It was a great excuse to do a little impromptu analysis. We may do a brief series of these.

Hall Piano Company Local Search Analysis using Matt McGee's 7 Questions Businesses should be asking.

Steven Kinchen Read the article… How does HPC stack up?

Will Scott

Pretty darn good, I’d say.

By @mattmcgee‘s standards you’re pretty well covered

1. How do the search results look for my company name?

- http://www.google.com/search?q=hall+piano – you have the top 1/2 of the page with no negatives.

2. Have I put all my marketing eggs in one basket?

- Definitely not. You do TV / Radio, print, PR and Web / Social thanks to Dee Clubb

3. Have I claimed my local business listings?

- If not, they’re in progress (I know Bing is in the works):

- http://maps.google.com/places/us/la/metairie/david-dr/901/-hall-piano-company?gl=us
- http://local.yahoo.com/info-18122605-hall-piano-company-metairie
- http://www.bing.com/local/details.aspx?lid=YN365x6567331
- and more, of course

4. How do my reviews look on Google Maps? Yahoo? Bing? Yelp?

- We could always use more reviews but those we have are looking great.

5. Am I using social media wisely?

- I would say yes. And in your case that means using it conservatively. You’ve got great presence on Video and are developing on Facebook. You’ve got a nice twitter following. There’s always room for more but, yes, wisely for sure.

6. Am I focusing on metrics that matter?

- Definitely – Brand + Conversions are where one with a product so niche as yours needs to be.

7. Am I earning trust with everything I do online?

- For sure. Online, you and your team represent @hallpiano with the class and professionalism due your product and customers.

http://www.facebook.com/HallPiano
http://twitter.com/hallpiano
http://www.hallpiano.com/

Over the next 2 weeks, leading up to SMX Advanced, we will be polling businesses using Foursquares promotions tools to get the word out about their businesses.

If you are one of the advertisers we’ve contacted, please be assured we are very interested in your feedback and are excited to share the data we compile.

Foursquare is an exciting new media type bringing together local search, couponing and loyalty / retention programs around a game -based location-centric service.

Our partners in this project are:

Dream Systems Media

Dream Systems Media, “DSM”, is a trend setting, full service Internet marketing firm, with locations in Utah and Arizona, and was born when three successful Internet business entrepreneurs decided to join forces to do for others what they had previously done only for themselves.

rYnoweb

rYnoweb provides business website services, specializing in WordPress
development and implementation, local search marketing, and on-site
search engine optimization (SEO). rYnoweb serves clients nationwide
and is run by freelance Web Strategist, Chuck Reynolds out of Phoenix,
Arizona.

Read about: Local Search Marketing using Foursquare

Sterling Market Intelligence

Greg Sterling is the founding principal of Sterling Market Intelligence, a consulting and research firm focused on the Internet’s influence on offline consumer purchase behavior. He also is a Senior Analyst for Internet2Go, an advisory service from Opus Research tracking the evolution of the mobile Internet.

http://screenwerk.com/

—

We were surprised to learn, in our investigation, how few in our industry were aware of this great free (for now) advertising medium.

We’re excited to begin collecting data so we may learn better how effectively this medium is being used.

Once done, we will be publishing these data on the rYnoweb blog and presenting our findings at SMX Advanced (sure to be the must see session of the show).

Some related posts from the Search Influence Blog:

• Local Business Marketing on Foursquare
• Buying Yelp Reviews Is Bad for Business

If this statement appealed to you, you want to read what I have to say. If you read this statement and wondering what’s Twitter, stop reading right now. I’m serious - Go! This post isn’t for you. This post if for the Twitter marketing elite – the Twitterati.

This post will reveal the TRUTH about buying Twitter followers. The TRUTH is…

Surgeon General Warns, 'Tweeting is Highly Addictive'

it’s a waste of money for social media marketers to buy Twitter followers.

“Followers” Ain’t Nothing But A Number

Twitter should be about organic growth. At face value, buying followers seems like a good idea – more people seeing your promotion, more potential leads. However when you are buying sexy Russian spambots, you won’t achieve this effect. Purchased followers just don’t care about whatever you are trying to peddle to them in 140 characters or less. At the end of the day, you are just buying a large number. I guess if you are a size queen and the size of your number is something you like bragging about – fine. Give your money away to some anonymous Eastern European but just don’t expect sales or even @ replies. I’d rather have 100 followers who are retweeting and replying than 10,000 who are just ignoring me. Seriously who pays to be ignored by their followers?

No Ring, No Engagement

Any competent social media marketer knows that Twitter is about engaging the users who are invested in your brand. It’s important because instead of being numerically obsessed, you can focus on strengthening your bonds with existing followers. The more actively engaged you are to these followers, the more aware they will be to your tweets.  It surprises me that so many people think they can just tweet into the Twitter-verse and get replies and new followers. If you want engaged followers, you need engage them, not buy them.

Here’s my formula for Twitter Engagement:

1. Tweet
2. Search
3. Reply
4. Add Follower
5. Retweet
6. Repeat

They may not know you anymore than they do the chairman at General Mill’s but now that you are conversing with them, your brand has a voice and voices are best heard when actual people are listening – sorry sexy Russian spambots you just never listen to me .

Fail Whale Snags Some Follwers

Love The Ones You Tweet

Brand aware followers are easiest to convert. They are the followers who visit your site once or twice a month, opted into your Twitter feed, and want to know what you have to offer them.  These Twitter followers will throw their money at you with the right tweet – they want the pitch! For most online businesses, these followers are return business and range from anywhere from 60 – 90% of your annual business. These are the people you want following and replying to your tweets.

If you are struggling to get more followers on Twitter for your brand don’t waste marketing funds on buying followers. They won’t convert into new leads. Sure you’ll get a few people who visit your links, or even reply, but for the cost, you are better off investing in a pay-per-click campaign or better optimizing your pages for organic search. You just can’t buy love, especially on Twitter.

How could I write an entry on Twitter and not plug New Orleans’ search marketing sweetheart? Follow Search Influence‘s Owner Will Scott on Twitter. #selfpromotion

Shout out to carrotcreative, mfilej, and Shovelling Son for the imagery – this post would not have been nearly as entertaining without it.

This is my second year talking to the Senior Movers and they’re a great, very appreciative crowd. This year, I spent about 3 hours after the presentation doing review / recommendation sessions with attendees and it was FANTASTIC!

Because these files are so big I decided to post them here. They’re referenced from Google Docs, which I like better than SlideShare given SlideShare shows other, competitive stuff next to your slides.

NASMM-Website Promotion Basics

Social Media – What’s in it for YOU?

I’ll update with more detail later.

I’d love feedback on these presentations and if you attended NASMM Las Vegas 2010, I’d love to hear your impressions.