Linked Media Group - Social Media Marketing Services

SEO How To Guide

lee — Tue, 22 May 2012 03:51:43 +0000

Most businesses get frustrated with search engine optimization. It’s a blend of art, science and technology and to many firms a daunting task. Here is our basic SEO How To Guide that will give you a good snapshot of basic search engine optimization processes.

1) Remember search engines rank web sites not just pages. You want to think and act holistically – meaning, deploy a search engine optimization strategy that is integrated across your entire site. This may sound simple but it isn’t – our SEO how to guide is all about thinking and acting strategically to drive search rankings.

2) Don’t get lost in and sweat the details too much. In the end, good effective search engine optimization comes down to well written content that has some thoughts/recognition of keyword usage. But, for most web sites 70% of your traffic will come from “long tail keywords” – these are created over time and via consistent good quality content.

3) On Page Search Engine Optimization should have these basic How To SEO Guide Elements:

Create a Title with less than 70 characters that reflects what your page is about, with a primary keyword or phrase used on the page. This Title tag should be at the top of your HTML code (we use plugins as below) in your tag. The top of the page (in HTML code) is important unto itself. And, remember this shows up in Search Engine Results and will drive visitors (or not) to your site. For a deeper dive visit Aaron Wall’s page about Titles which will give you much more insight.

Write a Description that has a call to action to the viewer who is getting your page presented in search results. And, remember this also is used by search engines to determine what your page is about. Some agencies recommend “branding” your title with a reference to your company – the challenge is of course using the space to reference your brand, which in turn dilute the overall quality of your message. Optimum length is about 120 characters with spaces or 20-30 words.

Use Header Tags – these tell Search Engines and your visitor what your content is all about. The most important is the The
that typically surround a post title and you should have only one H1 Tag per page, with sub Header Tags (five additional) used to define your subheadings on the page.

You should be using images on your page as they drive search engine rankings and help to engage the visitor. All of these should have an Image Title and the Alt Tag should be used as well. Use the keywords that are optimize for the specific page where the image is located

Keep the Web Designers in check and map to Search Engine Ranking goals first and let design take the back seat. A beautiful site with no traffic is not going to drive revenue, opportunity and/or engagement.

4) There is no single contributor to search engine rankings more important than quality content. Search Engines love fresh sites with quality content that is updated frequently. Content can be images, videos, podcasts, plain vanilla text, infographics and/or Instagram uploads – keep it fresh and meaningful.

5) Use WordPress for your web site. There is no other alternative technology platform that even comes close. It is search engine ranking friendly – we typically see search engine rankings for client sites within a matter of hours behind a new piece of updated content.

There are tens of thousands of plug-ins that extend WordPress, thousands of developers, it has a superb build in content management system, is updated frequently with much more robust capabilities, it’s free for the most part and it is used on about 75 Million sites and counting. It’s a no brainer.

6) Off site link building is in itself a topic that we could write reams about, as others have done. For a deeper SEO dive check out our “Why Google No Longer Loves Your Brand” - but, for the sake of brevity, here’s what’s important. Create good content that will be linked to and shared on the social web – this unto itself will drive high quality back links for your brand. Nuff said……

Other ways to develop quality back links:

Offer infographics that can be downloaded (some brands develop standalone apps) across the web that incorporate a link back to your site.
Create your own back links – we use a nifty WordPress plugin by Mark Jaquit called “Page Links To” – that enables you to upload a page and select a page via search to link to.
Create quality Comment tags on sites that are targeted and that offer “do follow” (we are trying to avoid SEO geeky terms) – “do follow” (simplified) means you will get some link juice back from Google.
Submit your site to quality Directories (note our emphasis on quality); i.e. Yahoo (yes, they are still alive), Business.com and/or vertical market directories in your market niche.
Complete your Social Profiles on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and/or second tier sites.
Syndicate your content across Web 2.0 sites like Posterous (now part of Twitter) and StumbleUpon. If you’ve built back links into older pages (as we’ve done on this post), every time your page is published elsewhere you are creating a back link for yourself.
Think social for link building – are you surprised that setting up a Google+ account and sharing content will create back links for your brand? The more you integrate social signals into your backlinking (big three: Facebook, Twitter Google+) the better. And, as search becomes more social, you are laying the proper groundwork for your brand.

7) Use and leverage Search Engine Plugins for WordPress. Two of the best (both are industry standards) are “All in One SEO” (by Semper Fi Web Site Design) and Yoast’s WordPress SEO - we’ve used both of these plugins across many sites for years and they can even be integrated together. Speaking of Yoast – he has a superb tutorial about all things SEO related and WordPress - it’s authentic, informative and well done.

