18 New Social Articles on Business 2 Community |
- Adding Related Post Thumbnails To Your WordPress Blog
- MonsterTV – India’s First And Only Career Channel on Youtube
- Let’s Get Social! 5 Ways to Build Your Employee Social Media Culture
- How to Use the Alternative Text Tag to Describe Your Images
- I Respect Your Social Media Community – Do You Respect Mine?
- Pinteresting and Pinformational: 4 Tools to Get the Most Out of Pinterest for Business
- The Challenges of Using Social Media in the Financial Services Industry
- How To Best Choose Where To Guest Post
- How to Automatically Send Your Newsletter To Your Social Media Followers
- Social Media Events in India: Can They Be Effective
- How Social Media Became the Word-of-Mouse Marketing?
- Small Business SEO in Under 10 Minutes
- Tweet Loudly: 5 Ways to Make Your Tweet Count
- The Cost of Social Media: Defining Success
- Web 2.0: Think Twice. Tweet Once.
- 10 Tips on How to Improve Your Search Engine Rankings
- 3 Social Network Alternatives to Facebook
- Universities Are Out to Prove the ROI of Social Media
| Adding Related Post Thumbnails To Your WordPress Blog Posted: 04 Aug 2012 02:30 PM PDT Paint Me A Picture Of What's Worth Reading!Relevant related post links are an important part of both SEO and overall reader experience. They form one of several ways that we interlink our content to make Google happy while encouraging our readers to stay on site and read more stuff! Because it's not glamorous, interlinking tends to get overlooked for the strong role it plays in the success of our sites. While it's (very) important to manually text-link new content to old content and old content to new content, related posts give us a way to include some of that even when we forget to do the manual stuff we should be doing. It's important that the results be honestly related for both the satisfaction of the reader and for the appeasement of the Google gods! (I stress this because lots of plugins return junky results.) Text links are fantastic for Googlebot and make for good reading, but what about the visual nature of our readers? Adding image-thumbnails to our related posts can encourage click-through while adding a more stylish element to our site than text links can. Adding Related Post Images To WordPressThere are three ways to accomplish this task: (1) Plugins (2) Code (3) Plugin + Code 1. WordPress Plugins To Add Related Post Thumbnails If you do not want to muck around in the code but are willing to take advantage of a service, you should look at the plugins from LinkWithin and nRelate. Both of these plugins do an okay job of producing images and related content for your reader although you depend on the stability of their servers to keep it working (meaning if they have a hiccup, your stuff either does not display or displays incorrectly). nRelate is newer (and potentially much better). It's presence in the WordPress repository is reassuring. However, the emails they have sent to LinkWithin's customers have kept me from wanting to recommend them as a company. LinkWithin however has been around a long time and while it occasionally has quirks is considered generally stable. Neither plugin will immediately produce images as you must give them time to cache your site which can take "hours to days". And the status of either of these as passing as much link juice as our own stuff would pass is dubious at best. 2. Creating Related Post Links & Thumbnails With Code Code is a site owner and SEO's friend because it helps keep the site loading faster than plugins can accomplish. (This leads to better loading times which leads to better results with the Google gods!) There are quite a few tutorials available to help you with this, but since I was on Thesis, I really enjoyed the one from over at Daily Blogging (shown below). Mani's tutorial made it straight-forward to add the code to Thesis necessary to output thumbnail-based related posts. I moved to this code, from using YARPP, because I was hoping to eliminate the weight that YARPP can be on a site. However, I discovered that, while pretty, most of the posts returned were not nearly as related as I would have hoped. If you need a code-solution for Thesis (or want to make the minor modifications it would need for a non-thesis site) this would be my code of choice as I found it really stable. 3. Using A WordPress Plugin PLUS Code To Generate Quality Related Post ThumbnailsThe plugin we affectionately call "YARPP" (Yet Another Related Post Plugin) is considered by most in the WordPress world to produce the best related post results available at this time. How good is it? Well, Matt Cutts (Google's SEO guy) mentioned YARPP by name. Yet the problem with YARPP for the purpose of this exercise is that without some assistance, it only produces text-based links that are not particularly stylish. Effective yes, Stylish no. While there are a number of tutorials available for adding the code to make YARPP do what we want, a lot of the older ones do not take advantage of WordPress 3.0′s "Featured Image" setting in your post editor. (And there's no way I wanted to set all of these images manually a second time!) Fortunately, John over at Urban Giraffe has a great (and current) guide to adding related thumbnails to YARPP (via code snippets)! I did have to add both list-style-type: none; and display: inline; to the css for both .related-posts and .related-posts li to get it to be horizontal but no sweat! You can see however, that John's images do not tend to use next near the bottom. Because of that, they are suitable for the text overlay, but my thumbnails are not. So I expanded the .related-posts height to 180 px and the .related-title to 70 px. I also altered the opacity to 0.95 and tweaked the font color to match. This gave me: The code provided by Urban Giraffe is suitable for use on Thesis and non-Thesis themes alike and works very well to add related post thumbnail images to YARPP on WordPress. This gives me the advantage of using YARPP to do the heavy-lifting of generating highly relevant related posts while manipulating it to give me a stylish output that isn't as bah as text-links! (You may notice from time to time that because I do not have featured images added to all my old content that it sometimes uses text in place of the pictures. I'm cool with that. Just more work I need to do on my old content and haven't gotten around to!) SummaryAs you can see, there are multiple ways to accomplish a similar effect. While the plugins alone are not likely to give you as much SEO benefit as you may hope they still serve your reader and are useful when you're not ready to do it yourself or to hire someone to add code for you. I have previously left YARPP and now returned to it for the benefits it brings. Interlinking your WordPress content using BOTH related links AND manual links is an important key to taking care of your reader while building your SEO. Are you using related posts on your blog? If so, which plugin or code are you using?   |
| MonsterTV – India’s First And Only Career Channel on Youtube Posted: 04 Aug 2012 02:00 PM PDT Monster India has recently launched MonsterTV on Youtube which is India's first and only career channel to help professionals. Monster.com is a portal that is in the recruiting business from 1994. According to an infographic that describes the history of Monster.com – 63 million job seekers/month are active on the portal that hosts 150 million resumes. A trusted destination for professionals. With the changing times, Monster has evolved to introduce new features. Some time back, it had launched the BeKnown app which is integrated with Facebook and allows you to do your professional work and interact with people on Facebook. Carrying on the same trend further, Monster has now launched MonsterTV, a complete destination of opportunities, tools and tips provided by Monster to get your dream job. And without forgetting the 'luck' factor which Monster considers important! So what is MonsterTV?To access the MonsterTV, you will have to log into Youtube. The branded Youtube page has a set of 'Monster Buddies' that come from different professions to tell you in detail about the features of MonsterTV, that could be used to find your dream job. The below video is one such video: After the video ends, you are provided with a list of services from Monster which you need to click and explore. Not only this, MonsterTV also provides with thoughts from industry people about the job market, skill set, etc. Features like Industry Buzz, Monster Anytime Anywhere, I Love Monster, etc. are really useful. For example, 'Monster Anytime Anywhere' provides you with the various ways to check Monster on the go. From mobile apps to Monster College to BeKnown, Monster has provided all the services at one place. Similarly a feature like 'I Love Monster' is a set of videos that talk about success stories of people who have seen success through Monster. 