Agencies have a new SEO platform to take the manual labor out of organic search engine optimization for their clients

gShift Labs, creators of web-based software that enables a consistent and repeatable approach to optimizing the organic search results of a website, announced today that Marketing CoPilot Inc., a marketing consulting company that specializes in building online strategies for business owners and MH Connect, a communications company specializing in marketing, public relations and interactive programs, have signed on as clients of gShift Labs to improve SEO results for their clients.

“gShift’s vision is to change the way people think of and perform organic search optimization,” said gShift Co-founder Krista LaRiviere. “We have spent many years watching marketers do the heavy lifting of manually implementing SEO for their clients. gShift Labs has developed and patented a new way to automate the SEO process that will dramatically improve the optimization effort and results in one easy-to-use software platform.”

“All of my clients agree that first page organic search rankings improve business results,” said Marie Wiese, President of Marketing CoPilot. “But they don’t want to spend a fortune on professional services in order to manually tie together web analytic tools, social media tools and content management. Until now, it was time consuming and clients had to pay for the time it took to manually string it all together. gShift has changed that. Now I have an automated tool that analyzes, tracks and reports and give me important recommendations to help me drive traffic to a client’s website.”

There are a variety of tactics and best practices that are used by SEO professionals to improve organic search results. They are time consuming, complicated and require tying together a number of publicly available tools. gShift Labs has developed a new way to put all tactics into one spot. Less time can be spent on “figuring out SEO” and more time can be spent on building the right content and tactics to deliver traffic to a web site.  This is an important concept for any agency who wants to demonstrate results for their clients.

“75% of searchers click on organic results versus paid results,” said Marc Hill, Principal at MH Connect. “No matter what an agency offers to clients, SEO has to be part of the communication solution. But I don’t want to ask my clients to invest in SEO expertise. Instead I want to execute activities and show them results. gShift Labs’ Web Presence Optimizer™ saves me time and allows me to serve more clients.”

gShift Labs is looking for marketers or marketing agencies that are frustrated with the level of effort required to support their current SEO strategy and want to simplify the process and achieve better organic search results for their web presence..

About gShift Labs
The team at gShift has grown up with the internet and recognizes the tremendous importance that a web presence plays in today’s business strategy. gShift Lab’s SEO platform, Web Presence Optimizer^TM eliminates the complexity that surrounds search engine optimization techniques and strategies and standardizes it with a simple software tool that improves web rankings. gShift Lab’s software simplifies, demystifies and standardizes the way your website gets found on the internet to reduce the time and resource commitment necessary to perform, report, analyze and improve search engine optimization.

For more information:

Contact Krista LaRiviere

krista@gshiftlabs.com

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So you’re business is buzzing along.

You have a great website; it’s been optimized with targeted keywords; your value proposition has been clearly articulated, not to mention you have those adorable social sharing buttons strategically positioned in your header.

But if your online strategy ends there, you’re pretty much doomed.  Well, perhaps you’re not doomed, but you are certainly missing out on a crucial opportunity to grow your business and scale.

And that opportunity has everything to do with content marketing.

Content marketing is an overarching term relating to all marketing formats that rely on the development and sharing of content to engage existing and prospective customers. Essentially any marketing strategy that is content driven falls under this umbrella.

If you are a business owner, or a C-level executive, you need to wrap your head around this emerging trend.  Here are seven reasons why.

1. It’s Cost Effective

Traditional advertising can cost a fortune.  Even advertising on the Internet can be costly.

But content marketing is much, much more affordable.  In fact, according to Hubspot, Inbound Marketing (which is entirely content-driven) is 62% less expensive than Outbound Marketing (of the more conventional variety).

Every corporate budget can accommodate a content marketing strategy.

2. It’s Engaging

Content, and social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter that support and promote content, provide opportunity to engage stakeholders meaningfully.  You can ask questions of your readers, solicit their feedback, host polls and contests and network with industry thought leaders.

Engaging your stakeholders and prospective customers makes them feel invested.  Content offers an authentic way to build relationships.

