By Internet Marketing Experts
Each week, Dear Gracie answers questions from ProfNet Connect readers with advice from our network of more than 44,000 ProfNet experts. Has there been a question burning in your mind lately, something you’ve been wondering that none of your friends can answer? Please send it to grace.lavigne@prnewswire.com
Dear Gracie,
I’m interested in tips for branders/advertisers/marketers on how social media is different from traditional media. Are there any tactics we should use specifically for social media vs. traditional media? How do brands become memorable through social media? What makes a brand successful on social media?
Media Minded
For example, social media allows consumers to have access to the ratings and reviews of fellow shoppers, says Melih Oztalay, CEO of SmartFinds Internet Marketing. A study by the e-tailing group and PowerReviews (found on MarketCharts.com) in September showed 6 out of 10 consumers base shopping decisions on the ratings and reviews of others, through social media sites and user-generated content.
Social media allows consumers to receive individual attention from a brand, says Oztalay.
Read more details of How Social Media Changed Branding at:
http://www.profnetconnect.com/gracelavigne/blog/2011/11/02/dear_gracie:_how_social_media_changed_branding
By Internet Marketing Experts
I think it is fair to say that Google Plus Project, otherwise known as G+, has exploded onto the web marketing scene in a very short time. Statistics around the web indicate that in the first week, 35% of all new links shared on Twitter were related to the G+ Project.
At first glance everyone seemed to be declaring that the Google G+ Project would be the end of Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and Skype. I cannot imagine that G+ would have the ability to knock these behemoths down. Certainly not in the short term and long term the other communities fulfill other needs that G+ will not be able to. What I do believe the critics are missing is the effect on web marketing. Perhaps these critics are not web marketers, but more likely either seeking attention through competitive propaganda or have an inability to adopt and adapt to new changes within the Internet industry.
Certainly Google’s G+ Project will eventually change the web marketing world. Since this is Google’s own product, they will prefer social tick marks through the +1 Button over those coming from Twitter, Facebook and social bookmarking. You cannot help but see that this will impact organic search results. Web pages that generate many +1′s will probably populate earlier on Google search results than those websites that do not.
I will avoid detailed discussions related to the features offered through the Google G+ Project in this discussion, which include sharing Photos, Chatting, Hangout, Spark, Huddles, and Instant Uploads. As a web marketer, all of these other features are social community add-ons that mimic the likes of GoToMeeting, Skype, Flickr and others. None of these will necessarily affect web marketing in terms of search results; only make more features available for Google to allow for Adwords advertising on Google web properties versus on the Google Ad Network.
What Is The Need for Google Plus Project?
First and foremost, if we go back many years when Google got it’s start, part of their objective was to be the world’s information source. To that end, any information including communications, are fair game to be pooled under one roof for better accessing, interpretation and availability based on content relevancy. Information from social communities certainly falls into the process of aggregating information and in line with Google’s objectives.
Secondly, a few years ago if you logged into your Google account, you had the option of commenting on web pages in search results. I think it took one comment to realize that nothing we did would have an effect on website rankings, because the comments were only relative for our own account. Now why would I comment on web pages if my comments are not shared with anyone? Exactly! So, the comment we had on our own website is no longer there and the Google Plus Project seems to have replaced this feature more effectively. Now, all comments, ticks, etc. are shared with people in our community. Certainly seems to be more effective for web marketing.
Perhaps not the last reason, but certainly another important reason, would be related to anti-spam. Google has always sought out ways to reduce spam in the search results. So much so, that it has made it more difficult and complicated for businesses to rank legitimate information and websites (this is also known as job security for web marketers!).
Spammers have infiltrated social communities and found ways to get their information indexed through these communities and/or impacted search engine results for their websites. Since most popular social communities are not as good as Google in terms of anti-spam, one would expect Google to take a pro-active role. Content in the project can be better monitored (aka controlled) to minimize spam, fraud and less reputable websites.
G+ and Web Marketing
The +1 button is available through web search results now and also through other social communities, blogs, etc. A Google +1 button plugin is available for WordPress blogs and eventually, this will be as wide spread as other sharing tools for Twitter, Facebook, Delicious, etc.
Since these “social activities” are taking place on Google, it is hard to imagine that the number of +1 button clicks a given page gets would not have an effect on the organic rankings! Not only is the +1 button included on every post within Google Plus and on content publishers’ websites, but it’s literally sitting next to every single search result that Google returns. Does anyone doubt that this will affect search engine ranking position (SERP) results?!
