Dan Soschin

How to Use LinkedIn – Tips from Experts
I’ve put together a couple of “how to use LinkedIn presentations” over the past few months, and today I will be giving my next installment, dedicated to creating a top-notch profile. I will update the slides later to this site later this weekend.

In the mean time, it is important to understand that a good profile is extremely valuable to your overall experience on LinkedIn, regardless of how you intend to use the site.

To that end, I’ve compile a group of easy-to-read articles dedicated to helping you get the most out of your profile:
1. LinkedIn Profile Tips – 10 Mistakes You Want to Avoid and Why
2. 6 Tips Giving Your LinkedIn Profile A Facelift [Suzanne Vara]
3. 7 Tips for an Uncluttered LinkedIn Profile [Suzanne Vara]
4. 5 LinkedIn Tips [Bill Crosby]
5. 8 Tips to Building A Better LinkedIn Profile [TJ Gilsenan ]
6. 7 Powerful Must Do Tips for Setting Up Your LinkedIn Profile [Bob Garrett]
7. LinkedIn for Business: 5 Tips to Optimize Your Profile [Janice Gentles-Jones]
Yet another big entrant into the daily deals category

As if the online coupon market wasn’t crowded enough, another big player has entered the space which will continue to further inundate consumers with opportunities to purchase so-so deals online. And, this will surely continue to impact the market share of Groupon and SocialLiving.

Amazon.com will now start advertising deals.

First, it appears it will be working with SocialLiving (in which it already invests in). Who knows what the next step will be, but with the barrier to entry in the coupon market of virtually nothing, this space will continue to get more crowded and then ultimately consolidate.
How to write a great paid search ad

I’ve come across dozens of great articles over the years about how to optimize paid search campaigns. However, often overlooked is the fact that you have more opportunity to optimize the text ad than you think. In fact, there are many new tools that will help you with this task, especially if you are using Google AdWords. These days you can use keyword dynamic insertion for starters… but you can also customize your URL, employ site links and so much more.

Of course, by far and away the most important aspect is the text within the ad – a high quality ad will have a strong call to action, a catchy relevant headline and body text that contains keywords and relevant action-oriented copy meant to encourage a click through for the right audience. How can you accomplish all of this will so little real estate?

It’s not easy. I’ve been working on refining my craft for about 12 years now and it doesn’t get easier – in fact – it probably gets more difficult each time I try to squeeze out another basis point in CTR or conversion rates.

You’ll need to do a lot of ad copy testing to get it right and be very patient. Use your analytics like Google Analytics to measure the results, along with AdWords reports and conversion/goal tracking.

Here’s a great article on creating a great text ad:

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/write-killer-adwords-ad-treating-mini-landing-page/30508/
Why your business should use Twitter
If you think Twitter is silly, then you have fallen for the propaganda of Ashton Kutcher and Charlie Sheen and other celebrities who primarily starting using Twitter to let us know where they were partying and what food they like.

In reality, Twitter is a powerful platform that will help you:
- listen
- research
- engage
- communicate
- resolve
- promote
I recently gave a webcast on all things Twitter where I addressed these great features and debunked the celebrity Twitter mentality, debunking the myth that Twitter is for tweens to follow Justin Bieber’s whereabouts.

In fact, Twitter is a powerful B2C and B2B customer engagement tool that if you are not using, you are significantly missing out on opportunity. However, with all social media and digital tools, Twitter requires education, policy, training and strategy. If you create an account and just start broadcasting out messages to whomever you can convince to follow you, you are using the tool completely wrong.

Here are nine fantastic case studies on Twitter:

http://mashable.com/2011/06/09/brands-twitter-success/
Why more domain names doesn’t matter

Sure, maybe 15 years ago the concept of a “dot whatever” address made some sense. It would have been cool to organize web-based content in a manner such that banks were .bank, restaurants were .restaurants and porn sites were .xxx. But, in this day and age, we’re driven by social sharing, mobile connectivity and URL shorteners. And, in reality, does any other extension besides .com really matter? We only get those other extensions when we cannot get our .com we want. But is it better to have mysiteisrighthere.com or mysite.whatever?

Let’s face it, dot coms are the dot king of the internet. No other extension can come close.

