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New Experiences in Podcasting
2008-03-28 06:58:00
Last month saw our first 2 podcasts and there’s more to come.  Wouldn’t you like to share the Podcasting learning process I am going through it so that when its your turn you can learn from my mishaps?  This week I recorded the first podcast interview on the hop in a coffee shop near the beach, lots of background noise and all.  I was trying out a Belkin plugin for my iPod which worked like a dream.  Sound was great, the process to record and upload was all automated and very simple - perfect.  Podcasting couldn’t be easier. I was lulled into a false sense of security however.  The problems began when I tried to do some editing with Garageband.  Not an easy task as I found out and this isn’t my first time using it either by a long shot.  Garageband isn’t as intuitive as I’d like it to be, its slow and cumbersome.  And wizard would help - if you’re listening Apple.  Now I am trying out Audacity but off course how to import a file fr...
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Easy RSS
2008-03-26 15:34:00
When you subscribe to a blog or podcast or populate a portal like iGoogle the technology that brings the information to you is called RSS. Its a way of publishing information easily so as to make it available to subscribers in a central on-line repository. Why take advantage of RSS? There are many reasons: Pull rather than push - articles come to users rather than them having to hunt them down; Subscribers get the latest and greatest information as its posted; An RSS link encourages traffic to your site; Users can have a bunch of sources of info in one place - much like a newspaper; RSS can be used internally to disseminate info too. How to set up an RSS feed? First get your site set up to support RSS by adding a few short lines of code. Place code on your site that the RSS feed readers can find your info. Publicise your feed by telling the world and everyone you know in it at every opportunity. Add the RSS feed button to your site so visitors know you the can easily subscribe. ...
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Update Your Blog Already!
2008-03-21 14:31:00
Thanks to the ZDNet blog for this very apt cartoon. Same could be said for many company websites too.
More About: Blog , Update

Happy Bloganniversary!
2008-03-19 18:17:00
Our one year blog anniversary came and went recently with little fanfare (until now that is). We’ll put in down to having too much fun blogging. Here are just a few of the pleasures derived from blogging over the past twelve months: 1.The Out-Smarts blog is doubling in readership every month but it wasn’t until November when post on a Facebook hoax brought the first HUGE spike in traffic. Its great to ride a wave. 2. In January I was introduced to someone I hadn’t met before and they responded that they enjoy this blog - very flattering; 3. Its always fascinating to track where visitors come from. This site gets visits from all around the world we have visitors in the UK, US and Canada but have also met colleagues from Serbia, Korea and India by blogging here; 4. When our work was copied last week the community really rallied around giving advice on next steps, encouragement in a number of different forums - heartwarming indeed. 5. Its amazing how easily blog p...
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Facebook Hysteria - Use Your Common Sense!
2008-03-17 16:32:00
Facebook hysteria is hitting new heights. The media is abuzz with Facebook horror stories, sensationalized stories of how Facebook can threaten our very existence. Perhaps its the cynic in me but frankly this is just the next example in a long line of innovations that have been seen as threats by the mainstream. Even the phone was described as a tool of the devil when it was first introduced. Why this hysteria ? Because, like all new ways of doing things it challenges what people perceive as the norm. Its a new way of doing things and in good human nature fashion we see it as a threat because its something new that we don’t yet understand. Get with the programme peeps! Rather than viewing Facebook as something to be afeared of check it out yourself - go online and see what its all about. You have a choice, no one is forcing you to have a Facebook profile or interact with people in that forum but before you go spouting off about what a threat it is to society understand what ...
More About: Sense , Common , Facebook , Hysteria , Common Sense