8) You have to use Google Analytics for your web site – it’s an industry standard and your brand and online business will be remiss not using it for a snapshot of your web site. But, having said this, we also use StatPress across all of our client and publishing sites – it’s not going to give you a a deep dive into analytics but it will give you a fast snapshot take of visitor traffic and associated statistics. And, there is no learning curve associated with it like Google Analytics.

8) Last but not least – shooting for search engine rankings is like being nineteen again and trying to wade through the dating process……..in most cases you get your heart broken at least once. This holds for this SEO How To Guide – expect some trial and error, be patient and keep sharing content across the social way. Romance and search engine ranking sometimes occur when you least expect them……we digress……..

Be Social

Facebook Timeline Strategy

lee — Sun, 20 May 2012 23:59:46 +0000

Whether you love or hate Facebook’s new Timeline it’s here to stay! If your a brand, think of this as a way to chronologically feature key activities, accomplishments and/or events you want your fan base to review.

1) As you start to optimize this content remember you have the ability to select Update Info in your upper right and also select View As at the top right hand side of the age when you have selected your Profile page.

The Update Info should be completed and as detailed as possible – this enables you to drive better engagement with your fan base and improve brand awareness.
The View As feature simply enables you to make changes and then view the page as a Fan might, enabling you to make sure your changes are effective.

2) You have the ability to upload a high quality image as your Cover Photo – this is the first image any visitor to this page sees and it should be an image that will drive engagement with the visitor. You can upload up to 851 by 351 pixel wide image based on Facebook’s Timeline dimensions.

Don’t think of this as a static image that should be carefully selected early on and then leave it up for a long period of time. You should rotate this image at least once or twice during a 30-60 day period to drive brand engagement.

Faceook does not want this image to be an ad about your company or services and have strict rules against your uploading an image that has price, purchasing information and/or any calls to action. This image’s sole function in Facebook’s TOS is to convey branding in a compelling way with the visitor.

3) Think of the Timeline Profile page as a cascading digital waterfall of images, friend activity, events, “Likes” Milestones and Shares. Speaking of “Shares” – these function as a way to engage with and provide a digital high five to your community. Use them accordingly.

Remember all of these Shares will be reflected in your Timeline Strategy. So, be selective about what you Share as your building up a historical flow of information that you visitors can see. Think of this as content curation and continuity – be mindful of what your doing with these branded elements. They should also drive “likes” within your community of Fans – this is engagement in its purest form.

4) Pinned Posts are a new Feature for Facebook – these give you the ability to feature something you’ve done at the very top of your page and they will stay resident at the top of your page for up to seven days.

You also have the ability to edit these (just the position of the image) after you’ve Pinned them. We recommend changing these at least 2-3 times a week. Studies have shown rotating these images drives more Fan and User engagement.

Use pinned posts as a component of your overall content strategy across the social web. If your brand is featuring images via Pinterest, Twitter or your Blog then amplify your message so your community sees the same images across all of your social profiles. And, again, to emphasize – change these frequently and try to use compelling images that will drive engagement, visibility and sharing via your community.

You also have an opportunity to Highlight specific posts – meaning, this expands your image size so it takes up two columns, giving you the ability to make an image stand out in your Timeline.

5) Apps add real sizzle to your Timeline Profile and should be integrated with your brand in a meaningful way. You have a growing list of 3K to choose from and this list is expanding every day. As an example, the market leader in social engagement apps across all popular Social Platforms including Facebook is Wildfire - have a broad range of apps that extend the functionality and engagements on popular social platforms.

There has been and continues to be some controversy about whether or not using third party apps to post content on Facebook has the same impact as doing via Facebook. The jury is still out on this – we’ve seen studies that indicate there is no discernible difference and that Facebook will not differentiate in terms of ranking the content via their Edge Rank algorithm. But, we will circle back to an app like Edge Rank Checker on a subsequent blog post.

6) Finally Milestones are another tool to make key events in your company’s history stand out. Just click the Sharing tool at the top of your Page’s Timeline and add a Headline, Location, Date and Details of your Milestone. The images are displayed in 834 by 430 and the earliest date you can add a Milestone is January 1, 1000.

Executive Summary for Busy Marketers:

1) Successful Facebook Timeline optimization is really Content Development and Curation.

2) Image quality is critical – rinse and repeat weekly or more frequently.

