Social Media Shows Creativity

When it comes to social networking and job search, creativity thrives.

A CNN article gives a wonderful example of a creative use of the social media site Pinterest as a resume. Rachael King, a community engagement professional for Adobe, created the "living resume," which is a collection of high points in her career. The living resume provides King a visual representation of the work she’s done that’s much more exciting to sift through than bulleted list on a resume.

Tumblr is another visual social media site ideal for photographers and artists looking for jobs.

5 SEO Trends Every Entrepreneur Needs to Know for 2014

BY Jayson DeMers

"Is SEO dead?" It's a common question within the online marketing world today.

If you're an entrepreneur relying on a strong online presence to connect with customers, you're right to pay attention. It's undeniable that the SEO landscape is changing.

For instance, Google is taking a hardline approach. Shady link-building tactics (think Rap Genius), poor quality content and bad design are just a few of the factors causing websites to get penalized. So what's worked for your business in the past may no longer work, and in fact, could actually hurt your business now.

Today, successful SEO strategies have to incorporate diverse components including brand building, mobile optimization, content marketing and social media integration. It's time to adapt your strategy to address these realities. Here's a closer look at five trends that will shape your SEO success in the year ahead.

Effective SEO has three pillars.
A strong SEO strategy has three core components: links, content and social media. What's become more pronounced in the last year is the relationship between these elements. Content must be laser focused on your audience's needs and honed to drive specific profit-generating actions. Social media amplifies your reach, signaling to search engines that users find your content valuable. Links from high quality sites also reinforce that you're a solid, trustworthy site. A virtuous cycle is starting to emerge that all begins with writing great content.

The rise of content marketing moves toward digital maturity.
Content marketing was the top marketing buzzword of 2013, and it's a trend that's here to stay. Brands need to become savvy about telling their own stories and creating content that resonates with audiences. As the initial fascination with content marketing wears off, marketers are now demanding more return on investment, or ROI. Content marketing is maturing, and as a result we're better able to effectively target content, measure performance and correct course to improve results.

Mobile optimization is no longer optional.
With the release of Google's Hummingbird updates, it's getting harder for sites without a mobile strategy to rank well. This includes both a responsive design and a mobile content strategy. Realistically, it's time to invest in this anyway from a business perspective: Half of Americans own smartphones and more than a third own tablets according to Pew Internet. Responsive design ensures that your site looks great across a range of mobile devices. A mobile content strategy targets your content to the context, needs and behaviors of mobile users.

Building your brand is more important than building links.
A strong brand is playing an increasingly important role in SEO. One tangible example is Google's introduction and emphasis of Google Authorship, a program that connects content to your author profile with recognized authors' content performing better in search engine results. Building your brand and thought leadership in your space are critical steps to ranking well over time.

Social media, especially Google Plus, plays an integrated role with SEO.
Google is relying more than ever on human signals in the form of shares and mentions on social media to help vet sites. If you don't have a strong social media marketing presence and a strategy that makes it easy for people to share your content, it's time to implement one.
Social media has matured to the point where it's intersecting with SEO to help determine search rankings. Two easy places to start are building your Google Plus presence and ensuring that your website and blog have content sharing modules built in.

As you're developing your company's SEO plan, remember that all these trends add up to two things: integration and balance. Invest in all the key areas -- from writing good content, to building links and developing your social platforms -- with the understanding that they mutually support each other. Customize your plan by identifying your company's gaps and opportunity, and focus on the channels that bring you closer to your audience. Good search engines rankings will follow.

Google's all-or-nothing plan to make you a Google+ user

By Molly McHugh 
Digital Trends
 

Since Google+ launched, Google has created a variety of ways to loop users into the budding social network — and then keep them there. The brand has integrated its other Web products into G+, and more and more is beginning to go its own route when it comes to tying in social content. If you are among the few who liked Social Search and wanted those tweets mixed in with search results, you’ll now notice that these have been replaced with Google+ posts — and if you want to interact with them, you’d better get on board with the Google social site.

But in comparison to Google’s new plan of attack, these were relatively timid ways to rope in users. Now, all users who want to create a new Google account will automatically be added to Google+. Say you only want to create an email address. Too bad, you are obligated to be a member of the social network as well.

Google’s redesigned the landing page for creating your new account as well, and the layout and instructions emphasize you’ll be roped in to more than one property. “Talk, chat, share, scheduled, store, organize, collaborate, discover and create,” the site says. “Use Google products from Gmail to Google+ to YouTube, view your search history, all with one username and password, all backed up all the time and easy to find at (you guessed it) Google.com.”

