One of the biggest problems that businesses have with social media is time. Twitter, Facebook, and other social media outlets require a big time investment, and with ROI still not certain, many businesses choose to invest their time elsewhere.

With about 5,000 new accounts created each day, Twitter is the fastest growing social network on the Web and the third largest. It’s quickly gaining in popularity and may even overtake Facebook and MySpace for one of the top spots.

Last week at the Board Retailers Association Summit, I shared some Twitter tips with heavyweights in the surf, snow, skate, and wake retail industries. Here are some of the key points for business owners who want to use Twitter to their advantage but are short on time:

Find the best strategy for your business.

Twitter allows users to follow information in real time. That means instant access to your customers to listen to what they’re saying about your brand, share information with them, and offer instant customer service. Find the right balance of these uses for your company.

Choose your audience.

Build a network of customers, competitors, strategic partners, experts in your industry (including bloggers), colleagues, and other people within your industry circle. By following them (and being followed by them), you can maintain constant conversation.

Choose your tone.

Twitter allows you to converse with your network casually on a personal level. Try not to be too stuffy, and whatever you do, don’t just focus on marketing and PR and don’t automate your conversation. Automated direct messages and tweets make followers think you’re a robot. Talk to your customers, listen closely to what they’re saying, and keep it casual.

Decide who will represent your brand online.

Twitter and all social media is an online representation of your brand. Be careful when choosing who will represent your business and how. Whether it’s the CEO, an employee, or an in-house community manager, be sure they’re putting the right face on your company.

Start talking.

Initiate conversation about your brand, listen to what people are saying about your company, and be proactive in responding to @ replies and direct messages. Offer information that customers and other people in your network will find interesting — not just marketing and PR speak. Don’t toot your own horn too much, bombard users with links, or repetitive marketing messages. Just like any conversation, these common mistakes will make you boring or annoying to followers.

Twitter tools for building your network:

Twitter Search – Search for your brand name and key phrases associated with your industry to find users who are interested in you and your products.

We Follow – User powered Twitter directory helps you find users that may fit in your network.

Just Tweet It – Another Twitter directory where you can find followers.

Mr. Tweet – A Twitter networking client that helps you discover new people in your industry, find relevant followers, and track usage stats.

Tools for using Twitter:

tinyurl, bit.ly, is.gd and countless other URL shortening services shrink long URLs to Twitter-friendly sizes.

TweetDeck – The Twitter client of choice for many busy users, this free program allows you to track your feed, specific searches, and replies in one window.

Tools for monitoring your conversation & brand:

TweetScan – Alerts you when users mention your brand and related keywords.

TweetBeep – Google alerts for Twitter. Set it up to tell you when people are talking about your brand or industry.

Twollow – Auto-follow users who mention your brand or products to build your network.

Qwitter: Notifies you of the last tweet you sent before losing followers. Great tool to find out what you could be doing to turn off followers.

Twitterless: Graphs your followers and tells you who stops following you.

Tools for engaging your users:

TwtQpn: Create coupons for Twitter to give users incentive to follow you.

StrawPoll: Poll your followers to find out what they think about your brand and pertinent questions related to your industry.

TwitPic: Share photos of new products, office antics, and other cool stuff they may find interesting.

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Sage Island
Mike Duncan

There is a ton of useful information in your main AdWords campaign summary pages, especially now that they’ve released the new interface (still in beta).  However, on these pages and even in Analytics, you don’t get to see the whole story. To most accurately target the keywords, ads & budgets of my AdWords accounts, there are several reports that I rely on which fill in the gaps that are missing from the main performance data.

Search Query Performance Report

Most likely, your ad groups are composed of keywords set to broad, phrase, and exact match (and if not, they should be). With broad match keywords, your ad is triggered when a user searches on a term that Google determines to be similar to your keyword. The Search Query Report lists the exact search queries which triggered your ads and resulted in clicks.

By looking at the report, you can determine new keywords, or even ad groups, which you hadn’t originally included by seeing which terms are receiving the most clicks and/or conversions. I’ve also found the Search Query Report to be extremely useful in determining negative keywords for my campaigns, especially with short-tail terms. The report identifies variations that don’t match the original intent of my keywords.

