Writing by Brick Marketing on Monday, 30 of June , 2008 at 11:43 pm Leave a comment
Many people, particularly bloggers, use data collected from areas such as Google Trends to find topics or keywords to inspire their next piece of content. Social blogging can provide the same type of information, in this case information that is probably more relevant to blogging.
Social blogging sites such as Twitter can be real information gold mines. In fact twist, a site that shows what hot on Twitter has made it easier. Here you can enter in a number of keywords and it will return a graph showing how frequently those keywords appear.
I did a comparison between, parents, holidays, and flowers. Parents came out well in front, however if changed that term to toddlers, it didn’t get onto the screen. Parents are popular topics but toddlers are not.
Using the information you gather, you can see which of your keywords are generating comments and you can then create pages targeting those keywords. The posts wont write them selves, the headlines may do.
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Category: Social Blogging
Writing by Brick Marketing on Sunday, 29 of June , 2008 at 10:38 pm Leave a comment
Everyone knows that a blog is a great way to provide information to customers and prospective customers. We live in a society that is using the online world to research products prior to purchasing - most of this research is done through search engines, however social networking is becoming an effective means to deliver information. If you can connect with both you will find your traffic and and sales improving.
One effective and underutilized uses for blogs is as a sharing portal for products users. As an example, you may sell a variety of digital cameras. If you have created pages or posts on each model of camera available, you can open your comments for buyers to enter in hints and tips for using that particular model.
I have seen websites run competitions on the best ‘hint and tip’ for items that they sell. These are later collated into a page of their own. Blogs are ideally placed as they take on some of the features of static web pages and the interaction of forums.
Once you start to get feedback and useful hints and tips you can start to invite your social networks to add in their hints and tips. Eventually you will have a mass of user generated content that turns a simple blog into an authority site - a site that can answer all the questions on a particular product.
What is interesting is that buyers are now looking for feedback from other buyers before making their final decision on which product to buy. If you can provide a mass of user generated feedback on your products then buyers are going to be far more willing to buy from you rather your opposition whose only information is what they provide. These days, particularly online, there is little trust between buyer and seller until that first sale has been made.
Capitalize on what your buyers can do for your business. Propagate that information throughout the social networks and you will reap the benefits.
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Category: Social Bookmarking
Writing by Brick Marketing on Saturday, 28 of June , 2008 at 9:31 pm Comments (1)
Facebook has a feature that I find interesting, yet limited. Perhaps I have not got the hang of it. The MiniFeeds are handy to grab feeds from your blog, del.icio.us, digg and SU accounts (there are others).
I have not been able to work out how to get the feed from more than one blog into my account. It seems it has a limitation in that respect.
What is interesting is the introduction of comments on these MiniFeeds. This will have one of two effects - one: it will decrease the number of visitors to your blog or website - let’s face it if I can comment on one of your posts in Facebook, why visit your blog in person. Not only that, I can see all your posts and view them in Facebook.
Two: you may find an interesting discussion starting that can be used on your blog as a new post - it can be great to receive inspiration from your readers. That’s value added content.
Of course you need to get viewers in to your profile first and that is where joining groups can be a great asset. Join the groups, add some value and your profile views will grow. The traffic to your site may not.
Whilst you can use url’s in the comments, they are ‘nofollow’ so there is little in the way of link value - however they do sneak through occasionally - if not then perhaps viewers to these comments will follow. Just make sure the comments add value and the link extends the conversation to a higher level. Facebook Minifeeds with comments - and interesting concept little utilized to date.
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Category: Facebook
Writing by Brick Marketing on Friday, 27 of June , 2008 at 11:41 pm Leave a comment
Social blogging through micro sites such as Twitter has become so popular that the sites themselves are struggling to cope with traffic. With the inclusion of plugins such as those available for WordPress, people can keep up to date with every singe action of their friends.
Conversations now get quite personal with every aspects of life covered. I am sure some people tweet while eating, bathing or engaged in any other activity such as playing sport - yep - I recently saw a softball player ‘tweeting’ on her phone whilst playing softball.
