SEO Werkt!

According to David Cho, the co-founder and CEO of Sidebark, 2012 is the year that privacy will go big (if not public). That’s because, as Cho told me when he came into our San Francisco studio, we want to share our most personal data with our most personal friends – and that can only be done by making privacy the default feature of a social network. Therein lies the rationale behind Sidebark, Cho’s new start-up which, by relying on our emails, is attempting to make “permissions” the operating-system of his privacy-centric network. And that’s why, Cho insisted to me, users can – in contrast with Facebook, Google + et al – really trust Sidebar with their most intimate photos and content.

It’s an intriguing idea. The Harvard Business School educated Cho – who gave up a position as a digital media expert at Bain to launch Sidebark (he claims that being an entrepreneur is “in the blood”) – insists that the market is huge. In 2011, he told me, 350 billion photos where taken but only 50 billion were shared. And Sidebark, he believes, will give us the security to share even our most sensitive data with our friends. Going beyond Path’s single list functionality, Sidebark – which is already available as an iPhone app – offers what Cho calls “segmented lists” which enable us to simply create different groups for each of our multiple personalities. This three person, self-funded startup is already getting traction. In the first two weeks after launch, Cho told me, 200,000 people have already been added to the private lists on the network.

Nice idea, shame about the name. Sidebark. What the hell do dogs who, unlike humans, don’t possess multiple identities, have to do with private lists? Woof woof.

If you could only read five articles online each week – where would you turn? Would you turn to the mastheads, to Twitter or to your RSS reader? Would you wait for the updates to come or would you go and seek them?

I’d be lost myself, without my trusted Feedly reader … it’s become my must have start to the day. Interestingly, however, I have yet to try it out as an iPhone app – even though it is installed. There is something that I prefer about the big screen – but then, that may change at any moment.

I hope you enjoy these five must-reads from last week!

1. It has been an amazing week – for some unforgettable. So I’d like to lead out with this powerful anti-gun rant by Jason Alexander. Well worth a read.
2. On a lighter note, Mandi Bateson shares 3 easy ways to annoy a social media expert guru. Awesome and funny.
3. Many brands and businesses treat social media like any other form of media – something to yell at your audience. Robin Grant suggests that social is a waste of time unless you can engage your audience.
4. Years ago I wrote that “blogs were the new CVs” – but Doug Gross now asks are social media making the resume obsolete? What do you think?
5. Every wondered how Wikipedia should fit into your marketing strategy? David Meerman Scott shares some suggestions and a link to the CIPR guide for PR best practices.

Nederlandse Orde van Advocaten (de Orde) zoekt een social media expert. Die wordt verantwoordelijk voor het uitzetten van de strategie voor sociale media en de praktische uitvoering ervan.

Het is misschien wel de meest beladen functietitel van dit moment: “social media expert”. De afgelopen twee jaar verschenen al vele artikelen op diverse weblogs waarin de term centraal stond. Edial Dekker, de oprichter van de populaire startup Gidsy, noemde social media experts drie jaar geleden nog de “kwakzalvers van het internet”. Er is sindsdien veel veranderd. Bedrijven hebben ontdekt hoe ze met social media naast geld stukslaan ook geld kunnen verdienen. Steeds vaker verschijnen er berichten in de pers van bedrijven die een goed rendement halen op hun investeringen in social media.  Lees meer over: Wat is een social media expert?.

Marketingfacts-blogger J-P De Clerck organiseert op 28 juni eerstkomende een reeks workshops met Brian Solis, gemodereerd door die andere social media expert, Olivier Blanchard. Het programma werd volledig op maat gemaakt zodat marketeers en managers leren hoe ze meer relevant voor de moderne consument kunnen worden. Lees meer over: Advertorial: Kom op 28 juni naar Brian Solis en krijg een Marketingfacts Jaarboek.

I had a different blog topic in mind today when I read Danny Brown’s, “Being Where YOU Need to Be, Not Where ‘They’ Say You Should.”

He relates a story of a small business owner who went to a conference and the social media expert who spoke advised attendees use all of the social media networks because “you never know where your customer is going to be, so you need to be in all of the places.”

This makes my blood boil. Clearly the speaker does not run a small business or have to make payroll or deal with HR issues or make rain or report to stakeholders. If he or she did, they would never advise this.

Play Where Your Customers Play

One of the things we do, when we begin work with clients, is put them through a five-step process. It’s also the process I use when teaching business leaders how to get started on the social web.

It’s not complicated. You start by listening, then move to assessing the conversations, then engage, then measure your results, then tweak and improve, and then you start all over again.

And, if you have time for only one thing, listening is the most important of the process. It’s the foundation for any communication program, not just for using the social web. It allows you to understand where your customers are participating online, the conversations they’re having, and what matters to them most.

