So, by now most of us either know about or have played with social networking sites like Twitter, MySpace and Facebook. What do most of these sites have in common? They have activity streams. An activity stream could contain just about anything. A whole stream could be devoted to individuals swapping images back and forth or, most commonly, a stream will consist of “instant message” style chatting where one person will post something on your profile and then you comment back or post something on their profile. You can see this flawlessly in action on Facebook.

Facebook allows you to sort your streams by news, pages, status updates, photos and links. Twitter, is one massive activity stream, that’s all there is, but that’s why it’s so effective. A simple design in a “fast forward” world allows people to communicate to one another easier and faster than ever before. You can download plugins for your Firefox to pop-up Twitter messages just like when you receive a new email through Outlook.

Activity streams are making their way into the workplace. Businesses are using them to communicate internally and there’s a chance that in the future company executives will be more accessible than ever as customers may be able to communicate with higher-ups directly through the companies website.

Social media continues to grow and expand like never before. Google has taken a shot at the market by developing Google Wave which essentially is a way for people to interact with one another on the fly. If you and a friend are typing message to each other you’ll be able to see what they’re typing as their doing it.

Internet technology is getting more advanced and expect these systems and features to play a major role in your marketing efforts down the road.

After the homepage, the most visited page on most websites is the About Us page.  The web is a great equalizer for business and your visitors know a shady company can put up a reputable looking website.  In order to gain trust, you have to answer the biggest question a consumer on the web is asking:  Can I trust you?

To answer that question, your visitors will turn to the About Us page.  You need to convey information about your company, demonstrate why you are trustworthy, and develop a personal connection with your visitor, all in 400-600 words.  This information is expected and delivering the goods boosts your online image.

Elements to consider when crafting an About Us page:

• A physical address – An 800 number and contact form are easy, convenient ways for customers to reach you, but a physical address shows a prospective customer that you are a real business.

• What you do – Most of your site will focus on solutions for your customers.  The About Us page is the corner of your site to talk to visitors about your company.

• Why you do what you do – How did the company begin and what is the driving passion behind it?  This is a great way to demonstrate dedication to your customers.

• Your successes – This page is not for the modest!  If you have received any awards or recognition, tapped into a competitive market, or experienced impressive growth mention them.  These are signals to your potential customers that you will do a good job for them.

• What makes you different– Chances are you are not the only business doing what you do.  A look at what sets you apart gives visitors a reason to choose you.

• Personality – If your company is fun to work with or singularly dedicated to helping customers, make sure visitors know that.  Your company’s culture should shine through in the writing.

• Staff bios – Give your visitors a connection with the people behind the business.  The web is cold and impersonal, but humanizing elements add a friendly face and make the experience more personal.

As much as the web has changed the way businesses relate to their customers, the importance of trust has not diminished.  Potential customers want to know they are dealing with a reputable company in addition to getting a great product.  Build credibility on your site and convert visitors into customers.

Have you heard of a landing page? Maybe you have and maybe you haven’t, but it’s important that you know what they are as recent trends have shown that landing pages can convert customers in a way that’s never been seen before. So, what’s the secret?

Landing pages is a hot marketing strategy where you create a single page with a very clear call-to-action and direct traffic to it. This could be done in one of two ways. Firstly, you can go with the standard SEO approach where you optimize each landing page using a specific set of keyword phrases. You would then work those phrases into the content of the page and the code as needed. When someone finds the page in a search engine they’re taken directly to a page that’s specifically targeted towards the keyword phrase they were using.

A landing page get’s right to the point and limits the options of the user down to taking action or just plain leaving. Another landing page strategy is to implement standard SEO on to a page and then link that page with a Pay-Per-Click campaign (PPC). This is proven to be highly effective, but to really get the results you need you should consider creating upwards of 50 landing pages each one unique from the other in some way and hooked to a PPC account.

A websites standard conversion rate is somewhere between 0.5%-2% (source). Conversion rates are obviously higher for e-commerce sites like Amazon and E-Bay, but for now, PPC linked with landing pages seems to be the key to increase conversion rates and while will Google’s PPC remains the dominant force, Bing’s advertising methods are on the rise because it’s cheaper and tends to bring in more conversions than Google.

The design of a landing page is complicated and requires you to think outside the box which I’ll save for another post.

For now, ponder the strategy behind landing pages. If used correctly, they can be a very powerful asset.