The internet has a lot to offer new businesses. With tons of publication tools, blogs, wikis, and link sharing tools, any new business will be sure to make a presence on the web. Our company will customize a package for your specific business needs. With our continuous efforts, we hope to broaden the awareness of your business and provide for a higher return in your businesses future.

SPLASH PACKAGES

Social Media Throughout the World

Orange Splash:

Social Media Networking

The most important thing about social networks is to create a presence. Remember that creating a profile is not our goal, it’s to participate and to be active on all of the networks that can provide your business with positive results.

These are just some of the many social networking sites available for you and your business. Please remember that the market is constantly changing so not all of these might be the most popular currently. Also understand that each company varies and so will the social media we choose to promote them. There are hundreds of social media sites and although these might not be the ones for you, Splash Networking will find the one that fits your needs. (In alphabetical order)

43 Things: This site bills itself as “the world’s most popular online goal setting community.” By publicizing your company’s goals and ambitions, you’ll gain a following of customers, investors and promoters who cheer you on as you achieve success.

BuzzFlash.net: This one-stop news resource is great for businesses that want to contribute articles on a variety of subjects, from the environment to politics to health.

Care2: Care2 isn’t just a networking community for professionals: It’s touted as “the global network for organizations and people who Care2 make a difference.” If your business is making efforts to go green, let others know by becoming a presence on this site.

Del.icio.us: Social bookmark your way to better business with sites like del.icio.us, which invite users to organize and publicize interesting items through tagging and networking.

Digg: Digg has a huge following online because of its optimum usability. Visitors can submit and browse articles in categories like technology, business, entertainment, sports and more.

Ecademy: Ecademy prides itself on “connecting business people” through its online network, blog and message-board chats, as well as its premier BlackStar membership program, which awards exclusive benefits.

Facebook: Facebook is no longer just for college kids who want to post their party pics. Businesses vie for advertising opportunities, event promotion and more on this social-networking site.

Flickr – A social media site for posting, sharing and commenting on pictures through the internet.

Focus: Focus is a business destination where business professionals can help each other with their purchase and other business decisions by accessing research and peer expertise. Most importantly, Focus provides open, quality information for all businesses that is freely available, easily accessible, and community powered.

Furl: Make Furl “your personal Web file” by bookmarking great sites and sharing them with other users by recommending links, commenting on articles and utilizing other fantastic features.

Gather: This networking community is made up of members who think. Browse categories concerning books, health, money, news and more to ignite discussions on politics, business and entertainment. This will help your company tap into its target audience and find out what they want.

HubSpot: HubSpot is another news site aimed at connecting business professionals.

LinkedIn: LinkedIn is a popular networking site where alumni, business associates, recent graduates and other professionals connect online.

Ma.gnolia: Share your favorite sites with friends, colleagues and clients by organizing your bookmarks with Ma.gnolia. Clients will appreciate both your Internet savy-ness and your ability to stay current and organized.

MEETin.org: Once you’ve acquired a group of contacts in your city by networking on MEETin.org, organize an event so that you can meet face-to-face.

Mixx: Mixx prides itself on being “your link to the Web content that really matters.” Submit and rate stories, photos and news to drive traffic to your own site. You’ll also meet others with similar interests.

MySpace – MySpace is the second largest social networking site. It is a place where people of similar interests can meet and create new bonds. It can also be uses to share videos, photos, and personal information.

NetParty: If you want to attract young professionals in cities like Boston, Dallas, Phoenix, Las Vegas and Orlando Fla., create an account with the networking site NetParty. You’ll be able to connect with qualified, up-and-coming professionals online, then meet them at a real-life happy-hour event where you can pass out business cards, pitch new job openings and more.

Networking For Professionals: Networking For Professionals is another online community that combines the Internet with special events in the real world. Post photos, videos, résumés and clips on your online profile while you meet new business contacts.

Newsvine: Feature top employees by uploading their articles, studies or other news-related items to this site. A free account will also get you your own column and access to the Newsvine community.

Ning: After hanging around the same social networks for a while, you may feel inspired to create your

own, where you can bring together clients, vendors, customers and co-workers in a confidential, secure corner of the Web. Ning lets users design free social networks that they can share with anyone.

