It suddenly reminded me that there are hundreds of small business thoughout New Hampshire, Massachussets and Maine that are still not prepared to use the internet as a viable marketing tool. Perhaps small business owners are reluctant to take action becuse they feel internet marketing is overwhelming, too new, too rapidly changing and they feel unprepared to make an informed decision. Regardless of the reluctances we see, Google Places is FREE so toss the cost aprehension out the door. Let's concentrate now on helping readers create their own basic keyword strategy and compete a little better!

Keword Strategy For Beginners on Google Places: Think about the generic keyword phrases someone might use to find your business using a search engine (Examples of generic search terms: Lawyer NH or Dentist ME). Be careful not to use too many generic keyword phrases or you will likely find yourself competing with larger local or national competitors and this will push you down or off the page.

Since we work with local businesses we emphasize the use of keyword phrases that highlight a company's unique qualities (differentiators) or their specific services or products within a tighter geographic range. Begin by defining your 3 most productive products or services and then write down a few variations of keyword phrases that position those services (Examples of specific search terms: Condominium Law NH ME or Invisalign Braces Laconia, NH)

I suggest saving one keyword phrase for the emotional and highly motivated prospect as well. These searches are conducted by people disatisfied with a current provider or perhaps new to an area. For example, a family practioner or pediatrition might consider reserving one of their Google Places phrases for "Accepting New Patients" a dentist or chiropractic office might consider "gentle touch" as a phrase since many of these prospective patients have anxieties which can effect the receptiveness of treatment.

You will have to find your own mix and balance of phrases and monitor their success throughout the year. If you've not considered your keyword phrases like this before, you should see an improvement in the quality of your customers coming from web.

1. Mistaking social media sites for an advertising forum:  This whole social media thing is not about you, so stop talking about how great you or your products are.  Instead say how you can solve people’s problems.
2. Not being consistent: If you want to get results from you efforts and create relationships, you need to have a consistent presence on your social media sites.  Posting a few messages once in a blue moon will not get you anywhere.
3. Being boring:  If you want to be noticed, give people something interesting to read. Share your expereiences.  Don’t be part of the noise or lurk in the background. Be the source of the signal in your market!
4. Whining:  Staying positive on social media sites is an absolute must.  Constantly whining about Mondays, how unmotivated the people in the office seem to be, or that you passionately hate a given policy or insurance provider tend to turn people off pretty quickly.  Negative practices attract negative patients. Your goals is to be health advocates, leaders, motivators, problem solvers and empathizers. Do that and you will attract patients who want to be healthy.
5. Constantly feeding people links without holding any conversations:  If you are not talking to people, engaging with them, then you are wasting your time.  After all, it is called “social” media, isn’t it?
6. Not having your own blog:  It is beneficial to provide useful information for clients or patients that origninates from third party sites.  If you want to establish yourself as an expert in your field,  however, you have to provide your own content and add your perspective.
7. Not having a content strategy: This goes hand in hand with the idea that social media is about your audience and relating to them.  There has to be a strategy in place to make sure that the content you post is something people want to read.  The same thing applies to your blog.
8. Keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result:  In order to perfect step 7 above, you need to experiment with different content. Observe what content your friends and fans are engaging with and repeat it. Engaging customers and clients is where the "money" is in social media.
9. Not using any metrics tools: Doing some sort of social media and blog success metrics are essential in generating return on the time you invest on social media marketing. 
10. Having the wrong person doing your social media marketing:  The word “social” is so often ignored in social media.  Being able to socialize with someone or a group of people requires common ground and understanding.  If you plan to outsource your social media marketing efforts, then pay close attention to who you are hiring.  Don’t hire a Gen Y to interact with a baby boomer audience, or someone with no interest or experience in cars to make connections with a group of race car enthusiasts, you get the picture.

For those that don't know, The Communication Mill was ironically created by a guy named David. His intention was to build a creative marketing company that serviced small to mid sized business and enable them to shine in the face of marketing "giants".

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Marketing-like running a private medical practice is part science and part art. Because marketing attempts to influence and trigger behavior, it is possible to do everything "right" and still get an unexpected outcome. Like medicine successful marketing builds a solid base of evidence-statistics, studies, research, analysis and industry best practices. To be proficient and stand out with excellence marketing strategy must also be met with competent execution in order to yield possitive and sustainable results.

With so many contrasts to medicine, why is it so common for private practicioners to fall into a pattern of self treatment, poor execution and rash judgements about their marketing? Everyone seems to have a theory about how marketing works and everyone has a story about something that happened to a collegue. You wouldn't make a medical diagnosis based on that kind of information, and you shouldn't make marketing decisions based on it either.