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Os Hillman To Headline Economic Summit In Grande Prairie, Alberta Nov. 10-13

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 17:27:54 +0000

Summary:

Os Hillman, a pioneer and forerunner in the modern marketplace reformation movement and author of 12 books, set to keynote Economic Summit in Grande Prairie, Alberta, Nov. 10-13, 2011.

Press Release

GRANDE PRAIRIE, AB – November 8, 2011 - One of the featured speakers at KEYS Canada will be Os Hillman, president and founder of Marketplace Leaders, Cumming, GA. Hillman is a pioneer and forerunner in the modern marketplace reformation movement that is integrating faith and work, and empowering business and financial leaders to exercise spiritual influence and authority in their workplace environments.

Os Hillman: Author of Change Agent

Hillman is a serial entrepreneur who has authored 12 books, including The 9 to 5 Window and The Upside of Adversity. His latest book is entitled Change Agent! Engaging Your Passion to be the One Who Makes a Difference. You can purchase it at http://www.ChangeAgentBook.com. Hillman also offers a Change Agent video series and weekend seminar, and will be presenting several sessions from those. Cost of the Keys Canada webcast is $111.11 for all keynote sessions and worship. The event starts Thursday, Nov. 10th at 7:00 pm MST and ends Saturday, Nov. 12^th at 10 pm MST. The Keys Canada weekend will close with a communion service Sunday at 8:30 am MST.

“We are delighted and thrilled to bring leaders of this caliber to the heart of the world-famous Alberta Tar Sands region,” said Dr. Bruce Cook, founder and convener of the summit, known as K.E.Y.S. (Kingdom Economic Yearly Summit). Cook lives in the Austin, TX, area and is Founder and President of VentureAdvisers Inc., Kingdom House Publishing, and Kingdom Venture Partners, and is a director and/or trustee of four other companies, including Merging Streams Financial Network LLC.

Patterned loosely after the World Economic Forum, but with a Christian focus and perspective, K.E.Y.S. Canada will feature more than a dozen keynote speakers –

including Cook and Hillman – such as Dr. Gordon Bradshaw, Dr. Doug Atha, Dr. Mark Kauffman, Charlie Fisher, Marc Brisebois, Glen Boyd, Carolita Oliveros, Wende Jones, Fulton Sheen and John Anderson.

Grand Prairie Mayor Bill Given will welcome the Summit delegates and attendees on Friday, Nov. 11 at 9:00 am, followed by a 2^nd welcome from First Nations representatives Art and Lori Auger from Grande Prairie, and then a brief awards ceremony honoring the late Sylvan Swanberg and Frank Bigel of Grande Prairie.

K.E.Y.S. and GBT will be donating part of the proceeds from Keys Canada to a local community nonprofit organization named Rising Above, which ministers to the homeless, jobless, abused women, needy children, etc. http://www.RisingAboveGP.co

Summit worship leaders are Krista Fisher and Peter Christensen of Grande Prairie. Personal prayer ministers are Jess Bielby and Charles Robinson. Intercession leaders are Jon Grieser, Wigs Bello, Yvette Jobson and Tammenthia Diesel.

Venue for K.E.Y.S. Canada is the Holiday Inn Hotel & Suites, located near downtown and the airport. Schedule is registration 2:00-7:00 pm Nov. 10th and opening session 7:00 pm -12:00 midnight, then Nov. 11-12 from 8:30 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. daily. The Summit will close Sunday, Nov. 13th with a final service from 8:00 to 9:30 am.

For more information on K.E.Y.S. Canada, visit their web site at http://www.KeysCanada.org or call toll free 1-877-409-3663, ext. 701. Registration includes all meals on site. Group rates are available, with an 11% discount offered to groups of 11 or more.

For Media Inquiries

Dr. Bruce Cook, Convener

Office: 512-259-8240

Fax: 512-697-0088

http://www.KeysCanada.org

About KEYS Summit:

Patterned loosely after the World Economic Forum, but with a Christian focus and perspective, the KEYS Summit will feature a number of keynote speakers from around the world. For more information on the Kingdom Economic Yearly Summit, visit their web site at http://www.KeysCanada.org.

Embroidered Shirts: Show Class and Professionalism

Tue, 09 Nov 2010 23:35:46 +0000

What really sets shirts apart as professional garments are embroidered shirts. As department stores don't generally carry top-quality shirts available to be embroidered, it is handy, simple, and economical to do your own specialty shopping online.

Showcase Your Professionalism

Embroidered shirts, whether or not part of company apparel or personal wear, create an aura of professionalism, indicate excellent personal taste, along with a hint at lavishness. Embroidery is a subtle, but profound touch for all occasions, from formal to informal situations.

Company Clothing Shopping

Business clothing that features embroidered logo designs provides a feeling of professionalism whether a person is doing work as an independent service provider with your personal small business or are part of a group. Unfortunately, embroidered shirts are certainly not easy to get from a retail industry source—a department or apparel store—since this is a small niche market. For that reason, one of the greatest methods to get embroidered shirts that reflect your business's professionalism is to place a special order on an online store.

Internet Shopping

In fact, it’s really easier to look for professional shirts on the web compared to through a standard store.

In a typical store, presuming that they made embroidered shirts, it would likely take some time to sort through the store's selections. Yet, if searching on the web, it would likely only take a matter of a few minutes because everything is realistically arranged and the details, from images to statistics, is easily comprehensible because it is arranged in frames. A single, well-laid out page can help you make an informed decision in a matter of minutes.

For example, if you required a polo shirt that had embroidery, a site page could inform you concerning:

*Different variations of polos like Gildan 280 Solid Polo, Gildan 880 Jersey Polo, HAINES 054, Anvil 6020, etc. displayed by picture and description.

