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Four Amazing Photosharing Alternatives to Facebook and Flickr
It's been more than a century since photography knocked on our doors but it still remains a powerful to tool to convey emotions and feelings. It is one of the most expressive and enduring way for us to capture and share experiences. It's hardly strikes as a surprise when we take note of the fact that photo sharing sites were some of the first social sites to hit the web. People love to click pictures and then share them with their friends and family.
In the present times, Facebook, Flickr and Google Picassa dominate the photo-sharing websites' space on the internet. These sites provide users a great, easy-to-use platform to share photographs and videos with their friends and family, online acquaintances and even random people on the web. Now in case, you are kind of bored with these same websites after using them a repetitively, there are several other photo sharing alternatives available on the web.
Let's take look at some of them
SmugMug
It is paid photosharing service on the web. Mashable says its prime focus is making easy for users to showcase and organise pictures - whether they want to sell them or not. There are no bandwidth caps and you can upload and share an unlimited no. of photos. Your photos can password-protected, you can add watermarks, and share them on Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr quite easily.
Now the thing with this service is that it is paid. There are Basic, Power and Pro versions of SmugMug and they are priced in ascending order. SmugMug Pro is ideal for a professional photographer who can avail the service for $20 a month or $150 a year and also avail tons of e-commerce options. It also has dedicated apps for iPhone, Android, and iPad.
Smugmug(dot)com
Instagram is an easy-to-use iPhone app using which the users can upload photos on Facebook, Flickr, Tumblr, and Foursquare. Filters and customizations can be easily applied to these photos. The application is compatible with any iPhone or iPod Touch running Ios 3.1.2 or above. What sets it apart from its counterparts is its ease of sharing, browsing and commenting. The best thing about it is that comes for free.
Instagram had more than 100,000 downloads in its first week of release.
Instagr(dot)am
deviantArt
Often abbreviated as dA, deviantArt is an online community showcasing various forms of user-made artwork. Headquartered in the Hollywood area of Los Angeles, devianArt aims to provide a place for any artist to exhibit and discuss works of arts. Photography finds a dedicated spot in this website.
devianArt consists of 14.5 million registered members and receives about 1,40,000 submissions each day. It is a free service and is gaining rapid popularity on the web.
Deviantart(dot)com
picplz
It is a photosharing app that makes sharing of photos on Facebook and Twitter like a walk in the park. Users can browse, comment and upload photos using this website. However, the core focus of this service is the mobile phone. It enables users to apply amazing photo effects and turn “average into amazing” as is claimed on its website. 'Cross Process', 'The 70s', 'Russian Toy Camera' etc. are some of the effects to choose from.
Picplz is free and is available in the App Store or Android Market.
How social media works…
Now let’s take a look at each of the main types of social media, and how they work. These explanations are intentionally very general, because with social media every rule seems to have an exception.
In fact, among the defining characteristics of social media are the blurring of definitions, rapid innovation, reinvention and mash-ups. Each explanation also has a section on how to try out that form of social media yourself, with pointers on both how to find social media that’s relevant to you and how you might go about creating it. If you want to really understand how social media works, there’s no better way than to take part in it.
Mash-ups
The combination of two or more pieces of content (or software, or websites) is one of the phenomena in social media that make it at once so exciting, fast-moving and sometimes bewildering. Mash-ups are possible because of the openness of social media – many websites and software developers encourage people to play with their services and reinvent them.
There are literally hundreds of mash-ups of the Google Earth service, where people have attached information to parts of the maps. For instance there is a UK rail service mash-up where you can track in real time where trains are on the map. Fans of the TV series 24 have mapped locations from the shows’ plotlines on to a Google Earth map.
How social networks work
Social networks on the web are like contained versions of the sprawling blog network. People joining a social network usually create a profile and then build a network by connecting to friends and contacts in the network, or by inviting real-world contacts and friends to join the social network.
These communities retain the interest of their members by being useful to them and providing services that are entertaining or help them to expand their networks. MySpace, for instance, allows members to create vivid, chaotic home pages (they’ve been likened to the walls of a teenager’s bedroom) to which they can upload images, videos and music.
MySpace has built a lot of its popularity around its music services. There are said to be over three million bands and musicians registered on it, trying to attract a fan base from the 200 million registered accounts. According to Hitwise, in September 2006 MySpace was the 8th largest referrer of traffic to HMV.co.uk, more even than the MSN search engine.
In 2007, Facebook, a social network that originated in US colleges, became available for public use in the UK. Its popularity quickly rocketed. Part of Facebook’s success is its creators’ decision to ‘open up’ and allow anyone to develop applications and run them on Facebook - without charging them. This has seen Facebook users able to play each other at Scrabble and Chess, compare each others’ tastes and send ‘virtual gifts’, among any number of new ideas vying for attention.
Bebo, which is popular among school-age children, actually has the most members, perhaps helped by the fact that it is grouped around schools and colleges. Crucially, the growth in the use of social networks by young people in recent years has come at the expense of their consumption of traditional media such as TV and magazines. This switch in behaviour was one of the drivers behind the biggest deal in social media to date, when Rupert Murdoch bought MySpace for US $580 million.
Marketers have also increasingly begun to experiment with trying to reach the members of MySpace and other social networks. Bebo hosts pages for many children’s authors for instance, while MySpace has seen a rush of marketing efforts from Toyota to the US Army. Perhaps the most ‘grown-up’ of the popular networks is LinkedIn, which allows users build their business and professional contacts into an online network. It has been criticised for not being open enough and for charging for too many of its services – but next to Facebook it is still the most popular online social network among people aged 25 and over. The huge success of the ‘opening up’ of Facebook, as mentioned above, could be a challenge to LinkedIn’s ‘closed’ approach in the future.
How BLOGS WORK
At its simplest, a blog is an online journal where the entries are published with the most recent first. There are a number of features that make blogs noteworthy and different to other websites:
Tone
Blogs tend to be written in a personal, conversational style. They are usually the work of an identified author or group of authors.
Topic
blogs tend to define what it is they are writing about. They can be as specific as a blog about a book in progress or as wide in scope as „my musings on life and stuff‟.
Links and trackbacks
the services people use to write blogs make it very easy for them to insert links to other websites, usually in reference to an article or blog post or to provide further information about the subject they are writing about.
Comments
each blog post has a comments section, effectively a message board for that article. On blogs with large audiences the debates in these sections can run to hundreds of comments at a time.
Subscription
blogs can be subscribed to, usually via RSS technology, making it easy to keep up with new content. Blogs are easy to set up using any of a number of services. One of the simplest is the free Blogger service from Google. Others such as Wordpress and TypePad offer more features, the latter for a fee.
How WIKIS WORK
Wikis are websites that allow people to contribute or edit content on them. They are great for collaborative working, for instance creating a large document or project plan with a team in several offices. A wiki can be as private or as open as the people who create it want it to be.
Wikipedia
The most famous wiki is of course Wikipedia, an online encyclopaedia that was started in 2001. It now has over 2.5 million articles in English alone6 and over a million members. In 2005 the respected scientific journal Nature conducted a study7 into the reliability of the scientific entries in Wikipedia and Encyclopaedia Britannica. No one was surprised that Encyclopaedia Britannica was the more reliable of the two – what was remarkable was that it was only marginally more accurate. The Encyclopedia Britannica team issued a 20-page rebuttal of the study a few months later. Others observed that while Encyclopaedia Britannica had no entries for wiki, Wikipedia has a 2,500 word article on Encyclopaedia Britannica, its history and methodology. But Wikipedia is more than a reference source. During a major breaking news story, especially one which affects large numbers of people directly, such a natural disaster or political crisis, Wikipedia acts as a collective reporting function.
How PODCASTS WORK
Podcasts are audio or video files that are published on the internet and that users can subscribe to. Sometimes ‘vodcast’ is used to specifically describe video services. It is the subscription feature that makes a podcast so powerful as a form of social media. People have long been able to upload audio content to the web, but the subscription feature means that people can build regular audiences and communities around their shows. It effectively puts private individuals or brands on a level playing field with traditional media organisations when it comes to competing for people’s attention with AV content online.
Podcasts, like personal video recorders (PVRs), are part of a shift in media consumption patterns, which increasingly sees people watching or listening to content when and where it suits them. This is sometimes known as time-shifting. When a new podcast is posted to the web, all the subscribers’ podcast services (such as iTunes) are automatically notified and download the programme to their computer’s hard drive. The podcast can then be either listened to on the computer or downloaded onto an MP3 player, such as an iPod.
Naturally the advent of the podcast has also meant that media brands have been able to invade one another’s traditional territory. Many national newspapers in the UK have started effectively producing their own radio-style programmes and distributing them via their previously text-and-picture based websites. Channel 4 has also launched its own audio/podcasting brand, 4Radio.
How FORUMS WORK
Internet forums are the longest established form of online social media. They most commonly exist around specific topics and interests, for example cars or music. Each discussion in a forum is known as a thread, and many different threads can be active simultaneously. This makes forums good places to find and engage in a variety of detailed discussions. They are often built into websites as an added feature, but some exist as stand-alone entities. Forums can be places for lively, vociferous debate, for seeking advice on a subject, for sharing news, for flirting, or simply for whiling away time with idle chat. In other words, their huge variety reflects that of face-to-face conversations. The sites are moderated by an administrator, whose role it is to remove unsuitable posts or spam. However, a moderator will not lead or guide the discussion. This is a major difference between forums and blogs. Blogs have a clear owner, whereas a forum’s threads are started by its members.
Forums have a strong sense of community. Some are very enclosed, existing as ‘islands’ of online social activity with little or no connection to other forms of social media. This may be because forums were around long before the term ‘social media’ was coined, and in advance of any of the other types of community we associate with the term. In any event, they remain hugely popular, often with membership in the hundreds of thousands. Forum search engine BoardTracker monitors over 61 million conversation threads across almost 40,000 forums8, and it is by no means a comprehensive index.
