Recently I joined Twitter .. thank you @MariSmith !! … and I have to tell you;  There is really something about Twitter that is unique to all other social media platforms.  For those that are not familiar with it I suggest that you really take a look at this short common craft video about twitter.  It describes twitter better than I can not possibly describe in writing.   http://www.commoncraft.com/Twitter 

Here are my perceptions of Twitter and where it will go.  First, I have to say that within 5 days I have 654 followers.  That I find amazing.   Who would want to follow me?   A very few but important stories and observations from TWEETING over the past 5 days.    My friend was sitting at the gate JFK airport in New York, Posted an entry on twitter  “Sitting at gate XX at JFK Airport pissed off.  Jet Blue Flight is Delayed an hour !”  Within minutes a Jet Blue employee approached him and asked he could be of service.  YES, he said: “could I be of service”  … starting to see the value here?   Another friend of mine is involved with a team heading up a social media initiative for Walmart.  Twitter is a big part of the plan.  Look for Walmart on twitter.    In the short video it is said that “real Life happens between blog posts and emails”  Could not be MORE TRUE.    Come check out what “real Life “  looks like on twitter.  Kind of a 140 character per post reality show for you and all of your followers.   As for business, I have connected with some great people so far and it’s going into day six.   I got some sympathy from friends knowing that I am going through a hard time in a relationship.  According to one follower, I broke the story  of US Airways Flight 1549 on twitter  BEFORE CNN, giving a play by play 140 character max description as the story unfolded.    So that’s my twitter story.  I suggest you check it out.  I will be there  -  My twitter name is @PeterStein …  See you on Twitter.   

Peter Stein is Founder and President of Stein Digital Media.  A full service online marketing firm.  Since 1998 Stein has exceeded expectations of blue chip internet brands such as eBay, Staples, Hotels.com, American Express, AT&T Wireless, Diamond.com and many more.  To contact Stein Digital or Peter Stein, call 877.89.STEIN  or  305-908-5037  email peter@steindigital.com

Why is everyone discussing the importance of Social Media?  Why is it important to optimize in the social media sphere?   Well, for one - Google (among many other sites) are hungry for relevant video and blogs.  Simply put: YOUR SITE WILL GET TRAFFIC if DONE PROPERLY.  Lots of traffic if done well.   Simple and basic things to do today to improve your traffic:

1- Shoot a video - discussing your product or service - or SOMETHING THAT will attract the attention of those interested in your product or service.  You can get creative - go ahead, its fun !

2-  Don’t FORGET to tag the video so that it is found in the search - Without TAGS no one wll find you

3- Post to a number of top social media sites and syndicate it to blog sites.  (include the major search engines for submission)  

Peter Stein is Founder and President of Stein Digital Media.  A full service online marketing firm.  Since 1998 Stein has exceeded expectations of blue chip Internet brands such as eBay, Staples, Hotels.com, American Express, AT&T Wireless, Diamond.com and many more.  To contact Stein Digital or Peter Stein, call 877.89.STEIN (                 877-89…         ) or email peter@steindigital.com

Amazon Reports today that it had the best hoilday season ever.  WIth the world economy coming to a screaching slowdown, Amazon officials tell the press that on it’s top selling day — December 15th it recieved over 6.3 million orders at a record pace of 72.9 items per second.    Top sellers on Amazon by category this Christmas season:  Nintendo’s Wii, Jakks Pacific’s Eyeclops night vision goggles,   Samsung 52″ LCD High Definition TV and Apple 8 GIG iPod touch.     Amazon did not comment on prices or it’s profit margins for this season.

Peter Stein is Founder and President of Stein Digital Media.  A full service online marketing firm.  Since 1998 Stein has exceeded expectations of blue chip internet brands such as eBay, Staples, Hotels.com, American Express, AT&T Wireless, Diamond.com and many more.  To contact Stein Digital or Peter Stein, call 877.89.STEIN (  877-897-8346  ) or email peter@steindigital.com

Groggy from the Holiday festivities the night before … I wake up today to some real refreshing news about online sales…   While Retail Sales is down horribly, online sales are down just modestly for the 2008 holiday season.  Now it’s only one day after Christmas, and we DO still have 6 more days to close out the year, but I wouldn’t bet my life savings on this seasons’ retail sales increasing within the next day or two.   Even with incredible after Christmas day savings of 75% off as I have seen around town.  Here are the lastest numbers for this holiday season:

OFFLINE RETAIL SALES:  Luxury Goods DOWN 34.7%,  Electronics DOWN 26%,  Clothing DOWN 19%      <  ONLINE SALES (Overall)  Only DOWN 2.3%  !

My prediction for 2009 -  more advertising dollars will contine shifting to online for several reasons: 

1– It’s trackable and accountable.  2 –  It is more cost effectiive   3–  More online ad networks are moving towards the CPA method.  (cost per action)  -shifting the risk back on the publisher. 

Happy Holidays to all and to all …  Good ONLINE SHOPPING !

Peter Stein is Founder and President of Stein Digital Media.  A full service online marketing firm.  Since 1998 Stein has exceeded expectations of blue chip internet brands such as eBay, Staples, Hotels.com, American Express, AT&T Wireless, Diamond.com and many more.  To contact Stein Digital or Peter Stein, call 877.89.STEIN (  877-897-8346  ) or email peter@steindigital.com

it’s not new news but here it is again to reinforce the importance of Blogs.   Look in the top ten natural search positions of 100 popular keywords.  In our unauthorized and really rough study  we found that over 80% of the time, a BLOG on a related keyword search term appeared on page one of Google.  Coincidence or could it be that you can blog your way to page one of google? 

