Your Facebook fan page is one of the best places to engage and communicate with people interested in your brand. Unfortunately, many fan pages fall short in this crucial area. Creating a fan page can be fairly simple, but building a successful brand on Facebook is a much more difficult process. Good results require strategy, planning, design skill, HTML & CSS knowledge, and ongoing creativity.

The following three tips will give you a strong start toward creating a successful Facebook fan page; but don’t forget that this is just the beginning.

1. Secure a Search-Friendly Vanity URL

On June 9th, 2009 Facebook announced a new system for users to secure their own custom Facebook URLs. Not only did the custom URLs produce enhanced brand exposure on Facebook; they also dramatically improved search functionality and search results.

Now, users find Facebook pages directly within traditional search results. They can discover your fan page when they search within Facebook, but your fan page will also be delivered by the major search engines. This revolution in branding can be a very powerful way to build a fan base.

Follow these steps to secure your own search-friendly vanity URL:

• Acquire a minimum of 25 fans. (Facebook requires this minimum in order to cut back on vanity URL squatting.)
• Select a username that either builds brand equity (i.e. your company’s name) or improves your search visibility (i.e. a targeted keyword).
• Visit Facebook’s username selection page and see if your desired username is available.
• It’s not a bad idea to run your new username by a trusted advisor or two before you set it in stone. You want your vanity URL to be easy to read, easy to spell, easy to remember, and easily associated with your brand.
• Double-check the spelling of your username! I repeat: DOUBLE-CHECK THE SPELLING OF YOUR USERNAME. Once you set your username with Facebook, it cannot be changed.

2. Create a Custom FBML Landing Page

Facebook fan pages allow for separate default landing pages or tabs for non-fans and fans. Taking advantage of this structure can help your brand create unique messaging and promotions to improve fan acquisition. These pages or tabs can be as simple as a static image, or as complex as a full-blown application.

Example of Ikea’s simple yet effective custom FBML landing page.

Example of Nike Golf’s complex, interactive FBML landing page.

In order to build a customized landing page, you will first need to add the Facebook Markup Language (FBML) application. Then you will be able to edit tabs and add custom HTML. For additional information on the logistics of building a custom FBML page, read Mashable’s concise article: HOW TO: Build a Facebook Landing Page for Your Business.

3. Build a Social Media Ecosystem

Improving the quality and quantity of your Facebook fans requires a network or ecosystem of traditional platforms and other social media. The integration of other platforms can be implemented through FBML, and can involve any number of the following:

• Links to other social media profiles, such as Twitter and LinkedIn.
• Integration of blog posts and other relevant content sources.
• A simple lead generation form.
• An email newsletter signup form.
• A RSS feed subscription link
• Your Youtube and Vimeo videos.
• Any Podcasts that you have recorded.
• You can even add e-commerce functionality!

So don’t wait another day to harness the power of Facebook. Just follow these 3 simple tips to get started on improving brand awareness, page accessibility, search results, and the quantity and quality of fans visiting your Facebook fan page and liking your brand.

Please feel free to leave comments here if you have any additional tips about this ever-evolving new way to market your brand online!

To the uninitiated, growing a successful social media marketing campaign can be intimidating. While you can find an abundance of information pertaining to social media marketing both online and offline, just determining where to start can be difficult. That’s why I’ve pulled together my top four tips for cultivating success in social media:

1. Create a Strategy

A comprehensive strategy is fundamental for all forms of marketing, and social media is no different. Creating and following a concise social media strategy is paramount when marketing a business or yourself. Items to consider:

• What is your objective? Are you trying to leverage social media to generate sales, improve brand equity or aid in support efforts?
• Who are your stakeholders? Consider who will be “driving” your social media strategy. Will management, employees, or an outside agency be involved?
• How will you measure your social media marketing efforts? What applications and tools will you need?

2. Don’t Spread Yourself Too Thin

One of the most common mistakes I encounter is marketers signing up for every conceivable social network out there. Social media marketing takes time and commitment. If you spread your efforts too thin, you are much more likely to fail. Consider conducting some simple market research. What social media networks are used by your target audience? Where are your competitors marketing? Which networks will be the easiest for you to manage? Try to stay focused, and only expand to other networks when you feel comfortable.

