Social Media Marketing needs to be part of an overall marketing strategy and frankly it’s plan is different for every business. However, to ignore SMM would be a fool hardy decision. Most marketing plans today should include a well thought out Search Engine Optimization (SEO) plan, a very detailed keyword rich Pay Per Click (PPC) campaign married with a Social Media Marketing (SMM) initiative. If your business includes off-line strategies then they need to support and involve all these methods.
The following post is Mitch Joel, well I let it speak for itself….
In this interview, Mitch Joel shares some of the big ideas behind his new book, “Six Pixels of Separation”:
Digital channels shift the marketing focal point. Social media and other digital platforms now enable brands to focus on who, rather than how many people, they can put a message in front of.
Think “with” not “instead of.” Companies should not halt what they are currently doing and shift all attention to the digital world; it’s all about effectively integrating those social media channels with what you already have in place.
Don’t underestimate the “power of lazy.” We still live in a world where many people prefer to consume, rather than create, digital information.
Pay Per Click Management – for your business or a not?
Although search engine optimization (SEO) is an excellent way to get free traffic to your website, it’s not all of the available traffic. Even more exposure for your website can be gained through Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising. Research shows that nearly 70% of targeted visitors to a website come through free search results, the remaining 30% come through PPC campaigns. One major benefit of using PPC campaigns is that it enables you to attract the other 30% of customers that you would otherwise be missing altogether. PPC does cost money and it can cost a great deal, however, a properly managed PPC campaign can easily pay for itself. Many PPC management companies in the are experts at creating and optimising successful and economical PPC ad campaigns.
Speedy and Highly Targeted
A major advantage of a campaign is that it is highly targeted to people that are searching for what you have to offer. A professional PPC management company can easily find the right keywords and test them properly, helping make your campaign very cost-effective. Conversion rates are easily measurable if you have knowledge of proper tracking methods. You can collect data related to conversion rate, cost per sale and click-through rate (CTR), allowing you to measure the effectiveness of your ad. Another huge advantage is that all of the vital feedback from your ad testing is immediate. Ad results are available very quickly, and can be adjusted and retested in a short amount of time.
Test, Test and Test Again!
Knowledge of testing various campaigns to determine which will be most effective is vital in helping spend your marketing budget wisely. A professional PPC management company has the expertise to identify keywords for testing, determine maximum cost per click, write effective ads, create compelling copy, conduct detailed tracking, and make adjustments as needed to maximise the effectiveness of your advertising pounds. Without in-depth knowledge in all of these areas, a PPC campaign can end up costing much more money than it needs to. The profits gained from your investment in hiring professionals to manage your PPC campaigns is well worth the cost.
Track It!
The biggest pitfall encountered by inexperienced PPC managers is the lack of knowledge when it comes to tracking. It is absolutely crucial to know precisely what traffic you are receiving, where it originated from, the keywords that were used, where the user went using those keywords, and which keyword combinations get the best results. A successful campaign includes not only selecting and tracking the correct keywords, but determining proper bid prices, writing good ad copy, creating compelling landing pages, creating search engine friendly links and headings, streamlining usability, and writing those all important calls to action. Professional companies managing PPC campaigns are highly skilled in tracking every aspect of a campaign and adjusting all of the crucial items to maximise your PPC profits.
The first thing I did today when waking was to run down to get some coffee. I needed caffeine in a bad way. You see, I was challenged to answer a question, can you quantify a ROI with Social Media Marketing? I already knew the answer however let me bore you a bit of what I found when searching for this topic. Google, Yahoo and Bing each had over 14 million results for “Social Media Marketing ROI’’s”. So I set out on a mission to read them all……just kidding, I barely got off the first page when it struck me.
I couldn’t help but think, “my audience is Small Businesses and if I am going to be true to this I need to be painfully blunt.” Of all the posts I read on this seemingly elusive question; “Can you put a ROI on Social Media Marketing” all and I do mean all were over intellectual attempts at trying to impress others that they have the answer. Some well meaning, others a blatant marketing campaign. Here are some of the babble.
“an overarching truth about business: The best marketing strategies, those that yield long-term value, are based not on trends, anecdotal evidence, or past “success stories” but on new scientific methods and metrics explicitly developed for analyzing often-imprecise data.”
HUH?
“The problem with trying to determine ROI for social media is you are trying to put numeric quantities around human interactions and conversations, which are not quantifiable.”
Really now!
“No marketing program has value that can be measured separately or independently. The value of marketing derives from its ability to help the organization implement its strategy … Marketing programs seldom have a direct impact on financial outcomes such as increased revenues, lowered costs, and higher profits. (Rather,) Marketing affects financial outcomes through chains of cause-and-effect relationships.”
