Social Media Business Hour with Nile Nickel

Nile Nickel

If you're ready to grow your business without breaking the bank, then join us each week for the world's best Social Media Business education. Every episode, you'll learn PROVEN, Tested, Marketing Strategies and Tactics from Social Media expert Nile Nickel. Always entertaining, with the latest in Social Media Marketing Tips and Tricks. You'll always get incredible tools you can apply right away to your own business.

  1. 04/05/2016

    143 - Do you know how to social listen, and why it may be the most important strategy that you aren't doing!

    The All-Business, No-Hype Guide to Social Media Marketing - with Jason Falls Largo, Florida - April 4, 2016- In this show Nile Nickel talks with Jason Falls the award-winning social media strategist and widely read industry pundit, Jason is known as a top influencer in the social technology and marketing space by Forbes, Entrepreneur, Advertising Age and others. His strategies and ideas have touched iconic brands like General Motors, AT&T, Makers Mark, Humana and CafePress, among others. Jason leads strategy for Elasticity, an innovative agency that blends public relations, social media, mobile and SEO to help brands adjust and excel in an ever-changing marketing landscape. He is the co-author of two books: No B******t Social Media: The All-Business, No-Hype Guide To Social Media Marketing (Que 2011), and The Rebels Guide To Email Marketing (Que 2012). Falls is also noted for founding SocialMediaExplorer.com, one of the industry’s most widely read blogs. Jason is the co-author of two books: No B******t Social Media: The All-Business, No-Hype Guide To Social Media Marketing (Que 2011), and The Rebels Guide To Email Marketing (Que 2012). Falls is also noted for founding SocialMediaExplorer.com, one of the industry’s most widely read blogs.     No B******t Social Media: The All-Business, No-Hype Guide to Social Media Marketing The In-Your-Face, Results-Focused, No-“Kumbaya” Guide to Social Media for Business!   Detailed techniques for increasing sales, profits, market share, and efficiency Specific solutions for brand-building, customer service, R&D, and reputation management Facts, statistics, real-world case studies, and rock-solid metrics Stop hiding from social media--or treating it as if it’s a playground. Start using it strategically. Identify specific, actionable goals. Apply business discipline and proven best practices. Stop fearing risks. Start mitigating them. Measure performance. Get results. You can. This book shows you how. Jason Falls and Erik Deckers serve up practical social media techniques and metrics for building brands, strengthening awareness, improving service, optimizing R&D, driving better leads--and closing more sales. “Conversations” and “communities” are wonderful, but they’re not enough. Get this book and get what you really want from social media: profits. Think social media’s a passing fad? Too risky? Just a toy? Too soft and fuzzy? Not for your business? Wake up! It’s where your customers are. And it ain’t going away. Does that suck? No. It doesn’t. Do social media right, and all those great business buzzwords come true. Actionable. Measurable.And...wait for it...here comes the big one. Profitable. Damn profitable. Want to know how to do it right? We’ll show you. And, yeah, we know how because we’ve done it. This is the b******t-free, lie-free, fluff-free, blessedly non-New-Age real deal. You’re going to learn how to use social media to deliver absolutely killer customer service. How to R&D stuff people actually want. Develop scads of seriously qualified leads. You’ll figure out what you want. You know, the little things like profits, market share, loyalty, and brand power. You’ll figure out how to measure it. And then you’ll go get it. One more thing. We know what scares you about social media. Screwing up (a.k.a., your mug on the front page of The Wall Street Journal). So we’ll tell you what to do so that won’t happen. Ever. No B.S. in this book. Just facts. Metrics. Best practices. Stuff to warm the hearts of your CFO, CEO, all your C-whatevers. And, yeah, you. So get your head out from under the pillow. Get your butt in gear. Let’s go make some money.   The Rebel's Guide to Email Marketing: Grow Your List, Break the Rules, and Win A No-Nonsense, Take-No-Prisoners Plan for Earning Positive Return on Your Email Marketing! “They” say email is dead. Baloney! 