Online Marketing Blog

I’m headed to (hopefully) sunny San Diego today for the annual Online Marketing Summit conference where I’ll get to present on one of my favorite topics: Optimization. Of course, if you read Online Marketing Blog very often, you’ll know my definition of optimization is a bit different than traditional SEO.  My post last Thursday “Are You Optimized?” touched on this.

The competition for attendance during the breakout sessions at OMS is really tough during the time slot I’m scheduled for. SAP, Wider Funnel and SAP are all presenting at the same time as I’m giving the all new “Optimize THIS: Integrating Social, SEO & Content presentation”. This post is a bit of a preview on the presentation so if you’re at OMS this week, make sure you check it out.

Picturesque view of Lake Minnetonka from the TopRank Online Marketing office

Today marks my 4 month anniversary at TopRank Online Marketing and almost 5 years in the online marketing industry.  It has been a goal of mine to learn as much as I possibly can from those who know the industry best.  In this seemingly short amount of time I have received, and continue to receive a top notch education at an unbeatable price.

I would like to share some of my experience to give other marketers interested in breaking into Internet marketing or continuing their online marketing education an idea of what it looks like from one person’s perspective.

Google+ Optimization or Community Building?

Initially I looked at Google+ the same as other Google social projects like Wave and Orkut. But the more I use Google+ the more I like it. Maybe it’s the network effect because others are using it more too. I often find content and insights shared on G+ that I don’t find elsewhere.

While the addition of Google Search Plus Your World (SPYW) has made a big splash in the digital community, I actually think G+ is far more useful (from a personal perspective) as a social network than it is as an augmentation of search on Google.com. When I put my Marketer’s hat on, of course it doesn’t matter what I think of G+ – the task is to figure out how to optimize opportunities to gain an advantage.

The 2012 Community Manager Report

Community Manager is an essential, yet still uncharted territory for many companies that are expanding their presence on the social web.  What should you know about the current state of this position?

• 67% of Community Managers work for a brand
• The most popular city for Community Managers is New York
• 65% of Community Managers are Female

Be sure to check out the rest of this report presented by Social Fresh.

Google & FBI: All Your Social Data Are Belong to Us

For non-geeks, here’s the reference (Zero Wing video)

Making the time to execute on a social media strategy can rattle even the most experienced marketers.  Unlike traditional marketing, social media marketing can present many different challenges and distractions.  According to a study by eMarketer 73% of marketers say finding the time to create content as their biggest marketing challenge.

I recently ran a poll of @TopRank Twitter followers to get a sense of how they spend their time online.  I asked “If you had only 20 minutes a day to spend on social media what would you focus on?”  Some of the answers we received were:

• @henryroominates – “I would try to connect with powerful Twitter users and Tweet content from my blog.”
• @SebastianX – “I’d read my Twitter Followanyday List.”

Photo Credit: Flickr gjkooijman

Lady Gaga is the definition of an influencer offline and online; her music, fashion sense, and passion for social causes have spread around the world in only a few short years.  Love her, like her or hate her, you know who she is and you’ve probably heard more than one of her songs.

When searching for a way to improve your online PR strategy or increase your social reach, who better to learn from than one of the most influential celebrities in the world and on the web?

Social Media is Going Gaga

• Lady Gaga Facebook Fan Page Followers – 46,608,220
• @LadyGaga Twitter Followers – 18,198,577
• Lady Gaga Google+ Followers – 20,852 (only 4 days after signing up)

Google+ has been on the lips of every online marketing professional since early 2011.  With a base that has now passed 62 million users and the integration of Google+ into Google search, it has become clear that Google+ is here to stay.

As this new social platform continues to evolve it may be difficult to keep up with the latest trends, changes, and tactics for creating an optimized and influential Google+ profile for you and your business.  With recent events and the release of Chris Brogan’s new book “Google+ for Business: How Google’s Social Network Changes Everything” Lee and I thought it seemed a good time to compile some helpful tips of our own and some from Chris’s new book to help professionals take some of the fear and uncertainty out of using Google+.

Being included on a popular list of credible resources like our own BIGLIST of top Marketing Blogs or one of the many other collections of useful resources posted online can feel pretty satisfying, validating the hard work many are putting in to their business blogs. Great lists get socially shared, linked, and emailed, giving those included quite a bit of valuable exposure. By association, the list publisher also gains value in terms of exposure, links, and a connection with list participants.

Curation is essential for sorting through the mass of data published online and with the closer integration of social media and search, each of us is becoming a mini-search engine for the benefit of our networks and for sites like Google and Facebook. Essentially, Google, Bing and even Facebook are just elaborate and massive content curators. The question is, how can we as marketers take advantage of mass curation and crowdsourcing for the benefit of our own online marketing?

Search, plus Your World

The big news this week centers around the changes that Google has rolled out related to Google+ integration with search, which as the tech press buzzing.  Google is aiming to bring users additional search functionality that is incorporated with their Google+ profiles.   The official Google blog states that “you should be able to find your own stuff on the web, the people you know and things they’ve shared with you, as well as the people you don’t know but might want to… all from one search box.” Industry observers are saying it’s too much Google+, all the time.

Regardless, it’s a new dimension on the face of search and that spells opportunity (for those optimists among us) to Optimize. Here are a few tips on Google+ optimization. Be sure to add TopRank to your Google+ circles!

Is your social media strategy sending your customers mixed signals?

As a B2B organization with a focus on technology, you may believe that you are facing additional obstacles that your B2C counterparts are not.

Many of you have tried to implement social media in the past without much success.  However, you may still believe that B2C companies have it easier because they have a direct line to their consumers.  The good news is, you do too!  In fact, 58% of IT buyers use social media to make tech buying decisions.

Getting in front of the proper decision makers and influencers when selling SaaS, IT, or any other technology is not as hard as you may think.  It is imperative that you follow a series of social media best practices directed at finding, engaging, and motivating your social network to take action.

The business press is full of stories about how small companies are using social channels to attract and engage customers. But while there are plenty of individual success stories, the confidence in what to do specifically is not always clear for small business owners that are strapped for time and online marketing resources.

I was talking with a small business owner recently who was lamenting not updating his website and also that his competition was showing up “all over the place” online.  The nature of his product requires some education and an effort to dispell common mis-perceptions. The rapid advancements in technology of his particular product category are not very well known amongst his target consumer market. But there’s a substantial amount of search volume and interest in the solutions his product provides.  He’s also a small business with limited time and budget.

If you are a B2C company, interaction on a social platform like Twitter can increase engagement and even sales if executed properly.  Small businesses like Tender boutique in Birmingham, Michigan have promoted special offers on Twitter and sold out in just a few days.

Social interaction via platforms like Twitter allow companies to gain a true understanding of their prospect base and serve as a real-time source of market research.

Customer engagement is a key benefit of executing a B2C Twitter marketing strategy. A recent survey by Chadwick Martin Bailey found 67% of Twitter users are more likely to buy from or recommend a brand they follow.  Twitter is also a great resource for crowdsourcing new ideas, getting feedback on current products or campaigns, and figuring out what it is that your customers really want.