Why You Need Search Engine and Social Media Optimization Strategies in Your Digital Marketing Plan?

Overview

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is still a key strategy to strengthen online visibility and improve reputation with major search engines (Google, Yahoo, & MSN). But, getting results with SEO strategies alone could be a drawn out process. Because of this, most businesses are adopting SEO in conjunction with one or more Social Media strategies, to improve online visibility in less time. Be sure to consult a professional or do your research, to evaluate whether these strategies are relevant for your business and then put a plan in place to execute these strategies.

History

Few years ago, social media was popular among individuals to interact with family and friends, and stay in touch. It was not the norm for businesses to have fan pages and build their network online. So, businesses allocated their marketing dollars towards paid-search marketing, such as Google Adwords and search engine optimization (SEO) to improve rankings in organic search. As we are aware of the fact that Search Engine Optimization is a long term strategy, for some businesses it took lot longer than others, to achieve rankings in search engines, even after aggressive link building and content marketing strategies. This is not the case anymore, since businesses now have the option of adopting social media strategies in their marketing plan, based on the proven results in the industry relevant to their business.

Current Trends

Now, businesses can allocate resources between Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Social Media Optimization(SMO)/Social Media Marketing, and achieve results in less time. By engaging in optimization, it is now easier to adopt marketing Strategies as well.

If you are the hands-off type of business and don't have resources to manage profiles and engage in conversation with fans, SMO is the best option for you. Once you have SMO plan in place and you have resources to manage the profiles on a regular basis and to respond to fan base in a timely manner, you can engage in Marketing activities.

Tips on Optimizing Social Media

If you are the hands-off type of business and don't have resources to manage profiles and engage in conversation with fans, SMO is the best option for you. Optimization takes work, initially. Once you have done it a few times, it becomes a habit. However, if you want to be really consistent with your tasks and be effective, you need to set Campaign Guidelines, to follow:

Optimize your social media profiles, with keywords in about content and ALT-tag for images in image gallery. Some of the popular platforms are LinkedIn, Face book, Twitter, YouTube & Blog.

Design a blue print/schedule for social media activities that need to be performed on a daily/weekly/monthly basis. This is the schedule that needs to be followed by resource Responsible for executing Social Media Plan. If you are going to use in-house resource, be sure to train them for doing the job effectively. You also have the choice of outsourcing the effort.

Syndicate content. Content can be in the form of Text, Video or Images. For example, if you are writing two blog posts a month, when you publish the blog posts, syndicate these posts to multiple platforms & bookmarking sites. There are tools/plug-ins available to automate this process. If you have scheduled one video per month, optimize the video with tags and SEO friendly descriptions in YouTube & syndicate the same video to multiple video parking sites. Content syndication generates many quality links, & contributes to SMO.

Be sure to measure the results of all the activities

Tips on Social Media Marketing

Once you have SMO plan in place and you have resources to manage the profiles on a regular basis and to respond to fan base in a timely manner, you can engage in Social Media Marketing activities.

Before starting your marketing campaign in one or more social media platforms for your business, find out where your target market is active.

Have a social media policy in place for employees who are allowed to participate in online conversation about your brand. This is critical to set a standard for responding to fans & to avoid any negative publicity. If you do get into such situation, be proactive to handle in a timely manner to avoid major damage to your brand.

If you are going to use in-house resource to manage social media profiles for your business, be sure to train them for doing the job effectively. You also have the choice of outsourcing the effort.

In addition to scheduled SMO activities for content syndication, you may also consider ad-hoc tasks to surprise the fan base and create excitement about buying your products and services.

Take advantage of Social media paid campaigns such as Face Book Ads to build brand awareness and build your network.

Be sure to measure the results of all the activities

Benefits

By executing both SEO, SMO & Social Media Marketing effectively, you are leveraging the power of the internet to:

Improve online visibility
Strengthen brand awareness
Build Credibility Online
Build a strong following online
Generate leads by viral marketing
Be the source of information, when consumers are ready

Kriti Web Solutions, LLC has been in business for 21/2 years helping businesses with custom web design and digital marketing strategies to grow their business online. Our strategies include custom web design based on conversion architecture, search engine optimization (SEO), Social Media Optimization (SMO) & other digital marketing techniques.

