Marketer Blog

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)

“Google Privacy Changes: What Do They Mean To You?” Google announced this week that it is rolling out a new, main privacy policy that covers the majority of its products. The company is consolidating over 60 privacy notices into the main privacy policy. User activities across Google web properties from Gmail to YouTube will be used to deliver customized ads. Via WebProNews.

“The FBI Wants to Monitor Social Media” The FBI is looking to develop a web application that can monitor social networks, including Facebook and Twitter, in order to gain better real-time intelligence about current or potential future security threats or situations. As with the Google combined service data collection, many people are thinking, “Weren’t they already doing this?” Via Mashable.

“McDonald’s Twitter Campaign Goes Horribly Wrong #McDStories” From McDonald’s PR: While #meetthefarmers was used for the majority of the day and successful in raising awareness of the Supplier Stories campaign, #mcdstories did not go as planned. We quickly pulled #mcdstories and it was promoted for less than two hours. Via Business Insider.

“Twitter Now Able To Censor Tweets, If Required By Law, On A Country-By-Country Basis” From Twitter: Starting today, we give ourselves the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country — while keeping it up in the rest of the world. Danny Sullivan compares Twitter’s approach towards censorship to Google, which you might find interesting. Via Marketing Land.

The Online Marketplace is Competitive: Tips to Help You Meet the Challenge:

“The Top 51 stats for Generation Y marketers” How can marketers tap into this gadget-savvy, brand-aware demographic? The following statistics, taken from four recent reports listed below, provide an insight into the complex world of 13-24 year-olds. Via The Next Web.

“5 marketing Tips for Putting Customers First” The digital world of today offers many choices to customers, which means that marketing professionals have a tough job ahead of them.  We must not only ensure that our messaging is on target, but also work with our internal team to make sure that our promises can be delivered.  Via i Media Connection.

“10 Essential YouTube Tips and Tricks”  YouTube is currently getting over 3 billion views each day.  This article provides some great tips for getting more out of your YouTube experience including, improved search and better viewing options.  Via Mashable.

“10 Ways to Impress Your Industry’s Influencers” Often times your press releases are in the hands of influencers within the industry.  This article provides some great tips on identifying who these people are, buttering them up, and following their lead.  Via Ragan.

The TopRank Team Knows News

Brian Larson – “MarketingSherpa Research Shows the Avg B2B Deal on the Decline”
We know that B2B sales cycles are longer. The rebuttal from B2B’s has always been ‘the size of our sales are far greater’.  What if that changed? With B2B deal sizes diminishing, do B2B’s need to focus on increasing sales volume or developing new ways to demonstrate value and win back larger sales? Or both? The answers to these questions are sure to influence online marketing strategies.  Via Marketing Sherpa.

Ken Horst – “Social media for the complex sale: Where should you start?”
While most B2B companies are heavily invested in their social channels today; many are finding that for at least Facebook and Twitter, these may not be the best channels for companies with a longer sales cycle.  The good news is that in this post, the author lists 10 other social media outlets that B2B marketers could use to help prime the pump for those longer sales cycle products and services. Via SmartBlog.

Emily Conley – “Google Announces Privacy Changes Across Products; Users Can’t Opt Out”
Google released an announcement on Jan. 24th stating that the company plans to follow users’ activities across the majority of its sites, including YouTube, Gmail and Google search. With no opt-out option, as of March 1st all logged in Google users will be sharing data that will enable Google to create more complete user portraits.  The change opens new debate around privacy and competitive practices.  Via Washington Post.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. | Online Marketing News: Women Dominate Community Management, Google Privacy, FBI Social, Twitter Censorship, McD Hashtag Gone Wrong | http://www.toprankblog.com

Content Marketing Not Performing? Troubleshoot SEO Basics.

This post is a preview of a new downloadable guide I will be offering for those who pre-order Optimize by March 13, 2012. The full guide will have screenshots, examples and more “SEO Deep Dive” advice. If you want the full, illustrated Content Marketing SEO Troubleshooting Guide, visit OptimizeBook.com to pre-order and subscribe to our mailing list for more details.

Content Marketing at it’s core is about planning information that is thoughtful about the needs and interests of target customer groups as they take the journey through the buying cycle, interacting with content and pulling themselves towards purchase. The role of search engines in making ebooks, white papers, case studies, newsletters, webinars, reports, video, images and many other content marketing tactics is often underestimated or overlooked.

The effect of best practices SEO on content to attract relevant audiences can be substantial. However, search is a dynamic marketing channel requiring ongoing attention. Without proper care and feeding, search traffic can fluctuate, fall victim to more aggressive competitor SEO practices or never get off the ground. Or search engines can simply take away features that make SEO easier to do. Because search can provide such a significant and relevant audience to content, it’s worth investing time to troubleshoot for better performance.

Seeing great SEO, social media and content marketing strategy and tactics being implemented every day, I can’t help but be biased towards having a dedicated agency, consultant or in-house resource for optimization. However, dedicated resources are not very valuable unless there’s some appreciation for what an Optimize and Socialize approach can provide.

To provide some practical and tactical perspective on this essential intersection of SEO, Social Media and Content Marketing, here are a few tips for basic SEO troubleshooting that just about anyone responsible for content in an organization can use. I’ve also included some “SEO Drilldowns” that a pro might explore further and key considerations for content marketers.

Before we get into the Basic SEO Troubleshooting tips, here are a few important things to understand regarding Google and personalization:

Logged out – Google search results when you or other users are not logged in are as close to “generic” as you’ll get, but they are still customized according to your geographic location and your click activity during the session.  The days of generic search results that can be predictably viewed by more than one person in different locations is gone. If you do search while logged out, you’ll get a more generic experience than logged in – so it’s worth noting the difference.

Logged in – Users of Google services who are logged in while searching will almost certainly be presented with unique search results.  Personalization can be influenced by a variety of factors, including the recent social signals integration of Google+ into Google search results – aka Google Search Plus Your World and especially from the universal Google product data sharing that will start March 1st 2012. Other influences include past search history, geographic location and your interaction with search results are factors for Google to adjust search results just for you. Keep in mind, logged in or out, there are over 20o signals used to sort search results.

Google has made SEO troubleshooting increasingly difficult by encrypting search for users who are logged in to Google. Initially at 9%, our “Unknown” keyword referrers to Online Marketing Blog are now at 26%. Through a combination of historical data analysis and extrapolation from other data sources, you can fill in that gap somewhat, but it definitely takes an experienced SEO/Web Analytics person to do so. 

For our purposes, we’re focusing on the basics that can provide insight regardless of logged in or logged out since they are so fundamental to improved visibility of content marketing assets in search engines. Basic troubleshooting often starts by a review of web analytics showing a decrease in traffic from a certain phrase over time or the aspiration to increase search traffic for a particular topic. Keep in mind, there is a difference between business competitors and content competitors in the search results (SERPs). Perform the following troubleshooting actions while not logged in:

1. Benchmark

From your web analytics, log the past 1-3 months of search traffic for the phrase in question (if any) to your website.  

