    What if you had to re-examine your assumptions around social media? What if, instead of thinking about conversations in ones and twos, you had to think about them in thousands and tens of thousands? What if you had to manage dozens or hundreds of properties, and millions of fans? What would change? Last weekend I presented a session at PodCamp Toronto entitled “From One to a Million: Managing Social Media at Scale.” The goal of the session was to prompt people to question some of the norms espoused by many ‘experts’, who have never had to manage social media programs at anything beyond a small scale. Norms such as the idea that you “need” to talk to every person who engages with you – something that is feasible at small scale, but infeasible when you get into the tens of thousands of replies weekly. This is not to say that those norms are completely incorrect, but that there is a practical reality for brands operating at scale – structure changes, processes change and the norms have to change. Key points from the presentation: 1. Structure: How do you structure to handle social media at scale?Brands need to grapple with structural decisions at a global scale:
2. Community Management: How do you go from 1:1 to 1:1,000,000?Community management at scale requires brands to reassess the norms they hear espoused daily. I offered seven pointers for scaling community management practices:
3. Content Strategy: How do you stay engaging while driving business results at scale?Content strategy is a shiny object right now (in a stroke of amazing timing, Edelman appointed Steve Rubel to the new post of Chief Content Strategist yesterday – congrats Steve). I offered three broad categories of ways to resist the myriad pressures that face social media teams within corporations, and to stay on strategy:
4. Measurement: Turning a challenge to a competitive advantageMeasurement has historically been a pain point for many PR practitioners, but it’s a point of passion for me – I truly believe that effective measurement can be a differentiator for companies’ social media programs. When you begin to activate social at large scale, statistical analysis of content and program performance can yield invaluable insights.I’ve in the past on ways companies can improve their social media measurement; this time around I offered another five tips:
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Friday, March 22, 2013
From One to a Million: Managing Social Media at Scale
Social Search: The Third Dimension of Social Media Marketing
Alexa Milano
Feb 27, 2013
Case Study
David Murray is a Digital Marketing Executive and Social Enthusiast. Passionate about the underworld of below-the-line marketing, David breaks the latest in Marketing, Communications and Program Management. Connect with him on Twitter @MarketVoyeur and on his website.I don’t need to remind you of the importance in ensuring your business has a regular presence across relevant social media platforms. However, constant feedback from small businesses is “now what?”
Dude, Where’s My Audience?
Regardless of your objectives in implementing a social media marketing strategy, a targeted audience is baseline to ensure your content is delivered and shared. So aside from tapping into audiences via paid advertising, how do you connect with customers on social platforms? Well, it has been proven that a long-term integrated process of engagement, creative content and innovation will ensure your business will build an engaged community. But it is at this point where many small businesses tune out.
Social Media Marketing in 3D
In the absence of a desirable audience size, an increasing number of small businesses are undervaluing the importance of social media marketing. With business opportunities abound, it is time small businesses conduct social media marketing housework and prepare for the third-dimension.
Two-dimensional social media marketing recognises that there are two components; the product and consumer, and the objective is to pair the two via inbound or outbound techniques. Small businesses must now grow from this traditional base into the third-dimension of social search.
What is Social Search?
As the name suggests, social search combines the depth of social and the breath of search. It is a type of web search that takes into account the ‘social passport’ of the person initiating the query. In essence, the social passport refers to the global mapping of users and how they are related online.
Let’s say your business sells t-shirts and John is one of your customers. Amongst other social platforms, John ‘likes’ your page on Facebook. Each time one of his Facebook friends or followers search terms synonymous to your business, such as “Fashion that my friends like,” your business will near the top of their results and serve as a powerful customer referral.
But it doesn’t stop there. Complete strangers to John will also discover your business. Search queries such as “Fashion that people like who live in my city” and “Fashion that people like who play basketball” will ensure that a targeted audience is delivered to your business.
However, that is only half the story. You are now in the position to leverage social search technology to conduct market research, discover new opportunities, implement outbound marketing, track customer sentiment and integrate social data into your internal CRM system.
How to Get the Most Out of Social Search
Step One: Focus on Building a Community
Customers are 71 percent more likely to make a purchase based on social media referrals. It is vital that your business builds a community through a long-term process of engagement, creative content and innovation across relevant social platforms. The size of your community is in direct proportion to the number of referrals that will be produced for your business.
