It’s true, Spider Writers has enjoyed opportunities to mingle with the rich and famous. We’ve always been proud to count a bona fide Guinness record holder among our clientele. For years, Hampton Roads resident George Bell was known as America’s Tallest Man, yet today we have learned his title is now claimed by a man in Minneapolis. Igor Vovkovinskiy appeared on the Dr. Oz show to be measured for the official title.

Our friend George took the news in stride, saying he was happy for the opportunity to have been the country’s tallest man, and he congratulated Igor. If you’ve ever met George, you know that he’s truly a stand-up guy (no pun intended), and his friends in Hampton Roads will always look up to him (literally!).

Now, those of us who helped George with his website are wondering: what about his URL? We registered http://www.americastallestman.com for George for the purpose of promoting his record, but now that he’s officially off the Guinness books, what is the future for the website? Of course we would like to keep it live, since being the second tallest man in the US is quite a bragging point, too. To our knowledge, Igor hasn’t expressed interest in building a website, or registering a URL to define him. When George’s domain expires, should we let it go or re-up for another year?

When you think about, Igor is Ukrainian-born, but lives in the US. Technically, then, George is the tallest American-born man. If Igor moves back to the Ukraine, will George get his title back? One might think charting world records is simple, but there sure are a number of provisions!

Well, we haven’t decided what to do yet. For now, George’s site is still active at the same URL and you’re welcome to visit. This experience, in the meantime, has prompted other thoughts on domain naming issues, in particular for businesses and organizations that change scope and may require a new identity.

Let’s say when you launched your online presence, you specialized in writing services. You chose a domain that naturally represented your skills, and included “writer” in some form on the URL. You do a decent business, win a few clients here and there, but as you work you realize you’re doing more work directly with social media and networking. The writing component is still there, but not as prominent as, say, your freelance Facebook and Twitter work.

Suddenly the “writer” URL doesn’t really define your business. You can change the way your page looks easily, and maybe re-title it for search, but the URL sticks out like a sore thumb. What to do? Should you register a better domain, or keep what you have? There are a few schools of thought on this. For one, depending on how long you’ve had your URL, you may have established solid branding and recognition with it.  It may also be solidified within search…it’s not uncommon for some websites to lose that mojo when they move to a new domain. That’s something to think about.

If you are able to secure a more appropriate name for your business site, you can always point the URL to land at your current site. That way you don’t lose the momentum you built and you have a proper domain for print promotional items. Going to a site like Domize can help you determine a good name to register.

Until then, we’ll keep an eye on George. He could have a late growth spurt, you never know.

VIRGINIA BEACH, VA – Spider Writers, the social media optimization branch of CINIVA Systems, a leading Virginia web design firm, is proud to announce they will assist in building the social presence of MarginUp, a supply chain portal based in Bellvue, Washington which specializes in managing real-time trade activities between wholesalers around the world.

“Having assisted local distributors of health products in the past with increasing their search visibility, we are excited for the opportunity to work with an organization like MarginUp,” said Kathryn Lively, content and social media specialist with Spider Writers. “In this economy, it’s important for our businesses to operate at optimal levels, and we believe companies working with MarginUp can help boost their overall profit margins.”

MarginUp is a closely held company comprised of staff experienced in global trade, electronic data interchange implementation, XML solutions, and  wholesale distribution communication. Their goal to bring an affordable real-time trade environment to worldwide trade brokers and agents, freight carriers, and storage companies is presently realized through their main website, and will be supplemented through social networking.

About Spider Writers

Spider Writers is a division of CINIVA Systems, one of the top Web design and development firms in the Mid-Atlantic region. Spider Writers has had the privilege of creating highly functional and unique social media presences for major organization and local businesses, including the Jamestown Settlement and Yorktown Victory Center, the Currituck County Department of Travel and Tourism, and Sundays Blue Box Tanning Resort.