'Industry Buzz' is a very useful feature to be updated with industry trends. This section holds a set of videos that feature different HR personnel from various companies who share thoughts on different aspects of company culture. In addition to this, the feature 'Monster Interview' that is again a set of videos that talks about tips and common mistakes committed by candidates from experienced HR personnel, is a great one. Apart from these main features, the Youtube page has some interesting add-ons too. For instance, the background image changes automatically upon selection of different 'Monster Buddies'. Luck is a crucial factor for grabbing an opportunity along with other things so Monster allows you to wish your friend luck along with your message and interesting images. How good is the MonsterTV?MonsterTV is a feature made for the professionals of today. It goes out to show how a company is thinking beyond social networks to be really called as a social company. Here are a couple of features that are worth a mention: 1. Using Youtube videos and sharing the message with its online professionals is a master stroke. Youtube as a platform has been an apt choice, considering its growth in India. And the services that are being provided by MonsterTV could be only best explained via videos. 2. Giving a brand a face and sharing viewpoints from industry experts is another planned move. It's always effective if your fans or users turn into your brand ambassadors. Monster India has done the same thing with MonsterTV and I am sure that it is going to add more such useful videos to its catalogue. The results are showing in terms of the different video views. For example, the MonsterTV – Explorer video has already got more than 33,000 views in two weeks. Other videos have a decent response too. Additionally, the brand is creating awareness on its other social network such as Facebook. The social network is being used effectively by sharing cool videos from MonsterTV. The brand cover page is also talking about MonsterTV. This has not only created awareness in its 49,000 plus fans but has also intrigued fans to check out the MonsterTV. In today's age, we all know that with LinkedIn giving a stiff fight to traditional job portals such as Monster, Naukri, etc., Monster India's move to create MonsterTV is a well thought of one. It would be interesting to see if this would motivate other traditional recruiting sites to evolve and try something new. How effective do you think MonsterTV will be for your professional career?   |
| Let’s Get Social! 5 Ways to Build Your Employee Social Media Culture Posted: 04 Aug 2012 01:00 PM PDT You are working on your social media strategy and have determined your target audience, messaging, and how you plan to participate. You have even assigned a resource specifically to manage your social media presence and have begun to see some great results. Now you want to roll it out company wide and encourage your employees to participate. By having your teams participate actively in social media, you can create brand evangelists who will work to create relationships with both customers and prospects. Additionally, as they build their brands and become influencers in your space, your company will be seen as even more of a thought leader. But it is tough to get people to contribute, and you will need some structure in place to guide your teams in the right direction. Here are a 5 ways to build out your employee social media culture by creating an environment that encourages participation: 1. Get stakeholder buy-in.
2. Create a social media policy. 3. Show them the WIIFM.
You might also want to consider incentivizing social media contributions. You can give out prizes for the employee who Tweets the most or contributes the most blog content. Money motivates, so this is a great way to get started. 4. Training, training, training. 5. Appoint an internal social media lead. Now that you have started to create your Social Media Policy and internal participation plan, how about creating your full Social Media Strategy? Check out our new updated for 2012 Social Media Template to get more tips on how to create your complete social plan.   |
| How to Use the Alternative Text Tag to Describe Your Images Posted: 04 Aug 2012 11:35 AM PDT Every time you add an image to your blog posts or webpages, remember to add a description ("alt tag") of the image in the right place. The alternative (or "alternate") text tag will make the search engines understand what the images on your website are about, and also help your images to show up in Google Image search for relevant keywords. Note: Depending on your images and type of industry, you might not want to get indexed in the Google image search. For many industries it's known to be a good source of traffic, so you decide what's best for you. If you don't want your images to get indexed, you should still use the alt tag for your images and rather use robots.txt to block the Google image bot from indexing your images. How to see your alt tagsLet's take a closer look at what we're talking about in this blog post:
Your image tag/code probably looks something like this: <img src="image-name.jpg"> How to add your ALTernate text tagIf you are using a good content management system (for example WordPress or Joomla or Drupal) you will be able do this easily when you add your image. You can add the "alternate text" either via the visual editor or straight in the html view. This is what you are looking for while you're adding an image to your WordPress article: How to add alt text in WordPress After you've added your description, you will have something like this in your html code: <img alt="This is the description of your image" src="image-name.jpg"> That's it. Easy to do, and part of very basic SEO that every content administrator should know. If you have any questions, let us know in the comments below and we'll help you out.   |
| I Respect Your Social Media Community – Do You Respect Mine? Posted: 04 Aug 2012 11:05 AM PDT After spending 15 years in corporate high tech and big data product marketing and brand management it's hard not to make up a new three letter acronymn at least once a day. The purpose of this post is to talk about the OPC. Ever heard of an "OPC?" OPC = Other People's Communities. When we talk about communities in social media there are million ways we can slice and dice it. To get us all on the same page below are a few definitions. At the bottom of this post are also several other articles that you may find useful related to building communities etc. A community does not just happen overnight. You can't just decide "hey, I am going to launch my product on October 1st and by October 31st I will have a line waiting to click like on my Facebook page, loads of fans visiting my Facebook page daily, an opt-in email list over flowing with qualified leads and a lines of new clients ready to get out their credit card to buy from me or download my new app." As much as we wish it worked this way, the truth is it just simply doesn't. Building communities take time. It requires an understanding of the people within the community, their needs, their desires, the problem pain points and a framework and fabric for them to connect. It requires a respect and care for those communities and the people in them. Things like content, conversation, education, inspiration, peers, resources, and more all help foster relationships. At the heart of community is the heart of the people. It's why I boldly believe the heartbeat of social media overall is people. It's you and me. Why are you interested in social media?
