Blogs can give people anxiety. Honest, I’ve seen it.

Some people get squeamish when you talk about blogs because they don’t really know what one is or where to find one (not everyone will admit that, and this is less common with younger people).

We encourage a many of our clients to blog. We explain it’s a platform to offer a glimpse of their expertise. We tell clients that a good, consistent blog can help raise the visibility of their business. We explain that it lives on their website and it improves the website’s visibility overall. That usually gets them to seriously consider blogging.

There are people who are scared of committing to a blog because they don’t know what to write about, or they can’t imagine where they’ll find the time. Legitimate concerns.  Who wants to start something you can’t finish? Truthfully, I’ve read several public relations and marketing firm blogs in recent years, and I’ve seen some casualties. Where there once was a blog, now there is none.  And you don’t want your blog to languish (which reminds me of our Facebook page, but that’s another blog post).  So, what are some tips to overcome blog anxiety?

First, if you have a team to participate, it spreads out the work. With just four people, if everyone contributes one blog a month, that’s one post a week. That’s a great start.

What to write about? Something you’ve noticed, experienced or seen that might be valuable to people in your industry, clients or potential clients. That’s a pretty broad category. I’ve started to notice “blogs” in my day-to-day business. Something that a client does or says, an event, a piece of news, results from a project, trends that emerge.  There are potential blog posts everywhere. Jot them down. Blog posts are short, maybe 300 words.  Write one on the airplane or in the dentist’s waiting room.  Write three; unless it’s a timely event, they’ll keep.

I’ve seen firsthand that blogs improve website visibility and traffic—it’s worth overcoming the fear and taking the leap.

Besides being named the best place to work in the U.S. and seeing its stocks dip this week after releasing disappointing fourth-quarter earnings, Google has cropped up in tech news recently with a few new features. Here are three that marketing and design professionals should note:

Google algorithm tweak

Google tweaks its algorithm relatively often, so its announcement of yet another tweak in the way Googlebot crawls web pages might have gone unremarked. This tweak, however, affects web design and page layout in relation to page rank, so design professionals and others who rely on page rank should pay close attention.

To sum up the change, Google’s search algorithm will now punish pages that push advertising at users beyond a normal degree, especially “above the fold.” The idea is to improve user experience by downgrading pages that irritate users by putting too much unrelated content in premiere web page real estate.

Google mentions that it only one in 100 searches will show a user could see a different page order than before the change. The user feedback-prompted change does show Google’s commitment to using its algorithm to provide the best search experience, not just on the results page, but also on the pages that float to the top of those results. Design and web marketing professionals should take this as a continued step in that direction.

Google+ integration with search

The search giant’s recent foray into social media with Google+ has earned mixed results, but Google’s recent actions show its determination to make the new social media platform an integral part of its search experience. Google recently started showing “personal” results above regular search results – meaning that if a user searches for a TV show, their Google+ acquaintances’ posts about that show will appear above the Wikipedia entry.

The change has upset some media commentators, and it remains to be seen whether this is a permanent change for Google, or if it will be short-lived like its Buzz platform. While the change is in place, however, personal results have the highest placement in the results page, meaning that social engagement on Google+ could, at least temporarily, be just as important as the No. 1 page rank.

It might not push Google+, with its 90 million users, past Facebook, but at least in the short-term, it raises the platform’s viability as a marketing tool.

Google Web Fonts

If you’re a fan of the popular blog I Love Typography, no one needs to tell you what role typeface plays in design and everyday life. Fonts can often be an expensive investment, but Google has turned that on its head, as it did for books and scholarly articles years ago. With Google Web Fonts, users can download a huge library of font files for free. The repository of open-source fonts will open up typography to people beyond designers and typeface enthusiasts, and should be a wonderful resource for print and web designers.