3. Be Helpful, Not Spammy

It’s pretty simple. Don’t spam your friends and followers. You wouldn’t do it to your close friends, so don’t do it to your social media friends. Instead, be helpful by passing along useful links, industry articles, answers to questions, tools, content, and direct communication. Honestly engage with your followers, and success will follow.

4. Don’t Worry About How Many Friends You Have

“Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction and skillful execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives.” – William A. Foster

Successful social media strategies are based on quality, not quantity. Don’t worry about how many friends or followers you have. Instead, focus on engaging with influential users within your niche. One engaged friend is worth far more than dozens of unengaged friends.

I hope these four basic tips will help you get started on your path to social media success. If you have any additional helpful tips, please feel free to send us a comment..

Our contest entry, which is in the running for the Best Brand Awareness/User Engagement (over $25k) award, describes the impressive results our social media experts achieved for the City of Bothell, Washington, and their annual Vintage Bothell Wine Walk event that took place in December 2009.

We are very privileged to be in the company of the other SoMe award finalists, and we look forward to a wonderful evening of socializing and networking at this exciting event.  Several of our EngineWorks team members will be in attendance at the awards banquet, and are eager to meet with our industry peers.  If you would like to schedule time with us to discuss our advanced Social Media Marketing strategies and services, please drop us a post to this blog.

Join us on the ‘red carpet’ this Thursday evening!

We will be awarding one free mega-cool EngineWorks t-shirt to one randomly selected fan every business day during the month of May.  Best of all . . . it’s easy, fast, and free to enter!

In addition to a daily chance of being selected as a winner, you will receive substantial benefits as a Facebook fan of EngineWorks, including direct insight into cutting-edge SEM strategies and techniques, advice on how to leverage all search marketing disciplines, and immediate access to the latest industry news and developments.

So, here’s your chance to be stylin’ in your very-own EngineWorks t-shirt.  Available in a wide assortment of colors, including Black on Black, Midnight Black, Charred Toast, and Obsidian, each t-shirt also features a full-color EngineWorks logo emblazoned across the chest (with registered trademark included!).

Become a fan today . . . and, you could win the shirt off our back!

Here’s an example from an eMarketer article published yesterday titled ‘What Facebook’s Open Graph Means for Marketers’:

Note that in this advertisement for Levi’s pants, individuals can indicate that they “Like” this product, and can share this sentiment with friends on Facebook.  As this article also points-out, they can also discover which of their friends “Like” the pants on the Levi’s Web site.

Facebook states that “Like” buttons, and in some instances “Recommend” buttons, will initially appear on numerous popular Web sites that span a variety of industries, such as CNN.com, USA Networks, ABC.com, and NYTimes.com.

The following is a summary of Open Graph which came directly from Facebooks’ blog:

Any webpage can now easily become part of the social graph

On Facebook, users build their profiles through connections to what they care about — be it their friends or their favorite sports teams, bottles of wine, or celebrities. The Open Graph protocol opens up the social graph and lets your pages become objects that users can add to their profiles. When a user establishes this connection by clicking Like on one of your Open Graph-enabled pages, you gain the lasting capabilities of Facebook Pages: a link from the user’s profile, ability to publish to the user’s News Feed, inclusion in search on Facebook, and analytics through our revamped Insights product.

In summary, by giving your users better, simpler ways to connect with the content on your site, you can then use those connections to provide more personalized, relevant experiences. And the product only gets better over time. The more people that come back to your site, the more connections that are made, the better your service becomes.

Watch-out world (that means you in Mountain View!), Facebook is about to truly monetize social media.

Let us know the impact that you perceive Open Graph will have across the Internet landscape.  Drop us a response to this post.

According to the article, Promoted Tweets will be gradually rolled-out by Twitter so that the ads will appear in all relevant searches by the end of this week.  The obviously impetus behind this move is the necessity for the company to increase the monetizing of its audience reach.  This fact is conveyed in the following statement from the AP article: The site has been slow to capitalize on that success — even though the investors who have backed the site have valued it at $1 billion. Twitter has been making an undisclosed amount of money by providing Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. with access to messages for their search engines.

We, at EngineWorks, are eager to ascertain the effectiveness of Promoted Tweets, and will be testing the new offering with several of our world-renowned clients as the opportunity presents itself.

This was one of the many examples that speakers at the Social Fresh Portland conference, which took place last Monday here in Portland, used to describe the mistakes that many companies are making as they embark into the world of social media.  These days, in order to succeed online, businesses need to do more than just have a splashy Web site; they need to be highly social, as well.  Companies not pursuing a direct online relationship with their target audience and social communities are falling behind companies that have embraced Social Media Marketing.