Kalpana Murthy
Kriti Web Solutions, LLC.
http://www.kritionlinemarketing.com

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How Social Media Will Continue to Impact Online Search in 2010

Effective online search has previously relied upon the positioning of a Web site in the search engine result pages (SERPs), based mainly upon how many links were pointing to the site, thus indicating popularity, and how high of a page rank (PR) the site had been crowned by Google. Now, with the steady increase of the social media phenomenon, we can foresee this unstoppable force anchoring itself mightily and building a sturdy home. Page rank is quickly being replaced by friend rank.

Social media is not only the here and now; it's also the wave of the future that is here to stay. It will continue to grow and enlarge at rapid speed. Social media is by far a trend. According to Nielsen Online, social media networks and blogs are now the forth most popular online activity ahead of personal email. Member communities are visited by 67 percent of the global online population. The time spent in social media Web sites is growing at three times the overall Internet use rate, accounting for almost 10 percent of all Internet time.

Social Media's Effect on Google, Bing and Yahoo

Although the SEO ship has not sailed and should definitely be a part of your online marketing campaign, social media marketing is the alpha male in the online jungle and he brings many changes. Google used to separate "social" content. Remember the separate Google search bar you had to download for blogs? And another one for video and yet another for images, while nothing from the social media sites showed up at all? Now Google streams ALL platforms into one system called Universal Search. This means blogs, videos, images, news and user profiles and comments from social media sites are now integrated into the natural SERPs, shoving many previously placed Web sites right out of those coveted top spots. Bing and Yahoo both have incorporated very similar systems.

With that said, you now understand how critical SMO is to your online marketing campaign. By using social media sites such as facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, you can actually capture a greater number of organic search positions. Did you know facebook alone has about 350,000,000 members from across the globe? Talk about having your audience right at your fingertips! Once you learn how to identify and connect to your target audience, you can definitely take your business to the next level and the next.

Intertwining Social Media Optimization and SEO

When properly executed, social media optimization can seamlessly dovetail SEO efforts. The ongoing, fresh content creation, social bookmarking, engaging and conversing directly with your audience, attracting inbound links by being a resource for your audience, etc. - these methodologies are essential for pushing your Web site higher in the SERPs, increasing Web traffic and reaping the rewards of conversion and overall ROI. SMO leverages an additional, effective set of online tools to accomplish the same goal as SEO: more exposure and better positioning for your Web site on Google, Yahoo, and Bing. The challenge lies in knowing how to use those tools effectively and without spending all of your waking hours in vain.

The bottom line is this: The days of launching a basic SEO campaign alone within such a competitive online space and joyfully watching your site rise to the top of SERPs are long gone. Not only has SEO become far more complex than it was just a few short years ago, but SMO has transformed SEO from a relatively straightforward strategy into an intricate discipline that is confusing and frustrating to most.

While social media optimization is a must for any business seeking to boost exposure in the search engines, most companies are not up for the task at hand. Turning to someone with social media expertise and experience to successfully go head to head with the alpha male of the jungle is the key reaping rewards from your online efforts.

Contact Crystal Frog Marketing today to face the alpha male for you. Also, keep your eyes peeled for our next article: Your Social Media Marketing Campaign: Top 5 Tips for Successful Execution.

Natalie Revell is the President/Marketing Director/Founder of Crystal Frog Marketing. Crystal Frog Marketing (CFM) produces Clear Solutions and Giant Leaps by utilizing new perspectives and new media strategies to take small and median businesses to the next level and the next. By partnering with their clients and focusing on two primary areas of concentration: the business profile and how customers perceive the business profile, CFM is able to help clients solve problems in the niche markets, gain visibility and positioning in their marketplaces, increase brand awareness and become 'the one to call.' CFM has successfully launched and strengthened many businesses and has extensive experience in the logistics and mortgage/credit repair industries. For more information, please visit http://www.crystalfrogmarketing.com/

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Why Social Media Works For Prime Search Rankings

If you've wondered how certain Web sites get prime position on search engines like Google and Yahoo!, your research has likely produced two investigative paths: paid placement and organic search results.

