May 22, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Protect Yourself: Beat Brand-Squatters

As a company, your name is everything to you, and trademark laws protect your brand’s identity from malicious use. Brand ownership within the social media space, however, is a separate entity. User names within social networks are up for grabs on a first come, first serve basis; therefore, claiming your identity on the networks, particularly giants such as Twitter, YouTube, FaceBook, and MySpace, is essential. Even if you have absolutely no intention of maintaining these accounts for marketing purposes, registering your company’s name will prohibit others from brand-squatting. Furthermore, you eradicate the potential of those squatters from damaging your reputation through negative or even malicious content posts. Ultimately, taking control in this space should be a priority for your business.

Squatters Already Squatting?
Should this advice reach you too late, and you’ve already forfeited the ability to use your trademark or brand name in the social space, all is not lost. You may appeal to either the person running the account to hand it over, or you can go directly to the people running the social media site and ask them to take over the account.

Appealing to the Squatter
When moving with this approach, keep your rights in mind. It is often against the Terms of Service of a site, for instance, to purchase names. You can approach the person who is running the account and try to strike a deal with them, especially if it is a fan who is not misusing your name. CNNbrk did so by offering the fan running their hi-jacked account a position to train people at CNN to use Twitter.

The Squatter Said No?
If approaching the owner of the account doesn’t work, you can always go to the source: the social media site. Often times they will take control of the account and give access to it to the company with brand and trademark rights.

The best way to protect your name though is to simply register early at the sites, even if you have no intent to use it. An easy way to do that is by using a site like NameChk. Uncover other social media outlets where your name is available and register them.

The amount of time it takes to cover your social bases is pittance compared to the amount potential damage to your company. Don’t believe me? Look no further then a recent article about Kanye West and Twitter. A fan registered Kanye West’s name on Twitter and proceeded to tweet via his famous pseudonym. When Kanye discovered the farce, he retorted on his blog, stating it was not him and that he doesn’t have time to waste on the site. It wasn’t long after that that the account in question was closed.

As another article points out, while Twitter does have rules covering impersonation and trademark infringement, it is still quite possible for your small business name to be hijacked. Protect your business and its identity so that it doesn’t go the way of Apple’s Johnathan Ive.

Image via ~~zorro~~ on Flickr.

Filed Under: Featured, Social Media Tagged With: Social Media, squatting, trademark
April 24, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Social Profile: The Mommy Blogger

In any advertising campaign, you want a clear picture of your targeted demographic group. That strategy holds true within the confines of social media, where numerous social groups exist for which you may alter your marketing message. These groups include the tweens, mommy bloggers, Gen Y’s, Gen X’s, Baby Boomers, seniors, and the list goes on.

My focus today is the mommy blogger. “Why?” you may ask. I find them to be one of the most influential groups in social media, that’s why. They’re popular, vocal, and their opinions seem to matter even to those not in the mommy blogger circle.

Who is the Mommy Blogger?

She’s typically a woman who does not work or works part-time inside or outside the home; sometimes full-time inside the home; her children are most frequently under 10 years of age; she generally blogs about daily life occurrences and activities with or for her children; most of her blogging time is spent discussing motherhood and its trials and tribulations; she also often reviews or blogs about products she uses. In fact, in a study conducted last year by BabyCenter and the Keller Fay Group, 60% of conversations held online by mommy bloggers include a mention of brands or products.

Why is she important?

She’s important because she garners a lot of attention from her readers. Her readers often feel connected to her, a sort of acquaintance or friendship through reading her daily blog posts. So when she offers her opinion on something, it is like one of your close friends or relatives offering their opinion to you on a good or service. The followers of mommy bloggers aren’t exclusively other mommy bloggers, either; they include members of other online social groups, especially the Gen X and Gen Y group. We still relate with these women as they are peers, so their opinions matter to us.

Mommy bloggers also carry strong public sway. A group of mommy bloggers, now deemed The Motrin Moms, made news in November 2008 after Motrin ran a commercial that insinuated carrying babies was a fashion choice. In the span of a weekend, the commercial ignited a fire storm among mommy bloggers on Twitter, causing Motrin to ultimately pull the commercial and offer an apology.

So keep in mind, when planning your social media campaign, which social groups you want to target with your campaign, and realize that sometimes their reach is even farther then you imagined.

