Winter quarter is coming to an end *sheds a single tear that is infused with joy and disappointment*. I will graduating in June with a degree in business administration with a concentration in marketing. These past four years have been a journey consisting of the typical peaks and valleys; with some slogging through mud in between them. I have confirmed that college is a great experience in that it really allowed me to figure out who I am and what career path I want to take. When I first entered into Western Washington University, I only had a vague idea of what I wanted to do. I knew that I wanted to go into business, and when family members, colleagues, and others would ask what I was pursuing, I would say something along the lines of, ” I know that I want to go into business but am unsure of what part of business to concentrate on.”

Then it dawned on me. I am MADE for marketing and I have been doing it since I was in 6th grade. For example, my brother and I were pretty bummed out that our middle school stopped selling candy, so we decided that we would take the opportunity to do what any marketer would do; fulfill the needs of customers. We purchased Skittles in bulk from the local Cash-n-Carry, and then we sold them for a dollar each. I remember getting a rush after each sale (it could have possibly been a sugar rush) although unfortunately we consumed most of our profits so it failed to become the candy empire I had envisioned.

Later on in high school, I started selling high-end clothing and Air Jordan’s through my website www.somefire.com, with the business model of buy-low and sell-high. This was very profitable until people realized that there was little barriers to entry. Soon I was surrounded by competitors from my school, so I decided to use my entrepreneurial spirit to go down a different lane. During my sophomore year of college, I created my own clothing brand called SomeFire, and stepped away from the (now saturated) luxury used clothing market that I had used to love. This custom clothing design experience strengthened my marketer’s mindset. So far I have designed (with the help of my good friend Bobby Davis) three different collections which range from t-shirts, long-sleeve t-shirts, tank-tops, and hoodies. I will be releasing my next collection within the next month.

In January, I participated in the Student Marketing Associations XMC Case Competition with two other colleagues of mine. We met on a rainy Saturday morning at 8AM, we were given an Ivy business case and were asked to build a presentation, recommend what the business should do, and present it after 4 hours. We competed against 11 other teams, and placed first through an emphasis that I can only characterize as ‘unbounded creativity’ . Creativity is usually hindered when under-pressure, but we were able to work as a team to come up with a creative and realistic set of ideas to compete with an elite set of teams who we know would be going ‘by the book’ with their recommendations.

These past three months have been an excellent learning experience. I had the honor of taking a digital marketing class that expanded my digital marketing skills, and this single class has morphed me into a full-stack smarketer (smart-marketer). Within the last three months, I have become certified in Google Analytics, Hubspot Inbound Marketing, Hootsuite Social Media Management, and Google AdWords.

To obtain these certifications I needed to demonstrate to have an in depth knowledge on the topics. I have spent countless hours these past three months studying, blogging, reading, and learning about topics such as:

• Google Analytics
• Mobile Marketing
• Programmatic & Native Ad’s
• Coding
• Search Engine Marketing
• Search Engine Optimization
• Email Marketing
• Creating GREAT Landing Pages
• Growing Your Online Community
• Social Media
• Content Marketing
• A/B Testing
• Inbound Marketing
• Marketing Analytics

This quarter, hands-down, has been my best learning experience thus far in college. The list that you have just read (which include direct links to each topic that I blogged about) shows topics that we were assigned. With these topics, I was asked to not just read an article, but to know like it the back of my hand.

What I can do for you as your digital marketer? Well, a TON really. I am seeking a career in consulting, marketing, or as a marketing consultant and whichever of these directions I end up going, will bring digital marketing knowledge with me. I have gained a relatively vast base of knowledge when it comes to social media, content marketing, analytics, search engine marketing, and other digital marketing disciplines. I will also be participating in a project management crash course after this quarter which eventually will lead to a certification as a project management professional. I am an entrepreneur that loves solving problems, and coming up with great ideas. I have excellent communication skills, and I love working in teams. While being a full-time student at Western Washington University, I also engaged in internships and part-time work at companies such as Nordstroms, Hertz, and Bellingham Marine Industries. As your marketing consultant I will use the knowledge and skills that I have acquired over the past ten years to drive a positive impact for your company.

Throughout this quarter our class had to blog twice a week. Within the last three months, I have typed 22,473 words, and have had 475 views.

