Siri Search, makes use of Yelp’s business ratings, thus this makes instantly makes Yelp a strong local competitor to Google Places.

The understated thing for small businesses, is to make sure that you nurture your Yelp business profile page. You need to claim your listing, and encourage happy customers to leave their happy thoughts on your profile link.

Yelp is now very relevant to your small business rankings. Google Places has been the big dog in local optimization or as I call it, Local Awesomeization…. And your places ranking and profile completion has become very important for your local marketing.

Now, Siri, which is a virtual assistant will be able to find you anything you want… and it is using the Yelp Reviews to rank therecommendations.

Apple just entered Local Search in a big way. This is the key take away from this event, not that the iPhone 5 isn’t here, but that the iPhone 4S with Siri is going to revolutionize how Apple iPhone users find local information.

HUUUUUUUGE.

Siri used over 35 APIs to find what its users were requesting, including one to translate speech to text. In April, 2010, Apple bought Siri before it could expand to Android. Over a year later, the app has been built into the next generation iPhone software. The fact that Siri uses Yelp, instantly gives them importance, and even more importance, when the Siri service launches on some of the other iOS versions.

Nuture your Yelp account now.  Claim it, and begin getting good reviews.  Local search is a science, and you have to get that information out there.

Now, what you may want to do, is to connect with and nurture relationships with people on Yelp… the people who leave reviews for your business.  Look at this message that I recently got via Yelp.

Yelp has re-entered the local search fray, folks.  Pay attention.

Does your branding kick ass?

If your branding doesn’t kick ass, then guess what… people may not connect with your company. If you don’t “speak” to your targeted demographic, then your company is going to have a hard time maximizing it’s potential, until this issue is solved. Maybe your brand needs a refresh? Go to a crowdsourcer site like 99Designs or Crowdspring

Does your product kick ass?

Now, your product doesn’t have to be 100% at launch, but you still want it to kick ass. Hear me out. When Apple launched the first Macintosh computer in 1984, it was 100% what they wanted. They were able to fix issues and make it better. But it worked. Launch quick and see if it has wings before you put 100s or 1000s of hours into a product that may have legs. You don’t know if the legs are gonna crawl or run, until you test. But, the main idea has to kick ass. It can eventually get to 100%, but it has to kick ass, and it has to grab people by the balls. If your product doesn’t kick ass… then it’s a fail.

Does your marketing kick ass?

What decade is your marketing stuck in? Are you still paying for dumb marketing? It’s 2011. You should be spending at least 25% of your marketing budget on interactive. And if you get a few key salaried people to do it for you, perhaps it is more. But you have to really think about Inbound Marketing, instead of Outbound Marketing. Are you trying to contact them with radio ads, or TV ads… or yellow pages? Maybe a die-cut piece of shit brochure or direct mail piece that sucks and wastes money and doesn’t kick ass. Read this: The State of Inbound Marketing 2011 PDF from Hubspot. Learn to kick ass.

Do your sales kick ass?

If not, you are missing some of these other principles of ass kicking. And your sales team needs these in their tool set. Now, if you kick ass at all of these other things… and if you have hired competent sales people and given them training on your products… and they are excited about it… then they will be more kick ass. So, do some testing, figure out where your weakest links are… and try to turn those into a strength, by hiring the right candidate for the culture that you are hiring for.

Does your SEO kick ass?

How are you doing your marketing? Do you know the most popular keyword or phrase that people type into Google to find your type of business? Have you claimed your Google Places / Maps listing for your business? Is your business information connected accurately with the main local search ecosystem? Have your researched your industry and competitor keywords? Do you know about your competitors backlinks? How many do they have? How many do YOU have? Have you checked your Mozrank? How is your page rank or domain authority scores looking? Have you ran a website grader report on your site?

Does your social media kick ass?

Do you own all of your usernames for your business? If not, you need to. Go to KnowEm and type in your business name and have them mass register all of your social channels. Take care of that. Do you monitor your online reputation? Do you hear who is talking to you on Twitter or Facebook? Do you interact with them? Do you engage them? Also, do you track your interactions with key influencers? Here is a pretty handy tool out there to help you manage social, Sprout Social and here is one that helps you manage your tweets, BufferApp. It finds the optimal times for you to send out your message, so you get more retweets. It kicks ass.