Most are not clear how to use the medium but are certain they have a goal of "selling more stuff." We work with some clients in the disaster restoration business and their favorite words are "we just need more jobs." To them more jobs equals more cleanups of floods, water damage, fire damage, mold removal etc. It's not that they want more houses to be damaged, they just want to be the service provider contacted when and if it does happen! You can't just go head first and sell into a community you don't know.
The tricky thing is for many to understand is that you don't just move from point A of starting social media to point Z of people buying from you. There are many things that must happen in between such as:
Inspire – Connect – AchieveSomewhere in there you must inspire and connect with the right folks so that you can build community. If your plan does not include a way for you to provide relevance via content that resonates with your audience you are going to have a tough time building community. Why you ask? Because they are never going to be inspired to join your community in the first place. If you look at successful online communities you will see many common themes. They usually share, communicate openly, have structure, are helpful, provide value, workout issues as needed and the list goes on. Relationships are earned, not given.You must earn people's trust to inspire them to click, like, tweet, retweet, share and talk about you and your product. You earn their trust and over time you educate them, make them laugh, make them do the "happy cry" and build a business or personal friendship. The relationship is something you invested in, something the other person invested in and provides a return on the time spent for both of you. Are You Respecting the OPCs (Other People's Communities)?Now, let's talk about the OPC. The OPC comes in when someone stops by and wants to pop into our community. You may also want to pop into, tap into or build relationships with OPCs (other people's communities.)
What do you think when you do any of the following?
Are you thinking about how you are adding value to the audience? To their OPC? To the community they may have spent years nurturing and investing in the people and heartbeats within the community? Are you thinking about how you can truly inspire the OPC? Help them achieve their goals? Or are you thinking about your own goals? Are you thinking about how you can leverage the OPC to get more retweets, more likes, more Facebook fans and more sales? I can tell you if you are only thinking of the making sales, the chances of that goal being achieved are slim to none. Why I don't retweet You & share all of your contentI recently wrote the post "10 Reasons Why I Don't Retweet You and Your Content". Yowza, it fired some people up. People either loved it or thought I was being overly cautious. I love this debate and wanted to continue the discussion here. At the core, the reason I put much thought into what I share, tweet, retweet, like, post on Facebook etc. is because I care about the needs of my community. I build communities with a goal of providing them the highest possible value in everything I do. This includes communication, content via blogs, videos, inspiration, education and the list goes on. I research the community, I listen to what they are saying. I care about their feedback. I care about their needs and I do my best to learn what their goals are, what their pain points are. I study what keeps them up at night and I build the best plan I can to help them get more sleep, to solve their problems. So tell me why, just because you have written a blog post that you want to get mucho traffic that I am required to share it with my audience? The truth is I am not. I am happy to share it if it provides value to my audience, helps them achieve their goals and I believe it is a fit with my audience. Social Media is Not a Barter Market as in "you retweet my stuff and I'll retweet yours"
Be the heartbeat of social media.Because I filter what I curate and share doesn't make me a bad tweeter or a bad business leader. I hope you are doing the same thing. Don't get bullied by those out there that want to make social media a bartering system. Respect your community. Respect my community. Respect other people's community and they will respect you back. Be their friend. Be their helper. Be someone who inspires them and chances are they'll want to do the same for you. Be the inspiration, be the content that helps someone solve their toughest problem. Share your best stuff that does these things and I'll be happy to retweet your blog post, share your tweet and tell people to watch you video. Remember it is real people that are doing the reading, the watching, the clicking and buying. They may be behind an avatar or a logo. However, they are real people. The best thing you can do if you want business results in social media is to start with the people. Be the heartbeat and make it a top goal to understand the heartbeat of your community. What You Say?Are you respecting the OPC? Do people respect your community? Or do people get frustrated if you don't share everything? How have you built your community? What tips can you offer others? Heartbeat of Social Media SeriesThis blog post is the first in a new series I am kicking off titled "The Heartbeat of Social Media". It will include a deep look at how communities work, what people are doing within them and how businesses can better understand how they can fit in, provide value and derive benefit as both a business as well as individual people. Subscribe to the series for updates and access to special videos, webinar training and more. Would love to hear your input and have you participate in discussions and debates as we challenge each other to be part of what makes the social network heartbeat healthy and alive in 2012!
