Posts Tagged ‘Social media’

An Internet Marketing Mistake Companies Can Learn From

Wednesday, October 21st, 2009

Major brands are beginning to jump on the social networking bandwagon, but it seems like some of them may have missed a couple of steps during the leap. While most brands can benefit from social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, there are other elements of online marketing that companies should be taking advantage of as well.

Let’s use Pizza Hut as an example. The company recently hired a full-time tweeter to manage the social media aspects of the brand. Focusing some energy on social media is fine, but after scratching the surface of Pizza Hut’s Internet marketing campaign, it’s easy to see that they should be spending some more energy on SEO.

Pizza Hut Pie

As sales continue to drop at Pizza Hut restaurants around the U.S., the company is using social media and value menu promotions to try and get sales back up. These strategies may increase sales a bit, but the company is missing a golden opportunity to increase sales through their Web site. The Pizza Hut Web site allows customers to sign up and order food to be delivered without calling the restaurant directly. If they focused more on SEO, they’d be able to drive more potential customers to their site and get them to order.

Pizza Hut has a respectable ranking for “pizza” on Google as the second result, but they are below Domino’s. It’s when you look into some other pizza keywords that you see Pizza Hut begin to seriously struggle. One of the highest search volume keywords for pizza is “pizza coupons”, which Pizza Hut isn’t on the first page for (although Domino’s is). If Pizza Hut is promoting a value menu, it’d make sense for them to focus on “pizza coupons” as a keyword to get traffic to their site from customers who are looking for good deals on pizza.

Pizza Keyword Search Volume

Another high-volume keyword Googlers type in is “pizza restaurants.” Common sense suggests that at least some people who type in this term are looking for a pizza place to order from. Unfortunately, Pizza Hut is nowhere to be found on the first page. Papa John’s the first result and Domino’s is in the sponsored links, but Pizza Hut doesn’t show up.

The situation is the same for the term “pizza pasta”, which is searched over 100,000 times a month in the U.S., but doesn’t include Pizza Hut on the front page of Google. This keyword seems like it would be particularly important, because Pizza Hut has been promoting their pasta dishes for some time now. It seems like, if you’re promoting pizza and pasta and “pizza pasta” is a term with a high search volume, it’d be important to rank for it (Domino’s seems to think so, they can at least be found in the sponsored links).

Each of the keywords above seems like it would be be a great opportunity to increase sales for Pizza Hut in the U.S., which is exactly what the company is struggling to do lately. Getting your brand out there with social media is great, but don’t forget about the other ways to gain brand exposure and increase sales with the Internet.

SEO is a powerful tool, and if Pizza Hut wants to increase sales they’ll need to learn that soon. It looks like some of their competitors have already figured that out.

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Your Catch-22: Spending Time on Social Media versus Managing Business

Friday, August 28th, 2009

Does social media threaten to take over your life? Are you feeling swamped with trending topics, Facebook updates, Meebo chats, LinkedIn discussions, YouTube video editing, replying to @ replies, catching up on your RSS feeds, uploading to Flickr… you get my point.

Heck – social media is filled to the brim with stories and analysis about social media!

That being said, social media is an undeniably valuable business resource. Online communities are now virtual water coolers where word of mouth advertising blossoms. It’s very important that you’re message is being shared amongst these communities.

water-cooler-gossip

Are they talking your business?



But you also have a business to manage. I was terribly disappointed to find so few of the “top 25 communicators” on Twitter, but I also understand they are handling the actual business side of things too.

A small business owner may (or may not) have more time to devote to growing the business. They may not have the board meetings/interviews/revenue guidance meetings/etc that a big-shot CMO does, and so they may have more time to spend DM-ing potential clients on Twitter.

On the other hand, we have experienced social media users on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook who absolutely dominate the conversation (not necessarily in a bad way). Some of the most interesting people I follow on Twitter are willing to openly admit they are in-between jobs at the moment.

Maybe it’s because of the recession. Maybe it’s their choice. But the point is that they have the TIME to pursue it.