How CONTENT COMMUNITIES WORK
Content communities look a bit like social networks – you have to register, you get a home page and you can make connections with friends. However, they are focussed on sharing a particular type of content.
For example,
Flickr is based around sharing photography and is the most popular service of its kind in the UK. Members upload their photos to the site and choose whether to make them public or just share with family and friends in their network. Thousands of groups have formed on Flickr around areas of common interest. There are groups dedicated to particular graffiti artists, towns, sports and animals. If you work for a reasonably well-known brand it is worth taking a look to see if there is a Flickr group about you – there are groups for motorbike brands, consumer electronics brands and even the cult notebook brand Moleskine. As testament to its enormous success.
YouTube is the world’s largest video sharing service, with over 100 million videos viewed every day. Members of YouTube can upload videos or create their own “channels” of favourite videos. The viral nature of YouTube videos is enhanced by a feature that makes it easy for people to cut and paste videos hosted by YouTube directly into their blogs.
As well as thousands of short films from people’s own video cameras, webcams and camera phones, there are many clips from TV shows and movies hosted on the service. Some people also use the service to record video blogs. YouTube started as a small private company, but was bought by Google for $1.65 billion in October 2006.
Digg is a news and content community. Members submit links to news stories that they think will be of interest and these are voted on by other members. Once a story has garnered about a critical number of votes (the number varies according to how busy the site is) it will be moved to the front page where it will receive wider attention from members as well as more casual visitors to the site. Digg claims to receive 20 million unique visitors every month, and certainly the volume of traffic via popular links from the service is so great that it can cause smaller companies’ servers to crash.
As with other social media platforms, rumours of acquisition deals and massive valuations for the service are flying around, but it remains independent and relatively small in terms of the number of employees (around 40).
How MICRO-BLOGING WORKS
Micro-blogging is tool that combines elements of blogging with instant messaging and social networking.
The clear leader in the micro-blogging field is Twitter with over 1 million users11. Other notable micro-blogging players include Pownce and Jaiku, which offer various different features, but for the purposes of this e-book it makes sense to focus on the Twitter format.
Twitter users can send messages of up to 140 characters instantly to multiple platforms. 90% of Twitter interactions12 are not made via the Twitter website, but via mobile text message, Instant Messaging, or a desktop application such as Twitterific. Its flexibility is further enhanced by the ability to subscribe to updates via RSS. Uses of Twitter vary. It’s popular among homeworkers and freelancers, who use it in part as a ‘virtual watercooler’. Other people use it simply to stay in touch with a close network and share thoughts or start conversations. Its suitability as a vehicle for breaking news has encouraged the BBC and CNN to introduce Twitter feeds. Even candidates for the US Presidency have taken to Twitter (for example, Barack Obama). An important feature to note is that Twitter can be indexed via Google. As with so much on the web, it’s a public platform, so it’s worth remembering that as such your use of it may become part of your ‘permanent record’.
Read more…
In fact, among the defining characteristics of social media are the blurring of definitions, rapid innovation, reinvention and mash-ups. Each explanation also has a section on how to try out that form of social media yourself, with pointers on both how to find social media that’s relevant to you and how you might go about creating it. If you want to really understand how social media works, there’s no better way than to take part in it.
Mash-ups
The combination of two or more pieces of content (or software, or websites) is one of the phenomena in social media that make it at once so exciting, fast-moving and sometimes bewildering. Mash-ups are possible because of the openness of social media – many websites and software developers encourage people to play with their services and reinvent them.
There are literally hundreds of mash-ups of the Google Earth service, where people have attached information to parts of the maps. For instance there is a UK rail service mash-up where you can track in real time where trains are on the map. Fans of the TV series 24 have mapped locations from the shows’ plotlines on to a Google Earth map.
How social networks work
Social networks on the web are like contained versions of the sprawling blog network. People joining a social network usually create a profile and then build a network by connecting to friends and contacts in the network, or by inviting real-world contacts and friends to join the social network.
These communities retain the interest of their members by being useful to them and providing services that are entertaining or help them to expand their networks. MySpace, for instance, allows members to create vivid, chaotic home pages (they’ve been likened to the walls of a teenager’s bedroom) to which they can upload images, videos and music.
MySpace has built a lot of its popularity around its music services. There are said to be over three million bands and musicians registered on it, trying to attract a fan base from the 200 million registered accounts. According to Hitwise, in September 2006 MySpace was the 8th largest referrer of traffic to HMV.co.uk, more even than the MSN search engine.
In 2007, Facebook, a social network that originated in US colleges, became available for public use in the UK. Its popularity quickly rocketed. Part of Facebook’s success is its creators’ decision to ‘open up’ and allow anyone to develop applications and run them on Facebook - without charging them. This has seen Facebook users able to play each other at Scrabble and Chess, compare each others’ tastes and send ‘virtual gifts’, among any number of new ideas vying for attention.
Bebo, which is popular among school-age children, actually has the most members, perhaps helped by the fact that it is grouped around schools and colleges. Crucially, the growth in the use of social networks by young people in recent years has come at the expense of their consumption of traditional media such as TV and magazines. This switch in behaviour was one of the drivers behind the biggest deal in social media to date, when Rupert Murdoch bought MySpace for US $580 million.
Marketers have also increasingly begun to experiment with trying to reach the members of MySpace and other social networks. Bebo hosts pages for many children’s authors for instance, while MySpace has seen a rush of marketing efforts from Toyota to the US Army. Perhaps the most ‘grown-up’ of the popular networks is LinkedIn, which allows users build their business and professional contacts into an online network. It has been criticised for not being open enough and for charging for too many of its services – but next to Facebook it is still the most popular online social network among people aged 25 and over. The huge success of the ‘opening up’ of Facebook, as mentioned above, could be a challenge to LinkedIn’s ‘closed’ approach in the future.
How BLOGS WORK
At its simplest, a blog is an online journal where the entries are published with the most recent first. There are a number of features that make blogs noteworthy and different to other websites:
Tone
Blogs tend to be written in a personal, conversational style. They are usually the work of an identified author or group of authors.
Topic
blogs tend to define what it is they are writing about. They can be as specific as a blog about a book in progress or as wide in scope as „my musings on life and stuff‟.
Links and trackbacks
the services people use to write blogs make it very easy for them to insert links to other websites, usually in reference to an article or blog post or to provide further information about the subject they are writing about.
Comments
each blog post has a comments section, effectively a message board for that article. On blogs with large audiences the debates in these sections can run to hundreds of comments at a time.
Subscription
blogs can be subscribed to, usually via RSS technology, making it easy to keep up with new content. Blogs are easy to set up using any of a number of services. One of the simplest is the free Blogger service from Google. Others such as Wordpress and TypePad offer more features, the latter for a fee.
How WIKIS WORK
Wikis are websites that allow people to contribute or edit content on them. They are great for collaborative working, for instance creating a large document or project plan with a team in several offices. A wiki can be as private or as open as the people who create it want it to be.
Wikipedia
The most famous wiki is of course Wikipedia, an online encyclopaedia that was started in 2001. It now has over 2.5 million articles in English alone6 and over a million members. In 2005 the respected scientific journal Nature conducted a study7 into the reliability of the scientific entries in Wikipedia and Encyclopaedia Britannica. No one was surprised that Encyclopaedia Britannica was the more reliable of the two – what was remarkable was that it was only marginally more accurate. The Encyclopedia Britannica team issued a 20-page rebuttal of the study a few months later. Others observed that while Encyclopaedia Britannica had no entries for wiki, Wikipedia has a 2,500 word article on Encyclopaedia Britannica, its history and methodology. But Wikipedia is more than a reference source. During a major breaking news story, especially one which affects large numbers of people directly, such a natural disaster or political crisis, Wikipedia acts as a collective reporting function.
How PODCASTS WORK
Podcasts are audio or video files that are published on the internet and that users can subscribe to. Sometimes ‘vodcast’ is used to specifically describe video services. It is the subscription feature that makes a podcast so powerful as a form of social media. People have long been able to upload audio content to the web, but the subscription feature means that people can build regular audiences and communities around their shows. It effectively puts private individuals or brands on a level playing field with traditional media organisations when it comes to competing for people’s attention with AV content online.
Podcasts, like personal video recorders (PVRs), are part of a shift in media consumption patterns, which increasingly sees people watching or listening to content when and where it suits them. This is sometimes known as time-shifting. When a new podcast is posted to the web, all the subscribers’ podcast services (such as iTunes) are automatically notified and download the programme to their computer’s hard drive. The podcast can then be either listened to on the computer or downloaded onto an MP3 player, such as an iPod.
Naturally the advent of the podcast has also meant that media brands have been able to invade one another’s traditional territory. Many national newspapers in the UK have started effectively producing their own radio-style programmes and distributing them via their previously text-and-picture based websites. Channel 4 has also launched its own audio/podcasting brand, 4Radio.
How FORUMS WORK
Internet forums are the longest established form of online social media. They most commonly exist around specific topics and interests, for example cars or music. Each discussion in a forum is known as a thread, and many different threads can be active simultaneously. This makes forums good places to find and engage in a variety of detailed discussions. They are often built into websites as an added feature, but some exist as stand-alone entities. Forums can be places for lively, vociferous debate, for seeking advice on a subject, for sharing news, for flirting, or simply for whiling away time with idle chat. In other words, their huge variety reflects that of face-to-face conversations. The sites are moderated by an administrator, whose role it is to remove unsuitable posts or spam. However, a moderator will not lead or guide the discussion. This is a major difference between forums and blogs. Blogs have a clear owner, whereas a forum’s threads are started by its members.
Forums have a strong sense of community. Some are very enclosed, existing as ‘islands’ of online social activity with little or no connection to other forms of social media. This may be because forums were around long before the term ‘social media’ was coined, and in advance of any of the other types of community we associate with the term. In any event, they remain hugely popular, often with membership in the hundreds of thousands. Forum search engine BoardTracker monitors over 61 million conversation threads across almost 40,000 forums8, and it is by no means a comprehensive index.
