Social Media – SMO

Social Media Enhances and Complements SEO, like Yin and Yang

Nov 11, 2011
Digital Marketing, SEO, Social Media - SMO
0

The argument that Social Media will ultimately kill SEO is an amusing one. Yes, Social Media will dramatically change SEO, in it fact already has changed it forever; but Social Media will not replace SEO. SEO and Social Media have a Yin Yang relationship – opposite forces that complement each other within a greater whole. I think Social Media is the most exciting thing that has happened to SEO in many years and it will significantly improve the relevance and quality of search results. Social media, combined with the Google Panda Update, and eventually Google +1, have changed the landscape of search rankings. The Panda update made great strides toward better rankings based on quality content, pushing down the rankings for content farms and junk content. Google +1 will eventually reward highly regarded sites with quality content with higher rankings. Social Media in a similar fashion will reward websites with quality blogs, great content and engagement via Social Media with higher search rankings, higher website traffic and greatly expanded exposure. Panda, Google +1 and Social Media are paving the way to more democratic search results based on user likes and interests and much less influenced by those that game the system. So with that said it would appear that SEO is in fact on it’s way to extinction,but this is far from true. Yes old school SEO of mindless link building is already on it’s way out and is only marginally effective today. However, there is now a huge demand for Web 2.0 SEO utilizing best practices of website SEO combined with SMO (Social Media Optimization). Organizations still have a need, in fact now more than ever, for high quality SEO and thanks to these developments quality content and engagement will be rewarded and Spam will be ranked accordingly. So how does Social Media figure into this and what is the Social Media and SEO Yin Yang Relationship? The purpose of SEO is to get your content found, BUT, the presumption and requirement is that someone is looking for that particular content in the first place. If so, then SEO works beautifully. SEO relies on people proactively searching for words associated with your product, service, or organization. SEO is reactive to a proactive user. Social Media has evolved from personal chatter between close friends to sharing news, discussion, debate, and education across diverse groups. Sharing and discussion is driving the viral affect of Social Media and this is the link between SEO and Social Media. There is a 24/7 discussion raging on Twitter, Google Plus, Facebook and LinkedIn about everything from politics, to music, news, movies, and products. These discussions often share links to blogs, websites, Facebook Pages, and other posts and these posts are often re-shared and commented on. Sharing and the viral affect of Social Media makes it proactive in the sense that the message/discussion is reaching people that weren’t necessarily looking for that in particular. This is how Social Media is complementary to SEO. Social Media actively reaches out to and engages users, while SEO relies on users to actively search for content. This is the Yin Yang relationship of SEO and Social Media and why the two are complementary to each other. Social Media is now an essential be part of a comprehensive digital marketing strategy along with a SEO campaign designed to work with and complement social media. With Social Media becoming an essential element of a Digital Marketing Strategy and SEO campaign a new term has been coined to label SEO work specifically focused on Social Media and that is Social Media Optimization or SMO. To develop and implement a successful Digital Marketing Strategy today one must employ top notch SEO, with high quality content, and a lively and interesting SMO-Social Media campaign. More on that in a future blog…