3) Complete your Profile, Add Apps to drive engagement and brand analysis.

4) Use Milestones to underscore key events or accomplishments in your company’s history.

What’s in the future for Facebook Timeline Strategy? We expect Facebook will continue to look for opportunities to drive revenue via integrated advertising and/or other enhancements, features and capabilities that may be offered solely to businesses and brands.

Be Social

Why Google No Longer Loves Your Brand

lee — Sun, 20 May 2012 04:20:58 +0000

Google has gone through another major update and it’s been garnering plenty of media comments, for good reason. Once again web sites, brands and companies are experienced a digital Tsunami that only Google can provide. And, “provide” may not be the term many are using in their analysis, feedback and observations. Significant amounts of traffic are now going being lost by brands big and small.

Google Panda Update Dissection

The “Google Panda Update” as the Wall St. Journal reported online and via the print pub (yes, Rupert does have real reporters working for him) pointed out, this update has had a significant impact on search rankings driven by Google penalizing sites that have been buying links and/or using back link development processes that are now deemed as being irrelevant and worse, signaling the site quality is bad.

The blogsphere lit up by “holier than thou” marketers that (soap box in hand) that jumped on the bandwagon, raising hue and cry about how buying links via social bookmarking and Web 2.0 sites was foolish, unethical and tantamount to bad strategic marketing. We won’t point fingers! But, we disagree.

Fortunes have been built on bookmarking, Web 2.0 and content platforms like Squidoo, Tumble and Posterous. Marketers and brands have been leveraging these sites for years for content syndication and back links development. Up till now this has been accepted marketing tactic for big and small brands and you can search on Fiverr, Elance and Freelancer today and find thousands of businesses deploying this strategy.

We aren’t advocating funky backlinking tactics. Nor can we say we haven’t done the same for ourselves and clients the last fifteen plus years – we have, as have thousands of SEO and marketing agencies. But, clearly Google has spoken and chickens have come home to roost for many.

What’s bad (funky!) backlinking you should avoid:

1) Sites with no Page Rank whatsoever – meaning they aren’t quality sites and probably never will be and clearly, Google doesn’t “Like” (sorry for using the term Mark) these kind of sites.

2) Any site with lots of OBLs (Outbound Links) on every page. That’s a clear sign they were funky long before Google decided to negate any potential impact they might have.

3) Any site that has not approval of comments or content submissions – meaning, the barriers to entry are non-existent and anybody can post content or comments.

4) Sites with bad content that clearly has no pride of authorship in the content. And, if no outbound links, that’s another bad signal.

5) A deceptive site with Page Rank of 6-7 that may look stellar to any digital marketer on the surface: but, if the site has any two of the above issues that can be discernible with the naked eye than avoid it like a tongue in cheek Jason Gay Review of all things cultural.

What Your Backlinkg Strategy Should Be Moving Forward

The biggest and emerging trend appearing on the backlinking horizon is (drumroll …..)social signals. Take your pick, LinkedIn, YouTube, Google+, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest – Google likes them all and leverage accordingly by establishing a presence and sharing content.

Develop high quality content (images, infographics, videos, etc.) that pique and drive social sharing and or brand amplification via others.Emphasis here should be on “high quality content” – an endless stream of your activities via Instagram on Facebook doesn’t qualify.

Comments still work extremely well for backlinking, brand awareness and visibility in targeted communities that are connected with and engaging with the on page content. You not only generate backlinks but you get your brand in front of a very targeted audience, driving incremental opportunities over a period of time.

Embrace blogging and do it the right way. If you are on WordPress (you should be!) you should be intelligently linking most of your posts back into your own site. Over time these will count as backlinks and also help to drive your site visitors deeper into your site.

Take every chance you can to build (link to interior pages not just the home page/vary your links) backlinks via any profiles you have across the web. Quora, LinkedIn, Plancast, Facebook, YouTube and many other sites (second tier) enable you to upload multiple links. And anchor text them when/where you can; meaning, embed a link in keywords that are consistent with your traffic and content strategy. Marketers take not, sites like Quora are starting to embed their platform with other providers/platforms like Facebook – giving you powerful content syndication capabilities.

It seems many brands hire high powered PR Agencies who do a great job on the press release wording and editorial reach. But, many don’t understand basic SEO principals or if they do, don’t leverage the PR properly for backlinks.

