Is there anything better than cake? The answer is no, unless there are two cakes. I am currently self-unemployed looking for a job in digital marketing. So in the mean time I have been reading up on topics that thrill me, or I could afford to learn a thing or two about. In particular I have been reading A LOT about the wonderful world of Google. So using my very favorite topic, and consumer good… “CAKE”, I am going to share with you some very neat Google tricks that will make you look like a online superstar. However, you might have to spend more time in the gym from all the cake.

1. Google Adwords: Keyword Tool

Here is a fairly simple one to start us off. Ever wonder how many times a phrase or word gets searched for on Google? Wonder no more. Google has a service for that. Try it! Type in the word “Cake”, and click search. The word cake was searched 45 million times last month. WOW! That’s not all, look at all the other cake related words that were searched. For example “Birthday Cake”.

What can this tool do for you? Maybe you are communicating yourself to your audience all wrong. Let’s say you are saying all over your website that your cake is the “softest cake”. Well, maybe your website would receive more traffic and sales if you angle your web copy to describe your cake by a keyword phrase that is more often searched, like “amazing cake”. You can also add more copy changes using other highly ranked phrases like wedding cake, birthday cake, and cake recipe.

Also, learn how to use this tool to create beautiful and smart Adword campaigns that will attract the audience you want while pushing away the ones you don’t want.  After all, each click cost money.

It’s a piece of cake… I’m sorry. I’m terrible.

2. Google Reader Keyword RSS Feeds

Looking for stories on a particular topic? How about the flour industry, and flour markets? If you are a large producer of cakes, maybe you are vulnerable to the market prices of flour? or the farmers strikes? So, search for a term on Google. Get the RSS feed, and add it to your Google Reader list.

You can always setup Google Alerts to email the feed headlines, but it doesn’t hurt to add another net to catch stuff.

3. Powerful Google Search: Anyone Know + Cake: (Anyone Know + Keyword)

How many times have you search for something on Google by typing, “Anyone Know…” then followed with something interchangeable like “How To Make Lemon Cake?”. We all do it, including your customers. So start searching for your company, and its products. Maybe there are questions you can answer. Maybe there is something you’ll see that you can change about your cake?

Also use some of the words you found using the Google Adwords Tool we talked about at the top of this post. Be an investigator. Solve crimes. In my case, cake crimes, and above all else… STAY OPEN MINDED.

4. Add “Quotations” Around a Word to Make Search for Exact Matches

Here is a simple one. Want to find an “EXACT” match for what you are looking for? Add quotations.

5. Add SocialMention.com RSS Keyword Search to Google Reader

What are people saying about your brand? Some of you might have heard about SocialMention.com, it is not a secret, but maybe you didn’t know that you can get the RSS Feed for keyword searches. Then you can add it to your Google Reader.

Using Google Reader you can stay updated, and notified when people are talking about you on social networks. The rabbit hole goes deeper than that, but we’ll keep it simple for now.

6. Google Adwords: Traffic Estimator Tool

This is+ one of my favorites. Plugin a word or phrase you use to describe your industry or brand or whatever. Then type in a Cost Per Click (CPC), and Max. daily allowance. In this case, put a large amount in. We are only interested in the data, and the keywords that Google will generate.

In my case, I typed in “Cake”, $2.00 (CPC) Max., and ($1000.00) a day. What you see is Google estimates that about 200 people will click on that ad.

…But that’s not the cool part.

Find the advanced options tab. Look for the board search option under “Match Types”. Then click search.

MAGIC!!! Now you can see other terms that are related to your company’s industry that are popular in online searches, and you can see the online competition level to advertise in the industry sector. With this info, the possibilities are endless…but not the cake. The cake will run out in about eight pieces.

7. Google Insights for Keyword Search (Board)

What if your industry is evolving? Changes are happening, but you can’t seem to make it out with your naked eye. Use Google Insights for Keyword Search. You can look up a keyword, and it will give you all types of priceless insights into your industry. For example: The keyword “Cake Pops” has seen a recent 300% increase in searches on Google. That’s interesting trend. I was just at a wedding where there was no big wedding cake, just 700 cake pops.  Maybe your company needs a new product, or just some changes to there current product lines. Either way Google Keyword Insights is a magically tool that can help you forecast the future of your industry.

