The Official
Moosylvania Blog

Team tLF made it to Strangeloop again this year, and once again we were impressed with the quality of speakers, the organization of the event, and how much this conference has grown in just one year. With over 900 developers attending from around the globe, it’s great to see the St. Louis development community host such a great event. (more…)

When Lisa and I were at MarketSTL last Fall, we found that the topic that generated the most SEO questions from St. Louis business owners was local search listings. Many business owners were confused about which factors influence the local search rankings and how they can manage their own listings. Thus, my inspiration for this 3 part series on local search engine optimization.

This three-course Local SEO meal includes:
Part 1: The Basics in 3 Steps
Part 2: What Factors Influence Local Search Rankings?
Part 3: Troubleshooting Local SEO issues

Alright, let’s get started with Part 1 – here are 3 simple things you can do right now to lay the groundwork for local search engine optimization.

1. Claim and optimize your listing NOW
Many business owners are surprised to find that their business is already listed in the local listings for major search engines and other local directories. This is because local directories pull in business data from data service providers, websites and other sources, and somewhere along the way they found your business. This isn’t always optimal because sometimes they have outdated or just plain incorrect information. It’s time to take control…

Tips on optimizing your listing:

• Business Title – Include a keyword phrase here only in a way that makes sense for your business, overdoing it will result in a low click through rate.
• Description – Include keywords in your description but again don’t stuff it. This is your chance to tell the world about your business, so write something meaningful.
• Categories — Select only the most relevant categories. Selecting categories that are not highly relevant to your business won’t help you attract visitors and won’t help the search engines learn about your business.
• Photos — If you have an office or a store that customers visit, add a photo of the building to help people find it. If you don’t have a location that customers visit, upload other tempting photos such as the delicious dishes you serve at your restaurant.
• Yes, fill out your listing completely.

Claim it:

• Google
• Yahoo
• Bing

2. Get MORE citations
Once you have claimed your listing in the major search engines, the goal is to get your business listed with consistent info in many local directories. A great place to start is GetListed.org, which also links out to Localeze, another helpful site for local SEO. Follow the same best practices as above when creating new listings, and most importantly, make sure you are submitting consistent information.

3. Ask for Reviews
Not only do most SEO’s agree that customer reviews influence local search rankings, but this step will help you convert traffic off of your local business listing. How many times have you selected the restaurant or bar that has 5 stars and rave reviews over the one with none? In addition to SEO benefits, encouraging happy customers, friends and family to post positive reviews of your business lays the groundwork for reputation management, another topic for another day…

That’s a wrap for Part 1 – Complete those 3 simple steps and you’ll already be ahead of much of your competition. I hope you found the first segment in this series on local SEO helpful. Stay tuned for Part 2, and don’t forget to share with the local business owner in your life!

Yep, it’s almost time for everyone’s favorite Hallmark holiday, and if you’re left scrambling for a gift idea for the top Internet Marketer in your life, you’re in luck. Below is a list of 15 things that are sure to make your favorite SEO, PPC, or Social Media Space Ranger swoon. (more…)

As some of you may have heard, The Loud Few recently put on our home brewing hats and launched an 18-hour brewing marathon that resulted in three Loud Few Brews that were delivered to clients over the holiday season. (more…)

Last week Lisa and I attended Day 1 of the Integrated Marketing Summit in St. Louis, which was held at the Hyatt Regency downtown. IMS aims to be the signature summit for marketing and sales professionals in both B2B and B2C markets throughout the U.S. The agenda for the summit included hot integrated marketing communication topics such as content strategy, integrating online and offline media, and social media marketing; and the panelist lineup included some of my favorite local speakers and online marketing colleagues. (more…)

Last week I had the pleasure of presenting at MarketSTL, a local conference focused on helping business owners in St. Louis learn how to optimize their online presence. The conference pulled in some of the region’s top experts on topics such as search engine optimization, social media, video and website analytics. The audience included a solid mix of local business owners and professionals in online marketing and related fields.

The day kicked off with a great keynote from Jason Tinnin (@jasontinnin) of SimpleFlame (@simpleflame)that was charged with energy, humor, and some solid nuggets of advice such as the importance of finding a trusted advisor as a partner in your web strategy, and treating social media like courting – “You can’t just walk up and say ‘Hey, you wanna get married?’”

After the keynote got everyone fired up, I attended Russ Henneberry’s (@russhenneberry) “Using Content to Drive Hot Referrals” presentation. There was great content (no surprise) in this presentation, and Russ has energy. We gave him kudos for being so LOUD and even gave him an honorary Loud name of Loudenberry.

