Social media frenzy?

The direction of Social Media has been called into question this month. A number of articles have appeared dissing Google+ before it has even hit mass rollout - which is the main problem. Google+ is still "limited release" and many of us can't even get on it yet. Unless Google can open their doors wider (they cannot admit they released it too early) it will conk-out before it has even started. People are already calling it a "fancy new tool for geeks".

The other area causing a stir is the level of Facebook changes underway - overtly to "Google plus-ify" itself. People are struggling to keep up with the changes.

I will be summarising the recent Facebook changes and how to get back on top of them in a follow up post in about a week's time as I am going to a webinar about them tonight.

For my own views on the state and roadmap for Social media as a whole you might like to look at the series of articles "Social Networking - Is this all there is?" I am now writing on eZinearticles.com. My Second article in the series: "Why do we network?" is just awaiting approval and I'll send out a link when it is approved. Timing should coincide with the Facebook post. Want to know more? Follow this link to access these articles.

My view? eMail is still the web's "killer app".

Client Successes

Pipeline:

Last month I had 3 potential client opportunities under discussion.

The European Truck Dealership and the Carpets Supplier were both implementing "Black Hat" SEO techniques. I had to tell them I could not help, unless they took steps to rectify these first. Unsurprisingly I have heard nothing more from them, since...

The Yacht Brokerage shows promise and I have given my client some basic advice about next steps. However this venture is subject to funding. Watch this space.

Existing:

Holiday Activities France

I lead with one of my own sites which shows holiday activities available in our corner of France. I have just completed a major overhaul to populate all the available tourist data onto Google Maps which I have then integrated into the site. I also took the opportunity to bring the look and feel right up to date. Over the summer, this site was attracting more traffic than my two holiday rental sites combined, but was easily their inferior in terms of user experience. I have loads more information to add. This is an un-branded site. Anybody is able to link to this site for their own use as my feeling is the more people we can attract here, the better it is for everyone.

Mobilité Dynamique

This eCommerce store for mobility scooters is now just waiting for my client to pass me their product information so I can tailor the product pages to each of the specific types of product. (As goods range from whole scooters down to individual tyres and batteries, you have to display different things in different ways.) Pending receipt of this information, we only need to complete the financial services hook-up, finalise the look-and-feel (once we have the whole site available in front of us) and we will be ready to go. All the eCommerce functionality works beautifully - but I'm just stuck using dummy product data at the moment.

"Vitrines d'expositions"

I continued with Robert's web marketing for his glass display cabinets in France. I am now turning my attention to putting together a proposal for him for eMail marketing to his existing customer base. Existing customers are a huge resource that businesses typically have already worked hard to sell to or at least "interest". A newsletter with a product offer or example of good use, or latest news goes a long way to promote referrals business or repeat sales.

Green Energy

The guys have just been in touch with a large set of updates to their Infrared products - which is great news. On the Solar PV side, they had decided - rightly I think - to concentrate on larger solar projects rather than smaller domestic installations. And although the lead times and working capital requirements for these have been consequently larger and more challenging to meet they now have a number of such projects finally coming through and have a feeling things on the solar side may finally be under way.