Brandon Coppernoll Internet marketing, social media, web based strategy and development in Indiana

27Sep/092

Father and son guys' day

Yesterday my wife traveled to visit a long distance friend, and my son and I spent the day together while our daughter stayed at her grandmother's house. It was a day for me to spend quality time with my son. I had a few surprises up my sleeve.

We had some friends and family come over. All of them were guys. He had a blast. He kept talking about how much fun he had. It was great.

Then we had a breakthrough in the potty training department. Something that seemed so difficult the past month finally seemed so simple. He was ecstatic when he saw how happy he made me. He had his only moment where he was saying, "We HAVE to call Mommy!"

All in all yesterday was a great day. He and I are still having some quality bonding time. We're playing with his "Go Diego Go" train set. The animals are talking to Diego right now as we speak. I love being a father. "Choo choo!"

Filed under: Family and Life 2 Comments
26Sep/091

The stuff you don't see when developing a web site

I am currently, as you may already know, building a new web site and personal blog at a different domain. I purchased hosting and downloaded the WordPress installation from WordPress.org. It may seem simple enough to download the files, upload them to the server and presto I have a web site but there's more to a site than meets the eye.

  • Preparation. The most successful web sites are built with a purpose in mind. What's your goal? What's your target audience? How do I want to be found through search? What are my steps for search engine optimization?
  • Strategy. Now that some of the core questions are answered the next step is how we achieve these goals. Developing a site map is a great starting point. You must determine how users will flow through your site. Choosing an analytical engine to measure data from your site is important. What are the conversion points through the site?
  • Implementation. Now that the strategy has been laid out from start to finish it's time to implement. In the case of a WordPress site, I now know what types of plugins I will need and what should be in my side bar. This is usually what most people see on the site. This creates the common misconception that just anyone can build a web site and make it successful.
  • Measure and adjust. The site's been live for an amount of time that you have determined through preparation and strategy.  It's time to analyze the data. Find your strengths and weaknesses. Improve the site based on the information at hand.
Filed under: Blogging, Web Development 1 Comment
25Sep/095

It's Happy Friday!

All week it has rained over in our small part of Indiana. It's been quite dreary. My wife was declined for a job so she remains unemployed yet hopeful. Last night I said something completely stupid to my wife and felt like a complete...well...you know the feeling. Luckily she's very forgiving and actually telling me to drop it rather than me pleading that she drop it.

Happy picture brought to you by ihasahotdog.com.

There is something about Friday that makes everything seem like a distant memory. You work hard all week, and it's those two little days when you can spend with friends and family without the constant wear and tear on your mind that makes Friday so enjoyable. Around the office I always let everyone know it's Happy Friday. It's usually followed by hours of 80's music from different genres to liven up the mood.

This weekend is "Girl's Night Out" for my wife. My daughter is going to her grandparents' house for the night on Saturday. My son and I get the whole day to do manly things like watch football, wrestle and play around. My brother-in-law is visiting. A good friend is visiting for help on setting up a personal web site. I am going to be working on my new site. This could very well be one of my last posts on this domain.

I think most people view Friday as an end. It's the end of the work week. To me I view it as the beginning. It's the beginning of free time to do the things I put off all week. So I ask everyone to enjoy Happy Friday! Tell me what you're doing this weekend. Tell me what Friday means to all of you.

Filed under: Career, Family and Life 5 Comments
24Sep/093

Create fresh content to create good relationships

Keep the content flowing.

Keep the content flowing.

Customer retention is very important in every business. Existing customers help a business create stability. In blogging and web site maintenance creating fresh content should be high on the priority list to continually create reasons to bring readers and customers back.

As a blogger my goal is to provide useful content as well as educate not only the reader but myself in what I've been learning about internet marketing and social media. I occasionally post other thoughts and feelings, but it is my primary goal to establish myself in this career as someone with knowledge on the subject. When you talk to your customers whether through a blog or web site you are connecting with them on a somewhat personal level. By providing more information and insights you become a leader and teacher on your industry, product and services.