*Numerous colors like ash, purple, orange, red, and so on would be set up in a box with the various colors.

*Different statistics. One example is, in 5 minutes, a bulleted directory or a table can notify you all about 280 Gildan Jersey Polo. Within seconds, you would discover that it's 100% organic cotton, weighs about 6.1 oz., is preshrunk, and features a contoured welt collar & cuffs. Additionally, it has a clean-finished placket with tough bottom box, a double-needle hem, wood-tone buttons, and may be purchased in different sizes ranging from small to twice extra large.

When you’ve selected the right shirt, one that shows the professional yet relaxed image you’re looking for, then it is just as easy to order your custom embroidery.

A Wide Variety of Corporate Attire

An online shop can offer you you a large assortment of corporate shirts like sweatshirts, denim shirts and polo shirts. You can certainly even get personalized headwear to go together with these shirts in a range of colors. It is difficult to find superior quality goods because the Internet cuts the business costs so you are paying for the materials instead of covering the business expense costs of the store. Moreover, because these shirts are outsourced from producers from all around the world an Internet item is extremely cost effective. All these types of savings are transferred on to you, the consumer, to win your business.

If you want to locate the unrivaled Embroidered shirts, then peruse www.Epolos.com.

Embroidered Shirts: Show Class and Professionalism

Lionheart Assurance Solutions – Their Knowledge Enhances Yours

Fri, 13 Aug 2010 18:37:04 +0000

Lionheart Assurance Solutions Provides Essential Services

Lionheart Assurance Solutions has provided essential services to businesses of all sizes for well over a decade and by keeping abreast of emerging trends in the business field, they are able to offer timely solutions.

One issue Lionheart Assurance Solutions is addressing relates to identity theft coverage. There is a rise in fraud and a favorite scam perpetuated by criminals is to steal personal information and use it to create a false identity.
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The senior management team of Lionheart Assurance Solutions has a long history of proven business experience, a combined total that is more than a century. The team members include former senior executives of Fortune 100 companies. They share their rich business knowledge and experience with client companies by designing business solutions related to how best to deal with identity theft concerns.

The identity theft training programs designed by this team are useful to companies of all sizes in all types of industries. These programs educate clients on how to make their employees more aware of ways to reduce the possibility of identity theft. The training impacts employee thought and behavior. They not only learn about the many aspects of identity theft, but also learn to develop strategies to safeguard sensitive personal information.

Lionheart Assurance Solutions and Information Security

In the course of doing business, many employees are exposed to personal information. Once educated about the dangers of identity theft, this information is handled in a more responsible way. For example, a manager who needs to look over an employee’s file for a performance review will now be alert to putting away the information much more carefully. If it is a paper file, it will be put into a locked steel cabinet and if it is an electronic file, it will be safeguarded in a password-protected computer.

Payroll Deduction

Lionheart Assurance Solutions also offers companies a payroll deduction plan for their employees. Once an employee signs up for this identity theft coverage, they can access credit monitoring, identity restoration services, and legal counseling.

Visit Lionheart Assurance Solutions website for more information.

Optimize Pay Per Click Advertising In Relationship To Search Engine Optimization Marketing Strategy

BlogPostman — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 18:15:27 +0000

One of the most important steps to your search engine marketing success is to optimize per pay click (PPC) advertising campaigns. The thought that PPC advertising and search engine optimization are marketing strategies designed exclusively for the online marketing gurus is totally misplaced. However, it is imperative to realize that these two internet marketing campaign strategies work hand in hand. Search engine marketing usually can take a long time, sometimes up to one whole year before you begin getting high ranking. It is for this main reason that online expert marketers advice you optimize pay per click advertising campaigns. This is a critical step because it will enable you to get immediate traffic thus gauge the competitiveness of your keyword phrases. In addition, the responses you will receive from your visitors will help you to know whether your products will move or they will need to be improved on. Look at this scenario; you spend all your time getting inbound links from reputable websites. You even go to an extent of submitting articles with your specific keyword phrases, then you one day wake up to find your website on the first page of Google search results. But on close observation you realize that you are generating high volume traffic but very few sales leads. It is specifically for this reason that case studies on attracting business leads advocate for an optimize pay per click advertising campaign before embarking on SEO marketing strategy. Google has a great platform known as Adword where you can accurately test and thus optimize pay per click advertising campaigns. The approach is simple, test your intended keyword phases and see how much targeted traffic it will generate. If it attracts traffic that can convert to customers then you can confidently begin your search engine optimization marketing campaigns. Click the links below and harness more insightful information regarding SEO Marketing Strategies and Pay per Click Advertising Campaigns. - About the Author: Stephen writes rich content on Pay Per Click Advertising . His webpage is on Money Making Ideas and Generating Targeted Traffic. Visit his informative and insightful website at:- Money Making Secrets and learn more… Article Source

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Optimize Pay Per Click Advertising In Relationship To Search Engine Optimization Marketing Strategy

