Happy early summer to you wherever you are.  Here in Charlotte, we celebrate 5 seasons: Summer, Fall, Winter, Spring, and Pollen.  I am very happy that Pollen season is over because it was a bad one this year.  This is no lie - there has been more pollen on my car and back deck than snow for 2 years straight. My car looked ridiculous -  it was like a bucket of Peeps had exploded all over my windshield.  So I would get in my car and turn on the wipers and that didn’t clear it off, so I would hit it with wiper fluid and now there was this wet yellow mess all over my car. Fortunately, after I drove somewhere for a very important meeting in my Sunday best and opened the door to get out, most of the time wet yellow glop splattered down onto my shirt and pants so when I walked into the meeting I looked like I just finished making out with Big Bird. May as well stay home and play video games.

Speaking of video games, Microsoft has finally announced the arrival of its’ newest gaming system, the XBOX One. They’ve made a ton of hardware upgrades to it, have added a more sophisticated kinect system, and designed new controllers. It looks like it’s going to be pretty sweet (that’s a term I use with the kids these days so I still seem cool).

In fact, the XBOX One is so different that no current Xbox system games or peripherals will be compatible with it. Yep, the 360 and Kinect games you have will not work on the One.  Neither will your controller.  See what XBOX did there? They just pulled an “Apple iPhone 5 needs an adapter to charge on current Apple peripherals and so Apple sells 15 million adapters for $15 each” new revenue stream on you.  Luckily for you, Microsoft plans to support the 360 and Kinect for a while and even introduce new games on them.  But still - C’MON, MAN!!

Heres’ the fun part if you resell used video games. I’m talking to the small sellers, large retailers, and specialty shops like Gamestop here that share in the $4 billion in annual used game sales: Microsoft wants a big piece of that market.

You see, Microsoft and the other publishers and game makers don’t see a dime of secondhand sales of their products.  Personally, I would be just fine making a gazillion dollars a year creating and distributing games, but we’re talking about large publicly traded corporations and they do one thing - make money.  So Microsoft has figured out how to poop in your sandbox.

How?

Wellll, Microsoft is being a little shifty about this at the moment. We are all hoping that they are going to clear the air about The Plan in the next few weeks at E3, the giant annual video game conference that I have attended several times. It looks like it’s going to work like so:

1.  You’ll buy the game from a retailer. When you install it on the XBOX One, it will copy the game to the hard drive of the One and lock it in to the gamer profile of the person who installed it. It must be activated.  This will make the disc itself useless and unnecessary.  The only person who can play the game is the gamer it belongs to.  No more lending or borrowing games to others.

2.  It gets unclear after that, but retailers are being told that customers can still trade in games, but now they must unregister the game from Microsoft (which wipes it off the original owner’s hard drive) and then pay a hefty fee to Microsoft to reactivate it again. The rumor is that the fee is large enough that the retailer will have to resell used games for north of $50.00 to make any profit at all.

So the overall implications are that a) used game prices are going to go up - way up  b) buying and reselling XBOX One is going to be a giant, expensive pain in the rump, and c) looks like all those people not paying for games are going to have to pay to play - this will do a number on piracy.

I sold DVD’s, CD’s, and Video Games for almost 10 years.  That entire time I knew that the physical media was going to wither and die. I watched it happen firsthand with CD’s.  Let’s all be logical here - what is the point of making a physical disc, and putting that disc in a case, and then in a box with a manual, and then putting it on a truck and displayed in a store for you to buy when you can just download it? We are perfecting the delivery vehicles - iTunes, Xbox, Netflix, Amazon, cable - The need for physical items is literally ZERO now.  So if you didn’t see this giant iceberg coming then I don’t know what to tell you, brother.

It’s not the end of used video game selling, but it is absolutely the beginning of the end.  As I used to joke with my fellow large DVD seller friends, “Why oh why didn’t we just buy a Dunkin Donuts franchise?”

Best,

Kevin Harmon

kevin@redshortsmedia.com

Kevin on Twitter

Kevin on Facebook:

Kevin on Linkedin:

I love to blog and work with social media.  Let me know if I can help you!

