Social Media Marketing Company

Fusework Studios Launches AAFECI.org and Creates ADDY Awards Presentation

Friday, March 12, 2010 by James Hueston

Fusework Studios has played a major role in the new marketing for the American Advertising Federation of East Central Indiana (AAF ECI). Specifically, Fusework Studios Project Manager, Laurie Foster, recently completed a new website for AAF ECI (www.aafeci.org), which launched just before the 2010 ADDY Awards Banquet. The timing was great! The community saw not only the new face of the organization at the Awards Banquet, but also were reminded of Fusework Studios' offerings in Muncie as a website design company.

In addition, we volunteered to create the mainstage presentation for this year's ADDY Awards ceremony. This was a great opportunity to support several of the advertising agencies in Indiana, and the work they have done for their clients. We started months in advance, and I personally enjoyed working with Executive Director, Anne Condran, and Addy Chair, Christy Jones, in crafting the detailed presentation.

The presentation of the 2010 Addy Award Winners is on the new website for all to see, but I have also included it in my post below, so you can take a quick look.

A third-party service called SlideShare facilitates the display of PowerPoint presentations on any website in a very user-friendly format.

As a social media marketing company, we encouraged AAF ECI to alert their fans and followers of their new online presence, which they did on Facebook. Now the organization is setup online to further fulfill their mission to:

CONNECT members to other advertising industry professionals and resources;
Encourage, support, and recognize members in their quest to CREATE the very best in advertising; and
INSPIRE young professionals to enter the advertising profession.

Many thanks to the Board Members of AAF ECI for selecting Fusework Studios to partner with for their recent marketing needs. Best wishes for continued success.

Importance of Search Engine Marketing in a Full Web Based Strategy

Friday, March 12, 2010 by Brandon Coppernoll

A complete web based strategy can be an excellent forefront to a solid Internet marketing strategy. The goal should be to be able to reach all of your customers through different "vehicles" to promote your products, services and even your customers. The focus the past year has been on social media marketing, and the year before that there was a great increase in email marketing. This year, the focus has shifted to search engine marketing, and it is important to include this in your strategy.

Here are benefits to good search engine marketing:

Search engines are the number one resource for people to find websites
Targeted search engine marketing can have a high conversion rate
Search engine marketing can be completely free (do not have to use pay per click)
You win search by writing about what people are looking for

If your website is not winning the traffic through search that you're looking for, contact Fusework Studios about putting together an Internet marketing strategy including search engine optimization.

Fusework Studios Launches Web Site for IU Kokomo

Thursday, January 21, 2010 by Nellie Stout

Original article by Indiana University Kokomo: http://www.iuk.edu/news/?naid=19&ncid=.

Kokomo, Ind. - Indiana University Kokomo has launched a new and improved Web site, www.iuk.edu, featuring easier navigation, online video, vibrant flash images, and socia media integration.

"The new site will allow us to share IU Kokomo in a more engaging and dynamic way. It brings with it a content management system that allows us to better manage updates and changes, as well as the ability to implement analytics that measure site usage and give us the tools to make constant improvements that better serve our users," said Katrina Janes, director of the Office of Communications and Marketing at IU Kokomo. "The redesign and launch of a new university Web site is a huge undertaking, and we are very excited to unveil this new Web presence to the students, campus and community that we serve."

The site, developed by Indianapolis-based Fusework Studios, provides easier navigation for the user, improved search functions, and a consistent look, design, and feel. The first step in the redesign was an audit of the old Web site that included an evaluation of its strengths and weaknesses. This evaluation enforced the need for IU Kokomo to clearly indentify and match target audiences with specific marketing objectives, as well as the need to transform the site from a static information source to a dynamic and engaging marketing tool.