How CONTENT COMMUNITIES WORK
Content communities look a bit like social networks – you have to register, you get a home page and you can make connections with friends. However, they are focussed on sharing a particular type of content.
For example,
Flickr is based around sharing photography and is the most popular service of its kind in the UK. Members upload their photos to the site and choose whether to make them public or just share with family and friends in their network. Thousands of groups have formed on Flickr around areas of common interest. There are groups dedicated to particular graffiti artists, towns, sports and animals. If you work for a reasonably well-known brand it is worth taking a look to see if there is a Flickr group about you – there are groups for motorbike brands, consumer electronics brands and even the cult notebook brand Moleskine. As testament to its enormous success.
How CONTENT COMUNITIES WORK
Content communities look a bit like social networks – you have to register, you get a home page and you can make connections with friends. However, they are focussed on sharing a particular type of content. For example,
YouTube is the world’s largest video sharing service, with over 100 million videos viewed every day. Members of YouTube can upload videos or create their own “channels” of favourite videos. The viral nature of YouTube videos is enhanced by a feature that makes it easy for people to cut and paste videos hosted by YouTube directly into their blogs.
As well as thousands of short films from people’s own video cameras, webcams and camera phones, there are many clips from TV shows and movies hosted on the service. Some people also use the service to record video blogs. YouTube started as a small private company, but was bought by Google for $1.65 billion in October 2006.
Digg is a news and content community. Members submit links to news stories that they think will be of interest and these are voted on by other members. Once a story has garnered about a critical number of votes (the number varies according to how busy the site is) it will be moved to the front page where it will receive wider attention from members as well as more casual visitors to the site. Digg claims to receive 20 million unique visitors every month, and certainly the volume of traffic via popular links from the service is so great that it can cause smaller companies’ servers to crash.
As with other social media platforms, rumours of acquisition deals and massive valuations for the service are flying around, but it remains independent and relatively small in terms of the number of employees (around 40).
How MICRO-BLOGING WORKS
Micro-blogging is tool that combines elements of blogging with instant messaging and social networking.
The clear leader in the micro-blogging field is Twitter with over 1 million users11. Other notable micro-blogging players include Pownce and Jaiku, which offer various different features, but for the purposes of this e-book it makes sense to focus on the Twitter format.
Twitter users can send messages of up to 140 characters instantly to multiple platforms. 90% of Twitter interactions12 are not made via the Twitter website, but via mobile text message, Instant Messaging, or a desktop application such as Twitterific. Its flexibility is further enhanced by the ability to subscribe to updates via RSS. Uses of Twitter vary. It’s popular among homeworkers and freelancers, who use it in part as a ‘virtual watercooler’. Other people use it simply to stay in touch with a close network and share thoughts or start conversations. Its suitability as a vehicle for breaking news has encouraged the BBC and CNN to introduce Twitter feeds. Even candidates for the US Presidency have taken to Twitter (for example, Barack Obama). An important feature to note is that Twitter can be indexed via Google. As with so much on the web, it’s a public platform, so it’s worth remembering that as such your use of it may become part of your ‘permanent record’.
Top 10 social media questions marketers want answered
We simply asked, "What question about marketing with social media do you most want answered?" A significant 685 people provided their open-ended responses. We clustered them into groups and ranked them below. These are the top questions marketing professionals want answered regarding social media marketing:
#1: What are the best tactics to use?
The top question marketers want answered is related to best practices and tactics. A sampling of some of those questions include:
• Which social media method has been the most successful overall and how have you used that method?
• How do I stand out while creating strategic partnerships with those in the same field?
• How can social media help to build our brand and reinforce our credibility among consumers?
• Can using blogs, short videos, tweets and status updates help us market our core products, or do they just get in the way of our message?
• Is it true that social media marketing is better suited for branding than direct response?
#2: How do I measure the effectiveness of social media?
The next biggest question on people's minds can be summarized as, "How can I know if campaigns are working and what will the return be?" A sampling of questions in this category include:
• How do you measure success?
• What is the return on investment? Silly thing, but management needs it.
• What metrics are translatable in real terms that we can use as proof points or milestones?
• How do I assess return on investment and measure the impact on brand valuation?
#3: Where do I start?
A large percentage of marketers want to know where to begin with social media marketing. Some common questions include:
• Is there a system or a plan that can be reproduced? Such as, "start here, go here, then here and then here..."
• I want to better incorporate social media into my marketing efforts, but there are so many options that I don't know where to begin. Where are the best places to start?
• How do newbies like me get started?
#4: How do I manage the social balance?
Understanding the balance between behaving properly and marketing is a common question people want answered. Here are a few related questions:
• How do I respect the medium and maintain proper etiquette for each social media outlet?
• How carefully should we proceed with social media, so what's meant to be "social" doesn't turn out to be "business" only?
• Are there online protocols for beginners so we don't break the "unspoken rules" that experienced marketers know about already?
#5: What are the best sites and tools out there?
Given the endless array of social media options, it's no surprise that marketers want to fast-track their experience by focusing on the sites and tools that will bring the greatest return. Here are a few sample questions from this cluster group:
• Which social media sites should I concentrate my efforts on?
• What are the top three most effective and easiest to implement social media tools?
• What social media platforms are customers going to be looking at in three months and three years from now?
• Which elements are persistent and long-term versus those that are fads?
• What sites are best to use for my market?
#6: How do I make the most of my available time?
Many who have already begun marketing with social media recognize the enormous amount of time that can be directed to such efforts. Managing the time sink is a common question. Here are a few samples from this category:
• How do I keep up without getting consumed?
• How can I aggregate and automate social media marketing so that it's less timeconsuming?
• How do people cope with thousands of followers?
#7: How do I find and focus my efforts on my target audience?
Because of the broad nature of many social media sites, it's no surprise that marketers want to know how to narrow their efforts to an audience that matches their desired demographics. Here are a few questions from this grouping:
• How do I reach my "target" customers/business partners and drive traffic to my site or blog?
• What are the practical ways to use social media for more of a niche market?
• How can I target social media marketing tools to my target market?
• How can I best find people who are interested in the same things I am?
#8: How do I convert my social media marketing efforts into tangible results?
Moving from effort to actual income is a question many marketers want answered. What follows are a few questions from this category:
• How do I convert lookers to prospects?
• How do we create cash flow?
• How do I move from Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook activities to a sale?
• What generates sales and what generates business?
• How do I monetize social media marketing?
#9: How do I cohesively tie different social media efforts together?
Can social media and traditional media work together? Is there a way to manage all the social media campaigns in one central location? These are the types of questions marketers are seeking answers to in this category. Here's a few more:
• How do I tie all the pieces together into one cohesive strategy?
• Are there any apps that will let me use several social media tools at once for my marketing campaigns?
• How can we aggregate various social media channels into a single view so we reduce the amount of time required to visit numerous sites and see a holistic view of the social spheres we're part of?
• How do we integrate social media into our traditional media?
#10: Does social media marketing work, and if so, how effective is it?
Surprisingly, this is question number 10. Marketers want to know if social media marketing really works.
Here are some related questions in this category:
• Where are the documented real success stories?
• Does it really work, or is it just a great idea that doesn't return real value?
• Does anybody know how it really works?
• Where's the money?
5 Bonus Questions: Here are a few more questions that did not make our top 10 list. Each of these questions was asked by between 12 and 19 different people.
• How do I get others to see the value and get involved?
• What does the future look like?
• How do I manage the complexity?
• How do I attract traffic to my efforts?
• Is it cost-effective?
#1: What are the best tactics to use?
The top question marketers want answered is related to best practices and tactics. A sampling of some of those questions include:
• Which social media method has been the most successful overall and how have you used that method?
• How do I stand out while creating strategic partnerships with those in the same field?
• How can social media help to build our brand and reinforce our credibility among consumers?
• Can using blogs, short videos, tweets and status updates help us market our core products, or do they just get in the way of our message?
• Is it true that social media marketing is better suited for branding than direct response?
#2: How do I measure the effectiveness of social media?
The next biggest question on people's minds can be summarized as, "How can I know if campaigns are working and what will the return be?" A sampling of questions in this category include:
• How do you measure success?
• What is the return on investment? Silly thing, but management needs it.
• What metrics are translatable in real terms that we can use as proof points or milestones?
• How do I assess return on investment and measure the impact on brand valuation?
#3: Where do I start?
A large percentage of marketers want to know where to begin with social media marketing. Some common questions include:
• Is there a system or a plan that can be reproduced? Such as, "start here, go here, then here and then here..."
• I want to better incorporate social media into my marketing efforts, but there are so many options that I don't know where to begin. Where are the best places to start?
• How do newbies like me get started?
#4: How do I manage the social balance?
Understanding the balance between behaving properly and marketing is a common question people want answered. Here are a few related questions:
• How do I respect the medium and maintain proper etiquette for each social media outlet?
• How carefully should we proceed with social media, so what's meant to be "social" doesn't turn out to be "business" only?
• Are there online protocols for beginners so we don't break the "unspoken rules" that experienced marketers know about already?
#5: What are the best sites and tools out there?
Given the endless array of social media options, it's no surprise that marketers want to fast-track their experience by focusing on the sites and tools that will bring the greatest return. Here are a few sample questions from this cluster group:
• Which social media sites should I concentrate my efforts on?
• What are the top three most effective and easiest to implement social media tools?
• What social media platforms are customers going to be looking at in three months and three years from now?
• Which elements are persistent and long-term versus those that are fads?
• What sites are best to use for my market?
#6: How do I make the most of my available time?
Many who have already begun marketing with social media recognize the enormous amount of time that can be directed to such efforts. Managing the time sink is a common question. Here are a few samples from this category:
• How do I keep up without getting consumed?