Well for those still skeptical…   start your blogging !   Yes- blogging is an integral part of an overall campaign strategy for reaching the top of the heap. Alone a blog wont do it, but blogging and properly tagging AND optimizing those blogs will work.   Since 1998 my firm has been helping businesses small and large get to the top …  companies like eBay, American Express, Staples, Prudential Worldwide Real Estate,-all clients that today use blogging as part of an overall social media strategy to get to the top of the internet’s most high traffic search engines.    So blog away.  Blog Happily and blog frequently.    Next - Videos and their importance in driving traffic and achieving high rankings.    Until then, Happy Blogging. 

Peter Stein is Founder and President of Stein Digital Media.  A full service online marketing firm.  Since 1998 Stein has exceeded expectations of blue chip internet brands such as eBay, Staples, Hotels.com, American Express, AT&T Wireless, Diamond.com and many more.  To contact Stein Digital or Peter Stein, call 877.89.STEIN (  877-897-8346  ) or email peter@steindigital.com

Lots of buzz about a recession, advertising pulling back, budget cuts… etc.  NOT SO or SEO.  Search Engine Optimization is largely recession proof for many reasons.  First, it is the most cost effective advertising that your company can do.  Second, only those interested in buying your product or service are searching to find you exactly when they get to your landing page. With the right call to action and some good tracking, your ROI can get increasingly better.  We would like to hear what you think.

It seems like every search engine forum and expo is talking about social media.  Is this the real definition of web 2.0 or just a part of it?  What is all the buzz about?  Why is it so affective? Social Media acts more like a two way conversation rather than a one way pitch.  Furthermore, the conversation takes place within sites like myspace, facebook, twitter – places that people gather to talk with one another.  Third party endorsements have always been highly affective (especially with celebrity pitch-people)  Social Media done right (optimized, ala Social Media Optimization, or SMO for short) gets the right message in (more) of the right places more frequently than if just left to some kid in the corner blogging for your website.  We would like to hear what you think.

Peter Stein is Founder and President of Stein Digital Media - a full service online marketing firm.  Since 1998 Stein has exceeded expectations 500+ clients including blue chip internet brands such as eBay, Staples, Hotels.com, American Express, AT&T Wireless, Pricegrabber.com, Diamond.com and many more.  To contact Stein Digital or Peter Stein, call 877.89.STEIN (  877-897-8346  ) or email peter@steindigital.com

Until you’ve lost your reputation, you never realize what a burden it was or what freedom really is    -Margaret Mitchell

Reputation, whether it’s your online brand, your company reputation or personal has become a hot topic in online marketing and PR.  In it’s simplest form; online reputation management (ORM) is about pushing down in the search engine rankings negative information regarding a person, company or brand and replacing the top spots on the internet’s most important search engines with truthful, positive information about someone or something.  The practice of online reputation management also is used throughout online social networks and rating sites.  There are many instances whereby a product, company or person has been dealt a harsh blow –often paralyzing their reputation. Often times criticism comes unfairly from rouge employees, unhappy stakeholders in a company or simply from a person who has a grievance with a person, company or product.  Like in Hollywood, the brighter your star shines, the harder it falls unless you have a sound, proactive approach to online reputation management.   To learn more about online Reputation Management go to http://steindigital.com/what-we-do.php?ser=6

By 2010 online marketers will spend $7 Billion dollars on Paid Search. That’s a whole lot of money compared to just a few years ago. Now more than ever, it is important to manage your paid search accounts properly.  A good PPC Management firm can save companies upwards of 50% or more in real dollars and create efficiencies (ROI) of 200% or better.  When does the market just say – OK I just cant pay tat much for this campaign?   Do advertisers really know if they are making money or losing money on PPC?   We would love to hear from you – what are your thoughts?  

Alright, so I am writing this story on behalf of someone else and I am really not sure if THEY would say that SEO “saved their life” But one thing I know for sure … SEO has made them a lot of money.    Here’s the brief (but true) story of someone who I know. 

One day I met an older gentlemen at a cocktail party.  I asked him what he did and he acknowledged that he was “between things” and “looking at opportunities.”  I asked well, what did you do before this?  He said, I worked for a high end department store as men’s clothing buyer.  I worked there for 15 years.   I wanted to slow down to spend more time with my grandchildren, he said.  So recently I resigned.  As we spoke further, he told me about his aspirations of selling men’s clothing online.  “I know all about men’s clothing, I know all of these vendors, but I know nothing about computers” He continued: “I hardly know how to send an email” After I shared with him what I did for a living, he asked me for my help.  In fact, when we left the party he told me that there was a reason that we connected at this cocktail party and we are going to do business together.  I thought little of it until the next day when I got a call from him and he was as enthusiastic as the evening before.   After building a website, setting up his online marketing and spending nearly a year optimizing his site, his dream of becoming an internet entrepreneur was a reality.  He moved into a 5000 SF warehouse space and works about 10 hours a week (mostly online, from home) checking his web stats and order logs.  I am pleased to say that his little business is grossing over $800,000 per year and still growing.    We still talk about the day that we met, (and yes – about how many times he asked me if it was the left or right side of the mouse that you click to copy and paste), but internet dreams do come true thanks to a little SEO, and help from someone who I have to say has really become my friend.

Peter Stein is Founder and President of Stein Digital Media - a full service online marketing firm.  Since 1998 Stein has exceeded expectations 500+ clients including blue chip internet brands such as eBay, Staples, Hotels.com, American Express, AT&T Wireless, Pricegrabber.com, Diamond.com and many more.  To contact Stein Digital or Peter Stein, call 877.89.STEIN (  877-897-8346  ) or email peter@steindigital.com