Guest blog by Ben Acheson, Head of SEO at Digivate
A terrible search engine bloodbath is on its way. Thousands of websites are going to be affected and your business’ website could be one of them. Over dramatic? Well not if you were listening to Matt Cutts, Google’s Head of Webspam at the South By Southwest SEO conference in Texas this year.
The next phase in Cutts’ crusade against spam is a major change to Google’s software. This change will automate the detection and penalisation of offending websites and is expected to be rolled out towards the middle of 2012. Cutts announced the search engine’s plans to, “level the playing ground,” by targeting websites with poor content that rely on “over-optimization” rather than delivering good content.
Google is essentially getting tough on websites that use manipulative practices and these are not just commonplace, they are endemic – particularly among the current crop of aspiring self-styled “SEO agencies”.
Many businesses won’t realise their website is at risk – until their Google traffic dries up. In some cases the damage will be so severe that unravelling it will be practically impossible and a new website domain will be needed in order to escape the Google penalty.
If you don’t understand exactly what your SEO agency has been doing to promote your site then you might need to prepare yourself for a very nasty surprise later this year. If you need customers to find you in Google then the impact could destroy your business. More »
We’ve touched recently on how social marketing for small businesses requires a different skill set than for global brands (FPR blog 30.11.11). Yet certain rules apply across the board. Social Media Today recently interviewed C.C.Chapman, co-author of Content Rules and strategic consultant to powerhouse brands including Coca-Cola, Cisco and Warner Bros. What follows is valuable advice: why not learn from the best rather than repeating the mistakes of less-informed predecessors?
1. Integrate social and content with all aspects of the business, from customer service to sales.
Don’t create a separate social department. PR and customer service are the first three areas that need to be integrated with social – train and empower customer service teams to interact with customers over social channels.
2. Tailor your social media presence to fans’ passion points
Ford has created multiple Facebook Pages for each of its key marque brands, such as Ford Focus, Ford Mustang and Ford Racing, each with their own thriving fan communities. More »
I was lucky enough to be joined by New Media Age editor Justin Pearse in our London PR Taxi recently to get his take on social media adoption, what will be the next big thing and which social brands have impressed him lately.
While small business owners use social media on a personal level, there is a significant gap between how much they believe social marketing impacts on business and actual levels of activity and investment.
A study of small business owners by Social Strategy found that 73% said they access social networks, yet 67% are waiting to invest in social media for business for a variety of reasons
Some of the obstacles specified include a fear of sharing sensitive information (cited by 51%); too many sites to manage (50%); and a fear of “information overload”.
However, 60% of the 343 respondents surveyed say that they do want to implement a social media strategy; they just don’t know where to start. It can be daunting for small companies without the weight of a well-known brand or TV campaign behind them, so Social Strategy offered three tips aimed specifically for small businesses taking their first steps beyond digital marketing into social:
1. Find your customers online
There’s a world beyond Facebook and Twitter online, where people, including potential customers, are already commenting, linking and sharing content.
2. Set up to listen
Establish feeds to extract relevant insights continually. Everything tells you something about what really matters to the people a business intends to serve. More »
Old fashioned, one-way and downright obsolete. If this is how you perceive email in the social age, it’s time to think again. Yes: social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter have opened up exciting new avenues of rich dialogue and engagement, but they have also made old-faithful email an even more powerful marketing tool than ever. Hubspot has just released a Definitive Guide to Integrating Social Media and Email Marketing, and here are the 5 key takeaways for you:
Know exactly where your audience is
Social media is a huge category, extending beyond the ‘big three’ (Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn) to encompass smaller niche sites like Digg and sector-specific networks. To determine which networks are the right fit for your brand, and where to therefore focus your social marketing efforts, dive into your web analytics data.
In general though, Facebook has been proven to be the most effective site for B2C marketers, and LinkedIn most effective for B2B marketers. Remember, your email opt-ins may not be the same folk who engage with you on social media – why not run simple surveys of your social media fans and email subscribers to determine how your audience overlaps?
Use social channels to grow your email list
Email subscribers are marketing gold. They’ve already opted in for your most targeted and effective messaging. So, see your first task in integrating social and email as converting as many social fans and followers into email subscribers.