How Do I Evaluate PPC Experts

Tue, 27 Apr 2010 01:45:15 +0000

Times have modified and these days’s shopper go on-line to appear for information on product and services they wish to purchase. Pay per click in these days’s time has become rapidly a standard look of advertising that is utilized in exploring marketing. This has become very rewarding however if it isn’t understood properly, then it can be unreasonably exclusive. With lack of time and no resources to try to to a little little bit of study, some businessmen perform their own pay per click campaign. There also are different businessmen, who hire specialised skilled professionals to handle their campaign. This process is just like conducting auctions. You rank higher in search engines results page by simply bidding for additional click. PPC advertising leads in being a boundless auction among different competitors hungry for the top spot. The PPC skilled you hire ought to be skilled and would be in a position to stay your costs low and produce precious traffic and alter guests into actual sales, thus raising your return on savings. You ought to contemplate the subsequent steps to guage your PPC expert. A smart specialist will donate to the bidding set up with the principals and will keep the campaign operational within the agreed budget. The specialist ought to offer time to time reports on the amount of clicks and other applicable information. If you become acutely aware of your advertisement been detached from the search engines or there’s a sudden fall in the traffic, your PPC skilled should provide support and cater to these issues successfully. The PPC specialist should not limit himself to monitoring keyword routine, but ought to also make the necessary adjustments in the data or statistics, like altering the geographic aim, keyword amendments, changing the ad copy etc. A sensible PPC partner submits the reports time to time which includes all the keyword data along with the mandatory statistics and tools of study that recognizes the spots for development and enhancement t make certain that investment returns are high. Before you appoint or rent an organization to work on your PPC, get the entire details of their commitments and assurances on what sort of data the corporate will give and how fast can deliver the reports. Incomparably a smart PPC service company can undoubtedly deliver a monthly report. - About the Author: Quick Recap:How Do I Evaluate PPC Experts?* PPC Experts must provide good contribute to the bidding plan. * Mounting strategies that focus on exchange into sales. * PPC Experts should give time to time reports. * Should not limit himself to monitoring keyword. Article Source

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How Do I Evaluate PPC Experts

