Without a doubt, social media usage has become an integral part of many people's lives. And more and more local businesses are getting into it in a big way. You see this when logged into those social networks, of course. You also see it offline, with lots of them exhorting their customers and passers by to like them on Facebook and follow them on Twitter, etc.

Promotional hashtags are becoming more visible offline as well. And every now and then you'l see one that isn't trying to sell something, which shows just how pervasive they're becoming. 

I saw an example of this recently in Fremantle. It was a play on the meaning of the #JeSuisCharlie hashtag that took off in the wake of those terrible murders in France. 

Not quite sure what the creator was trying to say with this artwork. It's certainly open to interpretation. But he or she was certainly being a bit subversive.

Hashtags are often "hijacked" and made to mean something different to their original meaning online. And as this example shows, it can happen offline too. 

If you want to check it out yourself it's on the western side of the Wool Store building in Fremantle, not far from the train station. 

If you are in Perth and have a small business then you might be interested in this upcoming event. I was contacted by Jim Barker at One Green Bean who gave me these details about it: 

Google will give tips and tricks to locals on how to grow their business online.

Subiaco has been selected as one of five locations nationally for the roadshow. As part of the tour, Google has joined forces with the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) to help support the growth of Australian small & medium businesses (SMBs).

The event is taking place Thursday 6 August, 8.00 am - 10.00 am, and will be hosted by John Ball, Head of Small Business at Google Australia. Federal Member for Stirling Michael Keenan MP will open the event.

You can sign up to the event using this link: https://goo.gl/J8rOCR

I'll try and get along myself. And I hope that any other local readers who stand to benefit click on that link and register. 

I'm sure it will be time well spent. As we all know Google is the master of the online world so you can be sure that all information and advice offered on the day will be sound and useful. 

It's interesting how revolutions in technology can be both hugely beneficial, and destructive, depending on your situation. Take photography. Not so long ago we were still using film. Then everything went digital, with catastrophic results for some companies, including Kodak.

While film is gone, digital photography is booming. Using my Facebook page to connect with other local pages, I've been amazed at just how many professional photographers there are in Perth. If you can take a nice shot, there are certainly plenty of ways to make money.

And with everyone using social media -- many of them for business and professional promotion -- a good headshot is more vital than ever.

If you run a photography business yourself then I'd imagine this would be a great niche market to focus on if you don't already. Of course social networks themselves would be an excellent way to find new clients.

But don't forget offline. You could also do local flyer drops in business and industrial areas, with promotional material focusing on the need for quality Linkedin profile shots etc. I suspect you'd have good results if you did this, since I doubt few others in this field would be promoting themselves in such a specific, targeted way.

It never ceases to amaze me how brilliant all this online technology is. Of course it can be a bit daunting at times. But ultimately it just frees you up in so many ways. (Sure, that's not exactly an original point. But it is worth remembering because we really do take so much for granted these days.)

If you want to market or promote something these days then you're crazy not to do most, or at least much of it, online. Even if your project is geographically targeted (eg, a bricks and mortar business) then a web presence is vital. That's because you can still get on the radar of a targeted audience even if you're not physically in that area. 

This advantage has become very clear to me recently. That's because I have decided to move to Sydney. I may return eventually, but I will certainly be there for several years.

After I'd made this decision part of me felt I'd wasted lot time building up the traffic to this site; that it would be wasted. But I quickly realized that wasn't the case at all. While I'm in Sydney I won't be able to do flyers for people here, of course! But there are other things I can keep offering online from there. While I won't be able to teach Perth people face to face any more, for instance, I can use Skype.

And just as I can still make money from this site when I'm in Sydney, I can also build a site like this but tailored to that city while I'm still here in Perth (I won't be going for several weeks). 

Soon after it's online it won't be getting much search engine traffic of course. That will take ages to build up. But I will be planting the seeds in that regard. It will be up and running when I get there. Though I might not hit the ground running I'll be walking, that's for sure. 

So, you can add these benefits to the already long list that online marketing affords. It doesn't matter what your project is or where you are situated. You can still be moving forward with it. 

One big trend in SEO lately has been the increasing sophistication and subtlety of search engines, especially Google. No longer just super-fast computers using a few technical signals to rank pages, they are now taking in and weighing up a huge range of factors. Many of these are real human signals such as reviews, user behaviour on the site, and social media activity. 