Listen

The easiest way to listen is to use Google alerts.

It always surprises me how few people use this free tool from Google. You can set up alerts for your name, the company name, your competition, and the industry…at the very least. If you do those four things, you’ll receive four emails each day. In that email, it will outline where conversations about your search topics are happening online: The web, blogs, comments, discussion groups, social networks, videos, and books.

After a week or so you begin to see a trend. You’ll notice whether people are talking about your search topics on blogs or on the social networks. This begins to give you some intelligent information about which one platform you should use.

Of course, if you have the budget or receive more than 500-1,000 mentions per day (my Google alerts usually have no more than 10 each day), you’ll want to pay for a listening program. Tools such as Spiral16, Radian6, or Sysomos are the best.

Assess

Then you can begin to assess those conversations.

Let’s say, for argument’s sake, your Google alerts show you a lot of chatter is happening on Twitter. You note that in your brain as one of the tools to consider.

Now you can assess where the people you’re already connected with are participating online.

There are four tools you can use to do this:

1. Fliptop. Fliptop is a tool that will let you upload email contacts from your computer, an email marketing platform, social media, or Salesforce. It will give you 100 free social profiles; anything beyond that is a paid option. It’s an easy way to test the software to see if it’s something you’d like to consider paying for and using. It returns demographics, title, company, all of the social platforms the person uses, and their Klout score.
2. Qwerly. Qwerly is a little more sophisticated and should be used by someone who understands APIs and how to insert a key into your Web properties. This is a paid tool that takes the person’s name and location, and returns their bio, social networking profiles, usernames, and influence score (such as Klout).
3. Gist. Gist is a tool you insert into your email server (such as Outlook or Gmail). Every time you email someone, it returns information such as their most recent blog post, what they’re reading, their shared photos, and their social networks.
4. Xobni. Xobni is the Batman of email. When installed in your email server, it returns so much information it’s almost scary. It gives you the social platforms, just like the other tools, but it also shows you which attachments you’ve exchanged with that person, what time they’re typically on email and responding, how many emails they’ve sent you or haven’t responded to, and more.

Engage

So now you have Google alerts that show (for sake of this blog post) there is a lot of chatter about your company, brand, competition, or industry on Twitter.

Then you find, once you upload your contacts into Fliptop, that most of your existing contacts are participating on Twitter.

It probably makes sense for you to start with Twitter. Not to be on every platform, but based on your research, to start there.

But, of course, you have to have content to use on Twitter. Content that is housed on something you own: Your website and/or blog.

Jay Baer offers the best image I’ve seen on how to begin to engage online.

In the days of old, we would use written customer testimonials on our websites. Now you can take that same philosophy to create videos of your customers telling your company story. Those videos are uploaded to YouTube (which helps with your search) and embedded on your website and/or blog.

Then that link is used to build engagement through content on the one social network (Twitter in this case) where you’ve decided to participate.

Measure

Now it’s time to pay attention to whether or not your efforts are working. We use both Google analytics and Clicky at Arment Dietrich, but use InfusionSoft for Spin Sucks Pro and Hubspot for clients to generate leads, measure results, and figure out what’s working and what’s not.

You want to have a benchmark as you’re starting out. Your benchmark may be zero and you may be guessing at what you should measure (hint: It’s not web traffic) and that’s OK. Start somewhere, give it 75-90 days, and move to improve from there.

If you need help in setting up a measurement program, pick up Marketing in the Round. The last three chapters focus on how to do this.

Improve

And then you’re going to improve. You now know where your customers and prospects are participating. You’re creating stories and content that allow you to engage online. You’re measuring your results. And now you know where you need to improve.

We always recommend clients (and conference attendees) start by crawling, then walking, then running, and then flying.

There is no reason on earth you need to be everywhere at once or start with more than one thing.

Start small and grow.

Ever been sidelined with a tough social media question in your monthly board meeting? Or hop on the phone with a client and get hit with a few doozies you wish you’d been prepared for? Questions about the social media industry, where it’s been, and where it’s going are the stuff for experts — and in your job, you’re the social media expert. So to help prepare you, HubSpot and Who’s Blogging What got in touch with 8 of the industry’s best and brightest to get their take on some of the high-level issues social media marketers are facing.

We asked them one question: What surprised you about social media in 2011, and how did it affect your planning for 2012? Their responses brought to light some important issues for social media marketers this year that we think you should know. For a condensed one-sheet of their answers, download the visual pictured below here (as well as other pearls of marketing wisdom from industry experts!). We’ve also taken their insights and broken out what we think you should know about the issues they brought up. Take a look at their answers to the question below, and get up to date on the tough social media issues they brought up in which marketers should be well versed.

