Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s Webspam team, recently produced a video in which he discussed the value of content over search engine optimization.

In that video, he said that as a business owner, you can have great content on your site, but be completely lacking in good SEO, and still wind up with a site that ranks well on Google.

Ali Husayni, CEO of Master Google, agreed with that assessment, and so do we.

“By virtue of being great content, it will attract quality, inbound links,” Husayni said. “Sites that write great content on a regular basis attract visitors as well as Google spiders.

Google ranks old and new pages of these sites above their competitors, which should eliminate the need for anyone to even attempt black hat SEO techniques.

That is what Matt was getting at in his video. Just because someone is an SEO expert, it doesn’t mean they are good at creating great content. And even if you are the best at utilizing all the little SEO tricks of the trade that will make your site friendly for Google spiders, that still has its limitations.

At the end of the day, a Google spider won’t buy your product or service. You need real people to visit your site. And once they get there, you must give them a reason to stay. You either need to provide something that helps them make a buying decision, or you need to have useful information that educates and informs.

That is where good content comes into play. Good content is original and relevant. Good content answers a question; meets a need; paints you as an expert in your field.

So while it’s no secret that we are huge believers in the power and benefits of SEO, we also are solidly behind Matt Cutts in his assessment of great content. SEO and content should compliment one another. 

“Great content also needs great SEO to get ranked better,” Husayni says. 

Understanding people’s interests plays hand-in-hand with writing great content. For example, if you are opening a massage therapy center, but you’re unaware of the most popular types of massage therapy, you will lose your business to your competitors who have a clue.

When you have lots of ideas for great content on your site, you need to be diligent in posting it to your website frequently. Google loves websites that add new, useful information often. This tends to be where many of our clients stumble. Sometimes they struggle to come up with good ideas. Other times, they have ideas, but lack the time to write the content.

We come to the rescue on both fronts. Our writers are as skilled at generating ideas as they are at writing about them. If you want to put your website to work against your competitors in 2012, call us. We can help- 863.614.0555

The slogan Keep Calm and Carry On was a British public announcement designed to boost the public’s morale in case of a massive invasion during  World War II. The poster was never used and most copies were destroyed. But in 2000, a British book store owner found a copy of the poster and almost immediately, a trend was born.

It may not  be the first public announcement that was adapted and became a cultural icon, but it is one that has managed to inspire numerous slogans and designs and capture our imagination. Some memorable off-shoots include:

• Now Panic and Freak Out
• Panic Dumbass and Behave Like Headless Chickens
• Keep Calm Harry is Still Single
• Keep Calm and Carry On Shopping
• Keep Calm Nobody Else Knows What They’re Doing Either

Why do we like it so much? It’s simple, elegant, and communicates a timeless message. In the age where businesses have 140 characters to express themselves, it’s obvious we like to keep things short and simple. This slogan appeals to us today because we can all relate to those words; who doesn’t need to keep calm during their hectic life and just carry on? So how does the poster stay relevant today? Here’s what  we can learn from the successful slogan:

Keep the message simple

If you’re trying  to connect  with your audience, remember to  keep  your message simple and sincere. The simpler it is, the more people can relate to it. Also keep in mind that you have to catch people’s attention. Some of the best slogans of all times use a declarative statement that can be applied beyond the product  or company and often become a mantra.

Know your audience

The Ministry of Information designed two other posters that were used during  the war. They all had the same simple design of the crown and the all-caps writing on a solid color background. King George’s crown appeared on the upper part of the poster, which was a clever way of saying: “This message is brought to  you by the King.” The Ministry of Information knew that the British public would associate the message with the King by placing a graphic of the crown.

Use continuity to keep your audience’s attention

All three posters used the same style to create a cohesive brand. The font was consistent  throughout the three posters and the only  thing that  was changed was the message and the color of the background. All posters had a solid color background- blue, green and red. These primary colors helped the audience recognize the posters easily and understand the newly developed brand of public announcements.

So there you have it. Follow these guidelines to strengthen your brand identity and keep it relevant. And remember, no matter what  you do, just keep calm.

It’s the touching of lips in an expression of affection, greeting or reverence.  Cultures around the world use a kiss as a form of greeting, a form of expressing gratitude, peace and love.