In paid placement, advertisers and merchants pay the search engine company to give their links prime placement. "Sponsored search results" can be found in popular search engines at the very top and often along the side of search result pages. Paid placement is one (expensive!) way to drive traffic to your Web site. If your budget won't tolerate sponsoring search results, then "organic" search results are for you.

 

Organic search results are those sites that the search engine finds and the order in which the search engine prefers similar or related sites. Web site owners sometimes spend a great deal of time and effort tweaking the search results to improve their site's placement in search results.

 

To improve organic search result placement, some sites have turned to social media as a way to drive desirable traffic to their site and valuable information to their consumers. Social media is a general term for a variety of Web- or Internet-oriented services that encourage Web site users to form communities, pass product information to interested consumers, and generate new interest in products and services from previously unknown prospects.

 

Social media can include blogging, Facebook groups, MySpace pages, Twitter, Digg, Stumbleupon, Squidoo lenses and other types of media that invite user participation in a community of interested users. 

Social media is valuable in terms of its ability to improve search engine placement because many social media services include RSS feeds that inform users (and search engines) of newly published content. Additionally, sites like Facebook and MySpace enjoy high rankings in the search engines in the first place. It's very easy to "piggyback" onto their already high search engine ranking with a page or group that publicizes a niche product, service or site.

Social media also builds customer and brand loyalty. The low-cost self-publishing tools mean that even small businesses that cater to niche audiences can compete effectively with the "big guys" in a shared market space. By focusing on niche terms, keywords, and tags that are likely to be used by their most sought-after customers, sites can improve their organic search results.

One major advantage of social media is that interested prospects and consumers "self-identify." With traditional advertising, businesses create an ad campaign and run it where they believe their users are most likely to congregate. With social media, businesses create a place for interested users to congregate and then tailor extremely specific marketing information to an already receptive audience. Social media tools can help users find the exact products and services they're interested in at the moment they're ready to search.

Further, social media offers a "test bed" for merchants, site owners and service providers by allowing them to offer unadvertised specials, coupons, and discount offers that are tailored to particular customers. Informational services and notifications are also easy to provide and are welcomed by existing customers.

Finally, social media puts merchants, service providers and vendors in the same space their customers are already in. Many younger consumers don't watch television or listen to the radio. These customers will miss even the best, most thoughtful and engaging advertising campaigns. Social media provides a mechanism for businesses to reach out to potentially interested customers who simply don't engage with traditional media.

Social media's major advantages are that they can place timely, specific information in search engines and help customers, potential customers and site visitors find the precise information they're looking for in a sea of search engine results.

Mike Ranger is owner of Alliance Marketing Concepts, LLC, his firm is engaged in the Online Marketing industry. The focus is to provide knowledge and strategies to the average individual looking to work from home regardless of the business. They utilize Web 2.0 concepts to help anybody improve their efforts.

Become The Hunted Instead Of The Hunter

http://MichaelRanger.com/blog

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In Search of the Best Media Streamers: Is Android Poised to Conquer the Connected Home?

One thing is clearly evident in this industry, streaming media has just about everyone's attention. There was an abundance of new devices at CES of varying specifications and operating systems that shared the same function: streaming media to an HDTV from both home and via the Internet. Please join us as we look at many of the top offerings of streaming media players in search of the best Media Streamers.

While Microsoft is charging down the path of Embedded Windows 7 and letting OEMs create a variety of devices with varying degrees of the Windows 7 operating system embedded within, there have been rumors that this spells the "death of the HTPC". From devices with the entire Windows 7 OS on them to devices with only Media Center 7 embedded on them, there are certainly some cool Windows streaming media devices coming down the pike from Microsoft and its partners. And while at this point it's difficult to actually determine when a device ceases to become an HTPC and transforms into a standard streaming media player, to me there's no doubt that the future of the "HTPC" is far from dead! In fact, they seem to becoming more of an integral part of home system integration than ever before!

