Quadrant 4 and Marketing on Facebook

This connection came to me during a coaching session with Carlos Pou, MD from Puerto Rico. I told him I’d give him the credit for helping this idea come together.

So many marketing companies struggle when explaining why marketing on social networking sites is growing in importance. The stand-by reasons are: 1) the ability to reach a very focused demographic, 2) the volume of users (now that there are more Facebook profiles than US citizens) and 3) the easy ability to connect through others to a wide audience. All of these factors are true about social networking sites but none of these is the most important reason to market on Facebook in my opinion. Those factors describe the nature of the tool. I think the most important reason to market on Facebook is the nature of the user... and how they spend their time.

Facebook users spend leisure time on the site and in the network. And, what is leisure time? In 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey offers a simple time management system. It has two principles: Importance and Urgency. Facebook networking occurs in Quadrant 4, Not Urgent and Not Important. It’s important to know what makes people retreat to Quadrant 4. What makes you want to relax? Stress is a main factor which leads us to Quadrant 4. It is understood that the more time you spend in Quadrant 1, under fire with Urgent and Important things to do, the more you need to unwind in Quadrant 4. Also, many people cannot focus for long periods or are motivated by social interaction or are by nature playful. All of these factors result in more time being spent in Quadrant 4, doing something not important and not urgent.

So, Facebook is quickly becoming a place where a lot of leisure time is spent. With time comes attention and opportunity. That is why this is an important environment to make marketing inroads. What should keep you coming back is knowing that this is a Quadrant 4 outlet and the factors that drive people to Quadrant 4 are not going to ever change. The need to recharge and relax is immediate and frequently needed.

If you think this is just a theory, then look no further than your own television. Broadcast TV rapidly grew from minimal programming in the early 50s. Eventually, it has grown to hundreds of niche stations available on broadcast, cable and satellite. Why? Because it is where we go for some Quadrant 4 time. And the advertisers followed because they wanted to be where people wanted to spend time.. easy time. Facebook is the same way right now. Quadrant 4 has not changed, only the options for touching people in their Quadrant 4 have. If you have any questions about how to do this for your practice, contact me today at donald@dogstarmedia.com

Web Site Advice: Bounce Rate

When it comes to statistics, you manipulate the numbers to support just about any case you want. However, it is important to have a clear understanding of what is happening on your web site. When you design a site, you intend to convey certain information. It’s important to make sure that people are using your site within reasonable expectations. If they are not, you better make changes.

A good place to start is Bounce Rate. Your bounce rate is the percentage of site visitors that visit your home page and then bounce off... or leave. Just like any other piece of marketing media, your web site makes a first impression and you either hook the viewer or you don’t. If you don’t they bounce. They go to other sites, back to their search or somewhere else altogether. Naturally, we want to keep the bounce rate as low as possible.

Depending on what kind of site you have, this statistic can be confusing. If your site is all Flash, chances are you will have a very high bounce rate. This is because many all Flash sites are frequently designed on one page. The Flash file is then loaded into that one page. So, there is only one page for measurable navigation. So, even if someone clicks through an all Flash site, it usually shows up as a bounce. There are ways around this, including measurement tools that are built into the Flash to track users’ navigation. However, if you don’t know this, the ultra-high bounce rate can be scary to look at.

In cases like this, if you are not measuring the internal clicks on the Flash pages, I suggest looking at the average time on site. If you have a high bounce rate and a long average visit duration, then users are clicking through the Flash pages. But, if you have a high bounce rate and a short average visit, your site is repelling visitors. That requires an immediate design intervention.

Low bounce rates are the sign of a site that communciates the way users want to receive information. This is what is called “intuitive design.” That is one of the hallmarks of a Dog Star Media-designed web site. When measured, we have very low bounce rates and high time on site. A corollary statistic on that is average number of pages clicked and our stats are high on that on most sites. Of course, we are measuring those stats on Google Analytics for sites on which we are conducting our SEO program. A factor in all of this is matching the right search visitors to an intuitive site, so who you are attracting makes a difference, too.

