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Using Photo Sharing Websites in Your Social Media SEO Campaign

admin — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 20:21:06 +0000

One element of social media which is sometimes over looked is photo sharing websites such as Flickr and Photobucket. These sites allow you to create an account and upload your photos and images.

The importance of these photo sharing sites is that once you have added your photos you can create descriptions, titles and keywords just like a web page on your website. The photo albums you create can be linked into your website or blog and used as a slideshow.

By creating these albums with their descriptions, titles and keywords not only can people view your images within these sites but they will also appear within search engine results especially image results and this has to be good for your website.

By making the images as attractive as possible so people want to search for them and view them as this way you are increasing your chances of traffic to your website.

To get the people who view your images to your site many of the photo sharing sites allow you to add a direct link into your website from either the image itself or through your profile page on there. The easy the link is to find the higher the levels of traffic to your site. You can then see the impact of your images by studying Google Analytics and seeing how many people linked into your site from the images

Always remember to ALT tag all of your images on your website too so you get maximum exposure on image search engine results, every little bit helps with your SEO and SEM campaign.

Using Photo Sharing Websites in Your Social Media SEO Campaign is a post from: wordpressrobot.com

How to Integrate Your SEO and Social Marketing

admin — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 20:24:25 +0000

Integrating your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) with Social Marketing is easier than you might think because Social Marketing is an essential facet of SEO and one that is becoming increasingly relevant as social networking sites continue to become more popular. If Social Marketing is a term that sounds complicated and intimidating, it can be greatly simplified and more easily understood if you consider that it is merely the oldest form of marketing around that has been given a new name.

Simply put, Social Marketing is word-of-mouth-advertising accelerated and made much more accessible by technology through the use of blogs, forums, inbound and outbound links, and social networking sites such as MySpace, Digg, Flickr, Facebook, and others. All these methods create communities of people with common interests and give them the opportunity to ask questions, share ideas, offer criticism, and get feedback from their peers and your company.

Here are some ideas that you can employ to integrate SEO with Social Marketing strategies so your company gains the maximum benefit from these very dynamic marketing strategies:

The most important part of integrating SEO with Social Marketing is getting started and developing a plan but once these strategies are in place, you’ll be amazed by the new volume of traffic to your site.

How to Integrate Your SEO and Social Marketing is a post from: wordpressrobot.com

My Almost Free Twitter-based Corporate Social Media Strategy

admin — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 05:36:12 +0000

What if you could reach a few million people, improve customer support, tap into an incredible wealth of customer satisfaction data, protect and enhance your brand, and obtain some positive coverage, all for under $500? But wait, thereâ??s more! Sounds like a late-night infomercial, but in fact, a minimal investment (mostly time) can help you establish a highly visible and rewarding social media outpost on Twitter.

If youâ??re trying to figure out how social media can be integrated into your corporate communications strategy, follow this simple program. Donâ??t hire expensive consultants, donâ??t spend millions of dollars on viral marketing programs, and donâ??t wait to be shown proven ROI for social media initiatives. Just roll up your sleeves, get on Twitter, be genuine, and actually respond to and assist consumers.

Of course there are other social networks and opportunities to use social media in your corporate communications initiatives, and Twitter hosts a relatively small audience, perhaps two million people. But online, two million people who are extremely well-versed in the use of social media tools can be a very influential audience. Their comments on your company, its willingness to engage with customers, and the quality of its customer support not only reach a potentially much larger audience, but once published, are on the web almost forever to be retrieved via a search on your company name. If those comments are negative, wouldnâ??t you like the opportunity to respond? And if theyâ??re positive, wouldnâ??t you like to know that as well?

Iâ??m sure youâ??ve heard it said hundreds of times, that thereâ??s an online conversation going on about your company. And as much as this is a metaphorical conversation, it is also, in many social networks, forums and chat rooms, an actual conversation in which real people are sharing their experiences with your company.

I was inspired to write this piece as I watched this morning as a well known vehicle rental company come under attack on Twitter. A Twitter user with more than 1500 â??friendsâ? commented on a bad experience involving the company. Perhaps feeling that the company didnâ??t care about his plight, he invited other Twitter users to share their negative experiences with the company, and thus was born a groundswell of negativity. The company in question had no clear presence on Twitter, and did not get involved in the conversation. Here are a few of the comments:

â??horrendous serviceâ?¦fails on many levelsâ?¦poorly maintained trucks too.â?â??I’m going to need a moving truck soon…maybe I should try another company this time aroundâ?â??abysmal customer serviceâ?â??I have had way too many problems with them – bad equipment, oversold equipment, etc.â?To get an idea whether your company is being talked about on Twitter, go to http://www.search.twitter.com, and enter your company name. You will be able to scan, in chronological order, user comments about your company. Whether these are largely negative, positive or neutral, each is an opportunity for you to weigh in, which is perfectly legitimate to do on Twitter. And you would be remiss not to.