Google’s been criticized for doing a poor job of integrating its various Web properties, and early G+ criticism saw users begging for the ability to reach their other accounts within the site. The company deserves kudos for quickly addressing whats its new social users were asking for, and doing it relatively quickly. But in traditional platform fashion, we’re now being given an ultimatum: It’s all or nothing. It’s a really user-unfriendly way to go about things, but one that is sure to spur G+ numbers – which have been climbing regardless. Google says the social network now has 49 million users and traffic is up 55-percent.

You always need to read between the lines with reports like these, and now we’ll be forced to even more. We can imagine that plenty of new Google account holders will turn their G+ off altogether, limiting their profile entirely and keeping themselves unreachable (if that’s you, follow this link and change all the settings to “only you”).
www.google.com/settings/plus

Google ‘+1′s for sale!

By Molly McHugh
 

A +1 sale operation was uncovered, giving Websites the option to buy their way into what they would believe to be a better social search ranking.

It’s time to talk about another Google+ – the +1 button Google introduced. The feature was officially rolled out in 2011 as an answer to the Facebook Like, allowing users to recommend content that their friends will then see via Google’s social search.

The +1 button launch brought concerns as to how the application would affect SEO. And while exactly how it affects page rank isn’t entirely obvious yet, we know it does. Which is why it makes perfect sense that +1s are now for sale.

A report in The Atlantic brought our attention to a site called Plussem.com, which is offering +1s to boost your site. At Plussem, for $20 you get 50, $70 nets you 250, all the way up to $360 for 2,000. The site describes itself, saying:

“Google are [sic] now striking back at Facebook with there [sic] version of the Like button. This will be used to judge contents [sic] worth [sic] by using real people to rate it rather than there [sic] own bots. To cheat the searching algorithm be sure to get the ball rolling for your site by purchasing Plus Ones.”

If you were able to muddle your way through that grammatically-challenged mission statement, you know that there isn’t some complicated operation going on here: The site has a person with a verified Gmail account click +1 on your desired content and that way each +1 your site gets originates from a different IP address. Plussem also spreads out its +1 bingeing to make it that much more convincing. We contacted Plussem to ask about their process and if they would like to comment on the attention their site is getting. We were told that ”‘where there is demand there will be supply.’ I can not explain our process publicly. I can only say that we deliver our customers the service they request for a fair price.”

An SEO company trying to game Google is hardly revolutionary. The company’s stranglehold on search is motivation enough for Web publishers to attempt to understand the nooks and crannies of its algorithm – and to then exploit them. And Google does everything it can to keep its page rank process a mystery, possibly to a fault. Its Panda updates this year had varying results, and in some cases actually hurt its content farm crackdown. So given the power it wields over search, we don’t think it’s inappropriate for Websites to do what they can to figure it all out and try to boost their page rank.

That said, this type of marketing is generally bad news. First of all, we wouldn’t trust our money anywhere that can’t figure out the difference between “their” and “there” – that’s reason enough for caution. Secondly, +1s aren’t really worth the money at this point. The feature doesn’t have the kind of pull a Facebook Like does yet given Google+’s limited userbase. On the new social network, you can see what users give a +1 – but there simply isn’t a wide enough population on the site to make that useful yet.

Currently, +1s don’t have a big effect on search results. You only see them when one of your Google contacts +1s something, and we’re willing to bet you aren’t Gmail buddies with the spammers working for Plussem. Eventually +1s might become more visible to a larger population, but that isn’t currently the case.

Not to matter. The site that operates Plussem, SEOShop.biz, also sells Facebook fans, fake product reviews, forum posts, and a handful of other faux marketing services for your site. The SEO world is riddled with this type of trickery, and we don’t necessarily advocate against exploring and experimenting with methods to boost page rank. But given Google’s harsh punishments for this type of activity and its ever-changing algorithm, this particular scheme and many like it are definitely not worth the risk.

Google promotes Web journalists – as long as they have Google+ profiles

By Molly McHugh

Is a new tool from Google helping writers promote their work or cornering them into using Google+?

Google announced it would begin offering writers a new way to promote their work on the Web. Now, in Google News, writers have the option of having their identity given some spotlight alongside their stories. Given the obvious effect Google rankings can have on a site’s performance, this is inarguably an important tool.

But there’s always a hitch, and this time it’s the fact that you aren’t linking in your Internet profile of choice. Instead, you have to sync your work to your Google+ account.