I plan to continue to blog every week, but it could get tough when it starts to get nice out, and my final quarter at WWU starts. Until next time fellow smarketer…

Kid Cudi dropped a song a couple days ago titled, Love. It is actually a really great song, and I love it (see what I did there). This could be the first single off of his Man on The Moon III album, which is supposed to drop this year (Praying emoji). Give it a listen below. It is very uplifting, and makes you, well, happy.

https://soundcloud.com/cudderland/love

You might be thinking, “What does this have to do with Google Analytics, Cody Hulsey!?!?!”. Well fellow reader, I love the analytic’s side of digital marketing. Google is the big homie when it comes to analytics. They decided to go out of their way to create a certification course called Google Analytic IQ Certification. They also went out of their way to get you prepped for the certification by providing you with the Google Analytics Platform Principles. I am going to talk about a few of the most interesting things that I learned while watching the informational clips.

When you use Google Analytics you can collect and analyze data across a variety of devices and digital environments. Companies use Google Analytics to understand what their customers find and interact with when it comes to websites and mobile apps, but Analytics can be used to measure behavior on other devices like kiosks, point-of-sale systems, game consoles, and even appliance.

There are four components of the Google Analytics platform:

1. Collection – this component is centered around the idea of collecting data, To successfully collect the data from your customers, you must paste the code on every page of your website that you would like to track.
2. Configuration – you can configure Google Analytics to import data directly into your reports from other Google products, like Google AdWords, Google AdSense, and Google Webmaster Tools. You can also set filters that allow you to remove any data from your own employees (once a filter is set, you will not be able to see your employee’s data again).
3. Processing – in this stage, Google Analytics transforms the raw data from collection using the settings in your Google Analytics account.
4. Reporting – once Google Analytics is done processing, you can view the results of the findings on the reporting interface.

On the reporting page you will see that there is a data model. There are three components to the data model that are crucial to know about:

• User:  a visitor to your website or app.
• Session: the time they spend there.
• Interaction: what they do while they’re on there.

I am going to paint a picture for you because I like coming up with stories. Also because people tend to retain knowledge and feel more connected when they hear a story.

Now close your eyes (not actually because you have to read this). Picture you are the owner of a small high-end fashion boutique. You have lot’s of customers, some who come in and look around at a particular pair of Raf Simons shoes, some that look at a Dries Van Noten Jacket, and some that purchase a Alexander Wang bomber jacket. You also have the customers that come in and ask if you have the most recent collection of the I Love Ugly S/S 15 menswear. When you tell them that you don’t carry that brand, they immediately leave. Think of each of those real life interactions in the same way when thinking about Analytics. You might have 5 interactions with a customer, or you might only have one (the I Love Ugly customer). Then however long a customer was in the store, is their session time.

So how does tracking work? 

Google Analytics uses tracking code to collect all of that precious data. The information that is collected, is shipped off to the Analytics servers via an image request. This image request is considered a “hit”, and it is the Maserati that speeds as fast as possible to Google Analytics.

<!– Google Analytics –>

<script>

(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i[GoogleAnalyticsObject]=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){

(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),

m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)

})(window,document,script,//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js,ga);

ga(create, UA-12345-6, auto);

ga(send, pageview);

</script>

<!– End Google Analytics →

In the above code you will see 10 characters that are bolded. This is the tracking code. A lot of websites will ask for you to paste the simplified tracking code and not the whole entire JavaScript text. Simply go into your Google Analytics settings to obtain this tracking code. There is different tracking codes out there. There is tracking code to create hits for websites and then there is tracking code for mobile apps.

Mobile apps don’t use traditional JavaScript code, they use SDKs (Software Development Kit). There are different SDKs out there, it all depends on the operating system i.e. iOS, Android, and etc. These mobile apps have a different way of dispatching as well. Data from mobile apps is not sent out immediately. Instead is stores the data, and then when there is connection to the internet, it’s sent over. SDKs dispatch hits every 30 minutes. So don’t freak out if it doesn’t look like your data is being recorded.

I hope you have came to a better understanding on what Google Analytics is, and what you can do with it. Google Analytics allows you to understand the actions of your customer whether they are on a website, mobile app, kiosk, appliance, or much more. When you realize customers are not viewing certain pages, you can use your creative skills to direct them to that neglected page, possibly with A/B testing? Until next time fellow smarketer…

Programmatic. What a word. Programmatic is one of those of those words you drop around your friends to impress them. But you have to make sure that you use it in the right context. You never want to use big words in the wrong way, it just makes you look unintelligent. Programmatic means (according to Google) of the nature of or according to a program, schedule, or method.