However, brands can’t just jump into social networking communities blindly, and hope for the best.  Nor can they expect to formulate an action plan that aligns perfectly with their expected results.  In fact, the best social media campaigns begin with a solid strategy as a foundation, and then let their online communities and fans decide where it goes from there.  Being able to rapidly adjust and adapt to your target audiences is crucial for any company striving for social media success.

A perfect example of this was conveyed during the keynote presentation at Social Fresh Portland by Social Fresh founder Jason Keath.  During his delivery, he presented a video that demonstrated that losing control of a social media campaign isn’t always a bad thing.   An example of this fact can be seen an interesting story about Greenpeace, and a whale named ‘Mr. Splashy Pants’

Next up on the docket was Richard Foo, Global Brand Marketing IT Director at Nike.  Richard has been at the forefront of a massive restructuring of Nike’s internal business platform in an effort to make it more social.  The active apparel company has implemented a model similar to Flickr, where everything is categorized by tags, and not by folders.  Richard conveyed that his goal is to create a more social online experience for Nike employees, similar to the conversational feedback that Nike customers experience on their Web site.  He put forth that, since Nike’s customers are desiring a more social experience online, then his staff should operate in this fashion, as well.

Richard’s reasoning behind this shift is to implement a more social platform that encourages employee interaction and connectivity.  He stated that employees know less about their co-workers than they do about friends they haven’t seen in ten years due to how impersonal most businesses have become.  He also didn’t want to have employees currently using new social networking channels and platforms at home, but not using them throughout their workday.  “Employees are consumers, too,” exclaimed Richard.  “They are social.  Not having social business software is like being the last company in an industry to get e-mail.”

Of course, not every company has the resources to implement an internal system such as the internal social platform at Nike.  However, the importance of being innovative is the point that Richard was trying to get across.  A lot of Nike’s success has been due to their desire to always be one step ahead of their competition.  “The best way for us to predict the future is to create it,” Richard added.

Richard Foo then presented a great example of an innovative, successful social media campaign implemented by Nike.  For the NBA All-Star weekend this year, Nike wanted to do something big to celebrate 25 years of working with Michael Jordan.  To do so, they created a social mosaic focused exclusively on Jordan, and turned it into a massive, interactive touch-screen, Through online social promotion, more than 100,000 fans participated in the creation the Jumpman 23 Mosaic.

A significant amount of time at Social Fresh Portland was spent discussing the ROI through social media.  How does today’s Internet marketer convince his/her boss that social media is a worthwhile endeavor? Most companies want to relate everything back to ROI to prove its effectiveness compared to other forms of marketing. Sean O’Driscoll from Ant’s Eye View separated this matter into three distinct types of questions that most CEO’s want to know about social media ROI:

1. Analytics questions – How much traffic will it drive? Will these visitors convert to customers?

2. Business questions – Is it driving sales?  How many employees will we need to hire to manage this?

3. Resistance questions – Why do we need this?  What if it backfires?  Why don’t customers just call us if they need to get a hold of us?

Resistance questions are the most common type of ROI questions. Many businesses view social media as a passing trend or just a fad that doesn’t fit in with their long-term objectives.  Overall, it’s not going to be easy to win an argument that being on Twitter is going to increase revenue by such and such percent.  However, you really do not have to address this fact if you can convey the positive effect upon brand awareness and direct contact with a brand’s target audience that can be gained through Social Media Marketing.

It all starts at the beginning by establishing proper goals.  “Having trouble determining ROI is not necessarily a tools problem, but a goals problem,” stated Sean O’Driscoll. “If we’re all using different tools to measure our effect, then there probably isn’t a right tool to use.” Instead of worrying about tools, focus on defining metrics, and following the following three steps towards building online communities: 1. helping, 2. Learning, and, then 3. sharing. Note that you can’t just jump to sharing. You have to meet basic needs first.

It’s also important to measure the effect of social media on other areas of your business.  For example, even if Twitter doesn’t show a strong ROI, how else is it helping advance your brand? Maybe it’s driving call-center costs down, or helping to improve customer sentiment.  Sean presented a situation at Comcast as an example.  Comcast had a terrible customer relations reputation for quite some time.  However, through Social Media Marketing, they were able to turn this negative sentiment into something positive.  They accomplished this by creating @comcastcares to give customers an easy way to contact the company for customer support. Comcast has done a great job implementing this solution, and their brand image has been greatly strengthened as a result.

