There is a buzz going all around about buzz. Confused?? I was too, but this buzz is working wonderfully well. Social media optimization is all about creating a buzz about a product or service that one wants to promote. Finding the correct combination of doing all these things is a tricky buisness and one needs to undertake meticulous research for this. Well if this is not done chnaces of a goof up is really high and I am sure that no business owner can afford this. It is their call to implement methods and strategies which they feel is ideally suited for a business.
Reaching out to target group is not something which one can just do without any worries. So try to anlyse the competition that is existing in the market. This will give you a clear prospetive to decide how to work for creating the buzz in the correct way in just the correct places. The key of being sucessful in creating a buzz lies in doing it properly and meticulosly.
After all the only aim that people entering a buisness have is to earn huge profits. Try and learn how this whole buzz thing can work successfully for you. Some of the postings in this blog deal with this in detail.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Where to hunt for targeted traffic???
Targeted traffic and more targetted traffic, that is all I have hard after putting up my own site. Well I completely understand the concept, but the big question looming over my mind was "Where do I get hold of this Targeted Traffic?" Big question and no answers were fortcoming and anything that came to me was just crap. I tried some and as expected there was no results. Well saying soemthing is pretty easy, but actually finding out a way fo doing this is a tough job. So the next time you come across something new, try to also know how things are done for this or should be done.
Social Netwroking sites have been often found to be the idela platform to work towards brning in targetted traffic. Well what better place to inlfuence mind and eyeballs then the place where majority of regualr online visiotors stumble. Hitting eyeballs and grabbing attention are the only things that work. Who has all the time in this world to go through every detail, just make sure that you hit them where it matters the most. Only instant gratification is that which will appease them.
The area of opertaion is huge and you need to get focused and decide what exactly do you want to do. Getting targeted traffic is what will work for you and make this popular. Undertake different things, you never know which one will just work out perfectly for you.
Social Netwroking sites have been often found to be the idela platform to work towards brning in targetted traffic. Well what better place to inlfuence mind and eyeballs then the place where majority of regualr online visiotors stumble. Hitting eyeballs and grabbing attention are the only things that work. Who has all the time in this world to go through every detail, just make sure that you hit them where it matters the most. Only instant gratification is that which will appease them.
The area of opertaion is huge and you need to get focused and decide what exactly do you want to do. Getting targeted traffic is what will work for you and make this popular. Undertake different things, you never know which one will just work out perfectly for you.
The hue and cry is real this time!!!
I have been hearing about Social Media Optimization for quite sometime and the only thing playing in my mind was, 'Now what is this and whatever it is, will it actually bring about a change that so many people are looking for?'. Well now that I am somewhat familiar with this all I can say is, it is pretty promising. Remeber I don't say I am fully familiar about Social Media Optimization, well How can I when so many innovations are taking place almost everyday.
I heard so much about soicla media optmization and though the best way to test the tall claims is to try and do it. So I impelented this in my site and the only thing wich I can say without a doubt now is that this thing really works. And whats more I just did not have to learn any new software to use this. Handling too many software at a time can be really tough, specially for someone who is not so keen on handling technical aspects. So all you non techie persons out there, this is what you must be trying your hand at.
The best part is you get results by doing this. If you have been thinking that SMO is one more hopeless thing doing the rounds, rest easy its not so. Try this once before you discard this totally and the results will be there for you to see. The other posts in this blog speak in details about the technique, so I am leaving out that portion.
Friday, April 27, 2007
Social Media Optimization brings more traffic to website
There are various methods of methods and techniques that are considered by businesses to promote a website. Among all the methods, social media optimization is one such technique that has created a buzz in today’s business world. Unlike other optimization process, social media optimization is very much similar as it also makes a website popular through effective methods.
There is very slight difference between the functioning of social media optimization and other search engine optimization. It uses several methods to increase the links to a website. To remain in the world of e-commerce, one needs to make changes in the website on a regular basis. If you feel the website needs some change then you must make some change in the appearance and looks of the website.
The messages should be eye catching, meaningful and relevant as well. So, a change will definitely bring some more popular by increase in the number of online visitors. Bring huge traffic to the website is the best possible way to make your website popular. Putting up the content or blog of your website in a unique way will bring more links to your website. Making use of innovative methods for putting up the content of your website can really popularize your website. The idea behind is to promote the website within a very short time.
Through this, you are also making visitors aware with many things that helps them in every possible manner. The more relevant content will be on your website more visitors will visit your website.
Social Media Optimization-an advance and effective medium to make money
The world is running with the new technologies and techniques and so we are also very much involved with this. Every individual wants to make an interaction with technology that creates something new for us and we are very much influenced by it.
The idea to optimize an online business site helps in such a manner that your website is linked to other websites and it becomes more visible in the social media search category. Online visitors are sure to come across through many well known sites and in this way, the website gets huge promotion. While undertaking social media optimization, you must be familiar with the facts that every business has different needs and requirements. Your business can get a huge success only if you are fully aware of your business requirements.
Social media optimization is such a process that makes a website popular by providing links to other websites. You can also exchange links of your own websites to other sites so that many users who visit a reputed site will come to know about your website and in this your purpose will be solved. The business will get huge popularity and it can bring more money for you.
The website that you want to promote must have latest and updated information with relevance so that maximum the visitors get satisfaction. If the website is really relevant then visitors will also recommend it to other friends and colleagues. The website can see huge traffic and visitor will love to visit your website.
The idea to optimize an online business site helps in such a manner that your website is linked to other websites and it becomes more visible in the social media search category. Online visitors are sure to come across through many well known sites and in this way, the website gets huge promotion. While undertaking social media optimization, you must be familiar with the facts that every business has different needs and requirements. Your business can get a huge success only if you are fully aware of your business requirements.
Social media optimization is such a process that makes a website popular by providing links to other websites. You can also exchange links of your own websites to other sites so that many users who visit a reputed site will come to know about your website and in this your purpose will be solved. The business will get huge popularity and it can bring more money for you.
The website that you want to promote must have latest and updated information with relevance so that maximum the visitors get satisfaction. If the website is really relevant then visitors will also recommend it to other friends and colleagues. The website can see huge traffic and visitor will love to visit your website.
Social Media Optimization - an efficient medium to popularize website
Social media optimization is new advanced technique that is utilized for making a website easily accessible to the online visitors on the world wide web. Today, the world is influenced by internet and so it can also be called internet age where instantaneous information and indulgence with enjoyment is what the people are looking for.
According to a study, there has been increase in the number of online visitors on daily basis .This is the best and easily accessible for any kind of business to promote about the products and services. Increasing number of visitors will definitely help in the marketing.
As we know that, search engine optimization is all about becoming popular on the world wide web and you need to look into the strategy very efficiently. A good effort will surely be a tremendous boost for the products and services. Well, there are various methods that can be implemented for doing social media optimization and this is really very crucial for those for all those who are serious about the success of their business.
For increasing the popularity of a website, one needs to make increase in the links on the website. Along with this, exchanging links with other websites and also to some well known websites will help in making the website popular.Thus,one can make his new website famous by putting his website link on others and this popularity will help in making the business a successful venture.
According to a study, there has been increase in the number of online visitors on daily basis .This is the best and easily accessible for any kind of business to promote about the products and services. Increasing number of visitors will definitely help in the marketing.
As we know that, search engine optimization is all about becoming popular on the world wide web and you need to look into the strategy very efficiently. A good effort will surely be a tremendous boost for the products and services. Well, there are various methods that can be implemented for doing social media optimization and this is really very crucial for those for all those who are serious about the success of their business.
For increasing the popularity of a website, one needs to make increase in the links on the website. Along with this, exchanging links with other websites and also to some well known websites will help in making the website popular.Thus,one can make his new website famous by putting his website link on others and this popularity will help in making the business a successful venture.
Social Media Optimization is an achievement for promotion
The world is advancing with advent of new advanced and latest technologies. Every other day we come across many new changes as some new techniques emerges in the e-commerce world. Social media optimization is a process to optimize a website so that it can be easily intermingled with an online community or to a community website.
In other words, it can be said that it is a procedure of refining a website so that the promotion of website is easily spread through social mediums or by online communities by users and the visitors of the website. The online users or visitors come across the website and know about its relevance for themselves.Hence, in this way the website gets promoted and many people get connected through this social media.
