Add Facebook's "Like" Button in Blogger's Classic Templates

Adding Facebook's "Like" button to your blog is a great way to allow your content out and about for a night on the town. Any users that are logged into Facebook can visit your blog and immediately post your article to their Profile - thus showing up in their friends' News Feeds and (hopefully) increasing your readership base! If you're using a classic template in Blogger, here's how to add the button to each one of your posts.

First, get the HTML code for the "Like" button from Facebook. Depending on how much space you want to allocate, you can adjust width, text, and other settings. For example, here on the BEM Blog, we've specified not to show profile pictures of people who have Liked our content - this saves a bit of space for each post.

You'll be asked to enter your "URL to Like" - just put your blog's URL for right now. In a second, we'll modify this so it references each individual post's permalink. Hit "Get code" and you should see something like:

Go ahead and copy the HTML code under "iframe" - this code doesn't require the use of Facebook's Javascript SDK (that's a whole 'nother blog!) and can be dropped directly into your classic Blogger template.

Log into Blogger and click on the "Template" tab, which should bring up the HTML code running your blog's template. Here, we're looking to insert this iFrame code at the end of each post, so scroll down (or hit CTRL + F to find) and look for something like "$BlogItemBody$, "p class=post-footer", or "PostedByAuthorNickname" - this code typically signifies the end of an individual blog post and tells Blogger to include these common elements every time you post something.

On our blog, we've inserted the button between the author's name & permalink and the comments area. Go ahead and paste your iFrame code within this general location (remembering to insert a few breaks if needed, so it doesn't appear on the same line as your Author name):

Now we've got the button in place, but it's still referencing our blog's homepage, rather than the individual post URL - if we want people to share our content on Facebook, we want them to link to that blog post that they loved so much! So we're going to remove that URL from the iFrame code:

...and replace it with "<$BlogItemPermalinkURL$>" - this is some Blogger code that will automatically fill in the permalink to that particular post. Make sure to leave the rest of the iFrame code untouched!

Now, just one more step! Your button should be squared away now, but we need to add some meta data in the top of your template that tells Facebook what to display in users' News Feeds and Profiles when your content is Liked.

Scroll to the top of your template and look in the head section - you should see some title tags and possibly some additional meta data. We're going to add 3 lines of code before the body of the template:

• <meta property="og:title" content="<$BlogPageTitle$>"/>
• <meta property="og:site_name" content="The Name of Your Blog"/>
• <meta property="og:image" content="URL of your logo or another picture"/>

The first line tells Facebook to use the title of your page to display within Profiles and News Feeds - aka, "John's Blog - What's the Deal With Facebook?" or what have you. The "<$BlogPageTitle$>" code tells Blogger to automatically fill in this area with your page title, so don't change this line.

The second line is the name of your site or blog, which enables Facebook to display "Johnny Social likes "Blog Post" on John's Blog". The third line is any picture you would want displayed alongside your content on Facebook - this should be at least 50x50 and have a maximum aspect ratio of 3:1.

And that should do it! There's lots more information out there on leveraging Facebook's Open Graph system, but this is an easy way to let your readers quickly and easily share your content.

Social Media Marketing Grows Up

The past 12 months I've watch Social Media Marketing mature and become an integral part of many digital marketing plans.

It's been interesting to say the least.

A year ago this time companies' thirst for knowledge and understanding of Social Marketing was insatiable. Presidents, CEOs and CMOs were looking to understand what it is and why they should do it. Very few were willing to spend a dime on it. Most not convinced it was worth the time nor money. The questions where "what is it" and "why should I do it".

Wind the clock forward 12 months. It's no longer a "what" and "why" conversation. It's "how" and "when". The belief that a social strategy is needed is now a forgone conclusion.

The How? Most start with a Social Marketing Audit. It gives you a social footprint of what you and your top competitors are doing now. Company executives are surprised at the results. Their companies are often more active in social than they realized. Renegade staff, maverick managers are often the culprits. Tweeting and bloging on behalf of the company. Secretly. Because it's not a strategy embraced by the Executive Team yet.