On the Web:

MarginUp – http://www.marginup.com

Spider Writers – http://www.spiderwriters.com

Contact Information

Kathryn Lively
Spider Writers
a division of CINIVA Systems
258 N.  Witchduck Rd., #258
Virginia Beach, VA 23451

In our work, we assist a number of local B2B and B2C companies with their overall search health. When one has to compete with several businesses for the top result under, say, “Virginia Beach home improvement” or “Norfolk real estate agent,” it can turn into a virtual fist fight. One can optimize specific keywords on the main site, blog and tweet and distribute articles linked back to the main URL, and you will see some improvement – how you fare on page one, however, depends on a number of factors. In addition to all this work, we strongly suggest taking advantage of local business listings.

Whether you have a physical retail location, or a headquarters for your online concern, it’s important to have your information confirmed with sites like the Google Local Business Center, Yahoo Local Listings, Yelp.com for services and UrbanSpoon and the like for restaurants. While you might find on certain sites your listing is available – but needs only to be “claimed” by an owner or manager – taking the time to manage and enhance your listing can boost your visibility in search results. With review-based social networks, you have the added advantage of blended search paradigms to have your optimized listing called up, and regular monitoring of such pages can assist with mediocre or negative reviews, and hopefully establish your business as one that is concerned and ready to listen to consumers and clients.

Dress Up Your Profile

With Google Local Business and Yelp, for example, one can add photographs of the business to give customers a better idea of what to expect. Google Local also allows you to set up coupons as incentive, while through other social networks you can advertise specials as people find your pages. Have visitors print your page for a discount, for example, turning your network into a coupon itself.

Taking control of your online business profiles lets you clarify hours of operation, address and phone, and web URLs. The more you monitor your pages, too, you can get on top of bad feedback and soothe any raw nerves in a timely manner that gets noticed, not only by the plantiff but others who view your profile.

Direct People to Your Profiles

You might wonder how useful it is to direct visitors to these social and search profiles rather than your main site or blog. Fact is, should these pages show up in search before your official sites, potential customers and clients will see that information first. If you know there are people ready to praise your work and products, encourage them to visit these profiles and post their opinions. they more made available gives newcomers a basis for trying your services.

Once you have control of your name online, you can move into controlling the success of your business.

Kathryn Lively is a social media specialist assisting clients with social media optimization and travel social media services. Clients include Gainesville hotels, European hotels, and Virginia web design firms.

While the statistics provided here should not necessarily be discerned as the norm or the recommended rate of sharing data, it is interesting to note how larger companies handle their social presence. Ultimately, it’s up to you to decide how to present yourself online, and it will take time and experimentation to find the proper balance.

Consider these recent events in social media:

1) Former Tonight Show host, in an attempt to kill time during his forced exile from television, starts a Twitter account which quickly amasses more than half a million followers. For reasons not entirely clear, he chooses to follow one person at random, turning a 19-year-old Michigan woman into an instant celebrity.

2) A fan of actress Betty White, determined to see the TV legend host Saturday Night Live, sets up a Facebook fan page to generate support. About three months and nearly half a million fans later, it’s reported Betty will host the show in May.

3) Film critic and prolific tweeter Roger Ebert points followers to a blog article on The Feminista Files about dressing Oscar nominee Gabourey Sidibe for the ceremony, resulting in a significant increase of readers for author Erica Kennedy, whose blog received a further boost with mentions on high-profile sites Salon.com and The Frisky.

You as a social media marketer may think: what are the chances some celebrity is going to follow your Facebook or Twitter, or else share your content and spark a viral spike in unique views. It would be nice to be singled out in this manner, thereby allowing you to take advantage of growing interest in your blog or social profile – while in time the mass numbers may drop off as the Warholian fifteen minutes tick away, there remains the opportunity to maintain a higher readership than you had before you were discovered.

Of course, nobody will discover you, famous or otherwise, unless you give people something to find. The one advantage to building an archive of blog articles and commentary, Twitter data, and even Facebook status updates is that once they are set free, they remain cached in search. It’s very possible a blog you may consider old news will pop up on somebody’s radar, prompting them to share via Digg, Delicious or a host of other services. The more information is shared daily via social media, the longer it retains relevance. You may think a topic is expired, but it’s always new to somebody.