Another key factor take into account is to understand where your brand’s target audience is socializing online. Yes, you should have a Facebook page and a Twitter account, but don’t just stop there.  There are many other social sites, such as www.Ravelry.com, that are specifically for niche audiences.  Ravelry is a social networking site for fans of knitting, which makes it a very relevant site for yarn or craft brands.  If that’s where your customers are, meet them there! Also, don’t overlook one-on-one connections that can be built through social media.  Personal outreach is huge for increasing your number of loyal fans.  Even little things, such as saying ‘thank you’, can often have a major effect.  A speaker at this conference mentioned that he measured a 30% increase in interactivity as a result of thanking fans on social networking sites. Say ‘thank you’ to your community, and engagement will increase.

The final point I took away from Social Fresh Portland pertains to what not to do in social media.  A presentation of the current mess created by Nestle is a perfect example a poorly executed Social Media Marketing campaign.

To reiterate the first point of this blog post, you can’t always maintain complete control of a social media campaign. Once something goes viral, you no longer control it; fans do.  At this crucial point in a campaign, it can become a public relations nightmare if not managed appropriately.  The key takeaway here is that you may not always be able avoid a crisis, however you need to have a plan for how to address one if it does come up.

It’s also important not to over-react to negative comments by arguing with fans.  Sometimes, companies make mistakes.  They need to understand that it’s OK to be honest with your audience, and admit when you’ve screwed-up.  By rapidly addressing the situation, you can deliver a positive response to your online community.  As conveyed by Amer Naslund with Radian6, “The cardinal sin in social media is silence.”

As depicted in the following chart from the eMarketing article titled ‘Marketing Budgets Spiral Toward Social’, marketers in the United States expect almost 18% of their total advertising budgets to be allotted to Social Media Marketing by 2015.

This encouraging forecast from the AMA punctuates the fact that, as we have been touting on this blog for some time now, online search marketing and social media strategies are driving dollars from traditional marketing channels, due to their ability to acutely target potential customers, and to fully measure the return on your advertising budget.

Using real-world case studies, Social Fresh Portland will focus on how Social Media Marketing can directly impact online performance and profits. As the third Social Fresh conference in 2010, this event is scheduled to present cutting-edge social media strategies that are currently being utilized by companies to connect with their target audiences and online networking communities.

Social Fresh Portland features an impressive roster of expert presenters, including Richard Foo, Global Brand Marketing IT Director at NIKE, Inc., Bryan Rhoads, Senior Digital Strategist at Intel Corporation, and Jason Kintzler, CEO at PitchEngine.com.

If you would like to get together with Eric, or another one of our EngineWorks team members, at this exciting conference, simply let us know through a post to this blog.

The press release, titled ‘Yarn Marketer and Chiropractor Present Alongside Bing, Yahoo!, Google and Intel at SearchFest 2010’, also provides a link to the full agenda of this exciting online search industry event.

In addition to developing and refine processes and strategies surrounding EngineWorks SEO and Social Media Marketing services, Kent spearhead business development and client acquisition efforts at our company. He, and all of our search experts, look forward to networking with you at SearchFest 2010.

Drop us a post to this blog if you would like to schedule a get-together with Kent and our team. We look forward to seeing you there!

While the fact that Social Media Marketing is enabling brands to have direct interaction with target audiences has been touted via our EngineWorks blog for quite some time now, this Mashable article unveils the level of commitment that major destination resorts are placing upon this new marketing channel.  As stated in this article, the world-renowned mountain resort company, Vail Resorts, has dedicated a full 80% of their total 2010 marketing budget to digital production and social media strategies.  EIGHTY PERCENT!

The tremendous ability of online search marketing and social media strategies to acutely target potential customers, and to fully measure a resort’s return on media investment, is driving this tectonic shift away from traditional marketing channels.  As punctuated in this article by Hannah Bowling, Communications Coordinator at Park City, Utah’s largest ski franchise, The Canyons, “A lot of the people here higher up don’t necessary understand social media. But when I did a big contest giveaway on Facebook and they saw how our number of fans grew so quickly, we started thinking of future social media strategies that include more contests, making sure our blog is updated with information our customers want to see.”

