Disclaimer: This image is a fake. Not to be taken seriously.

Social Media meets SEM

Internet Marketers are competitive by nature. Clearly if you are wanting to rank 1st on the search engine you have to compete.  SEO’s wish to rule the Social Media world as well. Why? Traffic equals money. Going viral can mean a lot of traffic and a lot of money.  To those that want to profit from the online world they must find ways to slice and dice data to see what activities carry a monetary value. So what do these SEO minded people do? They create measurement and scoring to see how well they do in the Social Media arena. Attach a game to it, make it fun, and gamble a bit.

Does your local market carry a good audience for Social Media?

Check it out, right now you can go find which U.S. cities are the most social media savvy. Social Media Rankings .

And apparently:

“The average New Yorker has nearly twice as many total friends across all social networking sites as business people in Houston.“

Also noted that Phoenix ranks #5 for Twitter use. Props to the home town. …. and #9 for being the rudest city in the US. It is unclear if those are related. Cool survey. Great info. But don’t let over analyzing your potential to make a buck off someone make you a jerk. Looking at people as dollar signs makes you a soulless individual. Granted if you are a marketer you have to be honest about marketing value. And yes there is value to marketing via social media.

Your Pout Score:

Perhaps this is a bit cynical, but what does a social media score really mean? Is that a pat on the back because you have impressed a computer program? If you want to beat yet another computer game then go download angry birds. Your true reach?… Does that count the number of DMs that run through twitter? Entire conversations happen on twitter behind closed doors. Granted, it is cool to put a ticker on how far your voice travels. But are you twittering just to get noticed? Are you gaming for influence? What happened to just keeping it real? Clearly extremes in either direction are bad.

What’s your take?

Do social media scoring systems destroy the social media platform or do they help people realize “hey, I am a big doofus so I need to chill on the twitter-thon”?

Check out this recent contest he had on his Twitter stream:

Step 1.  Bait your followers:

Step 2.  Give people a reason to follow you. Larry does a great job with opportunities for for fans to “win” something.  With Larry baiting fans, he  makes them pay attention to his Twitter stream.  (It doesn’t always have to be about controversy and getting fired over Twitter with athletes!)

Step 3.  Make it fun – He makes it fun for his fans, and makes them “earn” it, not just “reply” back with an answer or something.  I use to love when Shaq did this, and made people find him, or go to some crazy location.  It keeps fans on their toes and makes them connect better.  It’s brilliant!

Step 4.  Ever wonder how to bring sponsorships in without being obvious? This works great.  Good for Larry, and good for Coldstone!  Who knows if this really was planned by the two, but its awesome.

Step 5.  Getting people to interact on your Twitter stream – Uploading pictures, talking about you – all of this is making you more popular, and I promise its getting Larry more followers.  This works for everyone, of course it may be on a smaller scale for us normal people that are not superstars, but the basic concepts are still there – if people are interacting on your Twitter stream and talking about you, other people will want to know you and follow you.

Step 6.  Wait for it. Drag it out, why not.

Step 7. Kick Ass Prizes – If you are going to have contests, then make sure your prizes are kick ass.  I would take 2 tickets to the Vikings game please … and you know they are good because they are Larry’s tickets! (Oh, AND I get a signed jersey – yes please)

Other professional athletes should take a lesson from Larry.  He is doing social media right.  He gets Twitter, and understand how powerful it is to connect with and find new fans.  He is an Arizona Cardinal, but did you notice that it was a “nationwide” contest.  The NFL can take a lesson too from Larry, They need to stop banning players from social media and help them better understand it.

We can all learn from this too, its basic – give people a reason to follow you, be interesting, get them talking and gain new followers.  It really is brilliant.

Some Burros

As I was searching online for some information to one of my favorite Mexican food joints here in Arizona I ran across several problems with their website and wanted to share them here.  I also came across several areas where I thought they could capitalize on social marketing, increase traffic to their website and interact better (online) with the people who love them.

The Argument:

You walk into one of their locations and they are already packed.  True, but tell me of a business (you know of) that does not want to reach MORE customers, or expand to MORE locations?  If they are speaking the truth, every business wants to grow and expand – and of course, make more money.  So, I feel with a few improvements to their website and nickles worth of free social marketing advice here, I think they could be making vast improvements to their overall bottom line.

Their Website Problems:

The entire thing, besides one html page and some PDFs is built in flash, that means – the entire website is a single flash file, which is NO GOOD for search engine optimization, because even if the flash is crawlable, only be a single page indexed.  They have four valley locations and could be doing a better job with their local marketing and creating pages that target those areas.  When they do this, people searching for them, and those locations get a better experience when they are taken right to the exact information they are looking for.  People hate having to search through an unfriendly website trying to find the information they want.  There are many other things having a site like this will not allow you to capitalize on SEO wise, but for the sake of keeping this post simple – I am not going to go there.

