StartupMKE is all about building networking opportunities for the tech startup community.

I’m looking forward to this event mostly because it’s going to be a reunion of sorts. Most of the people I am connected with in the Milwaukee tech community have ties to 94labs, the incubator Ben and I were a part of.

One thing that I love about the Milwaukee tech community is how much they support each other’s ideas and ventures. It’s a tight-knit community with a lot of very talented individuals, and I’m thankful to be around it all.

In the presentation I plan on discussing how to use SEO methods and tactics to learn about your audience and reach them with targeted content.

The meetup is this Tuesday, September 25th, at 6:00pm at Translator Digital Cafe - 415 East Menomonee Street, Milwaukee, WI (map).

• 6:00-6:30pm: Network, settle in and enjoy some delicious, FREE Milwaukee Brewing Company Beer
• 6:30-6:45pm: Welcome and Announcements
• 6:45-7:30: Presentations!
• 7:30-8pm: More Networking
• 8pm: Tappr Drinkup @ Kennadee’s

Meetups are a good thing I hope to see you there!

-jh-

The Project

Gener8tor wanted a video that would highlight who they are, why they exist, and how their program benefits Wisconsin, entrepreneurs and investors.

Filming Choices

We spent a full day on location at the Gener8tor office in the Historic Third Ward. We took interview footage of each co-founder on a white background and used cream city brick for the entrepreneurs to add contrast. We spent a lot of time filming the companies from the program interacting in the office because we wanted to feature people and capture the true essence and environment of Gener8tor.

Editing and Music Choices

We broke the video into sections about mentorship, entrepreneurs, community, and why their program benefits investors. We worked with Dan Austin to outline the story people needed to hear about Gener8tor. We composed and recorded music that we thought would help tie each section together nicely and help with the overall rhythm of the edit. We wanted the video to swell and breath in order to draw people in and keep their attention. We focused on the people in the program because that is the heart of what Gener8tor is all about. This added an emotional element that made the whole video feel a lot more personal.

The Setup

For the Gearheads

Here is a list of the things we used to create the video.

• Cameras – 5D Mark II, 7D
• Lenses – 35mm 1.4, 16-35mm 2.8, 85mm 1.8, 100mm 2.8, 50mm 1.4
• Audio – Zoom H4N, Sennheiser Shotgun Mic
• Lighting – Arri Softbank Light Kit (rented from Studio Gear in Milwaukee)
• Motion – Cinevate Atlas 10 Slider, Manfrotto Fluid Video Monopod
• Final Cut Pro 7
• Font – Gotham HTF (Titles)
• White background paper from BH photo
• Pro Tools 8 LE – Cleaning up voice over with XNoise
• Recorded Music – Original Composition. Recorded acoustic guitars with a modified Rode NT-1. Drums were recorded with a single SM57 about 6 feet off the kit pointed at the snare. Bass was recorded directly into Pro Tools.

Big thanks to the Gener8tor team for choosing us for this project and to Dan Moldenhauer for assisting on the day of the shoot.

Pictures From Launch Day

Here are some images from the Gener8tor launch day event. This slideshow was created with Storify.

It’s quite difficult to ignore the smashing successes that publishers are having on the various app stores, and it’s easy to think your content will fit right in. If only you had a native app, right?

If users could download your hot info right to their phone, maybe they’d open it a few times a day and devote their lives to learning about your product or service?

It’s not that simple. Many app generators are pitching the “brochure app”: a native app that bundles some content along with a feed of your latest twitter and blog posts. But how many of these apps do you actually own? Have you ever downloaded an app that promised to be just a mobile version of a local website?

Think about intention. If a user is on the go, what are they using to find information, and fast? Google. What does Google give them in return for their queries? URLs.

These URLs link to a plethora of content on the web, and Google helps users sift through the haystack with contextual clues such as their current location.

When you have your content on the web, Google will know about it and users who need it right freakin’ now will have a good chance of finding it.

If you have that content mobile-enabled, users viewing from mobile devices will be able to quickly grok what you are all about. Think of two people chatting over coffee and talking about your product. You want to follow as more people ditch screen real estate in favor of mobility.

Despite being free from the burden of URL memorization and syntax, native app stores are actually considerably worse for finding timely information. Do I search for a nearby bakery shop, or do I search for the native app for that bakery, already knowing the one I didn’t even know existed?

Native is great, but maybe not for you. If you have a repeatable value-add for your customers, native is great. A perfect example is the Starbucks app. This app goes above and beyond what a content-based mobile website would. It allows you to track Starbucks Card purchases, earn rewards, and quickly find local restaurants. All these features are available on the starbucks.com website, but many users will be returning to this app and Starbucks has such a powerful brand that users will actively search for it in the app store. Starbucks is capable of benefiting from this additional distribution channel.

Games and utilities are other great apps that provide a repeatable value-add. Think of a flashlight app for your phone.

Are you willing to advertise? Without Google helping users find your mobile content, how will users find out about you on the app store? Often, advertising is the answer.

