Tag Archives: social media help

Top 10 Ways to Effectively Use Social Media

There is no doubt that social media is a vital component in internet marketing, visibility, and branding. However, when done incorrectly, it can actually become detrimental to your company. Here are my top ten ways to use social media effectively.

1. Identify Your Purpose – Your social media strategy should be a stand-alone plan which requires nothing else to sustain it. Your plan should not aspire to improve your search engine rankings, as there aren’t usually many backlinks that come from it. Approach your social media strategy as if there were no such thing as search engines. Some things you may want to consider in identifying your purpose include:

  • Branding – Start building a strong brand for your company!
  • Exposure – Give your company and website some visibility!
  • Networking – Get involved in the community and make connections!
  • Relationship/Trust Building – Potential clients are more likely to become actual clients when they have a relationship with you and know they can trust you!
  • Customer Relations – Use social media to build good, solid customer relations!

2. Fresh, Consistent, Relevant Content – Make sure there is a high level of consistency in the content you share on social media sites. Consistency is important regarding frequent updates (fresh content), as well as in keeping with the purpose of your social media strategy. Consistency in your message and your branding also establishes relevance for SEO purposes.

For instance, if you are a Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Consultant, provide quality tips on SEM and internet marketing, as well as useful articles, resources, and links. Try to link to (connect/contact/friend/follow) other members in your industry or similar industries, like search engine optimization (SEO) or network marketing.

This can assist you in achieving your branding ambitions and enable you to engineer your own company’s brand recognition. This offers you some control over how you and your company are perceived. Your social media presence can help strengthen your company’s webutation (web reputation). Your online friends, business contacts, and “followers” should be able to give a brief description of what your company does. If they cannot, you may want to reevaluate #1 and reexamine the content you’re sharing.

3. Concentrate on Content, Not Marketing – All too often, people go about this the other way around. Allow your content to do the marketing for you by focusing on valuable, consistent, relevant content.

Digging, liking, bookmarking, etc. your own content can actually damage your credibility. It is better to write compelling content that your readers will give an unsolicited digg, like, or bookmark.  When people like what you’re saying, they will share it! When they do, search engines will notice, so write something noteworthy and let the rest happen organically!

4. Be a Valuable Asset – When you think of social media, place the emphasis on “social”. It is not called self-promotional media for a reason. Always keep that in mind when considering what to share on your social media sites.

Posting nothing but self-promotional links, information, and requests will inevitably make you a part of the social media noise, and you will eventually be filtered out. Worse yet, you could be regarded as a “spammer”, which is the fastest way for your webutation to take a downward turn. You may not lose friends, contacts, or “followers’ over it, however, they will begin to skim your posts without even realizing it, or they may ignore you altogether.

You can avoid this by becoming a valuable asset in your niche. One example of how to do this is by posting links to resources and domains that are not your own. This does not mean to post links to your social media profiles, your own squidoo lenses, etc. This means do not post any domains with which you are associated. You can; however, occasionally post links to your own site. Just be sure that you don’t do it so often that it becomes noise or spam.

Believe it or not, you should attempt to befriend your competitors and even promote them. I know this seems counter-intuitive, but interlinking and networking are very powerful tools!

5. The Client Always Comes First – Now that you’ve identified your purpose, contemplate what your client (or ideal visitor) is searching for. (Write for the audience you want.) Imagine your ideal, potential client distinctly in your mind, and consider what they may be perceiving through the information that you share. You want to make a good first impression on them, as they are the ones you want to attract to your site.

6. Get Involved and Build a Rapport – Participating in discussions, replying to forums and blogs, and asking for feedback (and responding to it) are all exceptional ways to get involved in the community and build a rapport with other members. This allows people to view you as a real person, instead of a robot that does nothing but post links repeatedly. (If you’re going to post links, ensure their relevance.) Other people will warm up to you and be more likely to become a friend or contact if you humanize yourself. Social media sites provide you the opportunity to show your personality, so use them in order to truly connect with your target market.

