11 Jan Happy New Year!

So I’ve been quiet for a few weeks.  But Quiet does not mean I have not been getting my Interactive on!

First of all, Happy New Year!  I am hoping that this year brings you more prosperity than ever.

Life is short.  Enjoy it to the fullest.  We always make these New Year Resolutions, but please, just pick one and stick to it.  And remember, failure, is the golden opportunity to start again with a little more knowledge of what works… and what doesn’t.

If at first, you don’t succeed, Just Keep on Keepin’ on!

My family and I went on a National Lampoon’s drive… Over 30 hours of driving fun to Texas and Oklahoma.  But it was great to see family and friends.  Never take them for granted folks.  The drive and the time was worth it, especially in retrospect.

Enjoy Family.

The most exciting Interactive news for me from a Personal Playground stand point is the relaunch of BlackAtlanta.com.

It offers:

• Newer and Sleeker User interface
• User community
• Events section
• Videos and Photos
• Business Directory
• News and Lifestyle information
• Almost 1,400 Flash-Animated Games!
• Automated Twitter & Facebook updates for new news and events
• and more!

The most exciting piece of it was that I derived the new navigation and site functions based on Analytics and User experience.  With this, I found:

• More women are demographically tuned into the site.  We answered with more hints of Pink… and our Twitter audience let us know they loved it!
• Analytics showed us that the highest click rates were from Events! We derived that our major audience wants to know What To Do in Atlanta!  With this, we now focus the site on EVENTS and make it very easy by navigation to get to Events Channel.
• We cut out dead wood. Because of our analytics, we cut out lower traveled sections of the site.  I looked at the analytics from a monthly, quarterly, and annual perspective and regardless of time block, the same sections had proportionately less traffic and SEO value.  To simplify the nav… its gone!
• We “listened” to our audience by what they wanted… Events First.  Business Second.  Gaming & Videos Third.  Eye Candy Fourth.  Community & Lifestyle News Fifth.  So with that, these five channels commanded a combination of the highest percentage of site traffic and had the highest user engagement.  Therefore, our content strategy was improved and accounted for concentration in these key areas.
• We “watched” users interact via Click Mapping… Yep, we saw what you overlooked.  Therefore, we decreased low producing ad spaces, and are opting for Site wide and/or Channel specific sponsors instead.
• We evolved new services… Our Email To Content application allows Event promoters to email us a flyer and subject line, which becomes an article title and image!  Then, through RSS syndication, we post to our Twitter followers (almost 2500 now) and our Facebook friends all within 10 minutes of the orginal email!

So as You can tell… we are VERY excited about that site.

Helping Others With Interactive Marketing

I’ve also over the past couple of months get their personal spaces and blogs up in the cloud.

This has helped them:

1. Market businesses.
2. Market themselves.
3. Become thought leaders in their key areas.
4. Generate leads and customers.
5. Get new jobs.

The process is easy.  Email me if you’d like some help getting your own blog up.

Happy New Year friends, and here’s to you in 2o11!