Search Engine Optimization

When implementing your social media marketing campaigns, one of the first things you have to do (before you even think about building your profiles) is decide who or what is going to be your social persona. Are you going to build your social brand around an actual person (say the VP of Marketing) or stick with the company’s name (@CompanyX)? There is no “right” way to build your social personality, but there are pros and cons to each option that you should consider before you jump blindly into social media. The ever increasing reach of social networks means that companies can’t afford to make any big mistakes or try to change direction mid-campaign.

Creating a social persona around your brand:
The beauty of building your social persona around your brand is that is cuts down on brand confusion. Someone searches for your company in Google and your Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and (now) Google+ profiles fill in behind your company website, increasing your online presence and helping your dominate the SERP with your own websites. Since it is so easy to brand your social profiles with photos, logos, links, company biographies and so forth, consumers can trust that the company they follow on Twitter or Like on Facebook is the one they meant to connect with.

The downside of creating a social persona around your brand is that you might lack some of the “personal” elements that consumers have come to expect from social networking. You have to be careful that your brand’s social profiles don’t become another soapbox for you to advertise your company and products. Your brands unique personality needs to shine through; otherwise you aren’t giving anyone a reason to connect with your company.

Creating a social persona around a person:
The best part about building a social persona for your brand around a member of your staff is that it lends more accountability to your social profiles. Consumers and other industry professionals know exactly who they are talking to on social networking sites, not just nameless employee X who is monitoring the Facebook page. People want to do business with other people, so having an employee act as the voice of the company goes a long way is building consumer trust.

One of the cons of relying on a real person to be the face of your brand’s social media marketing is that if that employee were to ever leave your company, they could completely hijack all your social media success. Let’s say your VP of Marketing (@theirname) has over 1,500 Twitter followers, most of which the acquired during their seven years with your company. If they quit/are fired/find a new job/retire and take their Twitter handle with them, there goes your Twitter presence and you are back at square one. There was actually a lawsuit in 2011 over the very situation.

In order to maximize the pros and minimize the cons, I’ve actually taken the time to create both branded and personal social networking profiles. It gives me a few more touch points I can use to connect with my target audience, helps me grow Brick Marketing’s overall online presence and lets my social connections pick how they would prefer to interact with me and my company.

Inbound marketing is comprised of three main online marketing tactics—SEO, content marketing and social media marketing. While each of these three campaigns can be very successful on its own, when the three are properly integrated the results for your website and brand can be remarkable. Internet marketing is not a one-or-the-other kind of battle. The most successful websites understand how to leverage all their online assets to their benefit, including social media marketing.

By now, most businesses realize the importance of having some level of a social presence. Social media have even bled into traditional advertising, with television commercials ending by asking viewers to like them on Facebook or find them on Twitter. From Fortune 100 global brands to the mom-and-pop pizza joint around the corner, most business owners know they should be involved in social networking. Where it gets tricky is what they are actually supposed to be doing with those social profiles. Having them is one thing, but really using them is what makes them so valuable for your inbound marketing.

Inbound marketing works to position your website in front of a target audience that is already looking for you, your products or your services. Instead of trying to capture the attention of a passive audience, inbound marketing helps your website attract a visitor that is already interested. Think of it this way; if you owned a hardware store would you try to sell snowmobiles in July? Probably not, seeing winter is a long way away and your customers are more concerned about pool maintenance supplies or lawnmowers. In July, you focus your marketing efforts to position your store as the go-to source for lawn care equipment, air conditioners and other summertime hardware. Inbound marketing follows a similar pattern, just in the online space.

Studies have shown that social media profiles are great for engaging and connecting with current customers because are more likely to be interested in what you have to say and share. How many brands do you follow on Twitter or Like on Facebook that you haven’t already had some level of interaction with? Why should your target audience behave any differently? Your social profiles let current and past customers interact directly with your brand, which helps establish a strong trust factor. People want to do business with other people and social profiles let you create a personality for your brand that you website might not have.

When someone searches for your brand directly, your social profiles are likely to rank just under your actual website. This is a good thing for multiple reasons. First off, it helps you dominate a larger percentage of the search results. A branded search could also return sites that you’ve written guest blogs on or 3rd party reviews. You want the SERP to be as filled as possible with your own sites and profiles. Secondly, social profiles make your company that much more transparent. It lets your customers feel like they have a direct line of communication with your company and you are willing to have a conversation with them should the need arise.

When it comes to inbound marketing, you have to think of your social profiles like the spokes in a bicycle wheel—they should all point back to your main website. Getting people to Like you on Facebook or follow you on Twitter is great, but wouldn’t you rather have them convert on your site? All your inbound marketing tactics, including social media, should work to push visitors along to your website, no matter which touch point (blog post, article, social profile update, etc) they first arrive at.

If you think that social networking sites are just another platform for you to tote the benefits of your brand/products/services, it’s time to reevaluate your social media marketing strategy. Social media is a two way street; don’t forget that! Your social network is expecting you to listen to them, just as you hope they are listening to you. But are you really paying attention?