Filed Under: Featured, Social Media Tagged With: Social Media, social media power
April 21, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Lunch With Sage

Apart from being a pretty sloppy eater, having lunch with me can often be very informative and entertaining.

I’ve been getting a lot of requests for a social media lunch and learn put on by yours truly.

So, I thought I’d put it out here if you were interested.

This is what you get:

You get an hour lunch-and-learn about how and why social media could fit within your company. And then you get an hour and a half breakout session where we look at how to to apply social media to your specific situation.

Here is a general outline of what will be discussed:

The lunch will be:

  • Executive Overview
  • Why this is important and what are some facts and statistics
  • The world is flat and what that means to your company.
  • Statistical Trends Of Social Media and its impact on the business community.
  • Facts and figures of the current state of social Media
  • Companies that are using social media in powerful ways.

Then the breakout session is:

  • What this means to you and your company.
  • What is the current cultural temperature for social media implementation at your company?
  • What is the current boundary implementation for social media at your company today? i.e., you would do this but you would never do that.
  • How do you move forward in an effective social media strategy.

It’s $2000 plus travel.

If anything, I guarantee you will have a good time. In fact, I also guarantee you will find it highly informative.

To put my money where my mouth is, if you have the slightest incling of not being completely happy with the presentation and the time with me, just let me know and I’ll give you a full refund… except for the travel stuff.

So, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

I speak on this topic all over the country at some of the biggest brands and conferences out there. You won’t be disappointed.

If you are interested, you can contact me here.

And if your boss says, who the hell is this geeky looking dude, Sage Lewis, give ‘em this:

Sage Lewis is the President of SageRock Digital Marketing. SageRock has been a leader in Web marketing since 1999 offering search engine optimization, paid search marketing, social media marketing and analytics.

Sage speaks nationally with Search Engine Strategies and other prominent Web marketing organizations.

Sage is also “The Web Marketing Video Guy” with over 400 Web marketing videos published.

Sage writes as an expert for SearchEngineWatch.com in the “Promotion and Link Building” section of the site.

Sage is a highly dynamic speaker that offers a depth of knowledge only possible through his decade of experience in the Web marketing industry.

The photo of me is from here: SEO and Development: Get It Together on Flickr – Photo Sharing!

Filed Under: Featured, SageRock Tagged With: sage lewis, Social Media
April 6, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Writing Styles Define Your Business

When facing the task of writing content for any medium, one of the most overlooked aspects is style. Your piece may be edited, spit-shined, and polished to a high sheen, free of typos and even passive voice; but if it’s style-free, it will be lacking in that certain something that makes it memorable.

What does ‘style’ mean to the written word? It’s that quality that makes writing unique, unlike any other piece of writing out there.

It’s the personality.

Consider the following excerpts from 20th century authors.

The hills across the valley of the Ebro were long and white. On this side there was no shade and no trees and the station was between two lines of rails in the sun. Close against the side of the station there was the warm shadow of the building and a curtain, made of strings of bamboo beads, hung across the open door into the bar, to keep out flies. The American and the girl with him sat at a table in the shade, outside the building. It was very hot and the express from Barcelona would come in forty minutes. It stopped at this junction for two minutes and went on to Madrid.

Ernest Hemingway

“Hills Like White Elephants”

The instant her voice broke off, ceasing to compel my attention, my belief, I felt the basic insincerity of what she had said. It made me uneasy, as though the whole evening had been a trick of some sort to exact a contributory emotion from me. I waited, and sure enough, in a moment she looked at me with an absolute smirk on her lovely face, as if she had asserted her membership in a rather distinguished secret society to which she and Tom belonged.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby

Marylou was watching Dean as she had watched him clear across the country and back, out of the corner of her eye — with a sullen, sad air, as though she wanted to cut off his head and hide it in her closet, an envious and rueful love of him so amazingly himself, all raging and sniffy and crazy-wayed, a smile of tender dotage but also sinister envy that frightened me about her, a love she knew would never bear fruit because when she looked at his hangjawed bony face with its male self-containment and absentmindedness she knew he was too mad.

Jack Kerouac

On the Road

Each of these writers achieved literary success in their lifetime, even though their respective writing styles dramatically varied. Hemingway, once a writer for the Kansas City Star newspaper, carried a terse, abbreviated style throughout his writing. Notice how all but two words have two syllables or less. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s style was more affected, longer-winded, with fuller descriptions. Kerouac wrote in stream-of-consciousness; the excerpt provided contains 102 words, all one sentence.