]]> http://www.startupnation.com/business-blogs/index.php/2013/06/03/hey-used-video-game-sellers-the-xbox-one-just-pooped-in-your-sandbox/feed/ http://www.startupnation.com/business-blogs/index.php/2012/08/01/summer-of-seo-success/ http://www.startupnation.com/business-blogs/index.php/2012/08/01/summer-of-seo-success/#comments Wed, 01 Aug 2012 14:52:28 +0000 Melanie Rembrandtmrembrandt http://www.startupnation.com/business-blogs/?p=5123 Are you getting all you can out of your SEO, search engine optimization efforts, right now? Here is a quick checklist of the things you need to make your search engine optimization activities a success:

1. Provide great content.

Offer your customers tips, insights and stories they can actually use. And be sure to use your top keywords in your copy.

By providing valuable information, your target market, and the search engines, will take notice.

2. Add coding.

Do you have title, description, Alt, and keyword tags on each page of your site? If not, hire a professional to help you. These are essential to keeping your site optimized for the search engines.

3. Add easy linking.

In addition to sharing your content with others and offering a link back to your site at the end of the content, are you making it easy for others to link to your site?

Provide a simple code to share with others and have social media links at the end of every article or blog you write.

Your Summer SEO Can Be a Success!

Let your target market, and the search engines, know that you provide valuable content related to specific keywords. Then, offer easy ways to link to that content.

Before you know it, your site traffic, and sales will increase!

For more information about using SEO to increase online awareness, please write to me below or at www.rembrandtwrites.com.

With the tough economy, many businesses are trying to branch out and offer customers unique packages at a discount. And since many technology companies and Web design firms deal with creating Websites, they add SEO to their list of services.

Right away, you may think, “This is great! The same person who is creating my Website design can add all of the copy so that the search engines can find my business online. I’ll save time and money with a one-stop shop.”

Hold on! While SEO involves coding and tagging your Website, it’s not about technology.

SEO is about providing valuable content to your customers.

And the only way to do this is to have a trained, SEO copywriter write your SEO copy and tagging for you. A good, SEO copywriter will:

• Conduct extensive research on the top keywords your business should use to reach your particular goals. This includes competitive research, keyword popularity research and common sense.

• Use the top keywords for your business to provide beneficial information to your customers.

• Write copy that is interesting, pertinent to your target market and shows up on the search engines.

• Monitor your keywords and make changes immediately to get the best results.

While a graphic designer can be fabulous at Web design, you need an SEO copywriter to write your copy. You are dealing with two, completely different fields – one is trained on the technology side to create a killer Website design. The other has spent years perfecting the craft of writing copy that sells.

Keep Your Experts Separate for the Best Results.

While you can save time and money at a “one stop shop” for your Website, you may not get the end results you want. With Google’s recent updates and others, the search engines are looking for valuable content. Only an expert copywriter knows how to write this copy. If you have a technician writing your copy, it may have lots of SEO keywords in it, but it won’t necessarily provide value to customers and sell your products and services the right way.

With this in mind, take the time to conduct the appropriate research the next time you are looking for to create or update your Website. Find an experienced expert for the technology and Web-design side of things. Then, look for a professional, SEO copywriter who can write valuable copy for your customers and the search engines. In the end, you’ll get more attention online and increase sales.

For help with your SEO, please write to me below or at www.rembrandtwrites.com.

Do you have this feeling that you should get involved with it but just aren’t sure? Well, here are…

3 Ways to Know Whether or Not You Should Get Into Social Media

1.    Are your customers using it?

First and foremost, you have to think about your target market and your goals. You should not get involved with social media just to “jump on the bandwagon.”

Before starting a social media process, conduct some research and set goals. What will your customers gain? What do you want to accomplish? What kind of content will you provide? These are just some of the questions to answer prior to starting your social media process.

2. Do you have time to stay connected?

Social media is about interaction and communication. If you don’t have time to post valuable information every day, provide feedback and offer different information on your various, social media channels, your efforts can completely backfire and make your business look stale and out of touch.

To be successful in social media, it’s essential to be present, talk to customers and really communicate with them regularly. Social media can be a full-time job, so if you don’t have time to do it yourself the right way, hire someone who can.

