Political marketing is not something I normally spend time considering. I usually write about business bloggingand make fun of

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commercials on TV. I have to say, I felt sorry for Herman Cain this weekend. I will admit that I was not too impressed with him as a Republican Presidential Candidate. But, he is kind of getting screwed. How did this guy get harpooned for his infidelities, while Newt Gingrich gets a free pass?

In social media and business blogging, we recommend clients address concerns customers bring up on Twitter or Facebook. You can’t hide from it because people are talking about it. So, just address the issue and be honest. Social media is relentless. People hide behind their online personas to invite their dark side to totally tell someone off. When you address it directly, people tend to back off. I digress here.

How does this apply to Newt Gingrich? If you recall, his marital infidelity was one of the first things that came up in his campaign. He was being scrutinized. His ex-wives were being interviewed. While he was supporting a family values platform, he was cheating and changing wives like underwear. (He’s a Teddy Bear after all) Yet, here we are just before the Iowa caucus and he is becoming the front-runner.

He put it out there at the beginning of his campaign. He addressed it. While he was not and still is not convincing, Herman Cain has fallen on the sword for him. The black guy in the campaign took the issue away from him. Now, Newt’s ideas are being heard and morality of his actions are no longer relevant because he is not Herman Cain. Cain is even going to endorse Newt Gingrich.

I think Newt Gingrich putting it out front helped him. Now, it does not appear to be much of an issue. If he becomes the Republican nominee, I am not sure the Democrats can use it against him. Putting out front was the right move.

Related articles

• Two Polls Confirm Newt Gingrich Leads in Iowa (elections.firedoglake.com)
• Herman Cain will reportedly endorse Newt Gingrich (thegrio.com)

If anything, business blogging is only becoming more important. There are many changes taking place within the search engines. As HTML5 comes on line, how business blogging data is organized in web page will be more important than ever. Google, Bing and Yahoo are collaborating on what new markup language should look like to help them identify the content they are scraping on a web page.

For years, I have been preaching to customers that there are 2 audiences you are writing to  – readers and search engines. The search engines do not have eyeballs, so they are relying on programming algorithms to assist with identifying content on a site. Problem has been that current HTML content markups are very messy and identifying the real meaning behind content can be difficult.

According to Mike Seidle, Senior User Experience Engineer at Direct Employers, “traditional SEO is an engineering problem today. Our experience is using the new schema offered by Google, Yahoo and Bing, our search results have improved.” One of the problems he sees is that most companies have a weak or nonexistent content strategy.

If you are using old markup language, it is quite possible that your website could be completely ignored.  Google is looking for good content and will give those marking their content up properly a nod over the content that is illegible to them.

On the user front, to quote our good friend Jason Falls, “Just write good shit”. Not more needs to be said there.

United States of Whiners

Social Media is a boom for whiners. Business blogging and social media professionalsneed to be wary of disgruntled customers. In the age of “Outrage”, everyone is pissed about the perceived injustice happening to them.

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Today, someone is not happy with getting “no” for an answer. They start a campaign against the company by starting a Twitter account or a boycott Facebook Page. The demands people are making are unreasonable. They want a replacement, an upgrade to the next model and a lifetime warranty on the replacement. If you don’t comply, they are going to bash you on social media. But, “We are honoring our warranty – why is that not good enough?” (Because my friend told me if I whine the loudest, I will get everything I want).

Some companies deserved the treatment they received. The United Airlines guitar incident was one. United Airlines did the wrong thing. The Volvo girl in San Francisco with her Viking video was a clever piece of work to highlight bad service.

For some companies, people can be unreasonable.

The example I gave above is one. A consumer product company was honoring its warranty to fix their product. The customer was not happy with the solution. She really wanted them to replace it because the product was 8 years old. So, alternatives were given. We will give you refund, if you have the receipt. It was a gift to us, so I don’t have the receipt. We will replace the item with another model with a 1 year warranty. “No, I don’t want that either.” Seriously? She wanted a replacement with a lifetime warranty on the product because they were trying to screw her by honoring the original warranty to fix it.

So, what did this person do? Started a campaign against the company.

Brand Defense

If you are not participating in Social Media, my business partner’s new book, “NO Bullshit, Social Media” is a good read. See, people are out there talking about you whether you know it or not. Ignoring it is the wrong thing. Idiots like the example above can destroy your brand. Embracing the market is the wise thing to do. You have to be out there listening to what people are saying. You have to respond directly to what is being said. You have to speak directly and in their language.

1. Document everything between yourself and a disgruntled customer.
2. Document what they are saying online
3. Talk to legal for assistance, if it is libel
4. Don’t argue with them online – not good to feed the troll

You need to defend your brand.

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Social media is the time machine everyone is seeking

I thought I would take a break from writing about business blogging and social media to explore some of the fun things available to us today.

Recently a team of Chinese scientists published a paper stating that time travel is not possible. The premise of the paper is time travel can not happen because a single photon can’t travel faster than the speed of light. Ok fine, but they are wrong!

See, if you want to travel back in time, it is real simple today. (What you talking about Willis?!)

Here is how it works. Let’s say I want to go back to 1974 and relive a day. It’s simple really:

1. Go to this website and find a setlist of 1974 Top 100 songs.

1. Go to Spotify or iTunes and create a playlist of the 1974 Top 100 songs
2. Drive around town in an old Camero SS and play your music

Get home from work and want to read the news?

This website has an archive of all the newspapers in the United States.