This direction is supported by a recent TeensTALK®survey of high school sophomores which found that 74 percent of the respondents conducted general college research on the Web, and 67 percent visited a specific college Web site. It is clear that higher education institutions are positioning their Web sites as a primary marketing tool and relying more on electronic communication tools. The average Web user today is highly skilled and able to communicate through many technological formats, from text messaging to IM to Twitter. This is particularly true for prospective and current college students.

"This was a huge project and encompassed two years from vendor selection to launch. Every unit on campus participated," said Paul Nowak, vice chancellor for external relations. "A special recognition is due to our marketing and IT departments, and especially Rudy Kizer, our campus Web manager, and Katrina Janes."

Indiana University Kokomo serves a seven county, primary service area in north central Indiana. The campus offers more than 40 academic programs including four graduate degrees.
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Fusework Studios provides service in Business Blogging, IT Services, SEO Indianapolis, Indiana Website Design, Indiana Website Development, Web Based Strategy, Social Media Marketing, Indiana Video Production, Email Marketing Strategy, Corporate Blog, Internet Marketing Indianapolis, and much more.

Indiana Video Production is not dead

Tuesday, January 12, 2010 by Laurie Buschmann

Indiana video production is alive and well, and there are many production houses in central Indiana that do a fine job at it.

In this age of social media marketing, business blogging and email newsletters, it's important to remember the viability of video in your Internet marketing efforts.

You've heard it before, "Video tells a story." But more than that, it's a necessary tool that can impact your bottom line in a variety of ways. Through visuals and sound, your customers can:

Learn more about your business (history, products, process, etc.)
Hear testimonials from your customers about how great your product/service is
See step-by step how your product works, so customers will buy it themselves
Follow how-to instructions for accomplishing a certain task
Be inspired and empowered to donate to your cause
Be entertained by a different type of advertising
Advertise for you by sharing your video across their social media networks
And the list goes on....

Doing video is a no-brainer, so let us show you how easy it can be. Just think of all that content that's just waiting to be put out into the world.

Add video production to your web based strategy for 2010, and contact Fusework Studios today to get started.

The next phase in Indianapolis Web development: Part 1

Thursday, January 7, 2010 by Brandon Coppernoll

The year 2010 brings on new opportunities for businesses across the country including Indianapolis. The economy is slowly on the mend. Jobs are starting to come back. Businesses are strategizing on how to attack their marketing plans and grow. Indianapolis, in my opinion, is no different from this trend.

When I first came onto the web development scene, it was primarily about having a website. Your website was more of a brochure. There was little thought to a full web based strategy or social media community involvement for businesses. The primary focus was having a great looking web design and plenty of content for people to read.

Then came the next phase which was to measure the analytical data provided for your website. Soon, it was found that people often didn't spend more than 1-2 minutes on the site. This didn't help support the theory to have more than twenty pages of content. The next step was to find a way to convert those visits into money by creating calls-to-action. These calls-to-action were provided as forms, buttons and/or videos.

The most recent trend is how to use social media marketing and business blogging to benefit your business. Search engine marketing is taking the forefront, and more businesses are implementing corporate blogs and social media as a part of their web strategy. I believe this trend is going to add a new twist to how websites will be developed beginning in 2010.

With Google Live Search and the rise of blogging as the premiere method in getting recent and relevant content, the next trend is all about flexibility and the process of getting search content out to the masses. It will be about monitoring what people are looking for and providing that information. Businesses will be taking an ever-more increased role in talking WITH their customers (not just TO their customers). Websites and strategies will be taking on a new look to feed how people will find out about their business(es), goods and services.

I will be touching on how to take advantage of this new trend in my upcoming post. For now, I wanted to get you thinking about how sites will be developed differently with this in mind. I'd be interested in hearing some thoughts from you on what you see coming in the next year.

Google Real Time Search Makes Social Media a Lot More Relevant

Monday, December 7, 2009 by Kevin Hood

This is not only huge for organic search engine optimization, but also for your social media optimization. Google just announced a real-time search feature integrated near the top of every Google search results page. It features the latest news from major newspaper websites, popular blogs and even Twitter. If you search for "tigers mistress," you will currently see a link to a news site, a link to Perez Hilton's blog and random Tweets from people talking about the recent Tiger Woods scandal on Twitter.