Social Media Strategy Before Tactics

Mon, 26 Apr 2010 11:34:04 +0000

It’s a debate that’s more common than you might think. Strategy or Tactics first when it comes to social media? Many companies approach their participation on the social web tentatively, picking a popular tool like Twitter, Facebook or for the more adventuresome, a blog. The exercise of setting up and populating a profile, friending others and seeing what happens is akin to the proverbial “throw spaghetti against wall to see if it sticks” school of marketing. There’s a time and place for tactics, for strategy and for experimentation. I think it’s perfectly reasonable for a company to test certain channels without a broad corporate wide commitment to being more social. However, that effort should be guided by smart analysis of audience, tools and with the aid of goals and measurement methodology. Without a plan, social media efforts often fail, waste time, money and detract from the brand experience. There’s plenty of room for discussion on this topic so I reached out to over 40 friends, collegues and others in my social network to get their opinion. Responses include a great mix of insights, metaphors and analogies from the likes of: Guy Kawasaki, Chris Brogan, Katie Payne, Peter Kim, Debbie Weil, David Meerman Scott and many more social media smarties. Does social strategy need to come before tactics? (in order received): Say you want to build a house. You survey the site. You assess your needs: do you want a one-room cabin, or a sprawling mansion? How many rooms? Should any serve specialized functions? How many bathrooms are necessary? Pool? Garden? Once you’ve answered these (and more) questions, it’s time to go out and buy bricks, lumber, hammers, nails, windows and all the other stuff you need to get your house built. Not before. After all, how do you know what you’ll need if you don’t even know if you’re building a ranch house or a stone cottage? Same thing in social media. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, FourSquare, Digg, delico.us, blogs and all the rest are tools in your arsenal. A means to an end, not an end in themselves. Sure, most are “free,” but “free” comes at a cost: time, effort, ideas and commitment. This isn’t chicken-or-egg. You need strategy before tactics. How else could you possibly know what tactics to implement? Rebecca Lieb – Blog Vice President, North America Econsultancy Author, The Truth About Search Engine Optimization “What it comes down to is asking the question ‘How do you define success?’. Tactics don’t answer that question. Strategy does. Sure, you can measure tactics, but without a strategy, there’s no benchmark. You can’t confidently say your program has succeeded if you don’t have a clear snapshot of what success looks like.” Jessica Smith – JessicaNow VP Digital and Global Co-Chair WOM Fleishman-Hillard The majority of the market still suffers from “bright and shiny object syndrome.” Is it any wonder that they’re still struggling to figure out a Return On the their social media Investment? Ultimately a solution in search of a non-existent problem or a tactic in search of a strategy will only underwhelm, underdeliver and fail to deliver any real, long term and sustainable impact which is consistent with social media being activated correctly. Joseph Jaffe – Jaffe Juice Chief Interruptor Powered Author, Flip the Funnel There are so many outlets for social media that it is imperative to have a solid strategy before acting unilaterally in the space. If you make a mistake on a simple project, you only affect your company and the client. However, if you make a mistake in some social media space, it is potentially in front of thousands. There are so many different strategies you can carry out in social media, that it is imperative to have your whole team on board and in alignment. We have project planning every quarter for a day and then act on that plan the rest of the quarter. However the social media project is an ongoing discussion where we spend more time on strategy than we do acting. We are constantly revisiting what is going on with the major outlets. Brett Tabke Founder, WebmasterWorld & Pubcon With new ‘tools/tactics’ launching every 2.7 seconds, or so it seems, the social media world over flows with options. It can be overwhelming to both novice and experienced social media marketer. Strategy First helps you identify which are the best opportunities to put into play to achieve your goals. You do have goals? Oh, that’s another conversation. Toby Bloomberg Diva Marketing Blog Strategy before tactics on Social Media is equivalent to diving into a pool before looking to see if there is water let alone the depth to handle such. If you don’t spend the time, you knock out your two front teeth and be reticent to ever get in the pool again. And as we all know, this is a pool worth swimming in. Aaron Kahlow – Online Marketing Connect CEO Online Marketing Connect : Online Marketing Summit & Institute The only thing true about online marketing – and by extension, social media – is that the tools always change. Three years ago, MySpace was king. 10 years ago, Yahoo! had 67% of the search market. A “strategy” that is based on tactical execution isn’t a strategy at all, it’s a recipe for playing a constant game of catch up. The trick is to focus on how you’re going to be social, not where you’re going to do social media. Jay Baer Founder, Convince & Convert If there was an upside to last year’s down economy, it was the fact that it encouraged many big brands to dip their toes in the likes of Facebook, Youtube and Twitter. While experimentation in these social outposts was initially a good thing, doing so without an overarching strategy ultimately risked works against the brand in the long run. Imagine the chaos that might ensue if a company’s traditional distribution channels — phone, web and physical stores — didn’t align. Similar risks lurk below the surface of the social web if brands’ messaging and CRM capabilities don’t coordinate… except on the social Web, customers have an ability to tell their 200+ friends with the click of a button. Aaron Strout – Citizen Marketer 2.1 CMO Powered Social media without strategy is like cooking without a recipe. Sometimes it works but sometimes its disaster. With a recipe, at least you know what ingredients to have before you get started. Along the way it’s great to improvise to make it your own but without at least a plan, you end up wandering aimlessly. Julie Roehm Marketing Strategy Consultant How about research before strategy before tactics??? In social media you have to understand what is going on in your marketplaces and what people are saying BEFORE you jump in. It’s the old “don’t ask a social media expert if you should blog or Tweet, ask your customers first” — Once you know where the market is going, THEN you need to fit your organizational goal into the reality of the marketplace and see what kind of strategy might be effective. The last thing you need is tactics and tools. Katie Delahaye Paine – Blog CEO KDPaine & Partners, LLC The C-Suite talks strategy, not tactics. And you are going to need their support if you even want ’social’ to take root in the soul of the enterprise. You don’t need to re-invent the wheel when it comes to social strategy – borrow one if you need to. How could you go wrong with a strategy like: make listening to the voice of our community/customers central to how we make decisions as an organization. David Alston – Community Instinct VP Marketing & Community Radian6 Tactics don’t take into account the customer need. They typically center around “doing something viral” or “doing social” or “creating a community.” Good social strategy forces you to understand and realize that if you don’t solve a real customer need with your actions, you’re already forgotten. Steve Bendt – Blog Senior Marketing Manager, Social Media Microsoft Why strategy before tactics? A better question might be why do marketers shoot first and ask questions later? First, unlike other marketing tactics, the barrier for entry into social media is very low, so a lot of marketers think they can just jump in and base their strategy “later” upon a hollow number first achieved. They think this is data. There is this false perception that social media is black and white and its effectiveness is based on hard numbers. i.e. followers, subscribers and friends. That might be somewhat true but it reminds me of the early days of web analytics, when web traffic was measured on a “hit” and not much else. Sure we can measure followers, friends and subscribers but that’s merely the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Marketers in social media think they can measure their activity and effectiveness by looking at social media’s hard numbers, meaning they are measuring a gross aggregate number and associating it with “marketing” and effectiveness all in the same breath. A tactic first approach in social media avoids answering the questions “Why?” and “What For?” Movement for the sake of motion in social media doesn’t mean effectiveness. Marc Meyer - Direct Marketing Observations Dir.of Social Media and Search, Principal DRMG The tactics are just tools and most are easy to learn. What’s tough is the 1st step in a social strategy: adopting the social media mindset Debbie Weil – Blog Author, The Corporate Blogging Book Using social media without a strategy is like writing your message on a paper airplane and aiming it out a window. Before you start engaging with customers you need to be prepared with what your goals are. Determine who your audience is, plus where and how to reach them. Most importantly you need a plan for how you will monitor the converation, respond to feedback and funnel it back into the company so you can be continuously improving. Jennifer Cisney – 1000 Words Chief Blogger and Social Media Manager Kodak Why should social strategy come before tactics? Because you don’t ask a girl to marry you before you ask her on a date. Because Chevy doesn’t manufacture hoods before they design a car. Because you fill sandbags before a flood. While it’s tempting to sign up for Facebook, Twitter, [choose your social networking flavor of the month], just to “be there,” it’s critical to define your measurable objectives, test the waters, develop a strategy, and define evaluative criteria before jumping into the deep end of the social pool. Without solid strategy driving tactics, companies can find themselves questioning ROI, making significant missteps, or worse, annoying or offending stakeholders in both the long and short term. Greg Swan – Perfect Porridge Digital Strategy Director Weber Shandwick “Why strategy before tactics when it comes to social media?”