A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

The great 19th Century Irish playwright and humorist Oscar Wilde uttered these last words: “Either this wallpaper goes, or I do.” Why some adventerous wallpaper company hasn’t used this is beyond me, but it does go to demonstrate the reality that humor sells. Humor essentially disarms people, often by getting them to see your point in a way they hadn’t looked at before, and initiates a connection that you might have had a hard time creating some with your latest PowerPoint filed with facts. Art Linkletter told us that laughter is the best medicine, and he was spot on. It might be the cure for what ails your company as well! Let’s take a look at 4 ways to use humor in your small business marketing.

4 easy ways to use humor in your small business marketing!

Use pop culture to your advantage – Jon Stewart and the rest of the late night crowd made careers around this, so don’t be afraid to use current events to spice up you offerings. It’s not necessary to be totally relevant to your products or services, (but the ones that tie it in well are rock stars!) but simply to get your reader/watcher smiling and in a good frame of mind from the get go. Sharing events in a humorous way will get your posts shared faster than Lindsay Lohan skipping rehab.

Make humorous videos – It only takes a few moments on YouTube for sufficient evidence to persuade anyone that a funny video gets loads of eyeballs! Even the lamest concept, presented in a quirky way will get views and get shared widely. It doesn’t require a degree in cinema to accomplish it either. Many simply shoot them using their phone, o if you want to go whole hog, use an app like GoAnimate or Xtranormal to make quick and visually interesting animated videos.

Create a visual mashup – One way to make the most of both humor and the wicked hot photo-sharing world is to create a humorous meme. These are almost required on Facebook, and can be a great ice breaker and are also capable of being shared far and wide though Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr and other sites.

Connect with humor in your content – Don’t be afraid to be a bit unique or scandalous in your content. People relate to humor as it is a shared experience. We’ve all been through it, and humor is an excellent way to engage on a level deeper than your average marketing message!

Is Google+ Worth the Time and Effort?

Has Google+ turned into an afterthought in your social media marketing plan? When was the last time you took a look over there? You may also be wondering if Google+ is now or ever will be a viable tool for your business. You’re not alone as many are still divided as to whether to even spend any time or effort on Google+.

Why we think it’s worthwhile now and in the future!

It’s being shared that Google+ is now outpacing Twitter. Although this in no way “feels” true, it probably is. Just the proliferation of Gmail and the convenience of having Google’s entire suite of web services displayed the same time has probably sealed the deal. Not just that, but since Google Plus Local Listings already features such small business services as Zagat, StreetView and Google+ User ratings, it has effectively replaced Yelp.

The development of Google Hangouts, for example, has a direct effect on where Google+ is headed as well. The cabability to use a Hangout, as an alternative to say Skype, to do any sort of video conferencing, is a tremendous advantage. While it’s true that in its beginnings Hangouts is a little clunky and difficult to grasp, once you do, it’s miles ahead of the competition. Merely the ability to have your Hangout automatically recorded and uploaded to YouTube is enough to swing the scales in their favor.

So how are businesses using Google+?

There are scads of ways to apply Google+ in your small business. A few would include:

• Build networks of like-minded people with Google+ Circles
• Use #hashtags to help posts appear in Google search
• Be sure and Link Google+ to your blog or site, and obtain the Google Authorship benefit in the search pages
• Use Google Hangouts for webinars, meetings, launches, interviews or you name it!
• Use tags to reach out to people directly

To check out a wonderfully comprehensive selection of strategies and infographic for Google+, see this informative article on Copyblogger. Google+ might not seem like it’s worthy of effort just yet, but we feel as though it is both in the present and long-term!

Marketing with Instagram – Take a Page from the Kuwaitis!

We’ve all watched as Instagram is the latest web property to soar to stratospheric heights, and with their acquisition by Facebook, it looks as if that’s not going to slow anytime soon. What’s been fascinating to notice however is just how innovative marketers are beginning to use the platform in many ways you might not have imagined.

Let’s hear it for Kuwaiti ingenuity!

According to Kottke.org, Kuwaitis have taken to using Instagram as a visually oriented mobile store, selling nearly anything they wish. Examples of the offerings you can find are Manga, clothing and fashion accessories, makeup services, and surprisingly, sheep! While selling sheep on Instagram is probably not your thing, you can understand the ingenuity of these people adapting Instagram for their own marketing purposes in uniquely innovative way. They’ve got products they would like to sell, so they take a picture, upload it into their Instagram account, give a price and ask them to contact for more information or to purchase. Marketing at its most basic, on a world-wide scale!