94% of Americans use email. Passionate social networkers use email more, not less. Mobile email is huge. Email offers marketers more opportunities than ever...opportunities to guide customers from consideration and trial to repeat purchase, loyalty, even advocacy! But email has changed. Email users have changed. To get breakthrough results, you must break the rules! Whether you’re B2B or B2C, Fortune 500 or startup, this is a complete no-nonsense plan for transforming your email marketing. Discover radically better ways to handle every facet of your campaign: lists, From names, Subject lines, calls to action, social network integration...everything! Learn how to Discover which email marketing “rules” are obsolete--and when to break the rest Optimize every component of your message and campaign Drive list growth that translates directly into the top line Encourage opt-in by systematically simplifying signup Bring real humor and creativity back into your email Write a great main call to action--and great secondary and tertiary calls, too Take full advantage of tools ranging from QR codes to texting to grow your email list Make better technical decisions about prechecked opt-in boxes and other attributes Know when to deliberately introduce “imperfections” into your emails Use email marketing and social media to power each other Prepare for the short- and long-term futures of email marketing   Links: Email Address: jason@goelastic.com Twitter Handle: @JasonFalls Facebook Profile: http://facebook.com/jasonfalls LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonfalls Websites: http://goelastic.com, http://jasonfalls.com Show Transcript: Segment 1 [Weird Ass News - No Transcript Available] Segment 2: Nile:    Hey, I’d like to welcome you to the social media business hour tonight. We’ve got Jason Falls on. You heard a tease upfront so you’re going to learn some great things about social listening and I’m sort of fascinated to hear that topic myself. And Jason, by the way, is a leading digital strategist, author, speaker and thinker in the digital and social media marketing industry. His strategies and ideas have touched iconic brands probably you’ve never heard of like General Motors, AT&T, my personal favorite Makers Mark, Humanic, FA Press and many others. Jason:  Everyone likes that one. Nile:    Yeah, it’s -- that’s always a good one to warm us up in these cold winter times. Jason:  Exactly. Nile:    Well, you know, one of the things that you talk about and you’ve got a sort of a really innovative agency. Elasticity, correct? Jason:  That’s right. Elasticity. We’re about, you know, we’re a boutique agency. We’ve got about 30, 35 people headquartered in Saint Louis. It was founded by three former Omnicom executives and I actually was -- when I was the vice president for digital strategy at Café Press a few years ago I brought Elasticity to Café Press to be our sort of marketing, digital marketing and PR firm. And, you know, just absolutely loved them so much that -- I mean, there was a little bit of an executive change over at Café Press and I was sort of looking for a different opportunity. I just kind of gave them a call and said hey, is -- would it be possible for us to work together? And it sort of worked out. So, I’ve been there a little over a year. I run a Louisville office and we continued to grow and create content strategies and stuff for clients that we just have a lot of fun doing it. Nile:    I was going to say the size of it sounds like you are. I mean, that doesn’t sound so boutique anymore. Jason:  Well, I mean, I guess, you know, I guess it’s all relative. I mean, when I think of a boutique agency I think of anything under 50 people. You know, once you get over 50 you’re starting to get pretty big and layered but we’re small enough as an agency that we are still very flat and by that I mean there’s not a great hierarchy. We bring the right subject matter experts to the table for each client so it’s not just an account executive who is the liaison between the client and everybody else in the agency. When we have a client call or a meeting, you know, the media planning and buying, you know, person on that particular account is at the table, the creative director’s at the table, the account executive’s at the table, the strategist is at the table, the guy doing the SEO and pay per click stuff, the guy doing the community management or the gal doing community management is sitting there as well. So, we have a very flat organization which makes for a great collaborative environment. Nile:    Sounds like it does and I know that you guys have won a number of awards. You personally have as well. You’re widely read in the industry. Considered a pundit. You’re also noted as the top -- go ahead. Jason:  I was just going to say it’s great that I’m considered a pundit because I don’t know how to spell it but that’s okay. Nile:    You know, to me that always sounds like the guy on the football team that, you know, kicks the football. But that’s just me. Jason:  Exactly. Nile:    That’s just me. Well, and you also coauthored two books. I like your first book title. You probably listen to the show and you know that we have a segment in part of the social media business hour. It’s called weird ass news. So, you’ve got the no b******t social media the all business no hype guide to social media marketing. And then you’ve got the rebel’s guide to email marketing. So, I like both of those titles. I think it says a lot about you. Jason:  It does. I’ve got a little bit of a non-conformist personality. I typically -- I’m the guy in -- that you sat next to in class growing up who always had a problem with authority and was probably continually sent to the principal’s office. That’s kind of me and it’s not necessarily that I’m, you know, that I _____04:16 at rules and all that. But I just have a disruptive personality which, yo