Imagine if someone searched your company name and found an interesting Tweet near the top of Google from you, and decided to follow you? Getting followers from search engines, pretty cool right? But what if someone mentioned your company name in a negative light on Twitter, and it showed up on the first page of Google?!

Social media is real folks; you just can't ignore it anymore. Google has also worked out deals with Facebook and MySpace to include public feeds in the real-time search results. If your corporate Internet marketing strategy does not include social media, maybe you should consider working with a social media marketing company. You need to advertise. You need to monitor your brand reputation, and you can make new relationships all at the same time.

Are you spending a lot of money on PPC Marketing? Why not throw a few of those dollars towards a social media marketing optimization plan and get even more search engine results in the top area of Google.

People can now find live information about you on Google. Does this sound scary? Maybe, but should you put your head in the sand and ignore it? No way! Take advantage of this new form of search engine marketing and free social media advertising in the place everyone wants to be - the top of Google!

Complete Internet Marketing and the Evolution of Programming

Monday, November 9, 2009 by Derek McClain

Things are changing in the programming world, and it is no longer just about finding the right website design company. Companies are now developing a complete internet marketing strategy and seeking an internet marketing agency to produce a total web presence. Learn more about how social media marketing tools are being used to compliment websites by viewing the video below.

Web Development - The Forgotten Focus

Thursday, November 5, 2009 by Bruce McClain

With all the talk these days about social media here in Indianapolis, web development often has become the forgotten focus. I go to conferences or seminars, and all I hear about is social media marketing and the social media community.

I agree that this is an emerging trend. I agree that it is here to stay in one form on another, but while everyone's focus has been distracted by the "shiny new coin," companies have been forgetting about web development and their web based strategy.

I always like to use the example with my clients of the grocery store. Grocery store chains spend millions of dollars researching where to place each and every item. They have a plan when a customer walks in the doors. They know exactly how they want you to walk through their aisles. Do you think it is a coincidence that the milk is always in the back of the store? Of course not. The strategists want you to walk past all the other more profitable merchandise before you can get your milk. This whole process has become a science. Sure they run ads in the paper, on TV, and with their Web marketing, but when they finally get you to their store, they have a plan.

This is the type of thought that should go into your web development and strategy. What do you want your customers to do when they reach your site? What makes you money? What do you want your visitors to make sure to do before they can get their "milk?"

Social Media is fun. It is the big thing right now, but please don't forget what your business is really all about. Use these other tools to drive traffic to your site, but don't forget about what you want them to do when they get there.

Are You New to PPC Search Marketing? Remember, Less Is More.

Friday, October 23, 2009 by Derek McClain

If you are new to Pay-Per-Click (PPC) and using Google AdWords for the first time, you may be wondering where you should start. Remember one thing when working with PPC search marketing - less is more.

This was a great takeaway point from Jim Brown's presentation at the 2009 Masters of Business Online conference in Indianapolis, Indiana. Jim Brown is the President of Evereffect, an interactive marketing company located in Noblesville that focuses on PPC campaigns. He had many great tips to share, but it all came back to the theme "less is more."

It can be so easy to start your PPC search marketing campaign with thousands of keywords in each AdGroup. Google is constantly wanting to make keyword recommendations to increase your spend, but in the meantime, it often causes you to lose track of things. Large lists of keywords are hard to manage and usually result in spending more money on words that are not profitable.

If you are new to PPC search marketing, consider starting your AdGroups off with one keyword string each. That's right. Pick one keyword string and build your campaign from that. Do your keyword research and find one keyword that makes sense for a profitable area of your business. Typically, this will not be just a single word as creating a keyword string usually results in a highly targeted, conversion friendly string. An example of a targeted keyword string is "PPC search marketing in Indianapolis."

