 1983 – I was 8. Around 10 years old I was firmly enjoying the Mini-Pops, my friend’s parents’ ABBA albums and playing air guitar with the neighbourhood boys. It was also at that age that I started playing the trumpet in the school band.

Photo: papalars on Flickr

In high school I discovered my talent for singing but was way too shy to use it. I did a couple of musical productions and sung in a few school talent shows and whatnot; but mostly I stuck to my trumpet and various bands I was a part of. I played in school concert band, jazz band, orchestra, and a community band… at one point I played in all 4 at the same time. I was never a particularly great trumpet player but loved it anyway. I still didn’t enjoy practicing much – probably because the sound of a trumpet alone didn’t move me… but when I played with a full band that was when the music would awaken something in me.

I still play now.

The thing I’ve noticed about music is that it calms me in the midst of life’s turmoil, deadlines, busy-ness, and stress. It is physically impossible for me to think about other things while I play. I’m thinking about sound, tuning, the notes, the rhythm, the dynamics, the emotion… I can’t think about my work, my worries. I can’t think about my shortcomings or my failures, my insecurities or even my hopes and dreams. It’s just me and the music right there in that moment: the sweet sound of serenity.

Music has become my escape. It’s the only time I can truly turn off all the other thoughts that swirl around my head constantly. For that couple of hours every Monday night when I rehearse with my band it’s like the world fades away and I get to recharge. During those precious times when we play for an audience the expectation challenges me, awakens me, thrills me.

It’s the same, incidentally, when I sing at my church. In that moment, I feel like I was created to make music. Nothing more, nothing less. And lately I’ve been feeling a calling to write. I feel like there are songs inside of me that someone needs to hear… like a message to someone I don’t yet know.

Photo: kayugee on Flickr

I am so moved when people play a beautiful melody or sing with passion; it’s like you can see their soul… like you can hear it. Like parts of them are stripped away and all that’s left is the heart and their intentions. Even when I was very young I found myself crushing on boys who played beautiful solos because in that short span of time, they were just their authentic selves. And while at this point in my life I’ve long passed the adolescent homonal rampages, the beauty of that glimpse into a person’s soul hasn’t faded for me. It’s still something I cherish. I see it in my brother, whose gentleness emerges in the sound of his trombone; I see it in the faces of my musician friends when they play from the heart.

It’s a part of every musician… and it’s very special.

So Many Ideas; So Little Time

Posted on February 2, 2009 by michelle.mack

Photo: azrainman on Flickr

Here it is, Sunday evening once again. I find myself wondering if someone has managed to find a way to speed up the earth’s rotation because I’m quite certain I haven’t had a full two days since I switched from work mode to home mode.

Last week’s work week sped by like a bullet train and this weekend passed before my eyes like a parade. I wonder what it’ll feel like 30 years from now?! YIKES.

I find, more and more, the thoughts and plans and things I want to accomplish grow more and more, and yet the available hours of the day in which to accomplish them do not multiply at the same rate. Maybe I want too much. Maybe I strive too hard for things that don’t matter.

Do they matter? What matters? How do I tell the difference?

The Home Front

On Saturday we took mini-man downtown to his first IMAX movie – Wild Ocean 3D – and then to the Chinese New Year celebrations at the International Village and a stroll through Chinatown. Well, okay, the Chinatown part was more for my husband, who was stoked to take home a BBQ duck and assorted sauces for cheap; and the cultural experience of the Chinese New Year celebrations included mini-man enjoying the bouncy castle in the kids’ room, sponsored by the Vancouver Aquarium… But it was a fun family day.

Today was spent at church in the morning, where my pastor delivered quite the funny sermon – I thought maybe he was practicing for a stand-up routine… a bit like the Mars Hill Church guy for a bit. Very enjoyable. Then came grocery shopping, nap time and playing at Go Bananas. Following that brush with every biological organism known to man, mini-man and I returned home to where dinner and a game of Wii Bowling awaited us.

All in all a good weekend.

The problem is, I have so many more things I want to fit in to a weekend. I wanted to get some laundry done, shop for a couple of new tops, go for a run or take a yoga class and do my ironing.

I’m actually kind of grateful my husband isn’t working right now. At least he can take care of the house work during the work week so we can pack in the fun on weekends and I can attend to my various social media conversations, hobbies, blogs and business ideas in the evenings.

