Lee McClelland - New Zealand

Face Off between Facebook and Twitter for business.

2011-07-09T21:09:00.000-07:00

Twitter account news

2011-05-19T05:04:00.000-07:00

Have you seen a visual representation of Twitter links?

Have a look at this site to see how you can track Twitter topics and Users with visual interactive SVG diagrams. http://tinyurl.com/twitter-zinger
Please RT if you like it @NZKiteboarding

I just built a new Business & Network for Kitesurfing Instructors

2010-11-03T23:59:00.000-07:00

The Idea of the web site is to empower Kite Surfing Instructors and Schools with an umbrella brand & social networking capabilities far beyond what each operation could generally afford to do on their own. It will also offer business members the ability to build their own private database of Friends and Clients. Giving them a great way to keep them actively connected.

By working together we gain strength as an industry.
Giving the media & Travel agents a one point of reference.
The network is free for users to join and use.

I have 10 years experience within this industry.
It's great to be able to build a network to help the hardest working guys in our industry.

Each user can create a Personal profile page with a personal URL.
Eh http://www.Learn2Kitesurf.com/Lee

Each user can also add a commercial listing for FREE that allows a full business profile on the map.

Behind the site there is a full social network where both commercial and business users can connect.
This web project went live last week of October 2010.

http://www.Learn2Kitesurf.com

Check out this Smart Ad Promotion

2009-04-02T21:15:00.001-07:00

Take a look at the: Promotions article. It's a great offer to get you started using Smart Ads effectively with your business.

How to crack the 'Holy Grail of Advertising'.

2009-03-30T18:31:00.000-07:00

Social media networking, top rankings in Google & smart Ads that can go Viral.
It's all possible if you understand the basic principles.

Making Connections:
Building your business is about making connections. Whether it’s customer relationships, supply chain structures or triggering brand awareness in the mind of a consumer. Making the right connections is as important as breathing.
The medium for personal connections using technology is evolving all the time. In just 10 years it has evolved from Phone to Faxes, Mobiles phones, Email, Websites, Chat rooms, Instant Messages, Forums, SMS TXT’s , Blogs, Myspace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Tweets and on it goes.
As everyone is using one or more of these formats in their daily routine now, the following question becomes very important.

Have you ever considered the quality of those connections?
The answer to this question is the key to great relationships rewarding you with amazing results.
A great advert connects with you, a bad adverts makes you change the channel. It’s the same with your connections.
A great customer recommends your products to more customers in his social group.
Meanwhile a high maintenance customer drains you of your life blood drop by drop.
The trick is to recognise the good from the bad and distance yourself from the leeches. That’s right, get rid of them.

Have you heard about the 80/20 Rule?
The 80/20 Rule: It applies to everything! So apply it to your connections and watch the results flow. 20% of your connections are creating 80% of your quality leads. 20% of your customers are providing 80% of your profit. So take the time to recognise who are your ‘A’ grade connections, customers or lead generators. As 20% of your quality referrers will generate 80% of your quality referrals. An A grade customer can be the busy type who rushes in and spends 3 grand in 10 minutes, so you need to be on your toes when they need that extra service they deserve.
Whereas the D grade customer who spends $3000 and remind you how much they spent, what broke and asks for a discount on every single purchase forever is most likely costing you more money than you can imagine. Remember this, the D is for Drop and D them ASAP. Save your energy for time spent gaining more A grade customers.

A great example of how to build “Quality Connections” is online. Sites like Facebook.com, LinkedIn.com and my own site ListedOnline (http://www.listedonline.co.nz) all allow users to build connections between each other. With ListedOnline these connections are coming to you specifically because they are interested in the products you have advertisied.
Now that is a quality connection and you should treat them as such.

Advertise Here! Every media company says the same thing, the reality is only about 20% of your advertising spend works! To which everyone groans “Tell me us which 20%!”
Ok I'll tell you, you won’t find many advertising agency guys brave enough to give you an answer to that question I bet.
Anyway the secret is and has always been ‘Test and Measure’. So it’s the measurable advertising that works, everything else is just speculation & gambling. Many media companies deliberately confuse you with their statics of readership but this is not at all like a real response to your advert.

Cancel all print (magazine) advertising as it does not offer you the ability to ‘Test and Measure’ results. Seriously and here’s why.
Running a tampon advert in a men’s magazine will get you the same amount of readership views of your Ad as it would if it was for a men’s razor, but zero response for obvious reasons. But the publishers of the magazine still proclaim their circulation (and page views) as relevant to advertisers. Now compare that to real organic Google search results, or web Ads like our Smart Ads. Anyone who finds your product or service having searched under a specific title actually has an interest in that topic. These are you’re A grade connections, so grab their details and keep in touch. (Only possible with Web Advertising).

Web adverts come with web statistics, these are a real assets to businesses today. They show you the actions taken by the readers, how many readers, etc.
If you have a web site, make sure you have Google Analytics set up and running too. This is the proof of traffic flows to and from your site.
A web advert can literally deliver the reader to your web site or generate an instant sale. And it is instantly tracked by Google Analytics.