So these days whenever you type a query into Google, you're not just getting a very good idea of what's there online. You can discern patterns and trends about the real world beyond it as well. 

One example relates to the booming food scene here in Perth. Much has been written about this in recent years. This city is now so full of top quality restaurants and cafes that it rivals Melbourne as a foodie hub. And many of those foodies write blogs about their gastronomic adventures.

This is reflected in search engine results. Obviously, if you type in a related search query like "Perth cafe reviews" you'll get a lot of posts by local food bloggers appearing. But you'll also see an inordinate amount of food blogs popping up in results that aren't specifically related to that subject. 

Try the search term "Perth blog" for example. That's a more general term. And you would expect to see results dominated more by blogs about lifestyle, events, politics, activities, news, destinations, etc. While some of those do appear the majority of results are from local food blogs. 

Try the search yourself and scroll through several pages. The trend is really noticeable. 

Clearly, there are more food bloggers in this city than any other kind. And they are extremely prolific as well as popular. 

User intent is also a big factor now in SEO. With such an enormous amount of data at its disposal, Google can suss out what most searchers are looking for to a significant degree even if the keywords used are not very specific. So presumably many of those who type in "Perth blog" are looking for -- or at least open to -- blogs whose main interest is food even though they haven't included that word. This could be seen as more evidence supporting the notion that this city is now gastronomically obsessed! 

This isn't exactly breaking news. But having a mobile-optimized website these days is not just desirable, it's crucial. There has been an explosion in browsing using smart phones in recent years. So if your site isn't built in such a way that it loads snugly into those smaller screens then people aren't going to hang around on it for long. Consequently Google has decided to penalize non-mobile friendly sites in search results.

The attendant algorithm change took effect on April 21st. It was a very big shift that affected a lot of sites and has come to be known as "Mobilegeddon".

If you're not sure if your site has been affected then you can check your website for issues here. This test is not totally accurate, apparently. You can get a pass but still have some issues that cause ranking drops. But it's still worth using in my opinion.

All of my sites are with Weebly, Blogger and Yola, which have all been ahead of the curve with this. The templates I've been using are all mobile friendly so I was hardly affected at all. There was one site that had issues, though. I found out via the dreaded Google Webmaster Tools message. Lucky for me it was totally due to the tag cloud that I had on the site. Pretty much every page was cluttered with tags.

So what I did was just limited the tags to ten, and the mobile issues disappeared. Was interesting to see the graph in Webmaster Tools. After I made the adjustment the line just sloped down from hundred percent of pages with mobile issues to zero over several days. The search engine spider's visits were collating that data, but not all in one hit.

I was lucky. But a lot of people who've had their sites custom-made were hit hard. Don't envy them, that's for sure. 

As far as I'm concerned this has been yet more confirmation that going the DIY website route has advantages. Even if you don't master the art of website building from scratch, you certainly can't help but learn quite a bit. You can then end up solving some issues yourself. If you had no knowledge at all, and no sense of ownership over the process, you can end up forking out a lot of money to have such things fixed by others.  

By now it's pretty obvious that if you are in business and don't have an active social media presence then you're missing out on a lot of opportunities. While here in Australia we haven't embraced this whole new paradigm to the extent that they have in the US, for example, the uptake has still been huge.

What usually happens is that an established local or online business or organization creates Facebook pages, Twitter feeds and the like. Sooner or later they realize the immense benefits that these can bestow and so put more time and energy into their presence on these networks. Eventually they have teeming accounts that reach thousands of new prospects. They then become local social media standouts. Examples of this approach include Perth Zoo, Fremantle's Esplanade Hotel and Chalkys Espresso Bar.

But so powerful and pervasive is social media that you can actually do it the other way around as well. One example of this is the dominant city-centric Twitter account Tweet Perth, managed by Adam Barrell. This has long had a huge amount of influence. I know this from personal experience. A couple of years ago now he retweeted a blog post from my local blog about this city. I was pleasantly surprised to see that I'd received about hundred clicks in an hour as a result. No wonder so many local businesses hope for this kind of attention!

Barrell has used that powerful online presence as a springboard to create a whole new local content platform. I suspect there are other, bigger projects in the pipeline too.

