Common Excuses Why Companies Have Yet To Embrace Social Media (David Wallace)
1)Lack of control. Within social media environments, companies are afraid that their customers will talk about them, or even worse…to them.
2)No One To Monitor. Having social media profiles is like having little websites that need constant monitoring.
3)No Money. Unless you are going to do a customized theme or develop a widget, it costs nothing to set up and get involved in social media.
4)Corporate Red Tape.When every decision a company makes has to go through multiple processes, stuff doesn’t happen.
5)Blogging excuses. We can’t afford to install a blog. We have nobody to write for us. We have nothing to say. Examples of what you can say: cover news in your specific industry, write opinionated posts related to news and events. Announce new products and or special offers. Write in-depth product reviews. Highlight customer testimonies and praise. Do a Q& A style posts to deal with common inquiries. Publish customer news…the more personal, the better.
6)Branding Opportunities
7)Building Link Popularity. Link back to your original site within the social media sites you setup. Once you get these various social media profiles indexed, they will count for you.
8)Attracting traffic: Depending on the industry you are in, social media and networking sites can send quality traffic to your site.
9)Interaction with the public. One of the biggest fears – the transition from “talking to” customers to “intereacting” with them.
10)Networking opportunities. Being the lone ranger isn’t the most productive way of running your business.
Control the SERPs for your brand and product names.
Chris Winfield: Google + Digg = Love.
How they work from a marketers perspective.
Google: Choose keywords, optimize site, get incoming links, rank #1. Timeframe to goal: Days to months to years.
Digg: Create viral content. Submit to Digg. Goal: Promote it to the Digg homepage. Timeframe: 24 hours.
Algorithms. Google: On Page Factors, Age & History of Domain, Inbound Links. Digg: Submitter (power user vs. new user). Voting pattern (fake/friend/natural). History of Domain (banned, trusted, “blacklisted”).
Traffic: Google: Depends on the term/s that you are ranking well for. Sustained traffic – as long as you rank, you will get traffic. Digg: Typically between 10K and 50K visitors within 24 hour period. The first few hours will usually have the most visitors (“Digg Effect”). Depends on the topic.
Advantages for Bloggers & Publishers.
Google: Sustained Traffic. New people who are interested in something you have written about. Capturing attention (Aaron Wall).
Digg: Get your content out to thousands quickly. Build up a following. RSS & Email Subscriptions.
Advantages for Commercial Sites.
Google: Just in time marketing. Get your products or services in front of people who are looking for them at that very moment.
Digg: Get thousands of new people exposed to your brand the way they want to consume it. Get them in the door and lead them throughout the store.
Advantages for Large Media Properties.
Google: 100,000’s of pages = 100,000 of visitor opportunities. Strong authority, trust = easier to rank.
Digg: Lots of page views.
Digg = “The Great Influencer”.
Creating Touch Points
In conclusion, use a multipronged approach. View the sites as complimentary – not replacements for each other. Don’t forget to go niche.
Li Evans: Social Media & Search: A Love Story or a War Story.
Social Media isn’t a quick fix, substitute for SEO or PPC etc. Social media is a huge world. It’s more than Digg and Facebook. Know who your audience is and where they are.
Types of folks: Creators, Critics, Collectors, Joiners, Spectators, Inactives.
How do you know if social media really works? Need to set goals and measure success.
Bill Hartzer: Is Social Media A Love Story or a War Story?
Old SEO vs. New Social Media SEO. Old SEO (self explanatory). We’re in the new age of Social Media SEO. Still creating content on site, on page optimization, Links = authority directories. Write articles = on own site. Unique articles on industry authorities. Link bait on own site. Use social media to “get noticed”. Success in social media = getting noticed in search.
Keys to successful social media: Participate on regular basis, vote and comment often, add friends, put your site in your profile, social media has niches, submit to appropriate niche sites, use social media to “get noticed”, use social media to get market share of links. Market share of links – having more links than others. Being first with market share of links gives you advantage. You get noticed by humans and noticed by crawlers. Humans have ability to link to you. How do you get this? Example: News in your industry. Watch your industry for newsworthy content. Reach quickly, post or add content to site, quickly submit to social media for links, go back and edit, update as necessary.
RSS Feed Promotion: Promote RSS feeds that will help you. Take advantage of all RSS Feeds (your own site, your social media submissions, those that link to you). Promote sites, RSS feeds, articles of those who link to you. Remember: a link to you is more powerful if the page that link is on has more links.
Todd Mintz knows PPC…knows Social Media…knows SEO…knows Blogging…knows Domaining…and knows them all real well. He runs growth marketing for )and is also a Director & Founding Member of SEMpdx: Portland, Oregon’s Search Engine Marketing Association, and he can be found here on Twitter and Facebook.