    53 min
  2. 03/07/2016

    142 - SEO Secrets and Secrets to How Search Engines Work

    Guest Bio: Stephan Spencer is an internationally recognized SEO expert and bestselling author. He is the author of “Google Power Search”, co-author of “Social eCommerce”, and co-author of the “The Art of SEO”, now in its 3rd edition and considered THE bible on SEO. Stephan founded Netconcepts in 1995 and grew it into a multi-national SEO agency before selling it in 2010 to Covario. Stephan continued as a sought-after SEO and digital strategy consultant. His clients post-acquisition have included Zappos, Sony Store, Quicksilver, Best Buy Canada, Bed Bath & Beyond, and Chanel. Stephan speaks at many Internet marketing events, including SES, SMX, PubCon, Internet Retailer, Shop.org, etc. He’s contributed to Huffington Post, Search Engine Land, DM News and MarketingProfs, among others. Stephan is the creator of Traffic Control, a 3-day seminar on SEO, co-creator of the 3-day professional development seminar Passions into Profits with Kris Jones, and the host of 2 podcasts, The Optimized Geek and Marketing Speak. Interesting Facts and Sound Bites:   He holds an M.S. in Biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Inventor of “The Gravitystream” - an automated pay-for-performance natural search technology platform, re-branded as RIO SEO Website Optimizer.       Show Notes:  Nile:              Hey, welcome back to the social media business hour. We’re talking with Stephan Spencer and Stephan is a true SEO expert. He’s really written the bible on SEO. Go back in the first segment if you’d like and listen to the details regarding that. But without getting into the details we were talking about some SEO strategies and one of the things that we happened to talk about was an SEO audit and in that audit finding duplicate content. Now, one of the questions I get asked a lot Stephan is about duplicate content. What’s considered duplicate content? What’s not? You know, what would get you slapped by Google if you will. And so rather than me speculating on it let me just ask you about that. Stephan:          Yeah, great question. So, let me first dispel a big myth about duplicate content. It doesn’t create a penalty situation. It is a filter. Not a penalty. So, when you get filtered because you have duplicate content that another more authoritative site also has it’s not like you are being slapped. It’s just basically that you’re not being favored over a more authoritative site. And this can happen if you’re even the originator of the content. So, let’s say that you have created unique valuable content about cruises and cruise lines and various, you know, just each cruise line, princess cruises and so forth. And this is an actual real world case. A company, cruises.com created all these different write ups about each cruise and each cruise line and so forth and then they would syndicate it to various sites that -- like airline partners and travel partners like Orbits. And guess who would end up winning the duplicate content filter war in Google. It wasn’t cruises.com. it wasn’t even any of the airlines. It was Orbits. Because when you think about how much authority Orbits has with all of these links and really powerful, important links pointing to their site. So, cruises.orbits.com was the site that would win out and then everything else would get filtered. So, you don’t want to get filtered out. Even if you’re the originator of the content that can happen so there’s some strategies and tactics you can use to ensure that doesn’t happen. Like for example, any partners you’re syndicating to asking them to link back to the -- your original article from their article. Like if you’re syndicating an article to various business sites then you could have in the byline or the bio where you specify, you know, just your company and so forth. You can include a link to the original article on your site. Not just to your home page because we want to link directly to the article in question so that Google can see that oh, this is the originator. And also when you’re the first one to show that article on the web and then later your syndication partners start to show it on their websites that’s also a signal. And then there’s another thing that -- I’ll geek out for just a moment here and then we’ll get back to normal talk. And that’s called a canonical tag. So, you add this into the HTML code. It’s not really difficult to do. It’s just one line of HTML and it just specifies what the definitive source URL of that piece of content is and so if you get permission, you get buy in from this syndicating partner that they’ll put a canonical tag in your HTML on the page that points to your URL, your article on your site then that will be a very definitive signal to Google that you’re the originator of that content.   