WebiMax Blog

Most of you have probably heard that Facebook recently unveiled the capability for users to enjoy clickable hashtags on their platform, just like Twitter and Instagram. This is a huge step for Facebook, allowing them to better organize public conversation.

During the first class of the first creative writing course I ever took, my teacher posited the question to us of what is the minimum word length a writer could write a story. I remembered that the “Cask of Amontillado” was really short, so I offered a guess of 500 words. Other classmates gave guesses of 300, 450, and 200. One courageous student said 20, but when he was asked to say a story in 20 words or less, he sunk into his seat and offered only a meager excuse of how he didn’t have his coffee yet. Admitting defeat, we deferred back to the teacher who wrote this on the board:

If a company is franchised, it's safe to say that they're doing something right. Franchising is a business practice that's experiencing an impressive level of global growth in the current business world. Becoming a franchise is equated with success in large part because it takes a business plan that has proven to be successful to grow in such a way, and because such growth creates job opportunities and a place to put collaborative ideas to work, it's easy to see why hundreds of thousands of small businesses aspire to join the movement.

WebiMax is fortunate enough to have a booth at the HBA Global Expo in New York City from now through Thursday. Guests who attend this event will get to see exhibits from some of the top brands in the beauty industry from all around the world. Whether you want to check out some new products and technology, learn about the current trends, or find ways to promote your own beauty products, the HBA Expo has it all.

It was great seeing everybody at the IRCE 2013 in Chicago! Thanks to everyone who stopped by our booth; we feel the event was extremely useful and it was a great success.

It's kind of ironic – recently I've been reading a lot of different blogs on a lot of different topics to try and freshen up my style and get new ideas. In my Web travels I've come across not just one, but a few different blog posts that mock and criticize what has sort of become the characteristic format of a post written by an exhausted blogger. It starts with a cheap – though descriptive – title: "Three Tips for Traveling by Plane This Summer" or "The Benefits of Using All-Natural Sunscreen." It's followed by an introductory paragraph that explains how the topic relates to what's currently happening in the world, and then breaks up into a few paragraphs with headings that delineate each "tip" or "benefit."

While many Marketers make it a point to improve the user experience of their site, or the visual aesthetics of their mobile layout, one must not ignore psychological cues. These cues can encourage someone to make a purchase, or share a product with a friend via Social Media. Surprisingly enough, even the least technological species have the ability to utilize social and psychological cues to achieve a goal, and most of what they do can be directly related to your experience with customers.

When I first became involved in online marketing – some 12+ years ago – how a company gained traction online was very different from the methods of today.  Back then, companies could create paid search ads on Google and start to see immediate benefits from those ads. It wasn’t so much that businesses needed to be marketing specialists; they just needed a big enough budget to outpace their competitors. Most Web users didn’t even understand the difference between a paid advertisement and a natural search listing.

Today kicks off the Internet Retailer Commerce Event of 2013, otherwise known as the largest e-commerce event in the world, and WebiMax is proud to be attending! This two-day event, taking place on June 4th and June 7th, consists of a slew of workshops and talks from noteworthy speakers for representatives from online companies to attend. Here, the guests will be able to get some tips on how to take advantage of the latest e-commerce technologies, strategize, prepare for the future of online retailing, and use social media to their advantage. WebiMax will not only be attending workshops and talks, but will be featuring our own booth as well, where attendees can stop by and get a free website analysis onsite. I'm excited to return to WebiMax with some expert insights from speakers like Al Gore, Rakuten CEO Hiroshi Mikitani, HSN CEO Mindy Grossman, and more.

Have you noticed that your email has grown less cluttered with messages from marketers lately? If so, you are not alone. Many marketers are now utilizing social media to connect with you more effectively. The evolution from email marketing to social media marketing as a means for customer retention and repeat client sales has been growing for some time. However, the proven success of social media marketing has caused a huge leap in 2013.

Twitter recently announced the further roll out of what they are referring to as their Lead Generation Card. This card enables followers to convert into targeted leads based on offers they are provided. I feel, from a lead generation perspective, this is a great offering.  Because the end user doesn’t need to go in and reenter their information for a lead to be created, they can more easily “opt-in” to the offer. This way, Twitter already has all of their information stored to easily provide a lead across to the advertiser.