Step Two: Optimize, Optimize, Optimize
Social search takes into account varying sources of metadata, such as tags, social ranking, news, images, videos, knowledge sharing and other web pages. Social media marketers now have a huge opportunity to impact SEO, improve search rankings, and increase revenue generated through both social and organic search.
A discussion on social search optimization strategy is larger than this post permits. Most importantly, your Page or Profile is to be key-word optimized and the following recommendations implemented:
- Facebook – Graph Search. Increase your Facebook EdgeRank by sharing timely and engaging content across a number of content mediums, including; Posts, Links, Photos, Instagram, Videos and Questions.
- Twitter – Twitter Search. Share content across Twitpic and Vine and ensure your content is aTop Tweet by developing unique hashtags and aligning tweets with Trends.
- Google+ – Search, plus Your World. Develop content that is geared towards Google News and Google Trends and share keyword rich content across several content mediums, including; Posts, Images and YouTube.
Step 3: Research, Segment and Report
Be honest – how effectively are you researching new opportunities online, segmenting your market or reporting on ROI associated with your social media marketing campaigns?
Social search is the new tool in your social media marketing tool bag and is designed to be used throughout the campaign timeline. An optimized social search strategy will allow your business to:
- Conduct market research
- Discover new opportunities and plan strategies
- Segment your audience and build relationships
- Manage inbound and outbound marketing
- Measure conversions, track sentiment and ROI
Social search is the third dimension to social media marketing and is expected to grow exponentially in the short term. Get a head start – slip on the 3D glasses and inject a renewed perspective into your social media marketing.
5 New Platforms for Social-Savvy Brands
Dave Kerpen is the CEO of Likeable Local, a social media software startup for small businesses, the chairman and former CEO of Likeable Media, and the New York Times bestselling author of Likeable Social Media and Likeable Business.
There always seems to be some hot, new social network on the block, gaining popularity among consumers and media. With each, marketers ask how the platform will benefit their businesses — and whether they should even be on it at all?
When brands create presences on new social platforms, what’s important isn’t registering an account, but rather, the innovative ways they choose to use the tools. Here are five new social platforms gaining traction with consumers. Learn how your brand can best leverage them.
1. Vine
Last month, Twitter launched new mobile app Vine, which allows users to record six-second clips of looped video. The app quickly became popular with consumers, rising to the top of the iTunes App Store, and brands didn’t hesitate to jump on board.
Urban Outfitters was the first brand to create a vine, a video of puppies. MSNBC revealed what goes down in its newsroom; a local coffee shop showed how to make a latte; and Wheat Thinsused Vine to interact with fans during the Super Bowl.
Vine presents new opportunities for unique visual content and storytelling — the time constraints require marketers to expand their imaginations. Rather than investing in a longer form commercial or YouTube video, with Vine, your brand can easily humanize itself, by giving an insider’s look into the company, while providing value.
2. The (New) Myspace
Last year, Myspace was resuscitated and transformed into a hub for creative content, specifically for music. With an extensive library of songs, the new site is a platform for consumers to connect with artists and brands, to discover and share music, photos and videos.
It’s an obvious fit for brands in the music industry, but for many brands, the new Myspace provides an opportunity to delve deeper and create greater personality, connect with consumers on a more personal and relevant level with easily shareable content.
For example, marketers can create brand-related playlists, give users a behind-the-scenes look with photos and videos, and share exclusive content with fans that interact the most. Myspace is currently integrated with Facebook and Twitter, with plans to integrate Pinterest and Instagram soon. With those kinds of expanding ecommerce opportunities, Myspace potential is truly exciting for brands.
3. Pheed
This pay-as-you-go social network is quickly gaining traction among consumers. Launched in the fall of 2012, Pheed has well over a million users, popular among artists, photographers, filmmakers, actors and teens.
Pheed asks users to create their own channels, from which they can share text, photos, videos, audio and live broadcasts. The network gives influencers the option to charge for content, with the theory that this allows for higher quality content. Celebrities like Miley Cyrus are already on board, but some companies are hesitant to jump in quite yet.
