Strategic words are out. Personal search is in. This week, the Kauffman Foundation held a seminar on “Online Branding for Startups” with help from Mark Traphagen of Virante, a SEO marketing firm out of Durham, N.C. I learned a number of things in the hours we discussed branding with entrepreneurs and Kauffman associates, but here are my top four takeaways.

Social media and interaction are great branding tools today, but they’ve also become very common. Everyone has access to them and is likely sharing, liking and linking just as much as you are. You have to stand out amongst the rest of the noise. How do you do this? As Mark told us, “people trust perceived authority”. People gravitate towards trusted sources and thought leaders in any given topic. This is why the books on Oprah’s book list receive such high sales number, or why Steve Blank has 79,000 Twitter followers. People trust those people who are authorities in a certain subject area, and therefore, are more likely to buy the products they suggest or follow the advice they provide. Establishing that you have some specialty knowledge in your topic can help you stand out from the white noise of bland retweets and iterations of others’ comments and quotes. Creating a rapport with your audience of trust shows them that you’re reliable, and someone who’s advice is to be trusted. If they follow your tip, procedure, etc, things will be okay.

Google+, remember that thing? It’s probably the social platform that usually falls to the bottom of your Update To-Do List. Well, start paying attention because it is very much a part of your online branding. Turns out personal Google+ profiles have page rank. Duh, it’s Google. Did we really think the king of search would create something that wasn’t integrated into their algorithms? Creating a personal page, or a community page on Google for your favorite topic or a brand page has an effect on your search rankings. Having a presence on Google+ allows Google to track more data on your content, as well as who and how many people are sharing it. Witness the personalization of search. The bigger your network on Google+, the more they pump up your stuff. This is also where Google Authorship comes in. Linking your Google+ page to your created content allows Google Authorship to post your picture and byline in the search listing. It can also help you understand how your content appears in search with analytics around your authorship.

Google has a bit of a love affair with naming their algorithms after cuddly animals that start with the letter “P”. Panda, created in 2011, and Penguin, created in 2012, are the names of Google’s algorithms that sought to cut down on SEO ninjas. Panda aimed to lower the rank of low quality sites where content was thin or weak. Penguin then decreased the search rankings for sites that violated SEO techniques with keyword stuffing, link stuffing and duplicate content. People that were just throwing a bunch of keywords into their sites or code into the backend to increase search, were shown who’s boss with Google’s improved algorithms. What this mean, is that site with quality content are naturally becoming better ranked sites with Google’s increasing precision in their calculations. Still, for the SEO tricks that you are using in your sites, be aware of Google’s constantly changing algorithms and adjust accordingly. Or Google’s next “Puffin” (let’s say for fun sake) could mean defeat for your online presence.

Mark told us “you have an average of eight seconds to retain an audience,” and in reading this sentence you just lost half of that. Keywords themselves are not enough anymore. You need strong taglines that draw in an audience, and you need strong content to maintain their attention longer than it takes a bull to knock off a cowboy. Mark says this requires:

Create good content. Be earnest in sharing this content, and engaging with your audience. Ultimately, there is no single secret that makes you top dog in search (unless maybe you’re Larry Page’s best friend), but consistent content and insight in your specific topic can help your online branding. Mark reminded us through the day “it’s not the brand name or logo that ultimately draws people, it’s who the people, content creators and thought leaders are who hold authority that draw an audience.

Door-to-door marketing is a canvassing technique that is generally used for sales, marketing, advertising, or campaigning, in which the person or persons walk from the door of one house to the door of another, trying to sell or advertise a product or service to the general public or gather information. People who use this sales approach are often called traveling salesmen, or the archaic name drummer, to “drum up” business. This technique is also sometimes called direct sales. A variant of this involves cold calling first, when another sales representative attempts to gain agreement that a salesperson should visit.

With the realization of telephone “Do Not Call” lists it is becoming increasingly more difficult to connect with consumers and business people. An emerging trend is the deployment of very professional, highly skilled door-to-door canvassers to drive product sales and brand awareness.

Coordinating, training and motivating these teams to produce results are at the very core of Fulcrum’s proven capabilities. Fulcrum has the knowledge and experience required to implement these programs, such as best days and times to canvass, who will sell the most product; male, female, young or mature and what geographics and demographics respond best to door-to-door marketing. Put Fulcrum’s experience to work for you and avoid the costly mistakes of trying to manage these programs in-house.

Hire and Train Door-to-Door Marketing Team

If you’re in charge of hiring people, that typically means that you’ve found success in Door To Door Marketing yourself. You know what it takes to be great, but now you’re stuck with an entirely new problem. How do you find others who will be just as good (if not better) and will stick around and grow into important influencers invested in the long term growth of the company? A great D2D sales company is a great recruiting company. So what does that greatness look like?

First off, you need to realize that you’re not going to hire a superstar every time. If you think you have found one, be careful. It’s not hard for someone to seem golden during one interview and you don’t want to be fooled.

Even if you think the candidate does have a lot of great experience working in the field for other companies, you have to realize that success doesn’t always translate. What worked for them at previous companies probably won’t work as well for you. In fact, their success will probably make them stubborn; after all, what reason do they have to follow your approach when they’ve figured out their own?

It’s also possible that the rep’s previous company might have had much better-developed training and selling systems than you do, and that system was the key reason they killed it. If you’re not developing a competitive system, what does that communicate about your company? The more dialed-in you are about a rep’s success, the more likely you are to attract and keep strong performers.