You can't build a social strategy without knowing where your company is today. A social audit is the first step.

The When? If you haven't already started, get going. Remember in the mid 90's when the 'net was just starting to become a true business medium? While the internet was maturing there were some companies that jumped on board and had a web site. Some sat on the sidelines and didn't have a site.

During this time, we all began to use the presense of a web site as a subconcious measurement of how serious a company was about their business.

Well, social marketing is about to become the new yardstick. If a prospect asks "Are you on LinkedIn?" or suggest that you follow them on Twitter, your company needs to be in the position to say YES!

Get Started.

Five Top Don’ts of Social Media Marketing

Social Media Marketing – using tools like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Digg – is a hot topic in the worlds of both Internet Marketing and Traditional Marketing. If you are considering stepping into the world of Social Media, here are five common and deadly mistakes to avoid.

1. Don't rush. Take time to learn about Social Media and how it works. Before you rush to set up that LinkedIn profile, take time to write, edit and plan your content. Understand the difference between Company and Personal profiles and don’t mix the two. Know the advantages of choosing an appropriate Twitter ID, before you just select the first thing available and start building followers. Having something well structured and crafted in your Social Media profiles will win the long race over something fast – just to get started.

With sites like Digg or Stumbleupon, take some time to become involved in the community and learn the ins and outs of the different categories. Nothing will kill your great article faster than submitting it in the wrong category – just because you think it’s a “Technology” article instead of “Science” doesn’t make it so. Learn the norms and get a feel for the community before jumping in.

2. Don’t forget your overall marketing strategy. Social Media should work with, not outside, of traditional marketing. What are your goals? How are you taking your brand to market? Blasting out a poorly strategized campaign that doesn’t compliment your brand image is a surefire way to confuse and disorient your audience. Craft your desired message, make sure it’s aligned with your overall objectives, and THEN start engaging.

3. Don’t PUSH. Virtually all forms of Social Media are about being popular and seen as welcoming to others. While traditional marketing might scream “buy me,” Social Media needs to be invitational and position you as an advocate for your potential clients. Remember, your audience has spent time and effort building up their online network and image. A pushy, “sales-y” intrusion into their social community is the equivalent of hitting up your dinner party guests for an investment in your ergonomic toilet seat venture. Don’t push – respond.

4. Don’t go it alone. Social Media Marketing is a fairly new way of going to market with your product or service. Be certain to consult with others about what they are doing successfully and reach out to professionals for advice and direction. There are scores of “social media gurus” flooding Twitter right now, simply because it’s a low cost medium and fairly easy to build a large network of followers and throw out some buzz words. Turning this into measureable and meaningful business results is something else entirely.

Be wary of anyone who tells you that you can’t handle your Social Media Campaign. It may be a little daunting at first, but once properly conceived and set-up, most Social Media requires only measured attention.

5. Don’t do everything. Social Media and Social Sharing tools are as numerous as the days are long, and trying to incorporate every possible Social tool into your marketing will leave you diluted and make it difficult to measure results. Once you decide on your goals, select the Social platforms that will help you accomplish those goals best.

Social Media Marketing isn’t a fad. These internet based tools are transforming the way companies position themselves on the internet. Get started. Be deliberate, strategic and measured, but get going.

Social Media Optimization - SEO and Social Media, Killing two birds with one stone

To put Search Engine Optimization into perspective, as a brand/website online, it is all about being the popular kid in the schoolyard. The popular school kid usually has the coolest shoes, the latest branded clothing and a wealth of cool insight to share with other kids, which makes kids aspire to be more like him.

In terms of SEO and Social Media, you want adoring followers, sites finding value in your services and products and eventually working towards gaining the top slot in the search engine results. Now social media such as blogs, twitter, etc. give you a chance to be among the popular school kid of the websites.

Why should you be bothered about it and why you should bother about getting into it in the first place? Everyone has his or her domain of expertise. Even clients in industries as diverse as say, ball bearings have expert knowledge in their domain. In their duration of business, they have surely encountered unique problems and delivered tailored solutions to solve them.