Does your culture kick ass?

Do your employees want to stick around and kick ass? Or do they go home as soon as 5pm goes off… are they gone? Do people hate coming to your work? Do they complain a lot? Is your boss becoming a curmudgeon? If so, that doesn’t kick ass. You want to have a place where people love coming to work, where they are happy and proud to work. A place with a big ideas. A place that focuses on adding value and finding ways to make things mo’ betta.

Does your team kick ass?

If you hire great people, and continue to hire more brilliant people, you will eventually win. Can they execute on the strategies? Do you need to hire smarter engineers? Do you need to hire more entrepreneurial minded people? The really, really good talent is hard to pay for, at times. So, figure it out. Quit bitching and start doing. If you have to, get some motivated interns in, if you can’t afford to pay top dollar. Do your best to assemble a team that has such passion for technology, knowledge and a love for continual education. Shit changes quick in tech. Do you have a team hungry enough to learn how to maximize the tools to make the products kick more ass?

Does your CEO kick ass?

Do you have a solid leader at the helm of your company? This is important. You need to have someone with vision and insight. They need to love the company and have passion for the ideas. I think what happens to a lot of companies that have too many investors, you have to worry about how much profit you are going to make, and then the consumers end up getting fucked over because of corporate greed. Is your CEO a greedy bastard? Do they make $18 million dollar bonuses and golden parachutes? That doesn’t kick ass. Not for the people, who are the cogs that make the engine work. A good CEO has the best interest of the company, but also has the best interest for the consumers and clients. Make things better. Don’t suck. Kick ass. Your CEO has to kick ass. When you CEO stops kicking ass, it may be time to freshen up the resume.

Do your finances kick ass?

It’s my belief that if you can build something that kicks ass, that has decent sales, that has fully optimized SEO and a great presence on social media it can kick ass. Does your company have kick ass culture and does your CEO kick ass… well, if your product kicks ass… and the other stuff kicks ass, finding an investor will be easy as shit.

There are many ways that your business can kick ass or suck ass, and you have to a plan of action in play to make sure that you stay at the top of your game. If things aren’t where they need to be, now is the time to move the rudder towards kickassness. If you wait to long to make these changes, then one of your competitors may kick your ass!

As U2 never actually said, “In the name of kicking ass… ♪♫ one more, in the name of kicking ass.”

Via FormStack

Are you ready for some liiiiiiveblogging!  It may be a rainy Monday but all is right with the world here at SMX East.  The next few days will be jam-packed with conference coverage and antics so I hope you’re stocked up on vitamins and coffee.   To kick things off we have a killer local panel to tell us about the local/mobile/social crossover happening in search.  Presenting together are Gillian Heltai and Greg Stewart.

Local search is increasingly driving local behavior.   Greg says his company wanted to study the ROBO effect – Research Online, Buy Offline.  They wanted to know how consumers went into the marketplace and used local search in their research for products. They partnered with comScore to help make that happen. He’s going to talk about the findings of the study they performed together.   This going to be FILLED with data, so let’s jump right in.

Study Objective: To understand the use and value of IYP, Print YP, online and mobile search in the consumer shopping process for local information.

They conducted the survey via two methods:

Consumer Survey

• Email invitation to participation in the survey.
• Online survey structured to take approx 15 minutes to complete.
• ~4,000 completed responses collected and grouped into three major site categories.

Observed Online Behavior

• Online behavior was based on a sample of one million consumers who agreed to have their online searches monitored anonymously.

Definition of Local Search: Local business information includes details such as the business name, phone number, address, hours of operation, specials, promotions, products carried, payment types accepted, etc.

Continue Reading:
The Search Crossover by Lisa Barone

Well, this just isnt the case.  According to Marketing Sherpa’s Social Media Marketing Benchmark Survey, almost every niche surveyed is increasing budgets.