Smart Ads. Tell me how much that potential new customer worth to you. Then tell me how much it would be worth if you could make a really dynamic connection with them and what if they could re publish your content and share it with their 10 friends! Now that is some valuable advertising. That’s what we built into ListedOnline, we call them Smart Ads. It’s really clever advertising.
So does this mean cancelling print media? The short answer is yes. Print media is profoundly dead. It is possible to use print media in a way that is measurable by hooking it into a web site in some way. But lets face it at $10,000 for a full page advertisement in the local paper that is large enough to get noticed you have to have deep pockets, best leave that type of advertising to the corporate sector. Yesterdays News is Old News and Yesterdays Advertising is only good for wrapping Fish and Chips. It never gets republished unless you spend another $10,000, ouch!

How to gain Word of Mouth exposure using Web technology.
The most powerful form of advertising is Word of Mouth. Now your going to say but how do I get that started? Well use your connections. Your friends will tell two friends and they will tell two friends etc (Actually it’s the 80/20 rule again, They will tell 10 friends and 2 of them will tell 10 friends, and 2 of them will tell 10 friends). Now add in the new technology… a Blog or a Facebook page. If two people who have been wowed by your company & endorse it in a Blog or Facebook page it will gain exposure at an increasingly accelerated rate compared to the traditional Word of Mouth. It’s also more accurate as it’s often your exact offer that is republished over and over again. Plus, it links immediately back to YOU and that’s the beauty of Blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn etc. The shared article links back to your original content with a single click.
This content can be an advert or even your own web site content.
The best example of this technology is the ‘Tell Your Friends’ button that appears on every page of ListedOnline (http://www.listedonline.co.nz)
Any advert, article or page that a viewer sees can be instantly republished.
Bookmarked
Emailed
IM
Blogged
or Socially Networked.
Now you can’t buy better advertising than advertising that has been personally referred from Connection to connection. The oldies would call it a snow ball effect, the web savvy call it going Viral.

How to Stand Out on the Web & raise your Profile - A Google secret!
Gaining a great Google ranking and have general searches actually bring you quality leads and customers is not all that difficult. Most web designers treat it like the Holy Grail of web secrets and charge businesses by the pound of flesh.
With the ever increasing number of web sites Blogs and Facebook pages it’s difficult to comprehend how people will find your web site and your wonderful company. Well there is a simple way that always works with Google and it is all to do with Content and Connections. If the content in your advert or on your web site is well written and relevant it will be indexed by Google and that’s a fact. But Google looks for more than just content, it takes a note of your Geographical location as that is often very relevant to users searching for something in their area. Google also takes a count of all the Inbound Connections (Website URL Links) to your content.
How do I build inbound Connections and what are they? Inbound Connections are the links on other web sites to your web site or advert. You can’t fake them they are manually entered url links added by real people.
The more Inbound Connections you have the more weight is given to the credibility of your content and the more chance of being found on the front page of a Google search. So every link from a Blog, Facebook page or Bookmark site like Digg or StumbleUpon to your content is helping your Google Search ranking results. Which in turn makes brings more viewers to your content and that increases the likelihood that they will also share your content.

The Australian owned TradeMe is a Goliath of a web site in New Zealand and it doesn’t allow you to link to your web site, Facebook or publish email addresses anywhere in your Ads. These Inbound Connections to your site would drive traffic away from TradeMe and on to yours. And they want all web traffic to stay on their site. It is after all a primarially Consumer to Consumer private selling site and not aimed at benefitting NZ businesses.
By comparison ListedOnline promotes the advertising of all the Inbound and Outbound connections you want. As that is how we see the future in advertising. It works better for you and your business. Plus it raises the profile of your website and business in search engine rankings and thats likely worth more than the cost of the Ad listing itself.

Excel in Customer Service to build Outbound Connections
Your not looking for a 5 star rating on a customer service rating card any more, you are looking for customers so stoked on your customer service and products that they re-advertise your company for you through Social media websites this instantly drives more traffic your way. With one click of a button most web blog articles including this one, or any page on ListedOnline can be re-published by a stoked reader. In an instant their circle of friends is exposed to your views, products and services.

Advertising doesn’t get better than that!
As already mentioned, the oldies (who work in print media) would call it the “Snow Ball Effect”, web savy advertisers refer to it as “Going Viral”. The Holy Grail of Advertising.

If you found this article interesting feel free to share the link.

Lee McClelland

How to solve the problem that...

2009-03-25T20:55:00.000-07:00

Indigenous Online Media is struggling to survive
This is a NZ nationwide issue Affecting:
Broadcasting and Media, Entertainment, IT / Communications,
95%+ of online advertising spend is going to offshore companies. Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Bebo, Myspace, Fairfax(incl trademe) & APN.
This leaves almost nothing to support the new media which is emerging to replace old media.

http://www.thinksmall.co.nz/issue/indigenous-online-media-is-struggling-to-survive

I recently proposed a solution to a problem raised by a member of http://www.Thinksmall.co.nz
The issue raised was:

My reply was as follows:
Networking and connecting Kiwi sites

Cross promoting each others sites and ideas will help raise the profile and strengthen the identity of locally grown ideas.

