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Link Building is Nothing New

Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010

Picked up an old copy of Seth Godin’s “Unleashing the Ideavirus” last week at TitalWave bookstore in Anchorage. He speaks of Google as the new kid on the block. The book was published in 2001. Some of the ideas in the book have seen a full transformation. Others seem like they are still new ideas for the day.

For example, in one of the last sections he speaks about how Google does not read every web page and determine what is in the content. Instead, Google looks to see who is linking to the site. The more links the better. This identifies the page as popular and takes it to the top. So even back in 2001 we knew that inbound links were important to page ranking.

Today, inbound links that are relevant and popular themselves, account for as much as 75% of how you rank in Google.

Of course there will always be those un-ethical web developers who try to trick Google and other search engines by creating link farms or other blackhat methods. Recently the trend is to hire cheap labor to fill out your contact forms and fill the comments box with URL’s of unsuspecting clients thinking they have paid a reputable SEO company to build incoming links. Been seeing those lately?

Building reputable inbound links takes time and it includes communicating with others and building relationships. Here are three ways to get things rolling.

1. Write a blog that has good information that others will want to share. The more pages of content you create, the more chances of getting found and having your information shared.

2. Promote your blog articles in social media, such as Facebook and Twitter. There are dozens of sites out there to choose from. If your articles are optimized with your targeted keywords, you have a better chance of being found and shared.

3. Find directories that address your industry and customers looking for your services. Some local ones include Buy Alaska and your local chamber of commerce. If they allow you to add content then be sure to do so. I add events and announcements in the Buy Alaska directory each week.

Every opportunity to have a link back to you is an opportunity to get better ranking in Google and to ultimately get found online and get more customers and clients.

Share other link building ideas you may have or some you have used in the comments below. We are all small businesses who would love to share!

Tags: articles, Blogging, facebook, Google rank, link building, small business, social media
Posted in Blogging, Facebook, inbound marketing, Social Media | No Comments »

Small Business Facebookophobia (Part VI) – Disgruntled Employees Will Ruin My Company’s Reputation!

Friday, September 3rd, 2010

Before joining the ranks of small businesses who allow their employees to use Facebook, Twitter, and other social media accounts, owners worry about what their employees would say. Even more worry that, once let loose on social media, employees will spend too much time on their network of choice, chatting idly and wasting company resources.

But, as it turns out, both of these major concerns are not based on anything factual. They are phantoms, the Bogeymen of youthful companies and new business owners. Looking at a survey conducted earlier this year, the BBC reports the likely amount of time employees will devote to social media in the workplace: “Over half of those [employees] surveyed admitted using social networking sites during the working day for personal use. On average those people spent 40 minutes per week on these sites.”

That amounts to under 10 minutes per day, or one, maybe two breaks from a work activity. Not so bad, and possibly supportive of increased productivity over the course of the day.

David Meerman Scott, author of the NY Times bestseller, The New Rules of Marketing and PR, expresses the same opinion regarding social media company policy, but from an even stronger standpoint:

“This debate about social media in the enterprise is just so damn silly. It seems crazy to me to try to regulate technology in the workplace when the real harm (or benefit!) comes from the people using that technology. I’ve witnessed the same phenomena twice in the past two decades: when personal computers entered the workplace in the 1980s, and during the Web and email debates of the 1990s… companies fretted about employees freely using the public Internet and being exposed to ‘unverified information’ that was not written by ‘real journalists.’… Yet how many companies today refuse to provide a computer to employees at work if it can help them do their job?”

With social media quickly becoming the small business trend of 2010, is your Facebookophobia cured yet?

Tags: facebook, small business
Posted in Facebook | No Comments »

Facebookophobia (Part V) – The Double-edged Sword of Social Media for Small Businesses

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

Looking at the numbers alone, it is clear that the majority of small businesses who run social media networking campaigns enjoy positive results. Still, if you are a gambler, then you know that following the odds does not always ensure success. The following will help to realistically appraise the chances of success and tip the odds even further in your favor.