Nile:                You know, if you happen to share content or get it syndicated and the syndication partner -- obviously, you might want. But they are not going to do anything related to linking back to you or allowing this conical tag. Did I get that right?   Stephan:          Canonical tag.   Nile:                Canonical. See? I told you I’d mispronounce it. What -- or how much of the content do you have to change on your page to make it unique?   Stephan:          Substantial. It would have to be very substantial. Because if you just move your paragraphs around or you add an extra paragraph -- think of it like if you had this imaginary five or six-word long window that you ran across both pages to compare and contrast them and see how many of those -- these are called shingles. These five or six word long windows are in common between the two documents. Shuffling paragraphs around is going to still leave most of those shingles in common between the two documents. Adding an extra paragraph or reducing a paragraph, that’s still going to keep -- leave most of the shingles in common between the two documents. You’d have to do a substantial rewrite. Paraphrase most everything. Or significantly augment the content with tons of like user generated content, lots of customer reviews or discussion forum posts and things like that to really differentiate your content from the other site. And that’s also -- we didn’t even go into the issue of duplicate content that you’re causing to your own site just by misconfiguring all the -- like the URL structure or having superfluous parameters in the URL. And I’m getting geeky again. Sorry. I just -- I’m a geek.   Nile:                That’s okay. Keep getting geeky. You know, we get some technical people on here so we want to know this.   Stephan:          Yeah, yeah. and actually I’m a podcaster as well so -- when I say I’m a geek I actually have a show that has geek in its name. optimized geek.   Nile:                I like it.   Stephan:          So, yeah. I’m a real geek. So, anyways, if you have duplicate content on your own site -- so, you are competing with yourself. Now it’s like you are creating not only duplicate content but you’re creating page rank dilution. So, think of it this way. Like if the leading candidate for president -- whoever that is. I’m not going to get into Trump and all that sort of stuff. But let’s say whoever your favorite candidate is had a twin brother or a sister, whatever. And they both ran and they had similar platforms and they didn’t really have any differentiating, you know, their level of experience was pretty much the same and so forth. You’d have a hard time picking one of them, right? So, it would split the vote and neither would win. So, imagine doing that on your website. You have five different variants of the same exact product page at different URLs. You know, flags or parameters in the URL, tracking parameters and things and they’re all picked up by Google. It’s like having four twin brothers and you both, you know, all of you running for president and none of you are going to win.   Nile:                You know, so people get into article spinners and then they’re looking to change words out in the article and they get the percentage of words and all that type stuff. It sounds like that’s sort of a game that they’re probably not going to win. Is that a fair statement?   Stephan:          Oh, are they not going to win? In fact, they are going to lose very badly because most of Google’s future algorithm is going to be based on machine learning and you can bet that with artificial intelligence they’re going to be able to sniff out any of that nonsense and if it does not read like it was written by a human and it like reads like poetry -- you can't make an article spinner right like Shakespeare or, you know, whatever. Pick your favorite poet or a writer, right. So, you cannot fool the search engines going forward. You might be able to fool them today or a couple of years ago. But even today I’d say you probably aren’t fooling them. Maybe a few years ago possibly. So, you are down a path that is not going to bode well for -- it’s not going to -- you’re not going to win. You are going to in fact lose. Certainly get penalized for it. And when you do something that you think okay. I’m going to kind of skate the edge here and see how far I can get away with this and I know it’s not cool, I know it’s against Google’s guidelines but it works. And other people are having success with it. So, I’m going to keep writing this out until I think it’s too dangerous and then I’ll stop. That’s a terrible idea because what will happen is Google will be able to retroactively look back on all your bad behavior because they’re keeping a rap sheet on you for certain. And they’re going to be able to figure out -- hey, wait a second. You have a pattern of,

