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Welcome to TAG, The Answer Guy’s Influency Daily Video!
This is where you can find our latest tip on Influency and Integrated Marketing.
And it’s free!
TAG Influency Videos are also available in collections, grouped by topic, date, and business focus. Just follow the links . . .
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Just how important is a) creating video and other media and b) owning it? Ask Lorne Michaels and the production company that owns Saturday Night Live.
SNL has been around for a very long time, and the volume of video that the decades-old franchise has produced is huge. And until now, the only place you could see it was at the web site of NBC, the television network that airs Saturday Night Live and always has. Well, SNL’s archive is moving to Yahoo!. Meaning that NBC, which you’ve always thought was the company that guarded the assets of everybody’s favorite weekly comedy program, just lost the rights to air those videos; it turns out NBC didn’t own them. Live from Yahoo!, It’s Saturday Night!
Lee Odden: OPTIMIZE! (Content Marketing, SEO, Social Media)
By: --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Influency & Integrated Marketing Strategist Posted in Content, Influency, Marketing, Search Engine Optimization SEO
In case you’ve somehow missed this, we’re big believers in Search Engine Optimization. Let me be blunt: remove the “it’s snake oil” part of the conversation (and it isn’t), and the simple truth is that if you don’t optimize your presence on the Internet so search engines can and want to find you, you have a very big problem.
Here’s a game changer: Digital Zoom isn’t all bad.
Media has a huge impact on Influency*, and we adjust our views of and advice on how to handle certain issues as the realities surrounding them change. Search Engine Optimization is getting harder, for example, so much so that we’re talking about images more than ever. And we used to tell our clients to stay away from video, but that’s changed: you must produce video as part of your optimization efforts.
And in an act of complete photographic heresy, I’m changing my position on Digital Zoom.
This Isn’t Pretty: Upgrading to Windows 8 is a Bumpy Ride
By: --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Influency & Integrated Marketing Strategist Posted in Business Change, Influency, Marketing
Being The Answer Guy, I get asked a lot of questions about not only our 2013-era focus on Integrated Marketing and Influency, but also, more broadly, computers. How DO those things work, anyway?
When Windows 8 was approaching release I did some testing of the new operating system—not so much because I was excited to upgrade but because Microsoft had announced the end of support for Windows XP. I don’t really need help with Windows, but ‘the end of support’ means that there will be no more security upgrades, and in our always-connected (or EVER connected, actually) world that’s just not acceptable. This meant that I needed to choose between replacing many of the computers at Answer Guy Central or upgrading the operating system in them.
Is That Page ‘Content’, or is it ‘News’?
By: --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Influency & Integrated Marketing Strategist Posted in Content, Customer Service, Influency, Marketing
Influency takes a lot of work. And sometimes what was influence-y yesterday is less so today. This is why, even though there’s nothing about Influency that you couldn’t make happen yourself if you had the time, you hire The Answer Guy.
Here’s a new example of why.
This morning, both in my newsfeed and on Google+, I came a cross a story by Barry Schwartz. I’ve mentioned Barry here once before, referring to his site Search Engine Roundtable as a great resource for Optimization (and of course, therefore, Influency). I still read Barry, but that might change soon; I’m starting to think that Influency is in the process of passing him by.
I love the coincidences that happen in the pursuit of Influency. Like coming across the picture you see here at a blog about Intellectual Property, just a few days after telling you how we handle image copyrights.
Or that Seth Godin, a marketing legend who feels as though he’s pretty much dropped out of sight lately, could cross my radar so soon after a piece I recently wrote about him. And Seth’s point, for a second time in a week, boils down to this:
Sometimes, even in marketing, it’s OK to be a contrarian.
How (like, HOW) Do People Find You ?
By: --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Influency & Integrated Marketing Strategist Posted in Influency
Generally speaking, I hate software patents. I believe they stifle innovation and make it harder to achieve Influency unless you’re a lucky company like Apple, sitting on a trove of patents, or you’re one of those folks making an entire business as a patent troll.
Sometimes, though, someone comes up with something that gets done, via software, and it’s inventive enough and unique enough that the question of whether software patents are a good idea takes on another personality. This isn’t that.
Media, Goodbye Television, Influency, and Business Change
By: --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Influency & Integrated Marketing Strategist Posted in Business Change, Influency, Media
Yesterday, Netflix lost the right to carry about 2,000 movies. Also yesterday, YouTube ‘declared victory’ over television. And this weekend, my fiancée and I are moving her daughter into an apartment of her own, where she has no plans to sign up for cable television.
Wrap you head around all that, and if you come to any conclusion other than ‘the media business is really, really changing’, you need to start over.
You Can’t Build a Website in An Hour, Part 14—The Wrap-Up
By: --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Influency & Integrated Marketing Strategist Posted in
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When Are You Too Old To Be a Programmer?
By: --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Influency & Integrated Marketing Strategist Posted in Business Change, Development
When are you too old to be a programmer?
As an old guy, my perspective is skewed. That’s OK; all of our perspectives on all issues are skewed by who we are. But is there an answer that ‘makes sense’?
According to a new study, older people might actually make better programmers than younger ones. This is a seismic shift in the way the topic has long been discussed, and in conflict with something I asked about a few years ago; might older people be too set in their ways to use SmartPhones?
You Can’t Build a Website in An Hour, Part 13—Image Management
By: --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Influency & Integrated Marketing Strategist Posted in
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How does this book factor into a discussion on Influency?
If you’re looking for a quick read/impossible-(for most people)-roadmap-to-Influency, use this link or click the picture at the top of this piece and get your hands on a copy of It’s Not About The Tights.
