Corey’s Corner | Briscoe Network Solutions

Are You Upholding Your Digital Rep? “10 Easy” Steps for Reputation Management

September 22, 2011 By CoreyY Leave a Comment

Reputation management is one of the fastest growing parts of online marketing and that’s most apparent by the number of specialists and companies cropping up claiming to be experts. What they don’t want you to know, however, is that reputation management is no more difficult than the normal PR any small business needs, only done with online resources such as Facebook, Yelp, Twitter and other popular social media sites as well as the Local pages for search engines, such as Google Local.

Social Media is all about interacting with your customers.

At it’s core, reputation management means that you keep appraised of what people are saying online about your business and what your business says back. Managing this digital PR is what gets a bit more complex. What sites do you watch? How can you control how your digital business identity is perceived? The simple answer is that you can’t absolutely control everything that’s said on the internet. You can, however, work at doing all you can to interact positively with customers in as many ways as you can manage.

Reputation Management is about connecting with them.

To help you prioritize, here are some simple steps to get started managing your own online reputation:

10. Ask yourself if you’re willing to make the commitment. Reputation management is a process that takes fairly constant monitoring, and could mean you’re spending anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes on it per day. If you find that you’re not willing to put that much effort in, you’re better off hiring a specialist. Your customers won’t be appreciative of a halfhearted attempt, and you shouldn’t be satisfied with one either.

9. Devise a strategy. What do you want to accomplish with your online presence? It can be anything from wanting to gain more customers through broadcasting promotions using social media to actively making the experience for established customers better through direct interaction. Whether that interaction is through responding to reviews or inviting customers to communicate directly via Facebook is your choice.

8. Don’t Spam. It’s tempting to post every little thing that comes to mind to Twitter and Facebook using a personal account, and it can be much more damaging to indulge that urge with your business account. Try and keep your posting to a healthy balance of minimalistic and timely. Have a sale? By all means, post a short notice with a link to your site! Closed during a holiday? Feel free to wish all of your customers a happy holiday and inform them that you’ll be closed. Do not, however, post 8 different articles about semi-related topics to your industry on top of that. Your customers like to be reminded that you’re around and care about them. They don’t want to feel like you’re dominating their online lives.

7. Make sure you’re registered. Besides Facebook and Twitter, do you know where else customers go to get the lowdown on a company they want to try? (Hint: It’s usually a review site.) Do you have a Google Places listing? What about a Local listing on Bing? Is your Yelp account active, and are you listed on other places such as CitySearch? How are customers supposed to learn more about the customer experience you provide if you don’t give them a chance to see what other customers are saying about you?

6. Get reviews. As I mentioned above, customers want to see what other customers are saying about you before they want to be your patron. Seeing the good, the bad and the “meh” reviews helps them decide if you’re a good fit. So, find ways to get your customers to give you feedback! Even if you train your staff to remind new customers you’d love them to write about their experiences with you can generate reviews for your business.

5. Surveys and testimonials are your friend. There are plenty of companies that offer easy and inexpensive survey services and data collection, and many times, solid customer testimonials can come from these. (My suggestion would be to Google “Online survey tools” and then use common sense in choosing an option. When in doubt, Google the site name. If it’s not legit, someone more than likely has blogged about it.) Simply set some questions that will help you determine if your service is at the level you are happy with, and then leave your customers a chance to make a comment. You may be surprised what you learn.

4. Check your listings! Once you have a Google Places listing, Yelp account, etc, check them regularly. Reputation management at its core is keeping your online reputation as sterling as possible. Unanswered concerns written in online reviews can make you appear uncaring, or in agreement with angry customers. Not checking your listings also doesn’t allow you to utlize the good online reviews can do. Remember, critique is necessary for continued growth and improvement, and unsolicited reviews are an excellent source of honestly. (Of course, they are also an excellent source of insanity, but you should be able to weed the crazy out from the actual reasonable reviews. If you can’t, you may need more help than an article can give.)