It’s a poorly veiled—maybe even completely forthright—attempt on Google’s part to create a little Google+ interest and activity. While Google continues to protest the site’s success, users and analysts (and in one case a Google team member) complain the social network has become stagnant. Google itself seems to be halfheartedly reclassifying Google+, saying long term plans for the site haven’t revealed its true purpose, that it’s really a platform for looping you into Google’s Web properties as a whole.

And if that’s the case, then tempting writers with the lure of Web notoriety makes sense. The language Google uses in linking your authorship with your Google+ account also makes us a little wary. The site asks you to go to Google+, list your work email, make it universally public, and then verify its authenticity. Call us conspiracy theorists, but combine the remaining unknowns about the Panda update, the mystery of what exactly the +1 button does for page rank, and Google’s general secrecy about its algorithms, and we can’t help but wonder if verifying your place of work doesn’t help bump your articles further up the chain.

That isn’t to say there wouldn’t be any benefit from this: There are Internet “writers” and then there are Internet writers—and knowing a little more about them can help readers gauge where their information is coming from. For example, do  you want to read an article by someone whose Google+ profile lists him as employed by Taco Bell and living in “the man cave,” or by someone who has a background in the subject at hand and a corresponding work email address?

Of course there are sweeping generalizations that can be made when you’re cornered into linking one specific Internet identity to your work life. Google has danced around the issue of Web anonymity, and this would seemingly force writers’ hands into proclaiming themselves—and possibly into maintaining and using a Google+ profile. And it also makes a statement: If you choose to keep things private on the Internet, you lose. Even if using this new tool from Google doesn’t improve your site’s page rank, it will likely make those who do choose to use it seem more credible. Readers will see an image, how many Circles you’ve been added to, and a link to your Google+ page. Of course, being included in three Circles isn’t exactly attractive—hence your desire to become a more active Google+ member.

Why Short Videos Are Wildly Popular Over Social Media

BY Michael Miller

When it comes to marketing your brand or business online, can you tell your story in 15 seconds? How about six?

That's all the time you have when you use one of the new short-video sharing apps available for iOS and Android devices. Vine was the first of these video apps, enabling you to shoot and upload videos no more than six seconds long and loop over and over. Not to be left behind, Instagram recently added video sharing to its digital photo app, and upped the time limit to a whopping 15 seconds per video. Instagram videos don't loop.

Then there's MixBit, which lets you shoot short videos but also enables editing of multiple clips into longer one- and two-minute videos.

All of these services are mobile-only, with videos shot and shared from iPhones and other mobile devices. Vine and Instagram video, especially, are proving to be immensely popular. Vine, which is owned by Twitter, amassed 13 million users in its first four months on the market. Instagram Video was immediately available to the service's 130 million users, who uploaded more than five million videos in the service's first 24 hours.

But, let's be serious: What is up with the short videos? Are six seconds and 15 seconds arbitrary amounts of time? Or is there some method to this madness?

The short-video approach is designed to offer viewers a much different viewing experience than with traditional longer-form videos. Case in point are Vine's six-second videos, which are immediate and without pretense. They're also short enough to upload and view quickly, even on slower mobile connections. Instagram went for slightly longer videos that enable companies to upload new or existing 15-second commercials.

In practical use, Vine's shorter videos tend to inspire more creativity. 
Since you can start and stop recording for multiple shots, many companies are creating interesting stop-motion animations that showcase their products. The looping nature of Vine videos can also result in interesting effects as videos circle back into and through themselves. The "summer up" roller coaster video from Target is a perfect example of Vine's stop-motion and looping in action.

Instagram, on the other hand, is attracting more traditional promotional videos.
You don't have to be as inventive to fit your message into a 15-second container and many companies appreciate the extra time to tell their stories and showcase their products. For example, a Starbucks video gives a short tour of the company's original Pike Place store.

Since both Vine and Instagram encourage social sharing, the most interesting videos can quickly go viral. It's not unusual to see popular Vine and Instagram videos popping up in Twitter and Facebook feeds. The sharing nature of both services offer the potential for significant customer engagement.
If you want to see how the different services require different approaches, search for Gap's stop-motion videos on Vine and Gap's more traditional customer testimonials on Instagram.

Key Ingredients to a Winning Mobile Content-Marketing Strategy

BY Jayson DeMers

When you think about the different ways customers land on your company's website, mobile is most likely a growing driver of traffic. According to the latest statistics from Pew Research, 56 percent of Americans own a smartphone and 34 percent own a tablet. Then consider that 63 percent of smartphone owners use their devices to go online.