So where is the happy medium? Either you’re too busy running your business to grow it, or you don’t have a business to run, and have plenty of free time to promote yourself….

hammock-free-time

Pictured: Free Time



Your answer is to choose your battles. Depending on your business, you SHOULD be uploading unique media to sites like YouTube, Flickr, Vimeo, your Facebook Fan Page etc, but does it need to be you? It sounds like a great job for a college intern to me.

college-intern



But where it does need to be you is when you have real communication with your audience. If you’re going to be on Twitter, then it needs to be YOUR voice.

The great thing about Twitter is that it doesn’t require an extreme amount of time. You can respond to a customer inquiry via Twitter on your mobile device in under a minute while riding in the elevator.

Social media can take over your life, but it doesn’t have to. Just be sure you aren’t ignoring it entirely!

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Social Media SEO: Using Engagement to Top the SERPs

Tuesday, August 25th, 2009

Social media is all the rage these days, with the debate on-going whether even CEOs should or should not use social media sites.

One thing is certain though: a presence within social media is a must for companies.

Using this presence to improve your SEO and boost your SERPs is another matter. Merely being an active Digg and Twitter user will not give you a first page placement on Google – but it can help.

Links are the main currency on the Web, and if you really want to see results on Google, Yahoo and Bing, you’ll need to build links to your site.

So how do you do that using social media? You engage.

social-media-starfish
Credit: DBarefoot

Believe it or not, the real strength with social media is the ability of a company to create an easily approachable identity. *Gasp! This means listening to what’s being said about your company and your industry – and even participating in the conversation.

Share your knowledge and understanding of your industry with your online community – whether it’s Twitter, Sphinn or Facebook (or all 3!) Providing quality information will lead to more conversations about your company, and more links leading to your site/blog.

Try sharing content that isn’t yours. Link love can be a reciprocal thing online. I personally don’t believe in swapping links or link buying, but that’s another discussion. Linking to a great blog article on another site will at least get the author’s attention and probably a visit to your site. I think that genuine links are of most value…when the reader believes there is significance to what you’re saying.

links

Accessibility is often the topic of debate in our office. Understand who your audience is. We could write about advanced HTML programming theory and the role its structure can play in SEO, but that would likely turn away many readers.

Unless you’re writing for industry insiders, remember that jargon is not your friend. Readers like learning (that’s why they’re reading), but they don’t like feeling in over their heads.

Have you heard of Squidoo? It’s a publishing platform and will let you create “lenses” about a particular topic. You’ll be able to share your knowledge and expertise and…. Yup – link to your homepage.

There are plenty of (good) ways to use social media to improve your link building, and consequently improve your SEO. What’s important is that you are doing it. You may just be a small to medium-sized business owner, but you need a voice in the conversation that is already going on.

By: Zack S.

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Online Marketing: Carving Out Your Corner of the Internet

Monday, July 20th, 2009

chainsaw-wood-carving

The internet is a giant place these days. It hasn’t always been so big, but it is now estimated that there are some 232 million websites in the world.

To be successful at online marketing and business building, you need to spend some time outfitting your corner of the internet. Start by defining the general area or industry you want to be in, and it’s time to get down to detail.

sand-scupting

I’ll use USASEOPros as an example. We’re in the SEO and online marketing industry, and so our general corner of the internet is related to marketing.

But to further define our business, we’ve added a blog, a Facebook page, a Twitter account, a StumbleUpon account, a Sphinn account, and many others.

Pictured: The Internet

Pictured: The Internet

Above photo credit: Sebastian Prooth.

We use these tools to participate in our corner of the internet as a whole. While on Sphinn, I try to read any and all articles that other people share that I find interesting. The same is true on Twitter – we pay attention to the people we’re following and what they’re saying.

By the same token, we use our blog and the social media sites to share our own thoughts and ideas about the industry. This is the paying attention to detail part.

A blog is an excellent place to start. We try to use our blog as the main landing place for people stumbling across our company, so when we set up social networking accounts, we use the blog URL.

