My 10 year high school reunion is this weekend, and I’ll be honest, it is not without some hesitation that I bit the bullet, shelled out the $80 for two tickets, and booked a hotel near the venue. It isn’t that I didn’t like high school, or that I anticipate being harassed in some sort of Carrie-esque fashion from guys who just didn’t get their fill of bullying a decade ago. The real truth is that I’m busy, I don’t stay in touch with anyone from my high school, and frankly, there are just better ways I can imagine spending my Saturday evening.

But, I took the plunge, and am awaiting not without some degree of anticipation the event this weekend. So why am I going? I blame LinkedIn. After relocating to Atlanta, where I went to school, I had no friendships remaining from those years. No hard feelings or anything, I’m just terrible at keeping up with people, and my life had taken me around the world, not the most conducive to staying in touch. As an Atlanta native, I’m not without a great network here of leaders of different industries, and I attend networking functions on a very regular basis. I love networking, I love growing our business and brand in the community. The truth is though, out of all those events, if even 1 in 10 directly yielded a new piece of business, I’d be writing this blog from the deck of my yacht, not the waiting room of a Jiffy Lube.

Social media, however, has brought me a much higher return on my time invested in networking. An email, retweet, or status update brings more traffic to my personal blogs and company site than a month’s worth of networking events, and that traffic brings business. Everyone loves to help a friend; everyone loves to spend their money with someone they trust. Even a second degree network connection carries more trust than a cold call or email. If someone from my network reaches out to ask for assistance, I can be certain that if I can’t help them, I know someone who can, and that connectivity turns into business opportunities on a very regular basis.

It isn’t about the business though, it is about the network. Growing your business is the pleasant side effect of growing your network. Growing your network means building relationships with people. Those relationships bring you opportunities to help others, to ask for help from others, and to be exposed to opportunities that would otherwise go by unnoticed. That’s why I’m going to my reunion. I don’t want to go work the room like the hungry salesman you see at so many networking events. I want to go to reconnect with my friends, to tell stories of the past, and meet the new members of my classmates’ families. I want to hear about their businesses, and ask about their parents. I want to bring them back in to my network, not because of the business it will bring, but because every friendship is an opportunity to grow as a person, to help others, and to meet even more new people. Will business engagements come out of the event? I think so, but that isn’t the objective.

Just as social media is an excellent resource, social events are a powerful tool for expanding your network. Rest assured though, if your interest in social media or networking is purely for self-promotion and sales, every savvy media consumer will see through your game, and you will close more doors than you ever could open. Be genuine, be interested, and be committed to helping your connections to grow their business; everything else will fall into place.

Twitter, the micro-blogging sensation, is rolling out a new, media-rich format to the public soon. The format will include side-by-side panels, where videos and pictures will be integrated into a panel next to the usual live feed. They’ve added endless scrolling, shortcut buttons and suggested people to follow. They’ve also added recommendations based on hash tags, which is intended to make Twitter feeds themselves easier to put into context.

Intellectually, Twitter trends might be easier to digest for the casual user because of the new interface. Unless you’re a voracious social-mediaphile, it’s often overwhelming to try to make sense of the fast-paced public dialogue that happens in 140 characters or less. The new Twitter is designed to make sense out of some of the noise. 

On the other hand, Twitter’s beauty is in its simplicity: the site is ad-free, it works on my barely-functioning iPhone, and it’s lends itself to all kinds of platforms. It integrates well.

Twitter’s simplicity is its most wonderful value, not as a promotion platform, not as a status-updater, but as a public dialogue machine. For every entirely un-fascinating and predictable “I hate Mondays” Tweet, there are also bite sized pieces of insight being produced and released at break neck speed. While entire ideas are never hashed out, they’re produced and digested at such a fast pace that just the act of being on the site allows you to cull information and feed your creativity. Social media makes us smarter because it allows users to change thought patterns so quickly. It allows users to effortlessly amass ideas. 