Infact, this can also be said as a marketing tool that make websites popular among the various online users. The website must be designed with unique style so that it can attract a large number of online users. There are many people who are member of social media websites and in this way many people can come to know about the web promotion.
The simple icons or the links are the perfect example of social media optimization that comes across to the online users. Social media optimization is way that makes a big impact on online marketing. This concept is evolving with a fast pace ever since it came into being. The internet marketers are looking for the many other social media strategies to influence with innovative ideas and concepts for its clients.
In other words, it can be said that it is a procedure of refining a website so that the promotion of website is easily spread through social mediums or by online communities by users and the visitors of the website. The online users or visitors come across the website and know about its relevance for themselves.Hence, in this way the website gets promoted and many people get connected through this social media.
Infact, this can also be said as a marketing tool that make websites popular among the various online users. The website must be designed with unique style so that it can attract a large number of online users. There are many people who are member of social media websites and in this way many people can come to know about the web promotion.
The simple icons or the links are the perfect example of social media optimization that comes across to the online users. Social media optimization is way that makes a big impact on online marketing. This concept is evolving with a fast pace ever since it came into being. The internet marketers are looking for the many other social media strategies to influence with innovative ideas and concepts for its clients.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
MySpace Launches Spanish Site
MySpace is attempting to broaden its reach and appeal with the beta launch of MySpace en Español, a new Spanish-language version for U.S. based Hispanics. They are also launching a new regional site in Spanish for Latin American residents and have plans for localized communities in Mexico and Brazil.
We're moving rapidly to build communities that reflect and respect the lifestyles of our diverse members," said Travis Katz, Senior Vice President and General Manager of MySpace International.
"MySpace en Español opens the community even wider, giving our Hispanic members the choice to share their experiences, connect with family members, and plan their social lives in either Spanish or English. We look forward to getting their feedback as we build out these new cultural communities."
The MySpace en Espanol site will feature content, programming, artists and users in the U.S. Hispanic MySpace population, along with a Spanish language version of the MySpace IM client.
MySpace will be working with local teams to create programming and partnerships for its beta launch of MySpace Latinoamérica . In addition, MySpace has plans to launch a Brazilian site this summer and will officially launch the beta version of MySpace Mexico in the coming months.
MySpace is visited by 43 percent of all U.S.- based Hispanic Internet users and the site is the top 5 most visited sites by the Hispanic online population, according to Nielsen//Netratings.
Source: www.webpronews.com
We're moving rapidly to build communities that reflect and respect the lifestyles of our diverse members," said Travis Katz, Senior Vice President and General Manager of MySpace International.
"MySpace en Español opens the community even wider, giving our Hispanic members the choice to share their experiences, connect with family members, and plan their social lives in either Spanish or English. We look forward to getting their feedback as we build out these new cultural communities."
The MySpace en Espanol site will feature content, programming, artists and users in the U.S. Hispanic MySpace population, along with a Spanish language version of the MySpace IM client.
MySpace will be working with local teams to create programming and partnerships for its beta launch of MySpace Latinoamérica . In addition, MySpace has plans to launch a Brazilian site this summer and will officially launch the beta version of MySpace Mexico in the coming months.
MySpace is visited by 43 percent of all U.S.- based Hispanic Internet users and the site is the top 5 most visited sites by the Hispanic online population, according to Nielsen//Netratings.
Source: www.webpronews.com
Study Seeks Value In Brand Chatter On Social Networks
A STUDY CONDUCTED JOINTLY BY Fox Interactive Media's MySpace and Carat USA's Isobar finds that campaigns taking place within social networks, while difficult to quantify, do in fact deliver value for marketers.
The "Never-Ending Friending" study identified a metric dubbed the "Momentum Effect" by Marketing Evolution, a marketing, measurement and consulting firm. The metric attempts to quantify the impact of a brand within a social network beyond traditional advertising impressions to encompass the viral power of consumer-to-consumer communication.
The findings of the study--conducted over the course of six months with partners TNS, TRU and Marketing Evolution--were presented at a MySpace client summit in Los Angeles on Monday.
"We wanted to answer the question everyone has: 'How do we define success in social media?'" said Heidi Browning, senior vice president of client solutions for Fox Interactive. "Advertising on MySpace is new to everyone. The way most marketers are doing it is building their own communities or microsites within the network. When people come to visit, they can click through on ads, see their own friends there--they can participate. You can add that brand as a 'friend' and bring it into your personal network," Browning said.
Many marketers remain confused and frustrated over how to measure the impact and return on investment of their campaigns with MySpace and other social networks. The lack of any real metrics and standards makes it challenging for marketers to go beyond throwing experimental media dollars into Web 2.0 and 3.0 environments to allocating more substantial budgets.
The study involved quantitative and qualitative feedback from nearly 3,000 U.S. Internet users, as well as MySpace clients for in-depth case studies.
Among the study's key findings: Social networks have spurred a major shift in the way people interact with each other and with media with more than 70% of Americans ages 15 to 34 actively participating in online social networks. The findings also revealed that people are engaging with them during prime-time business and school hours as well.
Isobar clients Adidas and Electronic Arts, both of which have run significant campaigns on MySpace, participated in the study, which attributed more than 70% of their marketing return on investment to the "Momentum Effect."
Both marketers detailed the results of their campaigns (Adidas compared two running show launches, EA debuted a new game) in the study, which sought to quantify what the effect is for marketers of consumers going beyond clicking on an ad.
For example, what is the value of an Adidas brand champion adorning his MySpace home page with Adidas-branded wallpaper? What is the value of such an action, particularly as that person's friends encounter it?
"We looked at awareness levels, responses to an ad, the number of people who came to the custom community--and asked what the exponential value of the conversation happening in the social network is," Browning said. In other words, what value can be placed on the brand chatter among friends in your network?
One MySpace member, a 27-year-old male, noted, "I don't want brands to advertise to me, I want them to be my friends." Browning said people demand a different kind of relationship with "their" brands, and that this calls for alternative communications strategies.
Fox Interactive plans to extend the study to more marketers and share the findings. "Our plan is to make this research as turnkey as possible and to partner with clients," Browning added.
Sarah Fay, president of Isobar, and a veteran interactive marketing strategist, said the problem of quantifying the return on investment from social network involvement continues to be a challenge for marketers and the industry.
"We've been pretty enthusiastic about recommending social networking for online campaigns knowing that there was value past the impressions delivered," she said. "We had a sense of the 'Momentum Effect' but we couldn't quantify it. The Marketing Evolution piece of this helps us understand that a lot better. Granted it's only two clients. We're not sure if it's the pinnacle of what you can achieve, but it's a first stake in the ground. It's not like it all ends here."
The research, Fay said, suggested that 70% of the value of the program was attributed to the viral effect beyond merely purchased media. "That's a lot of added value."
Isobar clients Adidas and EA--and Reebok, which didn't participate in the study--know social networks are right for their brands. "But because this is new, not everyone can envision it right away. You can tap in and use social networking platforms for all kinds of brands but as with everything, there is a finesse involved. It really is all about the creative strategy," Fay observed.
The "Momentum Effect' can be a real "accelerator to any kind of media program if you're able to tap into the consumer-to consumer benefit," Fay said, adding that marketers need to activate the community for their brand.
The new study also found that more than 40% of all social networkers said they use social networking sites to learn more about brands or products that they like, and 28% said at some point a friend has recommended a brand or product to them.
Also, the vast majority of time on social networks was spent connecting with family and friends as opposed to meeting new people. Of those polled, 69% said they use social networks to connect with existing friends and 41% said they use the sites to connect with family members.
In addition, the study revealed that current social networkers spend on average more than seven hours per week on social networking sites, and that those hours are driving the growth of overall time spent online.
More than 31% of online social networkers claim they spend more time on the Web in general after starting to use a social network. They were also more inclined to engage in other entertainment media and activities including listening to music, playing games and talking on their mobile phone.
The study was conducted in a series of focus groups by TRU of MySpace users in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York. An online survey of 3,000+ U.S. panelists ages 14 to 40 was conducted by TNS and included three segments: MySpace users, social networkers from other sites, and non-social networkers.
Finally, detailed case studies including behavioral tracking and survey measurement with two MySpace clients, adidas and Electronic Arts were conducted by ROI measurement firm Marketing Evolution.