We went through this several years ago when everyone started messaging via cell phone. Before that everyone had ICQ or MS and spent half the day ‘chatting to others’.
Social blogging, or in this case micro blogging has become the ‘in’ thing. As a marketing tool it has its limitations, however it does have the power to suddenly increase traffic - often poor quality, to your site.
Do you twiiter - does it build your traffic? I would like to know - I cannot get in to it.
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Category: Social Blogging
Writing by Maciej Fita on Friday, 27 of June , 2008 at 4:14 pm Leave a comment
Social Marketing comes in many shapes and sizes. I believe we have only scratched the surface of its potential through websites like Facebook and MySpace. Proper web design plays a big role.
If you are planning any social marketing related it is important to have a site that looks like it was built by a professional otherwise you will hit a major roadblock with web traffic. Visitors want to feel like they are joining something big and feel like they are part of a professional organization. Quote Catcher can help you find affordable web design for your social marketing website. By filling out an easy and short questionnaire they will provide you with up 5 quotes that your budget and criteria for your design. Quote Catcher is an industry leader in helping others in the field and acquiring the right firm for others to implement into their overall marketing strategy. Quote Catcher is partnered with many design firms ready to speak to you and help you with all website building needs. Don’t let your social marketing website suffer be not taking the time to speak with a handful of designers.
For more information on how Quote Catcher can you help you with your social marketing please visit their site and fill out the information. A Quote Catcher representative will be in touch.
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Category: Social Marketing, Website Design
Writing by Brick Marketing on Thursday, 26 of June , 2008 at 11:57 pm Comments (1)
Problogger ran an interesting post recently discussing the concept of promoting other peoples posts as a round about way to increase your own traffic. It brings social bookmarking to a new and interesting level.
The concept is quite simple and clever. In brief, the object is to review other bloggers who have written post that link to yours. If the post is of a good quality then you should promote it through Digg, or StumbleUpon or any of the other social bookmarking sites.
If you have a following on any of these sites, they will visit the post you have bookmarked often following your lead to vote on it. This leads to an increase in the number of visitors to that site. If 10% of those visitors click on the link within the post to goto your site, that represents a small increase in visitors for you as well.
What is clever is that over time people will come to recognize that a well written post that adds to the discussion on your site may well get a social bookmarking boost from you. This of course increases your incoming links considerably. Smart move.
What about the act of bookmarking someone else’ post? If the content is good then why not? Social bookmarking is all about saving pages that you like and then sharing them friends. This is a novel and clever approach to increasing links and increasing traffic - not just for yourself, but also for those who take the opportunity to write good content based on your posts.
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Category: Social Bookmarking
Writing by Chris Lang on Thursday, 26 of June , 2008 at 9:16 pm Leave a comment
Blog comments are your best resource, both on your blog and when you leave comments other blogs and here’s why.
Blog comments on your blog allow you to get feed back from your readers, both good and bad. Your buyers will post favorable mini testimonials that you use in emails, salesletters and in blubs in blog posts.
Better yet you receive OBJECTIONS and “This cannot possibly work” type comments. And get this, they are your best resource.
Yeah, the ones that do not buy. Those that do not buy or better yet, ask you questions and express objections to your ideas and products are pure GOLD.
Do you know what a salesman does after a presentation? He waits. He sits back a waits for the lead (who is about to be a client but does not know it yet) to speak first. Have you ever heard of the situation where the guy who speaks first loses?
Well that is what I am talking about here.
The first thing that usually comes out of a lead’s mouth is reasons they do not want to buy and you actually want this to happen. These are called “objections” in salesman speak. Objections allow you to provide resolutions and are a salesman’s best friend.
“It’s too big”, “It’s too small”, “My wife won’t let me buy that” or “It doesn’t seem worth the price” are all common objections. In a one on one sales presentation that is easy to handle, they are called resolutions. Objections and resolutions, remember that.