Reputation Repair & Management, Learn from the Worst and be the Best

Oct 10, 2011
SEO, Social Media - SMO
0

Reputation repair and reputation management is a hot topic today as social media and blogs are exploding in popularity. Social media is making it increasingly easier for an irate client, customer, or employee to smear your company name and make it very public. In fact, without a great deal of skill it is fairly easy to create negative content via social media and blogs that will rank in Google or Bing searches such as Company Name Scam or Brand Name Scam. On twitter the popular hashtags for this are #FAIL to indicate a company or brand has really screwed up or #LAME for a less offensive, but still stupid move. So how does one go about actually implementing a reputation repair campaign. Below is our 7 Steps for Reputation Management, or How to Do Reputation Repair, but first let’s explore the issue and challenges. Google and Bing search engines are giant calculators, they run huge algorithms to analyze content and webpages to determine the credibility, authority, content quality, along with over 200 other factors to arrive at a search rank for specific keywords. Thus a blog with Your Company Name Scam in it along with a few keywords will rank at the top of that search result in absence of any competing content. Likewise, dozens of blogs with Your Company Name Scam will dominate the first and second page of search results, a potential disaster for your reputation! Add websites like Ripoff Report and press releases or public records for litigation and it is easy enough to have an ugly page one for search results. The best way to learn how to conduct a great reputation management or reputation repair campaign is to look at some companies that have had severe image or reputation problems (many well earned by the way) to see how they turned this around. The simple answer is content, content, and more content, but successful implementation actually more complex than that. The picture I choose for this post illustrates the point well, it is a matter of counteracting and displacing the negative content with your positive content. Content is absolutely vital and it is equally important that the content is published with the right keywords and on blogs or websites were the search engine spiders will find the content and index it. There is a bit of art to selecting the right keywords, to borrow a phrase from George Orwell’s book it is “double speak”. For example, to rank against Your Company Name Scam, you would write blogs with those negative keywords in the content, BUT in a positive context. To illustrate this I wrote a blog a couple of weeks ago titled “SEO Scams, You Need a New Website, Is this Really a Scam?”. If you do a Google search for Esotech Scam this turns up on page one in several other positions. Thankfully no posts about other companies with similar names have any negative posts and this is all positive for our firm and it illustrates this point well. How to do Reputation Repair, 7 Steps for Reputation Management Research: Do Google and Bing searches for your organization name, brand names and key management. List any keywords or phrases that need attention. Google and Bing search each name and phrase. Google and Bing search each name with scam, sucks, ripoff, etc. in search terms. Identify Keywords: Make a list of words and phrases that either are causing a problem or could cause one in the future. Offending Keywords: List all of the keywords and phrases that showed up in your research above. Be sure to list exactly how it showed up in search results and exactly what you searched for. Potentially Offensive or Harmful Words: List words that are likely choices or targets for complaints or a campaign against your brand or name. Develop Content Strategy: This is a very critical step. This is where you develop your content strategy to either combat and attack an existing problem or defend against potential attacks in the future. Use the research and keyword list from above to develop your content strategy. Identify blog topics and keywords. Identify article topics and keywords. Social media posts and content strategy to leverage the above. Implement Social Media and Blogging: With your research and keywords identified and your content strategy in place now it’t time to implement your campaign. Quality content is vital for a successful campaign, make sure you create quality content consistently to achieve the best results. Crisis Plan: Develop a crisis plan. What will you do if something goes wrong in your business? How will you respond? Who will respond? Monitor: Low Cost-free option: Set up Google Alerts for Your Company Name Scam, Sucks, Ripoff, #Fail, etc. and also the same for your personal name and key managers, and brand names. Paid Monitoring: You can use systems like Radian 6 to monitor chatter on social networks, blogs and new search results for your brand. These platforms offer a comprehensive solution to social media monitoring, however, they are not cheap and generally start at several hundred dollars per month for basic service. Be Proactive and Respond Promptly: Now that your campaign is in place and rolling it is vital that you respond to posts, comments and complaints promptly. It is also important to be proactive and act immediately if something happens and get out in front of the problem. Don’t wait for the tsunami of complaints or jeers, be proactive and get in front of your clients, consumers, or constituents immediately.

Social Media Policy Examples and Best Practices

Oct 10, 2011
Social Media - SMO
0

My previous post discussed How to Develop a Social Media Policy, as promised, this post lists provides some great examples of Social Media Policy along with links to policies from dozens of organizations across a range of industries. Social Media Policy Examples My two favorite social media policy examples are Intel and Ford (see infographic below). I like the Intel policy because it is easy to read, focuses on a common sense approach, is practical, and at the same time it is very comprehensive without being overly authoritarian or rigid. I like the Ford policy first and foremost because they employed a very cool infographic that will cause people to actually read and use it (clever concept guys), and secondly because it has great content and is a good policy. Below the Ford infographic is a link to a great blog by Social Media Today with a list of over 100 examples of social media policies. Some of the links are now broken, but still a great resource. Intel Social Media Policy Ford Social Media Guidelines Over 100 Examples of Social Media Policies, via Social Media Today and Social Governance.

