It’s no big secret that Facebook can help you in online marketing. However, I know there are many of you who believe that just registering on Facebook is enough… it’s not. Your Facebook success story ends before it even begins!

There is much more to marketing on Facebook than just creating a profile.  Keeping your fans engaged is the key. Don’t be a brand, but be a community they love being a part of. In this article, I’m going to tell you how you can use the medium of Facebook to increase your customer base as well as retain the ones you have!

CREATE YOUR PRESENCE ON FACEBOOK

1.   Facebook Profile: By creating a profile for yourself or your business, you are establishing your identity. This will take you a long way in developing relationships with fellow users and in positioning your business. You profile lets you interact with people on a personal note, more so if it’s a local business. Here are some aspects of a profile page:

o    Profile Picture: Always put your best foot forward, which means use the most flattering picture as your profile picture.  No matter what they say, a book is judged by its cover. I came across M.A.C makeup’s profile and thought it was really catchy with the colors used on the face. Hundreds of indifferent people with little time to spare are going to decide whether to add you based on your picture. So, make sure you get this one right!

o    Add Friends: After creating a profile, don’t wait for things to happen. Add new friends every day and the word will spread that you’re on Facebook. Before you know it, you’ll be starting your day by accepting friend requests! However, make sure you don’t add more than 25 – 30 people a day as excessive adding can get your profile removed from Facebook.

o    Wall: This is your main platform to interact with Facebook users. Post messages on your wall and also comment on members’ activities, though, only when relevant. A cafe once commented on my status when it was something about food. And there! A personal connection was built in a second! I knew that I was going to visit this place more often. However, make sure you don’t spam people every other day or they may remove you from their friend list.

o    Photo Albums and Videos: Photos and videos are a great way to showcase the latest collection of your product. I know many people who love to see what goes on behind the scene during a photo shoot or while a baker does his magic in the kitchen. Moreover, the first thing most Facebook users check are photo updates. So take that camera and start shooting!

2.   Fan Pages: Facebook Pages, known as Fan Pages, are designed for businesses, brands, companies, products and celebrities. It enables public figures, organizations and other entities to create an authentic and public presence on Facebook. You can encourage users to become fans of your page and share information with them by uploading pictures, videos, status updates, hosting discussions and displaying wall posts. Unlike Facebook Profiles, Pages are visible to everyone on the internet and are generally better for long-term relationships with your fans, readers or customers.

3.   Groups: Facebook Groups allow people to come together around a common cause or activity to express their views. One of the best features of groups is the ability to send messages directly to members’ Facebook inboxes.  It’s a great way to form a community and help your brand image.
Nowadays, it’s almost a necessity for movies to establish their presence on Facebook during its post-release period as Facebook users look for movies here. The good thing here is that you can send bulk invites to your friends, while it is manually done on Pages.  Groups are generally better for hosting quick active discussions and attracting attention.

4.   Events: Simply put, Facebook Events can help you connect with your target audience and invite them for your events, even if they aren’t on your friend list or one of your fans. Events can be created individually or even from Profiles, Pages. What I like is that Facebook gives you a choice between making the event Public and Private.
Let me explain the difference. I got an invite from Alanis Morissette Unplugged Acoustic Performance for a show next month, though I’m not a ‘friend’ or a ‘fan’. This is an open invitation for a public event where anyone can access the page and RSVP to it. However, if you want to maintain an exclusive guest list, choose the ‘Private’ option and the event page won’t be visible to anyone except those you choose. If you’re planning a launch or celebrating a landmark event, the ‘Private’ option lets you selectively invite people and give details on a page that can’t be accessed by anyone else.

The Next Step: HOW TO USE FACEBOOK FOR ONLINE MARKETING

Social Media Marketing is still in its infancy. I consider this as an advantage because there are not many set rules, you can try & experiment with different methods & techniques. However, if you don’t want to experiment, here are some tried and tested methods that will ensure success:

5.   Be Unique and Keep Updating: There’s nothing more boring than bland Facebook pages. Add lots of personality and fun to your profile. If possible, try to create applications just for your page. Offer something different so that they keep coming back, instead of letting them wait for updates from you. If you check Dell’s Facebook page, you’ll see that it keeps updating its status and gives new information on their products and about technology.

6.  Use a Big Profile Picture: Who says size doesn’t matter? Using a big profile picture is one of the best ways to brand your Facebook page. Facebook allows images of up to 200pix wide x 600pix high to be used as profile images Pages. This way, you stand out in a crowd.  Check out Bob Marley or Johnny Depp’s page on Facebook and you’ll know what I’m talking about.

7.   Tag Fans in Photos: You can tag your fans in pictures of new collections, or even ask them to tag themselves as a part of a game or contest. Musician Lenny Kravitz uploaded pictures of his concert in Italy in 2009 and asked everyone to tag themselves. This gave him good publicity as the update on being tagged appeared on the fans’ walls.

