LinkedIn: New Feature for Companies Posted on August 16th, 2010

As the many social media platforms develop they copy ideas from each other with the hopes that they can entice more people to use their site. The three platforms that I like to call the “Big 3″ are Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. You can now follow companies and receive updates via LinkedIn. They’ve also added a pre-made button you can copy and past into your companies website.

————————————————————————————————————–

Second Annual Be A Fan! Tournament Postponed Posted on August 16th, 2010

Unfortunately it looks like the tournament that we were supposed to play in has been postponed till October 23. I’m not sure if we will be able to play the new date, but I’ll keep you posted. Check out our team site for other games and tournaments.

Check out the team site: FC Blackbird

————————————————————————————————————–

B2B Marketing with Social Media Posted on August 16th, 2010

Do you think B2B social media doesn’t work? Check out this video, it gives information on how today’s executives and decision makers are using social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. It also shows that they are using social networking to find B2B leads for their business. Watch the video.

————————————————————————————————————–

Web Analytics – It’s all About the Context Posted on August 18th, 2010

When you are analyzing the data you get from your website analytics software it really is all about the context. If you look at any number by itself that gets spit out, you have no way of knowing if it is good or bad.

————————————————————————————————————–

Facebook Removing Boxes from Public Profiles Posted on August 18th, 2010

Last week Facebook announced to administrators of public profiles, that they will be finally be removing Boxes from public profiles on August 23, 2010. The Boxes will be replaced with “Applications Tabs.

————————————————————————————————————–

Localization, Internationalization, Translation. Do You Know the Difference? Posted on August 20th, 2010

When it comes to marketing and selling internationally there are three things you have to plan. You have to plan how you are going to approach localization, internationalization and translation of your products as you enter new markets. But first you have to know what each means and how they differ.

————————————————————————————————————–

BbeS On Twitter

IBM Builds Search Engine, Redefines Analytics Tools http://bbes.us/dg9fAy 11:35 AM Aug 20th

In depth article about new location service: Facebook Places Banks On Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp, Booyah Steam @SEWatch http://bbes.us/ceg5r0 5:04 PM Aug 19th

Google bends to German privacy concerns & created an online tool to remove pictures of people’s homes from streetview http://bbes.us/aqKaqr 3:32 PM Aug 19th

Online Marketing Still A Faith Based Initiative. Why? What’s The Fix? | Occam’s Razor by Avinash Kaushik http://bbes.us/9aq6fI 11:48 PM Aug 17th

RE: @briansolis And popularity is not influence. Great post! So many people get this confused. Just because an indi… http://disq.us/kk348 11:23 PM Aug 16th

Social Media often turned over 2 interns or juniors http://bbes.us/anpwPV My opinion: if u use interns u are not serious about social media 3:31 PM Aug 16th

Check out the team site: FC Blackbird

Although, I’m not sure what time frame “New” covers. If you check Ford Motor Company’s activity stream you will see updates from up to 5 days ago. So, I’m assuming it shows up to 5 days worth of activity. It also appears the the updates are automatically generated by the LinkedIn, so there may be a bit of a delay from when any changes happen until they show in the activity stream.

LinkedIn also has a pre-made you can copy and past into your companies website. You do have to be an employee of the company to get this button though. Check out ours below.

We are entering a coed team in the 2nd annual Be a Fan! tournament. The tournament will be held on the 21st of August at Lanco Fieldhouse. Our games will be between 1pm-7pm. As soon as the schedule is out I’ll post it her and under Schedule. Come out and join us for the fun!

Check out the team site: FC Blackbird

5 Reasons Why You Should Be Using Website Analytics Posted on August 04th, 2010

I put together a list of the top 5 reasons why you should be using website analytics to hopefully shed some light on why analytics are so important.

1. You can’t measure what you don’t know.
2. Track traffic sources that bring visitors to your website.
   
3. Track what search engines and keywords are driving traffic to your site.
4. Track what content is being viewed.
5. Track sales funnels and conversions.

————————————————————————————————————–

Net neutrality: New Talks With the FCC, Google and Verizon Posted on August 05th, 2010

Net neutrality is very controversial pitting broadband providers against internet companies. The providers claim they are paying billions of dollars for networks that internet companies make money from and they should be able to control and charge fees for the type of data that travels over their networks.

What do you think? Should broadband providers be allowed to regulate traffic?
Or should net neutrality prevail?

