Jim Richards, CEO of Total Security Solutions, accepts Michigan 50 Award

We’re happy to announce that our client, Total Security Solutions, has been named to the 2012 Michigan 50 Companies to Watch list!

Michigan 50 Companies to Watch is “an awards program honoring second-stage companies headquartered in the state of Michigan. These companies demonstrate high performance in the marketplace or exhibit innovative products or processes.”

Total Security Solutions designs and manufactures bulletproof glass and barriers, and its products help protect employees of banks, convenience stores, government facilities, and pharmacies across the country.  Investing in new manufacturing techniques and infrastructure has been important to the company’s success.  The company recently doubled the size of its facility to 24,000 square feet, and added new equipment to enhance the production and shipping of custom bulletproof glass  solutions.

The Whole Brain Group provides website design, development, and support to Total Security Solutions, and helped establish the company’s social media strategy & presence on Twitter and Facebook.

Not everyone is glued to their twitter account, breathlessly waiting for you to announce your latest blog post!  If you’re using social media as your only method of circulating your blog content, you may be missing out on traffic from visitors who prefer to receive updates via email. With an RSS-driven email campaign, you can create another channel for people to read & share your blog content, and you can save time & money on your marketing at the same time!

Smart Monkeys Use RSS-to-Email Campaigns

Using MailChimp, we’ve created an RSS-to-Email newsletter called “Smart Internet Marketing News & Tips for Growing Companies” using the feed from this blog. With just a few clicks, we set up our campaign to automatically get sent out once a week on the same day & time.

MailChimp scans our RSS feed for new posts, and only sends the campaign if new content has been added since the last mailing. As long as we keep adding fresh content to our blog, the email campaign will keep getting sent out with no extra effort on our part!  And if we get lost in the jungle and miss a week of blogging, there’s nothing to worry about – MailChimp knows there’s nothing new in the feed, so no email gets sent out.

To see this time-saving technique in action, subscribe to our newsletter. Within a few days, you’ll receive your first issue, and you can get outside and enjoy the warm weather without worrying about missing another fascinating blog post from the Whole Brainiacs!

MailChimp provides excellent step-by-step instructions for creating your own RSS-to-Email campaigns. If you’re not nerdy like we are, you may want help from a professional, so feel free to contact our team of internet marketing maniacs for assistance.

At The Whole Brain Group, we’re constantly trying to reduce the amount of paper we use, so signing documents has always been a source of irritation for me. When we send contracts out, I have a digital signature I embed in the document, but when I have to sign a document I didn’t produce, the steps are time consuming and paper-wasting:

• Print the signature page
• Sign it
• Scan it
• Email it back

Not overly complicated, but annoying – and I have to be at my desk in the office to complete these steps.

A more elegant solution for signing documents digitally

Luckily, the most recent version of Apple’s Preview program offers an elegant solution: you can use your computer’s built-in camera to “scan” your signature on a blank piece of paper, and then insert it into any PDF file.

Step 3 - Click on the Signature Tool

• Step 1: Open the document you want to sign using Preview (convert it to PDF if it originally arrived in another format).
• Step 2: Go to the VIEW menu and show the Annotations toolbar (shift-Command-A)
• Step 3: Click on the Signature Tool icon
• Step 4: Choose “Create Signature from FaceTime Camera”
• Step 5: Follow the on-screen instructions guiding you through signing a blank piece of paper, holding it in front of the camera, and capturing it electronically.
• 

  Step 5: Take a picture of your signature

  Step 6: Go back to the Signature icon on the tool bar, and select your signature from the list.

• Step 7: Move your cursor to the area of the screen where you want to insert your signature, then double-click to insert it. Drag it around and resize it to position it correctly.
• 

  Step 7: Place your signature in your PDF document

  Step 8: Save the file and email it!

Since your signature is saved in Preview, the next time you have a document to sign, you only have to follow Steps 6-8!

Armed with only my MacBook, I can now sign documents and keep new business deals moving even when I’m on the road!

Facebook’s “Offers” feature, while still in beta mode, is being rolled out to more businesses today! It’s not quite ready for a full release, but if you are categorized as a Local Business, there’s a good chance this feature is available to you!

So what is Facebook Offers, exactly? Good question! We could write more about Offers, but aren’t videos almost always more fun? Check out this video created by Facebook explaining their new…offer.