The 2010 Social Media Marketing Report posts that 85% of campaigns generate exposure. Additionally, more than half of the campaigns run: 1) increased traffic and subscribers; 2) resulted in new business partnerships; 3) increased search engine rankings; and 4) produced qualified leads. 48% of the responders to the poll reported that social media helped to reduce overall marketing expenses.^{^[1]}

What that means is that it is likely that starting a small business account on Facebook, Twitter, or Digg will help you achieve your marketing goals. It is still possible that social media can backfire, it is just unlikely. But to make it even more probable that your time will convert to marketing goals, I have included some tips below:

How to Avoid Social Media Marketing Failure – Bad Customer Feedback

One of the primary concerns of sole proprietors focuses on their product. They worry that consumers will criticize their product and generate bad buzz. First off, if customers would criticize your product on social media, then they are probably already criticizing your product in other areas, such as by talking to friends, writing bad customer reviews, and so on. So, really, what do you have to lose?

One of the benefits of social media is that it provides a free way to receive customer feedback. Reading what your consumers have to say can give you information that you can use to improve the product. In addition, engaging with customer feedback can be a great way to turn public opinion around .

But there is an even easier way to make sure that your social media contacts will praise your product. Rather than changing the product, change the customers. Simply find the people who will love your company, and market to them. Here’s how:

1) Ask – “Who will benefit most from using my product?”

2) Find them – Start with the network they are most likely to use – Facebook, Twitter, Digg, etc. – then locate groups they are likely a part of

3) Listen – Read what they are already saying

4) Engage – talk to them (Do not try to sell your product, social media is best used for gaining contacts. The sales will follow.)

Sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, give small businesses the opportunity to conduct real market research and interact with potential consumers. The odds are in your favor: if you start a Facebook fan page, you will achieve important marketing goals.

Still chicken? Read the next article in this series about the role small business employees can play in social media.

^{^[1]} http://marketingwhitepapers.s3.amazonaws.com/SocialMediaMarketingReport2010.pdf

Tags: Alaska, SEO, small business
Posted in Facebook, Social Media | 2 Comments »

Small Business Facebookophobia (part IV) – Social media will take up more time than it’s worth

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

Social Media Networking is the small business trend of 2010.^{^[1]} The Small Business Survey, one of the most revered polls in the US, posted a 50% increase in the number of businesses marketing through social media within the last year. But that still leaves the majority without an active social media account. Still, only 36% of the businesses polled reported using social media to achieve marketing goals. Why?

In the last installment of this series, I wrote about how much contacts on social media are actually worth. I discussed a new statistic that was recently released that values each Facebook contact at more than $130. This article goes right alongside it, by explaining a little more about how much work each of those contacts will require on your end.

The Small Time-Slot Social Media Takes in the Average Business’ Work Week

Here are some statistics that show just the kind of time commitment people are afraid of stepping into. A marketer will spend between 1 and 5 hours each week on social media networking, on average.^{^[2]} That means that should you choose to step out into the land of Facebook or Twitter, you can expect that it will take up less than 5 hours of your time per week. Of course, if it works well, then you can commit yourself more for contacts, consumers, and sales…

Using Your Time Wisely, 2 Steps to A New Social Media Marketing Campaign

Plenty of marketers will tell you it is possible to lead successful social marketing campaigns for the low time budget of 10 minutes per day. Planning, organization, and focus can really make social marketing easier and more fruitful, so follow these steps to jump-start your online presence.

First, do some research. Take a look at some of your competitors and see if they have already created accounts on Facebook or Twitter. Try to find a campaign that has worked but could also use some work. You do not want to find a model to follow, just some brainstorming material.

Then, start your campaign. Decide which social media platform would benefit your business the most, Facebook, Twitter, Digg, etc., and focus on it alone. Divide and conquer, as Sun Tzu used to say. Also, pick a few different ways to get attention with posts, and try them out.