No matter what your industry, these tools will make your life easier. If you have any questions about these or any other Google gadgets, gizmos or tools just fire a email at me at Billy@H2M.biz or Find me on Twitter at @BillyJMcDonald.

Thanks for reading!

In June, I decided to put my digital marketing skills to work for good. Below is a video promotion I worked on with the Fargo-Moorhead Rape and Abuse Crisis Center to promote the Summit to Prevent Domestic and Sexual Violence. The video was recognized by Nationally by the Center for Disease Control (CDC). We are currently send the raw video file for the CDC to use as a example piece for their National efforts on this prevention topic. Even better, nearly 200 people attended the day long event.

Here is a little blurb about the event we were working on promoting.

Through support of the Verizon Foundation and Dakota Medical Foundation, the Rape and Abuse Crisis Center will host of full-day experience on September 18, 2012 at the Ramada Plaza Suites and Convention Center. This will be unlike any seminar you have attended and will challenge your head, tug at your heart, and inspire yu to action. The target audience includes those community members who are able to affect change in the business and social environment.

Below were the goals and motivators of the project:

The Summit to Prevent Domestic and Sexual Violence was on September 18th hosted by the Fargo-Moorhead Rape and Abuse Crisis Center (RACC).
What?
We had influential members of the Fargo-Moorhead community become the face of the promotional efforts. We created a prepared script for them to read from. This process should took no more than 15 minutes, and was not be demanding. From there I had a friend help me in the editing the video to include additional video footage and audio from a variety of community leaders. The video was used to promote the , then,  upcoming event on Summit event on September 18th.

When?
Interviews were completed in the week of Monday-Friday, June 25th-29th - 8 AM - 8 PM

Why?
The goal was to show that matters surrounding rape and domestic violence are, in fact everyone’s business. The idea of this video promotion was to have a variety of F-M community leaders show their support through video testimonials declaring full support to end acts of sexual and physical violence in our community. Our hope was that others leaders and key decision makers will see this support, be moved to join the movement and choose to attend the event.

How?
When the video was done, we will contacted video participants with a link so they may utilize our end product in any capacity they saw fit. We asked them to share the promotional video within their business and personal social networking accounts and to share it with other business and personal contacts via email.

The following is a sample script of what we had them read them to read.

“It’s my business…

It’s your business…

It’s everyone’s business.

Join me (insert name) on September 18th at the Summit to Prevent Domestic and Sexual Violence to learn how and why we all have a stake in preventing these issues in our community.”

What could social video marketing be doing for you business? If you would like some help with social media marketing just fire a email at me at Billy@H2M.biz or Find me on Twitter at @BillyJMcDonald.

Thanks for reading!

Every guy is attracted to his font style. I mean, how else do you explain comic sans?  A typeface only a mother could love. I personally like a bold curvy serif fonts; something that keeps my eyes busy. Not too big, but I appreciate a 12 pt. to 16 pt. typeface. When its used right of course. I’m not looking for a prefect 10 pt. font every time, but I wouldn’t turn it down. Now, my roommate says he likes them tall and straight up and down. I suppose to each their own, but I like to be able to tell my fonts apart and prefer a little wider on the top and bottom…if you know what I’m saying.

 However, this isn’t about my love for the beautiful fonts out there. What I want to talk about is “font safety”.  Sometimes you’re at the office late and your making some designs or sending some emails. Just then, the office cleaning dude flips the lights off because he couldn’t see you rocking out on the Mac in the corner. So what, you like it darker and it’s after hours so you loosen your tie, no big deal, and you’re just getting your workface on. Your flying through the todo list that was supposed to be done to days ago, and you never even noticed that you’ve been writing in Ariel instead of Georgia this ENTIRE TIME. Don’t get me wrong; Ariel is a great font to use, until your office friends find out.

The next day your reading through your emails and you realize what you’ve done.  You do what every idiot does after they send a late night impaired email, you panic and look for a unsend button. Don’t waste your time. There is no way you can unsend. Of course you to start rationalize, “Maybe, it didn’t send,” or “Maybe nobody will read my inter-office email or they won’t notice.” Let’s get real; unless you sent that email to an AOL account or you’re that guy that sends pictures to everyone in the office of your cats, they probably noticed what font you were hanging out with at 9:32 last night. You can bet that your girlfriend in the design department is going to hear about it.