Itâ??s difficult for me to say that they â??shouldâ? have been on Twitter, but I have to ask, why not? One company after another has been in the news as they have established a presence on Twitter and started engaging one-on-one with consumers. I am not exaggerating when I say the cost of being on Twitter is under $500. Twitter membership, even for corporations, is free, but I was allowing $500 to pay for the time to have someone in corporate communications sign up, create a simple graphics backdrop for the page, complete the very brief profile, and begin the conversation.

Itâ??s not that hard to do. I recently wrote on my blog about the Seven Rules for Establishing a Corporate Presence on Twitter. These are very simple guidelines for branding your Twitter account and making it clear to consumers that it is an authorized company communications vehicle.There are no barriers to Twitter entry. As I said, it costs nothing, and you do not need to create any content, but you do need to identify one or more company spokespeople who can be online periodically to respond to consumer inquiries, questions and concerns. Home Depotâ??s account is staffed by Sarah, a PR person who has agreed to â??moonlightâ? on Twitter to respond to customer comments and issues. Comcastâ??s account is staffed by its â??digital careâ? group, and jetBlueâ??s is managed by the companyâ??s corporate communications team. Surely there are one or two people in your company who are social media savvy, and connected either to your communications or customer support organizations, who can spend 30-60 minutes a day engaging with consumers, solving problems, and improving the companyâ??s reputation. Not doing so doesnâ??t seem very smart.

Â

My Almost Free Twitter-based Corporate Social Media Strategy is a post from: wordpressrobot.com

Ability Of Social Networking Sites To Offer Customer Service And Improve Brand Image

admin — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 05:41:48 +0000

One social networking site that has proved to be powerful is twitter. Currently, studies have proved that twitter is one of the fastest growing website. Therefore, whether you have an offline or online business you can use social networking websites as a platform to interact with your customers and more so get feedback on your products and services.

To increase your business brand name presence, you can offer customer service and support to your target market using twitter. This is because on twitter you will have the ability to offer quick response to your customers needs and thus improve your brand image. On twitter you can monitor and respond to customer issues via tweetbeep where notifications are sent directly to your customers email address.

Eliciting feedback from customers using twitter is also easy; ask your customers what they think about your products or services. This way you will get quick responses and also using the same platform, acknowledge their feedback.

Another powerful feature of twitter is retweeting. Retweet is where you re-post a tweet that was posted by your followers. Therefore, if you receive a valuable tweet you can opt to retweet the same. This will help you increase the number of people following you and more so get your posts retweeted. As a result you will reach other people who may later become potential clients.

Any business venture that fails to see and seize the opportunity that technology is offering is bound to be left behind. Social networking websites like twitter and facebook have shown that business owners are now in a position to reach a wide target market both locally and internationally.

Ability Of Social Networking Sites To Offer Customer Service And Improve Brand Image is a post from: wordpressrobot.com

How To Use Twitter And Social Media Marketing To Explode Your Online Profits

admin — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 05:34:12 +0000

Itâ??s not surprising that social media has become so popular in so short a time. Not only is it a source of entertainment for most people, it is also the newest strategy for acquiring customers for businesses. And with hot new tools like Twitter, social media marketing has only become more progressive and popular!

What Is Twitter?

In case youâ??re not familiar with Twitter, it is a social media tool that allows people to know what their fellow twitterers (people using twitter) are doing at this very moment.

Are you getting ready for bed? Put that on Twitter! Are you buying a new couch or writing a report on the effects of social media marketing? Put that on Twitter! Are you throwing a birthday party for your golden retriever? Well, you can put that on Twitter as well. There are no boundaries as to what you can put on Twitter. In Twitter, even the most mundane updates about your life can be pretty liberating.Â

Sounds simple, right? Perhaps, it is this simplicity that has made Twitter quite a sensation on the Internet. Thereâ??s also something amusing about knowing what other people are doing and letting them know your own business as well. This combination of fun and simplicity is what ultimately appeals to Twitter fans.

