Imagine That!

post by
Paul Wackell – Web Designer – Social Media Consultant – Marketing Consultant
Imagine Web Designs

It’s that time again, the time you dread each month, or day, or week depending on the schedule you set up and promised you’d keep. Time to write another blog entry!

Now I know as pupils of mine (okay I can dream) you realize the influence blogging can have on your business. The roll it plays in marketing and in social media. It doesn’t have to be just another one of those things that stress you out so much that they keep you up at night. But you made a promise to your self and you intend to keep it.

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Posted by
Paul Wackell – Web Designer – Social Media Consultant – Marketing Consultant
Imagine Web Designs

The following business owner is fictional. He is a composite of many business owners I’ve come across in my travels (including me). The names have been changed to protect the innocent (Dragnet reference for the kids in the crowd and not the Dan Ackroyd version.) And he is speaking in the first person! Its as though there are voices in my head!!

Business owner mental rant (not Dennis Miller) -  I don’t have time to go out with friends anymore, or go to the game, or read a book, or figure out who this Justin Bieber kid is, or have a life! I own a business!! That’s my life, that’s it! Particularly in the this crappy economy, (pardon my political incorrectness – did I say crappy economy, I meant to say the Summer of Recovery, Mr. Biden). I spend all my time chasing new business and holding on to those clients I have!

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Posted by
Paul Wackell – Web Site Designer – Social Media Consultant
Imagine Web Designs

I think my previous post should be required reading for all New Hampshire politicians. Social media strikes again. It has been reported by CNN that New Hampshire state legislator Timothy Horrigan resigned after making comments in a Facebook thread about the death of Ted Stevens with the comment “Well a dead Palin wd be even more dangerous than a live one…she is all about her myth & if she was dead she cldn’t commit any more gaffes,”

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Posted by
Paul Wackell – Web Designer – Inbound Marketing Consultant
Imagine Web Designs

Social media has become the lifeblood of personal and business communication recently and despite those who thought is was just a fad, it has outlived the pet rock, mood rings, pop rocks and other cultural icons from my youth. (No – the hula hoop was before my time).

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Post by
Paul Wackell – Principal Designer – Marketing Consultant
Imagine Web Designs

So you have a small business, you are marketing like crazy, business is coming in and you’ve finally decided this internet thing isn’t a fad and you want to jump on board. So what do I need to know.

Well first things first, you are late to the party (unless your business is new). The web has long since grown past the fad thing into one of the most powerful marketing tools and market places in the history of the world. And that’s not being overly dramatic! (Saying Keanu Reeves is the best actor of our time, is being overly dramatic – not to mention, nuts!). I could go on for hours about the importance of the web for business here, but I won’t (I can hear your applause) instead I”ll jump to the heart of the issue.

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Post by
Paul Wackell – Imagine Web Designs
Principal Website Designer – Inbound Marketing Consultant

So you’ve decided it’s time to redesign your less than spectacular website the neighbor’s kid did for your years ago, or worse yet, you finally realized this internet thing isn’t fad and its time to jump on the bandwagon (better late than never I guess) and build a website for your business.

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Post by
Paul Wackell – Imagine Web Designs
Principal Website Designer – Inbound Marketing Consultant

According to that great Rolling Stones tune, Time is on my side – yes it is, Time is on my side, yes it is – however, if you are a small business owner, no it’s not, particularly when it comes to marketing your business, especially with all this new social media junk. What’s a business owner to do?

Social media marketing or inbound marketing is all the rage these days mainly because it works. One of the best features of many of these media vehicles is that they are free. But in this case free doesn’t mean there isn’t some cost associated with them. Usually there is no direct cost, you don’t have to pay to set up a Facebook page, or Twitter account, or Blog, its not like buying an advertising package on a local radio station. But there is an ancillary cost – your time.

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Post by
Joan A. Wackell – Maestro Strategic Marketing
The Marketing Maestro

A few weeks ago I heard an optometrist (www.drtomasino.com) speak about the joy she gets from her work. She only had 45 seconds to present her thoughts (that’s our BNI chapter rule). Anyway, she did it with such relish – something about removing foreign bodies from someone’s eyes and the relief that her client gets from that- I was impressed.

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Post by
Paul Wackell – Imagine Web Designs
Principal Designer – Marketing Consultant – and No Jack Kerouac!

You finally dealt with the fact that blogging is a great way to add content to your website, improve your search engine rankings, network, spread your brand around, (yea right – someone told you, you needed to blog so you are), but now what, you got nothin to say!

So do what I’m doing and steal a page from Seinfeld and blog about – nothing!

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Post by
Paul Wackell – Imagine Web Designs
Principal Website Designer – Inbound Marketing Consultant

There’s an advertisement playing on a local radio station that begins “we know that radio advertising still brings the best return on investment for your advertising dollar” – Really? REALLY?!?! I know the ad is self serving as it is a radio station trying to sell advertising on their own station, but REALLY?!?! Did I just wake up on another planet, or in the early part of the twentieth century before the invention of television, when radio was the big man on campus?

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