Social Media: Rules of Engagement

On August 27, 2010, in Basic: 101, delegator, social media, by Heather

While many businesses today have begun to embrace social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, many have yet to realize how they can best use these resources.  The primary focus of any social media campaign should not be sales-driven.  That’s right – I’m suggesting businesses focus first on engaging their audience or customer.


Listen to Your Audience

Engaging with your audience requires that you listen first to what they have to say.  Do you really know who your audience is?  Social media exposure, by its nature, can be broad and dynamic, with a bit of a “Six degrees from Kevin Bacon” element that can get you noticed in ways you never expected.  In any social media campaign you should focus on two groups of people:

1.  Your customers or potential customers – These are the people you already know well.  They buy products from you and use the services you’re offering.

2.  Influential players – A person in this group may never buy your product or personally use your service, but they can be a major player in placing your content and your brand in front of a large number of people that could fit into group #1.

To properly engage these two groups, all of your content needs to be focused toward them.

Engage Them

Now that you know whom you should be engaging with, it’s time to discuss how to engage your audience.  It’s important to have a conversation, and save the sales pitch for another day.  Your goal should be to develop personal connections and a dialog with your audience.  Interaction is key.

  • Ask open-ended questions that encourage comments and responses.
  • Respond to all comments promptly.
  • Monitor and moderate your social media accounts frequently.
  • Add creative content constantly.

Social Media

Listening to and engaging your customer sounds simple, and in some ways it is.  But getting all of this done takes time, attention and, often, creativity.  Here at Delegator, we help our social media clients get it done– from setting up to managing social media marketing plans.  Whether you have an existing plan, or you’re new to the social media game, Delegator can help.


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Selling out of Both Sides of Your Mouth: Consumers and Search Engines

On August 20, 2010, in Basic: 101, Content Writing, SEO, by Wes

“Create content primarily for your users, not search engines”

-Google’s SEO Starter Guide

Too often in recent years, SEO writing has been focused exclusively on search engines and search engines alone. People have tried strange tricks like pasting lists of keywords in white text on white background, hiding content, and even writing incoherent keyword-stuffed gibberish to get picked up by search engines.

In the end, it never works, for two reasons:

1) Google is smarter than you are.
2) Search engines aren’t the only ones reading your stuff; it has to be written for humans too.

Users and Search Engines

The biggest secret in the SEO world is that you have to write for users. It’s great to get on the first page of Google searches that feature your keywords, but if your site doesn’t drive clicks and conversions through relevant, accurate content, you might as well still be on the third page.

The best SEO writing is the kind where users never guess they’re reading something that’s been optimized. Where they never realize a certain word is coming up an awful lot – something like 3% of the time!

Google’s own documents make it clear that unique, creative, focused content is more important to their search engine than any other factor. Delegator is all about servicing both of your needs; the need to be creative, unique and useful, and the need to get ranked, get clicked on, and get paid.
Our precision SEO work makes us a great option for getting your website where it needs to be, but it’s our clear, effective content that really sets us apart. Read more about our content writing services.


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Why AdWords? A Defense of Google’s Advertising Platform

On August 10, 2010, in Basic: 101, Google AdWords, by Jake

“50% of our advertising works, we just don’t know which 50%”
-David Ogilvy

As a PPC specialist and Google AdWords Professional, part of my job is to manage client accounts and generate revenue for them. An equally important part of my job, however, is to convince prospective PPC advertisers to become PPC advertisers (yes, this is in the hope that they will eventually decide to allow Delegator to manage their account).

Why should a business advertise on Google AdWords? To experienced search analysts and marketers, the answer may seem obvious, but to business owners in this economy, the value is not always so clear. There is a general lack of information about AdWords coupled with some harmful misinformation that leads to feelings of apathy or skepticism towards Google. So in my introductory post to this blog, I have taken it upon myself to sell the nonbelievers and the uninformed on AdWords.

Advertisers may vary widely by industry, budget, size, and business model, but one thing holds true: They will always want the most bang for their buck.