In your sales process, whatever it is you sell, you should be getting some type of “objection” feedback. It can come in emails and in your blog comments. That is my favorite. I approve them everytime.
If you are getting objections then that is great, you can use these to circumvent stop points in your salesletter where a lead would otherwise walk away.
When you address objections directly in your comments you are that salesman that has won the moment, when the soon to be client speaks first. Answer them intelligently and gracefully but whatever you do support them with documentation, both from yourself and with links to authority sites. Then you are setting yourself up for success. Don’t have documentation? Google it. Look in Blogsearch for the most timely, up to date items.
When I get these types of comments and these types of situations I direct my readers to be sure to read the comments.
I had a guy tell me that he could outrank me for any term easily after a case study of how a I got another Blogger ranked #1 using social bookmarking and Digg.
He left a comment longer than my blog post saying I was totally wrong and that social bookmarking had no effect on Google! Well that pretty much set me off so I added the comment as the first half of a blog post and responded to it as the second half. Cool huh, he already half wrote a free article for me.
I told him he had valid points but that we should test it with a “who can out rank who contest” between us.
Next day same thing, huge comment left on the blog. So, guess what, free article part 2. Now he said he would welcome the challenge, that social bookmarking was worthless and that he could beat me in rankings under a predetermined term.
That all ended when I said, “Okay, lets take our own blog rankings and subscribers out of this and we will both sign up to new Blogger blogs and see who wins, name any term you want. Have not heard from him since.
In fact a number of my readers posted it on social sites with a spin like a Rocky Balboa movie portraying me as the under dog. Now that is gold. I even said I would take on all comers, no responses. My readers loved it.
I took a real chance here, the guy could have kicked my butt and embarrassed me, but I headed that one off too. I said “Even if you beat me I will figure out how you did it and add it to my eBook.” Now I am unafraid to take all comers (big risk) in my readers eyes and even if I lose they profit from the contest and learn from it.
The bottom line
Getting feedback from your readers my take some training. Some may be unfamiliar to blog comments and others may be just plain scared. I constantly ask my newsletter subscribers to comment and direct them to the link to add their comments, questions or feedback.
If you are not getting these kinds of objection comments then one of two things are happening.
Your product is not something out side the box or your blog is not supporting the product. Everything I write is information that supports my product and you should be doing the same thing too and portraying it in a good light. You should be bringing out objections and answering them in your new posts. Then directing you readers to the article and constantly portraying yourself as responsive to readers comments good or bad.
Next up is part 2 to this article about how YOUR comments on other blogs can do you even more good. See you soon.
Chris Lang is a social marketing consultant, working from home he devises wickedly evil social marketing tactics and tries to take over the world.
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Category: Blog Comments
Writing by Brick Marketing on Wednesday, 25 of June , 2008 at 10:38 pm Leave a comment
Facebook is more popular in the Uk and worldwide, Facebook and Myspace are now fairly equal when it comes to monthly unique visitors - interestingly, Myspace is still the more popular in the US.
Myspace seems to be a little more socially inclusive. You can make friends with anyone and everyone is doing it. Facebook on the other hand is more old school - English old school at that. The Europeans tend to more a little more guarded and prefer the close not community of friends, family and work/school mates.
The US audience seems to look at social networking a little differently as well. Myspace provides that instant hit, with individuals looking at profiles and deciding immediately whether or not you can offer them something. The Europeans are a little more conservative. Facebook provides for a more lasting relationship and is probably why it is preferred for family and work/school contacts.
Facebook appears to attract a younger audience than Myspace. Parents, teachers and many professionals (including politicians) use My space. Facebook on the other hand is very popular with youth to the under 30 age groups.
If you operate in the UK then Facebook is going to offer more than Myspace. If you operate out of the US, then Myspace should be your first stop. If you live outside these two regions then you will need to determine whether your leanings are US or UK based - it may make a difference when networking.
