Added Search Marketing Resources

To help add insight into search marketing and social media topics, I have started a resources section to help answer common questions that arise during a social media marketing or SEO campaign. The first article entry added is called "What is SEO?" The goal of this article is to clear up some of the myths around search engine optimization. In the coming months, I plan on adding more 101 type resources to this section to help marketers better understand key SEO topics and basic social media strategies.

Social Media Optimization and SEO

I found a really good article, from a Search Engine Strategies session, that helps explain the relationship of social media to SEO and other forms of online marketing. This article focuses on Social Media Optimization, or SMO for short. SMO is the process of optimizing every aspect of your website and various components to take full advantage of user interaction with your content. Below are some of the highlighted topics I found most interesting.

• Using Social Media to compliment your SEO efforts and PPC campaigns
• Optimizing your tags, titles and descriptions within social networks
• Maximizing searchable content (images, videos, link bait)
  
• Blog optimization
• The continued value of forums
• Niche social news sites

As social media marketing matures, I think we will find there are few differences between how we optimize content for social media sites and how we optimize content for the Web.

Marketing New Products Through Blogs

The folks at SEOmoz have done a great job with their whiteboard Fridays. Today's discussion is on Query Deserves Freshness (QDF), a tweak to Google's algorithm that promotes results that are buzz worthy for given keywords.



"Remember the Adamo?"

What I find most compelling about today's whiteboard edition is the later half of the discussion that talks about promoting new products using the Dell Adamo campaign. This is a great example of how promoting a site through social media, using bloggers, can positively influence the search engine visibility of micro site. These are great tips for anyone looking to market new products through social media and positively influence your SEO efforts. What types of offline marketing and social media promotion are you using as part of your search engine marketing campaigns?

How to Twitter Links

A couple weeks back, I posted tips on how to Twitter for small businesses. I've put together some additional helpful links to give marketers an edge when it comes to using Twitter for marketing your business or helping your clients understand the micro blogging tool. Enjoy!

• Hubspot Twitter for Marketing & PR
• Video on using Twitter
• Business Ideas from Chris Brogan
• More ideas and tactics from Dosh Dosh
• Grade your profile (handle)
  

How Social Media Helps SEO

Over my vacation I read a very interesting book from Bill Tancer of Hitwise. His book brings up some very interesting points in regards to search engine visibility as a result of social media engagement. His book uses data to display how social media presence creates a lagging improvment in search engine visibility. I have provided a rough chart below that speaks to the "inflection point", the point at which social media activity is eclipsed by search engine activity. (please excuse my poor drawing) In his book, Bill uses the rock band Fall Out Boy as an example of how social media activity can have an effect on searches performed on Google.

Red = Social Media Activity
Blue = Search Engine Activity



Using this basic chart, you can see that the initial surge in social media activity resulting in a surge in search activity. While Social Media may not have a direct influence on improving search engine rank, it can have an indirect effect on visibility. If more people are searching and visiting your Website, then more people are likely to link to your site. If more people link to your Website, then your site will improve in search engine results.

Which comes first?

As SEOs, we often focus on what we can directly influence as a marketer. With the growth of social media, we need to expand our strategies to include social media as an early SEO tactic to gain visibility. Setting up social profiles and brand pages are often as important as building your website. If you think of social media as a promotional/link bait tool, setting up specific social media product pages with on site landing pages would make sense. While much of social media marketing is still in it's infancy, it's clear that it can be driver for all aspects of marketing success.

Your Thoughts ...

What strategies of combining social media and SEO have you had success?

At what point in an online marketing campaign do you introduce Social Media tactics?

Twitter 101 - in plain english

I get a lot of questions about Twitter around the office and from friends. Some ask "why use Twitter when I have Facebook?" "Isn't Twitter just a chat like Yahoo or AIM?"

The video below helps explain what Twitter is and why it's different from other social media websites. Do you use Twitter? Do you think it is valuable?

Twitter How to for Small Business

In a recent blog conversation about small business Twitter, it occurred to me that there is little information on how to leverage micro blogging if you own a small business. I've put together a short list of "how to" tips for businesses looking to leverage Twitter. Getting an account set up is easy. I would like to focus more on tactics and strategy.