Back in the olden days, when people had to walk barefoot 5 miles to school in the snow, there was no programmatic ad buying. Every  time someone wanted to purchase an ad online, they had to deal with manual RFP’s, negotiation orders, and insertion orders to purchase digital media. Nowadays, you can purchase ads over the computer, instead of in person (it is a little more complex than that, but that will suffice for now). Check out the video below, where they discuss programmatic ad buying like you are 8-years old.

http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9?isVid=1&isUI=1

I recently read an interesting blog post from Forrester.com about programmatic ad buying. Joyce believes that major brands and massive holding companies budgets will increase within the next couple of years. Programmatic ad buying is going to be a larger portion of these companies marketing budgets. Proctor & Gamble is seeking to by 70% to 75% of digital ads programmatically by the end of the year. WHAT!!! Leave some for the little guys, jeeze.

Joyce also believe that programmatic ad buying is going to become present in video and TV. These ad sellers are noticing that programmatic is becoming a huge part of these companies marketing budgets. They want a piece of this pie, and they are currently pre-heating the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Joyce states that their is going to be a stronger emphasis on individual-based targeting is where the advertising industry is headed. Facebook has had great success with this since their release of Atlas. Advertisers want to be able to effectively advertise over cross-device platforms. The ability to tie devices online and offline will change the media channel game forever.

Programmatic ad buying can be a complex subject. Like the name “programmatic” makes me think of problematic, which makes me think that its going to be a problem to learn, but in actuality, it is a problem, a problem in the sense of being good (hopefully I didn’t lose you there). Programmatic is the new bad boy in the digital marketing world. Yeah, that programmatic below.

The guys and girls over at AdWeek, are a bunch of great guys and girls because they care about how intellectual you are. They want to see you succeed and become the greatest digital marketer to ever touch a keyboard. They created an article titled, Programmatic For Dummies. In this article they talk about programmatic ad buying, the importance of it, where it is headed, and much more.

“Programmatic is a catchall term that many people are using to categorize everything from behavioral and intent-based targeting to real-time bidding and exchange-based buying of inventory” – Peter Nayor, Former EVP at NBCUniversal. Real-time bidding and exchange-based buying of inventory are two big components when it comes to programmatic ad buying. Real-time bidding (RTB) is not the same as programmatic. The main difference is value. Programmatic is about using data, tech, and software for getting more for every dollar spent. This is what really gets the client happy. Think of programmatic as the NY Stock exchange. It contains the same elements, just different names.

Automation is one aspect that of programmatic ad buying that really helps it excel. But the next step is improving the advertisements. You want to be able to sell a pair of Common Projects men’s shoes to someone who love high-end fashion, not someone who faint when they saw the price tag.

I believe that I am very creative. AdWeek had a section called, How does creativity fit into this world?, and it really shouted at me. Creativity is still going to present when it comes to programmatic ad buying. Even though Google is known for being algorithm-ruled, they are pushing for programmatic creativity. The umbrella initiative that they have created is called, Art, Copy, & Code. That name just seems very Google-esque.

Another topic that I believe is worth talking about is native advertising. There is a fantastic podcast called, StartUp, where one man by the name of Alex Blumberg documents his experience starting his first, well, Startup. Blumberg uses a different type of advertising called native advertising. In typical advertising, the host would stop talking, and then the recorded advertisement would take over. But with native advertising, the host intertwines the advertisement into his talk. They make it almost seem like they are doing it for free. Which can get a lot of backlash. They got in trouble for interviewing a kid about his website, and they didn’t clarify that they were going to use it in the advertisement, and people freaked out on twitter because they it was misleading and they couldn’t tell if it was content or an advertisement. Except Blumberg gets paid by MailChimp $6,000 per episode. That is nuts!!! It makes me wonder what the customer acquisition costs are like for MailChimp. I didn’t know MailChimp had it like that.

Anyways, native advertising is a new form of advertising that I am sure you will notice more often. I listen to another podcast called, Brilliant Idiots. It is quite hilarious, and they actually participate in native advertising. They are sponsored by a product called, NatureBox. They integrate it ever so smoothly, and simply have a conversation about it. They crack jokes, they tell stories about it, and it makes you want to go out and buy a box of peanut butter nom-nom’s. But I could see their being controversy since the way they integrate it into their show it also makes it seem like content.

Digital marketing is changing so fast fam. If you are trying to keep up with the times, make sure to follow this blog, or check it every Tuesday and Thursday. Until next time fellow smarketer…

Disclaimer: Coding is not the substance that rappers often talk about consuming with sprite and jolly ranchers. Coding is the process of assigning a code to something for the purposes of classification or identification. Two hours ago my coding skills were pretty sub-par. I have dipped my toes into it while taking MIS classes at Western Washington University. It is one thing that has always fascinated me. You have the ability to create a web-page by typing in letters, numbers, and symbols behind the scenes (HTML) to create something beautiful. I feel like you automatically impress people when you say that you can code. The response is always like, “wow! That’s impressive!”, or “wow, you must be hella smart”.