And even then, we must deal with issues of intent. Most mobile ads will be directed at people using other apps, and your ads will probably be seen as an annoyance rather than a nice, timely suggestion to use your app.

If you are not willing to replace the organic discovery that Google provides with raw advertising dollars, native might not be the best choice for you.

Do you want control? If you are a control freak, or want to update your app on a continual basis, think hard about going native. While there are ways to ship updates to native apps without resubmitting them and appealing to Apple’s dictatorship, having a mobile website with a CMS can often be a much more frictionless update experience. Updating your content on a whim is a really nice part of building for the web.

Add to this an uncertain future for native apps that skirt the traditional app store submittal process and you’ve got a recipe for App Store problems.

It’s up to you. The only way to know whether to go native, web, or both, is to analyze your own offering. If you think you can benefit from native app store distribution, invest in building a great native app. If instead you think the web model fits your needs better, take a look at building a great mobile website. There are great tools for building either, and some can help you build both at the same time.

Max Lynch is the co-founder of Codiqa based in Madison, Wisconsin. Codiqa makes it super easy to prototype native and web mobile apps based on HTML5 and web technologies.

Let me begin by saying that last night’s presentation did not go as planned. Our goal was to outline how we implemented social sharing into our sites (Juxseo and Hipstafeed) and what we learned from the process.

We wanted to take the opportunity to talk about content marketing because it is the cornerstone of any good social campaign. Unfortunately we were unable to really get a good flow due to constant interruptions. For those of you that were there, or tuned in, I apologize for those. I wish we would have done a better job moderating that discussion and holding the commentary/questions to the end.

You live and learn, right?

We used a simple deck to direct the conversation. I added a few resources in the last slide that were not included last night.

Please let me know if we can help answer any other questions that we were not able to cover.

We will be speaking at the Milwaukee Web Design Meetup about how to integrate social sharing tools into your website this week. We will talk about some of the ways you can make your site more “shareable.”

The Milwaukee Web Design Meetup was started by Steve Robinson. Steve is a gifted web developer and a friend of mine. I was invited by Steve to be a panel member at a meetup a couple of years ago on using your own photography on websites.

The Milwaukee Web Design Meetup is a great place to learn and network with industry professionals. I highly recommend coming out if you can make it. Here are the details:

The Milwaukee Web Design Meetup

Wednesday, June 27, at 6:00pm

Hosted At Northwoods Software

4600 West Schroeder Drive Brown Deer, WI

Our first Dabble was a great experience. Nine people from Milwaukee showed up last Wednesday, June 20th to learn about SEO.

Our session was more of an open forum where we fielded questions and discussed our strategy and tactics.

I highly recommend teaching or attending a Dabble. They are a great place to learn something new and meet interesting people.

One recommendation I would give to those who are teaching classes is to bring snacks and drinks for attendees. Our Dabble was at 5:30pm and lasted two hours, so we needed the snacks.

We enjoyed the experience so much that we decided to setup another date right away. If you missed our first dabble you can sign up for the upcoming SEO For Small Business class on Wednesday, August 22, at 5:30pm.

Here is a link to the deck from our first class.

Have you ever been to a Dabble or taught one? I’d love to hear about your experience in the comments below.

In our presentation we covered the basics of SEO and showed the companies how to do keyword research to uncover real customer development opportunities.

We also had a little fun experimenting with Distilled’s Email Tool. You can find almost anyone’s email address by using Distilled’s spreadsheet and downloading Rapportive, making outreach a lot easier.

See the deck below. 

(Image source Search Engine Watch)

Last year almost half (46.5%) of the digital marketing spend was allocated to search advertising. While I completely support search ads, and currently have a few campaigns running, I wonder how much of this budget is misplaced.

In her book, ‘Marketing in the Age of Google‘, Vanessa Fox says that 88 percent of search dollars are spent on paid results when 85 percent of searchers click on the organic results. If this is true, shouldn’t we be more focused on organic?

Why Do Marketers Focus So Much On Paid Search Marketing?

One of the main reasons marketers are willing to shell out thousands of dollars each month for paid search is because they don’t have the time to work on an organic (SEO) campaign. The problem with building on the ‘quick fix’ model is that competitors drive the price of ads, making it difficult to forecast profit margins and grow sustainably.

Another reason marketers focus on ads is because it takes far less effort up front to get a campaign up and running. While an ad campaign can be easy to setup, it takes time and know-how to manage. Marketers cannot simply ‘set it and forget it.’

While ad spends continue to rise, organic search marketing is still widely untapped. I think it’s time we focused 88 percent of our effort and resources on organic since that is where 85 percent of search engine users click.

How are your digital marketing plans going? Are you relying too much on paid search marketing? Do you have an organic search strategy?

If you are a startup you should register your company on Startup America’s Website. This will give you a back-link to your site that is beneficial for search engine users and passes value to your domain.

This type of directory link is not extremely valuable, but it grows the diversity of your link profile which is extremely important for winning highly competitive keywords.