What lesson can we learn here?

The key lesson to learn here is that there’s always opportunity for those prepared to think outside the box and explore the possibilities. You may not be ready to sell directly off of Instagram, but some marketers already are using it to direct to CPA offers, send people to squeeze pages for list building plus more. With a base so large and growing daily, Instagram provides a unique opportunity to connect with people who are interested, (at least in the images you uploaded) and it’s your job to find a way to connect the dots in your marketing efforts. Let your imagination go a little wild!

You might want to get into it now, however, as seeing as this is now a Facebook property, it’s more than likely change is going to be part of its future, so strike now!

Is Your Small Business a Candidate for the New Foursquare Ads?

Mashable is confirming that location based social networking company Foursquare is now testing a new advertising platform geared towards small business, by permitting large advertisers like Burger King, Gap and Starwood Hotels to test promote themselves on the platform. These listings show up in Foursquare when a customer gets close to a business’ geographic location. Small businesses already had the capability to offer discounts when a user checked in to a location, but this time Foursquare is providing them with a way to attract geographically close customers by showing an image ad and/or review by a previous Foursquare user.

What’s in it for Foursquare?

Foursquare is a location-based social networking site for mobile devices, such as smartphones. Its users “check in” wherever they happen to be using a mobile website, with a text message or a device-specific app. Foursquare locates them from the GPS in their mobile device. While Foursquare has so far been a way for consumers to share their hangouts, favorite places and eateries, now they are allowing these places the opportunity to promote themselves directly to consumers. Foursquare, while seemingly successful with over 25 million registered users, they’ve been singularly unspectacular when it comes to earning money. They made a modest $2 million last year, according to The Wall Street Journal, and are looking for ways to increase the revenue.

How the new ads work

The way this works is the ad platform targets Foursquare users determined by their locations and check-in histories. Merchants will and do have a chance to target nearby consumers with particular tastes – a predilection for fine dining, for instance, or customers who had previously checked-in to their store. Merchants in this program have the capability to turn off and on their Foursquare promotions any time they want, and are charged similar to a pay per click model, that is, they are going to be charged only on a “per action” basis (when a user actually taps on a promoted listing rather than merely viewing it). So far, Foursquare is charging $0.50 to $3 per action, but that is subject to change when it is released to the masses. Foursquare CRO Steven Rosenblatt said, “Small businesses are willing to pay for local advertising if it makes sense.”

Don’t Forget About SEO in Your Startup

One of the most significant mistakes that a startup website could make is to totally ignore SEO from the beginning. It is certainly a substantial task to try, especially when you’re new to online marketing, but we feel it’s an effort worth making, even at a minimal level. The primary reason why is that you’re giving Google an incorrect message right away. They will attempt to index your pages, and if your pages are lacking any SEO, often times they are either unable to index, index the page incorrectly, or because on-page SEO is such a big part of the search algorithm, rank them so far down the search results as to be invisible. That’s a shame, as there are some very easy methods for getting started with SEO that don’t require a full-blown SEO firm to get accomplished.

Heard about Minimum Viable SEO?

Priceonomics.com coined the term, “minimum viable SEO“, which means basically what it says: exactly what can you get by with in terms of SEO to start. Even though this is by no means an ideal strategy, it’s better than not doing anything. Below are some of the things they pointed out, along with some of our own ideas tossed in.

Decide on a keyword strategy – This will help you see not only what your site structure should look like, but also how quickly you’ll be into profit. One option is to go after the long tail of search, meaning keywords that are commonly 3-5 words long, often with product or model numbers. They don’t get a ton of searches each day, but are infinitely easier to rank for. Add a few thousand of these up, and you win. Another way to go is to go after a single keyword, like “auto insurance San Diego” you’ll typically be trying to rank only your home page. If you have a business with a local presence, always have local geo-modifiers on your keywords, as in the aforementioned example.

Use breadcrumb navigation – You’ve seen this on many web pages. It is a set of links that show where you’ve been on the site, and where you are now. This is helpful for the searcher, (which Google likes) and covers a good deal of internal linkage. Here is what it typically looks like: Home > Tablets > Apple > Ipad 2 3g

Use accurate title tags – Making certain the title tag on your page is accurate; which means that it is the keyword you want that page to be ranked for, is perhaps the most important SEO task to do. Using local geo-modifiers is critical here too.

Doing minimum viable SEO is a start, and much better than doing nothing. Just don’t allow it to be the end!