7. Warning! Do Not Over Optimize – Of course you desire top search engine rankings for your specific keywords, but tread lightly here. It is possible to over optimize. If you use the same anchor text on every site you link to, your site will leave what is referred to as a “digital footprint”, which can be a sign that you may be trying to exploit or manipulate search engine results.

In order to refrain from this, use natural alterations in your anchor text for the links which point to your original site. A certain amount of “click here” (or similar links) are necessary to balance your optimization strategy.

8. Start Linking to Your “Deep Links” – Everyone wants to link their public profiles to their (main) homepage, but deep links (or links that point to internal pages on your site or blog) provide depth and authority. Let’s assume that there are two identical websites. The one that has accumulated more deep links will always outrank the other. This method will also gain more exposure for your site in search engine results because your internal pages will begin to rank for relevant keywords and key-phrases.

Deep Links Tip: You may not want to share the link to your homepage with someone you meet on a business network or social media site. Think about linking to your “About Me” page (if applicable) in order to give a more personal introduction to your site, or try linking to your “Company” or “Services” page (if applicable) to give your visitor an overview of what your company does.

9. Link Deliberately with No Apologies – When someone “friends” you, follows you, or subscribes to your blog and/or updates on social sites, it is because they are interested in your most recent information, news, tips, resources, etc. If they should discover that they are not interested, they will simply stop following you, which is not a big deal. This is not a “popularity” contest (regardless of what some people may think), as the “quality” of your “followers” is what matters, not the quantity of them! This is a way to syndicate and socialize with like-minded individuals in a professional and personable setting.

As with anything else, there is a right way and a wrong way to go about hyperlinking to content and resources on social media websites. Here is the wrong way: “Read my blog!” or “Check out my site!” The correct way is achieved by sharing a helpful link (it can be your own, or something else of interest to your audience) and encourage a discussion about it. For example, if you are a SEO specialist, you could share a link to a Google article about their latest SEO standards and ask for your readers’ opinions on it. Since most of them will be in your field or a related field, the article should be of interest to them which should inspire some discussion.

10. Utilize Social Networking – In order to genuinely accomplish a successful social media strategy, you should engage in social networking, as well. Replace the word “competitor” with “colleague” in your social media vocabulary. Other webmasters, companies, consultants, and individuals in your niche are your allies in the brave new world of social media!

Make it a goal to locate as many of your competitors (who are on your level or within an acceptable range) and develop a cadre or key group of professionals, friends, and/or business contacts. These are people you can share with, exchange links with, and even embark on joint ventures with. Don’t view them as your competition anymore. Start exploring ways to leverage one another’s positions in the marketplace!

Source:Danielle Dandridge

Geo-Marketing As A New Business Marketing Tool

Geo-Marketing (or Geographic Marketing) is a new method of marketing a business and its website through web searches, mobile searches and social media. As you can see, the geo-marketing tools being used are digital and through the Internet or Mobile devices.

While geo-marketing’s definition is the association of data and maps in the traditional sense, the added convergence of local business listings, mobile marketing, and social media makes this method of marketing more powerful than ever before. This marketing tool is no longer just a large business marketing tool, but is available to small and medium size businesses too.

We should define what we mean by local business. A local business is any sized business dependent on the local consumer for its revenue. This means you could be a national company like Home Depot, U-Haul, or Best Buy or you could be a local florist or independent store only known to your local geography.

From a technical standpoint an Internet user’s IP address is tied to GPS data, like longitudes and latitudes, which are mapped with technology to geographies around the world down to the city and street level. While all this data may seem overwhelming, the good news is that most businesses do not need to concern themselves with this part of geo-marketing. Many of the tools already have all of this information built into their software or hardware technology so we can stay focused on how we will use geo-marketing tools.

