Supa Swap – Buy, Bid,Sell for Kids is offering a great prize of a VIP Weekend at Silverstone! Make sure you check out their competition which also includes Special Paddock Access & Grandstand Seating!

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As more and more people carry the Internet around in their pockets, the social network marketing world is at the cusp of yet another dramatic change.  Mobile phones, netbooks, iPads, e-book readers, and an increasing range of online gadgets have revolutionized what it means to be connected.

Today, people can read (and post) reviews about your products, compare prices, and find out exactly how you stack up against the competition from literally anywhere, with just a few taps on a touch screen. Mobile social networking is booming, and services like Foursquare even let users tag and comment about actual geographical locations using GPS. If your friend is complaining about the bad pizza they ate Saturday night,  they can now tell everyone exactly where they got it, and you’ll know which restaurant to avoid even if you are not familiar with the area. Same thing when someone recommends a great pub with a friendly atmosphere,or any other establishment.

So, what does this mean for your business?

In a few words, you either adapt to the changing times and use the mobile social networks to your advantage, or you risk watching your business slowly dwindle and die.

1. If you’re competing on price alone, you’re doomed

Let’s face it: competing on price has always been a dead end strategy. Once you reach the lowest point, you’re left with nothing better to offer your clients. Now, if you are running a brick and mortar business, prospective buyers can check prices and search the ‘Net for better deals from right inside your shop.

This means that – now, more than ever – you need that something extra to really make your business stand out from the crowd. Maybe you have a no-questions asked returns policy. Or you have the expertise and knowledge that will help people make the most of your products. Or your shop is a focal point – kind of a club – for people who share the same interests or hobby. Maybe all of those things together!

The bottom line is that you have to offer customers a top-notch experience, so that looking elsewhere never even crosses their minds.

2. You must bolster your online presence, even if you only do business offline

Anyone can google your products or company name right before they walk through the door, so you need to make sure that the information they find will encourage them to do business with you.

Make an effort to be even more active on the social media. Cultivate a following on Facebook and on relevant online forums. Work on building an impressive online presence that inspires confidence, establishes you as an expert, and helps you clinch the deal.

3. Work hard to earn great reviews

Visit Amazon.com and you can see what people think of just about any book, toy or gadget you can imagine. On eBay, you can tell at a glance from the ratings which sellers you can trust (even though they may just be running a small business out of their home) and which ones to avoid like the plague. In today’s online version of word-of-mouth recommendations, reviews and ratings from perfect strangers can really make or break your business.

What if a journalist from your local paper came over to do a write-up of your company? Wouldn’t you give them the ’special’ treatment? Well, each and every one of your customers now has potentially as much or more reach than that journalist, thanks to the social Internet. You really need to be your best every single time.

Go the extra mile to please your customers and earn their praise. Encourage your customers to get involved in the social media, and to recommend you to their contacts. Actively seek customer testimonials and publish them prominently on your website and blog, where your prospects will find them.

And remember: it’s not just about your company. It’s also about you!

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A great website or blog can really elevate your business profile, bet you can’t wait to get it up and running. Well you don’t have to wait to start your social media programme, good groundwork can mean that the new site will arrive with a large waiting audience eager to see what’s on offer. A prime example is a comapany called Supaswap who used a competition on Facebook to get an early buzz going for their site.

A trading site aimed at the 8 to 18 age group, SupaSwap started a logo competiton on Facebook backed by Twitter, and soon had 3000 members and 300 great entries for the competition. The ripple effect from that meant that once the main site was launched, the company name was well known and talked about.

Now SupaSwap are utilising the full range of social media with Facebook, Twitter, Flickr , Google Profile and You Tube. A good lesson for us all in how to kick start your business.

SupaSwap website

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Just as Google announced it’s new Caffeine search indexing algorithm that has been improved to keep up with up-to-the-minute content from the social media, web traffic analysts, web analysts Hitwise have broken the news that people in the UK are visiting the social networks more often than the search engines.