    55 min
  3. 03/01/2016

    140 - How To Have A Mobile Application Built Even If You Know Nothing About Programming

    Tom Tancredi has worked (alongside twin brother Dominic) on the successful launch of over 250 digital products while building their digital agency, DOM & TOM into an Inc. 500 fastest growing company two years running. Tom is a resource on anything startup related including mobile strategy, onboarding a technical team, finding a cofounder or structuring a fundraising deal. Tom has built high profile applications for Fortune 500 companies and is an expert on intrapreneurship in large organizations. What is “Intrepreneurship”? Take Steve Balmer with Microsoft. He’s a great example of Intrepreneurship. One of the first employees of Microsoft (he was employee number 30) – Steve was really the right hand man for Microsoft founder Bill Gates. He negotiated himself 8 percent of the total company, which is really incredible, considering there were 29 employees who were hired before him. Steve helped build Microsoft into the huge company it is today. With over 90% internet using Microsoft products. Steve Balmer was not the entrepreneur. He didn’t come up with the product – he did however, see the potential for the product, understood the strengths of the team and had the vision to take the product (Windows) to the marketplace in a scalable way. Although Tom is not the entrepreneur for his company (his brother Dom is the entrepreneur) – Tom found himself in the unique role as the “Intrepreneur”. In 2008/2009 he saw a unique opportunity to learn all that he could about the Apple iPhone. Since no one was the expert on that platform, Tom realized that if his company could be the subject matter expert for iPhones, they could create demand for their mobile software development services. How can a mobile application boost retail sales? 70% of all retail “research” is done online, on mobile devices – before products are actually purchased. This makes for an incredible opportunity for any retailer who is open to (or already using) flash sales, deep discount offers or impulse point purchases. In fact, if you’re not using mobile, you’re going to miss a TON of sales, especially around the holiday season, with so many consumers making last minute purchases for gifts. Likewise, if you’re interested in year-round sales, mobile is equally as important. Before creating an application though, you really need to ask yourself what benefits and features your application will offer to consumers. Tom recommends that you don’t even bother with creating a mobile application if you haven’t clearly thought through the features and benefits of you application. Whatever you do, don’t just go copying some other larger corporation’s application. Large retailers for example, the money and resources to “get it wrong” many times before they get it right. As small business owners, we don’t have that luxury. As a small business owner, you must play to your strengths. One of the things that you can do, that larger corporations have a hard time with is – you can be face to face with your customers much easier. This mean, you can solicit feedback, answer questions and solve problems much faster than a larger corporation. If for instance, you can think of features for your mobile application that can help you do that, then your customers will find great benefits with that. Anyone you touch in that regard, will find more value doing business with you, than anyone else. In the hands of your customers or prospects, your mobile application may just be the first time they research what you have to offer and who you are. For a great example of how NOT to create a mobile application, you only have to look as far as the banking industry. It doesn’t matter who you’re banking with, just about all of them have one experience online and a completely different experience on their mobile applications. When you go to their website to do any kind of online banking, most of the time, they have really thought through what features, choices and the “look and feel” you as their customer should experience. Contrast that experience, with how most mobile banking applications operate: They are not user friendly, don’t offer valuable features and worst of all, they can feel totally insecure. Once again, this a great example of how NOT to design a mobile application. It’s absolutely crucial, that you take into account the user experience and value that your customers will get by using your application.  