Archive for the ‘Social Media Optimization’ Category
Monday, January 25th, 2010 |
Many internet users believe that the real time web isn’t available to them. If you don’t update on Twitter, post pictures on Facebook, network on LinedIn – people think that they aren’t able to learn and benefit from the real time web. This is not the case – and tons of startups and new websites have launched which require no login, membership, or passwords to access. Below, are examples of how to benefit from these services, right now:
Anyone can search the real time web. You can visit Twitter and instantly perform a search to see what people are saying about a specific page. To learn more about the types of searches that the real time web works best with, this search tips page offers several categories for which to search from. All in all, the best part about a real time search is that its instant. Plus, each day it changes, so a search today will offer different comments and thoughts than a search for the same keyword 3 weeks from now.
If you want to see the hottest trends, head over to What The Trend which will summarize each of the hot topics on the web right now. In a format that can be compared to WikiPedia – the site allows any user to provide feedback as to why a particular topic is trending right now. Every day, something new is a hot trend on the real time web, and anyway can track them at What The Trend or a variety of other sources.
When people share links on the real time web, it is often about topics that are hot right now. Through compiling all of the links shared on the real time web, you are able to see which lends are the most important for a given topic right now. When you perform a real time search at Sency- you will see a tab for today’s most popular links. This will show you the most popular links right now for the keyword you searched for. If you check back a few days later, for that same keyword, new links will probably show up. SO, you can take advantage of the real time web to instantly see what links people are talking about, today, for the subject matter that is of interest to you.
So, familiarize yourself with these tools today, and you will find them becoming useful in your day to day internet browsing.
Evan Britton – Founder, Sency
Image source: http://soshable.com
Posted in Search Engines, Social Media Optimization, Twitter | 6 Comments »
Thursday, January 14th, 2010 |
Pick a social media site, any social media site. Amy Vernon probably has a presence on it, and a prominent one. She’s a top 25 all-time Digg submitter, a “Super-Mixxer” on Mixx, a power tweeter on Twitter and a highly influential Stumbler on Stumbleupon. 
She also maintains several blogs, including TVTyrant.com, iMommyTalk.com, and blogs.4bauer.com. Somehow, she still finds time to write for a slew of others, like Burbia.com, and HotHardware.com. Not impressed yet? Consider that she’s also a full-time mom with two kids.
But there’s more to the Vernon story. In 2008, she became the highest ranked female Digg user ever and today stands at number 19 according to SocialBlade. Recently, I caught up with Amy so I could learn about her rise to social media “maven-hood.” We also chatted about the one topic that no discussion with a top 25 digger would be complete without: the precise direction of social media (skip to the last question if you can’t wait).
Since Digg supposedly caters to a mostly male demographic, many are surprised to learn that a female has broken into the top 25. Do you think the type of content that becomes popular on Digg these days is slowly changing to cut across more demographics than it has in the past, or do you think the kind of stories that become popular are pretty much the same as they were, say, three years ago?
I think the key word there is “supposedly.” Things that are popular on Digg tend toward stuff guys (particularly geek guys) like, I guess – computers, gadgets, science fiction, Megan Fox, boobies – but for the most part, it’s about quality content.
I’m also a huge sci-fi and tech nerd, so I have a lot in common with a lot of the folks on Digg.
But, yes, there are more and more women on Digg all the time. You now might find a story about parenting on the front page where you wouldn’t have even a year ago. Even sites like Divine Caroline, Limelife, Women’s Day and Elle have had a reasonable amount of success on Digg over the years because the content submitted was interesting on a universal level.
When I look at your body of work and then realize that you’re also a full-time mom, the first thing I wonder is, how in the world do you have time to juggle everything. About how many hours of work would you say you put in during the course of a day?
It’s hard to quantify. Most of the time I’m awake, I’m doing something that is related to or considered work. But I can take breaks whenever I need or want to.
Some people were happy to see Digg’s shout feature eradicated. Others felt helpless–like the rug had been pulled out from under them. What did you think about Digg’s decision to remove the shout feature? Did you endorse its sudden death?