The difficulty with any new marketing tool is a business’s inability to adopt the methodology early. When it comes to technologies and the Internet, in the past, by the time most businesses are ready to adopt a marketing tool, the industry has already moved on to something new. Being an early or at least an earlier adopter of marketing methods on the Internet and through digital devices can only benefit the business.

We have seen many signs over the past two years regarding the evolution of geographic marketing. When companies like Google, Apple, and the investment community of Wall Street start to put $100+ million and more behind a technology it will become part of our daily lives whether a business wants it or not. Consumers have and will be using more of these geo-marketing tools to find businesses, services or products near them.

Let’s take a look at the three main tools that consumers are using to find businesses, products or services close to their geography.

1. Web searches are the first and most obvious, however, these are web searches in which a map displays with targets the businesses that match the search criteria. Unlike the traditional yellow pages, these geo-listings (a.k.a. Local Business Listings) can be claimed and updated with your business marketing information in order to meet these search criteria.

While this may sound relatively easy, geo-listings also include: consumer reviews that need to be managed; the clean-up of duplicate listings; coupons; offers; discounts; videos; photos; citations; QR bar codes; and, hyper local websites. Understanding what to start with and how to strategically use these components can be done by a professional marketing firm that specializes in this area. You can read more about these components in one of our previous articles here.

2. Mobile Marketing is the next most significant geo-marketing tool in which SMS Texting, Mobile Applications, Mobile version of your website, and Mobile advertising are your key components. The starting point in this process will be with SMS Texting to get your alerts out to customers that subscribe to your short bursts of information. The reason why this is your starting point is that it will take time to build your list of subscribers.

3. Social Media Marketing continues to evolve and is, also, geographic in its targeting ability. Consumers are using Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Wiki sites, Four Square, Instant Messaging and other social community tools on their mobile devices. While they use it mostly to find businesses, products and services, in the social communities they are seeking recommendations from their friends (near and far). They are, also, using these social communities to post their experiences with a business, product or service. For this reason you have to monitor the social communities in order to embrace any potential problem situations and work with them.

These three geo-marketing components are important to any business size – large or small – and each have their own sub-components that need to be well understood in order to succeed. Understanding the strategy amongst them; the acceptance and embracing them early; and, finally planning on a 3-year return will put you on the right path of geo-marketing.

Certainly your time resources are limited and Geo-Marketing Services are provided bySmartFinds Internet Marketing. You will find this to be of great benefit to your time resources and the low cost service may eliminate your yellow page ad costs. Let the experts of over 16 years Internet marketing experience help you use this local business marketing tool properly and prevent brand security issues from occurring.

Three Primary Goals of Social Media

To build a social media strategy around specific goals instead of simply launching a presence because “everyone else is doing it.” Today, I’m going to map out the three primary goals most social media outreach campaigns fall into. If you’re still trying to figure out how and why to get involved in social media outreach, consider these three categories and ask yourself how they might apply to your business.

Three Primary Social Media Goals

When we look at online marketing, there are three broad categories into which nearly all social media related goals can fall. They are usually either aimed at:

  1. Building/Strengthening the Brand
  2. Driving Conversions
  3. Increasing/Monitoring the Presence article2_1.jpg

Starting at this broad level and thinking about the goals you have for your business can help you begin to write up a list of realistic ways in which social media might help you reach those goals.

Let’s take a closer look at these three areas and how they might apply to your social media efforts.

Goal #1: Build the Brand

When it comes to building and reinforcing your brand, social media is one of the most powerful marketing tools available. It gives you the strongest and broadest opportunity to both find your target audience and to engage in conversation with them.

These days, you have no choice but to differentiate yourself from your competitors unless you have an exclusive product. Otherwise, you’re forced into the unwinnable battle of competing for the lowest prices and the fastest shipping.

Think about the things that make your company different from your competitors; your Unique Value Propostion. This is the thing you want to use social media to built awareness of.
article2_2.jpg

If you’re a service professional, target a specific niche and build a blogging and Twitter strategy around that. Demonstrate your expertise in working with a certain type of client and then seek out those types of clients to have conversation with. Look for new ways to connect with them and encourage your current clients to socially share your articles with their networks.

