In case you haven’t heard, Google has recently launched Google+, their social networking site that is trying to succeed where previous efforts have failed.
You remember…Google Buzz and Google Wave?
Yyyyyeah, they didn’t work out so well for Google. Truth is, Facebook has really become to social networks what Google is to search engines, which is a hard thing for even Google to compete with. To you and most business people trying to make the best use of their web development and web design efforts, the main question is what features does Google+ have that Facebook doesn’t?
More importantly, do those features really matter to you and your business enough for you to add yet another social media forum to your network?
Here are some of the new features that are getting some buzz:
Hangouts: Probably the biggest element Google+ has that Facebook doesn’t is a feature called “Hangouts” that gives users a way to join group video chats. It’s basically a chat room with video. Any user can create a Hangout and others can then join. As well as video chatting, users can also watch YouTube videos as a group.
Sparks: Sparks is the Google+ newsfeed, and it’s different from the Facebook news feed in that it’s focused on specific topics and on news: you won’t find information on where your friend was today or what they had for dinner, but you will find highlights from blogs, newspapers, and other media outlets sorted by topic.
What Strangers Are Saying: Whereas on Facebook the only posts and status updates that appear in your news feed come from people you’re friends with, Google+ lets you see posts and updates from people you aren’t yet following, but who are following you. You can follow them if you choose by putting them into one of your “circles”.
Chat with Strangers: Facebook Chat requires you to be friends with someone before you can chat with them. Google Hangouts, for better or for worse, are much more open: up to ten people can join a Hangout video chat, and they need not be in each others’ Circles to do so. Maybe nothing negative will come of this, but you’ve got to admit Google is taking a risk with a really loaded Pandora’s Box here.
So what’s the bottom line?
Bottom line is that yes…there is another social media forum to be considered for your Internet marketing and web development/web design efforts. Is it absolutely necessary? Functionally speaking, probably not, but the initial word is that you will do well to have a presence on Google Plus and the Google+ box (the equivalent of the Facebook “like” box) on your website will help you greatly in the search engines.
A few months ago, MIND teamed up with Andy Mathers Design for a complete overhaul of a fun site called VotefortheBest. Since then, we’ve completed a successful beta, officially launched the new site, and will now continue to improve the site in terms of usability and functionality as time goes on. Websites, like most software, are never really finished — they just get released! So what’s this new and exciting site we’re talking about?
Every year most newspapers give a “best of” list at the end of the year, spotlighting the “best” restaurants, real estate pros, plumbers, etc. Let’s face it… some of the time, advertising dollars spent helps to determine who’s actually number one in a given publication. Check out VotefortheBest.com and put your vote in on a true, untainted list of the best local businesses. Who is your favorite barber, veterinarian, spa, web developer or web designer? Take two minutes and become a registered voter at www.voteforthebest.com and then cast your votes for your favorites in any or all of the categories. Share your experiences so that others can benefit by making more educated decisions. It’s fun…and a great way to help promote your favorite businesses!
Even though web development and web design is the way we make a living for ourselves, it’s not just a means to an end, everyone who works at MIND started out in their respective fields with a passion that only fellow geeks can really understand. Now when a project comes along that excites us, we tend to get a little more involved than we ought to. A list of specifications and a few wireframes is all it takes to really get our engine going! Still, knowing that, sometimes it’s difficult to draw the line between business and pleasure when your pleasure is also your business. Even if we had great careers in a completely unrelated field, we would still probably go home every day and code or sketch, just for fun. We absolutely love that people are willing to pay us a fair wage for something we enjoy doing, and being free from the typical restraints of the corporate world (there are no pointy-haired bosses, no meaningless meetings, and no passive-aggressive coworkers in our office) is icing on the cake.
Trying to convey your passion to clients is a difficult task — on the one hand, we’re probably putting some people off by even trying humbly to point this out, and on the other, some people will see your desire to do good work as a weakness and your attachment to your work as a means to exploit you. It’s also incredibly difficult when working with people without even a vague understanding of what you do or how you do it. You know what? It’s still worth it!