There were definite problems with Digg’s shout system. But I think it was a mistake for a social media site to eliminate the most social feature it had. There’s no way for users to communicate with each other directly on Digg itself. By the time it was gone, I probably used it more to just say hi to friends than anything else.
When people were going away for a few days, or behind, they’d just send a shout to their friends to update them. Now, you have to go elsewhere, to sites that have nothing to do with Digg — Twitter, Facebook, Gmail, IM — to communicate with other users. If someone’s a brand-new user to Digg, it’s hard for them to find a way to communicate with older users.
What do you think of the new Digg advertising system that allows Diggers to vote ads up that they like? Are you ok with it?
I’m fine with that, really. Digg has to make money, right? So they make it from ads. A lot of Diggers I know have AdBlockPlus anyhow, and so don’t see them – and Digg kindly made sure ABP would work on those ads. I sometimes vote on the ads, even. I’ve both dugg and buried ads, in fact.
Do you think the Diggbar helps or hinders the user experience?
When it first came out, it was a fabulous addition. You could send out the digg link in a Tweet or post it to your Facebook page and it was accessible both to your friends and followers who were Diggers and to those who were not.
But when Digg changed it so that you only got the frame if you were signed in to Digg and to a Digg landing page if you were not, well, it became useless to many Diggers, including myself. Diggers are only a small percentage of people whom I interact with on Twitter and Facebook. I refuse to send out links that force readers to click yet another time to get to the actual content.
When Digg banned the top five power user Zaibatsu, he took a big chunk of Digg’s audience with him to Twitter. In measurable ways, this was a game-changer. Do you think it’s wise of Digg to ban major players like Zaibatsu and Supernova17, or do you think Digg is better off in the long run taking a more hands-off approach?
I think Z’s move to Twitter was compounded by Digg’s decision to remove shouts and move communication to Twitter and Facebook. Those two things definitely had a measurable effect. I can’t say whether it’s “wise” for Digg to ban major powerusers or not, because I wasn’t privy to that decision-making and don’t know the full story. What I’ve heard doesn’t make sense, certainly. I think the main problem is that some people are banned for the same things that other people have been given second chances for.
Before the “big ban” of late summer/early fall 2008 (there was one big banning in August and then several smaller follow-up group bannings in the months following), people were given second chances sometimes if they were found to have used scripts and promised they’d never, ever do it again. When the big Ban Hammer came down on a huge swath of Diggers, however, no such allowances were made. Was that fair? No. But life often isn’t.
I have seen Digg give other people second chances before. In fact, I was banned for about an hour one day because a post I submitted from a legitimate site linked to a site where an item could be purchased. It didn’t occur to me that there was a problem with submitting it (it was a purse where the handle was a knuckleduster). And I had no financial stake in the item, either. I just thought it was cool. Once Digg told me the problem and I promised to never submit that kind of post again, I was reinstated.
After that, if I had any question whatsoever, I either avoided submitting it, or e-mailed Digg support to ask if there was a problem with it, if I just reallllly wanted to submit it. A few times they suggested the post in question might not be proper material to submit; other times they told me they saw no problem with it.
Look – Digg can’t be too hands-off. They have a TOU and have to enforce it. It’s really just a matter of consistency and of being willing to work with those who violate the TOU to give second chances when appropriate.
You’re a founding partner of iMommyTalk.com, a vlogging site where you post videos. If this site had a mission statement, what would it be?
Well, our tagline on all our videos is “Where mommies talk and we listen.” The idea is to start conversations with our community, but in a more personal way than just a regular blog. They’re one-person vlogs where we discuss a topic and ask for our viewers to put in their two cents. We’d love for more users to post their own videos on the site, too, which they can do. We’re still sort of in a soft launch, though, as Donna Chaffins (the founder and CEO) and I have rather hectic lives. As most moms do.
Some people build niche sites with an exit strategy planned right from the onset. They know what large sites or companies would be interested in buying them. Others know exactly who they want to ask for venture capital when their site reaches a certain milestone. What would you like to do with iMommyTalk? Any epic goals?