Today, many business owners understand that blogging for their company is one of the most important factors in its success.  While many attributes can determine success in product marketing and advertising, the facts are hard to dispute: a solid online content strategy is a must.

When something is easy to read, I read more of it.

At the Google I/O Developers Conference last week, we were introduced to the future of Search, or as Google's Head of Search Quality Amit Singhal called it, the "death of search." The presentations from the day long event told us that features like Google Now will provide information to us as we need it, rather than when we ask for it.

In today's age of text speak and emoticons, it can seem like proper spelling and grammar don't matter anymore. The landscape of our language is morphing in front of our very eyes and, with it, our understanding of how to properly convey ideas. However, you still need a common grasp of words and how they work or the ability to communicate your value to clients will be lost.

Is it just me or does it seem like more catastrophic events take place nowadays than ever before? While it may appear that way, the reality is media coverage is much more intensified and stories that in the past would go uncovered, are now heavily scrutinized in our media climate One of the biggest reasons for the abundance of stories being covered is social media.

I am sure by now all of us have become keen to the notion that by visiting certain websites, those sites track our view, and in turn ensure we are “remarketed” to continuously view ads from the company as we further navigate the Internet. To some users, this practice could be perceived as annoying or even haunting, but from a brand perspective, the value is extremely high.

I am sure when Pete Townshend wrote the lyrics to the Who’s “Goin’ Mobile” back in 1971, he had no idea what the word mobile would mean to all of us some 40 years later. Mobile web utilization continues to grow in popularity each and every day, and many well-known retailers are stating that close to 50% of all their traffic is now mobile based.

What do you do when Google breaks it’s own rules? You adapt!

Google I/O wraps up today, and now it's opportune to highlight the coincidences of trends and announcements that Google is trumpeting in their Google gloryfest. My approach is to examine each of the highlights from their 3-hour keynote (!) and point out, from a business and web user perspective, what's missing. Google has had their I/O… now, I get my Google I/O/U.

In baseball, the perfect pitch rockets right past the visiting batter as they take a desperate swing at the ball, which is already in the catcher's glove as the umpire calls strike three, much to the delight of the home crowd. In public relations, though, the perfect pitch is a soft, underhanded lob that the journalist smashes out of the park. Your company can certainly get a base hit by incorporating a typical press release into your SEO campaign, but a carefully crafted media pitch can provide the huge home run you've been looking for.

Film director Baz Lurhmann is nobody's fool. When he took the classic text "The Great Gatsby" and adopted it to the screen, he knew that there was no great film version of this beloved book. It had been attempted in the past but never done very well, so when Lurhmann took "The Great Gatsby" and brought 1922 into 2013, he used every avenue available to him – including social media marketing. Here are some ways that 2013’s "The Great Gatsby" film used social media marketing to drive home the experience.

In 2001, Grammy award winning rapper and producer, Dr. Dre, announced his return to the hip hop scene…taking his song to #1 after a long period behind the studio glass.  He returned to the microphone to record “Forgot About Dre”.  The song emphatically announced his reemergence into the spotlight.

How many times have you clicked on a link in a list of search results only to sit there and watch the little circle spin on your browser tab? Like everyone else, you probably hit the back button and proceed to click the next link in the long list of results. The speed of a website is a very important aspect of SEO that gets overlooked far too often. It is important that site owners start to make page load time a priority when optimizing their sites.

Press releases can be great tools for promoting your company, but in order to reap their benefits you need to make sure that you're writing your release the right way.  Writing a press release can be tricky because you're trying to find the right balance between news and advertising.  But if you follow these tips you'll be able to write an engaging release that promotes your company and has news value.

Last night, I started reading Sheryl Sandberg’s book Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead (and subsequently developed a strong feeling of jealousy that our Marketing Coordinator, Danelsy Medrano, saw her present at last month’s Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce event). I’m not sure what captivated me more: Sandberg’s journey to becoming COO of Facebook (a dream job, as far as I’m concerned), or the fact that I can relate to her experiences and dilemmas as a woman and a leader. Regardless, I couldn’t put my Kindle down and I’m paying for it today (sorry, SMO team, for the yawning).

It is essential for every business owner, no matter the size of your enterprise, to have some sort of web presence. While some small businesses just have a Facebook page, it's more beneficial to actually have a new and dedicated site built to serve as your business' home base. A .com registered in your name is ultimately more reliable than a single page owned by a social network.