COGO Interactive

Archive for the ‘Social Policy’ Category

2010 was a big year in terms of businesses starting to establish a social media presence, and 2011 expanded on that with an explosion in the number of businesses that started taking social media seriously as a marketing tool. Now that we’ve done an adequate amount of setting things up, it’s time to start thinking of 2012 as the year when we really push forward and begin to innovate in terms of using social media in the best possible way, and customizing the experience so that each business is serving its own customers in a manner that suits their particular situation.

With the unveiling of Google+, and more recently the public debut of Facebook’s new Timeline format, it’s clear that social media channels are evolving to meed the needs of a community that perpetually demands more from its online networking. Whereas before we might simply have been looking to stake a real estate claim on the social media landscape, now we want to decorate our spaces to more accurately reflect our businesses.

As SEO strategies evolve to give greater weight to businesses who provide engaging and relevant content to their customers, social media networks will become the place where much of that engagement happens. If, up until now, you’ve been treating your business’ Facebook or Twitter account like a blog, with mostly one-way communication, 2012 will be the time to start opening up more of a dialogue. You’ll want to encourage your customers to talk to you, and to talk about you in their own social media circles.

Google is already starting to reward business that are more frequently discussed on Google+, by giving those businesses higher rankings in search results. Effective SEO is no longer about static links and self-created keyword density, but about real interactions with real people, and the amount of buzz you can create in your target market. The buzz, of course, is the reward for providing your potential customers with quality products, great customer service, and an online conversation that goes both ways.

2012 will be a stellar year for those who can see where this new customer engagement model is going, and can find ways to provide even better communication than is expected. Both search engines and customers have learned to see through the SEO strategies of the past, so this year the focus should be on moving forward with finding new methods to engage with your audience in ways your competitors haven’t thought of.

Over the past few years, online marketing, and especially social media, has developed into a situation where there is less “businessy” talk, and more real human interaction between businesses and customers. Spouting slogans and pasting logos everywhere is no longer the best way to get customers – you have to have actual conversations with the people you are marketing to, and let them know that they’re dealing with real humans, not some corporate machine.

That said, as a business owner, you still want to draw a line between who you are in your private time, and who you are as the social media face of your business. If you have someone else managing your business social media accounts, you want that person to come across as personally open, without dragging the sordid details of their private life onto your company’s Twitter stream. Finding that balance is important, not only in terms of appealing to your audience, but also in order to avoid scandals and getting attention for all the wrong reasons.

Today’s consumer audience is a lot more tolerant and even expecting of a very personal approach to online marketing than the audience of five years ago. These days it’s okay to talk to people on your Facebook page as if you were talking to a friend. People understand that there’s a real human typing the words in, and they expect you to speak to them like humans. Whereas before you might have restricted social media content to company promotions and essential information, now it’s okay to talk to people about how beautiful the weather is or how much you’re enjoying an event that’s happening in your city.

It’s important not to go too far, though. While your customers want to know you’re a real person, they don’t need to hear about your digestive issues or your frustrations with the in-laws. Keep any personal talk light and on the surface. Think chit-chat more than a heart-to-heart. Don’t forget to mix any personal observations in with at least an equal amount of company-related updates – it is a business account, after all. But of course you can keep the tone of the business updates quite personal, to remind your audience that it’s all part of the same package. Once you find the balance of personal and business that works well for your company, stick with it and watch your social media following grow.

If there’s one thing this year’s Google updates have taught us, it’s that we can no longer rely on raw numbers to tell us how well we’re doing when it comes to social media and SEO marketing. The Google Panda update back in February was a pretty big wake-up call that simply having a lot of content and attracting a lot of links wasn’t enough to stay high up on the first page of search results. Counting fans, followers, and incoming links used to give us a good idea about how our campaigns were going, but as Google and other search engines move toward more engagement-based algorithms, it’s up to us as marketers to respond appropriately.