3. It’s Dynamic

Traditionally, online content has been static.  Well-written websites would just sit on the Internet, hoping for visitors.

But everything is changing.  Blogs and social media encourage the creation of dynamic content that is fresh and exciting.  Take advantage of the flexibility that content marketing provides – mix it up, share your opinion, challenge conventional wisdom, post often and be consistent.

4. It’s Accessible

With the emergence of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+, information has become more accessible and shareable than ever.  A fabulous blog post can go viral overnight and attract thousands of visitors (and prospective customers) to your website.

5. It’s Scalable

Content can be easily re-purposed.  A white paper representing industry thought leadership can be used for a webinar series; a press release can announce the availability of those resources; and a blog post can focus on an interview with one of the white paper contributors.

A company can affordably ramp up its content marketing strategy by pushing more content, more regularly and more aggressively.  All of this will drive more traffic and more conversions.

6. It Builds Brand

Content can be easily customized (and tweaked and changed over time) to establish a sense of ‘personality’ and brand in the marketplace.  No matter what kind of business you own or manage, content can help you to define your identity.

You need not rely on a storefront or a snazzy, expensive ad campaign – you can launch a content marketing campaign and transform your brand completely, just with words.

7. Your Competitors are Already Doing it

If you aren’t yet leveraging the benefits of content marketing to your best business advantage, you can bet that your competitors already are.  This is a fast-moving train, and it’s not going to stop, so it is in your interest to take the leap, or you’ll be left behind.

If you want to learn more about how Marketing CoPilot can help you to develop a content marketing strategy, contact Marie Wiese at marie@marketingcopilot.com

Ruth Zive,

Ruth Zive is a writer , Mom-to-five (plus pooch), wife, Ashtanga yoga devotee, designer handbag enthusiast, special needs advocate and vegetarian chocoholic (not necessarily in that order).  In her spare time, she writes The Freelance Writing Blog

February 2, 2012 (Toronto, ON) – Marketing CoPilot, a trailblazer in online, integrated content marketing strategy, announced today that SPM Learning, an international, award-winning boutique leadership training and development firm, has gone live with its newly designed and optimized web presence at www.spmlearning.com.

“We were very excited to discover Marketing CoPilot and their approach to marketing. We were seeking to outsource our marketing function to free up internal resources and gain peace of mind, drawing on outside thought leadership. We didn’t think a company like Marketing CoPilot existed,” said Lindsay McMurray, Vice President of SPM Learning,
“After interviewing several other marketing firms, it was clear that only Marketing CoPilot could provide actionable strategy, build a functional and well-designed online presence, and deliver measurable results.”

After going ‘live’ with their new website, SPM Learning experienced:

• A 32% lift in web traffic
• A 22% increase in page views
• A 48% increase in unique, new visitors
• A clear, meaningful articulation of the company’s value proposition
• Increased blog interaction

“We are thrilled to be working with a company like SPM Learning that understands the importance of leveraging their web presence smartly and strategically to their best business advantage,” said Marie Wiese, President, Marketing CoPilot. “The traction that they have achieved in this short space of time validates the Marketing CoPilot approach – it confirms that with the right tools in place and a defined methodology, meaningful content can be used to drive traffic, enhance brand and ultimately grow your business.”

About Marketing CoPilot

Marketing CoPilot has worked with 100’s of business-to-business companies in the technology and professional services sectors to deliver online marketing strategies and tactics that help business owners find customers and keep customers. To learn more about their proven three-step methodology, download Chapter One of their eBook, Why Marketing Fails… and What You Can Do About It!

About SPM Learning

SPM Learning delivers leadership training solutions to execute strategy effectively and transform today’s managers into tomorrow’s leaders; leaders who drive business results through inspirational leadership, managing innovation, strategic thinking and creative problem solving. SPM Learning’s leadership development programs result in transformational leadership that supports your strategic vision.