Here is just a short list of items on my spare-time agenda:

Blog my thoughts here so my head doesn’t explode
Spend more time reading my bible and praying
Write the songs God is laying on my heart
Renew my mortgage
Prepare my business plan for Intrinsic Influence
Blog some more for Urban Shore & build the community
Figure out how to customize CSS
Read more and engage with other bloggers
Update Manding Jata to self-hosted WordPress
Run and snowboard more

The Work Front

On the eve of yet another work week, my head has already shifted to the days ahead…

There are also so many things I want to accomplish for Grouse Mountain before the Olympics come to Vancouver in 2010. It’s just a goal date I’ve picked to have finalized certain new programs, campaigns and communication methods/tools I want to implement, but it’s pretty ambitious for what I want to do:

Finalize our mobile website – m.grousemountain.com
Customize GrousePark Sessions as a self-hosted WordPress blog
Build a better corporate blog and engage more staff in social media
Completely re-build our e-commerce solution
Implement a CRM system to help people get the most value out of our products
Implement a loyalty program mountain-wide including F&B and retail

No small task eh? I know.

I also plan to continue pushing social media engagement as a valid business tool and would love the opportunity to start speaking on the topic at various industry events. I’m not in a hurry, though.

There are times I wish I could slow down the pace of thoughts. Perhaps I should re-listen to that sermon from this morning… Keeping It Simple, Pastor Owen Scott.

6 Easy SEO Tips I learned from Dave Taylor

Posted on January 7, 2009 by michelle.mack

Back in September I went to Blogworld & New Media Expo 2008 in Las Vegas.

The number one best thing about going to the conference was the connections I made there; I even got to rub shoulders with few blogging/social media/internet rockstars including Chris Brogan, Jason Falls, Darren Rowse, David Alston, Dave Taylor, Steve Hall, Lee Odden, Rohit Bhargava, Gary Vaynerchuk and local superstars Rebecca Bollwitt and Linda Bustos.

The next best thing was some of the useful tips I learned from one of the sessions: Dave Taylor’s “Ten Things You Need to Know About Search Engines & Findability”.

For those unfamiliar with social media and blogging, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. In fact, blogging is often considered a great way to market your company website if, in fact, you have a passion and a plan for doing so.

Key takeaways from Dave Taylor’s blogging SEO session:

While Dave’s session focused on 10 things about SEO, the following 6 points stood out to me and are very simple to implement no matter what blog platform you use.

1. Write as often as you can
This tip didn’t come entirely from Dave Taylor’s session; it was addressed by Richard Jalichandra’s Keynote on Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere. The most popular blogs are written to 10 times a day or more. While you don’t need to write multiple times a day for your blog to be effective, you do need to write regularly to keep the search engines pinging your site. The more often Google pings you, the higher up you’re going in the search results for keywords contained within your writing. People will disagree on how often you need to write to produce results; I would suggest a bare minimum is 2-3 times a week if you’re going to bother blogging at all.

2. Write your keywords in to your content
It’s a good idea to be aware of the key words and phrases you want your site to rank for. Make sure you use those words and phrases whenever it is appropriate in your writing. It’s a balancing act between having your blogging sound natural and having it sound like it was written strictly for keyword density, but use your judgement. The more your keywords are located in your writing, the higher you will rank for those words. This is especially important if your goal is to draw traffic and customers to your primary business.

3. Link your keywords rather than meaningless words
This is probably one of the most important things I’ve learned: Link relevant keywords. Search engines read code. They see what has a link and look at the content of that link more closely than the other text within your site. So rather than say, “I found this great article on SEO for blogs on this website,” you should write “I found this great article on SEO for blogs I want to share with you.” In the first example, you will rank for the word “website”; in the second example, you will rank for “great article on SEO for blogs”, which is a way more useful phrase, and one that is much more likely to be searched. No one needs to rank higher for “click here” or “more”. No one.

4. Use header tags to emphasize sub-headings
I didn’t know this one at all. When you use header tags like <h1> and <h2> to highlight important sub titles within your posts, the search engines will also see that text as more important again, in the same way it sees links as important. See above where I titled this list “Key takeaways from Dave Taylor’s blogging SEO session”? That’s an <h2>tag and it sends a signal to the search engine’s little electronic brain centre says “oh this is a heading; this page must be about this topic.” Just simply bolding your headings won’t have the same effect.

5. Optimized photos
Photo file names and titles are also used by search engines. So rather than leaving your file names as whatever they were when they came off your digital camera… “IMG_2008-01-07_001.jpg” for instance, rename it. Name it with relevant keywords that people may search for. Be honest about it. What is the photo displaying? If you’re writing a blog entry on your trip to Disneyland and you take a picture of Mickey Mouse in front of the Disneyland castle, call your photo “mickey-mouse-disneyland-castle.jpg”. If you’re writing a blog entry on a restaurant you visited and you’re including a photo, name the photo “restaurant-name-city-styleoffood-dining.jpg”. Then, your images have their very own chance of getting ranked by Google.

6. Tag your posts
Tag your posts. All blogging software allows you to add relevant tags to your posts. If you’re writing about how to bake an angel food cake, you might tag it with the following keywords: baking, bake a cake, angel-food cake, cake, angel food, baking instructions, cake instructions. Think for a few minutes about what words someone might plug into a search engine if they were looking for exactly what you’re writing about. If you were looking for your post, what would you search for?