What you’re looking for: How often has the target keyword phrase driven traffic via search engines to your website each month, week and day? What does the trend line look like over time? Which pages are attracting search traffic for this phrase and any obvious variations of it? (singular vs. plural).  If you’ve optimized specific pages for this phrase, look at all search traffic to it, including “Unknown” encrypted phrases. Basically, you’re documenting the performance of the phrase as a starting point.

SEO Drill Down: How a SEO professional approaches benchmarking current keyword performance might vary, but here are a few ideas. Expand on all the variations of the target phrase, the distribution of “unknown” vs. identifiable phrases, the split between different search engines as sources of traffic, brand vs. non-brand queries, the distribution of different pages and content objects across your domain that attract search traffic related to the phrase. Also review the appearance of the target keyword phrase(s) in Google Webmaster Tools ranked list of keyword phrases.  What are the trends for this keyword phrase for ranking (iffy), traffic, inquiries and sales over time?

Key Content Marketing questions: For the content assets you’re optimizing, what role does the content play for target customers in the buying cycle? Is it optimized for phrases relevant to awareness, consideration, evaluation or purchase? What is the relationship of your optimized content assets to each other and to a landing page (if used)?  If you’re using a hub and spoke or constellation model for publishing, map out the content and media objects intended to perform for the target phrase in question. Audit them to see what has actually been optimized for the phrase. What new content assets will be created on a go forward relevant to the target phrase?

2. Search Results Landscape

Search for the phrase on Google and/or Bing (logged out) and document the URL, title and description for each of the top 10 search results:

What you’re looking for: Identify the type of websites and content that have high visibility on the target keyword phrase.  Capture information about the pages or digital assets that the search engine finds most relevant. Besides capturing the title, description and web address, note the types of content and sources – commercial, non-commercial, web page vs. media or local. It’s helpful to know what kinds of content as well as which websites/pages the search engine finds most relevant for the phrase and topic. If the search engine favors video content, PDF files and news sources, then it might mean an adjustment in your content marketing media mix for that phrase.

SEO Drill Down: More data about the SERP can be quite useful to log including: Content Type (web page, social, news, image, video thumbnail, local, product, pdf, MS Word doc), Content Category (Business, News, Blog, Media, University). Documenting the search results page over time can reveal trends such as whether the same pages maintain top positions, and what the diversity of content types is. Additional research into social signals is worth tracking as well. All such SERP analysis is performed while logged out.

With the level of personalization now in place with Google, savvy SEOs will have access to user accounts that exemplify the target audience persona’s online behaviors in order to trigger a personalized search experience that is similar to the customer segment.

Key Content Marketing questions:  According to your content plan, what types of content and media are you creating and what’s the difference between those media types and the categories/formats of content presented in search results for your target keyword phrases? It’s useful to know of the content marketing types in place for your efforts have any particular preference in the search results for the target phrase. If not, what other types of content, sources and media are in favor? Having a picture of the logged-out search results landscape for target keyword phrases can influence editorial decisions about formats used.  If blog posts are virtually ignored but press releases are favored, then it may be useful to leverage news story-style press releasees in addition to your blog posts.

This task is also used to collect information about content competitors for use in our other steps below.

3. Keyword Presence

Use the Advanced search option in Google or Bing to check for the presence of the target search phrase anywhere within the pages of your site. Refine that search to look for the exact match presence of the phrase in the title tags of your pages. 

What you’re looking for: Does the target keyword phrase exist within content on your site? If so, where?  It’s simply amazing how many companies expect traffic from certain keyword phrases when the target keywords are either not present in a significant way or not at all on the website.

SEO Drill Down: Further refinements might include looking for exact match of the phrase as well as variations and with modifiers. Look for the phrase in Title Tags, within H1 tags as headings, within body copy, within anchor text links between pages, as image alt text, annotations to images, video or other media, use within breadcrumb and navigation links.

Additional considerations include any page level barriers to a search engine finding or crawling links. Document the presence as well as the lack of presence for keywords in the areas commonly used by search engines to determine page relevancy.

A review of the top ranking pages documented in Step 2 above should also be checked for the presence of the target keyword phrase.

Key Content Marketing questions:  Are keywords being used in your PDF templates used to create eBooks, Reports or White Papers? Are digital assets such as infographics, videos, blog posts, press releases and other content marketing objects using keywords where relevant? Are keywords used in file names, folder names and navigation to content assets?

4. Inbound Link Footprint

Using a link tracking tool such as majesticseo.com or opensiteexplorer.org, check for the total number of links to the content assets that have been optimized for the target keyword phrase. Do the same review with the top 10 competing URLs found in step 1.

What you’re looking for: Links are like electricity for content when it comes to visibility in search results. Links are also important sources of direct traffic. If you expect a page or digital asset to be considered the “best answer” for a query by a search engine, keywords on the page are not enough. A quantity of links to a specific page will make it easy to find and also serves as a ranking signal.

The more topically relevant the content is of the link source, the better. Also the actual text used to link from another web page to your web page matters as well. “Click here” for our White paper and Get “More info” on our Newsletter are not nearly as useful as “Download our Red Widget Whitepaper” or “Sign Up for our Product XYZ Newsletter” when it comes to anchor text.

SEO Drill Down:  Using advanced features of link analysis tools, check for the quantity and diversity characteristics of links to target pages. Also check for the on-topic relevance of the link sources. How authoritative are the link sources? What is the context? Is it a news story in a major industry publication or is it one of 200 links on the same page pulled together by automated software?  Look at the types of links: text, image, follow vs. no follow, redirect, placement on page (high, low), number of links on the page, context for the link, overall topic. How many links use the target keyword phrase as anchor text? How many variations of the target phrase are used? What is the rate of link acquisition over time for your optimized page?

Besides performing this link research on your own optimized pages for target keywords, it can be useful to review this data on the content competition identified in Step 1 for benchmarking and comparison purposes as well as to identify new linking opportunities for your own content.

Key Content Marketing questions: As you craft relevant content in alignment with target customers and their stage in the buying cycle, think about how you’re promoting that content to attract inbound links from relevant websites. Social networks (Step 5) can have a significant impact on the reach of the content you promote, but social isn’t the only channel of distribution. If your white papers, case studies, archived newsletters and webinars get links from other sites that have commenting functionality, be sure to publicly thank them in a relevant comment. Link out from your blog to get on the radar of industry bloggers and they may link to the next press release, infographic or report that you publish.

5. Social Shares

Check for social shares of the target URLs on your site that are most relevant for the search phrase in question. Do the same for the top 10 competing URLs found in step one.

What you’re looking for: Is your content being shared on the social web? It’s not a “nice to have” anymore. Social engagement and sharing of your content is absolutely essential in order to gain advantage within search and social distribution of your content. Social media optimization of your content is essential and includes making it easy for readers to share your content to their social networks as well as having an active social presence that’s focused on building up a community you can promote content to. Documenting the presence of social shares for your own content and that of the top 10 competing URLs form Step 1 can help identify opportunities.