Need some help coming up with an offer that’s right for your business? The Whole Brain Group can help!

I hate it when I find a great article on a website or blog, but there’s no way to share the content easily.  This morning, I found a wonderful article about company culture, but to share it via twitter I had to go through several annoying steps:

• Open another window to login to twitter
• Copy and paste the title of the article over to twitter
• Copy and paste the URL of the article over to twitter
• Hunt around on the author’s website for their twitter handle to credit them

After all that, I didn’t bother with sharing to LinkedIn & Facebook because I was already annoyed and out of time – and I’m guessing most readers feel the same way.

My question is this: If you’re going to spend time creating great content, why not provide sharing buttons for your readers so it’s a no brainer for them to help you circulate it to the widest audience possible?

Can you Digg Digg it?

There are a lot of sharing plugins & widgets available, but our favorite for WordPress is Digg Digg, which allows you to:

• Choose a horizontal, vertical, floating, or static display of buttons
• Choose from about 25 social networks & bookmarking sites – including Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Google+, StumbleUpon, and Buffer
• Configure the display size, position, order and style of each button
• Configure the settings with your twitter username so you’re automatically credited as the content source when people share your stuff (OUR FAVORITE FEATURE)
• Turn buttons on/off on pages, posts, home, tags, etc.
• See how many people are sharing your posts

Other Social Sharing Enablers

Digg Digg is currently only available for WordPress, so if you’re on another platform or are looking for another option, you can also try:

• ShareThis: Create custom sharing widgets for a variety of platforms – including WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, Posterous, Tumblr, and others.
• AddThis:  Create custom sharing buttons in a variety of styles and platforms, and also provides a nice analytics interface to see how social media is affecting your traffic.

Remember, having a great social media strategy means thinking about your audience more than yourself – give them great content that will help them address their challenges, a way to share it with other like-minded people, and reasons to keep coming back for more!

The Colgate Resolutions - 1994

I just returned from a weekend at my alma mater, Colgate University, where I celebrated the 20th anniversary of The Resolutions, the co-ed a cappella group I founded there with two friends in 1992. Like most entrepreneurs, we had no idea what we were starting – we just saw a need and jumped headfirst into creating an alternative to the all-male and all-female groups that had dominated the a cappella scene on campus for most of the century. At the time, we didn’t think we were doing anything particularly special, but I found out this weekend that we started something really amazing.

As a current entrepreneur faced with the challenges of building a sustainable business, I found myself reflecting on what we had (accidentally) done right all those years ago that allowed the group to survive and thrive after only two years of founder participation.

After a lot of thought on the 12 hour ride back to Michigan, I realized that our approach to starting and running the group was similar to the approach we took to the music itself, and the same themes could be applied to entrepreneurship:

• Perform with people you love
• Don’t forget to breathe
• Listen to each other and focus on the blend
• Get over your stage fright
• Don’t make the arrangement so complex that you can’t hear the melody
• If the arrangement doesn’t work, change it

In both a cappella and entrepreneurship, I’ve realized that you have to practice Planned Spontaneity. With a solid plan and a little bit of creativity, you can build a lasting organization and make beautiful music together.

In honor of Earth Day, here’s a recap of three Smart Tools we’ve adopted here at The Whole Brain Group to reduce paper waste.  Coincidentally, these tools also save you time and effort so you can be efficiency-friendly AND earth-friendly!

Harvest Time Tracking

Are you still using paper time sheets and sending paper invoices? Check out Harvest’s online time tracking, invoicing, and reporting tool!

• Team members enter time through the web interface, mobile app, or desktop app
• Send invoices electronically to clients via email
• Clients can view invoices online and pay via credit card
• Robust reporting gives you insight into where your team’s time is going so you can correct inefficiencies

Now, instead of collecting paper time sheets and sending out paper invoices via snail mail, we have 100% time tracking compliance, and we collect payments much more quickly from clients. Read more about Harvest Time Tracking.

Bidsketch Online Proposals

Are you still printing out proposals and collecting paper signatures on contracts? Check out the online proposal creation tool, Bidsketch:

• Develop custom proposals in minutes
• Collaborate with team members
• Mix and match content, fees, and designs
• Send proposals electronically to clients
• Get faster turnaround with electronic signatures

Since adopting Bidsketch, we’ve saved hundreds of hours, our statements of work are more consistent and professional, and we no longer dread the proposal-writing process. Read more about Bidsketch Online Proposals.