Goal #2: Drive Conversions

One of smartest reasons to use social media is for the potential boost it can have to your conversion efforts. Whether you’re looking to drive sales, increase leads or simply drive people to action, conversions are an easily trackable goal in the realm of social media. article2_3.jpg

Sit down and write out a list of all the potential actions someone might take while engaging with your company’s web site or while interacting online.

Obvious options like buying your products or becoming a lead spring to mind, but don’t forget about other valuable actions like subscribing to your newsletter, retweeting a blog post or downloading a white paper.

Read over your list and think about the different ways you might be able to use social media to increase conversions for each item. Often times, this is the best way to start planning your social media efforts.

Goal #3: Increase Presence

Finally, we come to the goal most often associated with social media outreach efforts; increasing the conversation about your brand. After all, social media is all about the conversation. It’s about the only space in the world where consumers talk to each other and to companies in an environment that can be tracked, sorted and followed-up with. This makes social media a prime outlet for PR driven companies who want to know what customers are saying about them.

Setting up even a baseline of social media monitoring can go a long way toward helping you follow these conversations. Whether you’re article2_4.jpglaunching new product and aiming to get people buzzing about it or trying to reach out to a new target audience to share information about one of your best selling services, it’s all trackable.

When it comes to the conversation people might be having about you online, ask yourself a few questions.

  • Who do you want to hear talking?
  • What do you want them to be saying?
  • Who do you want them to say it to?

These are your starting points for setting up key goals within the realm of increasing your presence.

You’ve Set the Stage, Now Start Building a Plan

Looking at your business with each of the above goals in mind helps you set the stage for your social media efforts. This post isn’t aimed at telling you what to do, I’m simply trying to get you to figure out why you want (and need) to do it.

If you’re small business looking to take your social media efforts up a notch (or maybe even just get started,) take the time to define at least two goals from the categories above. Once you’ve identified your desired outcome, you’ll be a lot more ready to start mapping out the path to get there.

Understanding the Three Primary Goals of Social Media

8 Villains of Social Media

Social Media Marketing sure isn’t easy.  It takes time to get to know the space you’re in, to network with like minded users, and to develop a strong content strategy that works within your niche and target social channels.

But to make matters worse, there are users who can (and will) make your road to success even more difficult.  So in order to prepare you for your journey, here are 8 of the most common villains you’ll encounter on your path, and how to defend against their attacks:

The Troll

Appearance:

An offensive or childish image

Favorite Social Setting:

Video sites, Anywhere comments aren’t actively moderated

Method of Attack:

The Troll comments exclusively with the intent of offending other users in hopes that someone will write a retaliatory comment.  The use of profanity, racism & sexism, wild accusations, and direct attacks are all a part of their arsenal.  It’s sometimes difficult to spot a troll as they can sometimes appear to be a Skeptic or Know-it-all.

Weakness:

The only way to deal with Trolls is to ignore them.  They rarely comment in places that are moderated; and while burying the comment may seem to work, it simply becomes a metric for how well their comment achieved its intended goal.  Ignoring them takes their power away.

The Disrupter

Appearance:

Default avatar/no avatar

Favorite Social Setting:

Blogs

Method of Attack:

The Disrupter makes comments that add nothing to a conversation because they didn’t take the time to read or watch the entire article/video/etc.   They also have a tendency to repeat an earlier comment because they were too lazy to read them as well.  These types of comments can be fairly disruptive to a good social conversation, and are quite annoying on blogs. The Disrupter can sometimes be associated with the Shameless Link Dropper.

Weakness:

Pointedly ignoring them by only responding to other (good) comments is your only defense.  Responding to a Disrupter will only further interrupt the conversation, not to mention: they’re unlikely to see it anyways.  Other users will notice that a well thought out comment that adds to the conversation is rewarded with a response, while these are not.  In rare (extreme) cases, the comment can be removed by the moderator.