Your blog lets you give your visitors an idea of what the company is about and your own thoughts on the industry you inhabit. Even though a mission statement is a great way to explicitly state the corporate culture, a blog can feel a lot less formal.

It’s with your social media accounts that you can further flesh out your online presence and add some more detail to your corporate identity online.

We focus a lot on Twitter, Facebook and Sphinn, but it really depends on what you feel comfortable with and what industry you’re in. For example, Kaboodle is a social shopping network where the community makes recommendations. Do with that what you will!

Most importantly, as with any online marketing and social media dabbling, remember you’re representing your company as a whole. In fact, you’re painting your own company portrait out there on the internet! You’re in charge of the brush strokes, so when you’re trying to carve out your corner of the web, think about how you’re representing your company.

painting-a-self-portrait

After all, you don’t want this sort of snafu to become a part of your corner of the internet!

By: Zack S.

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Monitoring Social Media for Niche and Localized Marketing

Wednesday, July 15th, 2009

Yesterday the online social media guide Mashable posted an article with four great tools to track Twitpics in (mostly) real-time. I believe this offers marketers an opportunity to reach out to and communicate with people who are discussing a company or product.

Of the four 3rd party applications (Pingwire, Twitcaps, PicFog, Twicsy), I liked PicFog the best thanks its search and the fact that it displays the number of retweets and when the image was uploaded.

I wrote earlier how I was surprised that the top 25 communicators as ranked by PRWeek don’t have much of a presence on Twitter, and neither did their respective companies.

Whether they understand the tool or not, I believe there is some real value for helping build relationships with consumers and clients, and giving individuals a personalized experience.

Take McDonald’s, for example. Sure, the company is a franchise, and every franchise owner is probably responsible for doing some of their own marketing, but there is a national branding push too.

Imagine if someone was listening in to what was being said and posted about McDonald’s on Twitter. Do you think they might learn something?

Below is a picture of the image stream that PicFog returned when I did a search for McDonalds.

mcdonalds-picfrog-stream1

You can see there’s a variety of McDonalds’ related images – from McDonalds’ branded cars to a McCafe cup.

There’s also a picture comment about the back of a McDonald’s receipt and the fact that it’s advertising instead of coupons like at HEB. I always felt that putting a coupon on the back of a receipt was a great way to ensure a quick repeat customer, and obviously this McDonalds patron felt the same way.

Or how about this picture stream about the Boston Red Sox…

Boston Red Sox Picture Stream

This particular user says they aren’t even a fan of baseball, but they love how cute the baby-sized red socks with the BoSox logo on them are.

If someone was monitoring this, they might reach out to the user and mention that next Tuesday was family appreciation day at Fenway Park and would she be interested in free tickets for the family? I’m willing to bet they would have a faithful fan for life. Their kids would be Red Sox faithful fans for life…

Let’s move on to an internet company – eBay. Surely they can find some way to utilize Twitter, right? They do appear to have a Twitter account at least…

In the image below, a Twitter user has posted an image of an HTC phone called the TyTN II that the user is going to be selling on eBay.

ebay-picture-stream

This might be a great chance for eBay to join the conversation and offer a seller’s discount of 10 percent for sharing it on Twitter. After all, it’s all exposure for eBay.

Speaking of HTC, here’s a picture from Twitcaps showing a stream from a search for HTC. In this instance, there’s a user who has posted an image of an HTC phone that they want.

htc-picture-stream

A quick search on Twitter will turn up the user’s profile, and in this case, they made it very easy for a marketer to find where they’re located.

HTC Twitterer

HTC Twitterer

How about a local HTC retailer sending an @ message to the user saying they have the phone he’s looking for in stock and if he comes in and signs up in their store, they’ll give him a 5 percent discount?

And finally here’s a sushi aficionado who lives in the Toronto area.

sushi-twitterer

If the Mye Japanese Restaurant picked up on that, they could send a message to the user and let him know the specials of the night and the drink specials for the week. He may already know about the restaurant, but it might also win him away from a competitor.

