Why I joined Smaller Indiana.

As I proud member of Smaller Indiana, A social media community created by Pat Coyle, Communications Director of the Indianapolis Colts, Doug Karr of Compendium Blogware and Kyle Lacy of Brandswag. I thought I’d write just a few words to tell about this awesome community for Indianapolis and Indiana.

I first became aware of SI through a coworker at Fusework Studios. After I signed up for the group, I was immediately notified with a personal message from Kyle.

“Hey Justin! Welcome to Smaller Indiana and congratulations on becoming a SMOOSIER! Let us know if you have any questions about the site and remember to have some fun!”

I was also invited to the 3000 member party, which has now grown to over 6000+ members in the the past 6 months.

Since becoming a member, I have met with several hundred of it’s members, joined several networking groups, both on-line and off-line. In fact, I created my own group the Social Media Lunch Club which has nearly 100+ members!

SI is a great resource for any local Marketer, Designer, Web Developer or  just about any small to medium business or entrepreneur.

Sign up, check it out and add me as a friend. Don’t forget to join the Social Media Lunch Club while you’re there!

It’s great to be around the ‘who’s who’ of Indianapolis media.

Check it out

Take Social Media Off-line

I always enjoy talking with people concerning Social Media topics. I thought it would be great to discuss taking Social Media and actually moving it into a ‘real world’ situation.

I first met another Indianapolis New Media Marketer on Twitter. We first began our conversation about Harley Davidson bikes.  Our passion for things in common, led us to more discussions about New Media challenges we both face in our respective companies.

Upon meeting in person, we found we had more in common than we originally thought. The one disadvantage to keeping everything on-line is that you can’t read the tone of the person entirely.

Upon further discussion, he knew of a company that wasn’t a great fit for his company but he felt may be a great fit for our company.

After our meeting, I received a contact from the person he mentioned. We met for lunch ( I love food!), and decided to meet in our office and discuss further.

After the lunch discussion and discovery, I’m proud to say that we now have a ‘raving fan’ client that we offer our full service offerings. All because of one ‘tweet’.

Through this discovery we not gained not only a client, but gained a new friend in the Social Media community.

Facebook is Hurting My Google Rank

Just a week ago, on Saturday, June 13 at 12:01am, Facebook decided to let their users pick a unique user name. This was a first come/ first serve approach. Being  somewhat of a fair Social Media advocate, I lost my ranking to one of the other 400 Justin Bryant’s on Facebook. Yes, there are at least 400 JB’s on FB. OK, out of 200,000,000 plus that’s not so bad- or is it?

Turns out that a Justin Bryant from somewhere else landed the name before me. Why? Well simple, I was playing with a band in Indianapolis at 12:01 and didn’t have the ability to change it at the time. Of course, after a very long day, I still forgot and at 10:00 am changed it to justinbryant08. This WAS my old Twitter account name. (Please read my post on changing your Twitter name which I will publish tomorrow!) So, the only name I could think of was justinbryant08! Now and forever, I’m dated on FB as justinbryant08. Not only have I dated myself, hurt my personal brand and feel humiliated, I’ve lost to a low web participant!

The reason is the weight of the site and it’s pages! It’s hard to trump the big dogs!

I always come in second to the Justin Bryant on Wikipedia and now this other guy! Oh, the humility. How much content and indexing is it going to take to knock out two of the biggest web site ranking giants out there?

Simple answer, more content.
Harder answer, better content, indexing and linking?? I don’t know, I guess I could wait for Google to change the algorithm for the 5,000 time this year, right?

Well, I lost the fight but not the war! I encourage the rest of you doppelgangers to write better more proactive blogs and participate more in community involvement! We will prevail!

BTW… I sent him a friend request :>)

Has Your Ning Account Been Hacked! Phishing Alert

Phising Attempts on Social Networking Platforms

This week the social community Ning, has been on the attack of people trying to pull scams. Here is what happened to me on Smaller Indiana.

Being in the New Media biz, I know better than to put an email on anything that bots can crawl.
However, I did reply to someone and included my email on a public thread on SI.

In case anyone was unaware, bots will scour the web looking for email addresses to send chain letters, scams etc… If you send an email to someone, use a contact form or PM the person you’re trying to contact.

If anyone else received this letter, please do not reply as it is a phishing attempt!