For instance, posting links to relevant content is a quickly growing trend on Facebook, especially since they added their equivalent version of Re-Tweet, Via.^{^[3]} Figure out what your customers are interested in, post relevant content, and watch your business name spread across the web.

^{^[1]} http://www.smallbusinesssem.com/small-business-owners-adopting-social-media-in-2010/3264/

^{^[2]} http://marketingwhitepapers.s3.amazonaws.com/SocialMediaMarketingReport2010.pdf

^{^[3]} http://mashable.com/2010/01/16/facebook-via/

Tags: Alaska, facebook, SEO, small business
Posted in Facebook, Social Media | No Comments »

Facebookophobia Broken Down (Part III) – Will Fans/Followers on Social Media Ever Convert to Sales?

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

Now, there are plenty of convincing reasons why social media networks would be a powerful tool in any company’s marketing arsenal, and yet so few businesses that actually stick their necks out into the cyber realms of Facebook, Digg, and Twitter. It is free press, after all. Why not get out there and play?

Estimating a Social Media Fan’s Worth

Many small businesses are convinced that opening up a social media account would not be worthwhile because they believe that fans do not do business. It is likely that this point of view comes from a research study, conducted about a year ago by Vitrue^{^[1]}. The study concluded that each Facebook fan was worth approximately $3.60 per year. Naturally, entrepreneurs were disappointed, especially small businesses who had spent hours of time on a 50-friend network.

Suffice it to say that Vitrue did not spend more than five minutes on its method. The study took the number of impressions each fan would have of the company (via wall post). Then, it applied the typical value for each impression to deduce the result. Wham, bam, done, right?

Wrong. More recently, a thorough study was released by Syncapse and Hotspex^{^[2]}, which recognizes the value of social media followers in each of the following areas:

1) Product Spending

2) Brand Loyalty

3) Propensity to Recommend

4) Brand affinity

5) Earned Media Value

The big idea is that Facebook fans are more likely to be active agents of the brands they are affiliated with than non-fans. Some fans will buy products, while others will mention the company to friends. Some will invite others to become fans, while others will spread brand loyalty, either online or off. A social media fan is not just a consumer, he/she is a marketing agent.

PS The study concludes that each fan on Facebook is worth $136.38. How many fans does your company have again?

^{^[1]} http://vitrue.com/blog/2010/04/14/360-facebook-fan-valuation-is-just-the-tip-of-the-iceberg/

^{^[2]} http://www.syncapse.com/media/syncapse-value-of-a-facebook-fan.pdf

Tags: facebook, SEO, small business
Posted in Facebook, Social Media | No Comments »

Facebookophobia Broken Down (Part II) – Will Negative Feedback on Social Media Networks Destroy My Small Business?

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

In the first part of this series, I broke down the most significant social media networking fears shared by small businesses. Because social media is such a great opportunity for small businesses to really get their name out there without spending money, I would not want to leave you hanging with those fears unanswered. The following develops examples, shows statistics, and discusses why social media networking is not as dangerous as it may seem. Also, follow the links to resources that give some how-to advice on each matter.

Small Business Fear #1 – Negative Publicity

What if someone criticizes your company, product, or even you on a network? Could it ruin your business completely? How do you respond to this nightmare? To address this concern, I am going to lean on a great example of a company that learned how to use social media, the hard way.

The higher they reach, the farther they fall. Many business people wondered how far Dominos would plummet when a video was released last year, showing a couple of employees doing some pretty disgusting things with Domino’s ingredients.

Fifteen years ago, Domino’s would barely have noticed. But with explosive potential of social media networks nowadays, the Youtube video went viral. It was a corporation’s worst nightmare. Before it could be taken down, thousands of people had seen it, shared it, and blogged about about it. Within a few days, the corporate image had gone from economical to disgusting.

This was a pretty terrible situation for a company to be in. The video caused a Domino’s location to be temporarily shut down for a health inspection, but that was the least of the company’s concerns. Thousands of consumers might never have spent a dime on the franchise again.