The key, of course, is not to think of SEO as a set of techniques to trick Google into ranking your site higher. The whole point of the Panda update is that Google now thinks more like a human site visitor, and that’s how you have to think, too. This means that you have to put yourself in your target customer’s shoes – if you were visiting your business’ web site or social media profile for the first time, what sort of features or content would immediately make you want to come back again and again?

This emphasis on engagement is something we can expect to grow over the next year, as search engines give more attention to the social aspects of how internet users determine quality. Engaging with customers and potential customers, having someone on hand to answer questions, and providing relevant and up-to-the-minute content are all going to be increasingly important for the SEO and social media strategies of 2012, and it’s not likely ever to head back the other direction, where spamming your own site with keywords could give you a high ranking that wasn’t necessarily indicative of how good the site was.

That doesn’t mean that you should ignore keywords entirely, of course – saying the right things in the right places will always help attract an audience. The difference lies in how you approach that audience once you have their attention. Quality engagement matters now, much more than ever. Getting in the habit of communicating effectively with your target market, which has always been a good practice in the world of traditional business marketing, is now equally important in the world of search engine algorithms.

When we talk about SEO and search engine ranking, the automatic assumption is that we’re talking about Google. While it’s certainly true that Google is the most important and influential search engine at the moment, and possibly for the foreseeable future, it’s also important to remember that Google has other things besides search in its sights. As Google integrates other features under the umbrella of its brand name, other search engines with more of a single-minded focus may be stepping into the spotlight, and if you’re thinking about the future of your SEO strategy, you might want to keep other search engines in mind.

There was a time, perhaps even recently, that SEO experts would laugh if you suggested you might want to optimize a site for Bing ranking, but they’re not laughing anymore. Bing came out of beta a few weeks ago, and although it is not going to come anywhere near the market share of Google anytime soon, Microsoft has released a statement saying that they are prepared to inject the necessary funds into assuring that the public sees what Bing has to offer as an alternative to Google.

Whereas Google is heading toward a more social experience for its users with features like social circle testimonials, Bing is aiming to be more task-oriented than people-oriented. Google’s algorithm is constantly being modified to give increasing weight to results from social media sources, but Bing’s algorithm has evolved to give priority to location-based authoritative sources. In other words, if you’re conducting a search from Australia, Google will be more likely to bump up results from people in your Google+ circle, whereas Bing will assume you want results that are local to your area, from official sources.

As Google keeps fine-tuning how it ranks search results, this is leaving open niches where other search engines can step in and do similarly focused searches with different priorities. Over time, this could lead to a situation where Google is the search engine people turn to for, say, product reviews, but Bing is the one they try for finding a local business, and so forth. Even though that sort of evolution will take time, and may even go a completely different direction, it certainly makes sense to keep other search engines in mind when forming a comprehensive and forward-thinking SEO strategy.

Believe it or not, it’s already December, and if you haven’t already started thinking about how you want to modify your social media, SEO, blogging, and other aspects of your online marketing strategy for the coming year, now is a good time to get started.

Obviously predicting the future is out of the question, but you can easily see the trends evolving in things like search and engagement strategies, and make some projections for how you can stay slightly ahead of the curve.

In terms of SEO, things like page rank and linkbacks will become less important than other factors. Google in particular is starting to use more human-based feedback to determine the importance of sites. This means that providing quality, relevant content will be more important than ever – not for your ranking, but to keep your audience happy so that they improve your ranking by giving you good feedback. While it may seem that this is going to be trickier than simply relying on keyword saturation and links, in the end it will mean better quality for both searchers and the businesses that are competing for ranking.

In the social media arena, the big question is what’s going to happen with Google+. Despite the fact that you can find plenty of experts claiming it’s the Facebook-killer, Google+ still hasn’t managed to gain even half of one percent of the social networking market share, whereas Facebook still enjoys a hearty two-thirds of the entire market. That said, remember there was a time when MySpace enjoyed a similar heyday – just because a site is dominant for a long time doesn’t mean it won’t crash eventually. Facebook has been slowly losing ground, but opinion is still mixed as to whether Google+ is poised for a takeover.