… No impact? Ouch!
At the risk of insulting some of my colleagues I am going to stop there. The point I want to emphasize here is this; small businesses are concerned with one thing, can we make money? We can all agree ROI is hard to measure or because it is too time consuming, many small businesses shy away from social media. I myself own a small business and I am largely concerned with my bottom line. How we get to a good bottom line is with constant Plan, Do, and Review with marketing as a whole.
Ultimately, the key question to ask when measuring engagement is, Are we getting what we want out of the conversation? When you ask businesses why they are participating in social media, what do they say? Most, “to make money,” If they say, “to grow our business,” they’re just saying, “to make money,” in a nicer way. If they say, “to participate in the conversation,” which is the more appropriate reason to be involved in the social web.
In it’s simplest term let me tell you the why you need to be engaged in this type of marketing, however, Social Media on it’s own is not the end all be all. A well executed Online Presence for a business should include a well designed and thought out Web Site/Blog, Search Engine optimized pages, as well as a well researched Pay Per Click program. On top of this should be the inclusion to the 30-40 Social Media sites which will in turn earn you back links to your site.
You may be wondering, “you didn’t answer the original question”, and your right. Let me answer it this way. Did you ask the Yellow Page sales person for the return on investment? Did you ask the Value Coupon rep for that same answer? Even still there is an answer, yes in your business it can be tracked and quantified with some very simple techniques like simply interacting with your costumers. I’ll conclude with this, the Internet is the place where your potential customers are looking for your products and services and you do need to be there. Be there in a way that shows how great of a business you are.
Lastly, I hope I didn’t over simplify this issue, please comments and questions to l.mcleod@bulbwired.com, we love the interaction.
Can small business use email marketing/permission marketing effectively?
Virtually every small business is in need of successful online marketing. Easier said than done. however through the aid of various factors that serve as the very foundation of every business. One of which is email married with permission marketing techniques. Nowadays, more and more entrepreneurs are starting to realize the true potential of business email marketing coupled with permission marketing.
Marketing & Social Networks Webinar (What You Need to Know)
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Why blogging and micro blogging is important.
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Most business owners would agree that traditional marketing is no longer working the way it used to. This is happening for a variety of reasons — people have too many mass media choices, they’re bombarded with way too many marketing messages, the Internet is adding accountability to advertising, etc. So if traditional marketing is no longer effective, then how will you get the word out about your products or services?
What Internet Marketer Seth Godin, author of the book Permission Marketing, calls permission marketing. Permission marketing is when your customers give you permission to market to them. This is opposite from traditional marketing, also known as interruption marketing (another term coined by Godin). Interruption marketing works by interrupting you. Nobody watches television for the commercials. Nobody flips through a magazine for the ads. But that’s how interruption marketing gets you to buy something.
Permission marketing is completely different. With permission marketing, customers look forward to hearing from you. They enjoy receiving information about your products and services. That’s because they’ve agreed to enter into a relationship with you. And if permission marketing is done correctly, you’ll eventually develop a stronger relationship with your customers than you ever would have with interruption marketing.
Permission marketing isn’t new. In fact, it’s older than interruption marketing. Back before there was mass media, business owners routinely developed long-term relationships with their customers. And customers expected to be involved with the selling process from the beginning. Now, of course, we no longer need to be dependent on building relationships face-to-face. With the Internet, we have a whole host of low-cost options available to us, which makes permission marketing easier now than it was before.
Here’s how it works. You start by developing something that your customers find valuable enough to give you permission to contact them on a regular basis. E-newsletters or e-zines, which are e-mail newsletters, are popular and so are Web blogs. Web blogs are like online journals. For a fun sample, check out http://www.boingboing.net Or Seth Godin has his own blog – http://www.sethgodin.com, however, e-zines and Web blogs aren’t the only things of value people sign up for, you can offer them classes delivered via e-mail or tips or contests or points programs or special offers or whatever your creativity can come up with.
While it is possible to develop a relationship with customers using only offline techniques (for instance, a printed newsletter you mail to your customers) it’s less expensive and more effective to use the Internet. It’s quick and easy for your customers to sign up via your Web site and it’s cheap for you to send it out via e-mail. However, in order to get people to sign up, you first need to tell them about it. That’s where interruption marketing comes in. Then once they sign up, you can start building the relationship.
