It reminds us that natural link building (did you see Jon Cooper’s link building strategies resource? – wow!), the process of intriguing others to link to your content, is performed using a variety of implementations.  Speaking of, John Doherty discussed the three tenets of content marketing on his personal blog.

Speaking of, Michael King (aka ipullrank) hosted Sweet Titled Tweets Fit the Wit in Twitter on his personal blog (thanks, Michael!) done by me (aka content muse).  Why use an alias?  Maybe it’s cool or maybe to keep social media worlds from colliding, I need to separate my social and professional worlds; but, I’m posting on a Saturday; it’s already begun!  I wish I didn’t know those SEO suggestions…  Speaking of…

WebiMax had a good week.  CEO Ken Wisnefski provided insight to several stories in the press:

SF Gate:  Facebook’s mobile applications

CIO:  Nine Ways Google+ Can Help Your Business

The Street:  Five Products You Shouldn’t Buy Online

Meet more “Maxers” via our Casual Friday video, addressing social media’s importance in SEO.  The videos are arranged by our Digital VP, Todd Bailey, who also devises his Bailey Daily (yesterday’s post).

Todd manages our team of writers, who you can read ‘on the reg’ at our SEO blog.  We can’t get along without him.  Speaking of, we couldn’t get along without a man of modesty, Chris Countey, who proliferates as writer, speaker, overall SEO strategist, and great teammate.   Speaking of, I have plenty others, like on the blog team.  Have you met some of them?  I think you should.

Durba Chatterjee

Durba wrote some good posts this week.  I particularly liked one focused on Pinterest; it’s great to get catchall tips but Durba provides examples of particular brands using the marketing platform well.  Durba also addressed new mobile application, Instagram.  Is it just another or something different?

Ryan Buddenhagen

Ryan is an incredible addition, spanning the globe in his ISEO writings.  For instance, he takes readers from NYC to Berlin, discussing Pinwheel and travel.  Yesterday, Ryan embarked on part one of his Google’s ‘Get Your Business Online’ report.  If you’re in front of your computer, or anywhere in the world leveraging Webimax mobile, be sure to land eyes on part deuce.

Bruce Rymshaw

Bruce likes writing from our sister, SEOservices site.  (Have you been checking out the content there?  We’re building a community and would love your contributions!)  Bruce helps the writers make the best use of time while penning his SEO 101 post, offering great insights for SEO newcomers, like his content goes social and enterprise SEO pieces.

Other great reads from the week:

Michael King – The New SEO Process (Quit Being Kanye)

Dr. Pete – 2 User Metrics That Matter for SEO

Anthony Mangia – The Last Link Building Strategy Your Business Will Ever Need (great discussions in comment section)

Vanessa Fox – Is SEO Killing America?

Ford, with the help of London-based marketing firm Blue Hive, hosted a six week contest on Instagram, titled “Fiestagram.” Each week, Ford would release a hashtag related to one of the Ford Fiesta’s features. What is interesting, however, is that Ford would choose words that were more open-ended, like #entry and #music, thus leaving the door open for many creative submissions from the contest’s participants.

After every round of submissions, Ford gave away multiple prizes to those who submitted the most stunning or striking photos. The prizes grew in value every week, with the sixth and final one being a Ford Fiesta. By the end of the competition, an astonishing 16,311 images total had been submitted to #fiestagram. By all accounts, this was a highly successful SEO marketing campaign, making excellent use of a social media outlet.

What exactly about this Ford-concocted formula made it a successful marketing endeavor? There are several reasons. First of all, Ford chose a unique yet highly popular social media site that offered an already-existing strong, supportive, and inclusive community. Members of the Instagram community maintain an almost nurturing environment, in which they proactively appreciate and promote each other’s images. Many encouraged each other to enter the competition. Thus they organically brought attention and greater participation to the contest.

Secondly, Ford took the time to understand the medium, and catered to it perfectly. Instagram is already a highly popular app throughout the world because it is really fun, intrinsically bringing out people’s desires to be creative, share their creative effort, and both give and receive support for them. On top of all that, the app is incredibly easy to use. Ford utilized the language of the community to make its promotion seem much more organic rather than forced, drawing users to it.

And the third reason for Ford’s success with #Fiestagram was its prize giveaways. Giving out multiples of increasingly valuable prizes every week not only kept participants excited and engaged, but drew many more into the contest. Of course, not every business has the financial clout to give away expensive prizes like iPads and cars, but even giving away samples of products can provide a huge boost to an SEO marketing campaign.

Ford’s #Fiestagram competition is an ideal example of how a company can successfully promote a product using social media. The more creative a business can make it, the better. With that in mind, take some time this weekend to consider how your business can best utilize any social media outlet to promote its newest product or service.

Somewhere in the mid 00′s, Facebook clearly became a social force, changing the way people engage online.  It didn’t take long for businesses to get friendly with consumers and target markets.  These days social participation is recognized as an integral part of the online marketing pie.  I’ve referenced this before because Gianluca Fiorelli’s post (on the new Google) clearly demonstrates social participation’s importance in modern-day online marketing.

Social participation allows a brand to engage with consumers in real time.  The landscape of marketing is shifting; online marketing has evolved from attempting to dominate search results; it’s about creating a community.  It makes sense.   Read Dr. Pete’s SEO metrics post from yesterday; what’s likely to happen to a brand, which places emphasis on topping SERPs yet doesn’t create a community or a valuable user experience?  Can you say bounce rates?  The brand may attract traffic but will they make conversions or create community?  Wake up! (to use Gianluca’s sentiments); there’s a new SEO process emerging (Read Mike King’s post); and, it’s consumer centric.  Social media participation is a great way for brand handles and multiple brand workers to engage markets.