Why is it important to create fresh content?

  • Keep your customers' interests
  • Search engine optimization practices include updated content getting more attention
  • Forces you to be "in the know" of your industry
  • Creates brand loyalty and customer interaction

A quick scenario of two blogging sites:

Scenario 1: Company A is blogging or attempting to blog everyday. They alert you of new technologies and industry news that effects their business in positive and negative manners. Company A also gives detailed opinions and case studies to show both successes and failures that they encounter. Customers who read the blog also share comments on posts, and Company A often if not always replies.

Scenario 2: Company B is a competitor of Company A and has a blog, but Company B updates the the content only once or twice a month. There is some customer interaction, but the latest post date is more than a week ago. They do the same quality of writing, but often their views and opinions come later than Company A's. Customers who read the blog also share comments and posts, but Company B often has more than a week response time.

Who would you trust as far as opinions? Who would you frequent more often if these blogs were of subjects you found of interest? Based on what you know who would you turn to for business? My guess is Company A. Sadly this scenario plays out more often than what most would think. Creating fresh content for any blog or web site is very important.

Filed under: Blogging, Business 3 Comments
23Sep/093

HOW TO: Measure ROI using social media for your business

A recent study indicates that 84% of social media programs don't measure ROI. That may spell doom and gloom for businesses that are considering the use of these programs, or it may discourage those that are already using these social medial communities for business and branding. I believe nearly every business can find a way to fit the social media paradigm. It may be difficult for some to find their niche, but I believe there is one for all businesses and individuals. You just need to know where to look.

It's easy to jump into social media marketing. In my opinion it may be too easy. For me it's getting much easier to locate a business or brand in a community and decipher whether or not they have a plan behind their presence. It's not to say that the plan is good or bad, but even a bad strategy is better than no strategy in most cases. At least then you're putting some forethought behind what you're doing.

What are ways to measure ROI from social media?

  • First determine how or what you want to measure (conversion forms, traffic, referrals)
  • Google Analytics is a great tool to track not only traffic but other metrics of interest
  • Include Analytics code in URLs you links to help track what program or campaign referred the traffic along with what they did next
  • In online conversion forms include a field such as "How did you hear about us?"
  • Measure, adjust and repeat.
Filed under: Business, Internet Marketing, Social Media, Social Networking 3 Comments
21Sep/091

Beginner's Guide: What blogging tools are at your disposal

Several friends come to me and ask what software I use for my blogging.  Personally I use Wordpress.com to host and manage my blog; however, there are many different tools from several different providers that you can use to create and maintain your blog. I think it really comes down to a matter of personal preference as to what will work best for you.

What blogging tools are available?

Free blog services along with free blog hosting usually enlists your blog to be hosted as a subdomain of the main site. For instance, this current hosting arrangement for my personal blog is free through Wordpress so it is by default at bcoppernoll.wordpress.com. Blogger hosted blogs are hosted at blogspot.com. An example would be mommacopp.blogspot.com.

The Wordpress installation provided by Wordpress.org is free, but you must have more knowledge on how to set up a hosting account in order to install and run this blogging engine. You must set up your own host, upload the files, set up the database and run the installation script to set up the blog from scratch. It does come with benefits. You will have complete access to the code back-end to be able to update the design, functionality and add additional functionality for your use. I recommend not to do this when you first start out unless you have previous knowledge and site hosting experience.

There are many other tools, and I'd be interested in hearing other opinions on blogging sites that others use. Even when starting out on your first blog consider talking to other experienced bloggers on what makes a good blog.

Filed under: Blogging 1 Comment
20Sep/090

New site coming soon

I am going to be moving...my blog. I have been blogging with shared hosting at Wordpress.com, and I have decided it's ultimately time for me to move my personal blog to be officially hosted at brandoncoppernoll.com (or bcoppernoll.com for short).