Sure, we’d love to make money from the site. In fact, I think one of our videos made a whopping 15 cents! (Can you buy anything for 15 cents anymore?) But for now we’d really like to share our experiences – as two relatively “regular” moms, in two-parent families. Not rich, not poor. We’re not incredibly snarky or polished. We’re just like our audience. We just want to connect with them and hopefully help put things in perspective for people. Our vlogs have ranged from how to deal with mommy guilt to whether it’s appropriate to ever drink in front of your children.
Stumbleupon has made some drastic changes lately. Are you a fan of the new Stumbleupon?
Well, to me the most significant change is in sharing, and I am a big fan of that. When SU first made the change from its previous incarnation to what’s now being called “Old StumbleUpon,” I and many others cheered the newfound ability to share en masse – send a post with just a few clicks to all our followers. But that quickly became a nightmare. I know people who soon unfollowed everyone because they wanted to use SU as it was meant to be used – to stumble onto new, interesting sites. If you have 99 shares in your Stumble bar at all times, you’re never experiencing the true enjoyment of the site. Then it just becomes a chore.
That said, SU did need to make it so you could share items with more than one person at a time. I just posted a blog item about Lost. If I had a dozen or so followers whom I knew liked Lost, I might want to send it to them to make sure they saw it. And chances are, they’d want to see it. But that’s not how it was being used. Now, you have to click on everyone’s name to send it, so hopefully that’ll make people less like to share everything with everyone.
Sometimes I just quickly cycle through my shares because it becomes overwhelming and I can’t look at it all. I stopped using the “share all” on a regular basis long ago, using it only perhaps once a week or if I was going to be out of pocket and wanted to let everyone know I wouldn’t be around to see their stuff.
Have you caught NComment’s comic strip portrayal of Digg? What do you think of his analysis?
I can’t believe NComment finally finished Part II! I don’t mean it really as “finally,” because I can’t even fathom how much work all that detail took. I’ve looked it over two times, and will have to look another time for all the little bits, such as the “TechCrunch” candy bar by “Arrington’s,” written in the same script as Nestle’s (have to look REALLY close).
I haven’t met a single person yet, Digg, Reddit, Mixx, whatever, who didn’t think it was just spot on. It highlights all the problems with all the sites – and of course they all have problems. All the little things that make Digg goofy – all the memes, the inscrutability of the algorithm – are also what make it so addictive and lovable.
I can’t wait for part three, but I hope it doesn’t take eight more months.
However, if it does, I’m sure it’ll be worth it.
Where do you see social media in exactly five years–just kidding. I’m not going to ask you that; it’s a contrived question and unfair to throw a crystal ball at someone and ask them to read it. Let me ask you this instead: if you were building a social media site, what would you make its defining characteristic?
The main thing any social media site needs to insure is quality control. You can’t let the spam take over. I think Digg, StumbleUpon and Reddit have such strong communities that were developed before spam started taking hold that it’s not as much of a problem on those sites. The community takes care of knocking those submissions down.
I think if a site could combine editorial controls with social voting, it could really take off. Original content, vetted and then voted on, with the most popular posts rising to the top. Hey, scratch that – I didn’t say anything. I think I need to go find a site developer.
You can follow Amy Vernon on Twitter at @AmyVernon and read her blog at amyvernon.net.
Posted in Out on a Limb, Social Media Optimization | 4 Comments »
Wednesday, November 4th, 2009 |
It is no secret that Twitter is viewed as both marketing secret weapon and marketing bust. As a social networking tool, it has promise but what about Twitter as tool for increasing your business?
With the recent news announcements that Twitter is worth in excess of $1 billion amidst rumors of potential takeover and flotation deals, let’s take a look at why Twitter may not be worth the dime your company is looking to pay for increased web sales and exposure.
The internet and e-business is accepted as being a great way of doing business – costs are cut, geographical boundaries are overcome, new routes to market are uncovered and smaller companies are provided with fewer barriers to entry and get to compete with much larger companies on a level playing field.
BUT…there has to be a but!