Applying Twitter In Business

If youâ??re business-minded, then you probably already have more than a few ideas on how to make this social media marketing tool work for you. Having a Twitter account allows you to inform your clients and would-be clients the progress in your company. Youâ??re not putting up an ad every week (because that tends to be annoying). However, you get the chance to share with them whatâ??s happening to your companyâ??s products, people, tools, etc. right now.Â

Twitter, unlike MySpace and Facebook, poses an advantage for new and advanced marketers. As an efficient social media marketing tool, Twitter allows you to build a giant list of followers. It allows your clients and subscribers to see what youâ??re doing right now. It gives them access to your immediate profile and permits you to share your ideas with other twitterers. All free of charge.

How Twitter Can Explode Your Profits

While many people have other purposes and values for the use of the free service, the marketer can use Twitter to jumpstart a list of followers that can grow into thousands.

If youâ??re someone who sells used cars, you can use Twitter to attract members who are interested in automobiles. When a new shipment comes in, you can use Twitter to announce that the latest Ford model has arrived. Or if youâ??re having a sale, you can use Twitter to let everybody know about it.

These followers are the next best thing to customers. If they havenâ??t bought anything from you yet, then you can rest assured that they will be buying something soon. As long as you keep providing them something nice to look forward to, they will always be enticed to purchase something from your company.

Think of it as fishing. You already have the fish interested in your bait. All you have to do is wait for the fish to bite. According to quantcast.com, Twitter reaches about 6.1 million U.S. people every month. This social media tool has also reached other countries and is hugely popular in Japan. In fact, there are other Twitter-like applications that have popped up due to its insane fame!

Despite the huge popularity of Twitter, it is not a disorganized system that doesnâ??t have any limits. For example, you can only send 1,000 updates, 100 API requests and send 250 direct messages each day. And while there is no limit to the people who can follow you, the same freedom doesnâ??t apply vice-versa.

The maximum number of people you can follow is limited to 2,000. In Twitter-speak, to follow means to receive Twitter updates. This limit will only be lifted if you manage to attract more than 2,000 followers to your account.

According to Twitter, this is done to prevent SPAM users from adding up into their system and to prevent abuse from all current members.

Itâ??s not that difficult to attract more followers into your account. In the long run, this will only make your Twitter account more meaningful because of the effort youâ??ve put into it.

The beauty at this stage is that once you are at such a level, itâ??s easier to attract new followers into your account. The benefits from taking such steps are acquiring your own list of eager followers (in which you can pitch your own products and services); and more importantly, gaining new business contacts.

Other Social Media Marketing Methods

There are other methods of social media marketing available for your use. Twitter isnâ??t the only way to enhance your business and get a constant flow of leads.

Other methods you can explore include:

1) Blogs

2) Community forums

3) Social networking sites such as Facebook, Myspace, and LinkedIn.

4) Video-sharing sites such as Youtube, Metacafe, Google videos, Yahoo videos, and AOL videos.

5) Content sharing sites such as Squidoo, Hubpages, Wetpaint, Qassia, and Google Knol.

These days, you shouldnâ??t just limit yourself to one thing. With the Internet as vast as it is, you should use every opportunity to make new contacts and establish yourself. Besides, think of all the new things you can learn from interacting with other people online!

Leave comments on your choice blogs and participate in forum discussions that allow for signature files after every post.Â Make informative videos and upload them to video-sharing sites.Â Explode your list of contacts through social networking sites. Share your knowledge and be recognized as an authority by submitting your content to content-sharing sites.

Not only will these help you establish credibility, you probably wonâ??t even have to worry or stress about making money in the future. Remember that social media marketing, like any other marketing methods, works if you work it! Now like many of our mentors say â?? get to work!

How To Use Twitter And Social Media Marketing To Explode Your Online Profits is a post from: wordpressrobot.com

Increase Site Pagerank Overnight With These 6 PR9-PR8 Social Bookmark Sites

admin — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 08:56:30 +0000

You can increase site pagerank overnight by submitting it to top social bookmark and voting sites. I know, you might already have a list of biggest social network sites. But in this article you will find out the best sites which are really worth to use in your site promotion.

How To Increase Site Pagerank In A Few Days?

As you know, popular social media sites are often crawled by Google and other popular search engines. And by submitting your site to them you get quality backlinks that help to get your website quickly indexed.

Of course, I do not mean you should submit your site or sites to those popular social voting sites all in one day. No, this is not recommended at all! Why? – Because Google loves only natural linking. Otherwise, your hard efforts can be useless when you find out only a few backlinks after you have submitted your website to hundreds of social media sites.

Here is an action plan for getting better pagerank using social media networks:

PR 9 social bookmark sites:

technorati.com

slashdot.org

PR 8 social bookmark sites:

digg.com

del.icio.us

stumbleupon.com

Reddit.com

Conclusion:

I myself often use the above mentioned sites to get my articles to the first page of Google in a few days. Therefore I know that they really work. Simply try and you will understand what I mean exactly.

