Referrals and profile reviews can make a huge impact on whether consumers come to your business, and getting new reviews on your profile pages is a great way influence these prospective customers.

Yet, don't succumb to the temptation to write fake reviews on your profile pages. It's illegal. Fake reviews are also very obvious to both search engines and informed shoppers, and you will eventually be penalized.

Monitoring the countless profile pages you have on the internet can be very time consuming. We can help you manage your brand reputation online by helping you reply to negative reviews and combatting fake reviews that may be posted by your competitors.

According to TechCruch, Yelp recently walked away in the last hour from nearly selling its business profile website to Google over half a billion dollars.

Nearly everyone is aware of Google, or possible Google addict such as myself. Yet, many of you may not be aware of Yelp. Yelp was founded in 2004 and is a local search and business review site. It is a local reviews website that is driven by local consumers that sign up and rate their favorite hole in the wall or businesses in their communities. Yelp uses social networking features to let people write reviews and share their reviews with friends.

Why do you need a dynamic website? Why does the number one professional athlete in the world need one? Everyone on Earth knows him. Well for Tiger Woods it gave him a venue to let the world know what is going on in his life. He did not do it on TV…he did it online.

More and more businesses are entering the online world and engaging the conversation that is already taking place. Many business owners are finding their customers are shaping their brand online through social networking sites like Yelp with reviews and star ratings.

You can actually control the conversation with the right online marketing strategy. If this sounds foriegn to you or if you simply don't have the time or expertise to engage online consumers, we can help.

A friend of mine posted this viral video on Facebook and I thought the statistics in it are too important not to share with our 1011 Weblog readers.

I often get questions from clients about social media. Is it a fad? Should I stay out of the game and wait it out until something new comes along? My answer is usually the same. Flat out NO! Join the party. This video of rolling statistics can help explain why waiting it out is a no win situation.

Not many places are better at connecting people than the Internet.  In a relatively short amount of time someone can find and make deep, quality connections with their target audience.  Whether it's about selling products, promoting a cause, spreading an idea or whatever else, the ones who find and connect others become leaders.

Here's a good video with Seth Godin discussing tribal leadership in the new world.

Apple's app store is about to hit the one billion download mark.  Just think of how much we've all personally helped prove Steve Jobs a genius!  But regardless your feeling towards Apple, they are a consistent example of how powerful something can be when it's targeted correctly and made available in a form people will actually use.  There's no freakin box for Steve to get out of because he's making the darn things. 

While we haven't had the pleasure of working with Apple just yet, 1011 Web is a media agnostic marketing company in Little Rock that's helping some businesses in Arkansas and outside the state create their own little iWorlds.  And we build some pretty kickawesome websites along the way too!

To celebrate their billionth download Apple is giving away some nice products.  Here's a link to the no purchase entry form: Apple Countdown Sweepstakes.  Do me a favor, even if you don't like Apple go register at least once and just use my name.

When I created my myspace account in 2003, that form of social networking was still relatively new. Upon mere mention of myspace, people would begin smiling or mocking the movement. As it quickly became more mainstream, people began to grasp that myspace is what I often call “an email with a face.” It allows me to quickly check in and communicate with my friends, getting updates on their life in a short amount of time, similar to an email.

Then came the rise of Facebook with its status feeds. No longer do I have to actually click on every one of my friends slow-loading myspace profiles to get updates on my friends. Their status is fed directly to my Facebook home page in real time. I can quickly and easily read about all of my friend’s lives in a matter of minutes.

Am I lazy because I don’t want to click through 100 friend profiles in myspace in order to get an update on each and every one, or would that realistically take a lot of time to do? Some people have that beef, saying that Americans are too lazy to pick up the phone and talk to their friends. I disagree. Maybe I am biased since I work for a website development company that does online automation, but I appreciate reading automated status updates from my friends.

Hence Twitter, tweets, and twits. Mere mention of the word “Tweet” today compels smiles on even the straightest of faces, similar to myspace in 2003. Twitter delivers real time updates from my friends that I would never think to ask about or have a chance to know about if we were still using email. I mean, email is soooooo 1998.

As with all new social phenomenon, mainstream people still chuckle when they discuss Twitter. It’s understandable since it’s such a goofy name. But, Twitter has its place. We’re just in a moment of time where society is trying to determine that place.

Granted, many people have gone overboard with Twitting. Knowing what color socks someone is wearing is a bit TMI. Yet, now journalists and news organizations are using Twitter technology to report news faster than printing presses and even blogs. This is interesting how Twitter may be finding its place in the mainstream news media.

Where ever that happy medium may be, real time status updates from friends or news sources will ensure Twitter's success. Until then, we'll just have to muddle through mundane snippets of our friend's personal lives until it becomes...normal.