Archive for the ‘social media optimization’ Category

Sending Out The SMO SPaM

Since spam is such a hot topic we wanted to give some tips on reducing the “spaminess” in your site’s SEO / SMO strategy but still consciously promote your site.  Some people are just wearing their advertising hat too tightly on their heads and they forget that most people don’t want to be sold.  The psychology of it is that you are placing your potential customer in an awkward position if they don’t believe in or are not ready to purchase what you have to offer (even if it’s free).

There is a fine line difference between promoting and spamming.  You should make it a point to review your SEO / SMO strategy and find ways to reduce the spam within it.  You might be excited about your product, but the people you are reaching might not be as excited as you.  Shocking, I know, but you need to just get over yourself a little and get a but of humble pie. Trust me. Just bring your excitement down a notch and be relatable to your audience.

Your social network page should not incorporate the words “buy!  buy!  buy!”  They should however create a clear path for the average user to take action on your site. This last statement typically makes traditional marketers look at me like I'm put on my chaps but forgot my jeans. anyhoo, you can do this through your page’s content without the “stars and banners” approach.

add friends carefully.  Fall off the “add-Me” train and get a professional clue.  You don’t have to sound like you work in a suit, but you don’t want to add someone who wears virtually no clothing and thinks it’s cool to post that on the internet.  Find others that actually have something in common with you, your product or service.

Gain popularity by being seen; not by telling others that you’re seen.  If you were actually popular, people would already know it.  They would see your comments on other user’s sites.  They would find blogs, posts or some sort of evidence that you exist on the social media site.  If you’re going to tell others how popular you are, do it in a subtle way.  Use a site meter.  Get on top commenter lists.  There are many subtle ways to publicize your activities without including that information as part of your content.

Take some of the pressure off your audience by giving them room to come to you.  Going after new audience members is one thing, but being too aggressive is a turn off and works against you.  Let them find their way to you via good informational content.  Get them interested in coming to you.   

Stop talking “webinese”!  Your your natural language. Most audience members don’t have a clue about SEO strategies, industry strategies or your strategies.  They are just looking for an answer that they can understand and that’ll help them solve their problems.

If you’re just having a tough time grasping all of this, maybe you should at least consider going “spam-lite” – cut the salt.

Photo credit: david™

Sending Out The SMO SPaM

Since spam is such a hot topic we wanted to give some tips on reducing the “spaminess” in your site’s SEO / SMO strategy but still consciously promote your site.  Some people are just wearing their advertising hat too tightly on their heads and they forget that most people don’t want to be sold.  The psychology of it is that you are placing your potential customer in an awkward position if they don’t believe in or are not ready to purchase what you have to offer (even if it’s free).

There is a fine line difference between promoting and spamming.  You should make it a point to review your SEO / SMO strategy and find ways to reduce the spam within it.  You might be excited about your product, but the people you are reaching might not be as excited as you.  Shocking, I know, but you need to just get over yourself a little and get a but of humble pie. Trust me. Just bring your excitement down a notch and be relatable to your audience.

Your social network page should not incorporate the words “buy!  buy!  buy!”  They should however create a clear path for the average user to take action on your site. This last statement typically makes traditional marketers look at me like I’m put on my chaps but forgot my jeans. anyhoo, you can do this through your page’s content without the “stars and banners” approach.

add friends carefully.  Fall off the “add-Me” train and get a professional clue.  You don’t have to sound like you work in a suit, but you don’t want to add someone who wears virtually no clothing and thinks it’s cool to post that on the internet.  Find others that actually have something in common with you, your product or service.

Gain popularity by being seen; not by telling others that you’re seen.  If you were actually popular, people would already know it.  They would see your comments on other user’s sites.  They would find blogs, posts or some sort of evidence that you exist on the social media site.  If you’re going to tell others how popular you are, do it in a subtle way.  Use a site meter.  Get on top commenter lists.  There are many subtle ways to publicize your activities without including that information as part of your content.

Take some of the pressure off your audience by giving them room to come to you.  Going after new audience members is one thing, but being too aggressive is a turn off and works against you.  Let them find their way to you via good informational content.  Get them interested in coming to you.   

