Local Marketing Online: Part 6: Share Content

Posted on May 5, 2011

In Part 5 of this series: City Sites, Reviews & Recommendations, I discussed the impact of customer reviews on your local marketing search results and your online authority. Just as reviews and ratings are a form of recommendation, sharing your optimized, highly focused and strategically developed content by posting it to other social media and networking sites also functions as a recommendation.

You will recall in Part 5 that I discussed the Facebook ‘Like’ button that allows users to share your content on Facebook with Friends in their social circle. There are similar tools that make it very easy for you and your targeted readers to share your content on a variety of social media platforms.

Share Buttons: There are many widgets and tools that you can have implemented on your web pages that allow you and your readers to do just as the tool implies: share your content with others by email or via a variety of popular social networking platforms. Two of the most commonly implemented tools are the ‘Share’ button developed and provided by AddToAny and the ‘ShareThis’ widget by ShareThis.com. Simply by clicking on the desired destination, such as Digg or StumbleUpon, for example, you or your readers can post the content directly to the other platform for others to interact with. Typically you or your readers must register with the destination social media site first before having access to post content. Once registered, a simple process of identification and classification of the type of content being posted is all that’s required to share it with others.

It is to your advantage to register with all the social media sites you feel are likely to reach your targeted audience groups so that you too have the opportunity to share your optimized, highly relevant content. You probably invested a lot of time and money to develop the content so why not get the most mileage out of it that you can. If you have prepared your content the right way by making it topical and ensuring it contains the search terms that are part of your authority building strategy, then it is likely to be found by your targeted audience groups on the other social platforms as well. The more your content is accessed, commented on, and shared, the greater your authority score and your chances of achieving top rankings for the terms important to your strategy.

Here are some social networking sites you should consider registering for:

Digg
Reddit
Facebook
Twitter
Bebo
Google Buzz
StumbleUpon
MySpace
Orkut
Technorati Favorites
LinkedIn
DailyMe
FriendFeed

A lot of these sites have login associations with Facebook, Twitter, and a few other popular social networking sites. This allows you to use your already established login, say your Facebook login, to access some of these other platforms. One thing to keep in mind: it is important to separate your business and your social accounts so you can accurately monitor results. For example, if you use Twitter for yourself, either socially or professionally, then establish a separate account for your business to market and promote it. Be attentive when you are making posts that you post to the accounts associated with your business so you can develop Friends, Followers, and Subscribers that will help you to build your online authority and improve your search engine rankings.

Tweet: Exclusive to Twitter, the Tweet button can be implemented with your website, blog, and other social media content, allowing users to Tweet a link on their account to your content as well as make comments that are publicly viewable. The Tweet button also publicly displays the number of Tweets your content has received by other users. Many Twitter users have also linked their account with the professional networking platform LinkedIn, which means your content will appear on two platforms as a result of a single tweet.

Sharing content is a form of recommendation that works to build your online authority and improve your search listing results by demonstrating the interest others have in it.

In Part 7 of the Local Marketing Online series I will talk about email marketing and how you can strategically follow-up with reader interest to turn Followers into Customers.

Read the Series:

Online Advertising and User Intent: Part 2: Social Media Advertising

Posted on April 13, 2011

When most of you think of social media you think of Facebook or Twitter. There are actually many forms of social media that attract a wide variety of users intent on doing a number of diverse things. These sites include personal blogs, consumer review sites, professional networking sites like LinkedIn, local city sites, travel sites, online book clubs, and so much more. This part of the series will discuss user intent on social media sites and what things to consider when developing your online advertising strategy and content for campaigns to be used on social media platforms. For those of you who are new to this series, you may wish to begin by reading Online Advertising and Reader Intent: Part 1: Intro, which explains the idea of intent and how it is important to online advertising.

To illustrate the key points, I will discuss a social media site most people are already familiar with: Facebook.

Advertising on Facebook

Facebook is a social networking site. The intent of users who frequent the site is to share aspects of their life and interests with the people in their network, who may be family, friends, colleagues, or virtual strangers they allowed to connect with them; or conversely, to learn new information from those within their network who are sharing with them. The point is they are there to share personal stuff – not to shop, not to do research, and typically not to find something specific for their home or work.

This distinction is critical to make when developing your online advertising campaign for a social networking platform. Bottom line is – Facebook users are not specifically looking for what you are offering them at this time.

Your carefully crafted message has to draw their attention away from what they are engaged in without interfering with their intent for being on the social networking site in the first place.

To demonstrate what I mean, I’ll share with you a typical offline experience I am sure most of you have had: have you ever walked into Home Depot and had a financial services rep try to get you to sign up for the store’s credit card?