And if you really want to be a part of social media but can’t afford to hire someone to handle it for you, start small. Perhaps, you can start with a facebook page and move up from there? It all depends on how much time you have to devote to your social media efforts to make it a positive experience for you and your customers.

3. Will you track results?

Once you start your social media process, it’s essential to track the results regularly. Otherwise, how are you going to know if your efforts are working or not?

You’ll want to see what content is most popular with your audience so you can provide valuable information, what links people are clicking on most, how different entries relate to sales, and more. The information you track will depend on your specific goals for your social media program.

Once you have this information, you can work on constantly improving your processes to meet customer needs and business milestones.

Ready to move forward?

Yes, social media offers a huge opportunity to reach new customers, increase brand awareness and beat the competition. But if you don’t have a social media plan, and the time to implement and track it the right way, you may waste a lot of time and money. Even worse, you may make a bad impression and end up dealing with a PR nightmare rather than good communications that lead to long-term customer relationships and sales growth.

Do you need help with the way you communicate with your target market via social media, PR and SEO copywriting efforts, please write to me below or at www.rembrandtwrites.com.

I hear this all the time, and it breaks my heart. As a fellow entrepreneur, I know how important it is to get value out of all the services you purchase.

How about you? Have you paid a large amount to be at the top of the search engines only to lose thousands of dollars with zero results?

Well, I know it’s time-consuming to pursue search engine optimization efforts, and it’s easy just to hand it over to a specialist. But before you do, here are…

The Top 10 Things to Ask When Starting Your SEO Activities

1.    Do I really need an optimization program, or are there other ways to reach my business goals?

2.    Am I just looking at this because everyone else is using it, or am I really missing out on an opportunity to bring in new customers?

3.    Do I know what SEO is and what I really need, or should I do some research?

4.    What is this search engine optimization service promising me, and is it too good to be true?

5.    What exactly are they going to do for me?

6.    What kind of monthly reports are they going to show me about our activities?

7.    What kind of results has this SEO service had in the past?

8.    How much am I paying and exactly what am I paying for?

9.    Am I stuck in a contract if I don’t see results?

10.    Do I feel comfortable working with this team?

Take some time before starting SEO efforts.

I know you are busy and just want to outsource your optimization activities to a specialist and be done with the matter. But before you do, think about this. If you don’t choose the right firm and get ripped off, how much is it going to cost you in money, time and effort?

With this in mind, take some time to speak to various, SEO specialists. Have them explain the SEO process and answer your questions. Do your due diligence. This way, you’ll both know what the expectations are and avoid costly surprises. Plus, you’ll feel confident in your SEO activities and be more likely to get the results you are looking for!

Do you need more information about this? Please write to me here or at www.rembrandtwrites.com.

To avoid any scary surprises, here are three tips to help you keep your SEO program on track:

1. Do your due diligence.

If you are hiring a firm to help you, check out their results with previous clients. Create a plan, know exactly what they are doing for you and communicate your expectations.

Also, know how you can end your contract if things don’t work out. Otherwise, you may end up with a huge bill and very little site traffic. Even worse, you may find that you have to start all over again with your optimization efforts.

2.  Measure results.

Once your SEO practices are in place, it’s essential to track results. What’s working and what’s not? Are you meeting your site traffic goals? If not, make changes.

After all, one of the great things about search optimization is that you can test different keywords, landing pages, links, and copy to see what brings in the best results. It’s an ongoing process so be sure to monitor your activities on a regular basis.

3. Be patient.

While some businesses see site traffic increases right away with their SEO efforts, others do not. Depending on the keywords you’re using, the size of your site, how long it takes to register with the search engines, and other factors, you may need to wait to see results.

In the meantime, try posting an SEO press release, article or blog and continue to monitor your activities.

SEO Success Awaits.

Search engine optimization can be a vital part of your business success… or failure. With this in mind, create a plan in advance and know exactly what you want to accomplish. Then, find the right team to help you accomplish your goals. Test and monitor results, and if you are not seeing results, make changes to your copy and keywords. Then, test and monitor again.

