“Social” Isn’t a Tool June 29th, 2009

Search Engine MarketingOne question I’ve been asked a lot recently is “what’s going to be the next Twitter?” The quick answer is, it doesn’t matter. I know that sounds flip but hear me out before you think I’m just another social media basher (you’ll know this is not the case if you read my blog). I say “it doesn’t matter,” not because I don’t love Twitter and all the other social networks but because it assumes that the concept of “social” can be limited to a single tool.

To that end, comparing the phenomenon of “social” to a tool is somewhat akin to thinking that a good website is strictly about a great logo or a slick header graphic. Obviously those things help but they aren’t the end all to be all. It’s the concept of great usability and design coming together meeting the needs of a stated business objective that makes a site great. Oh yeah, the site damn well better meet the needs of the customer too. Otherwise, you’re dead in the water.

Getting back to my rant about Twitter and why limiting “social” to the category of a “tool” is such a pet peeve of mine… Well, it’s not dissimilar to thinking that the discipline of marketing could be confined to just e-mail or advertising. While some companies might concentrate their efforts on a particular tactic, most good businesses also leverage other tactics to help accomplish their goals. They also realize that at the end of the day, “marketing” isn’t limited to one tool because it’s a more about a philosophy and a thought process than it is a bunch of tools.

The difference between good marketing or even site design is that while “social” can be important to helping a company get in touch with its customers, it can also be a transformative power within an organization helping companies:

  • Share ideas — both internally and externally
  • Co-create with its customers
  • Energize its customer base by creating a launch pad for word of mouth marketing
  • Deepen loyalty and increase referrals by giving customers something of value

I guess the next time someone asks me what the next “Twitter” is, I’m going to tell them that it’s the wheel, or the printing press. Or a turbine engine. Or the Internet. Maybe then they’ll start to think about this brave new world of “social” as something more than just a tool.

So how does your company describe “social?” Let us know in the comments — just do me a favor and don’t use the “T” word.

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Key to Content Marketing: Shh… June 29th, 2009

How do you attract people to your website through content marketing? Listen to what is important to your audience.

Listening to customer needs and wants will give you ideas about what content you need to produce for your audience.

You can listen in a number of ways:

1. Monitor your customer service department for frequently asked questions. As the customer service department develops answers, you can re-purpose that content for your website. Text, help centers, or videos can all answer questions and attract more people to your site through content that solves problems. A customer at Exaiminer.com asked their social collaboration tool vendor, grouphub.com, if GroupHub.com provides an online survey tool as part of their services. Currently, GroupHub.com does not, but that did not stop the customer support team from taking the question and creating a FAQ answer that features a third party survey tool. GroupHub.com’s answer is a great example of a strategy of focusing on helping the customer and by doing that you will provide useful relevant content that establishes your company as a responsible brand.

2. Monitor what’s being discussed by your customers out in the community. With the advent of the web, ordinary people now have the ability to create content that discusses your products and brand. Listen to what people write and record about your products and brand. You can choose to respond where customers ask questions and discuss, or follow up with content that provides answers back on your own website.

Dell monitors its community, and as a result the company is able to respond and provide content and links to existing content that solves customer problems. Check out this Dell post on the topic of driver updates for the Latitude.

3. Create places for customers to give feedback about products and your brand. Dell does this with their online forums and IdeaStorm website. The IdeaStorm website is a voter popularity website that encourages customers to contribute ideas and suggestions, which are then voted upon by the rest of the community. Dell responds with feedback and if the ideas can be implemented.

By focusing on content that answers questions and solves problems, companies are much more likely to have answers to customer questions as they arise, plus content that’s available to attract customers when they have generic questions about the industry.

John Cass is the Author of Strategies and Tools for Blogging, and the blog PR Communications.

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Search Engine Marketing: Hiring Managers Rock The House in Boston June 25th, 2009

Search Engine MarketingThe excitement felt at the SEM Community Mega-Event event, sponsored by Search Engine Strategies and Onward Search, was certainly a refreshing change from the constant hum of economic downturn news. The Wall Street Journal’s report of unemployment reaching nearly 10% by 2010 was certainly not the topic of conversation at the House of Blues in Boston on Monday night. About 200 search marketing professionals mingled with their peers as they heard industry leaders and hiring professionals line up to announce that their companies are hiring search engine experts.

