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Michael Andrew
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Joined EzineArticles on Apr 22, 2009 Using Facebook & Twitter Alone is Not a Social Media Strategy
Internet and Businesses Online: Social Media • Published: May 5, 2010
I recently came across a speaker and coach who during a recent seminar stated that all business needed to participate in social media was a Facebook page, now this coach is well known in the real estate industry as a motivational speaker and sales trainer, he is also a working real estate agent operating a very successful office, so the business owners who attended this session will believe what he says, unfortunately for them his advice is not only wrong, it is totally misleading.
Banned Social Media From Your Business? - You Need to Think Again, But Set the Rules First
Internet and Businesses Online: Social Media • Published: April 13, 2010
During the past week I've met with a number of small business operators and we've talked about social media and how they can integrate it into their on line marketing strategy. Using social media networking channels to not only promote your business but to help market products and services is a very cost effective way of driving new business.
The Importance of Setting the Rules With Social Media
Internet and Businesses Online: Social Media • Published: March 29, 2010
The Australian federal LNP party is planning to crack down on their party candidates in Queensland using social media sites because they can't control the content that their members are posting on sites such as Facebook and Twitter. The plan by the federal arm of the party is to provide their candidates with party monitored fan pages so that any inappropriate content can be filtered or removed.
Webmasters Out of Control
Internet and Businesses Online: SEO • Published: March 22, 2010
I've written about this topic before and it is one of my pet hates, small business owners who pay webmasters to build web sites for them and then are never given access to the files or the "engine room" of the site to be able to make on page SEO changes and more importantly get the site better rankings on search engines such as Google. SEO is not set and forget, because you need to constantly make changes and massage pages on your site.
Social Media Business Plan For Real Estate Agents
Real Estate: Marketing • Published: February 10, 2010
Every day I can guarantee that you will be impacted in some way by social media, there will be experts telling you, you need a profile on social networks like Facebook, and that Twitter is the best thing since sliced bread was invented, so you create a profile and you start to tell everyone and anyone who will listen about your latest listings and open homes, but is that really the way to approach social media, doing the same thing you do every day on more traditional mediums? Taking this approach to your social media strategy will do nothing more than waste your precious time, time that could be spent prospecting for new listings and working with your clients face to face.
Small Business Web Sites and SEO
Internet and Businesses Online: SEO • Published: January 29, 2010
SEO is not set and forget, and sometimes each web page needs to be massaged to get it to rank, well just imagine the cost if you were charged every time changes to content and coding were recommended. Of course this is the point of this exercise, to get as much revenue out of you as possible and given that most of the small business owners I've done the audits for have no idea about web site design or SEO, you are easy pickings.
Creating a Digital Media Strategy
Internet and Businesses Online: Internet Marketing • Published: December 3, 2009
Last week during a webinar that I participated in I suggested that every real estate office should create a digital media strategy that covers at least the next 12 months. Technology is changing so rapidly for real estate agents and without a plan or strategy in place you'll find it very hard to keep up.
What is Augmented Reality?
Real Estate: Marketing • Published: November 4, 2009
When I was at the Inman technology conference in August, the subject of Augmented Reality was being bandied around during the technology sessions and I thought it time to have a look at how it will impact not only the working real estate agent but also the consumer. Firstly, what is Augmented Reality?
How to Fake Twitter & Facebook Followers and Become a Social Media Expert
Internet and Businesses Online: Social Media • Published: November 2, 2009
Yes, well here we go again, another one of those, I've got a list of over "9,000″ Twitter followers so I'm a social media expert marketing forms has hit my desk today. Come along it says, "to my affiliate marketing driven roadshow and in 4 hours I'll make you the expert, but there's more, if you sign away your hard earned money right now, i have an e-book special for you, yes just for you, an E-Book that I didn't write by the way,but I'll pretend its mine, and all it will cost you is $89.00."
Why Business Should Blog
Internet and Businesses Online: Blogging • Published: October 28, 2009
So why should business blog? Now that is a great question, and if you are a business owner and you haven't yet considered adding a blog to your internet marketing strategy, then you should, and fast. Why? What is it about blogging that is so important that I would make a statement like that?
Social Media Networks and the Impact on Small Business
Internet and Businesses Online: Social Media • Published: October 16, 2009
There's been an interesting debate of recent times about social media networks and their impact on the search process. With the increasing number of people using social media sites to communicate with other users, research brands and receive advice via their social network, forum or blog sites, have they abandoned the traditional search process in favour of social networks.
Using QR Codes For Small Business Marketing
Business: Marketing • Published: October 16, 2009
I've had a number of business owners approach me this week about QR Codes and how they could use them in their business, so I thought I'd write this article to explain what they are and how you can use them. Lets start by looking at what they are and what they do, QR stands for "Quick Response", and they are the next generation of bar codes. They have been in Japan for awhile with the Japanese going absolutely crazy over them and they are just starting now to appear other countries.