It would be similar to doubting that star ratings on local business listings won’t affect search engine results that come through the local business listings. Let’s get realistic. As of November 2010, Google was able to marry a website with a local business listing and display average star ratings for a website based on the results in the local business listing. Star ratings are quantitative and therefore mathematical! Still don’t believe this will affect SERP?
If we believe that the number of +1 clicks will affect SERP and also display accordingly to content relevancy to my G+ community, then the more people in my community, the more people I can effect with +1 clicks.
Yes, I realize if we were to hire a bunch of people from a third world nation for 50 cents per hour clicking away at our client or our own websites, we could affect SERP, but let’s move away from that thought for a moment because that loop hole could get closed very quickly based on geographic IP addressing.
However, it does mean that the more people you have in your G+ community, the more people you can impact. Rather than thinking about third world nations clicking away, think about indiscriminately creating the largest community you can possibly think of using– every community you already belong to, every email address you have, every connection you can get your hands on. Now that may have a much bigger impact for anything you +1!
Early Adoption and Adapting To Change
Once again, the Internet shows how quickly a technology can enter the market and how rapidly people will migrate to it. Early adoption is the name of the game in the world of Internet technologies. Adapting to the changes in the industry is a must and everyone else will be left behind. If the past 20 years has not shown us that businesses need to jump on board sooner rather than later, then you will undoubtedly be left behind.
The G+ user population will grow extremely fast, given the interest, Google’s reach and resources, and the need businesses have for their website’s SERP. Perhaps this will become the “Facebook for Business”!
It will be interesting to learn how well businesses will be able to keep up with all of the changes, given the growing “to do” list. G+ on the short term will add a host of additional “to do’s” and the number of marketing outlets to manage. G+ will also be too important to ignore.
Article Contact
Melih Oztalay, CEO
Smartfinds Internet Marketing
Direct: (248) 568.2241
melih@smartfindsmarketing.com
330 East Maple Road #503, Birmingham, MI 48009
http://www.smartfindsmarketing.com
By melih
Facebook tends to be a problem for many people when they start to mix their personal and their business contacts. For the personal contacts they are less interested in seeing communications about your business. For the business contacts they may find your personal life quite interesting and for you a bit of a problem letting your business into your personal life.
Separating these two segments of your life can be accomplished at Facebook by simply splitting them into different lists. This will allow you to continue benefit from you personal life, while separating your business contacts. The below steps are written with the assumption that you understand how to navigate through Facebook. The instructions are also based on August 2009 Facebook features, links and navigation.
– Click on the “Friends” link at the top
– Click the “+Create” on the left sidebar under Lists
- A new window will open and you can type in the list name for your business contacts (e.g. professional or business) then click “Create List” button, lower right.
– Click on “All Connections”
- You can now go through your list and click on “Add To List” down the right column for each business contact and place them into your new list.
- You now have to change your privacy settings for your wall by clicking on “Profile” at the top.
- Click on “Options” under the “Share” button.
- Click on “Settings”
- Under “Who can see posts made by friends?” click on “Customize”
- In the pop-up window under “Except These People” select the business contact list you created, then press “Okay”.
What we just accomplished is for your Facebook wall. You can now customize all other aspects of your Facebook account by hovering over “Settings” then clicking on “Privacy Settings”, and finally clicking on “Profile”.
You can now perform the same steps as above for all aspects of various Facebook features. We invite you to add your experience about Facebook privacy settings to augment the writings in this post.
By teamsf
We learned recently that information submitted to the micro-blog, Twitter.com, does not continually remain on Twitter.com. Since postings on Twitter are eliminated over time, then Twitter may not be considered an effective long- term content marketing tool for your Internet marketing strategy. Instead, it might better fall into the category of short-term Internet advertising.
The general concept of Content Marketing is to post information throughout the Web in such a way that the work being performed will have a shelf life of years. Information posted on the Internet, for the most part, requires labor. Nothing is very automated about this posting process; yet, the significant benefit is the ability to garner traffic from these postings through a variety of sources over the long term. Content Marketing tasks can be reduced after time and even after these efforts are reduced or ceased, you should still continue to see viral benefits.
If we compare this to Internet advertising, the general routine is that as long as you have money for your an ad, the ad will help drive traffic to your Web site. If the money stops, then the ad disappears and the traffic from the ad stops.. For this reason, Internet advertising does not have a shelf life and is generally a short term response. Internet advertising is not very labor intensive.