Stop talking “webinese”!  Your your natural language. Most audience members don’t have a clue about SEO strategies, industry strategies or your strategies.  They are just looking for an answer that they can understand and that’ll help them solve their problems.

If you’re just having a tough time grasping all of this, maybe you should at least consider going “spam-lite” – cut the salt.

Photo credit: david™

Connectivity Issues in Social Media

Why is it that 99% of social media sites aren’t able to monetize themselves beyond $100? as we rant and rave about how great social media and networking is, the truth is that it’s a long process that takes work. Sure there are a lot of benefits, but there are “rules” of the game that everyone who participates must follow. Just one question comes to mind. are you having connectivity issues with your audience?

Social media sites are revamping industries and the way internet marketing is done. With SEO, you can market your way to the top and purchase everything from key word articles to links. With social media marketing (SMM), you really can’t do that – at least not at this time. SMM is about making a sincere connection with your audience. Who can buy or sell sincerity? There was this article the other day where an author of a blog post wanted his audience to know who he was first before making a connection. There’s nothing wrong with wanting that. after all, that’s what SMM is all about. However, the problem was two-fold – that the audience member didn’t know the rules of SMM and that the author didn’t understand that perhaps his audience didn’t know the rules.

Connectivity issues in social media occur because people don’t understand the perceptions of impressions they leave if they leave anything at all. In another post, the woman was vigorously posting as well and had virtually no audience. Isn’t this like the teacher who continues to teach while her class falls asleep? Just what has she really accomplished when class time was over?

If we find that we are not seeing the explosive results that SMM can bring, are we failing to realize what social media is all about? Connectivity issues arise because we fail somehow to make a meaningful connection. You can join all the communities and social networks on the internet, but without any participation or rapport with one other person, it’s all in vain. at the same time, whenever you’re responding, sincerity and genuineness as well as posting something that truly makes sense and benefits others is very much needed.

Social media operates on an entirely different playing field than SEO techniques. That may seem obvious, but it may be also so obvious that we somehow miss the point of it all. SMM is about creating your own audience. We find that what relationship marketing is for salespeople, SMM is for the internet. When we understand that, we understand how we need to handle our interactions on the web and focus our time on making sincere connections with people.

Photo credit: Oinster

Connectivity Issues in Social Media

Why is it that 99% of social media sites aren’t able to monetize themselves beyond $100? as we rant and rave about how great social media and networking is, the truth is that it’s a long process that takes work. Sure there are a lot of benefits, but there are “rules” of the game that everyone who participates must follow. Just one question comes to mind. are you having connectivity issues with your audience?

Social media sites are revamping industries and the way internet marketing is done. With SEO, you can market your way to the top and purchase everything from key word articles to links. With social media marketing (SMM), you really can’t do that – at least not at this time. SMM is about making a sincere connection with your audience. Who can buy or sell sincerity? There was this article the other day where an author of a blog post wanted his audience to know who he was first before making a connection. There’s nothing wrong with wanting that. after all, that’s what SMM is all about. However, the problem was two-fold – that the audience member didn’t know the rules of SMM and that the author didn’t understand that perhaps his audience didn’t know the rules.

Connectivity issues in social media occur because people don’t understand the perceptions of impressions they leave if they leave anything at all. In another post, the woman was vigorously posting as well and had virtually no audience. Isn’t this like the teacher who continues to teach while her class falls asleep? Just what has she really accomplished when class time was over?

If we find that we are not seeing the explosive results that SMM can bring, are we failing to realize what social media is all about? Connectivity issues arise because we fail somehow to make a meaningful connection. You can join all the communities and social networks on the internet, but without any participation or rapport with one other person, it’s all in vain. at the same time, whenever you’re responding, sincerity and genuineness as well as posting something that truly makes sense and benefits others is very much needed.

Social media operates on an entirely different playing field than SEO techniques. That may seem obvious, but it may be also so obvious that we somehow miss the point of it all. SMM is about creating your own audience. We find that what relationship marketing is for salespeople, SMM is for the internet. When we understand that, we understand how we need to handle our interactions on the web and focus our time on making sincere connections with people.

