Last week on May 27th, I attended Social Media Club Vancouver’s Social Media 101 event. It was a great night included with dinner and drinks, and 3 lightning speeches from Guacira Naves, Kemp Edmonds, and Tris Hussey. I volunteer with SMCYVR and have gotten to know the 3 speakers well, especially Kemp, who I graduated with from BCIT. But I was still amazed by their knowledge and left the event with a sore hand cramp from all the notes that I took.
In addition to the live blog, here are the lessons that I learned from the talks.
Blogging
The obvious reasons for blogging are that you or your company can express your insights, relay information, and connect with your companies with over 140 characters. Blogs also give your customers more access points to your website meaning there will be more access points to index your website.
To approach blogging from a SEO perspective, Guacira recommends these 3 steps:
- Identify prominent keywords that will be valuable to your business using research tools such as Google Keyword Tool, Word Tracker, Google Insights, etc
- Schedule and creates posts/blogs focused on optimizing the use of those keywords
- Incorporate long-tail keywords on blogs
- Create a Facebook Page and NOT a Facebook Group
- Why? Google indexes Facebook Pages but NOT Facebook Groups
- Integrate some keywords into your “About” section – this is the first area on your page that Google looks at
- Write wall comments that are keyword rich
- Interact with relevant keyword groups/pages
- Tip: Search your keyword on Google > Find the first Facebook page that pops up for that search > Interact with that group.
Facebook Advertising
- Think about the mindset of the Facebook user
- They are playing games, chatting, watching videos, viewing pictures, and not interacting with your ad
- A lot of the value from Facebook Ads are the impressions and not the click-throughs
- Make it easier for your audience to remember your ad
- Use a link shortener
- Place the link URL that you are featuring at the bottom of your Facebook Ad
- Facebook offers the ability to filter out and really target your demographic – it even gives a running total
- Just try it!
- Set a daily limit on cost per click
- Use link shorteners that will give you more insight
- Incorporate the same keywords into your Twitter Bio
- Use hashtags
- Hashtags are picked up in Google and Bing’s real-time search results
- Take advantage of trending topics
- Use Twitter search for research on competitors, target markets, and your own company
- Use RSS for Twitter Search so you don’t lose the data
- You don’t have to follow everyone!
- Use dashboards like Hootsuite that will help you filter the noise
- Create lists and put your contacts into them
YouTube
- 2nd largest search engine in the world
- Google search results show YouTube videos for searches that are video related
- Optimize your videos with keywords, the more they are viewed = the higher the ranking
Cool tools
- MailChimp
- A social media optimized email client
- Works with lots of online apps
- FlowTown
- Uses email addresses to find users online
- Integrates with other services such as Klout
Metrics
- YouTube Video Insights
- Demographic information of viewers
- Summary of views
- Keywords and videos that link to your video
- Swix App
- Shows progress of your social media work for your clients and boss
- Google URL Builder
- Tracks how people are finding your website and content
- J.mp or Bit.ly
- Literally the same service and owned by the same company, but j.mp is one less character
- Tracks behaviour of click-throughs
- If you place a “+” sign after a j.mp or bit.ly link, you can find out the metrics of that specific link
- Can use this to track your own but more importantly your competitor’s campaigns
- HubSpot provides a variety of free tools that will help you gauge and improve your online initiatives
Posted in Social Media by .
It doesn’t take a marketing genius to use social media, but it does take an entrepreneur to grow a business using it.
The most important skill an entrepreneur has is the ability to critically analyze and quickly identify opportunities that will improve their business.
What good is community engagement, if out of the thousands of people you interact with, you can never identify who will become a customer?
How will visibility and traffic add to your bottomline, if you cannot see the edge that you can push them to win your audience over?
Metrics can only do so much until you can’t make sense of the clutter.
Social media is a great marketing tool, but it takes an entrepreneur to see that is only part of the bigger picture.
Posted in Marketing Strategy by .
There is no doubt that a customer-centric strategy has its benefits. What better way to increase the positive word of mouth about your company than to genuinely please and serve your customers? Especially now with the enabling powers of social networks and communications technology to amplify their reach. Your customers might start talking about your products and might start applauding your customer service. But if your employees don’t care, who will provide that service?
