Facebook For Business Workshops
Back by Popular Demand
omOriginals Marketing! is offering a great B.Y.O.L.or T. (Bring Your Own Laptop or Tablet!) training class >>Please let us know if you don’t have a portable, so we can hook you up. ~:-)
Oscar will be teaching you how to best use Facebook for Business. Highlights include:
- Hands-on Training and Step-by-step procedures
- 4 Ways to Dominate
- Facebook’s NEW News Feed
- Posting Tips and Tricks
- Practical Plan to Grow your Fan Base
- Education on the NEW Facebook features
April 30th 2PM-3:30 or 5PM-6:30PM
Upstairs in the Twin City Bank Building
729 Vandercook Way – Longview. WA
Cost: Just $74/per/person
Payment guarantees your seat!
Call our office for more information and to pay by phone. 360.575.9839
*Requirement: You must have a Business Page already set up, and are looking to grow your Fan base and create more interaction with your “Fans”.
LIMITED SEATING! Only 8 students per class.
PAYMENT REQUIRED FOR YOUR RESERVATION.
360.575.9839
Can’t make the workshop? Can’t afford to spend the time doing it yourself? omOriginals Marketing! offers these services at a very reasonable fee. Complete Facebook page creation and submission to our Blogs and Fanbase starts at $250. Available for all your online questions and concerns. Call 360.575.9839
Happy Monday Monday
This one will drive you crazy (if you aren’t already there).
Are the horizontal lines in this image parallel or do they slope down? This is a popular, simple optical illusion that uses black and white effectively to confuse our perceptions of what we are seeing.
Because we are trying to rationalise either the black vertical lines or white vertical lines, we cannot make sense of the untidiness of the columns and, to our eyes, the horizontal lines are sloping downwards. Our eyes naturally follow the powerful vertical lines. In fact, the horizontal lines themselves are perfectly straight and measuring them would prove that they do not slope down at all.
credit: This illusion is a classic, we most recently found it at Illusions.org
Building Bridges – A Regional Business Showcase
April 17th, 2013 – Cowlitz County Regional Expo Center
We are proud to be part of this great business event for the 3rd year running.
Please download and print this invite and bring it with you to the event.
We look forward to see you @ our booth.
From the Kelso Longview Chamber…
Welcome to the third year of the Business Showcase, formerly called Business 2 Business Expo. We have a new name, Building Bridges a Regional Business Showcase. This was changed to try to encourage more people to attend. A Business 2 Business expo lead many people to believe that only those businesses displaying at the expo were permitted to attend. Your committee decided to change the name to hopefully do what was originally intended…
Showcase the businesses of Cowlitz County. Thank you, for continued support this event and be a part of the over 100 businesses showcasing what they do.
This year set up will be able to take place on Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday morning, followed by a lunch in one of the break-out rooms with a speaker who will provide you with valuable information on how to make your day the most successful it can be.
Again, this year we will offer a chance for one of our booth or table holders to win a Multimedia Packaged valued at close to $5,000 that can be used for Transit advertising, local newspaper ads, radio spots, webdesign and graphic design. We will also be giving away baskets of goodies provided by our sponsors/venders and this year we intend to give away a number of tablets to our exhibitors. The more people you get to attend and visit your booth the better chance you have to win one of the popular new tablets.
A reminder, there will not be an After Hours Reception this year. Light snacks and a no-host bar will be set up at 5pm for you and your guests to enjoy.
Kind regards,
Bill Marcum
CEO/Kelso Longview Chamber
New Offices for omOriginals Marketing! in Longview and now in Renton, WA.
As of March 26th, 2013 omOriginals has moved their Longview office to across the street on the second floor of the Twin City Bank Building.
The new address is 726 Vandercook Way Suite 260, Longview, WA 98632. The Longview/Kelso (Cowlitz County) number is still 360.575.9839. With the sale of the Valley Bugler at the end of 2012, omOriginals no longer needed all of the space of their old office. The Valley Bugler Newspaper is now located at 803 Vandercook Way #9 in Longview.
Earlier this year omOriginals also opened a second office in Renton, Washington (King County). omOriginals Marketing! 1532 North Marion Street #4 Renton, WA 98057 425.336.4934.
“We attribute our growth to an increasingly competitive market place. Businesses are demanding more creative and cost effective marketing and we are happy to deliver,” says Oscar Myre IV, Owner of omOriginals Marketing!
omOriginals can be reached online at omOriginals.com or toll free 1-888-477-1976.
omOriginals Marketing! has delivered refreshingly different marketing since 1998 to clients in the Northwest and across the US. They help businesses grow with effective web site design, eMail Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Good Old Fashioned Graphic Design & Consulting and Training.
