Although social media marketing or social media optimization are the evolving techniques of online marketing in this globalized world, the time tested SEO techniques are still what will get your website visible the most in the world of Internet. 

Without undermining the value of informal chit chat and social networking as a great fun way of marketing your products and services, the more surer and professional method still remains to be going by the SEO rules. 

According to latest Internet news buzz it is reported that only with proper understanding of the SEO techniques provided by the ruling search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN, one can guarantee those top page rankings of all the strategic keywords. It is further said that it is important that everything you type should be optimized even if it’s a part of social networking or blogging. This is to ensure better rankings on search engines and subsequent rise on traffic on your website as you increase your visibility. 

It is also important to avoid being penalized by the search engines owing to unethical SEO practices just as much as it is important to get your site fully optimized. 

Hence it is important that focus should be first on getting the SEO in place before indulging in other techniques such as posting videos, pay-per-click ads, SMM orSMO. This is as the search engine such as Google being the number one, provides with the most guaranteed traffic to your website if you can get into the top page ranks in the search engines for your strategic keywords.

Even with new marketing techniques evolving by the minute while everyone struggling to survive the credit crunch, the time tested SEO techniques when properly implemented by the rules can still guarantee enough business to survive these hard times.

Even before getting into the debate whether it is better to go for the small pay perclick search engines or stick to the market giants such as Google or Overtures,let me just begin with what is the basic concept of pay per click search engines.

Pay-per-click(PPC) search engines are part of marketing strategies which offers options suchas "pay-per-click" to users. An online marketer can place a small ad on the search result page for a few particular keywords in lieu for a particular payment when a visitor actually clicks on the ad. The advantage being no payment will be required for the ad to be put up on that page per se. Hence the advertiser pays only when a visitor clicks on the ad. 

Hence PPC ensures you pay only when you get traffic to your website. Although it has mostly 1 to 2% conversion rate even among the large PPCs, it is worth even if you have one sale a month especially for small businesses.                                                                                                                                                            

There are different players in the market…The giants such as Google and Overtures are dominating the current market of PPC while the small PPC are trying to manage with small businesses.

Although it is a raging debate among the Internet marketers whether the small PPC are ofany worth, it can be only be proven once they stand the test of time. The advantage of the small PPCs is that the bids are lower than what is required to be made in the large PPCs. But then the large PPC are provided with better distribution and far better features. 

It is very easy to even create your own PPC but then most often there are no guarantees of any strategic traffic for an indefinite time. 

While keeping an eye how the small PPCs evolve over time, it will be better to leave the micro managing of the PPC activity on the larger PPCs for now.

With social media networking emerging as a major player in the online marketing strategic arena, it is important  that one knowsexactly what to do while marketing through such practices. The most importantis “active listening”, according to the online marketing experts. “Activelistening” means that even before starting on a full on online marketing program based on SMO or SMM, it is important to know listen what people aresaying about your site. It is important to actively ask relevant questions which would help you in the proper understanding of the market needs and critically evaluate your services while promoting them. Social networking is not only about informal chit-chatting but is soon becoming a social forum where you can get a proper outlook of what are people conversing about and use the information to strategize your marketing programs. 

Hence you get to know what your customers are looking for at the moment… 

This can be best illustrated by an example given by Dave Evans, the author of the book “Social media marketing: an hour a day”, where he says in one of his articles on social grace – “Coca-Cola and Pepsi have both created a viable presence on Facebook, for example, and used this to build a strong fan base to gather information, refine their products and marketing strategies, and other initiatives. Coca-Cola gained favorable press recently for its adoption and support of its Facebook community -- started not by Coke -- but by fans who saw a need early on for it.  Compare this press with the questioning responses as Coke was seen as having "missed" the opportunity to capitalize on the Diet Coke/Mentos videos of a few years back. If nothing else, the social Web will make you smarter. Meanwhile, Pepsi has pushed further into its social efforts, building "The Juice" in support of its healthy-lifestyle Tropicana Trop 50 juice brand. “ 

The above is just an illustration of how the social media along with “active listening” can be usedto understand the need of your customers and build products or services accordingly for smartly earned profits. 