No reader of your Web site, press release, blog post, pamphlet, or otherwise will insist you muster the literary moxie of a Hemingway or Fitzgerald. They would appreciate, however, whether they know it or not, some personality.

The following excerpt is taken from the homepage of SageRock.com. I would describe our style as breezy, yet steadfastly capable.


The Web Marketing Digital Agency, SageRock Inc., was founded in 1999 to help clients engage customers across an ever expanding interactive marketplace. By using a nationally experienced, independent marketing agency focused only on digital deployment, our clients are able to navigate easily through this industry, take a holistic approach, leverage the right tools, and experience seamless implementation.


Now, consider that same copy, shifted to an uppity, high-brow style, dripping with arrogance.


Whilst lesser firms stymied marketing efforts for their clients, relying on passé campaign tactics to capture a passé space, SageRock, Inc. arose, a great beacon to navigate a new media. Our roster of clientele spans a nation-wide geography, clientele who are privy to the superior means by which SageRock, Inc. conducts marketing efforts; that is to say, digitally, holistically, and with excruciating perfection. Ne’er will come the day we dare deign to the everyman approach to marketing in the online space. It is common. It is perfunctory. It is not good enough. It is not SageRock, Inc.


Here is the snippet, yet again, this time presented in a tightly-wound sort of way, with very little inclusion of the extraneous.


SageRock, Inc. is a Digital Web Marketing Agency, founded in 1999. We assert to help clients engage their respective customers online.


Finally, the last example portrays the snippet in a completely low-key, laid-back vibe.


Welcome to SageRock, Inc. We’ve been around doing this gig for 10 years now. We pride ourselves on being wholly dedicated to digital marketing, working like mad to help our clients’ businesses grow. We’d be jazzed to help you, too. Just look around our site and if you have any questions, let us know.


Each snippet communicates the same information, but does so in varying ways. Think of your business and how you would like readers of your written media to think of you. Are you arrogant? Humorous? No-nonsense? Whimsical? Convoluted? Down-to-earth? Pick a personality, and let your writing perpetuate that through style.


Photo Courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/emdot/497491293/

Filed Under: Featured, SageRock, SEO, Social Media Tagged With: copywriting, SEO, Social Media, writing for the web
April 3, 2009 By 1 Comment

Social Media Becomes Cora’s Playground

We encourage our clients to get involved in social media.  It’s an emerging means of communication to a large audience.  I enjoy hearing stories where social media has worked wonders, especially on a more personal level for people.

Recently, I was reading my cousin’s blog.  Since they live in Colorado, it is my way to keep up with their new baby.  In a recent post, they mentioned a blog of another family, the McClenahans; otherwise known as the Macs.  They started their blog in August of 2008 to talk about their new baby girl, and probably did this for the same reason my cousin did: it’s a great way to keep in touch with friends and family.  They began tracking their little baby girl Cora’s life and documenting with adorable pictures.  They are a cute, young couple with a precious little girl.  Their blog posts seemed to take a different tone this past January, however, when they found out that Cora had cancer.  After taking her in for a check up on her ear infections, they were told that she may have cancer and by the next day they were starting surgery.  By the following week, the chemotherapy was starting.  This all came as such a shock to them.  They continued to blog about their experience even through the toughest times, and other family members also contributed to the writing.  The site’s visibility dramatically increased, in fact, “Since Cora was diagnosed, the McClenahans’ blog has had 800,000 hits from people in 50 states and 17 countries.”¹

By early February, Cora passed away.  Her family established another page for monetary donations to go towards building a playground in Cora’s memory.  Not only did this page attract outreach from family and friends, but strangers from all over the map, too.

Meanwhile, a seller on Etsy.com (a site to buy and sell all things hand-made) began blogging about sellers donating to raise money for Cora’s Playground and it caught on.  They launched the Cora Playground Etsy Project and it took off with about 50 sellers donating items.  Cora’s mom began working on crafting and opened her own shop on Etsy, too.  Every time I checked their shop, everything was sold out!  People were buying like crazy in order to help such a good cause!  They have had 176 sales so far and, when I checked this morning, they were sold out again.  Many sellers on Etsy would only dream of having 176 sales in this short amount of time.  Their story was also picked up by the news media.