Your intent was not to go to Home Depot for a credit card. Your intent was to run in, get the exact elbow pipe you need, and run home to finish the job so you can get it done before the football game starts. Right?

Well, your online ad is faced with the same scenario only you don’t have the advantage of getting someone’s attention by shouting out, “Excuse me, sir, are you planning on buying something today?” So how do you get their attention then?

First of all, you have to know whom you are targeting. Luckily for you, Facebook allows you to choose your audience by location, age, and interests. One successful advertiser targeted female users aged 24-30 who indicated they were ‘engaged.’ The very straightforward ad message spoke to the stated interests AND intent of the users: “Recently engaged? CM Photographics would love to be a part of your event. Mention this ad for $500 off.”

If we analyze this ad we see how the advertiser made use of what was ‘known’ and ‘understood’ about the target group:

Made use of known intent important to targeted users: “Recently engaged?”
Generally still establishing themselves at 24-30 years of age and faced with the upcoming costs of their wedding, the advertiser made use of the understanding that this group is typically looking to save money: “Mention this ad for $500 off!”
Most probably dreaming of the big day, the photographer included a photograph of a bride and groom kissing out in a field on their wedding day.

All of the elements of the ad indicate the advertiser understood the users’ intent and was able to incorporate accurate assumptions that served to strengthen the ad’s effectiveness. Another important point to make here is where your call to action takes users who respond to your ad by clicking on it. Ideally, you do not want to take users away from the web site they are ‘socializing’ on. Ensure the target is set to ‘open in a new window’, or better yet a tab, so that they can easily get what you offer without having to completely disengage from what they were already doing.

To summarize, in order for your online advertising on social media platforms like Facebook to be effective you have to:

1. Know whom you are targeting

2. Use your understanding of their intent to address their known interests

3. Use your understanding of their intent to address their assumed interests as they relate to their known interests

4. Include an image that indicates what you offer and taps into an emotion related to the known intent of the users

5. Include a call to action that when clicked is set to ‘open in a new window’ so that users do not have to abandon their intent for being on the social media site in order to engage with your message.

Stay tuned for Online Advertising and User Intent: Part 3: Search Engine Advertising coming soon!

Read posts in this Series:

Online Advertising and User Intent: Part 1: Intro

Online Advertising and User Intent: Part 2: Social Media Advertising

Online Advertising and User Intent: Part 3: Search Engine Advertising

Online Advertising and User Intent: Part 4: 3^rd-Party Website Advertising

Power of Google’s +1 for Business

Posted on March 31, 2011

Google just announced the release of its latest social media tool aimed at bringing users ever more relevant search results that take into consideration “relationships as well as words on webpages.” The new tool is called ‘+1’ because it is essentially a graphical ‘+1’ that allows users to click on it to express their view that they liked the web page in the search results listing it corresponds to.

Let’s say you click a +1 because you like a particular site you found when searching for ‘commercial draperies.” Now all the people you are connected to through Google (your chat buddies and gmail contacts) will see that a person in their social network made a +1 recommendation. It will appear next to the link in the search results for ‘commercial draperies’ corresponding to the web page you liked. It will look like this: “Joe +1’d this” and will be visible to all the people in your network to see. If you change your mind and want to remove the +1 recommendation, you can do so at any time through your Google Profile page.

This new social media tool is a clear demonstration of the direction Google and the internet is going. Users are no longer passive recipients but active participants, not only in their own search experience, but in the search experience of their trusted social network of friends, family, and business associates. Google regards it as a great asset to users who may be faced with a plethora or choices and are looking for a little advice from a trusted resource, i.e. a person within their social network with whom they already have an established relationship.

Adding a whole new dimension to the power of “word-of-mouth,” Google +1 offers business owners huge potential to reach limitless target audiences through the interconnectedness of social networking. If you are a business user who is taking advantage of Google Apps for Business you already have a significant network of contacts and chat users. +1 recommendations made by any member of your business network could effectively reach those not only within their network but within each of the individual networks of those with whom they are connected. The reach potential is virtually limitless!

But that’s not all. As you monitor the +1 recommendations of those within your business network you begin to understand more about their interests and which webpages they like. You also begin to understand their intent behind the search: eat pizza, buy window coverings for the office, book a conference facility in Houston, and so forth.

In light of the recent admission that social networking criteria impacts a website’s relevance through its ‘authority score,’ it is safe to assume that Google will most likely start to factor +1 recommendations into the authority score as well.

I welcome comments and insights from readers about Google’s latest social networking tool +1 and how it may impact business websites.

Look for my upcoming posts on the concept of ‘intent’ and how it can be applied to successful online advertising.