3. Don’t Be Afraid. Sure there’s a chance that someone will give you a bad review. In fact, the more customers you ask, the better chance you’ll get a nasty review. You need to let go of that fear right now. The internet is all about having a thick skin, and those of us that deal with customers and not peers must have the thickest skin of all. Remember that you aren’t a person to these angry reviewers. You are a business, and they aren’t happy with you, right or wrong. Take a deep breath, think of the sunny beach you’d rather be on, and move on to the next tip, which is:

2. Responsibly address concerns. Whether you deal with Yelp or the reviews Google and other services collect from their users, there’s generally a way to get in contact with those unsatisfied customers. Yelp lets you privately and publicly address the problem. With Facebook and Twitter, responding to negative comments are only a few keystrokes away. Get your customer service hat on and do your best to be understanding, polite and brief.o not give in to the temptation to put someone in their place. It’s tempting to call someone out for being unreasonable in a public forum, but who does that really hurt? Them for being unreasonable or you for eagerly rising to the occasion to discredit them? Think long and hard about how you want to appear when responding to customer complaints online, and you shouldn’t hit any snags. A good resource is the Yelp Support Center. I find that their advice on how to properly respond to negative reviews nicely covers how you should deal with most dissatisfied customers online. Which brings me to my last bit of advice:

1. Above all else, be mindful! Whether you’re sharing a video on Facebook, tweeting on Twitter or responding to a review on Yelp, stop and think before you press enter. Is what you’re saying going to help your customers? Does it represent your business the way you want potential customers to see it? What will someone that’s never been your customer think? As long as you’re mindful of these questions and keep in mind that you are acting as the face of your business, you can handle your own reputation management with relative ease.

Share and Enjoy:

Filed Under: Blog, Corey's Corner, Customer Relations Tagged With: Busines networking, Corey's Corner

Corey’s Corner: Making Yelp Work for You

April 11, 2011 By CoreyY Leave a Comment

I think we can all agree that review sites like Yelp are the way of the future. Not only are they easy to use and provide valuable consumer-driven information, but they can provide businesses with a unique view onto what customers are passing along via “word of mouth”. With this is mind, it’s easy to think that getting better reviews out there can be as simple as having some friends and family get the ball rolling with glowing reviews. After all, it’s just a little push start to help your business and there’s no harm in that, right?

Unfortunately, you’d be wrong. With online review sites come a certain expectancy of veracity. People using the sites are trusting that the site takes measures to prevent fraudulent reviews from taking over. In fact, a recent FTC crackdown about online reviews paid for by businesses shows that even the authorities are getting involved with the online review world and how easily fake reviews can overpower the legitimate ones.

Yelp advice for Seattle small businesses

What kind of message do you send through your digital customer service?

So, you want legitimate reviews for your site, and Yelp is a great site to start with. Yelp as a site is pretty user friendly, which explains its current popularity. Its search feature allows you to search for a business and narrow that search down to a city, or even an area, ie Belltown in Seattle, or even the Eastside. Step one on taking advantage of what Yelp can provide is searching for your business by name. (If you don’t immediately find it, I’d also recommend breaking your name into parts and checking those. For example, searching “Bob’s Burgers” and “Bodacious Burgers” for a restaurant called Bob’s Bodacious Burgers.)

If you do find your business, click on it and explore your listing. Is the information correct? Are there hours posted, or even an address or website? If you see inaccuracies, or want to add information, changing all that is as easy as claiming your listing as the business owner. Listings that have been unclaimed will have a button encouraging the owner to claim and add to the listing. If you searched for your business and didn’t find it, the option to add the business will be displayed. (If you find your listing and it’s somehow been claimed already or are having difficulties with finding things on the site, the Frequently Asked Questions section is pretty extensive and should cover what you need.)

Now that your business is claimed/added, all you have to do is sit back and let the positive reviews roll in, right? Unfortunately, you’d be wrong again. If you’re not a restaurant and already have an industry that depends on reviews, you actually need to let your customers know that you would love reviews from them. Many businesses have different ways to do this. They offer contests, attach the request for a review with a survey or even directly remind their frequent customers to place a review. The trick is to be gentle about the encouragement and to avoid asking for only glowing reviews. Yelp does frown on positive reviews that have been “paid” for via free services or products, and do filter out reviews that seem too positive or too negative to be genuine.

