Last week, I wrote a blog post about Twitter, the fast growing microblogging platform that allows users to blog 140 character ‘tweets’ to their closest friends, followers and yes, even strangers. Twitter, although, originally created to keep up with what your friends are up to, has quickly become an easy way for companies to monitor their reputation online.
Zappos.com, one of the largest online shoe merchants, known for its outstanding customer service and amazingly large selection of shoes (personal experience) has recently taken to Twitter. They have set up a Twitter feed page on their site which follows online mentions about the company and ‘tweets’ made by their employees.
Zappos.com has been the online sweetheart of many bloggers. With amazing customer service stories like, I Heart Zappos, this one and one more, it’s hard to NOT love them. Zappos.com did not set out to win over bloggers, they set out to win over their customers…and some of them just so happened to be bloggers. With one flower bouquet, Zappos.com managed to win over thousands of bloggers and fans. According to Yahoo Site Explorerr the “I Heart Zappos” post currently has close to 2,000 inbound links! Talk about free publicity!
As a company committed to customer service, it is a smart move for Zappos to embrace Twitter. Following their company’s brand online will help them pro-actively remedy any negative mentions online and humanize the company by following their employee’s tweets.
Now Microsoft jumps to prove they’re not out of the online advertising game with a whopping $6 billion purchase of aQuantive in a move to expand their breadth of paid opportunities on web sites, Internet television, video on demand, and other places online.
Take a look at your homepage. What does it say? Does it give you a clear sense of personality… say, clean-cut professional, serious business or funky casual?
Were you one of the thousands of web site owners crying foul this week? Or maybe you hardly know what a PageRank is, but want to know the kind of thing that gets bloggers from coast-to-coast, time zone to time zone gossiping and ganging up on Google
Although Google’s search ranking methods are usually shrouded in mystery, we can assume from these two examples, that Google may be using its Blog Search feature in collaboration with its general search to retrieve the most up-to-date information on any given topic.
Webmasters have been aggravated for weeks because of Google’s more aggressive policy, with most of the drops in PageRank a few weeks ago blamed on a penalty to sites perceived as buying or selling paid links.
Social Networking Sites currently attract 128 Million users a month. 128,000,000 visitors a MONTH! ( The zeros really make it dramatic don’t they?) Social Networks have seen an exponential growth this year as the mainstream media continue to profile the successes of the top two networks, MySpace & Facebook.
What makes Social Networking sites so popular? It’s simple. Communication. Through these sites, users are able to connect and communicate with old friends, new friends, colleagues, family, and find others with similar interests. Social Networking sites offer a community environment online which is accessible virtually from anywhere. Whether on the train with a PDA or at home on the internet, one is able to tap into these communities and chat, email, or snoop…yes Social Networking sites are even great for snooping. Who knew?
But like other business owners you may be thinking, “Well, I don’t know too much about MySpace“, or “I don’t have time to get into these online communities.” or “There are so many sites, which ones should I target?” Though your concerns are valid, it begs the question, “With 128 Million opportunities a month, can you afford to NOT invest a little time into Social Networking Sites?”
In short. No. You can’t.
Strategizing your Social Networking campaign is half the battle. Seach Engine Watch recently featured an article on Social Media Success. Here’s a brief recap:
Know your demographic and target sites which cater to them
Familiarize yourself with the site, it’s users, it’s lingo (yes they all have their own dialect), and what makes it popular. Knowing these key elements can give you great insight on how to market your product to the site’s users.
Participate in the community. By becoming a genuine member you will gain the respect of others. If you enter communities only to push your product, your credibility will be questioned and you will be likely shunned by others. Think of a door to door salesman who just won’t leave.
Be prepared for the social media campaign to take on a life of it’s own. You never know how social networks are going to interpret or use the information you provide to them. They may ignore it or if they find it useful, they may forward it along to all of their friends…and then the fun really begins.
The number of social networking sites and its users are growing daily, research suggests that Facebook alone attracts 200,000 new users a day. Putting a little time and money into the social networking phenomenon can be time and money well spent…your new users will thank you for it.
SEO Vision is produced by Hall Web Services, a Maine web development firm and Sage Software Preferred Vendor that helps small to mid-sized businesses achieve their goals online.
SEO Vision focuses on web issues of importance to business owners and deconstructs the SEO industry to understandable terms.
SEO Audio is our short-and-sweet podcast that answers your burning questions about SEO and web marketing, released every Friday morning.
Last week, I wrote a blog post about Twitter, the fast growing microblogging platform that allows users to blog 140 character ‘tweets’ to their closest friends, followers and yes, even strangers. Twitter, although, originally created to keep up with what your friends are up to, has quickly become an easy way for companies to monitor their reputation online.