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Category: Facebook, Myspace
Writing by Brick Marketing on Tuesday, 24 of June , 2008 at 11:33 pm Leave a comment
Yesterday I asked if social bookmarking was screwed and a couple of comments confirmed my views on the subject. One comment left a link to a post on Shoemoney’s blog that really does prove my point.
The post, Why I Won’t F’in Digg or Stumble That Page For You, written anonymously, made several good points. They also inadvertently proved my point that social bookmarking is at skewed, if not screwed. A example of this:
Those requests actually make me hit that tempting little “Bury” button, instead of voting you up by one. And know what else? I wield more power since those bury votes can do far more hurt than that single Digg vote would have done for you.
And therein lies the problem. A bury or thumbs down can do more damage than a single Digg or Thumb Up and people use this power to control what is and is not seen in social bookmarking sites.
I agree with the writer, sometimes requests can become quite inconsiderate and in no way ’social’ - they are often demanding. It is still no reason to bury any content. Content should be buried or dug based on its value - and what I consider value you may not, and vice-versa. One comment that was left on Shoemoney’s post I think has the right approach - again anonymous:
For the most part, I agree. However, if you are in this field and have befriended people on Digg, Sphinn, SU etc…then you have to expect that. You carry over your friends list to each network, so it’s going to happen each time. I wouldn’t bury people because of this, then you would have to bury everyone. Just don’t click on it or don’t be friends with those people, it is as simple as that. I have to deal with this all the time, but I do have a choice as to whether I vote, digg, stumble, or whatever the case, their story. If it’s shit, then it doesn’t get my vote. But, to sabotage their efforts is not going to do anything or stop what is going on. Now I say don’t bury, but I do believe in burying stories that are duped, heavily self promoted on top of being shitty, or scraped. Anyway, like the name though, that is great!
And that is the way it should be. If you don’t want to be hassled, remove the hassler from your contacts - simple action - you don’t abuse the system as a form of payback. If everyone removed spammers from their contact lists, the spammers would suddenly find their content going nowhere.
The truth often is, ‘I am going to keep them in my contact list because I know they will digg, thumb, sphinn etc my content when I need it’. You can bet the writer has at times asked for help to promote something.
Social bookmarking is a great tool - it is a shame it is being undermined by a small percentage of (ab)users. Allen Taylor from BlogContentProvider left a comment on yesterday’s post and has the last say on this topic:
Only occasionally should you bookmark your own sites and then you should do so only with the idea that you are sharing something that will benefit others tremendously. If you do that too often, people will tune you out.
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Category: Social Bookmarking
Writing by Brick Marketing on Monday, 23 of June , 2008 at 11:38 pm Comments (3)
The internet is growing at an astounding rate and if you take blogs as a prime example, they are growing by the tens of thousands daily. With the increases in the numbers of bloggers, the number of pages being bookmarked each day is incredible, forget the tens of thousands, try the hundreds of thousands.
With this amount of activity growing on a daily basis it will soon become impossible to find anything of value on a social bookmarking site unless some sort of filtering is put in place. Voting no longer works. If social bookmarking isn’t screwed, it is certainly skewed. With certain sites, and Digg is a great example, either you are part of the ‘in crowd’ or you are no-one and your chances of making ‘front page’ becomes impossible.
Some of the newer sites are a little easier to manage. It seems the only way to make an impression on any of the social bookmarking sites is by joining whilst they are new and really becoming an expert on that particular site.
Social bookmarking is rapidly reaching flood proportions. Conversation sites such as Twitter have problems just staying ‘live to air’ as their growth exceeds capabilities. The bigger problem is that some individuals are bookmarking everything they write and then bookmarking as many other pages as possible in an attempt to appear social.
The true concept of social bookmarking seems to have gone out the window. Originally designed to enable users to bookmark their favorite sites online, rather than in their browser, so they had true portability. No matter where you were in the world, you could log in and access ‘your’ bookmarks. As and added bonus, you could share your bookmarks with friends.
