Mark E Goodman

September 6, 2010

It’s what you do with the searcher, once they find you that counts!!

Filed under: Internet, Social Media — Tags: , , , — markegoodman @ 10:13 am

I was having a discussion with a business thought leader last week.  She remarked that a business person can choose the e-Conversation Solutions, search optimized video (SOV) solution rather than pay per click (PPC).  While SOV works very well when coordinated with SEO (multiple use of both content and questions), using it as an alternative to pay per click was intriguing.  She noted that either pay per click or using video to get on page one achieves the same result.

But, as a second derivative, I pointed out to her, that once you are found, it’s what you present that counts.  With SOV, you have an opportunity to immediately present your company as an expert.  A targeted video both provides information and conveys trust.  It differentiates you from the competition, and suggests additional content.

SOV says “how can I help you?” “Here is a way to solve your problem”.  Pay per click says “buy from me”.   If you are selling commodities, “buy from me” will work.  But, if you are working to establish a long term relationship, it’s about answering a question and solving a problem.

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January 31, 2010

You CAN use a Flip Cam

Filed under: Social Media, Uncategorized — Tags: , , — markegoodman @ 8:59 pm

I was having a discussion with some people interested in social media.  In that discussion,  I suggested that Flip Cams were not capable of being used in building social media in a business situation.  I stand corrected.    I would suggest two approaches

First, a flip cam can give you a uniquely personal look at an experience.   If you want to give a person a roller coaster experience.  Check this out.

A personal view into the life of the food pornographer.

Second, creating the “documentary” on location video.  While these are shot with a flip cam… the editing is quite professional.    So, a flip cam in the hands of a highly skilled creator works.    It allows you to capture your subject without the intrusion of lights etc.  cinéma vérité

Travel videos also work well with the flip cam

January 27, 2010

Panda Express on Twitter – Has Social Media Arrived?

Filed under: Social Media — Tags: , , — markegoodman @ 11:09 am

Today, I was looking at the local “Coupon Clipper” Magazine.  I noted on the front page that Panda Express was asking me to follow them on Twitter.  Social Media and Twitter has arrived, when the Chinese Food National Franchise is asking me to follow them.

Maybe?

I went and followed Panda Express.  Came to discover that while they had over 700 followers, they were not following anyone?  They had not made a Tweet since September of 2009.

Having been a corporate person, all I could imagine is that someone at headquarters had an incentive to get on Twitter, so they did.  Like in the mid-1990’s when you had to have a website, so you took your brochure and put it on the internet.

Social media is about having a conversation.  Don’t think that Panda Express is there yet.

January 12, 2010

What is Social Media

Filed under: Social Media — Tags: , — markegoodman @ 9:06 am

This is from the Linked Media Group website.  Thought is was a particularly good summary of Social Media.

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Social Media

Social media is about moving from one-way broadcasts to two-way conversations with a targeted audience – turning passive constituents into engaged participation sessions online. Social Media Marketing blends technology and process to promote your web site, brand, product or service through established social media channels – generating incremental click back traffic, high quality links, conversations about your brand/products/services, advocates for your products and services and much more.

There is no absolute form or process that works universally and there is a tremendous amount of overlap with all Social Media Marketing – the more the better in many cases. Brand reputation is enhance when you increase viewership, discussions, comments, analysis, critiques, etc. – our job is to expose your products/services to a broad community, get them to talk about you and recommend your brand to their community of friends.

How does Social Media Marketing Help You?

If you can share your content with others, and they are listening (reading, watching and experiencing), then there is great opportunity for your brand, public relations, sales and marketing. The secret lies in making everything available. The value lies in other people doing the work for you by sharing, telling, even creating more of your content for others.

Social Media marketing helps to generate primary and secondary traffic back to your site. Primary traffic is simply visitors who clickthrough directly from a Social Media site – secondary traffic is referral traffic from web sites which link to your site and refer visitors to you, after visitors find your content (Article, Blog Excerpt, Link, Video, etc.) on a Social Media site.

