Are you ready to spend even more time social networking?

How much of your marketing budget and/or time goes to Social Networking? Most businesses have some sort of presence on at least Facebook and LinkedIn. And maybe Twitter and YouTube.

Google + personal profiles have been out for a while but it was another month before business pages were launched. It’s going to take some time before we can tell what kind of social networking/marketing share this new service is going take from Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, but it’s Google so we can’t ignore it. A piece of advice I read recently in an article at Marketing Magazine UK is to not rush into building a Google+  Business Page until you have a clear strategy. Makes sense… So of course we did the opposite and just went ahead. For us, it’s okay not to have a strategy because the whole point is to learn more.  We do agree with the advice though and suggest you set up personal profile first to familiarize yourself with how it works.

There are plenty of resources about Google+ out there if you search. Many of the articles are great but technical or long.  We decided to begin our exploration of Google+ by comparing one of their new sharing features to Facebook’s. We were curious about these and thought it might be something you  be interested in. What I am talking about is the new +1 icons and g+ icons. We have them on our website home page sidebar if you would like to try them . And the Google Plus button below in this post works too.

There are similarities and differences. The Google +1 buttons that now appear around the Internet on Google searches and on websites are pretty similar to Facebook like buttons. If you click on one they behave the same way. If you are not logged into your Google account, Gmail for example, you will first be prompted do that and then your ‘like’, or ‘plus’ in this case is recorded for that web page.

The new buttons, like the one at the left, are called Google + Direct Connect buttons. When you click on one, you will be taken to the owner’s Google+ Page. You can view their feed, share, ‘+1′  and ‘follow’ the same as you would a Facebook feed. So it’s similar to having a Facebook icon on your site that connects to your Facebook profile. Our feeling is this is going to help your SEO efforts for being found in Google searches (maybe only in a small way but every little bit helps). It connects you directly to Google so it can’t hurt. Here’s an excerpt from a Web Pro Newsletter:

“Google+ has introduced a whole new realm of SEO possibilities based on getting found via Google’s own properties.

For one, Google ranks Google+ posts in search results, and they often appear on the first page.

The +1 button obviously helps your search visibility cause. Google made it clear from the beginning that this would be a search signal. If enough people like your content enough to give it a +1, it must be good right? Why not bump it up in the rankings. ”

The more of their tools you use and interconnect, the more visible and easier to find you will be in Google searches. Searchers will be able to find your + business page by using the + added to their search term. Here is how they explain it on their Direct Connect info page:

“Google+ Direct Connect lets you quickly navigate to a Google+ page (and even add that page to your circles) when using Google Search. For example, if you searched for the query ‘+youtube’ or ‘+pepsi,’ you could be immediately taken to the YouTube Google+ page, or the Pepsi Google+ page, and given the option to add the page to your circles.”

So having a Google+ Business Page is another way for folks to find you and follow you. Start thinking about it now, planning for it soon, and it’s very important, we feel, to begin considering what to name your Google + business page.

What is Frictionless Sharing?

When you visit a blog or website, if you’ve enabled an app access, FB (Facebook) can automatically post their content to your wall. No more clicking the ‘Like’ button. No more copying and pasting links. Depending on the app and the settings available, you will no longer have the of choice to share or not. When you visit their site to read an article, or listen to a tune (for example) the article you are reading or tune you are listening to will be shared automatically.

Different apps have different settings available and I have read that some allow more control than others. Some allow you to turn automatic sharing off. Unless an app gives me this option, it will be deleted. Certainly from a marketing point of view there is enthusiasm for ‘Frictionless Sharing’ with no waiting for ‘Likes’ and ‘Shares’ so many apps (I suspect) will not add the ‘off switch’ initially.

Privacy Concerns

If you do a search on ‘Frictionless Sharing’ you will find many folks have privacy concerns with this new feature.  Their concern is this is a new even higher level of intrusion of constant surveillance of our every move on the Internet. I personally share this concern and do not like the feature even though as a business we could find ways to take advantage of it.

Let’s face it, we are being tracked around the Internet already with cookies unless we browse using stealth mode. Everyone wants to know our buying habits, tastes, Geo location so they can serve us targeted content. It’s like going to a mall where they know what you bought on your last visit, change the ‘On Sale’ item to attract you based on your buying history, greet you by name and ask you if you plan on having a Taco at the ‘Food Fair’ again this visit…

Mmmm… Cookies are Good!

Cookies are not inherently bad. They help us do many things more easily on the Internet. It’s more about what a particular cookie is being used for. Discussing cookies more fully is beyond the scope of this topic but if you want to understand how much we rely on them, try turning them off in your web browser preferences or selecting the option to be prompted to accept a cookie instead of accepting them automatically. Have fun trying to get many of your favorite sites to open! Disabling cookies will seriously diminish your browsing enjoyment.

As I have mentioned, there is a ton of Buzz about this if you search the term ‘Frictionless Sharing Facebook’. This one at PC world was at the top of my search and I found it easier to understand than many of the more technical ones:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/240592/facebooks_frictionless_sharing_a_privacy_guide.html

A few thoughts to finish with

Bottom line is the best advice one can follow is to use due diligence prior making a decision to  install an app or not.  Do you really need this app? What does it add to my life? Does it want to take control of my webcam and record me lip-syncing badly to Adele — Rolling in the Deep, then post to comedy site?

More time worn and cliched advice… Read the fine print.

Last but not least. Log out of Facebook when you are browsing other sites. Doing so is no guarantee FB is not watching your every move, but at least it may not hit your wall.

