Search Engine Optimization

Growing a social community online might sound easy but it does take some time to have a community that will consistently help spread your message and interact with you. You have to have a certain likability surrounding you and strong branding is really a must. Communities are more likely to build and grow if you have a strong brand surrounding your company or yourself.

Here are some ways to build your social community:

1. Contests:

Frequent contests are a great way to really build up your following on the social communities. People really enjoy taking part of a good contest if the prize is worth their while. Pick prizes that will directly appeal to your audience. A year’s worth of software to help them with their business? Or even free tickets to an event or tradeshow surrounding their business. Make sure the contest works for your business model as well.

2. Blog:

Write in a blog every single day and pushing it through your social networks will definitely help you build your following. If you give your audience something to read on a daily basis they will eventually refer to you as an authority or a leading source in your space, as long as you put together well written posts.

3. Personality:

Give your community a personality. A personality is a way that people are attracted to participate with what you have to offer. Ask questions, joke with your community and get people to reciprocate in some sort of way. Give your community a reason to talk and chatter about you online. Don’t worry about how crazy it might sound online because crazy is sometimes good. As long as you are not offensive you will get people inquiring about you or your company.

4. Open Minded:

To build an online community you have to be open minded and willing to try a wide range of efforts to build up your community. Your social community should be approached like a business so it is important to try different marketing efforts to get people’s attention.

There are many ways to build a community online and these just happen to be some of my tips to build a following in the online space. Approach your social community like a big brand and over time you will generate a nice following.

Traffic to a website can often times take a great deal of time depending on what your timeline and expectations are. Everyone wants traffic fast but often times that is easier said than done. Pay per click advertising can be very expensive and search engine optimization is long term, so where do you start?

When approached strategically social media can often times bring in traffic fairly quickly at a relatively low cost compared to things like pay per click advertising. If you have a little extra time on your hands writing some content, connecting with like minds and pushing your message can entice very qualified visitors to come over to your website to see more.

Here are a few ideas on how social media can pull in traffic relatively quickly to your website:

LinkedIn: LinkedIn can be a nice gem for your business if you know and understand how to approach it. Find the groups in your industry and start becoming part of the conversation. Launch a blog on your website and use that content to push through the pages of your specific LinkedIn groups. Start a discussion? The LinkedIn groups allow you to be able to start a discussion where others can chime in and put in their 2 cents.

Twitter: It doesn’t take very long to start following other like minded people on Twitter. Unless you are a big brand or a celebrity people will most likely not start following you for any reason, give them a reason to want to hear from you. Start following them first and over time people will follow you back increasing traffic to your website. Do this every few days if you can and you will slowly start to see a great deal of that Twitter traffic start finding its way back to your website.

Social Bookmarking: I know, this is an ancient (maybe a few years old!) form of spreading your online message but it still works. You don’t have to be a power user on Digg or Stumbleupon to get some good traffic coming in. Stumbleupon often times can sporadically pull in heaping amounts of traffic you just have to take two minutes and drop your link into their website.

Social media is not expensive but does require a little bit of time which should be a bit more appealing than dropping thousands of dollars in pay per click advertising. Take a little time each day and you will quickly see that traffic making its way over to your website.

It is no shock that YouTube could bring some nice quality traffic to any website when utilized properly. Some like to get in front of a shaky camera and talk, some like to launch viral marketing campaigns and some like to catch humorous footage at the office. The truth is that there is no right or wrong approach for the most part. Just getting some video footage online will help you in some sort of way.

Here are some ways you can tackle YouTube if you sell a product:

Product Videos: Regardless of what you sell you shouldn’t have a problem of putting together a short 30 second clip of your product and using a relatively inexpensive editing software to spruce it up a bit and posting the videos on YouTube with nice product titles and descriptions. This will get the product videos bouncing around which you can then use right on product pages.

Customer Videos: Whether you have a physical store or just a website try and see if you can get customers on video (with their permission of course). Put on fun little games inside the store for your customers to get involved with to win free stuff or have a contest on your website to entice customers to send you videos of themselves doing funny stuff with their products. Use these videos on YouTube and other websites like Twitter and Facebook to slowly build a following.

Office Videos: Video marketing is all about getting people to smile and show the video to their friends. Try thinking of some fun things the employees can do in the office to catch on tape and start to push them through YouTube and other social media channels. Customers love companies with personality.

Video marketing is all about thinking outside the box. There are many different videos out there that companies put out so don’t be scared to just shoot something and get it out there. Unless you are a fortune 500 or 1000 brand most people will not throw their arms in the air if they don’t like your video, they will most likely just move on. Get your team together and start brainstorming some video ideas and see what you come up with. I think you might be pleasantly surprised with your results.

A true dilemma for any aspiring business owner launching a new website, do I launch a blog, a website, both or just one? The reality is that every business should have a blog in today’s day of commerce. A blog gives your traffic a reason for repeat interest while giving you a tool to leverage your voice that ultimately leads to good things for your business.

Here are some reasons why a blog driven website can benefit any business:

1. Continuous Content: You instantly increase the potential to bring in repeat targeted traffic. Each time a visitor comes back to your blog to read what you have to say is another opportunity for that visitor to become a real lead. Your content will act like fishing rod to pull in whatever type of audience you are looking to attract just by shifting topics amongst your industry.

2. Personality: Writing is a great way to showcase your personality. It also gives your business a personality which often time’s people do gravitate towards. Some of the most successful businesses online come packed with loads of personality that can be felt through the readings of the company blog. A voice is something every business should have and a blog is a great way to share that voice in your industry.

3. Industry Reach: A blog allows you to spread your wings in your industry quite a bit. Each blog post can be used to leverage in your industry through means of social media, social bookmarking and a variety of other efforts. A blog is content that you can distribute in as many locations as you want. It also allows for future traffic to find you from blog posts that rank in search results for areas that you target to speak about.

Content has become a very powerful driving force in creating new business and leads for many businesses. Increase your website with good quality pages and content will over time lead to more visitors bumping into your website ultimately giving your company and brand name much wider industry recognition. A website without a blog will only get so much reach by itself. A website with a blog allows your visitor to be able to find your important service pages quickly because they are already on your website.