Is this a lot of work? Yes. Is it more work than interruption marketing? Yes again. But is it more effective than interruption marketing? It can be. Especially since interruption marketing isn’t working the way it used to. I feel that permission marketing favors small business owners. That’s because permission marketing only works when customers and businesses form a relationship, and customers prefer forming relationships with people rather than entities. Customers want to know the person behind the business, not just the business itself.But that doesn’t mean big corporations can’t employ permission marketing techniques. They just need to get creative about it. Perhaps developing a spokesperson or a business “personality” or a forum or group of people.
Newsletters
It is through email newsletters that an entrepreneur gets to successfully build a firm relationship with his customers. This type of business email marketing arrives to its recipients on a semi-regular basis that comprise various types of useful and interesting details. Basically, it includes useful internet links, reviews of new products, computer tips, introduction of newly offered products or services, news stories, and a whole lot more.
These emails are then usually ended with short statements and your contact details. For some, writing newsletters can be hard and challenging. This is why there are those that resort to hiring themselves a writer to do the job for them. This also comes to be effective as writers are also capable of coming up with effective email newsletters.
Newsletters can either come in plain text or HTML formats. Emails made out of HTML are like web pages from which you are given with various tools to use for graphics, fonts, and other details. However, the downside is that HTML emails have a much greater risk of viruses and the larger fill size. Email client incompatibility can also occur with HTML emails. This is sometimes the reason why a lot of online firms and entrepreneurs prefer plain texts for their emails.
Email newsletters in pain text forms are also more appropriate to use as it displays formality and is the common choice of readers. In business email marketing, you sometimes have to be able to determine which particular option works best for your online business.
It is through newsletters that entrepreneurs are able to stay in touch with their prospects. This is very effective as customers are sure to think of your business first whenever they are in need of purchasing a product or service you are offering. Newsletters should also provide customers the opportunity of automatically unsubscribing with the service any time they want.
Newsletters are indeed very effective in successfully promoting an online business. Airlines, telecommunications companies, and banks use newsletters to make their businesses clearly visible to their targeted customers.
One of the most important things that must be greatly considered in email newsletters is the use of an opt-in approach. In this type of strategy, subscribers are obliged to validate their email addresses through the links sent to their emails. This greatly helps an online marketer to avoid any fake sign-ups which is often the case of today. From this discussion, you can clearly see the vital role that is being played by newsletters when it comes to effective business email marketing.
Patience in building a permission marketing list
Building a permission emailing list can be very rewarding. The demand for online marketing tips and strategies have drastically grown and a new form of business has been born, internet marketing strategies. While there are companies that are all too eager to help your site and business build a clientele for a fee, there also many ways that can spread the word about your sites subsistence in a more cost free way. One of this is Opt-in email marketing, also known as permission marketing.
Many people would think that building their lists would take hard work and a lot of time to build and collect names and addresses. This is not so, it takes a bit of patience and some strategies but in doing this list, you open your site and your business to a whole new world of target market. Take the effort to take your business to a new level, if traffic increase and good profits are what you want, an opt-in list will do wonders for your business venture.
There are many sources and articles in the internet available for everyone to read and follow in building a list. Sometimes they may be confusing because there are so many and there different ways. Different groups of people would have different approaches in building an opt-in list, but no matter how diverse many methods are, there are always some crucial things to do to build your list. Here are four of them.
1) Put up a good web form above the fold, simply means on the top of the page. While some may say this is too soon to subscribe for a website visitors application, try to remember that your homepage should provide a quick good impression. If somehow a website visitor finds something that he or she doesn’t like and turns them off, they may just forget about signing up.
A good web form for subscribing to an opt-in list is not hard to do. Just write a simple short statement about how they would like to see more and get updated about the site. Then there should be an area where they could put in their names and e-mail address. This web form will automatically save and send you the data inputted. As more people sign in, your list will be growing.
2) As mentioned in the first tip, make your homepage very, very impressive if you want to build a mailing list faster. You need to have well written articles and descriptions of your site. Depending on what your site is all about, you need to capture your website visitors fancy. Make your site useful and very easy to use. Do not expect everyone to be tech savvy. Invest in having good programming in your site, make your graphics beautiful but don’t over do it.
Dont waste your time making the homepage too overly large megabyte wise. Not all people have dedicated T1 connections, the faster your site gets loaded, the better. Go for a look that borders between simplicity and sophisticated knowledge.
3) Provide good service and products. A return customer is more likely to bring in more business. Even then and now, a satisfied customer will recommend a business always. Word of mouth and recommendations alone can rake in more business than an expensive ad. As your clientele roster grows so shall your list. With more members on the list, the more people will get to know about what you have new to offer.
4) Keep a clean and private list. Never lose the trust your customers have entrusted you. If you provide e-mails to others and they get spammed, many will probably unsubscribe to you. Remember, a good reputation will drive in more traffic and subscribers as well as strengthen the loyalty of your customers. These are some tips on how to build a mailing list.