While the McClenahans’s story may be slightly different than a company trying social media to reach out to their customers, I think stories like this show the amount of people that are using social media as their means to communicate.  It is simple and effective and has a very large reach.  Also important, people use social media as a personal means of communication.  So throwing ads in their face won’t always work here.  Be personal and be a voice for the company.

¹http://www.thekansan.com/news/x1683630990/Newton-couple-wants-to-erect-playground-to-honor-daughter

Photo “Blogging Research Wordle” by Kristina B.

Filed Under: Featured, Life, Social Media Tagged With: blog, Social Media
March 13, 2009 By 1 Comment

Where to Start with Social Media

In my last article, Why Social Media?, I discussed why social media is important – atmosphere; setting the “stage” or “vibe” for your company is one main goal of social media involvement.  Resuming this discussion, I would like to now provide ideas on how to start your social media campaign.

As Joe stated yesterday in his post, A Social Media Fallacy, a recent study from the Participatory Marketing Network shows that 67% of people who join a brand group or fan page do so for getting news or product updates.  That is a large group of people who are looking for nothing else but updates and news from your company, about your product, or for anything involving the services you offer.

So I’m sure you want to know how to get started?  Well, that’s the easy part. First, identify your goals.  Do you want to post videos?  Maybe compile a news feed?  You might even think about offering a special weekly promotion only for people who are “friends” or “fans;” this step will also give people even more incentive to follow you in the Web 2.0 space.

Once you have an idea of your goals with the site, you need to pick your social media platform.  Each presents a unique community, impacting the overall experience for both you and your followers.  Generally, MySpace is favored by the teenage to young adult age range; Facebook is generally college students, recent college graduates, and / or business professionals.  Twitter allows for brief status updates, micro-blogging, and user selected Twitter Favorites (with FAVRD; while the messaging space is limited, new posts are quick and simple to complete.

After targeting your social media space, you’re ready to put your plan into action.  It’s at this step, however, where a lot of people seem to fail.  Why?  Because you can’t just setup your account and walk away; you need to update regularly.  My advice is to update daily, or at minimum, four times per week.  Social media is a time investment, with some of the most successful companies investing upwards of five hours per day in the space.  They effectively spread the word about their services and products, as well as find public relations benefit through reviewing and responding to customer comments.

If you can put your plan into action, and maintain regular and frequent updates, people will take notice of you in social media; it’s just a matter of time.  If you don’t, maybe you need to re-evaluate and alter your goals.  Just remember, it’s all about atmosphere, not selling.

Filed Under: Featured, Social Media Tagged With: Social Media
March 12, 2009 By 2 Comments

A Social Media Fallacy

For the past two years, the Internet has been buzzing with talks of social media.  It really is a wonderful means to keep in touch, meet new people, and learn about new topics.  In fact, a recent Nielsen Online news release, social networks are being used more frequently then traditional email sources.

With social sites growing so rapidly, advertisers are all grabbing for a piece of the pie in the hopes of reaching this new emerging audience.

The problem?  No one really cares.

A recent survey from the Participatory Marketing Network shows some interesting result.

Though an overwhelming majority (84%) of Millennial Internet users notice ads on social networks, only 19% find them relevant, and 36% claim they never click on them.

You can’t just through money at ads on social networks and think you’ll see an instant jump in conversions and ROI; ads are only part of the solution.  In order to see the true value in social networks, you have to actually participate.

You need a fan page or company profile in the networks, as well.  These pages need to offer unique and relevant content for the audience; and it never hurts to offer an incentive.  More than having the profiles and pages, you need to tell people you exist.  Advertise that you are in social spaces, talk to people as they contact you, and make sure you let people know their voice is heard.

The same survey from the Participatory Marketing Network showed that about half of people are quite willing to befriend brands.  It also showed that you need to offer some sort of incentive to get people to be your brand’s friend.

Some 62% of Millennials admitted they’ve visited a brand or fan page on a social network and nearly half (48%) actually joined.

The survey found Millennials join a brand group or fan page for the following reasons:

  • Getting news or product updates (67%)
  • Having access to promotions (64%)
  • Viewing or downloading music or videos (41%)
  • Submitting opinions (36%)
  • Connecting with other consumers (33%)

I know it sounds like a lot of work, and it is.  It should be.  Social media is more about the conversation and conversations take time to have.  This is not meant to discourage anyone from dabbling in social media; it’s meant to help you set realistic goals.  If you’re not willing to give the social networks more time than it takes you to placement target them in Google, the members of these online communities will not give you the time that you want of them.

