Welcome to 2012! Now is the time to get excited and brainstorm ways to improve your business. The best way to do that is a marketing plan. You may think to yourself, “How can I do that, I have thought of everything.” Well here is SOBO’s quick list of New Years Resolutions:

• LinkedIn — Keep your personal profile up to date and create a company profile too.
• Facebook — Create a Page for your business. If you are worried about confusing your personal and business personae, create a new Facebook account to use professionally.
• SEO — Review your website with an eye towards Search Engine Optimization. Know your core keywords. A good place to start is Google’s Key Word Tool Box.
• Capabilities Statement — Know what you do well and shout it out! We’ve created a PDF of our capabilities and our New Years Resolution is produce our own video version. Here’s one we produced for Honeywell:

• Blog — Remind your customers of your expertise (like we’re doing now). This doesn’t have to be too time consuming. You can record your blog content into your phone and email it to a writer (or SOBO of course) to turn into a blog. Blogging is one of the best “organic” ways to update your website and increase your traffic.
• Be Creative — We recently heard of a CEO who sends a short (30 seconds or less) personalized to prospective employees after their interview using his computers build in camera. “Hey Sally, Thank you for coming into today. I know you meet with Stan, Katie and Thom. They were very impressed. We hope you consider our company a good fit for your skills. I’m looking forward to seeing you soon.” Imagine the impact of a quick personal video message after a sales call!

Of course if this all seems a bit overwhelming, there’s no need to panic…SOBO’s ready to help you exceed your New Years Resolution.

Here’s to a successful 2012 and have a magnificent New Year.

As a media professional, I work hard to understand the social media and web communication options that I want to plant and watch grow. I created this chart to try to get a handle on what media tools were worth the time and effort for SOBO and my clients.

Remember, every social media platform you choose will take some work to be a benefit. You need to schedule time to feed and weed your garden to insure it’s worth your effort.

The social media landscape is changing at lighting speed. This is my 1000-foot view. I’m very interested in discussing this topic so please jump in with your thoughts and comments.

SOBO Productions has received notification that we are now a certified MBE (Minority Business Enterprise) and DBE (Disadvantaged Business Enterprise)  in Maryland. This designation is helpful to departments and agencies of the State of Maryland and to companies interested in partnering with small business such as SOBO.

SOBO has a long history of producing multimedia and video government agencies and nonprofits. Some of our NAICS Codes are listed below:

• 512110 – Motion Picture and Video Production
• 541613 – Marketing Consulting Services (Specifically: consultation and development of web and multimedia projects, video and brochures in multiple languages, digital media, banners, etc.)
• 611430 – Professional and Management Development Training (Specifically: eLearning, marketing, management and business development training support material)

Please fill out the contact information form if you are interested in discussing a project.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is all about words. If you choose the right ones for your web site, you can soar to the top of your customers’ search results.

Even though it sounds like it might be complicated, SEO is refreshingly logical (mostly), democratic (available to anyone willing to put in the time), and can be absolutely FREE. And you will almost certainly see results if you work at it.

One of the aspects of SEO I really enjoy is that it’s “pull” marketing. You’re no doubt familiar with “push” marketing, which inserts unrequested ads and e-mails into inboxes and onto results pages (I really dislike the blinking ones). Pull marketing simply helps people find what they’re already looking for.

So the key to helping people is to make sure you’re speaking their language. Quite literally. This means you need to think about what people type into a Google search box if they were looking for your products or services. These are called key words.

The important thing is that when someone enters key words into a search box, the results will be prioritized by how close they were to the original searched words. Simply put, if someone enters, “How can I find the best personal coach in Baltimore?,” theoretically, your link will appear in the search results first if you’re the only one to have those words in that particular order.

So you first need to determine key words that work for your business. And after you’ve made a list (quite possibly by studying the web sites of your competitors), begin putting the key words into question form, because it turns out that a lot of people write questions to Google, not just words and phrases.

Once you have a keyword list, you do just about everything possible to use these key words liberally (but not obnoxiously) on your pages.

Notice that I said “just about” everything. Google is not stupid (and yes, Google really is the primary search engine you need to concern yourself with, but not the only one). In fact, millions of dollars every year go into Google’s frequently updated “search algorithm” so that it’s not fooled by shysters. Some people have actually stuffed their pages with “invisible” key words (making them the same color as the background so the words are unnoticeable in a browser window). Web pages with this kind of “trick” will be penalized by Google and possibly other search engines.

On the other hand, Google rewards you for honest attempts to help your audience find information. Key words in page titles are weighted more heavily, for instance, than in metatags that are buried in the html of your pages.

Next time: we’ll talk about narrowing down (or building up) your key words list.

Susan Branch Smith is a profession writer who has been working with SOBO for over 15 years. She has experience writing video, print, multimedia, and the web. She is also the owner of Basecamp Productions, located in Baltimore and Williamsburg, Virginia.