That is no more. Rather than social bookmarking, these sites have become, to all intents and purposes, blog plug sites with users submitting their own content with the hope that others will come visiting in their droves. Sometimes they do, often they don’t.
Social bookmarking; skewed or screwed - can it continue in its present state?
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Category: Social Bookmarking
Writing by Brick Marketing on Sunday, 22 of June , 2008 at 8:45 pm Comments (3)
Social marketing can be a powerful tool used in the right hands. However, if you misuse the system you could be in for some serious consequences - and those consequences could have a profound long term effect, as some have discovered.
There are two social marketing sins that can not only ruin your online image, they can potentially ruin you business - if not your business, your own career.
Social Marketing Sin #1: Never misrepresent who you are!
In the online world it is easy to take on a pseudonym and totally change who you are - you can change gender, age, profession - basically reinvent yourself - and many do. However, if you are in the world of business then this tactic can be fraught with danger.
Whole Foods CEO John Mackey was caught posting on Yahoo! under a pseudonym. He spent some time praising his company while at the same time rubishing another company - a company that Whole Foods eventually acquired. The detection of his acts lead to some pretty bad publicity and provoked an investigation by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission that delayed the eventual acquisition. Mackey claimed he was just having some fun. The problem is, he may have come close to being prosecuted and he probably would have if his actions had affected the acquisition cost of the takeover.
These actions could be considered illegal in several countries including the US, UK, Canada and Australia.
Social Marketing Sin #2: Never misrepresent who you represent!
In the past, social marketers have given their clients a boost by entering various sites and falsely representing rival companies. They have then quietly released misinformation or technically incorrect information in the hope that this would have a negative affect on the competitors reputation.
This is illegal in many countries and could lead to some very interesting damages suits if they hit the courts.
Social marketing is a tool that can be used to promote yourself, your business and your products. Using underhand methods is not only an illegal activity, in this day and age of smart users, you will be detected by someone and once outed, your own reputation will be shot. Play the game in a positive manner and everyone wins. If you need to resort to negatives then it doesn’t say much about your own product, business or social marketing skills.
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Category: Social Marketing
Writing by Brick Marketing on Saturday, 21 of June , 2008 at 10:03 pm Comments (1)
If your business ‘professional’ then you will know all about plans: business plans, marketing plans, cash flow plans (also called budgets but still plans), so do you also have a social marketing plan?
Most website owners do not! They do not see the purpose of planning their social marketing campaigns, after all, it’s social and that is ad-hoc. Well it is isn’t it?
The answer is no, it is not ad-hoc. Quite the opposite. To be successful you need to carefully plan your social marketing strategy to ensure you receive maximum benefit for the time to you put into it. The bigger question should be, how do I plan my social marketing campaign?
That question is not quite so easy to answer as each of the sites requires a different plan of attack. What works on one site is not necessarily going to work on another. There are however a couple of things you can do.
Look, Listen and Learn
My first suggestions is simply to visit any one of the sites you intend using for your social marketing program and watch. Have a good look around, get a feel for the site and people on it, listen (read) to what other people are saying and doing, and learn as much as possible from your observations.
Profile, Profile, Profile
Look at other profiles and try to design yours to the same standard as those within your niche. Your profile page is often the first place people visit to find out more about you - don’t disappoint them; don’t frighten them away either. Don’t add every Tom, Dick or Mary who asks to be your friend. Leave that to your social marketing plan.
Ask, Answer and Participate
Whilst looking around, start to ask questions if you are not sure of something. You will be surprised at helpful most people are on many of these social sites. If you come across a question you feel you can answer, answer it - make sure you really can provide a decent answer - don’t just reply to every question with half baked answers.
Once you have an idea of how the site works and what sort of social marketing is acceptable, start to develop a plan. The first part of your plan should be to target ‘friends’ in your niche who can be of value to you. From there, read, comment, and, if necessary, vote on material they have supplied.
