What’s the best way to get someone to like you? Most people assume it’s by doing someone a favor. But it turns out the opposite is true. The best way to get someone to like you is by asking them to do you a favor. Sounds crazy, right? The phenomenon has been labelled the Benjamin Franklin Effect after the American founding father and it’s an increasingly important tool in marketing. When Franklin ran for his second term as clerk of the Pennsylvania Assembly, one of his colleagues delivered a long speech to the legislature attacking him. In Franklin’s autobiography, he Read More

If you’re online, then you need to write snappy, engaging, interesting copy. It’s an important part of the business. For many people, facing a blank screen is confronting, even excruciating. If this is you – relax. These six strategies will help get your writing juices flowing. 1. Who are you writing for? Even before your fingers hit the keys, work out who you are writing for. Is it customers? Colleagues? Prospective customers? As Henri Junttila from Wake Up Cloud suggests, “Imagine sitting across from your ideal reader and having a cup of tea. Answer their questions, anticipate their worries, and Read More

At Dinkum Interactive, we perform a large number of tasks requiring expertise in SEO, PPC, Web Design, Email Marketing, and others. This is a valuable set of skills for our clients but it’s not the reason they hire us. Our goal with each client is to support the development of a sophisticated internet marketing culture at their company/organization. That is our true purpose and value. Over the last six months, Dinkum’s three partners – me, Rick Simmons, and Paul Fleming – have been working with business “change-agent” Steve Smolinsky to figure out who we are as a company and what Read More

Analytics has always been an important part of what we do. It’s the foundation of our campaigns whether for an SEO strategy, PPC or website redesign project. Analytics tell us a lot about what we do, who our client really is (sometimes more than our client does), helps us plan, helps us adjust and ultimately guides us. It can do a lot or it can do a little depending on how you use it. We have our favorite customizations to help us work more efficiently. Personally, I’m a fan of things “at a glance” and the Dashboard section has been Read More

It’s the dream of most websites – volumes of traffic seeking your product or service. At Dinkum, we use a variety of techniques to drive visitors in your direction and one of the tools we’re getting some great results with is Google Adwords and other Pay-Per-Click (PPC) strategies. This is why:- Price: Compared with other online advertising initiatives, Adwords is much cheaper. You don’t have to break the bank getting a campaign underway. Instant Traffic: With PPC, you have the ability to drive traffic to your website instantly. It can take less than an hour to set up your first Read More

I’m talking about myself, here. And I’m sure I’m not alone. I’m a little bit addicted to the pinging of my inbox. Even before I get out bed in the morning, I check my emails from my smartphone. Just in case there’s something exciting, or urgent, or interesting, or all of the above. But then I came across the advice of Brendan Burchard and it’s made me reassess my relationship to this technology. I need to control it, not the other way around. In order to stop being a slave to your inbox, Burchard suggests a few things. First thing Read More

When researching an article about Klout, an algorithm that measures your alleged social media influence, I discovered how Klout’s founder, Joe Fernandez, came up with the idea. Turns out, he had to have his jaw rewired and couldn’t talk for 3 months. His communication outlet during the time of silence was Facebook. According to a Wired magazine profile, “Every time a family member or friend responded to one of his updates, he relished his ability to sway their behavior. And as he looked over his feed he saw countless other people doing the same thing, recommending products or activities to Read More

Last year, it was Panda. Now, it’s Penguin. Both are cute black and white animals, but also the names of Google’s changes to its algorithm that determine search results. It’s part of an effort to remove spammy websites and systems set up to game them, and fighting techniques well-known to the SEO community as gray/black hat activities (against Google’s guidelines). It includes keyword stuffing, link schemes, cloaking and duplicate content amongst other things. Dinkum has found that following Google’s guidelines is good business practice. Occasionally there is the need for workarounds to get our client the best exposure possible but certainly never Read More

This month, business networking site, LinkedIn announced the acquisition of SlideShare for $118.8 million. SlideShare allows users to upload and share PowerPoint and other slide presentations with business users, either on the Slideshare site or embedded on blogs, websites and shared on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. SlideShare is sometimes known as the “dark horse of B2B marketing”. It’s an interesting move. SlideShare lacks the size of social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn, and its growth isn’t anything as remarkable as Pinterest. Certainly SlideShare’s typical content of corporate PowerPoint presentations isn’t capturing the imagination of the popular culture. Read More

I collected my god-daughter from dance class the other day and we grabbed a “treat” on the way home. Charli is 10, super bright and delightful. As we ate liquid chocolate, she told me about her school assignment where they had to devise a restaurant for kids. Her big idea was that while kids were waiting for their meal, they could play in a big play area with an individual beeper attached to their shirt or worn as a wristband that would make a sound when the meal had arrived. That way they wouldn’t get bored. I thought it was Read More