I have the beginnings of an article that I want to research and write up,  its looking into the youth of today and how they feel about a nations history that they are born into,  specifically I would like to ask questions of German exchange students,  I could see being a German teen going to the USA or the UK would possible be difficult for older generations to handle,  a country’s recent history that still has effects in the here an now,  recent history I would consider the past 120 years for this article,  I remember in my younger years there were many veteran’s alive from the first two world wars,  now not so much but the stigma of being a German away from home for teens and people in thier 20′s must still be felt, or is it?

My experiences talking to people who have done home-stay is that German students as a whole are grounded, well educated and

Cross Culture Students getting along.

worldy people,  do they feel a need to break the stereotypes still clung onto by older generations,  is it even a consideration, have they been at the receiving end of such feelings and how did they deal with the situation.  Its something that has been of interest and I would be interested in sampling some German people of this age range to see.

Being English myself I have seen this mentality of older generations, such things a believing the British Empire will return or still exists to racial hatred as depicted in a TV show called “Darling Buds of May”, I just wonder if this is still a factor, I also am interested to see how in the information age the use of social networking is bringing the world closer, breeding better understanding of cultures and bringing in social change.

Whether I get to pursue this research and write an article I wanted to put it out there for others to think about and comment on.  Living in Canada now as I do I see diversity everywhere and sometimes I find myself stereotyping people,  its somewhat a human trait to help in decision making but its also something that we can have some mastery over and not succumb to negative stereotyping.

Sharing on social networks is a smart and measurable way to promote your business.

We are all told its good to share and its true in the web world, internet karma of what goes around comes around is very true, I find in my travels that site visitors, if they like something, will, if given the tools, share.  ”Viral video” is a term for a video that takes on viral characteristics because people use sharing tools to it out there, its no good putting a video on a website and without giving tools to share it expecting it to go viral,   it just wont happen or it will take someone else with the tools to pick it up first.

Some things you should do to help yourself get out there are this:

Register with social networks and start giving

If your smart about it then you will look for a central share vendor that is popular and see who they support, I really like personally http://www.ping.fm, if you go to http://www.ping.fm/networks/ you can see all the networks you can post to from this one central site. Start to register with each of these networks being careful to fill out profiles accurately for what your share topic is going to be, don’t be too specific or too generic but use enough keywords for your specific topic in your profile descriptions, likes etc so that people using these networks will find your shared information relevant and useful. Keep a secure note of all your access information and do mix it up, don’t use the same password for all of them and then register with ping.fm and link all of these networks under here, this way you can share something once.

Give site visitors the ability to share.

Using a plugin like AddThis or ShareThis on a CMS like WordPress is great or simply use the code they offer to embed manually the Share code on pages in your website. This way if people like your content they will share it for you doing allot of promoting for you. If you run promotions and great offers/deals be sure that people can share those things. AddThis and ShareThis also have statistics showing how popular your shares are so its a great way to measure popularity.

Be helpful and intelligent

Commenting on existing information out there is a way for you to get the work out too,  of your a web design company join forum’s that are about web design and offer intelligent information and helpful “free” advice but have sure you have links back to your company/site in the posting content or on a footer,  people like really useful free information and are willing to come back and pay for services from people who they know to be helpful and know what they are talking about.

Keep it “Short and Sweet”

Keep the share topic short and sweet as people have short attention spans when it comes to masses of information that the internet has to offer so a short to the point share is best but use URL shorteners like the one I like to use: http://www.bit.ly/, I believe bit.ly will also record stats of click through’s so you can see how well your share is being clicked on.

Your finger on the pulse

Watch how well your doing using the statistics that these Sharing websites give you, you can use this information to improve your future marketing decisions, product releases, get a feel for the needs of your target audiences and identify new area’s that you may want to expand into, another great tool to mention is Google Alerts, Google will send you alerts via email for example when your website or topics relating to your website material are indexed by Google, this way you can target your shares to coincide with news releases, competitor’s announcements and really become smarter in your daily business.

Social Networking - My experiences in how to stand out.

Who picks up the telephone directory anymore, some still do but its not the first port of call for most,  most go to the internet and a Search Engine,  most commonly used is Google and the term “Google It” is now common place for many when they want to find something out, a place to go, a service or a product.

“I need to be able to visualise it!”

When shopping, many will go to an Image Search engine first to find the look, style, or design,  a picture can really give people the idea so making sure you have good image tags can be a make or break for people selling products online,  images can be overlooked by most website designers but its a great way to be found,  there are portal sites cropping up everywhere which will look for snippits of text and images about a certain subject like for example tattoos and then collate those images in a portal site with embedded ads,  the hope of the portal site owner/designer is that you will click on the ads but will generally allow click through of the images they feature to the source where they originate,  tips are to have snappy images that have good image tags relating to your site content and products.

First Impressions

Meta tag abstract, opening paragraph and title of the site can be crucial as these are the first things someone see’s if they search for your site,  here is an example,  you own a towing company and Phil has broken down but on his phone he has a signal and can get into Google,  he searches for Victoria Towing and looks at the first 10 results in Google,  the results all have a few lines of text that are the abstract,  who will he call from the 10 results on Google,  I know who I would call,  the person who had the basic towing cost, the area served, the phone number and the hours so I would pick possibly this result that I found:

FastTow

Will tow in 45 minutes. Victoria BC only, 24hr service. 250-588-7172. TOLL FREE 1.888.588.7172.

I would not have to open the website to find out the information I need to get the service I wanted,  its right there in the Google results page,  all the information I need to get the service.

Another thing that Google has that any local business should be registered under the Google Local Business Directory,  Victoria Towing as a search for me produced the following:

It really gives what you need when searching for something such as towing and a location such as victoria top what the comsumer needs and the mobile phone is now driving SEO in this direction,  Im out in my car and I want something so I pull ofver and go on my phone, search for it and I even get a map on how to find it.  People will really have to consider target audience and factor in phone users when using SEO techniques,  its becoming the way to find what you want.

Not such a requirement to someone who’s consumer is sitting at home with a computer by if your looking to provide a lunch time cafe for example you need to concider phone users that are on the street and hungry.

Bringing people in means being ever present

Being top on Google is great but people are doing more,  using company pages on social networking sites to create portals to drive people to your site or even giving information in those sites as well,  using ads, using customers who like the service to share it in social networks with other friends,  ”Word of Mouth” is a great way to get business but word of mouth has gone digital with Facebook Like buttons, Foursquare , tweets from people who had a good experience with a company or service,  you need to be hooked in to allow people to easily say how good the experience was and you need it where they are digitally,  on your site, on your facebook page,   a button that says Like, ShareThis and is at most just a few clicks or fast on the mobile phone,  you have a good experience you feel good for a few seconds about it and its on with your day,  those few seconds are the window that you as a business have to get that person to use digital word of mouth tools.

Im thinking of running a trial of a service where I do all of the social networking stuff for free and you pay me if and when you see results,  I hone my skills and learn more,  you get more of a presence online,  I and offering this to local businesses and new starter business in Victoria/Langford.