But Pheed offers the “bonus features” of social media, permitting loyal consumers the chance to get inside, with exclusive access to beloved brands.
4. Snapchat
Mobile app Snapchat blew up during the beginning of 2013. The app, which allows users to send photo messages that self-destruct after several seconds, proved incredibly popular with consumers, but didn’t seem to provide an opportunity for marketers.
One brand, however, decided to test the waters. Frozen yogurt company 16 Handles experimented with Snapchat as a promotional tool with its “Snappy New Year” campaign. The campaign, modeled after scratch-off discount cards, encouraged the company’s Facebook fans to send “snaps” of their froyo purchases to the 16 Handles Snapchat account. Customers then received a coupon via Snapchat to be redeemed at the register. The campaign was originally planned for Twitter, but 16 Handles community manager Adam Britten deemed Snapchat more fitting; this way, the coupons couldn’t be copied and circulated.
While some marketers hesitate to jump quickly into brand new platforms, Snapchat provides the perfect example that taking a risk in the spirit of innovative solutions can really pay off.
5. Thumb
Mobile app Thumb is crowdsourcing at its best. Users simply upload a photo and ask fellow users to share their opinions on a specific topic — with a thumbs up or thumbs down.
Thumb is generating serious engagement among consumers, who are clocking in around four hours a month, second only to Facebook. While consumers use the app to get feedback on things like shoes, Thumb offers opportunities for marketers, too. Gain customer feedback by posing a question to users, or demonstrate thought leadership by offering your company’s expertise, then ask customers' thumbs up or down.
While every social platform isn’t necessarily a fit for every brand, keeping tabs on consumer trends allows marketers to constantly consider how to best engage with their audiences and provide more valuable content. Remember to experiment and don’t be afraid to jump in. Put your customers first, offer them value on whatever platforms you choose — and your brand will benefit.
BONUS: 12 Most Cliché Photos on Instagram
12 Most Cliche Photos on Instagram
The 12 Trends That Will Rule Products In 2013
Written by: Chris Butler
Think 2013 will spell the end of good old analog and human interaction? Eh, not so fast.
Meeting over three sessions spread out over a week, 23 Zibites (designers, researchers, and creative directors) discussed the patterns we’d seen, and distilled them down to the 12 insights we thought were most current and useful, to us and to our clients. Each one is presented here, as a brief essay that suggests how it will affect business practices in 2013, and as an illustration created by one of Ziba’s designers.
1. The mind is a competitive environment.
Our understanding of how we decide has evolved dramatically over the past 20 years, and it paints a messy picture. Rather than logical conclusions based on clear needs and preferences, choices are often just the slim visible portion of a rowdy internal struggle, pitting conflicting ideas and beliefs against each other. Even our most certain conclusions turn out to be stories we create after the fact, convincing ourselves that we’ve preferred chocolate to vanilla all along.Be okay with the chaos. The smartest organizations in 2013 will embrace this conflict, and acknowledge the complexity in their customers’ minds. This means services that let you be predictable one day and impulsive the next, and products that appeal to values that once seemed in tension: eco and luxury, traditional and playful, retro and hyper-modern.
2. Customer-facing employees are your brain and your backbone.
The crucial element in any customer experience is still people, no matter how much technology has transformed the landscape. The sales associate, the courier, the flight attendant, or the service agent--in many ways these are your most important, best-informed people. The larger an organization, the more it relies on the thousand tiny decisions its frontline employees make on a daily basis. And listening to their collective wisdom is more important than ever.Listen, learn, and enable. Taking full advantage of that ground-level expertise means fostering better communication, and putting resources in the hands of those who face your customers. Technology in 2013 will focus on helping employees do more, more intelligently, and the wisest organizations will invest in this wholeheartedly.
3. Analog will never go away.
Sales of LP records have quadrupled since 2007. It’s a powerful reminder that convenience isn’t the only thing people care about. Music, like video and telecommunications, reached a digital/analog split long ago, and digital won because it’s cheaper, faster, and more convenient. But analog persists, in part because of nostalgia but also because formats like film, print, and vinyl reflect the people and processes that made them, forming an emotional connection that digital can’t match.Stop worrying about the contradictions. 2013 will not be the year that analog displaces digital, nor will any other year. But it will be the year when mainstream consumers start to embrace “outdated” technologies along with cutting-edge ones. A brand that can seamlessly straddle the divide makes far more sense to them.