A recent study by MarketTools found that nearly half of the companies they surveyed think their customers don’t comment or complain about their products and services online, and 22% did not know whether their customers did so or not. To that I have one thing to say: really guys?

I take pride in my company’s A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau, but I don’t think that means that every single person I have ever interacted with doesn’t have one single negative comment about my business or me. I don’t take it personally, I understand that I can’t make everyone 100% happy 100% of the time. But I try my best to address negative comments or feedback that I come across on social networks, to avoid it snowballing out of control.

For instance, for a while I was promoting some of my partners’ content through my social networks. I had one of my LinkedIn connections reach out to me and say they thought I was overdoing it. He didn’t say it in the most polite way, but I got the message regardless. There is a fine line between content promotion and content spamming and I was getting a little too close to the spamming end of the spectrum. I realized that I was annoying this particular connection with the amount of content I was promoting and thought he might not be the only one feeling the same way. I didn’t ignore his message, even though I didn’t agree with the tone.

Social networks were created to let the users express their opinions about any and everything. They could complain about their class schedule, brag about their new car; talk about a favorite band and so forth. Brands are actually late comers to the social networking scene, and some still aren’t willing to play by the rules. You cannot try to dominate the conversation with your social network! It’s a give and take. Most brands are good at the “give” part and share great content, but not as many are as good at the “take.”

If you want your social media marketing to succeed, you have to be willing to engage with your network, even when they are upset. Brands no long have the luxury of waiting until the fire burns out before they address a situation. You have to be willing to listen, to hear and to engage with your network head on.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a big proponent of LinkedIn Groups as part of your content promotion strategy. But just because I see the value in submitting your content to LinkedIn Groups, that doesn’t mean I haven’t hit a few bumps in the road along the way. When working with social media you are going to have to deal with people (gasp!) and those people might have different opinions than yours (double gasp!). Some of them aren’t going to be afraid to express their opinion. But you shouldn’t let a negative comment send your entire social media marketing strategy into a tailspin!

I’m lucky that this blog can cover a wide range of topics and still be relevant to my target audience. I can blog about SEO, social media, content marketing, blogging, PPC, inbound marketing and so forth and I know that it all fits under the umbrella of Internet marketing. This means that I can submit those posts to a variety of LinkedIn Groups including (but not limited to) those that target Internet marketing professionals, B2B marketers, social media marketing professionals, SEO and SEM industry professionals, C-suite executives, business owners and so forth. Not every blog post I submit is going to be 100% perfect for 100% of the audience in that group every time, so I’m bound to get a few negative comments here and there.

I’ve had blog posts get deleted from various groups because it was too off-topic that day, but that doesn’t mean my social media marketing and content promotion campaign is a failure! LinkedIn Groups are managed by people, and those people have the final say in what content goes live on their Group. If they didn’t like my post for some reason or felt that it was appropriate for their audience they have the right to delete it. But I don’t take it personally and neither should you!

Keep in mind that one negative comment is not necessarily indicative of the overall opinion. A blog post might get read by 300 people and only 4 left comments. That’s barely .01%! Should I take one negative comment to mean that 25% of my readers feel that way? Not necessarily. A lot of people only bother to leave comments/reviews when they strongly disagree. Think about it, how often do you rave about the good customer service you get at the local coffee shop? Not very often. But how much more likely are you to talk about a terrible experience you had with your new mechanic?

Some people love to pick a fight simply because it’s entertaining. Others may try to put you or your company down because they are jealous of your online success or are friends with your competitors. Don’t let these online trolls affect the confidence you have with your social media marketing!

Social media marketing is not a fad. If that’s the excuse you’ve been using to avoid developing a social media marketing strategy it’s time to find a new excuse or finally build that Facebook page. Social media marketing can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be (or as you have time for), but you get out what you put in. 90+% of Americans have at least one social profile, meaning your target market is online and engaging in social networking. Marketing 101- fish where the fish are!

What are some of the benefits of social media marketing?

1. Build brand
Social profiles can rank on their own in the search engines, increasing your online presence. Social profiles are also one more place for you to develop your messaging strategy and connect with your target audience. It’s a place to inject some personality into your brand and let your target market engage with you on their terms. Social networks are the perfect place for breeding brand ambassadors and building lasting relationships with repeat customers.

2. Drive targeted visitors to site
You never want to treat your social networking profiles like the final destination of a potential customer. Your social profile is more like a filter, attracting targeted traffic (that identify themselves as you target audience because they are interested in your brand) and them pushing them over to your actual site/blog. The more targeted visitors your site has, the better chance you have of pushing them to act and increasing your conversion rate.

3. Promote content and get more links (social signals)
The more times a piece of content is shared on a social networking or social bookmarking site, the more valuable it becomes in the eyes of the search engines. From an SEO standpoint, these social signals can impact how well your piece of content ranks in the SERPs. From a more general marketing perspective, the more people who share your content the greater potential reach it has. The average Facebook user has 130 friends which means that if just five people post your content to Facebook it has the potential to be seen by 650 of their collective connections!

4. PR
Twitter has become many people’s go-to source for breaking news. Twitter even created this clever