Now back to the matter at hand —as far as Twitter’s interface goes, I’m not enough of a Luddite to have a “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” approach to technology. Staying static is a quick road to irrelevance in the digital world. If Twitter unleashes a mess of a website, they’ll either be savvy and quick enough to fix it, or the super obsessed will suffer the consequences while everyone else quietly logs into Facebook and writes a 141 character post explaining what’s on their minds. There are a million other possibilities from a million other tech companies as to what might happen if Twitter dies, and to me, all of them are exciting.

SEO is a constantly evolving process. As internet marketers, our goal is to deliver quantifiable results using a series of different analytic tools. And yet, any kind of work-rhythm remains completely elusive — we find a decent way of track what we're doing and two months later the site has moved, changed or disappeared forever. Google Analytics is amazing, slick, and heaven-sent, but it isn't a complete, self-contained SEO tool. Constant research is required. SEO marketers have to be agile, savvy, and willing to abandon outdated methods.

Internet marketers need to understand how sites are promoted, where links are coming from, and what we can do to improve in-bound links. It's a simple enough question: How does traffic get to the site we're promoting? Here's where it gets dicey: backlink tracking sites are the worst offenders when it comes to ease of use. They tend to be clunky, they give mixed results, and they disappear all of the time. So, with the intention of cutting through the chaos, here’s my take on some of the most popular backlink sites.

BacklinkWatch.com – http://www.backlinkwatch.com/

Aqua Blue Marketing is pleased to announce the addition of Everett Steele and his wife Allison to its leadership team. Everett Steele is a fourth generation entrepreneur and a former United States Army officer, and Iraq veteran. Allison is an experienced marketer and has worked with brands including Louisville Slugger and the Department of Defense. Many Atlantans know Everett’s father, Ricky Steele, as a serial entrepreneur and guru of networking in the Atlanta tech community. Allison and Everett are both University of Georgia graduates.

Aqua Blue, www.aquablueweb.com, is one of Atlanta’s premier and rapidly growing full service creative development and interactive marketing firms. Aqua Blue has worked with organizations such as the Atlanta Interactive Marketing Association (AiMA), BackChannel Media, and Hunter Technical Resources to enhance their online presence through web design and interactive marketing.  Aqua Blue recently worked with Premier Exhibitions to launch the Titanic Online Store.

Tom Ellis, President and CEO, comments, “Alexa and I are excited to welcome Allison and Everett to Aqua Blue. We are confident their talents will enable Aqua Blue to better serve our clients as we continue to grow our business.” According to Allison Steele, “I'm thrilled to be a part of Aqua Blue. We feel there is a great combination of leadership styles and experience in the company, and the opportunity couldn't be more exciting. Having worked all over the world while working for the Department of Defense, Everett and I are very happy to be able to return to our hometown of Atlanta.”

Contact:
Tom Ellis
tom.ellis@aquabluemarketing.com
2310-C Marietta Blvd
Atlanta, GA 30128

With an influx of interest towards mobile marketing, many companies are wondering why the need to get involved and how they can build a mobile site and apps.  Many people are now asking what is the "ROI" of entering the mobile space.  Jeffrey Hayzlett, CMO of Eastman Kodak Company, asks what is the "ROI (Return on Ignoring)" the need to enter the mobile market.

Below is a short list of benefits of testing out a mobile site or app to promote your brand:

Mobile Websites:

1. Clean mobile websites allow you to reach your audience at the moment of inspiration. You are capable of reaching them as they looking to buy or simply find information. As mobile users seek your company, service or product, a strong mobile site can bring in your audience as they think of you, while away from their computers.
2. The market for mobile users is expansive. There are 75 million mobile users.  It is projected that mobile devices will take over computers in web usage by 2015 (recall a similar situation with mobile phones and land lines—mobile wins).
3. Mobile sites are user friendly. Having a mobile website allows your audience to better see your brand and imaging through their mobile phone. You can interact with mobile apps—Google maps for directions, click to call, mobile contact pages, etc.

Now what about Apps?