Many variables will control the sucess of your Google AdWords campaign, such as budget, scheduling and a solid landing page. Do not drown yourself in keywords too early, or you will likely lose focus on what will actually determine your campaign's success. Remember Jim Brown's philosophy - less is more.

Commitment Is Key to Internet Marketing Success

Friday, October 23, 2009 by Bruce McClain

I had the good fortune this week to attend the 2009 Masters of Business Online conference in Indianapolis, Indiana. This event is hosted by one of our peers in the industry, Evereffect. The President of Evereffect, Jim Brown, did a tremendous job of scheduling outstanding speakers and visionaries from the Indianapolis area to speak. If you haven't attended MBO in the past, make sure to do so next year.

Over the course of the day, I watched a great presentation from the CEO of Brandswag, Kyle Lacy, on the importance of social media. I had the opportunity to hear Jon DiGregory, Founding Partner of Cantaloupe, talk about video production and how it is evolving for the web. Another particularly interesting presentation was from the Founder of Slingshot SEO, Jeremy Dearringer, on how creating inbound links to your site is so important to your search ranking.

While each presentation during the day was about a different area, all of them had one particular theme that stood out time and time again...COMMITMENT.

You see, when you talk about organic search engine optimization, social media marketing or your overall Internet marketing strategy, one thing is always consistent; you need commitment.

I have blogged about this in the past. We have witnessed this over and over again with our clients. The more they commit, the better success they have. We can create the best Internet marketing plan for you, but if you don't commit to it, you will ultimately limit your own success.

If you think about this scenario, it is the same with so many things in life. Take for instance, weight loss. You can hire the best trainer to create a fantastic workout plan for you, however if you don't commit to the program, you will have little chance for success.

Even though each of my fellow Internet marketers had their own stories and products, each of them continually preached about one ever important thing...commitment.

Before you are ready to dive into your next web project make sure you ask yourself one important question.

Are you ready to commit?

Internet Marketing in Indiana

Friday, October 16, 2009 by Derek McClain

When looking for a company to help with Internet marketing in Indiana, you will likely have a long list from which to choose. Some will tell you it's all about social media optimization, and others will say spend your money on Pay Per Click (PPC) search marketing. Some will stress the importance of an email marketing strategy, while others will say it is all about having a business blogging strategy. At times, it can probably get downright confusing. Well, let me add just a bit more confusion and tell you that all of them are right!

internet-marketing-indiana-business-woman-ejoys-benefits

You see, it is not just ONE of these things that leads to successful Internet marketing in Indiana. It is a combination of all! This is why finding a true Internet marketing agency in Indiana is so important.

An Internet marketing agency can provide stratgies for all of these services. They have either taken the time to develop this part of their business in house, or they have built partnerships with other agencies that specialize in a paticular area. Either way, the ultimate goal is providing YOU (the consumer) with the best solution from the people with the most experience and success. It is only then that you will enjoy ALL of the Internet marketing benefits that will help your company grow.

At Fusework Studios, we stress the importance of developing this complete Internet marketing strategy for you because we know that it's not all about ONE thing. It's all about understanding your business and providing you with a package of Internet marketing services that will allow you to see the best end results.

So the next time you are confused and everyone is telling you all about the latest trend, find a complete Internet marketing company in Indiana and enjoy all of the Internet marketing benefits you deserve!

Web Based Strategy: Create Custom Facebook Page Tabs

Thursday, October 1, 2009 by Brandon Coppernoll

By now, you've likely created a Facebook page promoting your business as a part of your web based strategy. You are also likely running several promotions for your business. You've been making countless posts on your site and your social media community of choice, trying to turn your latest promotion into a revenue generating machine. The problem is that, as you develop fresh new content, sometimes creating your promotion gets lost in the multitude of posts.