By Tobi Elkin Source : www.mediapost.com
The "Never-Ending Friending" study identified a metric dubbed the "Momentum Effect" by Marketing Evolution, a marketing, measurement and consulting firm. The metric attempts to quantify the impact of a brand within a social network beyond traditional advertising impressions to encompass the viral power of consumer-to-consumer communication.
The findings of the study--conducted over the course of six months with partners TNS, TRU and Marketing Evolution--were presented at a MySpace client summit in Los Angeles on Monday.
"We wanted to answer the question everyone has: 'How do we define success in social media?'" said Heidi Browning, senior vice president of client solutions for Fox Interactive. "Advertising on MySpace is new to everyone. The way most marketers are doing it is building their own communities or microsites within the network. When people come to visit, they can click through on ads, see their own friends there--they can participate. You can add that brand as a 'friend' and bring it into your personal network," Browning said.
Many marketers remain confused and frustrated over how to measure the impact and return on investment of their campaigns with MySpace and other social networks. The lack of any real metrics and standards makes it challenging for marketers to go beyond throwing experimental media dollars into Web 2.0 and 3.0 environments to allocating more substantial budgets.
The study involved quantitative and qualitative feedback from nearly 3,000 U.S. Internet users, as well as MySpace clients for in-depth case studies.
Among the study's key findings: Social networks have spurred a major shift in the way people interact with each other and with media with more than 70% of Americans ages 15 to 34 actively participating in online social networks. The findings also revealed that people are engaging with them during prime-time business and school hours as well.
Isobar clients Adidas and Electronic Arts, both of which have run significant campaigns on MySpace, participated in the study, which attributed more than 70% of their marketing return on investment to the "Momentum Effect."
Both marketers detailed the results of their campaigns (Adidas compared two running show launches, EA debuted a new game) in the study, which sought to quantify what the effect is for marketers of consumers going beyond clicking on an ad.
For example, what is the value of an Adidas brand champion adorning his MySpace home page with Adidas-branded wallpaper? What is the value of such an action, particularly as that person's friends encounter it?
"We looked at awareness levels, responses to an ad, the number of people who came to the custom community--and asked what the exponential value of the conversation happening in the social network is," Browning said. In other words, what value can be placed on the brand chatter among friends in your network?
One MySpace member, a 27-year-old male, noted, "I don't want brands to advertise to me, I want them to be my friends." Browning said people demand a different kind of relationship with "their" brands, and that this calls for alternative communications strategies.
Fox Interactive plans to extend the study to more marketers and share the findings. "Our plan is to make this research as turnkey as possible and to partner with clients," Browning added.
Sarah Fay, president of Isobar, and a veteran interactive marketing strategist, said the problem of quantifying the return on investment from social network involvement continues to be a challenge for marketers and the industry.
"We've been pretty enthusiastic about recommending social networking for online campaigns knowing that there was value past the impressions delivered," she said. "We had a sense of the 'Momentum Effect' but we couldn't quantify it. The Marketing Evolution piece of this helps us understand that a lot better. Granted it's only two clients. We're not sure if it's the pinnacle of what you can achieve, but it's a first stake in the ground. It's not like it all ends here."
The research, Fay said, suggested that 70% of the value of the program was attributed to the viral effect beyond merely purchased media. "That's a lot of added value."
Isobar clients Adidas and EA--and Reebok, which didn't participate in the study--know social networks are right for their brands. "But because this is new, not everyone can envision it right away. You can tap in and use social networking platforms for all kinds of brands but as with everything, there is a finesse involved. It really is all about the creative strategy," Fay observed.
The "Momentum Effect' can be a real "accelerator to any kind of media program if you're able to tap into the consumer-to consumer benefit," Fay said, adding that marketers need to activate the community for their brand.
The new study also found that more than 40% of all social networkers said they use social networking sites to learn more about brands or products that they like, and 28% said at some point a friend has recommended a brand or product to them.
Also, the vast majority of time on social networks was spent connecting with family and friends as opposed to meeting new people. Of those polled, 69% said they use social networks to connect with existing friends and 41% said they use the sites to connect with family members.
In addition, the study revealed that current social networkers spend on average more than seven hours per week on social networking sites, and that those hours are driving the growth of overall time spent online.
More than 31% of online social networkers claim they spend more time on the Web in general after starting to use a social network. They were also more inclined to engage in other entertainment media and activities including listening to music, playing games and talking on their mobile phone.
The study was conducted in a series of focus groups by TRU of MySpace users in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York. An online survey of 3,000+ U.S. panelists ages 14 to 40 was conducted by TNS and included three segments: MySpace users, social networkers from other sites, and non-social networkers.
Finally, detailed case studies including behavioral tracking and survey measurement with two MySpace clients, adidas and Electronic Arts were conducted by ROI measurement firm Marketing Evolution.
By Tobi Elkin Source : www.mediapost.com
Social Media Optimization Will Take You to the Pinnacle of Success
In today’s world of advanced technology, each technique is constantly evolving on a very fast pace. To keep pace with all these changes one needs to study and learn about everything new that is happening in any field. Search engine optimization or online promotion of websites is among one of the very rapidly changing fields in the internet. Keeping track of these new developments will help an online business to earn profit.
Social media optimization is a new term that has come about in the field of search engine optimization as a result of these changes. The term may sound to be very intimidating, but in fact it is nothing but promoting of online sites in such a manner that is becomes easily and more accessible in social networking sites. Such sites are very popular among online visitors these days and so one has more chances of reaching out to more people.
Research studies have indicated that more then sixty percent of people, who are active on the web, have made their profile on some or the other social networking sites. More and more people are increasingly opening up to the idea of creating a profile on the web to meet people having similar tastes and interests. And this is where social media optimization tries to cash in and popularize a site on the World Wide Web.
There are so many sites on the web and so you will have to give visitors a very strong reason to visit your site. All websites look and appear similar and unless they find something unique and new, visitors will not want to waste their time visiting just another site. The idea is to draw as much traffic as possible to your site and help you earn profit through your business.
Writing great content in the form of blogs can soar the popularity of your site on the web. Make efforts to help your content travel really fast on the web. Once you become a regular blogger, you can place a link of your site at the bottom of your blog and this can bring huge number of visitors to your site. Also you can let other sites use your content if they provide a link to your site. This will serve your two purposes; first your content travels fast and secondly your get visitors for your site.
Before you undertake social media optimization, you must find out certain things that will be helpful for you. First study and analyze the existing competition in the market. This is where your competitors are operating and you must know everything about this market inside out.
Implementing any new technique such as social media optimization can work wonders for your business. Undoubtedly this is a new concept and initially you may feel hesitant about it, but gradually you will realize that this is the best thing that you could have done for the growth of your business. Only after you have implemented all the methods of social media optimization, you will realize how beneficial this has been for your success.
Source : www.cometsearchenginemarketing.com
Monday, April 23, 2007
Social Networks Provide "Momentum Effect"
Fox Interactive Media has released findings from a study that looked at the growth and marketing power of online social networks.
Over 70 percent of Americans ages 15-34 are using social networking sites on a regular basis. The sites see a spike in traffic during primetime hours, which improves communication with family and friends along with building brand connections.
For part of the study, Marketing Evolution, a marketing ROI measurement firm, examined the impact of social interaction on advertising campaigns within MySpace. They found that brands such as adidas and Electronic Arts attributed over 70 percent of their marketing return on investment to the "Momentum Effect."
The "Momentum Effect", is a term created by Marketing Revolution that measures the effect of a brand within a social network and examines consumer -to- consumer communication.
The study found that 40 percent of social network users visit the sites to learn more about a product or brand they like, and 28 percent said a friend has recommended a brand or product to them.
Social networks are more popular than other forms of communication and entertainment according to the study. When asked what free-time activity they would prefer, users chose interacting on social networking sites over TV but equal with cell phone usage.
Social networkers spend on average over seven hours per week on sites such as MySapce, which increased the growth of overall time spent online. More than 31 percent of those who use social networks report that they spend more time in general online after starting to use a social network.
"Users are empowered to create and share, build and maintain relationships and in the process have created an entirely new medium that is deeply integrated into their everyday lives", said Chris DeWolfe, CEO of MySpace.
"Smart marketers know how to tap into the passion and energy of individuals who care about their products to vastly multiply the impact of their campaigns." The study included approximately 3,000 U.S. Internet users, as well as MySpace clients for in- depth case studies.