For the adopters of the latest marketing technologies, these ideas are probably nothing new. But as I pointed out in an earlier post, there isn’t always someone manning the airwaves.

I think it’s important for marketers to keep an eye on what’s being said about their company and their industry, and tools like Twitter, accompanied by 3rd party applications are a fantastic way to do it!

By: Zack S.

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Social Media Spam Saturation: An Event Horizon for Online Networking

Thursday, July 2nd, 2009

Okay so by this point, most people between the ages of 5 and 55 who use a computer at least once a week have probably heard of social media and social networking Web sites.

Even if you aren’t on Twitter, you’ve no doubt heard about it. You’ve probably heard your friends, co-workers or kids mention Facebook too. And MySpace continues to make the news thanks to sexual predators. Facebook has also dealt with its share of predators on its social networking site.

Social media and networking sites have been around for a while, but like with many things, it sometimes takes time for the general public to adopt them.

It can also take some time for advertisers to adjust to the hottest new social media site too. Twitter has been around since 2006, but it’s only recently (think Ashton Kutcher versus CNN, and Oprah) that the real mainstream has embraced it.

When Facebook first started, it was only for Harvard students. It then expanded to Standford and Yale – then to most colleges. Now anyone can have a Facebook page: individuals, companies…even television characters.

There is a definite correlation between mass adoption of social media sites and the amount of spam and advertising that appears on these sites.

Of course, you say – that’s logical. The more people on a site, the more reach an advertisement has. Duh.

But there also appears to be correlation between the arrival of mass advertising and spammers, and the decline in popularity and reach of social media sites.

Let’s start with Bebo. I personally have never used the site, but I know it used to be very popular. It never reached MySpace or Facebook popularity, but there was a point in time – 2006 through early 2008 - when the site had a respectable global reach.

This is what the Bebo homepage looked like in January 2006.

bebo-homepage-20061

It’s clean, simple, and the call to action for members to join, build a profile and log in are the main focus of the site. There’s virtually no advertising on the homepage, and the focus is on the members who make up the site.

This is what the Bebo homepage looks like in July 2009.

bebo-homepage-july-20091

Whoa! It looks like Bebo took a page from the MySpace playbook and made their entire homepage a branding opportunity for advertisers. While this particular advertiser (the anti-smoking campaign Truth) has a good message, it’s still advertising nonetheless. The focus has obviously shifted from users to advertising dollars.

Enter the decline in popularity.

bebo-on-alexa

Unfortunately, the Alexa stats only go back to late 2007 on this graph, but it’s quickly apparent that Bebo is losing market share. Oops!

How about MySpace? That site certainly took right off, didn’t it?! The site has had well over 120 million profiles created and at one time it was the most popular social site on the Internet.

This is what the MySpace homepage looked like in October 2007.

myspace-homepage-2007

It’s fairly clean and has mostly member-related content on the page. There isn’t an over-burden of advertising on the homepage – just a trailer for an upcoming movie and the MySpace Music section. Again, the focus is on the members.

Fast forward to July 2009.

myspace-homepage-july-2009

This is actually an improvement over their total-page branding that they were doing a few months ago, but there is still a large amount of page space dedicated to advertising. The World Poker Tour online eh? Didn’t the US government just freeze a bunch of online poker assets?

Enter the decline in popularity.

myspace-on-alexa

Whoops! The decline in MySpace popularity and profitability has been widely documented, largely because of the corresponding rise on Facebook.

NewsCorp bought MySpace in 2005, and many users blame the large corporation for turning its attention from users to advertising dollars.

Now let’s look at Facebook. It’s now the most popular and highly visited social networking site, after taking the crown from MySpace in 2008. While MySpace was purchased by NewsCorp in 2005 for $580 million, Facebook has been valued as high as $10 billion!

This is what the Facebook homepage looked like in October 2007.

facebook-homepage-october-2007

It’s obviously very clean, crisp and simple. There’s not a lot – or any! – clutter, and it’s a simple portal for users to access their accounts. The focus is clearly on the users.

