Houston search engine optimization is most effective when it keeps on top of new developments in the industry. Google confirmed the inclusion of social media in its algorithm as of the Panda Update in February 2011. Services such as Facebook and Twitter now have a direct impact on SERPs. What does this mean exactly?
Perhaps this inclusion was a prelude to the implementation of Google’s social media. In March Google announced the implementation of the +1 button. When users click the Google +1 button, they are recommending the page to Google for their contacts. If someone in their network of contacts makes search queries that return similar results, the accumulated Google +1 for their network will show beneath the page title and description that we usually see on search queries.
Yet another social media button to add to your website! Many people have resisted the new + 1 button and it’s relevance. Since it is still in its experimental phase, we don’t really know exactly how the button affects search engine results, whether those effects are restricted to social networks, or how they compare to Facebook and Twitter. However, since Google – the biggest search engine on the web – supports the button, it will probably influence your SERP. If it influences your site’s ranking, the sooner you implement the button, the better.
The main reason to start using Google +1, is that it improves your SERP, along with other social media. Even though the button has only been in use for a couple of months, there has already been an experiment testing the effects of the button on SEO. The final result shows a 24% increase in Google search ranking for the same number of impressions, or appearances of a site on search engine results.
Why use Google +1 rather than other “Like” buttons such as the ones on Facebook or Twitter? The +1 button doesn’t direct you to a third party site where you need to log in to express your approval. Once you express your approval, it doesn’t flood the pages for all of your contacts with information about something they don’t necessarily share a common interest in. People will only see your recommendation if they make searches that bring up the same results as the searches you made.
If your company has these social media platforms, it’s important to post the linking buttons on your website pages. Remember that search engines take the presence of these links into account when determining SERPs. If you don’t have these services affiliated with your website, and don’t have the time to set them up, Directory One can do it for you. Contact your Houston Search Engine Marketing Company Directory One at (713) 269-3094 for more information about how we can help your company gain new customers through the use of web marketing and social media.
Jenn Korell November 5, 2009
When it comes to social media – everyone wants one thing: metrics.
I hear from clients all the time, “I know I should be using social media – but I have a hard time investing money in something I can’t measure.” Fair enough. That’s why I’ve worked on developing a list of metrics and measurement considerations for social media.
Social Media Measurement is Similar to Measuring Public Relations
Before listing out some tools and ideas for measuring your ROI; I want to note one thing about social media marketing and its impact. It is slightly erroneous to compare social media to traditional media in terms of analyzing return-on-investment. While some of the impacts of SMM will resemble those of more tradition media buying efforts (increased sales, increased brand awareness, etc…) other impacts are more analogous to another traditional business investment: public relations. In public relations, the impact is often hard to measure. Nonetheless, no self-respecting company would ignore (or dispute) the value of public relations. Whether it’s improved image or a sense of community “connection” – public relations provides it. So too does social media. It is especially that connection that social media creates. It is hard to put a dollar value on the relationship a consumer develops with a brand because of social media efforts.
Social Media Metrics:
Ideally; you’ll know how you’re going to measure your social media campaign before you launch it. What I mean by this is that you should have clear objectives before starting any internet marketing campaign, whether it be: search engine optimization; SEM; or social media marketing. Having a clear objective and determining how you will measure success should be the first step of any social media marketing campaign. It should also be noted that it’s important to make sure that social media is the best tool for reaching you objective.
Here are some common objectives that social media is a great tool for:
- · Increasing brand awareness
- · Increasing consumer and visitor interaction
- · Advertising to a targeted audience
- · Generating traffic for your main site
- · Customer relations via real-time service and “fire-stomping”
Creating metrics for each of these objectives is fairly straightforward. For instance: measuring whether your social media campaign is generating website hits is as simple as using Google analytics to see if Facebook, YouTube, or Twitter is driving your traffic.
In this instance, you would be sure to assign a specific value to the objective. What particular page or pages do you want to drive traffic to and what percentage do you want to increase your current traffic.
One campaign is likely to have multiple objectives. A Facebook Advertising campaign might be geared at increasing web traffic and increasing product sales. There are also unique tools to measure certain harder to judge objectives like: increasing brand awareness. Various real-time and composite search results allow you to see not only who and where people are talking about you – but whether the overall context of their conversations is positive or negative.
The tools are out there – the specific metrics that you’ll use will depend on your campaign. The trick is to define what you are trying to measure before beginning any social media marketing project. Asking “is this effective” after creating and managing a Facebook page for several months is going to be more difficult to answer.
Contact a Social Media Marketing company in Houston to learn more about finding the best tools and measuring their effectiveness.
Questions or comments? Find me on Twitter @smmjenn or email me at jenn@newnectar.com.
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Social Media Marketing: Facebook Marketing
Social Media Marketing: Follow the Money
Jenn Korell October 19, 2009 One of the most difficult obstacles for businesses wading into the social media waters is the ever-shifting nature of the platforms. Whether it’s an entirely new ( and suddenly popular) platform that you must adapt to — or a major change to an existing platform — it seems like nothing is ever static for long in the world of social networks.
