We are currently constructing an intranet/extranet network for a client, besides doing their actual website. And yes, don't be mistaken: we recommended using Facebook as intranet/extranet for the company's clients, fans, friends, connections, potential clients etc.

This is an exciting project, and Facebook has quite good facilities for this idea.

• We recommended using the "Facebook Page" as coporate secondairy website, as a backup and marketing vehicle for the client's actual website. See more here: http://www.facebook.com/help/?ref=drop#!/help/?page=175
• Then we create a handful of "Facebook groups" for various segments of the our client's clients. These groups have individual privacy and access settings. Read more here: http://www.facebook.com/help/?ref=drop#!/help.php?page=982
• It is possible to control exactly what elements on the page/group that we allow to "stream" into the public space of fans/members personal walls etc.
• We also made a complete guide to the company's communication officers on how to set, maintain, delete and create their pages and groups for continous use.

Not only is this construction a marketing gimmick to make the company look cool. It actually is a way to reach the communities of clients' connections, friends and colleagues. In other words the viral effect does its work as long as you keep your page and group alive.

You can do that yourself, or you can ask us to help you with a suitable strategy, that will make your employees, partners and clients happy and that will make you win new potential markets by entering the biggest community on the planet the corporate way.

A few years ago when Facebook was really winning terrain among the masses the discussion about Facebook as intranet was discussed mainly at an ethical level.

Links:

• http://www.contenthere.net/2007/11/facebook-as-your-intranet.html
• http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/blogspotting/archives/2007/11/serena_software.html?campaign_id=rss_blog_blogspotting
• http://blogs.bnet.com/harvard/?p=158

Do you have experience with this procedure? Feel free to discuss.

A client is asking us advise for creating a website in an African country of low bandwidth. You might find below advise interesting.

Certain measures should be taken to secure visibility to all types of visitors with even the worst possible connections. Therefor we recommend:

Technical measures for the site

• must be designed for small monitors, as many web surfers in that region surf the net on (old) laptops and old monitors - that means a fixed width of 700-800 pixels
• should not use much flash or other advanced graphic coding for important parts of the site - rather the site should be written in plain HTML
• should use simple and standard font types, colours and HTML tags to avoid errors in older software display
• there should not be heavy or big images or graphical work on the site
• if any videos they should be hosted via YouTube in low resolution, not directly at web server in high resolution
• must be tested in Internet Explorer as main browser, as this is what people use
• have automated back-up of website
• have polite down-time message giving basic info when site can't display properly
• have the website hosted in secure country site - but not too far geographically from main target group, as this slows the tempo

And there are other considerations to have in mind.
Since many users have experience with websites from Nigerian and other African countries as being hosts for unreliable or scamming websites, it would be very important to radiate reliability from the website - both for African, Western or Asian visitors to the site. Therefor we recommend:

Content related measures

• make the site look very professional and corporate
• have lots of links only to other trusted sites
• display the company as member of respected associations
• display any certifications or other official proves of the company, its owners, its employees, projects etc.
• display clearly how much the company lives up to all types of international industry standards
• display business links to European partner companies if possible
• have very transparent contact and about us texts
• display VAT number and other official registration and contact info

Managing YouTube and other Google services for clients and for professional use in general often causes one big problems: accounts and logins conflicts. Therefor we wrote below letter to YouTube.

We will keep you posted if we happen to get a human answer.

Hello YouTube and Google

In WebDialogue we do social media management for many clients. We regularly create new accounts for clients. On behalf of clients etc.

Why are we not being warned that linking our new YouTube channel (for a client) to a personal google account is permanent? This means hours of extra work, having to re-create the same channel OUTSIDE of my google account ONCE we find out.

With Google we have spent so many hours (over the years) trying to figure out all the accounts and logins and passwords, and things being linked in.

• gmail
• adwords
• adsense
• youtube
• picassa
• etc.

You should do much better information for professional users.

Best regards,
Niels Bramsen
www.WebDialogue.eu

Today a great website is useless, unless it’s discoverable. You must acquire visibility on the internet. Otherwise you have spent money in vain. You will be a master of disaster.

Most search engines rank their search results based on the "link popularity" of your site. You should have lots of links with keywords and key phrases:

• To your site from outside internet
• From your site to outside internet
• Internally between pages on your website
• Internally as anchors on the same page in your website
• Links built well with alt text, mouse-over, titles etc.

Outsourcing this task can really save you time

Reciprocal link exchanges to other websites is a very powerful promotional tool. You could spend hours contacting other webmasters to exchange links, and more time ensuring that the links are still up.

• Our SEO experts take care of this for you
• Our link packages are placed in a number of different and quality websites

Here is what we do for you:

1. Find the websites to link with
2. Make the link requests
3. Wait on those link requests
4. Process, organize, and manage the links
5. Have the search engines find or "spider" your link partners
6. Check to see if your links are still on your partner's websites
7. We also go to fora and submit articles linking back to your site

Concrete offer only for January and February:

• To your site from outside internet (minimum 50 relevant links going in)
• From your site to outside internet (minimum 30 relevant links going out, you already have a lot)
• Internally between pages on your website (minimum 5 relevant links)
• Internally as anchors on the same page in your website (minimum 5 relevant links)
• Links built well with alt text, mouse-over, titles etc.
• All links sector and geography specific, fx Brussels based luxury car renting

We do the full link building package for you for just 650€

Contact us today

Many clients have asked us, in which priority they should do their online investments. To cut a long story short here is our take on when to invest in SEO, Social Media, new website, new campaigns etc.

ADVISE: When to pritoritise your online investments

1. Make a simple website before making a facilitated website
2. Get an facilitated website (intuitive and with many features) before thinking of conversion of web visitors into business
3. Do your visitor conversion before SEO
4. Do your SEO before social media work
5. Do social media work before online news sections, forums, polls etc.