… …because the payoff of a strategic approach to social marketing is effectiveness. As this chart shows, marketers in the strategic phase of social marketing maturity are much more likely to report that their social media programs are “very effective” at achieving objectives than are their counterparts in the tactically-oriented trial phase. Sergio Balegno Research Director MarketingSherpa I call Social Media w/ out tactics Zombie Media : Social Media w/ No Brains . Any marketing needs strategy before tactics not just social media. You use marketing tactics to drive a business outcome. If you’re expected to measure contribution to the business you need a strategy. If you haven’t defined that outcome (Goals) or how you’ll achieve that outcome (Strategy) then how do you expect to measure the result of your marketing? Developing strategy doesn’t have to be a complicated exercise. It can be simple and fluid. Tac Anderson – New Comm Biz Social Media Director Waggener Edstrom You simply can’t tell if you’re doing well or not if you don’t know what you’re trying to do. You don’t need social media for social media’s sake, you need it for business’ sake. Laura Fitton CEO/Founder oneforty.com & Pistachio Consulting Author, Twitter for Dummies If you’ve ever had an ounce of question as to where and how to start social networking (on or offline), I’d ask you what does your data say? Jumping into a social environment and starting to engage is like crashing a wedding reception and trying to network with everyone there. You might make some friends (and enemies) along the way, but are you really engaging with an audience that 1) is useful for you to engage with and 2) wants to engage with you? Most companies will put up a giant megaphone to the internet and “listen” to the conversations, spending time finding out where people are talking about the things they care about first – for 6 months and longer. This allows you to determine where people are talking about the things you care about (your brand assets and relevant topics), what they are saying, who’s saying it, and how they feel about it. With that type of insight, you can more effectively determine a social networking strategy, engaging targeted networks and people with a specific message or goal. Laura Lippay - Lip Service Founder, Online Visibility Ex-Yahoo Marketing Director & Ringling performer “Social-media strategy” is over-rated if not a downright oxymoron. The goal is to do more business. Social-media is a means to that end. Maybe you’ll use it to establish warm and fuzzy communal feelings. Maybe you’ll sell excess inventory. Don’t focus on some kind of high-level strategy because no one really knows how to use social media yet. Focus on tactics: Get more followers, make them happy, promote your stuff to them every once in a while. That’s all you need to know about strategy right now. Guy Kawasaki – Blog – Alltop Social Media Managing Director of Garage Technology Ventures Author, Reality Check & 8 Other Books The most important aspect of strategy is to focus on your buyers and not your own ego. Only then can you create the tactics that reach people in an authentic way and that they are eager to consume. David Meerman Scott – Web Ink Now Author, World Wide Rave and The New Rules of Marketing & PR Why social strategy should come before tactics: “You might feel comfortable leaving for vacation and just driving until you get tired of driving, but would you do that with your business? Without a strategy, goals, objectives and measures for success, you’re just going for a ride.” Jason Falls Founder, Social Media Explorer Would you pick up a phone and randomly dial 10-digits? Unless you’re prank calling, probably not. (Darn you, caller ID). The phone is a tool for communication, just like social media is a tool. Before making a phone call, sending a tweet or launching a blog, strategy is essential. It will guide the decisions you make, the platforms you use and how you interact. Sarah Evans Founder, Sevans Strategy Strategy before tactics means, essentially, think before you talk. In other words, in any social-media effort for marketing or other business purposes, it’s important to do a gut check. What is your corporate culture? Who are you? This leads to other key questions: What do you want to say? What do you seek to accomplish using social media? what are the ground rules, the map to follow? This doesn’t have to be a 500-page manual or anything, but do look before you leap. Julio Ojeda-Zapata – Your Tech Weblog Technology writer and columnist at St. Paul Pioneer Press Author, Twitter Means Business Having a social strategy before jumping into tactics is imperative for long-term success. Short term tactics are okay for brands who are just testing the waters, but having a strategy will a help a brand think more holistically about becoming a social business rather than a business who can sometimes be social. Having a strategy will force brands (or small business) to think about culture change from within the organization which is required to transform into a social business. It will also help brands determine how to effectively integrate social into everything a brand does in their communications arsenal (web, PR, outdoor, retail, customer support, channel, B2B). Michael Brito – Britopian VP Social Media Edelman Digital The most succinct argument would be to quote Louis Carol’s Cheshire cat: “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.” You really need to know why you want to use social media and which tools are best suited to meeting that objective. A good start is to know where, on social media, your customers hang out and what you can give them by joining their activities. This depends on which objectives you have in mind. It can be sales, lead generation, support, feedback, new ideas. So many things can be achieved in social media. If you know what your goals are they will shape the tactic. Conversely, if all you want to do is get your feet wet, then I would advise you to get yourself a wading pool. Shel Israel – Global Neighborhoods Author of Twitterville and Co-Author of Naked Conversations Putting strategy ahead of tactics is a must for just about anything, but especially social media marketing. The problem seems to be so much confusion around what the word strategy actually means — a strategy is not a timeline or a goal, even though these elements are often included in what people refer to as a strategy document. The actual strategy piece is the spirit with which you approach others and engage with them. Engagement is not a strategy, but a high level tactic. HOW you plan to engage is strategic. Strategy also doesn’t ask about ROI, but about how you plan to win. Proponents of social media often “get” the strategy piece in an intuitive way, but that means they don’t always empathize well with those who don’t. The result is poorly articulated strategies centered around a single trendy tactic. Initiatives like this may be easy to launch, but they’re typically not very successful. Shannon Paul – Very Official Blog Community and Social Media Manager PEAK6 Online Strategy needs to drive tactics, as companies first need to know where they’re going before they figure out how to get there. A lot of roads can get a brand from point A to B, but a good strategy will help selection of the optimal route, as well as how to respond if setbacks are encountered along the way. I can see where some people might recommend tactics first when it comes to social technologies – the space moves quickly and new opportunities emerge weekly. This actually reinforces the need to have a good strategy in place to evaluate and experiment with possibilities within frameworks that drive towards business goals. Peter Kim – Being Peter Kim Managing Director, North America Dachis Group It’s a bit like baking a cake. Tactics are the ingredients that deliver the strategy. Decide on what kind of cake you want to bake first and why. If you dive straight into the ingredients and get the balance wrong, you could end up with a very bad taste in your mouth. Mel Carson – UK Internet Marketing Blog Community Manager Microsoft Advertising Why do you put social media strategy before tactics? There is the standard cliche about making sure that you have blueprints before you build your house, but here’s a bit of a different take. As you achieve some initial success, you’ll soon have other business units asking “How did you do that?” and “How can we be part of that?” If you don’t have an agreed upon strategy things can get messy rather quickly. Having a strategy developed before tactics helps you manage the growth of your program. Also, working with different business units to develop a strategy in advance of tactics also helps with buy-in and keeps internal political battles and communication breakdowns from derailing your efforts. Josh Hallett – Hyku Blog Director, Voce Connect Voce Communications In practical terms, you want to know where you’re going so you can get there. Every resource you expend in business needs to be justified. Everything worth doing needs to be measured. Social media is no different. It may be a great way to share useful content in places where your customers spend time to generate interest for further actions. And it can provide powerful business intelligence back, straight from the people who buy your products and services. However, to capitalize on all of that, your process needs to tie all your activities together — the information sharing, the intelligence gathering, the communications, content creation, and anything else that happens in between. All activities aligned with and in support of the business. Without a strategy and goals, you won’t know how you’re going to measure results and won’t be able to answer the “so what” question. For example, we have 2,000 followers on Twitter. So what? Are they in our base or just robots? Why are we on Twitter? What are we going to tweet? And so on. Today many companies are working on optimizing social media, moving