Does your content-marketing strategy take these trends into account?
Plugging new channels or technologies into your existing content strategy isn't enough. As a business owner, you need to consider how your site and your marketing are being delivered over the devices people are using. If you're not delivering your marketing messages in a way that's tailored specifically to the experience of a smartphone or tablet user, chances are you're turning customers away.

Here's a closer look at some critical points to consider about your company's mobile content-marketing strategy:

Mobile isn't just about the device.
Don't just look at the mobile channel as a series of devices. It's true that your content needs to be optimized and look great across different brands of tablets and smartphones. But mobile is also about the context and behaviors of your customers while they're on those devices.

What are they doing on that smartphone?
Are they accessing content relaxing at home, or glancing quickly during their commute? Your content strategy needs to represent a deeper understanding of your users' mobile context and what that means for both your content and experience creation.

For example, I recently bought a new home theater system. As I was setting it up in the living room, I realized that I lacked a particular part to enable the wireless rear speakers. I needed to figure out how to buy that part while I was next to my speaker system so I could examine their part numbers and other information printed on the speakers. I pulled out my iPhone and began searching the web. Plenty of suppliers had the part available, but I made my purchase based on what I needed at that moment: Assurance that it was the right part, trustworthiness of the supplier and a reasonable price. I purchased from the supplier that was able to convey each of those things in the easiest, most efficient manner on my smartphone.

Base your strategy on how your audience really uses mobile.
An effective mobile content strategy demands an understanding of your audience's mobile usage. Marketers like to imagine they know their customers. But the reality of mobile usage may differ from your perception.

Part of your audience profile should focus on how mobile fits into your customers' lives.
What devices are they on? What kind of an experience are they looking for from you?
Data from your existing website analytics program can give you mobile insights, as can targeted surveys, to form the foundation of your mobile content strategy.

Think before you shrink.
The old model of content creation was to adapt content from other formats, usually the web, to a small screen. Text was chunked differently, visuals updated and overall layouts simplified and made more "tappable" for touchscreens.

Instead, look at all of your content through a mobile lens at the point of creation. Copywriting and visuals should be as short and minimalistic as possible, while effectively conveying your message. Then adapt your ideas from there to the bigger screen. Scale content creation up, rather than down.

Rethink your user experience through design.
Every business needs a website that looks great and functions well on mobile devices. If information is hard to find or your site is impossible to navigate, you'll lose customers. But mobile design goes beyond basic functionality. Ask yourself if you're providing the right experience in terms of content, look, feel, functionality and tools to help your customers achieve their end goal.

Going back to my example about buying the part for the home theater system, during my search for suppliers I found several that had awful mobile design. One in particular wouldn't even let me add my item to the cart. Needless to say, I didn't make my purchase from that supplier.

Focus first on the experience, and then optimize the visuals.

Expand your understanding of conversions.
In the mobile universe, conversions go way beyond the sale. Signing up for a newsletter, sharing your content or downloading a white paper may be valuable customer touch points. Think about the range of mobile conversions with value for your business and develop mobile content to support that funnel.

Take advantage of location.
Geolocation technologies are giving businesses creative ways to engage customers, from sending market research surveys to customers nearby to offering discount codes to drive sales. Examples of these technologies include Apple's Siri, Google Now and GPS-enabled apps for iOS and Android.

Mobile devices are the lever these campaigns hinge on. Consider how location-based technologies could increase immediate engagement with your customers.

Leverage the rise of micro-video.
As visual content such as videos and infographics become the preferred form of content, specific opportunities are appearing for mobile. Short videos on Vine and Instagram have provided marketers another way to reach their audience. What part of your story can you tell in a micro-video? For some interesting takes on Vine campaigns check out Oreo's campaign and Lowe's six-second home improvement tips.

Make social engagement easy.
Is your content easy to share and easy to engage with? Simple like and share buttons encourage social engagement. If you're requesting information, avoid long essay questions and forms that are awkward to navigate.

With more opportunities to reach customers and prospects by mobile, companies can stay relevant by creating mobile-focused content marketing strategies. This can help you to concentrate on high-return mobile activities that drive website traffic, engagement, leads and sales.

Social Signals Are “Backlinks” of the Future

BY Chris Guthrie

For years, Marketers have been jockeying for page #1 rankings, focused solely on backlinks.