PR is one of the best ways to drive high quality backlinks to your site across hundreds or thousands of sites – the backlinks are typically high quality, can/should be setup with anchor text embedded in the URLs and you can integrate 1-3 backlinks into your PR via most paid providers. We like Press Release Monkey (ignoring the name) – they are low cost/high value and easy to work with.

If you need a tip on the image……just comment away and we will try to help you cross the cultural divide…..

Be Social

Eight Things to do for Successful Social Media Marketing

lee — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 04:50:58 +0000

Effective social media marketing has no magic formula! It blends disparate processes, technology and individuals together in a virtual world with no hard-wired environments or restrictions, ignoring the time and space continuum!

Great Social Media Marketing has these elements:

1) An understanding of disparate platforms and technology. Web 2.0 changed everything (sidebar: this link goes to Tim O’Reilley’s seminal blog in 2005 that defined Web 2.0) – to be successful in social media marketing, your brand needs to embrace many/many platforms, syndicate your content (text, images, video, audio, podcasts, blog posts, etc.) across all platforms.

2) Focus on task accomplishments – it’s critical to have specific social media marketing goals in mind; i.e. defined number of social goals (Followers, Likes, Mentions, References, Connections, ReTweets – engagement!) that are defined for a specific amount of time. The front end social media marketing processes involve taking specific actions across the social web that will engender some engagement, which should be task oriented and quantified.

3) Seize that social moment when presented - we are all insanely busy (the downside of being always on and connected across the social web) but when a form of interaction or connectivity occurs (this can also be a subset of CRM issues) take it and move from social interaction to real world (phone, email, Skype video conf call, etc.)

4) Focus on improving your knowledge – social media marketing is moving at a frightening pace. It’s a dynamic Eco-system with lighting fast changes in platform, processes and social interaction. It’s good to be mindful of the breakneck pace and slow down and take the time improve your knowledge base.

5) Be tenacious and realize your throwing digital paint on a wall and real social traction isn’t going to occur overnight unless your another celebrity on Twitter or Facebook. It takes time to build a meaningful social media marketing strategy and old fashioned grit.

Your going to get sick of seeing bios from attractive men/women on Twitter with thousands of Followers and no Tweets. Recognize many of these types of accounts are just empty social profiles and you need to wade through the social dreck, while keeping your eye on the prize.

6) Use a social filter at times - meaning, there is a lot of just awful junk (dreck) going out on the social web. Do we all need to see another picture of a stupid pet trick, sunshine across a barren field (these are not Ansel Adams quality photos!) and/or another tacky political slogan meant for the social web.

We blame smartphone use and access for much of this crappy content – maybe “smartphones” may not be the right term. Regardless, you will need to wade through a lot of stuff on the social web that should never be shared.

7) Social relationships take time just like real world relationships. The positive is the social web has no boundaries and can be leveraged instantly; the down side is many assume once a connection is made it will move to a “real relationship” (ignoring Match.com and other dating sites) quickly – it will not in many cases. Social types want to see how authentic you are over a period of time. Taking a measure of your “pay it forward” personal or professional branding and the overall value of your social communications.

8) An awareness that there is a lot of disingenuous fools gold on the social web. We don’t want to sound too cynical. But, there are no barriers to social media marketing. Meaning there are endless reams and webinars about “instant success” on the social web. PT Barnum would have loved this medium. Just think, he did what he did with just newspaper advertising – Twitter and Facebook would have given him a market reach that would have made William Randolph Hearst jealous!

Go forth and multiply social readers. Comment away below – we’d love to hear your take on successful social media marketing!

Be Social

How to Build an Inconic Brand like the Hunger Games

lee — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 22:01:10 +0000

The global mega hit of the year will certainly be The Hunger Games – the iconic, epic cult movie based on the superbly written trilogy by Suzanne Collins. The movie is generating buzz that most PR agencies would sell their souls for – you can’t turn on a device of any type (iPad, Smartphone, “stone age tablet”) without seeing an image of the star, Jennifer Lawrence staring back at you.

The imagery is everywhere and the brand is ever-present and looks like it will have a significant afterlife that will burn bright across the social web and news media for weeks, months and years to come – and with two more books to be turned into cinematic ROI, expect to hear more.

Marketers take note – build your brand like the Hunger Games with these five key marketing strategies.

1) Content strategy is the most critical element to building any type of online brand – whether its text, imagery, video, audio or a combination of all, the most critical element to building an iconic brand is great content. Everything else flows from the content.