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| Pinteresting and Pinformational: 4 Tools to Get the Most Out of Pinterest for Business Posted: 04 Aug 2012 10:45 AM PDT Pinterest is growing like crazy. Still in its experimental phase as a social media site, companies are scrambling to discover how best to use Pinterest for business. There are a number of speculations about how to use Pinterest to generate business leads, but no one concrete way to analyze the effectiveness of your pinning. Many seem to think that at some point, Pinterest will introduce its own analytics tools, but in the meantime, here are a few resources (Pinalytics, if you will) to help you measure the success of your Pinterest campaign. You all know about Klout right? PinReach is like Klout for Pinterest. Beautifully designed and simple to use, PinReach is great for obtaining a quick snapshot of your Pinterest activity. Simply type in your Pinterest username and PinReach gives you a score and generates graphs representing your Pinterest activity. By showing your most popular pins and boards, it also gives you an idea of what content is most popular among other Pinterest users. This is useful for determining which content your customers and followers consider most valuable. PinReach also breaks down pins and boards individually by number of repins and favorites. These board stats in particular are useful because they help you to measure the engagement level of an entire set of pins. It's important to know how users are interacting with your boards, because it's a huge factor in obtaining new followers. This service isn't free, but it does offer a 30-day free trial. Pinfluencer focuses on helping you identify your most influential pinners. By identifying these individuals, you can spend time connecting and building relationships with people who might become advocates for your brand. It's also useful to identify these people because they have large networks of followers and when they repin your content, a large audience will see it. Pinfluencer also provides tools for competitor comparison by showing you your competitors' most popular pins and influencers. Okay, this one isn't really an analytics tool, but it is does provide a great way to generate some unique Pinterest content. Pinstamatic allows you to easily add pins of calendar dates, maps, music links, quotes, tweets, and more. Its very simple to use, and it styles all of these things to look good on Pinterest. This is a great way to put out content that might not normally be very visually appealing. You could use these resources to announce important company dates, reveal a new web design, or simply give customers a glance at the inside culture of your business. This site is still in Beta testing, but users can sign up now, invite a few friends to join via Facebook or Twitter, and snag an early invite code. When fully up and running, Pinerly promises to be the ultimate Pinalytics tool. Essentially, you will be able to post Pins from within the Pinerly site to Pinterest. Pinerly will then monitor each pin and provide you with stats from each. This will give you a really detailed look at how your pins are being received by the Pinterest community. Pinerly will also provide suggestions for new things to pin, and new users to follow, based on your previously posted content. With Pinerly, you will also be able to schedule pins to post- a very useful tool considering Saturday morning is one of the prime times for pinning. There is no doubt that Pinterest will prove to be an essential player in the online marketing game. It's all just a matter of figuring out how your business can best use the platform for your own promotional efforts.    |
| The Challenges of Using Social Media in the Financial Services Industry Posted: 04 Aug 2012 09:30 AM PDT
In order to successfully guide a financial services company through this journey, a number of activities need to be put in place first. Here are four things every financial business needs to do in order to become a successful digital leader in the industry:
If you're a financial services company and are considering increasing your social media activity, make sure you consider all the factors above. At first it may feel a bit scary, but I assure you it's well worth the initial effort! Photo credit: morebyless on Flickr   |
| How To Best Choose Where To Guest Post Posted: 04 Aug 2012 09:00 AM PDT Guest posts are a great way to grow your personal brand… if you guest post on the right blogs. In 2010, I covered 5 Ways Guest Blog Posts Build Your Personal Brand. In 2011, I added 3 More Ways Guest Blogging Can Build Your Personal Brand. This year, I want to make sure you know how to choose the right blogs to get the best guest post results. 10 things to keep in mindWhen searching for the right blog to guest post on, these are the main points to look out for: 1. Niche First target blogs in your niche. After you guest post for a few of them, then you should target some blogs outside your niche with a crossover post relevant to both the blog's niche and your own. 2. Traffic
Alexa.com ranks blogs according to their traffic. Although skewed favorably towards sites that are popular in the US, it's still a good indicator for any blog in the world. Aim for blogs with an Alexa rank lower than 150K. 3. Audience Popular blogs in your niche will understandably have a large audience that cares about your topic. Popular blogs outside your niche may have a large audience segment that cares about your topic. Feedburner's RSS subscriber count chiclet, although less pervasive than it used to be, is still a good indicator of readership. 4. SEO Lots of factors determine a blog's success with Google Search, and Google's Pagerank metric is still a valid way to compare one blog to another. There are many browser plugins and websites that will look up the pagerank of a website. Aim for blogs whose homepage has a pagerank of 5 or more. 5. Social media Do the blog's articles go viral on social media? Does the blog have many Facebook fans, Twitter followers, etc.? Does the blog promote its articles to their social media channels? If so, there's a good chance your guest post will also get social media traction. 6. Engagement Is the blog's audience engaged? Do new articles get comments, and do people share them on social media regardless of whether the blog automatically promotes articles there or not? You want a blog that gets its audience to react. Low engagement is never a good sign, and it's not just limited to small blogs either. Some blogs publish articles too often for their audience to keep up. 7. Design Does the blog have a nice design, without ad clutter? If so, they probably edit each article to fit their high design standard, making your submission more likely to be appreciated by the audience. 8. Brand Does the blog have a good reputation? Are you comfortable associating your personal brand with the blog's brand? You don't want to post on a blog that you will regret referring people to. 9. Respect for guest bloggers Does the blog have guest post guidelines, so you don't waste your time (and theirs) with a submission that will likely get rejected? Have they published other guest posts in the past, and did the blog promote them well? Does the blog allow guest posters to include a bio with links to your site? Or even allow you to mention your site in the content, if relevant? 10. Likability Do you like the blog? Is it one that you're already subscribed to or will subscribe to, now that you've discovered it? Does the blog post quality content regularly? If you like it, chances are that many other people do too and that appreciation will extend to your guest post by default. Better that than being the only good post on a bad blog. Bonus11. Effectiveness Remember Pareto's Law and the 80/20 rule. Better to concentrate your efforts on reaching a few high-powered blogs than many lower quality ones. Speaking of high-powered blogs that accept guest posts, the 6th Annual JobMob Guest Blogging Contest has just gotten underway, with thousands of dollars in prizes including an early-bird raffle for submissions by end-of-day next Monday, July 30th, 2012. Author: Jacob Share, a job search expert, is the creator of JobMob, one of the biggest blogs in the world about finding jobs. Follow him on Twitter for job search tips and humor.   |