Well guess what...
The future of SEO has EVOLVED and making a major shift towards CONTENT and SOCIAL SHARING.

Google and other search engines have realized that people LOVE to share content via social media.
...and that measuring engagement, social sharing and social signal diversity is a better indication
of what is quality content and worth of high organic rankings.

- Share buttons (like, recommend, tweet, bookmark, etc.)
- Connect buttons (Like a Facebook page, Follow on Twitter, Follow on LinkedIn, etc.)
- Social commenting

Which means that Social Signal monitoring is the NEW backlink monitoring for SEO.

Which is why Marketers NEED to Check out WPSocialTracker:

http://chrisloves.com/signaltracker

WPSocialTracker is a social signal monitoring dashboard that will allow you to easily monitor social signal/sharing across your website and individual posts for the most popular sharing sites like...

- Facebook
- Twitter
- StumbleUpon
- Pinterest
- Google+
- Delicious
- LinkedIn

Its by far the easiest way to monitor your social sharing effectiveness between you and your competitors.

How to Determine Which Social Media Network Fits Your Business

BY Jayson DeMers

There are numerous variables that go into running a successful social media campaign. Factors like quality and frequency of posts, along with proper engagement quickly come to mind. These are obviously important, but choosing the network that caters to your target audience is equally important.

Since there can be a disparity in terms of user demographic on different social media sites, you should understand which network best fits your business before launching a full blown campaign. Here is a rundown of the demographic of some of the most popular networks to help you choose which one to use.

Facebook and Twitter
These two heavyweights are at the top of most marketers to-do list, and rightfully so. With Facebook recently surpassing one billion total users worldwide, it can be used by marketers to reach consumers in nearly any industry. Twitter isn’t all that far behind with over 500 million users that also are seeking content in a multitude of niches. Consequently, both Facebook and Twitter tend to be great places to start your campaign and test the waters.

If your business has a broad demographic, you should be able to effectively reach your audience. The same thing can be said even if you have a relatively small demographic, and you’re trying to zone in on a smaller segment of the population. Regardless of your industry, you should be able to bring exposure to your business and establish a community around it.

While creating a presence on both of these networks is applicable for nearly any business, Facebook can be even more advantageous when you’re looking to reach females between the ages of 18 and 29. According to CMS Wire, the vast majority of Facebook users are women and young adults, which makes it ideal if this is your business’s main demographic.

When it comes to Twitter, it’s also popular with a young audience between the ages of 18 and 29. A large part of its user base is comprised of African Americans and individuals living in densely populated, urban areas.

Google+
Although this network didn’t receive all that much attention a few years ago, it’s seen steady growth and currently has over 500 million users. Unlike Facebook and Twitter which have a relatively balanced gender demographic, Google+ is heavily favored by males. According to Social Statistics, nearly 70 percent of total users are male, which makes it the perfect network if your business focuses on this demographic.

Taking it one step further, the majority of the users are fairly well educated with many having a background in technology based fields like web development and software engineering. Nearly 44 percent are single and nearly 42 percent are looking for friends. As a result, launching a marketing campaign on Google+ could serve you well if your company offers a product or service that appeals to men that fall into these categories.

LinkedIn
If you’re looking to grow your business and gain B2B networking opportunities, LinkedIn is an effective way to do so. Unlike many other social media sites that are more casual in nature, this one is more designed for educated professionals that are looking to advance their careers. According to statistics by Quantcast, the majority of users have earned either a bachelor’s degree or completed grad school. Male users outweigh females, and a large percentage of them have no children.

LinkedIn users also tend to earn considerably more money than those on other networks. For instance, individuals earning over $150,000 annually account for the largest number of users. Not far behind are individuals earning between $100,000 and $150,000.

Another factor that differentiates this network from others is the average age of its users. Unlike many that cater to a younger demographic, LinkedIn users are typically older and range between 25 to 64 years of age. If you want to connect with an audience that is well-to-do and mainly consists of business professionals, this can be the perfect resource.

Pinterest
This social media site has really gained a lot of momentum in the past couple of years. While it pales in comparison to the user base of Facebook and Twitter, it’s seen plenty of growth since its conception and could be a major contender in the near future. The concept of Pinterest is incredibly simple, which involves “pinning” images onto boards.

This simplicity combined with its eye appealing aesthetic probably accounts for the success it has seen. Like Google+, Pinterest also has a significant disparity in terms of gender. The difference is that it swings the other way and has a massive female user base of around 72 percent.