• How can I aggregate and automate social media marketing so that it's less timeconsuming?
• How do people cope with thousands of followers?
#7: How do I find and focus my efforts on my target audience?
Because of the broad nature of many social media sites, it's no surprise that marketers want to know how to narrow their efforts to an audience that matches their desired demographics. Here are a few questions from this grouping:
• How do I reach my "target" customers/business partners and drive traffic to my site or blog?
• What are the practical ways to use social media for more of a niche market?
• How can I target social media marketing tools to my target market?
• How can I best find people who are interested in the same things I am?
#8: How do I convert my social media marketing efforts into tangible results?
Moving from effort to actual income is a question many marketers want answered. What follows are a few questions from this category:
• How do I convert lookers to prospects?
• How do we create cash flow?
• How do I move from Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook activities to a sale?
• What generates sales and what generates business?
• How do I monetize social media marketing?
#9: How do I cohesively tie different social media efforts together?
Can social media and traditional media work together? Is there a way to manage all the social media campaigns in one central location? These are the types of questions marketers are seeking answers to in this category. Here's a few more:
• How do I tie all the pieces together into one cohesive strategy?
• Are there any apps that will let me use several social media tools at once for my marketing campaigns?
• How can we aggregate various social media channels into a single view so we reduce the amount of time required to visit numerous sites and see a holistic view of the social spheres we're part of?
• How do we integrate social media into our traditional media?
#10: Does social media marketing work, and if so, how effective is it?
Surprisingly, this is question number 10. Marketers want to know if social media marketing really works.
Here are some related questions in this category:
• Where are the documented real success stories?
• Does it really work, or is it just a great idea that doesn't return real value?
• Does anybody know how it really works?
• Where's the money?
5 Bonus Questions: Here are a few more questions that did not make our top 10 list. Each of these questions was asked by between 12 and 19 different people.
• How do I get others to see the value and get involved?
• What does the future look like?
• How do I manage the complexity?
• How do I attract traffic to my efforts?
• Is it cost-effective?
Social Media Marketing: Why do I need it?
Social Media Marketing (SMM) is the act of promoting your site, business, or blogs through social media web sites. SMM when coupled with your current or traditional advertising campaign is a very powerful tool that builds customer loyalty by way of customer contact. And most important if you are patient, diligent, and stead fast in your SMMing you will bring massive amounts of traffic to your location on the web.
SMM is still in it’s infancy stage, and there are no tried and true methods to the madness as there is in traditional marketing. Most all marketing efforts to this point are trial and error, but as things hash out in this industry some methods are starting to stand out as the “so called” standards of SMM. One thing is for sure by creating viral content and promoting it via social media, you can build a very large, loyal group of fans that keep coming back for more and bring their friends with them.
Today there are many business managers and owners that are in one of the following categories.
- The ones that don’t know about SMM
- The ones that have heard of it, but have no clue how to get into SMM
- The ones that feel there is no value in SMM
No matter which category you are in, take some time to surf the web and find out as much as you can about social media. No matter if you look at small companies or large mega companies one thing they all have in common, a follow me in Twitter and FaceBook logo on their main page of their web site. From Dell to Starbucks, to the mom and pop shop up the street, everyone is finding out that customer loyalty via customer contact is building strong customer relationship.
If you are looking for return on investment (ROI), or if you are asking yourself how does social media make me money, then you are looking at social media in the wrong light. Because most companies will tell you they have not seen a direct correlation between SMM and ROI. Most companies have no real method of tracking tangible ROI in direct relation to their SMM campaigns. But to wet your appetite for information in regards to how well SMM is doing for some companies check out these facts posted in June 2009.
- Dell Computers surpassed $3 million in sales via links from one of it’s Twitter accounts
- Cisco Systems found 43% of visits to online support forum are in lieu of opening up a support case though the standard methods
- Ebay found in 2006 that participants in online communities spend 54% more than non-community users.
Better customer experiences, far lower support costs and more buying activity in the long run, coupled with higher customer satisfaction is what Social Media Marketing can bring to the company that successfully implements SMM into their advertising campaign.
Just remember these few items as you try to decide on if you should use SMM or not.
- Your customers are using it
- Your competition is already doing it
- Your partners are using it
- Your web site hits are static
- Your advertising budget is busted
Social media is a way to reliably dispense your message to a group of people who want to hear what you have to say, and want to feel included as they converse with you on the subject.
Top 10 Open Source and Commercial Applications
Top 10 Open Source
1. Dia2. OpenOffice Draw
3. Clonezilla
4. Cinelerra
5. Gimpshop
6. StarUML
7. Quanta Plus
8. Avidemux
9. InfraRecorder
10. Gimp
Top 10 Commercial
1. Visio
2. Photoshop
3. Dreamweaver
4. AutoCAD
5. Nero Burning Rom
6. Norton Ghost
7. Movie Maker
8. Illustrator
9. Publisher
10. MSN Messenger
12 Things You Really Should Know About SEO
From the very beginning of the Internet, the number one challenge which all of us have faced is how to attract qualified visitors to our websites. Throughout the boom years, one of the most popular solutions was to get massive funding, relatively easy to get in those days, and "buy" traffic, by various means.
As an iconoclastic young developer, with ambitions of beating the "big boys" at their own game, more time than money or the connections to get it, I sought a less capital intensive methodology to achieve the same results. Years of study and rapt attention to the pertinent forums, trying everything that even seemed to make sense (making many mistakes along the way, and learning much from each one), then carefully monitoring the results, has lead to many highly workable tools in our SEO bag of tricks. The outcome of these trial and error methods, (lots of both) lays the foundation of our SEO services and the basis for the ongoing growth of traffic to your website and ours.
The simple fact of the matter is this: Expertise in any other form of writing in no way qualifies one for the type of writing required to optimize a website for the Internet. There are many sites which have less than correct punctuation, grammar, and even spelling which rank #1 in their optimized search phrases. This is not to say that I don't think these things are important, only that to be found in the search engines, they are not the most important consideration.
The flip side of this argument is equally true. Just because someone knows all the ins and outs of all of the search engines, can write algorithms in their sleep, has lunches with Dr. Eric Schmidt and is on a first name basis with Larry Page and Sergey Brin, does not, in any way, make them a writer. All of the writing on this site was done as a collaborative venture between Susan K. Thompson, a professional writer with strong academic credentials and real world experience, in both business and marketing, and myself. Was there a lot of editing and re-write? Yes. Were there disagreements? You bet! Was it worth it? Look at the record.
Emerald Coast Entrepreneur was launched on May 1, 2005 with most site optimization in place and submission to the directories just beginning. With a total monetary investment of less than $100.00, and a time investment, I'd rather not think about, but which approached 300 hours, the site was given a PR5 ranking by Google on it's first update, less than 2 months after our launch.
Studies show that over 90% of all online users use search engines to find what they are looking for, whether products/services, or just plain old information.
The following twelve points will, I hope, summarize a philosophy, approach and methodology to the SEO question which is both sound and effective, along with giving some helpful insight into the industry itself.
1. Content. Content. Content.
Effective, professional, optimized Copywriting is the single, most important factor in any SEO campaign. Search engines index websites based on the content found on each page of the site. With a thorough understanding of the language and grammatical conventions combined with intensive research, to find and exploit the market focus, one can move a website to the upper echelon of the "SERP's" (Search Engine Results Page) in a methodical as well as ethical manner.
2. Analyze Web Logs.
Measure everything, at least twice, and then check again. While I would be the first to say that many of the procedures that make up website optimization are more art than science, one needs to take a very scientific approach to the results of the effort. This is done by methodically keeping a record of, and making an analysis of the sites web logs. There are a number of specialized software which make the job easier but at the bare minimum, one needs to keep a close eye on the site visitors and their activity while on the site. No matter how well planned the strategy, it is largely theoretical until proven by the results, which can only be measured by the logs, and a thorough analysis of their content.
3. No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google, or any other search engine.
Those who promise such feats will either optimize for such vague search term phrases (such as, "green stunted widgets with purple Polka-dots and icing") that no one will ever likely look for, or they are making a false claim, which they have no intention of keeping, or they have an inside edge at Google, something which they will loose, quickly, when the honest folks at Google find out about it. The other option, that they will take the money and run, is worth mentioning here but I'll be polite.
4. Some things are just plain silly.
You don't need to submit your site to 50,000 search engines. Businesses which offer this service are suspect, at best. 85% of the search results on the Internet come from one search engine, which, if you have one link from an established website, or better yet, a directory, will find your site just fine, on it's own. Four (4) search engines account for over 90% of the traffic on the web. As for any supposed benefit which may accrue from being listed in an obscure search engine in Botswana which specializes in safaris to the Kalahari Desert and receives 7 hits per day; well, you figure it out.
5. SEO is not Pay-per-Click.
While no one would argue the effectiveness of getting increased traffic and sales, through a well planned, pay-per-click campaign, the fact remains that the conversion rates are generally low and they cease the moment the "pay" stops. With a well planned and executed SEO campaign, while results may take a bit longer, they continue to produce, and in fact grow, long after the work is done and paid for. Quite often we have found that after a thorough optimization of a site, only minor adjustments are needed on an ongoing basis, primarily related to new content and/or new items of sale or service.
6. SEO is not witchcraft, Druidism, shamanism.
Neither does it require any special chants, ceremonial fires, or vestments, though some of us do like to howl at the full moon, on occasion. There are no "Top Secret" practices which a reputable SEO can not tell a client, a judge, or his mother, for that matter. The very nature of the Internet has always been cooperative and there is nothing about SEO that can't be learned, with a heavy dose of time and money. A reputable SEO firm will give you an item per item breakdown of just where the money goes. Be wary if you sense a secretive atmosphere or any unwillingness to answer questions. While there are technical points which might take some background to fully understand, if one has a solid overview of the entire situation, a simple explanation should be easy enough to come up with.
