Internet Marketing eBoot Camp! by Corey Perlman

A friend of mine, Mark Sanborn, wrote a great book called the Fred Factor where he talks about people who are extraordinary at their job. The Dorchester Hotel had a bellman named Carlos who was just a wonderful guy who went above and beyond to make my experience at the hotel a good one. At the end of my stay, we said goodbye and I told him how much I appreciated the exceptional service that he provided. What he did next put the biggest smile on my face because its the exact advice I give to every business owner I come across. He handed me a card with a website address and asked if I would be kind enough to go the Hotel Website and provide a review about my new friend Carlos. And I did.

It's absolutely critical that we give people who are happy with our products and services the opportunity to share their experience on the web. People pay more attention to customer reviews then any other source of information on the web and so we must pay attention to what is being said about our brand on our website as well as other popular review sites such as Google Local Business, Yelp, and Urban Spoon.

Now I'm sure the Dorchester Hotel has its share of good and bad reviews. But thanks to a very smart employee, they can add one more positive one to the list. Take some advice from my friend Carlos and give your happy customers an easy way to tell their story to the online world.

As promised, exactly how I would use my time if I only carved out two-hours per week for social media.

5 minutes (x3) - update my Facebook fan page with something valuable for my fans. This could be a link to an article, a cool web resource, startling stat, provocative question, or something else. Total - 15 minutes.

20 minutes - Find one person or company on LinkedIn that I'd like to connect with. Use the "get introduced" link to have a mutual connection introduce the two of us so it's a warm lead instead of a cold call.

20 minutes - Update my blog with a story, article, video or something else that people in my field would find valuable. (extra 2 minutes to share this post on Twitter, Fanpage, and LinkedIn via Ping.fm)

15 minutes - Find local Twitter people to follow. I'd use nearbytweets.com or just the Twitter.com search feature and find people in my area to connect with. They will generally follow you back.

5 minutes (x3) Check my Twitter account to post or respond to people. I'll also use that time to print valuable information others have posted.

30 minutes - Take this time to either write one article or one press release or shoot a quick video to upload to YouTube. With all of these, I'll add my website address as well as a call-to-action to entice people to visit my site.

3 minutes to spare to Check espn.com, foxnews, cnn, or whatever you fancy. You earned it!

Try this for a few months and make sure to measure the effectiveness using metrics such as web traffic, new leads, your presence on Google keyword searches, and other creative ways.

Now get to work!

Corey Perlman
www.TheEbootCamp.com
www.facebook.com/ebootcamp
www.twitter.com/coreyperlman