4. Worth is determined by philosophy, not price.
Freemium pricing models and digital services are detaching the price of things from the cost of producing them. And while this gives companies more leeway in their business models, it raises a question: How do you determine a product’s intrinsic worth? Increasingly, it’s the idea behind the product and the philosophy of the brand that created it. If two competitors spend equal amounts on production, the one whose ideals resonate with the target market is the more valuable.Your values are a competitive advantage. 2013 is when mainstream brands start asking serious questions about their philosophy and values. Knowing what you stand for and conveying that to the world is no longer an intellectual exercise for the touchy-feely fringes. It’s a necessity.
5. Narrative is a delivery vehicle to make information stick.
More than just a means of entertaining ourselves, narrative is how we understand the world and make decisions. Each of us is the leading character in the stories we tell ourselves, and we use these as a framework for organizing the messages we receive. Narrative is also how we remember: A story out of chronological order is nearly impossible to remember, but information that has a beginning, a middle, and an end becomes something we can own, embrace, and share.Start thinking in stories. 2013 is when brands start actively listening to their customers’ stories, and figuring out how they can play a supporting role. It’s also the year they begin to tell their own, linking together their most important messages to form a coherent, memorable whole.
6. Repair and repurpose are the new killer apps.
The typical early adopter cares about function and capability above all else. But what about the rest of us? As technology penetrates formerly closed markets around the world, the ability to fix and upgrade in the field is increasingly sought after. Even in tech-savvy urban centers, there’s a growing consumer subculture that sees hacking and repairing as an indicator of true ownership.Show the tinkerers some love. The smartest technology companies in 2013 won’t make everything totally field serviceable, but they‘ll offer access to those who want it. Rather than just optimizing for speed, compactness or low-cost, they’ll offer products and services that invite users to actively maintain and modify, winning loyalty and love along the way.
7. Technology moves too fast to care about.
The 8 track, the CD, the Pentium chip, FireWire--people used to invest in products just to get their hands on these new technologies. They were a real differentiator, and a kind of magic. But it’s become too much, too fast. The Internet runs on an alphabet soup of languages and protocols, and only a slim population of early adopters counts pixels or processor speeds anymore. The rest of us just want to know what it’s like to use.Talk about experiences, not features. Technology is there to enable an experience, and as long as it doesn’t get in the way, most consumers would rather not worry about it. The smartest brands in 2013 will follow suit, emphasizing the product or service, not the features that make it possible.
8. Flawless function is tomorrow’s great user experience.
Imagine if your washing machine gave you dirty clothes one time in five, or your alarm didn’t work on Tuesdays. You’d be indignant. Yet today’s tech-heavy gadgets and services can be that unreliable. Customers can handle a few kinks in new technology, but we expect that basic functions will be worked out. And despite the proliferation of features, more of us are realizing that what we really want is a phone that makes good calls, every single time.Fill in the gaps. A few smart brands will seize on the opportunity to highlight reliability and function in 2013, and make it just as exciting as a new feature. Customers who want respite from the noise of newness are many and hungry for an elegant return to flawless basics.
9. Brand loyalty is how we escape decision fatigue.
Making choices is exhausting--mentally, emotionally, and even physically. With the proliferation of online services and globalizing markets, our options have multiplied rapidly, and it’s wearing us out. More than anything else, this is why we form brand loyalties. Once we believe that our values and choices align, we’re happy to leave choices to the brand that’s earned our trust, and shift some of the burden off our own shoulders.Be trustworthy enough to take the load off. The brands that earn loyalty in 2013 are those that have earned it. By showing you’re aligned, and communicating in familiar language, you establish a trust that lets customers relax. “Go ahead,” you say, “we’ve got you covered.” If they can believe you, they’ll love you for it.