7. Do-it-yourself SEO.
Yes, you can execute your own SEO campaign and find a reputable SEO firm to help plan and organize it for you. About one half of my own clientele do some part of the actual work themselves, or have their in-house dedicated personnel do it, after discussion of the goals and aims of the business/website, a thorough website analysis, comprehensive search phrase research, and focused instruction on the ways and means of achieving high SERPs. These preliminaries are followed up with a detailed program of suggestions and methods which the client can then implement themselves or hire others to perform. Average savings; 30-40%.
8. Phased Implementation.
While many companies spend thousands of dollars per month on Search Engine Optimization, an alternative is available which will pay dividends to you in increased sales and leads without the high initial investment. The most important consideration is to have a reputable firm handle the initial evaluation and suggested optimization planning first. The trial and error method will cost much more, in the long run, with or without the desired result. After studying the plan and establishing a workable budget you may implement the plan as finances allow.
9. Remember the old saying, "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."
Never was this more true than in the realm of SEO. While concrete and measurable gains will always come from a well thought out and executed optimization strategy, the Internet is a competitive media and we all want to be number one. Accept that a steady upward movement, over time, will place you worlds ahead of a flash followed by a crash.
10. A thought to ponder.
At stake, in the race for the top, is the very existence of your website, your business, and quite possibly your reputation. Beware of any "shortcuts" or less than ethical schemes that anyone might suggest to further your business goals. When it's all said and done it is you, the business owner, who bears the responsibility for any company or individual you hire. Insist on knowing exactly what the strategy is and what steps are being performed to implement it. If it seems, in the least, suspicious, ask for and get an explanation. In this case, not only is Ignorance not bliss, it could very well be the beginning of the end for your business.
11. All incoming links are not created equal.
Both the relevance to your line of business and website subject matter and the PR value of the incoming link determine how valuable they are to your own PR ranking. With Google starting the trend, nothing new there, and most of the others following close behind, the days of grabbing all the inbound links, in any way possible, are gone. Not only will low ranked and/or irrelevant inbound links not help, they will, in fact, cause a penalty. Link farms, free-for-all link schemes, automated link accumulation software, or any other fad that doesn't carefully screen the links and websites they are coming from will, in the long run, do more harm than good.
12. It's more than just facts and figures.
The relationship between an online business and SEO is, perhaps, one of the closest of business relationships. In order to be effective, a SEO must know not only the facts and figures pertaining to the endeavor, but s/he must know something of the dreams and aspirations of the business principals. Things which don't normally come out in a prospectus are often invaluable information when searching for the "right fit" into the complex world of the Internet. My own clients sometimes ask, due to the frequency of my calls and email in the early phases, "Am I your only client?" I usually laugh and say something to the effect that until I know your business almost as well as you do, yes, you are the only one that counts.
As an iconoclastic young developer, with ambitions of beating the "big boys" at their own game, more time than money or the connections to get it, I sought a less capital intensive methodology to achieve the same results. Years of study and rapt attention to the pertinent forums, trying everything that even seemed to make sense (making many mistakes along the way, and learning much from each one), then carefully monitoring the results, has lead to many highly workable tools in our SEO bag of tricks. The outcome of these trial and error methods, (lots of both) lays the foundation of our SEO services and the basis for the ongoing growth of traffic to your website and ours.
The simple fact of the matter is this: Expertise in any other form of writing in no way qualifies one for the type of writing required to optimize a website for the Internet. There are many sites which have less than correct punctuation, grammar, and even spelling which rank #1 in their optimized search phrases. This is not to say that I don't think these things are important, only that to be found in the search engines, they are not the most important consideration.
The flip side of this argument is equally true. Just because someone knows all the ins and outs of all of the search engines, can write algorithms in their sleep, has lunches with Dr. Eric Schmidt and is on a first name basis with Larry Page and Sergey Brin, does not, in any way, make them a writer. All of the writing on this site was done as a collaborative venture between Susan K. Thompson, a professional writer with strong academic credentials and real world experience, in both business and marketing, and myself. Was there a lot of editing and re-write? Yes. Were there disagreements? You bet! Was it worth it? Look at the record.
Emerald Coast Entrepreneur was launched on May 1, 2005 with most site optimization in place and submission to the directories just beginning. With a total monetary investment of less than $100.00, and a time investment, I'd rather not think about, but which approached 300 hours, the site was given a PR5 ranking by Google on it's first update, less than 2 months after our launch.
Studies show that over 90% of all online users use search engines to find what they are looking for, whether products/services, or just plain old information.
The following twelve points will, I hope, summarize a philosophy, approach and methodology to the SEO question which is both sound and effective, along with giving some helpful insight into the industry itself.
1. Content. Content. Content.
Effective, professional, optimized Copywriting is the single, most important factor in any SEO campaign. Search engines index websites based on the content found on each page of the site. With a thorough understanding of the language and grammatical conventions combined with intensive research, to find and exploit the market focus, one can move a website to the upper echelon of the "SERP's" (Search Engine Results Page) in a methodical as well as ethical manner.
2. Analyze Web Logs.
Measure everything, at least twice, and then check again. While I would be the first to say that many of the procedures that make up website optimization are more art than science, one needs to take a very scientific approach to the results of the effort. This is done by methodically keeping a record of, and making an analysis of the sites web logs. There are a number of specialized software which make the job easier but at the bare minimum, one needs to keep a close eye on the site visitors and their activity while on the site. No matter how well planned the strategy, it is largely theoretical until proven by the results, which can only be measured by the logs, and a thorough analysis of their content.
3. No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google, or any other search engine.
Those who promise such feats will either optimize for such vague search term phrases (such as, "green stunted widgets with purple Polka-dots and icing") that no one will ever likely look for, or they are making a false claim, which they have no intention of keeping, or they have an inside edge at Google, something which they will loose, quickly, when the honest folks at Google find out about it. The other option, that they will take the money and run, is worth mentioning here but I'll be polite.
4. Some things are just plain silly.
You don't need to submit your site to 50,000 search engines. Businesses which offer this service are suspect, at best. 85% of the search results on the Internet come from one search engine, which, if you have one link from an established website, or better yet, a directory, will find your site just fine, on it's own. Four (4) search engines account for over 90% of the traffic on the web. As for any supposed benefit which may accrue from being listed in an obscure search engine in Botswana which specializes in safaris to the Kalahari Desert and receives 7 hits per day; well, you figure it out.
5. SEO is not Pay-per-Click.
While no one would argue the effectiveness of getting increased traffic and sales, through a well planned, pay-per-click campaign, the fact remains that the conversion rates are generally low and they cease the moment the "pay" stops. With a well planned and executed SEO campaign, while results may take a bit longer, they continue to produce, and in fact grow, long after the work is done and paid for. Quite often we have found that after a thorough optimization of a site, only minor adjustments are needed on an ongoing basis, primarily related to new content and/or new items of sale or service.
6. SEO is not witchcraft, Druidism, shamanism.
Neither does it require any special chants, ceremonial fires, or vestments, though some of us do like to howl at the full moon, on occasion. There are no "Top Secret" practices which a reputable SEO can not tell a client, a judge, or his mother, for that matter. The very nature of the Internet has always been cooperative and there is nothing about SEO that can't be learned, with a heavy dose of time and money. A reputable SEO firm will give you an item per item breakdown of just where the money goes. Be wary if you sense a secretive atmosphere or any unwillingness to answer questions. While there are technical points which might take some background to fully understand, if one has a solid overview of the entire situation, a simple explanation should be easy enough to come up with.
7. Do-it-yourself SEO.
Yes, you can execute your own SEO campaign and find a reputable SEO firm to help plan and organize it for you. About one half of my own clientele do some part of the actual work themselves, or have their in-house dedicated personnel do it, after discussion of the goals and aims of the business/website, a thorough website analysis, comprehensive search phrase research, and focused instruction on the ways and means of achieving high SERPs. These preliminaries are followed up with a detailed program of suggestions and methods which the client can then implement themselves or hire others to perform. Average savings; 30-40%.
8. Phased Implementation.
While many companies spend thousands of dollars per month on Search Engine Optimization, an alternative is available which will pay dividends to you in increased sales and leads without the high initial investment. The most important consideration is to have a reputable firm handle the initial evaluation and suggested optimization planning first. The trial and error method will cost much more, in the long run, with or without the desired result. After studying the plan and establishing a workable budget you may implement the plan as finances allow.
9. Remember the old saying, "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."
Never was this more true than in the realm of SEO. While concrete and measurable gains will always come from a well thought out and executed optimization strategy, the Internet is a competitive media and we all want to be number one. Accept that a steady upward movement, over time, will place you worlds ahead of a flash followed by a crash.
10. A thought to ponder.
At stake, in the race for the top, is the very existence of your website, your business, and quite possibly your reputation. Beware of any "shortcuts" or less than ethical schemes that anyone might suggest to further your business goals. When it's all said and done it is you, the business owner, who bears the responsibility for any company or individual you hire. Insist on knowing exactly what the strategy is and what steps are being performed to implement it. If it seems, in the least, suspicious, ask for and get an explanation. In this case, not only is Ignorance not bliss, it could very well be the beginning of the end for your business.
11. All incoming links are not created equal.
Both the relevance to your line of business and website subject matter and the PR value of the incoming link determine how valuable they are to your own PR ranking. With Google starting the trend, nothing new there, and most of the others following close behind, the days of grabbing all the inbound links, in any way possible, are gone. Not only will low ranked and/or irrelevant inbound links not help, they will, in fact, cause a penalty. Link farms, free-for-all link schemes, automated link accumulation software, or any other fad that doesn't carefully screen the links and websites they are coming from will, in the long run, do more harm than good.
