The idea is to make the mobile site visually engaging starting off with a header similar to the one on your main website (see below). Next, you want to present the user with easy to read and click on buttons (below). Remember, a persons finger is a lot bigger than a mouse pointer. Next, design  a custom footer for your mobile site with important information you want the user to takeaway such as method of payment for your product or services like the one below.

So for example, if you search for “tires” plus your local area you will get a list of companies who sell tires around you.  If you do this search on your mobile device you’ll even get them sorted by geography, with Google using your location to help refine your results.  As you can see, a places listing can be quite beneficial to a merchant.

There is no downside for a business to claim its local listing and in fact there are several upsides.

It’s clear that, when you claim your “places” listing, you can manage what shows up there like: your address, phone number, hours of operation, etc.  instead of relying on out of date information you can manage your information to ensure that it is up to date.  What’s more, if your business relocates or has to change a contact number you don’t have to wait until the next printing of say, the yellow pages.  You just log in and change your places page.

Plus, as the owner of a places page you can add photos and videos to further augment your listing and give visitors some insight into who you are.

There are intangible benefits of claiming your places page too. In fact, you get a very important and powerful link from Google to your site.

Think about that for a second –when your listing is claimed and your website linked to it, you have created a new link to your site from Google.com.  How significant is that?

There’s also the benefits a business gets from adding products and services to its places page.  Now, your business has additional information that can be indexed by a search engine to make it more relevant than its competitors, thus rank higher, which is the name of the game.

Just understand that local search optimization and ranking is a process and neither Google, Yahoo or Bing move faster than a couple weeks from submission to actually getting listed and ranked in local search for all to see. It’s a tedious process to be sure, but at the end of the day the benefits are many. A customer can find your business (how important is that), get directions, call you, email you or text you, save the link, see your photos and details, send your information to their email, car (if it’s mobile enabled) or GPS. You definitely want to be “on the map”. You definitely want to be optimized for local search.

In addition to local search benefits found on the computer, notebook, iPad, iTouch etc., Google, Yahoo & Bing have gone Mobile. That’s right; they publish all this great local data specifically for mobile devices. Why?  Fast facts: there are approx. 5 billion plus cell phone users vs. 1.8 billion Internet users (about 3x in market size.) Of these users, approx. 51 Million use Smart Phones. Nearly a third of smart phone owners use their device as their primary Internet connection.

When you optimize your business for Mobile devices (that means creating pages that show up well on mobile devices like smart phones) your customers can interact with you from their mobile device! (Instead of thinking web page, think smart phone page).This means they can and will participate in mobile coupons, click to call campaigns, SMS (texts) campaigns and QR (quick response) code campaigns. Very cool.

Our talented production team was on-site for two days collecting the stories and supporting broll. The piece is scheduled to be completed and posted on the web on the following sites: US EPA, SAIC, GECtv, You Tube, Vimeo and others to be determined. Stay tuned for a July release.

The event was created to bring together professional scientists, engineers, and business leaders around innovations designed to advance economic growth while reducing environmental impact. The Expo showcased the innovative designs of the P3 student teams addressing alternative energy technologies, collection, purification and distribution of water, agricultural practices to reduce pesticide run-off, new technologies for green buildings and many more approaches to improve society’s sustainability. In addition, it provides a forum for the government, non-profit and business community to demonstrate their diverse approaches to sustainability.

Work related video content can be a powerful motivator for executives and a catalyst for an actionable response. Since Senior Management is generally the top decision makers in any corporation.  According to Forbes, Senior Executives tend to watch work-related video on business-related websites (75%) far more often than they watch such content on YouTube (51%)—which is a fine argument for not making YouTube your only posting location.

 Senior Executives are generally open to video ads, with 68% of them reporting they’re content watching in-stream ads, and 48% saying they’re not bothered by “must-watch” in-stream pre-roll ads.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, these senior Executives are “social” wiith 54% saying they share videos with colleagues on at least a weekly basis.  They watch video on Facebook and post links to video on business networking sites.

That’s enormous, mostly because social actions are really the only way a video spreads online.  Regardless of what audience your video content targets, you want them to share it with friends and connections.

As video continues to gain prominence online, it will continue to grow in importance in the eyes of the country’s top executives.  Forbes says that last year’s study showed that 41% of executives 50 and older watched videos at least weekly, and this year’s study predicts that number will jump to 66%.

What’s most exciting is their social interaction.  It’s routine for Senior Executives to watch online video, but when you start talking about how often they share it, link it, or Facebook it… that’s when you have something worth writing about!

GECtv’s online video marketing department can; produce your next video project with broadcast quality standards, provide high quality encoding, host it and provide you with seamless embed codes for your site, deliver analytics, and syndication to the top social sharing sites for its clients.

If you’re a social media marketing professional today you realize that popular social and business networks like YouTube,  Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, are providing a massive increase in online content making the pace of business faster than ever before, which places an obligation on businesses to be “social”.

Video online is no longer thought of  by general business pros as personal entertainment on YouTube. The improvements in video on the web  technology, along with audience familiarity and participation, have made it become a true social platform for business; easily integrated with Web content on your own online business forums  (Websites and blogs), and across all the major social networks. Video online is no longer viewed mainly as “YouTube ”entertainment. It has become a “social interaction technology”.

It’s easy to understand why an ever-increasing percentage of Internet users expect businesses to have video on their websites, on popular video distribution sites, and on social networks. To be sure, consumers want businesses to offer video that is “social video” in other words something they can rate, share and contemplate with friends and connections.

Recently, our HD camera crew interviewed more than 25 college teams from around the world and  captured supporting video of their projects at the 6th Annual National Sustainable Design Expo in DC.

