Beamond Creative » LinkedIn http://www.beamondcreative.com Complete Internet Marketing and Online Solutions Fri, 17 Jun 2011 02:34:39 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1 Internet Marketing Tips for Authors: How to Market Your Book Online (AUDIO) http://www.internetmarketingsource.net/2011/01/internet-marketing-tips-for-authors-how-to-market-your-book-online-audio/ http://www.internetmarketingsource.net/2011/01/internet-marketing-tips-for-authors-how-to-market-your-book-online-audio/#comments Sun, 30 Jan 2011 13:26:07 +0000 Sam Beamond http://www.beamondcreative.com/?p=1208 Recently, I had the pleasure of being included in a web radio show. I was asked to present to an audience of authors on how to market their books using the internet. The subject is broad and there is much to cover in the 45 minute slot that I had, so I employed the tactic of touching on the following key aspects:

  • SEO – How to choose and use your keywords
  • Blogging – What is the advantage of blogging?
  • Social Media – Using FaceBook, Twitter and LinkedIn and how are they different
  • Selling your book – Lulu, Amazon and ebay
  • Strategy – Tying it all together

The following media clip is a direct recording from the show. Hit Play, then scan across to about the ninth minute, where the Internet Marketing content begins.

Have you written a book, and have further questions? Post them in the comments below. Thanks!

]]> http://www.internetmarketingsource.net/2011/01/internet-marketing-tips-for-authors-how-to-market-your-book-online-audio/feed/ 0 Google Surveys and Some Humor http://www.internetmarketingsource.net/2010/05/google-surveys-and-some-humor/ http://www.internetmarketingsource.net/2010/05/google-surveys-and-some-humor/#comments Fri, 07 May 2010 18:57:18 +0000 Sam Beamond http://www.beamondcreative.com/?p=1053 I just had to write about this. Google has recently added an automated survey feature to the Google Docs suite. The survey is a great tool. Once you’re logged in to your Google docs account you can choose “create new” and then “form”. Here you can design your survey with a choice of theme/designs and then choose from a mix of multiple choice, yes/no, text and a few other question types. Once you’ve created the fields, you can give your form/survey a title and intro text explaining what the survey is for. Then you have the option to change the “thank you” message and whether the participants can see the survey results or not. The neat thing about the survey feature is that the results are automatically stored in a spreadsheet in your Google Docs account. You can then choose to manually share this document with other Google users or keep it to yourself.

When the form is finalized you are given a link that can be used to email or publish the form elsewhere for your audience to complete. You are even provided with the embed code to place into your own website design format.

Why do I Need a Survey?

Surveys are a great way to connect with your audience and find out user experience with your company. This particularly useful for companies doing business online, you can find out how they like the format of your online store and determine any “pain” areas for your customers. Maybe they think the checkout process is too long, or they have a hard time finding products etc… All this is great information for tweaking your website and making it a better shopping experience for your customers. At the same time you are building customer retention and reducing your site bounce rate.

A Humorous Experience With My Google Survey

Anxious to test out the new tool, I quickly developed a 5 question survey to learn about the scooter industry. I created the form and tested it to see how and where the data was stored in the spreadsheet. This worked perfectly first time without any glitches. To promote the survey and gain user feedback, I created a couple of posts within industry related groups on LinkedIn (along with a few additional sites). After posting, and as I usually do, I proceeded to go back into the live post and test the url. I kid you not, after clicking the link I received the following message:

“Warning. Suspected phishing page. According to Google’s safe browsing policy, the requested external link maybe a forgery or imitation of another website designed to trick user into sharing personal or financial information…..”.

Yes, that’s right Google has detected that its own auto-generated url is a possible phishing page! Check out the screenshot below.

li_phishing_ss

Once I had recovered from the excitement, I needed to figure out a fix. The simple use of a URL shortening service like bit.ly generated a smaller alternative url that I used to post the survey across social networking sites and via email. After testing once again, I did not receive the “warning” message.

Make sure you take advantage of the great new tool from Google!

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