The greatest form of marketing, in our opinion, is unsolicited referrals. If you rock so hard at what you do that people are falling over themselves telling their friends about you, then you must be doing an awesome job. Put yourself out there, recognize when others are doing the same, and eventually that good karma will catch up with you. Maybe it’s a vote on VotefortheBest.com, maybe it’s a recommendation on Facebook, or maybe, just maybe, you’ll land that next huge deal or get that next step up that makes all the hard work worthwhile.
Last week we discussed the amazing natural camouflage effect of some members of the marine order Sepiida (marine class Cephalopoda) and how they…oh, wait.
That must have been someone else.
Last week we discussed the importance of recognizing the difference between press releases and news releases in your web development and web design efforts. This week, we’re outlining the differences for you…
A press release is something potentially newsworthy for the masses…something that could attract new interest or renewed interest in your business through content concerning an event, major change or a very strong opinion stated concerning your line of business and the effect of it on the mass population. Press releases are suitable for sending to newspapers and other mass media outlets both paper and online.
A news release is something that is important to you, people in your business, your clientele and maybe even known prospects, but not necessarily to the masses because they’re not immediately affected by the content.
While a news release may not be newsworthy for the masses the way a press release is, it still warrants reporting through a pressroom page on your website or on your blog page. Having a pressroom page or blog on your website allows news releases to help you in the search engines by giving you more opportunities to work keywords into your content (i.e. the news releases themselves) and by keeping your content fresh and up-to-date.
This will not only help you in the search engines (they index your site to see how fresh it is), but when people find your site they will see your archive and see that you are a reliable resource for up-to-date information. This is what will bring people back for repeated visits to your site and allow you to reap the greatest benefits from your web development and web design efforts.
One of the most effective and wallet-friendly (in some cases, FREE) ways to promote your business and direct traffic to your website is through press releases. Not the spam/infomercial “press releases” offered by so many online resources at exorbitant costs, but true press releases.
A true press release is an unbiased statement of fact. The idea is the factual information will allow an editor to make an educated determination of whether or not the information is newsworthy…either on a mass, regional or local scale. Quotes used in true press releases may reflect opinions (even very minor bias) by the individual being quoted, but this is the only real exception. Contact information (especially a link to your website if it’s an online release) is crucial in every press release to make it easy for people to find you.
With the advent of online publishing and the rush to to jockey for high search engine position through SEO and keyword-rich content, the market for an individual opened up on a mass scale like never before via the Internet. Since individual knowledge amongst businesspeople with regard to what constitutes a true press release is pretty low overall, many businesses are susceptible to being wooed into spending tons of money on what amounts to infomercials masquerading as “press releases.”
The detrimental effect of this is two-fold. One, the sales pitch most commonly used is “We’ll get you on the top of the search engines,” which is what every businessperson WANTS to hear. The reality is that no one can promise you this and consistently deliver. Think of how many thousands of people in your line of business alone who have been told this very same thing and the preposterousness of that premise.
In your web development and web design efforts, it’s important to simplify and the best way to do that is to have two main categories for your releases: press releases and news releases.
Next week in Part 2 you will learn the true difference between press releases and news releases so you can more effectively put your best foot forward for your business;)
The violent tectonic plate shift that caused major upheaval at MIND web development and web design headquarters nearly a month ago (originally reported on November 17th and updated December 1st) has finally been fixed and business is back to normal on level ground as seen in the image.
“I was actually getting used to it,” says MIND co-founder David Zimmerman. “No matter what Chad and Andy want to believe, it’s a fact that we did our web development and web design work faster while we were facing downhill.”
“It was a passing fancy,” comments MIND programmer Andy Mull. “I liked it, too, for a brief time, but after a while those harnesses started chaffing something awful.”
MIND co-founder Chad McComsey says the final solution came from Zimmerman. “That was a lot of boom-boom-pow two weeks ago,” says McComsey. “It definitely magnified an already complex dilemma. Fortunately, Zim had a genius idea.”
“I realized I would have to take it upon myself to solve the problem,” says Zimmerman. “So I brought in an air hockey table. It’s an older model, so I realized the friction and velocity of the puck combined with the impact of the puck against the paddles could gently agitate the subduction zone, reverse the plate shift and level out the floor of our office.”
“No one could score on me, so there was a lot of impact on the paddles which allowed me to fix the problem that much faster.”