8.   Exclusive Landing Page for Users: Use different pages to target different sets of people. Take new users to a page that encourages them to ‘Like’ you or to a page they would find interesting enough to keep coming back. Members/fans can be directed to the wall or a game page that might interest them. Red Bull’s profile page is designed in a way that users are given a hint to ‘Like’ the page, while fans are taken directly to the Wall. You can get innovative in designing landing pages and targeting different people. 

9.   Reward Loyal Supporters: Encourage loyal supporters to join your Page and reward them. Tabs or badges like ‘member of the month’ that can be placed on their profiles for visibility can be awarded to them. A happy customer on Facebook can get you lots of attention.  Remind users to Like and Share information about you. When their friends see the updates on the News Feed, it’s highly likely for them to do the same.

10.   Use Contests and Polls: Holding contests encourage fans to interact directly with you. Domino’s ‘Show Us Your Pizza’ is a contest where people can send pictures of Domino’s pizzas they’ve orders. The best picture will be chosen by Domino’s and the photographer gets a prize of $500 and a chance to get his picture featured in an ad. This has received a lot of attention from Facebook users.

11.   Actively Participate Outside Your Page: Find other Facebook pages related to your industry or topic using Facebook Search & start actively commenting on their posts & updates. This is a great way to build relationships in your industry and even adds credibility to your business. If you’re willing to offer free advice on communities and discussions, it will encourage people to check your website out.

12.   Integrate Facebook Social Plugins to Your Site: When I go to CNN’s website, I can see what stories my friends have ‘Liked’, or what movies my friends ‘Recommend’ on IMDB. The Like button on your site enables users to share pages from your site back to their Facebook profile and the Recommendation button gives users of your site personalized suggestions for pages that they like. There are many more buttons like LikeBox, Comments, Live Stream etc that you can add to your website. With this, you can see for yourself what your target likes and design your product/service accordingly.

You can also integrate Facebook Connect Plugin in your blog which will enable Facebook users to leave comments on your blog without registering. The comment they make will be put up on their wall instantly which will be visible to all their friends. So, you effectively get a lot of exposure without doing much!

13.   Marketplace: With Facebook Marketplace, you can buy and sell anything using the listing service. The Marketplace application page displays all the most recent listings in your networks. The difference between normal listings and the Marketplace is that you don’t see another boring list of business, but they show up as the site’s own updates. For example, a sales listing would show up in news feeds as “John is selling Abstract Art.” In this case, John can be a ‘friend’ of your or even a friend’s friend. You can find out what people want, what they are offering and also how you are connected to these people on Facebook. This is what the page looks like:

14.   Don’t Just Write for an Audience of Teenagers: It’s time we free ourselves of this misconception. Facebook isn’t filled with youngsters. Though Facebook has many youngsters who belong to the age group 16 to 25, we see an increase in the number of people from other age groups who use Facebook regularly. According to Pingdom, 61% of Facebook users are over 35 years old. In fact, the 26 – 34 age group rivals the 18 – 25 age group in both the US and the UK. So, make sure communicate to your target the right way.

INNOVATIVE CAMPAIGNS

You can check out some of these pages for ideas:

•   H & M: Very interactive Facebook profile. Shows all of its new collections and is easily maneuverable.

• Victoria’s Secret PINK: The pink challenge: Design your own look.

• Lacoste: Simple, yet elegant, approach to displaying products on a catalog on Facebook.

• Red Bull: Keeps track of sports people on Twitter, action sports, motor sports on Red Bull Web TV.

•   Digicel: A game where you pop balloons. Top ten players win credit and one player wins a phone.

•   Starbucks: Manage your card online.

•   Disney: Watch trailers, old clippings, status updates on news about Disney’s movies.

As a marketing tool, Facebook is here to stay. Many people give up as they don’t get the desired result immediately, i.e. a huge increase in sales. However, consider marketing on Facebook as a step by step process: you first build trust, traffic and eventually – sales. I hope my tips help you to see that day soon! Do you have any ideas that you can add to this article? If so, let me know by leaving your opinion in the Comment Box.

Though a highly competitive medium, YouTube helps you reach your niche – whether you’re an aspiring film maker, makeup artist, politician or a comedian. Lately, we have seen many new ideas coming up in this medium and there is no limit to how creative or even eccentric you can get in grabbing attention.

Why It Works

When you see an interesting video on YouTube, you tend to post the link on Twitter, Facebook, or share it by emailing it to friends. They pass it on to their friends and the effect just multiplies and your message spreads rapidly, resulting in massive exposure. This approach, also known as viral marketing, doesn’t even have to be expensive. The reason we connect with these campaigns is because we understand the product better and the brand has a face. We identify the brand, making the whole experience personal.

Here, I have listed out some of the most innovative viral marketing hits on YouTube that you can learn from!

1. Will It Blend: The first campaign cost Blendtec, a company that produces blenders and mixers, less than $50. The team filmed a video featuring Blendtec’s co-founder Tom Dickson who said, “Will it blend? That is the question.” He made a smoothie of salsa, tortilla chips, Buffalo wings and Budweiser in the blender. Five days later, Blendtec’s marketing director excitedly told him that they hit 6 million views on YouTube. This was later followed by videos of blending golf balls, a crowbar, a video camera and iPod. My favorite is their latest, the iPad. Their online videos are still a rage and Blendtec’s online sales have grown by 500%.