A blog post about a problem faced and solution delivered in daily business serves as a historical document establishing expertise. The beauty of social media is not only a blog can be a historical asset; this asset can be passed around, if the users find value. The key thing to note is that as a writer or contributor, a focus on demonstrating the solution of a problem needs to be displayed, not a blatant advertisement of your products and services. That creates value for other users and eventually might get passed around.

Along with the post, a link to your site, a photo and logo serves as an important tool towards bringing in new visibility. It helps to have an important, oft-visited site point to your domain and an advertisement that users are tuning into voluntarily. Best of all, it is usually free or costs little! An industry journal or a forum would appreciate your time and effort, in return, they get valuable content and you, as a client get traffic and exposure. Additionally, it lends a personality to your company. Industrial clients, where relationships thrive, please take note! A personal touch can make a line manager exclaim, “I like this guy Larry, he knows his stuff. Lemme give him a call and have him come and fix our motor before this thing conks out.”

In summation Social Media Optimization:

1. Helps establish your reputation as a Subject Matter Expert (SME)
2. Increases exposure of your company, services and products
3. Gets valuable traffic originating from a high traffic website, generating buzz
4. Gives you valuable back links
5. Gives you historical assets for customer referral

Have you had any experience with similar situations? Please leave a comment, I would love to hear your feedback or any points that you may want to add from your experience.

Social Media Networking Becomes Actual Networking

With all the buzz about Social Media and other methods of virtual networking, I am amazed at how little is being said about the need to take virtual connections to the level of conversations between real people.

I want to weigh in on the side of face-to-face networking and offer a reminder of the value of developing a skill set in order to be a successful networker in the world of flesh and blood people. For the purpose of this post, I’ll refer to networking in terms of attending events or meetings that are specifically designed for business networking (i.e. Chamber events, networking group socials, trade shows, etc.)

Networking is best handled as brief social interactions that involve the exchange of information in such a way that we can turn conversations into prospects. I like to think of several steps in an effective networking exchange: Personal presentation, Inviting conversation, Empathetic listening, Card exchange and Enticing introductions. Use the acronym P.I.E.C.E for remembering this process.

Personal presentation – One of basic components of networking is to remove the outward and visible obstacles to your success. Old sayings stay around because they are often true and such is the case for saying “You only have one chance to make a first impression.” Take care to groom and dress appropriately for the event. I have found it very useful to consult with a clothing retailer to learn about current styles and fashions. Traditional hair styles change gradually and the advice of a good barber or stylist can be worth much more than the price of a hair style. Beyond these sources, speak with a close family member or friend and let them help you identify any grooming or habits that you have that might make a less than favorable impression. Use little or no perfume or cologne. You might enjoy the scent, but there are as many disliked aromas as there are people – so any fragrance will offend someone. I certainly don’t want a haircut, suit or perfume getting in the way of helping someone to benefit from owning products and services they need!

Inviting conversation – Most 'networkers' make the mistake of thinking they need to tell people all about themselves and their product or service. Break the pattern and ask someone what they do and how you can help them. In addition, develop a short list of probing questions that will invite your future client to talk more about themselves and their business. Become well versed at asking questions. Remember, this part is all about how you can help them. NOTE: leave your cell phone behind, or at a minimum place it on vibrate. Nothing truncates a good networking conversation like an interrupting ring tone.

Empathic listening - There is one significant key to meaningful and productive conversation – listening. Be the sales representative that breaks the persona of being a chatty sales person. Listen to others, repeat their comments back to them, and let them know you are paying attention. Most importantly realize that your success will come by helping others. You need to know who they are and what they need in order to help. Remember the words of Zig Ziglar, “You can get everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.”[1]

Card Exchange – Your most tangible networking tool is your business card. Your card should present you and your business clearly, but most importantly you must get and give cards to access relevant information. You need a reminder of who you met and they need to take you (your card at least) home with them. Get their card and make short notes about your conversation on the card. NOTE: Some business cards today are filled with text, or made of products that don’t allow for writing notes, so you might want to have a small notepad handy.