One Of The Most Common Challenges Business Owners Have When Designing Their Own Mobile Application I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase, “Timing Is Everything”. Nothing could be more true in the case of mobile technology – especially when it comes to user purchases. Through real world experience, Tom shares with us that if you have some process for a user to go through…as an example, it could be a purchase. If they are using a mobile application to make a purchase, processing time included, if it takes up to 30 seconds, your chances for success are really great. If on the other hand, your purchase process takes longer than 30 seconds, you’ll see your users drop off, discontinue the purchase process and buy from a competitor who has a faster option. This could be making reservations for a restaurant, purchasing movie tickets – whatever the process Is, it needs to take 30 seconds or less. A World-Class Example Of How To Lower Processing Time For Your Mobile Application Amazon is a great example of streamlining this process. When you open your Amazon application, you’re automatically logged in. Not logging in before making a purchase, lowers the total processing time. Then, once the application is open, you need to make a selection of what you might want to buy – Amazon did it again, decreasing processing time buy making suggestions for you. Think about it like this: Amazon took a process that was five steps long and shortened it into two steps. All so you can quickly open their application, easily find what you are looking for and make the purchase. This shortened process has created a hockey-stick like growth for Amazon. You can achieve success if you do the same thing. Other examples of organizations who lower processing time to almost nothing include companies like “Trunk Club”. Once signed up for this subscription service, customers automatically receive things they may like. If they choose to keep the products, the purchase is already made. Companies like Trunk Club have brought the processing time down to almost nothing for making purchases from them. Tom’s Best Mobile Application So FarTom has recently created an application called “Life Is Simple”. It’s a mobile application that connects customers to beauty industry professionals (like hairstylists) and their employees for the purposes of scheduling appointments in a quick and easy way. This really hits at the heart of what Tom is all about. He wants to help those who are struggling to make ends meet. Most beauty industry professionals make less what is considered to be at the poverty line in the United States. If adopted, this application will change the lives of thousands of hard working professionals who are struggling every day. How Tom Started His Multi-Million Dollar Business With No Money Starting with offering services to generate cash flow, Tom and his brother Dom created an environment where they could offer value to others, including mentorship for those who are less fortunate. They were able to get the attention from Fortune 500 companies by taking on contracts with a simple philosophy: Do what you say you’ll do, when you say you’ll do it and charge a fair price for doing it. Most people just want to be treated fairly and with integrity. Once you provide services or products with that philosophy, the people who you do business with, will appreciate that and take notice.  How To Have A Mobile Application Built, Even If You Don’t Know Anything About Mobile Applications Once you have an idea for a mobile application, do some research. Try to find other applications that do something similar. If you find them, that is actually a good sign. You really want to see market validation before you invest time or money into your application. If you find other applications that do something similar to what you have in mind, the next question to ask is: “How are they doing?” Are they performing poorly? If so, then try to find out what their strengths and weaknesses are. Why haven’t they hit a bulls-eye? What are they missing? Once the above research is done to your satisfaction, before building an application, first find a designer. Designing out the application using wireframes is a great way to figure out how it will work and is a lot cheaper than hiring some one to write code before very important questions are answered. A great designer can be hired for as little as $30 per hour. Once that is completed, find a technical co-founder to work with you. This person can help work out the entire application process and just as important, who to hire for which parts of the development. Twitter Handle: @dom_and_tom Facebook Profile: https://www.facebook.com/DomAndTom/ LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/company/dom-&-tom Website: http://domandtom.com/

    49 min
4
out of 5
3 Ratings

About

If you're ready to grow your business without breaking the bank, then join us each week for the world's best Social Media Business education. Every episode, you'll learn PROVEN, Tested, Marketing Strategies and Tactics from Social Media expert Nile Nickel. Always entertaining, with the latest in Social Media Marketing Tips and Tricks. You'll always get incredible tools you can apply right away to your own business.