Corporate Culture Affects Your Customer Strategy
Employees and culture make all the difference. Despite the rough predicament, a bustling and hustling culture can be a strong force in helping turn it around. At the root of all the problems described was probably an employee who did not care enough or wasn’t empowered enough. No matter how cutting edge your product was or how innovative your marketing was, a corporate culture that did not foster those values would have wilted your competitive edge away.
Management and human resources planning plays such a large role in hiring the right people but also empowering the right people. I have been lucky to have worked with some really great and innovative thinkers. But I have also experienced frustration as I saw their passions wilt away as they were subdued by the culture and system that did not allow them to grow.
Improving Communications with Social Media
When I introduced social media to my company, I wanted it to serve as the channel for people to communicate with each other and more importantly to share their passions. I recognized that so many people in different departments were working apart from each other; feeling hopeless and powerless to make a difference. Just with the use of Yammer, an internal application like Twitter, I was able to re-ignite their interests and passions. The introduction of a new technology and communication channel enabled them to connect with the other like-minded individuals in the company. You could tell that these were the people who genuinely cared about the company and about what they were doing.
Social media empowers them to share and contribute to the corporate culture. It encourages cross-pollination between departments and it gives them a voice. I believe that if more and more people do the same, then the culture will be strong enough that is radiates through customer service, sales, and marketing.
Without empowering your employees, your company will risk losing its entity. The culture slowly wilts away. It is always difficult and costly to fire and re-hire someone and then to adapt them to the culture. Keep in the mind that the current employee once fit with the culture and somewhere along the way, that connection was lost.
- RT @Weave: #SMCYVR board members & interested parties: the presentation from our #Vancouver organizing mtg is here: http://bit.ly/5zsM4Q #
- Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-01-24: Quote of the day: If you don't like change, you're going to like irrelevanc… http://bit.ly/8FaZ70 #
- RT @shanegibson: Leadership Tip: Acting like a leader and being a leader are usually the same until crisis arrives. #
- RT @tweetmeme What the Web of Tomorrow Will Look Like: 4 Big Trends to Watch http://is.gd/6WIuz #
- RT @TechCrunch Collecta Launches Customizable Widgets To Spread Realtime Goodness Across The Web http://bit.ly/8BREAY #
- A packed house at the #f5expo http://twitpic.com/zxla6 #
- No bg tasks is killin me RT @brian_wong: I can't wait until they jailbreak the iPad. No background tasks. Again. How is this a work machine? #
- RT @hubspot ReTweet This to Win One of 3 Apple Tablets from @HubSpot http://bit.ly/bqcwYD #
- Today marks the beginning of my fulltime unemployment/job hunt. Expect to see me more active. Ah the joy of pursuing what you love. #
- RT @kempedmonds facebook is for people you used to know. Twitter is for people you are going to know. #
- RT @LinkedIn: Share this info with a friend who's job hunting. 50% off a LinkedIn premium account (today and tmr only) – http://j.mp/bNVK7Y #
- Who's up for a group buy of @shanegibson and @sjagger new book Sociable. Vodka could be included. #
- RT @Weave: #SMCYVR board members & interested parties: the presentation from our #Vancouver organizing mtg is here: http://bit.ly/5zsM4Q #
- Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-01-24: Quote of the day: If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevanc… http://bit.ly/8FaZ70 #
- RT @shanegibson: Leadership Tip: Acting like a leader and being a leader are usually the same until crisis arrives. #
- RT @tweetmeme What the Web of Tomorrow Will Look Like: 4 Big Trends to Watch http://is.gd/6WIuz #
- RT @TechCrunch Collecta Launches Customizable Widgets To Spread Realtime Goodness Across The Web http://bit.ly/8BREAY #
- A packed house at the #f5expo http://twitpic.com/zxla6 #
- No bg tasks is killin me RT @brian_wong: I can’t wait until they jailbreak the iPad. No background tasks. Again. How is this a work machine? #
- RT @hubspot ReTweet This to Win One of 3 Apple Tablets from @HubSpot http://bit.ly/bqcwYD #
- Today marks the beginning of my fulltime unemployment/job hunt. Expect to see me more active. Ah the joy of pursuing what you love. #
- RT @kempedmonds facebook is for people you used to know. Twitter is for people you are going to know. #
- RT @LinkedIn: Share this info with a friend who’s job hunting. 50% off a LinkedIn premium account (today and tmr only) – http://j.mp/bNVK7Y #
- Who’s up for a group buy of @shanegibson and @sjagger new book Sociable. Vodka could be included. #
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