It takes time, patience and expertise to have a successful, search engine optimization program. However, if you create a solid plan for your SEO efforts and review your results regularly, you’ll take a lot of the fear out of the process. Plus, you’ll spend less money and be more likely to reach your site-traffic goals.

For additional help with your SEO activities, please write to me here or at www.rembrandtwrites.com.

1. Thanksgiving Cards Make a Difference

Send out a Thanksgiving card to clients & potential clients. You can go the catalog route… or send a series of personal notes. One previous client had his kid draw something and he made copies…depends on your style. But I guarantee your card will stand out since Thanksgiving is traditionally not a card-oriented holiday.
Rita Kueber

Beaumont School

2. Rubber Stamp It

When I was a caterer, I used a rubber stamp on every piece of mail, every check, every bill that went out of our office; it said (in big red letters….) ‘who’s catering your Christmas party?”

Celia Milton

www.celiamilton.com

3. The Early Bird Gets The Worm

In a nutshell; we believe that the early bird gets the worm. At Medelita, we begin planning our holiday sale in June and begin promoting it in early to Mid-October. We are currently building up interest on Facebook, for our upcoming sale, and a recent post asking who planned to shop the sale got a lot of positive feedback. As we grow closer to launch, we’ll expand to include emails, ads, etc…

Our holiday sale starts on Thanksgiving Day, offering our customers the ability to pre order at a 20% discount for the upcoming holidays. This ensures they don’t miss out on popular sizes or styles of our lab coats and scrubs that frequently sell out.

80% of our orders also get customized with embroidery, adding a personal and professional touch that our customers love.  Knowing this, we offer free expedited shipping and embroidery up until December 20th.

Angela Sherlock
Medelita.com

4. If you Sell It They Will Come

We are a small computer company located in Middletown CT. What we did last year that worked really well was a “Black Friday” special. We ended up selling all of our equipment at cost which really brought in tons of traffic and more sales after the special was completed. We advertised the sale over all social media outlets including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Blogger to generate buzz. We also sent out a specials press announcement and released information on the sale a couple months prior in our monthly newsletters. We are planning on doing something very similar this year to once again bring in a great amount of traffic to the site and increase sales for the future.

Shane Hardy
All Star Software Systems

5. Themed Holiday Events

Here are a few themed holiday marketing ideas from Le Potager Décor in Fullerton, California.

• Fall Open House: With this event, we posted a page of a few of our recently acquired items that we bought on our summer road trips. People came specifically to buy a certain item they saw on this page. This was our best event (money-wise) yet.
• Annual Paris Flea Market: People love this event! They call the store all year long, asking when it will be taking place. It’s an outdoor event where
• vendors come to set up their wares, and the store is open as well. That day we offer 15% off in the store.
• A Day of Pampering: We will be having an esthetician give 15 minute mini facials. A local business will be setting up to give mini foot massages. A
• vendor will be having a trunk show with her soap line.
• French Apple Harvest: A day where will be offering sweet and savory dishes made with apples and using items from our pantry. Also being served: Calvados brandy and French apple cider.

John Reed and Jennifer Owens
Le Potager

6. “Best Darn” Contest

I have a line of fine glass Christmas ornaments with a Latino flair. Since tamales are very popular during the Christmas season I started a Best Darn Tamale contest with a list of locations to purchase tamales across the USA as a cheap, let say, clever way to draw people to my website during the holidays. I figured that if people love Mexican cuisine they will also probably love my ornament designs. Ads for my ornaments are of course sprinkled down the sides of this popular web page.  In fact the tamales are so popular we started doing tamale workshops last year and it has grown into a whole subcategory for my business.

Darlene Tenes
CasaQ

7. Holiday Gift Guides

We are a retail home furnishings, accessories and gift boutique in Fairfax, Virginia. One of the best holiday marketing practices for our business has been to develop an online gift guide slideshow. We send the slideshow link via press release (attached) to local media outlets and have had good success with getting our ideas picked up in publications. We also send it to our customers via our email newsletter. It allows us to present our customers with images, details and pricing of our top picks for holiday gift giving at very little cost. Our clicks through rates are extremely high as customers love being able to browse from home. It entices them to then come into our store to purchase and see what else we have to choose from.