I know a lot of small business people. That’s why I blog about their experiences and their issues because these people are often viewed as the backbone of any true economic recovery that might take place.  If we are to recover from this recession, it is going to be by small business and the innovations that they create.  While big business still use the “bad economy” as an excuse to cut jobs at record pace the little guy is trying to make it happen. Heck, as a result of the continued layoffs from the big boys more small businesses are being born every day. As a result, social media adoption by SMB’s has increased as well.

A study reported by the Center for Media Research which was done by Network Solutions and the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business tells us

….social media adoption by small businesses has doubled from 12% to 24% in the last year. Small businesses are increasingly investing in applications including blogs, Facebook and LinkedIn profiles.

It’s crucial for the small business to get more involved with social media. Unlike paid search marketing, social media allows for some true creativity and because of its relatively low cost (notice I didn’t say free) the small business has less of a chance of getting burned. I can’t tell you how many times I speak to SMB’s who bemoan how much money they have spent on paid search and have seen no return. Social media opportunities are a breath of fresh air to these people. Plus, it isn’t all that hard to create viable strategies that work for small business owners. But, they have to keep in mind, it’s not just the TOOLS… you have a to have an actionable strategy to make social media worth your time. Randomly sending out tweets, will not likely yield you any additional revenue or new customers. Your strategy has to be tight.

The chart below tells the story

This kind of activity is something that will reinvigorate a struggling SMB and can even lead to cost savings as they learn what is really working with their advertising.

Dr. Alan Glazier, CEO and Founder of an eye and vision care center, said “… I was forced to consider alternative options to keep my business visible… with a very small investment in social media marketing, I was able to generate new business opportunities… (and) most importantly, my marketing budget has been reduced by more than 80%… “

So you need to be creative. It can work out great for your business… or it can go NOT so great.

Small and Mid size businesses struggle more with some of the downsides of the social media “effect” because they may not have enough people to help out with the social media load… Also, some companies are scared of social media “time suck” that could happen without effective strategies in place.

50% of small business social media users say it takes more time than expected. While social media adoption has doubled in the last year, there are still some roadblocks to small businesses fully exploiting its potential. Another 17% feel that social media gives people a chance to criticize their business on the Internet. Related to this, only 6% feel that social media use has hurt the image of the business more than helped it.

While it is never the silver bullet or the “automatic win” that many SMB social media snake oil salesmen, er… social media experts proclaim it to be there is a lot of opportunity for the SMB to be promoting their business and finding more business than ever before. While most times, it is NOT free, you can do a lot with a minimal budget. You just have to get continual education on the space and keep learning effective strategies for marketing your business online.

If you want to check out what has worked for some other businesses with social media, make sure to check out Peter Kim’s Social Media Wiki of all kinds of corporate social media case studies.

The odds are not stacked against the SMB in social media as they can be with other marketing options but the old adage “you gotta be in it, to win it” is more real than ever.

Tell us a good example of SMB social media or encounter you had with a SMB that did something to impress you. Some really creative ideas never get the notoriety they need because they never told anyone. Let’s share!

Download this FREE Old Bottle Crowns Icon Set by @jancavan

“ Quit counting fans, followers and blog subscribers like bottle caps. Think, instead, about what you’re hoping to achieve with and through the community that actually cares about what you’re doing.” – Amber Naslund, Social Media Today

I came across this quote today and it really struck home . . . it’s about the QUALITY of relationships you have, not another notch on your Social Media belt.

Read this great post by Debbie Weil;

Social Networking Is Not Just a Numbers Game

Another relevent post by ChristineGallagher;

Three Ways to Build Relationships Beyond Social Media

What are you doing in your social communities that to show people you are not a collector?

This is obviously an oversimplified statement of what we do, but I’m hearing a very interesting (read: disturbing) statement  being made that reminds me of a time 10 years ago, when we where doing mostly website proposals. So let me ask you web developers how many times you heard the statement “I don’t need to pay for a website, I have a 14 son/nephew/neighbor (by the way, it was always a boy) that can build it for my company.”  What kind of ridiculous thought is this for a business owner. Your are going to hire a teenager to design and build one of your most powerful marketing and promotion pieces?

Most people wouldn’t consider doing that now that websites have proven to be such a powerful tool. But guess what I am hearing about social media?????