Learning how to code is like learning how to speak another language. There are all these different terms like, href  and colspan, like what in the world does that mean? Href sounds like a noise someone would make when they are out of breath. Href actually means hypertext reference, according to Ryan Tomayko. Yeah, mind blown.

Coding is an extremely good skill to have when you are trying to become the Steve Jobs (RIP) of digital marketing. Tech Cocktail wrote an interesting article talking about why coding is such a powerful skill to have when you are a marketer. We have discussed SEO in the past, and I have stressed the importance of it. One way to really use SEO in a beneficial way is to be able to read HTML text. As discussed in past posts, the Google spiders crawl through the internet and they scan HTML text. They are not able to read java script, they can’t watch your cat video, they read HTML. If you are able to code (write HTML) then you can read it too. You will be able to fix flaws, change keywords, and maximize exposure.

I am sure your Mother has told you to never judge a book by its cover. When it comes to a web page, judge a book by its cover. No one is going to take you, or your business seriously if you have an atrocious web page. If you are able to code, then you are able to learn how to create beautiful web pages from the bottom up *Drake’s Started From The Bottom song starts to play*. Side note: have you listened to Drake’s new mix-tape If You Are Reading This Its Too Late? If not, go give it a listen, but first finish reading this blog post because this is going to be the most valuable content that you read all day/ night.

We have discussed email marketing and how it is dead NOT DEAD. There are great services out there like MailChimp that allow you to create e-Newsletters, and “Send Better Email”. But if you want to really excel when it comes to email marketing, learn how to code. I have used MailChimp multiple times in the past, and those templates don’t always work how you want them too. When this happens, your coding skills come in for the rescue like SuperMan. Think about this… if you have a better email campaign… maybe it is compatible on multiple platforms (web, mobile, etc.)… and streamline… you may very well experience more opens, clicks, and higher conversions. This isn’t rocket science, my friend.

Today I went to website by the name of Codecademy. Codecademy is an awesome website that teaches you how to code. I sat down for over 2-hours, and was able to complete 4.5 lessons, which is 33% of the class *Pats myself on the back*. Since I am proud of myself, I am going to list what I learned:

1. HTML Basics
2. How to Build Your Own Webpage
3. HTML Basics II
4. Social Networking Profile
5. & 53% of HTML Basics III

BEFORE

AFTER

I know that I am not a coding expert but when I get this blog off, I am headed right back to Codecademy to finish up what I started. Can you say, “Resume building opportunity!!!”.

Codecademy is very beneficial though. I would recommend it to anyone looking to learn how to code, or sharpen their already coding skills. Go Code or Go Home!!!

Since wanting to expand my knowledge on coding, and make myself seem more reputable as a fellow digital marketing blogger, I read a write-up title, Moore’s Law Is about to Get Weird. I know, with a title like that, you HAVE to find out why its going to get weird. Speaking of weird, Wetware computing was brought up (the only thing slightly weird is the name). Wetware computing is using the concept of neurons and DNA. Cells can be thought as a type of computer, DNA provides information storage, RNA represents input, ribosomes do processing, and proteins form the output. Now imagine taking this concept, and applying it to computers *MIND BLOWN*. Wetware computing can revolutionize the security of people’s credit cards. William Ditto came up with the idea of Chaologix. Ditto has developed a neuron-inspired, chaos-based chip for applications that require a high level of security. Traditional chips embedded in credit cards generate electromagnetic fields and consume power in ways that can make it easy for hackers to steal your information. Chaologix makes it WAY harder, and more secure. Another way they could implement it is through drivers licenses. Last time I went into the DOL they told me to keep my driver’s license in a special sleeve, or else hackers will steal your information. First and foremost, there is no-way I am keeping my driver’s license in a sleeve. That is ridiculous, and like way too inconvenient. Who do they think they are??? Ditto could come through and implement Chaologix into drivers licenses so that everyone’s information is safe.

Chemical Computing was another interesting concept that was brought up in the article. A chemical reaction has inputs (reactants) and outputs (products), and processing happens during the reaction itself. While you may be thinking a lot of reactions are only one direction, which would limit their potential as computers!!! Think again Buddy, a bunch of smart Russian scientists discovered between the years of 1950-1960 a class of chemical reactions called, “BZ reactions”, that move back and forth in time. Chemical computing is used in exploring a large set of possibilities all at once. An example would be finding the shortest route in a maze or city. Chemical computing is still being explored and process improvement is something that is at the top of the list. With that said, it’s pretty slow when it comes to computing but it is getting faster.