How do you ignite the spark to get that one retweet or dig? It’s a challenge to pinpoint the magic formula, but ultimately it boils down to A) writing what people want to read, and B) writing it often. You may find it will take many strikes of the match to set one aflame, but if you refuse to lift the flap first and get started, know it will never happen.

Kathryn Lively is a social media specialist assisting clients with social media optimization and travel social media services. Clients include Gainesville hotels, European hotels, and Virginia web design firms.

We’ll have more to say on this acquisition and how it can affect the way you do business through social networking very soon.

Back in MY day, Facebook was very different than it is now. Only college students were allowed, and the news feed was non-existent.  We didn’t use Facebook to figure out a company’s business hours, talk with our favorite aunt in Vegas or live feeds.  Back when it was www.THEfacebook.com, there was no Farmville, no Mafia Wars, dopplegangers or status updates. The utility of Facebook was brilliantly simple – if you didn’t go to class to take notes, send your friend a message (writing on the wall was kind of weird at the time).

Then came the groups, the photo tagging, and the complicated relationships.

Here’s what a profile page looked like when I first started Facebook in 2004:

Ah, blissfully simple. Nice, clean boxes. Then, everyone freaked out when “The mini feed” came rearing it’s ugly head. As if the addition of the status wasn’t too creepy feeling, Facebook wanted to chronicle every thing you did on the site.

If we only knew! The mini-feed has now split into a news feed AND live feed, your wall is the most prominent feature, and we are inidated with pay-per-click ads on the right side of the page that are targeted toward everything we put into our personal information in our profile.

Mark Zuckerburg had no idea his small Web project would turn into a revolution for marketing and advertising. With over 350 million users, Facebook has become part of almost everyone’s lives, whether they want it to or not. For businesses, if you do not have a presence on Facebook, you are behind your competitors. For students, Facebook is a way to not only keep up with class notes and party spots, but an outlet to talk outside the school walls. For families, it’s never been easier to stay close when you are spread apart.

Am I pleased with the progression of Facebook? Sure. Why not? I’m a big believer in “Facebook is what you make it.” If you love Farmville and taking quizzes, wonderful. If you love connecting with other professionals, fabulous. If you are a helicopter mom (please stop what you are doing), Facebook is good for you.

More importantly, now we have the ability to use Facebook (and all of social media, really) for good. News breaks faster than ever and awareness can be given to important causes and charities. Millions of people united to help those in Haiti stricken by disaster by donating food, money and time.

So happy birthday, Facebook. I’m excited to see how far you’ve come, and where you’ll go from here. If you had it posted on a profile, you’d have 350 million notifications. Lucky you.

Jessica Swink is a freelance writer specializing in articles about Search Engine Optimization and Facebook Marketing.

More recently my husband, who shuns any and all social networking, asked me to look up a few Facebook profiles for him. He is on a panel conducting interviews to fill a vacancy at his school, and wanted to see if any information provided on the accounts matched what he received in the applications. It happens, in nearly every field of business and entertainment. I know publishers and editors who perform Google searches on prospective authors who have submitted work – not so much to see if they actively promote online, but if they do or say anything that could potentially damage their own reputations if they were to sign them.

If you think somebody isn’t looking at your Facebook profile, or reading your tweets and not forming an opinion about you, think again. According to a recent Microsoft study, twenty-five percent of HR managers reject job candidates based upon information found online, particular social profiles. So if you’re thinking about posting that video of your antics from your friend’s bachelor party at Hooter’s, and you happen to be up for tenure at your university, you may want to think twice.

Business and the Social Media Image: Who Represents You Online?

These days, it doesn’t seem uncommon for a major company to have a policy on their employees’ involvement in sites like Facebook and MySpace. Even off the clock, you may be seen as a representative of your work, and as such may be expected to project a professional image. This doesn’t mean, of course, that businesses are watching their workers 24/7, but thanks to Google Alerts and similar watchdog applications, managers can monitor what is being said about their companies, and ultimately these updates can click through to something they feel should be handled swiftly, and perhaps with disciplinary action.