Source : www.webpronews.com
Sunday, April 22, 2007
MySpace News Gets A Big 'Meh'
It's a new release, but the debut of MySpace News has generated a great big shrug among tech commentators so far.
Astrology and exchange-traded fund performance both on the front page of MySpace News...if you've only ever read Rupert Murdoch's newspapers, you'd probably recognize his hand in the this recently launched website.
Plenty of people are gleefully tweaking News Corp's powerful patriarch over this site. Wired's Mike Calore thinks the manager ought to come out to the mound and yank this news pitcher out of the game:
After seeing the news items on the frontdoor, my question is "Wha?"
As they say, Rome (or Digg) wasn't built in a day, but as a product, MySpace News is what I would politely classify as "undercooked."
Calore finds plenty of gaps in MySpace News, the most egregious being no search capability. If memory serves, MySpace and Google have a deal in place for advertising and search services, the latter being one that Google has something of a positive reputation in delivering.
Owen Thomas at Business 2.0 found something missing that's even more surprising than the lack of search:
Offline, his News Corp. (NWS) empire is as self-promoting as always. But MySpace, Murdoch's Internet jewel, can't even seem to promote its own services.
No wonder MySpace users keep embedding YouTube videos and inserting Photobucket photos, instead of using MySpace's own services. Likewise for features like MySpace IM.
MySpace is a market leader in terms of social networking. As Wilson observed, that doesn't seem to be translating to being a marketing leader for its in-house services.
We suspect the kinds of personal issues frequently found in media companies could be cropping up in MySpace land. It doesn't appear that everyone is working together, and that frequently means fiefdoms have cropped up in the company, erected by substantial egos.
As Calore noted in his post, Digg's Kevin Rose has nothing to worry about from MySpace News.
Source: www.webpronews.com
Astrology and exchange-traded fund performance both on the front page of MySpace News...if you've only ever read Rupert Murdoch's newspapers, you'd probably recognize his hand in the this recently launched website.
Plenty of people are gleefully tweaking News Corp's powerful patriarch over this site. Wired's Mike Calore thinks the manager ought to come out to the mound and yank this news pitcher out of the game:
After seeing the news items on the frontdoor, my question is "Wha?"
As they say, Rome (or Digg) wasn't built in a day, but as a product, MySpace News is what I would politely classify as "undercooked."
Calore finds plenty of gaps in MySpace News, the most egregious being no search capability. If memory serves, MySpace and Google have a deal in place for advertising and search services, the latter being one that Google has something of a positive reputation in delivering.
Owen Thomas at Business 2.0 found something missing that's even more surprising than the lack of search:
Offline, his News Corp. (NWS) empire is as self-promoting as always. But MySpace, Murdoch's Internet jewel, can't even seem to promote its own services.
No wonder MySpace users keep embedding YouTube videos and inserting Photobucket photos, instead of using MySpace's own services. Likewise for features like MySpace IM.
MySpace is a market leader in terms of social networking. As Wilson observed, that doesn't seem to be translating to being a marketing leader for its in-house services.
We suspect the kinds of personal issues frequently found in media companies could be cropping up in MySpace land. It doesn't appear that everyone is working together, and that frequently means fiefdoms have cropped up in the company, erected by substantial egos.
As Calore noted in his post, Digg's Kevin Rose has nothing to worry about from MySpace News.
Source: www.webpronews.com
Friday, April 20, 2007
Social Media Optimization Gives You Online Business that Extra Boost
Social media optimization is nothing but the various methods that are utilized for making a site easily accessible to visitors on the web. In this internet age, instant information and gratification is what people look out for and the faster visitors can access your site the more popular you will be on the web. After all, search engine optimization is all about becoming popular on the web and if you can do it really well, it will be a tremendous boost for your product. There are several means that can be implemented for doing social media optimization and doing this is very crucial for you if you are really serious about the success of your business venture.
Some of the ways through which you can implement social media optimization for your online business site are discussed in this article. Increasing the links of your site is one of the simplest and the best means for you to go about increasing your web popularity. Exchanging links with other relevant websites and also sites that have a good page rank will surely help your site in becoming famous.
Having great content on your site is not enough. You must undertake ways and means to ensure that the content travels really fast to relevant places on the web. There are many sites that are on a lookout for free content on the web and you can let such sites use your content on the condition that they provide a link for your site. So, it is very important to write articles and contents that will appeal to different kinds of readers because the web caters to a very wide audience.
Increase the inbound links of your site as this is one thing that must be done on a priority basis for social media optimization of any online business site. Writing blogs for your site is a great way of increasing the inbound links of your site on the web. In fact, the number of inbound links is the parameter for being successful on the web. So devote all your resources in implementing these things as this will surely take your online business venture to unexpected heights.
The basic idea is to optimize an online business site in such a manner so that your site is linked to other sites that are more visible in the social media search category. While undertaking social media optimization, you must keep in mind that each business has different needs and requirements. and consequently you must know your business requirements. Your business can become a success story only if you are fully aware of your business requirements.
Search engine optimization is constantly growing and to keep pace with these changes you must be in tune with all these things. Social media optimization is the newest entrant to this field. Before you go about undertaking social media optimization for your site, make sure that you know exactly what this is all about and what all things you will need to do for popularizing your online business site on the web. Social media optimization has the capacity to give a tremendous boost to your business.
Source: http://www.cometsearchenginemarketing.com
Some of the ways through which you can implement social media optimization for your online business site are discussed in this article. Increasing the links of your site is one of the simplest and the best means for you to go about increasing your web popularity. Exchanging links with other relevant websites and also sites that have a good page rank will surely help your site in becoming famous.
Having great content on your site is not enough. You must undertake ways and means to ensure that the content travels really fast to relevant places on the web. There are many sites that are on a lookout for free content on the web and you can let such sites use your content on the condition that they provide a link for your site. So, it is very important to write articles and contents that will appeal to different kinds of readers because the web caters to a very wide audience.
Increase the inbound links of your site as this is one thing that must be done on a priority basis for social media optimization of any online business site. Writing blogs for your site is a great way of increasing the inbound links of your site on the web. In fact, the number of inbound links is the parameter for being successful on the web. So devote all your resources in implementing these things as this will surely take your online business venture to unexpected heights.
The basic idea is to optimize an online business site in such a manner so that your site is linked to other sites that are more visible in the social media search category. While undertaking social media optimization, you must keep in mind that each business has different needs and requirements. and consequently you must know your business requirements. Your business can become a success story only if you are fully aware of your business requirements.
Search engine optimization is constantly growing and to keep pace with these changes you must be in tune with all these things. Social media optimization is the newest entrant to this field. Before you go about undertaking social media optimization for your site, make sure that you know exactly what this is all about and what all things you will need to do for popularizing your online business site on the web. Social media optimization has the capacity to give a tremendous boost to your business.
Source: http://www.cometsearchenginemarketing.com
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Should Social Networks Sell Users Data?
Selling the data of social network users could be one way for sites to increase revenue according to a new report from In-Stat.
"Each social networking site collects a plethora of personal and demographic data on each member," said Jill Meyers of In-Stat "and while selling these data to target marketing groups may be unappealing to site members, it may be the best route to profitability for site operators."
On the issue of selling users data most site members would find it beyond unappealing. An anonymous source had this to say on the subject. "As an individual who frequents both MySpace and Facebook, the notion of having my personal data sold to the highest bidder is frightening."
"I understand that dealing with advertising is a necessary evil in order for these sites to continue offering free services to members. When the integrity of personal data begins being compromised, however, it opens up a door that most users would prefer not to step through."
While increasing revenue is a key factor for success, some social networks growth is stagnant. ComScore Media Metrix found a range of visitor growth of anywhere from 1177 percent (Sconex.com) to 40 percent (LiveJournal.com).
Microsoft has given their input on how to boost social networking ad revenue. They commissioned a Metrix Lab study of how social networkers use the sites. The study found adding brand profiles that can be shared with friends is effective, with a quarter of social networkers posting views on ads and a third forwarding spaces, ads or links.
eMarketer senior analyst Debra Aho Williamson says that the time for branded profiles is probably coming to a close.
"The notion of creating a MySpace ad profile page and collecting friends was popular in 2006 but will likely give way this year, as users tire of collecting 'friends,'" says Ms. Williamson.