All in all, nothing is a slam dunk anymore in the new world of advertising a small business. As I said in the beginning of this post “traditional marketing is no longer working the way it used to”, this alone is the reason to explore, embrace and conquer the online space. Find a company you can work well with and build the relationship to your online profits.
Advertising Local Online Tips to Effectively Getting Your Local Business Advertised Correctly
Getting targeted advertising is crucial and can be a serious money saver. Advertising local online is not that difficult if you use the proper tools and techniques. For example, you need local leads if you are an accountant that has a local office. You then should not waste your money on general online advertising that attracts people that live out of state. You have no benefit when you get a visitor to your site that lives in China. These two examples are why you need to have a geo targeted advertising solution.
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I live in metro Portland, OR so there is several larger known local websites that I can use to advertise locally. One of the most popular local online advertisers is Craigslist.com. To be exact it’s http://portland.craigslist.org. Many businesses post their ads in the appropriate section. A good tip is to put your business phone number in the advertising post. Not that you get more phone calls, but it makes your advertising more believable. You can use this method to attract many leads online in your local area. Just a fair warning for you is to ensure you keep up with their rules. Craigslist has very strict rules to protect their users. Failure to adhere the rules can quickly get you banned from ever posting your local online advertisement.
Kudzu.com is another very popular website for advertising local online. Post your business listing in the appropriate category. As a bonus for good companies your customers can give you a rating score. Also notably give you a good testimonial if you deserve it. Kudzu’s search engine can provide very good targeted results. For example, you can good several results for plumbers with in 25 miles of zip code 30339. Additionally, you can sort by the ratings and review the comments given by users. Another fair warning is that you need to be aware that there is a potential for a bad review that can affect your business. Just understand that you can rebuttal them and I suggest you do. But potential customers know that no business is perfect. You just need to ensure that you have many positive reviews then the negative ones.
CitySearch.com is another great resource to advertising local online. It’s very similar concept to Kudzu.com. Just like kudzu it’ll provide all the reviews and scores from your customers. Word of mouth advertising and having a loyal base of customers is critical in having a successful business online. My suggestion is to ask your customer to give you a favorable rating at citysearch. Normally your customers are not very good with the internet. Take advantage of this and ask them to rate you right on the spot. I always have my laptop around me connected online. After my work is completed I ask them to give me rating. This way they won’t forget.
It isn’t so simple advertising local online by using Google, Yahoo or MSN (Bing) search engine advertising. You can purchase keywords that are specifically from seekers that live in the geographical area you choose. It’s setup where you can choose the country, state, and even the city location of the information seeker. It is a very good way to advertise locally. This can pin point your potential visitors to your site.
Whether you have been purposefully ignoring local search, or simply are not aware of it’s potential impact to your overall marketing strategy — you may want to reconsider your position. Local search marketing can really pay off for “bricks-and-mortar” businesses. It can provide excellent opportunity for garnering both foot traffic and website traffic.
Even as early as 2005, an article in MIT Technology Review, April 2005, “E-Commerce Gets Smarter” reported that for every one dollar U.S. consumers spend online, they spend another five or six dollars on offline purchases that are directly influenced by online research.
Gordon Borrell, CEO of Borrell Associates, says — “We think search is a very viable advertising segment that produces great results and great leads for advertisers. But it has to be managed properly.” It also provides a way to claim more space in the local search engine results pages, thus increasing your chances of getting that valuable consumer click-through to your business profiles and listings. Ultimately, these click-throughs result in sales and increased profits.
As a example, if a local user searches for “pain-free dentistry” and a dental practice has it optimized correctly, there is a very good chance that it will appear prominently in the local search listings. Ideally, a local user will acquire dental related information from the main website of the close proximity dental practice, and thus be influenced to seek out their services. The goal is to shorten the consumer’s path from searching/researching to making a purchase.
Further proof is presented in a study by The Kelsey Group and ConStat, 74% of U.S. households now use the Internet when shopping locally for products and services. This huge trend can no longer be ignored. Even more evidence of this growing trend in local search is presented by The Kelsey Group’s Annual Forecast, which shows that local advertising is shrinking. Going from $155.3 billion in 2008 to a forecasted $144.4 billion in 2013. This means that nearly $11 billion that would normally have been spent on traditional local media (newspapers, Yellow Pages, direct mail coupons, etc.) will shift to local search, social networks, mobile and similar digital media spends.
Bulbwired.com has years of experience in local online search marketing and can manage all aspects of your local online advertising. Call 866.376.7772.