Protecting your Future: Privacy in Social Networking

Posted on January 6, 2009 by michelle.mack

Photo: ButterflySha on Flickr

Today, Mitch Joel from Twist Image posted some very frightening statistics from The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy about internet behaviour and the sharing of sexually explicit material among youth online. Among them:

“One in five teen girls (22%), nearly as many teen boys (18%) and one-third (33%) of young adults say they have electronically sent, or posted online, nude or semi-nude photographic or video images of themselves.”

That just freaks me out.

I know that these young digital natives don’t remember a world without internet connectivity, and to them, the internet has been around forever… for their forever, anyway. The problem is, it hasn’t been around forever. No one can accurately predict what kind of trouble this could bring to the future of these young people.

Even in instances where people believe they are sharing their photos and videos only with their friends, they may be unaware of the actual implications for posting this material online. Here is an excerpt from Facebook’s terms of use policy as an example:

By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise, on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing. You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content.

So you’re basically giving Facebook the right to use anything you post on their servers for any purpose they see fit.

Please, please re-think it. Here are some things I recommend you NOT post online:

Naked photos of your kids
Naked photos of yourself
Video of your drunken escapades
Semi-nude photos such as flashing
Any video of a pornographic nature

These are just the biggies.

It’s really important that everyone online thinks about the kind of electronic footprint they’re leaving. What does it look like when someone Google searches you? More and more prospective employers are using the internet to find out about candidates. Is your Facebook profile public or private? If it’s private, how private is it?

I once saw nude video of a young boy who is the son of a friend of mine. My friend commented on her friend’s video and thus the conversation showed up in my News Feed. I clicked the video and saw full frontal nudity of a ~3 year old boy. Now, thankfully I’m not a pedophile, but you never know how people use Facebook or who they’re connected with. Did you know that all applications (including the video app) default to public even if your profile is private? You have to go in and set your video app to private separately. I messaged the mom and let her know I could see the video. She told me to mind my own business; at least I warned her.

I’m not saying what you should or shouldn’t do. I’m just asking you to think about what it is that you’re doing and be sure you’re informed about the potential ramifications of your decisions. If Facebook decides to create a “Facebook Does Spring Break” video will your personal sexcapades be a part of it?

Private doesn’t mean private on the internet. Everything is copied, backed up and traceable.

Just think about it.

A word about logos and file types

Posted on December 26, 2008 by michelle.mack

Image: Annie Mole on Flickr

Can we talk about logos for a moment?

If you’re in business, you need to understand your logo, know what it should look like, and be prepared to use it in everything you do. I want you to understand different file types and what they might be used for.

Because you want your logo to represent your company everywhere, it needs to be able to go anywhere.

Now, if you haven’t yet designed a logo or wordmark, great – you can take these ideas into account when you do. It will make life much easier for your designers and/or suppliers. If you’ve already developed one, make sure your designer provides you with guidelines for use and a few varieties to use under different circumstances.

Be prepared for different coloured backgrounds

Your logo needs to represent you just as well on a black background as it does on a white background. Further, if you can make it work on a coloured background, all the better. Often times, you can’t simply take a coloured logo and place it on black. Does your logo reverse out in white? What does that look like? Do some colours remain?

What if your logo is blue and red, but someone wants to include your logo on top of a photo of blue sky? Is there enough contrast between the blue of your logo and the blue of the sky?

Global BC has done exactly what I’m recommending here:

I recommend having the following files to choose from:

Full colour logo for use on standard white background
Black and white logo for use when a) printing with only black ink or b) to use on light colours
A reverse and/or partial-colour logo for use on a black or dark colour background (Global BC above has both)

Note: If you choose to greyscale your colour logo for use when printing only in black, that’s fine. Just make sure it’s a conscious choice. I’d recommend using an all-black version instead as you get more punch. It’s more eye-catching.

Colours and various production processes

Different production methods require different processes.

Print Production

Photo: Kofoed on Flickr

Print production may use standard Pantone Matching System (often referred to as a Pantone or PMS) colours or CMYK Process (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow & Black inks blended to create almost every single colour of the rainbow – referred to as 4-colour process). When a logo is developed the designer will typically use Pantone colours to create a specific shade that would, ideally, be unchanged across all mediums. Pantone is a type of ink, so from press to press, location to location, the colour doesn’t change. Process colours can change as the blends of the 4 colours can vary slightly.

If you have a colour logo, you need to know the Pantone colours it was created to be.