You Can’t Build a Website in An Hour, Part 12—Custom Menus
By: --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Influency & Integrated Marketing Strategist Posted in
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PhotoDropper by photodropper.com? Photodropper at WordPress?
By: --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Influency & Integrated Marketing Strategist Posted in Content, Influency, Search Engine Optimization SEO
It’s a complete coincidence that I told you about the way we handle pictures at Answer Guy Central just a few days ago. This morning, I heard for the first time about PhotoDropper.
And I’d like to point out that I’ve linked to Photodropper.com both in the image at the top of this story, and in the link you see above.
Big deal? You bet it’s a big deal.
In Customer Service, When Can You Say “No” ?
By: --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Influency & Integrated Marketing Strategist Posted in Influency
The stuff in the picture is corny, isn’t it? Throw together the right set of tiles and you can win at the customer service game! The customer service equation is easy to solve! The customer is always right!
Well, no, to all of those things including the one about the customer always being right. You’re allowed to say “no” to customers, just as long as you’re willing to see them become ex-customers. You’re even allowed to say no to the customers you want to keep if you say it politely, firmly, and are willing to discuss the issues you’re saying no about in terms that matter to the customer.
You Can’t Build a Website in An Hour, Part 10—Defaults are BAD
By: --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Influency & Integrated Marketing Strategist Posted in
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You Can’t Build a Website in An Hour, Part 9—Inheritance
By: --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Influency & Integrated Marketing Strategist Posted in
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Influency, Great Customer Service, and NOT Using HostGator
By: --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Influency & Integrated Marketing Strategist Posted in Business Change, Customer Service, Influency
I hate this story.
I hate it because of how it got started, how it ends, and how I spent way too many hours over the last couple of weeks and especially the last couple of days. I hate that I’m not doing business with the Snappy Gator you see above.
As you build your Influency, you’ll find that there are a lot of things to manage that you never thought of before Influency* became important to you. One is your digital assets—and there are a LOT of them, cast to all corners of the Internet.
When we started building out the content at Answer Guy Central some years ago, we made a decision about artwork that we’d incorporated into our pages. In short, if we hadn’t created the artwork, then we would link to it. This is a somewhat controversial idea and in one form or another has gone to court a few times; people who had created things didn’t want others to link to it because it could be seen as a misappropriation of copyrighted, trademarked, or at least there’s-no-dispute-who-owns-this-thing assets.
You Can’t Build a Website in An Hour, Part 8—Contact Forms
By: --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Influency & Integrated Marketing Strategist Posted in
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You can build a web site in an hour, but it’s a very bad idea. On the other hand, if you talk about building a web site in one hour, enough, in the right way, and in the right places, people notice. And Google notices, which is equally—maybe more—important.
Now, let’s dissect, and maybe even undo that last part of what I said.
Google says that when you create content you need to make it attractive to people, and that attractiveness to Google will follow naturally. Sure it will; all you have to do is create content that rivals the volume and quality of mass media outlets spending ten of millions of dollars per month, and you’ll be golden.
Should Tablets Be Cool, Or Is It Good Enough to be a Toy?
By: --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Influency & Integrated Marketing Strategist Posted in Influency
Are tablets cool? Are they tools, or toys? And if tablets are ‘just toys’, is Influency* still part of the discussion?
I’ve owned my Nexus 7 for about nine months now. And as its gestation period has progressed I’ve noticed that this great little tablet has taken a position somewhere between tool and toy. This is partially a matter of practicality and what tablets are well suited for, and partially about my having started using a Chromebook when I’m on the road; the Chromebook is so much more like a ‘real’ computer than that little keyboard-less tablet can ever be and so easy to carry—and reliable for a full day’s battery—that my original plans for using the Nexus 7 have changed.
You Can’t Build a Website in An Hour, Part 7—Page Names and Map Images
By: --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Influency & Integrated Marketing Strategist Posted in
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You Can’t Build a Web Site in One Hour — Part 6: Image Optimization
By: --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Influency & Integrated Marketing Strategist Posted in
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Who is this man?
I’d like to tell you that there’s an Answer Guy Action Figure, but alas, this follicly-challenged devil is one Seth Godin. Seth, who’s been mentioned more than a few times at Answer Guy Central, is a fantastically successful and popular author and a legend of sorts in the marketing business. And there really is a Seth Godin Action Figure; I’ve seen it in a store.
We haven’t mentioned Seth Godin in a while. Yesterday, I came across Seth’s latest musings, and had to pass them on. I’m paraphrasing, but what Seth says is that low-hanging fruit isn’t always the fruit you want to pick.
You Can’t Build a Web Site in One Hour — Part 5: RESPONSIVE
By: --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Influency & Integrated Marketing Strategist Posted in
The RESPONSIVE WordPress Theme
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Hacking the WordPress CMS. Or Stopping Someone Who Wants To
By: --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Influency & Integrated Marketing Strategist Posted in Content, Development, Influency
Right this moment, someone is trying to hack your website. And if you use WordPress, right this moment about 90,000 someones are trying to break in.
None of that is hyperbole. There really are bad guys out there trying to break the security on your web site every moment of every day, and there really is a broad-scale attack currently in-progress on web sites running the WordPress Content Management System.
You Can’t Build a Web Site in One Hour — Part 4 (WWW)
By: --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Influency & Integrated Marketing Strategist Posted in
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About a month ago, a UK-based Marketing consultancy called Click Consult did something smart. Click Consult posted and started updating the collective words of wisdom of Google’s Matt Cutts to a web site they registered call The Short Cutts (and Matt’s short cuts are at theshortcutts.com, get it?).
This is brilliant in several ways. And the topic here, strong as ever, is Influency*.
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