by Jaime 
The social media and internet revolution is an age where an individual can have the same impact that large corporations have. It is a time where Ashton Kutcher has the relatively same amount of followers on Twitter as CNN, one of the biggest news outlet in the world.
We have been hired in the past and present to help brand individuals online, to put them on the cybermap. Think about it for a second, would you pay $1,000, $2,000, or $100,000 to promote yourself in your career that will take you from one rung on the professional ladder to a much higher–more profitable–rung? What happens if you branded yourself on the web and took yourself from being a manager in your industry to an executive, would it be worth it?
I know you are sitting there and asking, “But, I am unknown and do not have the persona of Ashton Kutcher, this doesn’t apply to me?”
Oh contraire, I believe “regular” folks can achieve what they are looking for by promoting themselves on the web and showcasing their talents in their specific field. Think about it once again. What better resume to show a potential employer than a successful Blog, Facebook fan page or Twitter following that you have generated in your particular industry. If you have carved yourself out as the platform on the web for your field, who wouldn’t want to hire you.
How can you brand yourself?
Here are 3 quick first steps to take when beginning to take yourself online:
1. Find a niche and start a blog.
- The #1 problem for individuals when they want to promote themselves online is they want to talk about everything in their lives. One day they write about pink elephants and the next nuclear physics. Before taking the leap onto the web, find out what you know and what you want to write about. Be specific and specialize, and most importantly, write passionately about it. The better your content, the more you specialize, the more likely people will read, like, and link to your blog post. Getting links to your blog is the cornerstone to being successful, and these links only come with rich content that people find intriguing.
2. Promote yourself. Attend conferences and follow other Blogs in your niche and make comments.
- If you have the ability to be a speaker at a conference, do it. Promote your blog when you do and people will write about it and start following you. For those who are not quite to that level, follow others in your niche. Comment on their blogs with thought provoking insight and chances are their followers will check you out as well.
3. Social Networking
- Nothing spreads faster than social networks. Keeping your fans up to date via Twitter or Facebook will spread your message virally. You want to open up your brand to as many people and platforms as possible and nothing is bigger than the major social networks. Stop resisting change and embrace it.
by Jaime
We are in the business of helping small to mid-size companies with their online initiatives, from developing them a website to being their online marketing team. Many of our clients will currently have a website, and time and time again, we come across the same issues in regards to their site—SEO mistakes.
For those of you who don’t know what SEO means, SEO stands for search engine optimization, or in layman’s terms, the holy grail to get your site ranked higher within the search engine Goliaths of Google and Bing. Ensuring that your site is SEO friendly, can be the difference in blowing up your business like Puff Daddy in a rap video or tanking faster than Brittney Spears’ career.
What I have outlined for you here are 5 of the most common mistakes I see with Small and Medium-Size Businesses:
1. Poor CMS (Content Management System)
A number of CMS’s have very poor SEO capabilities. For example, they do not create title tags, headings, anchor text and/or search friendly URLs. At the same time, after the developer has turned the website over, these CMS’s are very difficult for the “non-computer geek” to add new content in the future, thus leaving the business at the mercy of the web developer who has now disappeared.
We use and advise our clients to use a CMS called WordPress. We have found WordPress to be extremely easy to add future content for small and medium businesses, while having a great SEO architecture already built into the site.
2. Flash Sites
Although flash sites are aesthetically pleasing, they are horrible to a search engine. Essentially, flash sites to a Google or Bing search engine look like just an image and the content that is on the page is not read. If the search engine is just seeing an image, they are not going to give your site authority for it to be ranked higher within the search engine—translation, flash sites es no bueno.
3. Thin Content Pages
Your website is your #1 promotional tool for your business, shout it out and explain to the world what you do. Create pages with rich content and not just an image. Thin content pages are looked at as low-quality pages by the search engines, and thus, affect your search rankings.
4. Poor Use of Anchor Text
A number of clients I see use “read more” or “click here” links. Not a good idea. Linking within your content pages is called anchor texts and they help to tell the search engines what the page you are linking to is all about. If you are putting “read more”, then the search engine thinks that next page is about…Read More.
