I totally get this.  For years Europeans have used their mobile as their primary telephone, unlike many US households who still have a landline.  And, even some 3rd world countries that never had basic telephone service before, now have mobile… because mobile service is a helluva lot easier to build.  No poles, wires, or “outside plant facilities,” as we telephone company people would say.

So, YES, it’s true! The United States is catching up with the rest of the world.  Hurray!

Ready to add mobile access to your website? Get more info here.

Regular Website http://BataraImmigrationLaw.com

Mobile website that is much easier to read with Click-to-call and vital information for those using their mobile phone. Mobile Website

People are brutally honest about what they hate and love.  And, yes, they are talking about YOUR BUSINESS and how bad your website may look in their mobile browser.

From a consumer standpoint, I myself, get frustrated trying to find information and I all I get on my mobile is an unfriendly standard website.  Boo-hiss!

Why, just the other day I searched “business coach” while waiting to pick up my daughter and found that EVERY WEBSITE on the FIRST PAGE of Google DID NOT have a mobile ready site.

Talk about leaving money on the table!

Did you know that websites with mobile access rank higher in mobile browsers?  Uh huh.  They sure do.

But lets just keep that between you and me, ok?

If you are a technophobe or a Luddite, relax! There are ways of going mobile that don’t involve becoming a rocket scientist.

The example above is Immigration Attorney Carlos Batara’s mobile website, and his standard website.  You can see how Carlos gives just the necessary information people need while they’re out and about.

• His Click-to-Call phone number
• Office locations & Google maps
• What services he offers
• Videos
• Make payments

So you’ve already done the hard work by creating your primary website… now all you need is to lighten the load and go mobile!  (And, if you don’t yet have a website – no sweat! This will be a lot less painful!)

A while ago, Guy Kawasaki shared that he re-tweets his tweets. No, not like a broken record! His philosophy is that good tweets should be repeated because news travels globally and across many different time zones.  Guy experimented by resending the same tweet every 4 hours for a 24 hour period.  He found that all 6 tweets had almost the same amount of comparable clicks to read, and retweeted by followers all across the globe.

Instead of 700 retweets in 24 hours, he got 2800.  Talk about getting more mileage per tweet!  LOL!

Guy uses a fancy program to do his retweeting and run reports – but there are free options out there.

Tweet Old Post is one of my absolute favorite plugins. However; there is something you should be aware of… the newest version DOESN’T have the ability to selectively block certain posts from being tweeted. Yeah! – that stinks!

For example; you might want to block an old post about a workshop or teleseminar you had last year. Or, perhaps some personal posts that don’t need to be re-run.

So, if you already have Tweet Old Post on your system, DO NOT update it to v. 3.2.6. And, if you already have, and want to go back – you still can. YAY!

This page has previous versions http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/tweet-old-post/download/

I deleted mine and re-installed v.3.2.5, via the upload zip file feature in WordPress, no need to ftp, and it works just fine. Even my settings from before are still there (because the info wasn’t deleted in the database).

Joy!

Blue Marble™ is a patent-pending marketing service offered by Phillips & Company

Wow!

Somebody is really thinking GLOBAL!  I’m talking about enormous QR codes that are being placed on roof tops so that they show up on Google Earth.

It all begins with a “Space Accessible Profile”, which is how your location looks on surveillance equipment used by Google Earth, Bing, etc.  Anyone, anywhere, in the world can view your location anytime they feel like it.  Big brother style, but not as creepy.

Today’s roof tops are merely blank canvases, primed and ready to be decorated with QR codes.  With the exception of a few barns that still stand with the year of their raising on the century-old slate roof.

An $8,500 install fee may seem pretty steep, but when you consider traditional marketing and advertising, it’s cheaper!

The QR code will be made available on Google Maps for at least 12 months from image capture. While standard billboards can cost between $10,000 and $30,000 per month on average and are limited by geography, a space-accessible billboard is available at a cost 75 to 98 percent less and to everyone on the planet with Internet access.

And there you have it… now, it’s your turn!  What can you do in your marketing to “raise the roof” and add value to your customers experience?