You have all heard the term “coding” thrown around, but have you really caught it? I dare you to sit down in front of you computer, laptop, tablet, or cellphone (might be kind of hard tbh), and take a course through Codecademy. You will learn a TON and be able to brag to your friends that you know the fundamentals of coding. Until next time fellow smarketer…

The world is yours. Isn’t that a great line? That line resonated with me when I first heard it rapped over a NY-style beat in 8th grade. In this song, destined to become the seventh best rap song of all time, Nas gives tribute to the famous movie Scarface played by Al Pacino. But that is not why the song resonated with me; what stood out to me was a single line in the lyrics, “The world is yours.” This single line is still one of the most truthful and powerful statements I have ever heard. When you have the mentality that you can take on the world, and essentially own it, you cannot be stopped.

When you use a platform like Socedo, it truly does seem as if the world is yours. Socedo allows you to find new prospects and qualify them automatically by leveraging existing social media profiles. Big companies are not the only ones that can use this clever service. Think of all the authors, musicians, or even just regular people who want to promote their personal brands. Let’s take a look at one specific scenario showing how authors and musicians can utilize this platform to achieve professional success and obtain warm sales leads.

My grandfather is an author and he has written three novels in the past. Recently he signed a deal with a publisher for three more novels and they asked him to get on social-media. Since he has no social presence whatsoever, he approached me and asked me to help him with his social-media strategy. Since I am certified in Hootsuite social-media management and passionate about marketing, he thought that I would be a great candidate for the job. Naturally, I accepted his offer and for the past month have been brainstorming ways to promote his new book and generate leads when it is released. I felt like I had some good ideas, until they were all trumped when I met Aseem Badshah, the CEO of Socedo, for a digital marketing lesson on Google Hangouts. Thanks to that conversation, it dawned on me that I could save a ton of time and generate a ton of leads and product awareness by using Socedo.

One benefit of Socedo is that you can figure out who your true target audience is, where they are having conversations, and how to use the right language to really engage with them. When it gets closer to the release of my grandfather’s book, I am going to use Socedo to engage with people who are mentioning books, war novels, spy novels, and Tom Clancy on Twitter or LinkedIn. I will then look for keywords in their profiles along the lines of novelist, book-lover, avid reader, reader, and much more. This portion could be tricky and I will have to perform some A/B testing to figure out the right key words to target. When formatting Socedo’s Direct Message Template I will be sure to come off as transparent as possible. I want this portion of the Socedo journey to seem like a real interaction that intrigues my new warm lead. I will say something along the lines of, “Hi [First_name], I saw that you are a fan of #TomClancy. You should check out Jeff Layton’s new novel #YouWontBeAbleToPutItDown – [Insert hyperlink here]”. This direct message is going to cause curiosity among the warm lead and potentially will lead to a conversion. After briefly playing with these tools, I’ve become a big fan. I’m convinced that when you use Socedo, the world is yours.

Setting aside businesses and authors, when musicians figure out the value of Socedo, they will not be handing out mix-tapes on the corner of 5th and Pine (Downtown Seattle reference). As a musician I’ll use Socedo to promote my past music, upcoming shows, and future music. One way to do this is by setting your conversation keywords to something along the lines of #SeattleMusic, #UpcomingArtists, #KanyeWest, and “I need new music” (people are tweeting this on Twitter). Then I will look for Bio Keywords that consist of ‘Music’, ‘I Love Music’, ‘Record Label’, and ‘Music Producer’. Being based out of Seattle, I would use location keywords for Washington to build awareness inside my state of residence. For the Socedo Direct Message Template I would create something along the lines of, “Hey [First_Name], I saw that you like #KanyeWest. I think that you would love my newest mixtape. Here is a free download – [Insert hyperlink here].. Due to personalization, I guarantee this will generate a ton of warm leads, build awareness around a personal brand, as well as start conversions (and mix-tape downloads). When you use Socedo, the world is yours.
Socedo offers a service that lets you get creative in the way you generate leads. If you are an author or musician viewing this post, I truly hope that you are feeling inspired to take on the world. Hopefully you are discerning new ways to beat your competition with creativity and the latest set of tools. Most importantly, I hope you have that feeling like that you cannot be stopped. The world is yours.