A car dealership wants to pay less for more leads. A plumber wants to pay less for more phone calls. A shoe store wants to pay less for more (and larger) sales. Advertising is about the bottom line, and this is where Google AdWords sets itself apart from other media. No other platform can provide the wide audience,  the relevance, or the ability to measure ROI (ROAS, see below) that Google does. Think of the opening quote of this post, from an advertising exec frustrated by the inability to measure his ads’ results.

Want to scale your business? The Google Network reaches 86% of all internet users worldwide. Target your brand to an area as large as the entire world or as small as a local ten-mile radius.

Worried about relevance? Search engines have often been called “the databases of intentions.” 91% of internet users use them to find information on a topic. When they search something related to your industry, they will find your competitors.  The only question is whether they will find you as well.

Concerned about where your money is going? Get regular reports from AdWords and Google Analytics that segment data to show your overall ROAS (return on ad spend). The information available in AdWords and Analytics makes an advertiser’s job that much easier. If you’ve spent $500 bidding on a keyword with no results, simply cut it out with one click. Analytics will give you final answers to those questions you always had when advertising in print, radio, or TV.

Your Ad Here

Your Ad Here

I’ll be writing regularly in the coming weeks and months about AdWords, and more generally, pay-per-click advertising. AdWords is, after all, my business, and what kind of an advertiser am I if I can’t write persuasively about it? The truth is there are a lot of businesses who could benefit from AdWords that do not currently use it, and I hope to reach at least some of that audience with my posts.

If you can’t wait for more information, Google has a wealth of resources that will tell you more. You can also get a free consultation on your current account and its performance by leaving a little info with the blog. Otherwise, stay tuned. I look forward to sharing my AdWords knowledge and opinions with you.


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Delegator: Born of Business Necessity.

On August 4, 2010, in delegator, by Stephen

Delegator was born of necessity– for a growing business, and for the busy people who worked there.

Delegator’s founders are hard-working people, with unusually high standards, and the proverbial challenge of “so much to do, so little time.”

Delegator is their solution.

The story begins with another company we started, Smart Furniture, Inc, which, like many growing companies, had more on its monthly to-do lists than it could get to. The lists included projects all over the map, including high priority items that demanded careful, competent, and accountable work– a rare combination. Projects included web design, search engine optimization (SEO), web analytics, graphic design, A/B testing, web marketing (PPC) management, corporate platform/ERP selection and implementation, independent product reviews, skilled (and literate) content writing, all the way down to things like scanning/OCR and transcription, not to mention the personal to-do lists everybody was neglecting….

Like most companies, Smart Furniture had no excess budget for additional staff to handle these things.  Nor could it pay for costly (and often long-term) specialized agency work, or for the purgatorial disappointment of typical temp services. Smart Furniture’s time was scarce, and their standards seemed too high to outsource any of it, particularly within a tight budget. So these things got tabled, month after month.

To fix the problem, which we realized was not unique to Smart Furniture, we started Delegator.

Focus on Your Goals

Focus on your goal.

Delegator’s mission is to help growing companies focus on their mission, and delegate the rest. We help companies get things done– done right, on budget, and on time.

As for our team, both the market and the model require smart, resourceful, business-minded people with a strong sense of integrity and unusually high standards– the only kind of people that businesses like Smart Furniture would want to work with.

While we certainly rely heavily on technology, we’ve learned that regardless of whatever brilliant algorithmic alchemy a service company can come up with, the human factor remains an invaluable part of the equation.

As for results, we’ve delivered demonstrably positive results to clients ranging from 3-person shops to $150MM companies. We are particularly skilled, for example, in things like online ad campaign management (e.g., Adwords), search engine optimization (SEO), site analytics, and collateral web strategies– where indeed the human element of experience plays a pivotal role in the oft-neglected “art” of optimization.

And as for what drives us, as a team made of experienced entrepreneurs, there is nothing quite so rewarding as applying what we’ve learned to help growing companies succeed. We believe in small businesses, and their pivotal role in economic prosperity and innovation, and it is our mission to help them achieve their mission.

So, then, we are Delegator, and we are at your service. Contact us and let us know how we can help you.


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