The movie, “Hunger Games” is based on a well written best seller by the same name by Suzanne Collins – the core content is gripping, passionate and targeted for a younger demographic (although morphed to broad appeal now) that wants dynamic content that resonates with and fires up their passion. Mirror this strategy for your brand – great content resonates, builds brand awareness, drives conversions, interaction and engagement.

2) Build a great team - the Hunger Games features the emerging star, Jennifer Lawrence who made a name for herself in “Winter Bones,” coupled with a stellar supporting cast including Stanley Tucci, Wes Bentley, Elizabeth Banks, Josh Hutcherson and Woody Harrelson.

You can’t go to any venture capital conference or dive into Dave McClure’s (the go to “Angel Investor” second to none) Twitter stream without hearing the mantra, “invest in the team” – position your brand and build your business accordingly. Hire great people and don’t be stingy with the equity – we digress; but, a smaller piece of a big pie for all is much better than a large share of nothing. Great people want to be rewarded, appreciated and feel like they own a piece of the brand.

3) Like Ted Turner used to stay, “get up early work hard and advertise your ass off” – embrace this strategy as much as you can. Build a digital eco system around your brand. If you Google the Hunger Games you’ll find an ever growing list of over 1.6 billion pages/sites/brands competing for the keyword, “The Hunger Games.”

Let’s face it, the average company or brand isn’t going to be this successful. But, if you dig into these links you will find a mixture of URLs comprising movie listings, PR, videos, articles, social media signals (Twitter hash tags, Facebook Likes, etc.) Comprising a blended branding campaign that comprises traditional PR, advertising, heavy doses of social media marketing, solicitation of brand amplification across the social web, YouTube videos and more. Ted had it right in the now “ancient days” when an iPad was just a dream in Steve Job’s mind…….

4) Integrate PR in your advertising mix - PR still works. It’s targeted (keyword and demographic) and it amplifies your brand in ways that no other medium, other than social media can come close to. This can be a do it yourself strategy that necessitates your writing PR that resonates with your audience and/or hiring a consultant, or better yet, a PR agency, as they have “reach” contacts and expertise that is hard to match with a DIY strategy. But, whether your approach is do it in-house or via an agency, make PR a core part of your marketing strategy.

5) Leverage social media marketing - “The Hunger Games” Facebook account has (trending up) 3.3 million “likes” on their account and over 500 million “talking about this” rankings as we throw up this blog post. This is stellar social media marketing and overshadows many Oscar marketing campaigns.

If you look at the HashTag trends for “#hungergames” on HashTag.org the marketing ROI is staggering – this hashtag is overshadowing just about any other hashtag across the social web and underscores the significant consumer buzz this movie (branding campaign) has built. This is such a popular hashtag other brands are hijacking the hashtag by incorporating it in Tweets that have nothing to do with the movie – underscoring brand awareness for the movie and related popularity.

Key takeaways for effective social media marketing – leverage social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest) with a content syndication strategy that amplifies your core messaging across the social web. Build conversation and engagement by pushing out and sharing your content with a feed stream that builds your story over time (rinse and repeat) – for better or worse, a successful social media marketing campaign necessitates repetition and amplification. Social consumers are at times a bit hard to reach and driven to distraction!

Be Social

Search Engine Marketing Results

lee — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 01:29:19 +0000

Search engine marketing results drive significant traffic and many brands live or die based on search traffic, although most don’t really understand what’s always driving the traffic. The typical mantra for the SEO manager in charge is typically, do more with less; or, what’s going to give us better search engine marketing results and what is this going to cost? Then, let’s rock!

You may be much better off not wasting a lot of time on search engine marketing results and get much more marketing ROI with a stellar content strategy, coupled with basic on and off page SEO optimization. Why? It’s a shifting landscape out their in search engine land and Google’s algorithm, not to mention second tier search engines is always in flux.

Who really understands robots, search algorithms, on page vs. off page SEO – the arcane complex terminology of search marketing is like a mirage in the desert – looks great from a distance but when you get there your frequently left with nothing.

Our recommended Search Engine Marketing Strategy in five easy steps:

1) Do basic keyword research using Google Analytics (which should already be set up on your site) and come up with 50-75 Keywords to use for your content strategy for 90-120 days. Then, build content around these with 3-5% keyword saturation per page, blog post or piece of content. Don’t go crazy with keywords – Google and others will figure out what your content is about. But, do the baseline work.

2) Do some “off page” link development via Press Release marketing, integrating your content URLs with your social media accounts (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest if you have an image strategy) – each time a page or blog post is updated it needs to be syndicated via your social media accounts. Do some baseline link development work with social bookmarking, PR syndication (as above), comment tagging on targeted web sites, build a Squidoo or Hub Page with good content that reinforces your brand messaging, with links back to your site.