| How to Automatically Send Your Newsletter To Your Social Media Followers Posted: 04 Aug 2012 08:00 AM PDT Get Extra Mileage From Your Email NewsletterMost business owners already realize the value of sending an email newsletter to their subscribers, but sending some of the same newsletter to your social media connections can also be a great way to get your news out to everyone. The more people who read and respond to your newsletters the better. While not appropriate for all the content you send to your list, getting certain newsletter messages out into the social space can be a great use of your time and content creating abilities! This might seem complicated but fortunately there are a number of tools you can choose from to automate emails via your social media followers. Some people do not sign up for email newsletters no matter how many "freebies" you give out. Some subscribers will unsubscribe once they get the free thing, but they may still "like" you on FB. This way you have another way to get information to them that people seem to feel is less intrusive. Below are a few tools that you may already have to automate sending newsletters to your social media followers. * Aweber — This is a newsletter creation and distribution software based in the cloud. This means that you or your team can access the software from any location, from any computer, as long as you have an Internet connection and the right sign on and passwords. Using the software you can create newsletters that not only send to your email list, but also go automatically out to your social media audience. Simply check the appropriate boxes, and the rest is taken care of. (Aweber is my pick for a newsletter solution for most marketers.) * iContact — Another newsletter creation and distribution software, also cloud-based, which you can use to create newsletters that go out to your email list, as well as Twitter and Facebook. You can use it to grow your "likes" and followers with various automation features. Like Aweber, you simply set up your preferences inside the system, and it's done! They also offer a free 30 day trail. * WordPress — A lot of people don't realize this but you can create a newsletter as a blog post, and then a tool like Dlvr.it (FB/LI/Twitter) or RSS Graffiti (FB Only). The moment you publish the newsletter, it will send a link and a blub to your social media connections. A Word of Caution: Do not send every newsletter post out to social. Doing so removes any reason for someone to allow you to continue to get into their inbox. Your email list must have a USP (Unique Selling Proposition) beyond it's opt-in freebie or you will lose readers quickly. Building a big list requires good care and feeding of your existing subscribers. Make sure your email subscribers are getting some awesome stuff from you that they can not receive any other way than through being subscribed.   |
| Social Media Events in India: Can They Be Effective Posted: 04 Aug 2012 07:30 AM PDT This article was originally posted at YourStory as a guest post. The first thing I did after becoming an Entrepreneur in 2012, was listing down the weak areas of my startup. I found that there was a lack of awareness about it. So I thought of getting into offline engagement also. The next four months I attended some very well known as well as some 'not so trending on Twitter' social media events in India organized by WAT, India Social, LinkedIn India, MTV, etc. Since I was covering the event at my site, I was given free passes. Some of these conferences provided me with an opportunity to connect with people whom I knew online and also an opportunity to think differently but otherwise there was no other value addition. Most of the speakers were repeating the same old case studies of Dell, Zappos , Faasos, etc. Not that I have a problem with these examples but as a speaker who is considered to understand the market better, should provide more Indian stories rather than talking about what Mashable posted some days back. It's not just me but participants who had invested money in these events had more or less this thought – The event was good but everyone talked about 'What and Why of social media' but nobody spoke about 'How it is done'. After giving a great deal of thought on how these events can improve, I am listing down my thoughts below as a participant: 1. Start on time: We inherit this in our genes! Barring a few, most of the events declared in bold letters that they would start sharp at 9 A.M. but eventually participants who turned up at 9:30 A.M. didn't miss much. Either there is a venue management problem or an eminent speaker is stuck in traffic. Respecting time is a taboo in India and the poor participants who took the day off have to suffer. 2. Get Social: At one of the events I was attending, the speaker's names were not displayed and a friend pointed that out when he wanted to tweet about the speaker. I understand that not many will have a Twitter account but these events can invest on a social media presence. I have noticed some events that have opened a social presence for the sake of it while some did just a few days before the event. LinkedIn India did a smart thing by creating a group regarding the event but within days after the event, the group had no activity. The event hosts should invest on the social presence that has already been created since they would be doing an event again, wouldn't they? 3. Check the Speakers: A speaker can make an event interesting or can make the participants yawn. One should do a complete study about the speaker and also go through her presentation way before the event. In a recent social media event, I saw tweets from participants that said the speaker was repeating the same presentation that he had shared in another social media event a month ago. You can't cheat audiences since social media has made all of us smart. This also brings us to the point that should we see the same old faces in every event and listen to the same boring stories, when what we want is more of case studies. 4. Information Overload and give breaks: Can you sit in a place for 2-3 hrs continuously? I can't. So what is the point in stuffing sessions and creating an information overload? It is too strenuous on the participants to have four sessions before lunch and four post lunch. Besides this, events should have proper breaks so that participants could get refreshed before other sessions. Breaks are mostly sacrificed when an event has started off late, which takes us back to point 1. 5. Give ample time for Q&A: One of the events started taking questions from the audience only when participants started expressing their annoyance through tweets. Giving 5 minutes or telling the audience to engage the speakers after the session, is not an excuse for not giving ample time to Q&A. Participants come to an event majorly for two reasons and one of them is trying to get answers for their problems. So event should provide ample time for Q&A and not rush it since it didn't start on time. Point 1 again! 