Twitter, on the other hand, appears to be a labor intensive social media marketing tool which requires ongoing labor to maintain a presence with your posts. For something considered to be a “blog” of sorts, we have to wonder if this process really benefits a content marketing strategy.
As an example, in our Twitter account we saved two different searches. One for our company name “smartfinds” and the other for a very popular article we wrote about the “court of the people”. Both had postings indexed by Google and we could see the number of interested Twitter members grow. Unaware that this information may come down from Twitter, we did not pay close attention, onlyto occasionally check our saved Twitter searches.
Recently, we checked these saved Twitter searches and found they all had zero response. This was quite a surprise for a labor intensive process. The Google indexed pages are still intact; however, they link to a blank Twitter page without the content. This would not benefit us with Google searches and eventually Google will remove the listings as well.
Our recommendation is for Twitter to re-consider its policies and keep postings for content marketing purposes. Twitter currently acts as a short term response Web site for current activity. This and relationship building can be accomplished from a variety of other sources on the Web where the content continues to stay. Without any long term benefits of the posted information, why would one want to Twitter as part of a viral content marketing strategy?
By melih
The Internet has created an environment in which institutional control of the order of information has been lost. As a result, order and the control of information have trickled down to the individual level. Imagine the transition from several thousand companies once controlling messages through traditional media, to today’s expansive communication via several million individuals free to distribute their own information on the Internet.
Welcome to the “court of the people.” This court of the people’s currency is emotion. The one with the most amount of emotion will spread their word about a company, a product, a service very quickly throughout hundreds of web sites. When a customer’s emotions are negative, of course, this becomes problematic. The web sites which a dissatisfied customer can post to includes blogs, forums, complaint communities, and social communities at large
Certainly one can argue that this process aids in identifying scams and locating others that have experienced the same scams. Allowing the individual to post their experience on the web will bring people together from different parts of the world to help stop predators seeking financial gain on the backs of others.
While the court of the people has a legitimate and positive aspect, for large corporations operating with products and services to consumers, it can become an Internet public relations nightmare. For this reason, it becomes important to perform ongoing monitoring and continual management of the information through thousands of web sites. Unlike traditional media, information that is posted on the Internet has a shelf life of years, can be easily found through search engines, and continues to shape customer opinion.
What options do businesses have in this new age of Internet public relations? A passive approach towards the “court of the people” will not provide a long term solution as negative information builds exponentially. An active Internet public relations strategy will be necessary and one that not only monitors brands, products and services, but also develops relationships with the consumer through social media marketing.
You may have heard that “Content Is King” on the Internet. The statement is 100% accurate. Content Marketing through content development and content distribution will become one of the methods of active Internet public relations strategy. Content marketing can be defined as “the convergence of editorial and advertising using multiple formats that allows for viral distribution to raise awareness about your business and web site.” Content types range from articles, news releases, video, photos, social media postings and much more. How much information is posted on the Internet about your company, your domain name, your products and your services? How wide of a net has been cast with this content?
Another Internet public relations strategy is relationship building through social media marketing. Social Media Marketing strategies allow businesses to engage the consumer at the time that they are asking questions, posting opinion, or seeking help. Most companies do not have a strategy for social media, rather a peripheral approach. A strategy that focuses on the business objectives, monitoring tools, and analyzing results will develop relationships between the brand and the consumer; and, supports the sales process. The process of a social media marketing strategy can also tie into a business’s customer relationship management (CRM) system.
So, where does Internet advertising fit into this process? When it comes to the Internet public relations, there really isn’t any room for advertising. Internet advertising is best suited for product launches, events, internet value offers and other promotions that support the direct sales process. One has to also consider that Internet advertising has a shelf life of a few seconds and provides no longer term benefit when it comes to your Internet public relations strategy.
Content marketing to post information through multiple methods will give you a proactive position for any negative publicity. Social media marketing for relationship building will support any current customer questions, opinions, help as well as sales. Circumventing the “court of the people” will support your brand objectives with an active Internet public relations strategy. Does your company have one?
By dougm
Reflecting over the first quarter of 2009, I’ve spoken with small business owners, medium business owners, large global business leaders, brand managers, entrepreneurs, agency VPs, PR experts, client marketing executives, adverting executives, social media gurus, writers/bloggers and of course – IT and technical wizards – who all are energized and thirsty to move the needle forward.