How to Develop a Social Media Policy in 10 Practical Steps

Oct 10, 2011
Social Media - SMO
0

As social media exploded over the last few years organization policies have not kept pace. In fact until recently few organizations had formal social media policies and today the majority still do not have one. Among the organizations that have tackled this challenge there are three lines of thinking on social media policy: Comprehensive Policy: This camp believes Social Media Policies should be comprehensive with strict rules for employee use and content. Comprehensive social media policies often require approvals for blogs, posts, and content and involve strict oversight to ensure compliance with company policies, branding, and marketing messaging. Broad Guidelines: This approach and line of thinking favors establishing broad guidelines for employee use of and content on organization social networks, websites, and blogs. This approach relies on common sense on the part of both management and staff as well as trust. Another line of thinking with this approach is that existing organization policies already cover or can cover employee behavior and actions. Note with this approach you should review and update your existing policies to cover social media use and content. Laissez-fairer: The thinking here is that there is no need for an organization Social Media Policy or that existing policies sufficiently cover this. This is a common approach in small and mid-size companies and organizations with an entrepreneurial culture. What are my recommendations for developing a social media policy? Personally I favor the approach of developing guidelines for social media use. My feeling is that strict rules inhibit creativity and kill any real conversation resulting in stiff uninteresting content that is pretty much corporate speak. In addition it is very difficult to manage and enforce a strict policy where every post or blog must be approved. 10 Steps to Developing a Social Media Policy Determine which approach your organization will employ: Comprehinsive (strict) Policy or Social Media Guidelines (obviously those electing the third approach of no policy are already finished). This seems simple enough, but for large organizations there could be different points of view as to what approach is best and what is required. Make sure you involve all that will have a stake in this. Review existing organization policies: Do they conform to the current environment and law? Can existing policies be updated to cover social media or does your organization need a separate policy? Determine Key Policy Issues: What are you trying to accomplish, prevent, or control? I recommend writing an outline of the key issues for your organization. Again, for large organizations different departments will have very different concerns, make sure you solicit input and involvement from the appropriate departments or management. For example, the concerns from of the marketing department will be very different from those of the legal and HR departments. Research: Review other social media policies (learn from those that have been down this path, my next blog have a list with links to examples of social media policies). Legal: Yes, depending upon the size and scope of your organization legal and HR review may be required. The obvious legal question is privacy and free speech, but there are also important issues such as trademark use, copyright, etc. Review NRLB rulings on social media and employee personal use as these are the new rules of the road. Develop your Social Media Policy: Write your policy, keep it brief and succinct, use examples were possible. Training and Use Guidelines: This is a key part of your policy. Regardless of how well written your policy is, it is useless if your team is not well trained in social media and clearly understands your objectives. Your training needs to include managers, HR, and others that may be involved in managing social media activities and explaining the policy. Your entire management team should be familiar with the policy. Implementation: Time to roll it out and walk the talk. Engage: Oddly and sadly this is where many fail. Social media is all about engagement, actually talking to people and responding to them. A one way way outbound billboard campaign will not engage the community. Your campaign must be a two way interactive dialog. This topic alone is an entire blog, more on this later… Monitor: Monitor sounds ominous, but in this context it is a good practice. It is vital that you monitor your social media campaign. The discussion on your Facebook page, Twitter, and blog posts is your best and most immediate barometer for how your customers feel about your organization or brand and what they want. It is your best feed back mechanism, make sure you take advantage of it and have a system in place to share the results and feedback with management. By monitoring the campaign you can adjust your course if necessary, change the tone and content if necessary and expand on what is working. Of course monitoring is of little use if you don’t have a reporting system. Make sure you have a reporting system established as part of your policy where key management is kept up to date on your organization social media and what is going on in the world.