Think links too, popularity ratings with Digg, Reddit or other top tier SM sites will generate a large number of links for you, which help with ongoing SEO rankings and incremental traffic.

Our Three Absolute Laws for Successful Social Media Marketing

Most if no all forms of Social Media Marketing processes will address one of these three core types of actions, with overlap being the order of the day.

  • Declare Your Identify
  • Foster Association and Interaction
  • Initiate User Interaction and Conversations

Declare Your Identity means your are declaring your online persona or identify, who you are, how you can be found online and where. “Identity Declaration” encompasses anything from your Blog Profile to your About Us page, your bio on YouTube, Squidoo, Hub Pages, your LinkedIn profile or Facebook page. This is a passive process, in that you are just “identifying who you are” not “pushing this out to third parties in most cases.”

Foster Association and Interaction is your way of giving third parties (customers, vendors, commentators, friends, family, etc.) to associate with you formally or informally online. Encompassing people posting about you via a Blog Roll on a blog, making a recommendation on LinkedIn on your behalf, “friending” you via Friendster or more consumer focused Social Media sites, following you on Twitter, Furl, Delicious – we are oversimplifying a bit, as we are mixing some more business oriented sites with consumer sites.

Initiate User Interactions and Conversations – in the online world you want users to talk about your company, its products or services – this is usually a good thing. If they aren’t, our job is to initiate and monitor these conversations on your behalf; or, more importantly, make sure your site has an integrated forum that lets people post about your products and services that we can monitor and respond to.

We were posting over ten years ago on Discussion Boards, Groups and CompuServe – fast forward to today and we are using some of the same processes, but incorporating a much broader base of sites (Google, Yahoo Groups, MSN/AOL Groups, Affinity Sites, Kaboodle Groups, Ning, Blog comments, etc.

We want to provoke, initiate and stimulate conversations with the broad community – what people like, dislike or even hate about your company – but, always respect their input, time and the implicit value in the dialogue you are building with them.

No that we have hopefully given you a sense about Social Media Marketing Services here is a list of our Core Services:

Initiating and Growing Organic Conversations

  • Blogs
  • Podcasts
  • Article Sites
  • Online Videos
  • Wikis
  • Social Networks
  • Online Surveys
  • Widget Development
  • Webcasts (Broadcast & Archived)
  • Integrating SEO Optimized Site Content
  • Comment Posting
  • Content Chunks & Posting
  • Viral Content
  • Cultivating Network of Supporters
  • White Papers

How to Measure Social Media Marketing

As stated earlier, RO analysis for Social Media Marketing is not as easy as SEO, CPC campaigns, etc. We know of services that charge anywhere from a few thousand dollars a month to tens of thousands But, here are some metrics that we utilize for most of our clients to measure effectiveness which help us to track ROI.

  • Traffic Spikes using Analytics
  • YouTube Video Views
  • Overall Web Site Traffic Trends
  • Leads/Downloads/Calls
  • Facebook or LinkedIn Friends/Contacts
  • Improved Search Rankings
  • Discussion Posts
  • Alexa (good for broad trends)
  • Compete
  • Google Trends (only high volume keywords though)

October 30, 2009

How Social Media can increase the value of your company

MONDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2009 – published in http://www.bizbrokerjournal.com

Interview with Mark Goodman of e-Conversation

We are continually asked by owners how they can enhance their businesses prior to pursuing a third party sale. This is a complex question and requires a indepth understanding of the business and its operations. However, ensuring that your top line sales are growing and that you have solid brand awareness are critical to attracting potential buyers to your business.

We recently had the opportunity to interview Mark Goodman who has created a platform to help companies leverage the internet in a unique way to enhance their online presence.

Mark is the CEO of e-Conversation a consulting based business focused around using video and social media to create client awareness and loyalty. Mark has a varied work experience. He was an educational television producer/director and a film buyer for a national theatre chain. Following that experience, Mark spent many years working for Motorola. He was one of the first business people in the cell phone group, rising to positions in distribution, marketing, and business management. Mark also developed and implemented internet strategies. Then he went on to manage service, parts and major account business opportunities. Subsequent to his experience at Motorola, Mark worked in sales management for a Silicon Valley company.


Mark has an MBA and an MA in Radio/TV/Film.

Mark, you are an expert in attracting and maintaining customers using new Web 2.0 internet tools, before we talk about how to use the tools, tell me how this creates value for a business.
There is a traditional value and a non traditional value to taking advantage of the new tools. First, let’s talk about the traditional one. Using the tools and the processes below, you can dramatically lower your costs of selling and customer support. Customers and users are looking to get answers on line. Below, you will find a process that allows for the creation of answer bits in multiple media. Lower sales and support costs translate into greater profits.

Now, let’s look at the non traditional value. The size of your social media audience can increase the value of your company. If you were supporting hundreds of users through Twitter or YouTube, that would be part of your valuation. Recently, companies have been hiring individuals based on their internet following. Companies like Twitter are totally valued on number of participants. Being a “recognized” expert for Google or YouTube, creates value beyond the ordinary.

How does a company need to change how they are creating content to attract Web 2.0 customers and users?
The content creation plan for a small business used to be pretty simple. When you rolled out a new product, you did a brochure and maybe a press release. Perhaps you ran a small ad. You trained your sales force, then got going. When it came to customer support, your technical people trained phone support.

What has changed in the last 10 years. First, your brochure went on line. Then, you decided rather than running ads, you would have buyers come to you using pay per click and search engine optimization. More and more, your buyers and customers did not want to see a sales person, but wanted to find the answers to their questions on line.

How has that changed how you create content?
When searching on line, your users want to find the answer to their individual question(s). The typical searcher is typing in four or five words. In a “decision engine” perhaps even asking a question. So rather than a brochure, white paper or FAQ list, you need to create an “answer bit”.

Also, realize that your buyers or users looking for service want to find the content in the media that they are comfortable with. Some buyers want to find it in a blog. Others, are YouTube viewers, some are searchers of Google or Bing. You can maximize the reach of your content by representing it in various media, if you plan for it in advance.

Our content creation process is based on the “interview” model. The content creation starts with a TV show. This is a 25 minute show that runs once a week. We have found that with the interview process, subject matter experts are more engaging, and answer length is more manageable.

The show is posted in its entirety on BLIP.TV. The show is then edited into clips and put on YouTube. The clips are also turned into blog postings. You can also reference the content in an email campaign. Content is then embedded on your website in the appropriate portions of the website.

Isn’t that a pretty complex and expensive process?
The key to keeping the costs down is designing the interview up front. The interview questions are created so that they can easily be cut into segments. Additionally, the dialogue during the interview focuses on topical issues that can be reconfigured into a blog posting. Lastly, we watch the length and complexity of the answers to insure that the clip will play well in the YouTube environment. Each question is its own answer bit. An answer has to be complete enough to answer a question, but not so complex as to lose the viewer.

The weekly show allows for the creation of continual content. Both users and search engines like the creation of continual content. The more users and viewers that you have in you channel or blog, the more Web 2.0 referrers will route people to you. When you reach a volume on a YouTube channel, you start to get more people finding you. It is not a linear increase, more of a quantum leap.

Mark, can you cite an example of a company you have worked with that deployed these services and experienced an increase in sales?
Absolutely. One local organization that we worked with recently has seen an increase in two of their offerings. Sales of one product line were up over 50% for the last 6 months, as compared to the 6 months prior. In addition, the volume through their local facility was up 30% in September as compared to September 2008.

This client understood the value of our services and the fact that they are most effective when used as part of a total marketing plan. We worked with the client to develop web content and that became the perfect complement to optimized search and pay per click.

How does someone get started?
The first step is making an inventory of what questions prospects, customers, and users are asking. If you are doing search engine optimization, that’s a good place to start.

You can do a couple of segments to try it out, but, just doing one or two segments, won’t help draw traffic. On the other hand, a regular program can have significant value on your sales, costs and valuation.

Chances are your customers are looking for products and services online and your ability to deliver relevant content can easily separate you from the competition. You can reach Mark at www.e-conversation.com to learn more about the above services.

POSTED BY DOMENIC RINALDI AT 3:59 PM

Tips on how to create content for social media

Filed under: Internet, Social Media — Tags: , , , — markegoodman @ 12:58 pm

Below is a blog posting that I did in conjuction with Crain’s Chicago Business.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Ask Score: Harnessing social media Posted by Ann D. at 10/28/2009 10:30 AM CDT With all the buzz surrounding Facebook, Twitter and other social media tools, it’s only natural that small-business owners want to know how to get onboard. It’s a topic that has come up often lately in Score Chicago’s workshops and counseling sessions.

Score Chicago’s workshop chairman, Mark Goodman, creates content for the Score Chicago blog, for the organization’s Twitter followers, and for a number of video outlets. He shares a few thoughts on using social media to your advantage:

The content creation plan for a small business used to be pretty simple. When you rolled out a new product, you did a brochure and maybe a press release. If you did some advertising, perhaps you ran a small ad. You trained your salesforce, then got going.

What has changed in the last 10 years? More and more, buyers do not want to see a salesperson, but want to find the answers to their questions online in places such as blogs, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc.

How do you get started? First, participate as an observer. Make a list of blogs in your industry and view them regularly. Sign up for Twitter. (You don’t have to write, you can simply follow for now.) Subscribe to some videos on YouTube. Become a participant, respond or comment on what others present.

Then make an inventory of the kinds of questions that prospects, customers and users are asking. If you are watching search terms, that’s a good place to start. One of the most common search terms on our blog has been “how to be a good salesperson.” We’ve done a number of entries about that.

Next, determine what experts are available to you. Think beyond just your company. Are there suppliers, partners or even customers who could be tapped for ideas or contributions? Look at what resources you have available. Are you comfortable writing, doing videos, creating conversations?

At Score Chicago, we had a client who was a painting contractor who specialized in restoring older homes. He was not much of a writer, so he hired a ghost writer to do his blog. Focusing on the key questions and aligning them to the search terms, he found his blog being read by key customers in his area.

Customer interviews are very powerful. While these enhance your Web site or blog, you would be surprised how many times customers will want to add your interview to their Web site. Experts often use a good interview to enhance their personal reputation.

Lastly, pick one medium and make a commitment to create regular content. Readers, viewers (and search engines) will better recognize your expertise if your content is continual as opposed to occasional.

Establishing your company as a trusted information source takes time, money and effort. However, the payoff can be significant. Mindshare can be translated into marketshare. The value of knowledge cannot be discounted.

September 21, 2009

Help with your social media

Filed under: Internet, Social Media — Tags: , , , , , — markegoodman @ 8:32 am

I attended a program sponsored by Crain’s Chicago Business last week.  One of the speakers suggested that you hire a fresh out of college person to manage your social media.  I would suggest another path.

My company is in that business.  With us, you get people with a proven track record.  We can transform your company conversation.  With a freshout, you will have to provide editorial and strategic guidance.  They will not provide a content strategy.   With luck, you’ll get execution.  With us, you will get transformation.

For more information, see www.e-conversation.com

August 23, 2009

How Help, How and What can Help Get Your Videos Watched

Filed under: Internet, Social Media — Tags: , , , — markegoodman @ 6:05 pm

Getting found on line is always a challenge. It is more so for video, because in most cases your content is not being catalogued.  So you need to improve your odds.

For those of us who are doing information videos including the words How, Help or What can improve your chances to be found.  If you are looking to be found by a search engine or decision engine, one of the key variables is word match.  The more words in your title that match the query being made, the better chance you have of being selected.

Since more users are asking questions when they search, adding How,  Help or What can will make it more likely the video will be found..  When I recently posted a video on behaviors that make a good sales person, which is the most frequently asked question on the blog, I integrated What into the Title: “What Behaviors make a good sales person?  I could have just called it “Behaviors that make a good sales person”.  But adding “what” will help improve the odds.

To see this video,  check out this blog posting .  http://learnedatscore.wordpress.com/2009/08/21/what-behaviors-make-a-good-sales-person/

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