10. Human interaction has never been more precious.
There’s almost no transaction that can’t be automated today, from buying groceries to learning about health issues. And customers are starting to resist. With many technological obstacles out of the way, we have the luxury of being picky about automation. Sometimes we embrace it--when, say, we check our banking balance online--as a way of shifting mundane tasks off people’s shoulders. And sometimes, we long for a living, breathing person.Look for places to act more human. The most successful brands understand when customers need to be listened to or expect the nuanced expertise that only a person can provide. 2013 reverses the trend toward automated everything, as humanity becomes the crucial differentiator between a beloved brand and a commodity.
11. Gen Y is creating its own service economy
. An entire generation of young people has access to something unprecedented in history: a complete ecosystem of services provided by people their own age. When a startup run by three recent college grads can take on a century-old multinational, it transforms markets. Sometimes this means an age group split, like AirBnb vs. VRBO, or Etsy vs. eBay. And sometimes it means a Gen Y company like Facebook can leverage its enthusiastic peer group, and then grow to rule the world.Take younger competitors seriously, and learn from them. Gen Y is defined by optimism, social engagement, and digital fluency, and these are attributes that can attract older customers as well. The key is to act as an enabler, not a controller: Give them a flexible platform and they’ll not only give you their business, they’ll bring Mom and Dad along too.
12. Everyone is a specialist.
Constant communication and social media are pushing us to show off our passion and specialized knowledge, as a way of standing out in the storm of mundane information that fills the air. Mom posts photos of Victorian furniture on Pinterest, while Dad’s Facebooking his latest cooking project, and your cousin tweets about nothing but Korean pop stars. We’ve always had these secret pools of expertise, but now they’ve got an outlet, and an appreciative audience.You’re a specialist, too. Trying to be everything to everyone is a losing proposition. As customers embrace their connoisseurship, they seek out brands that match it. The success stories of 2013 are companies unafraid of putting a stake in the ground, to boldly indicate where their expertise and passion lie--and where they don’t.
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A recurring theme that connects these insights is tension--not in a negative or uncomfortable way, but a useful one that acknowledges the diversity of the modern marketplace, and the natural contradictions within individuals and organizations. Brand philosophy and narrative are crucial to winning customer loyalty, but not at the expense of basic function. People want to develop expertise and take ownership of their technology, but they also crave the advice and attention of another human.
Far from being at odds, these insights emphasize the complexity that we live in and the diversity of our needs, and brands ignore that fact at their peril. That, at least, is an insight that isn’t changing anytime soon
For Grocers, After Years of Shunning Internet, Digital Starts to Click
U.S. Grocery Chains Begin Seeing the Light of Digital Couponing and the Fresh Data it Brings
Kristopher Kubicki, Dynamite Data
The second-largest grocer in the U.K., Tesco, launched a major initiative to digitize its product catalog for marketers and programmers in 2007. As a result, dozens of innovative shopping assistants and targeted marketing campaigns sprung up.
A personal favorite of mine is MySupermarket.co.uk. Consumers register with the website, shop for groceries online and then MySupermarket virtually fulfills and delivers the order via a blend of grocers that have the best price.
In the U.S., where grocery sales are more promotion-driven, digital change has finally arrived. In 2011, Procter & Gamble unveiled PGEsaver.com, which enabled anyone to register a store loyalty card and receive discounts at the in-store checkout. In the past 18 months, no fewer than five other e-coupon aggregators have joined the fray.
This means consumers no longer have to scan their Thursday newspaper and clip coupons. A consumer merely enters her loyalty card, checks her desired coupons and swipes her card at checkout to get the full discount.
We've found that U.S. grocers on average doubled the amount of e-coupon offers every six months since the PGEsaver launch, with more than 500 unique manufacturer offers running every week. This growth is accelerating. In the past four months alone, the number of grocery e-coupon offers doubled again.
This is consistent with coupon-kingmaker Valassis' recent finding that a full third of coupon users claim they source coupons from the internet, with annual triple-digit growth. A 2012 report published by Booz & Co claims that 52% of U.S. consumers already use technology in their grocery-shopping experience.
This high growth within the U.S. grocery consumer market means only one thing: Get ready for the data. This dramatic, predictable and relatively sudden shift in consumer behavior means troves of new information services, with more sources popping up almost every day. Now that grocers are getting comfortable with multichannel commerce, many are plunging headlong into digital. Dynamite Data detected that 22 major grocery chains launched e-commerce channels in 2012, up from eight the year before.