Think Big, Start Small - Just as every business starts with a few brave souls, so must your Twitter follow list. Focus on growing your base of followers slowly at first to reach a handful of influential voices. Following hundreds of people out of the gate makes you appear like twitter spam and turns off those who may normally follow you. You also run the risk of missing out on conversations that could benefit your company or connect you to a lead.

Listen - Listening to conversations is as important as posting tweets. Hearing what your competitors or potential clients are saying gives you insight into their business. Finding out what challenges they encounter is key.

Give and Take - It's important to contribute to the Twitter community. Providing valuable resources and answering questions is often the best way to get noticed. Once you have established a presence, it's ok to post links to your site/blog now and then if it's appropriate to your audience.

I hope you have enjoyed these tips for small business on Twitter. Happy Tweeting!

P.S. - If you like my rants, please follow me.

@seanhecking

Viral Marketing / Social Media Blog

Found an interesting blog today on Twitter (thanks @CandisAshley). The site called IWearYourShirt sells t-shirt ad space on Jason, the site blog author. It looks like many of the spaces have already sold. Great job Jason! What I think is really smart about this blog is the tie in of a social media contest to win a Nintendo Wii. I'm guessing as this concept takes off, there will be some great SEO value as well.

Blog or Twitter?

To Blog or Tweet? This is something that I have struggled with lately when it comes to blogging. I have some interesting thoughts that I would like to blog, but end up posting on twitter, mainly due to time. I really like the convenience of twitter, but also like having the option to post my thoughts on the blog. There are a few tools out there that can help you do both:

• Twitterfeed - sends blog posts to Twitter
• Twitter Tools - WordPress plug in
• TwitBin - FireFox extension
  

Social Browsing with Aurora Concept

Mozilla labs features a group of browser concepts that explore a different user experience based on how people interact with web sites. These concepts bring the social experience to the web browser, rather than posting links on a social media site. The aurora concept blurs the separation between desktop and web, allowing people to interact with sites in real time. Could this be the browsing experience of the future?


Aurora (Part 1) from Adaptive Path on Vimeo.

Improving Your Social Media Street Cred'

Found some interesting links on improving your credibility on Social Media sites as well as blogging best practices. Some great advice from a blogger that is only in his teens. Enjoy!

Value of Social Media Explained

Found a great article through StumbleUpon, a service I highly recommend, that really hits the mark on explaining the value of Social Media Marketing. The article is a great explanation of how social media sites work to increase your web site visibility and improve your search engine marketing efforts. The article also does a great job of explaining the viral effect of social media sites. Plus, the little graphics are a blast. Great job DoshDosh.com!

Marketing Mavens

Just put in my request to join the Marketing Mavens Linkedin group. Hubspot, the site which hosts the link above, also provides a great resource for web marketers.



If you haven't already joined Linkedin, I suggest you do. It's a great way to meet people in your industry, get organized and keep in touch with all your contacts. Linkedin is a great success story in the world of social media.

Social Media Overload??!

Social media sites have provided many benefits in the last few years, connecting millions of individuals and creating interactive online communities. Lately, the more sites I come across and join, the more I feel burnt out by all the hype for each new site. I feel as though I am losing the WOW factor with each new site i find. Does anyone feel the same?

SEO Friendly Web Design on Squidoo

Posted a new lens today on Squidoo, a user generated content site. The focus of this page is to spread the knowledge of web standards and its effect on search engine optimization - SEO. Clean code in your web design is a major factor in how the search engines view your web site from both a relevance standpoint and user experience.

Social Network-Ning

Can't find a social network that meets your needs? Ning may have the network for you.




http://www.ning.com/

Rather than be a "one size fits all" social networking site, Ning allows people to create their own niche social networks. Ning is a hybrid of chat boards and MySpace with some nice additional features for video and chat. Getting a network set up is as simple as starting a blog.

Join Stuff I think is Cool, a new social network I created on Ning!

How to Promote your Blog with TwitThis and Twitter

TwitThis is a free utility for blog and web site promotion. TwitThis makes it easy for readers to share your blog post or article with their friends through Twitter, a social networking site. I find this tool very useful for anyone looking to take advantage of social media and word of mouth for the web. Enjoy!