I’ve often read, and been told, that the easiest way to build your business is by growing existing clients, especially if they have been happy with your work to date. I recently learned firsthand that clients don’t always know when you’ve added services or products, and they only think of your business as offering what you’ve always offered.

We recently met with a long-time client (10 years) to make plans for 2012. In that meeting I clearly heard that the client only thought of us as a PR firm, when in fact we’ve added so much in the last few years. Pivot provides social media tools, marketing support, design, and more. It may take some time to change a client’s perception of what you do, but it’s key that you educate them when you add services or products.

Something we’ve started to do to remind people of our capabilities is sending out a short, bi-monthly e-newsletter. It highlights client projects and successes while illustrating what we did for the client.

Remember, your existing clients are the low-hanging fruit for increasing business. If you’ve added services or products, be sure to let those who are closest to you know about it.

I enjoy flying because it is three or so hours of uninterrupted reading time. And, I get to read the airline’s publication, which gives me a glimpse beyond the Republic of Boulder’s take of the world and offers insights of what mainstream America cares about. As a marketer, it is essential to look beyond your world and see what others are writing or speaking, and what people are reading or viewing.

In J-school, a professor encouraged our class to read broadly. I took that to heart and still – 20 some years later – am a junkie for the cheap magazine subscriptions. My wife is always chiding me that there is no way I can read to so many publications – current count includes Fortune, Seattle Business, Bicycling, Money, Advertising Age, Food & Wine, Fast Company, Communication Arts, Utne Reader. She is right; I can’t. Rather than drive myself crazy trying, though, I flip through the table of contents and make sure to digest one or two of the best articles from each issue. It is a wonderful way to read different writing styles, see what is going on in a variety of industries, and gather ideas that might be applicable in my clients’ world.

My wife and business partner had an internship within a city public affairs department years ago. Her boss told her if she really wanted to know what is going on in the world, read People magazine and watch daytime television. While I am not sure I can go there, his point was valid. I would prefer to watch the PBS Newshour, but I might learn a whole lot more from taking in an episode of Jerry Springer once in a while.

We know that the toolkit at a full-service agency is already extensive, but we never underestimate the ability of the tech world to create something that makes our lives easier, faster, more efficient and more fun. The best part of “the Internets” overflowing with so many ideas is finding the ones that work for you and passing along their value to your clients.

We’ve experienced a few great upgrades and new finds in the last few weeks – all of which help us do work better and faster, and provide a better product for our clients.

WordPress 3.3

The gang at WordPress just released WordPress 3.3, or “Sonny,” the latest version of the content management system we recommend to our clients. The 3.3 release is chock-full of new features for developers, of course, but we also appreciate the improvements to the user interface, such as mouse-over menus and drag-and-drop media uploads. These upgrades make the back-end of WordPress even easier for us and our clients to use.

Jing

We’ve all had one or both of these problems before. Maybe you’ve shown someone how to do something on the computer a thousand times, even written it down in painstaking detail, but every time they come back to you with questions. Or maybe you want to show someone a procedure but don’t have time or don’t want to schedule a GoToMeeting. Screen-capture software has been around for a while, but Jing rises above the rest because of its ease of use and the free hosting of your screen-capture videos on Screencast. We’ve had some great success in the past week creating Jing videos to demonstrate specific procedures for our clients – and with the Screencast hosting, we can quickly email the link or permanently place it into a list of FAQs.

Shortstack

Facebook is an essential item in the toolbox, so we’re all for anything that makes it more customizable and easier to use as a promotional tool. The folks over at Shortstack have created an easy way to create sweepstakes, voting forms, custom tabs and more – all with full design control in a drag-and-drop interface. No programming experience needed. We see endless possibilities to help our clients run contests and increase “Likes” by creating exclusive content behind a “Like” wall.

“Why would anyone into social media be interested in my company or product?”

Truth is, you’re right. Your company or product probably isn’t that interesting.