And when we type in a URL with a .com and get to the wrong site, what do we do? We Google the address to find out the right URL, and that’s that.

And, there’s another problem with the .whatever mentality – the price. If you want to have a dot-myownextension, then you have to fork over the $185,000 start up cost to ICANN plus $25,000 in yearly maintenance. This seems like a huge waste.

Maybe we need to start helping people learn about subdomains, like mysite.yoursite.com.

Will I register .dansoschin? No. I don’t need to. Does McDonald’s need to register .McDonalds? No! Will they? I hope not. It

Here’s more info on the .whatever program: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Coming-soon-to-the-Internet-apf-1972029148.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=3&asset=&ccode=
Should my business develop a mobile app?

I’ve been asking this question for the last couple of months and examining the space quite a bit lately:

“Should my business (or yours for that matter) develop a mobile application?”

The answer is a bit cloudy and takes some digging to truly understand. First, you must acknowledge the difference between a mobile app and a mobile web site. I’m not going to dive into the details on this, but simply stated a mobile app doesn’t require network access, running entirely on the device versus a mobile website where you have to connect to a site and transaction data (bandwidth).

Now, there are many more differences… speed, user experience, functionality, and more. I will assume you understand these differences. However, I hadn’t really considered speed as an issue until it was mentioned at the Washington DC Digital Media Conference a few days ago by the mobile panel session I attended. Incidentally, this very issue was briefly discussed, though I found that the panel was quick to dismiss the issue.

I contend that the mobile app (as we know it today), will be obsolete in less than five years.

I know, that’s a profound statement. I’m not saying the world is going to end, though. I’m just saying that the uniqueness of a mobile app is the fact that it is taking advantage of some shortcomings within the mobile web sphere and that the gap in those features will soon erode.

For example, mobile bandwidth will become nearly ubiquitous within five years to the point that data plans will be second nature. As smart phone device penetration eclipses 35% of the market this year, and probably approaches nearly 100% of the Western/Asian markets by 2016, data plans will come right along. Remember that 10 years ago, an unlimited mobile minutes plan for just phone calls was unheard of, and similarly for texting… soon too, unlimited data plans will be common place.

Next, mobile device ability to render the mobile web more consistently across the many different devices, to provide a consistent user experience will soon improve dramatically, In fact, we’ve already seen great strides in this area thanks to better OSs, browsers and standards.

Third, developers will learn to better leverage newer (more modern) development techniques and CMSs that take a single website and render efficiently for the best user experience across a variety of devices – smart phones, tables and desktop. This is an important concept here, and the one I believe that will truly eradicate the need for many mobile apps. Businesses will simply build ONE website, and then the CMS will deploy it to the variety of devices dynamically.

Saving companies gobs of money, time and resources by reducing the number of different “things” a company needs to build will ultimately spell the end of apps. Companies don’t want to pay for and maintain multiple “things” (apps and sites). As business owners, we want to build once, maintain centrally, and deploy dynamically.

Now, a good friend and colleague of mine, Daniel Odio (who by the way is a mobile app genius), made a very compelling comment to me recently. He said, (in reply to my comment that HTML5 and the mobile web would make apps obsolete) that I was comparing mobile apps today with the mobile web in five years. Good point, I was! I also concede that I’m not an expert on mobile apps, though I do have some experience in the area. And, I will also say that I’ve built several mobile sites and have been experimenting with a number of mobile CMS platforms. I also will say that Daniel’s company (www.appmakr.com) is really freaking cool and I’ve used it to build two mobile apps already (soon to be published once Apple approves my developer account).

I digress…

I am not sure what the future of the mobile app is and what advancements are in store for this very popular media format. I believe that within the decade mobile phones will have a projector capability that will project the screen onto a surface and use infrared and spatial awareness to enable you to interact with the projected image as if it were a touch screen… so maybe mobile apps will take advantage of that. I also believe that phones will enable holography in a similar manner. But until then, I believe that mobile websites might be a better long term investment, especially if you are looking to build off of your existing web experience and just bring it to the mobile space. It might be cheaper and easier, but it might just not be as cool. Cool comes at a price, and building an iPhone app is not cheap. But, for that matter, neither is a great web site.