Plagiarists Blog Off!
2008-03-14 18:01:00
Our blog hit 2 rather dubious milestones this week. Both occurred yesterday when someone was good enough to post our blog peice about the SMEI event with links and all. We love link love here at Out-Smarts and we are always glad to share as long as blog etiquette is followed. In this case it wasn’t, the post, on a site that had little or no original content, even credited our article to someone else! They referred to it as a great article - thanks but next time please GET IT RIGHT: If you’re not sure of the author don’t include fake or false info. If in doubt about the source - DON’T post it. Always credit the true author and include a link back to the original article. Be aware that the Internet by its nature is very transparent - if plagiarism is your game then chances are you’ll get caught out sooner or later. So in fine Monica Hamburg fashion - we set to correcting the situation with a well worded comment demanding the error be corrected. Whic...
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Blogging for PR
2008-03-14 06:27:00
The blogosphere is a great way to get your message across and reach wider audiences but if you are thinking about harnessing it for PR purposes, be aware.  As with all things web 2.0 blogging for PR can be done and done well but you have to approach it in a new way.   When approaching a blogger: Don’t try to sell to them or buy their good words - it won’t go over well; Establish rapport up front if you can, network with them in other forums and develop a relationship that shows your sincerity; Relate your offering to a blog post they may have made on an applicable subject; Contact a select few bloggers via a personalized email that include links to pertinent pages or info; If applicable, offer a reciprocal link; Don’t use a traditional press release format - it will be perceived as too “suity”.
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Social Media and its impact on Sales and Marketing
2008-03-12 20:36:00
Social media for marketing and business development is the hot topic on the networking circuit in Vancouver these days and today’s SMEI event was no exception. With expert panelists from BCIT and Oracle bringing their unique experiences in SM to the panel, the event proved to be insightful. It started off with a brief intro to Web 2.0 described as being “Tech, Process and People - but most of all collaboration” then went on to a 101 of web 2.0 terms such as RSS, blogs, podcasts for the real newbies in the audience. Once the panelists got started the true value of the event became apparent. Justin Kestelyn, Director of Development Programs at Oracle discussed their web 2.0 adoption and the benefits they have gained from using a more transparent strategy and involving their customers and partners more. He made a great point in that by involving their customers and allowing them to have a voice these invariably become evangelists at little or no cost to Oracle. He poi...
More About: Marketing , Social , Media , Sales

The Static Page is Dead!
2008-03-07 20:37:00
A while back it was the in thing to set up a web site that would act as a brochure, telling people who happened to visit what you have to offer. It was nothing better than a flyer in the mail. The days of the static web site done, finished, caput okay! These days its all about interactivity and collaboration. Its easy to make websites more dynamic and to involve your audience rather than communicate at them. There are thousands of widgets out there to allow you to question is are you doing it? Go on - interact with us - you know you want to….. <a href=”http://www.polldaddy.com&rdqu o; >surveys</a> - <a href=”http://www.polldaddy.com/p/39 3534/” >Take Our Poll</a>
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Link Tools
2008-03-06 16:32:00
A client of mine recently came upon the Real Finder Link tool and asked me my opinion. As will most of these things that pop up on the Internet advertising free and easy results I was sceptical. However I decided to take a closer look and actually installed this one to test it. What it is is a utility that crawls blog sites for keyword terms of your choice then lists them and autofills the website, name and email address forms saving you time. Say you wanted to find posts on business development, you would enter “business development” and it would bring up all the blog posts it could find on that subject (you can segment this by number of comments on the post if you like). It then auto fills your details and you can add appropriate comments. Its actually quite a quick way to identify posts that you may want to comment on and I will probably end up using it to save me some time. Here are the downsides: it took about an hour to download the software and get it...
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10 Micro Blog Marketing Tips
2008-03-05 19:37:00
If you’re thinking about using micro blogging for marketing, here are some guidelines: 1. Don’t be overly narcissistic - that means don’t blow your own horn too much! 2. As with all blog platforms always avoid the hard sell - its okay to tell your customer about promotions. 3. If your customer’s don’t have a clue what a micro blog is then keep it on the back burner for now. 4. Befriend some micro blog marketers and keep an eye on how they do it before commencing. Brian Chappell has a list of 200. 5. Get acronym savvy before you use said abbreviations. 6. Don’t try to micro blog on all platforms, find the one with the most clients and focus on that. 7. Don’t let micro blog marketing suck up to much of your time, set up IM and do it when your doing nothing else. 8. Look at it as a conversation - a 2 way street rather than just a soap box. 9. Tell people something they don’t know already about your industry, products or services (try t...
More About: Marketing , Marketing Tips , Tips , Blog , Blog Marketing