Enticing introductions – At some point in the conversation, you will get asked about yourself. If they don’t ask about you, dig further into who they are. There is natural law of reciprocity in conversation so be ready for it when they ask about you, your product or service. Every sales person should have an enticing introduction ready to present at anytime. Sometimes called the “Elevator Speech,” these introductions have a variety of components including, but not limited to: 1. your name and the name of your company, 2. a brief list of the two or three most significant facts about your product or service, 3. a reference to one or two of the benefits your clients receive and 4. a wrap-up sentence with your company’s name and a tag phrase summary. You can get more detailed instructions on how to craft such an introduction by searching resources online (see side bar links). The point here is to give the future client a whiff of what you can do for them and leave them wanting more. When you are asked for more detail, politely request that you contact them at a less rushed time and visit more with them. With permission to contact them later, you have been successful and can move on to the next future client and offer them a PIECE! NOTE: Remember to get permission to invite your new contact into your Social Media network to make it easier to keep in touch.
Happy Networking!

[1] Zig Ziglar, "Secrets of Closing the Sale", 1984.”

Facebook, Twitter and Google Analytics – Tracking Social Networks in Google Analytics, Part 2

(for Part 1, see our previous blog Track Facebook, Twitter & Social Networks in Google Analytics Pt. 1)

Previously, we discussed accurately categorizing your social network traffic within Google Analytics. Instead of seeing your Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube traffic scattered amongst all other referring sites, we used a filter to group social media sites under one medium.

But what about tracking visitors down to a more granular level? For example, you know that 100 visitors came to your site from Twitter – but which tweet drove the most traffic? Do your Twitter followers click when you talk about one product vs. other? We can collect this information using two very simple tools.

Tagging Links in Google Analytics

I discussed this awhile ago (Top 3 Google Analytics Tracking Tips), but for this, let’s focus on tracking specific social marketing efforts. We want to know which specific link brought traffic, and be able to analyze that information. This is fairly easy and only takes about a minute to incorporate.

With a text limit of 140 characters, microblogs like Twitter or Facebook force users to keep it short and simple. Usually, there’s no room for long, drawn out URLs like www.example.com/products/XYZproduct.html. So, websites like TinyURL.com and bit.ly take web addresses, shorten them, and provide that hyperlink, which users then use to direct visitors – thereby giving them more room to include actual text. The great thing about these URL shortening services is that you can tag the original link with Google Analytics’ tracking variables and correctly identify the source of visitors. Here’s one in action:

Let's walk through an example. JimBob P. Yokel owns an online malt liquor supply store (“You ain’t never gon’ find no better booze, no how,” JimBob swears). He uses Twitter regularly to inform his customers of sales and specials, and like many other Twitter users, incorporates shortened URLs into his posts.

But before he shortens these URLs, he uses BEM Interactive’s Google Analytics URL Tagging Tool. This enables him to identify, down to the individual Tweet, how visitors found his site. So for a Twitter post promoting Colt .45 (“It’s the maltiest!” says JimBob), he might tag the link like so:

• Source: twitter (the site he’s posting on)
• Medium: social network (if you’ve created the filter described in Part 1 of this blog, this will correctly identify the traffic as belonging to that category. If not, this can be “tweet” or something similar)
• Campaign Name: colt45 (if JimBob is grouping his marketing efforts by product type, and Colt 45 is a type of malt liquor that he’s promoting in the tweet)
• Term: 7_15_11AM (identifies which specific tweet or post drew the visit. Here, JimBob has identified a post by time - July 15th at 11AM. This can be classified according to whatever works best for you – as long as it’s consistant)

So, if JimBob’s destination URL is http://www.JimBobsHouseOfMalt.com/colt_45.html, then the entire link, with tags, is:

http://www.JimBobsHouseOfMalt.com/colt_45.html?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social network&utm_term=7_15_11AM&utm_campaign=colt45

Pretty nasty looking, eh? A visitor arriving after clicking that link would be correctly identified and tracked – but a URL like that won’t even fit in a Twitter post! What’s to be done?