1. Apps allow you to fully interact with your audience. Your audience can “play” with your brand and interact with other consumers.
2. Apps can be built for almost any mobile web phone. Blackberry, iPhone, Android,Palm OS and Windows Mobile all allow for fully interactive native applications.
3. Mobile apps allow you to connect with your audience on a personal level.  Nothing is more personal than someone’s PDA or smartphone.  Many people consider their mobile device a part of them and cannot imagine life without it.
4. Mobile apps allow you to grow your brand virally. Users can invite their contacts to your app, see what their friends are doing, and share your brand through other applications and social networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, FourSquare, email, MMS and more).
5. Mobile apps allow you to build a campaign around your brand to drive traffic and interaction with your website.

Both mobile sites and applications can get your company and brand more exposure as the mobile market continues to grows.  It is important to work with a trusted partner to help develop a strategy and the tools needed to break into the mobile arena.  A solid strategy as well as market testing will help to ensure your overall success.

There is a lot of fear around implementing social media in business. Because social media seems new to a lot of traditional organizations, many companies are trying to balance the harm of exposing their organization to social media against the harm of not entering the market. So what is the best answer?

The concern for many revolves around the inability to control the medium. Social media and consumer integration gives the consumer a voice in the reputation of a product. Now, consumer-to-consumer interaction means one unhappy customer can tell thousands of potential customers how they feel— a tarnished reputation is not to be taken lightly.

The explosion on Twitter of BPGlobalPR is a prime example of social media tarnishing a company’s image. The satirical Twitter account makes jabs at BP and their efforts to control the oil spill and resolve the tragedy in the gulf. The fictitious “Terry” seems to mock the cleanup efforts with a cocktail in hand. With over 160,000 followers, BPGlobalPR gains more attention as the spill continues unresolved. So should BP, like any other company, have stayed out of social media altogether?

No. The conversation about your company is happening regardless as to whether or not you are directly involved. The trialogue created by social media platforms means that it is no longer simply business-consumer. Now, the conversation moves three ways: business-to-customer, customer-to-business, and with social media’s influx, customer-to-customer. Companies need to be involved in that conversation—acting reactively and proactively. The days of waiting on the phone for hours to file a complaint or speak to a representative are gone—the World Wide Web gives companies and customers the freedom to respond in real-time.

Atlanta, June 2, 2010 - Aqua Blue Marketing, Atlanta interactive development and marketing experts, announced today a strategic partnership with the Atlanta Interactive Marketing Association (AiMA) to manage development of AiMA’s digital presence.  The partnership includes developing and managing the new AiMA web site, www.atlantaima.org, member database and deployment of communications across channels.  Aqua Blue Marketing also becomes an AiMA Gold Sponsor.

The new AiMA web site, launched on May 15, 2010, delivers increased functionality, improved user experience and cross-platform integration with AiMA’s existing and planned digital channels. The new site features a streamlined event registration system, enhanced member personalization, updated job board, and new social media integration with AiMA’s Facebook pages and Twitter streams.  The web site will also be integrated with AiMA’s new email, social media marketing and mobile platforms, which will be coming online in June.

The new site is already drawing positive reactions from AiMA members.  The new event registration system, which provides a simplified portal for AiMA members to sign up individuals and companies for AiMA events, received accolades from members registering for the May AiMA Mobile Marketing event.

            In gearing up to start this blog, I thought I’d garner a little insight from Peter Drucker. Drucker’s Managing for Results is one of the pinnacles of business, as we know it today. Written in 1964, Drucker is a pioneer in conceptualizing “business strategy” (the term “strategy” was never really applied to business before this).

            But how could a book, written 46 years ago, still be relevant today? It’s impossible.  With the evolution and transformation of social media, nothing is static. Books written on business just 10 years ago are so dated, their pages may as well be used as wrapping paper. But somehow, Drucker defies odds. Eerily enough, the text still stands as the most relevant piece of business literature today.

