July 2008

First off, let me begin by explaining that geo-targeting, or local targeting, consists of enhancing your search engine results to only display sites in a particular state, city, area, etc.

For example, if you’re looking for a massage therapy school in Kansas City, you might begin your search by entering the keyterm phrase, “massage therapy schools.” However, your search engine results probably would not show results in Kansas City within the first few pages, if at all, because your search is not specific enough. But, if you search for “massage therapy schools in kansas city,” you will find what you are looking for.

In SEO, when I perform keyterm research for my clients, I geo-target keyterm phrases by adding specific geographic locations, such as city names, to my phrases, so that searchers in that particular area can find the schools, and find them on the first or second page.

I recently took on an SEO client that’s a beauty school in Ludlow, Massachusetts. Where is Ludlow? It’s in Southern Massachusetts, about 90 miles southwest of Boston, or a more specific geo-target, about 12 miles northeast of Springfield. Ludlow is considered part of the Springfield metro area, just like Lenexa is part of the Kansas City metro area.

Why is this geography lesson relevant? Well, Springfield has about seven times the population of Ludlow. A person looking to find a beauty school in the Springfield metro area probably won’t enter the keyterm phrase, “beauty schools in ludlow,” especially if they are not in Ludlow. They are more likely to search for “beauty schools in springfield” or geo-target their search even more by searching for “beauty school in springfield massachusetts,” because of the number of states that have a Springfield.
Geo-targeting on this local of a level will draw more qualified visitors to my site, because they are seeking out that school in that specified geographic region.

On a personal, local level, when I did a search for “paddy o’quigleys in kansas city,” I received search results for the Leawood location, in addition to the North Kansas City one. This location worked better for me, since I live in Overland Park.

Geo-targeting locally helps visitors find my site quickly and easily, even if they are not in Ludlow, MA – or Lenexa, KS.

Alas, proactivity has never been one of my strong suits (even as I type this blog, it’s at the eleventh hour). Scientists may argue that its nature versus nurture but in my case, it’s definitely because my parents were procrastinating too much on teaching my brothers and I not to procrastinate.

My preclusion to avoid little, preemptive tasks here and there when I was younger always snowballed into last minute stress, late-night study sessions and pushing deadlines to the breaking point. Knowing this, you may ask yourself, “How does this woman make it a day, let alone three plus years in the highly competitive, ‘answers now!’ advertising arena?” Believe me, sometimes I wonder the same thing.

Since there is not a 12-step program for us habitual avoiders to “unlearn” our procrastination issues, as all our potential sponsors are putting off booking a lecture room at the local Y, I’ve learned that facing your postponement demons head-on is the best and only way to keep them a bay.

The first step in my recovery came when I was hired at PlattForm right out of procrastination-prone college life. PlattForm asks every person in every department to answer client’s questions even before they ask them. This does not mean giving the client an all-you-can-eat buffet of meaningless information that they’ll never use. It means that we as marketers need to be dedicated and committed enough to learn our market’s/client’s needs inside out. This way, when a useful bit of information or a new lead opportunity pops up, we can deliver that information quickly, concisely and complete with all courses of action recommended.

Another step on my way to procrastination recovery is realizing that the harder we work, the better our work will be. In the Media department, it pays to study lead flow and continuously report our results. “If you see something, say something” is a motto that’s key to life at PlattForm. For example, if you see lead flow for a certain market tank over a few days, taking the time to study the causes on the front-end before things get even worse will only make your job easier on the back-end. No one, especially clients, like to hear that a market is struggling - but if we’re doing our job correctly, you won’t have to wait too long for things to improve if you’re taking time on the front-end to fix the problem.

I’ve learned that bad news is unavoidable in the advertising world. No matter how hard and efficiently you work to prevent all problems, something will and does pop-up. However, striving to proactively avoid problems is always the best course to take. Over the years, PlattForm has made our clients raving fans of our work, which goes to show how much we all care about doing all we can to complete the job right the first time – and early enough to avoid late-night email chains.

Proactivity is still something I have to work on every day, knowing that in the long run, if I continue to work on tasks ahead of time, I’ll be a less harried person. The good news is that working at PlattForm has put me light years ahead of where I was a few short years ago. Maybe someday I’ll be completely cured, but seriously, what’s the rush? I’ve got at least a few more years before I have to start on that, right? Right?

When you join PlattForm, you are automatically expected to be adept in planning/throwing/hosting parties and/or showers and/or wingdings.

It’s borderline mandatory.

We are a company that lives for Happy Hour. We thrive on streamers. Our lives are not complete unless there’s confetti.

So it’s really no big surprise that PlattForm has branched out to hosting a benefit concert to raise funds for our upcoming American Diabetes Association walk. Best of all, YOU’RE invited!

On Saturday, August 16th, I’d highly suggest traipsing down to Jerry’s Bait Shop to eat, drink and make merry. (Jerry’s is conveniently located within stumbling distance of PlattForm’s new digs. Specifically, 13412 Santa Fe Drive Trail in Lenexa.) A $10 donation gets you in the door for a free pizza buffet from 4pm- 8pm … and the opportunity to listen to some of KC’s finest local musicians.

You like acoustic? Check! We’ve got the one and only Jason Kayne keeping it unplugged for you. Blues rock more your speed? Check! BB Miller Band will keep you rockin’ in the free world! And if you’re ready to kick up your spurs, you won’t want to miss the one and only Billy Doores Band’s country-fried country music. Of course, Billy’s band features PlattForm’s own Trey Bland on drums. (Yes, a shameless plug — I know. But it’s still for a good cause.)

In case you didn’t know – diabetes has gone from being rampant in America to becoming a national epidemic. Nearly 8% of the population suffers from diabetes. That’s a whopping 23.6 million people! Five million of whom are undiagnosed. And diabetes does not discriminate. It is the seventh leading cause of death in the United States.