Some Yelp users, or Yelpers, only give a 5 star review for a mind blowing experience. Some give 5 stars all the time, and only give 3 when they were absolutely unsatisfied. No matter how they rate your business, it’s always good to actually read the reviews and avoid becoming complacent with reviews that appear positive on the surface. The big challenge is to maintain your thick skin and keep sight of the big picture. Some customers will never be satisfied. Some have legitimate complaints. Take what you need from each review to improve, and keep an eye out for patterns. You may be surprised by what your customers are saying.

Think, Be Mindful and Be Fair when using Yelp

When interacting with customers on sites like Yelp, remember your responses are public for all potential customers to see.

If you decide to take a more active role in your Yelp listing, the ability to respond to reviews is something Yelp offers business owners. I would encourage anyone taking advantage of that feature to stop and:

Think: Why are you responding to this review? Is it to say thanks, is it to right a wrong, or is it to refute the nasty things a reviewer said about your business? If it’s the last option, what positive outcome do you see coming from responding in the way you’re planning to respond?

Be Mindful: All of your other customers will be able to see your response. Is it the face you want to present to potential customers any time they look up your business? If you do try and right a bad experience, have you promised anything that will be hard to deliver on? (I’ve seen plenty of reviewers come back to their review and drop a star off for being promised something that the business never came through on. Sometimes something as simple as a sincere apology can do wonders, and get a customer to give you a second chance!)

Be Fair: Be sure that you keep your responses balanced and fair. So what if they guy that complained about your servers was a drunken boor and deserved the pitcher that was dumped on his head? The other Yelpers don’t know about that and only care how you handle this guy on Yelp. Most of the time, a reader can tell when someone is unreasonable or a jerk and ignore what they have to say in favor of more informative reviews. Sometimes you just need to either ignore the ranting reviews and trust in the intelligence of your customers or give a classic noncommittal answer such as, “We’re sorry that you feel that way and we regret that we couldn’t fulfill your needs.” No further explanation necessary.

It can be difficult trying to do public relations work online, but many business owners are finding that they or a trusted employee have to fill that role in the digital world. It can be challenging, but with the proper time and care, an endeavor such as a thriving Yelp listing can bring countless advantages to your site and business. How much attention and use it gets is up to you.

Share and Enjoy:

Filed Under: Blog, Corey's Corner Tagged With: Corey's Corner, Review

Corey’s Corner | How is your Social Media PR?

February 24, 2011 By CoreyY Leave a Comment

The BNS blog has been following how businesses can harness the power of social media for several months now. From deciding if hiring a social media expert is worth the cash, to finding all the social media sites that fit your advertising needs, we’ve presented a fairly broad view on how social media can benefit a business, and why it could be smart to get on the bandwagon now.

We haven’t touched on one thing, however. So far, we haven’t written about the darker side of social media, something that every business engaging on Facebook, Twitter or any other number of sites should be aware, and frankly, fearful of. That darker side is that of viral backlash, where one large misstep can turn from a public relations blunder to a death spiral for any company, big or small.

Despite how casual social media is, it’s still PR at it’s best. You interact with customers, inform them of sales, and build a thriving online community you can tap into with the click of a mouse. It’s easy to forget these are your customers, and that despite how close and transparent you want to be with them, what they really want is a company they can trust. They don’t want brutal honestly from you, they want a warm and slightly perfect company interaction with you.

So imagine, for a moment, that in a stroke of supposed brilliance, one of the people managing your Facebook or Twitter decides to take advantage of an international political revolution that millions are following with bated breath. Let’s also say that the person managed in 140 characters to reduce the unrest of an entire country to consumers eager for their product. Heck, let’s just say that you’re Kenneth Cole, and you do what he did earlier this month with the #Cairo Twitter hashtag.

According to the above linked TechCrunch article, this PR flub by the front man himself resulted in almost 1500 negative retweets an hour. In this case, the result was angry, negative, immediate, and fast spreading. With so many people utilizing their social media groups or using spoof accounts to further fan the flames, what could have been a very small news story maybe sandwiched in the national news section of the local broadcast at 11 at night about 10 years ago, this incident became a huge PR nightmare in the span of mere hours.

Now, taking a step back from a large company such as Kenneth Cole and looking at your business, do you trust the person taking care of your social media? Gone are the days where one surly employee was only a small problem. With the advent of review sites like Yelp, or fast ways to spread information such as social media sites or even search engines using online reviews like Google to help searchers, your businesses’ dirty laundry could be hung out to air for anyone searching for your company name or trying to compare your services with that of your competitors.