The decisions you make when it comes to mounting marketing campaigns and establishing connections with customers and prospects, the established principals of offline, real-world marketing still apply.
So is using Twitter the most effective use of your company’s marketing dime?
TV Dominates the Internet in Ad Spend
Traditional, “old” media still represent better value for money when it comes to turning marketing dollars into solid sales numbers. This may seem out of sync with our perception of the internet – the internet dominates the news, it is cutting edge and at the forefront of developing new markets and ways of doing business but let’s take a hard look at the underlying numbers.
The average American adult spends almost 121 hours a month watching television but internet usage is dwarfed, coming in at only 30 hours a week. Given that the average adult is only going to spend a fraction of that 30 hours using Twitter, if at all, it is clear that spending your marketing budget on Twitter will be nowhere near as effective as investing in TV airtime.
Search Engines Dominate the Internet and Twitter is NOT a Search Engine
Search engines dominate how users find products and services and any other information on the worldwide web. Internet ad spend is concentrated upon search engine marketing and gaining rankings for their respective web sites in order to drive increased traffic which can be converted into sales.
Twitter is not a search engine – it is a real time communication tool with limited functionality.
Twitter has long been an outsider that has gained a following because of its quirkiness, but the platform has long suffered from service issues and up-time reliability (Hello, Fail Whale!). In other words, users have fallen in love with it but it doesn’t always work!
Controlling Social Media Campaigns is Like Herding Cats
Twitter's phenomenal growth has stalled recently. Why?
Twitter forms one of the main platforms for Social Media – online interactions and information sharing form the currency of these platforms but introducing your marketing and sales material is similar to gatecrashing someone else’s party! The idea that monetizing all those eyeballs using social media and Twitter is based on nothing concrete –which is why there is so much furor over the $1 billion price tag – there is no proven marketing model so how can Twitter attract your ad spend to begin with (which in turn is the basis for the company valuation). The graph above is from compete.com and shows the obvious flatline on twitter. What happens when the inevitable decline begins as users tire of the limited interaction and businesses divert ad spend elsewhere?
The Twitter Bounce Rate is >90%
In simple terms – the bounce rate is how many messages or emails are returned unread.
If 90% of Twitter users are “bouncing” mail and messages, less than 1 in 10 are valid or open to receiving messages – this makes merging and purging your mailing lists look like an exercise in gold mining – just imagine if you had 9 out of 10 direct mail pieces returned to your company!
Twitter Spam
We’ve already mentioned that Twitter attracts the quirky and the social environment is extremely quirky and subject to cult and herd-like mentalities. It is easy to be tagged as a “spammer” if you are simply posting messages which are effectively only, “Look at Me!” Twitter spam is a real problem as the medium is deluged with online marketers – just look at many of the companies which are active on Twitter – generally they are selling health and vitamins, sex or get rich quick schemes, and frequently all three!
We may be playing the devil’s advocate here and Twitter is an easy target, but there are often good and valid reasons for being an easy target. Will Twitter ever become a useful tool or will it just be something to pass the time for 140 characters? What do you think?
Of course, if you are Alyssa Milano, forget everything I said.
And don’t forget to follow me on Twitter. 
Thanks to GraphJams.com
Posted in Social Media Optimization, Twitter | 15 Comments »
Monday, February 16th, 2009 |
It occurs to me that as you get into more tactics that involve the social web, you should start leveraging the client’s staff (and possibly their customers) for assistance.
For example, what if you created a series of assignments to roll out over the life of your work with the client starting with each staff member tagging the company on delicious, then digging some page(s) on the site that they like, then creating their own lens on Squidoo.com, etc.
Providing instructions for your clients on how to do this would be part of the SEO consulting work you should be doing for your clients.
SEO is hard work and many hands make light work as my Mom used to say. Get your client’s involved and they will appreciate you efforts all the more and feel like they are part of the process and the success.
Posted in SEO Strategies, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Optimization | 11 Comments »
Friday, December 19th, 2008 |
Youtube.com has more searches than Yahoo!
