From HBR: The Magic of doing one thing at a time – a very important reminder

The Magic of doing one thing at a time.

It is difficult in today’s world of multi-tasking and common add / adhd internet browsing behavior to really get in the zone.  A colleague and I were just lamenting this the other day.  There is nothing…and I mean *nothing* like that feeling of getting in the “zone” and just letting the creative juices, the business ideas, the flow charts, and all the solutions present themselves.

Our mind works in amazing ways when given the time to do it’s thing.  I was particularly grabbed by the comment of taking real and regular vacations.  I am the guiltiest of all of taking my phone and computer on vacations and working when I should be ‘fully engaged’ in the moment.

Besides the information in this great write-up here is one suggestion I have for finding that place besides what’s in the article.  It’s simple…work out hard.

Years ago I read an article about how your creative mind is boosted by exercise and I tried it.  I discovered that my creative energy was greatly increased when I ran intervals as promoted by Bill Phillips in “Body for Life” – with that last minute being an all-out burst.  Half hour to an hour after the session my mind was going crazy with thoughts, plans, and ideas to creatively solve problems.

Here is some supporting data for this:  http://www.ric.edu/faculty/dblanchette/ExerciseArticle.htm

Let me know how you find your creative strength.  What are you methods of getting in the zone?

Why Google+ / Search Plus

Hi again, I wanted to send you a couple of blogs that have underscored the comments I’ve made to you (and the emails I’ve sent) about setting up a google places account.

First Danny Sullivan posts some real-life examples of Google Plus search results around some well known stars (Brittney Spears and Snoop!).  The results are fascinating.  First to note is that even when your *not* signed in to Google – Google may offer search plus results first.  The second is that Danny calls into question the integrity of Google’s customer experience by not showing Facebook results – which in his article are in fact more relevant (suggesting that Google is placing higher relevancy on data within the Google world).  

http://searchengineland.com/examples-google-search-plus-drive-facebook-twitter-crazy-107554

The next article a bit more succinct and less biased:

http://geofflivingston.com/2012/01/17/why-you-should-care-about-twitter-vs-google/

Geoff Livingston notes that because:

1. FB and Twitter refuse to let their pages be indexed or open to public
2. Google properties are the number 1 and 3 most referencing sites in the world (Google, FaceBook, YouTube [also Google] )

“This makes Google+ the easiest way to influence your company, brand or product’s search results of all the various types of social media. Suddenly, a handful of plus ones means more than scores of retweets.”

and

“The inevitable integration into search simply adds incredible value to Google+ that most web marketers will not be able to resist. Google+ may not drive the most direct traffic to your site compared to other social networks, but through the Search Plus algorithm it has far a greater impact on search than Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn”

Trends I see happening.  G+/Google Properties will continue to climb in importance for on-line marketing.  But as a reaction to what some perceive as a monopoly or imbalance in power so will the strength of the relationship between Microsoft/Bing and Facebook (yahoo.com is basically Bing at this time & Facebook has opened it’s site for Bing search results more than Google ).  If Bing / Yahoo officially tie the know they would together be ~30% of search with google being ~65% and the rest made up by smaller niche search engines.  But that would be significant.  So while we focus on Google results for commerce we continue to work Bing too because we do think they will be a bigger player in the future.

It’s a good read with some screen shots.  Bottom line folks.  If you don’t have Google Places build – build it.  If your not a regular G+ poster – become one.

Let us know how we can help.

www.coretekconsulting.com

CoreTek Consulting – Twitter & G+ affect search results

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/do-tweets-still-effect-rankings#jtc171104

Great article above team on how twitter and google+ affect search results in light of the fact that Google no longer shows twitter feeds in real time and is blocked from crawling twitter.

Summary:

• Tweets are picked up by twitter aggregators like http://retweetist.com/  and Google indexes those fairly quickly.  If you include a new (landing) page or URL this method of getting to google organic top rank can take up to eight hours.
• If you put similar post in google+ it appears to be picked up much faster and ranked higher.
• Conclusion:  Tweet, tweet, and retweet and (and we’ve been preaching this!) post all your tweets on Google+

The sight includes some great analysis, and the steps they took to test these scenarios and some killer graphics.  Check it out.

Facebook Evolving for Small Business

Hi all, I subscribe to this author on about.com.  Here is succinct article on understanding how Facebook is evolving for small business:

In Summary:

• Facebook (like Google) has an obligation to their customers (all of us!) to provide the best user experience.  This means when people search for businesses or look for services Facebook wants to deliver the best content.
• When people see your company page they will see your time-line and brand photos first, but news feeds will still be your profile pic.
• ***IMPORTANT**** you can now message privately the people who have liked your pages.  This is huge change and something to consider in your marketing and messaging campaigns.
• More tabs on top of the page – up to 12.  Organize them by priority to give your fans and clients a quick look at your business.
• Facebook wants *more* user engagement.  From the article:  ”  In order for the new layout to benefit your business you will need to create and design campaigns in a way that drives engagement and gets people talking and interacting on your page.”

In conclusion the writer lists the pros and cons:

Pros:

• New static cover photo.
• About information is at the top.
• Highlighted or pinned items (items stay at the top longer).
• Enhanced build audience options.
• At a glance admin features and reporting.
• Ability to private message page users.

Cons:

• No more default landing page.
• Inactivity on the page will now stand out more than ever.
• Status updates by third party applications get lost in the timeline feed.
• Featured likes are gone from the side they are now in the timeline feed.
• Posts by others get lost since they are often not highlighted.

You can read the full post here:

http://marketing.about.com/b/2012/03/04/understand-the-new-facebook-changes-to-brand-pages.htm?nl=1

http://ow.ly/9F4Ob I subscribe to this g

http://ow.ly/9F4Ob I subscribe to this glob. great article on FB evolving for small bus #Facebook #SmallBusiness #SEO