SEO Drill Down: For the content that you’ve created, optimized and built links to, document the presence, frequency and sources of social media shares. Do so at regular intervals in the way you might take snapshots of the SERPs page for your most important target keyword phrases. Social shares means links within public Facebook posts, Tweets, public Google+ shares, Q/A sites like Quora and even bookmarking/news services. Pay attention to the presence of keywords along with those socially shared links and whether they are congruent with your keyword targets.

Beyond link sharing on social sites, look for social engagement with your content where there’s commenting functionality. Cross promotion with different social channels such as blog, video, image, document hosting (Slideshare) as well as social networks like Twitter and Google+ can provide rich signal for both search engines and users.

Key Content Marketing questions: While social network participation for content marketers is often focused on the social channel conversation relevant to the buying cycle and customer segments, it’s also important to consider broader visibility. In other words, when it comes to social promotion and shares as well as network size, bigger is better. As always, a quantity of quality (relevance) is the ideal. At the same time, the size of your network determines the universe of exposure.  In other words, the more Facebook and Google+ fans/friends you have, the greater the likelihood that your shared content will be seen overall. Facebook’s recent report showed on average, you are more than 7 times more likely to share a link on Facebook if you’ve seen the link from one of your friends, so get friendly and grow your network.

Social media and it’s direct influence on search visibility is a reality and content marketers must consider not only the topical relevance of the content they create, the keywords and links but also social promotion, sharing and engagement.

Another consideration for Content Marketers and the Social SEO equation is the importance of Author authority and trust. Officially there may be no such thing as “TrustRank” at Google, but with the forced Google+ accounts, Author Markup and unified user data sharing across Google services, trust associated with a user is clearly important.  An individual who has a significant social network, produces a quantity of quality content that a community actively engages with will have distinct advantages when promoting content over a brand that publishes generically.  Content Marketers should factor in named entities of individuals and/or the brand itself and what it will take to create a relevant presence to be considered authoritative for important topics.

Conclusion:

Clearly the dynamic and increasingly complicated nature of today’s search engines can make the reliability of any one conclusion valuable for an indeterminate period of time. That’s why, if search traffic is important to your business, that your business has an experienced professional analyzing search, social and website performance data on a regular basis. As content marketers, we put a lot of hard work into planning, creating and managing thoughtful content designed to attract, engage and inspire readers to become customers, advocates and participants in the brand community. Keeping tabs on how those community members and customers discover our content is essential for it’s ability to have an impact.

If you like this type of advice, then be sure to pick up a copy of Optimize: How to Attract and Engage More Customers by Integrating SEO, Social Media and Content Marketing (Wiley) available March 13.

Gain a competitive advantage by subscribing to the
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© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. | 5 Basic SEO Troubleshooting Tips for Content Marketers | http://www.toprankblog.com

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.”
• @Paco_Belle – “Look at 2-3 Twitter lists, couple circles on G+, scroll Facebook timeline & look through my RSS feeds for new things.”
• @Paramountbuzz – “Engaging others…doing it now.”
• @GreenDolphin_ – “My RSS feed, Twitter, Pinterest, and Facebook.”

If you are involved with implementing social media marketing, you know that 20 minutes a day just won’t cut it.  On top of implementing social media tactics, there’s also the task fo staying current. Lee’s post “11 Ways to Get Smarter & Stay Current in a World of Social Information Overload“ outlined how much time can be involved using social tools to collect, filter and curate social media marketing knowledge.

Avoiding Shiny Object Pitfalls

Reuters estimates that the average worker loses 2.1 hours of productivity every day to interruptions and distractions.  To avoid wasting time begin by prioritizing your week.  While it’s true that unexpected issues can come up plan for the best and the worst.  If you have 3 hours per day on average to complete tasks related to social media strategy what will you get accomplished in those 3 hours?  If you were only to have 1.5 hours per day what would you want to get accomplished?  Proper planning will lead to improved productivity and efficiency.  Also, take some time to determine what your top distractions are and eliminate them.

Optimize for Productivity

Focus on what will have the largest impact on your productivity. Determining what time of day you are most productive, and which activities are most significant will help you to stay on track.  Are you an early riser, night owl, or somewhere in between?  Creating a daily schedule and routine can significantly improve your productivity.  You will also want to keep in mind statistical data which points to the best times of day and days of the week for engaging in social media activity.  A recent infographic by KISSmetrics on “The Science of Social Timing” provides valuable insight into the best times of day to share or engage on sites like Facebook and Twitter.  Some of the findings include:

Twitter

• 5pm – best time to Tweet for re-tweets
• 1-4 per hour – most effective frequency of Tweets
• Midweek & Weekends – best days to Tweet
• Noon & 6pm – best time to Tweet for increase Click Through Rates

Facebook

• Saturday- best day to share on Facebook
• Noon- most effective time to share on Facebook
• .5 per day – best sharing frequency

Tips for an Optimized Focus

Now lets talk about some no brainer “don’ts” that the many of us “do”.  Let me know if any of these sound familiar to you:

• Your best friend is having problems with their significant other so you keep your phone close, just in case…
• It’s baseball season and your team is playing but you don’t have the day off, thank goodness for internet radio right…
• You have email anxiety which forces you to check email every couple minutes because you never know what you might miss…
• One of your colleagues is obsessed with chatting online and pings you every couple minutes with a question or joke…
• You’re scheduling Tweets, posting on your personal facebook page, and reading Psychology Today all at the same time, because after all you are a master multi-tasker…

I too have often thought that I could do everything at once.  A balancing act acquired from years of having too much to do, and not enough time.  I considered multi-tasking an art form and a higher form of organization than my counterparts who only focused on one thing at a time.  I could not have been more wrong.  In recent years I’ve had to buckle down and force myself to devote all of my attention to one task at a time.  I’ve found that the quality of my work has improved and the level of my stress has decreased significantly.  Some tactics that have worked for me include:

• Closing my email when I’m working on social media tasks
• Close all Internet windows and tabs except for the one I need to work on
• Disabling chat or closing chat windows to avoid distraction
• Pick 15 minutes a day to indulge in activities such as checking personal social media profiles, responding to texts, or chatting with friends.
• Spend 30 minutes to an hour each morning reviewing emails and responding, do the same thing before leaving at the end of the day.
• It is significantly easier to stick to your schedule if you are working ONLY on the tasks you have scheduled in the time allotted.

Tools for Optimizing Your Time

Depending on your available time and social media content strategy, there are many tools that can help you accomplish more with less time.  Below are three different types of tools that social media marketers can use to get the most out of their time:

Curation Tools – good for quickly gathering and automatically sharing content

• Scoop.it
• Storify
• Pearltrees

Social Aggregators & Management Tools –  follow and engage with multiple platforms

• Hootsuite
• Tweetdeck
• Seesmic
• Here’s a list of 22 social media management tools

Social Bookmarking – effective means of organizing and storing social bookmarks

• StumleUpon
• Reddit
• Delicious
• Evernote – not a bookmarking tool exactly but very useful for curating

Next Steps

I’m sure you’ll agree that focus and time management are something that most of us can relate to.  Based on what was covered in this post, consider the following questions and determine what you can do to better focus on the tasks at hand:

• What are your top 3 social media goals and do you have a plan for reaching them?
• How much time can you dedicate each day to using tactics to reach these goals?
• What steps can you take to improve your focus while completing social media activities?
• Which type of tool: curation, aggregator, or social bookmarking can you use to help save time?