Source: www.webpronews.com
"Each social networking site collects a plethora of personal and demographic data on each member," said Jill Meyers of In-Stat "and while selling these data to target marketing groups may be unappealing to site members, it may be the best route to profitability for site operators."
On the issue of selling users data most site members would find it beyond unappealing. An anonymous source had this to say on the subject. "As an individual who frequents both MySpace and Facebook, the notion of having my personal data sold to the highest bidder is frightening."
"I understand that dealing with advertising is a necessary evil in order for these sites to continue offering free services to members. When the integrity of personal data begins being compromised, however, it opens up a door that most users would prefer not to step through."
While increasing revenue is a key factor for success, some social networks growth is stagnant. ComScore Media Metrix found a range of visitor growth of anywhere from 1177 percent (Sconex.com) to 40 percent (LiveJournal.com).
Microsoft has given their input on how to boost social networking ad revenue. They commissioned a Metrix Lab study of how social networkers use the sites. The study found adding brand profiles that can be shared with friends is effective, with a quarter of social networkers posting views on ads and a third forwarding spaces, ads or links.
eMarketer senior analyst Debra Aho Williamson says that the time for branded profiles is probably coming to a close.
"The notion of creating a MySpace ad profile page and collecting friends was popular in 2006 but will likely give way this year, as users tire of collecting 'friends,'" says Ms. Williamson.
Source: www.webpronews.com
Are you aware of the latest marketing phenomenon ????
Some call it SMO
Some call is Social Media Optimization
Some call it Social Networking
Some call it Community Networking
Types are many
Some call is Social Media Optimization
Some call it Social Networking
Some call it Community Networking
Types are many
Results are same
It increases your
Name n fame
1st buzz was Search engine optimization
2nd was Search engine marketing
Now the latest one Social media optimization
Presence on some Communities
Presence on some News
Presence on Blogs
Presence on Reviews
Groups creates community
Community shows Unity
It enhances website Popularity
It enhances Link popularity
Amazing increase in traffic
It increases your
Name n fame
1st buzz was Search engine optimization
2nd was Search engine marketing
Now the latest one Social media optimization
Presence on some Communities
Presence on some News
Presence on Blogs
Presence on Reviews
Groups creates community
Community shows Unity
It enhances website Popularity
It enhances Link popularity
Amazing increase in traffic
Results are terrific
I think this intro is sufficient to undertsand waht i want to say.
Social media as you know already is a combined form of practices that people use to share views and opinions with each other.Social media optimization is the latest phenomenon of internet marketing. It targets online communities and users. This is a recent introduction, but has become an important part of the online marketing phenomenon.
One of the most prominent aspects of social media optimization is content travelling and prominent places to do this are Youtube , Flickr ,Myspace , Orkut , Zorphia and Wikiepedia. The benefit of content travelling is that it travels among people very fast and it can even be publishd at prominent sites.
Another aspect of social media optimization is increasing the linkability of websites. In this process we need to increase the presence of the site on web by increasing the links all over. The Linkability can be increased easily but there are some things on which attention must be paid.
I think this intro is sufficient to undertsand waht i want to say.
Social media as you know already is a combined form of practices that people use to share views and opinions with each other.Social media optimization is the latest phenomenon of internet marketing. It targets online communities and users. This is a recent introduction, but has become an important part of the online marketing phenomenon.
One of the most prominent aspects of social media optimization is content travelling and prominent places to do this are Youtube , Flickr ,Myspace , Orkut , Zorphia and Wikiepedia. The benefit of content travelling is that it travels among people very fast and it can even be publishd at prominent sites.
Another aspect of social media optimization is increasing the linkability of websites. In this process we need to increase the presence of the site on web by increasing the links all over. The Linkability can be increased easily but there are some things on which attention must be paid.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Yahoo Challenges Google On Analytics Front
Search engine marketers rely heavily on website metrics to determine what adjustments need to be made to advertising campaigns in order to increase time on site and conversion. Google has offered free analytical tools to webmasters for some time, but now site owners are starting to take notice of the new measurement tools contained within Yahoo’s Project Panama.
With Google Analytics, webmasters are offered upwards of 82 distinct reports they can use to analyze just about every measurable metric under the sun. Conversely, Panama’s analytical software only offers 14 reports, but the company believes that these more adequately provide search engine marketers with the most relevant information to suit their requirements.
"Our Web analytics program was developed from the standpoint of someone trying to understand their Web site's performance, whether that be a marketer or an IT person. But our Full Analytics program doesn't show all of those reports. We have tailored the display to suit the specific needs of search engine marketers," said Paul Apodaca Director of Program Management for Yahoo Search Marketing in a News Factor article.
Despite an 11 percent drop in quarterly revenue, Yahoo is continuing to position itself as a competitor to Google in all possible avenues. The company just announced a deal with PayPal that it hopes will lure in more advertisers, which was no doubt a response to Google’s efforts to use Checkout as a tool to lure in more AdWords partners.
Analytics brings the fight to a new front, but the underlying struggle for the almighty advertising dollar is the same.
Google Analytics is free for webmasters, but the full analytical tools contained within Panama are only available to those who spend more than $6,000 per year on search engine marketing.
So even if Yahoo’s product is superior, chances are good that price will become a major sticking point for most when making the decision on which software package to implement.
Source : www.webpronews.com
With Google Analytics, webmasters are offered upwards of 82 distinct reports they can use to analyze just about every measurable metric under the sun. Conversely, Panama’s analytical software only offers 14 reports, but the company believes that these more adequately provide search engine marketers with the most relevant information to suit their requirements.
"Our Web analytics program was developed from the standpoint of someone trying to understand their Web site's performance, whether that be a marketer or an IT person. But our Full Analytics program doesn't show all of those reports. We have tailored the display to suit the specific needs of search engine marketers," said Paul Apodaca Director of Program Management for Yahoo Search Marketing in a News Factor article.
Despite an 11 percent drop in quarterly revenue, Yahoo is continuing to position itself as a competitor to Google in all possible avenues. The company just announced a deal with PayPal that it hopes will lure in more advertisers, which was no doubt a response to Google’s efforts to use Checkout as a tool to lure in more AdWords partners.
Analytics brings the fight to a new front, but the underlying struggle for the almighty advertising dollar is the same.
Google Analytics is free for webmasters, but the full analytical tools contained within Panama are only available to those who spend more than $6,000 per year on search engine marketing.
So even if Yahoo’s product is superior, chances are good that price will become a major sticking point for most when making the decision on which software package to implement.
Source : www.webpronews.com
StumbleUpon Deletes Audience Rank Feature
StumbleUpon has ticked some of their users off recently by removing their audience rank feature.
SEO expert Joe Whyte wrote this on his blog about the sites actions. "It looks like Stumble Upon has taken a page out of the book of digg and started removing factors that allow you to gauge your rank and profile power within stumble upon."
In an email interview with WebProNews, Mr.Whyte gave his thoughts on how this affects SEO. "Social media is about leveraging your community positioning in order to bring viral attention, traffic, exposure and inevitably links to your site."
"There is a fine line to walk when SEOs leverage community positioning. Our tactics can be used by spammers and something that I try my best to do is contribute quality information to social media sites like StumbleUpon."
When it comes to which sites users should promote, Mr. Whyte said," In order to leverage social media you have to be vary meticulous in choosing who you should promote. You cannot promote just anything, you must promote quality content to these sites or your profile will begin to fade."
He went on to say that that audience rank on StumbleUpon affected him in two ways. Whenever his audience rank increased, it was a good indication that the power behind his profile was growing. When he would contribute to the site his audience grew which motivated him to keep using the site.
On why StumbleUpon removed the audience rank feature Mr. Whyte said," This affects SEO/SMOs because that tool is a way we can gauge our effectiveness but I think as a user and contributor it also takes away from the entire StumbleUpon experience. Unfortunately a few bad apples most likely spoiled this for the rest of us."
eBay is rumored to be making a deal to purchase StumbleUpon for around $40-$45 million. AOL and Google have also been mentioned as possible buyers but eBay seems to be the frontrunner.
SEO expert Joe Whyte wrote this on his blog about the sites actions. "It looks like Stumble Upon has taken a page out of the book of digg and started removing factors that allow you to gauge your rank and profile power within stumble upon."
In an email interview with WebProNews, Mr.Whyte gave his thoughts on how this affects SEO. "Social media is about leveraging your community positioning in order to bring viral attention, traffic, exposure and inevitably links to your site."