2. America’s Got Talent: This is the latest one on the block. Their auditions are being done entirely on YouTube. You can record your performance even at home and upload it right away, giving an opportunity to many more. You can sit back at home while the judges and voters (viewers) decide whether you have it in you to take you to the next round. NBC and the producers of the show have partnered with YouTube to process the auditions online. Are we seeing the latest trend for reality shows here?

3. Best Job In The World: YouTube was the platform for the Australian Government’s ‘Best job in the world’ campaign as a caretaker of islands in the Great Barrier Reef. Applicants were asked to post a video of why they were fit for the job on a dedicated page. They received over 34,000 applications from 201 countries. The website got 8 million visitors and user generated content on YouTube went up to 610 hours. It even scooped the two top awards at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival.

4. Michelle Phan: Three years ago, Michelle Phan was turned down for a behind-the-counter job at Lancôme. She started off giving makeup tutorials on YouTube, and now, after Lancôme knocked on her doors, she is now their video makeup artist. She is the most subscribed YouTube Guru and her videos have been viewed over 150,000,000 times. She also owns a skin care line IQQU. Who would’ve imagined something like this a decade ago?

5. America’s Election Campaign: I will admit that Barack Obama’s Harvard degree wasn’t all; the online campaigns did get to me. It made me feel like I know him personally. Obama’s strong presence on YouTube made him accessible to everyone as he spoke directly to YouTubers about his plans to uplift the US. It clicked, especially among the American youth and resulted in a high voter turnout among them, a task that was once considered impossible. Obama has given politics a new face and a new platform for presidential campaigns.

6. Movie Trailers: There are a bunch of us who love reaching cinema halls on time, just to catch the movie trailers showcased before the movie. Trailers leave me wanting more. When trailers started being available on YouTube, producers started targeting YouTubers for viral marketing campaigns. Cloverfield, a monster movie, had scary teaser trailers on YouTube, but without the title – a big risk that paid off well. The buzz was created well before the second trailer with the title was introduced. There were no big names among actors and the budget was comparatively small. The movie secured the biggest January opening of all time in North America and all the credit was given to these campaigns.

7. Greyson Michael Chance: Chance is a young musician who had posted his performance of Lady Gaga’s ‘Paparazzi’ at sixth-grade music festival on YouTube. It wasn’t viewed much for a week or two until Ellen Degeneres reported it on her show. The number of views shot to over 1 billion (we’re still counting). Ellen even decided to sign Chance up as the first artist promoted by her newly formed record label eleveneleven.

You can see in these examples how people have broken boundaries of time-tested marketing campaigns and succeeded. If you have come across any such interesting campaigns, do share the link with us. It’s time you start thinking out-of-the-box and find yourself a unique way to create that connect with the audience. Who knows, maybe I’ll feature your story here someday!

If you don’t want to take my word for it, here are five compelling reasons to optimize and calibrate your site for mobile devices.

1.    Mobile Search is for Mobile Sites – That’s right, when one searches from a mobile device, the query accesses a separate index maintained for mobile content. And mobile search being still in its infancy, the indices are relatively smaller, and what that means is, way lesser sites to compete with. So, optimizing your site and building a mobile presence will certainly help you rank high now, and in the future too when the indices get bigger and the competition grows fiercer. You’ll still have a better chance of ranking high, thanks to the authority you would’ve built over the years.

2.    Think of your Customers – Non-mobile sites or ‘full’ sites, to put it bluntly, are a pain to access from mobile devices, and greatly hamper usability. Full sites are often rich, usually include flash and video content, and do not render correctly on a mobile platform. By not making available a mobile version of your site, you are deliberately providing poor user experience to customers who may access your site through mobiles, and thereby risking customer dissatisfaction. And dissatisfied customers mean only one thing – lost sales leads.

3.    Targeting The Mobile Demographic – The number of mobile web users is expected to hit the one billion mark by the end of 2010,  factor in the burgeoning smartphone market and one can easily envision mobile web usage reaching an unprecedented high in the next few years. If you don’t optimize your site and target this mobile demographic now, you’ll be wasting a great opportunity to tap into a mother lode of traffic.

4.    High Click Through Rates – Various studies conducted over the last few years have revealed that when compared with online ads, mobile ads have better click through rates – mobile CTR fall between 5% and 15% while online CTR average at 2%. The mobile space is inarguably the new frontier in internet marketing and offers you a great opportunity to take your search marketing efforts to a new level.

5.    Target The Mobile Junkie – You are sure to have seen them, those people who can’t bear to be separated from their Blackberrys, PDAs or iPhones even for a minute  – ‘the mobile junkies’ – they spend more time using their mobile devices than they do with their PCs. They prefer to access the net via their mobiles, are upwardly mobile urbanites not averse to spending money, and as several studies reveal, targeting them through any other media will be a waste of time. If you don’t build a mobile presence and calibrate your marketing efforts accordingly, you’ll miss the only way to reach a demographic with high spending power. And what a shame that will be.

