@BasilPuglisi

Content & Strategy, Powered by Factics & AI, Since 2009

Social Brand Visibility

How to advertise your business with Google?

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Google is no doubt the biggest search engine in existence today, with 1.2 billion searches happening every day.

Advertising through such a company can give your business more exposure than any other advertising method. But there are so many ways to advertise with them. Which one will suit your business? The main objective of advertising online is to create exposure when people search an item they need.

Here are three methods of advertising your business using the search engine Google.

AdWords

The oldest and most known system is called AdWords and it is the main source of income for Google. How does it work?

This application lets users create their own ads using tools and keywords. The ad will appear on the Google search result page, on the right side and on top of the search results under the tag “Ads” in small letters.

The good thing about AdWords is that you, the advertiser, choose the keywords that will trigger appearance on related searches. You pay only when the ad is being clicked on and the visitor goes to your website.

The advertiser can set a limit to how much money he is willing to spend for his ad to appear and this, among other factors, determines the actual placing of the ad on the list. It is called PPC (pay per click) advertising, and the bidding starts at $0.05 for a single click. The minimum required budget per day to advertise with AdWords is only one dollar. You can select the daily budget and select specific area or the time to display your ad.

This program is very popular because it allows its users to control every aspect of the campaign. Each aspect can be fine-tuned to increase efficiency and improve result in terms of getting the right people to your site.

What sounds very simple, is nothing but. Searching the terms AdWords on Google will yield a plethora of sites ready to teach you how to work with the system and improve your return. Google evolves and adjusts all the time, coming up with new logarithms to stave off hackers and people who are trying to game the system. Running a successful AdWords advertising campaign can be complex, even when dealing with the system on its most basic and principal level.

Advertisers have made their knowledge of working with AdWords their main source of income, abandoning their initial goals, the more they got immersed in this world of PPC advertising and understood how different factors influence their click-through rate.

Banner Ads

Another system for advertising online is Banner ads. Banner ads use Flash, eye-catching graphics or animation and appear on specific web pages. When clicked the banners connects you to the advertised site.

Banners can be created by a person without vast knowledge in coding and HTML (the language used by programmers). There are websites that offer an  already designed banners for sale, Google AdWords published Editorial Guidelines that serve as guideline for writing online ad copy. The guidelines include everything from spelling and style to recommendations on length, keywords and content.

The better the ad relates to the website it’s placed on, the more likely it is to be effective and create a click-through.

There are some ways you can place your banner on a desired website; in one system, Banner ads are triggered by keywords supplied by the advertiser. Another way is to exchange banners with a site you would like your banner to appear on. There are banner exchange programs, which a little search on the web will unveil, and you can contact the search engine companies like Google, Yahoo etc and have them place your banner ads of different sites. With this system keywords trigger the appearance of the banner, and you, the advertiser has no control on where they appear.

Banner Ads are usually charged by Cost per Impression (CPI, or CPM). Often a price will be set based upon a cost per thousand impressions, or views, and depend on other factors.

 Banner ads can be harder to control, however, because any changes requires a new banner to be uploaded. Placement on some pages may be pricey at times.

Experts recommend Banners be only part of your online advertising campaign. Combining them with other methods like e-newsletters, search engine advertising and search engine optimization will yield the maximum effect.

Google Places

Google Places is a location based service that allows you to list your business on Google maps. Google allows business owners to manage their physical business location information. This information appears on the search result page when the location and kind of business is typed into the search bar. It is a free service which business owners have to “unlock”.

There is of course a premium service that allows business owner to update their information, add a picture that will appear on the front page, add reviews and special offers.  A tag appears on Google maps that shows the location of the business.

Users of the service will get a decal for their place of business that will allow users to scan it with a smartphones and go straight to reviews about the place. Google advertises it as being useful by the computer and in the physical world. 

This is one of the great ways to get targeted traffic to you website from the place you are located.

What is a Digital Brand?

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Digital brand is a collective impression of all that is posted online about a person or a business. Many people share their experiences, opinions and pictures using different social media platforms.  The total of this information is what creates a person’s digital brand.