Pixel Groovy: Web workers will love Pixel Groovy, an open-source site that lets members submit and rate tutorials for Web 2.0, email and online-marketing issues.

Plaxo: Join Plaxo to organize your contacts and stay updated with feeds from Digg, Amazon.com, del.icio.us and more.

Reddit: Upload stories and articles on reddit to drive traffic to your site or blog. Submit items often so that you’ll gain a more loyal following and increase your presence on the site.

SEO TAGG: Stay on top of news from the Web marketing and SEO (search-engine optimization) industries by becoming an active member of this online community.

Small Business Brief: When members post entrepreneur-related articles, a photo and a link to their profile appear, gaining you valuable exposure and legitimacy online.

Sphinn: Sphinn is an online forum and networking site for the Internet marketing crowd. Upload articles and guides from your blog to create interest in your own company or connect with other professionals for form new contacts.

Squidoo: According to Squidoo, “everyone’s an expert on something. Share your knowledge!” Share your industry’s secrets by answering questions and designing a profile page to help other members.

StumbleUpon: You’ll open your online presence up to a whole new audience just by adding the StumbleUpon toolbar to your browser and “channel surf[ing] the Web. You’ll “connect with friends and share your discoveries,” as well as “meet people that have similar interests.”

Technorati: If you want to increase your blog’s readership, consider registering it with Technorati, a network of blogs and writers that lists top stories in categories like Business, Entertainment and Technology.

Tribe: Cities like Philadelphia, Boston, San Francisco, New York and Chicago have unique online communities on tribe. Users can search for favorite restaurants, events, clubs and more.

Tubearoo: This video network works like other social-bookmarking sites, except that it focuses on uploaded videos. Businesses can create and upload tutorials, commentaries and interviews with industry insiders to promote their own services.

Tweako: Gadget-minded computer geeks can network with each other on Tweako, a site that promotes information sharing for the technologically savvy.

Twitter: Is a social networking and micro blogging service that allows you answer the question, “What are you doing?” by sending short text messages 140 characters in length, called “tweets”, to your friends, or “followers.”

Wetpaint: If you’re tired of blogs and generic Web sites, create your own wiki with Wetpaint to reach your audience and increase your company’s presence online. You can easily organize articles, contact information, photos and other information to promote your business.

WikiHow: Create a how-to guide or tutorial on WikiHow to share your company’s services with the public for free.

Wikipedia: Besides creating your own business reference page on Wikipedia, you can connect with other users on Wikipedia’s Community Portal and at the village pump, where you’ll find conscientious professionals enthusiastic about news, business, research and more.

Xing: An account with networking site Xing can “open doors to thousands of companies.” Use the professional contact manager to organize your new friends and colleagues, and take advantage of the Business Accelerator application to “find experts at the click of a button, market yourself in a professional context [and] open up new sales channels.”

Yahoo! Answers: Start fielding Yahoo! users’ questions with this social-media Q&A service. Search for questions in your particular areas of expertise by clicking categories like Business & Finance, Health, News & Events and more. If you continue to dole out useful advice and link your answer to your company’s Web page, you’ll quickly gain a new following of curious customers.

YorZ: This networking site doubles as a job site. Members can post openings for free to attract quality candidates.

YouTube: From the fashion industry to Capitol Hill, everyone has a video floating around on YouTube. Shoot a behind-the-scenes video from your company’s latest commercial or event to give customers and clients an idea of what you do each day.

Ziggs: Ziggs is “organizing and connecting people in a professional way.” Join groups and make contacts through your Ziggs account to increase your company’s presence online and further your own personal career.

Silver Splash:

Social Media Optimization (SMO)

For years now, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for websites has been polished into a fine art with entire companies devoting considerable effort to defining best practices and publicizing the value of SEO for raising a site’s performance on organic search listings.  While we believe in the power of SEO, there is a new offering we have started providing to clients which we call Social Media Optimization (SMO).  The concept behind SMO is simple: implement changes to optimize a site so that it is more easily linked to, more highly visible in social media searches on custom search engines (such as Technorati), and more frequently included in relevant posts on blogs, and podcasts.  Here are 5 rules we use to help guide our thinking with conducting an SMO for a client’s website:

With SMO, we tackle issues such as increasing your linkability, adding content features to create a way to tag and bookmark easily, rewarding inbound links, helping content travel (pdf’s, video and audio files), and organizing your content through RSS to make it easy for others to drive traffic or enhance your content.