WordPress Formatting And Other Rants
2008-03-05 19:35:00
Why does it always take twice as long to do anything as I expect it to? Yesterday it was the crappy Lexmark printer and its constant error messages about cartridges in the wrong place or “connection to the printer could not be established” -  despite the fact that the cartridges hadn’t moved since the previous print just minutes before and the connection is just fine (ditto from minutes ago). I had an HP printer for 10 years and never had a problem with it. This is the last Lemark I buy. Today me beef is with WordPress. Why is it that in both Safari and Firefox the formatting is rubbish. What I mean by this is that regardless what breaks, returns or spacing I try to put in my posts it invariably runs everything together as one large paragraph as soon as I hit save. I’ve tried adding returns in both visual and I’ve coded breaks in the code screen but nothing makes a difference. Unlike Lexmark I have some loyalty to WordPress and look forward to t...
More About: Wordpress , Rants

Approaching Twitter Marketing
2008-03-03 16:45:00
An article on Collective Thoughts about raising your Twitter profile got me thinking about the social media wave that is upon us. The article discusses why Twitter is a viable marketing tool and how the writer went about increasing his Twitter profile in 30 days. It has many valid points and yes Twitter can be a great marketing tool but so can blogging, social networking, wiki’ing and forums - to mention but a few. If you spend time marketing in each and everyone of these as the buzz out there would suggest, you would have very little time to spend on actual revenue generation or traditional marketing efforts (woe betide you would do those). Its important (as with any marketing project) to do some research and planning up front when considering these new collaborative web 2.0 technologies. Don’t just rush out and start Twittering your head off just because its the latest in thing. Take time to consider your client and determine whether they are Twittering. If they a...
More About: Marketing

Adding Pictures to Your Blog
2008-03-01 18:28:00
Lately I’ve been adding more images to my blog to brighten it up.  I’ve even been taking photographs when I am out and about.   This cartoon from Being Five explains why you haven’t seen any of them yet!
More About: Pictures , Blog

Reasons to Be Cheerful Links - February 2008
2008-02-29 16:31:00
The reasons to be cheerful have been bountiful this month as we traveled the virtual world. Links include everything from on line CRM to complete and utter whimsy and we have more reasons than usual for February : Myplick - never battle with uploading a Powerpoint again. Buzzshout - want to find out about the latest web technologies? Buzzshout is the place to go. Highrise - simple on-line CRM to allow you to easily manage your contacts. Great if you’re just starting out but not so easy if your contacts aren’t in Outlook and your forced to manually upload. Got vmail - this service helps you manage your calls, provides toll free numbers and an answering service. NCIX - this one is bricks and mortar and online and its great to have an alternative to the cowboys at FutureShop and Best Buy. meez - while away your Friday afternoon creating an avator for your social networking profiles. Mine is “so meez”. Strutta - Vancouver is a buzz with the yet to be launched ...
More About: Reasons , February 2008 , 2008

Get To It - Social Media Marketing that is
2008-02-28 16:46:00
An article in the Vancouver Sun’s business section today blazes the headline “Adults spend more time in cyberspace than teens”. According to an Ipsos Reid poll conducted here in Canada, adults spend an average of 5 hours more online than teenagers doing everything from banking, shopping and booking holidays to socializing and playing games. So much for the Internet being the domain of the young. Even more interesting is that off those polled 70% of adults had participated in online social activities. That should be reason enough to integrate social media marketing into your strategic plan and to spread awareness of your offering in this medium.
More About: Marketing , Social , Media

Marketing Now
2008-02-27 17:53:00
The last few years has brought great changes to the way we approach business and marketing is no exception: there’s a new way to approach understanding and reaching out to customers over the Internet. The problem with marketing right now is that there is a divide between two camps: the traditional marketers and the new marketers. I see this all the time with both marketing organizations and companies alike. They are either all for tried and tested marketing techniques or all for Internet approaches with very little in between. This is forging a divide in the marketing community. I notice that the new marketers are very derisive of the old way and traditional marketers frequently ignore (or perhaps are oblivious or afraid of new ways to market). I find all this very amusing. Here at Out-Smarts we recognize that, to be effective in reaching your audience you should use all appropriate tools available. Old and new marketing approaches are simply tools that can be used to...
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Northern Voice Podcast
2008-02-26 23:58:00
Here’s podcast number 2 - Northern Voice .  We loved it so much we wanted to tell you all about it! northern-voice.m4a 
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Liveblogging Northern Voice -Bringing Social to Software
2008-02-23 20:48:00
Marc Canter former rock and opera singer now focuses on social technologies.  He says he’s visionary and has an uncanny ability to correctly predict the future - time will tell.   His main point is that all software needs to become social.  We need to be taking advantage of the social and open nature of technology now to extend beyond traditional realms of software. He works with Bell Canada to create a site that takes advantage of social sharing to promote Bell’s music and movies.  He predicts Bell Canada will be an openID broker.There’s no real compelling reason to do this right now but it will be way of future. I haven’t captured half of what Marc said so you should check out his aforementioned blog and his PeopleAggregator company. Nice job Marc!
More About: Software , Social , Voice , Northern , Liveblogging