Today’s business owners are faced with an enormous problem.

1. Google Ad search results are dominated by large corporations and major chains.
2. Small to mid-size businesses lack the knowledge to develop an effective web campaign.
3. Unable (or refusal) to make the transition from "traditional" advertising to "online" marketing. (Do not be afraid! The web in your friend! LOL!)

BEFORE the Internet, connecting with your prospects meant advertising via:

However; TODAY... traditional advertising methods are losing their effectiveness.

Now It's YOUR Turn! What are your thoughts? Post below, I'd love to know what you think!

Courtesy of http://imgs.xkcd.com

Google has thrown down the Gauntlet to Facebook by introducing its latest attempt to tap into the increasingly important Social media scene. Google+ is the latest big thing to come out of the Google camp, following on from two previous social platform failures in recent years.

Google plus promises to be different from previous social failures in that this is a totally new approach from Google. This new service will also tie together all of Google’s current services such as G-mail and its popular video streaming service YouTube.

Google+ is currently only open by invitation and no actual date for a full launch has yet been announced, but it’s coming, because Google needs it. (comment below and I’ll send you an invite)

Google+ has been deliberately structured with a similar look and feel as Facebook, with some very similar functionality such as profile pictures, video uploads and news feeds

However, one of the fundamental differences is the way “Friends” will be structured in Google+. A user’s friends or contacts are grouped into specific circles of the users choosing – as opposed to the common pool of friends used in the Facebook model.

To create Google+, the company went back to fundamentals in the wake of its previous notable failures, including Google Wave and Google Buzz, a micro-blogging service whose launch was marred by privacy issues.

Google learned a lot from the failures particularly that of Google Buzz, and one of the things they learned is that there’s a real marketing opportunity for a Social Media product that addresses people’s concerns around privacy and how their personal information is shared. This is something Facebook has been grappling with since it was launched and continues to plague them to this day.

Google generally gets more than one billion visitors a month to its websites in any given month, but research suggests that people spend more time on Facebook than they do one Google and in terms of measuring success or failure online, time is more valuable than visitor numbers, something Google is all too aware of.

Just like Facebook, Google+ will have a central web page that runs a current constantly updating conversation stream of comments, photos and links being shared by its users, their contacts and friends.

If you are at all familiar with other Google services, you will notice that they all share a toolbar that generally sits across the top of the site. This toolbar allows users to access their personalised data feed. In Google + this toolbar will enable users to add the information in their other Google accounts to the news stream directly from the toolbar. They can then contribute their own information to the stream.

Google+ is also working on a live conference video chat facility, where up to ten people can jump on a conference call.

Google is also going to automatically store photos taken on mobile phones on its Internet servers, allowing a Google+ user to access the photos from any computer and share them across the service.

Google executives have given this social expansion project its highest priority and Google is keen to build its own social presence to take on Facebook directly.

Google recognizes that it’s position as the main gateway to online information could be at risk as people spend more time on other social sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Google also realizes that enticing people to yet another social media site may be an uphill battle especially when they are pitching against Facebook, their main rival and the biggest Social site on the web.

To achieve dominance and set its self apart from Facebook, Google+ is taking a very hard look at personal privacy at the core of this service. This is one of the Hot topics currently causing the most consumer pain and ne of the most important aspects to get right. Privacy issues have caused Facebook and Google a lot of grief in recent years, something else Google is keen to avoid.

Social media is fast forming into the critical mass of most online users. the potential for commercialization and financial domination are only just being realized and that’s why Google is spending so much time, energy and resources trying to find its place in the growing social web.

Google+ is still under construction and won’t be widely available until later in 2011. However one thing is becoming increasingly clear. Social media is only going to become increasingly important to business in the near future and those who are best placed to take advantage of this opportunity are going to grow and grow fast.

ps.  If you would like a Google + invite, just leave a comment with your addy below and I’ll send you one

Many thanks to @Kevin W Baker for sharing this article with me!