So what you are saying is that you want a teenager to be the voice of your company to your clients or potential clients? Of course a teenager can set up a Facebook page and might even be able to skin your Twitter & blog (skin means to customize the look and feel to match your company rather than using a template) but will they do it in a professional way that will show your company in a serious light?

I understand that social media is a new and strange creature to a lot of business owners, but think of it as you did websites 10 years ago? There are more uses for it than what is immediately visible and you can learn to manage it just as you have learned to manage your email.

Social media is a powerful business tool and if you hire then right people to get you rolling you will see an investment on your return. However, if you hire the teenager next door you are going to find yourself a step behind your competitors and in a couple of years you’ll find yourself looking to hire someone to “fix” your social media plan, just as you hired someone to “fix” your old website.

Harley Davidson has been marketing to women riders since 1920. Can you believe that? Now in 2010, it happens to be their fastest growing demographic. That is with almost 100 years of marketing.  So why is it working now and what can we learn?

I think the reason why it is working now is two-fold. One because I think women are finally ready for it. This to me is a big part.  Women are ready to step into the driver’s seat, and I am thankful to the many generations of women who came before me that have allowed this generation to feel comfortable doing so. Secondly, Harley Davidson stopped marketing to women and actually asked them what they wanted and what their concerns were.  Then they addressed those concerns. Effectively creating a market that may not have been there otherwise.

What I find so interesting is that the biggest concern that Harley Davidson heard from women about owning their own bike was this; “If I am out riding alone, and the bike tips, I can’t pick it up. At 500+ pounds, it is too heavy”.

What I love is that Harley didn’t go back to the shop and create a lighter bike. Instead, they developed  a process to teach  women how to lift the bikes.  (Now maybe they altered the weight of the bike a bit, quite honestly I don’t know but 500+ pounds is a lot.) My point is they opted to empower the woman by developing a plan and then teaching it.

I think what we can learn here is that if we have a market that we are trying to target but for some reason we are not getting the desired response, (even after almost 100 years), maybe we need to step back and talk to that market.  Instead of market to them maybe we should listen to them.  Be willing to hear the feedback and then address the issues. Perhaps then we will see a return from the marketing efforts.

I have to thank Harley Davidson for the chance to meet so many wonderful women who attended the event and for teaching me how to pick up a bike. (Yeah that is me picking up a Harley!) It was very empowering. A wonderful day overall and you can bet that if I ever decide to buy my own bike I’ll be looking at a Harley.

For instance, one of my clients just told me that when I started talking Twitter to him a year ago he thought I was crazy. He had no confidence that Twitter, Facebook, or any other social media platform was worth his time or effort as far as his business was concerned.  Now, he knows that he has to be involved, not only for fear of missing the social media boat but because his clients are involved; and more importantly, his competition is involved.

Now, I am probably preaching to the choir here because you all are reading a blog that is from a link that you probably saw on Twitter.  But what I am saying to you is that more and more business are finally understanding that there is a need to be involved with social media on whatever platform is right for them. I see this as a huge change in thought from last year when people would look at me like I was crazy when I would go on and on about Twitter.  Now, they are approaching me and asking for my help which I will gladly give them…..for a small fee.

Chris Brogan is opening up the shindig at 8:30am, which unfortunately I won’t be able to attend due to a previous engagement.  But, I will be able to see Sarah Evans and Jeremiah Owyang speak.

The one session that I am most curious to attend is:

Ellyn Angelotti – The New News Cycle

Media organizations used to be passive publishers of information that people simply read, listened to or watched. But people no longer wait for information to come to them during the morning newspaper or nightly news. They get news when they want and how they want it.  With the help of online tools like user commenting and online networks, media organizations have transitioned from being passive publications into interactive applications that people can engage with — before, during and after news is published. Much of this engagement is happening outside of the traditional news environment.  At the Free State Social, we’ll talk more about how the news cycle is changing. How these changes are in turn adapting journalistic roles. And the opportunities and challenges facing journalists in this interactive world.

Newspapers dropped over 29% revenue from 2008′s 37.56 billion to 27.51 Billion in 2009. Over 10 BILLION in revenue dropped in one year. Unreal.

