Here’s what you need to know.

Clash of the Internet Titans

In the war between Google (the world’s top search engine and most visited website) and Facebook (the #1 social network and the 2^nd most visited site on the planet), your company can be the victor.

James Whittaker gave us a glimpse into Google’s obsession with one-upping Facebook in his widely publicized blog post, “Why I Left Google.” That obsession has been a driving force in Google’s social strategy, and it holds a powerful key to using social media to supercharge your SEO efforts.

Google is working overtime to attract new Google+ users. As part of their “Search Plus Your World” initiative, the search behemoth has made two particularly aggressive changes:

• The new “People and Pages on Google+” section on the results page. Although Adwords is Google’s primary source of revenue, ads are often displaced to make room for this information.
• Content shared through Google+ is being pushed to the top of search rankings, often appearing before more keyword specific and relevant content. Content that gets +1s also receive ranking boosts.

These changes have created a major opportunity for early adopters of Google+. It’s never been easier to get your website on Page One of Google’s search results. In addition, URLs shared through G+ are crawled and indexed almost instantaneously, meaning it’s never been easier to be the first source for breaking news.

Because 66% of all searches in the US happen on Google, leveraging G+ to promote content probably has the biggest bang for your buck of any social network when it comes to SEO.

Many companies have been hesitant to become active Google+ users, but with its growing influence on search results, those that start taking advantage of the benefits now stand to reap massive SEO benefits.

Bing Likes Facebook

When Facebook users are logged into their accounts, Bing’s social search prioritizes content their friends like and share. It will even tell them how many and which friends hit the Like button.

In general, content on Facebook is not very search-friendly. Search engines investigate title tags, headers, etc., on pages they crawl; Facebook pages are structured in a way that doesn’t give the search engines much to work with.

Although Bing only handles about 15% of American search inquiries, this exclusive partnership with Facebook makes Bing the best search platform for spreading Facebook content.

Optimize Through Social Proof

All search engines recognize that content that is shared repeatedly is probably high quality. In traditional SEO, backlinks (especially from authority sites) are a signal of good content. The same idea applies to social media. People are liking, retweeting, re-pining and +1ing for a reason. The sharing makes the link very visible to the search engines, and it is seen as proof that there’s something noteworthy there.

For that reason, “going viral” will make content dominate any and all search engines.

With that in mind, there are two areas you absolutely must focus on if you want to maximize the SEO impact of your social networking:

1)    Create and share great content. Don’t just blast out constant stream of content to make sure you’re always being seen or heard. Concentrate on creating interesting, valuable content that your audience will love. People like to share the stuff they really enjoy.

2)    Grow and nurture your network. Obviously, the bigger your community, the more people you have direct access to for marketing purposes. It may not be as obvious that the more followers you have, the more search engines view you as authoritative. When you share or like something, your “thumbs-up” carries greater weight.

Apply the Golden rule: treat your network the way you’d like to be treated. The more they like you, the happier they’ll be to promote your content. The more they share your content, the more attention it will get from search engines.

Do you feel like you’re wasting time whenever you log into LinkedIn? If so, you’re not lone. Nearly everyone I know is disappointed with the results they get from spending time on LinkedIn. Very few really know how to make LinkedIn work as a traffic source or marketing medium.

More Traffic or Better Traffic? How ‘Bout Both?

The bad news: LinkedIn may not be the most prolific traffic source for driving traffic.
The good news: Linkedin tends to be a source of very high-quality traffic. Leads are more qualified, more targeted, more focused on ‘doing business’ than ones coming from Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest.

Based on personal experience, I can tell you that LinkedIn can send gobs of traffic to your website. Not kitten video-seekers, but qualified prospects curious about doing business with you. In fact, for one month last summer, LinkedIn sent more visitors to my website than Google.

Here are four great ways to leverage LinkedIn Groups as a real source of traffic

1. Create a Unique Profile. The foundation for a solid LinkedIn traffic strategy is setting up a unique profile. What does that have to do with Groups? More than you might think.