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Picture yourself crawling through the Amazon looking for your next meal. You are stepping over fallen trees, leaping over small puddles, and the air is thick and humid. Your body has been sweating since the sun came up and it feels like you have an extra layer of skin because you are covered in a coat of mud. You are holding your spear above you right shoulder, looking around, taking in everything. Every branch that snaps causes your head to quickly inspect the vicinity in hope that it could be something to bring back to your family. You hear the echo of a howler monkey howling in the distance. You all of a sudden see something from a far which looks like a Tapir. You quietly get closer to it, trying everything possible to not scare the tapir off. You get within a good distance and dial in. You pull back the spear, and are just about to fling it as hard as you can. Your heart is pounding, your starting to feel a rush of adrenaline. You squint your eyes and tighten your grip on the spear. You take a deep breath and let it out slowly. You breathe once more, but when your lungs are filled up, you launch the spear at the tapir. The spear makes perfect contact and the tapir collapses. You feel an instant feeling of relief because you can finally feed your family that hasn’t been able to have a real meal for the past three days.

You might be thinking, “What could this possibly have to do with search engine optimization?”. Well, picture the tapir as SEO (search engine optimization). The tapir represents the dinner or the goal that you hope to accomplish. SEO is the goal that you hope to accomplish and when you have mastered it, it will lead to higher traffic, which then will lead to more leads, which then will lead to more conversions, which will then lead to money in the bank. So sit tight. Sharpen your spear (or pencil) because I am going to teach you how to kill (in the sense of making a markedly favorable impression) SEO.

So what in god’s green earth is SEO? SEO is the practice of improving and promoting a website to increase traffic from search engines. Search engines are brilliant. But they are not that brilliant. You have to spoon feed them. In the past I have blogged about this, and talked about how you can’t put a steak in front of a 2 year-old and expect them to cut it up, and then eat it. You have to cut it up for them into pieces that they can consume. The same can be said about search engines, they need their information cut-up for them. Search engines have two major functions: crawling and building an index, and providing search users with a ranked list of the websites they’ve determined are the most relevant.

Moz created a beautiful eBook on Search Engine Optimization. The eBook is packed with information pertaining to how search engines operate, how people interact with search engines, keyword usage, and much much much more. Moz is really strutting their stuff when it comes to SEO, they got it down to the T. Since their eBook is quite hefty, I am going to talk about some of the key principles of SEO.

Search Engine Optimization matters. Like really, really, really matters. In 2011, ComScore conducted a study on search engines and found that Americans conducted 20.3 billion searches in one month. WHAT? Those searchers are trying to find website’s like yours, and if they are not successful, they are going to your competitors.

To perform healthy, wholesome, GMO-free search engine optimization, you want to make sure you do a number of things. One of those being indexable content. To perform fantastically in search engine listings, your most important content should be in HTML text format. Crawlers are not able to identify images, flash files, and java applets. So for images, provide alt text. For flash and java plug-ins, add text on the page. If you do not provide text for the crawler to scan, they will get to your page, and all of your valuable information will be invisible. You can also provide a transcript from the videos you have on your site since crawlers will not be able to press play and take notes on your video.

If you feel like you are not the best at indexable content, then you can use a variety of tools to make sure that your content is able to be read by search engines. One of the most popular tools is Google Cache. This tool allows you to see what elements are visible, and what elements are invisible.

Beware: you may be shocked to see that your content is invisible to search engines.

Another important aspect of SEO is keyword usage and targeting. A big portion of SEO is keywords. But a lot of people thought that you could just put a bunch of keywords at the bottom of a post, or in the middle of a post to get high search rankings (they call this “stuffing”). Bing, Google, and Yahoo! caught onto this and made it so that they can detect when you perform this Tom Foolery, and if they do catch you they will lower your site ranking, and sometimes not even show your site. One of the best ways to optimize a page’s rankings is to ensure that they keywords you want to rank for are prominently used in titles, text, and metadata.

When you make your keywords more specific, you narrow the competition for search results, and improve your chances of achieving a higher ranking. For example, If you were selling a men’s Helmut Lang jacket and someone typed into Google, “men’s coat”, there is a high probability that it wont be seen. But say that same searcher types in, “Helmut Lang jacket men’s” there is higher chance that your site will be ranked higher and be seen.

Moz also created an awesome eBook called The Beginner’s Guide to Link Building. The concept of link building is basically having other websites include hyperlinks back to your website. The search engines are crawling through millions of sites and the more websites that give credit, or link back to your site, shows that you are a credible site. There are different ways to get websites to post hyperlinks back to your site. One way to do this is by connecting with industry colleagues. You can have them post “badges” on their site that say something along the lines of, “Check out our industry partners”. Another way is to produce GREAT content. By creating original, organic, home-grown valuable content you are increasing your chances of people sharing your content, quoting your content, and/ or using your content in their blog posts. This shows that you created this content are a valuable asset in the industry.

