Facebook & MySpace are GOOD for Youths Development

Posted in: Blog, Social Media by admin on January 31, 2010 | No Comments

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“Though parents often have concerns about letting their teens use social media Web sites like Facebook and MySpace, a new study by University of Virginia psychologists suggests that well-adapted youth with positive friendships will use these sites to further enhance the positive relationships they already have.”

The reason this is so interesting is because I don’t really think it JUST applies to youth. I think it’s safe to say good relationships you have as an adult can be carried over into the social media realm. And, if that’s OK with you, why can you use it to grow your business? Good people hang out with good people and when you give them a good experience, maybe they can be your customer? Isn’t that kinda the whole point of social media done “the right way”?

Check out our Phoenix search engine optimization company or read the original article here.

Your Brain Can’t Handle Your Facebook Friends

Posted in: Blog, Human Psychology, Social Media by admin on January 30, 2010 | No Comments

Mashable.com has an interesting post about Facebook friends and your brain:

Ever heard of Dunbar’s Number? According to British anthropologist Robin Dunbar, it’s the cognitive limit to the number of people you can be friends with. The number is 150, meaning your brain can only handle that many friends, and — shockingly enough — it also applies to Facebook.

When I read about this stuff, it always brings me a back to that Malcom Gladwell book. I think they even borrow some examples from his book as well. Either way, it’s still pretty cool to see Dunbar’s stuff getting applied in a social media situation since that’s all the rage nowadays with internet marketing types.

Of course, you can still use a Fan Page or Group on Facebook to grow your business if you know what you’re doing. Even it you don’t, just create one and invite a few people. It can’t hurt and it’s free. Or, if you want to have someone from our company help you out, check out our Phoenix search engine optimization here.

Local SEO

Posted in: Blog, Social Media by chadConnects on January 5, 2010 | No Comments

Great little article that talks about predications in 2010 on local SEO. I think he’s right on a lot of stuff and this is gonna be one of the biggest in my humble opinion:

Reputation Management Wars
It seems like everybody’s working on a reputation management system to help SMBs get a handle on how they are being presented on relevant sites across the Web. Merchant Circle, Marchex, GetListed, Palore have all either rolled out or announced efforts in this area.  Expect to see big publishers and SMB ad sellers like ReachLocal, Webvisible, Yodle, etc. try to figure out how they can play in this space to create more value for advertisers.

I’m hoping to get an invite to Beehive personally as it looks pretty sweet. It would help me manage all my client campaigns pretty easily. Check me out if you need Phoenix SEO…or any SEO really.

A Facial Expression Is Worth a Thousand Words – Now Use That!

Posted in: Blog, Human Psychology by chadConnects on December 29, 2009 | No Comments

Interpreting this facial expression correctly (as a „baffled” expression) is very difficult based on this photo alone. When showing the corresponding video sequence, however, recognition becomes easy, which underlines the importance of the temporal dimension for effective communication.

Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen, Germany, found out that we are able to recognize facial expressions in motion — for example in a movie — far better than in a static photograph. The video sequence needs to be at least as long as one tenth of a second to gain this dynamic advantage.

Original article here

Bottom line for marketers here is that if you aren’t using video marketing in your marketing strategy, you’re losing out. It doesn’t have to be golden produced video for it to communicate however so don’t go talking yourself out of it before even trying. Get your butt down to the Best Buy and pick up  The Flip Mino HD and you’re good to god. If you suck at improving, write a script out that describes the problem the user is having and then solve it for them. Then, mention you have a product or service that makes it easier.

And most of all, be genuine. Don’t try to be a TV commercial. You’re not. That’s good. USE that. Keep it real.

I do video marketing at my Phoenix SEO Company if you ever want to explore this with your company. We usually do 2-3 min infomerical type stuff with a wide distribution channel of over 100+ sites. It works when done right.

The Psychology Behind Link Giving Explained in Plain English

Posted in: Blog, Human Psychology by chadConnects on December 20, 2009 | No Comments

Broken down; many of our actions are guided by emotions that originally fueled by thoughts brought on by stimuli around us. These actions in turn have results, that often fuel future thoughts, and thus the cycle continues.

Original story here
Really neat piece that mixes SEO with psychology. Very interesting, well thought out points that flow in a nice manner. I wish I could say more but I really recommend you just read the original article. I just wanted to put it here in case other SEOs stumbled across my blog and wanted to learn more about stuff like this.

Learn more about about my Phoenix SEO company by visiting the rest of my site. I use this stuff daily.

You Should Encourage Your Jerk Customers To Complain More?

Posted in: Blog, Business Advice by chadConnects on December 19, 2009 | 1 Comment

Robert East, Professor of Consumer Behaviour at Kingston Business School, said it made financial sense for firms to encourage complaints because it helped them to improve their goods and services and could even lead to increased sales.

His review of the latest trends, called ‘Analysing Customer Complaining’, commissioned by the Institute of Customer Service, found that companies who are adept at monitoring customer satisfaction and are able to put things right can repair the damage, especially as vocal critics are often keen to make positive comments too.

See original story here

Well, this guy has a point. Often, people don’t speak up when they’re happy or just slightly unhappy. It’s always the people with hot tempers who start running their mouths and it’s sometimes hard to take them seriously with all that yelling.

The part about them using negative word of mouth and coverting them to positive word of mouth customers is an awesome idea. Yeah, hearing customer complaints and taking them to the bank is obvious. But getting them to turn the corner and be your evangelists of sorts is a GREAT idea.