For the business using Facebook, Twitter, and other social profiles to market products and services, it’s important to ensure that your activity online is handled in the manner you conduct your business, and provide the face you want customers to see – be it casual, professional, humorous or compassionate.

Does this mean you can’t play Farmville anymore? Not necessarily, but if you do have criticism to share about your company or competitors, you may wish to exercise caution when you post status updates. If you’re set on sharing photos of your wild weekend in Vegas, strongly consider utilizing privacy options on the social network and avoid tagging friends online if you feel the shots are a bit compromising. You don’t want to put a friend at risk, either.

If your company has a fan page on Facebook, make employees aware of feedback policies – designate one or two employees to speak on behalf of the business via the network to avoid confusion. It’s easier, of course, to set up that person as admin to ensure fans will know the company responds in a timely manner.

Social networks are all about socializing – they are meant to inspire fun and creativity. So long as your company and employees know the difference between light-hearted behavior and immaturity, you can enjoy a good presence online.

Kathryn Lively is a social media expert assisting clients with social media writing and travel social media services. Clients include Gainesville hotels and Virginia Beach web design companies.

The problem arose, however, when it was discovered that somebody – a person in his line of work who anticipated his eventual need for the URL – registered it himself. Rather than transfer the domain in good faith, he decided to hold it for ransom – not for an inflated price, but to force the namesake’s hand in another matter. Whether or not this act violates the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act is up for the experts to decide, but from this experience comes an important lesson in protecting all of your online interests. Business owners who focus on ensuring a specific brand name is secured through domain listings and social media vanity tags may lose sight of their own personal branding, and in turn suffer the consequences.

Everybody has a name, and more than likely there are other people in the world with the same name as yours. It’s probable for the man called John Smith, and possible for somebody with a more obscure surname. When authors come to us for advice on pseudonyms, we strongly recommend using Google for a potential non de plume to make sure it isn’t already known (or infamous) – it’s also not a bad idea to Google yourself once in a while to see what’s being written.

Given your online visibility, is it important to register your name as a domain, even if you have no use for it in business? It is definitely recommended. You can register the URL without feeling obligated to apply it to a site. Once you do, it’s yours for a year, or for however long you initially buy it. Redirect it to your company profile page, create an HTML placeholder for it, just have that ownership so nobody else will.

As your company grows, so will interest in your business and the people behind it. While success creates opportunity for you, it’s wise to think ahead before somebody unrelated sees value in things like domain names. Don’t be caught like our client.

Kathryn Lively is a social media specialist assisting clients with social media writing and travel social media services. Clients include Gainesville hotels and Virginia web design companies.

A nifty idea, and one that truly proved the power of viral marketing. The Facebook bra flap has since gone on to attract the attention of national wires and morning talk shows. Whether the stunt has actually helped raise funds for breast cancer research is debatable, but one thing is clear: if you come up with a compelling idea and convince just a few people to play along, chances are you could spread your brand quickly throughout the country.

Can You Beat the Bra?

With different applications on social media sites like MySpace and Facebook vying for users’ attentions, you as a social media marketer may wonder if you can compel thousands of people to spread your gospel. One thing to know about viral marketing is that what you promote must be interesting enough to grab one person, much less a thousand. Plant the seed, and the rest follows, but that seed must be potent.

How do you make a viral campaign in Facebook, or even Twitter, work? First and foremost, if you wish to attract mass attention to a specific cause or item, you want to be certain what you plan doesn’t overtly advertise something. The Facebook Bra fad worked because it introduced some mystery (why are all these women posting colors?) and because its ultimate goal was to raise awareness about something to which all women, regardless of age, race, and creed, could relate – the risk of breast cancer. If you are running social media for a non profit organization, for example, applying a creative method for getting the word out about your cause can prove beneficial.