Why am I doing this?

I recently ran Blog Grader on this current blog, and one of the points of emphasis that really hurt my score was that it wasn't on a dedicated domain but shared hosting.

The new site will likely have a little bit of a new design, and then I will be focusing more on certain keywords and topics of discussion. I may have a sub domain created just for personal use, but I want to have the blog site to be more dedicated to a professional use.

Look to see more soon on this subject. I'll be sure to let you know when I finally make the move.

Filed under: Blogging No Comments
19Sep/090

I took the plunge into social media games

A friend of mine that I play with from time to time on Xbox Live talked me into giving Farmville on Facebook a try. So far I have been somewhat pleasantly surprised, but at the same time I've gotten what I expected.

The game and it's premise is simple. Your goal is build and maintain an amazing farm. Everything can be done through one or two click steps. It's all laid out for you. Then it's time for your imagination to take over.

So far I haven't done much, but the game has been enjoyable. It seems you have to really base it on your schedule. Don't plant or do anything that you won't be able to take care of when it's ready to harvest, or it will wither and die.

It is also a game you can spend five to ten minutes playing and still feel like you accomplished at least a little something. If you need something to pass the time I recommend you give it a try.

Filed under: Social Media No Comments
18Sep/090

If our children only knew…

I had a crazy thought this morning while doing my daily perusing of the social media atmosphere for topics to blog about or that I need to know for work. In a way, my generation is developing a generation of "little-known child stars". I know that you're probably wondering what in the world I mean, but I think I can explain well enough.

My wife and I have two beautiful children. A son who is three and a daughter who is coming up on six months. Pictures of their whole lives and random blog and Facebook posts have pretty much replaced the old-fashioned baby book, but at the same time it has created a web of publicity for our children. While they're nowhere compared to someone like Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen, all of our children are still little "stars" in our social networks.

In some ways we know each others' kids better than our aunts and uncles possibly knew us because our whole lives were not out there for the world to see. I know we have capabilities of setting items to private but most of us rarely do this. I don't think it's an entirely bad thing to post this stuff for all to see as long as you take proper measures of protecting them:

  • Don't give up your address publicly;
  • I recommend not giving up your phone number publicly either;
  • No questionable photos;
  • Be a good parent and protect your children.

So I am really interested to see what the future will bring with the next generation. What social media tools and sites will be available when my son starts reaching high school? Will this generation be struck with crippling narcissism because their whole lives have been out there for others to see? This generation has already experienced narcissism because people have become instant stars thanks to sites like YouTube. I guess only time and guidance will tell.

Filed under: Family and Life, Parenthood, Social Media No Comments
17Sep/090

Google Chrome supports original NES games

Before everyone writes me off as a Google fan boy I would like to point out that while I do have Google Chrome on my work laptop for cross-browser testing I still do not use this browser as my default. I have switched over to Firefox a long time ago for reasons that anyone in my line of work would know, but I couldn't help but notice this feature when I came across my source on Mashable.com.

Well, a chap named Ben Firshman ported a NES emulator called vNES into JavaScript, creating JSNES. Yes, it works in Firefox 3.5 and in Safari 4, but thanks to its JavaScript optimizations, it runs about 10 times faster in Chrome.

Chrome has definite apparent JavaScript advantages, but the browser itself is still young. I will be watching and waiting from a development perspective to see the improvements that come in the future. I think for any gaming fan they can appreciate the opportunity to play original NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) games once again.

To play, you only need to open this address in Google Chrome, and choose a ROM. I’ve tried out a couple of games and gotten an average FPS of around 50, compared to an unplayable 5 in Firefox.

I will probably give these ROMs the "old college try" because I would love to take a walk down memory lane. Sometimes there's nothing more enjoyable than old school original NES games.

Source: Another Reason to Switch to Chrome: Good Old NES Games

Filed under: Internet Browsers No Comments
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