In 2011, the digital landscape significantly shifted but most business owners were merely voyeurs on the sidelines watching the disruption shake out. We have said this before at Marketing CoPilot and we’ll say it again: it’s not about the technology! It’s about engaging people in a variety of relevant conversations. Few business owners are asking the right questions and trying to figure this out.

“What the social media gurus aren’t telling you is that the landscape for business isn’t changing because of social media, it’s changing because consumer expectations are evolving.” Brian Solis Blog Post

So what is separating you from current and potential customers?

ENGAGEMENT

Plain and simple. Your website, your email campaigns, what you post in social media is still viewed as a way to broadcast. Business owners need to spend 2012 focused on how to engage. This means looking at a whole new set of metrics.

Old Model

• I push out something (phone call, direct mail, email blast, online advertising).
• I base my success on the numbers of people I reached and the percentage of people who responded and bought something from me within four to six weeks of the campaign or gave me their contact information.

Why this model is flawed…

It completely ignores finding out what people really think or care about if their immediate next step is not to buy. Maybe they have someone they will refer you to or maybe they are in education mode or maybe they just don’t want to speak with you yet.

What other metrics are you tracking to find out how engaged they are in wanting to be part of your business community?

New Model

• Design a content marketing strategy and schedule based on content that matters to your current and potential customers. Do your homework here. Map the buying process and understand value from the customer’s perspective. If you are pushing out product information, don’t bother doing it.
• Send out content on a consistent basis (you need 10 to 12 sends before you can see a pattern) in various mediums: dynamic content on the website, email, social media, posting on other sites, encourage partners to repost, etc
• Document:
  • Click through rates
  • Time on site to read content
  • Action taken after reading it
  • Whether it was forwarded
  • Whether people talked about you on twitter, etc
  • Whether anyone commented or reposted your content

These are the new metric that matter. If you start to record these things in your business, interesting things will happen:

1. You will start to understand if the conversation you are having in the marketplace is relevant and if anyone cares.
2. You will see where people drop off in the conversation based on the stats you are collecting.
3. You will see if you have said anything interesting enough for people to respond and engage with you.
4. You keep people either in the circle or they unsubscribe which is powerful information to know if your content and the conversation you are sharing online is not interesting enough to keep people engaged.

Think about it: when was the last time you responded positively to someone who called, emailed or met you at an event and said, “I have something to sell you. Do you want to buy it?”

Engagement takes time, it takes effort and it means continuous testing and retesting. No wonder business owners have stood on the sidelines of digital strategies. The level of effort to change the way they do things is overwhelming. It so much easier to ask a sales question and get a yes or no. But for customers, this is not good enough anymore. They want to be courted and educated before the commit.

You need engagement.

In 2012, Marketing CoPilot is going to be on the forefront of proving that what stands between you and your current and potential customers, is engagement. We are currently tracking these metrics for our clients and we are going to bring you a report this spring that proves the attainment of engagement versus broadcasting will pay off five times more effectively for your business.

If you would like to book a call with a member of the Marketing CoPilot team to discuss ideas on improving your customer engagement, please email marie@marketingcopilot.com.

Last year we did our “11 Must-Have’s for Your 2011 Marketing Plan“. We think our list for 2011 is just as important for 2012, but this year we thought it would be fun to get another marketer’s take on the best and worst of the year. Nikki Gore is this week’s guest blogger who helps us wrap up 2012. She is a product marketing specialist and founder of Siren Marketing.

By Nikki Gore

This is one of my favorite times of the year.  Yes, I’m a Christmas junkie.  Yuletide trappings make me very, very, happy. The other thing that makes me exceptionally happy are lists and this time of the year is full of them.  Highlights of the year, plays of the year, stories of the year, photos of the year, scandal of the year, celebrity meltdown of the year — I love them all.

So, I got very excited to start my own, short list of the Good, Bad and Ugly in marketing in 2011.

The Good

Kobo beats Amazon to market with a tablet This may seem like a small, obscure story to some but let’s look at this again.  Kobo — small, Canadian, David taking on Goliath.  Yes Amazon announced their tablet first but Kobo got it into market first.  Add some icing in the form of Japanese giant Rakuten buying Kobo for over $300M to make it the largest transaction in the Canadian market since the sale of Workbrain in 2007.