Increase Site Pagerank Overnight With These 6 PR9-PR8 Social Bookmark Sites is a post from: wordpressrobot.com

Social Networking and Your Business, How Much Is Too Much?

admin — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 00:41:01 +0000

There has been a huge buzz surrounding the advantages of using social networking websites to promote your home business. Websites like Twitter and Facebook have been hailed as the latest, greatest way to gain more traffic to your website, and promote business programs that you are involved with.But, did you know that there are ways that social networking can harm your efforts at running a successful business? That’s what this article is all about. Hopefully, many readers will already realize the importance of this, and will have taken action to avoid having social networking harm their business efforts. For those readers that think I must be off my rocker, this is a must read!The first and most common way that social networking websites, especially Twitter, can harm you business is by simply overusing the system. Because of it’s ease of use, many home business owners have become so caught up in using Twitter and other social networking sites for their promotion that they have abandoned other proven methods of business marketing. Rather then spend their business day writing articles, working on SEO for their website, etc., they will spend a few minutes on Twitter, promoting their business, update their Facebook Status or Notes for something to do with their business, and call it a day. This is the old saying about putting all your eggs in one basket, and it simply won’t work.Another way social networking promotion can hurt your business is with the age old “art” of Spamming. We are all familiar with the Junk folder in our email accounts, and how quickly it will fill up with unsolicited ads promoting everything under the sun. With the dawn of social networking, those who make spam a part of their business have found a new outlet. I can’t count how many times I see one person put up 4-10 posts in a row, and all of them are advertising something! I have received messages on Facebook, from people I barely know, selling me the latest “Get Rich Now” marketing gimmick. This does not make anyone want to buy into something, and may even make them angry enough to report you. If you spam consistently on Twitter, you can kiss your account goodbye, so why waste your time? The final harmful social networking factor that I will mention here applies more to Twitter than any other site. This is the use of programs that will automatically post tweets for you, all day everyday. The programs themselves are not a bad idea. The problem lies in the fact that many business owners use them as a “set and forget” type of marketing. If I see someone on Twitter making the same posts at the same time, week after week, it becomes obvious that this person has no interest in the social aspect of the site. I personally am more inclined to be interested in someone if that person shows an interest in me. After a few days of seeing the same tweets over and over, I stop viewing that person’s tweets altogether, and if they’re really overdoing it, I will unfollow them. So good job, instead of making a sale, you lost one more.If you partake in any of the methods I have mentioned here, I have a bit of advice for you:-Do not treat social networking sites as the ultimate advertising tool. While Twitter and others are useful, and do work well for business promotion, you need to use other methods too. The tried and tested marketing methods still work, and should be applied to your campaigns as well.-Do not spam your friends/followers. You are guaranteed to lose more sales than you make if you employ this method. It has been said that only 10% of your social networking time should be spent actually promoting. That means that 90% of the time, you should be adding something of value to your network. This way, when you do mention your business, people will be more inclined to pay attention.-If you use autoposting software for Twitter and other sites, keep it fresh. I personally try to use these programs only when I am away for a longer period of time. If you use these programs often, change your posts on a regular basis, to avoid having your message become old, stale, and ignored.If you use common sense, manage your time well, and stick to these guidelines, you can have a lot of success promoting your business through social networking. If you can’t do this, then you might be better off forgoing this marketing method altogether. At least don’t add me!

Social Networking and Your Business, How Much Is Too Much? is a post from: wordpressrobot.com

Social Networking Security and Safety Precautions

admin — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 10:59:04 +0000

Kids and teenagers tend to browse social networking sites a lot – it is where they get news, meet new friends and share pictures or videos among other things that they can do in these sites. However, social networking sites prove to make kids and teens vulnerable as they post personal information for the whole internet world to see, making them easy preys for online predators.

