Here are three steps to creating a “campaign” that will last:

1. Build a minimum viable audience with useful, educational, and entertaining content.
2. Listen carefully to their frustrations, fears, problems, and desires.
3. Create or adapt products and services that better serve them.

– Robert Bruce

via Traditional Advertising is Truly Dead | Copyblogger.

I love WordPress.com because you can have a website where ordinary people can update their content without paying for web hosting, graphic design and web development.

As an example of this concept, I built a new website today using only a free email address from Gmail.com and a free account from WordPress.com.

My new business, Cape Town Small Business Websites, now has a Search Engine Optimized, Mobile-Friendly website with a blog section and a Contact Form.

Cape Town Small Business Websites - Creating websites for small businesses in Cape Town

If you would like my help to get your Cape Town-based small business onto the internet without breaking the bank, then please use this form:

The social media landscape changes rapidly and keeping up with the latest numbers is an essential part of continuing to make your marketing relevant and focused. – Jeff Bullas

via 48 Significant Social Media Facts, Figures and Statistics – Plus 7 Infographics | Jeffbullas’s Blog.

WordPress.com Mobile Themes

It is becoming more and more important to optimize your website for mobile.

The Smartphone is transforming communication and publishing.

490 million smartphones sold in 2011. – Jeff Bullas

When a visitor browses to your WordPress.com blog website using a mobile device, WordPress.com will show special themes designed to work on small screens focusing on fast load times.

Some WordPress.com themes are mobile-ready, also called “responsive width”, that adapt themselves to the device of the user.

However all WordPress.com themes are already mobile-friendly by default. The Minileven theme (a modification of Twenty Eleven) is displayed on modern mobile devices.

Users using older mobile devices  will see a version of the WordPress Mobile Edition theme.

WordPress.com also provides a special theme called Onswipe for the iPad.

So by using WordPress.com your website is already mobile-ready without you having to  do anything.

Just another great reason why you should be using WordPress.com for building your Web Presence.

Sources:

WordPress.com Mobile Themes

WordPress.com vs WordPress.org

3 Steps To Success With Digital Marketing – Jeff Bullas

See also:

Why you should be using WordPress.com for creating a Web Presence – Brian Currin

So, if your brand is still avoiding embracing technology, or the exposure of social media, for fear of dissection and criticism, alas, your time is running out. This wave of rapid conversation shows no signs of receding; if Nandos and Santam are anything to go by, it’s in full force.  – Edward Fisher

via Chicken a la King(sley) James: Nando’s vs Santam.

The Yoga Factor

The quick version:

People need to Find You and Talk To You.

Finding you is called Marketing and talking to you is called Sales.

I have now just saved you 3 years of study at University.

Yes, it is that simple.

A WordPress.com website is the perfect tool for marketing and sales without breaking the bank, especially if you are passionate about your business and would like to get involved with your own online promotion.

I love WordPress.com because you can have a website where ordinary people can update their content without paying for web hosting, graphic design and web development.

Not that those things are wrong, of course, but you can always build up towards having them as your business and brand grows.

Some examples in action:

• The Yoga Factor
• The Lyzyrd Kyngs
• Blk Sonshine
• Crimson Chrysalis
• RockFest Radio
• Billy Forrest
• 1001 South African Songs
• Rhythm Records (The Label)

Some of my pending projects that will be using WordPress.com:

• Triple M Entertainment
• Stars Of Africa Football Academy
• Masauko Chipembere (from Blk Sonshine)
• The Production Person

The long version:

WordPress.com is a hosting platform that utilizes the same WordPress software that anyone can download from WordPress.org.

With WordPress.com, the hosting and managing of the software is taken care of for you.

With the freestanding WordPress.org software, you need to install it on your own server or a 3rd party hosting provider.

WordPress.com Benefits

• It’s free and much easier to set up
• Everything is taken care of: setup, upgrades, spam, backups, security, etc.
• Your website / blog is on hundreds of servers, so it’s highly unlikely it will go down due to traffic
• Your content is backed up automatically
• You get extra traffic from the WordPress.com community
• Your dashboard is secure (SSL) making it even safer to log in on shared networks

WordPress.com Cons

• Provides 170+ themes (and adding more every day), but you cannot upload a custom theme
• You can’t modify the PHP code behind your blog
• You can’t upload plugins

If you are a web developer, or you are happy to pay a web developer for their time, here are the benefits of WordPress.org:

WordPress.org (self-hosted) Benefits

• Ability to upload themes
• Ability to upload plugins
• Great community
• Complete control to change code if you’re technically minded

However, for me, the Cons far out-weigh the Benefits:

WordPress.org (self-hosted) Cons

• You need a good web host, which can get expensive.
• Requires more technical knowledge to set up and run
• You’re responsible for stopping spam
• You have to handle backups
• You must upgrade the software when a new version comes out
• If you get a huge spike in traffic your site will probably go down unless you have a robust hosting setup

Why I love WordPress.com

For no charge, WordPress.com provides web hosting, unlimited database storage with redundancy and backups, automatic software upgrades, community support forums, multi-lingual administration and themes, real-time traffic stats, comment tracking, blog and post rankings and other features not available anywhere else. These features will always be free for blogs started on WordPress.com.