Case-in-point is Facebook’s announcement that it will be changing how its “Group” feature functions. Facebook groups used to be incredibly useful tools for businesses to promote upcoming events or even themselves. With the advent of the Facebook Business Page (or Fan Page;) it appeared the social network wanted to shift groups to the background in order to monetize and maximize the use of Facebook pages for business. As the news feed evolved — Groups were kept off of the real-time feed. This handicapped their ability to spread rapidly.
Now Facebook is putting Groups on the newsfeed — though word is they will limit a group’s appearance on the feeds to only those comments or postings that are made by an individual’s friends. This is still a potentially big development. Facebook Fan Pages are great tools — but one thing that always made groups better for getting the word out quickly was the ability of an admin to invite large groups of people to a group. The spread of pages is unfortunately limited to a slower style of virtual-word-of-mouth. If groups retain this feature while also joining pages and profiles on the newsfeed — it might be well worth the effort to create a group page as well for your business. Actually — it might make sense to create multiple groups to cater to multiple campaigns.
To learn more about the use of Groups vs. Pages and Profiles on Facebook; contact a Houston social media marketing company today. You can also contact me at @SMMJenn on Twitter or by emailing me at jenn@newnectar.com.
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Jenn Korell October 9, 2009
In previous blogs, we’ve talked about ways to use Social Media to interact directly with potential clients. I’ve shared how Facebook Advertising can get your message in front of potential customers for very little cost ; and how a Facebook Business page can grow your business – but today I’d like to talk about some ‘alternative’ uses for social media. Many of these examples are platforms (such as YouTube) that can be used for more traditional social media marketing uses — but I’ll also introduce you to several unique platforms that allow you to collaborate with business partners and work more efficiently.
Social Media Tools for Collaboration
Social media creates great possibilities for real-time collaboration. You are likely already familiar with Google Docs – which allow you to share documents with your colleagues for instant revision, editing, and general collaboration. You may not be aware of other tools that allow you to collaborate via wikis. You’ve probably heard the term “wiki” before in reference to “wikipedia.” Imagine a private “wikipedia” of information on your clients, services, ideas, etc… pretty neat, eh?
A wiki can be part of your internal site, but that requires you work with your website developer or IT guy. This may be a solution for you , but you might want to experiment with external wikis first to see if they are a good fit for your collaborative needs. Online, hosted wiki sites allow you to create and edit multiple wikis on so-called “wiki-farms.” These external wikis, like an internal wiki platform, can be as private as you like.
Why is this helpful for small business?
Wikis allow you to centralize and grow information related to a specific topic. Say you have a new business idea – you can create a wiki and allow your partner to edit it. On the other hand, perhaps you’d like to create a wiki about your competition. You can share information and knowledge within the wiki – and attach links and files as well. Wikis can either be public or private (even if they exist on a wiki-farm) so you can keep some information close-to-your-chest and share other types of information with potential clients, customers, or partners.
Example sites include Wikispaces & Wikia
Social Media Allows You to Manage Your Clients and Your Time
Several social sites have sprung up to allow you to manage your clients. A new one that is garnering a lot of attention is BookFresh. Bookfresh allows you to manage your client appointments online – and to access that information via a smart phone when you’re away from your computer. More than just a calendar, BookFresh allows your clients to actually schedule appoints (and be reminded of them,) online.
Another time management tool is Remember the Milk, a site which allows you to not only create tasks online for yourself – but to share them with other people on your team.
Why is this helpful for small business?
The interactive nature of these tools makes them superior to say, a calendar application on your iphone. In addition, these products are either free (Remember the Milk) or low-cost alternatives to expensive software solutions.
Example Sites: BookFresh, Remember the Milk, Ta-Da List
Social Media Can Help You Train Employees & Clients
Media sharing sites can be great for marketing – but they can also be a great way to share training information or to make a pitch to your client. This can be done either in video form (and then post to a video sharing site)— or you can use powerpoint to create a slideshow (and then upload it online for viewing and embedding.)
Why is this helpful for small business?
Product demonstration or detailed instructions can often best be conveyed via video or a Powerpoint with animation or additional text. While these products can certainly be emailed – posting them online creates ease of access and it creates opportunities for comments, feedback, and even SEO.
Example sites: YouTube is the preeminent video sharing site. Videos from YouTube can also easily be embedded in websites and blogs and shared on other social media platforms. Slideshare is a great platform that allows you to upload Powerpoints and other documents – and as an added bonus, it is integrated well with Facebook via a special application.
Simple social media solutions can help your business become more effective and efficient. For more information on how to utilize social media to help your business grow, contact a Houston social media marketing company today.
Questions about this or other social media marketing topics? Use the comment section below, email me at jenn@directory.com , or go all SMM on me and contact me @SMMjenn on Twitter ; and I’ll do my best to address your question in an upcoming blog. You can also consult Directory One today at 713.465.0051
Read More:
Social Media Marketing: Follow the Money
Social Media Marketing: It Starts at Home
Jenn Korell October 2, 2009
When it comes to demographics, not all social networks are created equal. This is important to consider when you’re allocating your social media marketing resources – you want to focus on quality vs. quantity here. Let’s breakdown the facts and figures to give you a better idea of where you need to be.