After a short meet and greet, it didn’t take long for recruiting agents to dart forward to the front of the room, line up and get their company’s pitch in. Tom Ellis from Adverplex, Inc. was one of the first up to pitch his company and service while making the bold statement: We are hiring. Need look no further than the front page of every commercial newspaper and magazine headline; the point is being made clear, social media and SEM is the new wave of marketing and human communication. After speaking with Katie Donovan, the managing director at the Sempo Institute, it is clear that SEM is the backbone of this new integration of marketing, PR, advertising, internet research and social media. Companies of all sizes are just getting started using Pay Per Click Advertising to pursue active users to follow their blog and Facebook as the ROI for social media is beginning to be realized.

Although the tremendous potential of online networking is creating a stir, one question still remains: how to increase the ROI from SEM?

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What You Can Do Without Paying a Marketing Company: SEO 101 June 23rd, 2009

Search Engine OptimizationJust three years ago, “Google” was added to the dictionary. The trademarked term is not defined, however, by the company bearing the name but rather the act of searching for something online using the Google search engine. This addition is just one example of how search engine use in the past decade has infiltrated most aspects of our culture. And it’s not a surprise: the use of search engines has skyrocketed over the past ten years. So it’s no wonder that companies are willing to pay for their page to rise to the top of a result page. A report released by eMarketer shows that paid placement on search engines and organic search engine optimization (SEO) are more effective than traditional advertising and marketing tactics and is the most cost-effective way to gain new customers. Channels of communication with consumers are evolving and growing significantly in online space, so making sure that your site shows up in a Google or Yahoo search is critical to businesses. Marketing firms have entire teams of people that work on optimizing your search engine placement, but here are a few ways to raise your SEO for those with a tight budget (we are, after all, in a recession). Many of the most-used search engines today (like Google, Yahoo, Bing, MSN, etc) are all crawler-based. They each have an algorithm that “crawl” or “spider” the web to create automatic listings. What they collect through the information provided in the title, body copy and elements of your website design is then put into the ranking algorithm that is eventually delivered to the searcher. But SEO isn’t rocket science, and there are several steps you can take without having to break the bank that will bump up your rank.

Enhance Your Page Titles
One of the first things that spiders look for is page title. Make sure you have a title that is specific to your product—don’t be vague or general about titling the information on your page. Having a static title on every page of your site that only includes your company name or the overall site name will undoubtedly drop your site on the search engine result page and make it harder for consumers to connect with you. Instead, include both the website title and the page title so that crawlers can pick up more information.

Only Publish Unique Content
It’s hard to know exactly how many websites exist at any point in time. But netcraft, a company that surveys the web in attempt to accurately report the number of pages in existence, estimated last month that there are over 235 million websites in existence. How can you stand out competing with hundreds of millions of other sites? With the ever-increasing number of sites competing for the same audience, the way to get hits on your page will be to have content that no other site has. And because so much of search engine results are based off of the content, it is almost necessary that your content be search friendly—don’t bother with Flash, Javascript or AJAX when it comes to the body copy on your page.

Think About Your Image Names
When you’re designing web pages, it’s easy to keep get lazy with your labeling system and save your images with nondescript titles, like “IMG_001″. But making sure that your images have relevant titles will help with optimizing your placement on the result page—put yourself in the shoes of the search engine user and try to anticipate what they would search.

Utilize the Tags
This advice is for all the bloggers out there (and companies or organizations that have a blog on their site). Blog search programs, like Technorati, search tags to deliver results to those using their services, so make sure you utilize them correctly. Try to stick to a rotation of no more than 20 subjects and tag every post with no fewer than two tags. Not only will proper tagging make page navigation easier for the reader, but it can actually bring more readers to your site.

Linking
The final thing that you can easily do to better your position on a search engine result page is to make it easy for others to link back. This step can be as simple as adding a widget that allows readers to easily “link back to this article.” If you really want to increase your presence online, though, it may take a bit more work. We’ve all heard the old saying: “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” Although admittedly clich‚, this phrase is fitting: networking is a fundamental part of running a website. Try to get other bloggers in your niche to link to you and encourage your readers to submit your posts to digg or StumbleUpon.