Pretty compelling, aren’t they? That’s what I thought. The mobile marketing space, to put it mildly, is growing at an exponential rate, and doesn’t show any sign of slowing down. So, if you are in anyway involved in Internet Marketing, you should stop ignoring the mobile space (like, right now!). Expend a little effort and create a mobile presence for your site, you and your site will be the gainer at the end of it.

Inspired by the success these two have enjoyed, many have gone to town creating versions of their own, unfortunately not all have been met with the same amount of enthusiasm or success.

Today, we take a look at a few promising social sites, that will possibly help us answer the question a few of us have already been asking, ‘After Facebook and Twitter, what?’

1.    Foursquare – Since its launch in 2009, this location-based mobile game doing double duty as a social networking platform has found ready and easy resonance with social media enthusiasts and other early adopters. In almost a year’s time, Foursquare has managed to convince more than seven hundred thousand people to give it a try. No mean task that, especially in the first year, for a service that targets a niche market of mobile users. Little surprise then that it is being hailed as the Twitter of 2010. With over 20 million ‘check-ins’ happening everyday, even pathological naysayers will find it difficult to dismiss it as a fad.

2.    Gowalla – The fact that the next on the list is also a location-based social networking mobile game will readily attest to the importance of mobility and location in the social space. Though Gowalla originally got a head start on Foursquare, until the breakout success of its chief competitor, it was hardly able to mobilize that advantage. But a year on, things are certainly looking up for Gowalla, having tasted sweet victory by trumping Foursquare at SXSW to take home the best mobile app award for 2010. In comparison with Foursquare’s user stats, Gowalla’s 150,000 odd users may not look like anything worth writing home about, but over the last few months it has enjoyed a steady growth that is substantively impressive, as revealed by the recent deal with the Travel Channel, which echoes the Foursquare – Bravo Network deal, to integrate proprietary Travel Channel content (Food Wars to be precise) with the game.

3.    Chatroulette – I almost didn’t believe it when I first read that the most talked about social app on the web, Chatroulette, is the brainchild of a 17 year old. Andrey Ternovskiy of Russia developed Chatroulette ‘for fun’ with no monetization plans, so that he and his friends could ‘randomly connect’ with people on the web. A good way to describe Chatroulette is as an online ‘speed dating’ game aided by webcams, but a better way will be as a game of chance meetings online. When you play a game of Chatroulette, you are automatically paired with a random player, with whom you can chat (text or video) and if at any point you wish to terminate the connection, you simply ‘next’ that person to initiate another connection. There is an inherent creep factor to Chatroulette (anything that involves video chatting strangers is bound to have one) that could prove to be a dissuasive factor, but the kind of response it has garnered has been extraordinary and indicates a strong user preference for video-based interactivity on the web. From the looks of it, Chatroulette could very well hold the key to the limitless possibilities of interactive communication on the web.

4.    Yelp – Think the yellow pages, a local search engine and a social networking site all rolled into one – that’s Yelp for you. Though it is a little long in the tooth when compared with the other sites on this list (having been launched in 2004), Yelp’s true social powers were felt only post Facebook, and by that virtue, it merits a place on this list. Yelp has incorporated into it two of the hottest aspects of the web – social and location. You can search for local business, read user reviews of the same and build a network all at one place. That’s social networking with a purpose – really, what’s not to love about Yelp?

A few of these social services have already been made famous for their marketing compatibility, the others are in too nascent a stage for me to speculate on such abilities.
In the coming years, we may see them grow to give Facebook and Twitter competition, both as substantive social apps and as effective marketing platforms. What do you think? Will they lose momentum halfway through or will they succeed in sustaining the hype?

Be it the wildly popular (and weird) games on Facebook or the social network-cum-location-based mobile game
Foursquare, the interweb is finally alive to the as-yet-untapped promotional possibilities that social games offer. Evidently, games make social experiences ‘funner’; once accustomed to such a model, users will hardly be open to embracing a game-less one. (I can say this on authority, as I have had a similar experience with my 5-year-old niece and her broken Game Boy.) That and the fact that the social gaming market, in spite of being in its infancy, is worth a billion help me assume that this trend of social games will only grow bigger (but if that means more Farmville invitations, God help me!), and hence, I think fleshing out a marketing model based on it is, in fact, a great idea.

Clearly, more people are on to it. Foursquare must have foreseen this trend too, because four months ago, it launched its advertising platform, Foursquare for Businesses. And possibly taking note of the blitzkrieg growth-rate that it is enjoying, marketers are (already) lining up, hoping to cash in on it. Foursquare has already landed a deal with Bravo Media, the force behind Bravo TV – famous for its housewives and Padma Lakshmi. There are other early adopters, local businesses mostly, that are teaming up with Foursquare to promote their brand and fares. For example, when Foursquare player ‘checks-in’ at a local café that’s collaborating with Foursquare, he may end up landing some great discount deals, that are not available to the regular patrons.