Red Splash:

Search Engine Optimization

Congratulations you have created a website and it looks great. But now what? If your website is not coming up on the first pages of search engines chances are, no one will ever see it. This is where we come in! This package is geared toward improving the volume of traffic to a web site to create a presence or awareness of your company. Implementing a social media marketing program without optimizing content is leaving money on the table. Useful social content (blog, video, images, and audio) that cannot be discovered via search is a lost opportunity to reach an audience that is looking.

On the flip side, implementing SEO programs without influencing the content distribution and linking benefits of social web involvement makes link building for SEO an uphill battle. The nature of the social web encourages participation: sharing, voting, commenting and linking. Popular social content gets exposure, traffic and can result in a substantial number of relevant inbound links to your website.

Yellow Splash:

Pay Per Click (PPC)

If you are looking to bring people that are interested in the products and services that you offer right to your site, then Pay Per Click (PPC) is a great way to do it. You may have seen other company ads before, if you have ever searched for anything through Google, Yahoo, etc.  ”Paid Listings” or “Sponsored Search Results” is usually what you will see show up first or just to the right of the regular search results. As an advertiser you can be charged on a cost-per-click (CPC) basis, enabling you to only be charged when a customer clicks on your link. Although cost-per-click, or CPC, advertising is enjoying great esteem, CPM (cost per thousand impressions) advertising is a valuable way of reaching potential clients on the Web. Instead of paying per click, you purchase a set amount of impressions. An impression is a single instance of an ad appearing on a Web site. CPM-based advertising can be a cost-effective alternative to CPC.

What Makes A Good Pay Per Click Search Engine?

An effective pay per click search engine proficiently connects consumers and producers of information, products, and services — thereby benefiting both web surfers and advertisers.

For web surfers, it should offer:

• fast, relevant, unique search results.
• a fast-loading home page, free of advertising clutter.
• no horizontal scroll bar at 800 x 600 resolution.
• minimal advertising clutter on search result pages.

For advertisers, it should offer:

• a prepaid advertising account.
• an efficient, user-friendly bid management interface.
• reasonable numbers of targeted web site visitors.
• editorial review for submitted search listings.

Blue Splash:

Newsletter

A well-designed, efficiently written newsletter is a resourceful communication tool that can accomplish many goals. It can instruct, notify, sponsor, encourage, influence, sell, or simply connect. For a newsletter to be effective, it must provide importance to the reader while delivering its message. Frequently, more attention is paid to design rather than function. A successful newsletter is built on the foundation of its purpose.

There are three basic types of newsletters with specific purposes and audiences, internal relations, public relations, and marketing and promotion. Each one has distinctive features, though there are no absolute templates. Every newsletter should have content that is tailored to its individual purpose, audience and message. Whether your goal is to increase your sales, to obtain more support of your cause, to make employees happier, or a forum for your knowledge and opinions, a carefully crafted newsletter will connect more people to your purpose.

• TYPE 1: INTERNAL RELATIONS / Audience: Staff, Volunteers, Members / Purpose: To Inform, Educate and Encourage

The Internal Relations newsletter is designed to build and reinforce motive, community, dependability, and self-confidence. It is generally focused on the people who will read it and the issues that influence them. Regular features may include: personnel profiles; company policy changes; work place safety; awards and acknowledgement; company team standings; goals for the company’s future, event announcements and news updates; A pleasant, informal style is typical.

• TYPE 2: PUBLIC RELATIONS (PR) / Audience: The General Community / Purpose: To Promote an Organization’s Mission

The Public Relations newsletter is commonly used by non-profits to increase consciousness and build support for their missions, for-profits also use this type to explain their standpoint, highlight good works, and reduce public disagreement. Its main focus is changing the outlook and often has an educational angle. Some features may include personal outlines, reports and discussions of “success stories”, resources and campaign progress, event calendars, public policy interpretation, and community recognition. The style can be formal and authoritative or “you’re among friends” informal.