And they did, by fighting fire with fire. The President of the company, Patrick Doyle, immediately released a video that apologized for the video and expressed how seriously the matter was being taken. That video, a simple, single shot of a normal guy, would never have received the attention it did, without the prank video. Already, Domino’s was engaging with the online community, and repairing its status.

But the company did not stop there. Learning that the online community is much more forgiving of error, Domino’s fessed up to all of the negative customer feedback it had received over the years in an online campaign that documented the company’s turnaround.^{^[1]} The campaign was successful, and in fact, the pizza company’s revenue has made astounding leaps, reporting a 28.6% increase in dividends.^{^[2]}

Marketing Take Away: Responding to negative publicity effectively can promote company growth.

^{^[1]} http://www.pizzaturnaround.com/

^{^[2]} http://www.rttnews.com/ArticleView.aspx?Id=1355959

Tags: facebook, SEO, small business
Posted in Facebook, Social Media | No Comments »

Why do I need Facebook in my small business marketing plan?

Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010

So you have the PERFECT idea for a new business – it has everything, from the discovery of a currently unexplored niche market, to a long-term strategy that accommodates growth, and yes, world domination. But now, how to TELL people about it…

With the budgetary concerns new businesses deal with, forking out the massive amount of money required for media slots no longer seems like the best option, at least starting out. Now there are plenty of examples of successful Facebook marketing campaigns that asked for an extremely small amount of money and made a huge impact.

Which Marketing Plans Have Used Facebook?

Barack Obama’s Presidential campaign started and sustained a fantastic initiative on Facebook that secured him unheard-of numbers of donations and gave him a much-needed financial edge against Hillary Rodham Clinton in the primaries and, later, against Senator John McCain. In fact, no one’s entirely sure if he would have won the race without his innovative social media strategy.

It all began when the Obama campaign hired Chris Hughes, Facebook cofounder, to be their senior Internet Marketing Strategist. He remarks: “We tried to open as many direct channels of communication as possible – using e-mail, text messages, online networks – and then equip them with the tools to spread the campaign’s message using networking technology such as MyBarackObama.com and Facebook.”[1] The President’s Faceboook page is currently liked by over 8,500,000 people.

The Benefits of Social Media and How To Reap Them on Facebook

As the Presidential campaign’s, as well as plenty of other examples, have demonstrated, a decent social media marketing campaign will bring in new customers; a fantastic idea, though, can improve your bottom line in a matter of weeks.

With over 500,000,000 users, half of which will login within a day[2], Facebook is already a community large enough for any business to care about, not mentioning the fact that it’s free. In fact, creating a Facebook profile is quickly becoming standard in the new company playbook as a way:

• To gain exposure – Create an online presence by starting a company profile. Just by including the company URL on the info page, you gain a high-profile back link, increasing your home page rank, but try inviting some of your most loyal customers, as well.

• To broadcast company events/ideas/news – Use status updates to publish useful information for your consumer base. So, if you sell baby bibs, then posting interesting facts about baby care or even links to videos of babies doing cute things would attract people to your page (and company).

• To receive direct feedback – It is far better to be able to respond to feedback, both negative and positive, than to be completely unaware of what people are saying behind your back. Successful companies often use their company walls as an online forum, responding to consumer demands, complaints, or praises within hours.

All of these benefits can be purchased, via radiowave, mass mail, etc., but businesses with less cash are instead choosing to invest in the great ideas that will turn social media tools, such as Facebook, into the equivalent of 30 seconds of airtime during the SuperBowl.

As an entrepreneur, all you need to do is make the brand useful/appealing, and your customers will do the rest of the work for you.

[1]Halligan, Brian, et al. InBound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2009. Electronic Resource.

[2]http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

Tags: facebook, marketing plan, small business
Posted in Facebook | No Comments »

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Small Business Facebookophobia (Part VI) – Disgruntled Employees Will Ruin My Company’s Reputation!

Why do I need Facebook in my small business marketing plan?

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