Here is Facebook in July 2009.

facebook-homepage-july-2009

Not a whole lot has changed. They’ve added a snazzy global image, but other than that, it’s still a very clean, simple homepage. There isn’t any advertising or branding on the page. There isn’t the latest movie trailer on the page. The focus is still on getting the user to their account.

Guess what? Facebook is still booming! There are over 200 million users, and despite some issues like the click fraud that they’re dealing with, Facebook shows no real signs of slowing down.

facebook-on-alexa

Twitter is the next obvious site to target, but it’s a little different than the others. Rather than being a place to post a bunch of pictures and share your favorite “I love my sorority sisters” gif, it’s a micro-blogging service.

You can find plenty of individuals, businesses and advertisers on the site, but thus far, Twitter management has resisted putting actual advertising on the site.

Users are free to decorate their page however they like, and I have yet to see a movie trailer on the login page.

That’s not to say that there are spammers on Twitter. In fact, it’s a growing problem. But we have a choice in whether or not we follow the spammers. We don’t have to be inundated with spammers if we choose not to be. The focus is still on the users – not the advertising.

So what can we take away from all of this? It’s pretty obvious that so long as a social media and networking site maintains its focus on the user, they’ll be okay.

But the moment the attention turns to growing the advertising revenue, the site starts to lose appeal. And in turn, advertising revenue starts dropping.

Isn’t irony fun?

By: Zack S.

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6 Tips for Behavior and Managing Social Media Community Profiles

Thursday, June 11th, 2009

Congratulations, you’ve gotten your company or brand name on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Digg and a number of other social media sites…but now what?

Your first post or two was rejected by the community and marked as spam even though another community accepted it. You tried to comment on a post and got thumbed down. Meanwhile, your Twitter profile, which quickly gained 250 followers has now sunk to 89, and you haven’t tweeted more than once a week for the past month.

Social media Web site profiles and accounts can be a powerful and effective way to reach out to your audience, but they need to be handled with care and thought.

#1 Don’t simply leap into community discussion without first listening. This means don’t submit your latest blog post, just because you love it, to each and every social news site. Spend some time on the site and see what is accepted and what gets rejected.

Every site has different moderators, different rules, and different levels of community acceptance. Twitter is fairly straightforward. You’re welcome to spam your stream with self-promotion, and nobody can give you a thumbs down – but they can unfollow you.

When I write a blog article for USASEOPros, I don’t always rush out to submit it to Sphinn – an internet marketing news and discussion forum. I try to participate in the community, “sphinn” articles that others have submitted that I enjoyed reading and found relevant and yes – submit some of my own stuff.

But not everything will get through, and that’s going to be something you’ll want to keep track of. If your first five submits were accepted on Reddit, but you last one wasn’t, what was different with it?

#2 This really should go without saying, but unless it’s a political or religious site, or that’s what your company is involved with, keep politics and religion out of your discussion.

Those are two topics that cannot result in a victorious argument – one that is sure to generate. Someone somewhere will disagree with your stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and you’re simply going to end up in a flame war, potentially damaging your brand name.

#3 Try to be professional. This varies site to site, but if you’re managing a company profile on Twitter, then tweeting about Pamela Anderson’s latest foray isn’t acceptable.

I found this interesting blog post about never LOL-ing on Reddit. If you’re trying to promote a business or brand, that’s probably sound advice.

Keep your responses to blog comments and your own comments to thoughtful, professional language. If someone disagrees with your post, thank them for reading the article, and perhaps offer a (polite) rebuttal of your own.

#4 Don’t make it all about you. If you’re managing your company Twitter account, don’t make it a habit to only tweet about your own stuff. Share industry-related things that interest you AS A PERSON. Make the people who follow your feed feel like there is a real person behind the profile page, not just a corporate entity.

I wrote an article about Twitter spam, and I said one of the easiest ways to drive people away from following you is by only posting about yourself and automating the process.

Yes, Twitter can be exploited and used by a number of automated systems. You can schedule your messages to go off every 12 minutes for a certain period of time on a certain day. You can auto-DM and auto-follow people, but are those things that really going to get you the results you’re looking for?