Contrary to popular belief, social media users are not waiting anxiously for their favorite brand of dinner rolls or laundry detergent to launch a Twitter feed. As marketers, the problem we face is presenting our advertisements in a way that generates enough interest that our audience will tolerate and even want to see our ads.

This is by no means a new challenge for marketers. In the 1950s, manufacturers of household products struggled to find a way to market their products to stay-at-home women on then-new television. The iconic “soap opera” was born.

The soap opera used a formula where 80 percent of the television broadcast was aimed at entertaining the audience with compelling, an often over sensationalized, stories and just 20 percent aimed at advertising. The entertainment value these broadcasts provided to women who were often confined to their homes for the majority of the day was well received. This formula worked then and works now.

Providing your audience with value is still the most successful strategy in today’s new social media world. So the question instead becomes…

“What value can you provide your customers through social media?”

People become devout followers of a social media presence because they feel the channel provides them value. This value can be in the form of entertainment, exclusive deals, prizes, exclusive content, or as a source of local or industry news. Base your social media efforts on providing your audience these values, and they will in turn engage with your brand.

Websites should contain content to attract and answer visitors’ questions efficiently and effectively. Attracting visitors to your site is only half the challenge, though. For most individuals or organizations, the goal of a website is to help generate customers, now or in the future.

To convert visitors to leads, a first step toward creating a customer, you must create compelling and appropriate calls to action. To move viewers forward, Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah, authors of “Inbound Marketing, Get Found Using Google, Social Media and Blogs,” say ask the following questions:

1. “Why should I click this button (or link) and give my information?”
2. “What’s in it for me?”
3. “Is the value of the thing I am getting worth giving up my email address for?”

To engage your visitors and get them to say yes to these questions so you can follow up with them, create a series of calls to action that appeal to them on a direct or indirect level. Direct calls to action are for visitors who need your product or service now. These might include questions like: “Call for a quote today,” or “Add to cart.” The person who clicks one of these buttons is ready to move forward; they are not looking to be convinced to move to a next level of the sales cycles.

Indirect calls to action are less intrusive, but designed for individuals not quite ready to make a transaction. These folks might be trying to research their options or gain general knowledge about a product or service. For these folks, you can offer links to items such as webinars, white papers, tip sheets, trial demos. To access information you have created – in the form of a white paper, for example – you will ask for information from visitors. If they are not interested in providing an email address, at minimum, they are probably not very serious regarding your product or service.  For these low-level prospects, provide a link to an RSS to allow them some level of information with little friction.

Good calls to action should be clear and simple, and they should tell the visitor what action to take and the result of that action. For Pivot, it might be: “Free Trial: 2 press releases in the next 20 days,” as an example. Every page on a website should include a call to action, says Steve Krug, author of “Don’t Make Me Think.” Additionally, you should track what calls to action visitors are clicking, test locations on the page for performance, and even test button colors, graphics or size in an effort to optimize results.

Getting people to your site is important. Converting these visitors to qualified leads and paying customer should be equally as important.  Carefully consider your calls to action, and monitor their success.

We’ve provided PR and marketing services for almost 15 years.  We have long-standing clients with monthly budgets, and we get frequent requests to bid on new projects. Most projects, new or existing, come with someone’s vision and a need to promote something; the client “just wants” a logo, a brochure, a blog, a website, an ad or media campaign, etc.; can we prepare a proposal? The Pivot team discusses the project, brainstorms, breaks out the parts and tries to think of the details and how it all fits together.  We estimate the time to do the work, then we prepare a proposal.  Here’s the hidden part: it’s rarely “just a website” or “just” anything.  The devil is in the details – how is it used, what is the process, what does the customer see, get, have to do?  Clients think we just have to produce something to help tell the story—which is not always the case. A new project really includes a process of discovery.