It may or may not surprise you that more searches for businesses occur online than through the Yellow Pages. Many businesses have already abandoned the Yellow Pages for being expensive and not yielding results. There are increasing numbers of people who say, If you’re not on the Internet, I’m not interested. Look for this to continue to increase at an exponential rate.
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Why blogging and micro blogging is important.
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Marketing yourself is a public service. This means letting people know how you can be of service to them. Your Internet presence allows people looking for someone to help them solve whatever problem they are in. If you have no internet presence, many people will not find you and determine if you may be of service to them. Marketing is making your presence known. It is NOT a hard sell, trying to ram anything down anyone’s throat. Advertising is presenting yourself mostly to people who aren’t interested in what you have to offer. This is why most print advertising does not yield clients. Internet advertising is presenting yourself at a time when your prospect is searching for what it is you have.
Google your name and business zip code. Do you find yourself on the first page of the results? You may already be listed in sites of which you are unaware. Next, Google your specialties (one at a time) and your business zip code. If you have a number of listings, especially for your specialties, Congratulations. Even if you already have a steady stream of referrals, an Internet presence will only strengthen your position.
An Internet presence can be started (or expanded) for a lot less than you think. Getting yourself on free and paid listing sites. Generally, start with the free listing. One client found their free getfaves.com listing showing on the first page of Google search within one week. Begin with seeing if your professional organization has listings. These are often free.
Find the listing sites for Google business. This will also get you listed on Google maps, which show at the top of Google searches. Also do this for Yahoo and Bing business. Find other business listing sites by Googling free business listing sites, etc.
Create a website
A website is probably the single most important thing that you can do to expand your marketing efforts. It will greatly increase your presence and legitimacy beyond having your profile listed in different places. One can quickly create a simple site. You will want to present information that will speak to those clients you would most like to see. This will attract your Ideal client much more than if you describe yourself as a caring person who provides a safe place, etc. Conventional wisdom is that your content is 80% about the client and 20% about yourself.
Don’t wait until you have a perfect site planned. Better to get a functional site up, asap. Websites are dynamic entities. You will want to refine, probably add, and sometimes delete what you began with. How you write gives others a sense of who and what you are. Be sure to include a head shot photo of yourself with a big smile.
Begin with your DSL provider and see what they offer. Google free websites. Look for templates that you like, flexibility, expandability, etc. Many of the free sites will also let you expand your site, more, for a monthly fee. Most options will cost between $5 and $10 a month.
Create a blog
Some will start a blog, rather than a website. Generally, a website is more versatile and should be your first priority. A blog will probably serve you best, the more specific it is, i.e., focuses on a niche, etc. Two popular sites to start a blog are blogspot.com and wordpress.com. If you do a blog, aim to write at least twice a month.
Social media
The use of social media is exploding and will continue to grow. It is a way of connecting with friends and colleagues, as well as others finding us. Businesses are increasingly finding ways to market via social media.
One of the most popular websites is YouTube.com. While it is primarily used for entertainment, more and more it is used for education and marketing. An example is the video on our main page, Social Media for your Business. These videos can also be put on your website(s), as we did. Video has largely been underutilized by businesses.
Facebook.com has become another of the most popular websites. Some use it to keep in touch with friends and others use it for marketing. Use it for on or the other. If you want to use it for both purposes, use a personal email account for a Profile and a business email for a business Page.
Biznik.com is a business site, primarily for entrepreneurs. It is a way to network, especially with other businesses.
Twitter.com is a source that you can announce publishing a paper, changes to your website, good books and articles, workshops that you might offer, etc. Many offer free things like recordings, articles, etc. It is another way to network with other professionals. It’s popularity is exploding.
Like most things, the more you invest in being involved with social media, the more you will benefit. If you are active, you can minimally expect some increase in website/blog traffic. This may or may not equate to client referrals.
Writing articles
Another way to develop a presence is to write self-help and other articles. A very popular site to submit articles is ezinearticles.com. You can also submit to some of the listing and social media sites. When you write, distribute your writings in as many ways as you can. Post them on your website and blog. Have copies in your office waiting room. Fax copies, as is relevant with other fax communications.
Outside of the content, writings give others at least a glimpse of yourself. This is an opportunity to get to know, like, and trust you. The more that happens, the more people will come to you to help them achieve solutions.
Put your website address and contact information on everything
Make sure your address is on your business cards, stationary, fax sheets, etc. Just the fact that you have a website adds to your credibility, regardless if the receiver has the interest in checking it out. Create a signature file at the bottom of your email accounts. Minimally, include your web address, blog, etc. under your name, business address, business phone. Consider putting other information there, such as free offers, signing up for your news letter, etc. If you are going to start a group, give a talk, etc., consider including that information, while it is relevant, i.e., remove that information after it occurred.