Having 12,000 Twitter followers is surely an ego-booster, but what if 11,824 of them never click on your links and never read your blogs or shared articles?

I would prefer to have just 100 followers if I knew that all 100 of them were actively engaged with my content and communicating constructively with me.

The same goes for sites like Reddit, Digg, etc. Please don’t let your ego get the best of you on these social sites. Other companies and other people can write quality content and can create something shareable. Don’t shy away from spreading the good word!

#5 Try not to simply dip your toes with these sites. You’ll see much better results if you actively manage your Twitter account day to day, rather than simply appearing now and then after you’ve written a new blog post or your company submitted a press release.

We have several team members who are active on a large number of social media sites, every single day. Yes, as an individual it can get a little crazy to manage 22 different accounts and post, comment, and digg every day, so you might pick just a few to get start.

#6 Trolling has (unfortunately) become part of social media – try not to let personal emotions affect your responses.

If you manage social media accounts for a business, you’re representing more than just yourself online. You have an entire company that you’re speaking for, intentionally or not. Just because someone lashes out at you on a social media site does not mean you need to bare your fangs.

In fact, it’s almost inevitable that you’re going to run across someone who flat out doesn’t like you or your company. Deal with it professionally. The Air Force has a (now) famous blog assessment chart that pretty accurately dictates what your type of response should be.

Air Force Blog Assesment

Air Force Blog Assesment

More than anything when it comes to social media, remember that this is an important avenue to reach out directly to the people you hope to sell to/work with. Keep it composed, keep it professional, and keep it friendly!

By: Zack S.

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The 8 Sites You Must Target for Online Marketing Success

Monday, May 18th, 2009

It’s hard to argue with raw numbers. We spent some time scouring Alexa for Web site statistics, and have come up with a ranking of sorts for social media sites.

Everyone knows that Twitter is the big up and comer. If your business isn’t already utilizing this powerful real-time site, you need to be!

twitter-fail-whale

But did you know that as a business, you should focus more on Twitter than you should on Digg? Or that Buzznet is likely your best bet for promoting your band? How about that more German internet users use Twitter than Indian users, but India trumps Germany on StumbleUpon?

So without further ado, and it absolute order, here are the 8 sites you MUST target for online marketing success.

1. YouTube.

youtube_logo

We’ve all visited the site. There are well over 100 million videos on the site – perhaps closer to 200 million. The top videos on the site have attracted over 100 million views.

While it’s a safe assumption that your latest marketing video about the incredible health effects of acai berries won’t reach that number, if you’re creative with it, you very well may go viral.

YouTube pulls in some 18.06 percent of global internet users. That’s behind only Google and Yahoo, according to Alexa. YouTube also has 489,059 sites linking into it. Thanks to the embed feature found on most YouTube videos, that will only grow.

So what can you do to target your audience on YouTube?

Well the most obvious place to start is to join as a member and create a user name – ideally your business name. Make some constructive comments on other videos that interest you, and that have to do with your industry.

As much as you enjoy the latest Mariah Carey music video, your business account shouldn’t be used for simply saying “That’s awesome!”

Your next step is to upload some content of your own. If your business is the sales, installation and maintenance of pools, then adding some video of an actual installation might generate some interest in the niche community.

Or how about creating a video with you sharing your professional insights and tips for pool maintenance and chemicals? Sure, you’re giving away some free advice – but you’re also establishing yourself as a trusted authority on the subject.

Google is also very fond of YouTube videos, and they will rank very well if you take some time and consideration before you name and describe your videos. A title of “Personal Pool Maintenance Tips and Tricks” would probably rank very well on the search engines.

2. Twitter.

twitter-logo

It seems we can’t go anywhere these days without hearing about Twitter. Celebrities are talking about it. Talk shows are talking about it. Even the White House is on Twitter!

But how can you make it work for your business?

Again – the first step is to get on there! If you aren’t already, you better hope your business name isn’t already taken. In fact, it wouldn’t hurt to head over to NameChk and see what sites still have your business name available. Then get to signing up!