Let us know if you have implemented, or experienced, other amazing Social Media Marketing promotions worthy of merit within the destination resort industry.

That is the message delivered by David Eldridge, CEO of Alterian, in a re-affirming article today from eMarketer titled ‘Consumers Demand Engagement’.  His resounding point is that even though more and more marketers are shifting dollars away from traditional advertising channels to interactive marketing, it is crucial that today’s new media (i.e., digital community marketing and social media networking) be  incorporated into an integrated communication strategy, rather than executed as a stand-alone channel.

“The age of sending out silo campaigns is long gone,” this eMarketer report added. “The only communications tolerated by consumers are those that are appropriate, timely, and relevant—regardless of channel.”

This fact is validated through the following eMarketer graph that reveals that the majority of marketing professionals around the world is expending at least “a fair amount” of effort on integrating community networking and audience engagement strategies, such as Social Media Marketing, into their overall media mix (i.e., moving away from a campaign-centric direct marketing model, to multi-channel customer engagements across all online and off-line platforms).

In today’s hyper-competitive marketing world, just building an impressive Web site, or creating a polished ad campaign, is no longer enough.  Savvy marketers are realizing that they need to reach-out to – and stay connected with – their target audience and online community influencers in order to entice customers to their brands, and generate long-term goodwill.

This study found that the most common strategy used by marketers on Facebook is an attempt to direct online visitors to branded materials through status updates, and through ‘friending’ tactics.  However, the most effective social media strategy implemented by consumer-based companies is to create a Facebook application pertaining to their brand(s).

The following chart from eMarketer summarizes the findings from this MarketingProfs study, and reveals the fact that the strategy perceived to be most successful (as reported by almost 42% of respondents) is Creating a Facebook Application Around a Brand.

If you would like to learn more about how EngineWorks can help you implement a Facebook application, or any other cutting-edge Social Media Marketing strategy, please drop a post on this blog, or reach-out to Mike Rosenberg (mike@engineworks.com) or Angela Yost (angela@engineworks.com).

We can assist you in your efforts to directly connect with more customers and interested communities.

In 2010, eMarketer projects that domestic advertising expenditures within social media networks will increase approximately seven percent (+7%) to more than $1.3 billion.  This forecast equates to an impressive 5.5% of all projected online ad spending in the coming year.  Of this $1.3 billion anticipated to be spent in 2010, Facebook will capture almost 25%, compared approximately 20% in 2009.

It is important to acknowledge however, that companies gain the greatest value through Social Media Marketing by having genuine engagements with their target audience on social networking platforms, and not by flooding them with banner ads.  As eMarketer states, “Marketers will continue to make social networks a priority for 2010, but a significant portion of their spending will go toward building and maintaining a social network presence.  Paid social network advertising will remain somewhat of an afterthought.”

As we have realized here at EngineWorks, Social Media Marketing is most effective when it is earned through authentic two-way communication that builds personal relationships and trust between our clients’ brands and their target audience.  Thus, our outlook for this exciting, new channel in the coming year (and beyond), is an ever-increasing push for companies to have online social activities and connections ‘baked-in’ to every form of digital content, including their Web sites, search engines, shopping engines, entertainment portals, and even traditional media channels.

This view is punctuated by the following eMarketer statement, “2010 will be a year in which social network advertising will intersect with other kinds of advertising. Concepts such as earned media (the additional unpaid exposure a brand gets when consumers share about the brand online), local social advertising, social search and social ad networks will be key themes next year.”

We look forward to continuing to development new avenues of marketing success for our clients through our creative social media strategies and promotions in 2010.

In the article titled US Twitter Usage Surpasses Earlier Estimates, eMarketer projects that by the end of this year, more than 18 million adults in our country will access Twitter on a monthly basis.  This number represents an increase of more than 200% compared to the total number of Twitter monthly users in 2008.  Furthermore, the online marketing firm estimates this number will increase an additional forty-five percent (+45%) in the coming year.

Here is a graph of these projections from eMarketer:

Even though Twitter currently provides a social media platform for highly engaged individuals and consumers to discuss specific products, services, and brands, their announcement today establishes the micro-blogging site as a bone-fide advertising channel.  Now, companies can do more than just gather consumer feedback through the monitoring of ‘tweets’.  They can also present compelling marketing messages to highly engaged individuals who are actively commenting on their brands.