Your first plan of attack should be to add value to their side of the relationship. Over time they will start to reciprocate and before you know it you will have a fairly decent friends base to build on. Social marketing is about being social - however it is being social with a long term goal.
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Category: Social Marketing
Writing by Brick Marketing on Friday, 20 of June , 2008 at 10:30 pm Leave a comment
Over time, you will come across new social sites that appeal to you and you will start to use them more than some of the others, particularly if you feel you have gained as much as you are ever going to gain from them.
This can be particularly true of bloggers who hit the 9-12 month period in their blogging life. Website owners can also find themselves in this position.
Most people, when they first start using social sites, abuse them more than use them. This is due to inexperience and not really understanding how to really use these sites. Before they know it they unwelcome sign is out - in fact many don’t know it.
However, with time and experience individuals start to learn how to use and manage their time on social sites to the point that sites they have joined in recent months are proving to be quite effective. The reason of course is because they are effective in their use of these sites.
If you find yourself in this situation, don’t forget to look back at what has been written over the last 12 months. Is there material there that is either good, or as proven to be popular in the past. If there is, submit is to the new sites.
History can repeat itself, with a whole new audience to provide content to. If you have used the new sites effectively you may find that the attitude to some of your old content is completely different. It isn’t that the material is better, the key is in the fact that you are now using these sites more effectively.
Find some of those old gems and submit. It’s a good way to revitalize your site when times are a little slow.
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Category: Social Blogging
Writing by Maciej Fita on Friday, 20 of June , 2008 at 12:02 pm Leave a comment
Social media marketing is fast approaching us and before you know it this concept will hit blog status in levels of popularity and controversy. We have only scratched the surface of social media marketing and as time moves forward the demand for employees that know what they are doing will grow as well.
emarketingSilo can help you find the right social media marketing guru to help your organization grow. eMarketingSilo helps you dig through the clutter and find the right candidate that can confidently get the job done. No more tire kickers submitting resumes they are not qualified for. EmarketingSilo only attracts online marketing industry professionals serious about finding an organization to work for that fits into their personality and resume structure. Don’t waste your time submitting your job posting into mass trafficked job posting sites and start focusing on a niche recruitment site to find that all star employee that will help your organization take things to the next level. Finding and recruiting the right talent for any organization can be a very grueling process. Receiving hundreds of emails and phone calls from highly unqualified prospects is enough to send anyone running and pulling their hair out. emarketingSilo helps in bringing the online marketing industry leaders and professionals together to one location.
For more information on how emarketingSilo can help your organization by bringing in the right talent please visit eMarketingSilo and find the right person for your business.
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Category: Human Resources
Writing by Brick Marketing on Thursday, 19 of June , 2008 at 9:49 pm Leave a comment
YouTube is now experimenting with videos longer than 10 minutes (current limit) and extending the storage capacity to 1GB - this equates to around 80 minutes of standard definition video. It’s limited to YouTube’s “content partners” at present but has the potential big to explode into far greater things.
Content partners received the following in an email:
Long Form Content
You now will be able to upload and monetize videos in your account that are longer than 10 minutes. This feature is exclusively for partners. Independent Film makers that partner with us will now be able to upload their feature films on our site. Please note that for long form content, the maximum file size is 1GB.
The long term aim will be to monetize videos with ads running before, after and, in one format or another, during the replay of the video. This may well create a situation where Hollywood blockbusters are available for viewing free of charge so long as the viewer is prepared to watch the ads as well. I don’t there will be a lot of resistance when the word ‘free’ is used.
For advertisers, the opportunity to access virtual cinema at probably a fraction of the cost of cinema or tv advertising will be quite appealing. The concept of free viewing in exchange for included advertising is not new to media marketers and I am sure they will find way to capitalize on the concept fairly quickly.
It will be interesting to see how it pans out in the longer term. If Google can see an increase in revenue then it wont be long and the file size limitations will be changed to include quality high definition videos from the top studios. The revenue may well flow then.
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Category: YouTube
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