If  you are looking for additional tips on Optimizing your SEO, social media, and content strategies be sure to take a look at the new book: “Optimize: How to Attract & Engage More Customers By Integrating SEO, Social Media, and Content Marketing.”

Gain a competitive advantage by subscribing to the
TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.

© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. | Optimize Your Social Media Schedule: 4 Tips for Avoiding the Social Media Time Suck | http://www.toprankblog.com

Online Marketing is all about information. And people. Making connections that solve marketing problems in today’s environment of social and technological innovation can be challenging. Like many readers of this blog, a big part of what I do as an Internet Marketer centers around being able to consume large amounts of information or better, the right information, synthesizing it and using insights to help others make sense of the challenges and opportunities they face with marketing on the web.

As an author, frequent speaker at industry conferences, advisor to clients and the people who serve our clients, there’s a sense of urgency for me to stay current and to understand what current events in the digital marketing world mean in the context of individual situations. It’s not enough to observe that news events and trends are happening, but to understand what those observations mean as it relates to impact on business, on customers and how to continue the pursuit of successful online marketing.

Simply finding and sharing news ala basic ”curation” is a cheap commodity. Value comes from identifying bigger picture patterns and synthesizing that information into practical business advice.  I like what Christian Adams said in a G+ thread, “When you have information overload across multiple channels you start to pick up on common threads and trending topics”. This is the essence of curation that creates value and there’s no substitute for human filtering.

In Avinash Kaushik’s recent post, “The 2015 Digital Marketing Rule Book. Change or Perish” one of his 7 Rules for Digital Marketing Revolutionaries concerns the need for marketing practitioners (which is applicable to professionals in any industry) to extend their expertise beyond core skills. “You can no longer be good at just one thing, or two. It is a 10-thing world now (and maybe a 20-thing world soon).”

As a professional, it’s essential for you to filter signal from a mass of noise to grow expertise in your core discipline as well as others. The question is, where do you get the information to stay current? How do you filter out the noise?

After writing most of this post I tried the new quick video post feature on my Google+ account to ping the smart connections I have there for their ideas on how to stay current. While some people still use RSS via Google Reader, usage of the traditional RSS feed has been displaced by Twitter lists, Google+ circles and more so what Shel Holtz called “curated collections” like what you can find at SmartBrief and PR Daily newsletters. Other curated news services mentioned include paper.li, Percolate, news.me, Pulse, FlipBoard and the recently acquired Summify. Trunk.ly is another useful service that works with Twitter but is being shut down.

Below is a screenshot and here’s a link to see everyone’s full comments. Thanks to Shel Holtz, Scott Duehlmeier, Christopher Drinkut, Ash Buckles, Christian Adams and Corey McNeil for chiming in.

While I’ve been able to gain a lot of knowledge and insight over the past 14 years of being in this business, I know that I’m only getting a fraction of what I’d like to know. Every day is a learning experience. Every day is massive piece of humble pie working with a great team at our agency. Transparency, competition and information availability means earning your stripes every day. I think that perspective works pretty well as evidenced by the growth and quality of our team and client roster.

There are many people who have asked me how I stay current and on top of what’s important in the online marketing and PR world. Some of what I do is scheduled and methodical. Some is more intuitive and opportunistic. Both types of activities are guided by a pursuit of wisdom and an interest in being able to provide high value insight to others that will help our business grow. I have a feeling some of our readers are in the same boat: wanting to find ways to stay informed and several steps ahead.

Here are a few of the things that I do to stay current and on top of not only what’s  happening in the Search, Social Media, PR and Content Marketing world, but what it means for developing relationships, solving problems and growing the business.

1. Read social feeds & email. I typically do this between 4:30 and 6am. I’ll bookmark articles & media for later use and reading, taking notes on each item. I’ll also queue sharing with social networks and share insights internally. Evernote ROCKS for managing this.

2. Meet with my right hand marketer.  You may have noticed Ashley posting here frequently. She’s our Marketing Manager here at TopRank Online Marketing and we regularly discuss all sorts of content, social media, email, event, website, blog and book related topics – every day.

3. Meet with our group of Account Managers on tactical case studies, observations/insights into successes with client Content, Social, Email, PPC, SEO programs. We also discuss situations that need resolving. It’s great to see the AMs working together to identify solutions. Our AMs are project managers and consultants that directly interact with both clients and internal subject matter experts. They are on the front-lines of what it means to develop online marketing strategy, make recommendations, oversee implementation, measure results and work to identify new opportunities. Their insights into daily marketing problems and solutions is priceless.

4. Review our own Analytics & Reports: I’ve been watching key metrics related to our blog and website for a very long time. Traffic, links, search data, time on site, inquiries and other goal page activity paint an interesting picture when overlaid with external KPIs like social shares, comments, links and media mentions.

5. Marketing TopRank – Several of these tasks are related to marketing for our agency but I am involved with some of our marketing initiatives but developing approach and having things tested out to see what we might scale or adjust for better performance. Being able to test online marketing, SEO and Social Media Marketing tactics out on our own sites has been incredibly valuable over the years when it comes to developing first-hand knowledge that can be shared with staff and clients.

6. Talk with Customers – Every time I get to talk to one of our clients, I learn invaluable lessons about how they see search, social and content marketing contributing to the success of their business.

7. Research & Write – Between blogging over 2,500 times and writing numerous contributed articles, I have found that developing writing skills has been one of the most profitable things I’ve ever done.  I’ve been writing a book over the past few months, which has taken considerable time in addition to daily work. The process of writing a book is not for the faint of heart, but it has made me smarter and more strategic in how I view modern online marketing strategy.

8. Research & Presentations – Another profitable investment (in terms of knowledge and for our business) has been speaking at events. The research and preparation for presentations requires an understanding of the subject matter that extends far beyond day to day familiarity.  Packaging content to be relevant to specific audiences as well as educational and entertaining means thinking that content through. The process helps create mental models for explaining key concepts and can serve as a basis for many other forms of content creation.

9. Research and Training – One of the big initiatives I have this year is to develop internal training beyond the things we’ve established so far. Identifying external sources of training such as industry conferences and workshops for our team to attend as well as building our own workshops for internal use and for our clients is another situation that calls for thoughtful consideration, planning and packaging. Related to presentations, I’m also involved with providing SEO or Social SEO to other agencies (especially PR agencies) and marketing communications departments within companies. Collecting case studies, examples and keeping tactics current keeps me on my mental toes.

10. Connect with Industry Peers - In the time I’ve been publicly active in the internet marketing and PR world, I’ve been able to make some incredible connections with amazingly smart people. Outside of working with our internal team of consultants, there is no substitute when it comes to gaining high value information than connecting with other professionals that are as passionate and fanatical about marketing and online business as you are.