Even outside of the Foursquare network, in the more open arena of social networking, social games are finding equally interested takers. They are working at producing promotional collaterals that are more interactive and having them integrated into the games themselves.

A recent campaign for Nestle, ran by AdNectar, resulted in almost 1 million virtual cookies being shared on Facebook through various gaming applications. The resulting plug in the news feed didn’t hurt the campaign either. In another move, social gaming ad company, gWallet introduced ad videos to games like FooPets and Mob Science and enticed users to watch the ads by promising points and virtual goods. Appssavvy, a social media ad company, devised an ad for the DVD release of Public Enemies that had the movie sponsor ‘jobs’ in Mafia Wars, and also allowed users to collect ‘loot’ from the movie characters. It was such a big hit that some 25 million people ‘used’ the plugs 55 million times, and according to Appssavvy, received over 1 billion viral impressions as well. Ingenious!

So far, I have stated two almost obvious things – that the social gaming business is thriving and that Internet marketing based on social games is a very workable model. (But if you weren’t already aware of it, I’d like to take the credit of enlightening you.)However, I bet you don’t know why Internet marketing based on social games can be really big. Not to worry, I will tell you why. It’s the data, the enormous amount of data, that the gaming companies can provide, that will help marketers build collaterals appropriately.

I hope this example will better illustrate my point, a report released by Social Media World Forum sometime last year found that around 80% of the women who play social media games clicked on ads or signed up for promotional features in return for points and virtual currencies. That is a behavioral analysis of your potential demographic right there! Now you know how to grab the attention of almost half the social gaming population.

Since, even the big players (no pun intended) are still trying the social gaming space for size, I can’t comment on how cost effective a model it will turn out for a small business. However, it won’t hurt to give it a shot, if you can come up with something that is interesting & catches the attention of the readers, then, I don’t see why your gaming model should not be a hit. Put on your thinking caps now! It will certainly help you be prepared for the future, when social gaming promotional models will be not just be optional but necessary.

The success of your viral marketing efforts depends on how expertly you play your social graph to use as a medium though with to push your message. However, if your message finds no takers, it can hardly go viral, which counts on people indulging in some furious sharing, and no one shares bad content. So, it would be a good idea to remember that a successful round of viral marketing needs both good content and some decent social networking skills.

Here are some handy dandy tips that you can fallback on in your hour of viral marketing need. (I love puns, can you tell?)

1. Giveaways. Everyone loves free things. Free makes everyone happy. I could delve into the exhaustive scientific studies that attest to these statements, but really, there is no need for it. The giveaway model always works, it works off the Internet, it works equally well on it too. You can offer ebooks or Internet tools, or even sample mp3s if your music is what you wish to promote, and set the ball rolling. Just ensure what you give away is not sub-standard junk that you won’t use yourself. If people like the stuff, they’ll share, talk about it and generate interest in your business.

2. Videos. Create a really cool video about your business and upload it on YouTube and your site. You just need to take a look at the most popular viral marketing examples till-date to see the importance of this exhortation. Videos are very viral-friendly, so using them as a medium can almost guarantee you viral success. And it wouldn’t hurt if they are funny too.

3. Social Media. Work your Network. Today, it is fairly impossible to hope to market virally without using social media. That very fact has also made viral marketing far easier than it was before. Ensure you build a strong social network, then pass your message on to the social sphere through your connection. You can also use it as an avenue to enhance your other efforts too, share your YouTube video on Facebook or retweet a link on Twitter.

4. Visibility. Create a buzz. Then sustain it. The idea is to have people talking about your business. All the time. To constantly reside in their collective conscience. Memes are a great way to create viral buzz, the Armageddon meme started by the promoters of the movie 2012 was successful in generating so much viewer interest that it raked in over 500 million in profits no one was really surprised. If creating a meme is beyond you, write a post on a current topic, take a slightly controversial stance, then promote it on various social sites. That will sure get people talking.

When done the right way, most marketing efforts on social media has the potential to turn viral. What distinguishes a success from a failure, in most cases, is the initial momentum it manages to build. A slow build up doesn’t a viral campaign make. So, follow the tips mentioned above and learn to launch your viral marketing campaign right off the bat.

It is heartbreaking to see the number of blogs out there that have excellent content but can’t seem to succeed. They have rotten rankings and fail miserably. Don’t let same fate plague your blog, kick back and crack the Technorati 1000 by getting your house in order.

1. Make Your Blog Successful Or Die Trying: First thing to remember is to never give up, to keep on trucking, or rather writing, and remember that if the content is crap, no marketing effort will make it a success. No one starts a blog just for the hell of it, ensue that you have something to say. More publicity, promotion and, consequently, traffic will come your way, but only if the content is truly great. If you cannot write, get a writer to do it for you. There are loads for freelance sites online, where a blogger will write for you at a small cost.

2. Be An Expert: You know the old saying jack of all trades, master of none, become the master of your subject matter. Read and learn; write with intelligence and knowledge about your subject; with experience, your reputation will grow and people will seek you out. This will attract more comments in your blog, which can help you get cross promoted; always respond to your comments too, it is vitally important.

