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Archive for the ‘Social Media’ Category

5 Fantastic Facebook Fan Page Ideas to Learn From – I frequently suggest for customers to review well established Facebook fan pages to become inspired and get a sense of what a well optimized social network site should be like. Here is a list of 5 such sites.

HOW TO: Build a Facebook Landing Page for Your Business – Curious how to make some of those fancy pages…Mashable lays out a helpful and detailed guide on how to build your own splash page…let’s be honest…most of these pages are not created with conversion in mind and probably should not be called landing pages…but I digress. It’s worth checking it out if you want to build one.

5 Ways We Could Improve Social Media Together – Great tips on how to put the social back into “Social media”…sometimes with the process of automating we become detached, Lisa Barone of OutSpoken Media presents five simple ways we can all contribute to making social media better.

A Beginner’s Guide to Made-for-Internet TV – TV is being transformed right in front of our eyes…every day new advertisements include ways to connect with the brand on Twitter or Facebook or follow their blog. There’s lots of technology coming out there with means to connect right through your TV…super cool. I myself have the Samsung Blue Ray and it let’s me not only connect directly to NetFlix but also Pandora and YouTube. Similarly Nielsen Company reports 82 percent increase in time spent on social networks.

I talk to people every day who struggle with how to create unique and compelling content. It’s all around you – you just have to tune in. Here are some more ideas that I share with my customers regularly:

1. Follow Industry trends and hot topics – Being able to add relevant content on timely subjects is a huge advantage and mistake if you are not on top of things. If you are in technology then write about tech trends, if you are in entertainment write about the superbowl, if you are local then write about events, news whatever you can. You have to watch and listen and there are plenty of tools to do it for you…you don’t even have to go our hunting for it.

• Google Insights – so cool. Best insider tip – use this! Enter your keyword and it shows you trend wise what is going on, and you can see and follow what new “breakout” terms may be on the rise.
• Google Alerts – it doesn’t get easier. This sends you all the information you need and filter by topic.

Take what you read and summarize, rebuttal or general response to what you read. Simply copying what you read is not impressive, anyone can do that. Your readers can get that anywhere, provide people some insight, resolution or glimpse of knowledge other than what they can find somewhere else.

2. Use Social Media tools – If you have the luxury of using a tool to track conversations online, great…there is no reason not to listen in. At the very least use some of the free resources out there and you can even use wordpress plugins like Zemanta to give you ideas.

• Search.twitter.com – Using social media does not have to be complicated or expensive. This was probably the first search tool and it gives you plenty of information. Tip: Track your brand and name and subscribe to the RSS to track what people say. Additionally track your competitors and industry to stay abreast of developments.

3. Go old school – Hint: this requires actual human interaction. Attend an event, tweetup, conference, continued education classes, interview someone etc. And write about it.

Like I said, there is lots to write about. As you think of ideas write them down, use a sticky note pad or access your computer and keep a list by saving blog posts as drafts and then continue writing when you feel inspired or have time. Use what you’ve got!

image source: blog.mindjet.com

In the world of online marketing it’s all about getting found and having a presence. Good SEO (one means of getting found) has always been about making your site and its content more relevant for search engines (obviously) and also users. Social media (another way to get found) is all about online engagement and connecting with your audience. Combining the two makes for the perfect recipe. And thus (through simple math) Good Search Strategy = Engagement=Use of Social Media

The problem isn’t that social media is useless, but you have to think about what conversions are of value to you. Consider the following value metrics:

• drive people back to your site
• receive large amount inbound links
• appealing to early adopters
• build customer relationships
• learn what your clients want, need and think (help set and meet expectations)
• manage online reputation and brand
• increase traffic from various sources
• share/distribute content yourself, and via others, word of mouth
• chance to position yourself as the best
• have honest conversation and feedback (priceless), that’s why most (successful) industry giants are now involved
• rewarded emotionally
• it’s fun (can’t deny it)
• gives small business the opportunity to leverage themselves

In every one of these cases the feedback and the metrics are coming from real people that I can reply to, hear back from and with whom I can strike up a conversation. I can legitimately justify why updating my status and adding more people to my friend list, replying to feedback and building relationships are valuable to branding, marketing and bottom line metrics for the company. Understanding all of this, and gaining that insight helps promote more conversion driven focus on your site. It helps you interpret what brought your visitors to your site, how the user first became engaged, potentially why they care…it makes all the SEO work worth it and helps those engaged users become “active” through your site.

Other things to consider:

• Find a social medium that works for you, testing and tracking are extremely important.
• Some social media sources, especially Twitter is hard to track because traffic sources are often from other tools used to connect to the application and therefore don’t always register the same with Analytics.
• Good content naturally spreads.
• You have to track visitors, leads and customers.
• Set realistic expectations – Social media cost per conversion is obviously much lower and there tend to be fewer conversions overall. The social media conversion rate almost always is less than SEO because it’s just not the same.
• Outside of time, social media is low cost. Just track how much time you spend and the leads from sources.

Part of any process of converting a visitor to a lead is nurturing and engaging that individual. While Twitter or Facebook may not be the medium for everyone, there is plenty of opportunity to become engaged, and really the question should be, can you afford not to partake?

I am sure you have been among the many recipients of cold calls (or cold emails) from some search engine firm. And if you are like me you find it completely irritating when they send you a completely bogus email with absolute nonsense information…where do they get their information? The letter may sound lucrative. They get to the point and tug on the emotional strings of their prospect, and if you don’t know better you just may go for it…but that’s why I am here to lead you down the right path.