There you have it. Five tips that you could implement by the end of today. And if it weren’t obvious enough, don’t forget to link back to this post.

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Expose Your Brand and Reap the Benefits of Social Media June 17th, 2009

Social Media CommunitiesIt’s very trendy. Companies of varying size and type are exposing their brand and messaging via social media marketing. These organizations are having cocktail parties online! They are establishing and maintaining real-time conversations with customers, colleagues, industry peers, thought leaders and management. Throughout the conversations, brand loyalty is being garnered. Messaging is being spread. Stories are being told. The exposure is immediate, smart, savvy and contagious. “Social media creates a solar system for a brand with multiple satellites of interaction channels, some large, some small.” – Derek Showerman, Director of Social Media, Authority Domains.

Use your website to first explain your message/brand and then have direct links to your social media sites (i.e. Facebook, twitter, online community, etc). But be sure to keep the design of your messaging, and overall identity consistent!

Expose your brand to social media and reap these benefits:

Online conversations and increased SEO
Thought provoking and news worthy content is contagious. People tell people. Conversations will build a community of loyal followers (customers).

Immediacy
Hitting a front page of major social video, news and bookmark sites will send you large amounts of instant traffic while simultaneously building your keyword optimization.

SEO
Conversations and linking will dramatically boost your rankings in search engines.

Peer Power
Gain peer recommendations, attract influencers, comments from bloggers, etc. Initiators and influencers decidedly play an important role in decision making.

All Natural
Receive natural links without any discernible pattern! Your website will be exposed to large groups of people in a spontaneous fashion. This differs from paid advertising which can be conceived as commercial efforts.

Quite Complimentary
Social media optimization and marketing is usually community-specific. It doesn’t interfere with any other methods of getting traffic to your website. It can and will fit perfectly with an advertising campaign targeting other websites or search engines.

The bottom line is social media has created a way for people and businesses to become transparent. Social media can be a great way to find and establish followers, but like in real life, friendships require time, understanding, honesty, and the occasional greeting card. Before exposing your brand via social media, step back and take a look at all of your marketing components (logo, website, calls-to-action, etc). Make sure that all of your messaging is consistent and accurate before you expose your identity. Ask for help.

In the spirit of being social, join us for a live presentation about social media communities. A complimentary and informative networking event with appetizers, drinks and even pool. June 30, 2009, FELT Boston, 6-8:30PM. Sign up here.

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Avoid Website Embarrassment June 7th, 2009

If you are not paying attention to your website by adding fresh content, checking links and overall functionality, or even comparing your site to the competition, your prospects are bound to click the delete button. Now that’s not only bad business, but it’s embarrassing!

All evidence I have seen during my tenure shows that customers will ruthlessly dismiss a website on which they come across out-of-date content, broken links, hard to find contact information or even worse, waiting several minutes for something too “important” to load and then having a “real actor” pop-up with an marketing message. Please don’t get me started.

Here are the most frequent causes for website embarrassment and perhaps loss of business reputation:

  • Slow Load Time: How annoying is it waiting for a very long and truly meaningless welcome graphic?
    Advice: Avoid glitz for the sake of glitz. Flash can be effective if it delivers a meaningful image that supports your message/brand.

  • Spelling/Grammar: Hello spellcheck. There’s no excuse for typos or misspellings these days.
    Advice: Spellcheck and then have another person proof the text.

  • Contact Information: I am always surprised at the number of businesses that make it impossible to find their contact information. They either don’t include it on their site or hide it in an obscure page.
    Advice: Always put your full contact information on your homepage. Moreover, contact information provides great keywords for SEO.

  • Broken Links: “Page-not-found” is extremely embarrassing.
    Advice: Assign a weekly date to check your website for broken links.

  • Old Content: News or blog items dated 3-6 months ago make your site look outdated and dusty.
    Advice: If you can’t keep up with the new content, simply remove the dates!

Did I miss anything? Got some good advice on how to avoid website embarrassment?

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