3) Make sure you content is being syndicated – if you are using WordPress (you should be!) then utilize the build in pingomatic services that WordPress includes (we have a custom list), make sure your content is automatically posted to as many third party (social and others) web sites. It’s a brutally competitive landscape for traffic – the old days of building a web site and hoping you get traffic are long gone. Drive competitive advantage and search engine marketing results via aggressive content syndication on the best platform, WordPress.

4) Forget about SEO and build your newsletter list - make sure you have a call to action on your web site for Newsletter signups and update this once a month. The defacto industry standard is Aweber, although there are a ton of WordPress plugins that will give you a broader brand reach by just shooting out an update of your blog to subscribers.

5) Publish a blog on a WordPress Platform – publish as frequently as possible, with a minimum of 2-3 times per week. Each post should have some keyword optimization and be broadly syndicated across the social web and make sure you have a Feedburner account set up and pingomatic services as above.

If you follow these five basic steps you’ll generate search engine marketing results. If you want a deeper dive into search marketing we highly recommend signing up for Aaron Wall’s SEO Book (subscription service) – it’s high value and low cost. Aaron and his team know more about search engine marketing than many “high visibility” search marketers feature in conferences.

Be Social

Comments Drive Marketing Stratey & Controversy

lee — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 01:29:15 +0000

Every brand (big or small) should embrace comments as a core part of their overall marketing strategy. Two primary type of comment marketing strategy; writing great thought provoking content that motivates the visitor to leave a comment or “comment tagging” on high visibility blogs and web sites that drive backlinks and traffic.

Why your web site isn’t generating comments – how to revamp your marketing strategy:

Let’s face it visitors are for the most part hungry for information and insight and most are in a hurry – that’s “digital Darwinism” at its worst.
You may not be monitoring your inbound comments properly; a combination of process and technology
There is no active solicitation of comments (“add your thoughts below” “recommend your favorite applications”) – you’ll drive many more comments via solicitation.
You may not care about comments – some brands and businesses don’t have the staffing, technology in place and/or ability to respond to inbound comments. Some web sites have comments turned off for these reasons!
Social media is killing comments for smaller brands. The dialogue, interaction and content push is occurring off-site – the audience is on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn and many are not engaging and/or clicking back to a web site.
It is but you can’t distinguish the spam from the quality (see below) – your not alone, although this is scant consolation for many.

Is vitriol killing comments:

If you look at big brand web sites like Huffington Post, CNN or Gawker you will find a lot of self-serving pontificating that is not true engagement. Many “comment taggers” are looking for personal or professional publicity – the day’s of “value added comments” are falling by the wayside.

Take your pick, “left wing” (a la Keith Olbermann) or “right wing” Andrew Breitbart; comments on these sites are in many cases either so caustic they don’t really ad value or just an endless amplification of the editorial perspective of the authors or media companies behind the “talking heads.”

But, in the end, these bigger media brands are all about generating traffic, selling ads and engagement is being pushed to the social web or so filtered via editors, the comments are meaningless to many; or, just an after thought.

How to Drive Comments:

Ask for them. This may sound trite; but, like any marketing strategy, you must have some structure in your marketing processes to make them work.

Be awesome, controversial (think about the “Kony 2012” video dust-up that’s fired up media critiques throughout the world, while scoring some points for the filmmakers.

Be controversial, ask questions - be engaging: pique the visitor’s interest in taking action with a comment.

Don’t drive comments – this is good advice for many small businesses! If your weighing comments versus creating a social media marketing presence via Facebook, Pinterest or Twitter, you may be much better off ignoring comments. And, for better or worse, the conversation for many brands in this new Web 2.0 era is moving to social; either to a specific platform or via social media account integration with a brand’s actual web site. Marketing strategy is always shifting and morphing.

Make your life easier (the words all marketers and execs want to hear) – embrace Open Source, use WordPress for your web site platform and download and use Akismet’s plug-in – they are the market leaders in comment technology for good reason.

Build a brand – for better or worse, comments are driven by old fashioned brand awareness, whether your the mythical Donald Draper or a Mashable geek, comments are all driven by effective brand building.

That’s our take – got a comment dive in below – love to hear from you. No words harmed in this post and the marketing strategy is implicit in the content!