Video search on YouTube accounts for a quarter of all Google search queries in the U.S., according to the latest search engine numbers from comScore. Its monthly qSearch report, which was released on Thursday night, breaks out the number of searches conducted on YouTube. If it were a standalone site, YouTube would be the second largest search engine after Google. More searches are done through YouTube than through Yahoo, which has been the case for the past few months. – From TechCrunch
Wow, Yahoo! has certainly fallen from those halcyon days when they ruled the Internet. But this news is really more important because it tells the SEO community that you should not be overlooking the video world of YouTube.com. Big Oak SEO has been stepping up its efforts into the video marketing world and this is a sure sign that it was a good move on our behalf. Are you using the power of video for your product or service? It would be a mistake not to and it is a lot more affordable than you think.
And lest you think your videos would only show up if someone is searching on Youtube.com, take a look at the screen shot below. I did a search for cheap wine (don’t ask) and the screen shot shows the last results on page 1 of Google’s search results. Yes, you see two videos from Youtube.com. Wouldn’t it be nice to have your video there if you are a wine seller.
Results for Cheap Wine. Notice the last results are videos from Youtube.com
I have also seen video results in the #4 position on Google’s search results and I’m sure this will only continue to happen more in the future. Don’t sell your service or product short, anything that can be marketed on the web can have video marketing to support it. Make sure it is part of your Internet marketing plan.
Posted in Google, SEO Strategies, Social Media Optimization, Yahoo Search | 12 Comments »
Friday, October 24th, 2008 |
Is your Blog iPhone Applicable?
With the recent craze of iPhone this and iPhone that and the Mac vs PC world of commercials it’s about time we make our own websites or blogs adaptable to the iPhone Apple Mac People. As you can tell I am PC guy and almost resemble the PC guy from those commercials. I learned on a PC and I am not usually accepting of change when it comes to my computer, but adaptable to markets and strategy. I was using Win 95 way past 98 and hit Win 97 around the time Millennium was out. That’s neither here nor there. This is about adapting.
Most blogs these days use word press, and a WP plugin has been developed to enable Iphone’s to easily read your blog. Click on the WPTouch link to grab this plugin. The plugin comes with it’s own CSS and themes for the conversion process, but all you have to do is install the Plugin into your normal Plugin Folder on word press and activate. The plugin takes care of the rest. If you are using WP-Cache or Wp Super Cache plugins then a few minor tweeks are needed.
Now that you installed the Plugin ready for the next coolest thing?
Because you blog is iPhone ready, you can submit it to Apple.com as a website app. You can see some venturous bloggers have already joined the race at http://www.apple.com/webapps/news/
To Join in, is rather simple actually. Go to Apple Developer and create a user account. Simple registration to grab yourself an account. After you are logged in proceed to https://adcweb.apple.com/iphone/
Fill out the details, descriptions and categories.
TIP – HINT: Your “Company Name” will Be a Live Linkable Backlink, so use your Web site or company name and a Major Keyword when filling in the “Company Name” section on the application
You will need a screen shot of you blog and an Icon in the dimensions shown below to successfully complete your application. ( 320 x 356 PNG – For screen Shot and Icon 128 X 128 with a recognized alpha channel )
Once and if approved by Apple your blog will appear in their iPhone Downloads section. Even though this whole process is way cool, I am still a PC guy, at least til 2012 according to my historical upgrade patten.
Posted in Blogging, Social Media Optimization | 13 Comments »
Thursday, September 11th, 2008 |
Ever Googled your name and wished you where in the top search results? Ever wondered what people see when they Google you? Considering the fact that the second most popular search criterion on the web is searching for a person’s professional background (Pew Internet American Life Project) – it may get some people thinking that it’s time to create a web presence for themselves.
