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Engage your Market with the Use of Social Media Marketing

By Oliver Feakins in Featured

Right now your customers are flocking to social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and YouTube. Your competitors are also flocking there in droves to participate in the online “conversation” that is happening amongst the members of your target market although most companies have a very limited understanding of how to effectively engage their target market through these social media sites. They rush to quickly sign up with as many accounts as possible, maybe upload a picture or two and wait for the magic to happen – they wait for the people to come to them. What most companies don’t know is that there is no magic – the people won’t just show up. “Social Engagement” is the activity of initiating or participating in the online social activities that are important to your target market. This is not to be confused with a selling or promotional activity. Although social media marketing helps attract loyal customers and keep past ones, it is done through influence and relationship building, not through the use of propaganda.

1. What is the best social media site for my company?

It important for a company to indentify which social outlet is going to give them the best return on both their time and investment. Mainstream sites offer a vast audience but sometimes it’s better to target niche social outlets and be a big fish in a small pond. Posting content in topically relevant niche social sites will also help you produce thematically related back links which will help your site build authority with search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing.

I’m a firm believer that you should have a presence on the main stream social sites like You Tube and Facebook, but niche social sites allow you to target those people who are really passionate members of your target market – your industry influences. Truly enthusiastic members of your target market are going beyond mainstream social sites and searching out a niche online community where they can find others just like them and share related content.  A nurse, for example may be more likely to go to a social networking website, such as www.nursetogether.com, where they can discuss relevant industry happenings with people who can relate to them.

These niche sites are the prime locations to identify and engage the true influences within your target market. Those members of your target market have enough passion in their industry to seek out a nursing social site are clearly going to be a great conduit for reaching other passionate members through viral marketing.

1. How Do I Effectively Participate in the Conversation?

Once you have identified your social outlets (both mainstream and niche) you’re need to put on your creative hat and start thinking on how you’re going to effectively take part and contribute (not control) in the existing conversations. This will require time, research and creativity. If you find an existing conversation regarding a specific topic, write a response to that topic or research a great article and point the readers to it. Post videos that will entertain enlighten or amaze. This content is your brand’s vehicle and if done well and will be forwarded to the inboxes of many future brand evangelists and loyal customers. Besides content (both original and shared), consider adding a handy tool or resource like a “widget” or an “app”.  Not only does this offer useful contribution to the online community, it also is a great way to get back links and quickly build exposure. It doesn’t have to be a big expensive widget – simply get creative and think of something simple and useful that members of your target market can share.

1. How Can I Keep My Presence Fresh and New?

Once you’ve identified your social sites, listened to the conversation taking place and offered something useful to it, you need to keep up the momentum. It’s important to keep yourself in front of these members and find ways to engage new ones. Your engagement activities will attract a lot of visitors to your online conversation – both those who have found you through a search engine and those that have been referred. And just like in sales, you’ll need to keep adding new members to your online conversation to replace the members that are leaving. Keep inviting others to join your conversation and use other forms of advertising to market your social endeavors. Promote your social groups on your company’s website, at industry events and tradeshows, in email newsletters and through other forms of advertising.

It’s important for you to post often and to continue posting at a somewhat regular pace, but not to monopolize the conversation. This means that you’re going to have to make a time commitment for a member of your staff or a social media agency to continue your social media strategy on an ongoing basis.

Utilizing these simple steps will help you engage your target market on both a personal and professional level and create life long relationships with your current and future customers.

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Oliver Feakins is the President of WebTalent SEO, A social media agency and internet marketing company in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Oliver works with companies from around the country on their online marketing strategies and specializes in social media marketing. Oliver’s work has appeared in Promotion World, Marketing Profs, Tech-Links, IT World and Social Media Today. For more information on his social media agency visit www.webtalentseo.com

How to Increase Your Traffic and Conversions in Three Simple Steps

By Mike Tekula in Featured

“We need more traffic.” For most websites this is a truism. We all want more traffic. We all would benefit from it. This is the reason that strategies such as SEO are so popular – they aim to build strong streams of relevant traffic to your website. All well and good – this is a bit of a no-brainer.

But this is where many webmasters leave it. They understand that only a percentage of their traffic will convert so they set out to find ways to get more traffic. The thinking is, “if you’re converting a 2% slice of the traffic pie, build a bigger pie.”

The question that is considered far less often: “can we convert more of the traffic we’re already getting?”

