Monday, September 29, 2014

Today in 1986 - Mary Lou Retton(@marylouretton) announced that she was quitting #gymnastics. If you were able to be good at one gymnastics event, which would it be? #SSLLC #MaryLouRetton #USA

www.scriptablesolutions.com

Saturday, September 27, 2014

TRUE FACEBOOK PROMOTION IS NO LONGER FREE

One of the most important places to market your business today is via social media. No matter who your target audience members are, there’s a good chance that they are using social media to some extent and most people are logging into at least one social account on a daily basis. There’s evidence that the younger generation may be moving away from Facebook but let’s face it, it’s still the social media powerhouse for now. That’s why it’s still necessary to have an active company Facebook page.

One of the big draws to Facebook for businesses has been that it’s a free place to market your business. Obviously it’s necessary to invest resources in the upkeep and management of the page, but you didn’t need to hand any money over to Facebook in order to create a fancy page that provided a convenient outlet to engage with your target audience. In fact, it was believed that Facebook was so great that businesses started doing all they could to send people to their page. Most websites include the Facebook icon somewhere on their website homepage linking over to their Facebook page and even print advertisements exclaim, “Like us on Facebook!” Obviously Facebook has enjoyed all of this free advertising.

The thing is, somewhere along the way Facebook realized that they needed to do more to monetize the site. They were smart enough not to ask members to start paying to use the site. That would have led to a quick demise. Instead, they set their site on the businesses that had been benefiting from their free services for so long. While it’s still free to set up a Facebook page, Facebook has made it much more difficult to engage in conversations with followers. That’s because the posts that you’re sharing, along with the conversations that you’re trying to start, simply aren’t being seen by the people that like your page. Why is that? Well, Facebook has made dramatic changes to the News Feed algorithm. While you may think that your thousands of followers are seeing a post about your upcoming sale, the sad reality is that it’s likely that only a tiny percentage of your followers are seeing it. For example, one of our clients has approximately 2,500 Likes, yet their last post was “served to 10 people”. Just 10! Of 2,500! And it was only “served to” 10 people, there’s no guarantee that those 10 saw it! Is it even worth posting it at that point?

This doesn’t seem fair. These 2,500 people have opted in by Liking the page. They want to see your posts, but the behavior of Facebook users is typically only to check the News Feed and carry on with their day. They aren’t going to actively seek out every page that they like. Facebook picked up on this and essentially is now requiring business page owners to “pay to play”. Sure, it’s still free to set up a page but you’ll need to pay to “Boost” a post to ensure that even a fraction of your Facebook followers even see it. This is why true Facebook promotion today is no longer free.

Publisher: Scriptable Solutions
Source: http://www.scriptablesolutions.com/article.cfm?ArticleNumber=131

Friday, September 26, 2014

NEXT TO CHECK OFF...CHECKLIST BOARDS

Checklist Boards has just requested a new website and mobile site from Scriptable Solutions! This Rochester, New York based company designs highly effective checklist/slider boards for healthcare, dental, manufacturing, food service, and retail industries. We will be developing an ecommerce website that will be easy for users to navigate and to understand the checklist ordering process. Soon-to-be new website...Check! Soon-to-be new mobile site...Check! Soon-to-be complete and total awesomeness...Check, Check, Check!

View our web design portfolio to see some of our work.

Author: Scriptable Solutions

Source: http://www.scriptablesolutions.com/article.cfm?ArticleNumber=117

Today in 1969 – The “Brady Bunch” debuted on @ABC. Because of this show…how many of you have to eat your pork chops with applesauce? #SSLLC #BradyBunch #ABC

www.scriptablesolutions.com

Monday, September 22, 2014

Today in 1962 - @BobDylan made his first appearance at #CarnegieHall. What’s your favorite Dylan song? #SSLLC #BobDylan

www.scriptablesolutions.com

Saturday, September 20, 2014

WHY SMALL BUSINESSES CAN WIN AT SEO

Small to medium sized business owners tend to think that they might be at a disadvantage when it comes to SEO. They have less resources than their enterprise counterparts and think that it’s the money that matters the most. The more money you have, the more you can “throw at” SEO and quickly see organic search traffic increase, right? Wrong. First of all, no matter how big your SEO budget may be it doesn’t change the nature of SEO. There’s nothing “quick” about it. And second of all, SEO can actually become more difficult when the budget is bigger because there are far more people involved in the process.