This development could lead to one of the most hyper-targeted advertising vehicle ever created . . . the instant banner.  Envision one day, when you are half-way through your latest ‘tweet’, an advertisement pertaining to the product in your post gets served-up to you even before you finish your ‘tweet’.  Now, that’ll be powerful stuff!

Let me know if you perceive this will happen in the near future.

Here is the graphical depiction of this impressive growth in the popularity of social media networking from this eMarketer article:

The obvious take-away from this study is fact that, as the number of individuals online in the United State who visit social networking sites approaches half of all Internet users across the country, companies and organizations need to employ well-designed Social Media Marketing strategies to efficiently reach their target audiences.

To put it in layman’s terms . . . since it makes sense to fish where the fish are; it’s extremely important to realize that many of these fish are now being found in different ponds!  Make sure you cast your net into the most bountiful waters.

More and more companies around the world are grabbing hold of the idea that their corporate blog can directly impact their image and enhance their communication with target audiences.  The purpose for this blog post is to present a collection of effective corporate blogs, along with an explanation of the different approaches that these companies embrace with regards to the content, purpose, and tone of their blog.

Examples of Outstanding Company Blogs

37signals – This small-business software firm’s blog offers more than just promotion of its products.  They, in fact, use their blog, titled “Signal vs. Noise”, as a platform to showcase great ideas pertaining to “getting things done”.  Because of this, the creative blog has already surpassed 100,000 RSS subscribers.

Asia Transpacific Journeys – This premier client of EngineWorks is a luxury travel agency that uses the unique approach of posting content created by their tour guides located in countries all around the world.  These informative posts are written in the form of “staff postcards“, and offer a very personal view into the the different types of tours that you can book through Asia Transpacific Journeys.   Some of the company’s guides have also filled their Flickr accounts with exceptional photos from the many exotic locations available through ATJ, such as Marilyn Downing Staff’s Australia Tour Photos.

Southwest Airlines – The “Nuts About Southwest” blog is one of the best examples of a “playful” blog created by a large corporation.  On this blog, you can learn insightful information about the airline industry, tips surrounding customer service from their stewards, watch videos, view photos, and share your travel stories with other Southwest Airlines customers.  The company has even recognized that parents (especially mothers) represent their primary blog reader demographic.  Therefore, they created “Mommy Patches”, a section of the blog where readers can post their own stories.

Cadillac Notes – A General Motor’s blog focused on the brand, promotion, and culture of Cadillac.  Promoting the culture around owning a Cadillac is the primary goal of this blog, which allows users to join the Cadillac Facebook group, submit Cadillac related videos on YouTube, browse through the Flickr group of photos, and see what Cadillac has been ‘tweeting’ lately.

Whole Story – Whole Foods Market has a very interesting blog that they use to promote healthy living and healthy eating throughout communities.  It’s a place for recipes , stories about their products that they carry, and reader interest stories in their “Farm to Market” category.

Styles of Company Blogs

The Company Blog
One of the most common types of blogs used by corporations is the Company Blog.  The purpose for this type of blog is to be all things related to a company.  This can include many aspects of the value and benefits associated with the company’s products or services.  However, the ultimate purpose for this type of blog is to reinforce a company’s brand and image.  If you’re looking for a simple way for your business to start blogging, you need to consider launching a Company Blog.

A few examples of effective Company Blogs include: Official Google Blog, Official Adobe Blog, Flickr’s Image heavy corporate blog, and Yahoo! Search Blog.

CEO Blog
How many CEOs have time to blog? Evidently, a lot! Plenty of company leaders, especially in the travel and technology industries, have taken it upon themselves to create blogs that highlight their vision for their company, products, and industry. Bill Marriot, the Chairman and CEO of Marriott International, does an excellent job providing insightful travel industry information, corporate and investor guidance information, and drawing attention to special interests on his CEO Blog. Recently Mr. Marriott conveyed the importance of the company’s Health Care Coverage for employees.  In addition, he posted a discussion on how the company’s name became the cornerstone of their first hotel built in 1927.

Other examples of CEO Blogs include: Jonathan Schwartz, President & CEO at Sun Microsystems, Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, and founder of Craigslist, Craig Newmark’s Blog.

Industry Blog
If you’re looking to make a splash in your industry, launching an industry focused blog can build your authority online, and have you be recognized as the prominent resource within your industry.  For example, a small “green and sustainability” company called “Sustainable Minds” uses their blog to be the resource for the industry of on-demand green product design and software. This blog is also a great example of “team blogging” – having 19 contributors specializing in all kinds of topics in the industry.

