Twist of Lime helped the Jackson Hole News&Guide create it's latest online real estate publication: jhpropertyguide.com.

Real estate is a very hot commodity here in Jackson Hole — even after the bottom fell out of the market around the rest of the country. While local realtors, businesses and other publications that rely heavily on the real estate market were reeling from the bubble-burst, the Jackson Hole News&Guide was taking advantage of the downturn in the market to create a new online publication. After more than a year of design, development and negotiations with local brokerages and the Teton County MLS Board, jhpropertyguide.com was born. And Twist of Lime was there every step of the way.

The News&Guide had their preferred graphic designer (Tetonia resident Linda Grimm) and Web developer (jhwebstudio.com), but no one in-house with the ability to manage the development of such a complex site. We handled project management, from the original scope draft, through design development, to paring down the punchlist. And as it goes with many projects of this size, we’re still ironing out the wrinkles and anticipate some level of continued involvement in the short-term.

The advantage of jhpropertyguide.com is the killer content combination of all listings in the Teton County MLS database coupled with the robust daily content creation of jhnewsandguide.com. In addition to local real estate listings updated daily, jhpropertyguide.com brings in for-sale-by-owner properties and rentals as well as real estate-specific articles from the News&Guide. But even for all the content and usability of real estate search, jhpropertyguide.com is not in the business of selling real estate; rather, their end goal is to provide as much information to the buyer as possible and then facilitate the connection between the buyer and agent.

If you’re in the market for Jackson Hole real estate, we highly recommend checking out jhpropertyguide.com.

The site was designed with an eye toward simplicity, ease of updating and with future expansion in mind. The design highlights Members and Grants, and it allows Members to update their own profiles and make offers to Members, Supporters and the public at large. There are now dedicated Members, Grants and News areas, where the proof of this incredible concept are showcased.

The launch of this new site comes just as 1% for the Tetons announced its new granting process. The new process involves two rounds for grant applicants and will feature an as-yet-to-be-released function of the new site that will allow Members and the public to cast their vote for potential grants by making pledges. This new function will be unveiled in the next several months. You can read more about the new grants process here.

"Where to Put it All" opens tonight, Friday, December 11, at 5:30 p.m. in the Center for the Arts in Jackson.

My wife, Miga Rossetti, has been working hard for the past many months on a new body of artwork that is now hanging in the Center for the Arts in Jackson. Please join us tonight, Friday, December 11, at 5:30 p.m. for the opening reception in the Center Theater Gallery for her show, “Where To Put It All.”

Every spring a squadron of robins attempts to build nests between the rafters of our front porch. Some fail and some succeed, but each works frantically, collecting bits of all kinds of grasses and twigs, to build their potential new homes and rear a new brood of chicks. Regardless of their level of success, we’re left with a number of abandoned nests at the end of the summer. These nests have become the inspiration for Miga’s latest body of work, “Where to Put it All.”

There are birds and nests and symbols of all kinds in her new paintings. They reflect her desire to create order from the relative chaos that is the collective life of our family. We are freelancers, entrepreneurs, parents and fun-hogs (not necessarily in that order). We work in graphic design, art, marketing, writing, and we run a greeting card company. We have two beautiful daughters who are wildly active and creative and produce a never-ending stream of drawings, projects and whatnot. And we live in a place that allows us to be active outdoors, skiing, cycling, hiking, paddling and whatever else. How to get it all done and then where to put it all?

Special thanks to the Art Association of Jackson Hole for sponsoring this show and hosting this opening, which is hosted in part by The Liquor Store and The Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund.

I launched MarketGreener just over two years ago as a way to dip my toe into the world of blogging. Since then I have learned a lot about blogging — including what it is and isn’t for me — and I’ve garnered a decent audience along the way. While not a huge following, there are some regular readers among you and a lot of others who have simply stumbled across this site. And since my focus from the beginning  has been to write about what I find interesting or helpful in the world of marketing and sustainable business practices, I’ve tried not to use it as a soapbox for my business.