The Bad

Motorola Xoom Tablet Launch If you are thinking about the four P’s, Motorola missed a big one on the price side of things and, I would argue also fell short on the product itself.  While the Xoom reviewed reasonably well with the tech crowd there were some glaring shortcomings when compared to the iPad in terms of simplicity of the user experience and application availability.  However, what should have been a big glaring neon sign of warning to the Motorola powers that be was the price tag.  Who in their right minds were going to pay $800 for a tablet ($600 if you tied yourself to a Verizon contract and spent a boatload on a monthly data plan).

The Ugly

RIM’s Playbook Tablet Fiasco I almost put this in The Bad but this was not only bad but so, so, ugly.  Aside from being late to market, lackluster advertising and the comedy of errors around inventory and distribution (Black Friday?  Please) the failure of the Playbook, in my opinion boils down to one key question: How does a mobile device manufacturer, known for email, release a device that has no email integration?  I rest my case.

The Jury is Still Out

There were a few things this year that aren’t definitive high points or low points so for me the jury is still out:

Facebook Launches Another New Interface What’s so different about another new interface with Facebook?  The most recent update, including timelines, changes to brand pages, fan pages, any kind of pages was introduced with a little more fanfare than the normal under the radar, log in and surprise, Facebook is somehow different.  The reactions have also been widely reported on – impact to user experience, impact to advertisers, impact to Facebook itself as rumors start to swirl about a possible IPO.  There have been some real issues with the way messages are treated but there are also some nice new features on the interface (I personally like the timeline summary).

Google + Google has never been known to make a big deal out of new features coming out of its factory.  Google is a master at creating excitement and demand that goes viral without actually promoting.  This serves well when things don’t go so well with experience or uptake on its experiments.  Google + seemed to have more buzz than usual.  There was a high demand for beta accounts.  People talk about it on Twitter, speculate about the impact on social media marketing and the like.  I’m not sure about this one though.  For all the chatter, I still don’t have a sense for adoption and I’m seeing lots of “why do I do Google +” and “I don’t get Google +”.

I know there are hundreds of other marketing events I could have included. Believe me, as a chronic list maker, it took a lot of restraint to pick just these few.  While it’s always interesting to look back, I also believe that it’s even more exciting to contemplate what’s coming.

We look forward to all the exciting marketing prospects awaiting us in 2012.

In one of our last posts for Telus Talks Business, we discussed how redoing a website can challenge your business model. We highlighted three company examples of businesses that quickly realized why repackaging and repositioning what they do and how they do it on the web was making them rethink what they sell and how they sell it.

In doing research for this post, we came across a great resource that everyone who is considering redoing a website, should read before they do it.  Knock knock by Seth Godin is not only helpful, it’s liberating.

Here’s why:

Godin highlights three questions you must answer on every single page you build:

1. Who’s here?
2. What do you want them to do?
3. How can you instantly tell a persuasive story to get them to do #2?

If you can’t pull off #3, then don’t bother building a page. Or a website for that matter.

Your website is a series of steps…

…steps people take in the buying process to make a decision to buy something.  Your website should reflect this on every page as the pages are put together to tell a story. You need to not only tell that story as persuasively as possible but you need to think about your site in terms of who is there and what you want them to do. This is the number one problem with sites today that are under-producing in business results: websites need to encourage people to do something when they visit a site. If the content is not compelling enough to get them to pick up the phone and call you, then what else have you got?

Let’s use this example:

• A company sells audio visual equipment; a competitive space full of people who sell and set up equipment. This company needs to use their website to sell the vision of what a company is trying to achieve when they buy audio visual equipment – a collaborative ecosystem for their employees. This means their business model changes. It’s no longer just about recommending equipment and setting it up. It needs to be about selling the value of achieving business goals and outcomes.

