So you’re wondering how you can use PayPal in Israel? Does PayPal accept Shekels? Can you withdraw your PayPal funds to your Israeli bank account? Etc. As you often do when in doubt, you head over to Google and type in “PayPal Israel” to see what the web has to say about your questions. If you are located in Israel, here are approximately what the results will look like:

See results number 3 and 4? That’s us. Where’s PayPal or PayPal Israel? Nowhere to be seen.

Ranking high for this term was an accident for us. We happen to have published two blog posts on the subject of using PayPal in Israel over the past year, and as you can see the web is not exactly saturated with good content on this topic, so it was an easy score.

The funny thing is that as a result, people have begun to perceive illuminea as PayPal Israel experts. We get at least one phone call and/or email from people with questions about using PayPal in Israel about once a week.

PayPal Israel is missing an opportunity

Although PayPal officially serves the Israeli community, the amount of information available online about using PayPal in Israel is meager at best and confusing at worst, and the amount of people with questions is huge as is evidenced by the number of them contacting us with their PayPal questions.

I must give credit to Nissim Ohayon, Sr. Business Development Manager at PayPal Israel, who wrote a post on our blog about using PayPal in Israel, and even took the time to answer the many questions posed by readers in the comments.

However – maybe this is a sign that PayPal and/or PayPal Israel needs its own blog? PayPal should be engaging in the conversation, providing solid and timely information. I suspect that PayPal could win quite a lot of Israeli clients if it provided a minimum standard of online customer support.

Twitter’s great, but it can never take the place of the blog

This accidental positioning of our company as experts in the field of PayPal use in Israel demonstrates the strength and importance of blogging.

Twitter is all the rage these days, and people have even questioned whether twitter will take the place of the blog. The truth is, many people, myself included, are blogging less because they are spending more time on twitter. However, with all the value that twitter provides let nobody tell you that it can replace the power of blogging.

A blog allows you to present an idea and follow through on it. You cannot do that in 140 characters. (Can you imagine this post as a tweet? Let’s try: “illuminea appears #3 & 4 in Google SERPS for term PayPal Israel thanks 2 our blog. PayPal not even on 1st page. Lesson: keep blogging”. Not too bad!) In addition, it offers loads of content for search engines to index and present to users in their results. Yes, tweets do appear in search results but less than blog posts, and also with a strange sort of randomness.

Also, a blog gives you your own place on the web. The content you create on facebook or twitter helps prop up those networks. The content you create on your blog helps prop up your own place on the web.

So don’t bury blogging yet. It’s still the foundation of any online marketing activity you undertake, whether it’s SEO, PPC, email, or social media. It’s on your blog that you have a chance to convert users in whatever way you hope to do so.

In the meantime, we’re happy to answer your PayPal questions as best as we can so don’t let this post stop you from contacting us! And keep blogging!

Our previous posts about using PayPal in Israel:

• Everything you wanted to know about paypal and the Israeli Shekel
• How paypal really works for Israelis and shekels

We are really excited to announce that after months of work, Natan Sharansky has a shiny new website, blog and social media presence. The goal of these efforts is to help spread Sharansky’s ideas regarding human rights, dissidents, democracy and Zionism, as well as to make access to his own fascinating history more accessible.

The site also offers a photo gallery, video gallery, audio gallery, timeline, and information about his books. You can also subscribe to a monthly newsletter with updates regarding Sharansky’s writings, activities, and news appearances.

Here are the details:

Website: http://NatanSharansky.org
Blog: http://NatanSharansky.org/blog
Twitter: http://twitter.com/NatanSharansky
Flickr: http://flickr.com/photos/natansharansky/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Natan-Sharansky/38110548299
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/natansharanskydotorg
Delicious: http://delicious.com/natansharansky/

I hope you check it out and take advantage of this new resource!

First, a story:

Almost a year ago, I met with representatives from one of Israel’s leading television and media networks, who had the backing of a prominent philanthropist to implement a social media strategy for Israel’s 60th birthday. Someone had recommended that they meet me, and I prepared a comprehensive presentation about what I called “Israel 2.0,” where we would create and implement a strategy that would celebrating Israel’s accomplishments with a diverse, wide-reaching web presence.