Twitter will work best if you pair it with a blog (see #3 on this list). That way you can write content on the blog and share it on Twitter.

Assuming you can provide some engaging content, others will re-tweet your information, and your name and blog can be spread around the community.

I would also suggest using Twitter to form some relationships with others in your industry or related industries. Look for people who may have similar business interests.

Maybe someone who offers pool cleaning services would serve as a solid “tweep” on Twitter. You can share with your followers their latest sales offer, and they can recommend you to people who are looking to invest in a pool.

Twitter also serves as a great way to monitor what people are saying about your company and industry. While you probably won’t see exposure and discussion on the same level as you will about Southwest Airlines, you might run across a tweet or two about the cost estimates on a new pool or what the best chemical brands are to use.

There’s your chance to jump into the discussion and offer people some professional, valuable insight!

3. Blogger.

blogger_logo

You can actually use any blogging service site like WordPress, or have one built into your home page, but we chose Blogger due to its rank and global exposure.

Blogger pulls in 8.29 percent of global internet users and has over 430,000 sites linking to it. Compare that to WordPress at 4.76 percent and 135,535 sites linking in. Either one will serve its purpose, but more internet users are familiar with Blogger than WordPress.

A blog is your company’s chance to engage in discussion with your audience. It serves as an excellent way to reach out to your potential customers and provide them with news, information, offers and upcoming events.

When USASEOPros wanted to have an online sale, we first announced it on our SEO blog and then our Twitter account.

A lot of companies use a blog as a means for the CEO to communicate with the community. A blog gives the company a more personal feel to it, and makes it seem friendlier.

Not everyone wants to do business with “Joe’s Pools”, but if they can see a picture of Joe and read his thoughts and insights into the industry, they may find him and his company more approachable.

Any time you are writing online, I would suggest keeping in mind some simple search engine optimization techniques. You are of course writing for your audience, but don’t forget that search engines will find your blog too.

Use some key words that pertain to your industry and that will rank well on search engines like Google. Maybe title one of your blog entries like “Insight and Hints for Maintaining your Pool from Joe’s Pools”.

If people comment on your blog posts, respond to them! You can gain some great feedback from blog comments, and if you are able to answer their questions, you may just earn yourself another client!

4. Wikipedia.

wikipedialogo

This one is a little tough. Wikipedia cracks down on promoting for promotion’s sake. You can’t simply add an entry about Joe’s Pools and say how great it is and expect the entry to last.

But if you can offer up a valid, informative Wikipedia.org entry, it very well may last. You can use the entry to link to your website, your blog, and include industry information.

Best of all, Wikipedia.org ranks very well on sites like Google and Yahoo. A Wikipedia entry about your company could quickly come to dominate the search results for key words in your industry.

If you’re successful, you’ll enjoy the fact that visitors come to Wikipedia a whopping 14.57 percent from Google. This means that nearly 15 percent of people first do a search on Google, and then head to Wikipedia to learn more.

Wouldn’t it be nice if they were heading to YOUR Wiki entry to learn more about YOUR company?

5. LinkedIn.

linkedin_logo

This is a networking site of over 25 million users who are billed as experienced professionals. Over 150 industries are represented, and users are connected through jobs, education, and friendships.

The site is an excellent place to find a professional in your industry, in your neighborhood. As a business owner, you can connect to colleagues, clients and partners. With a profile, you’re also increasing you business exposure and visibility in a professional networking environment.

LinkedIn can also help you target direct sales for your company.

While LinkedIn may not be the greatest solution for our fictitious “Joe’s Pools”, it might work wonders for an office supply company or a human resources company.

If you would like to learn more about the incredible power of LinkedIn, here’s a great article about effective LinkedIn marketing. It’s a little old (2007), but much of the information is still relevant.

6. Digg.

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Digg is a social news site that is essentially a central hub of information. Users can “digg” information they deem interesting, and the most “dugg” articles will find their way to the top of the site.