12. It's more than just facts and figures.
The relationship between an online business and SEO is, perhaps, one of the closest of business relationships. In order to be effective, a SEO must know not only the facts and figures pertaining to the endeavor, but s/he must know something of the dreams and aspirations of the business principals. Things which don't normally come out in a prospectus are often invaluable information when searching for the "right fit" into the complex world of the Internet. My own clients sometimes ask, due to the frequency of my calls and email in the early phases, "Am I your only client?" I usually laugh and say something to the effect that until I know your business almost as well as you do, yes, you are the only one that counts.
Internet Marketing List: 59 Things You Should Be Doing But Probably Aren't
Internet marketing is about lots of little things, not one big one. This list is half-list, half-procedure. If you go down these items in order it might give you a decent internet marketing plan for the next few months. If you have others, post ’em as comments:
- If you have a Flash introduction on your web site, delete it. If you don’t agree, try this: Shove your head into a bucket of water. Stay in there, not breathing, for 10 seconds longer than is comfortable. That’s what you’re doing to your customers. Delete it, please.
- Check the load speed of every page on your site. If any load in more than 10 seconds, fix it (2-6 seconds is far better). If your developer says they can’t, and it’s not your own network causing the problem, fire them. Here’s a good page load tester.
- Check your site for broken links. You can use a tool like Xenu. Fix those links. Do not pass this step until you’re done. If it takes your developer more than a week to do this step, again with the firing thing.
- Make sure you have a user-friendly 404 error page, not the generically nasty PAGE NOT FOUND message.
- Make sure you have a user-friendly 500 error page, too. A 500 error happens when some bit of database code you wrote late at night decides it’s had enough with this world, and takes your web site with it. That usually leads to something terribly informative like “500 Error Connection Timed Out”. Maybe you can do something better?
- Remove all inline javascript to a separate .js include file. That will speed up page load times and may help you with search rankings, too. Plus it appeals to code geeks like me, and we’re all that matter, right?
- Set up Google Webmaster Tools, Yahoo! Site Explorer and Live.com Webmaster Tools. You’ll see your site from the search engine’s viewpoint, what folks use to find you, and whether there are any problems that might be hurting you in the search engines.
- Set up an XML sitemap, too. Check out Sitemaps.org for an overview.
- If you’re running an e-commerce site, hire a really good writer to rewrite all your product descriptions. Those descriptions matter more than you think.
- Get analytics set up on your site. You can’t do internet marketing without it. Actually, you can, but you’ll suck at it. I recommend Google Analytics. If your developer says they can’t install anything, well, you know...
- In that analytics tool, make sure you can consistently track conversions: Sales, or leads, or whatever else you want folks to do when they see your site.
- Get a HackerSafe or ScanAlert logo on your site. While I question their value, the search engines don’t. Nor do customers. That sticker can get you more search engine ‘trustrank’ and improve conversion rates.
- Put your full address and phone number on each page of your site, for the same reasons.
- Use Wordtracker, Trellian Keyword Discovery or something similar to find the top keywords that folks use to find your products or services.
- Now find the top ranking sites for those phrases.
- Who links to them? Do a “link:” search on Google, or use linkdiagnosis.com or Yahoo! Site Explorer to build a list. Now go out and get those links!
- If two years ago some SEO hack advised you to put 100 links at the bottom of your home page, delete them. They’re not helping you, and they may be hurting you.
- If two years ago that same SEO hack advised you to write title tags that read like this - “Wedding stuff and wedding things and weddings stuffs and weddings things with more wedding items and this is your place for weddings” - delete those too and write something that doesn’t sound like Elmer Fudd suffering a mental breakdown.
- If you have the same keywords in your keywords tag on every page of your site, search your feelings... Do you really think the search engines are that stupid? Change ’em, or delete the tag altogether. The tag doesn't really help, and duplicating keywords across all pages can flag you as an SEO spammer.
- Write a high-quality meta description tag for each page of your site. That may not affect ranking but it’ll get more folks to click on your search listing.
- Make sure your site uses correct semantic markup. Your developer had better understand what that means. Don’t make me come over there...
- Get your site totally standards compliant according to the W3C code validator.
- At the same time, make sure your site isn’t hideously ugly.
- With those two items handled, you can now go to all the major XHTML and CSS site directories out there, which list lots of standards-compliant sites, and submit your own web site. If you get in, you get great links from great sites. Do not submit your site to any CSS or XHTML directories until you see a happy green report on the W3C validator. Doing so wastes your time, and the directory owners’. They’re liable to digitally tar and feather you.
- Comment on other folks’ blogs. That gets you attention from those bloggers. They may come look at your site, or just drop you a line, or they may do nothing for a while. But you’re building relationships you can use later.
- Do a press release a month. Chances are something cool happened. Did you hire someone new? Create a new product? Complete a new project? Win a prize? Brag!
- Get someone who can write to create that press release. Bragging doesn’t help if you sound like an idiot.
- Learn to use Google Reader. Subscribe to the top internet marketing blogs. Read them a lot. For a hint you can look at the AdAge 150 list.
- Go to Google blog search. Search for your own brand name. Then subscribe to that search result in Google Reader (you’ll find a little RSS link on the search results page). That gives you a quick look at what folks are saying about your company.
- Do the same thing for your own name.
- Then subscribe to who’s linking to you on Technorati, for the same reason.
- Go to local directories like Yelp! and make sure you’re listed. Hey, it’s a link, right? Plus it’ll give you one more place to manage your reputation.
- Be sure your company information is up to date in Google, Yahoo! and Live’s local search tools.
- If you’re a local business, ask your customers to review you on one of the local sites: Either on the search engines or on the other sites. This will boost your ranking in local search results. Beg, plead, bribe. It does require work on their part. And don’t worry if you get a few negative reviews, either.
- Start working on Yahoo! Answers. This is an opportunity to make yourself an expert, and get some links at the same time. Spend no more than an hour a week. Read Matt McGee’s excellent article on the subject to learn more.
- Invite people to subscribe to your house e-mail list. If you don’t have one, start one. This continues to be one of the most neglected facets of internet marketing.
- Make sure there’s an easy way for folks to sign up for that list.
- Remove any extra fields from your subscription form. All you need is their e-mail address.
- If you require registration during checkout, get rid of it.
- If you’re automatically opting folks in to your e-mail list, stop.
- When you receive customer requests via e-mail, answer them. Fast.
- Remember that house e-mail list I got you to start building? Starting sending out a quality offer to that list, once a month. See how it works. Keep testing different types of subject lines, creative, offers and such. Always strive to beat your last best performance.
- Now you’re ready for some real online marketing (yes, all this was a warm up). Create a landing page for the best offer you’ve got. Follow best practices. Read Marketing Sherpa’s Landing Page Handbook for the best information you’ll find.
- Create 2-3 headlines for that page.
- Write a few different versions of body text for the landing page.
- And finally use a couple of different images.
- Then use a multivariate testing tool like Google Website Optimizer (if the budget’s tight) or Widemile (if you want the best possible result) to test all those headlines, copy versions and images and find the best ‘recipe’.
- Create 2-3 pay-per-click ads on Google Adwords and/or Yahoo!. Point those ads at the landing page. Be sure to use whatever tagging mechanism your analytics software requires, so you’ll know which ad generates which clicks.
- Now start that test!
- Pick the 3 things you learned from that test, and apply them to the rest of your site. Did one call to action work best? Create a button to put everywhere on the site. One type of photography? Use that, too. You get the idea.
- Did conversion rates go up? Cool! Now make sure you’re earning a good return on those PPC ads. Increase your spend and broaden your campaign, always watching out for ROI.
- Now you can create landing pages for all those house e-mails you’re sending out. Since you already know which subjects work best, and which kinds of offers, you can start with a good foundation and find the best possible landing page.
- Borrow your neighbor’s DVCam. Put it on a tripod. Film yourself talking about one of your products, or explaining how to use one of them. Post it on YouTube and then embed it on your site. No, you’re not Scorcese. But it’s more exposure for you, in another venue.
- Are you still using Yahoo! Answers? I hope so. Don’t make me come over there AGAIN.
- Create a MySpace page for fans/hobbyists/enthusiasts/students of your product or service. Don’t brand the page that heavily. Focus on the type of product or service. Attract folks who want to know more. Then wow ‘em with your knowledge, and build a circle of friends. Now you can announce offers and such to them, too.
- Do the same thing on Facebook.
- Find any industry-specific social networks that are relevant to you. It’s easy: Go to Google and search for “&Lsquo;your product’ social network”. Bet you find some. If you do, join up.
- Take all the cool stuff you’ve learned by testing offers, and newsletters, and keywords, and ads, and landing pages, and revamp your site. Then announce your new, improved site to all your customers, and subscribers, and MySpace friends, etc..
- Whew! You’re done. Congrats! Now, go back to step 1, and repeat the process. Because you’re never ‘done’.
What is the best social media website? Digg, SU, Delicious, Reddit … or?
I am going to share some of my experiences with you on social media marketing to tell you what is the best social media website for your website and why.You may have noticed over the past 2 weeks that I have geared a couple of my posts a little more towards the social media.
First off, lets just name the main social media websites out there:
Digg
StumbleUpon
Del.icio.us
Other Niche Social Media Websites (ie. DesignFloat is a Digg like site for design) So what is the best social media website for your website and why? To determine the ‘best’ social media website for you it depends on what your after. The usual main reasons for targeting social media websites are for:
Traffic
Subscribers
Regular Readers
Links / Exposure
Money
I am going to look at these 5 reasons and will be doing so by comparing stats from Google Analytics and my own experiences. Check out the stats for the three pages mentioned above.
Digg
Traffic
As you can see, by getting onto Digg’s front page, it will literally bring thousands of visitors usually within a few hours, but how good is the traffic?The average Digg visitor only stayed on Just Creative Design for 1:12 and only 17% of 43, 000 stayed on my website to check out more of my articles. The real value of this traffic is usually not that great as the huge amount of traffic usually brings down most sites (JCD went down for about 1 hour when we were getting 2000 requests per second) however it does boost your Alexia rank, get exposure, and build links.43,654 Visitors is not something you can really get anywhere else apart from Digg so if it is visitors and traffic your after, go for Digg.