5. No Promotion After the Site is Up
This is probably the most important of all of the mistakes. Many businesses think the job is done once their website is launched. Clients think that now that they have a website, time to see the clients walk through my door. No chance! Now is the time to let people know who you are. Get on the social media channels and express yourself and promote your website. Advertise online through the endless platforms that are available. The more people that know about your website, the better the chance they will link to you (increases your SEO rankings) and the better the chance they will be a customer–$$$.
If you have any questions or would like to talk with us in more detail, please feel free to
by Jaime
You have heard it over and over again this past year, “It’s the recession, stupid.”
The current economic state is bleak and companies small and large are struggling. Time and time again, I have heard owners of companies tell me they are cutting their marketing/advertising budgets, which makes me cringe.
A down economy or recession is NOT a time to make cutbacks to advertising, and actually, the reverse is true. Researchers from Oregon State University and Western Oregon University studied data from five recessionary periods since 1971, sampling data from 3000 firms listed on the public stock exchange. Their findings,
“Firms that are able to increase their advertising during recessions are likely to have stronger future earnings.”
I guess that quote would make the 6th reason to advertise in a recession– more future sales. Here are some others that gets your company to achieve the ultimate goal, higher profits.
Reputation
When you market during a bad economy, people see your brand and make the assumption business is good for your company. If you are able to afford to market, then the thought process for consumers, and your competition, is that you are doing something right–your product and service must be worth it.
People are looking for deals and coupons
If you look at the graph below, I have given you a snapshot of the searched terms of coupons (blue) and deals (red) and how often they have been searched since 2007. As you can tell, both terms have approximately doubled in the amount of times they are searched on any given day. Consumers are looking for deals and are turning to the internet to find them. When marketing, be cognizant of this fact and include promotions in your advertising material.
Don’t follow in your competition’s footsteps
If you are thinking about cutting back on marketing, then so is your competition. Do you really want to do what your competition is doing? Be innovative and market when they are not which leads to….
Increase market share
Marketing in a recession when others will not will increase your market share during the down times. When the economy rebounds (which it will), you will be in a much better position than your competitors.
Did you know that in 1990 Reebok and Nike were virtually the same in sales? During the 1990-91 recession, Nike tripled its advertising budget while Reebok cut back. Do I need to explain what happened? Well, when we emerged out of the recession, Nike’s profits were 9 times higher than they were going in–Reebok has been eating Nike’s dust ever since.
Internet provides cost-effective advertising
Unlike past recessions, the internet provides the ability to use the most cost-effective advertising. Companies are able to track their marketing and see real-time data on their results. When done right, and with the right people in charge, companies are able to get the maximum ROI.
Need help with getting more customers?
by admin 
We (Neptune Local) are proud to be helping the Santa Monica Chamber promote their “Taste of Santa Monica” event. This year the event should be much better/cooler than before, because they are completely overhauling the way it is setup and who will be there. I’m excited to attend the event outside of all of the work we will be doing over the next month to help promote it.
The event will be held down on the Santa Monica Pier on Sunday September 13th and Cirque Du Soleil’s new show “Kooza” will also be sponsoring it. It looks like they will have their performers down at the event mingling with the crowds and even offering some tickets to their full shows.
You can purchase a ticket to the event for $10 (only $5 for children between 2-10) and then “Taste Bucks” for additional food, beer, and wine from all the local restaurant booths. This much lower entrance price should make it a lot easier to go down with friends and families and see and taste a lot of good stuff for a reasonable price compared to years past. You can check out Taste of Santa Monica to see the list and get tickets.
They are also mixing it up appealing to a younger crowd also by having an extended Live Music & Sunset Happy Hour from 5-7pm, which I’m also happy about. Anyways hope to see some of you there this year!
As for the Neptune Local side of it all, it should be another great case study for us, and we plan on using several different social & internet marketing channels to get the word out. We will do a full case study (hopefully on the success of the event 
) later to show some cool techniques we plan on using to increase awareness and ticket sales.