Orbitz’s blog is also another good example of a company that has launched an Industry Blog. On this blog, the travel company discusses industry concerns, specials, and events happening throughout the world.

Department/ Product Blog
Companies that feature specialized product s and services, which can benefit from specialized forums, may consider launching a Departmental?Product Blog.  Interestingly, Google is one of the biggest users of product focused blogs, branching-out with blogs featuring many facets of their business, including: a Spanish language focused blog for Webmasters, a Google Student Blog, a YouTube business development blog, and a blog focusing on Google Grants for non-profits. In another example, General Motors recently launched a blog/social media network to promote their new Chevy Volt.  Dubbed “Chevrolet Voltage”, and focusing solely on the new electric car, the site promises to be the definitive resource for photos, videos, news releases, and discussions pertaining to the new vehicle.

Don’t Wait!

At EngineWorks, we’re always looking for ways to expand our client’s footprint online.  As explained in this post, an exciting way to do achieve this goal is by launching a corporate blog to connect with your audience and reach prospective new customer.  If you’re not doing so . . . you can be sure your competition is!  Contact us today to learn more!

From a May 2009 report by comScore, eMarketer conveyed that total unique visitors to Facebook increased by ninety-seven percent (+97%) during the past twelve (12) months to more than 70,278,000.  This compared to a five percent decrease (-5%) in total unique visitors of 70,2550,000  at MySpace during the same time period.

The following chart reveals the Top 20 social networking sites across the country, and the percent of change from May 2008 to May 2009.

One critical fact to point-out, however, is that MySpace still dominates Facebook in terms of advertising revenue.  As noted in this eMarketer article, “MySpace also led the revenue category, predicted to earn $495 million in 2009, 115% more than its rival.”

However, if Facebook continues to rapidly add new visitors at its current pace, it won’t be long before the most popular social networking site surpasses this total ad revenue at MySpace.

Let us know if you perceive Facebook to be a more viable social media channel than other popular networking sites.

At EngineWorks, we are very excited to see the culmination of our partnered work with Resort Technology Partners, a professional design and development agency specializing is custom solutions for the travel and tourism industry, be realized through this new cutting-edge Web presence for RockResorts.  The new online presence features thirteen (13) new Web destinations that offer online travelers a smooth booking process, rich photographs of resort locations, and detailed travel information while they research their next vacation.

In addition to ensuring a smooth transition from the previous RockResort sites, we incorporated our the latest SEO techniques and strategies into all facets of these new destinations.  These enhancements are designed to dramatically improve the Natural search engine rankings for all RockResorts properties, and deliver incremental qualified Web site traffic through the major search engines.

In addtion, we have implemenented advanced Social Media Marketing strategies that are enhancing community networking efforts for RockResorts.   Through our customized Facebook profiles created for each RockResorts location,  prospective lodging guests are invited to directly interact with other individuals who have stayed at, or are considering staying at, specific resorts owned by RockResorts.

Daniel Swanson, Corporate Marketing Manager of E-Commerce at RockResorts & Vail Resorts Hospitality, expressed his excitement pertaining to our new partnered launch through the following, “RockResorts takes pride in delivering unparalleled service and exquisite experiences to our resort guests.  Our new enhanced Web sites convey this fact instantly.  Which is why we chose EngineWorks to ensure that they are easily discovered by individuals searching for luxury resort accommodations.”

We invite you to share the wonderful experience of RockResorts, and their new online destinations, through the following sites:

RockResorts
Hotel Jerome
The Osprey at Beaver Creek
The Pines Lodge
The Arrabelle at Vail Square
The Lodge at Vail
Tempo Miami
La Posada de Santa Fe Resort & Spa
The Landings St Lucia
Snake River Lodge & Spa
Rum Cay Resort
One Ski Hill Place
Third Turtle Club

As shown in the eMarketer chart below, almost an equal number of individuals across the globe trust information from online news sources (40%) as individuals who trust content from television news ( 41%) and newspapers (39%).

Another interesting fact from this survey is that people tend to trust information from online expert reviews and industry Web sites more than from company Web sites and user forums and reviews.  This is an important fact to take into consideration when designing and implementing advanced search marketing campaigns, such as Social Media Marketing and external Link Building strategies.