Here I go. I am about to become another voice in the melee that we call social networking. If I scream out in the crowded internet public square where everyone else is screaming about social networking will I be heard? Probably not. Regardless, I am still going to give my opinion on the cleanest and most effective way to network with professional folks: LinkedIn. I don’t work for them or have some affiliate deal or anything like that. I just like it because it seems to work well for me so I’m going to share with you.

Social networking / marketing / whatever is a highly personal choice. It’s almost like buying a car because the way that you network through all the different venues like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Plaxo blah, blah, blah, blah is a reflection of who you are. Now remember, I am speaking from a purely B to B professional’s point of view here. I am not interested at all in people’s weekend exploits or their favorite color or their astrological sign. If I am learning this kind of stuff from someone it’s because I have a real relationship with them. You remember those, right? The thing where you actually speak to someone or maybe even shake their hand then you talk to them (phone or in person counts here) and you relate to them. Sharing stupid human tricks with anyone with an internet connection is not relating. It’s just plain odd.

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So you have decided to take the plunge yourself. You are going to step up and jump into the deep end of the search marketing pool and do SEO for yourself.

First, congratulations on your choice to do search engine optimization (SEO) for your website. It shows that you are aware of the potential impact that organic traffic from the search engines could have on your business. It shows that you are willing to put the time in to get the desired results. It also may show that you have no idea how much time will be needed to do this. Either way, you “gotta be in it to win it”.

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I often wonder if it possible to miss someone that you have never met. You see, 19 years before I was born my life changed completely. My grandfather, Frank Ianuzelli, a 22 yr old second generation Italian immigrant to New Jersey, was killed in the Battle of the Bulge on or around January 7, 1945 just a few short months before the end of the war.  His brother, Nick, would be injured during the war as well and although he survived he was never the same. So my mother would be fatherless at the age of 2 and be relegated to a life not knowing her Dad other than the black and white photos (mostly of him in uniform) and the memories of others.

Of course, I am writing about these things on July 4th because it is important. We have brave men and women, all volunteers unlike those drafted into service in the past, that are serving around the world as you read this. I recognize from time to time (in other words, not nearly often enough) that there are things going on to protect me and my family. I go to work, I write about internet marketing, I work to build my business and I sometimes get frustrated and upset. If I really would stop and think maybe I wouldn’t get upset because I have it better than most. Am I rich by US standards? Monetarily, no. Once I get beyond that ridiculously artificial metric I can see that I am wealthy beyond my wildest dreams. I live in a free country. Now, I know some of you would want to debate that but don’t waste your time with me.  No matter how thrilled or upset you may be with the US and its shortcomings, there is no better place on the planet to be “free”. I have a business in a beautiful part of the country and I have an awesome family. I have been blessed by the Lord in ways I could have never fathomed. It has come at a price though and I realized that I have only picked up a very small part of that tab.

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On July 1 Adobe issued a press release announcing their work with the search engines regarding advances in recognizing dynamic web content and RIAs (rich Internet applications).

According to the release, Adobe is providing optimized Adobe® Flash® Player technology to Google and Yahoo! to enhance search engine indexing of the Flash file format (SWF) and uncover information that is currently undiscoverable by search engines. This will provide more relevant automatic search rankings of the millions of RIAs and other dynamic content that run in Adobe Flash Player. Moving forward, RIA developers and rich Web content producers won’t need to amend existing and future content to make it searchable — they can now be confident it can be found by users around the globe.

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Talk, communicate, talk, write, talk. Let’s have lunch and talk. Excuse me while I take this important call….I’m so sorry. Let’s write about our thoughts and experiences and feelings. Let’s let everyone know everything. Let’s IM, tweet, text and discuss our way through another day. Phew….wasn’t that enlightening? Wasn’t that great? Isn’t the world a better place now that everyone is “in touch”?

Seems to me that in our world, the idea of talking or communicating about something is replacing actually doing something. Huh? I see it with small businesses all the time. I see it in myself. I have bought in just as much as the next guy. Shame on me. I’ll be honest with you though…..I don’t like it and I aim to make a change.

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In an excellent article at Business Week (yes, that can still happen) Sarah Lacy writes about the trail that all of our social media habits leaves. Of course, it seems logical and makes great sense when you step back but when you are in it a lot of folks forget who see what they are saying / doing and the consequences can be dire.

She uses a great example of how Ferris Bueller narrowly escapes being caught by the ever incompetent high school principal, Mr. Rooney, while cutting school to attend a Cubs game (What high school kid in Chicago hasn’t, right?). Her take on the many ways that Ferris would get caught today is interesting.

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Does a small business have a need for tracking their online reputation? Since many small business people are completely unaware that they even have an “online reputation” then I would have to say yes.

Here’s an example that literally just happened to me this week. I had transmission work done on a vehicle about four months ago. I was very pleased with the result, the price and the service. Now unfortunately I need to go back for transmission issues for another car (I drive cars until they scream “Uncle!”) and I did a Google search to get the number of the shop again. Well, the first organic search result was from www.insiderpages.com and there were 5 reviews there along with the information I wanted. After reading the reviews, I actually felt like I was lucky that I had a good experience at this shop!  When I contacted the owner to schedule the new work (I am a trusting sort) I told him about what was there and he a bit surprised and disturbed. Needless to say, we will be talking to help him with that problem.

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The days of firing off a letter to the VP of Whatever at XYZ Company because of their bad service are most definitely over. You have to suspect that all those letters got “black-holed” anyway, right? Oh sure, you might get a coupon every now and then and a form letter but that was only because 1 out of every 5 complaints would get something for their trouble.

Well, those days are LONG gone. Now when you stink at what you do, even if it’s just once, everyone gets the chance to hear about it – immediately. One of the most underrated yet powerful aspects of the internet for business is the fact that companies can no longer hide. When things don’t work as expected people complain and if the person who complains has an audience well you better get the customer service team beefed up.

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It’s time to blog. Just get over it and start doing it.

Things to consider………

1.    You’re an expert and no one knows it

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Welcome to “Shameless Self Promotion Time” here at Frank Thinking. I know that most of my posts are relatively “neutral” and are simply about ideas / experiences / concepts etc but today is going to be a bit different.

Since my company does internet marketing (with a concentration in search marketing practices including search engine optimization (SEO) and pay per click (PPC) management) it goes to follow that we might develop some nifty tools. Well, we have and we are putting it out there for search marketers of all stripes including agencies, consultants and in-house search marketers to use in their campaigns.

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