Live Blogging Northern Voice - Live Blogging 101
2008-02-22 23:32:00
Presentation  by Jeffrey  Keefer and  Robin Yap. Why blog - to express yourself  - put your voice out there for people to read.   Why live blog - you don’t over analyse - its raw and more real. Reasons: 1. In the moment. 2. To share with those not there. 3. Gets it done. 4.Captures the emotion - you don’t lose it or edit it  out. 5. Gives you smoething to do when your bored. Tools to use when wifi access isn’t possible: microsoft live writer scribefire cover it live ecto Twitter - microblogging These tools are starting to work together.  Live Writer links to Twitter links to Facebook and reaches more people. Concerns with live blogging include you could misquote, get something out of context and if you are live blogging a conference why should people who don’t pay to go get all the content.
More About: Voice , Blogging , Northern

Techcouver Just Got Bigger, Better, Faster, More
2008-02-20 06:57:00
Back in August we introduced you to the web 2.0 map of Vancouver “Techcouver”.  Well the new media map just got better thanks to Techvibes and Bluelime Media.  Its gone nationwide, covers more tech and its been Googlized too.  Oh and we’re on there now…..    

Building Valuable Business Relationships in the Virtual World - Podcast?
2008-02-19 07:39:00
Its a good job Northern Voice is taking place in Vancouver this week. The event, slated as a blogger’s un-conference is a two day whirlwind of blogging and social media information that every company or digerati needs to know, covering everything from wikis to microblogging, widgets to tagging. Its perfect timing for Out-Smarts. This week we will publish our first podcast. We’re hoping that Northern Voice experts will come to our aid to make this possible for all to enjoy. The podcast is ready to go (we promised it at the PWN event last week and we’re always good to our word). Using Garageband to create the audio and link to the deck, the creation was relatively painless. Here it is: Building Valuable Business Relationships in the Virtual World What was difficult was working out how to publish this so that people like you, and you, and you could easily download and listen. Let us know if/how it works (apologies in advance if it craps out). We’re still ...
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Love Your Landing Page: Tips to Increase Ecommerce Conversion
2008-02-14 19:04:00
I remember trying to sell an e-commerce platform to Cotton Ginny back in 1995.  At that time the main issue we had to convince them of was that people would actually be willing to buy on-line despite the perceived “security” risks.   Thankfully, ecommerce has come a long way since then.   I am always fascinated to hear news from this sector and am a regular attendee at Elasticpath’s webinars.  I was excited when I was invited to live blog today’s webinar - Love Your Landing Page : Tips to Increase Ecommerce Conversion  featuring Ayat Shukairt, Managing Partner, INVESP Consulting.  In listening to the discussion, its apparent that many of the factors I preach to clients when considering their web presence are also very valid for retailers using online stores such and that some issues haven’t changed in the last decade or so.  When creating your retail landing page be aware of the following points highlighted during the webinar: understand your...

11 Tips for Safe On-line Business Development
2008-02-13 16:24:00
Here’s blog post 2 in the series following up on my Building Valuable Business Relationships in the Virtual World presentation. The Internet is an ideal way to grow your business and expand your network but their are risks that you should be aware of. Here are 10 tips that will help you do it safely: 1. When networking on Facebook or other social forums always use the privacy controls to limit access to your information (usually you can find these by clicking on “account”). 2. Use Facebook, LinkedIn and other networks to make people aware of what you do or want to do. 3. Google yourself to see what’s being said about you and do the Granny test on the results - if Granny wouldn’t approve then perhaps the content isn’t appropriate to enhance your business profile. 4. Don’t put up any photos, videos or images that compromise your image. 5. Portray yourself professionally as appropriate to your industry in all forums. 6. Be true to who you are...
More About: Tips , Development , On-line , Line

Internet Networking Hubs
2008-02-12 06:57:00
I had the pleasure this evening to present at an event co hosted by the Professional Women’s Network, the YWCA Mentoring Program and the Downtown Networking Association aimed at introducing mentors and mentees to professional growth strategies to help you realise career goals. My topic: “Building Valuable Business Relationships in the Virtual World”. As promised, I am going to blog over the next few days about some of the issues I touched on at the event, the first of these being Internet networking hubs. Internet networking hubs are great forums to expand your business network and extend your reach. Obviously those you use will depend on what it is you do. For example a photographer would likely use photo sites like Flickr to showcase their experience. Someone in the music industry is likely to benefit more from MySpace than Facebook. And a lawyer might is more likely to join a law forum than a web development forum. Its up to you which you choose but Intern...