Lost Perth is another case in point. This started out as a Facebook page that encouraged people to share their local reminiscences. It quickly took on a life of its own and became hugely active and popular. It even inspired a couple of TV documentaries. A website resulted that sells merchandise such as t-shirts and a book inspired by the page. Not sure how much money the whole project has made its creators, but I suspect it's a tidy amount by now. 

So, if you've got a social media presence that is solid and growing, there's no reason you can't make it into something profitable and full-time by branching out in bigger ways both online and off.

A few months ago I had the privilege of interviewing local photographer Bruno Kongawoin. His skill was obvious from the photos on his site and his passion for his craft came through loud and clear both in person and in his answers to my questions.

At that stage he'd already studied under some of Europe's leading photography teachers. And he's continued to hone hist craft still further under the tutelage of world renowned headshot photographer and teacher Peter Hurley. 

Hurley has given Bruno a significant endorsement by making him an official Associate of his site Headshot Crew. The New York based master clearly has an excellent reputation to uphold himself, so he's very careful about who he recommends.

So, if you're in Perth and need an impressive, professional photo that elegantly captures your personality you can't go wrong with Bruno!

I'm becoming more and more of a fan of Pinterest lately. It really is a joy to use and there are many advantages to being on it, especially if you are in business.

You can use it on its own to showcase your products and/or services. But it can also be a great tool to enhance the visual impact of your blog as well as adding valuable, relevant content to it.

Pinterest is a treasure trove of stunning photos, paintings and drawings. And you can embed these individually into your blog posts. But one of the best aspects of Pinterest is the enormous number of aesthetically appealing, informative infographics on it.

The social networking site has oodles of them on pretty much any major subject you can imagine. They are fantastic for explaining processes, systems and statistics. This kind of content is great for any blogger, but it's especially good for those focusing on a specific business niche.

You can find one relevant to a post you're writing (or even use it as inspiration for it) and then embed it in the post itself, giving a link back to the original source. That's what a lot of bloggers do ... Or you can embed whole boards in blog posts, giving your readers a variety of related content to investigate, just as I have done below.

This embedding feature seems to work for most blogging platforms. But I'm sure there are some you can't do it on. You can learn more about it here.

Without a doubt images are a very powerful marketing tool, particularly when using social media. A picture paints a thousand words, as they say. It can also convey emotions powerfully. And emotion is what makes something compelling and shareable.

But there's a trap you can fall into when using visual marketing. And that is to think that it has to be slick and well produced for it to be effective. I know that some people resist getting into YouTube marketing, for example, because they think they have to have a professionally made video with an original soundtrack and heaps of natty effects before they can start. Obviously it's nice if you can have this sort of content. But it's not absolutely vital. Even something basic shot on a hand held camera will be fine as long as it's useful and compelling. 

This is because generally speaking in the mind of the user relevance beats appearance. They're usually looking for quick, useful, and entertaining nuggets of content. If it's a bit ragged and messy that's okay. Aesthetic appeal tends not to be the most important thing to them.

Sometimes they're looking more for authenticity anyway, so being borderline amateurish might actually be a bonus. I've seen this in my YouTube video stats. If I added content that people were interested in at a particular time -- during the Festival of Perth for example -- it would get a lot of views and several shares even though it was very basic. Now I know I wasn't actually selling a product with those videos. But the principle still holds. And it can be applied to video marketing of products and services.

I'm not saying that you should upload crap that's badly shot and threadbare. I'm just saying that as long as it's compelling it doesn't need to be flash. This is worth remembering because this kind of content is actually very easy to create. If you know your stuff and have the desire to communicate it succinctly you can quickly make lots of videos that are sure to get some targeted interested viewers over time.

As well as putting a link to your website in the description, you can verbally exhort them to visit it in the video itself. Once they're there your problem is close to solved. As long as your website presents a professional image with clear navigation then some of these people are sure to become leads, right? 

Something similar applies to Pinterest. When I started uploading photos I'd taken myself around Perth I didn't expect much repinning of them. They were hardly glossy and pretty. And Pinterest is just chockas with gorgeous eye candy, after all.

But what I've noticed is that while none of them have gone gangbusters, many have been shared repeatedly on the site. That's because people seek out and collect photos of recognizable landmarks to remind themselves of positive emotions. So those images don't have to be works of art. They just have to be clear and authentic and they will do the job.