In conclusion, you can’t do all of these things in a single day. However, you can complete Some of these things Today. Keep reasonable expectations. When you do these things, it isn’t likely that you will have 10 people call you in the first week. You will find that new clients will increasingly say, I found you on the Internet. Marketing is a dynamic process. Generally, our efforts are cumulative.
This is not the end of marketing. You will probably want to expand into other low cost strategies, including purchasing a domain name for your website, using one or several paid listing services, etc. Continue to educate yourself about marketing and new avenues. Good luck and good marketing.
Bulbwired.com does all this and more as a done for you package, come and register for one out our information packed Webinars to see how we can help your business.
Social media until recently has been a non-tested market for the most part. We will probably look back in a few as 3-5 years and term this era as the “wild West” in Social Media Marketing (SEM). We are all working in uncharted waters where everything we read and hear about social media sites and their effectiveness changes week to week. The role most social media sites are taking as the web grows is a hold position for now in real time search and immediate access of information!
Recently a major hole has been seen in Google’s technology, social media sites like Digg, Reddit and Twitter have seemed to patch; real time search. The design of Google’s index isn’t designed for immediate delivery of information when news breaks. The following article was an eye opener, from SEOmoz about the course of action on the web on one of the largest stories of the year:
Google didn’t index this for a whole 3 hrs and 17 minutes; this being after it was widely available to the web through social media. The effect was so dramatic that Google actually considered it to be spam upon first analysis.
The problem currently for Google is; it basically operates with 2 types of content it needs to display.
1. The slow web
The slow web is what populates most of what we see in Google and filters in information somewhat slowly. Most cases it is estimated that this index is refreshed at a slower rate and new content is added or subtracted based on the basis of importance and originality usually as assessed by incoming links. Don’t expect this to fulfill the needs of real time search addicts and the “instant gratification” seekers.
2. The fast web
Thefast web is more for things like blog search and is designed to handle much faster display of information and populates new information very rapidly. Look at your own search, try “Internet Marketing” and you can see how Google displays more recent information placed in its index.
Notice links coming up here from sites anywhere from 24 minutes to 1 day ago when selecting “recent results” in the search engine. Note that this is significantly different than the “regular results” for the term “Internet Marketing”.
So what does this mean for you and why do I now care about social media?
What this incident shows is that sites like Facebook, Twitter, Digg and Reddit are not going anywhere but rather search engines will have to find methods to either replicate this type of service OR cater to them. In situations like this how will Google model this information and become the landing page for all things search. Will Twitter content be in Google? Will Digg stories populate Google News? Will Google crawl sites like Digg to find the hot content and then list that?
If controlling the Web for your brand or niche is important then you need stay ahead of the curve with things like social media. If you are the first in sites like Twitter for your niche you already have an advantage. You want to succeed in Twitter or sites like it you need to be in there and conversing with others. Build your network and others will follow you.
Google will no doubt evolve and evolve quickly, maybe it’ their Wave product, we’ll see! These “recent results” can handle suffice for the time being, however, a modification in usability needs to be considered to highlight “the fast web” results if Google wants to compete with sites like Twitter to provide this “instant gratification” need.
Google is not flawed as, Google is safe by design. Twitter is somewhat reckless with information that is not screened. If Google is using sites like this to find information you, as an Internet Marketer need to be there. Just like Digg I can imagine that Google will use Twitter popular terms to find directions to populate their results.
We live, we learn, we evolve. Stay ahead of the curve. Immediate Gratification will rule!
276% Growth in 35-54 Year old users 194% Growth 55+ Year old users 101% Growth 25-34 Year old users 66.3% of users are over 21
The key to success here is simple. If you want social networking to work for you, keep it fun, keep it real and stop selling. It’s not like TV where you’ve got 30 seconds to slam them with whatever product or idea you may have. Your internet presence is not a brochure either. An active profile is something much greater and potentially more powerful. It’s a living testimonial that places you as a professional in a social context.
Engage your audience by starting a group for \”fans\” ie: your mom and childhood friends who want to see you succeed. Get people to join you in a real estate related game.
Join existing groups that interest you. If you join one of the big real estate groups, engage your collegues by opening a discussion.
Start at least one fire on the message boards by asking an intelligent real estate question that people are compelled to answer.
Don’t blow hot air, post notes that clearly show your expertise.
Include links to your blog and website
Check your profile settings and make sure your profile can be indexed by search engines
145,000 members Free or low cost blogs w/ great Google-juice International networking Great place to ―brainstorm‖ LOCALISM!