10 Steps to Create Social Media Contests, How To and NOT To Do a Contest

Oct 10, 2011
Social Media - SMO
0

Social media contests have been all the rage for a while now. Some social media contests have had phenomenal results and created a huge buzz about the company, many flop and go nowhere, and some end up pissing people off. I was inspired this morning by a contest that falls into the “pissed me off” category and I suppose I should thank them for the inspiration. Below I list 10 Steps to Creating an Amazing and Creative Social Media Contest and also some links to examples of very successful contests, but first the story of my inspiration… A friend sent me a link to a contest via Twitter (good example of contest going viral) for Dropbox Premium for Life. I love Dropbox so the prospect of Premium for life was a prize worth winning (see #3 below) so I entered. The contest was from @appsumo, it was easy to enter (#$ below), a prize I wanted, so I am in! So far so good, I am a happy fan of @appsumo, at least for a few days… The next day I get an email with more contests and deals from @appsumo via email. OK that was kind of quick, but I’ll take a peek, nothing interesting, email gets deleted. Then day 2 another email, more of the same, email deleted. Day three ditto, deleted. Day 4, ditto, unsubscribed, BUT this is where it gets interesting! When I unsubscribed I got the usual sorry to see you go message AND a note that by unsubscribing I am no longer eligible for the prize! Now that was not only annoying, but it seemed unfair, and really pissed me off (also inspired me). In writing this blog I went to the www.appsumo.com website to review it (yes I am begrudgingly giving them a link in this blog only as an example). I found some other examples of really annoying and outdated marketing practices. After about 30 secs to a minute on the site a PopUp appears over the entire screen asking “What Do You Think of this Deal? Like or Hate”. Again, this kind of tactic is from the 90’s and I thought it was largely obsolete, but apparently some still think it is clever or cute. This is a great example of how not to run a contest. Great start, but then they spammed me with daily emails that really weren’t all that interesting, and then when I unsubscribed they hold the prize hostage in a sad attempt to keep the the former fan engaged. Too late, by spamming me daily they already lost me, and then the prize hostage situation clearly told me this is not a company I want to be a fan of or follow. By the way, if I had any doubts, I received yet another email AFTER unsubscribing with more “deals” and had to unsubscribe again (and yes I did get a confirmation screen the first time). I suspect Appsumo is doing just fine since there are many companies that still subscribe (pun) to this marketing approach of screaming at customers and they think daily emails with “deals” is somehow clever. It certainly is not in line with our approach at Esotech and we would never advise a client to use any of these outdated and annoying tactics. So much for the How Not to Do a Social Media Contest, let’s look at how to do it right and some great examples of successful social media contests. 10 Steps to Creating an Amazing and Creative Social Media Contest Start with the End in Mind: As Steven said so well in his book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, start with the end in mind. What do you want to achieve from this contest and how will the contest deliver that? It doesn’t have to be revolutionary or game changing, it can be as simple as increasing Facebook Fans. Be Creative: Often the creative aspect of the contest is more important than the prize itself. Dunkin Donuts had a great campaign to name the next donut and it was a huge success just because it was fun. Some example of creative social media contests are in this CMO.com slide show and this Mashable blog on 10 Creative Social Media Contests. A Prize Worth Winning: The prize has to be worth the contests time and energy to enter and something that will ressonate with your target audience. The exception is, as I mentioned above, some contest are just simple fun and the prize is secondary. Easy to Enter, No Complications: The contest has to be easy to enter, non-invasive (you aren’t going to stalk them), and they have to be comfortable with privacy concerns (you aren’t going to sell the list). Use Social Media Channels Effectively and Leverage Them: Before you launch the contest determine what social media channels you are going to use (all of them is not an answer, be specific) and how you will use each one. In addition it is important to determine the voice and tone (style) you will use in the campaign and how the various channels will leverage each other. Establish a Timeline and End Date: When establishing your end date make sure there is enough time to achieve your goal, the end date is close enough that there is a sense of urgency to enter and contests will see a result soon. Measure Metrics Along the Way: Track your campaign while it is underway. Do your Facebook Ads need different targeting or content, do your Twitter posts need different content or style, is your Youtube video getting any views or any comments? What is the buzz and feedback so far? Adjust Your Message (ads, tweets, posts, etc): Based on the above you may need to adjust, amplify or tone down your message. Announce the results: So now you have achieved your goal, but wait, don’t forget to thank EVERYONE that participated and announce the results too! Review the campaign: Now that it’s over step back and take an objective look at the results, lessons learned, what can be done better, and perhaps things that may be dropped next time.

How Web 2.0 Websites Connect with Social Networks

How do you design a website or connect your existing website with social networks and social media? This seems easy enough, right? Add a few cute icons on the top right hand side of your website, maybe add a blog, and poof you are in Web 2.0 wonderland! I suppose you can leave it at that and many do just that and proudly proclaim they all over Web 2.0. But there is a lot more to it than adding a couple of cute icons and few links to social networks. Connecting to Social Networks, Creating a Web 2.0 Website First let’s look at how social networks and websites are interconnected in Web 2.0. Note that I said “interconnected”, not just connected. Information flows between all of the various networks and websites and content is posted on each as well, thus they are interconnected, even entwined. It not enough to just connect your website to the various social networks. To harness the full reach and power of Web 2.0 and social media you must have a presence on each of various networks or as Brian Solis put it, you must “engage”. The first obvious step is to set up your social network accounts and pages, and sadly this is as far as many go and why they consequently fail. They create the pages and accounts, leave it on auto pilot, and wonder why nothing is happening. 7 Steps to Get Started on Web 2.0 Websites and Social Media Set up your social network accounts: As a minimum a Facebook Page (not a profile, a Page), Twitter, LinkedIn (for your brand/business), and Blog. Branding: When setting up your accounts be consistent in the naming, e.g. use your brand name where ever possible and use it consistently. Update your Website: As a minimum add the links to your social media accounts. You should also update your website to include the Open Graph interface and the most popular Share and Like buttons for social media. Correct installation: Make sure your website links, shares, RSS, Like buttons work and work properly and it is a clean and compliant installation. If not you are wasting your time and money. Develop a Social Media strategy: Wow, here’s a concept, actually have a strategy and plan! I am being sarcastic again, but few have a Social Media strategy and plan. Invest: To be successful you must invest something even more valuable than money into the campaign, your time. Not the time of an intern or even a “expert” consultant, your time. Stick to it: Consistency is key, you have to stick to it. I have often said “blogging and Tweeting often feels like you are having a really interesting conversation with yourself”. By this I mean you will not get a lot of feedback early on and you just have to stick with it. People are listening, they just seldom give you any feedback and the silence is often deafening.