In a time when online socializing has become increasingly important (professionally speaking), how does it influence social media’s nascent and informal roots?  A Pew Internet study was released today, indicating more people are actually ‘pruning’ their social accounts, dropping friends and increasing their level of privacy.

Here are some quick extractions:

-          About 2/3 Web users leverage social sites

-          Deleting ‘friends’ from networks is more common (up from 2009)

-          44% delete comments from friends

-          37% have removed their names from tagged photos

-          Women and younger people are more likely than men to de-friend

People may de-friend for a barrage of reasons but I suspect in many cases it has to do with informal and formal worlds colliding (Remember how Costanza’s social and relationship worlds were colliding when his fiancé and Elaine started getting chummy?  I thought that makes for a good analogy; so did Josh Porter, six years ago…)

Professionally speaking, how are you leveraging social sites?  I’ll use myself as an example; I had a Facebook account for years and closed it out in 2010.  Why?  Because having a marketing and public relations background, I thought informal notions would affect how I’m seen as a professional.  Do you have the same concerns?  I have multiple friends from multiple eras of my life; there’s a time and place to keep in touch with friends, yet I’m not going to leave my professional life susceptible to the (possible) poor tastes and bad judgments of friends and acquaintances.  An Eddie Vedder quote comes to mind -”Some words spoken can’t be taken back…”  Once others catch a glimpse of a questionable friend comments, videos, pictures, etc, you may never be able to make reparations to your professional image.

Melissa Fach from Search Engine Journal uploaded a survey recently, inquiring about deleted friends.  While the ‘social’ sentiment of such media sites as Facebook and Twitter is obvious, is it professionally detrimental to host a single account (for both formal and informal purposes)?

Employee and executive social media accounts can greatly benefit a brand, but can the opposite occur?  Can informal and unprofessional posts on your accounts influence how potential partners and consumers view your brand?  It doesn’t seem completely fair; it’s almost like the paparazzi chasing celebs around during their off-screen lives; yet, it happens.  Don’t take chances with your brand’s reputation; it takes a long time to develop a good reputation and only takes one mistake to soil it.

Have you or your brand had similar concerns or situations arise?  Share with us.

Google’s Get Your Business Online initiative is having far-reaching impacts beyond simply getting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the developed world online that do not already have a web presence. The initiative has been implemented in emerging markets as well, bringing online capability, SEO potential, and economic opportunity to specific countries in the developing world, particularly in Africa and Central Asia. I discussed Google’s Get Your Business Online initiative in an International Business Times piece yesterday where I described the background of the initiative, its offerings, and the opportunity for SEO for the many new businesses that will find themselves online in these developed markets. Now, with its expansion into emerging markets, it is a promising development for several other reasons.

The first promising aspect is that these efforts will boost commerce in these countries in both the short and long-term. Like their counter-part initiatives in North America and Europe, giving companies the nudge online will widen their exposure and allow them to reach more customers thus growing their businesses. Many of these companies are at a pivotal point and this assistance will give them the boost to turn the corner and become sustaining, viable operations.

Secondly, the impact the companies that do get online due to the initiative in the developing countries will have a much greater relative impact on their economies than the impact made by participating businesses in North America and Europe. This does not place the importance of one over the other, but affirms the true value of the initiative to act as a catalyst in the developing world. Most of these businesses will be in a more favorable position to grow and expand their operations as they establish a larger customer-base. The larger the collection of businesses that do the program, gain online exposure, and grow revenue, the greater the impact of this influx of stronger, more profitable SMEs will be on the local economies.

SEO companies that specialize in paid search and international search engine optimization can also benefit from this growing sector of SMEs. Many of these SMEs may have customer-bases that will extend beyond their national borders for the first time, thus requiring expert assistance in driving targeted traffic. Check back on Monday for the rest of my thoughts on the economic impact of this initiative in specialized emerging markets.

Immediately, it is clear there is the SEO potential JWersits touched on for the companies that will look to utilize the platform to promote their business through the sponsorship system being put in place and by becoming “followed” by customers and encouraging engagement like possible feedback on customer experiences. Additionally, it can be used to drive targeted traffic in the same ways as other sharing sites and social media platforms. Notes and photos appear to be the main elements of the platform, so they can be optimized similarly. An SEO company can use targeted keywords and create fresh, quality content that reinforces other efforts of the overall campaign.

Wallet, Passport, Phone…Pinwheel?
It’s unclear at this point what industries will jump in to use Pinwheel. Early winners could be all things travel though, both domestically and internationally. It stands to reason that one of the most applicable uses of a map-based social networking site in an ever-shrinking world is to learn more about places you will be visiting by seeing photos and reading information regarding the very sites, attractions, and businesses that make the particular place what it is. According to information put out by Pinwheel itself, they plan to have functionality for the entire globe which opens up the platform to the international travel market. Travelers can look for notes and pictures from others who have been where the future travelers want to go. Suggestion can be given and great advice can be attained.

Further, businesses can promote themselves and what they offer to travelers in terms of restaurants, concert halls, theaters, attractions, menus, sites, and other points of interest. There is room here for travel companies to package virtual tours or lists of places and sites that their various tours go to or the attractions they recommend. Given the visual and categorical nature of the platform’s interface, there is great potential for unique functionality that would bring such lists or promotions to life for customers, providing them substance and real value.

The challenge is whether or not there will be enough information supplied by users and companies to keep people interested and coming back to learn and share. Businesses who want to target those in other countries want to employ international SEO (ISEO) practices keep in mind the language of their target audience(s) to optimize the content of their notes and make sure it works in conjunction with their other SEO, social media, and ppc (paid search) efforts. We will see if it takes off, but given its unique interface, it could make a fun one to work with.