The Future of Search

By Rob Griffin in Featured

I know what you are thinking, and I’m thinking the same thing: The future of search is the most over-publicized topic in search. We have all had our share of panels, articles, conferences and presentations on said topic. It’s enough to make one sick. I’d put this topic, in terms of its nauseating overuse, right up there with Bing and Michael Jackson.

When this topic comes up, it’s always discussed in the context of what search is now. The future of search is so much more than iterations of its current form. Is the future of search really video or Symantec or even personalized search? Hopefully, dear reader, you are following me here, because search has so much power and potential that expands beyond conventional searches at a search engine with varying advances in algorithms, SERPs, targeting, and personalization.

Think about it. Search is ingrained in our lives and has changed how we process and find information. But this shouldn’t stop at finding content online. Macs all now have a fantastic search functionality that sorts files, contacts, calendar items, music, video, pictures, etc and has essentially become the only way I find anything on my computer. I barely even take the time to go through folders anymore. I just search. I use iTunes search to find downloaded movies and shows.

Search has greater potential and can have a starring role in shaping the world of television. I’m an online guy, love online video and new technology, but my TV … how do you describe the role of television in my [our] lives? As Homer Simpson so wisely put it: “Television! Teacher, mother, secret lover.”

This relationship is a really important factor right now because there is a seismic change in how TV content gets served to us. Currently, channels and content are piped into our homes en mass so when we switch between our desired channels there is little tracking. The endgame is to get it so each time you change the channel, the box makes a call for the appropriate content and programming. This makes television addressable and turns the box into something much more like a browser.

I’m over simplifying to make a point: There is huge potential here for search marketers because of our existing relationship, as consumers, with TV combined with inherent scale. As it becomes digital and addressable, search is needed.

Search can even improve the user experience of TV now. On demand is great, but it is brutal to click and scroll through the menu to get to what I want. Why can’t I just search for the movie, show, and/or episode I want? The box needs a more advanced input as the clicker is no keyboard, but that doesn’t mean we can’t improve it. Sometimes I feel like the cable operators subscribe to the philosophy that “if something’s hard to do, then it’s not worth doing,” to use another quote from Homer Simpson. When companies like AT&T, Verizon, DirecTV, Comcast, RCN or any one of the cable/Web providers can aggregate television viewing against online activity it will be a game changer for search engine marketing, because search as a functionality will enable a true anytime-anywhere on demand world. By integrating search into digital on demand in a meaningful way, it will change how consumers access their programming.

From there, it’s all a matter of putting the building blocks in place to align marketing messages with programming in a relevant and valuable fashion. This is not all that different from what propelled Web-based search to what it is today. It’s about the value it provides. Search for addressable television provides a new scale and opportunities for marketers, but also the additional value that consumers need to make this marriage continue to work.

This is the future of search.

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Rob Griffin is Director of Search & Analytics at Media Contacts, the digital (that’s the frosted) side of Havas Media. Rob can always be reached on his Crackberry at rob.griffin@us.mediacontacts.com.

SEO for Large Websites Part 1

By Jeffrey Smith in Featured

As your website grows, your grasp and understanding of SEO should also. The tendency for search engines is, the more content you have, the more keywords and topicality can overlap which may leave search engine algorithms in a quandary attempting to parse and identify which pages have priority over others.

Although phrase based indexing and retrieval is a prime method for extracting relevance and context, there are multiple layers involved ranging from site architecture, internal links, external deep links and accessibility that all contribute to the formula that decides (based on the least common denominator) which pages are the best match for any given query.

How to Keep Customers Happy by Making Your Site Trustworthy and Solving Any Problems

By Serge Daudelin in Featured

The longer you stay in the field of internet marketing, the more obvious it becomes that customers are really your lifeblood. Even if you happen to create a website that focuses on content and passive income streams of advertising, it is still important to remember that keeping your site trustworthy from both a content and a security point of view is something that should be at the top of your list.

One way to make your site trustworthy is to simply solve all of the problems that come up as they are addressed to you. Trustworthiness often has a lot to do with a sense of professionalism that customers get from vendors and with that in mind, it is something that you can easily create. Reply to all of the e-mails that are sent to you, even if it is just an acknowledgement, letting the people know that you have heard and appreciate what they have to say.