Social Networking For Business
Internet and Businesses Online: Social Networking • Published: October 14, 2009
The questions I get asked the most these days when talking to business owners about a social media strategy are "Do I need a Social Media Strategy?" or "Is it valuable for my business?", and these are questions that you as a business owner should ask. Your office culture is a big factor in the success of a social network strategy, because social media in itself is about sharing, and if any of your staff are not willing to share information, then it makes it a lot harder to get buy in from them, it also impacts on their time, and if you run a busy office, this can be a real issue in getting your strategy off the ground.
Social Media - Now the Trusted Adviser
Internet and Businesses Online: Social Media • Published: October 9, 2009
If you have ever wondered how intrusive social networking has become in our daily lives, or if it just seems that people around you are obsessed with their social media network, then you might just be right. In new research from the US, social media users say that social networking is now one of their most important activities on a daily basis, both on line and off line, and you thought it was just people like me who were obsessed with it didn't you.
Spam and Social Media
Internet and Businesses Online: Social Media • Published: October 8, 2009
One thing that has really annoyed me over the past few months is the amount of spam I've been receiving via social media sites I'm a member of. I'm sure you know the sort of spam I mean, "Click here to earn a million dollars", "A friend of mine just found the secret to Internet marketing and you can too thanks to me", all that kind of rubbish.
Social Media As the New CV
Internet and Businesses Online: Social Media • Published: September 23, 2009
For some time now I've been using my social media network as my online CV, suggesting to prospective clients and others I work with "to check me out online and Google me" if they'd like to know more about what I do, and a number of times this has been very effective for me and has led to new clients and speaking engagements on using social media to drive new business. By using this method I've found it really gives them a good understanding of what I do, and of course, when it comes to working with them on a web campaign or social media strategy they have a clear understanding of what can be achieved.
Creating a Blogging Discipline
Internet and Businesses Online: Blogging • Published: September 21, 2009
Today whilst visiting a real estate office we got talking about social media strategies and why as a real estate office they should be working towards implementing a social media strategy, not just to farm new pastures, but also to help them in the optimisation of their web site. During the conversation we got on the subject of blogging, and why creating a blog would help their Internet marketing efforts.
Mobile Phones Beat PC's For Young Women
Communications: Mobile Cell Phone • Published: July 7, 2009
Back in December of last year I wrote an article on the future of the Internet in 2020, and in that post one of the predictions was that mobile devices would be the primary connection tool to the Internet and social media for most people. Well I thought I'd revisit the progress of that statement and look at if the mobile device is in fact having any impact on searching trends.
Internal Links - Create a Better SEO Result For Your Blog
Internet and Businesses Online: SEO • Published: July 6, 2009
Your blog will have a better SEO result when you utilise good SEO techniques such as link building, and one of the ways to do that is by creating internal links within your posts or content. A good internal link structure can have a size-able impact on your rankings on the major search engines.
How Important is an Effective SEO Strategy to Your Real Estate Business?
Internet and Businesses Online: SEO • Published: June 23, 2009
For the past few weeks I've spent a lot of time visiting real estate offices and conducting audits on their internet marketing efforts. The point of the exercise, is seeing how vulnerable they are to competitors or where the weaknesses are in the office's on line strategy, and believe me,there are a lot of them.
Great Customer Service - Your Brand Reputation Depends on It
Business: Customer Service • Published: June 5, 2009
I've been working on a social media strategy paper for a top real estate franchise group and as part of that strategy, I've been looking at the impact of social media on brand building and especially the impact blogs have on the purchasing decisions of consumers. Blogs, play a major role in influencing the purchasing decision amongst women in particular, and in a recent survey in the US, 85% of regular female blog readers said they were influenced to make a purchase as a result of a review or comment posted on a blog. So with that in mind...
Social Media - What's Your Return on Investment
Internet and Businesses Online: Social Media • Published: June 4, 2009
After facing my second redundancy in as many years, I had an interesting debate the other day with some business colleagues. The debate centered on how much information is shared via blogs and other social media sites for free, and what my colleagues were essentially saying was, "Why would anyone pay you, when you give all the information away for free."
Blogs are Very Popular With Female Consumers
Internet and Businesses Online: Blogging • Published: May 17, 2009
As the first of my blog workshops is due to kick off shortly, I thought I'd take a look at the impact that blogs have on the on line consumer. Sometimes as a writer, I often think about who will be reading this blog and whether the information I provide is of interest or help to the readers, and I think about who is reading and researching blogs like mine on the web. New research available indicates that blogs are a very valuable source of information, and blogs are particularly popular with women according to research from ...
Social Bookmarking in Plain English
Internet and Businesses Online: Social Bookmarking • Published: May 15, 2009
I've mentioned social bookmarking in a couple of posts on my blog, and on the right hand side of the blog, you will see both Mr Wong and Delicious as widgets, but what do they mean and how do they influence traffic or search engine rankings. Lets break this down into plain speak for you and look at the effect for example, of social bookmarking.
Twitter - Please Stop the Auto Follow Madness
Internet and Businesses Online: Social Media • Published: May 13, 2009
I've been following for a little while now the number of tweets that are appearing on Twitter from some users offering big numbers of followers that can be achieved by signing up to third party applications and auto follow applications. Some are free and some charge you for the privilege of using their applications to build followers, but I can't help but feel that this is not what Twitter is all about, it's just an ego trip of getting big numbers of followers that in reality have no interest in what you do or say.