Social Media Marketing

Social Media may be the hot topic of the day (or the last several years actually), but when it comes to finding useful information, the majority of consumers still rely heavily on search (and other specialty niche websites). A recent article over at searchengineland.com indicates that Search Trumps Social For Local Business Information.

Research from the Pew Internet & American Life Foundation found that during a survey in early 2011, a majority of people (51%) looking for information about bars, restaurants and clubs, use the internet for their research. The types of internet technology they use are as follows:

• search engines – 38 percent
• specialty websites – 17 percent
• social media – 3 percent

As for other types of local business, just under a majority (47%) use the internet. Of those:

Well Facebook has updated their privacy settings again. And added new features all in the best interest of their users. It is not uncommon for Facebook to make drastic changes to their interface, platform and policies, they have been at it since the company was founded. (for those of you who use Facebook for business... Make sure you have a plan "B" for when they decide to shut you out)

So what is this new thing?

It is making photo tagging creepier easier. Facebook is using technology to automatically tag you and your friends in your online Facebook photos. Real cool huh? 

Facebook has recently enabled "tag suggestions" to many of its users around the world, which means your friends will be alerted if someone uploads an image that Facebook thinks contains your face. They'll be invited and asked to tag it, and then your Facebook ID will be associated with that image.

In this new age of social media, consolidation has become a very popular tactic to streamline workflow. With so much information to create and so many channels to promote on, we are all looking for ways to automate our tasks and make our work day more efficient.

Adding your blog posts to Facebook is a great way to get more exposure to your content and thus more visitors to your website (and we all want that. Don't we?). Using an ATOM or RSS feed, you can have your Facebook page automatically update whenever you make a new post on your blog or website.

We have done this for several of our clients, but seeing as how Facebook tends to change things quite frequently and their interface is not the most intuitive, I have decided to write down my steps to add an RSS feed to Facebook pages.

Introduction:
Some initial items to consider before getting started.

• You must have a feed for your content. You can learn how to setup feeds for your blog or site here.
• Facebook uses the Notes App to pull in your feed

So lets get started setting up your Feeds on Facebook:

A recent Small Business Search Marketing Survey by American Express OPEN and Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) shows that more small businesses are using Social Media (Facebook, Twitter, etc...) to attract new business than Mass Email Marketing, Organic SEO and Pay-Per-Click Advertising.

Google is getting into the social game again. Why should Mario (and Facebook) have all the fun. Hopefully the big G will play it right this time it won't be a sleeper like Google Buzz. 

Google's social strategy seems to be looking much more like Facebook's social strategy. Facebook launched its Open Graph and social plugins (including the Like Button) around this same time last year. They made a big impact in the social and SEO world with the potential for a major game changer. Google seems to be following and trying to duplicate what Facebook has started. 

The video below explains the new concept of Google +1. It's about putting a little +1 button in search results, paid ads and basically all over the web. 

A recent blog post over at Mashable discusses what Marketers need to know about the new switch to Facebook iframes. There is a new way to present custom content on Facebook pages, using iframes instead of the current tabs and FBML (Facebook Mark up Language). FBML is a subset of HTML (the languge to present content on the world wide web) that has additional Facebook specific functions. The older technology will still be supported just not enhanced any longer. In the future, additions will need to be done using iframes.

Iframes allow you to embed a web page within another webpage. This will assist in the development process for adding applications to Facebook pages. Applications can be created using the common traditional methods and then framed into Facebook pages. There will be some limited information about the Facebook user available through the API.

Since the iframe is actually a page on another website, the ability to track conversions and analytics from activity on that page will be easy for the marketer. A visit to a facebook page with an iframe from your own website will appear like a visit to your own site in your reporting tools.

OK, so it is actually 14 (ten just sounds so nice).

Actually, our friends over at SEOmoz have complied a list of tips for link building for personal bloggers. These guys know their stuff and I strongly recommend their SEO tools for anyone seriously considering working in the wonderful world of SEO. This applies to in-house SEO or as an agency or consultant.

On with the list then.

I am going to give all 14 points here, if you would like a more elaborate definition, Rand has done a fine job on his website to clarify and answer most any concern you may have on any of these. As is usual with SEO, this list is informative yet the work can be very labor intensive. Be forewarned... Bloggin aint easy!

On Tuesday, Sept. 14, 2010, Twitter unveiled an upgrade to their website and service which now shows embedded video and photos in a dual-panel layout. While Twitter CEO Evan Williams says “78 percent of active users have used Twitter.com in the last 30 days.”, the power users mostly use 3rd party applications to manage their service and communicate across the twittershere (my personal favorite is cotweet)

Are we over Facebook yet? I sure hope so.

I personally became tired of Facebook some time ago. I still left it open as a viable option for business, but only open to niche markets that actually would apply to Facebook's medium and core demographic (the small percentage of power users not the millions of "account holders").

Maybe it is the recent security concerns (again), or bothersome event notifications, friend requests (lets not get into the definition of a "friend"), or the daily request to join some irrelevant group, I am really not sure. But either way, I believe the heyday for Facebook has passed.

I am not saying that Facebook is going away. Surely it is not any time soon. Nor am I saying that it will not continue to grow (in the short term it may). It has just passed it's prime. It has lost its direction and relevancy.

SoFla Web Studio delivered a "Social Media for Business" presentation to the Greater Hollywood Florida Chamber of Commerce on April 13, 2010. This seminar was a primer for those businesses considering using Social Media in their overall marketing strategy but not sure where to start.

Topics include:

• Inbound Marketing definition
• Social Media Definition
• How to use social media for business and SEO
• Is Social Media a good fit for my business?