Web Content and Social Networking Experts

Are you using games as a marketing tool?

People love to play. doesn't make any difference how old they are. Games have existed for thousands of years and are still going strong. Using games - not to be confused with gambling - are great fun and will keep your audience coming back again and again. Better yet, they will tell their friends. To us this means more friends, buzz, and business.

One of our favorites is The Treb Challenge. We also like Angry Birds.

Facebook

As Facebook is the number one social networking site, you will likely want to put a game on your page. Here the top nine games of 2011.

Top 9 Facebook Games of 2011

1. Slotomania-Slot Machines
2. Empires & Allies
3. Bingo Blitz
4. Words With Friends
5. Indiana Jones Adventure World
6. DoubleDown Casino
7. Cityville
8. The Sims Social
9. Gardens of Time

Have fun. No pun intended.

When you emphase quantity, not quality, your content and social networking campaign lose.

Social networking, like good writing, takes time. time to do it right. And time to get known and followed by your audience. Your content, whether it's words, videos, pictures, must be worth of the time your audience will spend viewing or reading it.

Time

Time is what good writing, and good social networking is all about because the time people will spend with your content means everything. You see, the content in your social networking campaign must compete for people's time. They won't waste one second of it if you don't provide real meaningful value.

Value

Value is not something we can quantify exactly because it is different things to different people and to different needs. Ask what your audience wants and give it to them. Let them tell you what they want. They are telling you what your value is to them. Listen to their needs, be guided by their wants. Provide what they want and need. And don't rush it. you will be using social networking, online and offline, forever. so, there is ho hurry. Just get started and keep going. You won't be sorry.

Writers use the word correlate all the time, but sometimes, it just doesn't correlate.

 

The definition of correlate at Dictionary.com states: to place in or bring into mutual or reciprocal relation; establish in orderly connection: to correlate expenses and income.

Correlation means that things are related positively (mutual), negatively (reciprocal), or not at all. Writers use the word, correlates, to mean a positive relationship. Meaning that when one thing doing this, it causes the other thing to do that. Using the word "correlates" this way is sort of right. So, it's also sort of wrong.

Why? Well because all things correlate. Correlation is expressed in numbers from minus one (-1) to plus one (+1). That number is a measure of how just related those particular things are.

A Correlation of Minus One (-1)

A correlation of minus one (-1) means that the relationship is reciprocal. If you compare two things X and Y. When X goes up, Y goes down. They move in opposite directions, a reciprocal relationship.

A Correlation of Plus One (+1)

A correlation of (+1) means the correlation is directly related. Here's an example. Let's say that we have two things. We'll call them A and B. When A goes up, B goes up. That's a correlation of (+1) because when A moves B moves in the exact same way.

A Correlation of Zero (0)

Now, consider two other things, totally different from the examples above. Let's use a boat and a teaspoon. When the boat is tied to a dock. The spoon is in ice cream. Correlation is zero. They have absolutely no relationship between them because what the boat does does not affect the spoon and vice versa.

See for Yourself

Correlation = (-1)

Correlation = (0)

Correlation = (+1)

Here are three graphics for you. They are from the Neag School of Education at UCONN on the Follow this link for an interactive Correlation Coefficient graph. At the destination of the link you will see an interactive graph where you can change the correlation coefficient. The three graphics you see here are from that link. There, you can watch the data reorient itself as you change the correlation coefficient. Wow, is that cool or what? From a geek perspective, of course.

This link opens in a new window, so you can keep this post and the graphic on your desktop at the same time. Now, use your mouse to change the correlation number.

• As the correlation number changes the data (the dots) becomes more and more related.
• At (-1) the data runs from upper left to lower right, "downhill."
• At a correlation of zero, the data are scattered. There is no relationship.
• At (+1) the data runs from lower left to upper right, "uphill."

So, when you say that this correlates to that, what are you saying? Not much.

The only correlation that really maters to us writers is the correlation between our words and the understanding of your readers. When that correlation is (+1), you're golden. Yes you are. Factoring in your check book doesn't hurt either.

View our videos on YouTube.com/WebContentRx/ Listen to us most Friday's on The Business Buzz, 4 p.m. - 5 p.m., WESU 88.1 FM with Jeffery Sherman.

Site search and SEO. Having you own site search capability will do you a lot of good. Here's one we've used for years.

One of the things you can do to make your Web site easier to get around is to provide you own site search capability. Here is a link to a site search engine that we've used for years. So, yes, it's a little old. For newer products Google free web site search.

What we like

This search engine is easy to install. You can update it whenever you wish.

The advantage of using site search capability that is not a major search engine is that you can update it whenever you want to. When you use Google, or another search engine, new material can not appear in a search until the search engine rescanns your Web site. Until, you get rescanned, Web updates can not appear in a search. so, if you updates need to be found after they are made, we suggest having your own search capability.

Site Search capabiity with Fluid Dynamics Software Corporation.

View our videos on YouTube.com/WebContentRx/ Listen to us most Friday's on The Business Buzz, 4 p.m. - 5 p.m., WESU 88.1 FM with Jeffery Sherman.

The two most important questions in the business world.

1. What are your goals?
2. What are your problems?

Ask the equestions. Learn what the client needs and then help the client. There is no better to find out what the client needs than to ask. Then shut up and listen.

Don't sell, but provide needed services.

That's it. That's all. Do that and you're golden, busy, booked solid. Don't and you're not. what could be simpler?