Often before a project is complete, we  helped clients better understand their product or service, how it compares to competitive products, how it works and how their audience perceives it.  We ask questions and get details so we really understand what we’re selling and to confirm our ideas are the right ones. The process is healthy and the result can be rewarding because we help clients think it through.  We’ve seen clients change course based on what we’ve uncovered – they come asking for a brochure and we figure out it’s better to have a website, a newsletter that needs to be more frequent to have impact, or deciding that a logo has passed its prime.

It’s disheartening when you provide a proposal and the client asks,“ will it really take that much time?”  Truth is, it will (or we wouldn’t bid it that way) and it could take longer, but we stick to our bids unless the scope of work changes, and then we’ll give clients a heads up.  And, we charge for our time so if things happen more quickly, we charge accordingly.

We built Pivot by providing value – good work at a fair price – but we do need time to do things right. That’s how we succeed and, just as important, that’s how our clients succeed.

Like so many others, you’ve decided to create a Twitter account for your business. That’s great – but what do you do now? It’s easy to brush off Twitter as a silly pursuit, but for many businesses, it’s an excellent way to achieve any number of goals, from engaging with customers and building loyalty to making connections with influential organizations. It’s also a great place to connect with local media, to establish yourself as a thoughtful resource, to find new customers… need I go on?

Twitter, however silly it may be to some, is here, and it’s growing in popularity. Follow these steps to cultivating your base of followers, engaging with others and hopefully growing your business’s influence.

1. Brand your page. There’s nothing more telling about a Twitter user than if their profile picture is the default “egg” image and their background includes the iconic Twitter bird. You might as well just have the Fail Whale as your wallpaper. Create a custom profile picture and background that reflect your business. Here are a few examples of pages Pivot has branded for clients: EPOCH Senior Living; TimeView; ComfortZone; Karissa Thacker.
2. Decide what you want your Twitter page to be. Do you want to be a resource, providing timely and relevant information about your industry? Do you want to address customers directly with support, tips and FAQs? Do you want to be fun and quirky? (Hint: combining two or more is worth considering.) Stop and think about the purpose you want your Twitter page to serve.
3. Start following. Identify the key players in your industry and follow them. There are several ways to do this. If you know of a specific individual or company in your industry with an active Twitter page, you can follow them directly. You can also search directly on Twitter for words and phrases related to your industry. Be sure to consider the number and frequency of tweets, as well as the number of followers, before hitting the “Follow” button. Someone with a handful of followers who hasn’t tweeted in a month is probably not worth following.
4. Listen first. Before you start tweeting away to your heart’s content, get a feel for the language of Twitter first. See what topics your influencers are talking about, and decipher the “twitter-speak” they use. See what’s trending, what hashtags (#) users are using, what issues matter to them.
5. Start tweeting, but be wary. Keep in mind that Twitter is like one big party, and you’re the awkward new guy who just walked into the room. Would you walk into a room full of strangers and start talking about yourself to the first person you saw? If so, you probably wouldn’t be very popular. To get others to listen to what you have to say and, hopefully follow you back, show you provide value by sharing timely, relevant information, by re-tweeting other relevant posts (kind of like an “atta-boy” to another user), and by keeping the talk about yourself to a minimum.
6. Keep with it. Unless you’re Chris Brown or Justin Bieber, Twitter takes time to master. Stick with your strategy and be consistent. If you’re just starting out, I’d recommend posting several times a day, if possible.

There are a number of free Twitter tools out there, like Hootsuite, Klout, SocialOomph and many more you can use to schedule your tweets, organizer your followers/following lists, and send automatic messages.

What about you – any tips for aspiring @JustinBieber’s out there?

EPOCH Senior Living broke ground on its newest Bridges by EPOCH project in Hingham, Mass., in October. Bridges by EPOCH provides memory care assisted living for individuals with Alzheimer’s. The design and programming at Hingham will incorporate the latest research, and the staff will be focused on compassionate care. Bridges by EPOCH at Hingham will open in spring 2012. To learn more, visit www.BridgesByEPOCH.com.