As consumer interest grows, so does marketing sophistication. Two major grocery chains are attempting to vary e-coupon recommendations based on purchase history. And at least one coupon aggregator will launch Twitter and Facebook integration before the end of the year, where e-coupon offers are recommended based on trends from your social graph.
Other innovations include pilot programs in Chicago and New York that encourage consumers to snap a QR code with their phones at bus stops and train stations. One of the pilot programs registers the captured QR code like an e-coupon, enabling a special loyalty-card discount. Another program actually completes the transaction and promises the purchaser's order will be ready for pickup in 15 minutes or less. Silicon Alley darling FourSquare encourages similar behavior with location-based "check-ins" that behave similarly.
Suddenly the movement between a location, promotion and a purchase is practically seamless.
This new era of coupon-clipping means a wealth of new metrics available to the marketing community. Rather than a weekly refresh of circulars, marketers can now gauge the efficacy of a campaign to the minute, with real-time analytics the norm. A/B testing can be implemented quickly and inexpensively at a store or regional level. When coupled with other metrics, powerful campaigns are now just a few hours away from reaching millions of consumers, rather than weeks and months.
Who knows, maybe in a few years through broader marketplace understanding, marketers can finally drop the "E" and just go back to using the word coupons again.
Kristopher Kubicki is chief architect of Dynamite Data.
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Five Easy Steps to Achieve Social SEO
Five Easy Steps to Achieve Social SEO
Posted on: February 12, 2013 | Social
Social media has proven to be a powerful tool for marketing because of the environment it creates. Social media thrives on the interaction of people, on communicating with each other, establishing new connections, and on sharing content. It is every marketer’s dream and it’s natural for marketing professionals to take advantage of social media as another avenue to bring its message across to people.
The impact of social media has become very significant that search engines give a lot of authority to positive social media activity – tweets, retweets, likes and Google +1s; and whatever search engines set their sights on, expect search engine optimization experts to be one step behind.
Social SEO is becoming an important part of not just SEO strategy but also digital marketing because social media activity now carries a lot weight and it is also one of the most effective ways of disseminating content to a wider audience.
So how do you achieve social SEO? Here are five ways you can do it:
Create meaningful content
I believe the be-all and end-all of social SEO lies in content. Although you can attract people to visit your site because of snazzy web design or a cool promo, there’s no way you can make them stay if you don’t engage them with content that is interesting, thought-provoking, and, yes, even controversial. Take the time to think up of content you want to create for your website, taking into consideration your audience and what you think they will want to read. You can take advantage of various analytics tools to get a feel for what people are talking about and find out what topics are heating up the internet.
Creating compelling content is the first step. But you have to make sure that the content you create is one that people will want to share with their social connections. This is easier said than done so do your research, use analytics data and be aware of what’s happening in the world. Staying constantly informed is crucial if you want to develop content that is timely and interesting.
Allow opportunities to easily share content
Now that you’ve engaged people what you want them to do is to share that content to their own social connections. Make it easier for people to share your content by providing them with various social share buttons and other social plugins on each article page. Sharing content should be extremely easy for the reader so they won’t have any reason not to share it with their own networks. You need to ensure that you increase the chances of your content being shared because it helps build your online presence, strengthens your authority and increases your page ranking.
Establish your social media presence
You need to make your own ripples in the social media space that’s why you need to create and nurture your own social media presence. Your social network pages will serve as your platforms for publishing and sharing content. Make sure that all of the social network pages you create are always abuzz with activity by posting messages, sharing images and other content and engaging people who like and visit your page.
There is an ongoing debate on whether you should create a presence in all social networks or just target social networks that will have a bearing on your brand. For example, if your brand is purely consumer-related, do you really need a LinkedIn social presence? It is my opinion that it won’t hurt your branding to have accounts in various social networks because it is really all in the matter of how you will utilize that network. Let’s take LinkedIn, for example. Even if you have a consumer brand, you can still set up a LinkedIn company page that can help grow your company following. There are also various features in LinkedIn that you can explore to entice your target market even if they are in LinkedIn. It’s really just a matter of perspective and knowing how to turn something into an opportunity.