Account/Campaign/Ad Group/Keyword Performance

Depending on how specific you are looking to get, you might use these reports to see an overall view of your data for any amount of time.  However, I’ve found the best thing about these reports to be their customizability, from a unit of time, to a date range, to specifically what type of data I am looking to see (CTR, conversions, etc.).

I have often used these reports to show the historical success of my campaigns over each day of the week. By selecting “day of week” from the drop down menu and choosing a relatively large amount of time, I can often determine the best days to focus our clients’ PPC budgets, which can be extremely beneficial, especially for smaller ad budgets. A similar report can be used to determine peak hours of the day (choose hourly from the drop down menu). By taking advantage of AdWords’ ad scheduling feature, you can focus your budget only during the hours of the day in which you receive the heaviest number of clicks.

Geographic Report

Whether you are a large nationwide operation or a small local company, geotargeting is an important tool. The Geographic Report is an excellent way to determine areas in which you have the most success (or the least). The report can be customized to show as broad of an area as entire countries, or as narrow as a single city.

If you find that your ads are especially successful in a certain area, it might be worthwhile for you to allocate a certain amount of your budget to specifically target that region (just make sure to exclude that area from any other campaigns which might overlap those targeted regions). You may also find areas where your ads are far less successful. In that case, it may be wise to exclude these areas in an effort to focus your ad dollar on those regions which are most likely to convert.

These are just a few of my favorites. There are plenty of other reports in AdWords that are also highly beneficial, and I encourage you to dig around and explore this often underused feature.  No matter your PPC advertising budget, each of these can help you to allocate your budget in the most efficient, targeted way.

Unlike what some viewers believe, creating a design (ad, website, print pieces…etc.) isn’t just plopping a pretty picture on a page, throwing in some creative text, neatly tying a bow to complete the presentation and happily yelling, “Voila!” There are actually many steps and strategic thoughts that go into the creation and development of the perfect, eye catching, and memorable design.

Besides content, font, and image usage, and design layout are among the first thing the average viewer makes note of when studying a design. Grasping the viewer’s attention appropriately is so vital to the advertising world that currently numerous eye-tracking and scanning studies have been completed. Even Google uses eye-tracking technology to gather valuable information to better help with layout and ad image placements.

Recently, I came across a great article displaying search results completed by specialists Bunnyfoot and Think Eyetracking. These studies provided concrete evidence on how layout and chosen images affect the customer’s focus on the design. These studies deal with selected lifestyle images and where they are positioned. It is clear from these studies that image placement and the image selected does in fact influence your viewer’s eye placement. See for yourself. Where do you focus with the below ads?

As you can see from the below results, the model’s eyes influence your eye focus. The images selected here make a big difference—one image selected makes the viewer focus more on the product. Another you end up focusing more on the model, losing site of the product and purpose of the advertisement.

Try again! Where do you focus with this baby ad?

As you can see, image selection is huge! Selecting an image where the subject faces the content is most ideal. Your eyes tend to follow where the subject is looking.

Test it yourself! Next time you look at an ad, take note of the precise image selected and font placement. Take a few moments to perform your own eye-tracking scan and remember, the models used aren’t just a pretty face!

This week, a disturbing YouTube video posted by two disgruntled Domino’s employees quickly went viral. The video, titled “Disgusting Domino’s People,” shows the employees doing gross things to the food they would eventually serve.

The implications for the Domino’s brand are catastrophic. Though it was an isolated incident in one store, it spread throughout the country through various social media channels. Domino’s franchises on the other side of the country will most likely feel the fallout of this incident. It’s a scary reminder of the power of viral marketing.

While the impact is unavoidable, Domino’s acted swiftly to respond to the incident on YouTube. Today Domino’s posted this personal response from the company’s president, Patrick Doyle.

What can we learn from Domino’s response?

Act fast.

Domino’s issued a press release immediately, but it was two full days before they responded to the video directly on YouTube. Two days is a lifetime when it comes to viral content. The faster you respond, the faster you can steer the conversation.