Thanks!
Justin

“Hello….dear good day,
I wish you long life and prosperity How are you doing i hope you are feeling fine?My name is Susy i saw your profile today at (smallerindiana.ning.com) and became intrested which really gave me a nice pleasure to communicate with you,i feel you are the only one missing in my entered life,Remember all the darkness in the world, can-not put off the light of a single candle as long as the light of love shines bright in your heart,i will also like to know you the more, so i can send you my picture for you to know whom i believe we can move from here to next leve I am waiting for your mail,Remeber the distance or colour does not matter but love and understading matters alot in life one love for us, and If you look at what you have in life, you have everything in life.please reply to my email.(susylovejohnson@yahoo.com) so we can know each other my lovely one i wish you best of all of good luck and have a nice day as i am waiting to hear from you soonest.God bless you
From Susy”

From Wikipedia:

“In the field of computer security, phishing is the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. Communications purporting to be from popular social web sites, auction sites, online payment processors or IT Administrators are commonly used to lure the unsuspecting public. Phishing is typically carried out by e-mail or instant messaging,[1] and it often directs users to enter details at a fake website whose look and feel are almost identical to the legitimate one. Even when using server authentication, it may require tremendous skill to detect that the website is fake. Phishing is an example of social engineering techniques used to fool users,[2] and exploits the poor usability of current web security technologies.[3] Attempts to deal with the growing number of reported phishing incidents include legislation, user training, public awareness, and technical security measures.”

Did I forget to Blog? Big Props!!

OK, so I work for a company that deals in Internet Marketing strategies and I haven’t posted a blog in 6 weeks! What have I been up to?

Well, I have acquired about a dozen great clients that take my time with:

-New Media Strategies
-High End Web Production
-Amazing Video and IT services.

Now part of the New Media Strategy involves blogging! We’ve found a great partner that makes a really great SaaS blogging platform. Compendium Blogware They have created a great way to use compended blogs to generate great Google rankings! Check them out, I’ll wait.

They have a clever way of taking the time to SEO a blog and all the technical junk and let you focus on content and improving your ROI.

The stuff works folks.

OK, as my ADD is kicking back in I’ve met so many wonderful New Media folks out there. Check out Colin Clark And Kyle Lacy at Brandswag.com. These guys really understand every cool Social Media tool out there.

Also, big props to Don Schindler and MediaSauce. Don is one the best spoken and intelligent folks I’ve had the pleasure of being around. He also helped me out tremendously and I owe him big.

Plus rides a Harley Davidson too.

I can’t forget my co-worker Derek McClain. He’s just Like the Brandswag guys as he’s a blogging freak. I love his attitude and discipline.

Also, every once in a while I do something extra amazing!!

I’m proud to announce that Kevin Hood is joining the ranks of Fusework Studios. Kevin has been an Internet Marketer since the later 90’s before SEO was SEO! He’s also great at all things New Media and a world class drummer as well. We met 15 years ago in College when we were both Music geeks.

I promise to write better, more informative blogs!

When life throws you apples, make applesauce!

It’s been a busy couple months!!!!!

OK, well…So little to do and sooo much time!

Turn a Cold Call into a Warm Lead

In my career, I’ve had several jobs cold calling. Starting with a mortgage agency at 16 all the way to my current job at Fusework Studios.

It can be expensive, frustrating and just plain humiliating!

“Cold Calling is the processing of approaching prospective clients, typically via telephone, who have not agreed to such an interaction. The word “cold” is used because the person receiving the call is not expecting the call or has not specifically asked to be contacted by the sales person. It is often very frustrating and difficult for those making cold calls because they are often rebuffed, hung-up on and rejected by those receiving the calls.”

Sounds painful eh?

In the Internet Marketing biz there is a strong model we use. It’s referring to inbound or permission based marketing. The idea is simple. People that looking for goods or services will find you through searching for their needs. They “Google” their pain, wants or needs and if you’ve built the proper on-line outposts, they will fill out a form, send an email or call for more information etc. This is an excellent way to generate qualified leads or at worst a potential prospect. Since, they have given us permission to contact them, the process becomes much less painful and much more pleasant!

This is the preferred model and I back it 100%.

However, we still have to make outbound calls that can be ‘cold’ in nature.

How do you turn a cold call into a warm lead? Ask yourself these questions.

- Do I understand their business?

- Can I handle rejection?

- Am I prepared to make 10 calls to get an appointment?

- Who have I worked with that they have as well?

- Have I checked LinkedIn to learn more about the decision makers.

- Have I asked my contacts if they know someone at that company?

- Do I have a compelling story that they can quickly relate too?

* Am I ready to listen to what they have to say?

I think the biggest one is last one…What do you think?

What is Twitter?

