Who are You, Where are You?

This question includes social media and goes beyond social media too.

When I get a friend or follow type of request on Facebook, Twitter, 4 Square or any of the other social media channels I use, I don't auto-add, I want to know who these people are.

I check their profile, I want to know if they are local, what they do, why they want to connect and in some cases it is for classification purposes.

(Everyone I follow back on Twitter, goes on a list or two.)

So this morning I asked on Twitter:

ScLoHo Scott Howard

Should a company website include what city they are located in? Pros/Cons... What Do U Think?

Almost instantly I got some responses. Here are a few:

bodaciousgirl Heather ツ

Depends on the type of business.

tyler_allen Tyler Allen

absolutely. i like to know who i'm dealing w/, where they are (to judge shipping, etc) & to know they have a "home base" not to mention it shows pride in being local to their community.

jstalter Justin Stalter

I would say it depends on the industry and target market.

bethannbud Bethann Buddenbaum

Contact info should always be on a website. Is the question about the city being featured prominently? If so, depends on target.

patmcgraw patmcgraw

physical location means 'real' 4 many

jonathantullos
To me it makes sense to let people know where you are, especially of the co doesn't do e-commerce.

LAzuber Lauren Zuber

Yes. Not including location would look sketchy to me.

JeanBansemer Jean Bansemer

One con to consider is your city, state, or country's stereotype- especially if your audience is larger than the immediate area.

All of these are good answers. No one is right or wrong, except this one which pretty much sums it up:

ajuliano Anthony Juliano

This is always the answer: only if it's relevant to audience. Most of the time it will be, if only for contact info, but not always.

Like I mentioned at the beginning of this article, I want to know as much as possible about someone before I decided to connect with them. And as Anthony said, "if it's relevant to audience."

I am revealing information about myself on these social media channels. I am also deciding if I should follow back.

On my own home page, I give my direct phone number. Some folks warned me against that saying it was crazy, but I've challenged my own clients to forward their business lines to a cell phone for 24 hour emergency customer service. Rarely do I get weird calls and a few times I have been able to take care of a client because they could reach me on the weekend.

One more thought on the matter:

fredcannon Fred Cannon

I think if you're a brick and mortar business, yes. Internet based, less so-do I really care where amazon.com is physically located?

Thanks Fred, that was where I was beginning to go with my thinking too.

If giving a physical location is required to make a business real, then I have plenty of examples to prove that theory wrong which mirrors Fred's question.

Where is You Tube?

Where is Twitter?

Where is Google?

Where is 4 Square?

Where is Angies List?

(answers below)

Feel free to add your thoughts in the comments.

You Tube: 1000 Cherry Ave, San Bruno, CA, 94401 Twitter: 795 Folsom Street, San Francisco, CA 94107

Google: 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043

4Square: Somewhere in New York City

Angies List: 1030 E. Washington St., Indianapolis, IN 46202

The Ultimate Goal

...of a website is to be found.

The Ultimate Goal of a Blog is to be found.

The Ultimate Goal of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and most of the other social networks is to be found.

Not found, because you are lost, but found by others that are looking for you or what you have to offer.

Companies paid tens of thousands of dollars 20 years ago for someone to build them a "home on the world wide web".

Then the technology improved and the price dropped at the same time. It was the law of supply and demand.

While the professionals were creating and recreating all of these business websites, I discovered another way to be found.

Blogs. "Blogs" are short for "Web-logs".

By publishing a new article on a regular basis, I discovered that Google started listing me in their search results for certain topics. A few years ago I was on the first page for "Starbucks History".

As I saw these results occurring I learned a few things about how to be found.

For instance, a blog is a website.

And Google likes fresh information, which is what I present on my blogs.

As a matter of fact, I am in the process of weening myself from the term blog because it sounds limiting.

Now despite my own success, I've also discovered something else:

The more I know, the more I discover that I don't know.

So while I can help get you started in establishing your presence online, there may come a time when you need to actually pay someone to really be found.

Depending on your needs, you can pay me, or I will recommend other professionals that have established their own track records for themselves and their clients.

Just remember your Ultimate Goal = Be Found.

Old Style vs New School

Yesterday I did a little comparison of Blogs vs Websites.

Today, I'll show you a comparison of two websites.

I own a couple of domains: ScLoHo.com and ScLoHo.net.

I use the ScLoHo.net site and the ScLoHo.com site is a backup for people who automatically think that websites should be a "dot com".

I spent a few evenings a couple years ago building a traditional website that includes a home page, an our company page, a testimonial page, and a contact page. There are plenty of click-able links to the radio stations I work for, the Hispanic Newspaper that I do some consulting for, the Advertising Federation that I am a V-P of, and links to 3 of my blogs.

It is much more current than a lot of websites I have seen in the past couple of years, but it is also pretty main stream, or "Old Style" in "Internet Time". You can click here to visit it, or here's a shot of the home page:



I am not a website developer or designer. This was built with Google Sites. You can spend some time doing a site like this yourself if you want and you'll be pretty current and up to date.

A couple of items I want to point out on this site is the far right side has logo's for the click-able links, and the middle column has click-able links to the latest blog posts that are updated automatically. Both are pretty cool features. This is one way to merge your blogs with your business website.

This is what my ScLoHo.net site looked like until I decided to create a New School homepage.

My Blogs are the heart of ScLoHo Marketing Solutions.

They are what has created a ScLoHo brand.

So in 2010, I created a cleaner, less complicated and cleaner home page for ScLoHo.net that looks like this:



If you click on the green links, the latest posting on the blog that you clicked will appear on the same page. This is my example of combining blogs with a website. Each has it's own separate place online, but I use my ScLoHo.net homepage to tie it all together. Click here to visit ScLoHo.net and try it out.

Monday, I'll share with you how easy it was for me to create this New School home page for ScLoHo.net.

Tomorrow, a guest post on the subject of Power of Connections via Social Media .

And feel free to ask me any questions, comments, suggestions, etc. My email is Scott (at) ScLoHo.net or you can leave a comment in the comment section below.