Facebook vs. MySpace
As Facebook has grown and become the dominant force in social networking over the past two years (in 2007, MySpace held that title,) not only have more and more individuals logged on to the site – but older and older users are getting connected. Perhaps this is the reason that Facebook users are more likely to be affluent than their MySpace counterparts.
According to a recent Nielsen study: if we were to imagine the financial strata as being divided equally into thirds ; then the top third would be much more likely to utilize Facebook over MySpace, while the reverse would be true for the bottom third.
What about Twitter?
Twitter is sort of the odd-man out — still important, but with a much smaller and more diverse audience. Twitter users are more likely to live in urban areas. Also, because of Twitter’s role on the periphery of the social network solar system – many of the people actively using it are early adapters who can also be found on Facebook and LinkedIn.
What does this mean for your company’s social media marketing strategy?
Facebook is the big dog when it comes to a demographic with disposable income. However, you should still consider the product you are marketing. If you are trying to connect your product with youth – then you will still need to have a MySpace presence. Just because a 39 year old affluent stay-at-home mom has a Facebook account – that doesn’t mean her 15 year old daughter isn’t active on MySpace. The key here is to have a focused social media strategy and stick with it. A Houston social media marketing company can help you with that.
Oh, and Twitter? Don’t give up on it altogether just because most of the users are active on Facebook as well. Twitter interactions are different (and in some instances, more powerful,) than those on Facebook. Twitter should be a part of your campaign, but you should utilize it to reach a certain audience in a certain way. To understand how to optimize your Twitter presence – it’s a good idea to understand the culture of Twitter. Once again, a social media marketing agency in Houston can help you understand both the landscape and the best path for your social media success.
Questions about this or other social media marketing topics? Use the comment section below, email me at jenn@directory.com , or go all SMM on me and contact me @SMMjenn on Twitter ; and I’ll do my best to address your question in an upcoming blog. You can also consult Directory One today at 713.465.0051
Learn More About Social Media Marketing
Social Media Marketing: Facebook Business Pages
Social Media Marketing: It Starts at Home
Jenn Korell September 23, 2009
Social Media Marketing :Facebook Business Pages
Whether you’ve been on Facebook two weeks or two years – chances are you are most familiar with the personal “profile” element of the social networking site. Your profile is your personal portal to the Facebook world. Status updates, wall comments, photos, applications, messages – all are connected to your personal profile. A personal profile tells a lot, or a little about you – depending on how much you are willing to share with your online community of friends. For many people, their Facebook account and their personal profile is their online “home.”
Great as all this is — should a business have a personal profile? The straightforward answer is no. Almost every business can benefit from a Facebook presence – but most won’t benefit much from having a personal profile. A business should utilize the business version of the personal profile: the fan page. A fan page (despite the misleading name,) is a business profile for your company. Obviously, Facebook wants businesses to utilize this tool rather than the personal profile tool – but why is it beneficial to do so? Below I outline the top three differences between the types of profiles.
Facebook Business Pages Can be Customized
While customizing a Facebook business page is not a simple affair – it can be done. Facebook allows business pages to create customized HTML pages and customized applications. This is not available on personal profiles. Personal profiles will always look cookie-cutter. The only way to stand-out from the crowd on Facebook is via a customized business page. In addition, the page’s administrator can redirect non-fans and fans to separate “tabs” on the page. This means that first-time visitors can be wowed with a sort of “landing page” while regular visitors can be directed to the areas they most wish to utilize.
Facebook Business Pages Allow Advertising
You can’t advertise a personal profile – but you can (and of course, Facebook finds a myriad of ways to encourage you to,) advertise a business page. Facebook advertising is similar to Google AdWords; but it’s more targetable than the latter (a full description of Facebook Advertisting can be found here.)
Why is the ability to advertise your page so important? Research shows that the most effective advertising on the social networking site are ads that direct the user to another page within Facebook. Advertising that attempts to pull the user from the social network out to another site online are less effective. Why? Users become comfortable with the walled-garden of Facebook and are more likely to check out a page within that walled-garden than something external to it. In addition, an advertisement for a Facebook page includes “social” information about friends that may also be a fan of this page. This can add an element of credibility to your product/advertisement that isn’t available elsewhere online (at the moment anyway.)
Facebook Business Pages Allow You to Track Visitors
Page administrators are granted access to analytics about the types of users visiting their pages. In addition to simply being informative, this can help in the targeting of advertising campaigns. Personal profiles have no such access to analytics.
These are not the only differences between Facebook “profiles” and “fan pages” for businesses – but they demonstrate the need for companies wishing to make the most of their social media presence to choose a business page. If you need help setting up a business page; contact a Houston social media marketing company.
Questions about this or other social media marketing topics? Use the comment section below, email me at jenn@directory.com , or go all SMM on me and contact me @SMMjenn on Twitter ; and I’ll do my best to address your question in an upcoming blog. You can also consult Directory One today at 713.465.0051
Learn More About Social Media Marketing
Social Media Starts at Home — Analyzing Your Social Media Strategy
Putting the Social Back in Social Media