6. Ask Speakers to Engage after the talk: At another event, the speakers disappeared after the sessions, leaving no opportunity for participants to engage with them at length. As a speaker, you need to also interact with the audience. I understand that you are running companies but isn't the core concept of social media based on sharing. 7. Target Your Audience: Events should be clear with objectives and state the audience about takeaways, prior to the event. In most of the events, half of them have heard about Facebook and some are like me who want to know beyond likes and numbers. So social media events should target the audience well and not have one just to show their clout. It would be ideal if events get in touch with the participants to ask about areas that need to be touched upon or better still if events are organized based on the level of their understanding. Do you have anything to add to this list? If you are an event organizer, what are your thoughts on this? I would love to hear them.   |
| How Social Media Became the Word-of-Mouse Marketing? Posted: 04 Aug 2012 07:00 AM PDT A huge percentage of the population is involved with social media. Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Tumblr, and many others have all become a significant part of the lives of millions of people around the world. Thus, an increasing number of companies are beginning to focus their marketing efforts on the effective utilization of the power of social media. In this article, we will talk about the influential power of social media and how it can be explored and utilized for the maximum benefit of your company's brand and product lines. New Generation of Media Marketing
Gone are the days when word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing is the most powerful way of marketing products and services. The advent of social media has given birth to the more powerful word-of-mouse marketing, a new form of marketing that reaches consumers through social media. The effectiveness of word-of-mouse marketing can be measured through the social activity of internet users in response to the ads and other forms of information (images, videos, articles, etc.) released online. Social signals such as the number of likes, retweets, and +1s are a good way to measure social activity. The following characteristics of social media show how it became the word-of-mouse marketing: 2. Social Media is Influential The power of social media's influence in the lives of people is intensive. It is so intensive that it has the capacity to radically change the people's beliefs and culture. Through so many different ways, the information and insights that internet users gain through social media have affected their views and opinions on different social issues and their convictions on important life principles. We are the stakeholders and founders of social media, but social media has the capacity to shape us. It affects our culture and lifestyle. It affects our choice of products and services and our patterns of consumption. 3. Social Media is Contagious A contagious disease can be quickly transmitted from one person to another. Information channelled through social media also has a contagious character that is similar to that of diseases in the sense that it can be transferred from one person to another within a short period of time. In fact, every bit of information has the possibility of reaching and informing a million internet users in a matter of seconds. Also, an article or any form of work can go viral in a matter of seconds. Similarly, any person or product can become popular around the world in a matter of minutes! It is indeed the fastest way to reach your market. 4. Social Media Has No Boundaries The amount of social activity that happens in the online world does not end there. It can go and spill beyond the confines of the internet and affect the offline world through the power of the traditional word-of-mouth. Keep in mind that word-of-mouth marketing still remains to be a good and effective form of marketing. We trust the judgement of our friends and loved ones. Their preferences sway us into believing that a product is good or not. Utilize the power of social media to mobilize your target consumers. Influence them to be very passionate about your products and services to the point that they will be prompted to share what they think about your company's them to their friends and relatives in the offline world. There, that's what you call hitting two birds with one stone! Harness the power of word-of-mouth marketing through the effective utilization of word-of-mouse marketing in social media.
Social media embodies our opinions, comments, and ideals about everything from images to videos, random articles to political news, music to literature, and many more. In effect, it is a virtual compilation of a part of all of us. We form social media. However, social media also constitutes a part of us. That is what you want to happen to your products! You want them to become a part of your consumers' life on a long-term basis. Utilize the power of social media to convince and compel them to patronize your company's brand and products. The relevance of social media in our life is becoming more and more pronounce. It does not simply make the world a smaller place to live in, but it has also found its niche in several important aspects of modern capitalism such as business. Social media provides a new environment for businessmen and marketing personnel to advertise their brand and product by relying on the power of word-of-mouse marketing.   |
| Small Business SEO in Under 10 Minutes Posted: 04 Aug 2012 05:15 AM PDT Running a small business often means you don't have the budget, time or skills for search engine optimization…or rather, you think that's the case. Luckily you're wrong. Watch this official video from Google, and you'll understand that you do have the budget, time and skills needed. Who should watch this video?You should watch this video if:
What SEO tips will you get?In short, the video shows that you should:
If this sounds interesting, you want to find out more, watch the video below. For Google's official blog post (where you can also download the slides), visit "SEO essentials for startups in under 10 minutes" What to do now?It might feel overwhelming with all the SEO stuff you should do, but just focus on one thing each week. For example, implementing Google Analytics, or defining your conversions, will take you maximum 15 minutes. Figuring out your personas might take you a few cups of coffee, so why not use a pen and paper to work it out while you watch TV? The important thing is that if you spend 30 minutes per week on SEO, you'll move forward all the time…and that's really what SEO is all about – constant improvements in an organized manner. If you want help with creating an SEO plan for your website, contact me and we'll have a chat.   |
| Tweet Loudly: 5 Ways to Make Your Tweet Count Posted: 04 Aug 2012 04:45 AM PDT Some brands select one social media outlet for their campaigns and do it well. For the most part that outlet is Facebook . Yes, it is a very effective tool for reaching consumers and running campaigns, but let's not forget about Twitter. To help brands cut through the noise, Twitter has several features that brands can leverage for promotional and engagement campaigns. Here are 5 ways a brand can better leverage Twitter to get loud and reach and engage users.