3. Be A Better Publisher: Publish full feeds particularly on controversial matters, this gets the attention of content scrapers which re-post your content and creates traffic. Use Feedburner too as this will allow you to find out how many people are subscribing to a particular feed.

4. First Impressions Always Count: Do you remember your mother telling you this? Well she was right and design matters. Set yourself apart from every other blogger with your design and be serious about it. If you cannot afford a professionally developed blog, then learn about photoeditors and CSS. You can also tweak your Wordpress theme, your blog, when done, has to scream out loud to people, READ ME AND LEAVE COMMENTS. A professional theme will get more readers to your blog.

5. Get Up-To-Date With SEO: Find out what makes it tick and what will make your blog tick too. Your blog needs to be tricked out with unique title tags, and keyword rich headlines to enjoy complete SEO wellness.

6. Be A Good Host: Host contests, polls and other interactive features to encourage even more participation in your blog. Make them fun or funny, controversial or challenging, but keep your readers interested. Your little corner of the blogging happy-hunting-ground needs to buzz with a life of its own. Make your blog successful, it will pay dividends.

Get your blog in order using these six tips, then set about promoting it using the prevalent internet marketing methods like social bookmarking and other means of social media,  and you’ll find your blog flooded with traffic in no time.

3. Reward Your Readers – You may think that the posts you write are rewards enough, but if you continue in that perception, you might as well bid all hopes of comments goodbye. Setting up fun virtual prizes and awards can help acknowledge your readers’ presence and at the same time express your continued gratitude for it, and hence, can prove to be a surefire way to elicit more comments and evoke more loyalty from them. For example, you could set up Reader Of The Month or Best Comment of the Day awards and have the winners’ name displayed on your blog; it won’t cost you anything, but sure will make your readers feel cherished.

4. Guest Posts From Your Readers - Stir things up on your blog with a little reader interaction. Invite a reader, preferably a regular, to write a post for your blog. That’ll give the other readers something to talk about, you can be sure. In addition to providing more ‘flavor’ to your blog, such a move will help the readers feel more connected to you.

5. Reveal Your Soft Underbelly – Well not literally, of course. Adopting a slightly self-deprecating approach or talking about things you are spectacularly bad at, or even revealing the most irrational of your fears will make it easier for your readers to relate to you, and tell them that you are just like them, with your anxieties and silly fears and everyday problems. Having said that, you’ll have to strike a balance between being relatable and whiney; too whiney, and you run the risk of losing whatever few readers you have (and you don’t want that, no sirree, no).

6. Comment on Others’ Blogs - Do unto others what you wish they did to you; that is the first commandment in The Big Book Of Blog Commenting. Linking opportunity aside, commenting regularly on blogs you enjoy can result in acts of reciprocation. Though not necessarily a quid pro quo deed, you can be assured that if you leave meaningful comments on other blogs, those bloggers will take note of it, and quite possibly repay you in comments.

7. The Comments Thread Is A Live Thing – That’s right, your readers don’t leave comments then just sit back and relax. Through their comments, they are trying to speak to you, and they want, if not expect, you to respond (if you don’t, you’ll come across as the rude neighbor who refuses to acknowledge you when you say hello). Respond to the comments, if not all, then as many as you can. Once you’ve coaxed your readers out of their shyness and made them comment, you can’t just leave them there; you need to ‘nurture’ the thread by posting your responses and make them feel their comments are valued or, at the very least, read.

8. Be Nice! – Such a simple thing to do, but so many of us fail at it. If your posts make you come across as a pompous windbag, all they’ll elicit are spammy comments. ‘Humanize’ your blog as much as possible; make your readers feel as if they are talking to a friend; let them know that the mere act of blogging doesn’t make you better than them; make them comfortable enough to comment without worrying about your turning snarky. Think of yourself as the host and your readers the party guests, now, roll!

9. Make Your Blog Comment-Friendly – Your readers’ primary aim, when at your blog, is to read, not to comment. Commenting comes later, after the reading, depending on how they’ve taken to your post. Not quite an afterthought, it’s usually an activity performed towards the end of your readers’ stay at the blog. At a point when the readers have all but checked out of your blog, they won’t take kindly to having to logging or signing in before commenting; it’s an unnecessary step they’ll have little patience for and can very possibly cause them to take a rain check on the commenting. If you want them to comment, make it easy for your readers to do that without any hassle. Simple.

10. Tried And Tested Topic Does The Trick – In other words gauging your reader reaction, and giving them more of what they have enjoyed in the past will work like a charm. Yes, this presupposes that you’ve had some good-comment days in the past. If you have, trying out this tip will help recapture the ‘magic’ of that past day and bring you more comments today. Analyze your earlier posts to find the topics that usually garner more comments from your readers and write on similar themes. Do note that this method can backfire if your posts begin to seem repetitive and patently rehashed.