The Skeptic

Appearance:

Vectorized image of their favorite science fiction character

Favorite Social Setting:

Social Bookmarking sites like Digg & Reddit

Method of Attack:

The Skeptic is usually the first to claim that something isn’t real.  To them, everything on the internet is fake.  All images are photoshopped, all videos are scripted, and all statistics, facts, and reports are made up by the people who have most to gain by them.  Also, all supporting evidence that the item in question is, in fact, real: is made up as well.  Not to be confused with the Know-it-all.

Weakness:

None.  Ignore them and they become right, provide evidence and they’ll continue to blindly claim you’re spreading the conspiracy (regardless how trustworthy the source).  Your best bet is to bury their comment and hope others will see them for what they really are.

The Shameless Link Dropper

Appearance:

No avatar, A Company logo

Favorite Social Setting:

Blogs, Forums, & Viral Content

Method of Attack:

The Shameless Link Dropper comments only to insert a link for the potential traffic and/or SEO value.  You can generally spot these from the short (usually complimentary) comments (e.g. “Nice post!”), the keyword rich user name (e.g. buy_viagra), second grade grammer skills (e.g. “This is good points”), and the general spamminess of the destination URL.

Weakness:

Strong comment moderation.  It’s also wise to have a comment policy that clearly states that link dropping is not tolerated unless it’s relevant to the conversation.

The Bury Brigade

Appearance:

Can be anyone

Favorite Social Setting:

Social Bookmarking sites like Digg & Reddit

Method of Attack:

Their sole purpose for signing in to Digg or Reddit is to bury submissions that don’t meet their standards of what should be on the front page.  In rare occasions these users group together to target power users who are “too good” at getting submissions to go popular.  They also have a tendency to fill out spam reports and report users & sites to moderators.

Weakness:

Power users.  Nothing frustrates the Bury Brigade like social bookmarking success.  And if one of these users dislikes one of your submissions, unless you’re a power user, you could be dead in the water.

The Whistle Blower

Appearance:

Smug photos of themselves

Favorite Social Setting:

Social Bookmarking sites like Digg & Reddit

Method of Attack:

Calling content producers out for anything they suspect is done for profit, for example: splash advertising, article pagination, SEO link bait, “blog spam”, promotional content, etc.

Weakness:

Extraordinary content.  Despite all of the above things being somewhat annoying to most users, you can get away with some of it if the content is remarkable enough.  The Whistle Blower will still probably call you out for it, but it will fall on deaf ears as (to others) the quality of the content overshadows the minor pet-peeve.

The Know-it-all

Appearance:

A slightly altered photo of Einstein or a mash-up of mathematical equations.

Favorite Social Setting:

Forums, EVERYWHERE

Method of Attack:

The Know-it-all rarely comments unless it’s to disagree with or correct the content producer or another user’s comment.  They’re generally great fact checkers and revel in correcting a specific fact, but would rather argue about opinions.  They also love to point out grammatical errors.

Weakness:

Strong (yet modest) arguments.  It’s nearly impossible to change the mind of the Know-it-all.  Your best bet is to respond to them with rational arguments that present a strong case in a modest tone.  Let their arrogance and opinionated argument work against them making you look like the rational, impartial one to everyone else.

The Emo

Appearance:

Anyone

Favorite Social Setting:

Anywhere

Method of Attack:

The Emo only attacks when disturbed, usually when taking a comment or criticism too personally.  An attack can come in any form or level of extremes depending on the individual & emotional reaction. A conversation between an Emo and a Troll or Know-it-all can be volatile.

Weakness:

Time.  Tread carefully when you upset an Emo.  You may think a quick response to defend yourself or perhaps even explain your comments is a good idea, but most of the time it only makes matters worse.  Depending on how upset they are, time may be required for them to calm down before you’re able to start up a rational conversation about whatever upset them.  And sometimes, it’s wise to just let it go…