"There is a fine line to walk when SEOs leverage community positioning. Our tactics can be used by spammers and something that I try my best to do is contribute quality information to social media sites like StumbleUpon."
When it comes to which sites users should promote, Mr. Whyte said," In order to leverage social media you have to be vary meticulous in choosing who you should promote. You cannot promote just anything, you must promote quality content to these sites or your profile will begin to fade."
He went on to say that that audience rank on StumbleUpon affected him in two ways. Whenever his audience rank increased, it was a good indication that the power behind his profile was growing. When he would contribute to the site his audience grew which motivated him to keep using the site.
On why StumbleUpon removed the audience rank feature Mr. Whyte said," This affects SEO/SMOs because that tool is a way we can gauge our effectiveness but I think as a user and contributor it also takes away from the entire StumbleUpon experience. Unfortunately a few bad apples most likely spoiled this for the rest of us."
eBay is rumored to be making a deal to purchase StumbleUpon for around $40-$45 million. AOL and Google have also been mentioned as possible buyers but eBay seems to be the frontrunner.
Source: www.webpronews.com
Social Media Optimization rules a merger of older and new one
Bhargava’s original post included five rules that his company uses when conducting SMO for a client’s web site. Other posters subsequently added more; the current list includes 17 guidelines. In this section I’m going to look at those first five and see what we can learn.
1. Increase your linkability. This really means making your web site less static. If you want visitors to link to your site, it needs to contain information that makes them want to link to it: white papers, thought pieces, news, or even tools that let users handle information in ways that are useful to them. This rule is an extension of the most important principle behind regular SEO: content is king.
2. Make tagging and bookmarking easy. You can see that we follow that principle on SEO Chat, with buttons to easily link articles to a variety of social sites. Bhargava recommends going further, by including a helpful list of relevant tags for the page, and tagging your pages first on popular social bookmarking sites (not just the home page, but other parts of your site as well). This rule is a mashup of word-of-mouth advertising with that old marketing principle: make it easy for your customer to do what you want them to do.
3. Reward inbound links. This encourages site visitors to link to you. In the case of a blog, you want to set up a permalink to each entry (to make it easy to find again). Many blogs reward those who link to them by listing such links in their comments section, thus giving the linker visibility on their site. This raises both your profile and theirs in the various online social communities. This is, in effect, similar to the “customer testimonials” from old school marketing – except it’s usually about your content rather than your product. As with testimonials, though, the best ones are unsolicited.
4. Help your content travel. SEO is about making changes to your site, with an implicit assumption that your content will stay on your site. That’s not true today. You can generate buzz by submitting videos to YouTube and related sites, for instance – and you can figure that users might want to link your content to such sites. Before you get panicky and discourage this kind of copyright infringement, consider how much traffic it might be driving back to your site. Think of it as spreading tons of business cards – only with modern technology, you can spread a lot more information than can fit on a card, and make it more entertaining to boot.
5. Encourage the mashup. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then wanting to use your content in an original creation (within reason) is high praise indeed. Why do you think Google isn’t upset with all the mashups of Google Maps? Users are finding ways to make that content more useful to more people. If you allow users to augment your content in some way, or use it elsewhere (think of the way YouTube provides code to let visitors embed the videos into their own sites), you will get them more involved – and more interested in what you have to offer.
Jeremiah Owyang came up with the sixth and seventh rules. Here again, you’ll find some familiar ground.
Be a user resource, even if it doesn’t help you. Think about Google and authority sites. Remember, if you help users find what they’re looking for, even if you aren’t the source of the product, they’ll tell other people by posting a link to their social site(s) and tagging you as being helpful in your field. This is another case where content is king, and rules that hold for SEO also help for SMO.
6. Reward helpful and valuable users. Owyang thinks this might not be strictly SMO, but it’s a great way to “keep the most valuable members of a community closer to your site.” This is an old school marketing tactic – it isn’t even limited to marketing, actually. The principle is to reward the behavior you want to encourage.
7. Only the rewards are a little different. You reward users with thank you notes, visibility on your web site, increases in their ratings, and similar incentives. For example, social search engine Searchles, among others, rewards active users and groups by linking to them on its home page. Our own SEO Chat forums reward moderators, top posters, and spam reporters by giving them a temporary virtual badge acknowledging their efforts.
Cameron Olthuis came up with the next four rules (and coined the term “Marketing 2.0,” as well as the more useful term “pull marketing”). He recognized that SMO “includes all the new marketing techniques that are becoming popular rolled into one…” His suggestions ring with truth for anyone who has been actively involved in social media for awhile.
8. Participate – Join the conversation. If you’re trying to reach the community of people involved in social media, you can’t talk AT them as you would when advertising in traditional media. You can’t even really talk TO them. You have to talk WITH them. If you belong to any kind of social group, especially one centered on a passionate hobby, you’ll understand this instinctively. Think about how you feel when someone who really isn’t familiar with the hobby tries to sell you something. You create the same impression – or worse – if you try to plaster your message around without really participating.
9. Know how to target your audience. No, your product or service does NOT appeal to everyone – and even if it does, there are going to be certain groups of people who are more interested in it than others. I’d like to think my articles appeal to everyone, but realistically, I know my audience for the articles I write on SEO Chat is SEO professionals, so I write with them in mind. Likewise, find out who is most interested in your product, and where and how to reach them. That’s not just SMO; that’s good marketing sense that goes back to the days before the press release.
10. Create content. Maybe you make the most boring product or service in the world. There is some way to jazz it up, make it funny, write a white paper about it, or otherwise make it of interest. Then you can use social media to spread that content and drive traffic back to your web site. You may have to experiment to find out what kind of content works best – but you should be used to this idea. It’s another variation on the SEO insistence that “content is king.” And don’t be so sure that there isn’t some kind of humor in or about your field; even one of the grimmest jobs in the world (mortician) yielded more than 59,000 hits in Google when paired with the word “jokes.”
11. Be real. Remember the Wal-mart fake bloggers? Enough said. Or as Olthuis bluntly put it, “The community does not reward fakers.”
Loren Baker added a couple of rules that help to put the rest in perspective.
12.Don’t forget your roots, be humble. If you do get to the point of becoming some kind of social media star, don’t forget the folks who helped you get there. A little respect for them goes a long way. I’m not even going to point to marketing parallels when a large percentage of Hollywood movies have this as their theme.
13. Don’t be afraid to try new things, stay fresh. Your need to try something new may have attracted you to the social media space in the first place. Like everything else on the Internet, you can bet that it isn’t going to stay the same. The Internet itself was around for quite some time before the World Wide Web came along; the Web existed for a long time with mostly static web sites before blogging came along; and even then, blogging was around for at least a couple of years before someone came up with the technology to make podcasts practical. When you see something new, don’t run from it; think about how you can use it. Sure, there’s risk – but there’s also a huge risk in standing still.
Lee Odden contributed the next three rules. You could literally substitute “SEO” or “marketing” everywhere he used the term “SMO” and his rules would still read the same. That’s not a bad thing; it simply shows the general principles that tie SMO to other forms of promotion.
14. Develop a SMO strategy. It’s all well and good to get into SMO, but you have to do it for a reason. Know what your goals are; define them, and keep them in mind as you engage in SMO. Do you want to increase your sales? Reputation? Traffic?
15. Choose your SMO tactics wisely. Once again, the Wal-mart fiasco is worth pointing out. Odden points out something he learned at a “Marketing and Social Media” session at a Search Engine Strategies that’s worth noting: one percent of those involved in social media will create content, 9 percent will enrich that content, and the other 90 percent will just consume it. That’s a lot of influence wielded by relatively few.
16. Make SMO part of your process and best practices. This actually goes back to the first five rules. “Find ways to incorporate SMO tactics at the ‘template’ level of document creation and as part of information distribution,” Odden explains. Don’t make SMO an afterthought.
Rohit Bhargava gives the seventeenth rule of social media optimization. In fact, when he opened up his blog post to suggestions for other rules after the first five, he showed that rule in action: don’t be afraid to let go of a message or idea and let others own it. While consumers have been "owning" marketing messages for years (just think about how long parodies of various kinds have been around), many if not most companies have not been comfortable with it. Fumble this and you will lose a lot of credibility and goodwill among the very community you’re trying to reach.