Having an engaging profile establishes your credibility, tells visitors and group members what’s special about you and why they should pay attention to you. These factors are essential for your long-term goals.

Many of your group co-members will judge you, at least in part, based on your profile. Many will check out your profile before clicking on your links. They want to make sure you’re not a spammer or a psycho.

Most people make the mistake of creating profiles that look like old-fashioned résumés.  In fact, the built-in Help Guides and descriptions will lead you to believe that’s what you should be doing. Don’t make that mistake. Create an interesting, compelling, visitor-centric profile. Stand out.

2. Join groups where your prospects congregate.  It’s natural to want to connect with your colleagues, and that’s how most LinkedIn users select which groups to join. Keep in mind that most of your peers will never become your clients.

Let’s say that you’re an SEO expert. You can find plenty of groups for people just like you. But, if you spend your time there, you’ll mostly be “preaching to the choir” when you start discussions and share links. Additionally, you’ll just be one of many SEO experts in the group. You’ll be able to have fun talking shop, but you probably won’t be marketing your services to them.

On the other hand, if you join groups of small business owners, you might be the only person in the group who understands how to rank on Google. Now you get to be the resident expert. You get to educate the entire group!

LinkedIn allows you to join up to 50 groups. No matter how many you become a member of, spend at least half of your time where your ideal prospects are.

3. Discussions. When starting discussions, be Relevant, Riveting and Regular.

This is the main active part of your traffic strategy.

Relevant – When you write articles, blog posts, etc., share them in groups where they will be appreciated and valued. The SEO expert’s article probably isn’t appropriate in a group for offline marketers.

You can start new discussions to present your content, but you should also post relevant links in response to discussions that others are already talking about.

Riveting – Share compelling content. Again, stay focused on the reader. What are her struggles? What is he just dying to know? What benefits are group members striving to obtain that you can deliver?

The content also has to be packaged in a riveting way. The most traffic I’ve ever received from LinkedIn came from discussions entitled “Satanic Sales Pitches.” That turned out to be a very effective attention-grabber.

Like everywhere else on line, there’s so much clutter, you can’t afford to be boring.

Regular – I advise people to start 2 or 3 conversations per week at most.

If you post too infrequently, you’ll start losing ground. But don’t be that person who posts 5 links back-to-back every day of the week. You’ll only irritate people, and moderators might block you or kick you out of the group.

You’ll also want to participate in other people’s discussions. That shows you’re not self-centered. You want to listen as well as speak.

4. Start your own groups.

If you have the time to dedicate, or if you can enlist the help of trustworthy managers and moderators, starting groups is an unparalleled opportunity to market yourself and drive traffic where ever you want.

The benefits of starting your own groups are obvious. Instant credibility, a captive audience and free reign to direct all conversation that takes place in the community.

You also get to send an email to your membership up to once a week. It’s almost like a free weekly newsletter. You have the chance to educate, persuade, sell, and link to content that you want your members to know about.

You already know that they’re interested in the topics you’re addressing, so they are likely to be high-quality potential customers.

Imagine what you could do with 500, 1,000, 10,000 group members? Would that transform your LinkedIn experience?

I achieved nothing during my first year on LinkedIn. I didn’t get it. But through plenty of trial and error, I discovered what’s possible and what works. Take these ideas and implement them. Experiment. You can accomplish so much more than you’re used to.

I’d love to hear your success stories.

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Donnie Bryant is a direct response copywriter and marketing consultant. He specializes in radically improving businesses with Stealth Salesmanship and Strategic Marketing. Find out more at http://donnie-bryant.com/.

The book delves into the shift in today’s business world and how a marketing shift is necessary. While Scott is most known as a top Twitterer (is that a word?) and as a social media guru his book covers many realms of marketing and is filled with useful case studies to drive home his point.  Whether you want to broaden your understanding of social media for business or want some solid advice on everything from your online newsletter to how to online customer service this book will deliver. This is an easy read that will keep you laughing as much as learning. With chapters like “Why Networking Events are Evil” it’s hard to go wrong!!