Engage your audience through your social media presence
Put the social in social media by engaging your audience. Social networks are the great equalizer, allowing the consumer to speak to big corporations on an even playing field. Being able to communicate with your audience is an opportunity that you should take advantage. Answer questions, make replies to comments and provide information to your audience. When your audience sees that there are people behind your brand and that they really care, expect brand loyalty to follow.
Engaging your audience also means implementing various marketing strategies to deepen their investment on your brand. Run various promos and contests from within your social network and watch your numbers go up.
Do you know that the mere act of liking the posts of people who have subscribed to your Facebook page is a great step towards building a stronger relationship with your audience? Try it.
Share content through your social networks
As I have previously mentioned, use your social network presence to share content. Showing that your social network presence is active is a reassurance to your audience. Have you ever visited the social account of a company that hasn’t updated their Facebook page in almost year? You probably have felt that the company has either closed down or has been extremely sloppy with their social presence. Either way, it’s a negative perception and one that you wouldn’t want for your own brand. So keep all of your social network accounts active.
Share your content across your social networks to ensure that you provide maximum social media coverage. You want your content to reach as many people as possible and you can do this by tapping the different connections you’ve made in Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc. Remember that you create unique connections for each social network because people use social networks differently – some prefer one over the other. Covering all your bases ensures that your content will reach more people. You want your content to go viral and this is how you can do it.
These are just five basic tips that can help you achieve social SEO. These tips can help you take that first step towards implementing a social SEO strategy for your business or company. But its simplicity can be deceiving. Social SEO requires a lot of time, work and effort to make it work. That’s why many businesses look to digital marketing companies like AllFamous Digital to take care of their social SEO needs. You need the assistance of experts to craft an effective social SEO strategy that will meet your objectives.
Social SEO Insights for the New Age of Search
Social SEO Insights for the New Age of Search
The views of contributors are their own, and not necessarily those of SEJ.
“Suddenly the fingers of a man’s hand emerged and began writing opposite the lampstand on the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace, and the king saw the back of the hand that did the writing. Then the king’s face grew pale and his thoughts alarmed him, and his hip joints went slack and his knees began knocking together.”
The Famous Writing on the Wall…
It was King Belshazzar of Babylon whose knees began knocking when he saw the handwriting on the wall. After the interpretation was given, “God has numbered your kingdom and put an end to it,” it was that same night that his kingdom was taken over by Darius the Mede.
Many SEOs can relate to Balshazzar. We’ve spent the last 15 years building an industry around keywords, tags, and links, but Google has made clear the old kingdom is coming to an end, and a new regime is here.
Defining Social SEO
For lack of a better name, we’ll call this new world, “Social SEO.” It’s not a great name, because parts of SEO have been social for a long time, but this is the first time that social signals have been considered a primary ranking factor. Let’s look at what that means, and how it came about.
Changing the System
At first, Facebook’s social graph was merely a way of showing how popular someone was. I have 50 friends, and you have 250 friends. Why would that matter to a search engine? It matters because friendships are based on trust, and search engines use trust as a signal for quality. If you think a page is useful, and I trust you as a person, there’s a good chance that I’ll think the page is useful as well.
As the social graph matured, the search engines realized its usefulness, and began including social signals in their algorithms. Danny Sullivan from SearchEngineLand confirmed this with Google and Bing in 2010.
This means that SEOs must adjust their strategy, and come up with new ways to optimize these new relationship signals. To help you understand Social SEO in greater detail and to capitalize on the associated new opportunities this presents to you as a marketer, you can find a list of five insights into Social SEO as follows:
Insight 1: Where Are the Signals Coming From?
In June of 2012, SearchMetrics put out research showing the correlation between social activity’s and search rankings in Google. The study showed that activity from Facebook and Twitter correlates very strongly with high rankings in Google. The study looked at Google+, but at the time Google+ was less than a year old. Since then, Google has placed significant emphasis on their homegrown social network, and I’m sure this year’s study will reflect that.
From those findings, and our own intuition, we conclude there are four social networks search engines rely on for their signals: Google+, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
Insight 2: Why YouTube?
Most people think Google+ is simply a social network like Facebook. What they don’t realize is that Google+ is actually of a system for collecting and displaying social data across all of Google’s products, including their social network.