On Facebook, try the underused method of adding an email opt-in widget to your page. You can incentivise people with coupons or free content downloads if they’re slow to bite. Take footwear brand Crocs’ method of offering fans a 20%-off welcome coupon for signing up to email – now, 12% of their weekly email subscribers come from Facebook. More »
Ahead of Wimbledon fortnight, Andy Murray and racket sponsor Head have launched a viral video, encouraging fans to ‘like’ Murray via Head’s Facebook page.
The ad ‘Get Closer’ created by German agency Aimaq Stolle, follows the tennis star in a lighthearted sequence, at home, on court and even features a shower scene.
The viral, is the first part of Head’s Facebook campaign tempting users to ‘like’ the page, to gain access to exclusive content, prizes and Murray’s tweets throughout Queens and Wimbledon.
Users will also be able to send messages to Murray via the page, with some messages picked to appear on the tennis racket bag he takes onto court during the tournament. Daily competitions will offer prizes including signed tennis equipment.
The campaign has been quickly gaining pace…with already over 42k views on YouTube, Murray has now been liked by more than 81k people on Facebook.
So you appear to have your online communications in order. Regular blogging, tweets and email messages are flowing very nicely, thankyou. Assuming that your business has a growing online presence, be aware that customers’ expectations will increase accordingly. Are you doing everything you can to meet their needs?
Lots of people use Twitter to sound off about problems or negative experiences they’ve had with brands. Such mentions are an ideal opportunity to delve deeper into complaints, and offer the level of customer service that can convert an angry client into a happy one. The same goes for customer forums. While often overrun with spam, forums should be policed and genuine customer communications deserve efficient responses.
When it comes to business blogging, remember that each post is a potential conversation. You wouldn’t run out on a client mid-conversation during a business lunch, so it’s only polite to respond to any comments left on your blog. Employ somebody within your company to take control of blog management, or outsource to an agency if you’re stuck for resources. More »
Social media marketing has matured to the point where brands are demanding demonstrable ROI. It’ll no longer suffice to set up a Facebook account or Twitter profile to simply ‘see what happens’. And quite rightly so. But unlike the online advertising industry, which has some standardised metrics in place, social media measurement systems remain nascent.
Social marketing yields a mine of data which agencies and large brands can measure accurately with analytics software. But smaller companies without access to in-depth metrics – fear not. By employing these three simple, key metrics, you can start to establish the vital statistics of your social media programme:
1. Total online community size
Measure the total active size of your social CRM – covering your presence on social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr and any managed blogs. You’re looking for steady growth over time to establish whether or not you’re offering value to your communities.
2. Monthly referred social traffic to site
This doesn’t necessarily require complex social content sharing tools. Start simple, and drill down to the total unique site traffic coming to your website from links shared through blogs, forums and major social networks. Use your preferred website analytics tool, be it Omniture, WebTrends or Google Analytics, and produce month-on-month graphs to show trends. More »
A poll of marketers and PR practitioners by Furlong PR has shown that the majority (51%) think social media is the most valuable expertise PR agencies can bring to a pitch scenario in 2011.
Both social media & online content generation polled way ahead of old school media relations expertise which only 16% think is now key to winning new business.
However the poll did reveal a massive disagreement between the older and younger pollsters. In the 45+ age category media relations is considered most important and social media the least.
Search engine optimization came in last with 7%, underlining that clients do not expect SEO to lead the agenda in PR pitches.
Furlong PR CEO Ross Furlong commented; “The poll confirms that age is a massive factor in the perception of ‘new fashioned’ pr techniques. While the young clearly believe a social media ingredient is crucial to winning a PR pitch in 2011, anyone over 45 just as clearly thinks it isn’t. This is disappointing but not surprising. Convincing senior management of its value is the chief obstacle to adoption.”
232 votes were cast in the month long poll conducted on LinkedIn during April 2011. Full results of the poll are available here:
A terrible search engine bloodbath is on its way. Thousands of websites are going to be affected and your business’ website could be one of them. Over dramatic? Well not if you were listening to Matt Cutts, Google’s Head of Webspam at the South By Southwest SEO conference in Texas this year.
While small business owners use social media on a personal level, there is a significant gap between how much they believe social marketing impacts on business and actual levels of activity and investment.
A poll of marketers and PR practitioners by Furlong PR has shown that the majority (51%) think social media is the most valuable expertise PR agencies can bring to a pitch scenario in 2011.