away from tactical approaches and working on the business alignment part. Tomorrow, we will hopefully see the ultimate strategy, which is that to optimize the business for social. Valeria Maltoni , ABC Brand Strategist Conversation Agent I have a very short answer when someone asks me why strategy should come before tactics. Having your strategy in place, with your objectives set, usually means not having to go back and fix everything that you rushed to develop in your communications program. You must know the “why” part first, before you build anything, and use a listening strategy to determine early on what tactics will actually be successful with the people you want to reach. The strategy first approach saves time and doesn’t waste valuable resources. Deirdre Breakenridge – Juicy Bits Blog President, Executive Director of Communications Mango! Creative Juice Co-Author, Putting the Public Back in Public Relations & PR 2.0 Strategy is the path one intends to take to reach a certain goal. Using only tactics in social media is like picking up the phone and dialing random people before you’ve even decided if the call is for a sale or customer service. The tools are there to serve the goal, and certain tools improve certain strategies. Starting the other way around is just asking for pain. Chris Brogan – Blog President, New Marketing Labs Co-Author, Trust Agents The primary reasons businesses flounder with their social media integration is a) not clearly identifying their target market and which social sites these prospects visit most, b) lack of clear, measurable objectives and c) lack of a solid strategy to achieve such objectives. Thing is, there’s so much peer and media pressure to “get on Facebook (and, now, get Facebook on your site!), get on Twitter, work on your blog, make videos.” But, for what purpose? What are you trying to achieve? By starting with the technology tactics piece first, you could be completely missing the mark and, in fact, might not even be building a presence where your target audience lives! Carving out time to architect a solid social strategy is vital for success in today’s uber noisy online world. Mari Smith Social Media Speaker & Trainer Author, Facebook Marketing: An Hour A Day Strategy starts with understanding what unique values we bring. It requires an overarching mission and understanding of the climate, systems, current conditions, and the character and culture of the people involved. Strategy is a practical plan to analyze and advance a position over time through understanding human nature and making good decision. Tactics or campaigns are the methods for executing a strategy. Social media strategy has to come first. Without a strategic mission — to build a community to strengthen a brand — social tactics at best gather momentum then end without building something larger that people (the social) can believe in and belong to. Tactics may gather followers and fans, but strategy keeps them coming back and bringing their friends. Liz Strauss – Successful Blog Social Web Strategiest & Founder of SOBCon Tactics are fun, strategy is boring. Focusing on tactics, in social media as in business generally, in sport and other areas of human activity, appeals to people who like to get things done, action-oriented people. They say things like “ready, fire, aim!”. We need to have a bit of that in our approach, or we’ll never get anything done. But if we ignore strategy we have no way of managing the process intelligently, no way of measuring how we are going, no way of adjusting when circumstances change. Implementing a social media focused regime in business, going on Twitter, setting up a Facebook page, starting a blog, all without doing the hard yards on strategy, would be like trying to build a home without a blueprint: could be interesting, could get you on prime time television, but might not be livable. Two quotes from Sun Tzu, The Art of War: “Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” “All men can see these tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved.” Des Walsh – Blog Social Business Mentor Director The Webarts Company Strategy before tactics isn’t only relevant to social media it’s relevant for all aspects of business. Strategy should always be the backbone of anything you do. There’s no point in creating a presence on various social channels unless you have a very clear understanding of the business challenges you are looking to solve and an understanding of how you are going to solve them. Only then you can start to think about the tactics. What happened to Nestle recently is a great example of what happens when you put tactics ahead of strategy; it’s irresponsible, not accountable, and quite frankly stupid. Any company that puts tactics ahead of strategy will fail, and rightfully so. Jacob Morgan – Blog Principal of Chess Media Group Author of Twittfaced One of the biggest mistakes many people jumping into social media make is to focus on the tactical application of various social media platforms before creating their strategy. It is easy to get off track in social media, after all SM conversations vary dramatically day to day. By setting your goals and strategies before you start your outreaches, you ensure everything you do online includes your company branding, ensures your messages are delivered and can be easily tracked and measured. My rule of thumb? Determine your goals, write your strategies, create your program, measure and revise your strategies based on customer/consumer feedback. Serena Ehrlich – StartupArmy Blog EVP of Social Media, StartupArmy Corp Sec – Social Media Club I think strategy should come first because your goals for social media usage are more important than the tools. You pick the strategy/goals, then that tells you which tools will help you best execute that strategy. The alternative is to pick the tactics first, then you have to pick your strategy based on the chosen tools. That’s obviously a recipe for disaster. Mack Collier – The Viral Garden Social Media Consultant It drives me a little nuts when organizations jump on the “shiny new toy of the day” bandwagon without much forethought. Often this happens because someone influential within the organization has seen a competitor doing it, or because it’s getting “buzz” and they think that buzz will automatically rub off on them. On the other hand, I’ve also seen organizations resisting social technologies because of fear, ignorance or internal turf wars (who will “own” social?), regardless of how much these might help them achieve their strategic goals. You nailed it when you said companies need to “develop a strategic approach based on customer research and goals.” I don’t think you can keep your finger on the pulse of your customer and adjust your tactics successfully unless you’re working in the context of an overall strategy, one that is research-based and has goals and measurable objectives. Shonali Burke – Waxing UnLyrical Founder, Shonali Burke Consulting There are so many different tactics you can use, and some of them even conflict with each other. If you ignore the big picture goals and strategy, then in the best case you wasted time and money, in the worst case you moved your company backwards. Mike Volpe – Blog Vice President Inbound Marketing HubSpot I have to smile about this request since I meet brand marketers on a daily basis who want to start their efforts in social media by creating a facebook fan page, or worse, already have taken this into their own hands prior to thinking through best practices, resources and ongoing engagement…let alone strategy, KPIs, etc…! I’ve put this to a stop via corporate governance/guidelines, but am still playing the role of an educator. I’m also seeing venues vary by brand depending upon the existing discussion. Developing a social strategy is a complex process that stems from business goals and objectives; it involves embedding listening (both mining and monitoring) into the organizational culture. Tactics are the easy part that follow. Amy M. Lamparske Global Social Media Leader 3M Consumer & Office Brands In today’s world of digital marketing, things are moving at an intense speed – so quickly, in fact, that today’s platform du jour may be tomorrow’s digital refuse. Remember Friendster, Jaiku and Splashcast? Perhaps you do. Or not. They are sites that faded from relevance, got acquired or shut down completely. Or maybe you’re more conversant with the white label social platform Ning, which recently announced that it’s ending its free service. Think of the implications if you’ve built a number of online communities that depend on the site. If you’re putting tactics in front of strategy, then you’re probably out there building profiles and pages on social networks that could just as easily succumb to the same fate. In other words, you’re busy chasing trends instead of focusing on what’s core to your brand and building a sound strategy that will outlast every technology upheaval. For the leaders out there, instead of building your plan on the back of everyone else’s success, maybe you should focus a little more on building your own. Scott Monty – Blog Global Digital Communications Ford Motor Company Thank you to everyone that participated in this post. It’s a testament to the power of social connections and social technology. My request went out on Friday and it simply amazes me that so many, arguably very busy, people responded the same day and some over the weekend. What are your practical observations and opinions about social media strategy and tactics? Why do so many companies approach social web participation based on tools and metrics like friends/fans/followers versus establishing listening programs to analyze their market, influencers and develop a plan to reach and engage them? It might be a lack of trustworthy information, it might be that social technologies are so new to senior executives. We’d love to hear your perspective. As a postscript, a good number of the responses I received were shortened for this post. We are putting together a downloadable compilation of everyone’s Social Strategy Before Tactics response in full. It will be posted in the next week or so. Details will be tweeted from @toprank and @leeodden. © Online Marketing Blog , 2010. | Social Media Strategy Before Tactics | 10 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