The good news is there are easier ways to make your promotion more promininent that should yield higher longterm results during the lifespan of your latest goal. Facebook has an application that utilizes Facebook Markup Language (FBML) which allows you to create custom HTML-based code and place it in tabs and boxes to feature on your Facebook page. I don't want to lose you in the details, so here's an example.

Fusework Studios' Scotty's Gift Card Promotion Example

Creating a custom tab has many benefits, including:

Constant exposure to your clients and fans
A marketable item on one of the most widely used social communities
Creating a call-to-action on your Facebook page
Capturing your audience in effective social media marketing

As with any web business strategy, I suggest planning what you want your custom tab to look like, what will be the call-to-action and how you will track the success rate.

Case Study: Internet Marketing Branding

Monday, September 21, 2009 by Derek McClain

We are in the midst of executing an internet marketing branding campaign for one of our long time clients, Jay-Crew Landscape, Inc. This campaign combines social media advertising, email marketing and other internet marketing efforts to help increase Jay-Crew's online brand awareness. The campaign also allows Jay-Crew to expand its list of contacts for further internet marketing efforts.

While social media internet marketing tools can be very effective, there must be a core idea behind the campaign to ensure our clients will enjoy all of the interent marketing benefits they deserve. As an interactive advertising agency, it is our job to develop these ideas and strategies to help make these online campaigns successful.

Here is an overview of the Green for Green Sweepstakes promotion we developed for Jay-Crew:

Basic Idea: Entering this sweepstakes will give you a chance at winning a $1,000.00 landscaping upgrade. You may pick from services that will meet your needs up to $1,000.00 in value.

Theme: Green (Money) for Green (Landscaping) Sweepstakes

Goal: To increase the internet marketing branding awareness for Jay-Crew Landscape, Inc. while developing a list of contacts interested in landscape services for future follow-up efforts.

How to Register: We set up GreenForGreenSweepstakes.com to redirect to a page on Jay-Crew's site asking for basic contact information via a web form. This form was designed to be as straight forward as possible, promoting the ease of registration. We also ask that all registrants give a brief, creative explanation on why they deserve the $1,000.00. This is a key element in capturing all of the internet marketing benefits from this campaign. Now Jay-Crew has background information to add to their contact list for further follow up.

Getting the Word Out: Email marketing allowed us to jump start this campaign. We have worked with Jay-Crew over the past year or so to develop a high quality, opt-in, email list. This helped get the word out immediately and encouraged existing contacts to tell others.

We have also used social media marketing tools such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIN to share word about this promotion. Several employees at Fusework and Jay-Crew have posted the GreenForGreenSweepstakes.com link on their personal profiles in addition to posting on our company profiles. This allows everyone involved to share the word with our personal and business network as anyone within 60 miles of Muncie, Indiana can enter this sweepstakes.

Blogging has also played a role in driving people to the site to register. Several employees here are Fusework Studios maintain personal blogs. Some have taken it upon themselves to do a blog entry there as well. A blog post was also added to SmallerIndiana, the niche social network for Indiana And of course, we have posted on the company blog which you are reading right now.

Covering the Basics: Updating the Web site itself has also played into our web based strategy. Creating a new graphic for this campaign has given us the ability to use and repurpose it across all of the online outlets above, including the main page of the web site. This graphic has also been a key part to the success of this campaign and increasing the internet marketing branding awareness.

Check out the graphic below and click on it to register!

Fusework Studios - Who are we?

Wednesday, September 9, 2009 by Bruce McClain

What is a Social Media Marketing Company? What is an Internet marketing agency? Who is Fusework Studios? I get these questions all the time, when I tell people what I do for a living.

I would like to take a few minutes to tell you who and what we are. First of all let me tell you what we do. We are Digital Marketing Agency with offices in Indianapolis and Muncie Indiana and clients all around the globe. What does that mean? Think about your traditional marketing agency and all the things they did for you. Now translate that to the digital world. That is where we come in.