11. Revisit Social Streams - This is a later in the evening activity but it’s a good way to end the work part of the day and get ideas for the next. Using Google Reader, Hootsuite, Disqus and other tools, identify any new articles worth reading, cluster them together according to theme and take notes. I’ll take time to focus on mainstream media publications, not just industry blogs and news websites.

Another approach to staying current is to form a mastermind group. I first head of this from reading Napoleon Hill many years ago and it’s even more powerful now. Find likeminded professionals and agree to connect on collective and individual areas of focus. A mastermind is not only about sharing information but working with each other to achieve goals.

I don’t do all these things every day of course, but it represents a number of the things that have been instrumental in keeping me close to tactics as well as in line with more strategic perspectives on new events and industry changes.  Would reading my email and social feeds for 10 min a day be a better alternative to free up time for other business tasks? Maybe, but then I wouldn’t be able to output as much as I do or bring as much value that results in better service to customers, a healthier social network and a growing business.

If staying current and informed is essential for your job, how do you keep up to date? How do you make each day a positive learning experience?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. | 11 Ways to Get Smarter & Stay Current in a World of Social Information Overload | http://www.toprankblog.com

The Social Job Seekers

The social media job market is hot! This infographic visualizes the 2011 Social Job Seeker Survey that was conducted by Jobvite.  It examines who the job seekers are and how they are utilizing social media to find jobs.  Some interesting statistics you may not be aware of:

• 61% of all employed Americans are open to a new job or actively looking for a new one.
• 4 out of 10 job seekers are “Super Social” and have 150+ contacts on Facebook, Twitter, or Linkedin.
• 1 in 6 job seekers found their last job through an online social network.

This Week in News About Google

“How to Get Actionable Data Out of Google Analytics”  Proper goal setting is second to none when running a website or blog.  If your goals are not properly setup then you are missing out on the most actionable metrics of your website.  This article provides some great tips on setting up and measuring your website goals.  Via KISSmetrics.

“Pages With Too Many Ads “Above The Fold” Now Penalized By Google’s “Page Layout” Algorithm”  Do you shove lots of ads at the top of your web pages? Think again.  The “page layout algorithm”  takes direct aim at any site with pages where content is buried under tons of ads. Via Search Engine Land.

“Google+ Now Lets You Share Straight From Search Results”  Aimed at making it easier for users to join or start discussions on particular topcis, Google+ has recently beefed up their search capabilities.  Additionally, Google+ will automatically attach search terms to your posted items.  Via Mashable.

“Google Real-Time Insight Finder”  This tool helps users make sense of data and spot emerging trends more quickly.  It also allows companies to gain insight in to attitudes, perceptions, and needs of your consumers so that you can adjust your strategy quickly to meet their needs.  Via YouTube.

“Google+ brands growing faster than brands on Twitter?”  A statistical comparison by Socialbakers shows that brands are growing their fan bases faster on Google+ than brands on Twitter.  How is this happening?  Read on to find out.  Via Socialbakers.

Connect with TopRank on Google+

Content Marketing for the Masses

“3 Content Marketing Ideas You Should Steal from Coca Cola” Heavy hitter Coca Cola has realized that a 30 second advertisement will no longer cut it.  They have instead turned to content marketing , which aims to double Coca Cola worldwide consumption by 2020.  Via copyblogger.

“3 (more) business blogging tips for beginners”  If you are one of the many bloggers with a new years resolution that includes doing more with your blog, then this post is for you.  What is the first step?  Be realistic!  Via SEO Copywriting.

“How to Overcome the 7 Most Crippling Blogging Challenges”  Time to take the “but’s” out of blogging.  This article does a great job of providing solutions for many of the excuses would be bloggers have today.  Via socialmediatoday.

The Social Media Beat

“7 Ways To Improve Your Social Media Skills and Influence” Social media sharing is still a very new role for many employees.  This article helps prepare newbies and social media dabblers for life in a social world.  Via Forbes.

“9 Small Business Social Media Success Stories”  Case studies speak for themselves.  Applying a real life example of success can make a large impact on your perception of a tactic or marketing strategy.  This post provides 9 great examples of how social media has helped small businesses grow.  Via Social Media Examiner.

“Facebook Expands Service That Lets Users Share Online Activities”  Facebook announced this week that they are adding over 60 new partners to a service which will allow users to let their friends know what they’re doing online from listening to music to news articles they are viewing.  Via Bloomberg.

“Twitter Acquires Social Aggregation Start-Up Summify”  Following Twitter’s other recent acquisitions it was announced today that Summify, a social news aggregation service has also been acquired.  If you’re a Summify user beware! Services will shut down in a few weeks.  Via Wired.

From the TopRank Newsroom

Alexis Hall – “Average Viewer Watched 23.2 Hours of Online Video Content in December”
According to the latest research from comScore Video Metrix, the average viewer watched 23.2 hours of online video content in December 2011.  That is a lot of time people are spending online, engaged with this channel. This post from Search Engine Watch discusses the impact of this research on marketers, including the reach of video advertising on YouTube.  Via Search Engine Watch.

Brian Larson – “PIPA and SOPA Co-Sponsors Abandon Bills”
SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) is on the minds of many marketers. From image sharing and content curation, to linking and keyword research, SOPA has the potential to drastically change the way we create, share, promote and optimize content. With the co-sponsor’s abandoning the bill, is this a sign that the public outcry was heard?  Via Mashable.

Ken Horst – “Twitter is adding 11 new accounts per second and could pass 500 million in February, says report”
If anyone is still holding out on starting a Twitter account, now would be the time to start thinking about it.  When Twitter hits 500 million, it will be very hard not to acknowledge Twitter as a strong channel for online marketing.  The trick is how to leverage Twitter and you can learn that by reading our post from earlier this month; 4 B2C Examples of How Companies are Using Twitter to Attract & Engage Customers.  Via The Next Web.

Emily Conley – “Yahoo’s Co-founder Jerry Yang Resigns”
Just weeks after the announcement of new CEO Scott Thomson joining Yahoo, the company’s co-founder Jerry Yang has announced his resignation.  Thompson called Yang’s 17 years with Yahoo a legacy of innovation and customer focus for the iconic brand.  2012 is shaping up to be an eventful year for Yahoo.  It will be noteworthy to follow how these changes trickle down to impact the world of SEO!  Via Search Engine Land.

Time to Weigh In:  What do you think of Google’s new search tactics?  Have they taken it too far?  Also, what other newsworthy items did you read this week that you think should be shared with our readers?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. | Online Marketing News: Say NOPA to SOPA, Google+ Strikes Again, Coca Cola “Gets It”, Twitter Gobbles Up Summify | http://www.toprankblog.com

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)

#1 – “The Fame” is Only Half the Battle

Photos from @charliesheen & @ladygaga

Social influence involves much more than a popularity contest.  Actual influence is composed of the ability to influence opinions, outcomes, and actions. While other celebrities like Charlie Sheen are popular on sites such as Twitter, his social popularity didn’t help him get his job back on Two and Half Men or sell out his nationwide “comedy” tour.  You may notice in the photos above that Charlie Sheen’s profile still reads “unemployed winner”.  Looks like he could do with a little less popularity, and a lot more influence.