• TYPE 3: MARKETING AND PROMOTION / Audience: Existing and Potential Clients or Members / Purpose: To Sell or Promote Products, Services or Ideas

Whether it’s selling hardware, promoting a new practice or influencing supporters, this newsletter focuses on benefits and action. It may include testimonials, new product or service announcements, discount vouchers, insider tips or suggestions. A professional firm may include staff profiles and accomplishments. Once the benefits are explained, the action is requested:  call now, tell your friends, buy this, sign-up today. The style can range from subtle sophistication to BLAMMO!

The most important for all three types are collateral or interactive features—surveys, contests, calendars, Question and Answer sections and checklists.  These features add value for the reader, help promote a participatory connection between the reader and the organization, and create eagerness for each issue. The more involved the readers are with the content of your newsletter, the more receptive they will be to your message.

Green Splash:

Web Design & Development

Web Design is the skill of creating arrangements of content that is delivered to a customer through the web. The intent of web design is to create a web site.

Website Development or Web Development is the process of coding or programming a website so that it can properly perform what you would like it to.

In order for social media to work effectively, a business needs to have a properly running website. It is crucial that your website have a clear understanding and a well defined purpose that stands out and for a visitor to instantly recognize it without any efforts. When you clearly define the purpose before the website is created, it can ensure that your website is optimized to achieve its required purpose. With that said, you can only meet your goals when you know what they are.

Understanding the purpose and goals of your website is what gets projected in search query results (i.e. asking a Search Engine to find you an item you typed in). You have a brief window of opportunity to advertise the advantage

your site will offer the potential visitor so this must convey the site’s purpose (and benefits) effectively and efficiently.

The success of any website can only be calculated by the goals of it. Having no goals will not mean your site is not a success but simply just an accomplishment! You may have made it your goal to have your own website and that’s great, but it’s now time to make your website a well oiled machine.

Web Content is the information that makes up your website. This could be text, images, pictures, sounds, and videos. Relative to the purpose of your website, you must satisfy this need for information by developing high quality content that will help your projected target audience. The web content you design, work out, and develop is questionably the most important area of your site. However, there are other issues that come into play as well. Content must address limitations by creating a site that is ‘user-friendly’ to the wider audience. It is important to make certain that your website it simple. Simplicity is the major, web design principal for web sites. Web design is all about high-quality content, design and making life easy for the user to read, navigate and interact. This does not mean that your site must look dull, be unexciting and lifeless; it simply means your site is addressing issues for greater viewer’s participation and use. Now that we understand what web content is and why is it’s so important, we can move on and explore ways in developing content for your site.

Websites are a wonderful thing, as long as you have them working for you and in order to do that successfully, you should hire a professional web designer or web developer like Splash Networking, Inc. to handle your web design and development.

Here are some important questions to answer when looking to start a website:

Purpose: What is the purpose of my web site?

Goals: What are the goals of my web site?

Theme: What is the theme of my web site?

• Keyphrase: What is my PRINCIPAL Keyphrase?

• Keyphrases: What are my probable Keyphrases?

• Title: What might my homepage title be?

Audience: Who are my target audience?

Content: What content (pages/forms/interactivity) do I want on my site?

Style: How do I want my site to be styled?

Budget: What is my budget to get my site online?

Purple Splash:

Optimizing Your Blog

With blogs, there exists as many or even more optimization opportunities to optimize as with a web site. A well written blog with extreme content and high value is essential in driving traffic to your website. Blogs can generate traffic without search engines, but WITH search engines it can be even better. (A blog is just a website that uses a content management system, so most standard SEO tactics apply). Remember your blog is not a press release, nor is it a place to ramble; instead it is a place to share. It is a place to teach and enable your clients with knowledge, and even show them the culture of your company. Splash Networking will teach you, the client, how to write value-driven content. By using a blog you have added content to your page, allowing search engines to pick your site up, and at the same time showing your client that you are not just selling them products but that you care about them. They begin to feel like you are there friend. After all wouldn’t you much rather buy from a friend then a stranger.
Why optimize your blog?

-To increase rankings of the blog on BOTH regular search engines as well as blog/RSS search engines
-To increase traffic to the blog from multiple sources such as social search (Yahoo MyWeb, Google Personalized Search) and social bookmarking sites (del.icio.us, Digg, Furl or Blogmarks)