While you may want to laugh off the Kenneth Cole tweeting fiasco as a minor blip on the consumer radar and that it surely didn’t damage their brand, think on this: social media means more people asking the opinions of people they know. All it takes is a handful of people to be absolutely disgusted with your company to warn all of their entire friends cirlce away from ever doing business with you. Then, those friends will spread the story of your deeds onward to their friends as well. It doesn’t, at that point, even matter if what is being spread is absolute truth. Those complaints spread with the alacrity of a rumor in high school. That’s not even the worst part! Once something is on the internet, it has the potential to be around forever. Thus, I caution businesses with the same adage being given to socially driven teenagers the world over at the moment: Be mindful what you put on the internet, because it could come back and haunt you in perpetuity.

Share and Enjoy:

Filed Under: Blog, Corey's Corner Tagged With: Corey's Corner, Social Media

Corey’s Corner | How Do Customers Find Your Site Online?

December 16, 2010 By CoreyY Leave a Comment

As with any online endeavor, be it a blog or an online representation for your business, you need people to come to your site. Yet, how do you draw that traffic?

The most familiar way for most people is “traditional” advertising. You buy newspaper, TV and radio spots, send out mailers to a targeted area and even possibly attend events in your community to spread the word about your website. This method, while time honored, is generally expensive and really only solves half of your online traffic problem. You’ve generated interest, but how will those customers find your site once they get home and onto their computers?

If you’re counting on those new contacts remembering your URL well enough to pop it into a browser and getting your site, you’re making a very risky bet. While events and commercials are excellent ways to reach people in your community, they have a limited effect on those people’s memories. They may remember your name is Julie, or that you offer excellent prices, but they won’t necessarily remember your website URL. So, they take the information they do remember, and search for your website using a search engine. Chances are that they’re going to use Google, Yahoo or Bing. The only problem is that if you haven’t worked to make your site visible to the search engines, the customer won’t be able to find you. Neither will anyone else searching for your particular service/goods in your area. Without some kind of work to make your site searchable, you’re effectively invisible online.

Now, optimization doesn’t have to be an arduous task. In fact, Google has an excellent guide on some of the basic guidelines and tips you need to make your site searchable. There are also many beginners guides out there on search engine optimization for SEO novices. Another option is to hire an SEO Specialist to do the optimization work for you. The process to do this is very much like the process to hire a web designer, which I outlined in a previous Corey’s Corner. Either way you take, proper optimization should help customers find your site. Just remember: While search engine optimization is an extremely useful tool, it’s still passive in nature. Customers have to be searching for your products or services before they have a chance to find your site. If the keyword you’ve optimized for isn’t one that people search for, it won’t do you any good. (If you find yourself in a situation where you’re worried about keywords and their effectiveness, I highly recommend that you simply hire an SEO. There are ways to learn about the myriad ways keywords can help your site and drive traffic, but the process can be difficult to learn and extremely time consuming to the beginner).

A final way to drive people to your site is promoting it through social media. This tactic, while cheaper than traditional advertising, can be much more time consuming than search engine optimization. Social Media takes dedication and time, but can be ultimately rewarding. Not only does Facebook offer cheap advertising based on pay per click, it also offers a way to uniquely target your core demographic easily. Also, as long as you spend time on building your number of fans and make a point to update your account with new products, sales, promotions and other things that get customers in your door interested to buy, you can manage to gain interest and drive traffic to your site in one fell swoop. (You also can offer an extremely easy way to send customers from your Facebook to your website, rather than advertising to create interest, and then hoping they can find you online.)

All this considered, I’ve only barely outlined some of the many ways you can make your website a success. All ways require payment in either time, money or both, but have plenty of possible growth for your customer base. It all depends on how much effort you’re willing to give driving traffic to your website, and how much traffic your business needs at the moment.

Share and Enjoy:

Filed Under: Blog, Corey's Corner Tagged With: Corey's Corner

Corey’s Corner | Social Media Experts?

