It’s possible, in a few years from now or sooner I will have to eat my words, but based on my early review, Google+ will not be to Facebook what Facebook was to Myspace. The differences between Google+ and Facebook are small feature differences that are not that significant in my opinion as opposed to a total different user experience when Facebook is compared to Myspace.

The additions to Google+ that has the media raving about are hangouts and circles. Hangouts allow a person to video chat with up to 9 of their friends or business acquaintances at the same time and is a very clean user experience. Circles allows you to group people in to different “circles” so that you can send different updates and share different items with different groups. So family pictures could be shared with your “family” circle while industry news could be shared with your “work” circle.

Both are good features, but the Google created excitement for these features is not enough for people to switch from Facebook is my opinion because it misses the point that most people don’t share many items on Facebook so the benefit of different circles goes away. There are a lot of items shared on Facebook, but a large majority of shared items are done by a small percentage of the people. Most people are just “lurkers” who are interested in what others post, but rarely update themselves. So for these people, there is nit much benefit to circles.

Besides maybe a few occasions a year, I can think of when I would want/need to video chat with more than 1 or 2 people and almost never would I need 10. This may be a good business application, but for everyday users not sure how popular it will be. The one-on-one chat offered by Skype and now Facebook will be adequate for 95% of video chat needs. The option of multi person video chat is intriguing, but lnot likely to be heavily used.

Besides those two features, Google+ is like a mirror image of Facebook. So then the question becomes is it worth it for Facebook users to go through the effort of rebuilding their profiles and reconnecting with all of the their contacts on a different platform? I don’t think so. Myspace had problems with page load times due to the self designed pages as well as they had become overrun by spammers. Facebook has some of that, but not really that bad considering the scope of the problem. People had become fed up with myspace and that is why the switch made sense. I can not say that this is the case for Google+ and Facebook. People may be leaving Facebook, but mainly for boredom, not because they choose Google+.

Do you think there is a chance everyone will leave Facebook to switch to Google+ or is the most that Google could hope for is that users will update two networks?

Groupon.com is arguably one of the hottest and most intriguing companies around after rejecting a $6 billion purchase offer from Google and talks of an IPO in the next two years. This is remarkable for a company that was started in 2008 and has amassed a very loyal cult-like following in such a short period of time. What concerns me about the long term prospects of Groupon’s success is not Groupon itself, but the preparedness, understanding, and responsiveness by small business owners of the effect that a Groupon may have on their business.

Last week, Groupon ran a Nationwide Valentine’s Day Offer for FTD Flowers in which Groupon customers were directed to a different link that had higher prices than the main site. So a person that bought the Groupon for $20 off for $40 purchase only received $10 off because the prices on the special link were $10 higher. It is surprising that FTD thought that it would be that simple to slide that past all of the Groupon purchasers as many are extreme deal shoppers, but it also uncovers a deeper problem for business owners which is how difficult it can be to be profitable offering Groupons at deep discounts and give Groupon 50% of the coupon price.

Simple math says if I offer a massage for $30 that normally costs $60 and also must give $15 to Groupon , then I am working with 25% of my normal revenue while expenses remain unchanged. To the unknowing business owner that is mainly interested in getting  new customers through the door, the costs of several hundred coupons could be detrimental to their business. One business owner that recently ran a Groupon said it was the worst business decision she ever made as she lost over $8,000 and upset many of her normal customers by the new rules she had to enforce to deal with the Groupon rush. I also recently purchased a Groupon, that when I called to schedule the appointment, there was a very noticeable change in the voice of the person that answered the phone after I told her I was using a Groupon. She sad someone would call me back, but they never did. This happened three times before I contacted Groupon and they gave me a full refund.

Here are several things that business owners should consider before running a Groupon and put into place to ensure that there is long term benefits of offering such deep discounts:

Oprah Effect – Much like after a book or product is mentioned on the Oprah show, a Groupon offer has the effect of several hundred new patrons in a vary short period of time. Be prepared for that. Maybe only allow your Groupon to be used at least a week after purchase so that you are aware of how many have been purchased and can adjust your resources accordingly. If you don’t, you run the risk of a crowded restaurant that following day without the proper staff and backend preparations to handle it which will negatively effect the reputation of your restaurant and not generate any new long term customers. Understand that the same people that are using Groupon are probably also using Yelp.

Remarketing – It is often argued that the point of a Groupon is not to make money, but to get new customers. First, I don’t think think the argument of running a Groupon just for new customers is a very good one because no business is in business for the sake of business, it’s to make money. You can categorize the revenue and profit loss on your financial documents as marketing or advertising, but to a small business owner it is lost money, no matter how you categorize it. But if the argument holds true that the point of a Groupon is to get new customers, in the half dozen or so Groupons that I have used, not one business has asked for an e-mail address or contact information so that they can follow up in the future. This is a total mistake. Every business that runs a Groupon should have some type of remarketing in place to bring those Groupon users back as customers. This could be a rewards card, newsletter signup, coupon for next visit, something. If not, you are hoping that your product or service is so great that they will naturally come back. Good Luck with that!

Limit To High Margin Products - Groupons have been very effective for Dentist offices because they can offer discounted teeth whitening which has a total cost of about $20 for the kit and once they sit the person in their seat, can usually extract another several hundred dollars for work that is needed and a few follow up visits. No matter what your business you operate, limit the Groupon to your products with the highest margins. This helps to lower the financial  impact of the Groupon and allows you to plan ahead for Groupon users.

Short Time Period – The unspoken benefit of Groupons fro business owners is that many of them go unused. This helps to recuperate some of the losses that may have been incurred by the business owner that offered the Groupon. Limit the length of the Groupon to six months or less. This will give you the opportunity to run multiple groupons in the same year after you understand the effects that a Groupon can have.

It will be interesting to watch for the next year or two to see if the FTD fiasco was an exception or the new rule as business owners calculate the real costs of a Groupon. My guess is that you will see less local restaurant deals and more nationwide deals from companies like Gap, FTD, etc. Small business owners that lose large amounts of money to “marketing” probably were not spending that much on marketing in the first place so if you are going to take the risk, make sure you have prepared your business for the rush and to convert these bargain shoppers into long term customers.

The web has been a buzz for the last few days due to the Old Spice social media campaign where in response to fans on Twitter and Facebook, the Old Spice man replied to messages with short thirty second to one minute videos that were witty and funny and probably more important, timely. Over a two day period Old Spice, a Proctor and Gamble Company, worked with their advertising firm to produce dozens of Youtube videos, although I can’t find the exact number. This campaign used the same actor and built on some already impressive TV commercials over the last several weeks. It clearly will be the business case that will be studied and over analyzed for the next few years as the campaign generated tens of millions of pageviews, and caused a lot of offline conversation that will probably help to increase revenue for Old Spice which is ultimately the reason for the campaign.

When everyone is trying to create viral videos and understand how to use social media successfully, how did Old Spice succeed so overwhelmingly? They decided to take a risk. Most companies will never have great success in social media because they are too cautious to ever take the risk that it requires. Two aspects of the Old Spice campaign that made them successful were they made the quick videos without a major concern for the potential negative impact and the willingness to task a risk with their brand although my belief is the risk of the brand is not as significant as many might believe.

Potential Negative Impact Is Not That Significant - One of the biggest fears of social media for businesses is the inability to control the conversation and the potential that someone could have a negative statement about your company  and that is just unacceptable. For that reason, most companies are still having internal debates about the need to be active on Facebook or Twitter rather than just getting involved. The reality is that most people on social media sites do not have a large enough audience to have an impact. The person with 75 Twitter followers stating that they had a bad experience is not the end of the world. Most likely, there are less than a handful of people whom even will see the message. Mark Cuban stated this same belief about a year ago, that most of the messages on Twitter are not worth a response because it is not heard by many people. But worrying about the what-if possibilities will keep most companies from ever really getting involved with social media successfully.

Too Brand Conscious – Developing your brand is something that takes years and years to build and should be guarded in every way possible. This leads to very calculated marketing efforts with the approval of executives and lawyers necessary for every piece of collateral, message wording, a commercial production. Due to this, most companies couldn’t duplicate the Old Spice campaign if they wanted to as it would take too long for approval to make the response relevant. Assuming that I am correct and the potential negative impact is not that great, more companies should be willing to respond more timely on social media sites to improve success. That is not to say everyone should use twitter videos because that is not for everyone, but using creative timely responses would prove beneficial for social media success.

While most are studying the delicate intricacies of the Old Spice campaign, there also needs to be an assessment of your corporate culture and the willingness to take that kind of risk. My bet is that there are not many companies that would take the leap, but that also explains why there are so many “viral” videos that never went viral.

Lead generation is essential for any business that expects to be around for a while and prosper. I want to offer a couple of ideas for lead generation for small business that are relatively low cost, but can be very effective in generating new business. These methods focus on underutilized methods to reach new customers and engage existing customers and if implemented properly will yield positive results rather quickly. The four methods that I would recommend are:

Coupons – Coupon sites are all the rage with the exponential growth of Groupon.com and other group buying sites over the last year. These group buying sites that can have massive amounts of traffic, but also squeeze the margins on your sales and require deep discounts, which is why it is important to realize there are other alternatives to distribute your coupons and generate leads. The best place to setup and distribute your coupons are through your Google Places account, formerly Google Local Business Center. After you have completed their setup process and verified you business, there is a tab for coupons. This tab allows you to setup multiple coupons for your business that will appear on Google Maps alongside your business. Even if the discount that you are offering is not that great, there should always be an active coupon in your account due to the extra exposure it generates on on Google Maps. It sets you apart from all of your competition that has not taken the time to setup a coupon for their business.

Coupons can also be distributed through Google using Google Coupon Feeds, but this process is only for merchants with large numbers of coupons. If only have a couple of coupons and a couple of locations, Google Places is much more efficient.

Craigslist – Generating leads from Craigslist is a topic that I covered here and here, but it is worth mentioning again because it is such an easy and effective method that is still underutilized. It really is as simple as adding a reoccurring event to your calendar every two days to update your Craigslist listing. It does not need to be unique every time although mixing it up from time to time will help. A quick review of the posts mentioned above will provide much more detail about using Craigslist effectively, but this is a simple reminder to say get something posted.

Facebook Fan Page – A few months ago, I would have likely said that Facebook was not an effective method for lead generation for small businesses due to the amount of time necessary to maintain a page. With the additions and social hooks that have been added by Facebook over the past few months that allow for greater integration into other websites and greater sharing within Facebook, I would now recommend Facebook as a lead generation tool for small businesses.

The key to using a Facebook fan page effectively is growing your number of fans and creating activities that causes them to engage on your page which will spread to their friends as basically referrals. For instance, post a sign in your business for your customers to join your Facebook fan page or offer some incentive or discount to your customers that join and then post offers on the page that they may “like” which their friends will see. You may also offer an incentive in which anyone that “likes” your post will have a special discount coupon mailed to their inbox. As your list continues to grow and creative methods of interaction are utilized, your Facebook Fan Page can become an effective lead generation.

Local Business Referrals – It is also important to remember that lead generation should still occur offline as well as online. I recently read this story about a car wash with 12 locations that is able to generate over $40 million per year in revenue by placing coupons on the counters of other local businesses without even the need to reciprocate placement for those businesses. They simply would regularly distribute their coupons to each business as a “gift” to their customers and this led to an amazing amount of sales for each location. That’s it. Simple, but very effective.

There are many other methods for generating leads like Google Adwords and traditional advertising, but I wanted to highlight a few methods that have much lower costs and are very easy to maintain. Once these methods are put in place, they are very easy to maintain which makes it much more cost effective. Set a plan to have each of these methods in action within a week and I am confident you will be pleasantly surprised with the results.

Over the last three months, both online and offline media have been totally consumed with the saga of Tiger Woods and the allegations against him that he committed multiple acts of adultery against his wife. Not sure if it is all truth, but the court or public perception has decided for the most part that he is guilty of all of the allegations made by the various women that have said they had a relationship with Tiger. There have hundreds of reported sightings of Tiger at different places around the world, but there have not been any verified sighting since the day after Thanksgiving.

The infatuation by the media and the public with the sex scandal causes his good deed of donating $3 million to Haiti relief efforts to go unnoticed. This is an example of where a personal or corporate brand needs to dedicate money and resources to protecting their online identity and shaping the information that is shown first when there are searches for their name.

A search for Tiger Woods on the day after he pledged $3 million in relief aid, still shows links about his scandal before it mentions his donation. It will require a lot of work for a reputation management expert to overcome the many stories about the scandal because most of the stories were linked to from other websites hundreds or even thousands of times.

Even a search through Google News for Tiger Woods has no mention of his donation in the top 10 links. This is where Woods’ team needs to be pushing press releases and posting to various news sites, so that his stories of his donation moves ahead of stories about his scandal.

Unfortunately, most of the news outlets have not mentioned his donation, but from their perspective viewers are much more interested and engaged in scandal than humanitarian efforts. There are also many who question Tiger’s motive, thinking that the reason for the donation is to divert attention from his scandal. If that were his motive, a donation of $1 million would have done that just as well as $3million.

Managing your brand online is very important and as this example shows, very difficult as well. To limit the exposure of damaging information, brands should strongly consider hiring online reputation managers who could help to ensure that positive information rises above the negative stories. The cost of the reputation manager will seem like a steal when you consider the cost that it will take to repair your brand, if repair is even possible.

Online marketing jobs are probably one of the few disciplines that is growing in the current economy. This need will continue to increase as the shift from traditional marketing to online advertising accelerates. I have compiled a list of quality job boards, some better than others, that keep up to date lists of online marketing positions where companies are seeking search engine optimization experts, search engine marketing managers, and web analytics analysts. These sites have a healthy mix of entry-level, mid-level, and executive positions and for many of the boards, the positions are exclusive to their site.

The one drawback of some of the sites listed below is they are not as quick to eliminate positions form their board that are 6-8 weeks old. My guess is that if they are too quick to remove these jobs, then the number of listings is too low at any given time. Besides that, the job boards listed below have done a good job of listing and aggregating some of the online marketing opportunities available.

This list is not ranked in any order as they have different jobs at any given time.

SEOMOZ Job Board - http://www.seomoz.org/marketplace/jobs

Onward Job Search - http://jobs.onwardsearch.com/

SEMPO Job Board - http://www.sempo.org/jobs/

E-Marketing Silo - http://www.emarketingsilo.com/

Online Marketing Jobs - http://www.onlinemarketingjobs.com/

Web Analytics Association Job Board - http://www.webanalyticsassociation.org/en/jobs/search.asp

Search Engine Watch Job Board - http://jobs.searchenginewatch.com/c/search_results.cfm?site_id=2660

Marketing Pilgrim Job Board - http://jobs.marketingpilgrim.com/

Search Engine Journal Job Board - http://jobs.searchenginejournal.com/

SEO Consultants Job Board - http://jobs.seoconsultants.com/

SEOBook Job Board - http://www.seobook.com/jobs

Problogger Job Board - http://jobs.problogger.net/

Techcrunch Job Board - http://www.crunchboard.com/jobs/

If you know of any other resources that should be added to the list, drop them in the comments.

As I discussed in Part 1 of generating leads from Craigslist, there are a number of elements that should be included in your ad post that will significantly improve your chances of success. Some of those are repost regularly, be creative with your offers, use catchy headlines, and use a real e-mails address and phone number. Each of those elements done properly will improve your ability to generate leads.

Here are a few more techniques that should be used with your Craigslist ad posts:

Sprinkle in Keywords – Since the design Craigslist is strictly chronological with a rather simple search function, one way to increase the number of users that view your ad is to use targeted keywords throughout your post. For instance, you should not just have “Car for sale.” What you should be selling is a “2007 BMW 530i that has amazing horsepower and excellent condition. This model is slightly smaller than the BMW 700 series and in industry tests performs better than Mercedez, Audi, Lexus, and Volkswagon. This car has premium Bose speakers and GPS navigation system. Sirius Satellite radio is an additional feature that has two years remaining at no additional charge.” Writing your ads with targeted keywords will draw in visitors who may not have been searching for your product specifically, but a related product and now you get to make your pitch. It is easy to get carried away with this method which will cause your ad to get flagged. Be creative when writing your ad copy so that it does not appear that you are simply stuffing your ad with keywords.

Attach an Image – Every ad that you post should have an image. I repeat – every ad that you post should have an image. The statistic that I have seen says that Craigslist ads that have an image get viewed 55% more than ads without an image. Use an image of yourself, or an employee, or the company logo. The actual image is not as important as simply using an image. The main reason is that when your ad appears in the search results, it will have the orange text next to the title that states this ad has an image. People love to look at images which causes your ad to get more views. It is a bit of a waste to use an image unrelated to your business or service. It adds no value, so use an image that in some way relates to your business.

Choose multiple categories – Since most of your ads will be posted in the “services” section, don’t always choose the same category, mix it up. Some people do not use the search function on Craigslist, but rather scroll to the section that they are interested in, click on the category, and then scroll through each of the results. By posting your ad in multiple categories(on different days), you can get your ad positioned in front of prospects who do not search on craigslist. Refer to Part 1 for details on how often you can post to Craigslist and the best method for multiple postings.

Post in other cities close by – If you offer a service where some travel is not out of the question, then posting in multiple cities is a must. Many times, the service or product that the user is looking for is not available in their city, they will try search the next city over to determine if they can find what they need there. For example, if your ad is originally posted in Columbus, Ohio, you should also consider posting in Dayton, Cleveland, Columbus, and Wheeling, West Virginia. All of these cities are within 2 hours driving distance and could be well worth the drive for the value that you can provide.

Since there is no cost to post your ad to Craigslist, every business owner should give it a try. If only a handful of clients are gained from the postings, the postings pay for themselves many times over. The postings should become a part of a daily routine that keeps your ads in front of prospects searching on Craigslist.

Craigslist is not the right place to advertise for every business, but for most, it can be a extremely cost effective method for generating qualified leads. In most cities, there is no cost to post an ad, so in my opinion, I think all businesses should post there. Since you control your own listings, it allows you the ability to craft your message exactly how you wanted in order to drive leads while keeping your brand intact.

Here are a couple of tips that should be used to get the most out of Craigslist advertising:

Repost Regularly - The design and layout of Craigslist is not very attractive and will probably not change anytime soon. With the current design, the listings are in simple chronological order meaning that the last business to post will be at the top of the listings. Depending on the city that you are advertising in, you could be on the second page within a few hours. The terms of service for Craigslist state that an ad can be posted every 48 hours. You should post at least this much. You can post more often, but you need to write a unique ad for each post that is less than 48 hours. So if you wanted to post every 12 Hours, you will need to create four ads. Should not take long to create and has the potential for huge benefits.

