Sep 1

Launching a Company on the Web

Posted in Internet, Marketing, Real Estate

In the second decade of the world wide web it is expected that building a website is a necessary part of launching a new company. In many cases, the website is crucial to the company’s bottom line: online retailers are the prime example of this. Without an attractive, intuitive, and working website, they will not be able to make their sales. They are not the only ones. In 2011 it is vital that any new business have a website up and running as soon as they open their doors.

Launching a company’s web presence used to mean making sure that there was a simple webpage with an address and phone number. Today companies have to look beyond having a good web design team. They need to create and coordinate profiles across various social media and networking sites. Identifying which sites are appropriate for a given industry and company and ensuring that all the profiles are properly branded and are found by the search engines is a job for an SEO or internet marketing firm.

It is the responsibility of the business itself to oversee the work of both web designers and SEO professionals. In addition to providing direction and inspiration, the owner of the company needs to provide content, logos, images and other media for use in building both the main website and any additional web properties. They are also the final arbiters of any web strategy decisions. They control the budget and must decide where to spend both money and the valuable time of their employees.

Take for example Starlight Apartments. They are a real estate management company that operates across Canada. Their CEO, Daniel Drimmer, has been working for months to build the framework of the company, amassing a portfolio of over 5500 residential rental units and over 300,00 square feet of commercial real estate. He has also overseen a team working to establish the company’s web presence. The result is the successful launch of both the company and its website on Septemeber 1, 2011.

At the heart of the virtual launch is RentStarlight.com. This site seeks to provide Candian apartment hunters with a variety of tools to help them locate the perfect home. Visitors can take interactive property tours of available units to help them narrow their options. The site also boasts the ability to filter searches based on rooms, amenities, and location. Best of all, the site is easily accessed on mobile browsers for those using smart phones or tablets to search the web.

photo by Gary J Wood

A full web presence is more than just the base website and Starlight has recognized that. The company has launched a YouTube Channel, StarlightApts which features videos of available properties. They will also make use of Flickr for sharing apartment photos and floorplans, Starlight’s Twitter account for providing live updates and announcements, and Facebook for connecting with residents and community members. All these properties are registered and branded and being populated with relevant content that will help potential tenants easily find the company across the web.

Each new company will have to make its own choices about which social sites to leverage. Depending on the nature of their industry and their projected customer base, they may consider using LinkedIn, FourSquare, or the soon to be revamped MySpace. They may decide to create and maintain a blog or create podcasts or ebooks. The point is that they must devote time during their startup phase towards planning and building their web presence, because that is the way to reach customers from day one.

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Mar 27

Social Media’s Impact on Online Reputations

Posted in Marketing

Andy Warhol had no idea what was around the corner when he proclaimed that everyone would be famous for only fifteen minutes. With the internet it is possible to achieve fame — and notoriety — in the blink of an eye. Unfortunately, once something is on the web, it doesn’t go away after fifteen minutes. This means that the online reputation of a company, product, brand, or individual, once damaged, is hard to repair, since the bad things never go away.

Social media has been accused of making the problem worse by giving a digital printing press to anyone who can type in a status field. That is only half the story. Social media can also be used to generate positive online publicity . This can help protect a brand against future reputation attacks or it can be used to combat negative reports and opinions.

That is only one of the many effective internet tips for applying social media to a reputation management problem. Creating and maintaining an informative blog and writing guest articles for blogs and news sites is another tactic that can successfully replace bad reports with good results in search engines.

Companies can also make use of slide shows, social videos , photo essays, and podcasts to get their side of the story out there. They may want to directly, and rationally, refute negative claims about them or they may ignore the negative stuff and instead focus on extolling their good points.

Social media has made it easier for competitors and personal enemies to spread false and damaging information about companies and individuals. However, it has also made it much easier for the attacked and their loyal supporters to defend against those attacks.

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Jun 25

Perfect fishing day

Posted in Business and Society, Entertainment, Environment, Marketing

I awoke around 5:30 am, got ready and headed north. I picked up 2 of my fishing buddy’s, Steve 1 and Steve 2. We drove to our favorite fishing stream, Toccoa River, one of the only streams in Georgia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_(U.S._state) that remains chilly even in the middle of summer. We picked a nice day to go, the weather was perfect. We put on our waist-high waders and went walking toward the middle part of the stream.

Fishing was good for all three of us. We caught the few dozen fish using a zebra midge, a pheasant tail nymph and a olive hare’s ear dropped beneath a grass-hopper pattern. Half the fish we caught were fingerling’s and the other half being rainbows and browns around 8 to 15 inches long. I caught the 15 inch rainbow using the hopper pattern and the 13 inch brown using the pheasant tail. I knew we were all having a good time catching fish by listening to the steady stream of Wooo-Whoos coming from Steve and Steve 2.

We drove on up a bit more to Steve 2′s cabin. I nice little place set way back off the main road. We unloaded our gear and proceed to get the fish cleaned. We told Steve 2 that with all the fish we caught that he sure could use a couple of more outdoor sinks. But, the one will do for now. Steve 2 fired up the outdoor grill and we placed has many fish on top the grill that would fit, sat down with our beers and started telling each other our fish stories while the fish cooked. Steve 1 told us a fish story that wasn’t even a fish story. He said while he was down stream of us that he spotted something floating towards him, it was too far for him to reach out for it, so he wondered if he could use his fly technique to catch what it was floating past him. He did and the fly caught the object and Steve 1 reeled it in, it was Steve 2′s sunflower bag. Steve 2 didn’t even knew he lost it. What a perfect evening to top off a perfect day.

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Jan 6

Sun Microsystems – Blogging Helped Rebuild it’s Reputation

Posted in Marketing

There have been many stories reported on how blogging is destroying online reputations. Here is one on how blogging has helped to restore the Sun Microsystems brand. more

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Jan 3

Why Companies Monitor Blogs

Posted in Business and Society, Marketing

There are a growing number of organizations who are looking to monitor, track and analyze the ways that the public talks online about their products and brands. This article by Daniel Terdiman at CNET News looks at examples of how this is evolving.

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Dec 27

Consumers Believe Other Consumers

Posted in Marketing

Consumers believe other consumers. What one consumer says about your product or service will influence the opinion of other consumers. The consumer voice will carry far greater authority and power than any message by your sales force. Consumers will believe a negative statement made by others about your brand. Especially if it is staring them in the face when they search for your brand.

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