Geekspeak – Understanding the King of Search Engines!
I’m often asked how to get better Google rankings for a business. They understand that if a business doesn’t exist online, it’s likely they won’t exist offline very long. We can discuss other search engines but, today we will just focus on the King of Search. According to PC World Google is the King of Search with a 66% share and Microsoft Bing at a distant 15%.
Before I talk about improving results, I like to give a lesson on the anatomy of Google search results.
Let’s take a look at the layout of the Google search results page. When you do a search for a business, Google serves you up some content. To simplify the process I’m going to take some artistic license. There are three 3 components. 1- Paid Ads 2- Places (Maps) & 3- Organic Results. Interestingly enough each of the 3 components has a different way to get to the top of each section.
Let’s start with component 1. Paid ads. The first section of ads are ones the top-left of your screen and they have a yellow background. The second section of ads are down the right site of the page. To get listed in here you have to get a Google adwords account and pay up.
This can be fairly inexpensive for categories that don’t have a lot of competitors. This is how nationwide companies often show up for local search when they don’t actually have a local presence. Alternatively, in highly competitive markets this can be very pricey. The good news is you can get to the top, the question is “at what cost?” If you plan to take this route, I strongly recommend you have professional set you up with your account. Some knowledge on the front-end can save some serious time and money.
Component 2 is the Map results.
This is often directly below the primary paid section. This section is great as they are location based. They only list businesses that have a physical address on the map. Each listing in the section has a pin with a letter and a map to show you it’s location. Google offers free places pages for businesses. These pages are basic, but they do allow for the all important client reviews.
The simplest way to get optimal ranking in this section is to #1 have an address in the search area, and to have a good quantity of positive reviews. Again, good news here is that these pages are free. Your business may already have one as Google uses a variety of sources to automatically create these pages.
You can claim your page by clicking on the link underneath it and by then clicking on “Mange this page”. FYI It does require a Google account to take control of a page.
The 3rd component is the Organic Results. Who doesn’t love organic. This section is also free and Google does a good job of ranking web sites primarily on the content of the pages (relative to the search) and the popularity of the website.
This section rewards those who have great web sites with specific intelligently prepared content. Some web professional will say getting a blog will get you great organic results. This can be very true with some diligent work and training from a professional. ~:-)
Happy Googling!
GeekSpeak – Top 10 iPad Apps
This month we are going to chat about everyone’s favorite gadget. I purchased my first iPad last month and I’m really enjoying my new toy power business tool. As a long time iPhone user I’ve installed nearly 400 apps in Apple’s iOS. Today I will share with you short list of a few of my favorites things (on my iPad)….
- Drop Box is a free app that gives you the same space as cloud. It allows me to share files with all of my devices connected to the Internet.Gone are the days of forgetting where you place that important file. Just throw it in your drop box.
- Everynote is a great way to create and share notes and todos. There are many note sharing apps. What makes it a favorite for me is its ability to organize and search my info. It’s also a plus to be able to Evernote on my tablet or Macs with files shared in the cloud.
- LogmeIn gives me remote control of my computers from my iPad. I have complete access to my Macs and even a PC.
- CardMunch is used to convert paper business cards into contacts in my address book. This card scanner does a remarkably good job. It can also add photos automatically from LinkedIn.
- Facebook & Facebook Pages give access to your profile and pages.
- HootSuite allows you to manage all your social networks from one app.
- You Version Holy Bible is the best online bible. I’ve tried a a lot of paid and free bible. This is my favorite as it has many translations and great reading plans. I also really like how it can read the word aloud.
- Pages is Apple’s word processor. Similar to Word, but with more style. I’m typing this article in Pages right now.
- AIM is a chat app similar to iChat on the Mac. I use AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) to chat with the family and office.
- Find iPhone shows the location of all of your iOS devices. It can even make them ring when the ringer is off.
- Netflix streams TV on your iPad (or iPhone). Very cool.
Ok, here are a couple more… I recently found one app that my kids are using to learn to type (ParaType) on and another that my daughters are using for vision therapy (Captain Lazy Eye). The results look promising.
Do you have some apps that you love? Please comment on this article to share. ~:-)
What iPad did I get? I purchased the new iPad (Generation 4) with the retina display. It can connect to Internet over wi-fi and over cellular.
God Bless,
Oscar Myre IV
When Oscar isn’t playing with gadgets he is helping businesses with their marketing at omOriginals Marketing!
360.575-9839
4 Must Haves for a Successful Website
The world of web is becoming increasingly more competitive. You have less than 30 seconds to make a good impression and to then turn a visitor into a customer. I’ve prepared a quick list if 4 must haves if you are looking to have a successful web site.
1) Make it EASY to contact you.
Seems simple enough, but I see a lot of sites that make it difficult to connect. I recommend having a link to your contact page on EVERY page. For some businesses it also makes sense to have your phone number on EVERY page.
2) Deliver value.
It is good to tell people you are good at what you do, but it is even better to demonstrate that you are an expert. You can share your knowledge (with out giving up the farm) on your site.
Some examples of value can be Frequently Asked Questions, informative articles (like this one) or possibly free downloads. You don’t necessarily have to be the author. Find or create some value and add it to your site.
3) BLOG
First off, what is a BLOG? A website blog is the news section. New content is added, old is archived.
It is a beautiful thing.
If created and optimized properly the content give you amazing results in the search engines. A smart blog can also be a great launching pad for your social media. (Be sure to contact me to learn about integrating your website with Facebook and other social sites.)
4) Share your successes.
It is easy and powerful to share testimonials on your website (all of your marketing for that manner). Nothing gives you better credibility than the words of others. If you have great reviews from customer you must have them on your site. If you don’t have any then go get some.
I wish you a prosperous 2013. If treat your website to the above “must haves” you’ll be off to a great start!
~:-)
Geekspeak – Are you connected with LinkedIn?
Howdy Friends,
This month I want to encourage you to take another look @ Linked-In. I’ve seen a lot of activity in the last month. For most users, I recommend that they get in at least once a quarter and make sure their info is updated and make some more connections. This month, I encourage you to logon, write a couple Recommendations, add some Skills and make 7 or so endorsements.
Before I get ahead of myself, here is a quick recap of one of my favorite social networks: LinkedIn is a online networking tool for professionals. At the heart of LI is your professional resume. You might think this is just for people looking for a job. You would be correct that it is a good place to look for jobs. It is equally good to make yourself available for making business connections. If someone is looking for a trusted CPA, a trusted Lawyer (I’m restraining myself from a joke here), or even a trusted web site developer, they can look on LI.
My favorite part is the Recommendations section. Fellow users can post recommendations of you professionally. LinkedIn doesn’t have critical reviews, just positive recommendations . I believe strongly in the power of testimonials. (You can see evidence in our marketing and the marketing of our clients.) You can say that “you are an expert”, but a testimonial from a client or customer speaks volumes more. My business has been blessed with about 20 of these recommendation gems on LinkedIn. Most folks don’t have many. I believe this true because it takes a fair amount of time and effort to write a recommendation.
LinkedIn just recently added a new Endorsement section, where you can list your skills. Your connections can then click on the + sign if they believe you possess such skills. Where it took months to receive 10 Recommendations, I received 23 Endorsements for Website Development, 21 Endorsements for Web Design & 15 for Social Media in less than 2 weeks. I also received endorsements for 20 other skills during this same time. Endorsements won’t replace Recommendations, but it is a great way to demonstrate your strengths.
Another nice update is the enhancements on the pages that you can create for business on LI. You can now customize the page with additional content. This a great place for people to learn about your business and connect with key people. It is also an excellent place to post job opportunities.
Don’t forget to look behind the scenes. You can see who is checking out your page! The insight (stats) show you their level of SENIORITY, INDUSTRY, & FUNCTION.
Here is our updated page for omOriginals Marketing! www.linkedin.com/company/610011 If we aren’t already connected on LinkedIn, I invite you to look me up and connect. My personal profile is @ www.linkedin.com/in/oscarmyre4
Happy networking. ~:-)
‘Tis the Season
We love Christmas!
We simply couldn’t wait to start Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree!
Watch out for the snow ball!
Happy Thanksgiving from omOriginals Marketing!
We would like to thank our clients and wish you all a very wonderful Thanksgiving! We will be enjoying this time with our families, sharing delicious food and thanking God for the many blessings he has bestowed upon us. We hope you are able to do the same!
Like the Turkeys (in the cartoon), we want to be very clear in our message to you …
We are thankful for you and your business.
Have a blessed and relaxing Thanksgiving full of family, love and happiness. ~:-)
Our office will be closed November 22 & 23. Our emergency/after-hours line will still be available 360.200.4844 :-)