When I search for “audio visual equipment”, here are the search results I get:

• I see results coming back that provide me with the top three companies paying for AdWords (yellow box).
• I see the local search results.
• And if I had scrolled down the page I would have seen AV companies from across Canada.

I click on the first organic search result and here is what I get:

Jerry’s site looks pretty much like the next ten – companies hawking AV equipment and trying to get interested parties to their sites because they have a deal on a particular unit. I can’t buy the equipment from the sites I visited and I had to dig pretty hard to even find a way to contact the company. Finding them on Facebook did little for me as well as a business owner.
So if everyone is selling equipment and the only differentiating factor is price, what are my choices as a buyer?

Let’s go back to Seth Godin’s three questions:

1. Who’s here?
2. What do you want them to do?
3. How can you instantly tell a persuasive story to get them to do #2?

Would you buy from Jerry?

Of the entire page of search returns, here is the only page that caught my attention:

1. Who’s here? Event planners.
2. What do you want them to do? Get started planning their event. The” Get Started” button goes to a simply designed page that allows me to enter the details of my event that is coming up and what I might require. It’s even right in the URL – avquote.com. The singular purpose of this site is to get an AV quote.
3. How can you instantly tell a persuasive story to get them to do #2? By making me feel like a VIP, that I am “in the club” and simply stating why I should work with AVQuote. This is available right on the home page; no assumptions about products, price or clutter that I may or may not want, just a cleanly stated request for details about my event.

Is AVQuote in the business of selling and renting AV Equipment? Yes. But the story they are telling to engage a prospective customer is direct and it’s specific. They likely have to rethink how they price their products and services to accommodate the event consulting they have to deliver up front at the beginning of this process but they are not just about equipment at the lowest price. The way they package and sell their services is impacted by who, what and how.

Today, small business owners need to consider the importance and value of their website and web presence. They also need to consider that anyone who comes up ahead of them in a search result is a competitor. Before you redo your website, do yourself a huge favour and answer Seth Godin’s three questions. You will not only save yourself time and money you will make it back in spades because the end product will set you apart in the marketplace and have droves of customers knocking at your website home page.

Today’s busy reader wants to be more informed with less information. This workshop will give you practical skills for writing e-mail, letters and short reports that get to the point and help move projects forward. You will learn a framework that you can apply to all your writing to ensure you consistently achieve the results you want and foster productive relationships with colleagues, customers, clients or other business partners.

Who Should Attend

People who rely on e-mail and other short business documents to communicate effectively with others. It is suitable for people who write to internal colleagues or to external business partners.

What Participants Will Learn

By attending this workshop, you will learn to:

• Organize e-mail, letters and short reports (1-2 pages) into focused, efficient, useful messages
• Apply IWCC’s 5Cs framework to quickly plan and write effective business documents
• Determine the right content and level of detail to include
• Write in a High Impact style that is clear, succinct and easy to understand
• Use constructive tone to build and maintain good relationships
• Organize related information into coherent paragraphs
• Use e-mail as an effective means of communication to enhance personal and organizational productivity.

When: Monday, December 12, 2011
Where: Markham Convergence Centre
Time: 8:30am – 4:30pm Cost: $595.00 per participant + HST*
*Includes parking, breakfast, lunch and snacks.

For more information or to register for this workshop please contact Heather MacLean at heather.maclean@IWCCTraining.com

Payment by credit card due at the time of registration.
Payment is non-transferable and non-refundable within 45 days of workshop.

519.772.0750

Join us for an interactive workshop and draw the line between what you think are selling and what your customers perceive your value to be.

Who?

This workshop is for business owners who want to workshop their value proposition in order to build marketing messages and social media strategies that are compelling and attract customers to their business.

Why?

With the increasing complexity of social media and online strategies, you must be able to state your value in 8 seconds or less. This workshop provides the opportunity to fine-tune your value proposition with other participants and get valuable feedback.

What?

Leave with a strong and compelling statement of why people should buy from you to help you find new customers and energize your lead generation activities.

Where?

Monte Carlo Inn & Suites
7255 Woodern Avenue, Woodbine Room
Markham, Ontario

When?

Friday October 21, 2011
8h00 am to 11h00 am

4 Tips to Win Clients with Strategically Placed Online Copy.

Do you know how many people actually read the copy on your website?

Unless your value proposition is strategically positioned, chances are it’s simply not being read.  Companies are expending significant resources on online marketing campaigns that are destined to fail as a result of poorly placed copy.

Marketing executives would be wise to consider the following tips before developing copy to support their campaigns.

1. Place Your Value Proposition
   “Above the Fold”

   The term ‘above the fold’ refers to the premium space above the fold of a newspaper.  Journalists covet this valuable real estate knowing that copy placed here is the first to be read.  The same principle applies to websites; any copy that relies on scrolling will probably be overlooked.   As computer screens, tablet devices and smart-phones become smaller, the above the fold space is shrinking which puts even greater pressure on marketers to tighten their copy and place it strategically.

   In fact, not only do readers scan above the fold messaging first, eye tracking research reveals that users read web copy in ‘F’ shaped patterns.  The eye moves horizontally across the top of the webpage (above the fold), back across to the other side, and then vertically down the left.  This map should serve as a template for how content gets placed.

2. Make Your Copy Scan-able

   Research confirms that people generally scan website content and don’t read it in full.  An overwhelming 79 percent of online readers attest to this trend, and companies should be mindful of this fact when they develop their online content.  To make your content scan-able, it should:

   • Include meaningful, bolded and succinct subheadings (like this blog post)
   • Bulleted lists (like this one)
   • No more than one overarching concept per paragraph

3. Use Interesting Images

   Strong headlines are reinforced by interesting images.  An image can encourage a reader to delve deeper, beyond the headline, and this can support your value proposition.  Furthermore, an image placed at the top of a website also serves to shorten the width of content, once again drawing the reader in.

4. Think of Width

   The ultimate goal of online content is to lure the reader beyond the heading and directly to your value proposition.

   

   If you can get the reader to persist through the first few sentences, they are more likely to continue to the end and to purchase your product or service.

   The width of your web column can actually help in this process.  According to typographers Dyson and Haselgrove, the ideal column width for online readability is between 40 – 55 characters or 250 – 350 pixels.  That’s a fairly compact space; it demands strong, succinct and pointed copy.

It would be a waste to spend time and money on copywriting that falls flat simply because it hasn’t been strategically positioned on your website.  By considering these tips in your design and layout, your copy is more likely to be read and your value proposition will resonate through to conversion.

Ruth Zive,

Ruth Zive is a writer , Mom-to-five (plus pooch), wife, Ashtanga yoga devotee, designer handbag enthusiast, special needs advocate and vegetarian chocoholic (not necessarily in that order).  In her spare time, she writes The Freelance Writing Blog

Take a moment and think about the people you knew in school. I’ll bet there were kids that you remember as being:

• The smartest
• The funniest
• The most athletic
• The tallest
• The meanest

You get the idea. There were kids that stood for something. Likely one thing and it stuck. If they were tallest, they likely got picked for the basketball team. If they were the funniest, the teacher was likely asking them to pipe down.

Now think of companies that stand out in your mind. They likely stand out because of attributes you associate with them:

• The cheapest
• The best service
• The best quality product
• The only one that sells something in blue

Now think about how the things you talk about when promoting your company’s product or services. How focused is your approach to what you do and why people should buy from you? Listing everything under the sun on your website or in marketing material is hurting your customer’s ability to choose.

People want less choice not more and singular focus helps you win more business.

Here’s why your business needs singular focus….

1. A multi-product, multi-strategy approach stretches already limited resources and means you end up with poor results.
2. Helps you gain a position on the web that you can test with an audience you wouldn’t otherwise have.
3. Allows you anchor your message to a single theme that you can test to see if it scales.

If you are still struggling with the best way to create singular focus for your business, consider this recent blog post by renowned marketer and bestselling author, Seth Godin, Delivering on Never.