It doesn’t take long to conclude that creating a web presence for yourself is something of necessity to ensure your professional growth, your business success, and taking action to represent yourself accurately on the web. The challenge is to find something unique and innovative the tackles all of the following issues:
• You want people to find you when they search your name on the web
• You want to manage the information people see about you
• You want to create a strong and professional online presence for your name
The people at LookupPage came out with the idea of developing an easy-to-use tool for people to create, enhance and manage their online presence. LookupPage is not a social network like LinkedIn, and focuses on getting your name on Google. Using the following simple rules, they are usually able to present better results than others for your name search:
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Posted in Link Building, SEO Strategies, Social Media Optimization | 14 Comments »
Monday, September 8th, 2008 |
By now, I’m sure you know the importance of creating fresh, quality content on your site. One of the ways you probably do this is through a blog. These days everyone has a blog, and why not? It’s an easy way to get articles syndicated and ensures you have fresh content on your site, along with many other benefits.
However, in this world of Web 2.0, just having a blog isn’t enough. You need to get out there and take part in your online community. You need to comment on other people’s blogs.
Don’t know why? Well, you’re in luck, because here are the top five reasons to comment on other people’s blogs.
Top 5 Reasons to Comment on Blogs: Get Known in the Community
The goal of SEO is getting your site to rank, which happens when the search engines view you as an authority on a subject. Before the search engines can view you as an authority, people need to view you as such. One of the easiest ways to make this happen is by leaving good, meaningful comments on other people’s blogs.
Think about it like this: No matter how good your content is, if the search engines don’t know about it and people don’t know about it, then you’re just writing for yourself. You need to go to the people. Go to a blog that has a large readership and start leaving good comments. This will introduce you to a large readership.
I promise, when you give beneficial comments, people will respond. The owners of the site will get to know you because of your comments, and users will come to enjoy how useful they are. This successfully accomplishes your first task — having the people regard you as an authority on a subject.
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Posted in Blogging, SEO Strategies, Social Media Optimization | 19 Comments »
Thursday, September 4th, 2008 |
Many of you may know about LinkedIn. If you don’t, then let me enlighten. Linkedin is a social networking site that targets business professionals. It is helpful in setting up relationships for business opportunities and partnerships. It also has a more social aspect that is gaining in popularity. You can read more about LinkedIn here: What is LinkedIn?
And while the business networking aspect is great, I’m writing to tell you it can be useful for your SEO efforts too, specifically link building. You may not know this, but LinkedIn does not employ the nofollow attribute on its links, like most other social networking sites. So that means we can use LinkedIn responsibly to build some nice one-way links to our sites and blogs. Even better your employees can use this to build some SEO-friendly links to your company site.
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Posted in Link Building, SEO Tools, Social Media Optimization | 31 Comments »
Thursday, August 21st, 2008 |
No Time to Twitt Mr Jones?
One of the most common complaints of Twitter is that one doesn’t have enough time to spend keeping up with their Twitter accounts. They are to busy doing more important things, such as reading our Blog or the “ranked hard, SEO comic“.
Now I can’t blame them for that, but for the rest of you Non Twitter Time Takers, a new solution is made especially for you.
@ShannonCole has come up with TwitResponse an application that allows you to “pre-record” or “pre-type” your twitter messages and have them scheduled to appear to your Twitter Followers at predetermined intervals in the future.
The program is in BETA but works extremely well. The description from their page reads
“Twitter + AutoResponder = TwitResponse!
Setup unlimited messages to be delivered to your twitter page when you want. Need a message sent 2 hours from now, no problem, setup a TwitResponse.
Having a product launch, upcoming seminar, book release… Setup a TwitResponse to automatically notify your followers.
Make sure you register to see the full effects, and then Twit me in advance, something, in the Future to @bigebiz.
Psst.. You might want to Add @ShellHarris to that list, he may not figure it out right away that your message was “pre-typed” but that’s half the fun of Twitter.com isn’t it?
Pssst…. Chris just joined in as well Catch him @BigOakChris
Posted in Social Media Optimization, Twitter, Website Conversion | 7 Comments »
Tuesday, July 8th, 2008 |
I found this funny graph at graphjam.com. I thought it was appropriate considering my latest post on twitter. Agree or disagree?
Posted in Out on a Limb, Social Media Optimization, Twitter | 6 Comments »
Want to know what Shell is doing?