Source: http://www.seochat.com/
1. Increase your linkability. This really means making your web site less static. If you want visitors to link to your site, it needs to contain information that makes them want to link to it: white papers, thought pieces, news, or even tools that let users handle information in ways that are useful to them. This rule is an extension of the most important principle behind regular SEO: content is king.
2. Make tagging and bookmarking easy. You can see that we follow that principle on SEO Chat, with buttons to easily link articles to a variety of social sites. Bhargava recommends going further, by including a helpful list of relevant tags for the page, and tagging your pages first on popular social bookmarking sites (not just the home page, but other parts of your site as well). This rule is a mashup of word-of-mouth advertising with that old marketing principle: make it easy for your customer to do what you want them to do.
3. Reward inbound links. This encourages site visitors to link to you. In the case of a blog, you want to set up a permalink to each entry (to make it easy to find again). Many blogs reward those who link to them by listing such links in their comments section, thus giving the linker visibility on their site. This raises both your profile and theirs in the various online social communities. This is, in effect, similar to the “customer testimonials” from old school marketing – except it’s usually about your content rather than your product. As with testimonials, though, the best ones are unsolicited.
4. Help your content travel. SEO is about making changes to your site, with an implicit assumption that your content will stay on your site. That’s not true today. You can generate buzz by submitting videos to YouTube and related sites, for instance – and you can figure that users might want to link your content to such sites. Before you get panicky and discourage this kind of copyright infringement, consider how much traffic it might be driving back to your site. Think of it as spreading tons of business cards – only with modern technology, you can spread a lot more information than can fit on a card, and make it more entertaining to boot.
5. Encourage the mashup. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then wanting to use your content in an original creation (within reason) is high praise indeed. Why do you think Google isn’t upset with all the mashups of Google Maps? Users are finding ways to make that content more useful to more people. If you allow users to augment your content in some way, or use it elsewhere (think of the way YouTube provides code to let visitors embed the videos into their own sites), you will get them more involved – and more interested in what you have to offer.
Jeremiah Owyang came up with the sixth and seventh rules. Here again, you’ll find some familiar ground.
Be a user resource, even if it doesn’t help you. Think about Google and authority sites. Remember, if you help users find what they’re looking for, even if you aren’t the source of the product, they’ll tell other people by posting a link to their social site(s) and tagging you as being helpful in your field. This is another case where content is king, and rules that hold for SEO also help for SMO.
6. Reward helpful and valuable users. Owyang thinks this might not be strictly SMO, but it’s a great way to “keep the most valuable members of a community closer to your site.” This is an old school marketing tactic – it isn’t even limited to marketing, actually. The principle is to reward the behavior you want to encourage.
7. Only the rewards are a little different. You reward users with thank you notes, visibility on your web site, increases in their ratings, and similar incentives. For example, social search engine Searchles, among others, rewards active users and groups by linking to them on its home page. Our own SEO Chat forums reward moderators, top posters, and spam reporters by giving them a temporary virtual badge acknowledging their efforts.
Cameron Olthuis came up with the next four rules (and coined the term “Marketing 2.0,” as well as the more useful term “pull marketing”). He recognized that SMO “includes all the new marketing techniques that are becoming popular rolled into one…” His suggestions ring with truth for anyone who has been actively involved in social media for awhile.
8. Participate – Join the conversation. If you’re trying to reach the community of people involved in social media, you can’t talk AT them as you would when advertising in traditional media. You can’t even really talk TO them. You have to talk WITH them. If you belong to any kind of social group, especially one centered on a passionate hobby, you’ll understand this instinctively. Think about how you feel when someone who really isn’t familiar with the hobby tries to sell you something. You create the same impression – or worse – if you try to plaster your message around without really participating.
9. Know how to target your audience. No, your product or service does NOT appeal to everyone – and even if it does, there are going to be certain groups of people who are more interested in it than others. I’d like to think my articles appeal to everyone, but realistically, I know my audience for the articles I write on SEO Chat is SEO professionals, so I write with them in mind. Likewise, find out who is most interested in your product, and where and how to reach them. That’s not just SMO; that’s good marketing sense that goes back to the days before the press release.
10. Create content. Maybe you make the most boring product or service in the world. There is some way to jazz it up, make it funny, write a white paper about it, or otherwise make it of interest. Then you can use social media to spread that content and drive traffic back to your web site. You may have to experiment to find out what kind of content works best – but you should be used to this idea. It’s another variation on the SEO insistence that “content is king.” And don’t be so sure that there isn’t some kind of humor in or about your field; even one of the grimmest jobs in the world (mortician) yielded more than 59,000 hits in Google when paired with the word “jokes.”
11. Be real. Remember the Wal-mart fake bloggers? Enough said. Or as Olthuis bluntly put it, “The community does not reward fakers.”
Loren Baker added a couple of rules that help to put the rest in perspective.
12.Don’t forget your roots, be humble. If you do get to the point of becoming some kind of social media star, don’t forget the folks who helped you get there. A little respect for them goes a long way. I’m not even going to point to marketing parallels when a large percentage of Hollywood movies have this as their theme.
13. Don’t be afraid to try new things, stay fresh. Your need to try something new may have attracted you to the social media space in the first place. Like everything else on the Internet, you can bet that it isn’t going to stay the same. The Internet itself was around for quite some time before the World Wide Web came along; the Web existed for a long time with mostly static web sites before blogging came along; and even then, blogging was around for at least a couple of years before someone came up with the technology to make podcasts practical. When you see something new, don’t run from it; think about how you can use it. Sure, there’s risk – but there’s also a huge risk in standing still.
Lee Odden contributed the next three rules. You could literally substitute “SEO” or “marketing” everywhere he used the term “SMO” and his rules would still read the same. That’s not a bad thing; it simply shows the general principles that tie SMO to other forms of promotion.
14. Develop a SMO strategy. It’s all well and good to get into SMO, but you have to do it for a reason. Know what your goals are; define them, and keep them in mind as you engage in SMO. Do you want to increase your sales? Reputation? Traffic?
15. Choose your SMO tactics wisely. Once again, the Wal-mart fiasco is worth pointing out. Odden points out something he learned at a “Marketing and Social Media” session at a Search Engine Strategies that’s worth noting: one percent of those involved in social media will create content, 9 percent will enrich that content, and the other 90 percent will just consume it. That’s a lot of influence wielded by relatively few.
16. Make SMO part of your process and best practices. This actually goes back to the first five rules. “Find ways to incorporate SMO tactics at the ‘template’ level of document creation and as part of information distribution,” Odden explains. Don’t make SMO an afterthought.
Rohit Bhargava gives the seventeenth rule of social media optimization. In fact, when he opened up his blog post to suggestions for other rules after the first five, he showed that rule in action: don’t be afraid to let go of a message or idea and let others own it. While consumers have been "owning" marketing messages for years (just think about how long parodies of various kinds have been around), many if not most companies have not been comfortable with it. Fumble this and you will lose a lot of credibility and goodwill among the very community you’re trying to reach.
Source: http://www.seochat.com/
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Top 10 Social Websites ...........A great place to start SMO
As all of you are aware from this that Social Media Optimization is very popular now a days , so if you have good information and you want to submit it in easy and quick manner and want instant results of your work then Social bookmarking sites are a greate place to start your campaign.
In some of the social websites you can write your comments and post your news / story and some of the websites provides you to make all of your favorates Online so that you can access it from any place. And the main thing is that here you should have a good and uniques content and at the time of submissions you have to choose the relevant category for your news/story and you will see the diffrence what you will be getting from the social website, your traffic will incrase in very pretty manner.
And its very easy to do submission of your News / Story / Comments / Reviews you just have to register with the site and you are allowed for submissions and the thing that we should kept in our mind is that the News / information that you are provioding should be unique .
Here is a list of Top 10 Social Websites with you can start your SMO campaign.
1. Orkut
2. Myspace
3. Zorphia
4. Blinklist
5. Blinkbits
6. Digg
7. Delicious
8. Reddit
9. Stumbleupon
10. Fark
So with this list you can start your SMO campaign and can get Good visitors and tremendous results if you do in proper manner with maintaning quality.
In some of the social websites you can write your comments and post your news / story and some of the websites provides you to make all of your favorates Online so that you can access it from any place. And the main thing is that here you should have a good and uniques content and at the time of submissions you have to choose the relevant category for your news/story and you will see the diffrence what you will be getting from the social website, your traffic will incrase in very pretty manner.