Here’s where the TinyURLs of the world come in! JimBob copies his resulting URL, complete with Google Analytics tags, out of the builder tool. Then he heads to TinyURL.com (or bit.ly, or any other URL shortening service), plugs in his nasty-looking tagged URL and hits submit, getting a cute little link in return! It looks better, gives JimBob more space to pitch the product (“Only the maltiest make the cut,” he vows), and perhaps most importantly, retains all the visitor tracking tags and information.

Maintaining the correct variables & formats of those variables, you can track all your website traffic from links in Twitter tweets, Facebook status updates, or any other links. This control and flexibility really comes in handy when analyzing the numbers and impact of social network marketing.

Track Facebook, Twitter & Social Networks in Google Analytics (Part 1)

A cornerstone of any organization’s overall social marketing strategy should be reliable web analytics – that is, accurate tracking of traffic coming from networking sites on which you’re conducting marketing efforts. This will enable you to slice and dice statistics for those visitors, and hopefully align those numbers with your marketing goals - when a client comes to us and wants to engage in some form of social media marketing, this melding of analytics and strategy is always paramount.

Google Analytics will automatically track referrals from other websites, including Facebook, LinkedIn, and other networking sites. In your reports, you’ll see something like this:

However, these sites are grouped in with all other referring traffic! What if you want to track statistics for incoming traffic from ALL social network sites? It’ll be hard to do that if you have to sift through all your other referral traffic.

Additionally, how can you track what exactly someone clicked on to visit your page? Wouldn’t it be nice to know which of your Twitter posts (ah yes, which “tweet”) generated that $500 purchase?

With a few tweaks, we can track exactly that in Google Analytics.

Grouping Social Network Traffic in Google Analytics

Google naturally defines traffic as being organic, direct, referral, etc – so what we’re doing here is telling Analytics to place certain sites within a certain category, or “medium.” Chances are, this is how your Traffic Medium report looks right now:

Organic traffic covers non-paid visits from search engines, (none) means direct traffic (IE, a visitor typed in your website’s address directly), and all your social networks are grouped under referral traffic.

We want a separate category for those sites though! Using a filter, we can tell Analytics to remove specific sites from the “referral” classification and group them under a new medium.

(Note: This technique involves creating a filter. Create a duplicate profile (how?) before proceeding – any mistakes can screw up your historical data. We’ll install the filter on the new, duplicate profile.)

Once you’ve got the profile set up, click “Filter Manager” from the Overview Screen (the one that lists all your profiles), then “Add Filter”:

Name your filter something descriptive, then select “Custom Filter” from the Filter Type drop down box. We are advanced analytics ninjas, so select the “Advanced” button and configure the filter like so:

The “Campaign Source” and “Campaign Medium” fields can be customized based on your site’s traffic – in this example, we’re pulling any referrals that contain “Stumbleupon” or “ezinearticles”, and we’ve grouped them using the Regular Expression character “|” (directly below your Backspace key), representing “or”.

So, to pull out all traffic from Facebook, Digg and Twitter, I would type “face|digg|twitter” into this field – any referrals that contain these terms (“face”, or “digg”, or “twitter”) will be grouped into a new medium called “social network”.

After you’ve applied the filter, you should see this spiffy little line in your Traffic Medium report:

…and presto! Your social network traffic is grouped in one distinct category, separate from your Google Image referrals (man, that’s a lot of cat pictures).

In part 2, we’ll talk about tracking visitors down to more specific sources, enabling us to answer questions like “Which tweet drove more visitors, the one about lunch or the one about that jerk-face Bryan from accounting?” and “Does anyone really care about my Facebook status?” Stay tuned!

Note: Part 2, Facebook, Twitter, and Google Analytics is now up.

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Google Analytics Link Tagging Tool / URL Builder from BEM Interactive

Hey all - just a quick heads-up that BEM Interactive's URL builder tool for Google Analytics is now available. Using this, you can tag inbound links in your newsletters, banners, non-AdWords PPC, etc, so Google identifies and categorizes the visitors correctly (you can read more about that in our previous post on using Analytics to track non-Google marketing & advertising).