Up next was the Local Search panel, which I joined along with Will Hanke (@TechLH) and Rachel Boone (@trileafdesigns). This session was an open discussion format in which we introduced the importance of local search and encouraged the audience to ask questions relating to local search and local SEO. The audience had a LOT of questions – clearly the search engines have a long way to go in communicating with local businesses. Google has taken some steps in a positive direction lately by partnering with the US SBA on a site called “Tools for Online Success” which offers video-based tips for small businesses.

Other helpful sites mentioned in this discussion:

• Get Listed
• LocalEze
• And of course Google, Yahoo and Bing local resources

In the afternoon Lisa and I attended Jim Barnthouse’s (@jimbarnthouse) session on incorporating video into your online marketing strategy. Jim provided a lot of great tips on optimizing your video strategy for the web and shared a lesson learned from a Youtube casino incident.

Next up was Melissa Gilliam (@milligfunk) on Planning for Success in Social Media. Melissa shared many social media tips and tricks that she’s picked up along the way as a world traveler, blogger, photographer, freelance writer and Marketing Director for the YMCA.

I had the honor of closing out the day with my website analytics presentation. Be sure to check out the slides and free analytics metric dashboard.

That’s a wrap for all of the sessions that I attended at this Fall’s MarketSTL Conference. I had a great time, and enjoyed meeting many talented people and motivated business owners from the St. Louis area.

Note to speakers and attendees: If you have any slides or notes from the day that you’d like to share, let me know and I’ll add links to this post.

About the Author
Erin Steinbruegge is a Partner and Lead Marketing Strategist at The Loud Few who specializes in search engine marketing strategy. You can learn more about her here or follow her on twitter at twitter.com/steinburglar.

There are 500 million Facebook users. Twitter now has 105,779,710 registered users. Anyone from 12 years old to 62 years old and up are actively involved in social media, including your Mom, your Grandma, your children, your friends, your coworkers and your clients. And by extension, social media participation, while creating new opportunities, is also creating new challenges for families and professionals alike. So how do you create balance?

That’s what local St. Louis bloggers and social media professionals discussed in a panel format at the Social Media Club – St. Louis’ Social Media Family event, which was hosted by Fleishman-Hillard and sponsored by Chevy Cruze. Chris Heuer, founder of Social Media Club, started the traveling event to help families and professionals understand the opportunities and challenges of social media and family life.

Chris moderated the St. Louis discussion, and the panel was comprised of the following local bloggers and St. Louis social media professionals:

Todd Jordan (@tojosan)- Active in social media since the Bulletin Board System (BBS) days, Todd is an “old school geek”. His kids have been exposed to technology from an early age, with the youngest online since kindergarten. Todd blogs about kids, life and families on Dadomatic.com and on his own blog, Broad Brush.

Kristina Sauerwein (@sourwine) – After becoming a mother, Kristina channeled her passions into blogging. She is an author, freelance writer and editor who is well known for her “mom influence” in the parenting community and her contributions to BabyCenter’s Momformation.

Melody Meiners (@cosmosgirl) – Founder and managing editor of Girls Guide to the Galaxy, Melody is a freelance writer and interactive marketing consultant. She is the founder of St. Louis Women in Media, a local women’s networking group, a partner at STLFamilyLife.com and maintains a personal blog at MrsSmartyPants.com.

Doug Terfehr (@dougterfehr) – Doug is a marketing communications and social media professional at Fleishman-Hillard. Doug is passionate about Red Bull and has introduced his entire family, including his 7 year old son, to Facebook.

Here are some highlights of key questions and responses from the panel:

Chris: “How do you manage multiple identities online, when your friends, your families and your coworkers can see everything?”

Todd—A strange transition for him came with the “reversing of roles” that occurred when his parents came online. Although he’s been a participant in social media for at least ten years, and that he helped his son get online within a couple years of preschool, he still suddenly felt like “the kid again” once his parents were online. Since social media use has become more popular he has to self-censor a bit more than he had to in the past.

Kristina—She feels like she’s managing multiple identities and tiptoeing so she doesn’t offend anyone. But managing several roles is nothing new to a mom – as a wife, a mother, an employee – mothers have to constantly try to balance these roles in life. This experience just transitions to the online space.

Doug—75-80% of his social media activity is pushing content for clients. Doug has no fear of personally expressing himself via the same social media channels because he feels we all want to have that connection with other people.

Melanie—A self-professed “Generation Me”, she doesn’t censor herself. But, Melanie lives by the rule: If you wouldn’t want your mother to hear something then you shouldn’t say it or post it online.

Chris: “What is TMI to you in social media?”