Has your brand leveraged Twitter and its features to reach and engage users? Were your efforts a success?   |
| The Cost of Social Media: Defining Success Posted: 04 Aug 2012 04:35 AM PDT Social Media is a wonderful thing… or it can be! It allows for a brand to engage directly with their customers, one on one… in real-time. It has an incredible and indefinable reach potential. With so much going for it, why is it so hard for Corporations to jump on board? The simple truth is that despite all its accolades measuring the success of social media is problematic which means that determining ROI is also difficult to assess. The Creative Group recently did a survey, interviewing more than 250 marketing and advertising executives, and determined that 27% of them found measuring results the biggest road block with social media. There are multiple factors that contribute to the problem:
There are ways, however, to determine the success of your social media campaign based on your goals:
Determining your vision of success enables you to know what to look for once you have the data… then you need to turn all that data into information. Many social networks provide their on analytic services, for example Facebook insights. Facebook insights allows for a brand to track growth in terms of likes, reach and who is talking about the brand. It provides metrics to let you know where each like came from, to allowing you to evaluate media channels and their success. It provides all kinds of different demographic and geographic profiles… which status posts did well, which didn't. This allows you to assess the type of future posts to add. If you looking for the success of a social media campaign outside of the platform used, Google Analytics offers conversion services that helps determine the monetary value gained due to visits directed from social media sites. There are also some very comprehensive dashboard platforms that enables for social media integration. When determining a brand impression, Sysomos has a service that monitors social media conversation and determines how much of it is positive, negative or neutral. Knowing how to create and define a successful social media campaign can go a long way in building a brand and achieving a high return on investment. To learn more about ROI, read out blog "Brand Building: How to maximize ROI" These are just a few of the options available to help make sense of social media. How do you measure your social media campaigns?   |
| Web 2.0: Think Twice. Tweet Once. Posted: 04 Aug 2012 04:30 AM PDT Web 2.0 takes the concept of Web one step further and makes the platform a network. Instead of just passively absorbing information, users actively create the information and engage with one another. Chances are you are already into Web 2.0…but just don't know it. Sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and personal blogs are all examples of Web 2.0. When using Web 2.0 on Facebook, Twitter or any other social engagement platform there is one golden rule everyone should abide by: Think Before You Tweet (or post). Just because you can say something doesn't mean you should. Remember, once you put something out on web 2.0, it's there forever for anyone to see. When used incorrectly there could be some very negative consequences to Web 2.0 so be careful. The best way to protect yourself is to think before you Tweet (or post) and consider the following before making anything live: 1. does my message have a purpose 2. is this something I would want to read 3. is my statement accurate 4. will this come back to haunt me Once you know how to avoid the pitfalls of Web 2.0 you can start enjoying its benefits. Here are just a few from a branding perspective: 1. Audience reach: Web 2.0 doesn't discriminate and anyone, anywhere, with an Internet connection can become engaged with a brand. Terms such a "viral video" or "trending" are often used to signal high engagement. There is unlimited potential when it comes to reach. When a brand tweets, posts or blogs something that resonates with the audience, people will want to share it. 2. Personalized communication: through Web 2.0, brands develop a voice and a personality that speaks with consumers, not just to them. Brands and customers can have an ongoing dialogue that allows for praises, concerns and questions to be addressed directly and instantaneously. Responding to comments directly can establish a positive relationship and a positive relationship can then translate into brand loyalty. A great example of Web 2.0 would be "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like" campaign Old Spice did in 2010. It was a Youtube campaign that lasted three days and became the quickest growing online campaign in history. After just 24 hours there were 6.7 million views on Youtube and grew to 23 million views after 36 hours. [1] That kind of reach and growth wouldn't have been possible if the campaign started with traditional television commercials. Once the video was posted, Old Spice went one step further to engage with their consumers by posting 187 video responses featuring the star of their campaign.[2] Now that you know how to use Web 2.0 and have seen what it can do for a brand, how do you plan on integrating it into your next campaign? [1] Wianko, Ryan. "And the "Old Spice Maneuver" Is Created, Blows Doors off Advertising." Web log post. Ryanwianko.com. N.p., 15 July 2010. Web. 12 July 2012. [2] Baute, Nicole. "How Old Spice Campaign Changed Social Media." Thestar.com. N.p., 17 July 2012. Web. 12 July 2012.   |
| 10 Tips on How to Improve Your Search Engine Rankings Posted: 04 Aug 2012 04:25 AM PDT Search Engine Optimization (SEO) refers to the process of getting free traffic from search engines. Major search engines such as Google and Yahoo have search results where contents on web pages are shown and ranked based on what the search engine considers most relevant to users. SEO is a prevailing part of your company's marketing plan. It refers to how easily consumers can find your products and services through major search engines. Here are 10 tips on how to improve your Search Engine rankings: 1. Submitting URLs to Search Engines Submitting the URLs of your web pages is a relatively easy process. You could simply click on "submit URL" or "suggest a site" which can be found on the main page of the more popular Search Engines. URL should be submitted whenever a new webpage is created. Most importantly, it is necessary to resubmit the URL to Search Engines when a web page is updated or revised. 2. Enticing Page Titles Enticement to click is often based on an attractive page title. A page title is displayed on browser's title bar and the user's list of query results on Search Engines. Enticement to click can be achieved by having good page titles accompanied good descriptions, which come from the Meta description tags. 3. Paid Submission Paid submission allows companies to rank higher in a competitive environment. For example, having your company listed as a sponsored search result will make your products and services more visible. 4. Keywords If your website contains the word "advertising" 50 times and your competitor's page contains the word "advertising" only 20 times, and you have the word "advertising" in the Meta tags and in a page title, your page would rank higher in major Search Engines. 5. Relevant Page Content The amount of words on a page, their arrangement and relevance to the title can improve Search Engine ranking. Frequency of particular words on the page indicates the likelihood that the Search Engine will pick up on your keywords and indicate to a search result that you have the content people are looking for. 6. Consistent Image Naming Having many images on a page does not improve your ranking, however, if you name your images correctly, it is likely that Search Engines such as Google Images will find your image. Therefore, name your images carefully and always create alt attributes for your images. 7. Including Meta Tags Meta Keyword tags describe what a page contains to the Search Engine. Using as many keywords as possible will help to increase the chance that users can find your site based on that word. 8. Adding Links and Cross-links Make sure you include links on your website. Link out to other websites and other pages within your website. This will cause the site to be considered more valuable by Search Engines since it allows browsers to turn links into information on other pages. 9. Frequency of updates You should regularly update your site. Search Engines usually rank sites that are current and provide valuable information that has been recently updated. Making frequent changes to your pages and content will give you a higher ranking in Search Engines. 10. Mobile Optimization People now often use their smart phones to view webpage, therefore it is necessary for your company to create pages that are optimized for mobile phones. Google has created capabilities to allow cell phone users to search listings that were mobile device enabled. What SEO tactics do you employ? Have you found them to be successful?   |