So it is understandable why United Colors of Benetton chose the act of kissing as the focal point of its new UNHATE campaign aimed at “contrasting the culture of hatred and promoting closeness between peoples, faiths, cultures, and the peaceful understanding of each other’s motivations.”

Alessandro Benetton, executive deputy chairman of the Benetton Group, said in an interview with the Economic Times, “a kiss is a statement of tolerating the differences in another. We expect the true message to be conveyed through our campaign.”

Kissing isn’t the first theme I would think of for a tolerance campaign, but whatever.

The idea for their print ads stemmed from the now iconic photo of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and East German President Erich Honecker kissing as a sign of socialist solidarity- which, by the way, wasn’t considered a job perk by all- on the 30^th anniversary of East Germany’s formation.

However, the Photoshopped images of prominent world leaders kissing each other were not as well received as Benetton creative agency Fabrica might have hoped.

Print ads posted around the world showed various world leaders kissing each other with simple, white copy reading: “United Colors of Benetton supports the Unhate Foundation.”  The most controversial of the ads showed Pope Benedict XVI lip-locked with prominent Muslim leader Ahmed Mohamed el-Tayeb.

The Vatican protested and demanded Benetton remove the ads, claiming these ads “violate elementary rules of respect for people in order to attract attention through provocation.”

Images of the Pope were removed the day after they were unveiled.

The White House issued a statement declaring the use of the president’s image for commercial gain has always been frowned upon, but they have not considered legal action or demanded Benetton remove all images of President Barack Obama smooching

Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez.

“The label is geared not to a specific target but to a collective one: well-heeled shoppers whom Benetton considers intellectually sophisticated enough to stop assailing them with “buy now”-type advertisements,” according to Benetton’s website.

If this were completely true, why have Benetton’s sales only risen 2 percent in the past 10 years? In the United States alone, Benetton sales dropped from 12 percent in 2000 to 4 percent at the end of 2010.

Could their lack of sales have something to do with their advertising campaigns?

United Colors of Benetton has a history of compiling controversial and provocative advertising campaigns. Their slow sales could be a major factor in their decision to launch yet another shock advertising campaign. We get it. These campaigns get the brand talked about. But audiences quickly rejected the images and deemed Benetton’s current campaign as “offensive” and took their opinions straight to Facebook.

If Benetton is taking an “any publicity is good publicity” approach to selling its products, research doesn’t agree entirely with that approach.

Researchers have found that shock advertising does in fact make campaigns more memorable and prompts consumers to take action, but has Benetton over-used their shock value?

The Brand Channel asked its readers if shock really sells a brand and the general consensus was that it might start talk, but it has nothing to do with selling sweaters.

We would love to hear your opinion on this campaign.

Other Links to Check Out

View the full set of photos here.
Take a look at other things the UNHATE foundation is doing.
Put your own photo on the Kiss Wall.
Watch the short UNHATE film.

Scenario: a person owns a business. The business has a Twitter account. The business owner has a personal Twitter account. Someone posts a tweet via the business Twitter account and uses the #Lkld hashtag. Then the business owner retweets the tweet and keeps the #Lkld hashtag.

Even if I lived under a rock and had no access to TV and newspapers (but had Internet access, obviously) I could tell you who owns what businesses in Lakeland simply by following the #Lkld hashtag.

Day after day, I see business postings, followed immediately by the owners of those businesses retweeting the posts. And if the person owns more than one business, Katy bar the door! Be prepared to read several identical posts, all in a neat little row.

Business owners who are on Twitter are all after the same thing. We want to get the word out about our businesses. We want clients and customers. Recently, I wrote about writing reviews for businesses and how if we’re not careful, those reviews come across as disingenuous. I feel like these retweets also can fall into that same category if we’re not careful.

The original intent of the retweet was to re-broadcast information that users felt would be of interest to their followers. Mark Evans over at Twitterrati has an interesting take on the value of the retweet.

I think we need to look at the value of our retweets. Business owners, when someone else retweets something you post, all who see that RT see it as coming from an objective third party. That has value, in my mind. I liken it to an advertisement vs. a mention in a newspaper article. Given enough money, you can say whatever you want to say about your business in an advertisement. But people are savvy and often won’t even read an ad. If you can get a reporter to write a story that says those same things about you, readers buy into that. Why? It’s seen as more objective.

