Search engines value regular, fresh content, and by blogging you can create just that.
The more you post, the more often search engines will spider your site, looking for
additional, relevant content. Basing your blog on your keyword strategy created in the
SEO process can also aid your web site in ranking for those key phrases. Blogs, by their
social nature, can also increase the incoming links to your web site.
Using a blog platform that has been designed to be search engine friendly is crucial
to harnessing the SEO power of blogging. Some features of SEO-friendly blogging
software include:
Each blog post should be assigned a unique page which can be easily
accessed and indexed by the search engines. This is called a permalink.
Pages should be able to be tagged with keywords relevant to your SEO
strategy.
Each post should be able to have its own unique meta data (title, description
and key phrases).
Social bookmarking functionality should be built in.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Social Media Marketing by RSS Readers
RSS readers can be integrated with an email client, can work offline or can be
online only. Some are free, and some are not. Look at your email client to see if
you can set one up there, or try www.bloglines.com, www.google.com/reader or
www.feeddemon.com. Find the one with the features that suit your needs.
RSS readers are a useful way to keep up to date with blogs, as most supply an RSS feed
of their posts. Still confused? Take a look at commoncraft.com/rss_plain_english.]
Whether blogging as an individual or a company, there is plenty to be gained from the
process. You can:
* Create an online identity.
* Create a voice for yourself or your company.
* Promote engagement with your audience
* Create a community.
online only. Some are free, and some are not. Look at your email client to see if
you can set one up there, or try www.bloglines.com, www.google.com/reader or
www.feeddemon.com. Find the one with the features that suit your needs.
RSS readers are a useful way to keep up to date with blogs, as most supply an RSS feed
of their posts. Still confused? Take a look at commoncraft.com/rss_plain_english.]
Whether blogging as an individual or a company, there is plenty to be gained from the
process. You can:
* Create an online identity.
* Create a voice for yourself or your company.
* Promote engagement with your audience
* Create a community.
Social Media Marketing by creating content and opinion – blogging and podcasting
Everyone has an opinion, and the Internet allows for everyone to share their opinion.
Blogs and podcasts have emerged as social media that are being embraced across the
Internet population.
Blogging
A blog is a web site where entries (blog posts) are typically displayed in reverse
chronological order. Technorati, a blog and social media tracking engine, defines a
blog as a “regularly updated journal published on the web.” Blogs usually allow for
comments on blog posts. A typical blog will feature text, images and links to other
blogs and web sites related to the topic of the blog.
Blogs range from the personal to the political and everything in between. They can
be written by one person or by a group of people. Some are aimed at the blogger’s
immediate family and friends, and others rival leading newspapers in terms of reach
and readership. Blogs are mostly textual, but can comprise solely of images, videos,
audio or any combination of these.
According to Technorati data, there are over 175,000 new blogs created and over 1.6
million posts updated every day (over 18 updates a second). That’s a lot.
The power of blogs is that they allow anyone to publish and share ideas, and anyone
can read and respond to these. They have given consumers and companies a voice and
blogging has opened up a world of information sharing possibilities.
The basic elements of a blog post are:
Author – the person who wrote the blog post.
Blog post title – the title of the blog post, which is usually used to create a
unique URL, or permalink, for the blog post.
Tag – tags are the categories used to describe the blog post, and aid services
such as Technorati in categorising blog posts.
Comment – comments left by readers of the blog are shown with the blog post.
TrackBack – a notification of other blogs linking to a post, often displayed
below blog post.
Some other elements of a blog include:
RSS feed – an RSS feed allows for readers to subscribe easily to the blog.
Categories – blog posts can be allocated categories.
Blogroll – a collection of links to other blogs or web sites commonly read or
used by the blogger.
Archives – previous posts remain available for for visitors to search through.
Archives are usually categorised by date.
Why does Google index blog fater than any other site ??? by Mattcutts
Blogs and podcasts have emerged as social media that are being embraced across the
Internet population.
Blogging
A blog is a web site where entries (blog posts) are typically displayed in reverse
chronological order. Technorati, a blog and social media tracking engine, defines a
blog as a “regularly updated journal published on the web.” Blogs usually allow for
comments on blog posts. A typical blog will feature text, images and links to other
blogs and web sites related to the topic of the blog.
Blogs range from the personal to the political and everything in between. They can
be written by one person or by a group of people. Some are aimed at the blogger’s
immediate family and friends, and others rival leading newspapers in terms of reach
and readership. Blogs are mostly textual, but can comprise solely of images, videos,
audio or any combination of these.
According to Technorati data, there are over 175,000 new blogs created and over 1.6
million posts updated every day (over 18 updates a second). That’s a lot.
The power of blogs is that they allow anyone to publish and share ideas, and anyone
can read and respond to these. They have given consumers and companies a voice and
blogging has opened up a world of information sharing possibilities.
The basic elements of a blog post are:
Author – the person who wrote the blog post.
Blog post title – the title of the blog post, which is usually used to create a
unique URL, or permalink, for the blog post.
Tag – tags are the categories used to describe the blog post, and aid services
such as Technorati in categorising blog posts.
Comment – comments left by readers of the blog are shown with the blog post.
TrackBack – a notification of other blogs linking to a post, often displayed
below blog post.
Some other elements of a blog include:
RSS feed – an RSS feed allows for readers to subscribe easily to the blog.
Categories – blog posts can be allocated categories.
Blogroll – a collection of links to other blogs or web sites commonly read or
used by the blogger.
Archives – previous posts remain available for for visitors to search through.
Archives are usually categorised by date.
Why does Google index blog fater than any other site ??? by Mattcutts
Social networking as a tool for marketers
Social networks, free for their members, tend to rely on advertising for their revenue.
Because of demographic information collected by the social networks, advertisers are
able to target their adverts to a particular audience.
Applications are another way to market products. Creating a useful application that
is relevant to a product, can expose a whole new audience to a company’s offering, as
well as allowing a company to collect detailed information on their users. However,
although Facebook applications were the big marketing story of 2007, there are few
success stories to emerge from the buzz. It’s very much a developing market.
Profiles are not limited to people. Bands, for example, have found immense success
with creating MySpace profiles for their band and using the profile as a means of
connecting with their current and potential fan base.
On Facebook, Facebook Pages “provide a customized presence on Facebook for
your band, brand, small business, and more.”
Marketers can also use social networks to identify how users are perceiving or
interacting with their brand, and open up new avenues of communication with them.
For example, if you are marketing a bar, look to see how many people are using a
social network to organise events at your bar. Find a way of rewarding those who are
bringing you extra customers.
Social networks are also an avenue for members to voice frustrations and annoyances, and these should be closely watched by marketers to gauge sentiment.
Because of demographic information collected by the social networks, advertisers are
able to target their adverts to a particular audience.
Applications are another way to market products. Creating a useful application that
is relevant to a product, can expose a whole new audience to a company’s offering, as
well as allowing a company to collect detailed information on their users. However,
although Facebook applications were the big marketing story of 2007, there are few
success stories to emerge from the buzz. It’s very much a developing market.
Profiles are not limited to people. Bands, for example, have found immense success
with creating MySpace profiles for their band and using the profile as a means of
connecting with their current and potential fan base.
On Facebook, Facebook Pages “provide a customized presence on Facebook for
your band, brand, small business, and more.”
Marketers can also use social networks to identify how users are perceiving or
interacting with their brand, and open up new avenues of communication with them.
For example, if you are marketing a bar, look to see how many people are using a
social network to organise events at your bar. Find a way of rewarding those who are
bringing you extra customers.
Social networks are also an avenue for members to voice frustrations and annoyances, and these should be closely watched by marketers to gauge sentiment.
Social Media Marketing By Video Sharing
YouTube (www.youtube.com) is essentially a web site which, by using Flash technology,
allows users to upload, view and share videos with the rest of the connected world.
These videos can range from music, movie and television clips to homemade amateur
videos and vlogs.
YouTube has 60% of all online video viewers with up to 79 million viewers in an evening
(Yen, 2008) and over 65,000 videos uploaded every day. This makes it both the premier
online video site and social video sharing site online. This implies that most video
consumption on the Web is already based on social media, and that there are over 130
million online viewers of video overall (ibid, 2008). YouTube was acquired by Google in
2006 for $1.65 billion. In fact, according to comScore data, the number of searches on
YouTube make it the second largest search engine.
YouTube is a complex site offering numerous features, yet it is simple to use. While it is
possible for unregistered users to watch most of the publicly available videos, a quick,
straightforward registration process allows members to upload an unlimited number
of clips, comment on and add video responses to them and subscribe to content feeds
that catch their attention and interest. Frequently enhanced functionality and clever
features on YouTube continually push this site to deliver bigger and better services to
its ever-increasing user base.
Many marketers have adopted the opportunities afforded by YouTube. There are two
aspects of marketing through YouTube - self-promotion of people and products such
as music videos, movie previews, interviews, video-advertisements, and sponsored
adverts, supplied by Google AdWords.
YouTube has changed the way we view video adverts. Marketers, such as BMW, have
shown that if an advert is good enough, many people will choose to watch it. BMW
has created a BMW South Africa channel on YouTube, and has uploaded many of
their adverts. One of them has been viewed over a million times since August 2006.
These are people who have chosen to watch this advert at a media cost of zero! Other
advertisers have realised that far longer adverts can be created and uploaded. As long
as the content is good, there will be viewers. Time constraints are not the same as they are for TV networks.
BMW South Africa’s YouTube success.
Savvy marketers also realise the potential of watching for organic mentions of their
brand, and then capitalising on this. An unknown teenage girl, with the YouTube
account name Bowiechick, made a 75 second video clip about her break-up with
a boyfriend. While making the clip she played with some of the effects on her new
webcam, like putting ears on her head and a moustache on her face with its facial
tracking software. Three days after uploading the video, 178,000 people had seen
this video and 900 had commented on it. The comments had nothing to do with the
break up but with the Logitech webcam she had used in the video. Following this, the
camera broke into Amazon’s Top 100 bestselling products list. Logitech were obviously
listening and made the most of the opportunity by becoming YouTube’s official partner
(Sandoval, 2006).
The medium of online video sharing also means that conferences are able to generate
a far greater audience than ever before. The companies that sponsor or run these
conferences are able to engage with a larger audience by making freely available
videos of the various sessions held. TED (www.ted.com) and Nokia’s Nokia World are
excellent examples of organisations that increase interest by making their remarkable presentations available for free.
allows users to upload, view and share videos with the rest of the connected world.
These videos can range from music, movie and television clips to homemade amateur
videos and vlogs.
YouTube has 60% of all online video viewers with up to 79 million viewers in an evening
(Yen, 2008) and over 65,000 videos uploaded every day. This makes it both the premier
online video site and social video sharing site online. This implies that most video
consumption on the Web is already based on social media, and that there are over 130
million online viewers of video overall (ibid, 2008). YouTube was acquired by Google in
2006 for $1.65 billion. In fact, according to comScore data, the number of searches on
YouTube make it the second largest search engine.
YouTube is a complex site offering numerous features, yet it is simple to use. While it is
possible for unregistered users to watch most of the publicly available videos, a quick,
straightforward registration process allows members to upload an unlimited number
of clips, comment on and add video responses to them and subscribe to content feeds
that catch their attention and interest. Frequently enhanced functionality and clever
features on YouTube continually push this site to deliver bigger and better services to
its ever-increasing user base.
Many marketers have adopted the opportunities afforded by YouTube. There are two
aspects of marketing through YouTube - self-promotion of people and products such
as music videos, movie previews, interviews, video-advertisements, and sponsored
adverts, supplied by Google AdWords.
YouTube has changed the way we view video adverts. Marketers, such as BMW, have
shown that if an advert is good enough, many people will choose to watch it. BMW
has created a BMW South Africa channel on YouTube, and has uploaded many of
their adverts. One of them has been viewed over a million times since August 2006.
These are people who have chosen to watch this advert at a media cost of zero! Other
advertisers have realised that far longer adverts can be created and uploaded. As long
as the content is good, there will be viewers. Time constraints are not the same as they are for TV networks.
BMW South Africa’s YouTube success.
Savvy marketers also realise the potential of watching for organic mentions of their
brand, and then capitalising on this. An unknown teenage girl, with the YouTube
account name Bowiechick, made a 75 second video clip about her break-up with
a boyfriend. While making the clip she played with some of the effects on her new
webcam, like putting ears on her head and a moustache on her face with its facial
tracking software. Three days after uploading the video, 178,000 people had seen
this video and 900 had commented on it. The comments had nothing to do with the
break up but with the Logitech webcam she had used in the video. Following this, the
camera broke into Amazon’s Top 100 bestselling products list. Logitech were obviously
listening and made the most of the opportunity by becoming YouTube’s official partner
(Sandoval, 2006).
The medium of online video sharing also means that conferences are able to generate
a far greater audience than ever before. The companies that sponsor or run these
conferences are able to engage with a larger audience by making freely available
videos of the various sessions held. TED (www.ted.com) and Nokia’s Nokia World are
excellent examples of organisations that increase interest by making their remarkable presentations available for free.
Social Media Marketing by Content Sharing – Create and share
YouTube may be the first content sharing site that comes to mind, but users share
images, audio and information as well as video. If it can be created, it can be shared.
There are many sites that facilitate that sharing of videos, images and audio, and they
are exceptionally popular. From Flickr to YouTube, they have all tapped into the fact that we love to create content for others to view.
The key word here is free: there are no fees for joining, whether you are uploading
content or viewing content (although premium paid for memberships can allow you
further features). This means that these sites attract an enormous audience. In fact,
according to Alexa rankings, YouTube is the second most visited site in the world!
Many of these services also encourage distribution of their content. YouTube allows
videos to be embedded easily into other web sites, and Flickr has generated a number
of applications and widgets that allows the images to be shown all over the web (and
even printed onto cards and stickers via www.moo.com).
Most of these web sites rely on advertising to support the free services they offer and
some have a premium paid for membership version which is without adverts.
images, audio and information as well as video. If it can be created, it can be shared.
There are many sites that facilitate that sharing of videos, images and audio, and they
are exceptionally popular. From Flickr to YouTube, they have all tapped into the fact that we love to create content for others to view.
The key word here is free: there are no fees for joining, whether you are uploading
content or viewing content (although premium paid for memberships can allow you
further features). This means that these sites attract an enormous audience. In fact,
according to Alexa rankings, YouTube is the second most visited site in the world!
Many of these services also encourage distribution of their content. YouTube allows
videos to be embedded easily into other web sites, and Flickr has generated a number
of applications and widgets that allows the images to be shown all over the web (and
even printed onto cards and stickers via www.moo.com).
Most of these web sites rely on advertising to support the free services they offer and
some have a premium paid for membership version which is without adverts.
Social Media Marketing tools - Social Bookmarking and aggregating
Seeing how users categorise your content will give you an idea of how your web site
and company are perceived by your audience. It might be remarkably different to what
you think they see you as. Look at what other web sites are tagged similarly. You might
find new competitors, and possibly new ideas.
You can also use these services to share what other URLs your company finds
interesting. This can be a useful resource to add to an online press room, as well as a
utility that fanatics of your company would get really excited about.
To create link love and traffic, investigate what sort of content your target audience
loves voting for, and get creating that content. A word of warning: never do the
content submission and voting yourself. It’s one sure-fire way to incur the wrath of
these communities.
Organic growth is the only way to go here. It might take time as you build your reputation
and worth amongst the community, but the end result can be very worthwhile.
As a content provider, make sure you have the appropriate chicklets added to your content to make it easier to share.
and company are perceived by your audience. It might be remarkably different to what
you think they see you as. Look at what other web sites are tagged similarly. You might
find new competitors, and possibly new ideas.
You can also use these services to share what other URLs your company finds
interesting. This can be a useful resource to add to an online press room, as well as a
utility that fanatics of your company would get really excited about.
To create link love and traffic, investigate what sort of content your target audience
loves voting for, and get creating that content. A word of warning: never do the
content submission and voting yourself. It’s one sure-fire way to incur the wrath of
these communities.
Organic growth is the only way to go here. It might take time as you build your reputation
and worth amongst the community, but the end result can be very worthwhile.
As a content provider, make sure you have the appropriate chicklets added to your content to make it easier to share.
Social Media Marketing - How it works
Social media has changed the world we market in, and can be used as an integral part
of an online marketing campaign. Social media is all about the ways that we create,
connect and share online.
Social bookmarking and aggregating
– sharing things you like
If there are web sites that you visit often, or that you would like to keep as a reference
to come back to, it is easy to use your browser to “bookmark” them. This means that
you store the URL so that you can locate it again easily. It also gives you a personal
library of web sites that you can store on your computer.
Social bookmarking sites, however, allow you store these links online, use tags to
describe them and share these lists with other users. Some of these social media sites let you
submit URLs that other users vote on, while others allow you to use the tags saved to
browse through the lists and libraries that have been generated.
Web sites which want to encourage users to submit content to bookmarking and
aggregating sites use chicklets. These are buttons placed around the content that
make it easier to submit and share the article.
These services allow you to see what the community of web users finds useful,
interesting or humorous. You are able to find other users with similar interests to
yours, and explore the web sites that they have found that you might not have come
across yet.
Social bookmarking allows like-minded people to share interesting and relevant content
with one another easily. It can also be an excellent tool for members of a company or
organisation to earmark relevant web sites and articles. Content submitted to a social
bookmarking or aggregating site can dramatically increase traffic to a web site, and
expose the site to many new eyeballs.
del.icio.us (del.icio.us) is a social bookmarking site which was created in 2003 by
Joshua Schacter and today boasts over 3 million users (Arrington, 2007). It was
designed to be a site which would help Internet users organise online media in a quick, easy to access and user-friendly format. Now owned by Yahoo!, the primary function of
del.icio.us is to allow you to store all of your bookmarks online and then to allow you
to access those bookmarks from any computer anywhere in the world. del.icio.us is
more of a community based tool in comparison to the other social bookmarking tools
out there, as it allows others to see your bookmarks. Essentially it lets you identify
other people whose interests and concerns parallel yours and grants you access to all
of their bookmarks as well.
Check out del.icio.us/quirkemarketingtextbook to see some of the URLs we think are
relevant to your eMarketing studies and career.
Digg (www.digg.com), Muti (www.muti.co.za) and Reddit (www.reddit.com) are sites
where users submit content which other users can then vote on. Popularity, based
on votes, moves the submitted content up and down lists which are available on
these sites. Submitting and voting requires registration, but there are many, many
people who visit these sites to get an overview of content that is “hot”. In fact, in early
2008, Digg was at 170 in the Alexa rankings. Although its traffic is declining, it’s still
generating plenty of traffic each day.
Appearing on the top of these lists generates a huge increase in traffic for the content
sites, so much so that servers can crash if the leap in visitors is unexpected. Getting
into the top listings is a prize eyed by many a marketer, but any attempt to manipulate
listings usually backfires and can generate plenty of community backlash.
The communities around these sites differ demographically, and this is reflected in the content. For example, Digg has been technology focused, while Reddit tends to have more general news.
Stumbleupon (www.stumbleupon.com) lets you explore the Web through your interests,
based on how other Web users tag content. Users select categories of interest and
bookmark URLs to those categories. You can then choose to “stumble” through the
Web using the category of your choice. The service will randomly show you a web site
that has been submitted to that category.
Stumbleupon allows users to explore the web based on the taxonomy applied by other
users. Instead of looking to search engines for relevance, users are instead appealing to the knowledge of a community.
Technorati (www.technorati.com) started life as a real-time blog search engine but
has since evolved to incorporate other forms of user generated content including
images and videos. According to technorati.com/about, Technorati finds itself tracking over 112 million blogs and 250 million pieces of tagged social media as of early 2008. Internationally it is THE blog aggregator and an essential tool for anyone who operates online. Watch this video
Technorati’s core is a tag-based index that allows users to conduct searches on topics
that interest them. Contributors are able to tag their individual posts – the better
tagged a post, the better chance it has of being picked up by a relevant search. Instead
of contributors being separated into categories it is the content of each individual
post that is indexed. Technorati doesn’t just search the blogs of subscribed members
though – it also operates as a normal search engine.
Technorati can also be used to keep tabs on Internet buzz, both to monitor online
reputation and to see what trends are emerging.
of an online marketing campaign. Social media is all about the ways that we create,
connect and share online.
Social bookmarking and aggregating
– sharing things you like
If there are web sites that you visit often, or that you would like to keep as a reference
to come back to, it is easy to use your browser to “bookmark” them. This means that
you store the URL so that you can locate it again easily. It also gives you a personal
library of web sites that you can store on your computer.
Social bookmarking sites, however, allow you store these links online, use tags to
describe them and share these lists with other users. Some of these social media sites let you
submit URLs that other users vote on, while others allow you to use the tags saved to
browse through the lists and libraries that have been generated.
Web sites which want to encourage users to submit content to bookmarking and
aggregating sites use chicklets. These are buttons placed around the content that
make it easier to submit and share the article.
These services allow you to see what the community of web users finds useful,
interesting or humorous. You are able to find other users with similar interests to
yours, and explore the web sites that they have found that you might not have come
across yet.
Social bookmarking allows like-minded people to share interesting and relevant content
with one another easily. It can also be an excellent tool for members of a company or
organisation to earmark relevant web sites and articles. Content submitted to a social
bookmarking or aggregating site can dramatically increase traffic to a web site, and
expose the site to many new eyeballs.
del.icio.us (del.icio.us) is a social bookmarking site which was created in 2003 by
Joshua Schacter and today boasts over 3 million users (Arrington, 2007). It was
designed to be a site which would help Internet users organise online media in a quick, easy to access and user-friendly format. Now owned by Yahoo!, the primary function of
del.icio.us is to allow you to store all of your bookmarks online and then to allow you
to access those bookmarks from any computer anywhere in the world. del.icio.us is
more of a community based tool in comparison to the other social bookmarking tools
out there, as it allows others to see your bookmarks. Essentially it lets you identify
other people whose interests and concerns parallel yours and grants you access to all
of their bookmarks as well.
Check out del.icio.us/quirkemarketingtextbook to see some of the URLs we think are
relevant to your eMarketing studies and career.
Digg (www.digg.com), Muti (www.muti.co.za) and Reddit (www.reddit.com) are sites
where users submit content which other users can then vote on. Popularity, based
on votes, moves the submitted content up and down lists which are available on
these sites. Submitting and voting requires registration, but there are many, many
people who visit these sites to get an overview of content that is “hot”. In fact, in early
2008, Digg was at 170 in the Alexa rankings. Although its traffic is declining, it’s still
generating plenty of traffic each day.
Appearing on the top of these lists generates a huge increase in traffic for the content
sites, so much so that servers can crash if the leap in visitors is unexpected. Getting
into the top listings is a prize eyed by many a marketer, but any attempt to manipulate
listings usually backfires and can generate plenty of community backlash.
The communities around these sites differ demographically, and this is reflected in the content. For example, Digg has been technology focused, while Reddit tends to have more general news.
Stumbleupon (www.stumbleupon.com) lets you explore the Web through your interests,
based on how other Web users tag content. Users select categories of interest and
bookmark URLs to those categories. You can then choose to “stumble” through the
Web using the category of your choice. The service will randomly show you a web site
that has been submitted to that category.
Stumbleupon allows users to explore the web based on the taxonomy applied by other
users. Instead of looking to search engines for relevance, users are instead appealing to the knowledge of a community.
Technorati (www.technorati.com) started life as a real-time blog search engine but
has since evolved to incorporate other forms of user generated content including
images and videos. According to technorati.com/about, Technorati finds itself tracking over 112 million blogs and 250 million pieces of tagged social media as of early 2008. Internationally it is THE blog aggregator and an essential tool for anyone who operates online. Watch this video
Technorati’s core is a tag-based index that allows users to conduct searches on topics
that interest them. Contributors are able to tag their individual posts – the better
tagged a post, the better chance it has of being picked up by a relevant search. Instead
of contributors being separated into categories it is the content of each individual
post that is indexed. Technorati doesn’t just search the blogs of subscribed members
though – it also operates as a normal search engine.
Technorati can also be used to keep tabs on Internet buzz, both to monitor online
reputation and to see what trends are emerging.
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