Tips on Social Media Advertising

In the wonderful world of social media, there is both an "organic" and an advertising component to marketing on social networks, news and media sharing sites.

As social media usage increases month over month, marketers have found a way to use these popular sites as channels for promotion. Anyone can join the PINK Victoria's Secret group on Facebook and receive messages of a new sale or a new product line hitting the shelves in the upcoming weeks.

Companies have been using MySpace for years to create custom pages for their promotion and making friends with current and potential customers in and around their target demographic. Now that a savvy online marketer can build a profile, continuously grow a network and strategically contact social networks with updates about the company and products themselves, it's time to bring in the advertising.

Here are some useful tips about social media advertising.

1. Understand your targeted social media channel
By knowing who is using which social media site, advertisers can promote their products to their targeted audience on the appropriate social site. Facebook users represent an older, more mature crowd than MySpace users, so advertisements about refinancing a home mortgage might not be the most appropriate content on MySpace.

2. Target the correct users with your message
Advertisements targeting users on social media channels are becoming more prevalent. There has been a lot of controversy about this content targeting on Facebook with their Social Ads. Here an ad is placed with related user actions and placed in the newsfeed for the users' friends to see. If I were to change my status to say "Dana just bought a rockin' pair of red high heels" a company selling shoes might be targeting "red high heels" and place their ad next to my status update. The company's hope would then be that my friends were jealous of my new shoes and need an easy place to buy themselves a pair.

3. Ensure the advertisements are supplementing the content
Having Google-powered PPC ads next to related lenses on Squidoo, using Yahoo to integrate advertisements with similarly tagged images on Flickr and using the Facebook social ads are placing the company directly in the path of those already seeking similar information. But now the advertisements are just offering one more way for the users to fulfill their need. Targeting pages, images and profiles that have content about shoes or fashion with the Red High Heels advertisement doesn't seem out of place, and the user can identify with the advertised product.

4. Have a social networking presence
Integrating social media advertisements with social media usage is quite similar to placing PPC ads on a SERP next to an organically ranking website: two impressions are better than one. And because searchers seeing a brand name and PPC ad are likely to then click on the organic results for the same company, social media users could see the advertisements and search for the same company as a user on Facebook, Flickr or del.icio.us.

In addition, seeing a company successfully networking with the opinionated and persnickety social media community can really boost their reputation as being a caring company that is just "one of the guys." Many people respect companies that are more down to earth and that interact with their customer base.

5. Get on board the social media train now
Just like with social media networking, the early bird gets the worm. Being one of the first to successfully use social media as an advertising vehicle shows innovation and understanding who will respond best to the advertisement's messaging. Once the Red High Heels company has penetrated the social media channel, positively showcasing their social networking/social advertising acumen, all others in the future will pale in comparison.

Incorporating social media advertisements with social media networking practices can give you more targeted users, as well as, a channel for users to connect with your business.

Edited by Lisa Libutti, www.LisaLibutti.com
Abridged: Online Marketing Blog

Small Biz Social Media Marketing

Nearly every business, big or small, can come up with something that's unique and linkworthy—something that will play well on Digg, YouTube, or whichever social media site offers the best audience fit. It's imperative that small businesses use social media marketing in order to decrease their reliance on traffic from one or two search engines; you have to diversify to survive.

Here are seven ways small businesses can jump on the social marketing bandwagon with a moderate investment of time and/or money.

1. Start a blog.
Blogging is old news to many (Web 1.5, perhaps?), and it's certainly not as sexy as chasing a link from the front page of Digg. But it's still a great way to open up a dialogue with your customers, and that connection is the reason social marketing exists. WordPress is free, open source software—so the price is right. The time investment is completely up to you, but this truism applies: The more you put into it, the more you'll get out. Still, it's okay—and I'd even say it's recommended—to start slowly and increase your time investment as you get comfortable with using a blog.

2. Comment on other blogs.
You can't blog into a vacuum. Blogging is about creating and joining conversations, and that includes reading what others in your industry are saying and joining the discussion on other blogs. It's free, and again, the time investment is up to you. You'll be able to supply your name and URL when leaving a comment, and there's no debate that intelligent comments on other blogs helps build traffic to yours.

3. Get active at Yahoo Answers.
If you're a service-based small business, you already know that your expertise is your No. 1 marketing tool. Yahoo Answers is a great way to share your knowledge with people who are looking for it—a direct connection with potential customers. I spend about 1-2 hours a week answering SEO and marketing questions there, and that small investment of time never fails to bring more traffic to my blog. Never. (It helps that I have a blog to refer people wanting more information, so don't skip #1 above.)