So what’s the solution? As a business owner, of course you want your business to succeed and you absolutely should use every tool in your marketing/PR/publicity tool kit to help make that happen- particularly if the tool is free. And believe it or not, I’m not saying you should not RT the tweets posted by your business. But why not give those retweets some legs? If your business tweet uses the #lkld hashtag, why not change it to a different area when you RT it? That way, you help ensure that new eyes will read it, which is your goal in the first place, isn’t it?

If you don’t change your approach, here’s one thing that you’ll never accomplish- building “buzz” for your business (My apologies to Peter Shankman, whom I adore, and I know he despises that term)

These are just my thoughts on the topic. I’m sure there are those who disagree with me. I would love to hear your feedback on this, whether or not it aligns with my opinion.

Earlier this month, my husband and I visited his family near Tuckasegee and I learned the story behind the apple butter. I couldn’t help but marvel over what an excellent lesson in marketing and public relations is demonstrated by their apple butter sales process.

Every year, people clamor to place orders for the church’s apple butter. They don’t simply purchase it by the jar; many people buy it by the case. The pastor stops taking orders at 250 jars so he can ensure that people who show up the day the apple butter is made have a shot at purchasing some.

So what does any of this have to do with marketing and public relations? A lot. Congregants of this church make their apple butter just once per year during North Carolina’s apple season. That means those who want some have a tiny window in which to buy it. Between pre-orders and sales on the day the apple butter is canned, every single jar they make is sold.

I don’t love the analogy, but this marketing approach reminds me of McDonald’s and its McRib sandwich. The fast food chain rolls out the McRib sandwich for a limited time every so often. People come in droves to buy the sandwiches. And when it’s removed from the menu, McRib lovers wait in anticipation for its return.

Once an item is introduced and people grow to love it, pulling it out of arm’s reach seems to have an incredible effect on our human desire to want that which we can’t have. Lots of analysts have argued that were the McRib on the McDonald’s menu full-time, it wouldn’t be as popular. In fact, MSN Money wrote a great article on this topic recently.

The members of Tuckasegee Wesleyan Church don’t can apple butter only once a year because they want to follow in the marketing footsteps of McDonald’s. The fact is that making apple butter in such a large quantity is a time-consuming, two-day process that involves just about every member of the church. It’s a lot of work. But I love how they benefit from the “limited time only” nature of their operation.

That means that people increasingly are as likely to become Facebook fans with their local car dealership or favorite restaurant as they are to catch up with their 10th grade English teacher or high school girlfriend.

A lot of people ask the question, “Why?” when they hear all the buzz about social media, said Lorrie Delk Walker, president of Lorrie Walker Communications, Inc., a public relations firm in Tampa and Lakeland. That question is easy to answer when reading studies of how Generation Y communicates.

David Fallarme recently wrote on The Marketing Student blog that while Baby Boomers communicated via written letters, telephone calls or face-to-face meetings, Generation Y uses myriad social media outlets, including Facebook wall posts, private messages, instant messages and texts.

“If Generation Y isn’t already part of your client base, they soon will be,” Walker said. “So businesses need to communicate on their level.”

That means learning to use these outlets appropriately is paramount. For all the creative ways there are for businesses to use social media to their advantage, there are just as many ways to use it incorrectly.

“If not done right, social media can hurt you more than help you,” Walker said. “For example, if a restaurant sends out 14 tweets in a day and not one of them has anything to do with the restaurant, that’s not beneficial.”

Walker recalls a Lakeland barbecue restaurant that posted tweets about getting to work late, what a busy day they had ahead of them and what the weather conditions were.

“That provides nothing of value to a potential customer,” she said. “Tell me that you offer catering, or that you have pulled pork as today’s special, and that gives me a reason not only to follow you, but to actually give you my business.”

On the other hand, too much good information can have the same effect as useless info, Walker said. Businesses should not overload people.

“I think people are willing to become fans of businesses on Facebook or watch their YouTube videos if they aren’t nagged about it every 5 minutes,” she said. “If I’m going to follow a used car dealership on Twitter, I don’t want them sending me information about a new car on their lot or the latest service special 30 times a day.”

Businesses looking to jump on the social media bandwagon might consider consulting with a marketing or public relations company that understands how social media works for some guidance.

“It’s better to get it right the first time and build a following that sticks with you, rather than go through trial and error, anger people, and constantly lose followers,” Walker said. “Those people who quit following you aren’t going around talking you up in a good way to their friends.”