Hence it can be said that social media communication is not only about giving opinions but listening to what other has to say too… 

With recession hitting the world hard, the people of the world turned more global than ever before. With this, came the era of social media where people got into the mode of the most basic instinct – the instinct to communicate.This led to the launch of popular ways of communicating in the internet. This started with launches of social networking sites such as Orkut by Google, where you can get connected to your long lost school friends, college friends and make new friends joining any number of fan clubs.

The online marketers saw this as an excellent opportunity to use it as a ground to promote their services or products. Although most such forums prohibit direct marketing, it always can be used for chit-chatting about your website and subtle promotion of your services. Hence it also gave birth to online gurus teaching you the art of networking your business without making it too obvious. 

But the best part is it is fun to work on these techniques as you get to build a network across the world with immense opportunity to market with innovative ways. You get to communicate with the top CEOs using twitter ( the most popular social networking site in the current market) in the most informal way and get your business moving without too many hassles about formal discussions…. 

The other sites that falls under the popularity charts are Facebook and LinkedIn. LinkedIn is the most professional site which helps you get connected to your colleagues even afterthey have left for greener pastures. 

But the best way to social network will be blogging. Having your own business blogs gives you the opportunity to have your say the way you want. It is the best way to market your products with any restrictions. A properly optimized regular blog can ensure the proper branding of your website and its services among the strategic visitors on the Internet. 

But before you get started on creating your network, one should have a thorough knowledge about your goals in the networking site and clear profile of your targeted audience. With to the point communication you can have a much better impact than blabbering about unrelated topics. 

I like to call Harish an Accountant 2.0, simply because he performs his functions in a highly collaborative environment, using Web 2.0 tools. Harish and his team are quite comfortable doing accounting for clients in the USA and Australia. 

TA: Harish, tell us about your experience withWeb 2.0 tools and how a thoroughbred accountant such as yourself got involved? 

Harish: Well, I must give a lot of credit to my clients. I was used to remote accessing desktops and performing various bookkeeping and accounting functions on the client’s Finance and Accounts applications. Web 2.0 happened because some of our customers at ThomasandAlex started using on-demand applications such as Netsuite and SpringCM (www.stylusap.com). 

TA: Where do you see significant benefits being added to your own productivity and thereby in you ability to add value to your customers? 

Harish: Process,Project and task management have all moved to a new level with the kind of collaborative environment we use today. Earlier I used to take instructions from clients on email or IM, mostly Skype and do the work. Further feedback came on the same channels. Today, my client and I use wikis for collaborating on specific projects and we have a superior experience in tracking, commenting and ensuring that work completes effectively with high efficiencies. We can even have selective access to other stake holders like Auditors to come in for specific item closures. In fact our experience on tax returns closure was far superior to earlier times, because we had three way collaboration on a wiki between my client, our team and the client’s auditor.

TA: Can you list down the advantages you see for an accountant to build skills in collaboration and collaboration tools?

Harish: Sure. My list would be as follows:

• Improved management of project tasks and processes on wikis. This ensures that work gets completed accurately and we do not miss on filings, timelines or documentation.
• High traceability. Improved visibility on communication trails. Every comment added gets alerted to stakeholders on email.
• Improved documentation management. 

The CCH Acounting Trends survey conducted towards the end of last year showed that the greatest factor driving change in firms is the need to increase revenue and reduce cost  through productivity and efficiency improvements. Improving processes and workflows, going paperless, outsourcing and smartsourcing, on demand applications are some of the hot strategies being looked at as potential drivers. 

Mike Braun, the Intacct CEO has this to say "Cloud-based accounting applications dramatically improve the economic model for client accounting services. CPA firms report a 50% improvement in financial performance for their client accounting services practice. Here’s the breakdown: 100% increase in proactive consulting hours; 3% to 5% increase in overall billings by offering more, higher value “trusted advisor services;” 10% capacity increase for accounting staff; time savings of 50 hours per bookkeeper per quarter; and a near total elimination of in-house IT expenses" 

The real breakthrough is when firms learn to leverage combinations of some of the strategies mentioned earlier, as suits them best. For example, you can select the cloud based application that best suits your business model and workflows. From there, you can smartsource - or in other words design your workflow to take advantage of remote engagement. It matters little to the cloud application whether your accountant is working from his office, home or even from another country. The key here is how you design your solution. We have collaborated with some of our clients in designing  solutions for them with good results.  If you are ready to consider this for your business, contact us and we will be happy to serve you

Introduction of Performance management systems in Small and Medium businesses has often been contentious. While these businesses boast of loyalties promoted by trust and relationship, the challenge has been with infusing professionalism and objectivity. 