For some additional reading, check out this MediaPost article which demonstrates how Facebook is countering Apple’s app dominance by creating a mobile site versus an app:

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=152531#
Should your business do a Groupon?

Are you a small business and considering doing a group buying promotion such as a Groupon or LivingSocial promotion? If so, there are a number of questions you first need to ask.

For instance, do you already advertise? TV, radio, print, online? If so, you need to understand that a coupon promotion is simply just another form of advertising.

Next, the purpose of advertising for your business must also be understood. Do you advertise for direct response? This means, is your goal via advertising to generate an immediate transaction? Are you looking to generate brand awareness? Are you looking for repeat customers? Are you trying to augment seasonality in your business?

Can you measure the efforts of your advertising? Do you know how much business your last advertising campaign generated? Do you know what the average transaction value is for your business? What percent of your business is new each month versus repeat?

Lots of questions, right? Well, if you cannot answer these questions, don’t do a coupon. You won’t know if it worked.

Having said that, you’re going to encounter a lot of positive propaganda from the coupon companies touting how many they can sell for you, and that’s all fine and dandy. But, the real questions you need to ask are with regards to your own business. You need to understand how to price your coupon so that its value is less than your average sale, and ensuring that customers cannot just come in and purchase one item for the exact coupon amount. You generate business from a coupon in two major ways: up selling and repeat business at full price.

If your business is a commodity type of business, with little differentiation from competitors (think of a casual local salon or eatery), then there is little reason a customer might return other than positive customer experiences which can be difficult to replicate if your business is more transaction and less service oriented.

Most (yes, the majority) of coupon buyers are bargain shoppers. They are looking for the next haircut coupon or half off sandwich deal. They will buy the minimum from your business and then go to the next business with the next coupon.

This doesn’t mean a coupon is bad. Remember, you need to answer all those questions above first. Perhaps you are a new business and you need exposure. Perhaps you have a slow season coming up… etc…

A coupon might be right for you, but it might not be. Just like TV and radio are good for some businesses and not for others.

Also, not all coupons are the same. You’ll get more exposure with the big companies such as Groupon and LivingSocial, but you’ll also pay a large commission for that exposure. Whereas, the small local coupon companies may offer less exposure but a smaller commission.

Need more data? Check out this great research by Utpal M. Dholakia at Rice University. There are many great articles on this topic, so do your homework first!
How to Add Google +1 to your WordPress Blog

If you hadn’t heard yet (living under a rock?), Google +1 (plus one) launched. Now that all the fanfare and buzz is subsiding (was there much?), what’s a WordPress blogger to do other than jump on the bandwagon.

In defense of +1, I like it. It is a great way to passively add your stamp of approval to content and sites you come across around the web. But remember, that means it is extending your footprint, so this is not for the shy or privacy-at-heart types. And, it’s interesting to see what your friends plus one.

Read more about plus one here:

Google’s Plus 1 Program May Alter Paid Search Landscape

Social Search – How it Will Change the Landscape of your Decisions

http://searchengineland.com/its-here-google-1-buttons-for-websites-79394

And, when you are ready to add it to your WordPress blog (it should be somewhere below this post), just do a plug-in search for “plus one” and you’ll find dozens to chose from.
How to Measure Social Media ROI using Google Analytics

Ever wonder how to measure your social media ROI? Sure, lots of expensive products will do it for you! I won’t name them to protect the innocent, but what I can say is that you can get highly insightful metrics for free using Google Analytics, and they are just as powerful as the services you pay for. It’s an odd bit of marketing arbitrage in the web analytics world, so you should take full advantage of it.

Basically, you need to create a custom filter which captures referral traffic from social media sites and then report that against whatever metric you use for ROI, such as goals, or visits, etc.

You can also do it with some on the fly filtering on existing reports, but I actually recommend using a custom filter and custom report.

Samir Balwani at Search Engine Watch describes this with a decent amount of detail, so if measuring social media ROI is your goal, check out his post.
Inside Facebook’s Advertising Platform

Marty Weintraub at aimClear is getting ready to debut his new book on Facebook advertising optimization and gave folks a sneak peak at what to expect between the covers. Check out his sneak peak, it’s definitely not for the beginners out there, so you should have a little Facebook or paid search advertising experience before jumping in.