Kevin W Baker

http://fanpagebydesign.com is a Social Media Consultancy and design company based in Victoria British Columbia Canada. We specialize in building Facebook fanpages for small local business to give them a viable social presence and to provide websites designed and optimised for their local market. We know social media, our clients know their business. Working together we can design a social media program to grow your business using locally derived traffic and the power of social media.

More info about Google Plus on Mashable

•  http://mashable.com/2011/07/16/google-plus-guide/
• http://mashable.com/2011/07/08/google-button-twitter-share-button/
• http://mashable.com/2011/07/14/larry-page-google-plus/

Today, I’m cleaning out my inbox.

It’s scary. Because yesterday, I had over 70k messages before I deleted all of 2010. Now, I’m ONLY left with 35k.

I think I’m afraid to de-clutter because I’ll delete a fantastic email for my swipe-file, or an important piece of client material. I use Basecamp to manage all of my projects, so all the files and collateral are stored there… so what’s holding me back?  Nothing really.

Like most people, my inbox is sorted by the “Sent” or received date, newest item first.  The best way I’ve found to do the big dump is to view my inbox by who the message is “From” and delete down the list.

But I noticed one thing that really annoys me.  

When people put characters or symbols before their “from” name in their email client.  Example:  - Ari Galper - Unlock The Game, or **Adam Ubanski**, and yes, even one of my favorite gals *Ali Brown. Click pic to view a larger image.

Obviously, I’ve subscribed to these people because I respect and value them and want to hear their message… but when I need to search for that sender specifically I can’t always find them in my inbox.  And THAT is a problem.

So when I filter my inbox alphabetically, in collapsed view, and scroll to the “A’s”, I don’t see Ari Galper.  In other words, I can’t find his message because he put a silly character before his name.   NOT GOOD!

For life of me, I don’t know why anyone would NOT want to be found in an inbox.

So, I consulted my colleagues.

“Other than to be seen as different or to attract the eye to an email as it sits in your inbox, why would anyone want to add characters or symbols to their email “from” address?”

Is it to throw off spam filters?

Or simply draw attention?

Something else?

One friend said, “It very well could be that these names have been black-listed somehow and by putting in the extra symbol they can bypass it.“

Oh dear.  I see.  A tad bit deceptive, perhaps?

When I tried to find “Ari Galper” in my inbox, he wasn’t listed with everyone else in the “A’s”  because of the extra character… or, in other words, I thought I may have deleted him. See 2nd screen pic. Extra characters can bite you in the buttocks if you’re not careful!

She continued, “They may also add the extra characters if you unsubscribed from them under the regular name without the extra character. This way they keep emailing you since they hooked you the first time and you are on their list.”

Argh! No – say it isn’t so! Sneaky suckers.

Another said, “I read once that adding extra characters gets you listed at the beginning of email if someone has it set up alphabetically & as a way to stand out.”

Well, there you have it. I’ve Googled, search all avenues I could think of and there’s no logic or measured way of knowing WHY marketers do this.  Must have been a guru who said so a thousand internet years ago.

So do yourself a favor, and DON’T add extra characters to your email address… you never know who or when someone is looking for your expert opinion in their inbox.

Let me ask you this…

Would you like to see someone who is creative with their “from” address, but also being SMART? Yes? Good!

I invite you to take a look at Jeff Herring’s messages in my inbox.  See how EVERY from addy is categorized? THAT is super smart email marketing.  Want to see Jeff’s last couple Sunday Inspiration messages? Just look for Jeff and his categorized from address.  He’s such a sharp fellow.  He’s made himself easy to find even in my ultra-cluttered inbox.

You can read more about Jeff Herring at his website, JeffHerring.com

Now It’s YOUR Turn! What are your thoughts? Post below, I’d love to know what you think!

Hi Friend,

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This is just a quick, no frills video I created in less than 5 minutes for one client.

Part of the world’s most watched Social Media video series; “Social Media Revolution” by Erik Qualman. Based on #1 International Best Selling Book Socialnomics by Erik Qualman. This is a shorter version that includes new social media statistics for 2011.