| 3 Social Network Alternatives to Facebook Posted: 04 Aug 2012 04:10 AM PDT It seems like every business or person you know is on Facebook, and this makes checking out other social networking sites impractical. Wait—there are other social networks? Apparently, there are quite a lot, and I'm not talking about Pinterest, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Tumblr, or Google+. Don't be so easily put off, as the alternatives may prove more useful than you think. Here are three I find most interesting: Zurker – The Social Network You Own Many people are already wary of social networks that try to mine their data for profit. To respond to this, Zurker founders threw in a bit of tempting bait for Internet users. All new members don't just own their own data—they own the network. The social network operates on the notion that if members own the project, they'll be willing to contribute ideas and feedback for future developments. Each new member becomes a future shareholder or co-owner of Zurker, ensuring that priorities at Zurker don't get skewed by investors that are in it only for the money. To earn equity (called vShares—equivalent to 1/1,000,000th of the Zurker in your territory, e.g. Zurker-US), you simply have to invite new members to the social network or buy vShares for $1. The more you invite, the more equity you earn, the more Zurker becomes valuable, and the more your stake becomes valuable. Zurker also has a strict policy of one account maximum for each person. The new social network is distinguished by a bright green interface and huge white profile space. Features include: Post an Update – An update can be news from you, an anecdote, a reminder, a call to action, or even a work of fiction—anything your contacts might be interested in. Entities – Profiles for businesses, organizations, bands, groups, or causes. You can create an unlimited number of entities, which people can subscribe to. Convos – Private messaging for Zurkers. Photo – Post photos. Find – Post links to "finds" on the internet and shows you the "finds" posted by friends. You can also include descriptions for your own finds. What I like about Zurker is it that looks free and uncluttered. Aside from having a big white space, two buttons—"Connect" and "Subscribe"—are prominently displayed below your name and your profile description. Clicking on "Streeme" is like clicking on the home page of your Facebook page; however, instead of status updates, you see a page showing "Home" and "Street." Clicking on "Home" shows you Zurkers who want to connect with you, notes left for you, and suggested connections, while "Street" shows updates from your accepted connections. You can filter this by tag. Updating is not as fluid as I would like it to be, and I find the site too click-dependent. To be fair though, the site is still in beta, so I'm sure there are a lot of improvements that still have to be made. Since its launch last January, Zurker has acquired 172,857 accounts, but not all are active. Personally, I think many people are going to be in it for the vShares at the start. Once inside however, they'll find a community that's very easy to connect to. Don't be surprised if random people strike up a conversation and ask you to join their networks from the get-go. So is Zurker going to be the next social phenomenon as its founder Nick Oba says it would be? A Wired article warns us to be "wary" of the newcomer and others have wondered if the social network is a scam. Another Wired article dated more recently interviewed Nick Oba to get his side regarding this accusation. I'm not really interested in vShares, but it would be interesting to see if Zurker is going to be the sensation it thinks it will be or if it's just the social scam others have said it is. Yammer – The Social Network for Enterprises Don't want your employees to be on Facebook while working? Put them on Yammer. Founded in 2008, Yammer works as a private and secure social network for businesses where employees can share files, documents, and pictures. With similar features to Twitter and Facebook, Yammer has news feeds, conversation threads, direct messaging, and tagging for replies. This makes collaboration faster and more convenient than when you use email. Users can also be grouped in the site and can even invite external partners to join their network. Using API integrations, Yammer also lets you view and interact within other business applications like SharePoint and SAP. Admins also have the power to control, customize, and manage their Yammer network, giving companies more privacy and control. Just how robust is this business social network? Inside IPO, citing Forbes, says that the company already has 4 million users, a huge growth from the 1.6 million users it had last year. Before its acquisition by Microsoft last June, Yammer was reported to be gearing up for an IPO, joining cloud services like RingCentral and Atlassian in the IPO rumor mill. The company also seems to be thriving thanks to its freemium model; Inside IPO reports that sales have tripled from 2010 to 2011. If you want to know more about using Yammer for business, I suggest joining the YamJam '12, a conference for Yammer customers, partners, and thought leaders. Nextdoor – Your Neighborhood is Your Network Nextdoor is the virtual response to the criticism that the Internet has created superficial and impersonal relationships. In the hope that subscribers would "build stronger and safer neighborhoods around the world," Nextdoor connects users with people within their locality. The private social network requires members to sign up using their home address, so that they can be placed in a home neighborhood. All updates, connections, and messages you see will then come from users in your area. This of course raises suspicion from prospective users who don't want to give out their addresses online. To ensure that you're going to connect with a secure and trusted network, the site requires you to verify your address by mailing you a postcard that contains a code you'd have to enter online. Alternatively, you can verify via credit card, which will cost you $0.01. Some addresses can also verify via phone. To protect your privacy, Nextdoor swears that it never shares your personal data with advertisers. Also, only you and your neighbors will actually be able to see what's shared in updates. Subscribers will find Nextdoor useful for: - getting to know actual neighbors - asking for recommendations on home repairs - looking for a lost pet - publicizing neighborhood events - finding a home for old furniture - warning neighbors of break-ins, etc. In a recent article, USA today reports that Nextdoor has amassed 3,710 neighborhoods in 48 states since it launched last October, and is doubling in size every two months. Women also comprise over 60 percent of the membership. What I like about Nextdoor is that its specific objective and uses make online sharing very authentic. If you want to be more neighborly online, considering moving to Nextdoor. Do you use any of these social networks? Share your thoughts in the comments!   |
| Universities Are Out to Prove the ROI of Social Media Posted: 04 Aug 2012 04:00 AM PDT The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research continues to do an excellent job documenting the social media progress of organizations such as Fortune 500 companies, INC 500 companies and non-profits. In a new research release, the team shows that universities continue to lead the way in the use of social media and its measurement. If you think about, using social media at the university level is the perfect test case for what all our organizations may be seeing just a few years from now:
And, as this study shows, it's starting to show impressive results. Some highlights:
How are you seeing social media being used at educational institutions? Mark Schaefer is a marketing consultant, author and college educator who blogs at {grow}. You can also follow him on Twitter: @markwschaefer.   |
If you are in in business you likely have an interest in leveraging social media to connect with people so that you can sell them more product or service. That's unfortunately how many business leaders new to social media explain their goals of social media to us.
Just because a community exists online that matches your target demographics, doesn't mean they are ready to be your friend let alone buy from you! If you enter the community with the only going being to sell, chances are you are going to stick out like a soar thumb in a bad way.
My next question is what do you think about when you have a goal to engage with other communities?
As I always teach and preach, you really need to have the objectives of your audience in the forefront of everything you are doing in social media. Because the heartbeat of social media is people, you must get to the heart of the people first with a goal of EARNING their retweet.
There are unique challenges when working with financial brands when developing their 
1. Word-of-Mouse Marketing
5. Social Media is Part of Everyone
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