Be Social

Facebook Pages Embraces Brands

lee — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 03:51:35 +0000

Facebook today announced a major departure in their advertising - morphing their site from ads stuck as an afterthought on the sidebar, into “front and center” advertising for new brands. Embracing a much more immersive advertising style for bigger brands – hello Madison Avenue, “we love you!!” Although, like any platform vendor, there is nothing wrong with leveraging user generated content to drive revenue and opportunity.

We see some of these advertising initiatives as a reflection of Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg’s increased focus on remaking the social marketing behemoth into a “Google killer” Ad Platform second to none in terms of ad reach and appeal to bigger brands. Although driving revenue generation for the upcoming IPO has to be part of the picture – they have to pay for those “McMansions” in tony Palo Alto, Woodside and Los Altos right?

The big picture on Facebook’s Marketing Initiatives:

Brands can now insert Ads, Videos and Coupons, etc. – any kind of marketing dreck big agencies can think of. Just think: Miley Cyrus tunes in your NewsFeed.
Was Facebook’s Timeline roll out a “Trojan Horse” for ads? Looks like it. Now brands can build mini web sites right in the timeline – this will of course create new and much broader revenue opportunities and keep users in Facebook’s walled garden environment for longer periods.
This new strategy will also enable visitors to now see “friends” activity on a branded page – enabling Facebook to leverage it’s user community in a new way, driving relevance and social integration.
The Admin Tools section is also going through a much needed overhaul: admins will now be able to see the admin console at the to of any manage pages, providing the admin with a new snapshot of activity and the ability to respond directly from messages from every day users.
This is to a certain extent a major overhaul of Facebook’s user interface – also featuring a new chronological timeline on the right hand side of the page that will enable brands to integrate milestone or noteworthy events in their history, which is a departure from the existing user interface and related advertising capabilities for brands.
Facebook embraces mobile (40% of their traffic is via mobile access) – for the first time brands will have the abilty to target with ads for the vast droves of consumers who post a never-ending feed of pictures, graphics and images and believe the world needs more pictures of what they are eating for lunch……(we don’t think so).
Facebook is incorporating an algorithm (think Google’s still secret “page rank” sauce) that will have some impact on how/where a brand’s add appears in the newsfeed (or not). Details on this TBD for the moment.
This market juggernaut is being rolled out over the next thirty days and administrators will have the ability to react to and adjust their settings in a phased approach.

The jury’s out on these questions:

Will this breathe new life for Google+ (we don’t think so; they are late to market)?
How will the 870 million (and growing) Facebook user community react to “ad pollution” in their newsfeeds? Can you imagine a Porsche ad in a branded page for MADD? Expect to see reams of content in the Blogsphere around bad content and context moving forward. The opportunities for the latter will be endless.
Will big brands embrace this new format? Is this a trick question? No! Absolutely – let us be first to predict a new billion dollar plus (no pun intended) business has been born – ad agencies are already whetting their chops and thinking of new ways to introduce, impact, influence the user’s up till now protected content.
How will Google, Yahoo and Microsoft react? Read: lots of meetings, musings and anxiety in the Googleplex, Redmond and “new direction” Yahoo.
Who will take a stab at trying to integrate YouTube elements more deeply in the advertising experience via a branded page? Not for the faint of heart dear reader – Google has to pay to play in this new Facebook centric marketing world and this won’t be easy.
What are CRM implications for brands? Most are still struggling while trying to get their arms around CRM (customer relationship management) elements across the social web with challenges and processes via Twitter and Facebook alone. This new advertising immersive experience may require much more direct responses via a branded experience on Facebook. (App developers: opportunity awaits you.) The American consumer is not known for her/his patience!
Will the new admin tools finally give Facebook administrators much more robust analytics tools that are more closely aligned with Google Analytics? We hope so, these are needed.
How will the unending stream of game developers deal with a more intrusive adverting elements? Just think you may be able to play an exciting round of FarmeVille with friends and family and pick up an order of Round Up for your yard during the game…….marketers take note!

That’s out preliminary take on Facebooks new embrace of all things Madison Avenue – expect reams of digital content and much fawning of marketers moving forward over the next few weeks. If only Don Draper were here to think up a strategy.

Be Social

Is Google+ Going the Distance?

lee — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 04:45:59 +0000

Like every other social media geeks around the world we logged in to Google+ in awe for the first time and fell in love like George Clooney pursuing a super model du jour! It’s cool and we like the tight integration with other Google Applications, Products and Services.

Must admit, it’s about time somebody gives the runaway train known as Facebook a run for their money. It’s really two monopolistic behemoths battling each other for supremacy in the digital age. It will be fun to watch Facebook reverse engine Google Circles and Hangout in the not to distant future, judging from their past activities.