Ann O’Shields
The Nest Egg

8. Holiday Cards With a Twist

Christmas cards are almost mandatory nowadays. However, most people get inundated with an avalanche of cookie-cutter Christmas cards that might be “pretty,” but few people take a second glance at them. Christmas cards are a fantastic way to bring you attention, but only if you do it right. Add a personal flair, make it humorous, and stop taking yourself so seriously.

Last year, some lawyers and their staff sent a Christmas card from their criminal alter egos. The resulting card was unique, stood out from the sea of cards most people got that year, and allowed them to show a side of themselves that no one would otherwise know. Not only was it great for personalizing and marketing their firm, but the photo shoot itself was great office bonding.

Tripp Watson
The Watson Firm

9. Holiday Gift Guides on Blogs

My business has received the best return on investment from blog holiday gift guides. I simply submit a product or a small fee and my award winning learning kit series gets promoted to my target market, parents! Small businesses should target blogs that reach the same market, research the blogs stats to be sure the audience is wide reaching and form an alliance. It may not be for long but blog gift guides are still a fraction of the cost of an advertisement in a print magazine!

Christy Cook
Teach My
www.teachmy.com

Have more ideas?  Share them here in the comments section.  I will pick a random winner to get a copy of my book “How to Build Buzz for Your Biz- Tap into the Power of Social Media, Publicity, and Relationship Marketing to Grow Your Business.”  Contest ends midnight Nov 5th, 2011.

Want to get more inexpensive and practical small business marketing ideas?  Sign up for my free marketing newsletter and grab your free download of my eBook at http://23kazoos.com.

I’ve been working with the creators of StartUpNation since 2001 when I was hired to shoot Rich Sloan doing yoga on the conference room table in the Birmingham Michigan office of the up and coming StartUpNation.  I was recently offered the opportunity to blog about photography if I thought I could contribute to entrepreneurs and start ups. I think I can so I’ll give it a shot.  I’ll be talking about all things photography, from how to do a shoot in the office, to what’s the best stock agency for what your needs are, to rights and usage contracts.  I’ll be answering questions about any thing relating to the business of photography and photography in your business. If I don’t know the answers I’ll look to the vast knowledge base of my peers and will share what I learn with you, so post your questions and comments about you’re photographic quandaries here, and I’ll help you along the image driven super highway of successful businesses.

I should tell you a bit about me.
I began my career as a photographer early in life.  My brother had a darkroom in a closet at our house when I was a sixth grader.  It didn’t take long for my teachers at school to see an opportunity to recruit the next news paper and yearbook photographer.  That’s when I learned that you can have fun and provide a needed service at the same time.  I could get credits for graduation if I work on the year book and news paper staff!  Life was good.  Then one day I was handed a press pass to cover the cheerleaders for a story for the news paper, that was all the motivation I ever needed to pursue my career.  When I was a senior in High School I was introduced to an advertising photographer in my home town of Detroit named Ameen Howrani.  He let me watch him work one day, he was shooting a news crew for the local ABC affiliate.  It was very glamorous, they had food there!  I was face to face with the local anchor man!  That’s when I decided that advertising was where it’s at.  Fast forward 25 years.  I have photographed some really great people, some incredibly beautiful places, and some of the most interesting stuff you’ll ever see.  I picked up a few professional sports teams along the way as well.  Namely the Detroit Red Wings, Detroit Tigers, Detroit Lions, and currently Tampa Bay Ray’s as well as the NHL, NFL, MLB and other editorial venues related to sports. I’ve had unprecedented access to closed door behind the scenes events in the NFL, NHL, and MLB to name just a few. I was given the opportunity to shoot a book for the Detroit Red Wings called “48 Hours with the Detroit Red Wings”. Its a chronological documentation of what happens in forty eight hours in the world of the Red Wings Hockey team.  I was able to travel with the team to photograph players, coaches, and staff. We took two days to shoot the book so we could show the travel aspect of how the team lives on the road (and above the clouds).  During that shoot I was given access to coaches meetings that had never been photographed before.  One of the best experiences I had with the Red  Wings was Flying on the team jet to Washington DC to the White House to meet President George W Bush.   I was given an assignment by the Detroit Tigers Baseball team to shoot an eighteen page photo essay of Tiger Stadium during the final home stand ever to be played there.  The parting shot was Al Kaline in his nineteen sixty eight world series uniform (it still fit), pondering his days playing in that historic stadium.  The cover shot was of the stadium from the corner of Michigan and Trumble on a Friday night with fireworks lighting the sky.  I was able to get images never before captured, such as the neon Tiger Stadium sign from the roof of the press elevator.  I’m currently team photographer for the Tampa Bay Ray’s Baseball team, and have a nice client list of local and national companies and agencies as well.  I live in the St Petersburg area of Florida where I’ve lived for the past six years.  Before that I lived mostly in the suburbs of Detroit with a few years in New York city.  Please feel free to see some of the photographs I mention here at www.kovich.com