If you start by choosing something you can commit to never doing in your business, it is a good way to position yourself and create differentiation from the competition.

Just trying lots of things to see what sticks, is like throwing spaghetti at a wall.

• You can’t measure it because you are never sure what you are measuring and what the outcome is
• It looks messy and unappealing to your ideal customer.

The most productive marketing programs are rigorous, highly analytical, strategic and pragmatic.

The reason so many business owners fail to create focus in their business, is because it’s easier to say anything and be everything. But focus will improve your lead generation because the right customers understand immediately why they should buy from you and you make it easy for them.

If you are looking for ways to build singular focus into your marketing program and improve lead generation for your products and services, check out Chapter 3 of our eBook, Why Marketing Fails… and what you can do about it!

Do one thing really well and use it as the cornerstone for your marketing program and successful lead generation will follow.

This week Marie Wiese, the founder of Marketing CoPilot was a guest blog for Profit Path

I had the occasion recently to present to a group of business owners about using social media for their businesses (2 Tweet or Not 2 Tweet?). An interesting observation came from one of the CEOs. While social media seems like a bottomless pit for most companies, it has an often overlooked silver lining. Once you get past the hype and deciding whether to Tweet or Link In, you cut through the clutter to find that social media could be adding tremendous value to your strategic plan.

To demonstrate the point, let’s make some assumptions about your strategic plan for this year. Most people will be building a plan that includes:

1. Vision/Future Direction
2. Blue Sky/Opportunities
3. Sales/Growth Projections
4. Product/Service Delivery plan
5. Alliances/Mergers

Assuming you are going to build your strategy with an accompanying work plan, there are things you could be doing on social media right now to test and enhance your plan.

1. Market Opportunity – You can use tools like Twitter and Linked In to see if there are groups of people talking about a topic related to one of your strategic initiatives. If you are looking to expand in a market or offer a new service, listen in to the conversation to see what the challenges are, who is already there and what you might need to do to fine tune your position. Social sharing means you can listen before you leap.
2. Service Innovation – I recently discovered on Twitter a growing segment called “virtual assistants” who quickly followed me when I asked about how the service worked and if it would be right for my business. As a result, I determined there was a need amongst small business owners to have a Virtual Marketing Manager for their business, as opposed to a full time marketing manager they had to train and manage. My strategic plan called for productizing a service like this and I found a wealth of knowledge amongst people in a similar industry who were more than willing to share what they knew. They used autoresponders in Twitter to send out content about their services, what they covered and what the price points were. It made my service development a snap.
3. Pricing Strategy – There are some wonderful online tools today that allow companies to innovate inside the way they deliver their products or services and there is no faster mechanism to test it than a social sharing platform. Let’s say you have decided to skinny down a product line and sell a less feature rich product at a reduced price. Why not offer it up on social selling sites like, eBay or Kijiji to test the price point and see what kind of customers you attract before you retool the plant.
4. Concept Testing – There is no other immediate feedback mechanism that I have seen of late that can be as useful a tool as having to explain what you do in 140 characters and immediately seeing if people get it. Using Twitter to stake out your ground on a topic and create a following is an immediate gauge of interest of what you sell or talk about. If are not compelling and able to explain your concept so that people respond and follow you, maybe your concept is not ready for prime time. Social media can save you a ton of time and money figuring this out.

It might seem odd the marriage of social media and strategic planning, the first being immediate, the second being long term, but the immediate can guide long term planning. Hopping on line and listening before you execute can save you from costly investments of time, money and resources in a strategy that may not make it the distance.

The most important thing to remember about any tool or research that you deploy to support your strategic planning exercise is to clearly define your target market and value proposition before you start. The one thing that social media forces us to do is to create laser-like focus of our messaging so that we can engage. Once you sort this out during your strategic planning process, the sky is really the limit in what you can do with social media to innovate within you company. Possibilities are endless.

Check out Chapter 1 of Marie’s new eBook, Why Marketing Fails….and what you can do about it!