Enterprise organizations may have a more significant SEO budget, but they also have their TV advertising budget, radio advertising budget, print advertising budget, direct mail budget, sponsorship budget, public relations budget, social media budget, PPC budget, etc. Each channel might also have its own department and/or outsourced agency. That’s a lot of people involved in the process! The best marketing campaigns today are integrated across all channels. When there are so many people involved it makes it that much harder to get everyone on the same page. The departments and agencies all need to form relationships with one another and have a full understanding of how each piece fits into the overall puzzle. It makes it that much easier for something to slip through the cracks.

Small businesses and SMBs typically don’t have so many “cooks in the kitchen”. For example, content has become perhaps the most vital component of an SEO campaign. Within a smaller organization, there may only be one or two people responsible for writing content. The new page of the website, possibly a blog post, can be written, optimized, approved, published, and shared in social media within a day, perhaps even within a few short hours. In some cases the content writer might even be the only person that needs to approve the content, as long as management trusts their judgment. This is even better! Within a small company there aren’t nearly as many hoops to jump through, whereas in an enterprise organization the various departments and agencies will all want a say, which prolongs review and approval time.

SEO in itself isn’t a fast moving process, but in terms of executing SEO items- why wait longer than necessary? An SMB can have a timely blog post out the door and being shared and linked to in social media and across the web much more quickly than the enterprise organization that has it sitting on the desk of the 7th person in line that needs to review it before it gets published. All of the activity (links and shares) are benefiting the SMB that might have less resources, but was quicker to the punch.

Publisher: Scriptable Solutions
Source: http://www.scriptablesolutions.com/article.cfm?ArticleNumber=130

Friday, September 19, 2014

FIRST CAPITAL PAYMENTS IS GETTING LOUD

First Capital Payments has many things to say...and Scriptable Solutions is going to help them be heard! We worked on the design and development of their current website FirstCapitalPayments.com and are ecstatic to now be handling their social media marketing! This family owned and operated credit card processing company will soon be shouting out their services and business happenings from rooftops everywhere! Get ready to open your windows and listen!

View our web design portfolio to see some of our work.

Author: Scriptable Solutions

Source: http://www.scriptablesolutions.com/article.cfm?ArticleNumber=123

Today in 1995 – #Popcorn legend Orville Redenbacher died at the age of 88. How do you pop your corn at home? In the #microwave, on the stove, or in a #popper? #SSLLC

www.scriptablesolutions.com

Monday, September 15, 2014

Today in 1953 - The National #Boxing Association adopted the 10-point scoring system for all of its matches. If you could pick a person, anyone in the world, who would you want to try and #knockout in the ring? #SSLLC

Today in 1953 - The National #Boxing Association adopted the 10-point scoring system for all of its matches. If you could pick a person, anyone in the world, who would you want to try and #knockout in the ring? #SSLLC

www.scriptablesolutions.com

Saturday, September 13, 2014

3 THINGS YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND ABOUT LINK BUILDING

This post is inspired by a great article I read by Erin Everhart at Search Engine Land. Everything she mentions are things I’ve said to a client at one point or another (sometimes more than once) because at the end of the day I can’t do my job well if our clients are pushing for something we don’t/won’t/can’t do. The better our clients understand the rules of link building the better their results will be.

Don’t go black hat (for even a minute).

More than once I’ve been asked to just “try” a spammy or black hat link building tactic to see what happens (it can’t be that bad, right?) and more than once we’ve had to put out foot down and say no. As a white hat SEO firm, Brick Marketing won’t even toe the line of black hat link building. Yes, it can work and work incredibly well. But doing well by toeing the line requires an immense amount of work and quite a bit of luck. It’s not worth the risk! We recently started working with a client that freely admitted they had cheated a little bit when it came to their link building (as white hat as black hat can be, according to them), but thought that it was pretty minimal compared to their competitors; they assumed they’d be fine. Turns out they weren’t fine. They got hit hard by Penguin and it took two years to fully recover! In that time their entire SEO campaign was in fix-it mode, and they lost a lot of ground because they didn’t grow.

Link building never ends.