Start by creating a user profile with your company, and then get to reading and posting. We have an article about this called Spinning, Digging, Stumbling and Beyond: Profit for Free Online if you would like some more thoughts on this topic.

Digg has become one of the go-to sites for the latest and greatest internet news, photos, videos and articles. Users link the original content to Digg’s site, and then you can start digging from there.

Again, this is a site that will really benefit if you are able to offer your own content. Publish your videos on YouTube and then put them on Digg. Write a blog post, and then head over to Digg.

Users head to Digg as a news/entertainment aggregate – make sure they’re finding your company there!

The United States and India are the two biggest users of Digg. Over 43 percent of Digg’s traffic comes from the U.S., while India contributes over 13 percent. It’s important to keep in mind your potential target audience with each of these sites as not every site it big in every country.

If you happen to own a company that does exporting to India – or you’ve been considering making a move overseas, Digg might be one of your best bets for attracting interest there. Our number 8, StumbleUpon, gets 16 percent of its traffic from the country too, while Indian users make up over 14 percent on LinkedIn.

7. Facebook.

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With the raging popularity of Facebook these days, you might be a little surprised to see this one so far down the list.

It’s not because of Facebook’s lack of reach. Nearly 17 percent of global internet users visit Facebook, and the average time on the site tops out over 25 minutes a day.

But Facebook is not LinkedIn. It CAN serve as a professional profile, but the largest portion of users fall within the 18-24 age range.

Jello shots and keg stands may make for a fun picture, but they probably won’t help you sell your office supplies.

Creating a fan page can work for Coca Cola, but will it work for “Joe’s Pools”? Probably not.

That being said, it is probably a good idea for Joe to have a profile page, complete with information about his company, what he offers and how to get in touch with Joe for a beautiful new pool.

Facebook is a wonderful resource for targeting specific age groups, but it’s more valuable to small businesses as an advertising site than a networking site.

The site can be a gold mine for companies that offer consumable products (think Red Bull, the Whopper, and the aforementioned Coca Cola), but unless you’re hawking the hottest new energy drink or a brand new line of clothing, you’re probably better off focusing most of your social network efforts elsewhere.

8. StumbleUpon.

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StumbleUpon is another social news site, similar to Digg, which works as an internet aggregate. It pulls in content that is “stumbled” by its users, and promotes the content on its site.

Although smaller in size than Digg, StumbleUpon still has a very respectable 118,000 sites linking into it.

Again, you’re going to want to create a user profile with your company name and then use the site to become part of the community: comment and “stumble” interesting blogs and articles while sharing your own content.

There are a number of other sites similar to StumbleUpon and Digg. Mixx is one that seems to be growing in numbers, but it’s still much smaller than these two.

It’s better to focus your efforts on a few of these sites instead of trying to spread your efforts and energy thin. You’ll get a much better response if you can spend some real time on StumbleUpon and Digg than if you scatter your content about.

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So there you have it. Our 8 sites you must target for online marketing success.

You’ll notice that many of these sites work well together. That’s the idea. You should have a network of sites that promote your business and build an online identity of your company.

There are some interesting statistics that link many of these sites together as well.

For YouTube, Facebook was the third most popular upstream link and the second most popular downstream link.

Over 9 percent of LinkedIn visitors came to the site after first visiting Facebook. Twitter is the fifth most visited site after visitors stop by Digg – they’re probably heading off to tweet about an article they found!

Through it all, Google reigns supreme though. Amongst all 8 sites, every single number one upstream AND downstream site was Google.

That means that users are first searching for content on Google, finding a profile or content on one of these 8 sites, and then heading there.

It also means that after reading or watching the content on those 8 sites, Internet users are heading back to Google to learn more. Clearly you want to get your business name on the top of Google!

With our sites, we started from the top, and worked our way on down. First and foremost is the content. From YouTube videos to Tweeting to a blog, you MUST give your audience something to digest.

You cannot promote your company on sites like Wikipedia, LinkedIn, Digg, Facebook and StumbleUpon with giving them something to talk about.

Bonnie Rait had it right all along apparently.

By: Zack S.

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