Social media is taking over the world. The Mobile, Local and Social economies are driving commerce. The world is changing. I’m looking forward to it.

So if you are going to be in Lawrence or in the KC area, come check it out. April 29-30, 2010 The Oread 1200 Oread Avenue Lawrence, KS

I am really looking forward to finding out all that the iPad has to offer! I am also looking forward to how this will post….let’s see!

As Social Media grows & becomes “mainstream”, it’s more & more apparent that nobody really has the answer to the question: “Who should be leading our Social Media effort?” Is it the online media person? How about the marketing guy? Or the ad chic? Could it be PR’s gig? Hmmmm.

Right now, a corporation’s Social Media (SoMe) efforts could be headed by any of those people. But who should it be? Who best fulfills the requirements and can quickly respond to the demands of SoMe’s ever-changing scene?

First, some basic requirements are in order. A SoMe initiative should be entered into with full client understanding that their brand is no longer “theirs” once the effort is launched. Control is futile. This is counter to what clients have been told for years and is hard for them to fully grasp. The Web does not have the same regulations as traditional media so rules that apply to TV/Radio/Print do not apply online. This freedom enables people to bash a brand all day long if that’s what they want to do and leaves your client with little actionable recourse.

Another basic: SoMe is centered on relationships, conversation, interaction, information. One-way messaging will not work (we have been saying that for over a decade & it’s still true). Two-way messaging won’t cut it either. The client MUST be willing to engage in a responsive conversation with consumers. SoMe does not support traditional messaging and so a brand MUST develop a personality. Failure to secure this level of commitment from a client upfront can result in a failed program and ultimately damage to the brand.

So then, now that the client has agreed to hand over the brand they’ve spent the last 20 years building behind lock & key, who should you recommend be at the helm of the SoMe effort? Let’s examine the players:

The online media director: While SoMe communities are online, it is completely different from online media buys and search engine placement. SoMe requires more than selecting a channel and buying impressions or keywords. The online media director makes a good partner in a company’s SoMe plan, but generally should not be the one to head it.

The marketing director: This person is responsible for internal messaging and sales materials (there’s lots of cross over between marketing director and advertising director). Because of that, it may seem like a natural fit to add SoMe to the marketer’s repertoire. BUT, marketers are accustomed to one-way messaging that lasts for a year, not multiple conversations that evolve minute to minute. Therefore, this discipline is not prepared for responsive dynamic messaging. Yet.

The advertising director: Similar to the marketing director except the ad crew is responsible for external messaging via advertisements (on ad vehicles like billboards, newspapers, magazines, bus shelters, TV, radio, web). Again, because this person also has the web in their purview, a natural fit might be assumed. It is not. Like the marketer, dynamic messaging is far different from their traditional skill set and so is not yet feasible.

That leaves the PR director: Because the PR person is accustomed to dealing daily with things like questions from the press, consumer inquiries, and reputation management, I believe they are the people most able to quickly adapt to SoMe’s platform. And so, with a team of people from the aforementioned disciplines plus the brand manager, the PR director should helm the SoMe ship.

In the perfect world, a client needs someone who knows the SoMe scene & not only gets it but can set the tone for a brand. A person whom people trust is vital as is interesting content and eye catching phrases. Most importantly, someone capable of creating an interesting personality that engages consumers and adds value to their experience. There is no half-ass in SoMe; it is a major commitment that takes a master bullshittapotomus.

• 8 Things Stalkers, Burglars and Psycho Ex’s Love about Social Media
• Please Rob Me – Location Based Social Networking Burglary 
• Now We Need to be Afraid to Use Geolocation Services????

However, one very valid benefit to businesses is to know who comes to your place of business and how frequently.  Up until now, this wasn’t an option for business owners.

Foursquare plans to distribute a free analytics tool and dashboard in the coming weeks that will give business owners access to a range of information and statistics about their business visitors.

Tristan Walker, director of business development at Foursquare, said that the latest features were intended to help local merchants run their stores by giving them more information about their customers.

“We’re trying to give businesses more retention with current customers and the ability to add new customers with specials,” said Mr. Walker.