So, the take-away advice here is to know what your visitors are doing so you can make your adjustments. And, adjustments should always be a part of your Internet strategy. Are users bouncing away after a short view of your site? Are users staying long enough and clicking through to show us they are getting something out of their visit? Is the right traffic coming to your site via search engines? Measuring and watching these factors helps your site become more effective in generating business.

Remember your web site is your first impression. You have to keep an eye on whether or not you are making a good one. If you have questions about SEO or web redesign or Internet strategies, please email me today at donald@dogstarmedia.com.

SEO advice on backlinking

I was asked the other day about backlinking. We do not offer it as part of our SEO program but it is a legitimate search engine marketing activity. But, then again there are a lot of legitimate search engine marketing activities. The trick, as always, is knowing where the value lies.

I have to start all conversations about SEO and SEM by stating that Dog Star Media ONLY chooses measurable activities for our SEO. Backlinking is a legitimate activity that generally contributes to rankings but it is labor intensive. When other sites link to you, then you are extending the connectivity of the Internet and this improves your rankings somewhat. To achieve this, backlinking activities can be lots of research and emails to other site administrators hoping for link exchanges. The results frequently can be nothing but you have still paid for the efforts to try.

We just prefer to know that the time we spend is having a direct impact that is measurable. But this is not to say that linking can’t drive you plenty of traffic. Here is an example of how to invest in linking and still know you are not wasting on effort:

Let’s say you are going to pay an SEM or SEO service $450/month for the time to do backlinking. It is labor intensive, so you are paying for someone’s time. If they get you some links, depending on those linking sources, it will have an undetermined, yet positive impact on your rankings. (See why we don’t do this? Too many ifs and maybes).

For that same $450, why not pay to be linked to a local media outlet’s web site? This is a very common ad buy and local TV web sites get a lot of traffic typically. We have had many clients do this and drive a lot of traffic. Plus, you are still linking from a highly trafficked site! This improves your rankings and drives traffic all at the same time for the same investment. And... look at that... it’s fully measurable; just how we liked it.

This is the time of year that people like to try things new. After what we all went through last year, don’t you think you owe it to yourself to be smarter in your refinements this time around? If you want to refine your Internet strategy, let me help. Either through my coaching program where I help you learn and make these decisions or through our SEO program itself, we can help you compete better on the web by refining your efforts and cutting waste. If this motivates you to try better this year, why not email me at donald@dogstarmedia.com for help.

New Year - New Web Site

Let’s start the year with the newest web site from Dog Star Media. Congratulations to David Hendrick, MD on the launch of his new HTML/Flash/Video web site. Actually, we made him three themes on the one web site for three different areas of his practice. You can see Salina Surgical Arts here, Heartland Cosmetic Surgery here and The Vein Clinic here.

This is a fantastic web site. Highly graphic, loads quickly, on Salina Surgical Arts it presents the doctor to the user immediately and will be easy to optimize due to how the HTML is used in the layout. This format is EXACTLY what we recommend. Throughout the site, you get to hear plenty from Dr. Hendrick, yet it is never too much.

It is 2010. You can have it all on the web. Just about everyone has the same priorities. Everyone wants to be found in search engines (so that means the site can be optimized). Everyone wants a highly aesthetic look and feel to their site. And, everyone wants to make the best first impression for the doctor on the site. It’s 2010... you can have it all on one web site. You just need to work with a web designer who helps you work all of your goals into the proper package. This is why we custom design every web site. We want to make the site work to meet your goals.

If you are ready to upgrade your web site, this would be a great year to do it. If you are interesting in discussion your web site needs, please contact me today at donald@dogstarmedia.com.

NOTE: Our phone number has changed. Our new number is 888-321-4004. Locally in Dallas, you can call us at 214-64-9180. Please change this in our contact information in your files.