Subscribers
You would think after 43,000+ visitors to your site you would get at least some subscribers but after my experience only about 1% of all the visitors subscribed to JCD, 430 subscribers from 43,000? But I can’t be sure that they all came from Digg. About 100 had unsubscribed by the next day.
Regular Readers
This is something I have not been able to track, but usually if you want regular readers I would target smaller social media sites in your niche as they are more interested in what you have to write about. An example is DesignFloat, which is a Digg like site for designers.
Links / Exposure
This is something you can’t control but Digg sure does bring exposure to your blog, links were scarce but you do pop up on other social media sites such as popurls and jimmyr which also bring a good amount of traffic.
Money
Not worth having PPC (Pay Per Click) ads on your site with Digg, after 60000 page views, only 4 people had clicked on my Google Adsense ads. Digg users generally do not click on ads and they have ad blockers installed. If you have a CPM (Cost Per Mile Impressions) ad system installed this would be more beneficial. Affiliate marketing on Digg is a bit questionable, but generally not successful.
Other things worth mentioning:
Digg does bring a mad amount of comments both on your site and on the digg site, for example my recent article 30 Fonts that all designers must own brought over 350 comments to Digg and 50 here on Just Creative Design. Be aware that comments are not always nice but just ignore these!
StumbleUpon
Traffic
The traffic from SU is steady, and in general pretty good in turnover for regular readers. Although it does not bring in huge amounts of visitors all at once like Digg nor in as huge numbers. SU users stayed on Just Creative Design for longer in general and visited at least 2 pages before leaving. You will also notice that it had a very low bounce rate compared to other sites, with 58% of visitors staying on the site!SU users are generally more inclined to stay on your website plus the visitors are steady and usually new (94% new).
Subscribers
Also hard to track, but generally it has a bit better turnover of subscriber numbers after a good stumble post. I would say about 4% subscribe.
Regular Readers
A little better than Digg however not as good as targeting niche social media site as I said before.
Links / Exposure
Exposure is good, and usually you get links back to people that do posts on ‘the best of so and so’ or link love. If your post is getting stumbled it may be a good idea to submit the article to other niche social media sites.
Money
Usually SU users do not click on ads, so this is a bit tough, try using a CPM (Cost Per Mile) advertising solution, something I am going to try soon.
Del.icio.us
Traffic
Traffic usually comes in short bursts, however they are usually more interested in finding out who the author is and what the site is about and they also stay on the site for longer than Digg and Stumble Upon users. Not as many visitors as Digg or SU however a bit better quality traffic as they explore your site more.
Subscribers
Have not been able to track this for Del.icio.us users but if they are interested in your blogs topics and sees your site has value, I imagine a small percentage would subscribe.
Regular Readers
Also hard to track so can’t really comment on this one.
Links / Exposure
Your website is shared amongst all the other users in Del.icio.us which is always great, as you get more exposure and traffic as people bookmark you for future reference.
Money
More likely to click on ads however only a small percentage do so as you can imagine, a lot better than SU or Digg in this respect.
Other things worth mentioning
Generally if your post makes Digg and it is a resourceful post, your post will also make Del.icio.us and other social media sites.
Traffic
Not as many visitors as Digg, SU or Delicious but any traffic always helps! Generally they visit just the page that was posted, hardy ever look around your site, and hardly stay on your site at all. Not that valuable traffic, but traffic none the less.
Subscribers
Close to nil.
Regular Readers
Hardly any at all. They usually are interested in the one page that is being linked too.
Links / Exposure
Exposure is good as you will get nearly all new visitors to your blog, however they won’t stick around or write about your post.
Money
A CPM (impressions) ad system would work best here.
Niche Social Media Websites
When I say niche social media websites I mean ones that are targeting at your niche, for example DesignFloat is a digg like site for design related subjects only.
Traffic
Less traffic but a lot more valuable in turn of turnover. Visitors are very targeted so are more inclined to subscribe to your blog and explore your site. Design Float has been great for sending visitors my way and is also a sponsor for this site, but I do notice only about 40% of them are new visitors which means I do get a lot of returning visitors.
Subscribers
As touched on above, users from niche social media sites are more likely to subscribe as they are interested in what your blog is about and won’t want to miss out on what you have to say.
Regular Readers
The best out of any social media site as they are pretty much guaranteed to be interested in your blog.
Links / Exposure
The best also as you will get link backs from other blogs who write on the same topic as you.
Money
This depends on the type of advertising you have, if you have targeted ad words for instance then what you write about will reflect what ads are shown. This means if I wrote about design, design related ads are going to show up, and if people are coming from a niche social media site, they are more inclined to click on the ads as it will reflect their interests.As for affiliate ads, it depends on what your trying to sell. CPM would also work but I am in no way a monetizing expert, as I am not in this for the money.
Conclusion:
If you want lots of visitors and traffic, lots of comments, and thousands of visitors (and maybe your site brought down) and a big batch of subscribers go with Digg.
If you want good steady traffic go with Stumble Upon. You will also get a small number of subscribers and they will explore your site at least on average 2 pages.
If you want short bursts of traffics and a bit of site exploration and link ups go with Delicious.
Reddit users come and go, so this is pretty much only good for page view numbers.
Niche social sites are the best way to go if you’re after subscribers and targeted traffic.
What are your experiences with social media? What works best for you?
40 Firefox Extensions for Web Designers
Web Developer
Web Developer adds a handy toolbar with lots of options that are useful for web developers.
IWebTool
A webmaster’s toolbar with over 30 different tools.
Load Time Analyzer
The Load Time Analyzer allows developers to measure and graph how long web pages take to load in Firefox.
Firebug
Firebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page.
CSSViewer
A simple add-on that lets you view CSS properties quickly and easily.
EditCSS
Allows you to edit the stylesheet right in your sidebar.
CSS Validator
With one click you can quickly validate a page using the CSS validator from W3C (opens results in a new tab).
Validaty
One-click validation from W3C’s validator.
HTML Validator
Adds HTML Validation information inside the browser as you are viewing pages. Shows the number of errors for each page.
Total Validator
This add-on performs multiple validations and takes screen shots.
LinkChecker
Checks the validity of links on any page.
View Formatted Source
Displays formatted and color-coded source and optional CSS information for each element.
Live HTTP Headers
While browsing, Live HTTP Headers allows you to view the HTTP headers of a page.
Modify Headers
With Modify Headers you can add, modify, and filter HTTP request headers.
Professor X
Want to see inside a page’s head without viewing the source code? Try Professor X.
SourceEditor
View and edit the source HTML.
View Source Chart
View Source Chart draws a color-coded chart of a page’s source code.
CSSMate
CSSMate allows inline CSS editing (originally was a part of EditCSS. When you wish to modify the CSS of a page, press Ctrl+Shift+8.
ViewSourceWith
Primarily for viewing page source with external applications, but there are a lot of other options as well.
Font Finder
With Font Finder you can easily get all the styles of selected text. All you have to do is highlight text, right-click and select Font Finder.
Accessibar
Accessibar is a web usability toolbar. It enables easy manipulation of web page display and text-to-speech output.
Aardvark
Aardvark is a very useful add-on if you’re looking to control how a page prints. You can remove elements that you do not want to be printed.
Copy as HTML Link
Save yourself a little bit of time by automatically creating an HTML link to the current page that can be pasted into another application.
YSlow
YSlow will analyze a page that is loading slowly and tell you why, based on Yahoo’s rules for high-performance websites.
FaviconizeTab
If you use a lot of open tabs while you’re working online, this add-on can help you compress them by showing only the favicon when the tab is not selected.
FireFTP
A free and secure FTP add-on.
Open IE
A great add-on for web designers, allows you to open a tab in Firefox that displays the page as it would appear in Internet Exporer.
OperaView
Open pages in Opera from Firefox and Mozilla context menus. Very useful for web developers.
ColorZilla
With ColorZilla you can get a color reading from any point in your browser, quickly adjust this color and paste it into another program. You can Zoom the page you are viewing and measure distances between any two points on the page.
MeasureIt
Draw a ruler across any webpage to check the width, height, or alignment of page elements in pixels.
Venkman
Venkman provides a powerful JavaScript debugging environment for Mozilla based browsers namely Firefox 2.x, the Netscape 7.x series of browsers, Netscape 9.x series, Mozilla Seamonkey 1.x and Mozilla Seamonkey 2.x.
XMLDeveloper
Provides a toolbar to help XML developers with their programming efforts by supplying a central toolbar for everything XML.
Screengrab!
An extension for Firefox that makes it easy to save a web-page as an image. With it, you can save anything that you can see in a browser window - from a small selection, to a complete page.
ImageBot
ImageBot allows lets you upload your images to a free image hosting service (ImageShack or Photobucket).
Save as Image
Adds the ability to save a page, frame, or part of either as an image.
Fasterfox
Fasterfox allows you to tweak many network and rendering settings such as simultaneous connections, pipelining, cache, DNS cache, and initial paint delay.
ScribeFire
ScribeFire (previously Performancing for Firefox) is a full-featured blog editor that integrates with your browser and lets you easily post to your blog. You can drag and drop formatted text from pages you are browsing, take notes, and post to your blog.
Social Media Extension
This extension will save you time if you use social media sites like StumbleUpon, Digg, Reddit, and del.icio.us. You can quickly see if a page has been submitted to these sites, which will allow you to find great content and be the first to submit it.
StumbleUpon Toolbar
Have StumbleUpon’s feature accessible right from your toolbar.
Del.icio.us Toolbar
Have the features of del.icio.us accessible from your toolbar.
Source:vandelaydesign
Web Developer adds a handy toolbar with lots of options that are useful for web developers.
IWebTool
A webmaster’s toolbar with over 30 different tools.
Load Time Analyzer
The Load Time Analyzer allows developers to measure and graph how long web pages take to load in Firefox.
Firebug
Firebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page.
CSSViewer
A simple add-on that lets you view CSS properties quickly and easily.
EditCSS
Allows you to edit the stylesheet right in your sidebar.
CSS Validator
With one click you can quickly validate a page using the CSS validator from W3C (opens results in a new tab).
Validaty
One-click validation from W3C’s validator.
HTML Validator
Adds HTML Validation information inside the browser as you are viewing pages. Shows the number of errors for each page.
Total Validator
This add-on performs multiple validations and takes screen shots.
LinkChecker
Checks the validity of links on any page.
View Formatted Source
Displays formatted and color-coded source and optional CSS information for each element.
Live HTTP Headers
While browsing, Live HTTP Headers allows you to view the HTTP headers of a page.
Modify Headers
With Modify Headers you can add, modify, and filter HTTP request headers.
Professor X
Want to see inside a page’s head without viewing the source code? Try Professor X.
SourceEditor
View and edit the source HTML.
View Source Chart
View Source Chart draws a color-coded chart of a page’s source code.
CSSMate
CSSMate allows inline CSS editing (originally was a part of EditCSS. When you wish to modify the CSS of a page, press Ctrl+Shift+8.
ViewSourceWith
Primarily for viewing page source with external applications, but there are a lot of other options as well.
Font Finder
With Font Finder you can easily get all the styles of selected text. All you have to do is highlight text, right-click and select Font Finder.
Accessibar
Accessibar is a web usability toolbar. It enables easy manipulation of web page display and text-to-speech output.
Aardvark
Aardvark is a very useful add-on if you’re looking to control how a page prints. You can remove elements that you do not want to be printed.
Copy as HTML Link
Save yourself a little bit of time by automatically creating an HTML link to the current page that can be pasted into another application.
YSlow
YSlow will analyze a page that is loading slowly and tell you why, based on Yahoo’s rules for high-performance websites.
FaviconizeTab
If you use a lot of open tabs while you’re working online, this add-on can help you compress them by showing only the favicon when the tab is not selected.
FireFTP
A free and secure FTP add-on.
Open IE
A great add-on for web designers, allows you to open a tab in Firefox that displays the page as it would appear in Internet Exporer.
OperaView
Open pages in Opera from Firefox and Mozilla context menus. Very useful for web developers.
ColorZilla
With ColorZilla you can get a color reading from any point in your browser, quickly adjust this color and paste it into another program. You can Zoom the page you are viewing and measure distances between any two points on the page.
MeasureIt
Draw a ruler across any webpage to check the width, height, or alignment of page elements in pixels.
Venkman
Venkman provides a powerful JavaScript debugging environment for Mozilla based browsers namely Firefox 2.x, the Netscape 7.x series of browsers, Netscape 9.x series, Mozilla Seamonkey 1.x and Mozilla Seamonkey 2.x.
XMLDeveloper
Provides a toolbar to help XML developers with their programming efforts by supplying a central toolbar for everything XML.
Screengrab!
An extension for Firefox that makes it easy to save a web-page as an image. With it, you can save anything that you can see in a browser window - from a small selection, to a complete page.
ImageBot
ImageBot allows lets you upload your images to a free image hosting service (ImageShack or Photobucket).
Save as Image
Adds the ability to save a page, frame, or part of either as an image.
Fasterfox
Fasterfox allows you to tweak many network and rendering settings such as simultaneous connections, pipelining, cache, DNS cache, and initial paint delay.
ScribeFire
ScribeFire (previously Performancing for Firefox) is a full-featured blog editor that integrates with your browser and lets you easily post to your blog. You can drag and drop formatted text from pages you are browsing, take notes, and post to your blog.
Social Media Extension
This extension will save you time if you use social media sites like StumbleUpon, Digg, Reddit, and del.icio.us. You can quickly see if a page has been submitted to these sites, which will allow you to find great content and be the first to submit it.
StumbleUpon Toolbar
Have StumbleUpon’s feature accessible right from your toolbar.
Del.icio.us Toolbar
Have the features of del.icio.us accessible from your toolbar.
Source:vandelaydesign
Social Bookmarking Profile: Shadows
What is it?
Social bookmarking community, with the last word stressed. It does't have nearly the benefits that can be achieved through Digg or some of the others, but it is more enjoyable and the conversations are engrossing.
Strengths
It is extremely well organized. The pages, groups, and profiles are interesting. There are 4 links that can be placed on the profile, plus more links can be added into the biography itself. The profile page can be made into a strong linking page with enough room for lots of content.
Weaknesses
It takes a while to get indexed often and even longer to get the links page itself indexed. You can put a ton of links on the link pages, but the ones on the profile, if it is updated regularly, are the ones that can have the most effect because the profile will be indexed more often and can gain a stronger relevance through content.
Nofollow
No nofollow yet. Until the spammers find it, it should stay that way for a while.
Conclusions
Shadow takes the mundane out of social bookmarking. There is a strong sense of internet community here, so there can be real fun in doing it. I suspect it also throws some small measure of traffic towards its sites, though nothing like going popular on Digg.
Social bookmarking community, with the last word stressed. It does't have nearly the benefits that can be achieved through Digg or some of the others, but it is more enjoyable and the conversations are engrossing.
Strengths
It is extremely well organized. The pages, groups, and profiles are interesting. There are 4 links that can be placed on the profile, plus more links can be added into the biography itself. The profile page can be made into a strong linking page with enough room for lots of content.
Weaknesses
It takes a while to get indexed often and even longer to get the links page itself indexed. You can put a ton of links on the link pages, but the ones on the profile, if it is updated regularly, are the ones that can have the most effect because the profile will be indexed more often and can gain a stronger relevance through content.
Nofollow
No nofollow yet. Until the spammers find it, it should stay that way for a while.
Conclusions
Shadow takes the mundane out of social bookmarking. There is a strong sense of internet community here, so there can be real fun in doing it. I suspect it also throws some small measure of traffic towards its sites, though nothing like going popular on Digg.
SMO: Social Media Optimization
A term being frequently tossed around in the contemporary Internet marketing circles is SMO or Social Media Optimization. As evident from the full form, SMO has everything to do with social media such as blogs, wikis, vlogs, forums and the likes.
The term SMO involves consistent and enduring implementation of all necessary changes in a website that may optimize it to render it more easily linkable and more vastly noticeable in the online social media. The essence of SMO is to provide such good quality content, design and usability that people should wish to link to your website. Accordingly, SMO focuses on designing, developing and maintaining a website to suit the social media applications like Wikipedia, MySpace, YouTube, Second Life, Digg, Flickr, Miniclip et al, such that the pertinent social sites would want to stay connected to the website on their own.
Being a rather nascent concept, Social Media Optimization (SMO) still needs to be groomed into a full-fledged subject with exhaustive strategies and rules all laid down. Presently, there are few rules, coined by few Internet marketing experts, which dictate the scene in defining precise strategies.
The basic strategy involves giving up static web content in favor of dynamism. The tactics favor inclusion of blogs or white paper etc. to widen the scope of linkability and putting in quick buttons like ‘add to del.icio.us’/ ‘Digg this’ and ‘Tell a friend’ to facilitate tagging/ bookmarking, as well as, help the content travel. Supporting mashups is considered another fine strategy, wherein webmaster allows prudent reuse of his web content by others, so as to work in teamwork towards enhanced and augmented content. Further, rewarding inbound links is also a recommended strategy to encourage the links in the long run.
SMO, in essence, calls for being a user resource that is genuine and unpretentious. It is a good idea to keep trying new things and put across a fresh face forever. Active participation in activities of interest to ones target audience is a definite must.
If done properly, SMO can be your ticket to convincing and long-term commercial success. Effective SMO can fetch you highly desirable web traffic and significant brand recognition. The tale of extraordinary growth and glory of YouTube in a matter of mere 18 months is a striking instance of successful and innovative SMO.
Though SMO can drive crazy traffic to your website, it may also prove to be nasty, as you constantly run the risk of negative publicity. Therefore, it is utmost important to choose your tactics carefully and target the right audience.
The term SMO involves consistent and enduring implementation of all necessary changes in a website that may optimize it to render it more easily linkable and more vastly noticeable in the online social media. The essence of SMO is to provide such good quality content, design and usability that people should wish to link to your website. Accordingly, SMO focuses on designing, developing and maintaining a website to suit the social media applications like Wikipedia, MySpace, YouTube, Second Life, Digg, Flickr, Miniclip et al, such that the pertinent social sites would want to stay connected to the website on their own.
Being a rather nascent concept, Social Media Optimization (SMO) still needs to be groomed into a full-fledged subject with exhaustive strategies and rules all laid down. Presently, there are few rules, coined by few Internet marketing experts, which dictate the scene in defining precise strategies.
The basic strategy involves giving up static web content in favor of dynamism. The tactics favor inclusion of blogs or white paper etc. to widen the scope of linkability and putting in quick buttons like ‘add to del.icio.us’/ ‘Digg this’ and ‘Tell a friend’ to facilitate tagging/ bookmarking, as well as, help the content travel. Supporting mashups is considered another fine strategy, wherein webmaster allows prudent reuse of his web content by others, so as to work in teamwork towards enhanced and augmented content. Further, rewarding inbound links is also a recommended strategy to encourage the links in the long run.
SMO, in essence, calls for being a user resource that is genuine and unpretentious. It is a good idea to keep trying new things and put across a fresh face forever. Active participation in activities of interest to ones target audience is a definite must.
If done properly, SMO can be your ticket to convincing and long-term commercial success. Effective SMO can fetch you highly desirable web traffic and significant brand recognition. The tale of extraordinary growth and glory of YouTube in a matter of mere 18 months is a striking instance of successful and innovative SMO.
Though SMO can drive crazy traffic to your website, it may also prove to be nasty, as you constantly run the risk of negative publicity. Therefore, it is utmost important to choose your tactics carefully and target the right audience.