Our talented post production team pulled an overnight shift integrating pre-produced graphics and animations and delivered a dynamic 20 minute presentation the following morning which was featured the next two days on the national mall for the viewing public .

The event was created to bring together professional scientists, engineers, and business leaders around innovations designed to advance economic growth while reducing environmental impact. The Expo showcased the innovative designs of the P3 student teams addressing alternative energy technologies, collection, purification and distribution of water, agricultural practices to reduce pesticide run-off, new technologies for green buildings and many more approaches to improve society’s sustainability. In addition, it provides a forum for the government, non-profit and business community to demonstrate their diverse approaches to sustainability.

GECtv Executive Producer

Tonight’s the big night for all the nominees and the participants in the 82nd Academy Awards. I for one am excited to see if Avatar walks away with Best Picture. No matter, it’ll walk away with multiple Oscars anyway. The field is full of good pictures to challenge James Cameron’s masterpiece. The Hurt Locker is my choice, for many reasons. Is the actor in a leading role going to go to a venerable actor like Bridges, Clooney or Freeman or will it go to small screen journeyman Jeremy Renner. I predict Bridges. On to the Act-tress in a leading role; will it be Sandra. I think so. What do you think? No matter who wins, everyone will be treated to an evening full of talent, intrigue, suspense, soapbox rants, the usual mix of attire and yes comedy. So one & all, tune in to the Oscars and see for yourself.

Hey there. It’s been a couple weeks since my last post. Sorry about that. GECtv has been busy right out of the gate in 2010.

As 2010 is now in full swing, I’d like to talk about and maybe to a lot of you reiterate what you’ve already heard about some easy things we can all do to save our planet and future generations!  As Confucius said,” the longest journey starts with the first step”. Well, I think he said that. Anyway, I think our first step is to focus on our homes or apartments. Look around at all the lighting you get from old style incandescent bulbs. Try unscrewing one of these bad boys after its been on for a while. You better have gloves on or a rag or something protecting your skin because if not, ouch. These bulbs get very hot. Where do you think that heat is going?  Now touch a compact fluorescent bulb. (CFL) Cool to the touch. No gloves needed. Last a lot longer too. If you change out 5 of your most often used incandescent bulbs, you can save $100/year on your electric bill. I know you’re going to say it costs a lot more for a CFL. Well, your right but in this example the payoff is in 3.5 months. How many other investments payoff in 3.5 months?

Now lets look at the temperature in your home. Did you know that if you try to conserve by raising the thermostat in the summer or lowering it in the winter when you’re away or at work, thinking you’re saving a pile of money, you’re really not. That’s because in the winter all the furniture in the house gets cold and your thermostat is reading those temps when you come home and turn it up. It takes longer to heat up the room because of this and so you use more energy then if you were to leave the thermostat on a comfortable 70 degrees all day. Try it. One big energy thief is air leaks from around windows & doors. If you can see daylight anywhere between an outside door and the frame, you are losing the battle! Go to your local home improvement store and ask about how you can fix this or call a handyman. I will tell you it is VERY inexpensive to do or have done, so don’t be afraid of the cost.

Another small but very important thing you can and should do to conserve energy is to change your A/C filter monthly. A good reminder is, every time you pay your electric bill, you change your filter. I recommend the slightly more expensive filters because they trap smaller particles than the 99 cent kind; but anything is better than not changing it at all.

Recently, I heard the Governor of California say to the media that his state is in a water crisis. That’s right a crisis. Without water, well you know what would happen to all of us and the planet. We can do our part to conserve this critical resource in our homes or apartments by buying low flow toilets, shower heads and aerator for your sinks. Not to mention you’ll save money in the long run and no your hair won’t look like you’ve worn a baseball cap when you get out of the shower. On the outside of your home, you can catch rainwater in a barrel to water your plants (and they will love that better than city water). Did you know that you could fill up a 40 gallon rain barrel with just 7-8 minutes of normal rain? By the way, I know of a small but growing company who will paint a mural of your choice on the barrel at no extra charge. Looks great in the yard. Email me if you want her contact information.

If you start taking these small steps now, by the end of the year I’ll bet you’ll have your friends and relatives marching to your environmentally friendly beat. As a member of the National Green Energy Council, I get lots of good information that I will pass on in this blog, so stay tuned for more.

• Viral Video

In order for a video to have a chance at becoming viral it needs to possess most of the following ingredients: originality, be somewhat unusual, astonishing, funny, have the right timing and a large helping of  luck . Viral video is a function of solid distribution and promotion. With viral video, as the name suggests, the company’s intent is for the video to be spread “virally” by having it embedded in several different sites thereby reaching as wide an audience as possible.

• Conversion Video

Video is a great way of making your site sticky. This means visitors stay on the site longer than usual. It goes without sayng that the longer a visitor stays on your site, the better chance you have of converting them or educating them.

• Educational Video

Visitors to your site who move past the landing page and begin to delve deeper into your site are probably looking for more information. We know that video is an excellent medium for disseminating information and a curious visitors thirst for knowledge
can  be satisfied  from the contents of a well made educational  video.

The  question  of what  video  can  do  for  a  B-to-B  company was  the focus of a  recent webinar hosted by Brightcove, one of the  leading online video platforms. The webinar’s title was :

“Top 6 Reasons B-to-B Marketers Need Videos”.  The six reasons are worth repeating. They point out the advantages online video can have for a company.

1.  Grab people’s attention instantly

2.  Tell your story in less time

3.  Bring your ideas to life

4.  Make your site stickier

5.  Create a buzz with viral video

6.   Bring your website into the 21^st Century