1. 5 steps to success on Twitter: Follow, Reply, Retweet, Share, Repeat.

2. Don’t try to win over the haters. You’re not the jackass whisperer.

3. Give away some knowledge. People fear that if they give it away, people won’t need to hire or buy from them. If everything you know about your industry can be explained in a few articles, you don’t know much.

4. If you want to evoke emotion, it’s internal emotion for the reader, not the writer… If someone reads your tweet or blog post, or sees your video, and the only thing they learn is more about you, you’re not evoking emotion. That’s an ad. If you want to persuade people and get them to pass something around, evoke their emotion.

5. For generations, marketing has been hypocritical. We’ve been taught to market to others in ways we hate being marketed to (cold-calling, flyers, ads, etc.). So why do we still keep trying the same stale marketing moves?

6. Twitter is a conversation. It’s truly what I love about it.

7. Facebook is in a world of its own. Posting on someone’s wall with a seven-line signature, mass-inviting people to every event (even if…the person is not even in the same country), to tagging people in articles that they are not even mentioned in just to get them to read it. There is a special vein in my forehead that you can clearly see when these things occur.

8. It’s not just knowledge people buy from you, it’s the application of the knowledge for their specific situation.

9. If you believe business is built on relationships, make building them your business.

10. Marketing is not a task. Marketing is not a department. Marketing is not a job. Marketing happens every time you engage (or not) with your past, present, and potential customers.

11. Satisfied customers are the best way to market your business, because they are the ones that become your word-of-mouth army – they are your customer evangelists.

12. Stop Marketing. Start engaging.

13. Don’t just tell people you have the answers to their problems but make them put complete trust in you and hire you to give them the answers, but five them the answers. Show people you are an expert in your field.

14. The day you start talking to your audience and it’s about them, that’s the day that business really happens.

If you have not taken the time to read his book I suggest you at the very least follow him on twitter @unmarketing. If you have read the book be sure to share your favorite Scott Stratten quote below.

P.S. 15. You have to be an expert to run your own business.

If you happen to live in San Diego make sure to join us at our next MeetUp—SEM San Diego (http://www.meetup.com/SEM-San-Diego/) and you could win a copy of Scott’s book. Webster’s dictionary defines an expert as ‘having, involving or displaying special skill or knowledge derived from training or experience.’

As a marketer, I see major opportunities for businesses to build their brands, connect with their audiences and yes, create revenue. That’s no surprise. In a purely mathematical sense, Pinterest is an online marketer’s dream, driving more than sixteen times more referral traffic than Google+ in January with only one-ninth the number of users.

The problem is that too many brands are wasting these marketing opportunities.

There are scores of websites, blogs and e-books that describe the basic ways businesses and entrepreneurs can use Pinterest to send masses of traffic to their websites, to establish their identities, etc. There’s no need for another article like that. Let’s talk about the ideas almost no one is talking about and even fewer are acting on.

Keep Your Elbows Off the Table

Proper etiquette dictates that you refrain from promoting yourself, your business or website too much. It’s social networking, not selfish networking. And your boards aren’t supposed to be used as catalogs for your current product line.

No one is looking at your profile because they’re dying to buy something from you.

At the same time, your business didn’t set up a Pinterest account for the fun of it. It’s acceptable and understandable that you’d want to get some return on the time you invest.

The question is, how can you do that without being obnoxious or self-centered? Here are a few thoughts.

The Bob Vila Approach aka “The How-To Approach”

Most of the images I’ve seen on Pinterest serve one of two purposes:

1) Showing off something visually impressive, like the kitchen designs on HGTV’s board or those hot new boots.

2) Something funny or inspiring, like General Electric’s That’s Genius board.

What I have yet to see is a how-to board.