#2 – A “Poker Face” is Bad For Business

Photo from Lady Gaga's Facebook Fan Page

If you are responsible for online PR for your company, or are interested in promoting yourself on the web, it is essential that you are as transparent as possible.  While it may be tempting to stretch the truth in a crisis, honesty is key.  Transparency and messaging are also important to give your audience a sense of who your brand is and what you stand for in ways that will inspire your community to engage and take action.  Understanding why people buy is essential when marketing a product or individual.  People become fans and buyers when they can relate to or form a connection with the spokesperson or can apply meaning to what they stand for.

#3 – “Little Monsters” Receive Recognition

Photo from Lady Gaga's Official Google+ Profile

If there is one thing that cannot be debated about Lady Gaga it is her adoration for her fans.  Her music has influenced millions of people, but she is quick to thank her audience for influencing her life.  In fact a Tweet that I saw just the other day on her Twitter profile said:

“Can’t believe I have 18,000,000 TwitterMonsters, really rad, was just a few years ago I had barely any.”

Even a small comment like this shows her appreciation for the fans that helped her get to where she is today.  A good PR professional should always remember to give thanks where thanks is due.

#4 – Playing More Than Just A “Love Game”

Photo from www.ladygaga.com

A Press Release last year from gaming giant Zynga announced their partnership with Lady Gaga to promote her new album.  When fans visited a unique farm called GagaVille in the popular game FarmVille they were given exclusive access to new tracks and unreleased songs from her upcoming album.  This was a win win situation for both Zynga and Gaga.  The promotion increased Zynga’s gaming popularity, and sold gaming cards that included additional promotional activities such as winning a day on the set with Gaga.

What Would Gaga Do?

Let’s face it, not every client will experience the popularity and influence of Lady Gaga.  However, there are many practical applications that can be gleamed from what we’ve learned about the pop music mogul’s online and social media presence.  I urge you to take some time and ask yourself the following questions about your brand.  While we may not all be a target of the “Paparazzi”, there are steps we can take to improve our social influence and make more “Money Honey”.

Influence vs. Popularity

• Is your brand popular, influential, or both?
• Do you have a plan in place to improve influence and grow your online community?

Honesty & Transparency

• What causes do your customers care about?
• What is something personal that could be shared to further connect your online customers and those who influence them?

Showing Gratitude

• Who helped your organization get where it is today?
• Is there a public opportunity to thank them for their contribution?

Additional Opportunities

• What are some partnerships or promotions that you can form on behalf of your brand?
• How much is this type of media exposure worth to you?

If you are looking for additional tips and tactics for Public Relations or improving your social influence be sure to check out the additional posts below:

• Importance of Social Media & SEO for Public Relations
• 5 Tips on Creating Video Content for Public Relations
• Boost Your Digital PR & Marketing Skills with Social Media Optimization

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. | 4 Things Lady Gaga Can Teach Us About Social Media PR & Online Influence | http://www.toprankblog.com

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+.

Author Information in Search Results

I’m sure over the last couple of months you’ve noticed author information included in Google search results.  This feature displays a photo of the author as well as an opportunity to add them to your Google+ circles.  Getting Author information to appear in the search results next to content that you create can be accomplished a few ways.

Google suggests adding your name and your email address to each article or blog post and then verifying that same email address within your Google+ profile.  The other option is a good old fashioned link exchange between the content you create and your Google+ profile. Add a Google Profile button to your site or manually add the link using: <a href=”[profile_url]?rel=author”>Google</a> and replace the [profile_url] with the long id in your Google+ profile web address. Then make sure you link to the sites that you contribute to from your Google+ Profile in the area called “Contribute to”. Once you do that, there’s a form you need to fill out.

Google Plus for Search

Many SEO professionals and Marketers were up in arms after last weeks release of Google+ search functionality.  It appears that Google is favoring it’s own content over others.  Google does include information from some networks such as Quora or Flickr, but at this point is excluding popular social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.  What does this mean for marketers?

Take full advantage of these changes and post useufl information on your Google+ profile or company page that are relevant to your business and the business problems of your customers. Engage with others and be useful and interesting so that as many other relevant users of Google+ add you to their circles as possible. The larger your network on Google+, the more likely your content will appear prominently in their search results.

“Where Google+ Fits in the Business Ecosystem”

Outside of the obvious need to have a presence in Google+ for search visibility, there are other good reasons for professionals to leverage the social network. In his book, Chris Brogan expresses that how a company uses Google+ for business is up to them, and that there are many opportunities to consider when building a Google+ strategy.  The suggestions in the book are pretty much best practices for any kind of social network involvement and with all the attention being paid to Google+ the past few months it’s a good time to review. Some of the ways you may want to consider using Google+ for your business or professional online presence include:

• Collaboration
• Learning
• Discovery
• Community Building
• Contests & Promotions
• Customer Service
• Engagement
• Listening
• Referrals
• Sharing

“The Most Important Part of Your Profile: The Introduction”

Building out your Google+ profile is essential for how people perceive your brand. Google+ for Business puts special emphasis on creating a stellar introduction for Google+ profiles.  The introduction field in you Google+ profile should include:

• Professional Experience:  give your potential customers an idea of what it might look like to work with them.
• Personal Information: this will inform prospects what matters most to you outside of business.
• Linking: do not stuff your profile with links but be sure to link to outside resources where appropriate.

“Posting to Build Connections”

If part of your marketing strategy is to connect with interesting or influential people, Google+ this is a good way to inspire creativity in your own content.  Some helpful tips for creating content to drive connections would include:

• Source information from websites that are not always sources.  Posting interesting information from a more obscure sight is likely to catch the attention of new followers.
• Original content that takes a different stance from the majority of users is likely to get you some attention.
• Curiosity drives traffic, share some interesting knowledge that you have about something you care about such as music or film.

There is a wealth of information being created each day on optimizing, creating content, and socializing using Google+.  Over the next few months Google will only continue to roll out changes to their Google+ platform and either by incentive or usefulness, Google+ will grow.

What are your most pressing questions about Google+? Has your business created a page yet? How are you getting your staff on board with Google+ profiles or are you focusing more on your brand page?

Be sure to connect with TopRank Online Marketing on Google+ here.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. | Google+ for Business: 5 Things Marketing Professionals Should Know About Google+ | http://www.toprankblog.com

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?

One answer is to become a great content curator. Plenty of business websites and blogs are making lists this time of year, reflecting on the past 12 months as well as predicting what 2012 has in store. There’s something about seeing a sorted collection of useful information that motivates people to read and socially share. A well-sourced and thoughtfully-written list can evoke a strong emotion that inspires commentary and engagement.

Like them or not, credible, sorted lists and collections of resources are powerful blog content and social media marketing tools. Unfortunately, many marketers are overusing the same old tactics ala “link bait” for a quick hit and not looking at the longer term benefits or impact. Through trial and error, we’ve made the same mistakes but with good web and social media analysis, we’ve been able to make some great improvements.