For example:

They have 4 locations here in the valley, so they should at least have four crawlable pages to target the specific locations like so:

• http://www.someburros.com/gilbert-arizona-location
• http://www.someburros.com/tempe-arizona-location
• http://www.someburros.com/san-tan-arizona-location
• http://www.someburros.com/chandler-arizona-location

We will get into how they can capitalize on social marketing with those specific location pages here in a minute, but first lets talk about why doing the above thing is good.  When I go to Google to look for information on “Some Burros San Tan Location” (because they do catering so it’s not out of the question to think that people will be looking information for them online) the result that needs to come up is the http://www.someburros.com/san-tan-arizona-location page because then I do not have to navigate several clicks on their website “trying to find” the information I was looking for.

They also have the opportunity to include a link to their Google Maps listing on that page (for that specific location) and maybe link to their Yelp listing with a link that says: “see what people are saying about us”.  By doing this, you are sealing the deal with being found for not only your specific name searches locally, (when you get crawled) but almost anything GEO targeted in your industry (ie: a search on Google for “Mexican Food restaurant in San Tan Arizona”).  This really is just the beginning of how they can capitalize, but I think that gives them a good start. (if they just so happen to be reading this)

Social opportunities missed (and solutions offered):

You see they have a page on their website talking about coupons and promotions (so you know, they know people are looking for this info online – or they would not have included it).  People do not want to go through the process of clicking on, and sending you an email just to get your offers – they want the easy way of getting your offers and deals: In comes social marketing. 

Here is my suggestion to them:  Why not have a place to connect with customers via Twitter and Facebook?  You can tell them to follow you on Twitter, and friend you on Facebook for special deals that only they get by being your friend or by being a follower.  This gives customers a reason to follow your business on Twitter, or friend you on Facebook because they are getting (and know about) deals of the day that are going on. Put the “Follow Us On Twitter” or Facebook “Friend Me” logos/buttons on the specific location pages (as talked about above) where someone (that worsk for that location) can give specific updates and offers (again, for THAT LOCATION), and offer a little insight or blurb on the page why following or friending would be a good thing etc.

This will bring a whole new following of people to your business, and you can connect with them in a way you never thought was possible – the human way.  There are so many other things that this will do for your business that you do not realize, like filling the SERPs up with the content that you want out there – so its great for reputation management.

Being social just helps your business connect with more people too (then the regulars), you will gain new attention, attract new customers and will be keeping up with the marketing techniques of this generation.  I am going to give local businesses a warning – if you are not making your sites more friendly, and doing everything you can to connect with your customers on a social level, you will be left in the dust by a competitor that is doing this, and “gets it”.

I hope other businesses can learn and get some ideas from this post, and that Some Burros can take it as (like I said) a nickles worth of free advice to improving things.  Its funny, I suffer from a problem that most don’t … when I am online doing searches, or looking for something I can’t just “look” and get the info I wanted.  I have to look at everything as if I were doing marketing for them (always a marketer) – it’s a curse I know, but I hope these guys benefit from it this time, and that everyone can learn something!  LOL

I get confused on the social media sites like, Facebook, Twitter, even Skidoo etc. Should I be setting up a profile under my name to follow me specifically or setting up something that tells people to follow my website?

Here are my thoughts:  My answer depends on the specific network, as well as what you are trying to accomplish, but let me first touch on the specific networks you mentioned in this question.

Twitter

Twitter: If you are trying to gain more business, and use Twitter as a platform to attract more customers and get more of the word out then you need to set up a more formal business account.  For example; If my name were John Doe and I had a business called ISellWidgets.com I would set my Twitter account up to be:  Twitter.com/ISellWidgets (or something similar depending on availability) and NOT Twitter.com/JohnDoe.  This way you could do a better job at attracting the right kind of followers, and get the word out to the correct industry.  Reason being – Lets just say you are into fishing, and that is fine, but that would do much better on a personal type account, where you can find, talk and connect with other people who love fishing, but do you see how that would do your business no good?  The business account would be better left to connect with same industry minded people.  Now you can also set up a personal Twitter account if you want to use it for those kind of reasons mentioned above, but hopefully this does a better job showing you the line between the two style of accounts.

Facebook

Facebook: Create a personal page so you can have access to all that Facebook, but once you have a personal page set up, you can also create a FAN page for your business.  Use the personal page for your personal matters, but the fan page to get the word out about your business matters.  If you don’t want to create a Facebook page to connect with people you may not even like from back in the day, that’s fine – just use the FAN page/business portion of it to connect with potential customers.

Squidoo

Squidoo: Wow, do I even touch this one with a 10 ft. pole, or make a joke after all the attention it’s got this week? Ha Ha -  My thoughts are to create a page for your brand/company on Squidoo, but don’t pay Seth 400$ a month for it.  I mean, Squidoo is free (as far as I’ve ever used it), and if you even have any (even) small ability as an SEO or Internet marketer, you can get the page you create to rank pretty easily for your brand.

I think there are other networks out there that you can use as personal accounts that would also serve your purpose as a business owner, but you have to get in and really understand what that specific network is about, and how to best use it.  If your main goal is to drum up business, and that is THE ONLY REASON you are using social networks, then the answer is simple – always create it for your business.  Create the domain/ID name/profile/brand whatever centered around your business.  I think this is what you are really asking with this question because it does not seem like you are the person that is wanting to set up these accounts to keep in contact with friends or find a long lost love?  Am I right?

Or, hire someone to do this for you (see the end for my recommendation).

25 Ways to Get a Web Site or Blog Indexed by Google or Search Engines

1. Get a link from an established blog. You could email and ask a related blog or hit up your blogging friends. Some pay for this (although it’s frowned upon). Another way to do this legally is to offer to guest post on someone’s blog and link back to your site or blog with a keyword phrase.
2. Tell Google about your blog.
3. Tell Google blog search too.
4. Add your site to Google Webmaster Central
5. Add your blog to Yahoo Site Explorer
6. Create a lens about your blog on Squidoo. You can create more than one lens, one for each major keyword phrase.
7. Create an account on this blog community: MyBlogLog
8. BlogCatalog
9. Blogged
10. NetworkedBlogs
11. Get listed on blog search engine Technorati.
12. Register with sites that give the “value” of your blog: WebsiteOutlook,
13. StatBrain,
14. CubeStat,
15. WebTrafficAgents,
16. BuiltWith,
17. WhoIs,
18. QuarkBase,
19. URLfan
20. AboutTheDomain
21. Create a profile for your blog on social sites like Twitter. Some let you establish a profile and a custom link – use keyword phrases.
22. Get on Facebook then go to www.facebook.com/usernames and create a custom username for your site or blog. You can feed your blog onto your Facebook page. Do this on LinkedIn too.
23. Delicious will not only let you bookmark and share sites but again you can create a profile and custom URL. Plus you can link to your blog.
24. Sign up ChangeDetectionthat logs when your site changes (and essentially creates new content about your site).
25. Sites like pingler ping search engines when you change your blog.

I just found out that if you’re an author and your book is on Amazon.com you can create an author profile page where you can blog or feed your blog in automatically. The link goes to my author page.

This outsourcing company in India charges $6/hour. I sent them this list to market my new blog. CDBaby’s CEO used them all the time and had nothing but good to say about them! They have quite a selection of services.

I’d love to do a case study with a new blog – one that I did nothing and one that I followed these 25 tips. Then compare the numbers. Any volunteers?

Please share your tips for getting a new site or blog indexed in search engines.

Here is Janet’s story:

I twitter every day and have been building a network there for over a year. First it was a way to talk to friends and follow what was happening in my industry. Then it became a valuable networking tool for my business. One day a few months ago, I logged on and my password didn’t work. I tried again, same issue. I was sure it was the right password.

I went to my twitter account page, www.newspapergrl.com and it said, “this account has been suspended for suspicious activity…nothing to see here, mozy along” or something simliar. My first response was panic. Later it was anger.

Suspended Twitter Account

Several people told me I’d get back on quickly. I contacted another friend through Facebook who had the same thing happen to her. She said she was still banned and it had been several weeks. I started to think this might not be resolved as quickly as I hoped. Maybe it wouldn’t ever be. Luckily, I had reserved the more logical version of my profile name: newspapergirl. I thought I’d start over.

In a chat with another friend who had been banned I wrote: “If we get back on we need to backup our account so we could recreate it. I wish Twitter would just charge us for services instead of having to go elsewhere.”

Here’s a piece of an IM conversation I had about it.

friend: DID YOU GET SUSPENDED ON TWITTER TOO???? DAMN THEM!
9:08 PM me: YES
DID YOU???
friend: yes.
sucks
me: no way
friend: yes way

I could start a new network, but I had so much history, so much content that I couldn’t piece back together. I couldn’t remember all the people I was following or who followed me.

Finally I contacted friends asking them to vouch for me. A few days later I logged back in. Since then several of my friends have been banned. Once your account is gone you realize how valuable it is to you and how much work and time it would take

Back up your Twitter account

to rebuild if you lost it.

The end of Janet’s story and the beginning of mine.

After hearing Janet’s story I started asking myself the question — how valuable is my Twitter account? and what would I do if I lost my account, it got hacked, or it was suspended.  It’s not like Twitter is just suspending accounts for good reasons here and there, you can read this article from Jesse Stay at Stay N’ Alive where he talked about Twitter suspending accounts by the hundreds of thousands for no apparent reason.  Honestly, I don’t know what I would have done until I found out that Bloggled offers a Twitter backup feature that allowed me to totally back up my Twitter account, followers and all.  The process is simple and painless and give me some comfort knowing that if something crazy does happen I have a Twitter back up to fall back on.

