Using Outposts & RSS Feeds in Your Media Strategy | chrisbrogan.com

More common sense ideas and tools to get the word out, this time using syndication (pushing content to those who want it) and using outposts in your media strategy.

Using Outposts in Your Media Strategy | chrisbrogan.com.

Social networks are great places to meet new people, to build new business relationships, and to learn about information from non-traditional sources. But another great way to use social networking sites is as an outpost. What do I mean by this? It turns out that people getting to know you on social networks might also find your content for the first time, and/or something you post to those networks might bring you an opportunity that wouldn’t immediately come to you in other ways.

Check out the entire post and nifty video from Common Craft about RSS in Plain English by clicking on the above link.

Google Analytics Blog: Web Analytics Tips & Tricks: Using Google Analytics to Create an Optimization Plan

Web Analytics Tips & Tricks: Using Google Analytics to Create an Optimization Plan (posted Tuesday, March 24, 2009 on Google Analytics Blog. Click link for full article)

Let’s face it, your website is never really finished. Testing pages is an inexpensive way to manage a constantly shifting audience and market. It’s great for:

1. Increasing ROI on your advertising
2. Teaching you about the likes and dislikes of your customers
3. Trying out alternatives used by competitors
4. Breaking down preconceptions about what works
5. Convincing a stubborn boss to try something new

What and where to test?

So where do you start? First you need a goal. What do you want users on your site to do? Complete a form, buy something, sign up for a newsletter? Without a goal, it’s difficult to optimize, so you should be sure to define one if you haven’t already.

Once you have a goal, you can use Google Analytics to identify those pages that are having the biggest negative impact on the total number of people “converting,” or achieving that goal. These are the pages to test.

Top landing pages report

(Content > Top Landing Pages)

This report gives you instant insight in how well (or poorly) your landing pages are performing. You want to find pages that have both high “entrances” and a high “bounce rate.” These pages are costing you a lot of visitors.

Goal visualization report

(Goals > Funnel Visualization)

The funnel visualization in Google Analytics shows you where people leave during your buying process. For example, the below report shows that 40% of the 200 potential buyers left during “Step X” in the checkout process. Average order value is $100. This means the merchant is losing up to $8,000 in revenue every month due to “Step X.”

30+ Apps for Doing Business on Facebook

30+ Apps for Doing Business on Facebook.

In my continuing quest to help others use tools better, more efficiently, and more expertly (without having to figure it all out themselves), I wanted to share this blog post with you. It’s from Josh Peters, a freelance social media consultant from Salt Lake City, Utah. He authors a blog at Shuaism.com.

“Think LinkedIn is the only place for business? Facebook is growing rapidly and it’s becoming a destination for businesses and business professionals alike to establish a presence. Here are over 30 Facebook applications to help promote, network, communicate, collaborate and accomplish more with your business.”

Click on the link to view the entire post – it’s a keeper for sure.

Do you have any suggestions or best practices that simplify online communications, marketing, or outreach??

If you’re USING any of these tools and ideas already, what do you think?? Which are your favorites??

Submit To All Social Bookmarking Websites At Once | BloggerStop.Net – Blogger Help, Templates, Widgets

I’m on a mission to help streamline all the tools and processes around using social applications for personal and business use.

Aggregators are things that take one act and repeat it for you automatically, so you can concentrate on the real value of finding and commenting on things that you feel are useful or important. Create a post and share it so that anyone anywhere can find it, using any platform.

Submit To All Social Bookmarking Websites At Once | BloggerStop.Net – Blogger Help, Templates, Widgets.