We can help you anywhere from Web development to buying ad space on Google. Above all Fusework Studios wants to become your trusted partner and help you plan every aspect of your digital marketing efforts.

Now let me tell you about the most important part of the Fusework formula. That would be our staff. I have the opportunity to manage the greatest group of employees in the industry. Not only are my employees knowledgeable about Social Media Advertising, Web based strategy, and Internet marketing, they also know how to work with our clients.

Fusework employees care. They not only care about our clients as people, they also adopt our client's businesses as their own. My staff routinely stays late into the night to help a client write some copy, or get the just the right shot on a video shoot. My staff instantly is on the case if your server goes down no matter what time of day it is. I am honored and truly blessed to have such a great staff and I know that has been a huge key to our success.

So now you know a little bit about Fusework Studios. Hopefully when you see our sign as you head down I-69 you will know exactly what we do. If you have any other questions about our services please let me know. I would love to help.

Is Social Media a Fad?

Tuesday, September 8, 2009 by Bruce McClain

In my last post about how I think of my blog topics. I mentioned, that I received an email from somone asking me a question that would be the inspiration for this post. So here we go.

This potential client asks, " I am hearing a lot more buzz about Facebook and some of these other sites, is Social media stuff just a fad, or should I get involved with this?"

Working at an Indianapolis Internet Marketing Company we tend to get this question a lot. I am not sure if it is because we are in the Midwest and are slow to catch on to the technology around us, but never the less, I am hearing this almost every day.

Social Media and Marketing is here to stay. Make no mistake about it, this is not a fad or a trend or something that is going to go away. Unfortunately if you are just now asking the Social Media question you are greatly behind some of your competitors. Social Media needs to be a part of your Website strategy immediately.

Now another part to the question, I always get asked, is how do I decide which Social Media Network to use? This is where the fad part comes in. Or as I would rather say the "trend" part comes in.

The trend a couple of years ago was to be on Myspace.com . That is where the action was, now it rarely is mentioned when talking to business, but it shouldn't be forgotten. It is just not part of the current Social Media trend.

The big buzz these days of course surrounds facebook.com and twitter.com . We have heard these names from Oprah to Ashton, from CNN to the Indianapolis Star. They are everywhere and with good reason. Their traffic is astronomical. And yes you should have a presence there as well. However, I am here to tell you one year from today we will be talking about a new Social Media darling, that may not even be in existence today, and do you need to have a profile on it as well. My answer would be yes, yes, and yes.

Today your audience can be world wide, they can find you 24/7/365, but you have to make it easy for this to happen. Your audience is more diverse now then ever before, they have more interests than ever before and they are all part of some sort of social network. Is it the one you are marketing too. If you are only on the biggies probably not.

Don't forget about your smallerindiana.com's and your indylink.com's . They are just as important as anything you are doing in the Social media community. They are local and can influence your business today.

My suggestion would be to develop a overall social media profile. How do you want your company to be viewed on the web? It needs to be very consistant to align with your brand, but can be specialized to each social network if you like. Take the time to set these up, place time on your schedule to monitor these, and understand how to manage your company's reputation on them as well.

Finally if you still believe social media is a fad take a look at this video. While I am not positive I agree with all the data it shows, I do believe it will change your mind. Enjoy!

Don't forget Conversion.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009 by Bruce McClain

Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Advertising, Blogging, Pay Per Click, Interactive Strategy, Email Marketing, the list can go on and on. These days it seems everyone has a new area of expertise for generating traffic to your site, or your social networks.

While I believe in almost all of these Internet Marketing Strategies, I often wonder when do we talk about your Corporate Internet Marketing, or you Social Media Strategy, why do so many Internet Marketing companies fail to talk about the most important piece to the puzzle, CONVERSION.