Internet bubble? What internet bubble?

Yesterday, Groupon filed the paperwork to become a publicly traded company.  Sometime this year, you will be able to buy stock in Groupon and join the other 500 million people making Groupon stock discount jokes.

Last year, Groupon turned down a $6 BILLION offer from Google.  Laughable, right? Well guess what:  Greed is still good.  Yesterdays filing valued Groupon at around $20 billion.

Here are the best of the fun facts about Groupon that we’ve learned in the last 24 hours:

1.  Groupon LOST over $400 million last year

2.  Groupon’s CEO Andrew Mason takes and annual salary of $575.00.  Poor guy - I hope he’ll make it. Mason holds 7.7% of the companys stock.

3.  Mason is NOT the largest shareholder.  That honor belongs to Eric Lefkofsky, who owns 21.6%…of $20 BILLION dollars.

4.  In the last 2 years, Groupon has grown over 20,000%

5.  Groupon has 83.1 million subscribers in 145 US markets

6.  Groupon has over 7,000 employees

7.  Groupon. Is. THREE. YEARS. OLD.

Personally,  this company and IPO remind me a lot of the “Irrational Exuberance” days of 2000 when any company with a .com in its’ name shot to the moon.  I have 2 concerns with Groupon:

1.  They just bleed money.  They’ve lost $114 million in Q1 of 2011 alone.

2.  Their model is easy to duplicate.  With competitors like LivingSocial, Google, Facebook, and other very large fish jumping into the space, Groupon is in no way an island.

What do you think?  Would you buy Groupon stock?

Kevin Harmon

CEO Red Shorts Media

twitter:  imadness

linkedin: THEKevinHarmon

kevin@redshortsmedia.com

Coolest DVD CD and Video Game Buyback Site Ever: MightyBuyback.com

As I wrote a while ago here in my blog about the Twitter squatter who was trying to extort StartupNation, there are definitely systems in place at the social media companies that support ethical companies and certainly intellectual property rights of individuals and companies. Twitter worked on our behalf to wrestle away the /startupnation account for us given that it was a registered trademark owned by our business and was obviously strategic to us as well as a source of confusion in the marketplace under the squatter’s control. They quickly moved the account into our control.

Now through the encouragement of Daliah Saper of Saper Law, we’ve done the same thing at Facebook. In less than 24 hours, by following their simple, clear instructions, we were able to pull www.facebook.com/startupnation away from the squatter and now have that username as our own, appropriately so.

Here’s the simple, step-by-step process we followed in case you have a squatter issue and/or trademark issue as it relates to a Facebook username:

1. Go to the bottom of any Facebook page. Click on the link called “Terms.”
   For your convenience, that link is here.
2. Scroll down to #5, “Protecting Other People’s Rights,” and select “How to Report Claims of Intellectual Property Infringement”.
   For your convenience that link is here.
3. For copyright infringement, scroll down to “How to report claims of copyright infringement by users” and select the link.
   For your convenience, that link is here.
4. For trademark (or other intellectual property concerns), which was what applied to our situation given our registered trademark for StartupNation that the squatter was unethically using for their benefit, scroll down to “How to report other claims of intellectual property infringement by users” and select the link.
   For your convenience, that link is here.

We are always looking out for you and hope that you find similar success and satisfaction in the process, which is set up and well enforced by Facebook.

We hope that you can soon make your own blog entry titled, “Me 1, Facebook Squatter 0″!

Rich