Strategic words are out. Personal search is in. This week, the Kauffman Foundation held a seminar on “Online Branding for Startups” with help from Mark Traphagen of Virante, a SEO marketing firm out of Durham, N.C. I learned a number of things in the hours we discussed branding with entrepreneurs and Kauffman associates, but here are my top four takeaways.

Social media and interaction are great branding tools today, but they’ve also become very common. Everyone has access to them and is likely sharing, liking and linking just as much as you are. You have to stand out amongst the rest of the noise. How do you do this? As Mark told us, “people trust perceived authority”. People gravitate towards trusted sources and thought leaders in any given topic. This is why the books on Oprah’s book list receive such high sales number, or why Steve Blank has 79,000 Twitter followers. People trust those people who are authorities in a certain subject area, and therefore, are more likely to buy the products they suggest or follow the advice they provide. Establishing that you have some specialty knowledge in your topic can help you stand out from the white noise of bland retweets and iterations of others’ comments and quotes. Creating a rapport with your audience of trust shows them that you’re reliable, and someone who’s advice is to be trusted. If they follow your tip, procedure, etc, things will be okay.

Google+, remember that thing? It’s probably the social platform that usually falls to the bottom of your Update To-Do List. Well, start paying attention because it is very much a part of your online branding. Turns out personal Google+ profiles have page rank. Duh, it’s Google. Did we really think the king of search would create something that wasn’t integrated into their algorithms? Creating a personal page, or a community page on Google for your favorite topic or a brand page has an effect on your search rankings. Having a presence on Google+ allows Google to track more data on your content, as well as who and how many people are sharing it. Witness the personalization of search. The bigger your network on Google+, the more they pump up your stuff. This is also where Google Authorship comes in. Linking your Google+ page to your created content allows Google Authorship to post your picture and byline in the search listing. It can also help you understand how your content appears in search with analytics around your authorship.

Google has a bit of a love affair with naming their algorithms after cuddly animals that start with the letter “P”. Panda, created in 2011, and Penguin, created in 2012, are the names of Google’s algorithms that sought to cut down on SEO ninjas. Panda aimed to lower the rank of low quality sites where content was thin or weak. Penguin then decreased the search rankings for sites that violated SEO techniques with keyword stuffing, link stuffing and duplicate content. People that were just throwing a bunch of keywords into their sites or code into the backend to increase search, were shown who’s boss with Google’s improved algorithms. What this mean, is that site with quality content are naturally becoming better ranked sites with Google’s increasing precision in their calculations. Still, for the SEO tricks that you are using in your sites, be aware of Google’s constantly changing algorithms and adjust accordingly. Or Google’s next “Puffin” (let’s say for fun sake) could mean defeat for your online presence.

Mark told us “you have an average of eight seconds to retain an audience,” and in reading this sentence you just lost half of that. Keywords themselves are not enough anymore. You need strong taglines that draw in an audience, and you need strong content to maintain their attention longer than it takes a bull to knock off a cowboy. Mark says this requires:

Create good content. Be earnest in sharing this content, and engaging with your audience. Ultimately, there is no single secret that makes you top dog in search (unless maybe you’re Larry Page’s best friend), but consistent content and insight in your specific topic can help your online branding. Mark reminded us through the day “it’s not the brand name or logo that ultimately draws people, it’s who the people, content creators and thought leaders are who hold authority that draw an audience.

Door-to-door marketing is a canvassing technique that is generally used for sales, marketing, advertising, or campaigning, in which the person or persons walk from the door of one house to the door of another, trying to sell or advertise a product or service to the general public or gather information. People who use this sales approach are often called traveling salesmen, or the archaic name drummer, to “drum up” business. This technique is also sometimes called direct sales. A variant of this involves cold calling first, when another sales representative attempts to gain agreement that a salesperson should visit.

With the realization of telephone “Do Not Call” lists it is becoming increasingly more difficult to connect with consumers and business people. An emerging trend is the deployment of very professional, highly skilled door-to-door canvassers to drive product sales and brand awareness.

Coordinating, training and motivating these teams to produce results are at the very core of Fulcrum’s proven capabilities. Fulcrum has the knowledge and experience required to implement these programs, such as best days and times to canvass, who will sell the most product; male, female, young or mature and what geographics and demographics respond best to door-to-door marketing. Put Fulcrum’s experience to work for you and avoid the costly mistakes of trying to manage these programs in-house.

Hire and Train Door-to-Door Marketing Team

If you’re in charge of hiring people, that typically means that you’ve found success in Door To Door Marketing yourself. You know what it takes to be great, but now you’re stuck with an entirely new problem. How do you find others who will be just as good (if not better) and will stick around and grow into important influencers invested in the long term growth of the company? A great D2D sales company is a great recruiting company. So what does that greatness look like?

First off, you need to realize that you’re not going to hire a superstar every time. If you think you have found one, be careful. It’s not hard for someone to seem golden during one interview and you don’t want to be fooled.

Even if you think the candidate does have a lot of great experience working in the field for other companies, you have to realize that success doesn’t always translate. What worked for them at previous companies probably won’t work as well for you. In fact, their success will probably make them stubborn; after all, what reason do they have to follow your approach when they’ve figured out their own?

It’s also possible that the rep’s previous company might have had much better-developed training and selling systems than you do, and that system was the key reason they killed it. If you’re not developing a competitive system, what does that communicate about your company? The more dialed-in you are about a rep’s success, the more likely you are to attract and keep strong performers.