11. Birds Of A Feather… – You may not have noticed it, but your readers and you probably have a lot of similar interests, case in point – they coming back to read what you write. So, if you take the effort to check out the other blogs they read and join forum discussions they are a part of, you don’t just learn more about your particular area of expertise or interest, you also get fodder for your posts that can reference these blogs and forums. Your readers will love you more for it and will be more forthcoming with their comments.

Try implementing a few, if not all, of these nifty tips and you’ll see a definite turn in the comment tide, and you’ll soon learn to go through the odd bad-comment day without wanting to give  in to tears. And you will see that they can also greatly contribute to your efforts to make your blog more popular. This is my take on the matter, you may have  other methods that you find more reliable, I’d love to hear about them. Feel free to share your opinions and tips in the comments section below.

Last year saw Twitter and Facebook rise to dizzying heights of popularity and the web trying to wrap its collective head around the concept of real-time search and the resulting collaborations between Twitter and traditional search giants like Google and Bing. Yeah, social media really came of age in 2009. So, what changes will be wrought in social media this year? Social media gurus all over the Internet have been frantically making predictions, many have come out with extensive lists of just what changes it will undergo in 2010. Listed below are six likely social media forecasts for this year.

1. Social Media And Real Time Web – We already got a glimpse of the real-time web in 2009, with real-time search rolled out by major social media networks like Facebook and Twitter and the consequent deals with Bing and Google. This year we’ll see it come to its own, and social media will be the vehicle that will take it there. Besides being the agent of real-time search, which is already being incorporated into traditional search, social media will also prove to be a trend forecaster that will help spread as well as start trends and fads in matter of seconds.

2. Business of Social Media Marketing – Businesses were already turning hip to the powers of social media in the realm of marketing in 2009 (Dairy Queen, American fast-food chain and a local radio station WUKY are among the few who actively built their social media presence last year), and 2010 will reveal more and more businesses, including small busi­nesses, resorting to the aid of social media mar­ket­ing. According to industry experts, “Social media in 2010 will cease being the shiny new object and instead become part of the everyday lexicon of business.” And that it will no longer be considered a ‘fad’ used by youngsters and movie stars, but a marketing force to be reckoned with.

3. Social Media to Gain on Email – Even in 2009 with all the social media frenzy, email had reigned as the favorite form of online marketing, as difficult as it is to believe. But all that will change this year as the popularity of social media, social networks to be exact, is set to reach an unprecedented level and marketers will opt to capitalize on the multimedia elements and sharing options of social media.

4. Social Mobility – The popularity of smartphones has steadily increased over the past couple of years. With newer and smarter models available on the market, people, especially the young and the upwardly mobile (no pun intended), prefer to rely on them to conduct all their web-related activities, of which social media-based ones form a major chunk. 2010 will see a surge in the number of users who engage in social media activities through their phones; with the number of iPhone users to hit 1 billion within the year and 46% of all social media users already choosing to connect using their mobile devices, I have no trouble believing this forecast.

5. Corporate Social Media – Even while small business were actively adopting and incorporating social media into their marketing plans, the corporate world, save for a visionary few, remained vary of it. That will change this year, if it hasn’t already started changing, from aggressive marketing efforts to ingenious customer relationship management techniques, the corporate world is opening up to social media and is beginning to employ social media in all possible arenas. It’s all about building a ‘relatable’ profile on the various social media sites. They might not market their products or advertise openly in these profiles, but it will still be important to make their presence felt in the social media sites. This year will see corporate companies “leveraging social technology” and establishing their corporate ‘social’ identities, possibly helping them ‘humanize’ their corporate personas. About time.

6. The Women Of Social Media – Several reports in 2009 revealed that women were the undisputed rulers of social media, be it shopping sites, social networking sites, blogs or even micro blogging platforms (Twitter – 57%, Facebook – 57%, Flickr – 55%, Yelp – 57%), the female population seriously outnumbered the male population. Blogger moms are already recognized as a powerful web demographic and are expected to have more clout in the coming years. It is clear that women are growing to be the stronger sex on the web. This trend is expected to only grow stronger in 2010. The fact that more than 85% of all buying decisions of a household are made by a woman only goes on to reinforce the relevance and importance of this trend. Remains to be seen if this would result in potentially skewed, woman-centric social media that will pander women and women alone. Men, better watch out!

From where I stand, perched on the beginning of this year, this seems the most likely course that social media will adopt. Further down the road, new development may spring to alter its course; but right now, you can decide whether you want to ride the wave and benefit from the emerging social media phenomenon or be washed away by it. Be hip to what social media can offer you this year and make the best use of it.

To say that the question is at the forefront of the minds of several SEO mavens would be an understatement. The ever-rising popularity of various social media channels (read Facebook and Twitter) and the resultant flurry of activities (read real-time search) happening there have, evidently, been causes for concern for many in the search business (Google included). Many of them don’t just raise the question; they are convinced that there is no light at the end of the tunnel for SEO, and that the SEO-Armageddon is upon them!

SEO Vs. SMO: What They Say?

This undeclared war between search and social media has the grapevine rife with rumors – that Facebook is all set to vanquish Google, that Twitter is already beating the search engines at their own game, and here’s the whopper, real-time search on social media has all but replaced the traditional and ‘slow’ search engines!