We assume no responsibility if you mis-tag your links! But there are some instructions to go with the tool - so go nuts with our Google Analytics URL tagging tool.

How to “listen” for key information on the web

Would you like to be sent an email whenever your company is mentioned on the internet?

How about when a competitor wins a big contract or issues a press release?

Well there are several ways to make this happen and it’s all about “listening” on the internet.

One of the key tools for digging up these juicy secrets is to use Google Alerts. You can setup a Google Alert for just about anything. Google will send you an alert either daily or weekly with the latest updates on all your alerts.

Google offers a great tutorial on how to setup alerts. Check it out here and you'll be on top of all the things you need to know.

Tips for what to listen for:

• Listening for your company name will make you aware when you are the topic of conversation.
• Listen for primary competitors names. You’ll be notified when they send a press release, win a new big contract, as they bring on new staff or if they have a layoff.
• Listen for your trademarks and service marks to ensure you are on top of any potential legal issues with your protected marks.
• Listen for key phrases related to your products or services to keep abreast of your industry.
• Listen for mention of your customers to keep up to date with your key accounts
• Listen for key vendors to make sure you know about any issues they are encountering
  

Although this is a great way to keep informed of key events, it’s not 100% reliable. Google catches many conversations and alerts you to them, but some will be missed.

Affiliate Marketing, Pay-Per-Post Blogging, and the End of Social Networking?

Mitch Joel over at Six Pixels of Separation posted a great blog the other day discussing paid links and pay-per-post blogging in Twitter. In a nutshell, it's when companies pay avid bloggers or established social networking figures to post/blog/link to their product/site/whatever. Since social media sites thrive on accurate & credible word-of-mouth ("Oh, Joe thinks these sunglasses are cool and he's a pretty cool guy. Maybe I can get these sunglasses and be similarly awesome!"), these campaigns are much more effective without full and accurate disclosure on the part of the poster and/or advertiser.

In his post, Mitch pretty accurately sums up my feelings on the matter:



YES. I'm already weeping tears of joy that someone is with me on this, and then:



Awesome stuff, Mitch (the following is my comment on his blog).

One of the things I always attempt to pass on to clients is the genuine understanding and appreciation for XX Social Networking site (wherever they're trying to be). A lot of companies will assign the task to SOMEONE in-house in hopes that simply generating a presence on Facebook, Twitter, whatever, will help their company; of course, it DOESN'T, and sometimes ends up hurting the brand because of actions similar to the ones discussed in your post. There's NO overall strategy, NO matching of marketing objectives to the proper social media site (if there ARE any marketing objectives for the campaign), and ultimately, no understanding that for a social media effort to work, that company has to honestly contribute to and become part of the community.

As marketers, I really think we've got to be conscious of the personal effort people have put into constructing their social media personae and networks. To those folks, this ISN'T seeing a banner ad on CNN.com - affiliate linking (which, let's face it, is more credible/profitable if people think it's genuine and not a marketing campaign) and pay-per-post blogging is seen as an uninvited intrusion into the user's social network and personal life. I've heard dozens of stories of businesses diving headfirst into Facebook or blog networks and just RUINING their name by attempting some silly, heavy-handed traditional "push" campaign, or a poorly thought-out affiliate marketing design.

I don't think social networking will completely be destroyed by things like this, but it certainly will cause more user movement between different websites. Sites will build up buzz and momentum but ultimately, will be deserted as affiliate marketers, link farmers, what-have-you, follow the masses.

Great post Mitch, cheers.

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Social Media Workshop

We had a great turnout at the Greensboro Chamber Tech Thursday workshop on Social Media marketing.

Many attendees have contacted us asking for the link to the "Did You Know" YouTube video. Grab a cup of coffee and enjoy!

Mobile Website 101 - Making Your Site (gasp) USEFUL!