So, here is what the email said:

Hello,

Thank you for taking a few moments to view my introduction of our search engine and web services, it really is greatly appreciated.

To be brief, I’d like to invite you to take a look at how we could greatly improve www.domain.com in terms of achieving top, organic, search engine positions.

I’ve performed a complimentary link analysis for you by utilising 2 different link checks for your website – with a reference at Google.com followed up with a more comprehensive one at Alltheweb.com. Here are your results:

• According to Google.com you have 5 incoming links
• According to Alltheweb.com you have 164 incoming links

(It’s very common for a difference to show between these two numbers, I’ll be happy to explain why if you wish to hear more)

The better your inbound link profile, the higher your website is likely to rank on Google and the more visitors (and ROI) it will bring you.  So, to improve your link profile and have your website rank highly on the search engines for your keywords, we are able to offer you a search engine promotion service that includes ethical, ongoing sourcing of links throughout the Internet with a view to building your link authority – this is achieved through a mix of links from websites, intelligent forum participation, blogs and more.

Additionally, and of equal importance, we will examine the architecture of your website and provide advice to ensure it is correctly set-up for current search engine algorithms.

We aim to achieve Top 10 rankings for your website on the major search engines, whilst protecting your ROI with our unique Performance Agreement that refunds your monthly payments should this target not be reached. Specifically:

1. We will work to achieve first page results for your website across the three most important search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN).
2. The search terms we use will be chosen by you and designed to bring you the maximum level of purchase-motivated traffic possible.
3. If we can’t achieve first page rankings for your site we will refund your money.
4. If we can’t keep your website in the Top 10 we will refund your money.

No-one can promise Top 10 rankings with absolute certainty. What we can do is protect your investment.

We are confident our methods work; they’re tested on our own R&D websites and are currently achieving first page results for many of our existing clients with search terms as tough and massively important as, ‘Graduate’, ‘sales jobs’, ‘Bling’ and ‘dresses’.

As our client, you will be kept fully updated on your campaign progress, with regular ranking reports that show you exactly how your search terms are doing on each of the search engines, and of course, regular contact with your personal technical consultant to answer your questions whenever they arise.

I’d like say thanks once more for your consideration, and you can take a closer look at what we have to offer by visiting a ‘business-card’ website we’ve compiled to provide more information for you…

When you do choose to call or drop me a line, you’ll find our approach refreshingly different, there’s no obligation, and our virtual coffee is the best!

I hope to hear from you soon, very best wishes,

Eva

Hilarious right. So I will dissect this in parts:

1. Professional firms don’t reach out cold to anyone. They work through referrals or are found in organic search or via advertisment. We use the tools that we talk about 24/7 to gain our leads.
2. Using Google for link analysis tells you nothing. When you search link:www.domain.com all that it gives you is a random sample of inbound links. It does not give you a complete list of links (ever)…I wonder if they include that as part of their explanations (doubt it).
3. Your inbound links effect your Google PR (PageRank) which is different from Page Rank (or positioning). Don’t let them fool you. PR is not nearly as influential as it once was. That said, inbound link are important, and you want to gain them naturally and having top search results listings is not the reason you gain inbound links. Sure having top page listings may gain you more traffic, and maybe those visitors will read through your site, and maybe they will share and/or link to information, but it’s not guaranteed. Nor is it guaranteed that having more inbound links will gain you top page rank. It is only one part of a hugely complex formula that helps you achieve that over time.
4. They aim to achieve top 10 rankings…cleverly phrases though still misleading. The parts that they choose to emphasize clearly lead the reader to believe that their site can end up on page 1, which should NEVER be a promise that any SEO makes. SEO should not be about selling ranking. Sure it’s seems like a good sell, that is how it worked years ago, and maybe that’s all you know how to explain.
5. Why would you let a client choose their keywords. I completely agree that keywords should be used that will help motivate leads, however this requires more than just a client telling you what keywords they want. You MUST do research, and research competitors, trends, history, search results etc.
6. As a client I would want to see more than my site’s ranking. Ranking alone does not bring in traffic. You will want to see all organic traffic sources, content viewed, time on site, entrance and exit pages, bounce rate and most importantly the number of leads through your site and specifically the source and what they did while on your site.
7. Sounds to me like a lot of their clients will be getting refunds.

PS: it helps to spell check a letter before sending it out.

What do you think? Would you go for it? Have you gotten any mail like this? What would your response be?

If you have a blog, whether it be your personal blog or that for your business, you have to advertise it. You want to advertise your blog not only to gain more followers/readers but also to open your potential to more inbound links. Remember that inbound links from other trusted sources are like people raising their hand saying “you should pay attention to this one, good stuff.”

I’ve put together a list of the top FREE sources (some are directories, while some are the very obvious social media networks where you can promote your blog). They are (in no particular order):

• Google’s Blog Search
• Technorati
• FriendFeed
• Blogged
• Blog Catalog
• Blogmarks
• Twitter
• My Blog Log
• Zimbio
• LinkedIn
• FaceBook Fan Page
• StumbleUpon

You will want to make sure to create an account on most of these sites and remain active. Find a specific group, niche or topic that relates to you or your business, and then track the links and traffic that comes in from those sites. No doubt most of you may already be active with a good portion of the above mentioned…but are you linking to your blog. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of these will have what is called “no follow” applied so you won’t get direct credit from them. As more and more people come across your blog and see what good stuff you have to offer, they will bookmark your site, share it, comment, link etc.

Are there any that I missed that you think are definitely worth setting up an account and linking to your blog?

Image source: (www.blogtrepreneur.com)