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Social Media Strategy Before Tactics

The way to Improve Popularity in Pay per Click Management Services

BlogPostman — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 06:32:57 +0000

The most effective decision you’ll be able to make from your on-line business website is choosing the right PPC management company. By knowing what the proper PPC Company can do for you or how to choose the proper PPC Company can improve esteem in Pay per Click Management Services from them. * They need reputable contacts everywhere the net market space and know who to speak to and the way to save lots of your cash that you never knew may be saved in the primary place. * Understanding what happens to your targeted traffic once they arrive at your website and why they’re or are not converting into sales or expressions of interest is another of many services you’ll expect when you select the proper PPC management company. * Notice a PPC management company that boasts a swarm of specialist skills and data, sure firing to profit your on-line business website. You would like to grasp that the firm that handles all of your business websites PPC campaign management desires is partnering with you, not operating as a separate unit and making you look the opposite way while your advertising budget fall off. * Examine the history of the PPC management company you are designing to figure with. Do they have a confirmed diary of success with online business websites and PPC campaign management normally? * Are they willing to travel that further mile to create certain the success of your business? Most successful PPC management companies are successful as a result of they are adept at serving to beginner on-line entrepreneurs and experienced ones get the most out of their business. This means the proper PPC management company can help you with everything from selecting the keywords that create the foremost sense keeping your business and your product in mind, developing the perfect ad that can produce the proper quite interest, optimizing every single page on your web site so that every page gets clicks and work out what is the most cause of traffic to travel faraway from your web site without converting into sales. All of the higher than mentioned services from Pay per click management firms can undoubtedly improve the popularity of your business. - About the Author: Quick Recap:How to Improve Popularity in Pay per Click Management Services ?* Find a PPC management company that boasts a swarm of specialist skills* Look at the history of the Pay per Click Management Services company* Check out for their list of clients, industry comments Article Source

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The way to Improve Popularity in Pay per Click Management Services

Prime 3 Truths on Pay Per Click (PPC) Specialists

BlogPostman — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 07:07:19 +0000