————————————————————————————————————–

BbeS On Twitter

Did you know there’s a heck of a lot of soccer in central PA? Check out the http://centralpasoccer.com/ alpha release site. More to come! 8/5/10

In Pictures: Expert Tips For Using LinkedIn – Forbes http://bbes.us/b7Cz5m 8/5/10

I’ve been watching this play out, still seems crazy to me: UAE to ban BlackBerry services, Saudi follows suit http://bbes.us/afyAX9“>http://bbes.us/bw8EEQ 8/4/10

Is “just good enough”, really good enough? What do you think? 8/4/10

LinkedIn Makes an Acquisition: aquires recommendation service mSpoke for an undisclosed price. http://bbes.us/afyAX9 8/4/10

Makes you wonder: More & more “traditional marketers” are speaking about social media even tho only months ago they said SM was worthless. 8/4/10

In what ordinary ways has the internet simplified life?

So when I arrived at the office Thursday morning, one of the first things I did was Tweeted and posted on the following question on Facebook:

“I know this is a pretty broad question, but here goes. How do you use the internet to make your life easier?”

I had some great answers too:

“I use the internet to find locations and people. This makes getting to who & where easier.” -@OttomatedSuccess (Melissa Otto)

“It has made finding information, both useful and useless, extremely easy. discovering music, events, people, etc takes seconds.” -@AdamChlan

“Driving directions, travel information, banking, movie information/ticket purchase, student research (wife/kids), working remotely when necessary. None of the rest of the stuff we do makes our lives easier, just more fun” -Andy Woolley

“Living in a rural area it is great for shopping and banking.” -Charles Coe

For me there are a many things ways that the internet has made my life easier or better. Here are just a few:

• Comunication:
  • Brought me closer to people that are in another part of the world:
    video calls with Skype
  • Online support calls so I don’t have to drive 2 hours to a client site
  • Telephone: Voice over IP or VOIP
• Entertainment:
  • Video and tv anywhere
  • Listen to radio stations and watch tv stations from Germany.
• Online banking
• Driving Directions
• And essentially I can work from anywhere in the world!

What has your Internet connection done for you lately?

Once when I was applying for a job, I think it was in 2006, I had been doing some of my own work in the side under my company name, and the interviewer tried to be slick and in the middle of discussing something else he dropped, “so what’s Blackbird e-Solutions”. I was prepared though and explained it was a side project I was working on. For many people that might have been a little scary, but I fully expect that people will check up on me online.

So, if we know everyone is Binging, Yahooing and Googling each other (sounds a bit obscene doesn’t it?) What can we do about it? Is there anyway to make sure people find what you want them too? Yes and no. What I mean is there is no way to control what other people are posting on line about you. Unless it is some sort of slander and worth suing for but by then the damage is usually done. There was a time when I controlled the top ten for “bryan coe“, now I think 5 out of 10 are sites or profiles I control. Including 1-4.

There are a few things you can do to get your import stuff on the top of the search results.

1. Register a domain name in your name.
This is a great one, but can be tough if your name is Joe Smith. I use bryancoe.us but also own bryan-coe.com as well as others. Just registering it is not enough though, but we’ll come back to this. You ca register you domain here: 1&1 Internet

2. Set up a personal blog.
This can be fun. I started one when I was living a in Europe and wanted to be able to keep my friends and family up to date. (Just so you know this was before Facebook even MySpace) Here some popular blog platforms that make it easy: Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, WordPress

3. Set up social media profiles.
Facebook carries a enormous ranking power, so it’s natural that the profiles also do. You can even customize your own url. The same goes for LinkedIn: Vanity URL. There are a tone of others out there too. Check out the list on Wikipedia: Social Media

4. Set up a website.
This one is for the more ambitious person, but there are some great open source content management systems out there that can make it quite easy WordPress, Joomla, Drupal . Plus many hosting companies offer free site development tools. 1&1 Internet

5. Point your domain.
To come back to the custom domain idea. If you are not so ambitious to set up your own blog or site, that’s ok too. You can register your domain and then point it to one of your social media profiles, such as Facebook or LinkedIn. Ask your host or where you registered your domain for how to do this.

These tips should help you protect your personal brand and help people find what you want them to find.

Using a custom URL shortener can help broaden your online footprint as well as give more credibility to short links you use by giving your short links and identity.

Currently the service is still in beta so I had to fill out a request for an invitation, but it only took a couple of days to receive the invite email. Then in less than 10 minutes it was up and running.

So, now when you see a bbes.us link somewhere online, it’s a good bet that it’s from Blackbird e-Solutions!

Learn more about bitl.Pro

Built on a social networking platform, features of the site include:

• Member Map
• Forums for Discussions
• Separate Groups for Owners, Key Managers, Board Members
• Easy Storage & Downloading of Documents
• Calendar of Events
• A Blogging Platform
• Plus much more.

This is the first release of the site. As we move forward we will be adding more features as well as customizing the look of the site.

Does your organization or group need a better way to communicate? Contact Blackbird e-Solutions for information on how you can use social networking as well.