Then, when the action required has been taken on the e-mail, you can go ahead and ensure that your customers now know that the concern they submitted has been dealt with. With that kind of attention to your customer, it won’t be long before all of the customers that have dealt with you start to spread out your excellence level and trustworthiness.

Try to stay in touch with your customers. Don’t let your customers forget your business. One of the easiest ways to follow up with your customers is to find out if your customers are satisfied doing business with you. That way, if they are enjoying doing business with your company, you can ask for testimonials. If they’re unhappy, then you must try to set things right. By Providing great customer service you will increase your chances of getting repeat business from your existing customers and thus increase your sales and profits.

Additionally, there is always the third party method for making your site trustworthy. Getting an independent audit of the security features of your website by companies that specialize in such things will show your customers that you are taking their security seriously and of course once you get approved you will be given the opportunity to display their seal on your website in a way that allows them to vouch for the safety of using your website. This affects different people in different ways, but it never ends up hurting your website’s popularity and therefore it is definitely something you will want to consider doing in the future.

Finally, one more way that you can increase the image that you have in the eyes of your customers is simply through being consistent. If you have a content website, then make sure that you regularly update that website in order to ensure that your people keep coming back. If you have a sales website, then consistently make sure that things are in order, replying to e-mails and helping people to solve any problems they encounter.

To Your Success!

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Do you want to learn more about Internet Marketing? I have just completed my brand new guide to Search Engine Marketing Success: ”How To Consistently Drive Thousands Of Targeted Visitors Every Day With Search Engine Optimization”. Download it free here: Search Engine Optimization Success. Affordable Search Engine Optimization Services.com Serge Daudelin is a Search Engine Optimization specialist and consultant who has written over 300 articles in print and 5 published ebooks.

Google Announces their Own Operating System

By Kalena Jordan in Featured

Google had web developers drooling today, with the announcement that they will be launching their own open source operating system by the end of the year. From the official blog post:

“The Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. Later this year we will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010.”

Designed to work hand-in-glove with Google’s own browser Chrome, the OS promises to be quick and light on system resources. Sundar Pichai, Google’s Vice President of Product Management claims that the user interface will be minimal and should *just work*:

“Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. We’re designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web. And as we did for the Google Chrome browser, we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don’t have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work.”

Hype is already building about the Chrome OS on various social networking sites, with “Google Chrome OS” making #2 on Twitter’s Trending Topics list within minutes of the official blog post.

Article Marketing: 3 Ways To Rank Higher In Google

By Steve Shaw in Featured

When I talk with website owners who are starting to market their websites with article submissions and ask them what they hope to achieve, most of the time they will reference one or more of these benefits:

• A higher search engine ranking for your keywords
• More traffic to your website via the articles themselves (in addition to traffic garnered from the higher search engine rank for your keywords)
• Establishing yourself as an expert in your niche
• And going along with the status of expert, when someone does a Google search for your name, they are greeted with a list containing your website and your articles.

Each of these benefits is worthwhile and can help improve your business and your website, but out of all of them, which one can have the most dramatic impact on your website over the long term?

In my opinion, the greatest reward of Article Marketing comes in terms of SEO–having a higher search engine ranking for your keyword terms.

When trying to drive traffic to your website, you need to do something to attract the attention of your target market. This is what article marketing does–it places your website in a prominent position in an arena where your target market is hanging out.

Where does everyone’s target market gather?

At Google and the other search engines.

Whenever you need information on a topic, you will go to Google or Yahoo or one of the other search engines and type your question or need into the search box.

Your target customers are also Googling solutions to their needs.

As a website owner, your goal is to be one of the top results when your customers type their search terms into Google. By being listed at or towards the top of the results pages, you increase your chances of the potential customer clicking through to your website.

That is what called “targeted traffic”.

Targeted traffic means that the people who are visiting your website are most likely to be in need of what you’re offering at your website. This is what you’re going for.

What are the steps to rank higher in Google and the other search engines?

1- Figure out what your keywords are.

Your keywords are not only words that classify the content of your website, but they are the very words that your target market most often types into Google when they are searching for a site like yours.

When you know what those special words are, then you can work to position your website to satisfy those search terms. It isn’t hard to figure out what your keywords are, but it does require a bit of basic research. There are many great keyword suggestion tools on the web, both paid and free. To start with you can look at the Google Keywords Tool, WordTracker Keyword Suggestion Tool, Keyword Discovery, and Overture.

2- Write articles on the topic of your website.