With the new tool, businesses will be able to see a range of real-time data about Foursquare usage, including who has “checked in” to the place via Foursquare, when they arrived, the male-to-female customer ratio and which times of day are more active for certain customers. Business owners will also be able to offer instant promotions to try to engage new customers and keep current ones.

“If a restaurant can see one of its loyal customers has dropped off the map and is no longer checking in, the owner could offer them incentives to come back,” said Mr. Walker.

This is a great way for local businesses to take advantage of web 2.0 information on their clientèle, allowing them to offer strategic offers. With the influx of mobile smartphones, this is surely something to keep an eye on.

[Via NYT]

_____________________

My favorite blogger asked me to write my now “famous” Twitter Advanced Search spiel which I must have repeated a hundred times to attendees at the recent Milwaukee Job Camp.  The vast majority of attendees I spoke with were not on Twitter at all. A much smaller percentage had unused accounts, or they just didn’t see how Twitter could possibly help in job searching.  But when I talked to them about Twitter Advanced Search, I could see the wheels starting to turn…

If you’ve been on Twitter at all, you’ve probably seen the general Twitter Search, which is the box you’ll see sprinkled throughout Twitter.com – on the site’s welcome page, in the sidebar of your Home page, and on the ‘Find on Twitter’ tab. And yes, this works fine for cursory searches.  But if you want to find gold, you have to dig a little deeper… or, I suppose, sift carefully, and happily that analogy works, too!  And for a local job seeker, Twitter Advanced Search is pure gold.

You can find Twitter Advanced Search at http://search.twitter.com/advanced.  You’ll immediately see that this search supports detailed queries based on Words, People, Places, Dates, even Attitudes.  As a job seeker, the Words + Places can help you find the businesses in your target geographic area who may have need of your skills and talents.  Fill in any and all words relating to your job aspirations in the “Any of these words” field.  Then, choose the city where you’re hoping to find employment, and add your acceptable travel distance with a radius (e.g., within 30 miles of Milwaukee). Hit Search and away you go.  You’ll get back an up-to-the-minute listing of Twitter users (and their tweets) who meet your criteria. Go through the list and see which users look like good potential leads for your job hunt – and remember, some leads may be individuals, not company accounts – then follow them.  Remember to subscribe to the feed for your query (which can be done right from the results page) to stay informed going forward and continue to grow to your list.

Add your new job leads to a Twitter Group for easy monitoring, then pay attention to their tweet streams to find out what they’re talking about – their initiatives, challenges, expansions, projects, hiring announcements.  This puts you in a great position to intelligently contribute to the conversation and get noticed with a well-timed @reply.  Remember, they don’t have to be following you in order to send them an @reply.  Add Attitudes to the Word + Places mix as a secondary search and you can specifically monitor those businesses asking questions, another possible opportunity.  There’s nothing like an knowledgeable answer, just when it’s needed the most, to grab someone’s attention and get you on their radar.  Don’t be shy about letting others know you’re in the market – just balance it appropriately: Answer a business question and include a link to your online resume or to your LinkedIn profile in the reply, for example.

And that’s my spiel on Twitter Advanced Search!  I hope it will help you make your searching – for a job or otherwise – more focused!

____________________

Thanks Jeanette….Isn’t she good???

To that end, one vital piece of software for me is called Xobni (inbox backwards). Basically, you download the software and it works with your Outlook to tell you more about the person who just sent you an email.  It will show you their picture (usually pulled from their Facebook account), tell you their company name, address, and telephone number. It also pulls information from their LinkedIn account and gives you links to their other social media accounts like Twitter, Facebook, and Skype.

There is also important statistical information included as well as a search that shows you emails to and from the person and the files that have been exchanged.  This is all in the free version of the software. There is also a version that costs $29.95 for business use with more advance searches and filters.

For me, the most important piece is the actual profile picture that shows up. I like knowing what the person that I am emailing with looks like. This is also very helpful for first time meetings. One could argue that you could find this out just by doing some Google searched but it is really nice to have it show up in my Inbox with the email.  It saves me time and makes me more efficient. I can’t ask for much more than that from a free piece of software.

You can find out more at http://www.xobni.com/