Think about it. Say you’re a chef or an art teacher. Wouldn’t it be interesting to pin a photo collage showing the multi-step process you use to make your signature dish or paint a gorgeous mural? Not only would that be different from what everyone else is doing, it would add personality, and it would actually be helpful for anyone who might like to try to imitate you.

You could also show your product being used in a creative way – not just a static photo, but the different stages of the process of innovation.

These sorts of photo collages or videos practically beg viewers to click through to your website to get the recipe or fill in the steps that you didn’t show.

Brands like Etsy have DIY boards, but they show end results, not the processes.

Education-based marketing on Pinterest? Who would’ve imagined?

Unleash the Evangelists

There is an obvious way around the “rule” against pinning nothing but your own content: get someone else to pin it for you.

You can be purposeful about this. Naturally, some of your followers will re-pin your pics; others will stumble across something they love and they’ll share it. But why leave it to chance?

Actively seek out true fanatics for your brand – satisfied customers, friends, family, even employees – and encourage them to pin and re-pin your material regularly. Offer incentives for them to do so.

Create contests to see who can come up with the best pictures, funniest captions or wacky uses for your product.

Some users may consider reciprocating pins: “you pin my stuff, I’ll pin yours.” If you want to be really sneaky, you can set up a pinning ring: Brand A pins Brand B’s content, Brand B pins Brand C’s and Brand C pins Brand A’s.

Become Your Tribe’s Go-To Guy (or Gal)

Starbucks doesn’t need Pinterest to help sell more coffee. In fact, I doubt that’s even possible. But Starbucks has an enthusiastic audience, a tribe of loyal followers.

As I’m writing this, your favorite coffee company hasn’t pinned anything on their profile yet. I see an amazing marketing opportunity for them here.

They might take their cue from Oprah.

Oprah Winfrey’s profile is a great example of what could be done here. As one of the most popular personalities on Earth, her tribe is huge (she currently has just over 12,000 Pinterest followers). Although it breaks the “no catalog” rule, her Great Buys Under $100 board has massive potential.

She’s positioning herself as the go-to gal for great buys at great prices, even though they’re not directly connected to her personal brand. If she’s smart, she will do the same thing with books, as every book she recommends seems to become a best-seller overnight.

In these cases, Oprah’s not promoting herself, but giving advice and helping her tribe make choices that she believes will improve their lives. Everyone wins.

Now, Starbucks could do the same thing. Of course, they will have some boards about coffee (a how-to board on properly calling the name of a drink would be of tremendous service) and the experience they seek to provide in-store, they could easily set up boards to promote musical artists and books they like.

There are three main benefits generated by this approach.

1) Go-to guys on a specific subject of interest have followers who visit their profiles again and again to get the valuable information they share. The more traffic going to the profiles, the more referral traffic ends up going to your website.

2) The people being promoted/pinned will be more than happy to re-pin any mentions they receive. This expands your reach and puts you in front of new audiences. Those who you promote now become your evangelists.

3) There is a tremendous opportunity for affiliate marketing. Take me for example. As I mentioned earlier, I’m a copywriter. Let’s say that most of my followers are business owners. I could transfer the trust I’ve gained into a non-competitive area that is valuable to my tribe. Let’s say I set up a board on “Software I Love.” I could pin images of screenshots, product images, etc. of software I enjoy using. Some or all of those links could be affiliate links. If I had a following as large and loyal as Oprah’s, that could produce a significant amount of revenue.

You’re already an expert at something. In what other areas can you become your tribe’s go-to guy or gal?

Pinterest looks like a lot of fun, and it is. But with all these marketing and business-building opportunities, there’s no reason you can’t mix business with pleasure!

1. Do nothing. Allow your page to automatically migrate to Timeline on March 30^th. Leave your page the way it is and keep doing things the way you’ve always done them.
2. Capitalize on the opportunity (just because it’s mandatory doesn’t make it any less an open door) to leverage the strengths available in the new format.

If you choose to “stay the course” in spite of the immanent changes, Timeline will seriously decrease your ability to effectively engage and grow your audience. This is true no matter how great your Facebook marketing results have been in the past.

The infographic below, designed by Integricity, lays out 10 things you need to know about Facebook’s revamped pages. I cut the graphic up so it would be easier to digest. Keep in mind that if you do nothing at all, the switch will take place anyway. However, if you’d like to get the most out of Timeline, these 10 tips should get you on the road to facebook happiness.

Vanishing Landing Pages

Most brand pages rely heavily on their default landing pages to guide the user experience for fans and non-fans alike. Companies know exactly what they want visitors to see when they first arrive on their page. They’ve probably spent a good amount of time and effort putting together the perfect page.

Timeline does not have a default landing page option. Creating the perfect initial visitor experience for the new page layout will not happen by default; it will not carry over from your landing page. Prepare to invest more time and effort into getting the new page to be professional-looking and engaging.

The photo strip that sits at the top of brand pages will be replaced by a single cover photo which is much larger than any image you’ve seen on Facebook previously (officially 851×315 pixels).

The column on the left side of the screen where Tabs (Photos, Friend Activity, etc.) are currently located will also disappear. Four apps (which all tabs are now called) will be visible directly beneath the cover photo. Administrators will have to select which apps are visible, and they will have to choose thumbnail images for them.

I could go on, but hopefully you’re starting to get the idea. If you haven’t planned how you want your page to look, it will get pretty messy when the transition takes place.

When visitors see poorly-thought out pages (the ones that decided to “migrate” instead of actively adapt to Timeline), it might be a bit of a shock for them. Contrasted with pages like those of Starbucks http://www.facebook.com/Starbucks or Lexus http://www.facebook.com/lexus, passive brands will look unprofessional with the look.

Putting “Story” in Your Company History

The Timeline format is designed to give your brand page a narrative element that has been lacking on Facebook. Up until now, pages aren’t much more than somewhat random-looking status updates which fade away over time. With Timeline, you are free to tell your whole story, in the way that’s easy to consume at a glance.

Friends and fans are very interested in the behind the scenes stories and “once upon a times.” It’s just our nature. Timeline lends itself to this concept beautifully and intuitively.

Every post you’ve ever published on your page will appear on your timeline. Brands are encouraged to add in important milestones from their past, all the way back to when the company was just a concept.

As is the case with page format, it will take some work to add in these major events and to make the story more than just a series of disjointed statements from days gone by. Brands like Fanta http://www.facebook.com/fanta have done a fantastic job of creating a full-orbed, meaningful company history.

Posts and comments you don’t like can be hidden, and ones you want to emphasize can be starred. This calls extra attention by doubling the size of the post.

It will be worth the effort to comb through old content to make your brand narrative as compelling as possible.

In addition, any post that you want to make sure gets the immediate attention of your visitors can be “pinned” to the top of your timeline for seven days (or until another item is pinned). When done thoughtfully, this could take place of the default landing page that’s no longer available.

Content’s Everlasting Reign

More than ever before, brands will have to incorporate visual media into their Facebook posts. You can tell that Timeline’s designers had this in mind. The structure of the page almost begs for brands to include photos and videos into a high percentage of their posts.  Studies also show that these are the items that drive the greatest amount of interaction visitor interaction. (Hey – pictures and videos go viral way more frequently than text content).

Timeline calls for businesses to rethink their Facebook marketing strategy. The content that was successful up to this point will not necessarily work as well going forward. But investing in finding out what makes for the best user experience is the best investment you can make.

Don’t bury your head in the sand; Timeline is here, and it will have a massive impact on how your brand fares on the world’s largest social network. As we noted earlier, you have two choices: ignore the reality or embrace the change. What do you think is the smarter decision?

Donnie Bryant is a direct response copywriter and marketing consultant. He specializes in radically improving businesses with Stealth Salesmanship and Strategic Marketing. Find out more at http://donnie-bryant.com/.

Do you ever jump on Twitter and wonder what you can say to really get a conversation going? We decided to tweet a few of our favorite social media guru’s and ask what they think are some of the best conversation starters for Twitter. Here is what they had to say:

Christine Kirk, CEO of Social Muse says:
A thoughtful compliment always gets the ball rolling.
Twitter: @LuxuryPRGal

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Pauline Grant from Tech for Granted says:
I do think taking the time to engage is the best practice. Asking questions help too!
Twitter: @PaulineGrantTO

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Giovanni Gallucci from Live Loud Texas says:
Asking someone what their favorite conversation starter is on twitter or facebook.
Twitter: @LiveLoudTX

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Best Selling Author and Speaker Gary Vaynerchuk
Searching what u like to talk about and then getting involved.
Twitter: @garyvee
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Kent Lewis, founder of Anvil Media and Formic Media says:
Asking simple questions, typically about industry or timely news, product development and UGC-related contests.
Twitter: @kentlewis

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SEO  & social media content writer Meg Hartley says:
Integrate Google+ and Pinterest into the routine
Twitter: @meg_hartley

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And Just for fun we asked Matt Siltala, founder of Dream Systems Media “What are some of the weirdest conversation starters you’ve seen on Twitter?” That got us this great answer:
I would say any “weird” that comes to mind is when @ChrisHooley starts a conversation about poop and such.
Twitter: @Matt_Siltala
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Here are a few more ways to get a conversation going on Twitter!

8. Tell us the website you can’t stop visiting.

9. What conferences are you looking forward to?

10.  What’s your #1 Social Media goal for this year?

11.  Do you have a blog?  Please share the URL with us!

12.  Are you on Pinterest? If so share your URL so we can follow you.

13.  Are you on Linkedin? If so share your URL so we can follow you.

14.  Who do you love to follow on Twitter?

15.  What book should everyone read?

16.  What is the best movie you’ve seen this week?

17.  What offers do you want to see from us?

18.  Whose advice do you trust on Twiter?

19.  What is the best happy hour in your town?

20.  What’s your dream vacation?

21.  What’s your dream job?

22.  How much time do you spend on Twitter each day?

23.  What time of day are you most likely on Twitter?

24.  What is the funniest post you’ve seen on Twitter?

25.  Who shares the weirdest posts on Twitter?

If you like these, help us by sharing.  Like it and Tweet it below!

And if you really love it? Sign up for our newsletter and you’ll get more great content and online marketing tips!

For those of using Twitter for business this is good news! Not only will we be able to answer questions of ‘quantifying’ traffic to clients, it will be a useful tool for demographic research.

Speaking at Columbia University’s social media weekend in New York, Anderson said the analytical tools will better help publishers track the reach of tweets sent through the microblogging service.

Per her description, the tools like they will be sound similar to analytical services provided by third-party firms like HootSuite and SocialFlow.

While we wait for Twitter to launch their analytics tool, you can always check out Socialbakers Engagement Analytics PRO with competitive intelligence advantages for Twitter.

Socialbakers is a go-to provider for social media statistics of TOP platforms – Facebook, Google+, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Twitter, and our Socialbakers Analytics PRO is being used by the leading brands worldwide such as Lufthansa, L’Oreal, Danone, Vodafone, GE Money, Ogilvy, Kraft, and hundreds more for deep social analytics for Facebook and Twitter.

When Facebook first started in 2004, it was a way for college students to connect to one another.  Two years later, Twitter provided a way for people to share their day to day events with family and friends. Flash-forward to 2011 and these two social networks are being used as a platform for businesses to connect and engage and are being used as prominent search engines with their customers and their industry.

Social media marketing is especially effective for small businesses that do not necessarily have the finances or networks big brands do to connect to customers.  According to The Constant Contact Report more and more small businesses are becoming savvier with social media and using it as a marketing tool.  More small businesses are finding social media marketing effective.  Currently 96 percent of businesses are using Facebook and 76 percent of businesses are using Twitter as platforms for social media marketing.  Why so many?  Small businesses are learning how social media marketing can help grow their customer relationships and improve their customer engagement as well as brand management monitoring.  Social media marketing is easy, affordable, and an effective way to connect and engage with customers. But you have to take the time to learn to do it properly or it can be a daunting task.

Just because social media marketing is so user friendly does not mean that you cannot do it wrong.  Many companies fail at effectively using social media as a business platform.  So then what are some companies doing wrong?

1. Starting online activity without defined business objectives or goals

The main issue lies in brands inability to integrate their business objectives with their social media strategy.  Many businesses simply try to build up a large group of followers without having any strategy on how to communicate and engage effectively with them.  The content is not personalized to the brand and therefore ineffective to communicate to customers because they will not be able to engage in it.

2. Not understanding the difference between interruption and engagement

The instinctive approach for many companies is to push market and sell their service or product like they have for years over other mediums like radio, television, and print.  However, social media platforms provide a way to shift communication to actually have conversations with consumers instead of just talking at them. Unfortunately, many companies fail to respond to customers engagements with only 60 percent of businesses responding to all comments on social media.

Though these 2 mistakes in social media marketing are common, they are completely avoidable.  The key to social media success is having websites and social networks work together harmoniously. So how do you do this?

1. Business Intelligence

The first step any company needs is acquiring data that will then be used as a guide to shape their own strategies.  This can be accomplished by consumer research, web analysis, and social media monitoring.  By doing this the goal is to find out the ins and outs of social media marketing and see what is currently effective and trendy. Once you have acquired critical analysis of strategy and trends, the next step is to brand filter.  This is an extremely important step because it allows you to put your own spin on your marketing.  Although it is important to use popular techniques, you always want to keep true to your brand and customize for your customers.

2. Content Creation

Now that you have some ideas, it is time to finally put them into words.  The key here is to say something important and design content people will actually care about.  In order to do this you must develop customer personas and focus on your tone.  Find your companies voice and balance between personal and professional as to create the most customer friendly content.  Any content you post should be:

• Useful:  content is easy for people to share
• Data-based: content can be used on multiple networking platforms (Facebook, YouTube, mobile, etc.)
• Brand Focused: content always promotes the brands position
• Interesting: content that others will want to share meaning it has emotion, information, and self expression.
• Distinctive: make content unique and do not settle for anything less than great.

3. Find Followers

Having great content does nothing if you do not establish a group of focused followers to read it. This step requires both offline and digital efforts to establish customer relationships.  The best way to go about this is to integrate PR, email, paid media, partnerships, owned media, and maintain search visibility.

4. Engagement

Once establishing a group of active followers the final step to social media success is actually interacting with your followers and monitoring the account discussions, messages and activity.  Just because you have content that is brand focused and people looking at it does not mean you are successfully using social media. Without engagement, your followers will only look at your site once or twice to see what it has to offer and then move on.  The key here is to keep posting interesting, focused content about your brand that your followers can respond to.  A great technique to do this is to ask questions to your customers and then most importantly make sure you respond when they do, even it if is a simple “great” or “thank you”.  Another simple technique to keep followers is to share posts from other users.  This not only provides you with more content on your page, but also opens up your connections to new companies and their followers.

Now that you know the first steps to social media success, make your daily plan, specify time you will spend. Get on your computers and login to Facebook and Twitter and “Let’s get ready to post!” Oh and you are on twitter you can use a hash tag, we recommend #goodluck.

For more information and expert social media integration please contact us for a free evaluation.

Be Original but Not Unique

I know… do what? Let me try to explain… Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. Your design shouldn’t be some crazy, out of this world, never seen before type of design and layout. I can almost bet that your kitchen appliances, although maybe new, sleek and modern, aren’t completely different from what your parents used. There are still burners on top. There are still specific areas on the front to control temperatures, etc…

People appreciate new and exciting. People don’t appreciate feeling lost when they can’t figure out how to use some completely new thing they feel shouldn’t be so damn difficult to use. So sure, make your site original. Make the design elegant or make it pop – whatever suits your business and what your target audience is kind of used to. Use navigation that’s pretty common. Top menus. Side menus. Whatever it may be.

Also, please don’t think you need to fill every inch of space with ‘something’. Don’t clutter it up with graphics that have no point. Don’t fill all your empty space with advertising in hopes of making an extra few bucks. Empty space gives your site a cleaner feel and makes it easier to navigate.

Clear and to the Point

When someone arrives at your site for the first time, it shouldn’t take more than a second or two to know what you offer. Are you offering helpful information about a topic and reviews from multiple users? Are you selling actual physical products they can order right from your site? Are you a designer offering web design services to small businesses?

It should be clearly evident what someone can expect to find on your site and who your site has been created for. Put the most important logos, information, tip bubbles or whatever it is you’re using near the top left corner. That’s the first place people look and then work their way down, skimming.

Readable Content

No matter what kind of text you’re using, make sure that it’s very clear and easy to read. If it’s hard to read i.e. too small, weird color that’s hard on the eyes, an unusual font that you have to ‘figure out’, then people will get frustrated very quickly and leave. Use TypeTester to find a suitable font and size.

Gently Encourage Reader Retention

Most people won’t buy or order anything from you the first time they land on your site. So it’s in your best interest to try to build a relationship with those readers. Try to get them to want to come back to your site again. There are a number of ways you can do this, but here are a few to consider:

• Use an attractive RSS subscribe button to draw attention or use an elegant opt in bar, slide in or pop up. Of course, make sure it isn’t obtrusive and never forced. If you have a lot of subscribers already then display the number of readers you have. Social proof can work wonders!
• Offer a free report in return for them giving you their email and name (opting in). Then you can send emails when you post something important or a special update/offer.
• Use social media. Make it easy to follow you on Twitter or Like you on Facebook. There are lots of bars, plug ins, etc… you can use. A free one that lots of people use is Get Social.

Giving them a few different options will increase the number of repeat visitors you get, but don’t try to stuff ‘em down their throat if you know what I mean. No one likes to have pop-up after pop-up where someone is trying to force it.

Logos and Photo Images

You don’t have to spend a fortune on a fancy logo. There are tons of ways to get great looking logos cheap or free. You can use a beautiful font and a free program like Gimp to make an easy, free logo. You can go with a free online service like FlamingText or hire someone on Fiverr to make you one for – you guessed it, five bucks.

Don’t use cheesy, over-used stock photos that everyone has seen on 20 blogs already. If you can, use take your own photos and use them. If that’s not possible, at least look in other places like Flickr for photos that are allowed to be used (be sure to use advanced search and find those that are available for use).

Say Goodbye to the JavaScript Dilemma

Some of the commenting systems are easy to implement on both sites and blogs, but they run from JavaScript. JavaScript comments have traditionally been difficult for search engines to pick up on and actually read, which in turn means that comments will probably have no chance of offering any SEO benefit or showing up in search results.

However, there’s some good news. Matt Cutts tweeted about something that bloggers everywhere were happy about on November 1^st… that is the fact that Google can now index some JavaScript comments and even those powered by AJAX.

That means all those comments being left on posts using the Facebook comment system can be picked up and indexed in Google. In fact, you can even search for bits of a comment and find it in the search results. Although I don’t really see a lot of people trying to find part of a comment they already know existed.

Benefits of Google Indexing Facebook Comments

The real benefit here is that one, the more relevant comments you get on your posts, the more relevant content you’ll have on your page that can be indexed by the search engine. Secondly, if you’re the one commenting on someone’s page it could give more weight to the link you’re probably connecting with your comment.

Downsides to Google Indexing Facebook Comments

On the other hand, since comments are able to be picked up by Google then you’ll need to make sure you’re monitoring the comments that go live on your site. The last thing you want is for a comment to slip through moderation that could be derogatory to your site – and it get picked up by Google (think non-family-friendly language and terms, etc…).