Sure I can drive thousands of visitors to your site. I have used Google's pay per click service with great success. I have seen companies drive a 100,000 visitors a month to their site using this service. I worked with one company in particular who would spend over $40,000 per month, just to generate traffic. Believe me, it does work.

However, when I asked this company the percentage of visitors they converted on their marketing objective they had no idea. After further review, we discovered it was less than 1%. I may not be a rocket scientist, but that seems like a waste of money. What about CONVERSION?

I now see all these companies who claim they are a Social Media Agency. I even saw a proposal that promised to increase the number of fans a company had on Facebook, and to increase their Twitter followers. Again, this is not a bad thing, but what about CONVERSION?

You need to have a Web Business Strategy for how you are going to convert your traffic to be customers or clients. You need to give them multiple opportunities to execute your objective, and you need to make it so straightforward your visitors have no doubt what you want them to do on your site.

As you make your plan, think about the typical grocery store. Where do they put all of everyday items like milk, eggs, meat, etc? Yep, you are correct in the back of the store. Do you think they have a strategy behind that. Absolutely. They are trying to convert their business objective, and to get you to purchase, look at, smell, and sample, other items on your way to the things you really need. They are all about CONVERSION.

As you look at this blog post you may notice small buttons, or self promotional ads all over the page. Do you thing that we just put them there for design purposes? Absolutely not, we have an objective in mind. We blog to get you to our site. We want to get you to our site to tell you more about Internet marketing and what we do as a Internet Marketing Agency in Indianapolis Indiana. We hope you find the information helpful and also candidly we want you to talk to us more and ultimately become your trusted business partner.

So before you spend next years advertising budget with Google, take a few moments to think about what you will do when you drive traffic to your site. Google may be great at driving traffic, but what about CONVERSION?

Social Media Optimization - Commit to One and Make a Big Impact

Wednesday, July 22, 2009 by Laurie Buschmann

For those of you who have created a Twitter acccount, but you have only tweeted once...
For those of you who have a Facebook page, but you have 20 pending friend requests from March...
For those of you who have a blog set up, but you have only posted one article about setting up your blog...

THIS POST IS FOR YOU.

Social media marketing can be time consuming, frustrating and down right hard. I completely understand. I used to feel that way too until I started making it the priority that it needs to be in this day and age of social media internet marketing.

If you're the type of person who I described above, I have the best Web business strategy for you, and it's based on Seth Godin's recent blog post titled, "The Law of the Little Shovel."

The basic premise is this: Pick one social media community and focus on it (aka make a big hole) rather than starting several social networking platforms (aka little holes) and never doing anything with any one of them.

I've seen too many businesses try to tackle too much too soon when it come to social media advertising, and in the end, you don't really do yourself any service by setting up accounts that end up being inactive.

So if Facebook is your choice, try to devote at least 20 minutes a day to marketing, advertising or networking for you or your business. And....keep in mind that this doesn't have to be (and shouldn't be) overt.

Here are just a few suggestions for how to spend your 20 minutes:

Locate and send a friend request to the people with whom you currently do business. Keeping up to speed on your clients' personal lives and commenting from time to time can help keep you top of mind when they need work done.
Post positive news about your clients and the work that they are doing. When you promote your clients, it goes without saying that they appreciate that and will continue to do business with you.
Along the same lines, you should look for opportunities to become a fan of certain friends' or clients' businesses. That's easy and quick networking from the comfort of your office or home.
Look at the friends of friends. It might give you an idea of people to contact about doing business.
Update your status. I admit that I am still in the school of thought that "no one wants to hear about what's on my mind," but I have been floored to see how certain status updates can foster new and interesting touch points between people.

Focusing on one social media community will get you used to this whole new world of internet marketing, and I promise you that you will reep the benefits and see a tremendous return on your time investment.

Before you know it, you will have dug a big hole (and made a big impact) using your little shovel.