Moz brought up a lot of great ideas on how to perform effect link building. But one idea that they suggested that really stuck with me was the idea of guest blogging. This concept is great because it brings traffic to your site, as well as, tells the search engines that you are a credible site. Especially if you are able to get someone influential (look up their Klout score via Hootsuite!) to blog. That influential person will mention on their site that they did a guest blog post on your site, and by doing that it will send their traffic your way.

Search engine optimization really matters, it is not just a fad. In this blog post I have talked about some of the principles of search engine optimization and link building. I strongly encourage you to check out the eBook’s that I have referenced, especially if you want to become an SEO pro. Until next time my fellow smarketer…

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One thing that I have learned recently is that you want your header to have something that someone would search on Google. I can picture it right now, a small business owner, or a person who is intrigued to learn about what all this talk about “social media” is, hovering over their keyboard, typing in seven words that could revolutionize the way that they run their business. I hope that person finds this exact post.

Currently I am a marketing assistant at Bellingham Marine, the world’s most comprehensive marina builder in the world. There is no lie about it. Bellingham Marine has locations all across the world, and has built more marinas than any of their competitors. I started my position as a marketing intern in June of 2014. One of my objectives upon entering this position was, “Build a social media presence”. My first thought was, “piece of cake!”. I have been messing around with social media since MySpace, and have skills in just about every social media platform. But as I started to brainstorm how I was going to build a large audience on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, I came to the realization that it was going to be a lot harder than I thought, and it wasn’t going to happen overnight.

Before I continue with my personal story about creating a social media presence at Bellingham Marine, I want discuss what social media actually is.

A fantastically cool company by the name of Moz created an eBook titled, The Beginners Guide to Social Media. This eBook give you the serious low-down on what social media actually is, how to master it, and provides countless advice on techniques to incorporate into your social media plan. There is a lot more to social media than posting pictures, making statuses, getting likes, and comments.

Social Media is a way for people to communicate and interact online. More and more businesses are using social media because it is a way for businesses to interact with their target audience. Businesses are able to come off as a human being that display empathy, kindness, humor, and authenticity. This is valuable because it really shows that you care about you customer, it show that you want to engage in legitimate conversations with them. Your customers are online. They are talking to their friends, they are talking about what they like, what they dislike, they are asking questions, and in return, they want them answered. That is where your company comes into play. I could write 5,000 words on what social media is, I could write another 10,000 words on why social media is important for your company, but instead I am going to teach you why social media is important in under 1,500 words.

If you are unfamiliar with some of the major social media platforms, well, here is a list that I encourage you to look into:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Google+
• LinkedIn
• Youtube
• Pinterest
• Instagram

Three elements of social media that can change the way you run you business…

1. Relationships. You want to build a relationship with your target audience. This should be a no-brainer. When you have built a relationship with your customer, then they feel like they are part of your company, almost like family. You want them to “like” your page, then fall in “love” with your page, and then after that “defend” your page. When a customer is defending your company, you have hit gold. Recently I witnessed a plethora of Apple customers defending Apple on LinkedIn. They were getting into it with a bunch of PC users (classic, huh?). I was so intrigued by how passionate they were. Some had weak arguments on whey Apple was better than PC, and others had very strong arguments. They loved Apple so much that they felt the need to defend them, like they were a friend of theirs.
2. Feedback. Social media is the place for opinions. If you log onto Facebook or Twitter, you are going to read someone’s opinion. A lot of the times they are bad opinions. Ridiculing a company for their poor performance, or displeased with the customer-service that they recently received. This might at first frighten you as a company, but in reality can be extremely beneficial. You can use this feedback as a way to reach out to them to apologize. See if you can fix that problem. If you fix that problem then there is a high probability that, that customer’s friends saw you to come to the rescue. You can also learn about what your customers are frustrated about, maybe you work at RedBull, and you release a new flavor called, Pinapple Power. Your company thinks that it is the newest and greatest thing out on the market. But when you hop on Facebook and see what your customers are saying, and they are saying things like, “too sweet”, “I feel sick from all the sugar”, or “I hate how much sugar is in this RedBull”. RedBull can take this feedback and reduce the amount of grams of sugar are in each can. Feedback is good, even if it is bad.
3. Integration. When you start using social media, don’t half-ass it. Integrate it into your marketing, branding, PR, and advertising efforts. When doing so it gives your customers a better experience. This will display consistency, and cohesion.