A few businessmen who conduct their own campaign don’t have time or the resources to try to to that slight bit of research. Some business house owners rent professionals to handle their campaign. Firms that focus in PPC management services are specialists in their field and grasp the world of search engines and campaigns. They have well thought-of contacts all over the online market and apprehend who to talk to and how to save lots of your money that you never knew might be saved in the first place. Using PPC Management services with the help from an expert can help your on-line business that work best together with your target market and you’re on the full business goals and objectives in mind. They do not put a boundary on themselves to simply greater than ever your click through rate. Understanding in what happens to your targeted traffic once they arrive at your website and why they’re or don’t seem to be changing into sales or expressions of interest is another of the many services you can expect when you choose the correct PPC management expert. A good professional of PPC will submit timely reports that can embody all the keyword information together with the important statistics and analytical tools that will determine areas for improvement that can help in making certain a high come back on investment. Many business owners look out for greater than ever clicks, while not taking note of the important exchange to sale. It’s instructed that house owners of business involve themselves in escalating ways that focus additional on exchange into sales. If you become conscious of your advertisement been taken away from the search engines or there’s a sudden fall within the traffic, your PPC expert will supply support and house these issues successfully. The PPC specialist will not limit himself to monitoring keyword routine and will willingly build all the required changes in the knowledge or statistics, such as changing the geographic aim, keyword modifications, changing the ad copy etc. It’s counseled to rent a skilled instead of doing things on your own. Higher than truths concerning PPC skilled ought to facilitate in changing your mind by hiring one and obtain the job done with successful results. - About the Author: Quick Recap:Top 3 Truths on PPC Experts are: * Good expert of PPC will submit timely reports. * PPC Experts gives full in detailed reports on the number of clicks and other applicable information. * Necessary adjustments on geographic aim, keyword modifications, changing the ad copy etc. Article Source

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Prime 3 Truths on Pay Per Click (PPC) Specialists

Pay Per Click Management Services in Five Simple Steps

Sat, 24 Apr 2010 09:07:42 +0000

There are five simple steps for success in pay per click advertising. I’ve got set them out so as of sequence to illustrate my points. Pay per Click members have one factor in common; they thought of, understood and avoided risk. Perceive the 5 necessary steps to method for your success. The first thing to choose is what you would like to accomplish. Ultimately, most advertisers want to sell something. Some are specific, others want traffic to their website or their business for family and little business matters and some wish to draw awareness to an encouragement as several wish to urge noticed prior to their competition in on-line searches. Pay per click will short cut search engine optimization to a high up position in search results. Knowing what you want will guide your strategy. For results in search on advertising, the ranks you achieve vary on several, maybe sudden, factors. The location result depends on how shut the keyword equal is and who else desires to advertise in the identical place. The sellers of advertising space need to form the foremost of their profits and evaluate advertisers. Your results can differ, from accomplishment to disappointment, primarily based on your headline and copy. An ad for ‘Responsive Solicitor’ may do less well than, ‘Half Price’ – from knowledgeable and responsive firm’. Landing Page – For pay per click success brings your customers to a ‘landing page’ written for them and therefore the advertisement that just fascinated them. If I need a [*fr1] price can and land on a page that has a plain headline ‘[*fr1] value’ and has heaps of data concerning the procedures. It is incredible to predict human behavior. These 5 steps will every be polished in an expected means that allows businesses to work their approach to low cost and effectual pay per click advertising that gives unbelievable returns on deals and a lot of enhanced results than competitors. At the subsequent level the best practitioners can apply testing on tiny variations of every step to boost performance and gain both better results and competitive advantage. - About the Author: Quick Recap:The Pay Per Click Management Services in Five Easy Steps are: • Settle on is what you want to accomplish. • Place of advertisement. • Selecting the right Key Words for your Pay Per Click Management Services .• Landing pages. • Keep an eye on your competitors. Article Source

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Pay Per Click Management Services in Five Simple Steps

Principles Of Facebook Direct Marketing

BlogPostman — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 01:43:31 +0000

In today’s world there are several affective ways to market and advertise anything you desire online. Google has reinvented the internet and what it is today, but let’s not forget about the other ways of driving traffic to your site. When advertising to anyone on the internet, the easiest way to have your site seen by the most people is by advertising it on a search engine or network that has the most amount of traffic. Obviously, today that is Google followed by Yahoo, then MSN. Those are only search engines. Social networks such as Myspace, Twitter, and Facebook have blown up into a social monster that no one has every witnessed in the past decade. Although Myspace is still very active with just over 70 million users, Facebook has taken the cake with nearly 400 million people worldwide and growing! How would you like to advertise you site or product to that many people and be able to choose the type of people to advertise to? Well you can do just that with Facebook Paper Click Marketing. Facebook offers paid advertisements on their network. The coolest thing about Facebook marketing is that you choose the people you want to market to. You’re able to choose the ages of people that your ad will be seen by. You can also select the area of interest that matches other people’s so only those will be able to view your site. Not only is this important, but it is also cost affective. With Facebook advertising you can market to only those who you think will be best qualified for your special offer. Here are some quick and easy principles when it comes to using Facebook to market your product. Facebook ads should always consist of shiny objects. Since Facebook allows you to place a picture in your ad, it is imperative that you use a picture that catches the eyes of your customers. Unlike Google, Facebook ads will not show the URL your ad is linked to. Facebook will also show your ad at random. Some of the best ad examples should tell a story, ask a question, and or even promise some amazing benefit. What’s even better, Facebook actually lowers your cost per click drastically if your ad has a high click thru rate! The more popular your ad, the cheaper it will cost to run it. Get your business on steroids today by creating a Facebook ad that will appear in the eyes of potentially hundreds of millions! - About the Author: To be apart of an organization that helps its members achieve wealth, develop high levels of emotional well-being, and much, much more visit http://www.accomplishedentrepreneurs.com Email: josh.accomplishedentrepreneurs@gmail.com Article Source

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Principles Of Facebook Direct Marketing