            What then would the founder of “business strategy” say about SOCIAL MEDIA? Using Drucker’s own words, we can make an educated guess. In an attempt to pay tribute, let’s see how Drucker’s concept of business then is still relevant now:

1. “Executives should spend more time and thought on the future of their business.” Social media represents the ever-changing, future business environment. It may not be the end-all, be-all, but it is represents modern development. Executives need to stay in touch with the realities of business today. It is a dynamic environment, and old methodologies will not carry a company into the future. In order to stay alive in business, we must be early adopters or at least have the ability to stay current.
2. “The best way to predict future is to create it.” Changes in digital media occur at such a frequent rate, it can sometimes seem impossible to keep up. It’s the pioneers in the industry that are creating the future. If you stay focused on what was new yesterday, you will be two steps behind the leaders tomorrow. Try to stay on top of new trends… better yet, create them!
3. “You can only manage what you can measure.” We’ve heard a thousand times, “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” Coincidentally, many fears around social media are that it is not measurable. Drucker’s quote, “what’s measured improves” speaks to the adage of measuring and managing. There are a million tools out there today to help you measure your business success through social media. It can be measured and it can be managed. But don’t get stuck using out-dated tools when new ones are constantly popping up.
4.  “For new technology to replace old, it has to have at least ten times the benefit.” Social media has definitely replaced the old ways of creating business, and digital media has done even more in the environment. The advancements of today have already replaced the old, and it’s time for people to realize that the new technology has at least ten times the benefit of the old. People who have adopted social media into their business plans know how the new technology will grow their business (if done correctly) at a remarkably faster rate. OUT with the old. And IN with the new!

BB Richardson

"Should social media be integrated into your organization's marketing initiatives, or should it be a stand-alone campaign?"

This question was posed by Shana Keith (CBeyond) this morning at the TAG Marketing event where I had the pleasure of hearing Paul McKeon (Content Factor), Jennifer Jones (Porter Novelli), Hope Dlugozima (Mother Nature Network), and Jeremy Porter (Definition6) discuss using social media as a part of your company's marketing mix.

While there was some controversy in the discussion, the overwhelming message was clear.  The answer to the question was a resounding "YES!"  Marketing is how your organization communicates its message, services, and culture to the outside world.  It dictates how your organization is perceived by the public.

Social media has allowed the public to originate a lot of the messaging being delivered to the masses about your company.  You now have a choice, should you ignore it and hope that more people consume the message that you dictate, or should you get involved and participate in the conversations being had about you, your company, and your services?

So, the question begs to be asked: "Which is more important, the message that our organization delivers to the public, or the message that the public delivers to each other?"  Bill Flitter writes in an article titled Maximize Your Content's Reach on the Social Web, "For brands, consumers tend to be more responsive to [social media] marketing than other forms of online marketing. With content flowing freely on the siteless web, your fans will be more likely to share it. Good content reaching the right people in the right way builds loyal customers." 

Launching a new website is kind of like having a baby- the process is long, and patience is a virtue. Like any birth, the process goes much more smoothly with careful thought and planning. 

1. Time Allocation: Successful site launches take at least eight weeks, if not longer, from start to finish. You can push the timeline, but that might not give you enough time to carefully consider user interface (UI), usability and design. Even the most simple websites should take weeks of planning and design. Rushing the planning and design process often ends up costing companies more money because they end up redoing their site more often than companies who have thought through the goals of the website.

2. Consider SEO: Another tip for a successful website launch is making sure you're considering SEO when launching your site. If you're already spending weeks to build your website, it is worth launching with a good SEO strategy for your launch and the months following. Make sure you've taken the five minutes to set up a Google Analytics account so that you can track the success of your launch. Additionally, it is important to remember 301 redirects if you're launching an existing site so that you don't lose your previous SEO investment.

3. Develop a Pre-Launch and Post-Launch To-Do List: Need to change your Twitter background to go with your new site? Want to make sure that your new website launch isn't going to shut down your email service? Develop a comprehensive list of to-dos both pre- and post-launch to make your website launch go more smoothly. This will allow you to allocate enough resources ahead of time so that you're not 'burning the midnight oil' tying up lose ends for your site launch.

4. Develop a QA Checklist: A QA (Quality Assurance) checklist is extremely important for complex site launches. Do you have a user login? Complex forms around your website? Is there a payment gateway? Custom development? If the answer to any of these is "yes," then I suggest writing out a QA checklist. Develop a list of all major site functions, and then define points for each of these site functions that might break. Then, give your QA checklist to someone else who isn't close the project so that they can catch possible site errors.