Now that you have an idea of why social media is so important for a company, I want to continue my personal story about social media.

Bellingham Marine’s target audience is marina owners, harbor masters, and people that are involved heavily in the marina industry. This is mainly the baby-boomer generation. A lot of this generation is not on social media. Which I found it very hard to build an audience, let alone an audience that would defend Bellingham Marine. I had to do some serious analyzing on where our target audience hung out, and how to bring them over to the different social media platforms.

LinkedIn was where they were all hanging out. LinkedIn is a networking site where professionals interact and talk about recent job openings, what is going on in the business world, promote their business, and much more. Since that was where our target audience was, I decided to really promote on that social media platform. I would post in numerous marina discussion groups, and people would comment back, and express their love for our company, as well as some frustrations. By starting these discussions, and interacting with our target audience, I started to see that the engagement percentages increased, and the number of followers. Just this past week I launched a social media contest to promote our LinkedIn company page. Just in the past week we have increased our followers by 28, sitting Bellingham Marine at 608 followers.

Facebook was a different story. Bellingham Marine already had a LinkedIn before I was hired, and they had a decent amount of followers. What they didn’t have was a Facebook page. I had to build a company Facebook page from scratch for them and perform the hardest thing; acquire likes. I tried many different things including promoting the page on Facebook groups, posting beautiful pictures, recommending people to like our page, and various other social media activities. I would find myself getting quite frustrated because I wasn’t getting the return I wanted. Then I stepped back and looked at what I was posting from a customers view. I then realized I was posting things that weren’t that engaging, posting things that didn’t ask questions, and in short, no posting great content. I started to post beautiful of marina’s with captions explaining when they were built. I started posting statuses, saying things along the lines of, “Happy Friday! Bellingham Marine hopes you have a great weekend.” These were the posts that were acquiring lots of likes. Our target audience felt like we cared about them, we truly wanted them to have a great weekend. I have acquired 99 likes in the past couple months. It is not thousands but that number is rewarding to me.

My next mission was to set up an Instagram account. Instagram is an app that allows you to share only photos, and short video clips. You can “like” the photos, and also comment on them. Instagram for Bellingham Marine was more successful and I was able to acquire more followers faster. One way I really utilized this app, and made Bellingham Marine more of a human-being, was by searching for hashtags that involved marinas that we had created in the past. To my surprise there were actually people who were hashtagging Bellingham Marine before we even had an account. This was an awesome feeling, and got the staff at Bellingham Marine really excited. Every person that would use the hashtag #BellinghamMarine, I would “like” their photo and leave a comment, expressing how thankful Bellingham Marine was for promoting our brand and the marina that we built. You could tell that when I would interact with these people they would get quite excited, and show gratitude for the work that Bellingham Marine did. Another way that I was able to build an audience was by following Instagram accounts that were in the same line of business, not competitors (which is important to keep an eye on), but companies that were in the marina business. This was quite successful, in that I was able to acquire 136 followers in just a few months.

I recently read an article by The New Yorker titled, Virologist. This a fascinating article about a man by the name of Emerson Spartz. The New Yorker gave him the nick-name King of Click-Bait. If you are unfamiliar with what click-bait is, then check out this link. Mr. Spartz knows how to make things go viral. It’s his specialty. Spartz created a business called Spartz, Inc. where they create websites that contain interesting content. There specialty is creating headlines that will make you want to click on them, because they are so enticing and make you curious. An example of one title is, “This Dad Decidedto Embarass His Son in the Most Elaborate Way Possible. LOL”. Honestly, when you read that you want to press it to see what that Dad did. I also found it quite awesome that at Spartz, Inc. they name all of their conference rooms after the regions in Game of Thrones (GREAT show, can’t wait till season 5 airs on April 12th).

Spartz, Inc. also does an interesting thing called “hat tip” or H/T. You might see this abbreviation at the bottom of the article, this means that they are giving credit to another company for the article (basically re-posting their content and making money off of it).

Whenever you are creating content or posting on social media, create an AWESOME headline. Something that will pull your reader in. Something that they HAVE to click on because it could make them laugh, or even learn something they never knew. For example, say you write an article on how 85% of people are not drinking enough water each day. Make the title of that article, “85% of People Are NOT Drinking Enough Water, Are You?”. I myself would feel inclined to press on that link.

I truly hope you learned how effective social media can be for a business. Don’t be afraid to try out different things. Social Media is like a plant. You have to consistently give it water, make sure it gets some sun, and occasionally try different techniques on where you should place the plant. I had to learn from my mistakes and figure out what my target audience enjoyed. Until next time…

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