Marketing SEO Blog

The Dirty Truth About Facebook Marketing

As entrepreneurs we all love the game.

You know the game. The next big thing. And online the next big thing is every other day. Often times I need to council my clients that they need to blog or publish to be successful online. More often than not it falls on deaf ears because it is not very fun. Blasting crap all over the net is easier and less work.

A little Fun from Jack and Tom with Today's theme.

Facebook Killed Plug N Play

As business people we fight long and hard to scale everything we do. So Realtors used IDX. And syndicated using tools from their IDX providers or tools like Postlets.com. Other industries are not so lucky to already have a built in content mill ready to churn out to the masses.

Either way social media, particularly Facebook has made the Plug N Play a death trap. Sure scale is important. But it is called social media for a reason.

Social Democracy

When you essentially spam Facebook just to spam Facebook, you will never know that your post was called spam, or you were removed from ones wall. Call it Social Democracy. There is no dislike button on Facebook. But what I described quietly serves the same purpose.

Look at your own profile of "friends" see how often they:

• Post on their own profile.
• Engage others via Comments or Likes.
• The last time they were active.
• What is the quality of the commentary on others posts and on their own?

Finally The Dirty Truth of Social Media

There may be 700 Million + folks on Facebook, but this little experiment will prove out that there is not as much socializing going on as the numbers might imply. And that can serve as your trap or your opportunity to spread your message. People do not know what to do when they get onto the social media. Engage them and you can easily become a thought leader in your niche.

However, do not fall into another trap whereby you go around asking if someone wants to buy your stuff. Socialize with them and talk about things that they care about.  Think of it as a giant Chamber of Commerce meeting.

 

 

Google Releases Their Own Social Noise Maker: +1 Button

Google has released their own social noise maker called plus one. OR +1. This is Google's answer to Facebook's like button. And as I have said before that likes are the new links as Google, and Bing embrace the social authority of ones social graph. Neglect to use these at your own sites demise. Twitter just released their Follow button whereby you can follow an individual or company on Twitter.

Real Social Media SEO for Local Businesses

Image via CrunchBase

I have counseled my real estate agent clients to be their neighborhood advocate. That means be the online source of hyperlocal or neighborhood information. This advise really can apply to any local business from the dentist, to the plumber and even restaurant, and more.

What most people think is that what I mean is to post dry boring statistics about home values, and recently sold homes. Of course for a home owner these things are a big deal when they are considering "hows the market?". However, they are a mere blip on the radar for most of the time. Thus, your message is wasted.

Instead, any local business can stoke community pride by video taping the events they participate inside that community.

If you properly tag your YouTube video you will get local folks watching your video about their town.

This was brought home to me the other day as I posted a video of our local home town parade we attend most every year.

I put the video up on YouTube late Saturday night. By Sunday morning it was already at 37 views. As of  right now Monday morning it is 126. Based on experience it will keep growing. I also posted pictures of the parade and the video into Facebook.

So imagine if I would have put Tim's Real Estate, Or Torrance Dentist, or Torrance Fill in the blank,  as a watermark, or bookend on either side of the video? 126 People would see my message so far. The marketing benefits of doing this are delightful.

• Branding
• Community involvement
• Socialized SEO as the video gets picked up by the social nets
• Its cheap
• Its ongoing
• You are not always selling, youare perceived as a community advocate
• Its more fun!

Imagine if I hammed it up a bit as roving reporter and placed the branded bookend and footers?

Here is the short clip and a photo taken by my daughter.  Turn your speakers down.

You can also post your photos and watermark them with your appropriate branding. Put them on photo sites like Flikr with full creative common rights so people use them on their website. Post them across the social media and your message spreads virally.

SEO'ing in a Social World

SEO is dead sang the "Social Evangelist". Um Yah riiiiiiigt.

SEO is as important than ever. Here is the reason. Social media is tied to Google, Bing and Yahoo. How?

Bing serves results for Yahoo. Bing pulls much of their data from Facebook. In fact, it is believed that results are influenced by some of the data that Facebook provides to Bing. Like "Likes". I suppose this is a good time to do the gratuitous:

 

Likes are the New Links

Although Google does not supposedly get as much data as Bing gets, they too track likes and also your links in Twitter. Never mind no follow tags in Twitter.  The social evangelistas will claim it has something to do with so called "social authority". That's just propaganda called links. Its always about links. 

There is another item that just might be effecting your sites reputation in the SERPS. But I will save that for another day.

Plus One: Likes are the new links Since posting Google added their own twist to social search. Called +1. It is their version of the Like button. I have yet to see it in the SERPS. Lets see what happens. More commentary later. Meanwhile here is the "official +1 Trailer"

 

How to Succeed in Social Media

Image by DonkeyHotey via Flickr

I hate to make like there are rules to social media. As it is like in the real world everything is contextual. However, in business I think these rules may serve you well.

This advice given to a Health and Beauty company n Facebook:

Enage me, dont sell me.

I am interested in staying young, no wrinkes, no fat and living forever.

Show/sell me on the lifestyle so I want the magic pill.

Don't sell me the magic pill so I want the lifestyle. It does not work that way.

 

In other words do not ask me to enter your conversation instead enter my conversation going on for real or in my head.

New Realities of SEO and Marketing: What Celebrities Can Teach You

Image via CrunchBase

Of late you will notice this blog writing about Reality TV as well as A list stars like Charlie Sheen.

These stories are really about getting rejected faster so that you can get to a yes.

The reason written these is so that you get that we live in a new reality. Most of your public. Your marketplace has the attention span of viewers of a Kim Kardashian TV spot.

It used to be said that the USA Today was written to the level of a grade schooler. At some level wouldn't you agree so is our entertainment?

Reality TV Nation and Secret of a Social Media Guru

We are with all our internet toys, all our gadgets, all our so called sophistication  and it seems we are worse at communicating than ever. We get thousands of messages slammed onto our world daily. And I still see young couples on dates answering texts and cell phones. Most sophisticated thing I have seen of late is sitting down at a business meeting and the owner of a huge transportation company telling everyone to turn off their cell phones. Thats leadership.

I recently wrote that if you want to know the secret to a marketers success. Watch what he does, not so much what he says. Check out the style.

Humans like shiny objects. On the net we only get a few seconds to keep a prospects attention. Gary V throws an F bomb a minute as he pontificates in his oh so cool Gen X oratory stylings. Seth Godin sounds big time smart and cool at the same time.Tim Ferris uses all the cool tools, living how he want, on his own terms. So new generation.

That is provocative, that is style, that is persona that a public wants. Their public. There are others that think they are full of hooey.

They are modern day rockstars in an age where the closest we get to a rockstar is American Idol, a Tribute Band, or when the Stones go on their thirtieth retirement tour.

The Charlie Ultimatum

 If you think Charlie Sheen has been "winning" media attention these past few weeks, you'd be right.(Reuters) 

Charlie Sheen is dominating the internet. Like it or not. He has taken over the net and social media.  He gets it. He may be stark raving mad. He may be tweeking. But he is talking directly to the people who matter. The fans.

Like Lady Gaga, Like Kim Kardashian, you either hate this multi million dollar man or you don't don't. Polarization works. The execs from CBS are at a severe disadvantage. Charlie has fans. They don't. He is putting on a show. After all. This is show business.

Charlies SEO

The point in all of this is that Charlie's SEO is about as organic and real as it gets. In fact, that is what social media can be. The links to Charlie comes naturally. His persona spreads virally. In many ways he is painting out a reputation management campaign.Despite how crazy he seems.

This is where SEO and social mesh. Videos go viral. Words go viral.

Can we look at some of the numbers. And these are a bit old from HitWise:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paul JJ Payack, president and chief word analyst for the Global Language Monitor:

Payack used an algorithm to analyze the top 20 persons (or things) of interest on blogs, Internet-only news sites and social media sites like Twitter and YouTube between January 1 and March 8, 2011. Sheen was first, followed by Apple's iPad, Lady Gaga, Obama and Tea Party favorite Sarah Palin.

Some promoters get the promotional value of Sheen. Concert promoters Live Nation has agreed a merchandising and licensing contract with Sheen.  

So what does all of this teach us? Be a nut? No. Be out there. Be visible. Be provocative. Be  out there and use whats available to spread your company meme. In the marketplace you must be rejected by some so others accept you.

Some are just more willing to get more rejections faster than others.

 

A Fast Strategy to Dominate Social Media

The Internet is a vast plethora of opportunity.

Do you know that feeling you had on Twitter the first time you joined in?

Well that is what most businesses start out on any social media platform. In fact, most businesses are like a boy at a 7th grade dance for the first time.

Let me give you the single best way to use Twitter. This exercise will also get you closer to your own core proposition that you offer your market.

Answer these three questions:

1. What pain can you help to solve in your market?
2. Visualize yourself as one of your prospects and enter that pain that they are trying to solve. Place that pain into the form of a question.
3. Now go to search.twitter.com and ask that question.

Notice all the conversations going in and around your "medicine" you offer the marketplace.

Now go in and socialize. Help them out with advice. It is no different than the real world. If you start coming off salesy you are dead in the water. Build some social value first.

All of the social media is really a digital Chamber of Commerce meeting. Enter their conversations and you will hold much more value so that the "friends" will want to find out more about you.

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Undressing Lady Gaga's Social Strategy

Or Why Lady Gaga has more friends than you and me.

She has created a cult. OK call it a tribe or fans if that makes you feel better.

Look at the KISS ARMY, Harley Davidson, Jimmy Buffett's Parrot Heads. Rabid fans. The Dead Heads follow their favorite band from town to town. Dear Lord don't talk smack about the Aggies to a Texas A & M fan.  All of these fans share many similarities in common.

Lets consider the elements of her cult marketing:

• Secret Signs-Her fans and Gaga send their secret hand signs towards each other during her shows.
• A Name-Her fans are called Little Monsters
• Provocative-She stands out (Remember AIDA : Attention, Interest, Desire, Action) She definitely gets your attention like it or not. From her sultry Britney Spears like attire to her meat dress and Stigmata enactment. And each new appearance comes with a new outfit.
• Purposeful-In her interviews (which you can see in the hidden House Blogger area you can get free access below this article) she proves that she is scripted and rehearsed. Knowing exactly what she is doing. Almost like there is a strategy to her persona. Her song titles match her persona. The song  "Born this way" as a title an example implies difference and separation key in causing polarization. 
• Mystery-You never know what you are going to get when she shows up. We are all drawn to the dark. And in the House Blogger Back Room,  I go into more detail how this serves her marketing.
• Authority-She is the cult leader and demands the attention of not just her followers but her detractors too. Much of that is because she is on purpose.
• Polarizing-If you are not a fan you still more than likely have an opinion of Miss Gaga. And more than likely it is distaste or idolation. You either love or hate her as they say. And that is simply good marketing. If you hate her, she can careless about her other than to mark out what her fans are not. This effect is somewhat paradoxical. As the naysayers often times give power to the smaller set of the population or cult. Often times giving power to the less powerful culture.

All of the above is what helps to mark out and serve the community of Gagaville. When I think of this polarization thing which is really just marking out a tribe. I think of when the punk rockers were the rebels of my day when I was coming up.

They were anti establishment. So they paradoxically protested establishment by creating their own.

Ranking Your Facebook FanPage in Google

A client asked me to tell him if he should go with a vanity URL on Facebook. He is worried it will hurt his ranking of the fan page in Google.

The thinking is that his fanpage is separated by dashes like this facebook.com/fan-page/1234.

Whereas a vanity url can only be this facebook.com/fanpage/ or facebook.com/fan.page/

I give my opinion on this video. I use my own personal profile and my Fan Pages as examples in this video.

• http://www.facebook.com/tim.okeefe
• http://www.facebook.com/spider.juice.technologies

And as of this moment it seems Google cached my new url structure on Feb. 17th.

 

And the ranking has actually stayed in the same position since the video. Now to be completely intellectually honest we have to realize that my clients phrase and name of his fan page has more competitors than a brand name like mine.  So we have to consider that fact. However, I do believe it will stay the same if all else is equal withing Facebook. (relatively same friends counts (links) and same inbound links from outside Facebook to the Fan page)

Facebook's Shot Heard Round the World

Image via CrunchBase

 The recent uprising in Egypt came from a single Facebook post.

There is another battle.

The fight between Google, Bing, Yahoo, and Facebook.

Yahoo has kind of succumbed to Bing. As Bing provides data to Yahoo.

Bing is also in bed with Facebook and has access to all those like buttons.

Therefore, these three engines are in an alliance to take on Google.

The War was recently declared.

The fight will be bloody and many will lose their shirts.

However, the scraps will be plenty for those who know how to benefit from this World War III.

Our most recent installment is SEO is DEAD.

Don't wait to find out about these changes. Get ahead of the trend so you can benefit from this online battle. 

 

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