Here are some tips that will help in protecting kids and teens when they browse and use social networking sites:1.Understand the site – you won’t know what you’re dealing with until you’ve checked it out for yourself. Read the privacy policy, terms of usage and conduct, find out which kinds of people use the site.2.Review pages – it would be best if you knew what your child or teen is putting on his/her profile page. Try to look at it objectively – meaning, you don’t intrude into their private lives as long as they aren’t doing anything wrong. Although if you see something on their pages that are against your rules, talk to them about it and tell them to remove it.3.Set internet rules – just as you have house rules, you must be clear about setting some internet rules that the kids must abide with, otherwise, they lose their browsing privileges.4.Don’t let kids and teens meet anyone they met online – with all the news we hear about online predators and their young victims, I think this point is clear enough and self-explanatory. We don’t want our kids to be the next one to be reported.5.Private information should remain private – remind your kids and teens not to use their real names, or at the very least, not their full names. They should also know that home addresses, landline numbers, web messenger ids and cellphone numbers must not be publicly seen on their profiles. If possible, they shouldn’t be putting those at all.6.Look for alternatives – there are a lot of social networking sites today, and some offer a good security measure to avoid anything that we don’t want to happen. Especially to our children. Advice your kids and teens to set the privacy of their profiles, limiting the views only to people they personally know.7.Be cautious about media – photographs and personal videos must not give away personal details like addresses, schools and car plates. Be sure to check the pictures and videos that your children are uploading.8.Emotions should be kept in check – kids, teens especially, tend to post highly-emotional entries on their blogs that some social networking sites provide. Advise them not to do this often as they tend to become more vulnerable to online predators. Warn them about the danger they might be in if they keep posting their personal feelings this way.9.Use web filters – this can help in keeping your kids and teens away from the bad sites, images, videos and other online materials that they should not be exposed to.10.Removing profile pages – if all else fails, you can contact the webmasters of the social networking sites your children belong to and ask them to delete your child’s profile permanently.These are just some basic steps on how to protect your kids and teens from the dangers social networking sites may pose. There are other things that a parent can do if they feel that their child really is in danger, but it is always a good idea to apply the necessary precautions to avoid dealing with something bigger and nastier in the future.

Social Networking Security and Safety Precautions is a post from: wordpressrobot.com

A Brief Look Into the World of Social Networking

admin — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 10:58:40 +0000

A Brief Look into the World of Social Networking

Undeniably, social networking has been one of the biggest internet fads to date, having millions of people subscribe and visit the countless social networking sites everyday. With the popularity of social networking these days, someone who isn’t taking part of all these can’t help but wonder if there are any real benefits to it all – whether if you’re personally using it or your company is using it. A lot of social networking members will claim that there are heaps of benefits to these kinds of sites so let’s take a look at some of them:

1. Building a “social network”

When you’re a member of social bookmarking sites, you get to meet friends the world over. You aren’t restricted to your own local community when it comes to meeting new people, unless of course, the social network that you belong to is restricted to your locality alone. These people can become mere acquaintances, friends or even business partners. Relationships in social networks tend to be flexible. Your social network can also be “specialized” depending on what you need a social network for.

2. Social networking sites have different categories

As stated in the first point, you can choose which social network you want to subscribe to depending on how you want to use it. There are different kinds of social networking sites:

Conventional and generic networks

News networks

Bookmarking networks

Business networks

Media-sharing networks

Video-sharing

Image-sharing

Music-sharing

Startpage networks

Fitness and sport networks

Widgets and plug-ins networks

Mobile networks

With the knowledge of the different kinds of social networking sites, you can easily choose those that are to your interests and build a network that will suit your needs as an individual, career-person or a business entity. For a more in-depth look at the many forms of the social networking world, you can check this list:

A Brief Look Into the World of Social Networking is a post from: wordpressrobot.com

Social Bookmarking Networks: How Do You Create the Popular Stories?

admin — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 10:58:52 +0000

It’s probably the dream of every social bookmarking network’s user to have their submitted stories and articles make it to the front page of the site. Why? Because making it to the front page (and not just in the “just submitted” category) means that a lot of people voted positive on this article. It only follows that they like the article because they voted positive for it. By liking it, it means they have read it. By reading the article, it means they have visited your site. This is very rewarding in terms of traffic and, more importantly, in potential income.

If you have a site and/or a blog, you should know how the basics of making money off them goes. It’s either one or all of these money-making strategies:

* People buy your service or product

* People click on your affiliate links and other advertisements and purchase from them

* The page views and page loads that you get is converted into money by some ad servers

This is, of course, impossible without traffic and attention from potential visitors which is why social bookmarking can help especially if you’re just starting out with your business or site. In order to achieve good traffic from these bookmarking sites, you must first learn how to attract people into voting for your articles and making them popular for more people to see.

Listed here are a few tips and tricks (depending on how you call them) on how to create that popular article to promote your site:

1. Offer something unique

I know, I know. Being unique these days is either overrated or too hard to do. My vote is on the latter. With so many “unique” stories popping out everywhere on the internet, people’s attention are divided into the many different unique articles being submitted into social bookmarking sites. Try to scour the web for something that you think would make it big; if it’s not there, you can bet that it’s your time to shine, and if it is, think of some ways on how to beat that existing article that you found….

Social Bookmarking Networks: How Do You Create the Popular Stories? is a post from: wordpressrobot.com