In the end, we think Twitter may have more to worry about than Facebook, although with a $7.7 Billion Valuation and having just raised beau coup bucks, Twitter should be in good shape. Although any company (Groupon, Facebook, Microsoft, Walmart, AT&T et al) looking at the Google freight train bearing down on them like the opening in Speilberg’s superb Super8 flick has reason to be nervous.

What we like about G+:

The User Interface is cool and not too geeky – clearly, Google has learned from their mistakes (Buzz) and come to market with an elegant, well designed and thought out robust social platform.
It’s easy to dive into Google+ (assuming you have some social media experience) and start building relationships and a stream.
We like Google’s categorization capabilities, enabling one to distinguish between Casual and Family (our terms).
The Google Profile, GMail, Picasa and related Google Apps/Product integration is seamless.
We love the “Twitter-like” ability to have non-reciprocal connections; you can follow anyone.

What we don’t like:

All together – “it’s another bloody social media platform that brands have to deal with.” Increasing time in the digital saddle and another set of apps, constructions, digital social mores, etc. to grasp and leverage. Your inbox just got busier!
This is not an application for a just getting started with social media person – it’s a Ferrari best taken out for spins by experienced drivers
One of the things we love about Twitter for our agency account and for multiple clients, is its inherent social glue capabilities; you can move that Twitter stream easily across a web site, LinkedIn, and many/many other platforms – Twitter personifies Web 3.0 connectivity. We don’t see this happening with G+ – this baby is going to be siloed forever within Google’s walled garden, unless Sergey Brin has a personality transplant.
The Privacy controls are anemic to say the least – this needs to be improved moving forward.
It’s a personal brand social network for now. Google avoided the still idiotic distinction that Facebook makes between Fan and Business pages. Maybe Google is going to sit back and think about this. Which is a good thing.

Stay tuned – the digital wars are just heating up! No words were harmed in this post………

Be Social

Social Media Innovation Now Requires Effort

lee — Mon, 16 May 2011 01:18:36 +0000

Social Media is evolving quickly – what you should be aware of:

Barriers to Entry are Rising.
Mobile usage is increasing.
Consumers getting “social media fatigue” (see Barriers to entry).
Social web is splintering into more diverse communities for some niches.
Creating high impact social media campaigns can necessitate usage of third party apps.
Noise Level is Increasing.
Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Twitter are sucking some of the oxygen out of the social atmosphere.
Social Platforms are becoming more complex to use and leverage.
Bigger Brands are skewing ROI statistics and perception.
Video usage on the upswing.
Lots of confusion.
Old media embracing social web with uneven results.
Content costs are rising.

Offsetting these Trends:

Creating and deploying high quality content is becoming increasingly important for your brand. As more and more firms and individuals embrace social media, barriers to entry are rising and your messaging must be high quality to be heard in the marketplace.
Ensure your social connections are more than that. Reach out and connect offline. Move the social intro into a real world scenario that is conversation driven.
Social babble (check ins, Twitpics of lunch, inane posts, etc.) creates an illusion for many. People are not necessarily what they seem to be online. It’s becoming increasingly important to assess and weigh an individuals offline credentials to ascertain whether they are someone that you want to interact and/or work with.
Use third party applications to aggressively build and measure your social media market presence. These can encompass relationship measurement tools like Klout or PeerIndex or for Twitter, third party apps like Social Oomph or TweetAdder that help you bulk up your account faster.
There are a crop of startups that now help you to identify everyone you know across the social web by leveraging your email account including Nimble and CloudSponge.
If your content messaging is not well defined and targeting you risk not getting heard in the marketplace. Relevancy is critical to ensuring your message is heard above the din in the marketplace.
A YouTube channel is becoming an increasingly important tool for your social media marketing. Your account must be properly optimized to generate traffic. Like other social platforms, it’s becoming increasingly important to augment your presence with third party apps/services that drive high volumes of views and engagement such as Traffic Geyser.
As content development costs continue to escalate, savvy brands figure out how to bring user generated content into the picture coupled with engagement. The former can be Blog comments (light UGC), guest blog posts, soliciting product reviews for usage via social accounts or web site, soliciting videos submissions to YouTube via contest. Engagement is just that – connecting with and interacting with individuals via the social web to move the relationship into the real world.

We’d love to get your thoughts, disagreements or challenges you are facing via comments below. Jump in and let us know………….

Be Social