DSM Welcomes Luke Alley to the team

Luke Alley (update that LinkedIn page will you bud?) is the newest member of Dream Systems Media. Luke will be helping to guide our company as the Pay Per Click Marketing Director and we couldn’t be happier to have him join the team! Luke is a PPC wizard but much more importantly we feel he truly reflects the culture of our company — Luke works hard, plays hard and seems to be genuinely committed to touching the lives of those he associates with in a positive way.

You could say he is a regular member of Team Tebow (just kidding Luke I am a sucker for Tebow too but that is a pretty good picture!). Luke is originally from Colorado, and is actually a big Broncos fan, an Eagle Scout, Google AdWords Certified, married to a lovely lady and has one little boy! In addition to all that great stuff, Luke is a BYU-Idaho graduate, the former President of Get Found First and one mean tennis player!

General

Pubcon Hawaii Dream Systems Media Shirts

Pubcon Hawaii 2012 is just around the corner, and I am looking forward to attending, speaking and modering. Pubcon is, and always has been one of my favorite conferences throughout the year.  The entire Dream Systems Media crew will be on the Island enjoying the conference and networking.

We have already been passing around DSM Pubcon Hawaii Tee’s … so if you were lucky enough to get one we’d love to have you post pictures of them here (just comment with where I can find them and I will get them added).  I am going to have extras at the conference, so just find me and let me know you want one!   I am really looking forward to seeing all my old industry buds, and meeting and making new ones.

What I will be speaking/moderating:

Pubcon Pubcon, pubcon hawaii, pubcon hawaii 2012

I love local search!  And believe it or not (if you don’t now hopefully you will after looking at this info graphic local search has been around for quite some time.   I love mobile search!  Of course now, we have the power of local in the palm of our hands with all the advances in mobile marketing.  Local has come a long way baby!

Dream Systems Media has been providing local search engine marketing for small town business owners for almost a decade and we wanted to share some of that history here.   We hope everyone enjoys using and viewing it as much as we enjoyed creating it.

Infographic & Viral Marketing from Dream Systems Media

Would you like to use this info graphic on your site or blog? That is fine by us, as long as you provide attribution by either using the share code below or including a text link to http://www.dreamsystemsmedia.com/blog/index.php/history-of-local-search/ and citing Dream Systems Media as the copyright owner of this info graphic.

Local Marketing local, Local Marketing, local search engine marketing, local search engine optimization, local seo

Facebook’s new timeline layout changes the ad space as follows:

Old Facebook Profile Ads

Old Facebook Profile Layout

New Slimmer Facebook Profile Ads

New Timeline Layout

 Compare the Same Facebook Ad Side by Side

239 x 117

128 x 168

Differences in Facebook Ads

While the ad sizes are not exact, the widths are fairly accurate. The new ad is slimmer, at about 128 pixels. The image sizes remain the same at 110 x 80 pixels. The background color has changed from white to the light blue. The number of ads on a traditional page range from 1 to 6. The number of ads on the new facebook timeline layout is 2 or 3 depending on your screen size. Yes, the ads display in conjunction with your screen size, pretty high tech programing there. One of the biggest differences between the two sets is that the new layout keeps the ads on page as you scroll down the page. The old set up will actually scroll the ads off the screen. Very subtle differences, but I am sure someone somewhere at Facebook is monitoring revenues based on the layouts. Curious internet marketers would like to know what that difference is. Facebook marketers want to know how this could effect their ads.

General Facebook, facebook ads, facebook advertising, new on facebook, pest control guy, Social Media

It has been intriguing to see the comments and analysis of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) over the past few weeks. For the most part, this legislation has been viewed as a speech squelching, entrepreneur killing, economy halting piece of legislation. After personally reading SOPA (yes, all 78 pages), I find some merit to these arguments and it appears that too much power would be put into the hands of the government and allow them to compel and force online businesses to shut down portions (or all) of their websites without proper Constitutional due process.