Yahoo snubs Microsoft
2008-02-11 18:42:00
Just wanted to quickly follow up on me post a few days ago regarding Microsoft ’s attempt to buy Yahoo .  News in today is that Yahoo is rejecting the bid as it “under values the organisation”.  The search engine and Internet advertising industries will remain on tenterhooks to see if Microsoft will up their $45b bid (as expected by analysts) or if a hostile take over is on the cards.  Yahoo’s share price dropped following the disclosure - no surprise there.
More About: Yahoo!

The Internet has Eyes
2008-02-08 16:46:00
The Internet and especially the blogosphere is a breeding ground for plagiarism. People like the idea of blogging but can’t come up with good content so they steal from others. Now that’s usually okay as long as you credit the source and link back but in some cases that simply doesn’t happen. I witnessed exactly such an event this week when Monica Hamburg’s posting Behold the Power of Facebook for Business appeared on another site on 1st February. How did I find this out? Every time another site links back to mine it shows up both in Wordpress (if they link to this blog) and in other sites like Technorati. I noticed the new link, clicked to read and follow up in true blog etiquette form only to discover no mention of the true author. On alerting her, Monica immediately went into action with a great email she offered up on her site that others can use in dealing with situations like this: I can see that you “added” my name, but this most certainly do...
More About: Eyes , The Internet

Know Your Audience
2008-02-07 16:25:00
Lets get something straight here first and foremost - I am female: I look like a woman and I sound like a woman but yet I have been called Mr. on two separate occasions recently. The first was an e-mail following up on a booth I visited at CES - the e-mail actually mentioned how much they had enjoyed meeting me!. The second was in a voice mail left from someone referred to me by a service provider. The person listened (but did not hear) my message and yet still called me Mr. To spare these people the embarrasment I won’t actually mention their names or company (although they probably deserve it for their blatant ignorance) but these occurrences served to remind me how important it is in business to know your customer. What do you think the chances of me doing business with either of these companies are? I’d say somewhere less than zero. Not only did they offend me from the start but the first had the gall to blatantly lie in their communication (enjoyed meeting me ...
More About: Audience

90/10 Internet Marketing Rule
2008-02-05 16:35:00
Yesterday I read an article called the 90/10 marketing rule that talked about how businesses often focus most of their time on creating a product or service but give little time to marketing it effectively. It linked in to an article that pointed out that Internet marketing is no different - how true that is. We regularly come across businesses that have gone about developing web sites without giving an iota of thought to who they are trying to attract or how they can go about doing so effectively and they come to us wondering why their site doesn’t get much traffic. Marketing , in case you didn’t know is all about understanding the needs of the customer and developing offerings that meet those. When considering your website the first thing you need to do is put yourself in the shoes of your customer, think about who they are - get inside their heads as well as their shoes! If that is a challenge then ask existing customers or people you know who fit the bill. Once you ...
More About: Internet Marketing , Rule

Effective E-mail Campaigns - 11 Commandments
2008-02-04 16:21:00
In a world of never ending SPAM it’s a real challenge to create successful e-mail campaigns but its not impossible. Here are some pointers to bear in mind: Avoid the hard sell - people get so much spam these days that if you try to sell to strangers via e, you’ll hit the junk file faster than you can say spam; Better to use email to keep in touch with clients than to try to sell - newsletters are better than sales letters; Use a call to action title - one that is brief, catchy, intelligent that will entice people to open the mail; By adding an unsubscribe button, your mail is perceived as more professional - just remember to delete those who request it from your mailing lists - always; Drive them back to your website by including a link - you can then easily track click throughs to make follow up calls more targeted; Make it simple stupid - the old adage applies here too - don’t add too many fancy images or graphics - it will just clog people’s mail boxes;...
More About: Mail , E-Mail , Campaigns , Effective , Commandments