But then, about six months after establishing this blog, I left the world of the gainfully employed to start Twist of Lime, a marketing and content services agency. My first site was built by me using Dreamweaver. And while I was confident with my DW skills and proud to have successfully built my own site, I have always known that design is not my forté and that the previous site was not the strongest calling card for someone trying to make a sizable chunk of  his income from building Web sites.

I’ve learned a lot in the past year-and-a-half, both from my clients and my teammates. The result of some of that knowledge is here in this redesigned site. Design was done by my wonderful wife Miga, who’s own skills in Web design are growing, and the development was handled by Alexis Sarthou, whom I have known and worked with since my Circumerro days and is very talented in the ways of building WordPress templates (yes, this site is powered by WordPress!), among other fine development skills. And, from time to time, some of what I do on the business side does and will continue to show up here on MarketGreener.

Please take some time to check out the new site. There are still a few tweaks to make and I welcome any and all (constructive) feedback. And I hope you continue to read the blog, and that you enjoy it enough to share it with others. Please bookmark it, join our email list or subscribe in a reader. And as always, enjoy!

Social media marketing is obviously very hot right now, and the interest Wyoming businesses are taking in this topic is understandably high.

Wyoming is a business-friendly state and one with a high number of small businesses. A big reason for this is that there just aren’t a lot of people in this fairly large state. The population is quite dispersed, even around some of the larger cities and towns, with many people being spread out around and between communities. And many of the state’s businesses rely on people very far away to be their customers. Some of these businesses are based here because they could be based anywhere yet the tax structure and quality of life are quite favorable. (That is certainly the case here in Jackson Hole.) And some of these businesses rely on tourism by people from all around the world. (Also the case here in JH.) And because of this, these businesses recognize the importance of being found online.

So, for someone like me, the opportunity to share my knowledge and meet people who are genuinely interested in what I do is a great one. As an added bonus, I was interviewed by a reporter from Casper’s channel 13 news. Thanks to everyone who worked hard to put on this event and to those of you who attended. It was a pleasure meeting all of you.

If anyone wants to view the slides from either of my two presentations (including my presentation on email marketing, which was not presented), you can view or download them at the temporary page on my dev site (to be launched very soon!): www.twistoflime.biz/seminar-presentations/.

And if you’d like to see the news report about the Idea Expo, you can view it below. Enjoy!

According to the Web site:

“The purpose of the conference is to inspire innovation in Wyoming businesses of all sizes. If you are a CEO, manager, specialist or have any interest in business, then you should to attend the Wyospace.com Idea Expo is not your ordinary business conference.”

I’ve never been and it seems like a great opportunity to meet other businesspeople from around Wyoming.

If you would like to view slides from any of my previous seminars, please visit the seminar presentations page.

TetonRaptorCenter.org was launched earlier this week.

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"Wydotanatah": my phrase; my territory.

When I conducted my first marketing seminar I was merely looking for a way to reach a captive audience of potential clients among businesses here in Jackson Hole. Now that I’ve reached that audience, I’m continuing to look for ways to reach others here locally in Jackson Hole and in the region beyond.

Jackson Hole as a business community is unique in many ways, some of which include:

• It’s small but dense. There’s a lot of business for a community of roughly 20,000 people.
• It’s relatively savvy. There are a lot of mom and pop shops but even they realize that they they need to compete at a relative level with the national (and even multi-national) corporations that have a presence here.
• We’re a long way from anywhere. Our closest metropolitan area is Salt Lake City, and that’s a 5-hour drive. (Sorry, Idaho Falls.)
• We’re closer to the state capitals of the three closest states than we are to our own. It’s true: by car Helena, Montana, is 4.5 hours; Salt Lake City, Utah, is 5 hours; Boise, Idaho, is 6 hours; and Cheyenne, Wyoming, is 6.5 hours.

