I am about to help out Linda Settles with her new blog, and I was looking for some quick pointers to help her out. I came across Seth Godin’s “riffs on marketing, respect, and the ways ideas spread” – this is a really good article: How to get traffic for your blog. Pay attention to #18, 19 and 40. 

Some trends in well-read blogs that I came across…

My realtor, Nannette Saunders, opened my eyes. I have been using Twitter for a few months but never seriously… never with intention.

As stated on the Twitter wiki: “Twitter is a way of life. It’s living with a publicity policy. It’s friends, Romans and country people the world over engaged in timely snippet conversations that fit into 140 character chunks.)

How does it work? 

All you have to do is sign up at Twitter.com, find your friends and colleagues, link it to your cell phone, and text “40404″ every time you want to update your “status.” So, this morning, I changed my status to: “Working from home for a few hours… the rain helps me concentrate.” 

Now, this isn’t some profound or instructive marketing statement. Then what is its value? 

Sometimes informative and useful tips are good, too, but I want my target to know that I am a real person! I want to help you understand that I am a trustworthy and accountable person… and I want to build a relationship with you.

Nannette was right: this is a new LEVEL of social networking. Tools like Facebook and LinkedIn and Twitter allow us as professionals to build better referral networks in months than we could do in years. By keeping connected with the world at all times.

When we were looking at homes yesterday (hoping to buy before the end of October), she made a fairly profound statement, that went something like… “I used to do a lot of direct mail… now I don’t have to do any.” 

Of course, there is strategy to be learned in using online social networking tools. Here are a few tips that I have picked up to use with Twitter:

1. When choosing people to follow, ask yourself: what kind of professionals would I want to follow, who would want to follow me, and who would refer others to follow me? Then, follow all of them. Hopefully they will return the favor. 

2. Connect Twitter to your cell phone and update consistently. Don’t go a day without Twittering!

3. Look for ‘Tweetups’ – which are local gatherings of people who Twitter… supposedly a great networking opportunity! 

4. Don’t forget to signup and follow me: jamills

I first discovered Search Engine Optimization the day I took over the company website. At the time I was working for a nonprofit, way before I started my own company. We were using a content management system at the time and I discovered that search engine spiders (yes, another term worth learning) couldn’t even read our website! Not because it was an unattractive site, or because the content was confusing… in fact, it was a really top notch site with excellent graphics and content. 

So what was the problem? 

As wikipedia says, Search Engine Optimization considers “how search algorithms work and what people search for. SEO efforts may involve a site’s coding, presentation, and structure, as well as fixing problems that could prevent search engine indexing programs from fully spidering a site.” 

Think of it this way: if the code (HTML for example) of your website is too messy and tangled for the search engine spiders to get through it, it is going to come back as a huge jumbled mess. The content management system was too dirty! It created bad code. 

So after 5 years of learning how to code, structure, research and write key word content and properly index a website, I finally feel like I have a handle on it. 

Its actually pretty easy to use SEO to elevate your website in search engines, based on key words. That is my definition of SEO: “Making your website findable on search engines.”

Our new PC business is just taking off. My partner and I spent our day yesterday at Liberty University’s community fair: where local businesses got a chance to welcome new students, give away free stuff, and hopefully get some business.

A couple things happened: 1)  We were able to claim our position among other local businesses, and 2) we began the branding process of telling the students that we should be their preferred PC repair shop.

There were all kinds of businesses there – hotels, pizza places, bookstores, coffee shops, the YMCA … but the one that really stuck out to me was a church college group. They brought at least 5 people from their group and were always surrounded by students. 

My question is… what is the value of representing your nonprofit or church in a community event like this one? 

I suppose it can be answered with more questions: what does the nonprofit or church do? Who do they serve? Are they already branded in the community? Do they not serve the local community at all… and if so… would is still benefit them to make an appearance? 

What about trade shows? Conferences? 

One of my mentors from the earlier days (from Grant Station) once told me not to waste my time at conferences. She had a valid point considering the return on investment. But what is the branding value if you have a representative who always attends these events? 

I would like some feedback on this issue.