If you run a business and are trying to sell a product? It’s possible you may up end dead in the water quickly if you approach hundreds of Facebook friends and fans imploring them to plug your products. Where’s the fun in that? However, if you encourage a viral campaign related to your business but doesn’t outwardly sell anything, you have the opportunity to market yourself internally. Each mail you send to would-be participants should contain your main URL. For every message forwarded to another friend that is kept whole, your site is exposed to more and more people. This is where the true “virus” takes root.

How quickly can a campaign spread. There’s no telling how well, or how poorly, you’ll do. If you bomb out the starting gate the first time, don’t feel discouraged. Sometimes you’ll need to try an assortment of tricks before something hits. The more you fire up your inventive side, the more likely you can harness social media for your benefit.

The recent news implying that Facebook usage, among utilization of other networks, is responsible for global marital breakdown is fascinating, yet it is hardly an innovation. If a marriage has floundered before Internet use became a factor, one can’t necessarily place the blame on social media. While sites like MySpace, Bebo, Facebook and others allow old friends (and consequently old flames) to reconnect, it’s also a helpful communication tool for families. Fathers keep track of their children’s activities, married couples share photos and videos with friends, and often talk to one another. It may not be the ideal situation, and may fast be replacing the night dinner around the table, but social media can work as well in strengthening familial bonds rather than severing them. Anyone using a social network to expedite divorce could easily do the same with anything else – an obsession with sports or other activities, long hours at work, and so forth.

Social networks in and of themselves are not evil. To be certain, people have abused their better qualities for nefarious purposes, but as such stories are few and far between this should not deter a businessman or company from refraining from their use. For every new item of a threat posted on a blog there are more detailing how people have used social media to find missing children, obtain help for needy families, or reunite siblings separated for years.

How can you keep a positive focus on marketing through social media? Always maintain a healthy attitude when you post items of interest. Not everything you share needs to be company related, and it’s good to engage friends and followers in conversations that highlight a brighter side to humanity. Does your company support a specific charity or non-profit? Find links and articles that showcase the good they do. If you’ve hosted an event recently, share pictures and video. Social media is about making your own news – so make it good.

These days, if somebody is in a strange city and looking for a place to eat, he may pull out his smart phone and call up an application like the one for Yelp to track down a specific cuisine. If somebody is lost, one can use an application from MapQuest or Google to locate where they need to be. General travel apps for finding restaurants and hotels prove popular, but if you manage the tourism for a specific destination you may wish to consider having an app developed to better showcase your region to visitors.

The Benefits of a Specialized Phone App

For convention and visitors bureaus and city tourism departments, the development of an app for the iPhone, BlackBerry, or Android can prove useful in boosting travel to your area and patronage of local hotels and eateries. While programs that offer local listings provide reviews, maps, and supplemental information, a specialized app gives you the opportunity to offer visitors something extra. Let’s say you operate the tourism marketing for a beach town on the Mid-Atlantic coast, and while visitors spike in the summertime you want to boost interest for the winter months. An app for your area, while useful year round if it features business listings, can also be developed to feature seasonal specials and discounts. You can entice visitors toward your destination by arranging area vacation rentals to offer cheaper rates with smart phone codes.

While general apps like Yelp provide useful and updated data, it isn’t guaranteed they will list every single inn and diner. A specialized program for your destination can offer visitors categorized guides to your city, suggested itineraries, and a local view of your town.

The Challenges of a Travel Phone App

With every benefit, however, comes a number of challenges to consider. Having an application developed could cost you several thousand dollars, depending on the functionality you want. Also, as businesses open and close, it’s important to stay on top of your data so that you always provide updated information for visitors. There will also come into question whether or not you should charge for the app – convention wisdom would advise no. Because of the costs involved in development and hosting, it’s important to make sure your marketing budget makes room if you choose to have a program created.

For the beach destination, metropolitan region, or rustic desert retreat, a smart phone app can entice visitors to book vacations and keep locals interested in area businesses. Take into consideration the benefits and challenges to creating an app for your city as part of your tourism marketing strategy.