Photo credit: Oinster

blending Your SEO Practices with Social Media

I had a discussion this afternoon that made me think about how much I use basic SEO practices in our social media promotion campaigns. Social media has changed the face of internet marketing. at the same time, SEO techniques still must be employed to give your site a proper foundation. One of the questions that may arise is how can SEO techniques be adaptable to this new marketing phenomena? SEO will have to change as social media develops.

One of the things that will happen is that linking strategies will become more social in nature. The benefits of buying and trading links is already in dispute industry-wide. This practice will become a thing of the past sooner rather than later. buying links and reciprocal linking strategies will fade because using social media strategies delivers a higher quantity of links and in some cases higher quality links than buying and/or trading links never could have delivered. "Traditional" methods of acquiring backlinks just can't compete from an ROI standpoint with getting them via social media promotion and social networking.

adding to the demise of these linking strategies that are soooo 2006: they just look spammy and social networking (apart from social media promotion techniques) will provide for adequate links because of the process itself. Either way, linkages will be made through a site’s content and through comments and blog roll sections.

Pay-per-click sites will find a way to sell top bookmark and tag rankings to social media users. PPC companies will need to learn how to manipulate these rankings in order to monetize it.

Social media sites currently leave no room for direct sales of PPC as we know it. However, some of the top ones plan to take advantage of PPC programs from Google, Yahoo & Microsoft-MSN-Live.com. Will this put them out of business if they can't drive enough revenue via these advertising platforms? Not necessairly. They will have to adapt and find a dependable method to monetize their services in order to keep their virtual doors open though. Let's face it, at some point the stupid money coming out of the bay-area has to dry up.

Network sites have become mini hubs for niche marketing thus, making targeting a specific audience easier to do. as advertisers begin to capitalize on the social networks, we will begin to see conversational advertising and marketing strategies gain consumer support. While targeting the audience will be easier to do, engaging the audience by keeping the interactive marketing approach fresh and appealing will be a must do for any business to survive long term.

Keyword and targeted keyword phrase strategies remain a premiere way to achieve top rankings and drive traffic with SEO and SMO. Content remains as one of the primary ways to keep and maintain a site's rankings both with SEO and SMO strategies. Keyword stuffing won't be as prevalent, necessary or effective in the future. Creative and appealing content along with interacting with the consumer has become increasingly needed. Web marketers should still focus on developing content that is geared towards retaining audience members and obtaining new ones. In addition, features need to be built into company and organizational internet properties that allow consumers and clients to interact directly with a organization's online presence. as these strategies are employed we'll see web sites develop a more stable and loyal audience base as long as they are able to engage effectively and transparently with their visitors and provide what the consumer wants.

Natural SEO practices are here to stay, but they will change in light of social media and will get shiny new acronyms. Strategies and tactics that were once must-dos for any site will become second nature and will incorporate social media practices as online marketing and advertising evolves. Learn to blend and balance your SEO strategies with your social media strategies to obtain the best results.

Photo Credit: altogether Digital.

blending Your SEO Practices with Social Media

I had a discussion this afternoon that made me think about how much I use basic SEO practices in our social media promotion campaigns. Social media has changed the face of internet marketing. at the same time, SEO techniques still must be employed to give your site a proper foundation. One of the questions that may arise is how can SEO techniques be adaptable to this new marketing phenomena? SEO will have to change as social media develops.

One of the things that will happen is that linking strategies will become more social in nature. The benefits of buying and trading links is already in dispute industry-wide. This practice will become a thing of the past sooner rather than later. buying links and reciprocal linking strategies will fade because using social media strategies delivers a higher quantity of links and in some cases higher quality links than buying and/or trading links never could have delivered. “Traditional” methods of acquiring backlinks just can’t compete from an ROI standpoint with getting them via social media promotion and social networking.

adding to the demise of these linking strategies that are soooo 2006: they just look spammy and social networking (apart from social media promotion techniques) will provide for adequate links because of the process itself. Either way, linkages will be made through a site’s content and through comments and blog roll sections.

Pay-per-click sites will find a way to sell top bookmark and tag rankings to social media users. PPC companies will need to learn how to manipulate these rankings in order to monetize it.