The digital brand is like a credit report. It communicates the character, professionalism and reputation and how likely a person is to make smart decisions.

Same goes for businesses. Everything that is said, shared or complained online becomes the digital brand of the company. A paradigm shift which has occurred in the last few years between organizations, businesses and their consumers, governments and their constituents has changes the playing fields. The customers now have access to vast amounts of information; they are both mobile and connected, and they have more power to change the market.  How do organizations present themselves and engage in the marketplace is what digital brand is all about.

Due to the way the Internet is fast evolving, especially through the social web and social media sites, there is now a plethora of information that can be used to hold a dialogue between a Brand and a consumer, or groups of consumers. Digital brand engagement focuses on communication via the web. If in the past the exposure of your brand was most of the advertising work, it has changes so that engagement with the brand is becoming more and more important and taking the place of simple exposure.

Consumers can now be very selective about which brands they choose to interact with; and have the ability to communicate their thoughts and feelings globally. Brands can take notice of what is being said about them, their product or service by monitoring conversations taking place outside of their own website.

Digital Branding is the process of planning and managing communications to the user of your products or services. It is an extension to traditional marketing efforts employed to manage your business. Digital branding software enables you to track the activities of all your customers and monitor their interaction with your business. It will help you maintain intimate content with your customers and avoid customers feeling the effect of mass marketing to them. The resulting data can help you in planning future campaigns and tailoring responses.

Through “buzz monitoring” tools, and there are a number of tools to choose from, businesses can find out what is said about them. The value of the information provided can be increased further when the buzz monitoring data is correlated with the site analytics data. It’s important to listen and observe the buzz, and analyze its impact prior to engaging. Digital Branding helps marketers optimize their campaigns to maximize conversion rates.

For a successful digital branding you have to create experiences that are authentic and feel genuine, it has to be adaptive and to respond to the customer’s involvement. It has to be relevant and useful and appealing to the customer specifically. It has to be transformative, fresh and establish an emotional connection with the brand. The experience has to be immersive – they should lose track of time while engaging with the brand and it has to be social – enable sharing and contributing to the conversation.

When planned effectively, digital branding is a cost effective and often inexpensive method for extending and managing a brand, products and service awareness

Using Podcasts to Promote Your Business

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A Podcast is a prerecorded audio or video program you can upload to your website or post on hosting sites and is made available for people to download, listen and view. They can do it either on their computers, or on other mobile devices such as iPods, smart phones and iPads.

To put it simply, podcast is blogging with sound or video instead of text.

For those recordings to be considered a podcast there has to be a series of postings, creating a cross between a lecture and an advertisement for example.

A podcast is a series of digital media files that are released periodically and often, that can be downloaded through web syndication. Academics at the Community, Journalism & Communication Research group at the University of Texas propose a four-part definition of a podcast: A podcast is a digital audio or video file that is episodic; downloadable; program-driven and has a host and/or theme.

Podcasts are meant to entertain, inform and sell your products.

They are considered to be the most innovative way to market your business online, because they are cheap and relatively uncomplicated to produce. They can be done by anyone with a microphone and a video camera, and there are many venues to distribute them.

Podcasts are unique because the user is actively seeking them. Unlike advertisement that is forced on the listener or watcher, your podcast is something the user opts to listen to and give it his undivided attention. They establish a way for you to connect to your customers and create a brand in the global marketplace. In a way they are similar to the old radio shows when people tuned in to hear what will happen next.

Podcasts, unlike any other form of advertising solicits a subscription from the listeners. When a new podcast is released it is automatically fed to all those who are connected to the business.

Experts believe that listening to podcasts is more effective than reading a text. You cannot skim over a few lines, and jump all over the place. When someone is talking to you or showing you something you are actively seeking, there are better chances for undivided attention.

It is a regular line of communication between the business owner and the client helping build brand loyalty.