Social Media in Indianapolis: Smaller Indiana U. S. Senior Open Tix Giveaway

Thursday, July 16, 2009 by Derek McClain

We are very fortunate in indianapolis to have such leaders in social media marketing so close in proximity. Many of them hang out on a social media community, Smaller Indiana. I am continually impressed by the level of interaction on this niche social site. The ideas, people and creativity are what make this a bright spot for internet marketing in Indianapolis. Most recently, Smaller Indiana creator, Pat Coyle, is giving away U. S. Senior Open tickets on the site to 7 lucky people. Here are the criteria from Pat:

"If you're interested in winning the tix, please post a reply to this thread and let us know how you intend to use them. We'll pick seven winners - one winner for each day of the event - for seven completely different reasons... the seven most original, sincere, funny, heart wrenching, practical, surprising, ridiculous posts could win...so tell us why you want to go."

There have been a great deal of responses to this with most people writing that they would take a client, grandfather, or even a fiance. One person even posted his bank account balance to prove this would be great for his financial status to have free entertainment!

This is another great idea from Pat that has allowed the Smaller Indiana site to grow in the social media internet marketing community of Indianapolis.

What is your next big idea? How can you offer an incentive on your site or internet presence, tie it in with a great idea to grow your social media community?

Moonfruit vs. Twitter: Can Social Media Advertising be too successful?

Monday, July 13, 2009 by Chip McComb

By now, many people have heard of the success of the Moonfruit twitter campaign, but many thoughtful marketers and social media experts are wondering... what is it's broader effect upon social media as a whole.

For those of you who haven't heard the story...
On June 30th, Moonfruit, a website development company not to be outdone by their compeitor SquareSpace decided to give out 10 macbook Pro's in honor of their 10 year anniversay as a company. Per Moonfruit, all you had to do to enter was:

"include the #moonfruit tag in any tweet on twitter. You can be creative with your tweet or re-tweet our message, don't forget to follow @moontweet to find out if you've won."

This exciting giveaway garnered attention not only from the majority of the Twittersphere but also from Techcrunch and Mashable, two of the largest social media and technology focused blogs.

So here's the sting. Within 48 hours, #moonfruit was the top trending topic on Twitter. Not only was this seemingly harmless promotion/ social media advertising campain garnering over 300 tweets per minute, but it was beating out trending topics like Michael Jackson, #iranelection and Wimbeldon.

Fast forward to day 4 of the campaign, late July 3rd. Moonfruit began to tumble off of the trending list on twitter.com. Was this due to a loss in popularity of the social media advertising campaign? No, Twitter intentionally removed moonfruit from the trending list with no explanation.

Moonfruit posted a compelling post in their blog, charging Twitter with this act of behind the scenes censorship. Although the removal of the #moonfruit hash tag from the trending topics didn't really have an affect on the success of the overall campaign, and Moonfruit recognized that it may be in Twitter's best interest to remove trending topics that lean towards the commercial, the censoring of the seemingly democratic Trending Topics metric is the greater issue at hand.

When will Twitter come through with a policy or an offical statement regarding this watershed in social media marketing? Most people view this as the most successful social media advertising campaign in twitter's history, will there ever be another one like it?

Measuring Social Media Internet Marketing

Tuesday, June 16, 2009 by Derek McClain

Measuring social media internet marketing efforts is very important to a Web based strategy. Social media marketing and advertising are great in promoting your business, but how are you measuring the impact of your efforts? How much traffic are your Facebook status updates driving to your website? Is it worth the time to manage a Twitter account as part of your website strategy?

There are many ways you can answer these questions, but I would recommend using Google Analytics. This will allow you to see how much of your website traffic is a direct result of your social media internet marketing efforts. But don't just stop there. Make it fun. Encourage your co-workers to promote your business through social media. And encourage them to promote your client's business as well. Have fun with it!

At Fusework Studios we have contests to see how many additional visits we can drive to our website through the use of social media. The results have been very eye opening.

Check out the graph below: