Marketing ..Seth Godin Invites 70 critical thinkers!

It's a small but very powerful read. It challenges the norm and provokes some soul searching.
Marketing, Social Media, Blogging...where will you fit in and why?

http://www.scribd.com/doc/23711234/What-Matters-

Saludos
Jerry/CMT

Google’s Matt Cutts being social

Some things we already know but getting back to basics is a best practice. There is logic behind how all our online activity is documented so be mindful of what your putting out there and why.

Enjoy the video, I watched it several times……Matt lost a bet and that's why his head is shaved…..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlpTjP6h6Ms (Video…Safe to Open)

 

Saludos|Jerry/CMT

Marketing Predictions 2010

It's that time of year when many are freely giving their advise about the latest and greatest. I track daily throughout the entire year trends, ideas, technologies, gossip, business ideas and concepts. By doing this I can begin to see recurring themes that apply to our business and our lives.

Fast Company delivers forward thinking articles by contributors that are on the leading edge of their respective industries. Here is a link to their 2010 Marketing Predictions:
http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/david-lavenda/whatever-it-takes/10-marketing-predictions-2010?partner=leadership_newsletter


We all can learn and I welcome your thoughts and comments! CMT, the right tools for 21th century smart growth. Branding, Marketing and Creative Design.

Saludos:
Jerry/CMT

Press Releases Get the Word Out

How Press Releases Can Be Great For Search


Press releases are not only great ways to spread the word about any announcements your business might have. They can also drive traffic, particularly from search engines. This is not news, but it's a commonly overlooked fact.

"Search engine rankings are arguably the most important small business marketing tool available today because it drives Web traffic -- and potential prospects -- to a small business. "However, because improving search rankings is desirable, achieving results can be both challenging and highly competitive."

Back in the summer, PRWeb shared a case study, involving a firm that typically sees a boost in search engine rankings and a 50% spike in web traffic after they issue a release. In fact, for one release in particular, the firm saw a spike of 400% on two different Web sites, and the firm doesn't believe they were from the same users. They also incorporate social media tools like Twitter to extend the "shelf life" of press releases, and say that drives additional traffic.

"When we included a link to our press releases on Twitter and other social media networks, we saw these both expanded the scope of distribution and the extended the longevity of the announcement," the CEO of the company behind the case study had said.  "With other news releases we saw an initial spike in Web site traffic on the first two days and then it dropped off.  With these features we've seen increases in traffic up to five days after the news release was issued."

In a study from Arketi Group, also back in the summer, journalists were found to use the web in the following ways:

- 95% search
- 92% reading news
- 92% emailing
- 89% finding story ideas
- 87% finding news sources
- 75% reading blogs
- 64% watching webinars
- 61% watching YouTube
- 59% social networks

You've got to wonder if that social networks number has gone up by now. My guess is that it has, and social media has since become all the more important to search, particularly with the inclusion of real-time search results in Google and Google's social search experiment (which may eventually move beyond experiment status).

 You can use outbound links in press releases, and perhaps more importantly, you're out there where the journalists are looking.


Here are some press release distribution sites (some are paid and some are free):

- Business Wire
- PR Newswire
- PRWeb
- 24-7 Press Release
- PR Zoom
- PR Leap
- I-Newswire
- Webwire
- ClickPress
- PR.com
- PR Log
Beyond the distribution sites, don't forget to include your releases on your own site. Journalists like being able to find the most up to date information from the source itself.  Earlier this year I discussed how some companies' own press centers are holding back some marketing opportunities for them. Your site should have a section for press releases, and that should be up to date with the latest release when it goes out. You'd be surprised at how often these go without being updated even when a press release has been spotted elsewhere. It is also a good idea to link to any company blogs, Twitter accounts, or any other place where company announcements are made.

Multiple touch points building your brand online and offline. CMT this is what we believe and this is why we believe that building brand presence with creativity is always SMART!

Saludos:
Jerry/CMT

The Google Gods Have Spoken

I think providing, sharing and ultimatley exchanging ideas that benefit the business community is all very good.
Think about the growth of Google and their importance in our daily lives and certainly our in our business's. Almost everyday Google has or is developing or refining  new applications. well... enough....

CMT has been "glorified" by Google by being a "Favortite Place on Google" from July 1 to September 30. How and why is this so important basically becuase Google is the major player in search, last I looked about 75% that our analytics are in place and working and our optimization processes are right.

These are processes that evolve never can you sit on what was accomplished rather focus on what needs to be accomplished!

Here's the link just follow the instructions:
http://www.google.com/local/add/businessCenter


Enjoy the Holidays:
Saludos
Jerry/CMT

SEO for Multilingual Marketing

English may be the so-called lingua franca of the World Wide Web, but consider this: three-quarters of the world’s population speaks no English whatsoever. Online, over 460 million internet users communicate in English. Yet there are over 1.5 billion internet users across the globe, which means that over a billion web users claim a language other than English as their native tongue. That’s a lot of people. The Web is a linguistic labyrinth and the need for businesses to talk to customers in their own language can’t be overstated.

There's a cacophony of cultural complexities that must be considered before localizing a web site’s content for international markets. With this in mind, businesses that want to go global need to think local.

World Languages
There are over 6,000 languages spoken across the globe. However, many of these are spoken only in small pockets in localized regions. Indeed, 96% of the world’s languages are spoken by only 4% of the world’s population, while 90% lack any real representation on the Internet.

So, from an online marketer’s perspective, there’s no need to have a web site anywhere near 6,000 languages.

However, if we look at the European Union (EU) alone, there are 23 official languages spoken in the 27 member states. English is the most widely spoken, with over half the EU population speaking it to some degree. From a native-speaking perspective, almost a fifth of Europeans claim German as their mother tongue. English, Italian, and French have roughly the same amount of native speakers as each other, followed closely by Spanish.


Globally, Asia accounts for over 40% of the world’s internet users, while China has 30% more internet users than the US. Research has also shown that over half of all consumers only buy from web sites in their own language.

Distinctive Dialects
When targeting international markets online, it’s important to be wary of the differences within languages too, that is, dialects. The contrast between, say, French and German is fairly obvious, even to those who speak neither language. But the distinction between the French language spoken in France, and the French in Canada, or across Switzerland and Belgium is less obvious. There are, however, some key differences.

For example, Canadian French (Québécois) tends to literally translate English terms into French, rather than importing English terms directly as Anglicisms. So the word “weekend,” for example, is fin de semaine (which translates literally as “end of the week”). But in standard French, the word is simply le weekend.

There are many examples in French-speaking Europe that demonstrate some of the nuances between dialects. “Some differences across French dialects”.

The same applies to other language dialects. Take Spanish, for example. In Spain, the word carro is a cart that you push or pull to transport items; in Latin America, it’s a car to drive around in. Alternatively, a car in Spain is called a coche, while a coche in Latin America is a baby stroller.

Besides English, the main European languages on the Internet are German, French, Spanish, and Portuguese, although the latter two are boosted considerably due to their proliferation in the Americas.

Although English is the leading language of the Web from a content perspective, over half of all Google searches are in other languages. This figure looks set to grow, with the Internet population of emerging markets such as Russia and China increasing faster than in Western markets. “Top 10 languages spoken by global internet users” shows the distribution of the top 10 languages spoken by internet users around the world.


SEO, Localization, and the Web
Online marketing is one of the most potent tools available to modern business. It connects companies to customers and helps build mutually beneficial business relationships between the buyers and sellers of the world.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a pivotal part of many businesses’ online marketing strategies. A study by the European Interactive Advertising Association (EIAA) indicated that two-thirds of marketers in Europe were increasing their SEO resources this year. Moreover, 94% of European marketers plan to increase their total internet advertising spend in 2010.

However, domestic markets are just one part of the equation. Launching fully localized and optimized foreign language web sites are another problem altogether. It goes without saying that you should always use professional translators when converting your English text for international markets, but it’s important that you refrain from translating your keywords from English. And here’s why: a correct dictionary translation of a keyword may be substantially different from what people use to search for products or services online. They may use colloquialisms, abbreviations, or a different word altogether that has a similar meaning. So, in the same way as you would identify your industry-specific keywords to optimize your English language web site, you have to research the terms that people use to search in the foreign market you’re targeting.


To help demonstrate this, consider the following situation. A company that sells car insurance to the English-speaking market dedicates a considerable amount of resources towards ensuring it ranks highly on Google for the search term “car insurance.” It then decides to make inroads into French markets.

An accurate translation of “car insurance” into French would be l’assurance automobile. However, Google’s French keyword tool indicates this term achieves very few hits. Instead, people tend to use assurance auto or assurance voiture. As you can see, a major SEO travesty can be avoided by carrying out just a little research.

In some markets, it may be possible to use the English keywords on a foreign language web site. In Germany, for example, English phrases are often used, particularly with web-based terminology. So a web design company that ranks highly in the UK or Australia for the term “web design” could incorporate it directly into its German-language web site.

Foreign Language Search Engine Rankings
It’s worth being aware that keyword saturation on non-English language web sites is nowhere near what it is on English language web sites. So it’s quite possible for your business to attain lucratively high positions for key search terms on non-English search engines quicker than those of your native tongue. Taking our previous example, a car insurance company requires fewer resources to optimize its French web site for assurance auto on google.fr, than it does for “car insurance” on the US, UK, or Australian Google.

Summary
A multilingual marketing strategy should be the cornerstone of any international initiative. Businesses of all sizes can go global with nothing more than a web site, a networked computer, and a bundle of entrepreneurial savvy. But to do so, it’s vital to think local. Using inappropriate style, grammar, tone, and terminology can hamper progress in new markets, hence why localization is a key underpinning facet of any global strategy.

Search engine optimization is central to web site localization and any organization that fails to localize its web site properly is missing a trick.

As the world turns and gets closer and closer....think about where you can brand and design your message and who will listen where? CMT multi-cultural, multi- dimensional marketing across important markets.

Saludos:
Jerry/CMT

Choosing the best Browser for your business

Choosing a web browser

At this point in time there are several great browsers to choose from. At one time it seemed Internet Explorer was set to rule alone. Firefox changed that. And Now Chrome is gaining popularity. And there are others, most notably Safari and Opera. So how do you choose the browser that is right for you?

What is a browser

The overwhelming majority of computer users are unaware of what a browser is.


All of the people out there who don’t know what a browser is and what the right browser could do for you, stick with the browser that came with their computer: Internet Explorer for Windows PCs and Safari for Macs.

Others would perhaps like to change their browser but don’t know how. Here’s what you need to know about changing your browser:


It’s free and easy

All major web browsers are free. So once you have made your choice, all you have to do is download the browser and install it. This is as easy as clicking on a button and following some simple instructions.

Downloading any of the browsers in this article is safe and quick. In fact, it’s so easy I have five browsers installed on my computer.

The first time you run your new browser, it will ask if you want to use it as your default browser. Click Yes and start surfing with the browser of your choice.

Why change browser

The World’s most popular web browser, Internet Explorer (IE), used to have lots of security problems. Many people changed browser for that reason. Now IE is as safe as any other browser, but it insists on all kinds of security alerts that can be confusing and impede browsing. Some people change browser because of this.

Speed is another reason to change browser. IE is consistently the slowest browser. This is why many people changed to Firefox when it first became available.

Now, Firefox is becoming a more advanced and consequently slower. This is why I am considering choosing another browser: Chrome, Safari or Opera.

Some browsers have a quite advanced functionality (Firefox and Opera). People who spend a lot of time online and solve complicated tasks on the web tend to go for one of these. Firefox also offers a lot of third party add-ons. These are little programs that live in the browser and let you do things like block ads, grab screen shots or do advanced web searches. A lot of people choose Firefox because of the way add-ons let them customize their browser.

Internet Explorer

The numbers vary, but it seems IE has around 50% of the browser market. What are the reasons to choose Internet Explorer?

IE now offers some ways to customize your browser. The new IE8 is faster and safer than ever.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/tour/default.aspx

Firefox

Firefox is the second most popular browser, mainly because it’s safe, fast and easy to use. It is the most customizable browser, which is a bonus for every individualist online.

Lately we have noticed that Firefox tend to take up a lot of CPU resources, especially on the Mac. It may actually slow down the computer significantly if you open several tabs at once.
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/

Safari

Safari is an Apple product, but comes in versions for both PC and Mac. It is a very fast browser, which is easy to use and looks good. Cover Flow offers a visual way of reviewing your site history and bookmarked sites, presenting full-page previews of the websites that look exactly as they did when you last visited them.
http://www.apple.com/safari/download/


Chrome

Chrome is a new browser and it is not yet available for the Mac.

Chrome is made by Google and shares the uncluttered, minimalistic design of many Google products. Yet it has some powerful and innovative features like powerful tab navigation: Pull a tab out into its own window and pop a tab into another window by clicking and dragging the tab out to the top of the new window. And it’s fast....Yes it is!
Chrome is also very stable. If one tab or window crashes, it will not take down the whole browser.
http://www.google.com/chrome/

Opera

Opera, the smallest of the “large” browsers is developed in Norway. It has always been an innovative browser packed with features.

The latest version introduces tools for in-browser sharing of photos, music and other files. It also has a way to compress Web pages, boosting your browsing speed on crowded Wi-Fi hotspots, mobile phones or dial-up connections.

Power users will appreciate the possibility of using keyboard shortcuts and mouse gestures to speed up browsing.
http://www.opera.com/


Browsers and search

All browsers have their own search forms embedded in the browser window, and all of them lets you change the default search engine to the one of your choice.

In Chrome you just enter your search query in the URL field. This is also possible in Firefox, Opera and Explorer.

Firefox, Explorer and Opera has pull down menus beside the search field, letting you add a lot of search engines to the browser. In this way you do not have to visit the search engine home page to do a search. Google Chrome automatically saves a list of the search engines you’ve encountered while browsing the Web.

Share and Enjoy:
Saludos:
Jerry/CMT

An Opportunity for your business

I came across this as I was reading some other related "stuff" thought it could be of interest to you and your business? I have not read all the fine print but since they say they will review and contact you let's see what develops?

http://mashable.com/bizspark/

Saludos:
Jerry/CMT

Information & technology, Personal effectiveness, Productivity

Information Overload..You Think?...


At a presentation this week on decision-making, and someone in the audience asked me if I thought information overload was an impediment to effective decision-making. "Information overload...yes, I remember that concept. But no one cares about it anymore," I replied. In fact, nobody ever did.

But why not? We've been reading articles in the press about information overload being the bane of productivity for almost twenty years. (Here's a link to a fairly recent article in Harvard Business Review on the topic called "Death by Information Overload" and a related blog.) And there is no doubt that the information load has only increased — day after day, year after year. Spam filters have helped a bit, but we all still get a lot of stuff we don't want. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, text messages, email ads — everything we do only adds to the pile.

So if information overload is such a problem, why don't we do something about it? We could if we wanted to. How many of us bother to tune our spam filters? How many of us turn off the little evanescent window in Outlook that tells us we have a new email? Who signs off of social media because there's just too much junk? Who turns off their BlackBerry or iPhone in meetings to ensure no distractions? Nobody, that's who — or very few souls anyway.

Why? First, there is the everlasting hope of something new and exciting. Our work and home lives can be pretty boring, and we're always hoping that something will come across the ether that will liven things up. If I turn up the filtering on the spam filter or turn off the smartphone, I might miss out on an email promising a new job, a text message offering a new relationship, an RSS feed with a new news item, and so forth. Every new communication offers the frisson of a possible life-changing information event, though it seldom delivers on the promise.

Second, there's a lot of informational inertia. When was the last time you sat down to redefine the structure of your email folders or readjust your RSS feed portfolio? Whatever our information environment is today, it will likely be the same next month or next year. That's why companies like it when we sign up for ongoing email broadcasts — we are unlikely to take the time to unsubscribe.

The third reason, which is related to the second, is that we undervalue our own attention. We open junk mail, we watch junk television, we read junk email. It would take investment of attention to save our attention, and most people just aren't willing to invest.

So the next time you hear someone talking or read someone writing about information overload, save your own attention and tune that person out. Nobody's ever going to do anything about this so-called problem, so don't overload your own brain by wrestling with the issue.


What do you think?
Saludos
Jerry/CMT

Predictions for 2010

Mike from the Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, http://www.toiletpaperentrepreneur.com/home/index.php
has succeeded in building a very profitable business and he invites many fellow entrepreneurs along. We are featured bloggers but more importantly its a vibrant community where you can get a sense of how things are going. The link is below we're like #38...
http://www.toiletpaperentrepreneur.com/blog/entrepreneur-predictions-for-2010


Enjoy and as always!
Saludos
Jerry/CMT

Google's Matt Cutts speaks about the future of search- We Listen!

http://videos.sitepronews.com/video/691/Matt-Cutts-on-the-Future-of-Search

When Google itself comes out with predictions for where search is headed, things get even more interesting. This is obviously because Google is such a huge and critical part of the search landscape. Google's Matt Cutts discussed some of his own predictions for search.

One thing Matt stressed is that Google is always looking for new types of data to search. He gave examples of searching email with Gmail, books with Google Book Search, and patents with Google Patent search. He predicts Google will continue this trend and find more data sources to provide search functionality for.


Put your seat belt on, this is going to be a wild and interesting ride. Join us and as always we welcome your thoughts!


Saludos:
Jerry/CMT

Social Initiatives: B2B vs. B2C

The Internet marketing world is a "moving target" its a great study in our modern society but one thing we must remember "we're all still human", I think? Enjoy your weekend hope your week was challenging and you did things that you believe in! We have graphs and charts with supporting evidence if your interested in those please let me know and I 'll send them to you.


B2B's  less experienced but more active:

Both business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) companies are rapidly adopting social media, unable to ignore a major destination of Internet users. According to research from Business.com, however, the two types of firms have different social site usage patterns for business purposes.

The “2009 B2B Social Media Benchmarking Study” found that those B2B companies already using social media were much more active in the space than their B2C counterparts, especially when it came to microblogging, participating in discussions on third-party sites, blogging and monitoring company mentions on various social media. B2Cs were ahead in a few areas: social media advertising, user ratings and reviews, and online communities for customers and prospects.


Not only were B2B firms more likely overall to maintain a social network profile, they were managing profiles across more social sites and were significantly more likely to be present on Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. B2C companies won the day at Facebook and MySpace.


B2B social media users were more active in measuring most social success metrics as well. Although B2C companies were slightly more likely than B2B firms to use revenues to gauge their efforts, more B2Bs were looking at Web traffic, brand awareness, and prospect lead quality and volume. Web traffic was the top metric for both types of company, however.

Six in 10 B2B respondents used Twitter search to monitor mentions of their company or brand, compared with just 35% of B2Cs. The difference in usage of Google Alerts was slightly smaller, at 59% of B2Bs versus 40% of B2Cs. Consumer-oriented firms were most likely to keep tabs on mentions via Google search, at 61%, just edging out B2B companies, 60% of which googled themselves for this purpose.


Saludos:
Jerry/CMT

Make it Right For The Customer

 Some insights from fellow designers, marketers and business people on their ideas on what they do when things  go wrong with a client. The link is from marvelous Mike, The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, CMT is #36.........

The best part of this is watching how the community grows, think how we can apply this to your business?
CMT has several programs designed specifically to brand, attract and grow a social community for your business.

Saludos:
Jerry/CMT