The Resumator

Are you still printing out and filing multiple copies of resumes, writing samples, evaluations, and other supporting documents during your hiring process? The Resumator can help you centralize your recruitment process electronically to reduce paper waste and save buckets of time:

• Post positions on an online job board
• Easily circulate job postings via social media
• Collect resumes & other applicant information electronically
• Evaluate and file candidate information online
• Collaborate with other members of the hiring team – delegate tasks, send correspondence, and more!

Before we found The Resumator, hiring was one of the most paper-wasting processes in our company. Now our hiring process is earth-friendly, and we can spend our time attracting top talent instead of shuffling paper! Read more about The Resumator Online Applicant Tracking.

If you’re like me, your email is constantly flooded with social media notices, coupons, mailing lists and bill reminders. You can try to set up filters for everything, but it’s hard to keep up, and you might miss things you should pay attention to. Consequently, you either have 800 unread messages in your inbox, or you spend hours reading, filing, archiving, and deleting things.

If this sounds like your life, you should check out OtherInbox – a suite of tools that auto-filters messages and helps you unsubscribe from lists you don’t want to be part of any more. I found the service a couple of months ago, and it has drastically reduced the amount of time I spend managing my inbox!

OtherInbox has 3 main services: Organizer, Unsubscriber, and Message Finder  - each of which play an important part of my Gmail Domination Strategy.

Organizer: Automatically Organize & Prioritize Email

When I first signed up for OtherInbox Organizer, the service automatically scanned my email, created a series of standard labels, then applied them to my messages using its fancy algorithm, and archived them out of my Gmail inbox. Within a few minutes, I had about 75% less mail in my inbox!

Organize.

Image Courtesy of OtherInbox

OtherInbox created a new set of pre-defined labels in my Gmail for things like Coupons, Shipping Notices, Receipts, Travel, and News – and my mass email was filed for me using these labels. I did a quick check and found a few things that weren’t sorted right, so I quickly updated the settings by reassigning the email to a different label. To my delight, OtherInbox learned the new rule and got it right the next time.

I also discovered that I could create my own OtherInbox labels for things like Meeting Notices and Libary Notices. Once I applied the label to new incoming messages, OtherInbox learned the rule and filed the messages appropriately the next time around – labeling and archiving them immediately.

By default, the OtherInbox Organizer archives emails from your inbox, but if that makes you nervous, you can always change the setting and it will just apply the labels.

Prioritize.

Because all of the emails labeled by OtherInbox are still marked as Unread in those folders, I can easily review the emails when I have time, but my inbox is no longer cluttered with these low priority messages. Every day, OtherInbox sends me one email summarizing what has been filed so I can do a quick scan for important notices and adjust any settings.

Unsubscriber: Easily Stop Unwanted Email

Image Courtesy of OtherInbox

OtherInbox Unsubscriber makes it really easy to unsubscribe from lists you no longer care about. Just drag the email to the Unsubscribe folder, and they’ll take care of the rest for you!  No more answering questions or entering passwords to get yourself off unwanted email lists like the “Spice Girls Fan Club” you signed up for in 1998.

Using the Unsubscriber service, I’ve become much more disciplined about unsubscribing from lists I no longer care about.  Now the messages coming into my inbox are restricted to only those I truly care about, which helps me use my time more wisely!

Message Finder: Locate Messages On Your Phone By Category

Image Courtesy of OtherInbox

OtherInbox recently introduced an iPhone app called MessageFinder that makes it easy to find an email on your iPhone with an icon-and-category based view of your inbox.  Using their simplified interface, it’s really easy to find email on your phone without doing complicated searches or scrolling through hundreds of messages. This app is especially helpful when you’re on the go and you want to find your boarding pass, locate a coupon, or view a receipt.

Using the OtherInbox suite of tools in combination with Taskforce, I’ve reduced my email inbox volume by about 90%, I’m more productive, and I have a lot more time to spend on other things!

OtherInbox is FREE, and is compatible with Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, and AOL and Apple’s iCloud.