So stop on out to Jerry’s Bait Shop on Saturday, August 16th. Drink some beer. Listen to some rockin’ tunes. Eat some pizza. All for only $10 … with proceeds going to benefit the American Diabetes Association! (Visit www.jerrysbaitshop.net for more info!)

Can’t make the concert? Never fear – you can help sponsor one of PlattForm’s employees in our upcoming ADA Walk on September 27th. Or, even better, feel free to join us. We always say the more, the merrier.

Speaking of merry, I gotta go … I’m late for another Baby Shower. Mercifully, NOT mine. At least not that I know of! Must be something in the water around here.

July 11th, 2008. 7/11. Or what some of us tech-geeks refer to as the iPocalypse. This was the day that my face in the crowd would be attaining the holy grail of communication technology. Some of you may think of it as ’simply a phone’. But the few of us who are either obsessed with the newest technologies or have consumed the Steve Job’s Kool-Aid looked at it as much much more. Ok, so really it is just a phone, but it brings us ahead in the future of mobile communications.

Before I get too far into the details of the day, I’d like to take a moment to explain why its such an important technological device. Up until recently, most have been aware of the “cool” factor of the iPhone. Touch screen, sleek design, large memory capacity for being a portable tune & video powerhouse, and even the ability to unlock or “jailbreak” the phone in order to install custom applications that let you do anything from create a power-point presentation to play old-school NES games on the go are all pretty well known. But what run on sentences and the iphone both had in common was its complete willingness to disregard what most would consider a business rule. Those of you who had the pleasure to toy around with the last generation iphone probobly realized the same things- that it was behind current technology with its EDGE based speed, its GPS was a poor incarnation of what comes standard on other “lesser” devices, and that, most importantly, it was missing the ability to be a fully functioning mobile email tool. Sure you could use gmail, or yahoo mail, or even web-server based mail, but poorly compared to the holy grail of business men and women, the blackberry. Its inability to be synced up with Microsoft Exchange meant that it was a poor replacement for the instant, real-time email, schedule and contact syncher that we had become accustom to with the Blackberry.

Steve Jobs looked down from his post as the technological Fonzy, and smiled upon us. In this newest incarnation of the iPhone, we find all three missing features. A 3g network (roughly 5-times faster than the connection speed of the previous iphone), a more advanced GPS chip for better localization and mapping servicing, and, most importantly a fully functioning email tool in the way of Microsoft Exchange compatibility. There is much much more that was given to us lowly consumers, but for time sake, google those details. With how long its taken me to get even this out, I’m sure you’ll appreciate the brevity of others. And if you aren’t a Mac user, let me help:

brev·i·ty
n.
1. The quality or state of being brief in duration.
2. Concise expression; terseness.

So, kind readers, I’m sure one’s of you are wondering, “why was such a grand day referred to as the iPocalypse?” Apple, in their infinite wisdom, decided to teach us a lesson about patience it seems, wisely making sure they and their partner, AT&T were unequipped to handle the massive amounts of server needs to handle the “activation” portion of the launch. Oh, Apple! Always teaching us! To explain deeper, every iPhone required an activation process to occur in the store where you purchased it, where the sales rep would plug the iPhone into their computers and connect it with those ill-equipped servers. With this process failing completely all over the world at the same time, a few hundred thousand enthusiasts were forced to return home with an effectively useless iPhone. And, of course, even more people went home without any iPhone.

But just as Jobs taketh away, so too he giveth. Within about twelve hours, the servers for activation were up and those few hundred thousand were scrambling to get their itunes up and running so they could activate and impress their co-workers with 3g speed, awesome email management (that makes the blackberry look like an a-trac) and lightsaber duels.

Recently, at my 20 year high school reunion, I had the chance to mingle and kibitz with many of my former classmates … many of whom went on to bigger and better. (The rest just got bigger. Thank God we chose an all-you-can-eat buffet!)

There were surgeons and lawyers and beauticians … oh, my! One of my classmates has won three Grammy awards which make my sole Emmy win pale in comparison. Everyone had a story and I wanted to hear all of ‘em. What struck me funny was that most people were doing absolutely nothing related to their degrees or field of study. Or they were in the midst of a full-on career change.

I always knew I wanted to be in TV. Or on TV. Or watching TV. I’m not picky. I even got my degree in Broadcasting to prove to the world I was not only educated, but well-versed in sitcoms, game shows and Oprah.

I had a ball at my reunion playing catch-up with everyone. People broke out pictures of their kids right and left. Of course, I dutifully pretended to care. And while I’m not Catholic, 99.2% of my classmates were — which would explain why they have so many kids they should live in a shoe.

The guy you thought would be a banker … went into banking. And yes, he’s still incredibly dull. The girl you thought would be a stripper … followed her dream.
And the list goes on and on. And yes – in case you were wondering — we had our fair share of Medical Coders and Medical Assistants and Pharmacy Technicians.

Few people surprised me, but those who did literally SHOCKED me. The biggest jock in our school ended up in advertising … where, go figure, he’s still big man on campus on the West Coast. All the girls voted “Most Likely To Become Successful Corporate Drones” all chose Mommy-hood instead. Funny to think while they became Becky Home-Ec-ky, I was busy being Rebecca Homewreck-a. And so it goes.

But it was good to see everyone and relive my youth for a night. Even Anne, my mortal enemy in high school, had mellowed. And it was phenomenal to hear everyone’s educational and professional success stories. Heck, several of my classmates even went on to become teachers and professors. Or so I heard. I was too busy schmoozing with my classmate who owns Denver’s hottest bar in LoDo to pay attention.