Making a podcast is smart business because:

  1. More people are looking for them these days. Customers get to know you, the business owner, through them. It creates familiarity with the business.
  2. Podcast can be played anywhere, anytime. If yours is an audio podcast it can be heard while driving or exercising. If it’s a video podcast, it can be watched on smartphones wherever they are; in line at the post office, during lunch etc.
  3. There is less competition today in the podcast world than in the article world.
  4. It is quick and less time consuming than blogging or having an article published in one of the article sites.

How to make your podcast effective?

-Make them search engine friendly. Just as with everything else on the internet targeting specific keywords is important and can make a difference between ranking next to nothing and getting high ranking. Make a keyword conscience decisions about the description of you podcast.

-Post them on Social network sites.

-Good Organization. A good organization of your podcasts is important in making it easy on your followers to choose what they want to hear or see. It will also make is convenient for people that come into you podcast in the middle of a series, to find the beginning of the thread.

-Offer RSS feed. If you don’t want to use e mail to alert your followers to a new podcast, offer subscriptions.

-Do some research. Subscribe and listen to other podcasts in you niche. Knowing what others are talking about it important. Learn from their mistakes. What struck you as good and what you need to stay away from. Make comments on other people’s podcasts to make yourself heard and known.

-Get feedback. Use it as a learning opportunity. Allowing interaction compels people to listen on.

-Write your copy carefully and choose your words wisely. If you do not have a pleasant voice, ask someone else to record it for you; an employee, a friend or hire a radio announcer.

Social Brand Visibility: BuzzFeed

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BuzzFeed, a company founded in October 2006, is a trend gatherer (‘aggregator’) that uses web crawling technology and human editors to link its users to the most popular stories around the web. It provides a snapshot of the viral trend in real time, all the time.

The home page contains a list of posts from users and staff. The content is usually a video, an image or a link. It is free for all to see, without registration.

With registration, every user creates his own homepage, opening with the interesting stories from around the web in the categories that he chose. The homepage also contains the links to their most recent contributions. As a way to encourage users to post links, there’s a scoreboard of how many times they have posted and how many times their posts reached the front page.

Users participate in the site by reacting to what others have posted with a system of badges. These are tags given to posts like “WTF”, “TRASHY”, “GEEKY”, “CUTE”, “OLD” or “LOL”. When enough users feel the same way about a post, the tag is attached to the post permanently alerting other users to its content.

The research done by the site is used by many bloggers, journalists and social media experts to gauge the pulse of the internet community.

In its best month (November 2010) BuzzFeed had 525,000 visitors a day, the majority of which are from the USA (371,000). It is less popular in the UK (37,000) and Canada (39,000) visitors.

Strategies for going Viral and creating Visibility!!!

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At the beginning of this month, in New York, a gathering of some of the most interesting people in the social media circuit took place. There were interviews with leaders of Foursquare, Gawker, Hulu, Yahoo, Bloomberg, Dow Jones, News Corp and more.

One of the presentations was by Jonah Peretti, the co-founder of The Huffington Post who serves today as the CEO of Buzzfeed. Peretti has been advising companies such as Procter & Gamble and Sony Pictures about their viral strategies.

If someone knows about going viral, it’s this guy, and what he said should be listened to;

–          The biggest network you have at the moment are the bored people sitting in their offices, connected to high speed internet. This network is bigger that all the traditional existing networks combined. Create something that will draw their attention so they will pass it around. Make it easy to understand, easy to share and include in social media.

–          Put the business in the front, but don’t forget the fun stuff. He calls it the “Mullet Strategy”. Keep your website serious and business-like in the front and all the crazy remarks in the back. Have a place on your site to start a conversation.

–          If you are dealing with a brand, you should spend some money on advertising. Pushing a new brand through viral means is very difficult. You should spend money to seed it around the internet, or as he calls it: “Pay for the seeds and get the viral for free”.

–          Target the maniacs. The web is ruled by people who gets worked up about a subject and do the work for you. “Content is more viral if it lets people express their personality disorders.” He says.

–          Spread the word. Make sure some people are carrying on your word, and keeping it alive. He brings an example from religion – the Mormon Church, which actively spread the word and recruiting members, is growing in numbers at a higher rate than any other, older religions. It’s not just the quality of the idea that counts, it’s the effort you put into spreading it.