Comments are welcome.

By the way here is an interesting article:

The Big Three Social Networks Have Emerged as Professional Networks: LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter

The emergence and dominance of the popular Internet sites LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter have taken shape as vibrant professional networks of mass “individuals” sharing experiences and collaborating around personal and professional issues, ideas, and interests.

• Source: http://www.socialmediatoday.com/SMC/143975?utm_source=smt_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter

Here we go: Social media workshop for organisations & companies

How to easiest and with biggest impact get visible and reachable for your clients, members, readers, followers etc. Get loads of tricks & hints, and benefit from our experience with the social media landscape.

• 200 meters from EU Parliament in Brussels. 12 January 2010
• Get your ticket here: http://webdialogue.eventbrite.com

Workshop program:

• The sorts and types of Social Media landscape
• Strategy of which networks to pick
• Breakdown of time and effort
• Credibility and authenticity of your profiles
• Optimisation of your public display
• Combine blog with social media
• How to engage followers
• Discussion groups, polls, questions to communities

Formal details

• Duration: Three hours
• Price: 119 € / person
• You get: Power point presentation, paper hand-out, live demo, drinks and refreshment
• Language: All English
• Address: Training takes place at our office, Rue d'Arlon 25
• More: To book training on different date, or even at your own office contact us at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Get your ticket here: http://webdialogue.eventbrite.com

Have a look at this great diagram displaying how to nurture your social media connections better instead of blindly trying to get more and more followers.

"Focus on the big prize. All too many times, people stop at the influence part: how popular is that person? how many followers do we have? who is talking about me and my company? how much love do people feel for me?"

Sources:

• http://blog.digitalingredients.co.uk
• http://socialmediatoday.com/SMC/147077?utm_source=smt_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter

• If it was done centrally in Brussels' EU area
• If it was short, concise and practical
• If it didn't cost a fortune
• If done by a professional who manages social media for a living
• If this was the headline: "How to easiest and with biggest impact become visible and reachable for your clients, members, readers, followers etc. Get loads of tricks & hints from our experience gained at the social media landscape."

- That will happen 12 January -

Read more here: www.webdialogue.eu/seminars

Or simply:   

Or maybe you wouldn't?

This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Get a free SEO check of your website

We examine various parameters on your site to determine how SEO-friendly your website currently is.

No obligations, no hidden catch. Get a recommendation on what you eventually could do to get more visible online.

Send your URL to us at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it (only one website per person please).

We are currently implementing even more serious SEO enhancements on the European Affairs web services site www.webdialogue.eu. Realising that the traffic was not strong enough we have implemented web pages of much more condenced search engine friendly content. That means first of all more text per page, so that www.Google.com and others find our sites more relevant to searchers - instead of many pages with little content, which is hard for search engines to display to users.

Then of cause we are looking into making much more link buidling on our pages. That means links from our sites to the external web, and links between our pages internally, and links to anchors on the very same page. All this is stuff that Google loves, so of cause we please them.

Then we focus on increasing the number and quality of selected keyword and key phrase themes on our pages. As you might know search engines measure, index and count the way you use words on your pages. The more you use business relevant niche keyword and key phrases on your site - the bigger chance of high search position in your particular business niche.

This effort of cause has to be reflected in the way you write your meta tags.

Part of this work is also to write alt texts to your images. And we could go on with lots more ideas.

Any This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ? Or maybe you need help with your pages...

It's finally here... Multiple social media tool for organisations

WebDialogue is proud to present our latest software

• Manage your social media profiles in ONE place
• Plan and execute your social media branding better
• Skip all your logins to many accounts
• No more multiple tabs and windows
• Damage control - Intervene before things get out of hand
• Product testing - spread the word and follow reactions
• Simple and intuitive interfaces
• Social media for dummies - get the most of social media in just one go

Pricing from just 29 € per month

Say it with SocialBusiness!

Living statistics – Many of us who have been following social media since the early 90s are very sensitive to today’s exponential growth in usage of the sharing web. Inspired by real time counters, Gary Hayes put together this little Flash app showing how active & dynamic the Social Web is.

Source: www.personalizemedia.com/the-count

Without much fuss Google recently launched a new toolbar, called Sidewiki. Sidewiki enables people to write and comment on whatever website they visit.

Therefore Sidewiki provides the opportunity to realise early, if visitors are on the site they was searching for - without reading through the whole site. Or if the site is about a product, or service, you can check customer opinions about it.

Sidewiki is related to Search Engine Optimisation. WebDialogue can help you optimise your site by the Sidewiki options.

• Nice article: http://searchenginewatch.com/3635252

Learn more about SEO and WebDialogue services at: http://www.webdialogue.eu/seo-services

Most website designers haven't learned the importance of search engine friendly website design. In almost every case we've encountered, the site designer is a highly skilled and creative person whose job is to put your ideas on the web. More often than not, the designers have not received any training in search engine optimization and don't think about it while pursuing a cool looking design.

Moreover search engines are also constantly changing their ranking criteria. They do this to prevent gross manipulation of their search tools. Often, website designers are not fully up to date with changes to search engines.

WebDialogue are happy to work with designers at the beginning of the web design process, or we can make every effort to maintain the desired elements of an existing site while converting and introducing new elements to make the site search engine friendly.

Niels Bramsen from WebDialogue, SEO & Social Media Manager, will be giving top tips on how your business can benefit from Social Media.

This will happen in the Brussels Business Over Breakfast Club.

Details:

• Duration: Thirty minutes
• Time & Date: 6 Oct at 7:30
• Place: Espace Moselle,
Rue de Drapiers 40,
1050 Ixelles
• Read more here