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Month: July 2009

What You Should Know About Local Online Marketing

Published July 8, 2009

By Mario Parisé

For all the opportunities the Web has created for businesses to go global, often unappreciated opportunities lie at the local level.

In this article, we'll take a look at three practical opportunities that you can leverage right now.  No fluff.  No false promises.  Just three actionable items you can use to grow your business at a local level.  Some of it may be obvious, but judging by how underutilized they are, I think it's time we get a refresher.

1. Advertising Networks

According to Alexa.org, Canada's top two sites are Google and Facebook.

The opportunity: Both sites offer geographical targeting capabilities.  

With Google, you can create text ads using their AdWords program to target not only specific keywords, but also specific cities.  So if your business operates in Sudbury, Ontario (for example), you can choose to advertise only to people in that city.  This gives you the opportunity to get in front of anyone in your city searching for the products and services you sell. 

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Laura Buchanan on Future Shop's Community and Tech Blog – 5 Question Interview

Published July 7, 2009

By Kate Trgovac

I recently had the opportunity to talk with Laura Buchanan of Future Shop Canada.  Laura is the Social Community Specialist at Future Shop where she caretakes the vibrant Future Shop Community – an online tech enthusiast community for Canadians. 

As part of the community, she and Future Shop recently launched the Tech Blog. The Tech Blog is written by six seven Canadian tech bloggers (including our own Brad Grier) – sharing their reviews of technology and consumer electronics.  Laura shared her perspective on the community, blog and other social media outlets.

OD: Can you tell us a bit about the impetus for launching the Tech Blog as part of the Future Shop Community? 

LB: When the Community was launched two years ago, it was solely made up of the discussion forums – a place where Canadians could come and talk about technology. The Community’s mantra is “connect share & learn” – and the Tech Blog fits perfectly with this culture.  There’s something for everyone, be you a tech enthusiast or a total n00b. 

The Tech Blog gets updated daily by our team with product reviews, how-tos, breaking tech news & general tech talk.

Future Shop Community  

OD: How did you decide which bloggers to include – in particular, factors like using independent bloggers rather than Future Shop employees or that the blogging team skews heavily male.

LB: Actually, two of our bloggers are Future Shop employees (klausboedker & TimR), but neither of them are writing as “Future Shop representatives”.  They’re both subject matter experts in their fields (Klaus is a photographer and Tim is very well-versed in movies & music). This isn’t because we disagree with what they have to say, but we wanted the blog to be a space where the bloggers and commentators alike could share their opinions freely.

I did all the recruiting for the blog and hand-picked the team based on their areas of expertise, their blogging skills and their enthusiasm for technology.  There was definitely no deliberateness in my decision to not have female representation on the blog team – none of the female candidates were the right fit, it’s as simple as that.  Some of our most respected community members are female, we have female moderators, I’m female – and we will have female bloggers in the future.

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