And its very easy to do submission of your News / Story / Comments / Reviews you just have to register with the site and you are allowed for submissions and the thing that we should kept in our mind is that the News / information that you are provioding should be unique .
Here is a list of Top 10 Social Websites with you can start your SMO campaign.
1. Orkut
2. Myspace
3. Zorphia
4. Blinklist
5. Blinkbits
6. Digg
7. Delicious
8. Reddit
9. Stumbleupon
10. Fark
So with this list you can start your SMO campaign and can get Good visitors and tremendous results if you do in proper manner with maintaning quality.
Monday, April 16, 2007
Social Media Optimization ( SMO ) : Snippets
This blog contains information on social media optimization ,social media networking websites and news on social media optimization and all other aspects of Internet Marketing. Social networking and bookmarking has become very popular and is making its presence felt everywhere.
read more digg story
read more digg story
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Basics of Social Media Optimization (SMO)
For years now, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for websites has been honed into a fine art with entire companies devoting considerable effort to defining best practices and touting the value of SEO for raising a site's performance on organic search listings. While I believe in the power of SEO, there is a new offering we have started providing to clients which we call Social Media Optimization (SMO). The concept behind SMO is simple: implement changes to optimize a site so that it is more easily linked to, more highly visible in social media searches on custom search engines (such as Technorati), and more frequently included in relevant posts on blogs, podcasts and vlogs.
Here are 5 rules we use to help guide our thinking with conducting an SMO for a client's website:
Increase your linkability - This is the first and most important priority for websites. Many sites are "static" - meaning they are rarely updated and used simply for a storefront. To optimize a site for social media, we need to increase the linkability of the content. Adding a blog is a great step, however there are many other ways such as creating white papers and thought pieces, or even simply aggregating content that exists elsewhere into a useful format.
Make tagging and bookmarking easy - Adding content features like quick buttons to "add to del.icio.us" are one way to make the process of tagging pages easier, but we go beyond this, making sure pages include a list of relevant tags, suggested notes for a link (which come up automatically when you go to tag a site), and making sure to tag our pages first on popular social bookmarking sites (including more than just the homepage).
Reward inbound links - Often used as a barometer for success of a blog (as well as a website), inbound links are paramount to rising in search results and overall rankings. To encourage more of them, we need to make it easy and provide clear rewards. From using Permalinks to recreating Similarly, listing recent linking blogs on your site provides the reward of visibility for those who link to you
Help your content travel - Unlike much of SEO, SMO is not just about making changes to a site. When you have content that can be portable (such as PDFs, video files and audio files), submitting them to relevant sites will help your content travel further, and ultimately drive links back to your site.
Encourage the mashup - In a world of co-creation, it pays to be more open about letting others use your content (within reason). YouTube's idea of providing code to cut and paste so you can imbed videos from their site has fueled their growth. Syndicating your content through RSS also makes it easy for others to create mashups that can drive traffic or augment your content.
There are many other "rules" and techniques that we are starting to uncover as this idea gets more sophisticated. In the meantime we are always on the lookout for new ideas in Social Media Optimization to encourage even better thinking. Perhaps we may even see the rise of entire groups or agencies devoted to SMO in the future ...
Source : http://rohitbhargava.typepad.com/
Here are 5 rules we use to help guide our thinking with conducting an SMO for a client's website:
Increase your linkability - This is the first and most important priority for websites. Many sites are "static" - meaning they are rarely updated and used simply for a storefront. To optimize a site for social media, we need to increase the linkability of the content. Adding a blog is a great step, however there are many other ways such as creating white papers and thought pieces, or even simply aggregating content that exists elsewhere into a useful format.
Make tagging and bookmarking easy - Adding content features like quick buttons to "add to del.icio.us" are one way to make the process of tagging pages easier, but we go beyond this, making sure pages include a list of relevant tags, suggested notes for a link (which come up automatically when you go to tag a site), and making sure to tag our pages first on popular social bookmarking sites (including more than just the homepage).
Reward inbound links - Often used as a barometer for success of a blog (as well as a website), inbound links are paramount to rising in search results and overall rankings. To encourage more of them, we need to make it easy and provide clear rewards. From using Permalinks to recreating Similarly, listing recent linking blogs on your site provides the reward of visibility for those who link to you
Help your content travel - Unlike much of SEO, SMO is not just about making changes to a site. When you have content that can be portable (such as PDFs, video files and audio files), submitting them to relevant sites will help your content travel further, and ultimately drive links back to your site.
Encourage the mashup - In a world of co-creation, it pays to be more open about letting others use your content (within reason). YouTube's idea of providing code to cut and paste so you can imbed videos from their site has fueled their growth. Syndicating your content through RSS also makes it easy for others to create mashups that can drive traffic or augment your content.
There are many other "rules" and techniques that we are starting to uncover as this idea gets more sophisticated. In the meantime we are always on the lookout for new ideas in Social Media Optimization to encourage even better thinking. Perhaps we may even see the rise of entire groups or agencies devoted to SMO in the future ...
Source : http://rohitbhargava.typepad.com/
Social Media Optimization: The Latest Buzzword To Help You In Online Optimization
We have heard about search engine optimization, internet marketing, email marketing and several other terms associated with the promotion of a site on the web. And the latest buzzword that is doing the rounds is social media optimization. In fact, search engine is increasingly being done these days keeping in mind the different aspects of social media optimization. Like any other optimization method social media optimization is nothing different, but methods to make a site popular on the web. The only difference is that there are certain methods used for social media optimization and this is done in a different manner.
Social media optimization makes use of several processes that help in increasing the linkability of a site. This is the first priority for doing social media optimization for any site on the web. There is a need to constantly change the look and feel of the site. After all, who likes looking and reading the same things over and over gain. So, constant change is must to keep someone hooked to your site and do business with you. The content and anything written for the site has to be simply great and amazing to draw visitors and buyers to your site.
The idea behind optimization is to attract traffic to a site as brining huge traffic is one of the easiest and the best way to make the site popular in the eyes of all the major search engines. Write as many blogs as you can for your site and make it as popular as you can on the web. Putting up the content of your site in a unique way that will facilitate more links to your site is also a good way of doing social media optimization. Making use of all these innovative methods for putting up the content of your site can in fact popularize your site all the more on the web.
You can put up the content of your site in a portable form to facilitate its fast travel on the web. The idea is to reach out to as many people as possible within a short span of time and at the same time give our meaningful information to online visitors who are searching for information. You can put up information regarding your site in a video clip and circulate it on the web to increase the popularity of your site. The more your content will travel on the web, the more number of visitors and links you can get for your site.
How about letting other sites use your content? Site owners can let other people make use of their content if they give a link of their site in the webpage where they use the content. This is a great way of driving to your site and this is what you are aiming to do through optimization. Social media optimization have been found to be very effective for promoting any kind of site on the web and it is up to you to implement this for your site.
For More Information on social media optimization visit http://www.cometsearchenginemarketing.com
Social media optimization makes use of several processes that help in increasing the linkability of a site. This is the first priority for doing social media optimization for any site on the web. There is a need to constantly change the look and feel of the site. After all, who likes looking and reading the same things over and over gain. So, constant change is must to keep someone hooked to your site and do business with you. The content and anything written for the site has to be simply great and amazing to draw visitors and buyers to your site.
The idea behind optimization is to attract traffic to a site as brining huge traffic is one of the easiest and the best way to make the site popular in the eyes of all the major search engines. Write as many blogs as you can for your site and make it as popular as you can on the web. Putting up the content of your site in a unique way that will facilitate more links to your site is also a good way of doing social media optimization. Making use of all these innovative methods for putting up the content of your site can in fact popularize your site all the more on the web.
You can put up the content of your site in a portable form to facilitate its fast travel on the web. The idea is to reach out to as many people as possible within a short span of time and at the same time give our meaningful information to online visitors who are searching for information. You can put up information regarding your site in a video clip and circulate it on the web to increase the popularity of your site. The more your content will travel on the web, the more number of visitors and links you can get for your site.
How about letting other sites use your content? Site owners can let other people make use of their content if they give a link of their site in the webpage where they use the content. This is a great way of driving to your site and this is what you are aiming to do through optimization. Social media optimization have been found to be very effective for promoting any kind of site on the web and it is up to you to implement this for your site.
For More Information on social media optimization visit http://www.cometsearchenginemarketing.com
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