For those who place a lot of importance on their business blogs, it’s important to note that Google is rewarding fresh content more than ever. So, if have been the kind of blogger that sacrifices quantity in favor of less frequent but longer posts, you may want to start balancing things out with shorter posts that get posted more often. That’s not to say that you’ll benefit from filling up your own blog with irrelevant content – remember that repetitive content will hurt rather than help your ranking. As with everything in a marketing strategy, you’ll want to keep things fresh and concise in your business blog in 2012.

It happens even to the best of us from time to time – something thoughtless, inappropriate, or downright dumb gets said on a social network, people react, and next thing you know you’ve got a big scandal on your hands. In the context of a small or medium-sized business, even a minor uproar on a social network can spell big problems for you in terms of unhappy customers and a dip in sales. Just like in every other aspect of business, mistakes will be made from time to time on social media. Even if you’re extremely diligent with your social media policy, there’s not really anything you can do about the fact that people are human, and sometimes they say damaging or offensive things.

What you can do, however, is make sure you have a plan in place to deal with issues as and when they come up, so that you can handle any mistakes quickly and efficiently, with the minimum amount of damage. As is often said, the best cure is prevention, so having a clear and concise social media policy in the workplace is essential. The more people you have working with you, the more comprehensive and specific the policy has to be, as you are dealing with a variety of personalities, all of whom may have different interpretations of what “inappropriate” or “offensive” means.

Even if you’re a sole proprietor, though, sometimes you might be your own worst enemy. I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen people posting on Twitter or Facebook who were clearly drunk, angry, upset, or a combination of the three. It’s one thing if you want to do that on your personal accounts, though I still wouldn’t recommend it. On your business accounts, it’s absolutely unacceptable.

If you do wake up one morning and find that you (or an employee) did the unthinkable and said something inappropriate on a social network, don’t just sit there and hope no one noticed. Delete the offending post immediately, and issue a public and very sincere apology. Trying to talk your way out of it or accusing your audience of not being able to take a joke is not a smart move. The sooner you can apologize and make amends, the better. Most of all, use the experience to learn how not to play the social media field, and do your best to be a model social network citizen in the future.

Ten years ago, internet marketing was much simpler than it is now. You had a website to promote your business, and that’s exactly what it did. It was basically an online brochure that told your potential customers what you would provide for them, and gave them all the contact details to reach if if they wanted to do business with you.

These days, a successful internet marketing strategy is about so much more than just having a website, and indeed your website needs to be so much more than just a glorified business card. Internet marketing involves things like search engine optimization, social media networking, pay-per-click, and article submissions.

If all these aspects of internet marketing make your head spin, never fear, you can certainly hire a consultant or marketing assistant to help show you how to do things. Nevertheless, it doesn’t hurt to become familiar with what’s going on so that you can usefully analyze the results of your marketing strategy and learn what works and what doesn’t for your business.

Probably the most hands-on aspect of internet marketing is social media. As the name implies, you will have to spend time connecting with your audience, which means more than just a one-time effort. Social media is used not only to seek your target market, but also to be there for your customers so that they feel they have a relationship with your business. This means you will have to be on hand, preferably on a daily basis, to answer questions and provide guidance.

Search engine optimization means streamlining your website so that popular search engines like Google rank your site higher than others in the same niche, thereby increasing your site’s traffic. SEO is a delicate balance of quality content and keyword usage, as well as integrating your social networking accounts.

Pay-per-click is like traditional advertising in that you pay for ad space, but the fee scale is set up on a per-click basis. In other words, the more people that click on your ad, the more you pay.

Article submissions work by putting information about your site and your business in as many places as possible. You can list articles about your business in articles directories all over the web, increasing your overall exposure to the people who are looking for the service or product you provide.

Combining all these aspects of internet marketing can be complicated, but you’re likely to see positive results that will encourage you to learn and try even more ways to get your message out there and bring customers your way.

By now you already know that social media is one of the big marketing tools at your disposal. Sometimes social media experts make it sound like all you need to do is open up a Twitter account, and suddenly you’ll be interacting with thousands of people and watching your content go viral. If you’ve been using social media and have had trouble getting any momentum going, you’ll know it’s not really as easy as that. There are, however, a few things you can do to start getting the ball rolling in terms of engaging your target audience and getting them interested in passing on your message.

When you first start out on Twitter, it often feels like you’re talking to yourself, and that’s because you probably are. People are hesitant to follow accounts that look like they were just created five minutes ago, so the first step is to make sure you’re regularly filling up your stream with content. That doesn’t mean you should just spam the world, as it were – fewer messages of value is better than a constant stream of filler.

Start building a following by adding people who you think are relevant in your niche, people who themselves already have a strong following, and then engage them in real conversation. People like to be spoken to like humans, and having some actual conversation in your tweet stream will convince potential followers that you’re not just a business bot.

The next step is to get people to help you share your content. The people you converse with on a regular basis are the ones who are most likely to help you by retweeting your links, so nurture as many of those relationships as you can.

Growing your retweet rate in your Twitter circle requires content that is consistently interesting. That doesn’t mean it has to be spontaneous, though, and in fact one of the best ways to ensure compelling content is to plan out a tweet schedule, perhaps utilizing themes for the week or even running a contest. People love to win things, and if you advertise a giveaway and ask your followers to retweet, you might get some decent results within the first few tries.

Repetition is also important. Not everyone spends all day looking at your tweet stream, and with most accounts these days following thousands of people, if you tweet something only once it’s very likely to get buried quickly. Don’t give up if you say something once and no one seems to notice. Rephrase the information and tweet it again later in the day. You’ll start to get a feel for how many times you need to say things before people catch on, and you’ll start seeing a greater response to your tweets over time.

Recently, Netflix announced that its streaming content service would be separating from its extremely popular and successful DVD rentals service, and that the company would be rebranding the DVD service under a new name: Qwikster. Although the change in this case has been so well publicized (and criticized) that it’s difficult to imagine the target market not hearing about the new brand, Netflix is still going to have to deal to some extent with what smaller business owners have to take into heavy consideration when rebranding: continuity of SEO.

This is one of the main reasons that rebranding cannot be taken lightly in the age of page ranking and social media. If, like in the case of Qwikster, your rebranding involves a name change, it also almost certainly involves a domain change, as well. This brings up issues of previous domain name use and protecting brand integrity. If you are lucky enough to be purchasing a domain that hasn’t been used before, you will also need to purchase variations of the name in order to set up a safety net of forwarders to catch potential customers who simply type in what they think your domain name might be.

If you are buying a domain name that was previously used by another business, you have the additional problem of the previous business’ SEO strategy, cleaning up any loose ends they may have left behind, or fixing problems with penalties that search engines may have levied against the previous owners. There’s also the issue of your Facebook page, Twitter profile, and other social media accounts. If you’ve started a new twitter account within the past year or two, you already know how difficult it is to find a username that both reflects your brand and isn’t already taken.

You also have to make sure that anyone using a name similar to yours doesn’t get confused with you and your business. This is a problem that Qwikster is going to have to deal with right away – they failed to secure the Twitter handle @Qwikster, which is the account of a young man named Jason Castillo. Castillo enjoys tweeting about things like smoking marijuana, often using very strong language. In terms of SEO strategy, this is not something Netflix wants to be associated with, and it’s going to take a lot of work for them to separate themselves from it.

Rebranding is a major decision, and if you have come to that junction in the evolution of your business, it’s important to take the appropriate precautions to ensure the best switchover possible. Your SEO strategy is an integral part of your business’ success – make the necessary preparations and do your research ahead of time, and you’ll give yourself the best chance of a smooth transition.