Erin make a great point; “Can you go to the gym for three months, stop and then expect to keep those ten pounds off?” The same is true for link building. You can coast on your past link building efforts for a little while, but if you aren’t actively seeking new link building opportunities sooner or later you’re going to run out of steam and the coasting will come to an end. While the future of links is up in the air (Google has said they are still important, although many wonder just how important they will be in a few years), until we know otherwise links are a huge factor in determining the authority and relevancy of your website. There is only one #1 spot and you can bet that every single one of your competitors is gunning for your number one spot. If you give up on your link building how long can you really hold it?

Great links don’t just appear.

Yes, when you first start your link building campaign chances are there are few “easy win” links that you can scoop up to kick start your link building. But fairly quickly those links disappear and most of your link building is tedious, time consuming, and very manual. Great links don’t usually fall into your lap (although if they do you better run with them!), they are the result of a lot of digging and researching and manual outreach. It might take several days, if not weeks, to finally nail down that great link. You might have to pitch several sites, write 3 or 4 pieces of content, go back and forth about establishing a partnership, and more in order to lock down that link.

Publisher: Scriptable Solutions
Source: http://www.scriptablesolutions.com/article.cfm?ArticleNumber=129

Friday, September 12, 2014

WEALTH MANAGEMENT IS CREATING A RICH FOLLOWING

Wealth Management Group has just selected Scriptable Solutions to handle their social media marketing! This Rochester, New York based financial company has been assisting individuals with personal wealth planning since opening its doors in 1998. Our sharp-witted social media team is adding in their 2 cents and designing a social campaign that will be worth its weight in gold! Plan on sharing the wealth people!

View our web design portfolio to see some of our work.

Author: Scriptable Solutions

Source: http://www.scriptablesolutions.com/article.cfm?ArticleNumber=118

It’s National #Chocolate #Milkshake Day! Who do you think makes the best milkshakes? FYI: Our milkshakes bring all the boys to the yard. #SSLLC

www.scriptablesolutions.com

Monday, September 8, 2014

Today in 1952 - The Ernest Hemingway #novel "The Old Man and the Sea" was published. What was the best or worst book you had to read in high school? #SSLLC #ErnestHemingway

www.scriptablesolutions.com

Saturday, September 6, 2014

MARKETERS TO FOCUS ON CROSS-DEVICE ADVERTISING IN 2014

There is an increasing number of people using more than one device every day, including tablets, smartphones, laptops and desktop computers. This means it is imperative for marketers to focus on cross-device advertising in order to target users across multiple channels.

More and more marketers in the US seem to understand the importance of cross-device advertising, results from a Conversant poll carried out earlier this year show. Some 59% percent of senior-level marketers and agency decision-makers said that cross-device marketing is the digital tactic they intend to start using more of in 2014. Cross-device advertising is closely followed by video advertising, which was mentioned as a preferred channel by 57% of marketers.

In order to make cross-device advertising an integral part of their marketing efforts and ensure it delivers the desired results, marketers are feeling like they need to delve into the details and improve their knowledge of this marketing method, eMarketer reports. Marketers are increasingly looking to extend their understanding of cross-device advertising, with 70% of industry professionals stating that cross-device advertising is the field they want to learn more about this coming year, according to a survey conducted by Bovitz on behalf of Conversant.

Mobile advertising is a medium that 61% of US marketers want to learn more about and is also the second most widely used marketing channel in the country. Display, meanwhile, emerged as the most popular marketing technique among professionals, coming ahead of social advertising. Social, surprisingly, was not so popular and just 41% of marketers want to know more about it. This is probably because marketers have been studying the trend for several years.

Publisher: Scriptable Solutions
Source: http://www.scriptablesolutions.com/article.cfm?ArticleNumber=128

Friday, September 5, 2014

Today in 1698 - Russia's Peter the Great imposed a tax on beards. What’s the grossest thing you’ve ever seen stuck in a beard? #SSLLC

Today in 1698 - Russia's Peter the Great imposed a tax on beards. What’s the grossest thing you’ve ever seen stuck in a beard? #SSLLC

www.scriptablesolutions.com

VTI IS LIGHTING UP SOCIAL NETWORKS EVERYWHERE

Virtual Training Innovation has just turned over their social media marketing to Scriptable Solutions! This Santa Clara California company has developed a way to simplify and stream-line the training process for businesses across the nation, using its state-of-the-art cloud-based training system. Our social media experts (that's the title they gave themselves) are pumping up VTI's popularity on all the social networks. By the time we are through, VTI will have paparazzi following them all around town. "No pictures please!"