WordPress.com offers paid upgrades as a way to provide premium features without forcing people to host their website / blogs elsewhere. These upgrades are optional.

• Currently over 170 themes to choose from, some are Premium, but most are Free.
• Integrated Statistics on where your visitors are coming from, and a whole lot more.
• Excellent support available from fellow users (on Forums) and WordPress staff.
• Robust server back ups.
• Multiple users, great for clubs, communities, bands and so on.
• Mobile-friendly

Resources for this article:

WordPress.com, WordPress, and WordPress.org

The Features You’ll Love

This Friday, March 30, 2012, all Facebook business Pages will be migrated across to the new-look Timeline layout.

This means that the Facebook Page you have worked so hard to set up with its welcome page and long profile image, will shortly be turned on its head.

via The Facebook Timeline Countdown Is Ticking: Update Your Page This Week | Baker Marketing.

Cape Town Business Building Workshop

ICT and Mobile Focus 30 & 31 May 2012

DATE: Wednesday, 30 May to Thursday, 31 May 2012 from 8:00 – 16:00

VENUE: 5th Floor, 125 Buitengracht Centre, Buitengracht Street, Cape Town
Venue sponsored by Bandwidth Barn http://www.bandwidthbarn.org

(Download the map here)

PRICE: R 1 950 per person (incl. VAT) – SAINe members and groups of 5 and more receive 10% discount.
An invoice will be e-mailed to you.

Opportunity: Refer a friend and get R500.00 discount

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER for this workshop.

For more information about this workshop and the speakers please CLICK HERE

This workshop is part of the Business Building Workshop Series 2012

Planning your Business in the Knowledge Economy Paradigm:
The Knowledge Economy by Awie Vlok, University of Stellenbosch

Business Modelling by Awie Vlok
Business strategy and planning by Awie Vlok

Funding, Pitching and Support:

Funding and the funding landscape in South Africa by Alexandra Fraser, Research Analyst, Invenfin
Incubators and other funding models by Chris Vermeulen, General Manager, Bandwidth Barn

Branding and Marketing your Business
Branding your business by Karl and Ida Mynhardt, Owners, K&I Design Studio

Networking, marketing and communication – Your online identity, Market research, Crowdsourcing, Social media by Bruce Wade, Programme Manager, Cape Town Activa.

The marketing landscape: Traditional marketing and online marketing. Your complete marketing strategy. Customer profiling and creating market value by Brian Currin, Web Marketer.

Networking and Communication:How to use crowdsourcing and social media in your business by Eric Edelstein

Intellectual Property (IP), Technology trends – roadmaps and -transfer; Mobile Technologies and Platforms:
IP and the IPR Act by Chris de Villiers and Dr Joanne van Harmelen, Patent Attorneys, Spoor and Fisher

Technology trends and roadmaps technology transfer ; The Mobile Ecosystem Laid Bare by Amhed Kajee, Managing Director, Cellsmart Technologies

Who should attend?
Entrepreneurs, Small business owners, CEO’s and employees of ICT and mobile SMME’s, new product developers, IT developers, Project managers, any person who would like to start their own ICT and mobile business, IT department managers and any other entrepreneur or business owner that uses, or would like to use ICT or mobiles in their business to one extend or another.

If you or your company is not in the ICT and mobile industry and would like to learn more about the benefits of using new technologies in your business to remain stay on top of your business, the Business Building Workshop Series is also for you.

SPEAKERS (From left to right): Awie Vlok (University of Stellenbosch); Dr Joanne van Harlemen (Spoor and Fisher); Bruce Wade (Cape Town Activa); Chris Vermeulen (Bandwidth Barn); Alexandra Fraser (Invenfin); Chris de Villiers (Spoor and Fisher); Ahmed Kajee (Cellsmart); Brian Currin (Web Marketer); Karl & Ida Mynhardt (K&I Design Studio); Eric Edelstein (Evly)

OTHER SPEAKERS: more speakers to come…

For more information about this workshop and the speakers please CLICK HERE (http://www.riis.co.za/cape-town-business-building-crash-course-1112april )

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER for this workshop.