Most users are relatively educated and have either attended college or have at least a bachelor’s degree. Users are primarily Caucasian and between the ages of 18 and 50. Going even deeper, the top geographic location of Pinterest is the south east United States including states like Alabama, Tennessee and Mississippi. Due to the large volume of females who use this network, some of the most widely shared content is based in the following niches.

    Cooking and recipes
    Arts and crafts
    Clothing and fashion
    Home décor
    Home design
    Gifts

If your business focuses on any of these areas, Pinterest can be a potential gold mine. Since this site is image centric, it’s a great resource for displaying pictures of your products or services in action. It’s also possible to achieve a level of virality on this network because of the ease with which users can share content.

Tumblr
Many business owners have heard of this site, but aren’t necessarily sure how it can fit in with their marketing campaign. In a nutshell, Tumblr is a microblogging site that allows users to share a variety of content including text, images, audio and links. They can upload their own original content or re-blog content from other users. It has an incredibly easy to use interface which many people find appealing and has contributed to Tumblr’s success. While you could consider this network in its early stages, more and more legitimate brands like IBM and J Crew are taking the time to build their presence on it.

The most noticeable aspect of this site is its young audience. If you’re in a business that’s looking to reach people over the age of 35, then Tumblr isn’t for you. However, if you’re mainly looking to connect with consumers between 13 and 25, you should definitely consider this network. One of the most interesting statistics is that more young people in this age group now use Tumblr than Facebook. According to The Real Time Report, 61 percent of teens and 57 percent of young adults use Tumblr regularly, while only 55 percent of teens and 52 percent of young adults use Facebook regularly.

While it’s not completely clear why Tumblr is so popular among young people, it’s suspected that it relates to the fact that most parents aren’t using the site. Consequently, teens and young adults can use it without their parents constantly keeping tabs like they can on Facebook and other more notable networks. If your business offers a product or service that’s youth oriented, Tumblr can be an excellent choice. The best part is that competition is likely to be minimal for at least a few years.

Career & Job Search With Social Networking

Social Networking
For many people in the over 35 age group
looking for a career can be a job in itself.

Using online social networking sites like
Facebook or LinkedIn can help you in your search.

Many hiring managers acually do their own searching
of these sites for potential candidates. Your profile
is available for them and is also searchable on search
engine sites like Google.

Create Conversation
You can network with other professionals in a certain
field, start a chat or join various Groups.

You can include on your Profile:
• Highlights of a resume
• Blogs read
• News interests
• Group involvement

This info and more about it is available
at recareered.blogspot.com

ONLINE RESOURCE OF THE MONTH

netSpray: Harnessing Social Networking to Sell Online
By Julia Wilkinson

If sellers found eBay's limitations on
self-promotion a hindrance, they may
embrace a new ecommerce site that actually
encourages it. netSpray enables users to
sell their own and others' items as a
transportable ad widget on blogs, social
networking sites, classifieds, and other
places in cyberspace they call home.
netSpray.com also has a marketplace where
users can browse and buy the items for
sale, and choose products to sell
as affiliates.

In fact, netSpray was born from frustration
with other ecommerce sites. One of the
founders tried to sell items on multiple
sites, only to find that he had to manage
each individually, and had no way to
centrally manage or know the status of
the listings, according to President and
CEO Ray Wolf.

"He was very concerned about overselling
and not being able to deliver, given the
importance of feedback ratings and the like.
He knew to increase the likelihood of
success he had to go out to multiple
venues to engage their unique followers
- some folks utilize Craigslist, others
eBay, others local forums," said Wolf.
He said online sellers, whether individuals,
small businesses or large enterprises, are
looking for a better way to engage their
potential customers where they aggregate
and spend time on the Web.

Wolf describes the netSpray model as going
to where the customers are versus practicing
a "find me" strategy, and says there is a
"three to five times improvement in sales
conversions vs. the "find me" strategy at
a fraction of the cost."

"I have the same feeling about netSpray
that I had about eBay when they first started,"
said online seller Mark Atomanczyk, who lists
a variety of items such as walking sticks,
clothing and games on his site. "They could be
really big." Atomanczyk has listed about 100
items on the netSpray.com site, and uses it
on his own website instead of a shopping cart.

He says he especially likes netSpray's
affiliate program. "I have sold other people's
items, and made commissions. I also use netSpray
to list on Craigslist and Google Base, as well
as putting the widget into all of my emails."

netSpray also gives small sellers an easy solution
to having other people sell their items on an
commission basis, although at this time it isn't
a substitute for those looking for a full-featured
affiliate program with a large, established base
of affiliates.