Be Creative With Your Offer – Just like every other form of advertising, your offer is very important. So take time to create an offer that will get people to respond. Remember that you are competing with many other companies on Craigslists and in many cases the prospect has seen several business listings before they made it to yours. Make an offer that will set you apart. A couple of possible offers are a free consultation, 50% off your first visit, entry in to a raffle for game tickets, t-shirt, etc. You get the idea, but make an offer that you can afford that will entice people to contact you.

Use Catchy Headlines -Which sounds more compelling to you, “Landscaping Service” or “$25 Off Your Landscaping Service?” Depending on your business, you can get much more creative than that, but don’t get so creative that the prospect has no idea what your business does. The goal here is to use a headline that differentiates your listing from the rest and compels a prospect to view your ad. Something simple that states more than your company name or your industry should do.

Include your real e-mail address – Craigslist give you the option of showing a real address or having your mail forwarded using an alias e-mail address that is assigned to your ad. Disguising your e-mail is good for most Craigslist listings, but using a real e-mail address creates trust with your prospects and lets them know you are a real business with a real person on the other end. When there is not a real address, the prospect really has no idea where there e-mail is going and who they should expect a response from. Using a real e-mail address prevents that and sets you apart from your competitors.

Include a phone number – Much like that address, a phone number included in your ad builds trust with your prospect and provides them with a way to contact you rather than just e-mail. Many times, prospects are looking to talk to someone to help them make a decision about what service they want to choose. Give all the options that you have available that makes it easy for them to get in contact with you.

These are just a few of the techniques that should be used when posting ads to Craigslists that will help to set your ads apart and increase the chance of a prospect responding to your ad. Tomorrow, I will publish part 2 of techniques for generating ads on Craigslist.

One of the most difficult challenges in working with clients is the misconception that online marketing is free or the expectation of unrealistic results with minimal budgets. Online marketing can be low cost, but you must consider the product or service that you are offering, how competitive your industry is, and how much new business you need to generate to make online marketing worthwhile. Every business has budget constraints for their marketing efforts, but what online marketing offers that no other medium does is the ability to track your advertising spend to the penny. This allows you to optimize your most effective online marketing techniques and either tweak or discontinue the methods that have not been as effective.

What is the cost and margin on your product or service – If you are selling a product that has a long sales cycle(over 3 months) and requires multiple proposals and customer interactions, it is likely that your product has a higher price tag and likely a decent margin built in. With that considered, you will have a prospect that is comparison shopping as well as not the sole decision maker, therefore it will take a decent investment to reach these prospects and convert them as they are searching for the providers that offer the highest value. Attracting and closing these prospects with a $100 or $500 monthly investment is not likely. A good estimation would be to start at an investment of 40% of the ad costs in an industry magazine to start and optimizing your activities do reduce acquisition costs. After that, you should increase your spend until the point of diminishing returns.

How competitive is your industry – One of the biggest misconceptions is that every business can spend the same amount on online marketing and be successful. This is simply not the case because some industries are much more competitive that others. More precisely, some particular products and services are more competitive which means you could have one service that can generate leads at a lower cost than a more competitive service that you offer. If a lawyer attempted to start online marketing with a budget of $500 per month, my recommendation would be to save your money. Legal advertising is one of the more competitive spaces and not making the proper investment will produce disappointing results. You must make the proper invest to generate the amount of business that you need and to be competitive in your industry.

How much new business do you need to generate -  If you have an annual goal of growing revenue by 10% and that equates to $50,000, do you think an investment of $1,000 will get you there? Probably not. Online marketing needs to be viewed from a return on investment perspective. If you expect to make a return on investment of 30 times your investment, you may be leading yourself down the wrong path. It will vary by industry, but your revenue growth should be estimated as a multiple of your marketing spend and it needs to be realistic. If it is not, you will probably be disappointed.

When expectations and willingness to invest are in the right place, online marketing will be phenomenal for your business, but they must be in the right place. If your expectations are unrealistic then so will the results you receive. If you understand the three criteria that I covered and complete a true assessment of those criteria, then online marketing can truly work well for you.