See that little bird to the right..Yup, that’s a link to my Twitter profile.

If you’re not sure in 2009 what Twitter is…well, 10,000 new users do everyday! It actually started longer than you think – July of 2006. I first became aware of Twitter reading a Wired magazine in Chicago in early 2008.

Twitter is also known as micro-blogging. It allows you to use up to 140 characters to send a message about what you’re doing, reading or watching. I first thought of it like text messaging but in a Social Media way. Where several ‘friends’ could see what you’re up to.

Oddly enough, everyone’s first “Tweet” or post says something like “trying out Twitter”. Mine was way more lame.
“trying to create a new account…yet it still won’t work with my cell phone!”

If your curious what your first Tweet was check out. myfirsttweet.com

Please, if you going to use Twitter, don’t post lame comments about what you ate for lunch!

Instead of re-inventing the blog wheel. I ‘borrowed’ this from twittip.com

1. Set up your profile

The first thing you need to do is to set up that profile. See that bar on top of your twitter page? Click Settings and start filling up your profile. The notable areas in here are URL, bio, picture and design. Put up a link to your site or blog in here along with a brief description. Upload a picture to differentiate yourself from the others and then tweak your Twitter design. Like any other social networking site, it is important to completely express what you are or what you stand for in your profile.

2. Follow people with similar interests

Now that you have a profile, start following people. You can find these people in Twitter directories. I use Twellow and JustTweetIt. These sites can introduce you to Twitter users that have the same interest as yours. Follow these people and observe their tweets. You may also try following who these people follow but read up their descriptions and visit their blogs to make sure you’re still on the right niche. Being on the right niche will make it easy for you to build a community with a similar interest.
3. Get into the conversation

So now that you are following people, you will now see some tweets on your board. Read up on what the people your following are up to and reply if it interests you. For example, a person narrates how he is going to conduct a meeting. You may then reply with ideas. When someone asks a question, don’t hesitate to answer if you know it. Don’t be afraid to interact.
4. Don’t spam

Spam is the cause of many unfollows on Twitter. There is a character limit for a reason. Do not send repeated messages to people. Do not constantly direct message (DM) them with links.
5. Update daily

Alright so you’re blending in the community. Now update daily if possible. I know some Twitter users who unfollow because of inactivity. Reply to people and update people with what’s going on with your life. Soon you’ll be recognized and you’ll get some follows.
6. Find the latest buzz and contribute

Now it’s your time to contribute. Find a topic that will interest your niche and tweet it. Since you have established relationships with your followers (through replies), you will get more attention. It’s a nice strategy to always append “please retweet” at the end of your tweet. There will be some people who will be so interested that they will retweet. There are others who will reply to you about the link you tweeted. But you are not a “nobody” anymore. You are not just talking to yourself. People are now responding to your tweets.
7. Help other people out

The famous saying “Do unto others what you want others to do unto you” holds here. Before you can receive retweets, you must help others first by retweeting their messages. Help the people in your niche. One day you’ll be surprised on how eager they are to help you back.
8. Create relationships

Now it’s time to create constant connections. Soon you will find that some users are more active than others. You will get to talk with the same group of people at the same time every night. But don’t get bored. Interact with these people and create relationships. Ask how they are doing and try to touch on their interests.
9. Integrate Twitter with other social networks

Have a blog? Then post to Twitter when you have a post that will interest your niche. Have a Facebook profile? Then ask people to add you. Twitter is really a vital part of web 2.0. It can serve as the core. It can let you build relationships that can branch out to other social networks.
10. Establish relationships even outside Twitter

Have a lot of friends on Twitter? Then take it to another level. Ask for their messenger and talk to these people on a more intimate level. Call them through Skype or even arrange a meet-up. Twitter can create real relationships.

Google 2001-2008 “Not Too Evil”

This is just more information from the mouth of Google. I tried to chomp out the pieces that were more relevant to most people . I’ve left out the philanthropic angle and focused more on the acquisitions and applications that have redefined how we work, live and play.

Some of these features you may think just came out. In fact, they many have been around longer than you think.

In the next post I’ll get a little more ‘controversial’.

2001

* first public acquisition: Deja.com’s Usenet Discussion Service, an archive of 500 million Usenet discussions dating back to 1995.

* Google.com is available in 26 languages.

* Image Search launches, offering access to 250 million images.

* index size grows to 3 billion web documents.

2002

* The first Google hardware is released: it’s a yellow box called the Google Search Appliance that businesses can plug into their computer network to enable search capabilities for their own documents.