Notice I call it a “web presence”; that is because the web is no longer about just creating a website. It is about using the web and all its potential to promote your business, organization, or ideas with the greatest results possible. It is no longer sufficient to depend on your website alone, particularly since

“a recent Universal McCann report stating that content consumption outside of websites has increased 153% in the last 9 months. Overall, 53% of online users are consuming content outside of a publisher’s site – through the use of widgets, RSS readers, social networks and mobile devices” (from ReadWriteWeb)

Anyway, there was one guy in the room listening to my presentation who actually knew some of the terms I was using, like RSS feeds and the like, and I guess this made him feel like a social media expert. So when I finished my presentation, he said “Why do I need all that? I’ll just create a facebook group.”

I made a facebook group; so why am I all alone here?

What? Is he kidding me? I tried to explain until I was blue in the face that creating a facebook group is not a social media strategy, but it’s really difficult to explain concepts to people who have no knowledge of the field you are talking about, so they all believed the facebook-group guy, and that was that.

Needless to say, no all-encompassing web presence was created in honor of Israel’s birthday, and I don’t know what happened to that philanthropist’s offer.

A real social media strategy starts with goals, not tools

To create a serious web strategy, you should not start with the tools. “I’m going to create a blog,” or “I’ll join twitter” is not a strategy, since these may not be the right tools to use to achieve your goals.

I would like to build a house. These look like good tools to use.

Here’s an outline of the general steps needed to create a successful web presence:

1. Identify your goals: what do we want to achieve? Who are we trying to target?
   Part of this stage is benchmarking: analyzing current statistics; identifying what you hope will be different as a result of your social media efforts; defining parameters that you want to change most and least.
2. Next, work out the strategy: how are we going to achieve these goals? Where do we need to be to reach our target audience, i.e. based on their demographics, where are they hanging out on the web? What type of content will they like? What manpower considerations do we need to be aware of (i.e. the need to hire a Community Manager, etc.)? Do we have legal considerations?
3. Once all of that has been prepared, then and only then can you choose tools and technologies. A facebook group may not be the best strategy for your goals, or it may be appropriate, but maybe it won’t work on its own. Tools and technologies are just the medium, not the message (sorry McLuhan). For example, in the world of print marketing, you know a rollup is exactly what you need to get your message across at the upcoming trade show, but you’d look mighty strange schlepping it to pitch a new client at their office.
4. Implementation. Now you get to have fun with your shiny tools, because they’re the right ones.

Forrester has laid out a similar approach to creating an effective social media strategy by putting technology last, which they coined as POST: People, Objectives, Strategy, Technology. (Here’s a link to the original blog post, but it looks like Forrester is trying to wipe out any memory of Charlene Li since she left, so you can only access the cached version on Google.)

Like most things in life and business, you need to know what you want to achieve before you decide how you are going to achieve them. And that is why a facebook group is most definitely not a strategy.

Lonely girl image from willgame on flickr

A little over a week ago I spoke at the first F5-Refreshing meeting for Israeli women in the hi-tech and internet industry. Liat Vardi, the woman behind the group, did such a great job organizing the event, and it really fill a void in the Israeli hi-tech industry. You can see her follow-up post here. Kol hakavod Liat!

I met some inspiring and fantastic women there, and learned about some interesting technologies. It is certainly motivating to see that success is possible for women in the Israeli hi-tech industry.

Here is the presentation that I gave at the meeting on the topic of Blogs and SEO – Why blogs are so great for SEO. Enjoy!

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A new group has been formed for Israeli women in the hi-tech and web industries. The group, F5 Refreshing (get it? F5 is the button your press to refresh your browser) is sponsored by Sun Microsystems’ Sun Startup Essentials department, and is organized by Liat Vardi.

The first event will take place on June 26 at a loft in Tel Aviv. The agenda includes dinner, networking, and a short lecture by yours truly on Using Blogs and SEO to Promote your Business.

For more information and to register, visit Liat’s blog here. You can also see the facebook event here.

Hope to see you there!