October 21, 2010 By CoreyY 1 Comment

It never fails. Every time a new internet sensation pops up, a wave of people claiming to be specialists appear to take your money and somehow monetize the craze, no matter how inappropriate the new service/program/good is. When it comes to the internet, this is exacerbated by the ease with which people can disseminate incorrect information, and of course, by how fast a new site or fad can change from one month to the next.

Social networking is no exception from this. More and more, I see more people touting themselves as “social media specialists”, ready to tell potential customers that Facebook is the new Google, and can make them millions if only they let this person have access to their business and pay a hefty service fee. Now, this isn’t to say there aren’t individuals who have the marketing knowledge to leverage your Facebook to help your website and other online operations gain more business. It can be done, but there are a few things you need to watch out for before opening your pocketbook.

1. If they sound like they aren’t making sense, they probably aren’t. Just like any scammer, some people can and will say anything to try and get you to give them money for a “service” they can provide to you. If it sounds like they’re all buzzwords and no substance, they probably are.

2. Their price seems pretty high for the services they claim they are offering. Honestly, if they can’t break down what they’re charging you for and why, why would you give them money? Any specialist soliciting your business should be able to explain the benefits of their services, how they feel they can generate more customers for you and then give examples from the real world on how what they are claiming can be done.

3. They guarantee results. While it’s tempting to go with a “sure thing”, the internet rarely offers any kind of surety where marketing is involved. Unless you’re paying a service directly for results, you can’t be sure about what you’re getting. (ie: Paying Facebook or Twitter for the results, not a third party claiming they can advocate for you.) Just as an organic search optimization can’t guarantee your the #1 spot on Google, a social networking specialist can’t guarantee that 50,000 people will “Like” your page on Facebook and bring you money. They can give you their tailored strategy to show how they will work to get you more business, but the keyword here is more. Exact numbers are a dangerous game to play with internet results, and specialists all too often use shortcuts that can get your site flagged at a later date by the very sites they optimized for. By the time you’ve been penalized for their methods, that specialist is long gone with your money.

5. They use buzzwords and make outrageous claims while trying to earn your business. I can honestly say that if I hear “Search is Dead” one more time, I won’t be able to stop screaming. While Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites are excellent ways to disseminate information, they are tools to be used lightly and appropriately. They will never replace a customer’s need for a search engine, and can only marginally influence their spending trends. Can you use them in a way that gets you more business? Of course!

This would be a pretty poor article if I didn’t give you a few pointers on how to make your Facebook fan page or Twitter do some heavy lifting for your marketing plans. Here are a few tips to keep in mind while updating your respective social networking accounts:

1. Think about what you’re posting. While this may seem like a simplistic piece of advice, I see countless updates by clients that obviously have no idea how people use Facebook. Social media is best suited to spreading information about sales, new services and deals. It can also help with giving your customers reminders about special events or celebrations. For instance, I’ve seen some car dealerships offer a Facebook service special that could be applied to an oil change. I’ve also seen a massage company advertise specials for their Facebook friends only. All can gain you new business.

2. Be creative! Your product or services may not be an easy fit for social media marketing. Try to keep any sales text succinct, to the point and energetic. For example, if you’re a clothing shop with a sale on say, sweaters for the Fall season, a good Facebook update could be: “Brrr! It’s chilly out there! Don’t suffer at the bus stop, come in and save 20% on all sweaters, through Friday at Sammy’s Sweater Emporium.” The point is to grab attention as quickly as possible, deliver a short message, and then end it before you lose your audience. They have other Facebook updates to read, after all.

3. Try to make a connection. It’s easy to de-friend or remove a page on Facebook. It’s even easier to hide updates from a certain user. The trick is to try to make a connection with your audience without clogging their news feed with countless updates they aren’t interested in. Red Mango is an excellent example of a company that updates their Facebook fans while still keeping everyone interested. They encourage customers to prove their love for their frozen yogurt by sending in pictures, showcase new flavors or poll customers to see what they want to see next on their menu.

4. Keep things updated! Another common sense bit of advice that is much harder to follow than is apparent. Social networking is hard work, and can be time consuming to do properly. It isn’t something that can be done halfheartedly, or you run the risk of losing your audience through inactivity. Make sure there’s a little something for your Facebook fans on a regular basis, or even better, update the same time every week if appropriate.