However, when accounting and bookkeeping or other corporate finance functions are smartsourced (The key to SmartSourcing: Team and Workflow Design) to ThomasandAlex, it presents a wonderful opportunity to introduce a highly objective system that focuses on throughput and productivity. The supersensitivity for cost and value has been set forever by the recession. Management by productivity and throughput becomes the key lever for regulating cost and value. This is an essential competitive advantage that small and medium businesses can no longer ignore. 

The productivity tracking system is set up together with the customer and pricing is calibrated to this system. From our experience we have found that it is best for the system to evolve through these stages. 

1. To keep the risks low initially for the customer, engagement begins with a dedicated resource on a full time or part-time equivalent basis
2. Workflow definitions are achieved and transition of processes to this accountant completes
3. A productivity system is set up for these processes. Throughput measures are outcome focussed and typical measures would be transaction volumes, quantity and type of documents  processed etc.
4. Baselines are marked for current processes as well as other potential processes that can be smartsourced. These are based on measurements agreed jointly with the customer.
5. From this point onwards, scalability of engagement is on the basis of productivity. 

When ThomasandAlex began its services, the core of the value proposition lay in providing bookkeeping and accounting services with an edge. Being trusted with the upkeep of books of the business also gave the privilege to examine improvement opportunities in business operations. But how does a qualified accountant get empowered to provide services with such an edge? These recent initiatives have greatly helped:

1. Business process mapping and Business Analysis:
   
2. Productivity and Quality Assurance framework
3. Technology solutions that take advantage of SaaS and PaaS

What is the real value proposition of Cloud Computing?

We have entered an era where business is getting impatient with the kind of IT support  it has been used to for well over a couple of decades now. With everything going 2.0 business needs more experimentation to achieve quick assembling of solutions, eliminate things which will not work and adapt what will fill the need. These need to be delivered in a highly responsive and flexible environment. Speed has become the essence of the game. Cloud computing or more simply software, services and/or infrastructure delivered on a pay per use mode over the internet, has an attractive value proposition.

1. You can try out a solution or a software or even a service (check out www.stylusap.com for a software and services combine)  without a commitment.
   
2. You have an immediate access to perform all the basic features on offer. Try it and justify later.
3. Use it and scale it as you go.
   
4. Forget all the earlier restrictions in the form of approvals, CIO endorsements etc that were required before an IT solution was pressed into service for your department.
   

As an outsourced services provider, I always had professed my faith in remote engagement. My moment of truth came however when Pujarini, my webmaster and key person on marketing, had to relocate to another country. We decided that it was time now for us to walk the talk on a strategic function such as marketing. Based on my experience, here are few points that I think are critical to the success of any remotely engaged service.

1. Throughput over Activity. Most managers I have come across are comfortable tracking, monitoring and reporting activity. It is good to remember that value is communicated much better when throughput and not activity is reported. When everybody is comfortable with the throughput idea, the reason to micro manage ceases to exist. As throughput gets standardized, its helps build confidence and trust across the board.
2. Environment over Application. The lesson to be learnt here is well taught by social media based networking. The joy off remote engagement is truly enhanced by the environment that is set up. It is ideal to have a single dashboard that serves as the interface to all the stakeholders that are engaging remotely.SaaS and Cloud basedapplications have much to offer in this space as we keep discovering with both clients and our own team.
   
3. Shared Values over Contract. The Satyams and Madoffs will continue to happen in spite of the Enrons and the Worldcoms and the answer is not more and more regulation. Rather, it is more fundamental and vital to upfront ensure that certain shared values govern the relationship and this is well understood by all stakeholders. It also pays to go beyond the agreements to comply and examine demonstrated behavior in these areas.