CLICK is ‘Clicking'—More Issues + The First-Ever CLICK Conference This Fall!

The essential “need to know” about how to develop a strong online presence is driving CLICK in new directions! Vision Monday’s CLICK e-newsletter is now coming to you twice each month!

And CLICK has just announced a “Save the Date” for its first-ever CLICK Conference, a special session designed to help ECPS and optical retailers learn more about social media and the Web. The CLICK Conference will be held Oct. 7th in Las Vegas just prior to the start of International Vision Expo West. Leading Web experts and ECPs will share what’s shaping today’s Web success stories. Space will be limited at the Conference, so mark your calendars now!

Catch up on CLICK! Learn from dozens of stories, tips and interesting ideas in the easy-to-access archives of CLICK at www.visionmonday.com. Tried something new on your website or have you launched a special social media campaign? Tell us about it and we'll consider it for an upcoming feature in CLICK.
—The Editors

A New 'Code'—Avalon’s New Kamali 'Timeless' Sunwear Features ScanLife Technology Codes on POP

NEW YORK — Avalon Eyewear is debuting its new “Timeless” Sunwear collection, developed in collaboration with style icon and fashion designer, Norma Kamali, and the company is debuting an exciting new technology to the eyewear market at the same time. The new launch employs interesting new ScanLife Technology, now bringing to eyewear retailers and ECPs a format of the fast-growing “QR” or Quick Response scan codes which are emerging as a hot new technology throughout the retail and media business.

ScanLife, used in all of Norma Kamali’s retail locations, allows shoppers to use their smart phones and PDAs to immediately scan, download or view more information about the collection and brand. On Avalon’s newly-created Norma Kamali Timeless P.O.P. materials, including a new display tent card, ScanLife users can see video imagery of a “morphing” fashion model showing the Timeless sunwear styles, showcasing classic shapes like Aviator, Oval, Round, Cat Eye and others, in metal and zyl. The initiative is at the forefront of a new technological trend being used and tested by major retailers in a range of product categories, geared to strengthening the connection between their physical stores, consumers and the Web, turning mobile phones into new communication devices.

ScanLife “scans” have also been featured lately in consumer magazines in both editorial and advertisements. Once consumers have downloaded the ScanLife App into their iPhone or Blackberry, they are able to hold the smart phone to the Scan graphic and “capture” the additional info or video messages. The ScanLife technology works with all major bar code formats and already there are millions of consumers who have downloaded the scans for information and purchases in some cases, in categories as far ranging as fashion, travel, and other consumer products.

News reports on the emergence of scan technology have been appearing on major media outlets this year, including the The New York Times and the CBS News Early Show which did a major segment on QR codes, which included Norma Kamali’s involvement. “We are so excited to see how consumers have responded to our ScanLife codes in our stores and feel that it is perfect to convey the message about our Timeless sunwear collection,” Kamali told CLICK. “We are in the midst of a huge change, a paradigm shift, brought on by new technology, the Internet and social media, and it is changing the way we all interact with our customers, new ways of explaining and enhancing our brands.”

David Pildes, vice president of Northvale, N.J.-based Avalon Eyewear added, “This is an exciting new dimension for optical retailers carrying the Norma Kamali collection; it’s a new way for them to create connections with their customers in a modern, contemporary way.”

Getting Down to Business: Sharing Expertise Via Social Media

By Alan Glazier, OD, FAAO

NEW YORK—Anyone who is an expert has information that is valuable to other people. Education and experience = expertise, but not everyone knows how to most effectively disseminate their expertise to be recognized as a thought leader. I use my eye doctor expertise to create content via social media that is valuable to people, and when the value is realized, I gain a following; the larger the following, the more impact I have as a thought leader, the more impact I have as a thought leader, the more people listen to what I have to say; the more people listen to what I have to say, the easier it is to convince people what is good for them, which ultimately benefits them and my practice.

Most optical professionals deal with the same products and same questions from consumers—do I need that? How will that benefit me? Is it a sales pitch? These are the things people need to know and want to know—they want to go into the optical a better educated consumer, and you want to provide value to them via content to succeed in social media, so helping them understand how to be a better consumer brings value to them, the perceived value makes you an authority and you are likely to “connect” with them at that point.

The doctor wants to get the message across that the products they are selling actually do help and bring value to the customer, so I use content to get that message across to them. There IS value in UV coating, there IS value in AR coating. Trust is earned by providing trustworthy content, and when I have gained their trust it is a short reach to have them trust me to recommend the products they purchase.

I typically post content everyday, but create my own content three times a week. You can do it, too. We are going to take a piece of content from your website or blog and “market” it using social tools. The end result will be a small boost for your content in search engines and, possibly, traffic. While most efforts to optimize in search need to be sustained over time, the goal of this post is to teach you how to get the process started. For this exercise, you will need a website or blog, a Twitter account or Facebook account. If you don’t have any of these, go sign up first. It’s free and easy.

First, identify a piece of content you have written that you feel is a “hook” i.e. something that will draw the attention of someone searching for information in your particular area of expertise. The content you choose for your “hook” should be found on an important page within your website or blog, but it should not be the home page. I will be using my website content titled “optical lens coatings” to demonstrate.

Pull up the page, highlight and copy your URL; mine is http://www.youreyesite.com/files/coatings.html. Go to www.tinyurl.com and enter your URL; make the tiny URL and copy it. On Twitter, in the “What’s Happening” box, create a teaser; mine will be “Eyeglass lens coatings and what you need to know”. Next to your teaser paste the new tiny URL.

There! You have a Tweet! And if you have followers, when you hit “tweet”, they will see it and find the link. The next time that Google sends out its software robots, it will see your Tweet and favor it for people searching the keywords “eyeglass,” “lens,” and “coatings,” or the phrase “eyeglass lens coatings.” On Facebook, you do the same thing; in the “news feed,” enter the same teaser and tiny URL. Share it when you are finished. There! You are finished.

You have just taken the first steps to optimize yourself for a particular keyword and keyphrase, and you have informed your network that you are an expert on a particular subject for which they are seeking information. Stay tuned for more tips and demonstrations!

Alan N. Glazier, OD, FAAO is the founder/CEO of Shady Grove Eye and Vision Care in Rockville, Md. A search and social optimization consultant, he is now a regular contributor to CLICK and also writes a regular blog for SightNation.com. Glazier is at aglazier@youreyesite.com and his regular posts can be found via his Twitter handle: @EyeInfo, his blog: eyeinfo.wordpress.com and his website: YourEyeSite.com.