But what about Android?

Sure we have Google TV, and I along with a lot of other people out there are waiting for Google to get a proper OS on their digital media streamers built into the Logitech Revue, Sony TVs, and a number of other announced big named manufacturers, before they lose the race completely. How could Google lose the race with all of these big names already behind them? Because there are a number of really solid Android 2.2 and above based devices that are being launched over the next month or two.

One such company that is already and will be producing some more very nice looking media streaming players is Xtreamer who had a couple of their devices on display at CeBIT 2011.

Xtreamer looks like it is about to light the stage on fire in this arena as they describe their "Target & Vision":

Once again Xtreamer is set to revolutionize the pricing of the world of media players with its market leading, award winning Xtreamer series of Full HD Media Players and Solutions. The demand for an affordable PC that may serve as a media player is already apparent as this market develops.The Xtreamer Ultra Full HD Media Player / PC combines the most connected media player with the fastest consumer electronics media processor available - the Intel® Atom? Dual Core processor, from the D525 series. With the launch of Xtreamer Ultra we will continue to achieve our compelling mission in 2011 of being a leading provider of FULL HD comprehensive and capable media centers encapsulated into a very compact unit with a very aggressive price tag. The Xtreamer Ultra, is mainly aimed to set a completely new standard for the Linux, XBMC and Boxee communities and the media streamers industry as we know it.

Xtreamer Ultra

The Xtreamer Ultra is being dubbed as a full fledged HTPC:

The Xtreamer Ultra is a portable HTPC equipped with 6 USB, eSATA, 4 Gb DDR3 RAM, HDMI, an integral IR remote control and powered by the nVidia ION2 Chip that allows vivid and crisp playback of FULL HD multimedia files.

The Xtreamer Ultra can run a wide variety of not only apps, but entire environments as well as shown to the left here. Not only can Xtreamer run completely different environments like Ubuntu, but also will accomplish everyday computing needs with the ability to run Apps like, Firefox, Safari, Google Chrome, Opera, Microsoft Office, Facebook, Twitter, Winamp, and more!

The Xtreamer Ultra really seems to be a complete package with plenty of power packed in this highly stylish unit. This aspect is also displayed by its technical highlights:

Intel® Atom? D525 processor (1.8 GHz, dual-core)
Intel® NM10 Express chipset
Next-Generation NVIDIA® ION? graphics processor
16 unified shaders
512MB DDR3 memory ( ION2 chipset )
NVIDIA® CUDA? technology
NVIDIA® PureVideo? HD technology
Optional USB Antenna 802.11n WiFi
Optional eSATA Blu-ray Drive
Optional USB Blu-ray Drive

The Xtreamer Ultra looks to be a fine piece of hardware for sure, but wait until you feast your eyes on the Xtreamer Prodigy....

We'll be covering the Prodigy in our next media streamers review as part of our new series "In Search of the Best Media Streamers", so stay tuned...you won't be disappointed in this piece of hardware!

In the meantime, what do you think? Is the HTPC really dead as some people want to claim, or is it merely morphing before our eyes...giving us, the home consumer, more and more options! If so, which platform makes for the best HTPC?

You gotta love Technology!

Tom Abell | Home System Integration | http://www.homesystemintegration.com

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Google, Facebook, Linked in : The Future Of Search

TechCrunch has once again made a prophecy of Facebook having a Google Killer, this time in search. Is FB at all interested or geared up to meet the challenge of search?

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Inbound Links for Search Engine Optimization – Do You Deserve Them?

As part of a comprehensive search engine optimization campaign, gaining inbound links to your website is critical. But what exactly does this entail, and how should you most effectively go about gaining these types of valuable links? Although shortcuts seem like an attractive option, these plans often backfire. Such is the case in regard to building quality inbound links to your website as part of your search engine optimization campaign.

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