About the Business Building Workshop Series:
The ‘Business Building Workshop Series 2012′ is based on the SAFIPA ICT and Mobile Business Building Programme, which was originally compiled by RIIS for ICT and mobile entrepreneurs and small business owners/managers as well as IT departments across all sectors. The ‘Business Building Workshop Series 2012′ is designed for all and open to other sectors beyond the ICT and Mobile Industry.

Kind Regards,

Linda Swart | Marketing Coordinator

Research Institute for Innovation and Sustainability

Suite M36, Innovation Centre, The Innovation Hub, Pretoria

W: www.riis.co.za
T: +27 12 844 0672
E: linda@riis.co.za

A few months ago, Google introduced their own social networking platform with the intention of entering the ring to contend for the social media crown against the likes of Facebook and Twitter. This platform, simply dubbed Google + (pronounced Google Plus), showcases quite a few similar features as its leading competition. So as a musician, you may be asking yourself ‘why would I even bother if I’m already on Facebook and Twitter? Do I REALLY need to update yet another social account??’.

Well frankly, the answer is yes, you really do need to get yourself set up on Google + and the reasons as such are quite simple.

via The Musicians Guide to Google + – MTT – Music Think Tank.

Google is poised to completely alter how websites market themselves over the next year. While easing users into changing search results pages, Google has also designed a new method for websites to structure data so that its crawler can better pull information. This is a tremendous strategy. Google doesn’t need to own all of the information in the world, but does own the methods of accessing that information — as well as the ability to advertise to people who use that access. - Brian Whalley

via Google Will Change Web Marketing in 2012 – Brian Whalley – Harvard Business Review.

First, it creates a huge incentive for advertisers to capture +1s for their Google Plus brand pages, just as these advertisers now spend money capturing likes on Facebook. If advertisers previously didn’t care much about their Google Plus pages, they might very well now. – David Rodnitzky

How Google AdWords is Becoming More Social | Jeffbullas’s Blog.

Tick.

Verified: Authorship markup is correct for this page.

Success.

Webmaster Tools – Rich Snippets Testing Tool

Google+ (pronounced Google Plus) Business Pages are a great way for promoting your business and especially for marketing music artists, bands, labels, studios, retail stores and other businesses involved in the promoting and selling of music.

This is not an either / or with a Facebook Brand Page. There is no need to choose which place to be. In fact, it is important to be on both places, as Facebook has over 800 million users currently and  Google is, by far, the most popular search engine on the planet.

My Google+ Page is at https://plus.google.com/110464835235151479946/

So when are you planning to add Google+ to your online presence and web marketing activities?

Image supplied by www.freedigitalphotos.net

Having a website to promote your brand and business is very important, but if nobody sees it then it is not much use.

It is like having a billboard next to a gravel road in the middle of nowhere.

As much as we might like to think otherwise, the world is not looking for you specifically. If they were, they could just type your web address i.e. briancurrin.com directly into the address bar of their favourite browser and up would pop your website.

What people are looking for is solutions to their problems, and if your website offers the right solution, then it needs to appear on the first page of search results.

Assuming that your website is already search optimized (though many aren’t) here are a few ideas on how to drive traffic to your website.

Facebook Brand Pages

Creating a Facebook Brand Page is essential now. These pages work very well for big corporates, but are also proving highly effective for small businesses. A Facebook Page is another portal to your website and when you post comments and status updates on your wall you can include links to your website.
http://facebook.briancurrin.com

Paper.li

This portal allows you to create your own online newspaper aggregating information from the Twitter, Blog, RSS and Facebook sources that you choose. Paper.li automatically produces daily news, which means every day there is at least one new quality link to your website.
http://paper.li/briancurrin

Google Adwords

Over 90% of searches done on the internet use the Google search engine. Adverts appear above and on the right-hand side of search results which try and match what it is you are searching for.

Google Adwords provides a very effective pay-per-click method of driving traffic to a website, and they also supply extensive analytic information to help with the adjusting and tweaking of this online advertising medium.

Are you using any of these tools and platforms to help grow your business?

These Ads appear based on what people are searching for and Google does not require you to log-in, so these Ads tend to be based on what you are looking for.

On the other hand Facebook Ads are targeted at people more specifically.

Why do I get so many Facebook ads for Over 50′s dating sites?

Because Facebook knows I am over 50 and single.

I find this a bit intrusive though.

It is great from a marketing perspective, but surely people don’t like being targeted that directly.

I know I don’t, so I tend to ignore all Facebook ads.

Have you created a Fan Page, but now you’re wondering – “How Do I Get People to ‘Like’ my Page? If so, you’re not alone. Many people struggle with getting Fans. Here are 10 ways to get more Fans. – Joy Fleming

via 10 Ways to Get More Fans on Facebook | Social Media Today.

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Google search: social media consultant cape town