Viral content lasts forever — so should your response.

The most effective response will reach out directly to the viral audience that spread the damaging content. Today’s YouTube statement was much more effective than Tuesday’s press release, and it will continue to reach customers even as the press coverage dies down.

Viral content lasts forever, but a press release only lasts through one news cycle. To ensure that the video will continue to reach their customers affected by the damaging content, Domino’s wisely included the title from the original video in their response and added “Domino’s Responds.” When people search YouTube to find the video they’ve heard so much about, they’ll also find a direct response from the company. Like the damaging viral video, this response will last forever.

Don’t just apologize, take action.

Instead of playing the victim and placing all the blame on the employees, Doyle clearly outlines the actions Domino’s will take to protect their customers in the future. Not only does he assure customers that the specific store has been sterilized, but he assures them that Domino’s is working to prevent this from happening again. “We’re re-examining all of our hiring practices to make sure that people like this don’t make it into our stores,” he says.

Make the last word a good one.

The last minute of the Domino’s response is devoted to displaying the brand in a positive light. Your response is your opportunity to get the last word in. Don’t waste it rehashing the negative press. Use it to remind your customers why they should trust you.

Unfortunately, social media and user generated content have made it much harder for brands to shield themselves from this type of damage. That’s why it’s more important than ever that you know and understand how to use social media channels to promote your company positively and protect your brand from damaging viral content. Through smart use of social media, you can shift the conversation to correct the damage just as quickly as it was done.

In March, we launched the starting website for Troubadour Clothing. Lindsey Carter, a fellow Wilmingtonian, was recently selected as a finalist in Charleston Fashion Week’s Emerging Designer competition which was held March 27th. To further brand her clothing line and prepare for the competition we created a clean, minimalist website providing information and a glimpse into her stylish Troubadour Clothing line. The website look and feel was inspired by some of Lindsey’s favorite designers. Currently Troubadour Clothing has received a good bit of press, and this website is estimated to expand and morph as this line continues to be featured and new seasonal looks are added.

With Internet usage almost overtaking TV usage and the recent rave for social networking groups such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, companies all over are jumping on the bandwagon and doing their part to invest in this new form of advertising. Buzz questions such as “Are you my Facebook friend?”, ”Have you tweeted recently?” and “Did you check out that blog?” are heard around the world from audiences of all demographics. Sounds like they may be speaking another language, but in fact this is the language socially accepted in response to the new age of  social media marketing.

In an effort to compete with advertising across a social platform, Downy is promoting a new way to stay connected with friends and family. Until May 31, those who enter a snapshot photo with a pledge caption are automatically entered to win the ultimate reunion trip. Downy, the fragrant fabric softener, wants you to share this pledge with the world and connect with family and friends in a whole new atmosphere. So check it out, submit your own Downy pledge and stay connected with family and friends in a whole new way.

We spend a lot of time educating our clients and helping them prevent viruses, spam, and other Internet threats. One of the most common threats we face is email spoofing.

Email spoofing is a technique used by spammers to alter the originating email address to appear as though it came from some other address, even your own. Email spoofing is relatively common, and is usually caused by malicious bots randomly scanning websites to pick up email addresses, and then using them to mass target other email addresses around the world.

If you suddenly receive a big spike in spam that seems to be coming from yourself, you may have been targeted by email spoofing. When a spammer spoofs an email address they will use an email name generator that can send thousands of messages to random names at any domain name. This results in you getting thousands of bounce-back messages in your inbox. The messages that are bouncing back to you are from legitimate mail servers either denying the spam message (that you did not actually send) or letting you know that the email address where the message was sent does not exist.

Unfortunately, once you have been targeted, there really isn’t a lot that a spam filter can do to block these messages from coming into your inbox. They aren’t technically spam even though they are bothersome. If you notice a substantial amount of bounces coming from the same domain name, they can be blocked at the domain level. Other than that, you just have to ride out the storm.

The easiest way to prevent these malicious bots from harvesting your email address is to use a public contact form on your site instead of posting a mailto: link. This will not prevent all harvesting, but it can definitely slow some of it down.