You should always have a digital version of your logos in their original Pantones. Your designer should also create you one with the closest possble combination of CMYK values to match the original Pantone as closely as possible. Yes, you could just use Illustrator or Photoshop to convert the files, and if you didn’t have one created in CMYK that’s your only option, but the CMYK recipes in the Pantone books aren’t always the best fit. Regardless, you should have a version in Pantones and a version in CMYK values for printing.

Sometimes you hear about 2 colour printing, or 3 colour printing. This is a process of printing that uses only pantone colours to create something. You might use 2 or 3 colour printing to create company letterhead or other stationery. If your logo is 2 PMS colours and black, you can use 3 colour printing – your two PMS colours and Pantone Black. Then, you have consistency every single time.

Alternatively, when you get into printing full colour books or brochures, you may choose to use 5 or 6 colour printing, which is usually CMYK process colours (4 colours), plus one or two pantone colours to get your identity exact regardless of what’s going on in the photos and what corrections need making on the press.

Digital Production

Photo: Editor B on Flickr

For web, TV or photograph quality reproduction, you’ll need your logo in RGB format. That’s Red, Green and Blue pixels. This is less precise because the appearance will often change based on what peoples’ screens and TVs are set to display. However, when printing photograph quality, you can do your best to ensure a colour match by having a proof run. When using your brand identity you want the closest match possible. Coca-cola won’t settle for their red being any less than perfect every single time and you shouldn’t either.

Here is the colour information Global BC provides to anyone using their logo. They do actually have a specific RGB value as well as Pantone and CMYK versions:

What about embroidery? Or vinyl decals? In those cases, you’ll need to select each colour yourself using the closest possible match to your Pantone colours. Ask your embroiderer for their thread colour books or your sign supplier for their vinyl samples to select the closest match.

About vector art and file types

What is a vector file anyway?

Vector graphics is the use of geometrical primitives such as points, lines, curves, and shapes or polygon(s), which are all based upon mathematical equations, to represent images in computer graphics.

Vector graphics formats are complementary to raster graphics, which is the representation of images as an array of pixels, as it is typically used for the representation of photographic images.[1] There are instances when working with vector tools and formats is best practice, and instances when working with raster tools and formats is best practice. There are times when both formats come together. An understanding of the advantages and limitations of each technology and the relationship between them is most likely to result in efficient and effective use of tools. [Wikipedia]

Vector files can be expanded exponentially; they’re not limited by resolution or size.

Here’s Kashi’s logo:

You can tell it’s a vector file because all the individual lines and curves can be selected.

You NEED to have vector art readily available to you. In fact, you can’t possibly have a Pantone version of your logo without it being vector art. You need a vector graphic to create cut vinyl; you need a vector graphic to embroider something. You need vector graphics to easily create background-free gif files (so that groovy gradient background on your website or blog actually shows up behind your logo) or place in multi-layered photoshop files (without your graphic designer having to do way more work at your expense).

Please ensure you always have vector files ready to send out to your suppliers. A vector file is typically an Illustrator (.AI or .EPS) file though it could have been created in another format. Please note – saving something as .EPS in Photoshop or Illustrator will not make it a vector file. You need the original.

JPEG or TIFF files are fine for use in print, provided they’re at least 300 DPI at final output size. FYI any file that is only a few kb in size is NOT appropriate for printing. A JPEG file may not be as good as a TIFF of the same size if it is significantly compressed. Whenever you’re printing anything on paper or some other substrate, you should go straight to your vector art.

JPEG or GIF files in RGB colour are used for web or TV. When sending your files out for external production, send the highest resolution size possible and let the person doing the production set the size (resolution will always be 72 DPI for screen output, but size will vary based on how much of the screen they want your logo to take up).

A few don’ts…

Don’t save a JPEG file as an .EPS file and send it out when asked for vector art.
Don’t ever send a logo embedded in a Word file. You’ll look foolish.
Don’t use raster image (or photograph) in your logo or wordmark because it can’t be a vector ever. You will not necessarily be able to use it for certain large format production. If Richard Branson offers you the opportunity to throw your logo on the side of his plane, you won’t be able to make it happen.
Don’t keep the very very latest Adobe CS4 file versions only – not everyone has the latest software package as soon as it comes out, so you want a version that is compatible with 2 or 3 previous versions.
Don’t let anyone stretch or skew your logo. Not even a little. If you don’t look out for it, no one else will.

A recap about logos, colours and file types

You want to have 3 or 4 versions of your logo for use on different coloured backgrounds. You want each of those 3 or 4 versions to be able to be used in Pantone ink, CMYK process and RGB colours. You want the original vector art at your disposal. That’s it, really.

If anyone has anything else to add, feel free. Obviously there are a million more details on every one of these topics, but I think everyone in business needs to know and understand how their own corporate identity is being used.

Your logo is a key component to creating and establishing an impactful brand. Make sure you’re getting it out there and using it wisely. When you have questions, ask them. It’s your brand; it’s who you are and what you stand for.

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