Now think how you can apply these 5 principles to your business.

Social Brand Visibility: Slashdot

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Slashdot is an aggregator of news about science and technology related stories. They call themselves “News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters”. 

Slashdot started as a blog in 1997 by the computer science student Rob Malda. It became a site a year later.

The name definitely shows a sense of humor. When asked about the origin Malda said the name was chosen to confuse those who tried to pronounce the URL of the site (“h-t-t-p-colon-slash-slash-slashdot-dot-org”) over the phone.

Users provide suggestions of new articles and links and Slashdot editors select the stories that will appear on the home page that day. They provide a one-paragraph summary and a link to an external site where the story originated. Each story can become a topic of conversation and a thread for comments and discussion. Those discussions can get up to 10,000 posts per day.

Slashdot traffic is estimated to be over 5.5 million visitors per month, and the site has won many awards. A term “Slashdot Effect” was coined after a story was posted on the site which sent much traffic to the source. Statistics shows that about 50% of the users check in to see the news of the day, while the other half stays and takes part in the conversations.

Slashdot Japan was launched in 2001 and carries the US stories as well as the local ones.

As of June 2010, Slashdot rank is 1,323, with the average user spending 3.7 minutes per day on the site and 45,393 sites linking back to it.

Social Brand Visibility: Ping.fm

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A relatively new company, Ping.fm, founded in 2008, comes to answer a burning question: how to control your social media from one place.

Posting an update on Ping.fm will push it to different social media sites simultaneously. Users can update their status only once, without logging in to different sites.

At the moment their alliance reaches to more than 30 social media sites. Users can configure their account to connect to services like: Bebo, Blogger, Google Buzz, Delicious, Facebook, Friend Feed, Friendster, hi5,Identi.ca, LinkedIn, Twitter, Tumblr, Plaxo, Yahoo 360 and more.

Ping.fm might be a nice addition to everyday users, but for marketing professionals and social media experts it might be God-sent.

To make it even more useful the site has a character counter to make sure you don’t go over the 140 characters per tweet, and a “record video” link allows you to upload videos.

The dashboard allows you to set it up so you can ping from your e mail, instant message, mobile phones etc.

The only problem with Ping.fm has to do with your contact lists. If you have the same contacts in a few social media sites, they will be getting the same message from different sites, a fact that may annoy them.

At its core, social media sites are meant to be a communication platform, where you connect with people in a two way conversation. Ping.fm might turn it into one-way broadcasting mechanisms.

Approximately 37% of the site’s visitors are from the US, where it is ranked #746. It is also popular in Pakistan, where it is ranked #177.

Social Brand Visibility: Plaxo

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Plaxo, launched in 2002, is a tool that enables users create and maintain an online contact list and have it automatically updated.

Users have their information stored on servers, so they can access it anytime from everywhere. When your contact information is updated it will be changed in all your contacts’ address books that are connected to you through the site.

You can reach your contacts very fast. Results start to show with the typing of the first few letters. Opening a record is fast as well, without delay, after double clicking the contact. You can categorize your contacts into groups and add your contacts to more than one group. This way you can create distribution lists and send messages to the whole group at once.

Another feature allows you to mark your favorite contacts and they will appear on the front page of your address book.

Since 2008, Plaxo allows its users to share content from different social media platforms like blogs, social networking and post photos. Plaxo can also track feeds from different social media. Users can share and view content they have chosen by categories; friends, family, business and so on.

Up until 2009, Plaxo offered sync-up service with Outlook, Mozilla, Gmail and Yahoo. This service still exists but it has become Premium (paid) service in July of that year. It allows people to keep their contacts, calendar and tasks up to date across many platforms.

Plaxo is ranked #1,752 in the world, and #985 in the United States, where about 40% of the users are located. It is also popular in South Africa and is ranked #682 among all the South African sites.

Statistic shows that this site appeals more to high income women over the age of 35 who use it for business.

How to Use Facebook to stimulate your Business?