Since I just don’t see the SEO-beast rolling over and playing dead (Google.com is the most visited site on the web), I am not holding my breath. A bunch of over-zealous early-adopters and a few million users thundering towards the latest social media sites may cause it to break out in sweat (by their own admission, Google had been a tad complacent, and hadn’t really anticipated the developments at Facebook and Twitter) but kill it? I don’t think so.

Yes, things may look a little worrisome, the as-yet-undisclosed search aspirations of Facebook, who is practically nipping at Google’s heels in the race for web domination (Facebook clocked 2.6 billion visitors in November, falling short of Google’s traffic volume by just 35 million) and the almost unanticipated success and as-yet-untapped potential of Twitter Search (which has seen a 477.25% increase in unique visitors in the last one year, as opposed to Google’s 11.77%) appear to paint a pretty bleak SEO-picture. But, can Facebook and Twitter push the behemoth Google out of the picture? Will they prove to be the fabled Google-killers? Let’s be real people, Google’s an old hand at search, no logic suggests that these search-wannabes can do what Microsoft and Yahoo together couldn’t achieve.

What Actually Is

Real-time search on Facebook

I am not alone in my opinion that all the hype surrounding real-time search is preventing us from seeing the ‘real’ picture. Real-time search, more than anything else, is based on ‘freshness’ of content. And unfortunately, in real-time search, freshness often precludes relevance. Therefore, the search feature that social media sites like Facebook and Twitter offer is based largely on the ‘age’ of the content and user preference, and seldom, if ever, relevance. Yes, I’d probably see my friends and zillion other Twitter or Facebook users talk about guacamole, but would I finally learn that it is actually a Mexican-dip and not a single-celled animal like I’d originally thought it was? Probably not.

My intention is not to dismiss all the virtues that real-time search may possess. I happen to agree with the experts, that when it comes to gauging user reaction and preferences, real-time search is a handy tool to have. But, for all its ability to make search ‘fresh’, real-time search is just far too vulnerable to spam.

Twitter Search is already plagued by spam issues; it is not too much of a stretch to imagine that the same fate can befall the other engines. If they can’t successfully weed out the spammy ‘noise’ and throw up clean ‘signals’, real-time search will barely outlive the hype it enjoys right now.

Relevance! Thereupon lies the secret to the continuing life of search engines, and therefore, of SEO. Search engines aren’t just gateways to the enormous amount of information available on the Internet, they are essentially watchdogs of quality on the net, they ensure that when someone uses search, only the most relevant and ‘clean’ content reaches them.

This reason alone will ensure that these users continue to use the traditional form of search, even if they dabble in some real-time search for kicks.
In light of all this, doesn’t the question of real-time search replacing traditional search appear rather irrelevant? Also, can you seriously imagine the Internet without Google?

The web has constantly evolved – from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0, with the digerati now eagerly waiting for the third avatar – and with it, search has evolved as well. It is not amiss to suggest that what we have now is an evolving searchscape, and that the real-time search ‘threat’ posed by social media sites appears to have accelerated this round of its evolutionary process.

We’ll soon see real-time search factors integrated into the traditional search algorithms. The Bing-Twitter deal and Google’s move to show real-time content from Facebook and Myspace in search results are just an indication of how things will be. Twitter’s topic trending feature is unmatched by anything on the Internet today, and has its finger on the pulse of everything current. Search engines have already taken note of this and there is even talk that it could significantly impact ranking.

It’s safe to say that these developments will add more dimensions and depth to search. Search will be faster (it has no choice but be) and social graph metrics will find their way into the algorithm, if they haven’t already. Google has already rolled-out Social Search, that allows you to “find more relevant public content from your broader social circle” and they are all set to give their search engine a jolt of Caffeine and make it faster and better than ever before. Far from things dying, I see the birth of a new search era (and the search junkie in me rejoices).

What Will Finally Happen

An evolving, multifaceted searchscape, quite naturally, will necessitate a thorough SEO overhaul. Change in algorithms will certainly mean change in SEO practices as well. The current search scene, where social media has increasing relevance, demands that Social Media Optimization (SMO) have a bigger role than before in SEO (but not replace it entirely, as some fear). This is not really surprising, as it was understood, even before real-time search, that SEO and social media would lead a close existence – experts have always maintained that one could be used to better the other. The best results are achieved when SEO is done in conjunction with SMO – because, though social media may not be very helpful for building crawlable links, it helps build authority (oh, does it ever!), and with authority, SEO is as easy as pie, well almost.
Try building links using old-school methods like Directory Submission (because nothing works like the old-school methods, when it comes to building crawlable links) and increase and improve your social-media presence by engaging in social bookmarking and being active on social sites like Digg and Stumbleupon, and see if it doesn’t work wonders for your site!

Coming back to the original question, the doomsayers may be partially right after all, the end of SEO as we know it may be near, but you can rest assured that a newer, and more robust version is waiting to take the baton and run with it!