Check out his 3 point checklist on how to do this right.

Phoenix SEO is what I do in case you’re interested. Seo is about so much more than search engine optimization when applied to a business. Just as this is a strategy, so it SEO. Choose wisely and win.

Researchers Find Formula for Selling ‘but-It’s-Good-for-You’ Products

Posted in: Blog, Human Psychology by chadConnects on December 18, 2009 | 1 Comment

providing consumers with a very small or even trivial immediate benefit encourages people to use products that may have more significant long-term advantages. Her research may offer the key to getting kids to wear their seatbelts and encourage adults to use sunscreen.

Using the technique in field experiments on about 300 people, the researchers were able to get more subjects to use so-called “virtue products” like dental floss and sunscreen on a daily basis.

Dr. Ein-Gar says that if companies, health authorities and parents offer an immediate benefit, no matter how small, that may have a long-term advantage and lead to more success in continued use. It shouldn’t be that expensive either: in one test case, the facial sunscreen lotion, a 3% increase in manufacturing cost led to a more than 30% increase in average daily use.

Original article here

“Virtue products” ARE hard to sell. I don’t know this scientifically BUT I’d be willing to bet this has a lot to do with that chemical that humans secrete in their heads when they’re buying stuff. And, the drain of that chemical soon thereafter that can sometime lead to buyer’s remorse. Sticking a little immediate benefit-laden gifty gift in here obviously works. If it does and can bring your bottom line up, all the better. What can you do to capitalize in this knowledge and your business?

Need SEO? Phoenix area or otherwise, I can help.

Pleasure vs Pain: We can trick ourselves into more favorable evaluations of certain products and behaviors

Posted in: Blog, Human Psychology by chadConnects on December 17, 2009 | No Comments

Original article here

“Our natural inclination is to avoid — or try to avoid — anything immediately aversive even though it may be beneficial for us in the long term,” write authors Aparna A. Labroo (University of Chicago) and Jesper Nielsen (University of Arizona). “But to what extent might our natural avoidance of such activities and outcomes be reinforcing our dislike of things that are good for us but difficult to stomach?”

Approaching pleasure and avoiding pain are fundamental human behaviors, but the authors argue that people also subconsciously reverse this relationship: “We tend to infer that something is good based on the bodily sensation of approaching it or bad based on the sensation of avoiding it.”

Pretty cool information from this study. We’re always taught in marketing pleasure vs pain and that pain is always more of a hot button (in general). Driving your customer to either is more useful than to leave them sitting on the fence however. What can be really useful for you is to really pay attention to your business with regard to this and see if you can sculpt that experience in their favor…and ultimately yours. How *do* people feel when they approach your product or service? That answer plus actionable information could grow your business.

If you’d like more business through search engine traffic, feel free to check out my Phoenix SEO company. Dialing in this process combined with good search engine rankings is sure to grow your business.

Facebook Profiles Capture True Personality, According to New Psychology Research

Posted in: Blog, Human Psychology, Social Media by chadConnects on December 5, 2009 | No Comments

Online social networks such as Facebook are being used to express and communicate real personality, instead of an idealized virtual identity, according to new research from psychologist Sam Gosling at The University of Texas at Austin.

“I was surprised by the findings because the widely held assumption is that people are using their profiles to promote an enhanced impression of themselves,” says Gosling of the more than 700 million people worldwide who have online profiles. “In fact, our findings suggest that online social networking profiles convey rather accurate images of the profile owners, either because people aren’t trying to look good or because they are trying and failing to pull it off.

Original story here

Stands to reason in my opinion. Most people aren’t there to disguise themselves and live out a fantasy life or anything. They just want to connect with people. It’s that simple.

If they wanted to ‘be someone else’, they just join internet properties where that’s the whole idea eg World of Warcraft, Second Life, etc.

The internet just enables people to do something simly “human” and that it to *connect*.

Do that with your prospects and they become customers. Do that with you customers and they become fans. Fans rave about you and bring more people like them to you. Basic math.

Learn more about connecting with your market or getting with prospects when they’re searching for you with my Phoenix SEO company.

Male and female shopping styles are in our genes -evolution says so

Posted in: Blog, Human Psychology by chadConnects on December 3, 2009 | No Comments

From an evolutionary perspective, it all harkens back to the skills that women used for gathering plant foods and the skills that men used for hunting meat. The contrast emerges because of the different foraging strategies for hunting and gathering used throughout human evolution.

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Sex-specific strategies can be seen in the modern consumer environment

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Kruger said that gathering edible plants and fungi is traditionally done by women. In modern terms, think of filling a basket by selecting one item at a time.

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In modern terms, women are much more likely than men to know when a specific type of item will go on sale. Women also spend much more time choosing the perfect fabric, color and texture.

Men, on the other hand, often have a specific item in mind and want to get in, get it and get out, Kruger said. It’s critical to get meat home as quickly as possible. Taking young children isn’t safe in a hunt and would likely hinder progress.

See original article here (Male and Female Shopping Strategies Show Evolution at Work in the Mall)

Interesting to see what this study says. I wonder how it applies to online marketing however? It seems a lot of guys I know are nerds and they enjoy knowing all the little things and details about this, that, & the other. -kinda like the gatherers in the store above. They frequent places like teefury.com and technorati. I wonder if there are women who do this type of stuff online too? My wife doesn’t. lol….

Learn more about Phoenix SEO here.