At the core of most of the products that Google creates is a search bar: Chrome, Android, Google Maps, Gmail, YouTube—you name it. Search is the factor that makes Google’s products better than their competitors. Google+ is important, because it’s a layer of social Google wants to incorporate across its entire portfolio.
For example, let’s say I’m planning a road trip across the United States. I start mapping out my route using Google Maps. Wouldn’t it be great if I could see the routes my friends have taken on their road trips, landmarks they’ve stopped at, and restaurants they’ve enjoyed eating at? Google+ was designed to deliver that social experience to Google Maps. But in order to deliver that personalized experience, Google needs to know who you are, who your friends are and what things you like.
Google+ goes beyond just displaying a personalized experience within its suite of products; it also collects data from them.
For example, let’s say you like Rainn Wilson’s videos on YouTube so much that you decide to subscribe to his SoulPancake channel. By subscribing, you are joining a group of others who share a common interest: SoulPancake videos. This informal grouping is a signal to Google that you have something in common with others in that group. Google may use that signal to recommend web results it may think you’ll like, based on the fact that others in that group liked it.
Among Google products, YouTube’s popularity and levels of engagement (e.g., 800 million monthly unique visitors, more than 4 billion daily video views, etc.) make it a particularly important source of signal generation, which can then be tied back to your profile and social graph through Google+.
Insight 3: A New Strategy and New Team Roles
New signals require new tactics, and new tactics require new strategies.
Managers who plan on adding a social element to their SEO campaign should evaluate their current resources and team makeup.
A skilled technical SEO may not be the best-suited person to execute a relationship-building campaign. Likewise, a community manager may not enjoy keyword research and data analysis.
There are only a small number of individuals who contain a deep understanding of both SEO and Social. If you have such a person on staff, they should develop and lead your new Social SEO strategy, while specialists in their respective fields execute the tactics.
Insight 4: Adjusted KPIs
Rankings matter very little in a world where everyone sees different search results.
Like traditional SEO campaigns, Social SEO still uses conversions and organic traffic as primary KPIs, but their affinity for rankings has diminished.
Secondary KPIs such as social follower growth, influence scores, and content engagement metrics can act as indicators that the campaign is moving in the right direction, but shouldn’t be given much weight individually.
Google and other analytics providers are starting to recognize the importance of measuring social activities, and have begun to offer reports such as Google Analytics’ Social Assisted Conversions in an effort to tie ROI to social actions.
Rankings, in aggregate, can be useful as another directional measurement, but it means very little on an individual keyword level, especially since Google is hiding a great deal of keyword referral data. However, certain objectives, such as reputation management, may make rank tracking a more important KPI for some.
Insight 5: New Tools of the Trade
Social is a high-touch environment, and requires constant attention. Since attention isn’t scalable, we need technology to scale for us. Here are a few useful tools for your Social SEO campaigns:
- HootSuite: One of the most popular social management platforms, HootSuit allows a team to monitor, analyze, and engage with audiences across multiple social networks simultaneously. The scheduled tweets lets campaign managers queue up messages to be sent automatically at scheduled times.
- IFTTT: A unique, rule-based platform where you can automate activates based on social actions. For example, you can create a rule to email the team whenever someone mentions your brand in a tweet.
- Triberr: A content curation and sharing platform. A team can search for and join relevant industry groups to access a constant stream of fresh content that can be automatically shared with social audiences. Likewise, teams can create and share their own content with their social networks.
Additional Research
The insights listed above are from a newly published eBook from Catalyst, “The Art of Social SEO: Mastering the Art of Social SEO.” I was one of several SEOs who contributed to the project. For additional Social SEO insights, download a free copy of the publication here.
In Closing
There once was a day when SEOs could make a few tweaks to a website, and rankings would improve. Now, we need to tweak the website, create new content, ask others to link to the content, share the content, and comment on it. It is a combined effort from Web development, copywriting, design, PR, influencer marketing, social, and in some cases, paid media (if you need to drive traffic to content for additional engagement).
We can no longer go off to do SEO research, strategy, and tactical execution in a silo. Search engine algorithms are more holistic than ever, and SEOs need to be as well. This is our role in Google’s new kingdom. It’s time we embrace the change, because like King Belshazzar, the writing is on the wall.
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