Selling on netSpray
To sell an item via netSpray, users can simply
create a listing via the site's "Sell" tab.

They can also browse the marketplace by
clicking the "Buy" tab from the homepage to
locate items they may want to sell as an
affiliate.

They click "Sell This" from the item's
listing and choose a method to post
the item to their own website, blog, or a
variety of social networking sites,
including Facebook and Twitter.

netSpray's basic "Seller Plus" service,
offering unlimited ad listings, is free to
use; users pay $19.95 for the more advanced
"Seller Advantage" features, which includes
the ability to change your item's price and
quantity, and to view ad clicks.

Sarah, a vintage clothing dealer on eBay for
seven years, says, "I have recently made a
handful of listings on netSpray to try it out,
and just had my first two completed sales
last week. Everything went smoothly and I do
like the ease of the site." For those sales,
Sarah used a widget in a Craigslist ad for
the item she wanted to sell, and the buyer
used the widget to purchase it instantly online.

"I haven't tried to sell any products as an
affiliate, but have been exploring the
possibility of starting a blog around
vintage/antiques and using netSpray widgets
for my own items and others in that," she said.

Enough other people are trying out netSpray
that the service is growing "at the rate we
expect," and the number of users is now in
the thousands, says Wolf. "Our metrics are
showing that the number of widgets is growing,
and more importantly, the views and click-thrus
are growing at an even faster rate," he said.

Wolf says the company is intentionally managing
expectations, and wants to build out the site
based upon how online merchants can benefit most.
"Folks need a way of leveling the playing field
these days,...that is, access to tools that
traditionally were only available to large
organizations for many dollars."

More Features on the Way
Looking forward, an ad importer is on the
horizon for netSpray sellers, which users
requested. "One of the things that is core
to our business is listening to our users,"
said Wolf. There will also be a netSpray
University. "This is the educational arm of
our business - training people how to use our
applications and services, passing along best
practices. One of the most exciting features
will be our faculty: like universities, we
have a program to attract the latest thought
leaders and host their education components
on our site for our users to benefit from,"
he said.

Meantime, it's likely that netSpray's use
will grow organically with social networking.
While nothing is set in stone in the Internet
world, netSpray's model allows users to, in
essence, take a virtual briefcase of their
products with them wherever they are
hanging out.

"What we know is that social media is growing
and so is the number of sites," says Wolf.
"People are spending more time at these sites
searching for products and services than any
other place on the Web. NetSpray's
patent-pending application has the ability
to go wherever the new sites pop-up…wherever
clients aggregate. We can stay ahead of the
curve for all online sellers. Few social ad
marketers can say that."

3 New 'Haggle' Marketplaces Hope to Unseat eBay

By Ina Steiner

Three new entrants in the ecommerce space have rejected eBay's auction model in favor of systems that encourage haggling between buyers and sellers. And while the three sites take very different approaches, they all offer low fees and social networking components that are built in from the beginning.

Fididel actually introduces a middle-person into its ecommerce model - real-life human negotiators typing live at their keyboards. Flippid is more like a traditional bulletin board, letting buyers and sellers create and browse "BuyOff" and "SellOff" postings. Wigix takes an approach it likens to NASDAQ stock trading.

Flippid lets sellers offer a variety of payment methods, including PayPal. However, Wigix and Fididel both use PayPal exclusively. I wonder if that gives eBay proprietary competitive information and an immediate knowledge of when and if these sites gain traction.

Wigix
www.wigix.com
Wigix is going after eBay sellers, but Amazon.com may also be worried about this upstart marketplace. While perfectly suited for consumer goods, at this point Wigix seems less suited for antiques and unique collectibles. Whether it's intentional or not, certain features of the site strike me as drawing in the type of shopper who might scorn malls and boutiques, but feel comfortable on Wigix and view it as a form of entertainment - even without buying or selling a thing.

Wigix encourages you put all the "stuff" you own as a consumer into your portfolio. Like stock, you can calculate the value of your portfolio. You can choose to make your portfolio of products public or private. If you want to buy more stuff, you find the item on Wigix and look through the list of sellers, their descriptions (which are not detailed and contain no photos), and make a purchase. Or, like the stock market, you can make an open buy order. "I"ll buy this model of Nintendo Wii for $50," and you can put an expiration date or leave the offer good til cancelled.
In addition, you can choose to get notified when someone is interested in buying the items you own in your portfolio but haven't listed for sale.