5. Have a plan. Just like your website, your social networking accounts should have a clear goal along with a plan on how to reach that goal. If your goal is to gain 50 more fans by next week, how are you going to manage that? What kind of marketing are you willing to do? How will you encourage your current fans to bring in their friends? If you stop and ask the simple questions before you go on a Tweeting or updating frenzy, you’ll be in a much better place to handle your social networking efforts and turn that time into new business for your operation.

Share and Enjoy:

Filed Under: Blog, Corey's Corner Tagged With: Corey's Corner, small business, Social Media

Corey’s Corner | Avoiding Scammers

August 5, 2010 By CoreyY Leave a Comment

Usually I write about getting your website up and running. I’m going to take a little detour this time around and talk about a persistent and seemingly never ending problem them plagues businesses and private residences alike: scammers/spammers.

We’ve all gotten the gibberish emails, the “male enhancement”, Russian dating and Nigerian prince emails. We all know they’re spam and opening them or downloading a file from them can spell our computer or network’s doom. Did you know, however, about Tab Nabbing? I sure didn’t. Apparently, the new way scammers get your information is by opening a new tab with a dummy site loaded in it mimicking Amazon.com or your bank website. The goal is to trick you into putting your information into the fake site and giving the scammers your password. With that in hand, they can drain your account, buy expensive items, or, in the case of Facebook and your email, send distressed emails to the people in your address book asking for money to get you out of a jam.

With new scams being born every minute in cyberspace, it’s hard to keep up with all the possible dangers. Just this last weekend, I received an email telling me that one of my friends on Facebook recommended a page. I clicked on the link and thankfully nothing happened. I heard later that day from that same friend letting me know that his account had been hacked, and that any emails from him via Facebook should be ignored. (I of course immediately changed my password and kept vigilant for any unusual activity on my account for the next week or so.) With all these new dangers being born any moment, what can we do to keep our information safe?

Two excellent tips offered by scambusters.org is to always pay attention to the icons in your browser. For secures sites such as bank sites, Amazon.com, etc, the padlock, located on the lower right side for many browsers, should be lit up. Also, the URL should look like it normally does. (ie Amazon.com/a long string of characters that allow you to log in.) If the URL doesn’t look right, or you are suspicious, re-enter the URL. If you’re super paranoid, like me, you can also search for the company using Google or Bing. Search Engines are usually pretty good at not recognizing dummy URLs, and Google especially is harsh on scammers when it can. So when in doubt, simply close the tab and try to get to the site in another way. Another excellent resource is snopes.com. You can search urban legends, chain letters and many other possibly shady things using their database of information. They also usually have fairly up to date information on new scams.

While it’s hard to keep on top of keeping your information safe in cyberspace, vigilance is key. While the internet can seem like an endless playground of information, toys and entertainment, you can never let yourself forget that there are people out there that will take your information and use it for nefarious purposes if they can get a hold of it. Pay attention, close tabs when you aren’t using them, and you should be all right.

Share and Enjoy:

Filed Under: Blog, Corey's Corner, CyberCrime, Network Security Tagged With: Busines networking, Corey's Corner, crime, Network Security, small business

Corey’s Corner | Finding the Web Designer for You

July 7, 2010 By CoreyY Leave a Comment

In my last post for Corey’s Corner, I covered some easy to make mistakes when dealing with building a cohesive and easy to use site to promote your business. This month, I’d like to cover the process on finding the right web designer for you, and how to utilize their talents to the fullest.

It’s easy to be intimidated by technology you imperfectly understand. We all have had a moment when facing someone from a younger generation, full of internet slang and enthusiasm, babbling in a language that is near incomprehensible. In fact, to some, I have been that person. In the end, it’s easy for both parties to feel frustrated by the lack of effective communication, and both walk away unsatisfied by the interaction. Sound like something you want to encounter every time you need to update, upgrade or change your website? Heaven forbid that you ever have anything actually break. This is why choosing a web designer that you are comfortable with is such an important task. It literally can make or break your foray into starting or even expanding your online presence.

Some key things you should look for in a web designer are their organizational, professional and communication skills. Do they respond to your emails promptly? (We’re talking within 48 hours, not 30 minutes people.) When you have questions, are they able to answer in a way that you can understand? If their initial answer is vague or incomprehensible, are they able to take the time to explain what they mean? While inability to accomplish these things doesn’t make the individual a bad web designer, it does make them a bad fit for you and your needs.