What does this mean for the business person who utilizes social media in his/her marketing plan? For one, every time one of your posts is retweeted, there is a chance somebody who doesn’t follow you will see your post, and perhaps be inspired to add you to a feed. Of course, this is based on the assumption that potential followers will use the Twitter site and not a special reader (or a reader that supports this function – as readers update this could become a reality), and that people will retweet your posts in the first place. In order to take advantage of this added exposure to your company, you must not only be social, but be interesting.

Recruitment of Retweeters

It’s not uncommon to see a request for followers to retweet a particular message, be it a sales notice or a call to action. Depending on the scope of your business, you can conduct Twitter-only discount codes for products and services, then request followers to spread the word. Adding incentive (i.e. choosing a random retweeter for a prize giveaway) may boost motivation.

Maintaining your Twitter account on a personal level, too, may encourage followers to spread your wisdom. If you were to constantly post repetitive information hustling people to your main site, you might find you lose more followers than you gain. Take care to nurture relationships with those already opted-in to your feed, and you can cultivate a larger following as you progress socially.

Kathryn Lively is a social media specialist assisting clients with social media optimization and travel social media services.

Tweet, ReTweet, Repeat

Think of your organization and how it is structured. How many people follow your Twitter account, and how many people within your organization use the social network? Twitter works as a viral tool for parsing information and news. These days it doesn’t take much for a rumor to spread through thousands of posts, but Twitter isn’t just used for gossip. A thought-out campaign to have supporters post a URL to a landing page for donations could generate enough “re-tweeting” awareness among their followers and in turn bring new and lapsed donors to your door.

Give Your Organization a Face

Facebook is especially friendly toward specific causes. The aptly named Causes application allows users to set up a method for taking donations through Facebook. All you need to do is set up the application, encourage Facebook friends to join and donate, and a widget on your profile page will let visitors know how much is given to your organization. In addition, your organization is given a special Causes page to let visitors know your top earners, recruiters, and fundraisers.

Shine a Lens on Your Charity

The social network Squidoo, a page generator built on the foundation of adding specific modules to define your topics (including YouTube videos, Amazon links, and Twitter feeds), is an active supporter of non-profit organizations. Squidoo users who create new lenses have the option of donating royalties from ad click-throughs to the charities of their choice, and as a 501 (c)(3) you have the opportunity to apply for inclusion. If accepted, you can take advantage of Squidoo’s user-friendly lens building system to create pages on a variety of related topics. Promote the lenses through your other networks and encourage ad clicks to generate revenue.

Don’t let the holiday season pass without maximizing your exposure through social media. A well-executed plan can bring holiday spending toward your cause.

Social Media for the Retailer

Businesses with active Twitter and Facebook profiles are well advised to make use of both when courting shoppers to their online carts or brick and mortar locations, but other social networks also prove useful. The key to successfully utilizing social media to stimulate sales, though, is to maintain a high level of activity and sociability. As people pose questions on your Facebook wall or send messages via Twitter, answer promptly and offer links to your sites whenever possible. It may not be necessary to change up sales information via social networks, but it’s important to make sure the messages stay visible.

Social Media for the Consumer

If you consider yourself a savvy online shopper, chances are you are following all the retailers you patronize the most, and have subscribed to all the right mailing lists and forums. However, social media can still optimize your shopping experience.

If you’re aware of a particular shop or restaurant in your area and are contemplating shopping there for a gift card or other item, Yelp.com can prove useful in making up your mind. This social forum, while on the outset a customer review site for dining, also accept commentary on local shops and services.

Similarly, Digg allows Internet users to find links on bargains as discovered and promoted by Digg users. A search on an item you wish to purchase for a friend or relative can yield information helpful in your search for the best deal.

Smart phones have an extra boost this year, with specialized apps available to assist in hunting the best sales.  Coupon Sherpa, a website known for providing sales codes for online carts, allows smart phone users to download coupons that are accepted simply buy showing the cashier the phone screen.

This holiday season, keep watch on your social feeds for the best shopping deals, and see how social media can save you money this Christmas.