Oftentimes as you’re writing you will naturally use your keywords in your article, title and resource box, but it may be helpful to read back over your article after you’ve finished writing it, and see if there are any places where it would be appropriate to subtly use your keyword terms. The idea is optimize the article for your keyword terms, while doing so in a natural sounding way. Always keep your reader in mind, and write articles that will be helpful and easy to understand.

Be careful not to go overboard with your keywords–keep your keyword density at 3% or lower.

3- Submit articles consistently for the lifetime of your website.

This means submitting a few articles each month, month in and month out. This is perhaps the area where people most go astray–consistency is paramount.

It’s a lot like embarking on an exercise program–you may work out hard and eat healthy for a few days or weeks or even a few months, but if you stop your new healthy habits that are propelling you towards your goal, you will not see the results you were looking for. Before long you will start regressing until you’re to the point that you were before you started working out.

Article Marketing requires steadiness of purpose, doing the same action over and over again to reap cumulative results that can be quite astounding. The hardest part about writing and submitting articles is just sticking with it–if you can develop consist article submission habits, you can see dramatic results over time.

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If you want to achieve dramatic results with Article Marketing (article submission SEO), it’s a great idea to enlist the services of a trusted article submission service. Distribute your articles to hundreds of targeted publishers with the click of a button – for more information go to: http://www.SubmitYOURArticle.com

Why Social Bookmarking?

By Tinu AbayomiPaul in Featured

And I thought to myself: “Um. Why not?” Since I’m not really sure what they meant by that, I’m going to assume that this person mean “Why should I use social bookmarking in my business?” – with a full understanding of all the risks associated with “assuming”.

I figure that if you’re reading this, you have that question, or a similar one.

There are three reasons.

What Makes Your Business So Special?

By Jerry Bader in Featured

The one question every business, branding, and marketing consultant asks is “what makes you special; what makes you different?” If you want to grow your business and get to the next level, defining what makes you special is a good place to start.

Most businesses are copycat companies, selling the same thing, in the same way as most of their competitors, making for a real challenge in providing an adequate answer to the “what makes you so special?” question. But fear not, it is easier than you think.  

A Rose Is A Rose, Until It’s Axl Rose

Coke or Pepsi? Which one do you prefer? Here are two products that are next to indistinguishable, that serve the same purpose, and are sold in substantially the same way. Now I can hear the Coke and Pepsi lovers screaming into their monitors that their favorite is better, but are they really all that different? Perhaps the taste of one is slightly sweeter, but in the grand scheme of things they are substantially the same. So why are people so loyal to their brand, so adamant that it’s their brand or nothing?

It’s branding, the end-product of a marketing communication effort that delivers an emotional value-add that distinguishes one product or service from another; and once that brand identity is established, it is hard to break. No matter how many times these soft drink behemoths are convinced by their ad agencies to change their slogans, to me, and my generation, Coke will always be “The Real Thing” while Pepsi represents “The Pepsi Generation.” What makes these companies special is not what they sell or how they sell it, it’s how they communicate the emotional value their products bring to the table.

What we are talking about is brand communication: the process of identifying, developing, and communicating the emotional value your company, product, or service provides. It is the one thing that can make any company different, no matter how many me-too competitors it has.  

What About Conventional Wisdom?

If it’s so simple why doesn’t everybody do it? The answer is fear, fear of making a mistake, fear of going against conventional wisdom. What people forget is the phrase ‘conventional wisdom,’ coined by economist John Kenneth Galbraith, was a derogatory term used to describe the way politicians and pundits reduced complex issues down to digestible sound-bites based on what people wanted to hear, rather than explaining the complexities and implications related to an issue. Does the phrase “read my lips, no new taxes” ring a bell; no matter how discredited a concept, politicians still promote the idea that government can do its job without people paying their fair share – it’s what people want to hear, what they want to believe, even though it makes for counterproductive public policy.

Today’s mad dash to join the Twitter craze is another example of conventional wisdom gone wild. Just because everyone is doing it, doesn’t make it an effective marketing communication tactic. Everything you ever wanted to know about everything in 140 characters; it’s anti-marketing, and the height of non-communication. The “Cluetrain Manifesto” concept of a global Internet conversation has been corrupted beyond recognition.  True communication implies meaningful dialogue, not instant messenger pseudo-speak and Twitter twaddle.