View our videos at YouTube.com/WebContentRx/ Listen to us most Friday's on The Business Buzz, 4 p.m. - 5 p.m., WESU 88.1 FM with Jeffery Sherman.

Cheap marketing tricks. And we mean cheap.

The only thing better than marketing is saving money. What say we combine our two favorite things and do some cheap marketing. For this you will use the online world and the offline world. Not much of a surprise there. Here are some things you can do on the cheap.

• Invite your customers over for a free lecture, or a lecture series, at your place of business. Talk about something interesting to them.
• Write and send a press release about the meeting you're having. Send it to every paper within a 50 mile radius. If you do business nationally send it country wide. If you are have national or international clients, do a Webinar series, and look into Web TV, or an Internet Internet radio show. Please don't get all jammed up in the details. The thrust here is to provide a service to your customers that they can take part in.
• Run a contest. Give away something like an iPad, a tablet computer, or other prize of acknowledged value.
• Partner with another company that has complementary products. Think ice cream and the ice cream cone. Those products made money for each inventor and everyone else in the chain of events from manufacturing to sales.
• Write a social networking policy for you employees that tells them what they can do on company time. Do not tell people what they can't do. Smart management takes advantage of all that free training and knowledge. You do that too. Let your people Tweet, Facebook, and blog your products. They know the online world and your products and services. A perfect combination. Think ice cream and cones. Don't waste it the opportunity.
• Have a party. Don't wait for the holidays, but don't neglect them either. Businesses in trouble have used a party to garner enough work to keep them afloat. Have the party at your place of business. It works. Invite us, we love parties.
• Use Cause Marketing. That means you get together with a cause you believe in and work together for each others mutual goals. You now have a joint advertising partner. Each of you now have access to each others customers, contacts, online and offline marketing, and advertising activities. Look around. Pick a cause you believe in. Help each other and work together.
• Give free lectures, programs, seminars at your local library. Speak at networking events, Chambers of Commerce, The Better Business Bureau. This is an excellent way to meet people and make business contacts. We know this from personal experience. Very, very effective.
• Establish yourself an expert in your field by speaking, publishing articles in newspapers, magazines, blogs, and e-zines. Write and give away handouts at all your public appearances. And please, please use both sides of the paper because that wasted space could be marketing for you, selling for you. We do this, in face on November 10, I'm on a panel discussion at Central Connect State University in their Institute of Technology & Business Development. Please attend and say, "Hello."
• Promote community involvement by your employees.
• Promote high quality presentation skills buy joining Toastmasters. Also, attend networking events to keep your 30 second speech sharp.
• Speak at major business events near you. This pays vast dividends as you are seen by thousands of people from hundreds or thousands of businesses. We do this too. In June 2011 I was on a panel discussion at the CT Business Expo in Hartford, Connecticut.
• Put videos on YouTube. As you can see below, we do that too.

View our videos at YouTube.com/WebContentRx/ Listen to us most Friday's on The Business Buzz, 4 p.m. - 5 p.m., WESU 88.1 FM with Jeffery Sherman.

 

An easy way to monitor all of your social networking sites using only your browser.

This is a simple technique that you can use to keep an eye on your social networking sites, news sites, a blog, or anything else running on the Web.

Please bear that in mind that this is not a substitute for tools that watch the net. It is not. This is a quick and simple way to keep all of your accounts active and ready for instant use.

Let's say that you have accounts at Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, a blog, and like to keep CNN active. These sites are only examples, this works for anything running on the Web that is browser accessible.  

1. Open your favorite browser and then open any of your accounts. Let's say that you open Twitter.
2. Now, open another tab in the browser. In ID8 click File then New Tab, or hold down the Control key and press the T key. This will open another Tab.
3. In the Tab you just opened log into another account, let's say LinkedIn.
4. Open a third Tab, and log into Facebook.
5. If you like CNN, you can open another Tab and open CNN there.
6. If you use a blog, open another Tab and bring up your blog.

Now, this will work fine. However, depending on your browser and the sites you have open you may find that after a week or two things get a little crazy. If that happens, simply close the tags giving you trouble and log back into that account. It's just that your cookies, the files that keep track of stuff in the background. They need to be refreshed.

To do your Internet realted tasks, you may want to open a new browser window. There you can surf, search, and play to your heart's content without disturbing the window with your social sites in it. Or, you can just doo all of that in anothe Tab. Up to you.

View our videos at YouTube.com/WebContentRx/ Listen to us most Friday's on The Business Buzz, 4 p.m. - 5 p.m., WESU 88.1 FM with Jeffery Sherman.

Social Gaming is the second most popular activity behind social networking. What that, and 200 million dollars, means to you.

 

Well, because it shows, in real dollars, that people playing online games is real. Don't hesitate to use a game in your social networking mix because the interest is there.

Here is a quote by Scott Sinclair of Capgemini Consulting. “One of the things that social gaming allows marketers to create is an experience around the brand which is inherently more memorable than simply showing an advert or popping something up on Google AdWords,” he explains. “To actually interact and involve the brand with an experience is almost the ultimate when it comes to marketing.”

To use a game to help power your brand to success makes good sense. Do not confuse this with gambling, what has become known as gaming because it does not sound as bad. No, this is playing a game on a social networking site. Very definitely not to be confused with an online casino.

Read the entire article, How to make social gaming a marketing success.

View our videos on YouTube.com/WebContentRx/ Listen to us most Friday's on The Business Buzz, 4 p.m. - 5 p.m., WESU 88.1 FM with Jeffery Sherman.