The more we all do this the more inbound links & traffic we will all benefit from.
The more inbound links to your sites from quality sites the better your organic recognition by google will work. You can check this with Google analytics. I use Google ad words and Google Analytics tools effectively.
I can see what inbound links from what sites are working, what Ad campaigns are working and what the percentage of organic searches vs, campaigns, referrals etc are.

My new business is based on this inbound link generation principle.
Users join up and build their profile and list their companies Services and products in an unrestricted manner. This builds them both inbound links to their company and as the user base grows direct hot leads and sales.

What I have built is a new Social media portal site called Listed Online, see http://www.listedonline.co.nz
Currently I am getting 33% split across my direct invites and banner ads / Organic Google searches / Google Ad campaigns.
This was very valuable information and can be taken deeper to the point that I know the screen resolution of the viewer to help me maximise the efficiency of content delivery and user experience.
So make sure your social networks are using this information to it's full benefit and not just counting the visits and hits.

The better exposure each local media site gets by way of referrals / blogs and facebook etc the better the indexing and also the better the local vibe within the local industry will become.

Add to that the real statistics you can offer to potential advertisers and you will find it easier to bring advertisers your way. There is still a huge untapped readership out there looking for local content.

Content is king for viewers, value is king for advertisers.
Inbound links is king for your site.

Lee McClelland

ListedOnline
www.listedonline.co.nz
Phone: 021-520438

Listed Online

2009-03-22T16:23:00.001-07:00

The Brand Gap

2009-03-18T19:08:00.001-07:00

This SlideShare Presentation: Covers a lot of information on how you should manage your BRAND IDENTITY. It offers excellent advice. I think many online sales people should understand this when writing copy for Ads and building their online profile. Wether in blog form or company web site this information offers clarity amongst so much clutter. have a look for your self.

The Brand Gap

View more presentations from coolstuff.

Ads on Edge

2009-03-18T18:43:00.001-07:00

Check out this SlideShare Presentation: I really liked it up until they tried to convince me brand building online is wrong. Have a look for yourself! All other areas they cover are excellent.

Ads on Edge

View more presentations from Geert Desager.

Made from New Zealand .com

2009-03-11T18:10:00.000-07:00

The first I heard of www.madefromNewZealand.com was on TV.
A high production commercial featuring a NZ flag being carved into Huntington Beach California.
My first reaction to this was really quite negative as it was all staged and not a really spontaneous event. But as I listened the idea behind the ad emerged and I decided to join the site and promote my business there.

The buzz on the site is quite good and I really enjoy the vibe from all the startup businesses out there. So I'm in the right place with like minded people for sure.
There are a good number of Blogs on the site coming in from business owners and I like that.
It can keep you inspired when you need it.

On major issue for me was not so much the content but finding it. Navigating the site is not instinctive and I often find myself out on another site called ThinkSmall.co.nz a somewhat negatively named site if you ask me. this is due to the Top menu tabs, they leave a lot to be desired, a mistake I recently discovered on one of my own sites.
The feedback a frustrated user gave me was priceless. And I fixed it right away.
It's all very well knowing how to navigate around your own site but really it is the new users that will give you the best feedback on functionality.

Overall I think the site has benefits and it does begin with the right intentions. I hope it brings all the ideas together with more focus in the near future. As it's a bit vauge on what it's trying to achieve. One of the links I found on the site was to http://www.start-up.co.nz/ and that has a good sound to it so I will be exploring that site in detail too.

I will update this Blog on my experiences with madefromNewZealand.com and welcome comments from other users as to their own.

1st Entry

2009-03-11T14:14:00.000-07:00

As a Linkedin, Facebook, Myspace member and publisher of several established websites I thought it was about time I started a Blog.
The main choices for my own blog were WordPress or Blogger, I chose the latter simply because my Google account was already up and running and it seemed the easier of the two.
Plus a quick check of compatibility with Linkedin confirmed that all my Blog entries could be added with ease to my profile. So no down side there at all.
I'm not looking for a super advanced highly technical Blog page as I have my specific website to cater for each of my specific business or personal interests.

Some of my other web sites projects include:

http://www.ListedOnline.co.nz - Where Kiwis Connect their Business online.
http://www.NZKiteboarding.com - Kitesurfing community.
http://www.Anabatickiteboarding.com - My Kiteboarding Business.

Plus I have a string of web domains, some active some still in development.
FishingForum.co.nz - Published but not promoted.
KayakForum.co.nz - Work in Progress
MotoX.co.nz - Unpublished

My main focus is developing Listed Online as it has the best business model for scalable growth, while running Anabatic Kiteboarding as it pays the bills.

I have so many ideas to work on I'm going to have to cut some loose.
Better to see them grow under new ownership than remain dormant here.

Lee