* release a major overhaul for AdWords, including new cost-per-click pricing.

* Wannounce a major partnership with AOL to offer Google search and sponsored links to 34 million customers using CompuServe, Netscape and AOL.com.

* release Google Labs for users to try out beta technologies fresh from our R&D team.

* Google News launches with 4000 news sources.

* open our first Australian office in Sydney.

* Users can now search for stuff to buy with Froogle (later called Google Product Search).

2003

* American Dialect Society members vote “google” the “most useful” Word of the Year for 2002.

* acquire Pyra Labs, the creators of Blogger.

* announce a new content-targeted advertising service, enabling publishers large and small to access Google’s vast network of advertisers.

* launch Google Grants, our in-kind advertising program for nonprofit organizations to run in-kind ad campaigns for their cause.

* launch Google Print (which later becomes Google Book Search), indexing small excerpts from books to appear in search results.

2004

* search index hits a new milestone: 6 billion items, including 4.28 billion web pages and 880 million images.

* new “Googleplex” at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway in Mountain View, giving 800+ employees a campus environment.

* introduce Google Local, offering relevant neighborhood business listings, maps, and directions. (Later, Local is combined with Google Maps.)

* Initial Public Offering of 19,605,052 shares of Class A common stock takes place on Wall Street on August 18. Opening price: $85 per share.

* Google SMS (short message service) launches; send your text search queries to GOOGL or 466453 on your mobile device.

* Google Desktop Search is introduced: users can now search for files and documents stored on their own hard drive using Google technology.

* acquire Keyhole, a digital mapping company whose technology will later become Google Earth.

* Our index of web pages reaches 8 billion.
.
* The Google Print Program (since renamed Google Book Search) expands through digital scanning partnerships with the libraries of Harvard, Stanford, University of Michigan, and Oxford plus the New York Public Library.

2005

* Image Search: 1.1 billion images indexed.

* Google Maps goes live.

* acquire Urchin, a web analytics company whose technology is used to create Google Analytics.

* Google Maps now features satellite views and directions.

* Google Local goes mobile, and includes SMS driving directions.

* My Search History launches in Labs, allowing users to view all the web pages they’ve visited and Google searches they’ve made over time.

* release Site Targeting, an AdWords feature giving advertisers the ability to better target their ads to specific content sites.

* release Blogger Mobile, enabling bloggers to use their mobile phones to post and send photos to their blogs.

* Personalized Homepage (now iGoogle ) is designed for people to customize their own Google homepage with content modules they choose.

* Google Mobile Web Search is released, specially formulated for viewing search results on mobile phones.

* Google Earth: a satellite imagery-based mapping service combining 3D buildings and terrain with mapping capabilities and Google search.

* Google Blog Search goes live; it’s the way to find current and relevant blog postings on particular topics throughout the enormous blogosphere.

* Google Reader, a feed reader, is introduced at the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco.

* introduce Picasa in 25 more languages, including Polish, Thai and Vietnamese.

* release Chat in Gmail, using the instant messaging tools from Google Talk.

* announce the acquisition of Writely, a web-based word processing application that subsequently becomes the basis for Google Docs.

* launch Google Calendar, complete with sharing and group features.

* Google Trends, a way to visualize the popularity of searches over time.

* Picasa Web Albums, allowing Picasa users to upload and share their photos online.

* The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) adds “Google” as a verb.

* At Google Code Jam Europe, nearly 10,000 programmers from 31 countries compete at Google Dublin for the top prizes; Tomasz Czajka from Poland wins the final round.

* Google News, with more than 200 years of historical articles.

* acquisition of YouTube for 1 Billion US.

* acquire JotSpot, a collaborative wiki platform, which later becomes Google Sites.

* release Patent Search in the U.S., indexing more than 7 million patents dating back to 1790.

* We announce a partnership with China Mobile, the world’s largest mobile telecom carrier, to provide mobile and Internet search services in China.

* For Valentine’s Day, open up Gmail to everyone.

* Google Hot Trends launches, listing the current 100 most active queries, showing what people are searching for at the moment.

* Street View debuts in Google Maps in five U.S. cities: New York, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Miami, and Denver.

* On Developer Day, we announce Google Gears (now known just as Gears), an open source technology for creating offline web applications.

* Google Maps gets prime placement on the original Apple iPhone.

* The first CNN/YouTube debate takes place between the eight U.S. Democratic Presidential candidates. (

* Android, the first open platform for mobile devices, and a collaboration with other companies in the Open Handset Alliance, is announced.