Now that the second quarter is underway, are you maneuvering towards your goals and effectively moving the needle forward or just idling on fumes? With a sour economy still looming, budget cut hangovers are still pounding in everyone’s heads and resources are “busting-at-the-seams.” Yet, many savvy businesses are staying ahead of the competition by learning from and embracing the maturing “new media” technologies – cultivating well planned digital marketing, digital advertising and social strategies.
A well-executed digital strategy can drive businesses forward. Advertising can help you with the ability to connect with your target audience across multiple digital touch-points. Content marketing helps you become an authority on topics that will allow you to have “a shelf-life of years” out on the web. Social strategies can build one-to-one relationships that help your enterprise grow credibility and relevance over time. In addition, if done correctly a well-executed digital strategy can aide in building brand champions and hand raisers that facilitate your message – genuinely.
Traditional or poorly executed digital methods that lack effective measurability to track an accurate ROI can be painful. In addition, many times they can even fall short of providing valuable baseline data benchmarks and reliable consumer insights for future use.
Is New Media New?
So, when it comes to “new media”, is the media new or is it how the technology is maturing that is – in fact – new? It has matured – nicely – sort of, since I graduated from college nine years ago.
So Today, What Is New Media…?
For the later part of the 20th century, we can simply define new media as the emergence of networked information and digital communication technologies. When I was in college in the late nineties, I used every aspect of the web that was available at that time from early social communities (e.g. CollegeClub.com) to search engine research. (An MSU professor first told me of Google in 1999.)
Swingers (1996): "Our Little Baby's All Growns Up!"
New media today is “all growns up” Or is it? We continually see the maturation process happening on a daily basis. Content relevancy is rising and digital communication is flowing “over capacity” at times.
Twitter Over Capacity - Source: Twitter
Is digital a realistic approach for our brand?
We have a saying at SmartFinds, “We take a rational approach to an irrational medium,” which was coined by our colleague, Gene Brady, in the Fall of 2008. As is the case in any good creative, marketing, social or advertising strategy, the first step is developing a strategy based on solid business objectives and intense research – or “listening.”
Recently, I was talking with a friend about a social strategy and as I was speaking on this “listening” business he stated, “yeah, but you’re not actually “listening,” you or your marketing team is reading stuff on the Internet.” I said to him… “Shhh… listen…, with the expertise of our analysis software and technology tools, can’t you hear the sweet music of ones and zeroes playing 24-7?” Is your brand in harmony, out of tune or not even audible on the web?
Finally, don’t just throw your time or budget away!
Don’t think that you need to do everything at once. Develop your plan with solid business objectives. The new media flow begins with a review of the business objectives followed by – Research, Strategy and Planning to derive trustworthy marketing, advertising and/or social objectives.
For example, at a high level, approaching an effective digital marketing program requires:
Industry Research – In developing your strategy, we need to understand your business, your products and services to provide solid gap analysis to guide you to get the results you need and catapult you ahead of your competitors.
Market Research – We must answer all questions that will allow us to reach your target market. This includes analyzing items such as, key phrases searched, the volume of those searches and competition that is out there. We will also find websites, forums, blogs, communities, micro communities, et al. – to learn (“listen”) how your target audience uses the Internet.
Competition Research – We generate Internet metrics about your site with the public information such Page Rank, Traffic Rank, Link Popularity and Keyword Density. These metrics not only allow us to perform technical marketing (including SEO) but also give us guidelines and goals to reach for a content marketing campaign for sustained presence within the Internet community.
Competitor Research – You need to distinguish between Competitors and Competition online. Competitors are companies that provide the same products and services with the potential of acquiring business away from you. Competition – Any web page that happens to have the same keywords or phrases that are part of your content marketing campaign. Competition research gives us information why a certain web page is ranked, while Competitor research will help us identify how well the competitors are actually performing on the Internet.
Strategy Development – Analysis of the research data helps determine the type of content marketing needed. It helps to guide the changes needed on your website for visible text or the effectiveness of the campaign as your brand is marinating on the Internet.
Business Plan Development – Does the strategy have potential to increase revenues? How much revenue can it potentially increase short term and long term? Based the campaign objectives and your profit margins we can provide you with an estimate for the return on your investment into your own company.
Are you already embracing new media to help drive business forward? Need help getting started? What are some of the pain points in your business world today? Let us know what’s working for you or what questions you may have. Remember, at SmartFinds Internet Marketing, “We take a rational approach to an irrational medium; and we are dedicated to one thing: helping you drive business through Internet marketing.”
Follow Me On Twitter