Take a look at the graph below to see how UK search engine traffic has remained more or less constant in the last few years, compared to the steady and apparently unstoppable rise in popularity of the social networks. Already in March of this year, Facebook surpassed Google in web traffic in the US, and it seems that this trend is spreading around the globe.

The implications of this phenomenon are pretty obvious if you’re working to improve your business’ online visibility: you simply cannot afford to ignore the social media any more! The emphasis has always been on Search Engine Optimisation, but having a strong presence in the social media is now at least as important as getting those coveted top search engine rankings.

If you’re still lagging behind on social media marketing, you really need to get on board right away. Those of you who have already started need to redouble your efforts.

So here’s what you need to do:

• Understand that social media marketing is not a waste of time. It’s your most powerful free marketing tool.
• Get up to speed on how to make social network marketing work for your business.
• If anyone in your company is still reluctant to embrace the social media as a powerful marketing tool, show them this post and hit out at the 7 deadly excuses for not using social media marketing, demolishing them one by one.
• Follow these 8 easy steps to get started in social media marketing.
• Urge key members of your staff to spend at least 15 minutes a day working on your social media marketing. Better still, build a habit of using any spare time you have to connect with the masses and get the word out there.

While Facebook and Google battle for the crown of web dominance, you really should be actively staking our your territory both in the search engines and on the online social networks. Keep in mind that social marketing largely consists of building online communities of people who talk about your company and refer new business. These can be local communities if your business is local in nature, or they can be worldwide communities of potential customers if you operate on a global scale. It doesn’t matter. The principle of social media remains the same. It’s about sharing information and opinions – friends telling friends – and that what makes this kind of word-of-mouth marketing so powerful. It’s perceived as being extremely trustworthy.

Social media marketing is also practically free, and it’s something your staff can quickly learn to do themselves. Best of all, much of your social media activity will get indexed by the search engines, so you are actually killing two birds with one stone, reaching the online masses and the search engines at the same time.

Social media really is where it’s at! Can you afford to opt out?

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If you’ve been keeping up with current SEO trends, you surely know how blog posts, images, video, tweets, Facebook updates and the other social networks need to be a key part of your overall strategy. Well, providing regular updates of great, new content on a variety of platforms has suddenly become so much more important, literally overnight!

Google has just announced its revamped search indexing system called Caffeine, which delivers search results that are fresher than ever before.

In Google’s own words:

Content on the web is blossoming. It’s growing not just in size and numbers but with the advent of video, images, news and real-time updates, the average webpage is richer and more complex. In addition, people’s expectations for search are higher than they used to be. Searchers want to find the latest relevant content and publishers expect to be found the instant they publish.

If there was ever any doubt in your mind about how absolutely vital it is to use a variety of Social Media and constantly post new content all over the Web, we hope this quote from Google has killed it once and for all!

What’s Goggle’s Caffeine search indexing system?

Google’s old search indexing system used to divide web content into different layers, some of which would only be indexed and updated every couple of weeks. This was because Google would have to revisit the whole of the Web for each update – a very time-consuming process.

The way Google’s new Caffeine search indexing system works is that small portions of the Web are analyzed at a time and new content is immediately added to Google’s index. This means that your new content will show up almost instantaneously in online searches, and you will potentially see a quicker payoff than ever, every time you publish a new piece!

How to take advantage of Caffeine for your SEO

The ‘here and now’ is more important than ever, which makes it absolutely crucial that you publish content on a very regular basis. You need to get into the habit of constantly blogging, tweeting, and posting little snippets of useful information every day, even several times a day.

Remember: this doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to burn the midnight oil, or write long, elaborate blog posts every single day. What you must do is to develop a workable system of regularly posting to a variety of sites and social networks. Tweet about your day-to-day life and business, write frequent, short 50-100 word posts on your blog, share interesting content you find with your online friends, take photos and post them to Flickr, do the same with video and Youtube, and so on and so forth. That’s the drill.