SOPA reminds me of a scene from the Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest movie, when Jack Sparrow and Will Turner are discussing plans to retrieve the mysterious key from Davy Jones. (NOTE: If SOPA had passed last week, I would have had to find a more witty way to prove my point here for fear of copyright infringement):

SOPA sopa, stop online piracy act

Caution: Follow Me At Your Own Risk

Recently, an episode of “Staffers Gone Wild” played out on the internet with the unbelievable tweets of government staff members being broadcast for all to see. Isn’t it comforting to know that your hard earned tax dollars are being spent to fund the watching of Nirvana videos or support drinking while on the job? I’m not here to talk about the politics of this behavior, as I will leave that up to the political pundits to comment on.

What I do want to talk about are some potential legal ramifications that exist in businesses with easy access to the thousands of open eyes and ears reading your posts and tweets. We all know that social media marketing, imaging, and messaging are extremely important in shaping your brand. It takes a lot of time and money to get others to see you as you want them to. However, with one simple tweet your whole plan and message can be compromised, leaving you open to liabilities and harming your brand. Additionally, there are a host of legal pitfalls awaiting you.

Legal Social Media, social media policies

I got asked a lot of great questions at Pubcon after my Competitive Intelligence session a while back, so I wanted to take some time and answer a lot of those questions here.  If anyone else had questions that were not answered, or I just forgot (in my defense there were A LOT of questions) feel free to fire them away in the comments.  Hopefully this covers everyone that came up to me and asked a question (or that I promised something to).

A lot of times when online marketers think about doing competitive analysis we just look at the SEO and PPC side of things. But if you really consider yourself to be an “online marketer,” you need to look beyond just the two obvious channels. You should also try to figure out what your competitors are doing for testing, retargeting, and any other advertising networks they might be using.

Competitive Intelligence back links, competitive intelligence, competitive research, spyfu

Yes, this is a post targeted directly at some of my closest friends who are still tied down by the chains of Corporate America. I probably don’t speak to them often enough; it’s not because I don’t like them, it’s simply because each time we meet and begin talking, the conversation turns negative nine times out of ten.

Why is this you might ask?

I personally don’t think I’m a negative guy. In fact, when I worked in “Corporate America” I was given the “Best Attitude” Award…ha ha!

The reason things tend to turn negative, in my opinion (IMO), is because my friends know that what I’m doing as a self-employed entrepreneur is EXACTLY what they want to be doing…but they’re afraid to take the leap from that “security”.

SECURITY MY EYE!

Business, Entrepreneur

Saw an article on Social Media stats the other day on AdAge by Sarah Evans (awesome list of stats she compiled) and of course, me being who I am, I wanted to visualize the data. So enjoy! I used several of these statistics in my recent SMX Social Media Scottsdale presentation on SoLoMo – Checking into the real world.

Social Media Stats

Infographic & Viral Marketing from Dream Systems Media

Would you like to use this info graphic on your site or blog? That is fine by us, as long as you provide attribution by either using the share code below or including a text link to http://www.dreamsystemsmedia.com/blog/index.php/social-media-statistics-of-the-day/ and citing Dream Systems Media as the copyright owner of this info graphic.

Copy & Paste the code below to share on your site:

<a href=”http://www.dreamsystemsmedia.com/blog/index.php/social-media-statistics-of-the-day/”><img title=”Social Media Statistics” src=”http://www.dreamsystemsmedia.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/statsoftheday_1206.jpg” alt=”Social Media Statistics” width=”576″ height=”5264″ /></a>

Social Media Social Media, social media statistics

A lesson in Repurposing Content -

I heard an English teacher once say that “Every modern love story is a copy of Shakespeare.” She used Westside Story as an extreme example, stolen from Romeo and Juliet. She went on to challenge us to find a theme that Shakespeare did not cover. But there are those who argue that Shakespeare himself stole content. Who did Shakespeare steal stories from? Well, no one really knows at this point. But if he did borrow some ideas, does that constitute stealing? He took stories and themes and reworked them so eloquently that they became his own. Taking a peak at what people have done in the past and building upon their thoughts and ideas can be a healthy exercise. Adding to the conversation is a good thing. Further, those that we can identify with and build better thoughts with may even thank us. …or not. Matt Cutts may just consider me more of a pest than a pest control guy. I concede. But thanks Matt Cutts for the original Pac-Man Pie Chart idea.

General Google, Google Webmaster Tools, matt cutts, pest control, Pubcon, Romeo and Juliet, Search engine optimization, Shakespeare