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It is not just about creating your own Facebook page anymore; it is about maintaining it so you can be able to better connect with your existing customers and develop a connection with future ones. Being active on the site is one of the main things you should think about. How to be active? Here are a few ideas that can change you Facebook page from a dormant one to an active one:

Use your existing customers to promote your page. Once they connect to your page they are able to share it with their friends. That is the essence of Facebook, but for businesses there are some free tools you can use; Page Badge allows you to promote your Facebook page from your website and drive traffic to it so they can see what is going on and what’s new in your business. “Like Box” – implementing a “like” button on your website page gives your customers the ability to like your Facebook page from your website. Include a link to your Facebook page in your newsletter and e mails to encourage your customers to join your Facebook page.

Facebook Ads is another way to create a marketing campaign within a budget. You can do it yourself by going to the site and following the directions for creating a successful ad campaign.

Publish relevant information on your Facebook page, be helpful and giving. Write in your true voice, as a person, not a business owner. Talk about things relevant to your business.

Use humor and provide fun facts that will make them come back.

Update the site frequently. A few times a week is recommended. If you have nothing new to inform your customers, dig up some relevant information and post that.

Encourage writing on your page and respond to the comments. If you get favorite reviews about one of your products respond to it and mention a similar product you’ll have for sale soon. If you have a complaint, answer it even quicker. Show your followers that you value them and their feelings.

Use Facebook to ask customers what they think about a certain product or service. Creating a two way conversation, and finding out what your customers would like to have is very important.

Use Page Insights. It is a program which provides anonymous statistics about your friends including demographics and frequency of use.

Use photos and upload videos to make it come alive and fun.

Update your page using mobile technology. This is very simple today with the iPhone and androids. That helps you update your page if you are on the road and have no immediate access to your computer.

Social Media Monitoring – SCRM

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One of the biggest questions small business owners ask themselves is how effective is my presence in the social media circles.

A good word of mouth can go a long way, but in the same way a bad comment can have a negative effect on your business.

People are sharing their thoughts on blogs, forums, groups, Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites. Somewhere in there, among all the social talk, there might be a piece of information that will be crucial to your business. To be effective, your reaction should be quick. You can’t afford to wait weeks for reports. You want to know what people are talking about in your niche. That can give you an idea where you should go next in your business.

That is what CRM all about?

CRM is an acronym for Customer Relationship Management. It is a strategy for managing interactions with customers, clients and potential clients. Using technology CRM helps you organize, synchronize and automate sales activity, marketing, customer service and support. Similar to Social Brand Reputation Management (SBRM) The aim is to find and win over new clients, retain those who the company already has, win back former clients and reduce the cost of marketing.

Social CRM does that with social media.

With the help of social media, people can now research a company and ask for recommendations about a product or service through social media channels and make their buying decisions without looking at the company, or the site, itself.

Social media is used to share opinions and experiences. Since social media is not monitored and censored like the mainstream media, people can say whatever they want, good or bad.

“Social CRM is the company’s response to customer’s control of the conversation” is how it is defined. Companies are looking for a way to gain access to those conversations and take part in the dialogue.

There are many systems that integrate the social media sites. Using online communities as a source of leads, finding out what clients are looking for to better target marketing and sales and responding quickly to customer’s complaints. All these things can increase interactions and win hearts. The goal is to make the relationship with customers more intimate.

Social CRM adds to the traditional view of customer relation management. The focus here is on people, not technology. It aims to join the ongoing conversation, not try to control it.

There are many companies offering software that allows the users to manage multiple types of information, lead aggregation, status updates, and offers community platforms. It allows you, the business owner to listen to their conversations and respond in a timely manner. It allows you to understand the influences that make them decide on a product. Happier customers, faster customer service, product development, more reach and spreading the word is what SCRM is all about.

Companies that provide SCRM software:

Jive Software, Lithium Technologies, Neighborhood America, Concourse, CrowdEngineering, Fuze Digital Soultions, Helpstream, Buzzient, Microsoft Dynamics, NetSuite among others.