With that said, marketing businesses that cater to specific niches are popping up everywhere to assist industries in using social media effectively.

Auto Dealerships
Showroom Logic helps car dealerships market themselves on the Internet, specifically through Facebook and Twitter, said Mike Annable, Showroom Logic’s co-founder. Dealerships want sales leads, and these outlets provide a way to communicate with people who are in the market for a vehicle.

“Social media enables people to find products and services without feeling as though they have to deal with a pushy salesperson first,” Annable said. 

If a person in Tampa wants to buy a used car, they can search for a dealership on Facebook and become a fan, or find a dealer on Twitter to follow. Dealers who work with Showroom Logic have mechanisms in place to automatically update their Facebook and Twitter accounts each time they get a new vehicle on the lot.

“If the person sees something they like, Twitter and Facebook gives them an outlet to communicate with the dealer,” said Dave Ingold, IT/marketing manager at Park Auto Mall in Pinellas Park who uses Showroom Logic’s services. “If not, they simply keep looking without feeling pressured by a salesperson.”

Showroom Logic enables dealers to spread out their posts. If a dealer gets 10 new cars on the lot and wants information posted on all of them, it will be done automatically over the course of hours, not minutes, Annable said.

Real Estate
Real estate agents are another group always in search of marketing outlets, and Snap Tours in Lakeland has created a way for agents to market themselves and their listings on 39 social networking sites.

Snap Tours offers a complete marketing package for agents to create virtual tours, branded e-mails and brochures. With just one click, Snap Tours converts photos, information and the agent’s personal brand into video, said Michael G. Barrett, the company’s creative director.

Gate Arty, a Lakeland Realtor, said the Snap Tours technology is “vastly superior” to other virtual tour Web sites.

“It’s just a better quality product overall,” Arty said. “I like the multi-functional aspects of it.”

Restaurants

Social media outlets also are an obvious marketing tool for restaurants, Walker said.

Lakeland residents who follow Black & Brew Coffee House and Bistro learn of summer specials, weekend live music and new menu items via Twitter.

Subs ‘n Such in Lakeland offers specials to followers who mention Twitter when they eat at the restaurant.

“Yesterday, I saw where they offered a 12-inch sub at the 8-inch price if you told them you saw the offer on Twitter,” Walker said. “That’s a great way to advertise your business, and to measure the success of advertising via a particular social media outlet.”

Learn More
If you are in need of Lakeland or Tampa public relations services and social media advice, please visit www.lorriewalker.com for more information, or call (863) 614-0555.

© 2009 Lorrie Walker Communications, Inc. Authorization to post is granted, with the stipulation that Sinai Marketing is credited as sole source. Linking to other sites from this article is strictly prohibited, with the exception of herein imbedded links.

My business, Lorrie Walker Communications, Inc. will celebrate its first anniversary in a couple of months. Do I have people crashing down my door to hire my services? Not nearly often enough. Where have I found most of my current clients? At community events.

Let me tell you what I love about Emerge Lakeland. Today’s meeting was scheduled from 11:30 a.m. until 1 p.m. It featured guest speaker David Shepp, a government relations and public affairs consultant who discussed “political awareness, education and the political process.” I pulled that directly from the group’s press release.

I got to the meeting about 11:25 a.m., where I signed in, paid my money, got my lunch and found a seat. I had time to talk to the people sitting around me. The event began on time. The speaker stayed on topic. He left time for questions. And the meeting ended EARLY. I think it was over by 12:30 p.m. Now, I would have stayed until 1 p.m. if it had lasted that long. I had set aside the time. But to get everything that I came there for, and in less time, that is almost unheard of, friends.

I go to a lot of lunch meetings in the community, and I have to say that today’s Emerge Lakeland meeting was among the most organized and smooth-running meetings I’ve attended in a while. I’ve been getting frustrated lately with meetings and speakers who promise one thing, but then wander off topic horribly. I feel like I’ve wasted my time by the end of it. That was not the case today.

So Lakelanders between the age of 23 and 42, there’s good news for you: Emerge Lakeland is a great place to network and increase your visibility. For those of you who live outside this area, I encourage you to try out different professional organizations until you find one you like. And don’t overlook the service organizations. Groups such as Kiwanis, Rotary, Sertoma, etc. can serve the same networking purposes.Good luck building that buzz!