Linkedin is more of a BUSINESS network than a SOCIAL network. Linkedin Groups Linkedin is for Person A connecting Person B to Person C Participate in discussions
Yes, this is a social network – really! Consumers love video – especially raw video. Google loves video. Video is the future of real estate. Every agent can have their own ―Channel‖ for free!
Wildly popular photo sharing, photo search and social networking site. It’s owned by Yahoo! and so will be around for a while. Flickr can be an extremely valuable (and dirt-cheap or free) tool for building relationships with people who are interested in your focus area, and for enabling them to find you and ultimately do business with you. Flickr albums frequently surface very high in Google search results.
Myspace, at it’s best, is a fantastic communication tool that can assist people interact on just about any subject. Think of the younger brother or sister communicating with their older sibling in college, across the country or across the world.
The new Zillow API Network turns member sites into mini real estate portals. Search results list, Zestimate® home valuations, home valuation charts, comparable houses, and market trend charts. Zillow Discussions allow Agents to engage with the consumer through questions/answers.
Trulia Voices is a place for you to ask questions about real estate and share what you know with locals, agents, brokers and experts.
FriendFeed is a service that makes it easy to share with friends online. It offers a fun and interactive way to discover and discuss information among friends. You get a customized feed made up of the content that your friends shared—from photos to interesting links and videos to messages just for you. And your friends get their customized feeds, full of the cool stuff that you’ve shared.
Lifestream Platform delivers real-time, chronological updates from all of your friends. Lifestream updates are available from your friends from Facebook, Myspace, YouTube, Flickr, Twitter and Delicious, with many more to come. Bebo allows you to share your life—past, present and future with everyone you care about through Lifestory. The Lifestory provides you with an interactive display of life events in chronological order in an intuitive and easy to use timeline. Lifestories are made up photos, videos, stories and special events that you want to record or schedule. The Lifestory is updated automatically each time you add important content to your Bebo profile or manually add a new event.
With more than 100 million members worldwide, Friendster is a leading global online social network. Friendster is focused on helping people stay in touch with friends and discover new people and things that are important to them. Online adults, 18 and up, choose Friendster to connect with friends, family, school, social groups, activities and interests.
Launched in 2003, hi5 is now one of the world’s largest social networks and a top 20 website globally — with 80+ million registered members in over 200 nations. hi5 Networks, Inc. is headquartered in San Francisco, California.
Zorpia was founded in 2003 with a goal of bringing people together from all over the world and allowing them to share their ideas and interests. Primary features are photo album, online journal, social networking, customized homepage, comment system and discussion forum. The headquarters are located in Hong Kong, China.
StumbleUpon helps you discover and share great websites. As you click Stumble!, it delivers pages matched to your personal preferences. These pages have been explicitly recommended by your friends or one of 6 million+ other websurfers with interests similar to you. Rating these sites you like automatically shares them with like-minded people – and helps you discover great sites your friends recommend.
Digg is a social news website. All editorial control belongs to the Digg community members. This concept runs counter to traditional media outlets where stories are chosen by a small handful of editors. With Digg, all stories are submitted and voted on by the community members. If a story becomes popular enough, it gets promoted to the front page.
A social network that allows users to interact with each other and provide user ratings and reviews based upon past interactions. ―Review a Property‖, which allows you to write a comment on a property that you see while browsing listings. You can also show off ―Your Crib‖, which will allow you to display pictures and videos of your house, just like the popular MTV show ―Cribs‖, we all are celebrities in our own mind.
Link Popularity is one of key area to increase your site page ranking and search ranking. Incoming links are just like votes in election for your website however there is point as we have to emphases on quality links rather quantity. Valuable links are like 100 of poor links equals to 1 quality link. In this article, I would like to explain how differentiate quality links and how to get them which will effect and improve and strengthen your website ranking.
Mistakes in Link Building
It is never too late to focus on the right direction to get qualified incoming links. Here is few mistakes those may follow by SEOs, Link Builder or website owner and webmasters.
1- Focus on Quantity than Quality: It is the quality of incoming links that will bring your website at 1st page so always you should look for qualified incoming links rather quantity. 2- Link Exchange or Reciprocal Links: Link exchange or reciprocal links should be avoided. 3- Ignorance of Check and Balance for Links: If you don’t check and balance your listings periodically, you may lose your hard gain incoming links 4- Purchase Bulk Links: Search engines become very intelligent these days, you can’t make them fool by purchasing bulk links, because search engine check your incoming links frequency as well with time 5- Paid Links: Paid links can be very healthy but if they are used as a part of the strategy, if you have no idea of how many paid links you are going to have, that can upset your link building campaign.