Now before you move to another town out of humiliation, let’s evaluate the damage. At least it wasn’t Papyrus; remember when Greg down the hall when he sent that Easter email in Papyrus and copied it in 15 different colors. Yeah, it looked like somebody through up Skittles in your inbox. At least your email didn’t look like a high school color guard.  Claim down and take your resume off of Monster.com, besides who uses Monster.com to find a job now-a-days? Get LinkedIn and grow up.

Your next steps need to be very well thought out from here on out and whatever you do, DO NOT ADMIT TO ANYTHING. Your best is to blame it on the server. Over 90% of the people you work with, especially PC users, get instantly intimidated when you say the word “server”. They’ll either admit that they have no idea how servers work or they’ll attempt to act like they know what you’re talking about to avoid looking stupid by saying something like “I hate it when that happens” or “Oh, okay”, when what they are really saying is, “My brain hurts when you talk”.

Here comes the hard part, dealing with the other nearly 10% that aren’t afraid the internet. You’re still good, there is a way to make your office buddies forget, its expensive but it just might work. The Answer: FOOD! Let me tell you, I have overlooked a lot of inter-office drama for a good 500-calorie muffin, a box of doughnuts or a sandwich platter. Take a look through the Bible if you don’t trust me, it’s basically all people eating and forgiving each other. And if that doesn’t work, I guess your getting a new office door tag in a nice 30 pt. italic Ariel font.  If that happens, own it. Live the Ariel font lifestyle.  I mean OWN IT, go to Amazon in and get the Ariel the Movie 5-disc collectors edition. You earned it, man.

Yes, I am so nerdy that I would blog about fonts. Following me on Twitter @BillyJMcDonald, email me at Billy@H2M.biz or find me of LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/mcdonaldbi.

Thanks for reading!

It might be weird to hear, but I love my work in web and social like they we’re my children. Let me explain how social network management is like parenting. I mean I’m only 24 years old, and I’m not in a position to even consider reproducing, but I learned a lot from watching my sister and brother-in-law with my nephew over the holidays. It seems like a lot of yelling, persuading, panicking and cleaning up of messes. Here are six ways parenting is just like managing social networks.

1. When you’re away, you’re wondering what trouble they’re getting into.  It’s true, I remember my mother would call me from work and ask me what we were up to at the house. I would lie. It was the safe thing to do. Just like kids, as a parent of so many social networks I wonder what they are up too. Are they okay? Are they being picked on? Do they feel neglected? The fact is, you can’t always be there for every moment of your child’s life or everything thing that happens on your social networks. So, stop worrying so much.
2. You’re proud of them. Like seeing your kid perform at a school play, you’re so happy to see your social networks performing for your community and you. As everyone watches, you just point and say, “That one’s mine”. I like signing into Hootsuite and checking the daily reports. I have become proud of my companies social accounts. You need to be careful though. If you spend all your time pushing your child to achieve solely for your pride, chances are they’re going to need some therapy in their late 20’s. The same concern exist with your social networks. If you only seek to satisfy your ego, you’ll probably end up with an account full of meaningless fans and followers. Then your social dashboard will need social therapy. 
3. Cleaning up messes. Now children take the cake when it comes to making messes. In fact, they throw the cake everywhere. Sometimes, social cake gets thrown around too. It can be as small as a typo or a post made on the wrong account …to an upset customer telling the world how awful your “child” is. We both know that the child isn’t “awful”, it’s just misunderstood. You sometimes need to clean and clear things up as a social network parent.
4.  Being over protective. Nobody is more over protective of their children than my sister. She would wrap her children in bubble wrap if she could. Yet, as I think about it. I am really protective of my social dashboard. There comes a time when you decide to let your child stay out past 9:00 p.m. Eventually, they’re going to get into some late night trouble, but you have to let them be free to make mistakes.  A good analogue is allowing anyone to post on your Fan page, you might get some bad feedback, but isn’t the goal of social media to engage your audience?
5. Not listening to them. Children are constantly telling us stuff. Sometimes it’s not relevant and it can get overbearing. Children yell things like “Dad, Dad, Dad…” then the child feels ignored and walks away upset, but a community member of your social networks may sound like, “Tweet, Tweet Tweet…UNFOLLOW”. Sometimes, they are basically screaming it at you, but other times you have to do a little research. With a child this is done with a “Hey Sport!” or “How’s it going, Champ?” talk. However, a social parent needs to dive into the analytics. Why isn’t your content being clicked or shared…is you’re social kid the loser at school, or worse, the smelly kid?
6. They are an extension of who you are, and what you have taught them. Every Sunday, we loaded into my mom’s car and went to church, and like clock-work I would embarrass my mom by acting up in church. Now, my mother wasn’t embarrassed of my airplane noises, she was really embarrassed because I represented her. Just like children, when there is a mistake or a mishandled situation on one of your social networks you’re embarrassed because everyone in the “social congregation” knows that it’s your fault.

