This is a series of videos on Search Engine Optimization for Small Business websites, conducted by Andrew VanConas of Pinstripe Social Media serving Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties.

The camera is Sony Handycam HDR-XR200V

Today the Ventura County Star published an excellent article on Social Media and how small businesses are using twitter to market themselves. If you own a business go read it - Local businesses put social networks to work it will be worth your time I guarantee it. If you have questions on how your company can use any social media tools please contact me. I will more than happy to have a cup of coffee with you and show you how Twitter, LinkedIn, Yelp, Facebook, Google can and will transform your business.

I also love the way the Star has transformed their site to a blogging platform, good move.

Things are moving along for us at Pinstripe Social Media. We have been busy designing and defining many sites (faithathome.com, atozlaw.com)and have some exciting new opportunities in the coming months. If your business is looking to jump into Social Media, look no further. We pride ourselves on cost effective internet marketing solutions for  businesses big and small.

Please visit some of our partners :

Get your Tan on at Glows2Go. Perfect gift for your wife this Christmas Season!

Join Our Lady of the Assumption for the inaugural – OLA 5K, F ather Steve 1K and Pancake Breakfast on January 23, 2010 registration is open!

This video is from Linda Skrocki, Sr. Social Media Engineering Program Manager at Sun Microsystems.
It’s powerful, powerful stuff.

Check her blog out it has awesome info.

To all who attended the workshop “Using Social Media to find your Dream Job”. Thank you for your time and good luck finding a job.

Please follow me on Twitter, connect to me on LinkedIn and become a Friend and a fan of Pinstripe Social Media on Facebook.

Here are the slides

If you are around my age, you remember using TVGuide and how useful it was to your family when watching TV. Unfortunately, our family was not a TVGuide Magazine home — we used the “free” TV guide from the Sunday paper.

Every Sunday morning, our family would go to Church, and on the way home my Dad would visit the corner deli to buy rolls & buns (donuts for those of you outside of New York). He would also buy the papers. Yes, “papers” – 3 to be exact – the New York Times, the New York Daily News and Newsday, the Long Island paper. Once we got home, my mother would start breakfast, and Dad would conquer and divide the paper, handing out sections of each to my sisters and me. I always hoped to get the sports section from the New York Times, but most Sundays I had to settle for Newsday’s sports.

Dad would also take out the TV guide section of the Daily News, and place it on the living room coffee table, which was it’s designated spot for the week. One of us would be asked (or maybe told) to take the Newsday TV guide to my parents room, the location of the other TV in our house. We were allowed to look at the TV guide, but if it was put back in the wrong location, or — God forbid — turned to a different day, you were sure to pay with extra chores, or at the very least a grimace from Dad. In any event, I learned early on not to touch the TV Guide.

As I think about it, I probably haven’t looked at a paper TV guide in at least 10 years. I might note the time of a game I want to watch as I browse the sports section, but we have no TV Guide — free or otherwise — on our coffee table. It seems strange to think how the TV Guide was so important to a family 1 generation ago. Why the change? And How?

When satellite television began, we were one of the first homes in our neighborhood to get DirectTV, and it was great. We received network channels from both Los Angeles and New York (which threw my parents off, but that is another blog entry for another day), which was one of the greatest benefits DirectTV provided to me — being able to watch the Yankees on a New York television station, of course. But another great benefit? The “OnScreen Guide.” Are you kidding me?! I can watch TV and see what is going to be on the same channel 8 hours later? Cool! That was the end of the paper TV Guide for my family.

This is the sort of a move that is occurring in business today, as newspapers are struggling to move content online. The New York Times is exploring whether or not readers will pay for the online version of the paper. Most, if not all, publishing houses have some sort of online offering, utilizing Amazon’s Kindle, Stanza or a PDF form, among others. How many of you are reading content online that was once in print only? While the print version is still available, newspapers and publishing houses provide an enhanced version of their offering with the online version. They are trying to serve the largest audience without leaving traditionalist (paper readers) out.

How is your business serving your online audience? Do you have a marketing plan that includes marketing to your online customers? Are you going to drop or scale-back your yellow page and newspaper advertising?

Do you use the paper TV Guide or the Onscreen Guide?

By the way, the TVGuide has also moved online, and offers not just a schedule of what is on TV, but also pictures, videos, and articles. If you would like, you can still subscribe to the weekly print version. My parents would be happy.

Blog Listings

If you do not know about Yelp you should. It is a great place to learn about a restaurant, store, service or just about any business. Specifically, Yelp is a web-base community which allows users to “share the experiences they’ve had” world wide.
It is similar to friend recommending a great restaurant “They have the best Pizza outside to New York” except you have many more friends to get a recommendation from. I must confess I do not write as many recommendations as I should but that may change on our upcoming vacation.

Go check out Yelp and let me know what you think – for those of you with an iPhone download the Yelp app you will not be disappointed.

While you are enjoying Yelp take a look at Pinstripe Social Media in Ventura, CA. We were recently added and in a future blog post I will go through the process of getting your business on Yelp.