Wigix uses a catalog approach, creating only one entry per product (or "SKU"), then hanging seller information off of each product. While it may seem strange for sellers used to eBay's approach, the structured data of the catalog approach gives shoppers a lot of flexibility in how they search for and sort listings.

Each product SKU has its own permanent URL, an interesting concept that may prove useful to both buyers and sellers in the long term. Wigix actually encourages sellers to embed Wigix URLs in their listings on other marketplaces. But of course, the URL is not your individual item - it links to the product listing that shows all of the sellers of that item.

Wigix gave me a demo of the tool it is preparing for eBay sellers that allows them to import inventory and that is scheduled to be ready in July. It looks like it may take a lot of upfront work for sellers to translate eBay listings into Wigix listings - but I'll reserve judgement until the tool rolls out.

Revenue-Generating Opportunities Beyond Selling
www.wigix.com/index.php/makemoney
Wigix has ways you can earn revenue without actually selling any products. Because Wigix relies so heavily on product attributes for its catalog (think "Item Specifics," such as color, size, make and model), it needs experts to help it build the catalog and add appropriate attributes for each product.

In a concept called "homesteading," you can add items to the catalog, and if approved by the Category Expert, you will earn 5% of the Wigix revenue for each sale of that item.
"Category Experts" earn 1% of their total category's revenue (advertising and transaction fees) in return for keeping the category accurate. You must apply to be considered for the position of Category Expert, and experts must be "reelected" each year.

Wigix also has rewards for referring friends and has "Golden Items" to encourage users to browse the site. You can read all the details on the "Make Money" section of the website.

Fididel
www.fididel.com
Fididel uses real-time negotiation. But rather than straight automation, the site uses real people to negotiate on behalf of its sellers. Shoppers can search the site for products they're interested in and immediately begin negotiating on price. Buyers can engage the seller or a "Fidideler" on any product. Fididelers are trained to negotiate on behalf of sellers and receive a commission based on final selling price. Either party can walk away from the negotiations at any time.

There are no listing fees for sellers. The seller sets the commission amount, either a flat-rate commission, or structured as an incentive plan for the Fidideler. The company said sellers would likely want to offer more commission as an incentive to the Fidideler to drive the product price as high as possible. Founder Hal Wendel compared the process to sellers hiring a sales force. "Using Fididelers is the only way a seller can scale on real-time negotiations," he said.
It's a little frustrating that there isn't more information on Fididel about how the site works and how to become a Fidideler, but like Wigix, the site is in beta and is a work in progress.

Flippid
www.flippid.com
Flippid lets users create BuyOffs and SellOffs in a model similar to Wigix. Flippid also uses wish lists and want lists that can be incorporated into social networking sites and will soon be completely free.
We have published a separate review of Flippid in this issue in the next post.
Appealing to Buyers As experienced sellers know, a marketplace must draw in buyers in order for it to be a viable venue on which to sell. Each of these three new marketplaces hopes to lure buyers with features that engage and entertain, including through the use of social networking features.

Wigix is a sticky site - you can spend a lot of time doing research and building your "portfolio." Fididel, on the other hand, hopes the excitement of real-time negotiation will draw buyers to its site.

It's too soon to say whether these three sites will succeed in drawing enough traffic and interest from buyers to become viable marketplaces. But sellers are sure to appreciate the hope these sites hold out to them to re-ignite buyer interest and generate sales!

TOP AUCTION TOOLS

More Online Social Selling Sites

With the latest bout of eBay policy changes, the
consensus seems to be that thousands of eBay
sellers are very unhappy with eBay eliminating the
ability for sellers to leave negative or neautral
feedback for their buyers, yet let buyers be able
to still leave negative feedback. This seems to be
unfair and many sellers, including myself, have
decided to boycott selling on eBay. Especially,
when the new policies come into effect in May.

You can also read about the new Safer Payments
Requirements in regards to PayPal in an article
below in this month's issue.

While reading the ebay Forum posts on this, I read
about one seller who is going to rotate his items
on various sites like Craigslist or even Amazon,
before using eBay as last resort.

Did you know that you list items on Google for
FREE? These same items can be found along other
products when using the Shopping link on Google's
homepage on the upper left corner.


Follow the Information for Sellers link near the
bottom of the page that will let you submit them
in Product Search in Google Base.


Follow the Submit your products link on the left
hand side panel.


Also try:
Craigslist.org - Post to classifieds
Amazon.com - Sell Items