So, I am not a social media analyst. I am the proud father of many beautiful Facebook pages, adorable twitter accounts, cute YouTube channels, the sweetest blogs, a few Google+ accounts and pages, and many more. If you’re wondering how to be a good social network manager, just try to be a good parent.

Email me at Billy@H2M.biz. I would love to answer your social media questions.

Or you can be a shy, Midwestern and add me on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/mcdonaldbi

Whatever works. Thanks for reading.

Last Christmas I was asked to help the Dragons of Minnesota State University Moorhead get some media love during the holidays hype. There was another hurdle, the school 4 miles away was on the edge of winning a National Football Championship.

The only only way to get attention was to steal it from Santa himself via Newsjacking.

What is NewsJacking?

Whenever there is a hot story in the news, there is an opportunity to create and publish original content that the media will find and will get you coverage.

This video is a great example using the hype about big red and the holidays.

Email me at Billy@H2M.biz. I would love to answer your social media or newjacking questions for you.

Or you can be a shy, Midwestern and add me on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/mcdonaldbi

Whatever works. Thanks for reading.

Official Press Release

Coach Bio

With the importance of social media in all businesses, most corporate marketing departments have been stretched thin in order to participate in the many online disscussions surrounding their brand(s), and industry(s). It is wise for a marketing director, or the digital media director to extend their work force further than the marketing department. After all, social media is for everybody. So why can’t Susan in HR, or John in accounting be part of the social media marketing team? In fact you should  encourage as many of your employees as possible to be part of the social media team.

Lots of companies have teams from five to 75 employees actively engaging their brand(s) online. It doesn’t happen overnight, but it does have to start somewhere.  Here are three do’s and do not’s of forming a social media team of Incredibles.

Do’s

1.       Find people with a passion for the digital space. By choosing people that care about, and respect the use(s) of social media you will empower them to participate, regardless of their title. The participants will appreciate the level of trust that you are investing in them, and you will get quality social engagement. It’s win-win.

2.       Find people to be on your team the old fashion way…Ask! Everyone’s job can get stale (Except Digital Marketers. We Rock!). Employees are always looking for ways to shake up their work flow, or just anything to get them away from the guy that smells like salmon that they share a cubical with. The enthusiastic, passionate people in your company will flock to you. You just need to ask.

3.       Establish guidelines for your team to follow. You cannot be everywhere all the time. You’ll need a common workspace to stay on the same wave length.  Your corporate structure, and office culture will determine how complicated your policies and guidelines will be. The formation of these policies, and guidelines should be the first action of your newly formed team. It’s important to consider their input, but you will need to make it clear that you have the final approval as you are the leading expert of the topic. 

Do Not’s

1.       Don’t simply appoint someone to the team because of their role in the company. To be honest, a room full of department directors will not get very far… Well, they might order lunch!  You want social media discussions to be casual, and authentic. Just like your company should exist online. Instead appoint people with passion for online communication despite their position in the company.

2.       Don’t be fooled into thinking that everyone on your team will have the same level of passion, or knowledge regarding social media.  Just being aware of this can save you a lot of headaches.

3.       Don’t assume that your team is not already talking about your company online. In fact everyone in your company may be speaking online about your brand(s), and company. Besides they all, most likely, have company email accounts, and office phones. If you cannot trust them online… you hired the wrong people.

