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?

Today’s guest post is presented by Rachel Levy (@bostonmarketer), whose daily writings on marketing and social networking can be followed on her savvy blog www.rachel-levy.com.

Auto-follow
For every person who follows you, rather than going through and making an individual decision whether to follow back or not, you set up your account to automatically follow everyone who follows you. Socialtoo and TweetLater are two applications that I know of that do this.

Stepping back, first, I think it’s important to understand why you are using Twitter. Personally, I use Twitter to connect with people who have similar interests. I want to engage with people I find interesting, and who have something useful to say. It’s like going to a party… I want to talk to people I find interesting. (If you are on Twitter for a different reason, you will probably have a different thought on this.)

So, will you find every person who follows you interesting? Do you want to talk to everyone at a party who wants to talk to you? Many times the interest is mutual, but many times, it’s not. Therefore, why would you want to follow everyone back who follows you? Some people even go as far as un-following people who don’t follow them back. Again, my same thought applies. If you think they are interesting, it doesn’t mean they find you interesting. Why should their lack of interest in me, affect my interest in them (unless we’re talking about dating, of course!).

In general, I don’t understand the concept of why auto-following makes sense for people, but there are a few situations I see that it would be useful:

• People with tons of new followers every day – Personally, I am starting to see how difficult it can be to keep up with new followers, and I’m sure that people who add hundreds each day, can’t spend their life deciding who to follow. They have to auto-follow, in order to manage the flow. While I don’t know for sure, it appears that @GuyKawasaki and @Pistachio auto-follow, probably for this reason.
• Companies – If a person is interested in a company, then typically a company is interested in them. An example of this is @BostonTweetUp, an account I co-manage. We are interested in anyone who is interested in us. And, we want people to have the ability to DM us about events.
• Broadcast accounts – If you are an account that primarily broadcasts information, but you want to give people the opportunity to DM you, you might want to auto-follow. An example of this is @Twitter_Tips.

If you do decide to auto-follow, you will most likely need to set up a good system in Tweetdeck or another application to separate out those who you are actually interested in.

Auto-DM
For every person who follows you, you automatically sent them a DM (direct message). These vary in content, but are normally suggesting you visit their website or purchase their product. TweetLater is one application that I know of that allows you to set this up.

Using a networking event as an analogy, think of how you approach a party. You walk in, say hello, introduce yourself, and start chatting and getting to know each other. After a while of talking, you may start making a sales pitch or telling them what you can do to help them. But, you DON’T walk in and immediately say “Hi, would you like to buy my product?” That’s what an auto-DM feels like to me. It feels like spam, and that’s what the vast majority of people on Twitter feel. Do a search on auto-DM, and you’ll see it’s 95% complaints.

Some people even go as far to say “Auto-DM = un-follow”… if you auto-DM them, they will un-follow you. Socialtoo even dropped the ability to auto-DM from their service, and instead gave you a way to block auto-DM’s (a bold, but smart move on their part)

Until yesterday, there were no acceptable exceptions in my mind to my no auto-DM rule. Then I saw John Haydon’s take on auto-DM’s in his blog post… focus on OTHER people, rather than yourself. His auto-DM recommends people he thinks are good to follow, and he rotates the people for each auto-DM. I really like that idea, as it’s not salesy, and is helpful to most people.

(Photo credit: Cartoon, Networking)

What do you think? Are auto-follows or auto-DM’s OK? If so many people dislike auto-DM’s, why do so many people still use them?

The vitals of success for online marketing should be a three pronged strategy. What are they? I am talking about (1) well-written and relevant content, (2) in-bound links, and (3) fans, friends, and/or subscribers. The first two figures are largely covered by SEO, but once you throw blogging and social media marketing into the mix you open up a whole new realm of possibilities.

One prong, Social media, isn’t really the next big thing anymore, but it’s not too late. Like with all good things it’s best to get started later in the game than not at all. What is new, however, is the way that it’s being used in conjunction with the tried and true search engine marketing practices. I highly recommend using social networks like stumblepon.com, twitter.com, linkedin.com, facebook.com, etc, which allow you to become more engaged with others in your community, keep up to date on trends, manage your company branding and so much more.

Ever curious about what people are saying about you or your business? Through Twitter’s search application you can actually see and monitor what people are saying about you or your business, and then you can subscribe to a feed for your query so you can continue to monitor what is being said. When you become part of larger networking communities like this you’ll start to get more of a sense as to what is being said, and in the event that someone has a negative review about you (whaaaat?)… now you have a means by which you can counter and respectfully disagree, because you are already engaged and part of the community. Of course you’ll also want to promote yourself in a more flattering way any chance that you get. And, don’t forget, all those fans and/or friends that you are gathering will help you promote your content as well.

As Twitter and other social media services evolve, they are becoming a key part of online marketing strategies. All of your efforts should work together; (1) SEO (plus PPC), (2) your blog, and (3) your social marketing. These efforts, combined, help to increase the number of inbound links and spread your content through more and more channels … all of which makes for a highly efficient online marketing strategy.

In recent days I noticed the hashtag “#whyitweet” going around. For a fleeting moment I was curious but paid no mind to it at the time. On my walk home I thought to my self (the joy of an online marketer is to be constantly thinking about work) “hmm, why do I tweet?”

You have to know that on my way home I pass a church, huge building that takes up an entire block. As I was passing this enormous church I noticed that people were heading in for a community gathering in support of a women’s networking event (um tempting, but no)…since I was already thinking about Twitter and why I am part of that community, I started to think that Twitter is quite like a church (minus the oppressive priest bit)…think about it, we confess just about anything through Twitter.

I am no longer part of any church community but I can see the draw for some people…to be part of a community where you can (ideally) openly share thoughts and have open and honest discussions (…maybe Twitter is more like therapy?).

So my conclusion is this, I tweet because I enjoy being part of a community (cliche, but true). Not so much because I want the attention or desperately need someone to listen to me (that’s what my cat is for), but rather because I am part of a movement (2.0 style). I tweet for social change, awareness, educating others and myself. I love to learn new things and to meet new people, and Twitter is that venue. It’s a realm to network and share information, with an ease of access like no others out there.

Why do you tweet?

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?