Just as a matter of interest, the Web-video on Twitter’s home page used to explain the concept, and promote the service, is two minutes and twenty-four seconds long. Too bad they couldn’t have done it in less than 140 characters of text. You think maybe they know something their users don’t.

What About Slogans and Taglines?

Sure slogans and taglines are pithy little statements that like logos, convey a brand personality in an instant, but these short-form symbols and catchphrases are merely reminders of the emotional benefit of the product, service or communication they are attached to, and are the result of ongoing, consistent marketing campaigns that portray the brand in an emotional context. The meaning and value of phrases like “Tastes Great, Less Filling” and “Where’s The Beef?” are the byproduct of long-term consistent campaigns that connect on a human level.  

So What’s The Problem?

The Web has created a whole new class of business executives that never ran a business that didn’t have the Internet available. Technical know-how and engineering expertise has replaced human understanding, while market research, surveys, focus groups, metrics, and statistical modeling have replaced good old-fashioned business savvy and experience. It’s a wonder anybody sells anything any more.

Conventional wisdom states that to sell someone your product or service you need to align your sales pitch to your prospect’s thinking. In other words, tell people what they want to hear, but what if what they want to hear is wrong, counterproductive, and not what they need, or more importantly what they really want?

The average Web-based business entrepreneur tries to think and act like his mega corporation counterpart but without the financial resources to shape and mould public opinion. When a business website fails, it’s because it does not deliver what its audience really wants, it delivers what the company thinks that audience wants.

Gerald Zaltman, professor emeritus at the Harvard Business School is a founding partner of Olson Zaltman Associates, and author of “How Customers Think: Essential Insights into the Mind of the Market.”

Zaltman states, “Most of what influences what we say and do occurs below the level of awareness. …The goal of advertising should be to engage people with a message that has an emotional impact. And that requires actually grappling with the means by which they have experiences and react with emotion, sentiment, and feeling.”

In order to take advantage of this insight, the Web-based business must change how it thinks about websites and how it presents meaningful, memorable experiences that tap into the emotional underbelly of audience desire. The value proposition you offer must be found in the audience’s emotional connection to the Web experience you provide.   In order to create an effective online experience you must understand how your audience consumes what you present. Zaltman points out six fallacies that inhibit effective marketing communication.

Zaltman’s Six Customer Fallacies

1. Customer decisions are rational?
2. Customer behavior can be easily explained?
3. A customer’s mind, body, and societal influences can be understood independently of each other?
4. Customer memories are accurate?
5. Customers think in words?
6. Commercial messages are interpreted as intended?

Think about your own consumer behavior. Everything you purchase has an emotional subtext that influences the purchase: the car you drive, the clothes you wear, and the wine you drink are based on how you see yourself, or at least how you want to be seen. Even the analytical perfectionist who compares all the features, and studies all the reviews is making as much of a statement about his or her need to be right than they are about buying the most functional, cost-effective product.

What’s your brand’s ‘Emotional Value Proposition?

Branding remains one of the most poorly understood and ineffectively implemented marketing tactics business has at its disposal. Yet branding is the key to customer-loyalty, action, and word-of-mouth proselytizing.

What do Nike, Apple, and the US Army have in common? They deliver a brand proposition that offers their audience the opportunity to be the best they can be. It is simple, clear, and unequivocal, your customer wants to be the best they can be and these companies offer the opportunity to reach that goal through their offering. How does your company engage your audience with that kind of emotional value proposition?

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Jerry Bader is Senior Partner at MRPwebmedia, a website design firm that specializes in Web-audio and Web-video. Visit http://www.mrpwebmedia.com/ads, http://www.136words.com, and http://www.sonicpersonality.com. Contact at info@mrpwebmedia.com or telephone (905) 764-1246.

Tactics to Draw People Back to Your Site

By Jeremy Gislason in Featured

One of the biggest measurements of a website’s success is the stickiness of its visitor base. Generally web masters would rather have 1,000 visitors who return regularly (they are “stuck to the site”) as opposed to 3,000 visitors who only visit once or twice. These days the web is massive, carving out a niche for your site and gaining a following within that niche is the key to success.

There are many reasons why you should try to make your website as sticky as possible. Visitors who return regularly are more likely to purchase some of your products or content. If you have a membership site, then retaining your member base is critical for growing your income and long term success. Also, a faithful following will encourage viral promotion of your site.

© Copyright 2012 All rights reserved. Jayde Online, Inc.

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