Another important thing to take note of is skill. While that may seem obvious, it can be easy to fall prey to fancy promises and guarantees of success. If the designer in question isn’t able to produce a portfolio of work, makes promises that sound too good to be true, or doesn’t seem to be listening to your concerns, they may not be the designer for you. Better to spend time talking to prospective designers than find out they’re scam artists after you’ve invested thousands of dollars for a site you and more importantly, your customers, hate.

A little time spent looking at ideas and talking about goals not only helps the designer understand what you want, but it can open a dialogue in which clear deadlines and goals are set for both sides of the designer client relationship. Don’t be afraid to be clear and up front with what you want! A competent designer should be able to tell you if what you want is possible within a given time frame. An ethical one will tell you if the goals you’ve set are reachable. Remember, however, that some of the onus is on you as the client too. Are you being unrealistic? Are you listening to what the designer is trying to tell you? As long as you keep your mind and ears open and use discretion, your employment of a web designer can be rewarding and worth the sometimes steep prices.

One last thing to consider when looking at developing a new or improved website is choosing between a company or freelance designer. While a company does offer the kind of personnel flexibility that can make finding the right designer for you easier, they also can tend towards template website designs as well as more rigid website packages. With a freelance designer, you can pick and choose what you do and don’t want, and can come out with a more unique look. On the other hand, you’re dealing with an individual that could get sick, have a family emergency, or even simply leave the industry. There’s no replacement for your needs in that situation, save hiring a new designer that may or may not know how to work with the previous designer’s website. This loses you money and time, not to mention the frustration of starting the search again.

In the end, how you conduct your search for a web designer is your decision. It’s your website, your money and your business. You are ultimately responsible for how well your website performs when all is said and done. With that in mind, take a moment to see this comic by my current favorite, The Oatmeal. Are you acting like this customer when dealing with web professionals?

How a Web Design Can Go Straight To Hell

Share and Enjoy:

Filed Under: Blog, Business Tools, Corey's Corner Tagged With: Busines networking, Corey's Corner, Networking, small business

Corey’s Corner: I Have a Website, Now What?

April 30, 2010 By CoreyY Leave a Comment

So you’ve taken the plunge and created a website. Now what? Never fear, you’re not alone when it comes to not knowing the next step of internet marketing. My next series of blog posts should help get your mind going in the right direction as well as provide a few resources for you to lean on.

The first thing you should know about internet marketing is that it has very little to do with traditional marketing. This isn’t Valpak or your local newspaper. It’s the world wide internet, and it takes a different thought process to reach your target audience. One of the biggest mental block’s I’ve experienced working with my clients is the jump from a relatively captive audience to being forced to lure in your potential customers. Not only do you need to offer a valuable service, you need to offer it the right way with the right content and vehicle to capture your target demographic.

Step 1: Figure out who you want to target with your website. Everyone wants more sales, but who buys your products? What do you think you would be looking for online if you needed your own services? How would you look for your services? Putting yourself in the customer’s shoes is an excellent way to formulate a plan.

Step 2: Form a cohesive plan. You need to know what your expectations concerning your website are, and then you need to ask yourself what you need to accomplish those goals. This could require the hiring of outside professionals to fill in your knowledge or skill gaps, but we’ll talk about that later. Right now, you’re planning, and hopefully budgeting, for your website.

Another part of the plan is to figure out how your website will connect with your business. Is it meant to be your one and only way to get customers? Do you just want it so customers can see what your brick and mortar store offers? Perhaps you just want to have a web presence for now, and only want to post basic information and contact information. All of these are viable uses of a website, and can help your business. You just need to choose which is right for you, and build your plan around your needs. (Remember, the best part about having something on the internet is that it’s easy to change! Your website can always be updated to change with your needs.)

Step 3: Educate yourself! While it can be frustrating and uncomfortable to acknowledge that you don’t know anything or very little about creating a website, don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t know what SEO, Paid Search or Local Search are? Research! Wikipedia can be an excellent resource, as can technical blogs and many other internet resources. In addition to Wikipedia, Google Webmaster Tools has a set of guidelines that are good to know. As they are dense and in what I lovingly call “netspeak”, I do recommend Feedthebot.com, where the guidelines are explained in a more friendly manner. Still confused about what some of the information means? Run unfamiliar words through an online tech dictionary.

