MINDSCAPE

Did you see this? Big name Twitter celebs like Justin Timberlake, Kim Kardashian, Lady Gaga, and others died a “digital death” today. The idea was orchestrated by Alicia Keys in efforts to raise $1 Million for World AIDS Day and the charity Keep a Child Alive. It’s a great cause to support and is certainly drawing a lot of attention to a great charity. However, I can’t help but wonder if this is the most effective use of social media. It seems to me this defeats the whole purpose of social media; the whole point is to engage, communicate, and connect with followers. If you’re not able to do that, how are you generating buzz that this is going on?more

Old ways to measure your online success were eyeballs, page-views, time spent on the site/page, number of fans and followers. Now, it’s important to look at interactions, the number of inbound inks to your site/pages, blog comments, retweets and likes from your posts. Out of 90 Million tweets a day, and over 1 million unique urls shared every day, how do you get started and how do you stand out? Have you ever thought of Twitter as a search engine? You should.more

Websites are already a staple in business today. Whether your company is big or small, it is necessary for everyone to have a web presence. That’s why we thought it would be fun to analyze a well-known website every month for you and give you our thoughts on what makes it work, what we like, and some gaps we discovered. Our team of programmers, designers, SEO experts, and Social Media guru’s will be tearing apart a well-known site and sharing our comments and thoughts with you. Our hope is that it will keep you thinking about your own site, what you can be doing better with it, and help give you ideas to make it more successful. And, since its November and still football season, we figured it was as good of time as any to kick off our new series and analyze the NFL’s website (www.nfl.com).more

We have made a significant effort to make sure you get the help or answers that you are looking for. There are two main channels to get help. 1. If you need help learning how to do something, our Get Satisfaction support forum is the place to go. We post helpful articles, webTRAIN updates, and ideas on the forum. You can search the forum, ask your own question, help other users, report problems, or let us know what we’ve done right.more

Well, the midterm elections have come to a close. The constant commercials, media coverage, and discussions can calm down for, well, a few months at least. But as I sit here on the morning after the mid-term elections, I can’t help but notice the impact of social media and how it relates to the victories across the board. No matter what side your on, it's clear that the social media (and the internet in general) have changed the political landscape forever. According to allfacebook.com, a staggering 3,482,253 people were fans of republican candidate fan pages nationally. Compare that to the 1,456,798 fans that democrats pulled in. Based on that statistic alone, it’s no surprise that Republicans took control of the house and narrowed the gap in the senate.more

Chances are if you’re in any kind of sales or marketing related position, the company’s website has come up. You’ve likely been part of a team considering updating the website, redesigning the site or looking at ways to better market the site. Website costs vary. So what do you do? Ask around for referrals, likely engaged in a Google search and even checked out competitor sites to see if there was a link to “website developed by XYZ Company” at the bottom of the site.more

We all want the best possible deal. However, the best possible deal is not necessarily the lowest price we can find. That is the point I try to make to people when showing them how to find what they are looking for online. The internet gives today’s consumers much more power than they had 20 years ago. Today, I can easily compare the selling price of TV in California with the same one selling in North Dakota. The problem this causes for sellers is that they have to put as much emphasis on added value as they do on price. Low prices are simply not enough anymore. Sure, it will get you listed at the top of an ascending search for having the lowest price, but that is just the starting point. Are you expecting all your clients to buy on pricing alone? What if your price isn’t the lowest in the world? Remember, this is the World Wide Web we are dealing with here. Users can research retail information from around the globe. You have to do more today than just deliver a low price. Don’t get me wrong, price is a great starting point…but do you want to build your business around first-time and one-time shoppers? Or, do you want to do business with shoppers that come back to the same place because they feel like they get more from their purchases than just a low price?more

The web, as many know, is a new beast. Long gone are the days of first grabbing your phone book, flipping to the “Moving Company” section, and looking for the best looking ad or simply the nearest company. Back in those days the “leg work” of the sale was done after the initial contact. The rise of the internet era has completely reversed this train of thought. Consumers are now looking to have the work done by researching online, reading other customer’s reviews, and gathering as many facts as possible BEFORE any contact is made with the business. As potential buyers, today’s shoppers first leverage the power of the internet in their shopping experience. They don’t want to be contacted until they are ready to be. A shopper empowered with search engines is able to gather vast amounts of extremely precise decision-making data before even thinking about contacting a seller.more