The Power of Twitter

I had an amazing meeting this afternoon with 3 of the coolest guys you would ever be so lucky to meet. These guys are clients of mine, who wanted to discuss Twitter as well as the best ways to leverage its power. Everyone of these guys (up to this point) were WAY TOO COOL to use (or be found dead on) Twitter. By the end of the 2 hour meeting (which really did FLY by) they were ALL ready to get their own personal Twitter accounts setup (besides the corporate one I had already helped them set up).

Why the change of heart for these hardest of hard core “cool dudes”?

It really is simple - I showed and helped them understand the power of Twitter and what it would/could do for their business (as well as what it could do for them individually).

Businesses for the most part, still just don’t get Twitter. They feel it is simply a trendy fad and you’re less cool for being a part of (I admit that it is a fad).  My clients were actually worried that they would look like sell outs to all the hard cores out there in their specific industry. True or not, they need to be taking advantage of what it is doing for businesses right now, just like they will be needing to take advantage of whatever fad is helping businesses in two years from now.

I explained to them, there is at least one reason to get a corporate Twitter account, which is to get your business (Twitter URL) name locked down before the competition (or worse – someone who hates you more) does and causes you some major online reputation management problems. How would you like to have someone out there pretending to be you, promoting stuff you may not want to be promoting, and getting fans and followers (and money) off of your good name that you have taken the time, and spent the money to gain? This piece of advice really opened their eyes. I am always surprised that more businesses do not understand this.

Now, these guys are not idiots when it comes to social stuff (in fact they do very well on Youtube and other social forums, but they still have a long way to come when understanding the overall pictures of social media and reasons that a business must embrace it. This is one of my most important challenges as an Internet marketer – helping businesses understand and grasp the “big picture” of online marketing strategies. You are not simply “tweeting” ONLY to make sales, or creating amazing content that will FP Digg just because it will make you initial sales. There is more to it… which I will explain as you read further.

Here is a breakdown of some of the “eye opening” things (to these guys) I told my clients today in terms of helping them to understand the direction they need to take Twitter with their company:

1. Online Reputation Management - making sure you are the one that is in control of your name and brand socially.
2. Customer Service – if people know you can be reached via Twitter, they will reach you. You can often help people much quicker and easier through Twitter. (140 chars, or less baby) Saves a ton of time from annoying phone calls, am I right??
3. Tips – These guys are in an industry filled with people looking for tips, so what better platform to put your tips out there?  Get in front of the millions of people who are using Twitter everyday. Tips are a great way to get people checking back and can help increase the number of followers you have tremendously!
4. Services – Let it be known why you are on Twitter, and how exactly you can help people via Twitter (what services you are willing to offer etc).
5. Humor - Just because you are on “trendy Twitter” does not mean you can’t be yourself and make people laugh. In fact, the more you are yourself and let people know its the real YOU, or the REAL COMPANY that they have grown to trust and love, the more likely it is going to do you good – and get you more followers.
6. Videos - Again, if you are in a field that has videos, Twitter is a great place to share them – especially if they are going to make people laugh, teach them, or in some other way “enlighten” them!
7. Content promotion – Got a blog? Well make sure you put up a “tweet” every time you got a new post live. The more people that like it will re-tweet it and share it. The more people share it and pass it around, the better it is for you (but that should be a no brainer huh?)
8. Product promotions – Its OK to promote products that you offer on Twitter – it really is. Just make sure you are doing other things with your Twitter account besides just “promoting”. You are more likely to make sales and gain (not lose) followers by mixing it up!
9. Contests – A great way to gain new followers and get more people interested (or knowing) about your brand. Offer something that will get people talking about, and linking back to you. This is very powerful when done right!
10. Reach new customers – You want to be doing everything you can to be finding new customers. The old hard core base is great, but the only way to expand and gain more customers is by stepping outside the traditional methods of marketing. I had to help these guys understand that traffic from Youtube is great, but why not throw in 10 more sites that will do 10x better for them? Lets hit ALL areas people!!! Are ya with me??

Finally, I ended it by sharing some reasons (and personal experiences – you have to be my client to hear – hah) as to why I am on Twitter personally and how it can help make money and grow you as an individual.  I think that was the final thing that did it for these guys. Basically, I told them that there are people looking for stuff and asking questions on Twitter all day long – if your company can provide those answers (or services) and get paid for it – then WHY ARE YOU NOT DOING IT?

My meeting ended with one of the guys throwing down his pencil to say “DAMMIT MAT, now I am going to HAVE to go get a Twitter account when you put it that way.” We all had a good laugh, and they accused me of being the reason their business was going “soft” but it was all in fun and games and was a truly amazing breakthrough.