4. Make and share videos.
Good video cameras are cheap these days, and a short video needs little editing/production. Even if you do decide to add some sizzle to a video, the required software won't break the bank. How-to videos are an obvious choice. "Tour" videos—tours of your business, restaurant, the homes you build or sell, etc. are also a good idea. In addition to using them on your own Web site or blog, YouTube is an obvious sharing destination. Local search is also embracing video: CitySearch recently announced that local video ads will be added to its listings, and YellowPages.com is also pursuing video opportunities.

5. Take and share photos.
I'm a longtime believer in using Flickr as a marketing tool. The time and cost investment is minimal. And thanks to Flickr's incredibly active photo groups, you can share photos of your products with people who are interested. A pet store owner could share photos with the 2,000+ members of the pet parade group, which is one of dozens of animal-related groups. A company that makes iPod accessories could post nice product photos in the Apple group, with its ~2400 members. And a construction company that makes custom homes could post photos in the appropriate city group, like San Francisco or Chicago. For more on this, I invite you to read How to Market on Flickr on my blog.


6. Try StumbleUpon.
Of all the discovery-type of social sites (Digg, Reddit, Netscape, etc.), I believe StumbleUpon requires the lowest time investment. Joining groups related to your industry and adding friends from those groups can be done quickly. Once you do that, as you add pages to StumbleUpon—including your own great content—other users will "stumble upon" what you've added. As those visitors give it the "thumbs up", your content is then shown to even more users. Unlike Digg or del.icio.us, you don't need to spend several months building up a great user profile. StumbleUpon was the No. 1 referrer to my blog in 2006, and that's without spending a lot of time working it. I should note that the main benefit of StumbleUpon will be traffic, more so than links, sales, etc. So rather than hope it becomes a direct source of revenue or higher rankings, you should hope that it increases awareness, blog readership, feed subscribers, and the like.


7. Join groups & mailing lists.
Social marketing is about finding your customers where they are. There's a good chance at least some of your customers are using Yahoo Groups or Google Groups to share interests. Much like the Flickr examples above, there are probably groups/lists that are highly related to the products or services you offer. And much like the Yahoo Answers suggestion, being able to help others in this community setting can be a great marketing tool.

Every social marketing opportunity will have its own rules to follow, and you should make sure you know those rules. But here's one general rule for using these sites as marketing tools: Don't spam the system!!

Whatever social marketing you do, be an active contributor. Add to the signal, not the noise. When you do that, you're on the road to social marketing success.

Edited by Lisa Libutti, http://www.lisalibutti.com/
Abridged: Matt McGee, SEO Manager for Marchex, Inc.

Social Media Website Optimization

Easy Steps to Social Media Optimization

If you want to optimize your website, one of your first considerations should be "Social Media Optimization", or SMO. Similar to Search Engine Optimization, SMO employs social media tactics to drive more users to your website. It provides more ways for users to link to your site, increases user interaction, and overall allows your site to appear higher ranked in web searches.

Spend a few minutes researching SMO, and you will realize there are countless methods to optimize. Rohit Bhargava first termed SMO and created the 5 rules of Social Media Optimization. Since this post, readers commented and added to these rules bumping them to nearly 17 rules of SMO.

With numerous tips and suggestions out there it is natural to feel a bit overwhelmed. Where do you begin? Relax……take baby steps. Below are a list of the three suggestions to start you on the right track and guide your Social Media Optimization efforts.

1. Analyze your situation.
Before beginning anything, if you aren’t using an analytics tool - get one. Programs like Google Analytics and Feedburner are free and easy to use. Through them you can help you see how your readers get to your site, popularity of your articles, effective search words, and more. This will give you a base of comparison for your SMO efforts. And frankly, if you’re not studying the analytics, there's simply no way to optimize.

2. Set Specific SMO Goals.
Everyone dreams of increased readers and higher search rankings - but setting out specific goals will further help set your SMO strategy. Do you want readers to interact with your site? Do you want to gather information?

3. Remember Resources. SMO takes time. In order to accomplish your goals will your SMO efforts be daily, bi-weekly, or a one-time only? We know from our own work that there is always something else that you can do with the site to improve it. What’s going to get you the most value? What can you afford? What return do you expect and what will you need to do to get there?

Are you are interested in driving more traffic to your website? Do you want to increase your website presence, hire me today or set up a free consultation.

SEO Copy Writing

SEO ( search engine optimization ) copy writing has traditionally referred to writing web page copy that includes targeted keyword phrases in certain frequencies and densities. While keywords are still important, search engine algorithms have evolved to treat what others think about the content, and the words they use to describe it in links, as more of an indication of quality and relevance.

Thanks to blogging and Web 2.0 social media tools, more people than ever are able to cast their vote on what’s relevant by linking to it, bookmarking it and Digging it. SEO copy writing today is all about crafting content so compelling that other people want to make note of it by linking back to you.

Below are some easy steps you to help you optimize your site.

Easy Steps to Social Media Optimization

If you want to optimize your website, one of your first considerations should be “Social Media Optimization“, or SMO. Similar to Search Engine Optimization, SMO employs social media tactics to drive more users to your website, provides more ways for users to link to your site, increases user interaction, and overall allows your site to appear higher ranked in web searches.
Spend a few minutes researching SMO, and you will realize there are countless methods to optimize. Rohit Bhargava first termed SMO and created the 5 rules of Social Media Optimization. Since this post, readers commented and added to these rules bumping them to nearly 17 rules of SMO.

With numerous tips and suggestions out there it is natural to feel a bit overwhelmed. Where do you begin?

As the psychologist in the movie What About Bob said, “Relax……take baby steps.” Below are a list of the three suggestions to start you on the right track and guide your SMO efforts.

1. Analyze your situation. Before beginning anything, if you aren’t using an analytics tool - get one. Programs like Google Analytics and Feedburner are free and easy to use. Through them you can help you see how your readers get to your site, popularity of your articles, effective search words, and more. This will give you a base of comparison for your SMO efforts. And frankly, if you’re not studying the analytics, there’s simply no way to optimize.

2. Set Specific SMO Goals. Everyone dreams of increased readers and higher search rankings - but setting out specific goals will further help set your SMO strategy. Do you want readers to interact with your site? Do you want to gather information?

3. Remember Resources. SMO takes time. In order to accomplish your goals will your SMO efforts be daily, bi-weekly, or a one-time only? We know from our own work that there is always something else that you can do with the site to improve it. What’s going to get you the most value? What can you afford? What return do you expect and what will you need to do to get there?

Creative Content and Copy Writing

Crafting Effective Marketing Copy
Creativity is vitally important to crafting effective marketing copy and content. Advertising is supposed to sell something and content should be useful and valuable to the reader. It's when you create something useful to others that you add value to your global web presence.

Creativity is an Adaptive Process
Inspiration from other sources is what creativity is all about. It seems that many people believe creativity involves pulling a completely brand new idea out of thin air. In truth, creativity is an adaptive process that consists of looking at the same existing thing everyone else is and thinking about it differently.

Look in unlikely places for connections and angles that can enhance your content. If only one aspect of another subject area meets your needs, roll the copy and content together while getting rid of the parts that don't belong.

Where Do We Find Inspiration?
In creative copy writing and content gathering, you need to spend some time doing prelimary research on the web. During your research, you'll begin to learn new angles and strategies about how to direct your message to your audience. Doing your creative copy research is key! You never know when these ideas might come together to form a new idea.

Not very good at writing copy for your website? No problem!
If you're not good at writing copy or simply don't have time, consider hiring a SocialCircle SEO copy specialist to write for you.

At SocialCircle Media Solutions we will craft effective copy and content that's useful and valuable to your visitors. To learn more, contact us for a free copy and content consultation today!

Web Promotion & Internet Marketing

Online Marketing and Emarketing

Internet marketing, also referred to as online marketing or Emarketing, is the marketing of products or services over the Internet. The Internet has brought many unique benefits to marketing including low costs in distributing information and media to a global audience. The interactive nature of Internet marketing, both in terms of instant response and in eliciting response, are unique qualities of the medium.

Creative and Technical Aspects of the Internet

Internet marketing ties together creative and technical aspects of the internet, including design, development, advertising and sales. Internet marketing methods include search engine marketing, display advertising, e-mail marketing, affiliate marketing, interactive advertising, online reputation management and also Social Media Marketing Methods such as blog marketing, social networking and viral marketing.

Internet marketing is the process of growing and promoting an organization using online media. Internet marketing does not simply mean 'building a website' or 'promoting a website'. Somewhere behind that website is a real organization with real goals.

Include All Aspects of Online Advertising

An Internet marketing strategy includes all aspects of online advertising and activity that promotes a company online, including websites, blog sites, article and press releases, online market research, email marketing, and advertising, as appropriate for the promotion of ones' business.

Why is Internet Marketing so important?

As previous mentioned, simply having a website designed is not enough. Developing an internet marketings strategy is the effort we'll need to put forth in optimizing your site for the web so that your website is easy to find by those who are looking for what you have to offer.

A well-planned Internet marketing strategy and plan is key!!

This is where SocialCircle Media Solutions comes in. We'll sit down with you and develop an internet marketing strategy that works for your website and current business goals. Together we’ll develop a plan that covers everything from keyword strategies to developing a customer database, and everything in between.

As your internet marketing strategists, our goal is to empower you with the necessary tools to develop and enhance your web presence. We'll set you up so you can keep it going for months and years to come!

Contact a Social Circle Media Specialist today! Click here!