Install applications for Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, and the other social networks on your mobile phone and get into the habit of posting updates and keeping in touch whenever you have a moment to spare. These actions that take just a couple of minutes a pop will add up over time and build you a following. Just as importantly, they will keep you at the forefront of Google’s search index on an ongoing basis.

At the same time, you must make sure not to neglect your website, and keep it regularly updated with fresh content. If you allow your site to become stale, it will slowly start to fall out of favour with Google, as the search engine gives preference to other sites that it sees are more up to date.

We also strongly suspect that Google is also taking into account other metrics about your site, such as how quickly your pages load, how many people are talking about it on the social media, and also how long people stay on your web pages, which can be easily determined if you have Google Analytics on your website. Work to optimise those too!

Now that Google has put its money where its mouth is in developing Caffeine, and has taken a giant step forward towards providing its users with content that is more fresh and relevant than, you simply have no choice but to follow suit if you want to keep up with the SEO game.

Don’t panic! Those regular tiny drops in the form of regular posts will not only fill your SEO bucket, but even make it overflow. Just keep at it and you’ll see results!

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Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, blog…

If you’re serious about your social media marketing, you should be actively using a whole bunch of social networks to build an online following and get your message out there. The thing is that while it’s great to have so many ways to reach out, you can easily begin to get the feeling that there is little cohesion between the different platforms.

So, how can you have your message out there all over the place and at the same time have one handy point of reference that your customers and prospects can refer to?

Easy. Get a Google Profile. Actually, get one for you and one for your business!

John Beckley's Google Profile

The thing is that your Google Profile is much more than just a handy way to link up your different social network accounts. It’s is also a big boost to your online presence. Together with Google Buzz, your Google Profile is an excellent tool to brand yourself and your company online. It’s true that Google Buzz has been slow on the uptake, but hang in there. We think that Google is too big and too powerful a company to let this slide.

So make sure you read this great article by world class branding expert Dan Schawbel that teaches you how to use Google Buzz and your Google Profile to brand yourself.

Anyway, what will your Google Profile look like?

Visit the Sorted Sites Google Profile to get a better idea of what it’s all about. We have a Flickr photostream running across the top, and links to all our social media accounts in the right column. It’s pretty simple really, but also very powerful.

For example, your Google Profile shows up in the search results of your social network through Google’s social search. It is also more likely to show up in searches for your name or for your company’s name, and this makes it easy for people to get a comprehensive view of what you are all about. And besides, the websites you link to from your Google profile should get some extra SEO benefit from that link because it’s from Google.

So what are you waiting for? Read this post to find detailed information about how to create your Google Profile and build yours today to boost your online presence. Once that’s done, promote it like crazy using all your other social media platforms!

Also take a look at the Google Profiles we have created for our clients in Tenerife – you may want to follow a few of them too! And as soon as you have your own Google Profile, be sure to share it with us by posting it in the comments section below.

Tenerife Google Profiles

Carnaval los Gigantes

Gomasper Hoteles

Granada Park Apartments

Hacienda del Sol Tenerife

Las Aguilas Hotel

Hotel Rural Triana

Gomasper

Gran Sur Tenerife

Isla de Golf

Paul Ruane Tenerife

Pearly Grey

Sands Beach Lanzarote

Sorted Sites

Spring Hoteles Tenerife

Hotel Bitacora

Gran Hotel Arona

Vulcano Hotel

Supa Swap

Supa Swap Sport

Tenerife Golf

Tenerife Magazine

Tenerife Yacht Charters

What’s on Tenerife

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The first tournament for the IV Circuit got off to a blistering start on Saturday! Sorted Sites, represented by John Beckley who is pictured with Issac from the  Caroli Health Club at the Sheraton la Caleta Resort & Spa,  came third in the 2nd category with 36 points despite battling with the high winds. Well done John!