Do You Have Categorized and Simplified Database?
In link building campaign, your database is your key to success; it is the backbone of your overall link building strategy. If you have a poor database, which is not categorized and simplified, you can’t be comfortable from your link building strategy.
Try to have categorized and simplified database, make a master database with following mentioned fields.
Important Fields for Master Database for any Link Building Campaign
1. URL
2. Direct Link (Direct Link of Submission or Registration)
3. Industry Type (Show Biz, Construction, Telecommunication…)
4. Link Type (One Way, Reciprocal, Paid)
5. Link Style (Anchor link, Title Hyper Link, URL Link, Vote Link)
6. Link Period (1 Year or Life time)
7. PageRank (1, 2, 3…10)
8. Title Limit (Characters Limit)
9. Description Limit (Characters Limit)
10. Keywords Limit (Characters Limit)
Insertion & Update Your Master Database!
Your master database (structure) is ready, now You need to make it valuable by inserting data to it, it requires an on-going updates. Don’t let anything go away as it can be used for your current asa for new projects
Ok, we all know backlinks are a huge part of determining your site worth to most search engines. Each backlink to your site is a vote for it. Backlinks are the building blocks of SEO itself. We’ll look into what should be on your mind as you are acquiring backlinks.
The first intuition is to see how many you can get. That’s just one piece of the whole backlink pie. Search engines like Google have been around some time and have a lot of brilliant minds working for them. A higher quality backlink is worth more towards higher search engine rankings.
Some things to consider about backlinks:
1. Age affects all backlinks. Google specifically weighs a backlink more with age. Backlinks gain in weight over time until after around 6 months they reach their full weight. Basically, it means that the effort you do building backlinks will be worth more and more.
2. Anchor text is hugely important. The words on the backlink itself from the other site also play into it appears the other site views your site. When the keywords you are optimizing for are used, the link gains a much higher quality. The thing to watch out for here is that the text is varying. Google picks up on when all of you backlinks have the same exact text.
3. Getting backlinks from sites with the same theme as yours will benefit you much more than non-relevant sites. This makes sense since a link to your health food site from a car site about old Mustangs isn’t going to do much for a visitor, so it won’t for Google either.
4. The better the reputation or Page Rank of a site that links to you, the higher quality it is. Fairly obvious. If CNN or Slashdot linked to you, that one backlink would likely outweigh all your other backlinks together.
5. The physical location of a backlink on the page can also be a noteable factor for search engines. Google in particular lends more weight to links the higher towards the top of the page. If there is surrounding content the links appear more natural so they are valued higher.
Reciprocal links are always the hot topic when talking SEO. The truth is, reciprocal links are still alive and going well. Reciprocal links between websites with similar themes is natural and expected. Though I have read many many times of claims that reciprocal linking is dead, rest assured that quality reciprocal links are not going away anytime soon. Google for instance has its sights set on backlinks that were bought, and from link farms where 5 minutes after paying some money you have thousands of sites pointing to yours.
While there are many other factors such as the age of your website and how much content is on your website, those will be left to another article.
Backlinks are indeed the cornerstone of getting a website established on the Internet. Without enough backlinks visitors won’t know your site exists, and search engines will put little weight to your website resulting in a further loss of potential traffic, which could make or break your site. The key is to go out knowing what backlinks you want and spend enough time to make your site known. Properly setup, your backlinks will keep your site popular with visitors for a long time to come.
Mitch Joel’s big ideas behind “Six Pixels of Separation”
targeted visitors to a website come through free search results, the remaining 30% come through PPC campaigns. One major benefit of using PPC campaigns is that it enables you to attract the other 30% of customers that you would otherwise be missing altogether. PPC does cost money and it can cost a great deal, however, a properly managed PPC campaign can easily pay for itself. Many PPC management companies in the are experts at creating and optimising successful and economical PPC ad campaigns.
Social media until recently has been a non-tested market for the most part. We will probably look back in a few as 3-5 years and term this era as the “wild West” in Social Media Marketing (SEM). We are all working in uncharted waters where everything we read and hear about social media sites and their effectiveness changes week to week. The role most social media sites are taking as the web grows is a hold position for now in real time search and immediate access of information!
Link Popularity is one of key area to increase your site page ranking and search ranking. Incoming links are just like votes in election for your website however there is point as we have to emphases on quality links rather quantity. Valuable links are like 100 of poor links equals to 1 quality link. In this article, I would like to explain how differentiate quality links and how to get them which will effect and improve and strengthen your website ranking.