Jul 7, 2011
Satire, Social Media - SMO
2

The US Employment and Labor Evaluation Service Study (USELESS) recently completed a study on Social Media and workplace productivity. The latest study found that the beta release of Google+ created an unexpected surge in job demand across all industries in the US. After further research USELESS found that productivity had a sharp decrease in the weeks following the beta release of Google+ and employers were consequently forced to hire additional staff. The study found the productivity drops were across all industries from manufacturing to retail, with technology and software industries experiencing the sharpest drop. The most notable productivity drops were at Facebook headquarters where the study found a 50% drop in productivity. No comment or explanation was available from Facebook regarding this unexpected drop, however a company spokesman stated it was unrelated and the data was certainly flawed. Congress was quick to respond to this data and hailed Social Media as a job and economic growth engine. Democrats proposed more “social” programs and when pressed to explain this further stated they want “more of this”. Not to be outdone Republicans quickly issued a statement that tax credits made Social Media possible and are pressing for a quick vote to create a special Social Media tax credit for use in the work place to spur more development and hence more job creation. Both sides agree that more must be done to increase Social Media use and thereby fuel this potential economic growth engine. Several leading universities are applying for USELESS grants to study Social Media behavior and how it can be used to create jobs and economic growth while the high tech sector and a flood of start ups are in a race for USELESS small business grants to create new social networks and promote more work place use. In related news from China, the government is planning new Social Media regulations requiring all social networks to log and track time spent on social networks with stiff penalties and possible jail time for use during work time. In a statement from the Peoples Union for Network Initiatives Safety and Hospitality (PUNISH) a spokesman stated this policy is in the best interest of China and its people to insure high productivity is maintained and to protect its people from the harmful affects of too much time wasted on social networks and overexposure to hedonistic Western culture. Note and disclaimer: the above blog post is a satire piece by Bill Grunau and a fictionalized account and story. Just in case you couldn’t figure it out…

May 5, 2011
Social Media - SMO
0

Are you keeping up with the latest in marketing today? Are your advertising dollars being well spent? Have you dabbled in Adwords, making your own website, trying to make a lead machine out of your online presence? How is it going? No, really…how’s it going? Things aren’t the way they used to be. People don’t browse the yellow pages, little less keep those massive things. People don’t pay attention to the sticker on your car and jot down the phone number while on the freeway, people barely read the ads on the highway that they pass day after day. They don’t even check out your website…there’s only trillions of them! What are they doing? They are on social networks…even in the car. People are checking statuses on Facebook, watching videos, texting, talking or tweeting in the car. (We know you do it too! But please don’t tweet and drive, you are endangering others!) Why do they do it? Boredom. Normally the consumer is passively swarmed with advertisement overload. This makes for one desensitized consumer! Social Media Marketing is the way to go. Companies have more reach to the consumer now than ever before, but most aren’t utilizing it, and half of those that are aren’t doing it properly! People want entertainment! They sure aren’t going to pay attention to your boring advertisement bit. You need something fun, something interesting, something that means something to them. The best way to show this to someone is to prove you are a real person, with real opinions, and real advice. Social media lets you do this. It’s like a TV channel that is on when the person wants, they can find things, compare things, and learn to trust people rather than pages of text. The idea is that there is a real person (or group of people) behind that user name. Social media works best for the interested. Don’t like it? Tough, then you will lose one of the largest and growing advertisement mediums ever. #fail. Unfortunately, there is no way to force companies to use social media properly. We can train you, we can give you the best advice, we can even show you exactly how to tweet and who to talk to, but just like taking a horse to water, we can’t make you drink. So go ahead, don’t install twitter on your phone. Leave peoples comments unanswered and unmoderated, spam your blogs posts and latest “product” news on your profiles. People will just ignore you. Very few people buy from the random man who enters a restaurant trying to sell watches. *hint: Do you really think about buying a watch while looking through your dinner menu? Social media is akin to community building, it is your direct audience, it is second only to personal referral, why? Because it IS personal referral. Its other people talking to and about you! Not only that but the whole of the internet can see that conversation! Learn to treat people on social media like a customer who walked in the door, or who you met on the street while buying groceries. “Follow” peoples lives. Learn to “Like” them, and then make “Connections” that will grow your business faster than you can say ‘tweet’!℠ *For those you you who didn’t get it the above was a reference to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.