• Buenavista Golf on Facebook
• Tenerife Golf Association on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr
• Photos from the Buenavista Golf Tournament (coming soon!)
• Results and Rankings from the Buenavista Golf Tournament (coming soon!)

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Team from Sorted Sites

We all enjoyed a great afternoon of bowling on Friday at Megabowl in Fanabe courtesy of Gaelle and the team there.  They really looked after us and kept the drinks and the food flowing to keep up our strength!  A great venue for kids and adults alike…we can´t wait to go back!!

You can follow Megabowl on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Flickr.

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Facebook has been busy taking over the Web last week, and – as is bound to happen whenever they make changes – they have unleashed a whole privacy storm in their wake. This time, it is more justified than ever!

Unless you’ve been on some kind of remote expedition without Internet access this last week, you must have heard about the biggest – and most controversial – of these changes:  how the familiar Facebook ‘Like’ button has gone ubiquitous.

What happens in Facebook stays in Facebook. Not!

Until last week, you could click ‘Like’ just about anywhere on Facebook to show your appreciation of the comments, photos and what not that your friends posted to the social network. Now, you will start seeing similar ‘Like’ buttons showing up on websites you visit all over the Internet, and all it takes is a click to recommend the particular web page or piece of content and share it with your Facebook friends. Of course, this will also post the item in question to your Facebook feed for everyone to see. This new feature, as well as Facebook’s other social plugins that any website can use will work as long as you are logged in to Facebook, virtually doing away with the need to log in to the individual sites you visit.

So what’s the fuss all about? After all, increased functionality can only be a good thing, right?

The thing is that when you visit a Facebook enabled web page that some of your friends have ‘Liked’, you will see their Facebook profile pictures smiling back at you from the third party web page, as an indication that they have recommended that particular page. The flip side of this is that, when you give online content the ‘Like’ treatment, your face will show up there for your friends (or possibly everyone, depending on your Facebook settings) to see.

Many people are not happy at all with that and feel it invades their privacy! The first (unwritten) rule of Facebook has been broken.

How to regain control of your privacy

The first thing you need to do if you are not comfortable with everyone on the Internet being able to see what content you like is to click the ‘Account’ tab at the top-right of your Facebook screen, select ‘Privacy Settings’, go to ‘Profile Information’ and finally set the ‘Likes and Interests’ option to only allow access to your friends.

So, is there anything in it for you as an online marketer?

If you are keen on using social media marketing to promote your website online – and you really should be – you probably can’t contain your excitement at the potential implications of a more socially connected Internet that Facebook is heralding. Maybe you’re eager to be an early adopter and incorporate the social plugins into your own site.

In theory, this would be wonderful, because it would make it so much easier for your visitors to share your content with their friends. However, what still remains to be seen is whether they will actually do that, or if people will start shunning these Facebook-enabled websites en masse, because they feel could pose a threat to their privacy. These are risky times indeed!

Perhaps the most prudent thing is to wait until the dust settles.

Right now, most people are wondering where Facebook is planning to take the social Internet, and the answer could very well be Orwellian. You see, Facebook sharing detailed user information such as visited websites and product preferences with three third party websites on a trial basis – an even bigger no no in just about everyone’s books.

Take a look at the video below for more information about Facebook’s so called ‘Instant Personalization’ feature:

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Have you ever wondered what sets apart the truly successful businesses from the ones that struggle to get by? Or, in other words: what does it take to win over faithful customers and keep them happy?

The 9 Words put forward in this slideshow by our colleague Andrew De Gabriele sum up the answer to that vital question very nicely. Enjoy, and be inspired!

These are nine core values, each of which will thrill your customers and make you stand out, no matter what kind of business you’re in. The 9 Words absolutely resonate with us at Sorted Sites, and they are the blueprint your business must follow if you’re in it for the long haul.

You can also download the 9 Words screensaver to your computer and keep these core principles always present.

And, by the way, what do you think the 10th Word should be? Comments please!

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