Aug
17
2010

14 Ways to Spy On Your Competition

Spy Vs. Spy CosplayCompetitive analysis is important to any business strategy.  Knowing what your competitors are doing and how they’re pricing and marketing their products will help you figure out how to market your own products.  Luckily, there are many online tools that can help you get a look (or spy) on what your competitors are doing.
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Feb
16
2010

Google’s Other Identity Problem

Google has an identity problem – a few actually.  One problem is how they handle identity on their network – through the use of gmail addresses – each of which has it’s own identity or profile with no way to consolidate.  But I covered that last week.  This week’s identity problem is Google’s strategy and how customers view them.
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Jan
21
2010

Your 2010 Internet Strategy – 10,000 Feet View


In our series of posts we’ve gone through the basics of setting up your 2010 Internet Strategy.  From starting with a business goal, to understanding where you need to be online, with some basics of measurement, we’ve given you the building blocks to make 2010 a year your business can grow online.  What does the strategy look like from 10,000 feet?  Let’s take a closer look…
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Jan
18
2010

Your 2010 Internet Strategy – Listening Posts

Your home base and outposts are where you’re spending most of your time and effort online, but there may be other places that you need to spend a bit of time just so you know what’s going on.  I call these places listening posts.  They help round out your Internet strategy by providing you with information and intelligence (think like an spy!).

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Jan
14
2010

Your 2010 Internet Strategy – Measurement

Measurement is vital to the success of any strategy, Internet or otherwise.  You need to know whether or not your tactics are working towards helping you reach your goal and the only way to do that is to periodically measure what you’re doing.  If tactics aren’t working, measurement can both help you identify them and figure out how to improve them.

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Jan
13
2010

Your 2010 Internet Strategy – Content Strategies

A lot of businesses are using social media.  And producing content.  But when you take a closer look at their content (and to a lesser extend, their interactions), it’s all really thinly veiled marketing.  While people may or may not mind being marketed to, it’s usually not what they consider useful information.  If you really want your content to work for you, you need to take a closer look at exactly what you’re saying and how.

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Jan
12
2010

Your 2010 Internet Strategy – Ways to Use Outposts

You’ve done some research and have decided on 3 or so outposts (see Friday’s post for more on outposts). There may be some confusion about the value of having outposts.  Luckily Chris Brogan recently wrote a great post on how outposts improve your ecosystem.  What I want to focus on today is some examples of how you can use your outposts – I think seeing a few examples may help clarify what a good outpost is and how you can use it.

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Jan
08
2010

Your 2010 Internet Strategy – Outposts

An outpost is a place online that you use to connect with potential customers in order to eventually direct them to your home base.  This isn’t just a place where you’re advertising or where you have a profile.  An outpost is a place where you’re actively participating and where you’re creating content (or directing content from your home base).  Outposts are an important part of your internet strategy because they are places where people will find your content or information for the first time and may lead to opportunities you wouldn’t have had otherwise.

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Jan
06
2010

Getting Your 2010 Internet Strategy Off to The Right Start – Home Base

Now that you have your business goal, you can start to think about ways that the Internet can help you achieve that goal.  To start off, it will helpful to identify your home base online.  Identifying your home base will make it easier to figure out how to use all those social media accounts and online marketing to drive the right traffic to the right place.

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Jan
05
2010

Getting Your 2010 Internet Strategy Off to The Right Start – Pick a Goal

It’s a new year!  Time for planning, strategery and general optimism about the year!  Whatever happened in 2009, now is the time to figure out where you want to be at the end of 2010 and start taking steps to get there.  The first step for any strategy is to decide on a goal.  And a good Internet strategy starts with a good business goal.  Here’s what I think makes a good business goal…

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