Kristina—Is admittedly a “TMI person”. Kristina is comfortable with revealing personal details, like pregnancy and delivery details. But, if someone has asked her not to post something or would clearly not want her to speak about the subject online, she would not share that information. She does, though, sometimes enjoy the way her husband rolls his eyes when she threatens to share things, like when he’s in a bad mood. But, of course, she would never post anything he wouldn’t want her to share.

Todd— His rule is to keep it simple and not talk about the topics that he wouldn’t want to talk about with someone else anyway. Although the temptation is there and people will try to get information out of you, you shouldn’t share things that are risky.

Doug—Although he would like to say he has great censoring abilities, his colleagues would tell us that the brain to keyboard censoring delay doesn’t always work. However, his rule of thumb: If he can’t say it to his boss, an intern, his parents or children, he should not say it online in social media channels.

The “Lactivist-Booby Battles”

When the panel conversation shifted to negative reactions online, Melanie shared a story that will probably go down in #SMCSTL history as the “Lactivist-Booby Battles” episode.

When she was pregnant, Melanie blogged that she was considering bottle-feeding. She quickly found there were “lactivists that will have your head, and there were comments on my blog that made me want to crumble.”

Kristina, who had a similar experience, was inspired by the controversy surrounding the breastfeeding vs. bottle-feeding topic, so she blogged about “The Booby Battles” on BabyCenter.com.

Todd pointed out an important point: You always have the option to shut blog comments off, and it’s okay to do this if it’s necessary.

Children Social Media

There were many topics discussed by the panel and audience, including the appropriate age to introduce children to social media, whether parents should take “The Big Bad Internet” mentality and try to keep their kids social media-free, or embrace social media and take the “Stay One Step Ahead of the Kids” approach so they can monitor their children’s activity. The panelists felt that good parenting is good parenting – whether offline or online, and parents need to decide what boundaries are appropriate for their family.

Overall, the event was a success, thanks to the panelists for sharing their life experiences and stories with the group. It was also nice to hear details and personal experiences from local St. Louis Mommy and Daddy bloggers. I think it would be interesting to hear the perspective of their spouses and other family members too; to gain full circle view of the impact social media has on the entire family – perhaps a suggestion for Social Media Family 2011?

And of course, a thank you to Chevy Cruze, Fleishman-Hillard and Social Media Club St. Louis for your support.

Related Posts:

An Editorial Calendar Template For You (and Your Sanity!)

Beyond the Cocktail Party: Making Social Media Work for Your Business

About the Author
Erin Steinbruegge is a Partner at The Loud Few who specializes in interactive marketing strategy. You can learn more about her here or follow her on twitter at twitter.com/steinburglar.

UPDATED Oct. 12, 2010:

Last week I presented at local St. Louis online marketing conference, MarketSTL. The topic of my presentation was website analytics, a topic that I felt was relevant and important for all meeting attendees – business owners and marketing professionals alike – since creating a marketing plan that is measurable should be high on everyone’s priority list. The name of my presentation was “Overcoming Analysis Paralysis” since working with website analytics can be a daunting task for those who don’t have a game plan going in.

To help you figure out what to measure regularly, what type of goals to set, and how to report on them, we’ve created a handy website analytics dashboard template for you to use. It also includes social media and email marketing components to measure. Download the free website analytics dashboard template here.

You can see video highlights and read a summary of other presentations at MarketSTL here.

About the Author
Erin Steinbruegge is a Partner at The Loud Few who specializes in interactive marketing strategy. You can learn more about her here or follow her on twitter at twitter.com/steinburglar.

A couple of weeks ago I was invited to speak at the first ISES STL “learning lunch” of 2010. ISES is an international organization of special events planners, so as you can imagine, the setup and coordination of this speaking engagement was handled flawlessly. Audio, video, blazing fast wireless connection, nametags, extra writing utensils, table décor, Oreo cookie cake – check. The topic of the presentation was how event planners can leverage social media for business, a topic ISES had identified as a growing interest amongst their members. ISES noted that many of their members were currently utilizing Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube or Twitter for their business; but felt that they needed some insight into how to build a marketing strategy around social media, and they were hungry for some social network-specific tips as well. We kicked off the meeting with a fun Social Media Personality Quiz that Lisa created to allow the attendees to gauge their social media personality (ranging from a Social Media Butterfly to a Fail Whale) based on their current level of engagement with social media. Wondering who you are at the Social Media Cocktail Party? Take the quiz for yourself:

Social Media Personality Questionnaire

We had a lot of fun with that exercise, and I offered some tips for each personality type to step up their social media game. Next, we moved into a section dedicated to dispelling some common social media myths, because I find that many businesses limit their potential with social media due to a few common misunderstandings. Specifically, we dispelled the following social media rumors:

• Blogs are dead
• Social media strategy only works for “fun” products or services
• Social media marketing is a “new thing” or “early mover” strategy
• Social Media isn’t measurable