Go to the grocery store and buy your Swanson TV dinner of Salisbury Steak. Pull up your TV tray and catch a 1974 evening news report.

Yes, on Youtube, you can find old broadcasts of news for any year.

If you want to watch your favorite sitcom from 1974, turn on Netflix, Hulu or Youtube and chances are, you will find your favorite 1974 sitcom or police drama to relive the magic of 1974 television.

So with all due respect, I say the Chinese scientist are wrong. With the many social media tools available today, time travel is not only here today, it is here to stay.

Paul is the President of Professional Blog Service. PBS works with clients making strategic investments into business blogging, social media and search engine optimization.

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Business blogging and social media can help attract sales. Before either can help, you need to know how to use it first.  Let’s keep it simple though. Business blogging and social media can be distilled down into 3 easy steps. Not a silver bullett, but an understanding of the work needed to make it happen:

Connect. Converse. Share. 

Connect

The first step with any social media strategy is going to be collecting and connecting. You want to start by attracting prospects, potential customers and contacts and essentially building that base. This one is pretty obvious. You can’t converse or share unless you have someone to converse and share with.

Here’s an example: I run a business and I have a lot of connections. Over the last 15 years, I’ve built up even more online. About a year ago, I connected with a fellow named Doug. I didn’t know him, he just found me on Twitter and started following me. I thought, “okay, Hi Doug,” followed him back and left it at that. We connected.

Converse

The second part is conversing and this is really going to depend on the medium. The tone of conversation on LinkedIn, for example, is drastically different than the tone on Twitter.

So, find a way to talk to this audience that’s both appropriate and engaging. And remember, the verb here is “converse,” not “speak.” Social media is a two-way street.

And what about Doug? Well, a week later, Doug replied to one of my posts with a great question. I retweeted it, responded and we started talking. It turns out that Doug’s a pretty cool guy. And so, we conversed.

Share

Doug was asking about blogging for business, so I referred him to an article on my blog. What do you know? I have some expertise to share.

Let’s say you’re a musician. What should you be doing with social media? Sharing your music. Now, let’s say you’re an accountant, what should you be doing? Sharing your accounting expertise. The point being, you don’t have to be a rock star to share your talents. If you have experience in a field, then start blogging about it and start sharing it. (As an added bonus, the more you share, the more you’ll learn, and the more of an expert you’ll become.)

Sharing is really linked into conversing and it’s also a great way to reach out and attract more connections. Why? Because those connections want your expertise or talent. In the end, this creates a nice feedback loop.

Today, Doug’s both a friend and a client. Not everyone you connect with, converse with or share with is going to become a customer, obviously. But Doug is one of several clients who “found” me this way. So, yes, lead generation and sales can be done online, but you need a strategy

And it doesn’t get much simpler than: Connect. Converse. Share.

Paul is the President of Professional Blog Service. PBS works with clients making strategic investments into business blogging, social media and search engine optimization.

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Internet Marketing Scam for Entertainment

Internet marketing comes in many forms. This is an email I got from a gentlemen calling himself Captain Kent Brian. His English is quite entertaining. I often read the letters out loud in my office to share the laughs. It is something you can do for your family too. At a gathering, share some of the more outrageous emails to educate your family on the various tactics people use. Good food and wine are recommended.

Here is the letter:

Good day I write back to you concerning what I wish to discuss with you. I implore you to take your time to go through it carefully as the decision you make will go off a long way to determine our future and continued existence. Please allow me to introduce myself. I am Kent Brian, a member of NATO-ISAF Task Force and Provincial Reconstruction Troops in Southern Afghanistan.

I have a very confidential proposal for you. It was in my search for a secured business listing that I came in contact with you and I wish I can confide in you to get this business completed.

Based on the United States legislative and executive decision of pulling our troop out of here by the End of the year I have decided to contact you for this business opportunity and relationship. I want to inform you that I have in my possession the sum of USD 10.5 million, which I got from crude oil deals in Afghanistan. I deposited this money with a Red Cross Agent informing him that i am making contact for the real owner of the money and it is under my power to approve whoever comes forth for the money.

I want to invest the money in a good business as soon as my service here ends, anyway you will advise me on that since I am not into business. I am solely interested in making a life for my two daughters and therefore I shall require the service of a person who is trustworthy and sincere. I am going to make you the beneficiary of the money and allowing you to invest for my Kids in the event anything happens to me here. I am an America and an intelligent officer, so I have a 100% authentic means of transferring the money through diplomatic courier service. I just need your acceptance and all is done.

Where we are now we can only communicate through our military communication facilities that are secured so nobody can monitor our emails, then I can explain in details to you. I will only reach you through email, because our calls might be monitored, I just have to be sure whom I am dealing with.

I need someone I could deal with on trust, so that is why I contacted you to work with me as the receiving partner in your country. If you accept, I will put you forward as the beneficiary of the funds and transfer the money to you because as a uniformed person I cannot be parading such an amount so I need to present someone as the beneficiary.

I am writing from a fresh email account so if you are not interested do not reply to this email and please delete this message. If you are interested, then let me know so we can proceed as time is very important to me. I wait for your contact details so we can move into action. In less than 5 days, the money should have been in your position and I will come over for my money when my service here expires. I will give to you 30% of the sum and 70% is for me because I know that nothing goes for nothing, I hope I am been fair to you for your assistance as my receiving partner. If you are interested in handling this life changing and promising transaction of mine, please reply me immediately.

Regards
Brian