Who doesn’t want to increase traffic and engagement in their blog and social media marketing programs? I thought so. Here are three types of curated lists and resource collections bloggers can use to efficiently create useful content that attracts, engages and inspires their readers to action.

Curated Resource Collections

Think of much needed resources in your industry. Are there tips, how-to’s, reports, examples, tools, events, networks, or something else that could be aggregated and made useful? Think about different formats including text, image, video, audio, or something interactive. Use bookmarking to save interesting things as you go vs. trying to create a list in a single effort. I have 20-30 categories of resources I add to every few days. Spread your resource collection effort over time and across your team when researching larger collections. You can also crowdsource them from your own social network.

Here are a few examples of the Resource Collections we’ve published that have attracted tens of thousands of links, visitors and by association, attention to our online marketing agency:

• List of of 100+ Blog & RSS Directories
• 100+ Search Marketing Resources
• 22 Social Media Marketing Management Tools
• 5 Reports on B2B Social Media Marketing & New Media Trends
• Free Tools for Social Media Optimization
• 5 Must Read Reports on Social Media & Public Relations

What exists in your industry that’s highly valued but not easy to find in one place? Bring those things together in a list. Also, think about what you can do to creatively involve your community with the sorting of the list. What can you do visually to make your collection stand out?

Curated Lists of People or Blogs 

While you’ve seen many lists of the most popular individuals for a particular category (especially in the social media realm) on just about every blog online, they fact that many of them are arbitrary or playing industry celebrity favorites means there’s tremendous opportunity to do something unique and more interesting.

We’ve been active creating lists of people to recognize their contribution as well as crowdsourcing content from individuals into lists of tips for many of the 8 years this blog has been publishing online. Some of the more popular examples in terms of search traffic and links include:

• 2010, 2011 Women Who Rock Social Media
• What are the best UK Online Marketing Blogs?
• 10 Most Subscribed Search Marketing Blogs
• BIGLIST of SEO Blogs

Some of these lists are a one time effort, but some of them are annual, such as the Women Who Rock Social Media list. Qualitative lists inspire those included to help promote and with a collective effort more exposure to the list brings more attention to each individual. The key is for the list to be relevant, well sourced and written.

Crowdsourced Lists of Tips and Insights from Industry Experts

Another way to include disparate, useful resources into one collection is through crowdsourcing. By that I mean asking a group of subject matter experts the same question or similar questions and curating the results into one, topically specific (and keyword optimized) list.  You could also make sure that when you interview industry experts, that some of the questions are the same same for all interviewees. Then you can re-purpose the different answers to single questions as a meeting of the minds post that brings together different, well-respected thought leadership in a single topic.

Here are a few examples of tapping a network of awesome people I’ve come to know for insight into topics that are consistent with our editorial plan:

• Must Read Social Media Marketing Tips from 25 Social Media Experts
• Social Media Strategy – A Definitive Guide from 44 Social Media Experts
• 10 Thought Leaders Share Their Definitions of Content Curation

When asking well known and influential people to contribute, be respectful of their time and make it easy to contribute. Don’t ask for them to write War and Peace. Ask one simple question via email and offer to capture it verbally over the phone/Skype if that works better. When you publish the curated collection of tips, be sure to give participants an individual (as in personalized/unique) heads up that the list is published as well as to thank them for their participation. Recognition is important to everyone, whether they’re well-known or just starting out.

Surely there are unrecognized people or resources in your industry. What or whom could you recognize in an original and thoughtful way that aligns well with your own unique selling proposition and key message? If your business sells Kindle Fire Cases, then couldn’t you curate a list of Kindle resources? Clever reasons to use a Kindle case? Book suggestions from Authors? Game, App or Movie reviews? Use a metaphor in your list title that includes target SEO keywords: Authors on Fire: Kindle Style, One the Case with Kindle Apps. They’re not a direct match, but that’s the art and science of SEO copywriting – a topic for another post.

Tips on Sourcing, Promoting, and Repurposing Curated Lists

As with any marketing endeavor, think about the purpose and intended outcome of your list first. What search keywords and social topics represent interests, needs, and goals of the influencers and end customers that you’d like to connect with? Pick a topic and stick to it.

Sourcing. As you understand your community, what are the unmet needs in information that you could satisfy? What unrecognized individuals or companies with powerful networks could be resources for, or included in the list? How will it fit in and complement your content marketing and social media strategy? Incidentally, I have an entire book dedicated to this topic coming out in March.

Creation. Put qualitative effort into creating your collection or list. Make it special, useful, and unique. Make it snarky or funny and by all means, make it shareable! Gimmicks are not nearly as important as quality and relevance to the community you’ll be promoting to. That said, you do need to think of what will make your collection promotable. Great content isn’t great until it’s consumed and shared.

Repurposing. Lists of things like people, books, reports, quotes, or just about anything can be repurposed as a PowerPoint on SlideShare or made into a video with bumper messages, narration, and music to be promoted on YouTube. If you’re smart about sourcing and making the collection promotable, then don’t just do it once. Plan on making the list annually, quarterly, or monthly.

Understand that with collections and lists, people and companies have an inherent desire to be included and recognized. At the same time, lists are exclusionary, so offer your readers an opportunity to add to the list you’ve created. Encourage them to participate and think about the group social needs, not just your own. A qualitative approach that focuses first on relevance of a collection to the community you’re promoting to will result in much better reach and engagement for you.

By the way, if you like this post, then you’re going to LOVE this book: Optimize. Published by Wiley, it will come out mid-March this year and is full of ideas, tips and insights.

A distant version of this article originally appeared on my Social Media Smarts column for ClickZ.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. | Social Media & Blogging Listmania with Curated Resources & Lists | http://www.toprankblog.com

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!

It’s an Oh So Social Web

“Facebook projected to hit 1 billion active users by August”  There are about 6.9 billion people currently living in the world, and Facebook is projected to capture close to 14% of that number by the end of this summer. According to a new study, the Facebook user count will hit 1 billion by the month of August. Via Digital Trends.

“Anywhere in the world, foursquare Explore can find you something interesting (now on your computer!)”  How do you search for personalized recommendations in the real world? This is a huge and difficult problem. Most real-world searches are one-size fits all. The new web version of Explore is powered by 1,500,000,000 check-ins, tens of millions of Tips, and over half million Lists. Explore is powered by check-ins and foursquare Tips, it’s not just personalized, it’s specific. Via Foursquare.

“Some Advertisers Are Paying Up To $10 Per Follow On Twitter” Marketers spent an estimated $100- to $150-million on Twitter advertising to reach its 100 million users last year, compared with forecasts of nearly $4-billion for Facebook and its 800 million users. So far, Twitter’s advertisers have been prepared to pay $1 to $4 for each new follower through “promoted accounts”, though some – such as car makers – are bidding more than $10. Via Financial Times.