Social media sites currently leave no room for direct sales of PPC as we know it. However, some of the top ones plan to take advantage of PPC programs from Google, Yahoo & Microsoft-MSN-Live.com. Will this put them out of business if they can’t drive enough revenue via these advertising platforms? Not necessairly. They will have to adapt and find a dependable method to monetize their services in order to keep their virtual doors open though. Let’s face it, at some point the stupid money coming out of the bay-area has to dry up.

Network sites have become mini hubs for niche marketing thus, making targeting a specific audience easier to do. as advertisers begin to capitalize on the social networks, we will begin to see conversational advertising and marketing strategies gain consumer support. While targeting the audience will be easier to do, engaging the audience by keeping the interactive marketing approach fresh and appealing will be a must do for any business to survive long term.

Keyword and targeted keyword phrase strategies remain a premiere way to achieve top rankings and drive traffic with SEO and SMO. Content remains as one of the primary ways to keep and maintain a site’s rankings both with SEO and SMO strategies. Keyword stuffing won’t be as prevalent, necessary or effective in the future. Creative and appealing content along with interacting with the consumer has become increasingly needed. Web marketers should still focus on developing content that is geared towards retaining audience members and obtaining new ones. In addition, features need to be built into company and organizational internet properties that allow consumers and clients to interact directly with a organization’s online presence. as these strategies are employed we’ll see web sites develop a more stable and loyal audience base as long as they are able to engage effectively and transparently with their visitors and provide what the consumer wants.

Natural SEO practices are here to stay, but they will change in light of social media and will get shiny new acronyms. Strategies and tactics that were once must-dos for any site will become second nature and will incorporate social media practices as online marketing and advertising evolves. Learn to blend and balance your SEO strategies with your social media strategies to obtain the best results.

Photo Credit: altogether Digital.

How not to Promote Your Corporate blog or Website

Lots of people seem to be trolling Technorati these days, looking for tags that are relevant to their business. They've discovered that "the consumer is online," and they think they can grab them in a Direct Mail way. They find  a post about "widgets" and they go to that post and paste a comment that says something like "Nice blog! I really liked that post. You should see some of the great widgets we have over at widgets.com."

Some tips for you idiots:

• Don't comment anonymously.
• Say something relevant to the post in your comment, as if you've actually read it.
• Don't just troll for related tags and then randomly paste a link to your site.
• If you have to post your URL, learn some simple html and make it a text link.
• Try actually NOT selling. a text link will do.

It takes time to build credibility online if you're a corporate blogger. You need to be out there, "engaged in the conversation," as they say, not just trying to drive traffic. It's an age-old fundamental that every good salesman knows: if you're a friend first, business might come later.

If you don't have the patience for what it takes to build a relationship, then you're just hurting yourself if you think you can take a Direct Mail approach on a blogger's comments section. You'd be better off to just stay out of blogging.

How not to Promote Your Corporate blog or Website

Lots of people seem to be trolling Technorati these days, looking for tags that are relevant to their business. They’ve discovered that "the consumer is online," and they think they can grab them in a Direct Mail way. They find  a post about "widgets" and they go to that post and paste a comment that says something like "Nice blog! I really liked that post. You should see some of the great widgets we have over at widgets.com."

Some tips for you idiots:

• Don’t comment anonymously.
• Say something relevant to the post in your comment, as if you’ve actually read it.
• Don’t just troll for related tags and then randomly paste a link to your site.
• If you have to post your URL, learn some simple html and make it a text link.
• Try actually NOT selling. a text link will do.

It takes time to build credibility online if you’re a corporate blogger. You need to be out there, "engaged in the conversation," as they say, not just trying to drive traffic. It’s an age-old fundamental that every good salesman knows: if you’re a friend first, business might come later.

If you don’t have the patience for what it takes to build a relationship, then you’re just hurting yourself if you think you can take a Direct Mail approach on a blogger’s comments section. You’d be better off to just stay out of blogging.

SocialTrackr.com beta

add your social media, social networking, community, etc. website, application, widget, blog or podcast to SocialTrackr.com while we put the finishing touches on it.

SocialTrackr.com beta

add your social media, social networking, community, etc. website, application, widget, blog or podcast to SocialTrackr.com while we put the finishing touches on it.