I know it sounds and feels a little like researching a paper, but trust me, the better informed you are about the internet, websites and internet marketing, the better off you’ll be. Even if you only know the basics of what some things are and want to hire a professional to take care of it, knowing a little protects you from obvious swindlers that try to trick the unsavvy with doublespeak and buzz words. Avoiding even one of these can save you loads of money and keeps you free to find a good specialist to help you manage your site.

I understand that this post only covers the rudimentary basics of managing your website. See it as a way to readjust your thinking on what this new website is and what it can do for you. There’s a very fine line between taking up real estate on the internet and having a useful, revenue-producing website, and walking that line takes dedication and passion. As long as you care about your internet presence and are willing to put the time in to keeping your website up to date, you’ll do fine.

Share and Enjoy:

Filed Under: Corey's Corner, Online Tools Tagged With: Busines networking, Corey's Corner, Resource Center, small business, Social Media

Corey’s Corner | Is Flash Dead?

March 28, 2010 By CoreyY Leave a Comment

You’ve probably already heard about what Apple’s Steve Jobs has to say about Flash already. As explained in numerous blog posts, one linked here to give you the gist of the situation, the Apple guru himself indicated that he felt Flash was dead, and HTML5 was the future, at least for Apple products. He cited that Flash is a “CPU Hog”, and several other unflattering things about the program.

So, no Flash for the iPad. Or the iPhone apparently. Now, what does that mean to the rest of us? While HTML5 is an interesting prospect and an emerging technology for sure, could it actually kill Flash? Not if Adobe, the company that created and continues to develop Flash, has anything to say about it. They’ve already rallied with claims that there aren’t any problems with Flash they are aware of, and that if Apple wants improvements, they need only ask. On top of that, Flash is used so widely throughout the internet, once hailed as the new avant-garde way to design interactive web pages, a gradual phase out could take years.

That said, we have to realize that Flash is indeed an older, matured program. Users have had a chance to give the program limits, and have found what it can and can’t do. HTML5 is new, shiny and can appear limitless. This is what I think Jobs was getting at. It’s not so much Flash not performing the way he wants, but it hasn’t done anything to absolutely wow him lately. HTML5 could be the cutting new wave of the internet, and he doesn’t want Apple to miss out. So far, they’ve managed to squash competition by staying ahead of the game by bringing completed products to market that grab an almost captive fanbase. It could be a legitimate fear that Flash will hold them back while other developers run with HTML5 and create the new internet. Steve Jobs wouldn’t want to miss out on that, and neither should you in the long run. Yet, the big question is: why does this matter to those of us that don’t build websites?

The first is that if you have a website, there is a good chance you have Flash somewhere on it. Remember that slick image that changes the picture when you put your mouse cursor over it, or how your site is more one seamless image than blocks of text with images? Surprise, your site has Flash on it, or another of the interactive animation programs out there, such as Silverlight, offered by Microsoft. If Flash were to suddenly fall out of favor with developers and companies that build products that use the internet, it would mean support for that program would slowly start to drop from browsers and cause customers coming to your site to not see it properly or even at all if your site is more Flash than traditional content such as text. It would cost you money to upgrade your website, and more than likely cause a headache as your web designer tries to recreate the feel you loved with new technology.

Flash isn’t evil, or a dinosaur quite yet. It has its uses, and Adobe could shock and wow us in the near future as they develop the program further. What it means to all of us that use Flash on our websites is that we should be mindful of how dependent your site is on Flash, or really any technology beyond HTML and CSS coding, which should always be supported. If that sentence just now didn’t make any sense to you, talk with your site designer! While you don’t need to know everything there is to know about web design, you should know what it uses to work. It’s the same as knowing how fast your internet connection is, while not going into the details of WHY it’s fast.

All of this falls back on what I would like to accomplish through this blog. Everyone should know the “whys” of owning and maintaining a website, even if they don’t have to time to focus on the “hows”. Just as knowing your network is important, knowing at least vaguely how your site operates can help save you a lot of trouble in the end. Especially if, for instance, Flash is suddenly gone one of these days.

Share and Enjoy: