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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The world of social media can often seem like a free-for-all. Sure, social media gives customers a venue to sing your praises, which can lead to higher sales and a stronger reputation. The danger, of course, is that unhappy customers or visitors can take it upon themselves to post negative feedback about your business in a way that could be very damaging. This is one of the major reasons to monitor your brand very closely online.
If you are working with partners, associates, or employees in your business, there's no point in trying to pretend that the use of social media won't get complicated at some point. It's one thing when someone in the organization says something unacceptable in the office and it is dealt with internally, but when someone in your company says something unacceptable on the internet, the implications are much greater. Not only does it have the potential of being seen by millions of people, but it can have long-lasting consequences. Once an ill-advised tweet or Facebook update is out there, it's out there, and even if it gets deleted, often by that time it's too late and the damage is done.
Here is a great article from Marketing Profs on a subject that is becoming an increasingly important element of a solid social media strategy: monitoring your company's reputation.
Today’s CEO is not social. So says Forrester Research’s CEO George Colony. Very few of the CEOs at top companies in the U.S. and the rest of the world have any material presence on the popular social media sites. Read more