Filed Under: Featured, Social Media Tagged With: Ads, Paid Search, Social Media
February 27, 2009 By 2 Comments

Why Social Media?

Whenever we suggest social media to new or current clients the first question is always the same: Why? Why social media? How much money can it make us? How much time will it take?

I’ve thought a lot about these questions. I’ve also read many articles about why. In the end, the reasons go beyond what a lot of people expect when looking into advertising: Social media isn’t there to sell products in a direct manner; you shouldn’t go into it thinking you can take five minutes to write a blog post or update your status on MySpace and have a million friends or readers.

Social media is there for one sole purpose: To put a face and / or a personality to either the people who work for your company or for the company or product itself. The generation of 20- and 30-somethings is a generation of people who want to know why they should buy your product. Not just that they should. They’re a generation of people who listen to friends’ advice and often times will spend more on a product because it has better reviews online.

Not that any of this is something companies don’t already know. When asked “Why should I use social media?” I want to just respond, “Why not?” With an estimated 272 million users worldwide, how can you stop and ask why should you be using social media? The better question at that point is indeed “Why not?”

It’s not even hard to start; pick a goal and move with it. The biggest thing to keep in mind with social media is that people aren’t looking to be sold something. They instead want to feel like they know the company. They want to see how you operate or what your CEO did that day. They want to make a connection with you on a personal level, not just be told to buy your product. The very act of making your company personable is what will sell them.

The investment required to conduct social networking really depends on what you want to do. Most social networking sites are free, so the cost to start is nothing. All it will take is some time; and, of course, the amount of time it takes depends on your goal. If I were to estimate, I would say it could take anywhere from an hour to five hours a week. More or less given what you’re doing. Writing a blog post generally only takes anywhere from ten to thirty minutes. Writing a tweet for Twitter takes a matter of seconds.

In the end, while the time you use to update your networking sites may not be free, think of the customer-base you’re building for yourself and your company. Repeat customers continue going somewhere because they like the service or the atmosphere. With social networking, you’re maintaining the atmosphere or setting it for us before we even commit to your product or services.

So, why aren’t you using social media to your advantage yet?

Filed Under: Featured, Social Media Tagged With: Social Media
February 23, 2009 By Leave a Comment

SageRock Founder is Training Expert for SES San Francisco

photo credit: Golden Gate Bridge by pichenettes

Sage Lewis is running the “Social Media & Your Business” training session at the upcoming Search Engine Strategies: SEM Training San Francisco

February 23, 2009 – San Francisco, CA: SageRock, Inc. founder, Sage Lewis, is leading the Social Media Training workshop put on by Search Engine Strategies on March 10, 2009 in San Francisco.

According to Lewis, “Consumers, customers and clients are demanding that their service and product providers be more accessible and they specifically cite a need for those companies to have a presence in social media outlets.”

Research Highlights:

  • As reported by SearchEngineWatch.com, The Number of Small Businesses Using Social Media to Double in 12 Months.
  • According to a Cone research study, 60% of Americans use social media, and of those, 59% interact with companies on social media Web sites.
  • According to that same survey, 93% of social media users believe a company should have a presence in social media, while an overwhelming 85% believe a company should not only be present but also interact with its consumers via social media.

In his training session, Lewis will delve into the landscape intricacies of: Facebook, Myspace, YouTube, Delicious, Flickr, LinkedIn and many more. Additionally, he will be discussing case studies involving businesses that have successfully used these outlets and explain how workshop attendees should and, maybe more importantly, should not use them.
Sage Lewis founded The Digital Marketing Agency SageRock, Inc. SageRock has been a leader in online marketing since 1999 offering search engine optimization, paid search marketing, social media marketing and analytics. A recognized expert in his field, Sage speaks nationally at conferences, tradeshows, and search marketing organizations. He is also an expert columnist for SearchEngineWatch.com and a video commentator for WebMarketingWatch.com and SearchEngineGuide.com. Sage’s dynamic speaking style and decade of expertise makes him a sought after session leader in the digital marketing industry.

Filed Under: Featured, SageRock Tagged With: SageRock, ses, Social Media