We’re excited to announce that Whole Brain Group’s Creative Director, Jamie Latendresse, (@JLDesignSF) is now a regular contributor to the Herman Miller Lifework Blog!

Posts on the Lifework Blog are focused on the theme of “where life & work meet” and feature cool office spaces, beautifully designed products, and the latest trends in how people are living & working today.

Herman Miller is a 100-year-old-plus company located in Michigan that places great importance on design, the environment, community service, and the health and well-being of their customers and employees. As a long-time fan of Herman Miller, Jamie is thrilled to be able to contribute his content to this great blog!

Read Jamie’s recent posts on the Herman Miller Lifework Blog.

You may have read headlines recently declaring that “SEO is Dead.” That sounds scary, but it’s a little misleading. In reality, search engine optimization practices are just evolving (like all technology does), and it’s important to evolve your thinking so you don’t become extinct!

While basic SEO is still relevant, there are a few additional factors to take into consideration when planning for search ranking success. Here are a few tips to help your growing business increase its visibility as the search landscape evolves:

1. Create Fresh & Different Content

When searching on any given search term, you’re almost guaranteed to receive a minimum of 100,000 results related to your query. If you search for “life insurance,” you’ll receive millions of search results that have very similar titles, information, and calls to action. Now, let’s relate this truth to your business: How do you differentiate your company in your industry’s sea of information? When blogging, developing site content, or otherwise, here are a few ways to help you stand out:

• If you need to post standard (and sometimes boring) information on your website, be sure to write in a way that differentiates your business for future SEO success. Find a new and unique way to talk about the ‘same thing’. Talking about popular and general topics in unique ways will help you get noticed and encourage customers to want to learn more.
• Interviewing thought leaders in your industry and offering case studies are proven ways to increase visibility and interaction.
• Using humor to talk about ‘dry’ topics is another way to boost engagement and be memorable.

2. Develop Your Influence on Social Media

Your influence on social media is a signal to search engines that you have something relevant or important to say about your industry. Sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ are not simply used for engagement and content sharing. The role your organization plays on social media is also reflected in how search engines determine your rank.

One way to use social media for SEO is to encourage industry leaders to share content that links back to your website. Industry influencers are more likely to share your content if it’s unique, visible and relevant. Use social networks to your advantage as you share, engage, and drive visitors back to your website. Likes, +1’s, and retweets signal as ‘votes’ or ‘endorsements’ of your content. Be sure to offer these endorsement opportunities on your website, linked to each piece of shareable content.

3. Monitor Click-through Rates

The click-through rate of your links are important when determining their future search rank. If you achieve high organic positioning for certain key terms, it’s important that your click-through rate is high enough to maintain your rank. As many business owners have experienced, your search engine rank fluctuates, which can both a frustrating and rewarding experience. If your page rank increases, but your click-through rate does not, it’s likely that you’ll be replaced by a more popular result. Title tags and meta descriptions are a couple of the important factors that will influence click-throughs.

4. Avoid High Bounce Rates

Bounce rate is a relevancy signal that search engines will detect. Even if your links have a decent click-through rate with a decent page rank, the frequency in which a customer clicks and leaves after the first page view is important to note. Providing searchers with the information that they were looking for is important in order to keep them on site, and not “bounce away.” Be sure to offer relevant and engaging content, coupled with a usable website design to keep bounce rates low.

Also make sure you include links to other relevant pages on your website to encourage users to explore your other content and spend more time on your site.

5. Share and Share Alike

Likes and shares are treated like votes. These votes are important to SEO. However, it turns out that not all ‘votes’ are created equal. Social media ‘votes’ or ‘endorsements’ are weighted differently depending on how and who engages with your brand. A ‘like’ carries the least amount of weight, while a social ‘share’ is more prominent. The effort and commitment involved is also weighted. For example, if someone +1’s your content, the commitment and effort here is relatively low. On the other hand, sharing your content with individual followers signals higher commitment, resulting in a heavier search engine weight. Links back to your website carry the most weight, which still remains an important factor in basic SEO.

We hope that this post has shown that while SEO has evolved (and will continue to evolve), it is an important part of a businesses marketing success. A solid SEO strategy involves more than just using the right title tags, and should include a combination of website optimization and a solid inbound marketing strategy to improve your website’s rank and then convert those visitors into leads!