But the one way that we’re not unique is that businesses here in Jackson share many of the same challenges that businesses throughout the rest of Wyoming—and in many parts of the sparsely populated West—share: if we want to do business throughout the state, we need to travel to do so.

Recognizing that means that you also recognize that there’s little difference between traveling to Casper from Jackson to do business than there is in traveling to Bozeman to do business (except that Bozeman may be a little more geographically interesting). For that reason, and in respect to the client from Kemmerer, Wyoming, whom I just brought on, I’ve consciously expanded my regional influence and coined a name for it: “Wydotanatah.” It includes Wyoming, Idaho, Montana and Utah and it is my territory defined.
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Twist of Lime's Chris Hansen highlights the finer points of organic vs. paid search.

I have to admit, I was a little nervous about my first seminar presentation. But I had spent a lot of time preparing—I knew my stuff and I’m comfortable in front of an audience. All in all, I have to say it was a success. (I know I should have plugged it here first, but most of my MarketGreener readers are a different audience than the Chamber’s members. Perhaps that will change…)

While the Chamber billed it as a “No/Low Cost Marketing Seminar,” I prefer to refer to it as Online Marketing 101. I covered the following:

• Optimize your Web site for improved user experience and search results.
• Interact with your customers using social media.
• Create and send effective email campaigns.

Your Web site should be the foundation for all the marketing you do, whether online or off. I covered a bit of Search Engine Optimization basics, a social media overview, and the benefits of using an email service provider for email marketing—perhaps the most important section for this group.

It was a great experience and I thank Chamber Director Tim O’Donohughe and Events Manger Maureen Murphy for being open to my idea and letting me run with it. I think those in attendence really got a lot out of it.

I will make the slides available to attendees early next week.

If anyone is interested having me present to their group, I would be happy to do so.

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Facebook Connect is the latest gem to make a difference in social networking.

There’s been a fair bit of speculation about just how much more sociability and interactivity the new Facebook Connect application will have around ye ole Internets since its announcement last year and now quite a bit more since its launch in December. Well, here at MarketGreener we’ve been playing around with it and finally got it to work across multiple platforms. It seems there are some extra special complexities in Internet Explorer (no surprise there), but I’m no programmer and even I got it working.

After digging around a bit, I found and implemented two different fb Connect plugins for WordPress. The one I’m employing here is Sociable’s Facebook Connect Plugin I’m not going to walk you through installation ’cause you can do that there. But I’m pretty excited about the social and marketing implications of this type of interconnectivity.

So, I’m throwing this post out there for two reasons:

1. Blatant self-promotion. “Hey, look at me and what I did!” OK, now that that’s over…
2. If you are a Facebook member and a MarketGreener reader, please take a moment to see how Facebook Connect works for you.

There are a couple of ways you can interact with Connect here on MarketGreener:

1. Connect via the “Connect with Facebook” button over there on the right. Your profile pic should show up above the button and in the “Latest Visitors” box below it.
2. You can also use the “Share” button at the bottom of the individual post page. Unfortunately it’s not showing up in the most obvious place right now, but I’ll be working on that.

I would greatly appreciate any feedback any of you, dear readers, might have. I’ve tried it out on a PC and Mac on IE (not on the Mac), Firefox and Safari and all seems pretty good so far. Even seen stuff showing up well on my Facebook page.

Once you’ve done that, feel free to check out the use of the other plugin I’m trying out over on Wyoming22. This site isn’t quite fleshed out yet, but I’m trying to get enough posts up there for a formal launch by, uh, well, at least before the end of ski season. Over there I’ve employed the WP-FacebookConnect plugin developed by Adam Hupp.  It works a little differently in that it should allow you to leave a comment while utilizing your Facebook account instead of logging in to Wyoming22. I’m not sure it’s configured correctly, but give it a try and let me know what you think.

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