It goes without saying that mobile search and data usage is exploding - Comscore reports that in 2008, 20.8 million U.S. subscribers used a search function from their mobile device. "But wait," you might say. "That's only 9.2% of total U.S. cellular service subscribers!" That's true (and strangely accurate!), but it's a whopping 68% more than 2007! Revenues and ad spend are dramatically increasing as well, and as more and more mobile devices ship with full HTML-capable web browsers included, you can expect to see the dividing line between traditional web search and mobile use blur and overlap.

Clearly, this is a venue that any forward-thinking company needs to appear in. But rather than simply throwing their current website's content into a mobile-friendly format, how can businesses take advantage of this new medium in a strategic way? Hmm - the wind is just right for a checklist!

1. The Biggest Mistake. DO NOT DO NOT simply throw your entire website at mobile users. If you own a car dealership, there's no reason to slow down the visitor's site experience by steering them towards a testimonials page. That's great for your traditional website, where visitors will spend more time browsing around, but for mobile pages, you want to keep the focus on fast, easily actionable content. Ask yourself: why would people need to get to your site on a mobile phone? Think of time-sensitive issues - in the above car dealership example, why not offer a form to schedule maintenance? How about an option to sign up for a SMS (text) campaign to remind customers of oil changes and tire rotations? Remember...
2. Your site is not a billboard. This is actually really important to traditional websites as well, but essential to mobile sites. Your site has to actually offer something of perceived value, otherwise...no traffic! No one would voluntarily sign up for longer commercial breaks on TV - why would they go to your site unless it gives them something that they need? Tone down the sales pitch and focus on offering users something that will benefit them more immediately.
3. Functional issues - not everyone has an iPhone! Eventually, mobile web browsers will be powerful enough to navigate every website in the same way your PC's browser does - but it's not there yet. While it's true that most users of smartphones (iPhone, Blackberry, etc.) spend a great deal of time browsing on their device, only designing your site for them is ignoring a huge portion of potential visitors. Some basic functional guidelines:
   -No Javascript, such as in navigation menus; some handsets don't render this correctly.
   -No Flash elements, pop-ups or other graphically-intense objects - remember, you want your site to be FAST.
   -Include numbers by each navigation option for users navigating via their phone's keypad. It's much easier to hit "7" rather than the "down" arrow 6 times.
   -Make sure text is big enough to be read on smaller displays. Keep scrolling (horizontal and vertical) to a minimum.
   
4. Who are you targeting? Google likes to divide mobile users into 3 distinct categories, based on usage patterns. What can you offer these groups? Keep in mind, there is a bit of overlap here - and, as always with mobile, your focus should be on easily accessible, relevant content.
   

• Repetitive Now - these folks are constantly checking the same places for the most recent info. These are things like stocks, sports scores, breaking news, etc.
• Bored Now - users that surf simply because there's nothing else to do. They're on the subway, the bus, the plane, that 3-hour accounting meeting. Games, trivia, and other easily digestible content really appeals to this group
• Urgent Now - the focus for these users is on functionality and efficiency; they need information NOW, with no frills or roadblocks. This can include things like weather, directions, and most local searches.

As always, the focus here is on strategic implementation - without a overall plan of what you want to offer and who you want to target, your mobile initiative could be crippled from the start.

Social Media Workshop at the Chamber

Social Media is at the top of the list when it comes to what's on companies minds these days. The topic surfaces when I'm talking with prospects as well as many of our existing clients. Most companies know they need to "get into the game" with social media; however, many executives find the strategy somewhat intimidating.

Comments I hear include:

• Which of the social media options should I use?
• I don't have enough time to actively participate.
• How can this impact the bottom line in a positive way?
• Who in my company should be involved?

And the number one issue with companies that want to engage a social media strategy is fear of loosing control.

BEM Interactive is doing a workshop on Social Media at the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce this coming Thursday, March 19th at 8:30. The workshop is free and you can register online at the Greensboro Chamber web site. It will be a packed house and we'll have a great time exploring social media and other forms of alternative digital marketing. Hope you can join us.