“YouTube accounts for 25% of visits to social sites in December” Market research analyst James Murray shares that there were record levels of Internet traffic at Christmas, with 2.18 billion visits going to online retailers in December.  Murry also shares that the right blend of traffic from social media, affiliates, and other sources is essential.  But, that it is more important than ever for marketers to optimize both paid and organic campaigns.  Via Econsultancy.

“71% More Likely to Purchase Based on Social Media Referrals [INFOGRAPHIC]”  Consumers are currently connecting, rating, discussing, and consumer more product information and review then ever before.  The infographic in this article illustrates the importance of ecommerce inbound marketing.  Via Hubspot.

We’re With the Brand – Tips

“5 Tips for Making Your Brand More Social”   As social media only continues to increase in value companies cannot afford to shamelessly self promote or opt out from the conversation all together.  Requests are being made that companies respond in real time, across multiple channels. Via Social Media Examiner.

“How to Build Recognition for Your Unkown Brand” In the marketing and advertising world the word “frequency” refers to the number of times a consumer must see or an ad before they purchase the product.  According to this article frequency works because it is all about building trust.  As consumers we tend to be weary of anything new.  However, if we are shown a product or brand repeatedly we begin trust what that company has to offer. Via Wall Street Journal.

TopRank(ing) News From Our Team

Emily Conley – “Real-Life Examples of How Google’s “Search Plus” Pushes Google+ Over Relevancy”
Google’s recent implementation of the “Search Plus Your World” feature has everybody talking about whether the new feature benefits Google users, or just the company.  This article dives into the initial impact of the change through a user perspective.  The “Search Plus” feature has huge implications in terms of search and social…this is only the beginning of what is sure to be a long debate!  Via Search Engine Land.

Ken Horst – “Pinterest: 13 Tips and Tricks for Cutting Edge Users”
As we’ve seen in previous weeks, Pinterest traffic and interest is growing like crazy, recently breaking into the top ten social media websites.  In addition to the 13 tips in this post, I’ve also found it useful to create pin boards of images from my blog or web site.   Each image is a link back top the originating web property and if the images are cool, users can also see some nice referring traffic as well.  Via Mashable.

Alexis Hall – “SoLoMo Revolution Picks Up Where Hyperlocal Search Left Off”
I thought this post on Social Local Mobile Search or the “SoLoMo Revolution” was interesting. It discusses how  companies like Shopkick have been successful using new mobile technology to offer shoppers a highly personalized experience.  Via Mashable.

Discussion: What do you think about the new Google+ integration with search? Do you think it’s too much?  What about $10 per Twitter user? Or $1? Do you think Foursquare can compete as a local search engine? We’d love your feedback on these stories and feel free to suggest other top stories we missed.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. | Online Marketing News: Google+ Search, $10 per Twitter Follower, Facebook 1 Billion Users, Foursquare Search Engine, Social ROI: No, Really! | http://www.toprankblog.com

Improved communication turns one time buyers into lifelong customers.

As marketers and sales professionals there is no doubt that we are focused on obtaining new customers and increasing awareness within targeted market segments.  However, we must also consider the lifetime value of our existing customers and how marketing communications can contribute to that relationship.  Taking the time to examine what kind of communications can keep your brand top of mind with customers and inspire continued awareness for repeat sales and referrals is of enormous value.

Do you know how much your current customers are worth to your company?  In recent years research has found that a 5% increase in customer retention can increase profits by 25% to 95%.  Armed with the knowledge that satisfied customers has a direct impact on your bottom line, there is no time like the present to begin targeting your current customers.  Here are 5 tips on better customer communications you can start using right now:

Tip #1 – Personalized Email Communication

96% of organizations believe that email personalization can improve email marketing performance.

Creating a steady flow of email communication for customers is not a new concept.  However, how many email campaigns do you send out that are segmented based on purchasing habits or preferences?  Say that you have studied the data relating to your current customers and have identified approximately 5 profiles or personas.  Based on customer information find the persona that best fits each customer.  Then create an email drip campaign for each customer segment with different content based on need.  Keep in mind that the subject line, internal content, and calls to action within the email should be personalized based on customer segment.

Tip #2 – Create A Stellar FAQ Page

53% of customers who shop online more than once a month find customer service extremely or very important.

Creating readily available and easy to find information is Customer Service 101.  It does not matter if you are B2B, B2C, technology, retail, or any other type of company; your customers will have questions.  A Frequently Asked Questions page on your website, social profiles, or other web destinations should be updated on a regular basis to include new questions or comments.  FAQ’s are also an additional opportunity to optimize content for improved visibility online.  It is important to remain consistent with your answers, provide a clean and easy to read page, and update or remove items that may no longer apply.  If you sell multiple products you may want to consider creating additional pages for each product.  Also, if you sell a product or service that requires assembly or setup you may want to provide instructional videos for your customers.

Tip #3 – Social Networking Channels = Customer Service Opportunity

40% of corporate Twitter accounts engage stakeholders on customer service issues.

Last week we shared the example of JetBlue’s customer focused approach on Twitter.  While Twitter may not be a customer solution for all marketers there is an opportunity to utilize your existing social media channels as a way of providing additional customer service for your customers.  Customer service does not only include answering questions or dealing with problems it could also include: sharing useful articles or information, notifying customers of upcoming promotions, or reaching out to customers that are inactive.  Consideration must also be paid to the time of day that your customers are most likely to spend their time online.  There are tools available like Timely, Buffer or Hootsuite which enable you to schedule your Twitter communications during a particular time of day for the highest impact.

Tip #4 – Create Content Based on Customer Need

36% of B2B marketers listed producing engaging content as their biggest content marketing challenge.

If planned for and organized appropriately, content creation can be executed efficiently and successfully.  A successful content strategy will focus on the needs, pain points, and triggers of your customers.  There are many ways to identify what those needs are including: customer surveys, research, and creation of customer personas based on buying habits.  Implementing a well thought out and concise customer survey can give you additional insight into what makes your customers tick.  A survey is also a great opportunity to crowdsource content from your customers for your customers.  Who better qualified to tell you what they want to read about than those who are purchasing your products or services?

Tip #5 – Turn Customers Into Brand Advocates

500 billion peer impressions are created each year.

It is extremely important that you tap into your existing customer base to find individuals or organizations who are willing to advocate on your behalf.  You could ask customers for: written or video testimonials, permission to use them as references, or employ them as a brand advocate to share information with their networks.  As user generated content becomes increasingly popular and credible, keeping your customers happy will continue to become even more essential.

Action Items:

Committing to providing customer support online is something that I recommend every company do no matter what industry you work in.  If you don’t keep your customers happy, someone else will.  I would like to leave you with the following questions that I hope will help you determine what tactics your company should implement to improve your customer service and communication online.

• How would you rate your current level of online customer service?
• Do you currently have a plan in place to improve your communication?
• What tactics have you implemented that have worked?
• What companies do you personally buy from that provide excellent online communication?
• What impact has that communication had on your purchasing decisions?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. | 5 Marketing Tips for Improving Customer Relationships & ROI With Better Communications | http://www.toprankblog.com