1. The font is not licensed for web use.
2. Its a font that many people don’t have on their computer
3. We feel it is ill suited from a design point of view, for projecting the professional image required for their successfully marketing their site.

Reason one is often a shock to people who assume any font they have on their computer is free to use for whatever they want. Not necessarily so.

Reason three is based on our experience and knowledge of what works but in the end, we defer to a clients wishes. It is, after all, their site.

Reason two is the one we most often encounter and the hardest to explain. The fonts we have on our computer are different depending on whether we are on a PC, Mac or Linux operating system. Also they can differ depending on which software we have. For example, after we upgraded our version of Microsoft Word, we found we had a bunch of cool new fonts installed.

For a person to see a font used on a web page, it has to be installed on their computer or it is replaced by a generic computer font or the same type, Serif, Sans-Serif, etc. So if we use it on a web page, you will see the page fine, another visitor may not.

What a pain!

This font issue became a thorn in the side of web designers wishing to be more creative on their pages as well a please clients, so workarounds were used. One such workaround is instead of text for a headline, a graphic depiction of the text was used instead. There are downsides to this, the biggest being the extra expense of creating a graphic. Another workaround was to try and force visitors to download the font when they visit the site. This has downsides as well, such as disconcerting people with a download prompt when they arrive and degraded site performance. Intellectual property /licensing violations was another potential problem with this workaround.

Over the years was very little progress in finding a solution that satisfied font designers, who deserve recognition for their creations and that worked without impacting the website user experience or load time in some manner. So we have been stuck with the same old safe fonts. The tried and true like Arial, Verdana, Times New Roman, Tahoma, Geneva and Georgia. There have been additions to the ‘safe to use’ list of fonts but no good solutions to the problem itself.

Things are finally improving…

Over the past few years, hosted font services have emerged and are providing a much needed dash of flair to the web by overcoming the issues I have outlined here. Depending on the service, you need to register and pay a fee but most have a limited free level or some fonts that have no licensing fee. Here is a list of few of these services:

http://www.typekit.com/

http://www.webtype.com/

http://www.fontdeck.com/

http://kernest.com/

The best news for last…

There are many more and new services coming online all the time… But the one that is making a big splash right now is from…

Drum roll… You love me, you hate em, you can’t live without em… Google. Yes, they now have a great new font hosting service. It’s easy to use [for us tech savvy web developers] and all the fonts are free. Some restrictions may apply such as limiting use to only the web with print projects not allowed. It’s best to check each one.

You still might not be able to have the exact font you want on your web site, but at least now there are some jazzier options to pick from that you know are safe/legal to use. What we recommend is, if they want something a little different on your site, hop on over to Google Web Fonts at http://www.google.com/webfonts and pick a few.

We suggest you test them using the paragraph option tab as well as the sentence option. You want to see how they will look in different situations. The selection isn’t huge yet but will likely grow over time and as I mentioned, the service is free. Pick out a few choices and send your web team [us hopefully] the names and we’ll know what to do with them. It’s best to keep the final choices for the site  at two, but no harm in sending more to pick the two from.

When we have a client that needs a particular service that we use, and believe in, we tell our clients of this service and provide our affiliate link (with disclosure) assuming that we will get a commission for this offering if they choose to use that service.

Do you do this and think you will receive commission?

Think again.

We offered an affiliate link to a client for a service we highly recommend, and we use, which our client signed up for.  We discovered we were not paid commission and checked into it.  We were told:

If someone clicks on an affiliate link after yours then they get the commission. <quote> last affiliate link clicked is the one that gets the sale. <end quote>

This started me thinking.  So, you recommend a service to your client.  You explain the benefits, also explain that it is an affiliate link, and send them off. 

If they don’t sign up, so be it.  But if they do and you don’t get the commission then what happened.  Well here is some of my thinking from the quote above.

If you recommend a service and the client wants to check on reviews well they can land on a site that has embedded affiliate links (most don’t have disclosures).  Suppose they like the review and they click on the link of the service name. They may not even realize that their action of clicking on a simple link of the service name is going to delete your cookie. 

It sure never occurred to me,

So, do you offer affiliate links to your clients and assume you will be properly compensated for the referral IF the client signs up for the service? 

Think again.

Likely you have lost in commissions.

What can we do?  Not sure there is any answer at this point but wanted to alert you to this issue.

If I find any answers I will post them here.  If you have any suggestions please share.

Most people planning an important event, such as wedding (for example), would never consider waiting until the last minute to book a caterer, rent tuxedos, buy a wedding dress, make arrangements for a florist or to book a reception hall. Booking well in advance is advised and in fact, a must for securing many professional services. They will not be available otherwise.

The same is true when scheduling work with an independent business owner / entrepreneur that you have contracted to do work with.

If a client waits until too close to deadline to advise needing the work done there can be a scheduling problem. (This is where I get to the Borg part). Sometimes there is an assumption that once contracted it is just a matter of idling away in the background awaiting ‘a command’.

Independent business owners / entrepreneurs do not work with a single client. Independent business owners / entrepreneurs cannot sit at their computer/phone/blackberry just waiting for work  None of us would survive if we did this.

In our own business we pride ourselves at always do our best to ‘drop everything’ when it is an emergency and having a fast turnaround time. Even so, like other professionals services, like yourselves, we need to schedule our work / your work. To keep our business successful we need a full schedule to prosper.

To all our successes —  (we will not be assimilated