After destroying those nasty rumors, we moved on to a discussion about content strategy, and why it is a core component of any successful social media plan. We were only able to cover the basics on this rather deep topic during the allotted timeframe, but I felt a couple “Ohhh…” moments during this discussion as the pieces started to fall into place as to why content strategy is so vital to success. To help ISES members build their content strategy and stay on track, we offered 7 steps to building your content strategy, and a free downloadable social media editorial calendar template. The final section of the presentation was focused on delivering a few delicious tips, tricks and examples for blogs, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Based on audience feedback, I think the following social media tips were the biggest eye openers for this group:

• Most blogging platforms have time scheduling capabilities
• How and why businesses should get a Facebook vanity url
• Twitter is not the most efficient platform for managing Twitter
• You need to fill out your LinkedIn Profile 100%
• Remember to listen

And speaking of eye openers, after watching this video I realized I delivered a large amount of “ums” along with my social media tips. My public speaking teacher at Wash U is cringing right now. #notetoself Thanks again to ISES for the invitation to speak to such a fun and professional group, to Highlands Golf & Tennis Center for hosting the event and to Lisa for recording the session and giving me the old “cut throat” signal as I was approaching my time limit. What did you score on the Social Media Cocktail Party Quiz? What are some other rumors about social media you often hear? Tell us in comments!

About the Author

Erin Steinbruegge is a Partner at The Loud Few who specializes in interactive marketing strategy. You can learn more about her here or follow her on twitter at twitter.com/steinburglar.

Social Media is perhaps one of the most rapidly-evolving and exciting technologies to hit the online space in years. What began as a way for people to stay in touch with each other has evolved into a network of real relationships, meaningful communication, and strategic alliances, all of which present an abundance of opportunities to businesses of all sizes.

However, the ever-evolving landscape of social media and the fact that it creates broad-reaching exposure and vulnerability has resulted in many businesses feeling confused and timid about incorporating social media into their marketing strategy. They often get hung up cycling through a list of objections which can ultimately lead to a wealth of missed opportunities. Because we never like to see businesses miss out on great marketing opportunities, we’re dedicating this issue of our newsletter to overcoming the top 3 social media objections:

Objection 1: We don’t have time for social media

As with any marketing strategy, social media does take time and commitment. However, ask your team this : “Do we have time to talk to existing and prospective customers about our business, services and expertise every day?” There’s a really good chance that you do, and that you already are engaging in this activity daily; you just aren’t doing it through social media yet. Social media can actually streamline your communication strategy, and ultimately save you time.

For example, there is a good chance that your business is already producing interesting content in the form of business whitepapers, videos, presentations, sales info, etc.  With social media, you have the opportunity to share that content with a multitude of prospective customers quickly and efficiently. If you aren’t leveraging the sharing power of social media to distribute your content, you’re already wasting time.

Objection 2: We can’t measure the ROI of social media

Many businesses get hung up when they try to put a dollar value on social media efforts. While many metrics can be tracked to measure the performance of a social media campaign, putting an exact dollar value on social media is tricky. Why? Because it’s difficult to assign a dollar value to a relationship. Think of it this way – If you meet someone at a networking event, trade show, or on the golf course, would you be able to assign a dollar value to that relationship? Most likely you couldn’t, but you would probably agree that the relationship has the potential to accomplish one of two things:

1. It could drive a lot of revenue to your business if the person had a positive experience.
2. It could negatively impact your bottom line if that person went around sharing their negative experience with the world and you didn’t resolve the issue quickly.

So although assigning ROI to social media can be tricky, the bottom line is that your business probably can’t afford to ignore it.

Objection 3: Our products/services aren’t the right fit for social media

This objection comes from many B2B businesses and anyone who generally thinks their product is “too boring” for the online environment. But keep one thing in mind – Your products and services are purchased by people, and it’s people, not technology, that make up social networks. People like to talk about, share experiences, and search for products and services that are relevant to their business and to their lives. This social activity is definitely not limited to B2C and CPG brands.

There is no product that is too boring for people to discuss in the online environment. If you don’t believe us, try searching twitter or the blogosphere for some very boring things – you might be surprised at the conversations that already exist around those topics.
Businesses of all types and sizes can accomplish a slew of marketing objectives through social media, and the benefits of integrating social media into your business’s marketing strategy far outweigh the risks of ignoring it. If you’re interested in discussing the next steps in making social media work for your business, or if you just want to throw some additional objections at us, we’d love to hear from you.

About the Author
Erin Steinbruegge is a Partner at The Loud Few who specializes in interactive marketing strategy. You can learn more about her here or follow her on twitter at twitter.com/steinburglar.