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?

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)

I am a strong believer that social media tools should in part be used as “reputation management”. What you happens online, stays online…but that doesn’t mean it’s forgotten. Quite to the contrary, anything you say online will stay online forever…anyone can find it.

I encourage everyone who participates in any online mediums to think about the following:

• Think before you write
• Why are you sharing the information that you are
• What will you gain from sharing that information (not that there should be the expectation of getting something in return)
• Who could you hurt if you say something negative
• Is what you are saying factual
• Review what you wrote, check grammar and spelling (please!)
• Sit on it! Give it some time if you are writing a long piece, come back to it and then review it again
• Share your information with the appropriate niches

One person whom I follow online for great personal branding and reputation management advice is Dan Schwabel. Through his blog he shares advice on how to best manage how you present yourself to the digital world. Check it out.

Related Articles

• Scouting your reputation online
• When Trust Breaks

There are several key features that every blog should posses. I am going to outline some key elements that every blog must have:

Strong Engaging Posts

1. Quality on page SEO – Optimized Titles, URLs, Headers and Content.
2. A theme – your content and overall look and feel of your blog should all be around a similar topic. If you want to talk about your cat or how you helped an old lady cross the street, while that is very sweet of you, …um I don’t think anyone cares to follow that except a few of your close friends and family or unless you are a celebrity in which case you can even write about your bowel movement and people will still follow you.
3. Write posts that draw in your audience and will get them to share your content. Writing information that is helpful will do that for you. “How To” posts are a great place to start.
4. Post at least weekly and if possible twice a week.
5. Pose questions at the end of your posts to encourage engagement and feedback.
6. If you have a successful post follow it up immediately by posting another strong article.

Easy Sign up/Call to Action

1. Give people the optionto sign up via RSS. You want to have that sign up above the fold
2. Also give people the option to sign up via email. It’s old school but people still use it.
3. Show people where else they can find you. While that may mean that they read your content elsewhere my school of thought is that they are at least still following what you write and will still share your content.

An Information “About” Section

1. Make available a snippet of information through a sidebar or at least on your home page that gives your readers a glimpse as to the human side of your blog.
2. Also have a full blown about page. This page can be developed over time and should be a kick ass glimpse at what makes you, you, and what your blog is all about.

Feature this…

1. Highlight you best blog posts. Trying to find ways to keep people on your site? Give them easy access to your most popular posts.
2. Find some cool wordpress plugins that sensible and work for what you offer. Here are some wordpress plugins that I think are key.
3. Write up a post about someone else.
4. Look for new ways to attract people to your site that will hopefully also serve as link bait.

Set Goals

1. Whether your are setting goals for your social media strategy or your overall blog…have them be concrete and realistic.
2. If you are trying to promote your services or you are selling something then track your leads.
3. Consider getting comments as a possible goal/conversion measure.

A strong blog doesn’t happen overnight. You know the saying Rome wasn’t built…neither will your blog. For a lot of people it takes some time to find their voice. Once you do…keep at it.

What are some key elements that you employ on your blog? Anything you think that this list definitely should have?

A lot of buzz came about recently thanks to a Nielsen report on “Twitter Quitters”. I voiced my opinion in a post last week called “Twitter and the Biggest Loser effect“, which also sparked a lot of talk about Twitter and its sustainability.

By now we have already established that part of the issue of people joining and abandoning Twitter within a short time is false expectations. Though I don’t think that this is unique to just Twitter. I think that any new social media platform with as much hype as Twitter has been getting would experience the same thing. With that said, this is pretty much the first time that any online community has grown this quickly and received so much press.

Personally, I think it helps to evaluate your expectations and, therefore, goals before joining an online community as part of your business (this goes for any online presence really). If you are just joining for kicks, then by all means, have at it. But as part of your online marketing strategy, joining communities like Twitter can be effective (depending on your type of business), and it’s effectiveness can be measured…again with the right goals in mind.

My goals for year (great time to re-evaluate) were the following: Engage. Community. Change.

Engage: It is up to each of us, part of the larger online community, to engage our peers. To engage them with quality and newsworthy information. Through this process of sharing and engaging we are community building and social networking. It’s important to find a means by which you can engage others, a process that is a good fit for you, and your business.

Community: As you manage your website, the aim should be to make your site an online community for your target audience. You should always keep your business plan or your overall goals in mind. Think of what is important to you. As you become involved in the community – your niche, you will be able to communicate your plan and goals, and through that offer how you will respond to changes ahead.

Change: I believe, this may be a bit cliché, but the change you want to see in the world starts with you. I also believe that what will give you an advantage in the year ahead is the ability to be able to anticipate certain changes, and how in response you handle those changes. As a professional in any field you need to look (be proactive), listen (be aware) and learn quickly (be able to adapt) in order to respond to and cope with changes. I suggest you evaluate yourself and your business. Assess where you are, where you’ve been and where you want to be. From that point you can make changes where and when appropriate. While you don’t have to have a magic 8 ball to know what’s to come, you have to be in tune with your surroundings, your community, and those whom you engage.

I still believe that all three of these are an important part of what the year so far has consisted of and what the year ahead will behold. Social media and online marketing in particular allows me (or any of us) to practice all three of these on a daily basis, which is why I for example find that Twitter is effective for me both personally and professionally.

Do you set goals for yourself? If so, what are they?