2008

* Google Sites, a revamp of the acquisition JotSpot, debuts. Sites enables users to create collaborative websites with embedded videos, documents, and calendars.

* Google Website Optimizer comes out of beta, expanding from an AdWords-only product. It’s a free website-testing tool with which users can continually test different combinations of their website content (such as images and text), to see which ones yield themost sales, sign-ups, leads or other goals.

* first downloadable iPhone app, featuring My Location and word suggestions for quicker mobile searching, debuts with the launch of the Apple 3G iPhone.

* Google Suggest feature arrives on Google.com, helping formulate queries, reduce spelling errors, and reduce keystrokes.

* Word gets out about Chrome a bit ahead of schedule and released in Beta on Sept 2nd.

* Google News Archive helps to make more old newspapers accessible and searchable online by partnering with newspaper publishers to digitize millions of pages of news archives.

* T-Mobile announces the G1, the first phone built on the Android operating system.

Is Google Evil? The First Five Years

OK, now I’m sure this is a great way to lose my ranking from Google!

I figured we’d start with where this monster originated.

I found this from the “official Google source”

1995

* Larry Page and Sergey Brin meet at Stanford; they disagree about most everything during this first meeting.

1996

* Larry and Sergey, now Stanford computer science grad students, begin collaborating on a search engine called BackRub.

* BackRub operates on Stanford servers for more than a year — eventually taking up too much bandwidth to suit the university.

1997

* Larry and Sergey decide that the BackRub search engine needs a new name. After some brainstorming, they go with Google — a play on the word “googol,” a mathematical term for the number represented by the numeral 1 followed by 100 zeros. The use of the term reflects their mission to organize a seemingly infinite amount of information on the web.

1998
* Sun co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim writes a check for $100,000 to an entity that doesn’t exist yet: a company called Google Inc.

* Google files for incorporation in California on September 4. Shortly thereafter, Larry and Sergey open a bank account in the newly-established company’s name and deposit Andy Bechtolsheim’s check.

* “PC Magazine” reports that Google “has an uncanny knack for returning extremely relevant results” and recognizes us as the search engine of choice in the Top 100 Web Sites.

1999

* First press release announces a $25 million round from Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins;

2000
* The first 10 language versions of Google.com are released: French, German, Italian, Swedish, Finnish, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Norwegian and Danish.

*Forge a partnership with Yahoo! to become their default search provider. (Yahoo is still ranked as the top visited page according to Alexa.com)

*Announce the first billion-URL index and therefore Google becomes the world’s largest search engine.

* Google AdWords launches with 350 customers. The self-service ad program promises online activation with a credit card, keyword targeting and performance feedback.

* Google Toolbar is released. It’s a browser plug-in that makes it possible to search without visiting the Google homepage.

Apple Customer Service- Shame on you!

So to conclude this awful bday , which finally ended with me doing some serious damage to my neighbors mailbox and I think denting my truck heavily-insurance ugh. (ice ice baby)

So, in a heavy snowfall, I dress my two year daughter up and drive 25 miles back to the Apple store at the Keystone Fashion Mall. Just to let everyone know, The Fashion Mall in Indianapolis is where the ‘high class’ shop.

Now this being the second time after after ’setting an appointment’ , I’m prepared to pay no more than $200 to have my 16gb iPhone fixed. Well, it gets much worse.

I arrive at 4:15 to a PACKED store of Mac crazy advocates. It took me 40 minutes before my name was drawn. Keep in mind I have a two year old in tow.

So they guy looks at the blank screen a couple times , then points out that the ‘water damage’ tag has turned pink. I explained the phone worked 100% fine and that I dropped it. I NEVER DROPPED IT IN WATER!!

He didn’t care. He asked if I was up for ‘renewal’ I said I just bought it a few months ago. He told me I was out of luck and had to buy a new one at FULL price.

Completely humiliated, I stormed out of the store only to return to the AT&T store and resign a two year agreement to get an 8GB for for $429.00 including tax. Remember I had a 16GB for $299!!

So nonetheless, I am very displeased with Apple’s customer service. It seems they used to accept claims even if people dropped the phones in the toilet. Obviously that’s gotten too expensive.

So as the economy crumbles, Apple knows that I have two options. Pay full price for a phone or break my contract and go with a Blackberry etc.. (I almost did and still might do so!)

So, at least for me, Apple’s Customer Service is dead … SHAME ON YOU APPLE. Mr. Jobs- Your monster needs a spanking.

But you got some more $$ from me and I will be SURE to put this in a stupid large case!!