If you have any questions about these topics or any other social media questions just fire a nemail at me at BillyJMcDonald@gmail.com or Find me on Twitter at @BillyJMcDonald. Oh, and believe it or not, I don’t have a job, and I just graduated in Marketing, and Public Relations with tons of experiencing in digital marketing. Find me on Linkedin.

Thanks for reading!

By Billy McDonald, Multimedia and New Media Coordinator

When I was a younger social media analyst, I would panic and scavenge around the office looking for content to post to one of the 11 daily social channels we use. It is stressful for someone as busy as me to be constantly creating content from scratch to post about. Then, one day after reading a ebook from @radian6, I was shown the light. “Stop recreating the wheel”, was the message. The concept that was presented was that you can adjust content to be reused and recycled as viable content that can be reposted, but not come off as repetitive.

Here is a personal example:

I peoduced a podcast on Monday, January 23^rd for my company. At first I thought of this project as unreasonable a year ago, because of the amount of work that needed to go into it with only a little bit of useable content coming out. However, now I realize I was thinking too small.

One podcast can be a live streaming event on both YouTube and Google+ hangouts. From there I can take the audio from session and create a weekly podcast which can be post to a RSS feed, then include in our weekly eNewsletter. From there I can shorten the audio file to a commercial as a radio ad or as a intermission piece for a local sports halftime.  It doesn’t stop there, I can created a slideshare, and embed the audio file to play as it flips through pictures either directly dealing with topic of the podcast or get creative with it.  I could go on and on.

Here is another example:

I write a lot of blogs post, but they have a shelf life of about two to five days. After that, they receive a 10 views here and there, but nothing jaw dropping. However, what if I revive some of the more popular blog post, and either revisit the topic or include an update with a video possibly. I can also use content from old blog post for copy in new post.

One more bigger scale example:

Try weaving your content together. For instance, I work in the sports media and pr world. So in every game my team provides all of the following:

A Recap Story – (Website)

A Highlight Video – (YouTube)

Photos – (Flickr, Google+, Facebook, Twitter)

Stats – (Website)

Game Notes – (PDF’s on Website)

So this is what I do. We edit and upload the video, then with the first paragraph of the recap story we post that within the description section of the video with a link to Facebook fan page of the associated team. You might argue that I should direct them to the website right away. I disagree. If I point them to the website, sure they will see the story, but if I direct them to the Facebook fan page I will get a like for it. Now, the like earns me a potential repeat customer, because now we have potential of being of the new fans facebook home news feed. Plus, once they go to the page, you should already have a link of the story going back to the website with an image, story and first paragraph of the story included. Then, I embed the video into the story. This can technique can be applied in industries outside of sports.

From there I tell one of the interns to upload the pictures to Google+ and Facebook, but not before Flickr. With a special iframe widget I have found, I create a photo set and generate a iframe code and embed it with my website story. So, now I have a photo slideshow telling a story on its own within the copy story. Yet, there is more to it. Before the we even get to this point, during the week I have uploaded images to upcoming sports and pr events and include links, and info for each that come up if you click them in the slideshow. The links take you to the Facebook event. Now again, I have shifted my audience away from the website. I can hear online-marketing guru’s grinding their teeth. Stop that, it’s bad for your teeth, plus if they clicked the link…I already won. What did I win? Mindshare. I won their attention and interacted with them, and on big scale its COMMUNITY BUILDING.

Now, I use both the stats and game notes and twitter material, blog leads, and additional links at the bottom of the website story. You never know what cool little PR diamonds can be found in the numbers.

Now, if you have followed along you noticed that you can get some information anywhere, but you can only get everything from the website. That’s because that is the goal of social media. Make your website the almighty source of all information about your brand. Here is a pretty little fact for you. My company receives 25 percent of all web traffic for social media sources. THAT IS HUGE!

Here is a link to an example website story: http://ht.ly/8yExz

I have not mastered everything just yet in my young career, but for the record, social media hasn’t been around very long. I was a senior in high school when it emerged, and now I am a college senior about to graduate and I am on the top of that wave.

Thanks for reading. Following me on Twitter @BillyJMcDonald and Find me of LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/mcdonaldbi. I’ll need a job in May after I graduate with my degree in marketing, and maybe you’ll be lucky enough to hire me.