Rejoice fellow Canadians! After years of crying foul and bugging Bing engineers at search engine conferences I can finally say that Canadian business owners can submit their business to Bing Canada for free instead of relying on YellowPages listings; which were an unreliable solution at best. What follows is a little more detail on the subject and a full walkthrough of the submission process and end result. Also, if you wish to see just how much anger and frustration the previous system created please see my article “Bing’s Local Listing Center Lacks Forethought” posted in 2009: yes 4 years ago, so you can count me frustrated (politely put) with them as well.

What Made Bing Get its Sh*t Together?

Sadly it seems we have no need to thank Bing engineers (or my significant prodding) for this advance in Canuck accessibility because it was Nokia who bridged the chasm. Nokia increased its already significant maps partnership with Microsoft to allow their Nokia Maps system to update Bing’s Canadian Local data. This all started, it seems, back in January 2012 but I can’t find any indication this bromance between the two companies included Canadian business submissions that early in the game. Anyway, if you go to Bing and try to submit your business you will now be redirected to Nokia Prime Place where you can  follow their submission and address verification process which I have outlined in detail further along in this post. Read more…

To many business owners blogging is a task they either cannot be bothered with or do not know how to work into their schedules. As an entrepreneur myself I completely understand most concerns about maintaining a blog because I have, at one time, been in the same position. After all, we are already so busy with keeping our clients happy and running our businesses that another task seems impossible to comprehend; never mind a task which many business owners are not convinced will help the bottom line.

All of that said, blogging has a good track record for increasing the bottom line when it is done for the right reasons and with dedication. In the following clip, Gil Namur, President of the popular ezine LifeasaHuman.com explains the motivation you require to be a great blogger:

How to be a Great Blogger from StepForth on Vimeo.

Some Basic Blogging Tips

1. If possible (and it is not always) pick a topic to write about for which you are passionate so your enthusiasm comes across in your writing.
2. Offer something of value and remember the chief goal of your content is to help others – NOT to market to them.
3. Proof read your content and if possible I highly recommend having someone else with a fresh pair of eyes proof read it as well.

How to Find Blog Post Ideas

I find the best story ideas come from seeing popular or trending questions or discussions in my industry. With those angles in mind, here are a few resources and tips for hunting down questions and the latest trending news/topics: Read more…

There are a lot of different methods out there for driving down your costs of advertising on Facebook and to increase the efficiency of your page and your overall marketing campaign. From beginner guides to expert expositions, there’s information out there for all stripes. For the marketer on Facebook already privy to ad formats and how the system works, you can skip the rookie camp and look for something with more meat on the bones.

For instance, you can skip over the tips dealing with how to draw people to your page and instead focus on how to get more of those visitors to actually engage with your brand.

If you’re looking to increase your sales, it’s all about increasing your engagement. The tips listed below should help you to post more engaging material. Read more…

Last week I wrote an article called “The Ideal Startup Social Media Strategy for Non-Profits.” This evolved as a result of a phone call I had with a small non-profit called Urunji Child Care Trust. They were looking for the ultimate plan to implement through social media to raise awareness of their initiatives and ultimately raise funds. I decided to create a plan for them by following these steps:

• Research similar organizations that have been highly successful using social media
• Choose which platforms you are going to utilize
• Communicate your non-profit’s objective through the platform (s)
• Connect with the people that share your mission
• Create a campaign to raise funds

Research similar organizations that have been highly successful using social media. After a little digging, the non-profits I decided to research were African Promise, A Glimmer of Hope and Ripple Africa. All three have a very strong presence in social and are performing tactics Urunji could benefit from if they followed some of the same practices. (Please note: for the purpose of this article I’ve focused on one social platform per organization).

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/africanpromise

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/aglimmerofhope

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/rippleafrica

Choose which platforms you are going to utilize. Urunji currently has a Facebook and Twitter account although they are not very active to date. I recommend they begin Read more…

Recently I was trying to add a Paypal donate button to a Facebook page for a film project I’ve been working on called Elephants Never Forget. I haven’t done this since Facebook changed from using FBML to iFrames and found it extremely difficult to find an up to date tutorial. After a little frustration, I figured out a simple way to do it completely FREE.

1) Start by adding Static HTML: iframe tabs to your page:

• Type “static html iframe tabs” into the search bar
• Select app
• Click the blue button “Add Static HML to a Page”
• Select the page that you’d like to add this app to

Read more…

Social media marketing is a must-have facet in any business nowadays; it helps your company stay connected with its audience, create a wider networking circle, and keeps you relevant. By implementing a web video into your social media platform, you will be able to stand out amongst your competitors and more easily connect with your audience. This process doesn’t always come easily though, and many times people will miss the mark with their video. Here are the top five mistakes people make when video content:

Video is Too Long

One very important thing to remember about social media is that it is constantly being updated. People want the newest information as quickly as possible and social media platforms cater to that mindset. To create successful videos on social media – you have to keep it concise and interesting. Yes, you may have a lot of information you want to convey to your audience but be sure to not pack it all into one video. Cut it up into short, easily digested snippets where your audience can be in and out in less the four minutes.

No Plan of Action

Producing videos for social media is a great idea. Producing videos for social media without any plan of action is a bad one. You have to be sure that your video fits into you social media marketing plan. Be sure to have a well thought-out concept, an appealing script, and a smart planning process to be sure that what you produce is entertaining, enjoyable, and of professional quality. Read more…

Crowdfunding is growing in popularity. There are always stories in the news lately about a campaign that struck it big and raised a ton of money. However what you don’t hear about are the campaigns that weren’t successful, the ones that completely failed to reach an audience and their funding goal. Kickstarter, the largest crowdfunding platform online, has launched 70,850 projects to date and only 43.88% of successfully reached their funding goal. So what distinguishes the successful projects from the ones that flop? There are many factors that lead to an unsuccessful campaign, however below outlines the top 5 that arise again and again. So before you start your campaign, take these into consideration: Read more…

Are you looking to start a crowdfunding campaign for a project? With traditional funding hard to come by these days, crowdfunding is a great alternative to raising money. There have been many success stories of projects exceeding their funding goals and as a result generating an online buzz for their project. If you want your campaign to be the next success story, ensure you follow these tips in the pre campaign, launch and post campaign. Read more…

I recently worked with a team to launch World Elephant Day (WED) on August  12th, 2012. In the lead up to WED our Facebook campaign was going well; however, we wanted to increase our overall engagement. To do so we implemented 3 key tactics to increase the campaign’s Facebook engagement.  As a result our total reach boosted from 1500 to over 200,000 people in the days leading up to and right after the campaign.  Below outlines the 3 most successful tactics used to generate this increase.

Read more…

The first ever World Elephant Day (WED) will be this Sunday, August 12^th. For the past several months I have been working as the Social Media Coordinator to raise awareness for the campaign and gain international support. We have steadily been building a following however it was evident that in order to gain significant traction, we had to go beyond our own social networks. I’ve tried multiple tactics and found the following 3 proved to be the most effective: Read more…