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Seth Godin on the Ebbing of Privacy

“I think the relentlessly ebbing of perceived privacy is happening faster than most people thought it would. This is leading to both small pockets of frustrated, trapped people who are afraid of what’s known about them, and a larger portion of the population that’s redefining what they think is normal. We haven’t had privacy for decades, but the social web is making that really clear.” - Seth Godin, Seth’s Blog

Marketer’s Takeaway: A key part of Seth’s insights is the phrase “perceived privacy.” He’s right. We haven’t had privacy for a while now, but as consumers get more savvy — and use social media more frequently to interact with brands — businesses are also being forced to reckon with their role in protecting consumers’ data and information.

What social networks do you use in your business, and for what purpose? If you’re doing customer service on Twitter, for example, are you operating it in such a way that there are sufficient safeguards for the sensitive information being transmitted between you and your customers? Or perhaps you’ve developed a mobile app. To maintain trust, the onus is on you to be public about how your app will access and use your leads’ and customers’ information. When the wool gets pulled over peoples’ eyes about how their information is used and then suddenly, at some point in the future, they become aware you weren’t playing by the same rules — that’s when you lose the trust of the social fan base you worked hard to acquire.

Jeff Bullas’ 7 Surprises

Jeff Bullas of JeffBullas.com noted 7 social media surprises from 2011:

• In July, Google+ launched, a new social network that no one apparently wanted. It reached 25 million users in less than 30 days.
• Facebook rolled out a stronger visual format for its user interface with its much more engaging “Timeline.”
• The rise of the micro-blogging platform Tumblr (10 million to 90 million users in 12 months).
• The explosion of the social apps on Facebook.
• Popularity of the infographic.
• Revival of Stumbleupon.
• The emergence of the visual online pinboard, Pinterest.

Marketer’s Takeaway: There are tons of new social networks popping up, old ones fading into oblivion, and sometimes — making an unexpected comeback. On top of that, there are new developments — Open Graph, new page structures, the emergence of dedicated brand pages, new ad platforms — that make a marketer’s life feel infinitely more complicated. But not every marketer needs to be on every social network. And not every feature needs to be utilized on those you are using, either.

You should, however, experiment with new networks and features, even if they don’t seem immediately applicable to your brand or industry. Take Pinterest, for example. It seems like a B2C marketer’s playground, but B2B brands have found success there, too, including your very own HubSpot. So while you should pick and choose what’s right for your business, never discount a social network or its features without running an experiment first.

Linda Bustos on Google+

“I have to say Google Plus. I notice that retweets of my blog’s articles are down since its launch, understandably, especially since Google Reader removed other sharing options in favor of the Plus button. This poses a couple of challenges — can I compare today’s Twitter engagement scores to last year’s? How do I reconcile this in my social analytics? Do I need to invest as much time in this new network as Twitter? Is it the same audience? Is doubling up tweets/shares going to hurt my social networking efforts? I’m also surprised that there’s room for another social network. This and new sites like Pinterest show us there’s still room for new social networks, provided they offer something Twitter and Facebook don’t.” – Linda Buston, Get Elastic

Marketer’s Takeaway: Be an integrated, agile inbound marketer. All of these social media changes happened in one short year. If you’re not willing to adapt your tactics, or you’re relying too much on any one tactic, you could find yourself with a serious traffic and lead shortage based off of just one platform update. That’s too little control for a marketer.

Instead, marketers should diversify their traffic and lead sources, and integrate them with one another. If you haven’t already, begin integrating your email and social media, blogging and social media, PPC and blogging, and everything else. If you stay agile and integrated, when one feature or network begins to underperform, you won’t be left treading water (or drowning). That gives people like Linda the ability to run experiments around the questions she raised — pose a question, formulate a hypothesis, run the experiment, analyze the results, then iterate. Great agile marketers aren’t afraid of failure — just standing still!

The Value of Split Seconds With Kyle Lacy

“I wouldn’t say I’m surprised by the advancement of tools like Tumblr, Instagram, and Facebook. We are moving to a world where the split second capturing of a memory is more important than taking the time to write a “post.” It is up to us, as marketers, to develop systems that fully enable a consumer to speak with our brand. I’m looking for 2012 to be the year of integration and interactive marketing hubs that will fully utilize and deliver social.” – Kyle Lacy, Kylelacy.com

Marketer’s Takeaway: We’re all getting better at setting up a social presence that lets consumers speak with our brand, but what Kyle hits on here is that we must set up systems that “fully enable” that conversation. 80% of success isn’t just showing up with social media. We must all become expert social monitors, and not shy away from social media automation when used correctly. We have two blog posts that help you understand when to automate your social presence, and when it is right, how to automate social media correctly.

Sarah Worsham Taken by Mobile

“How fast smartphone adoption has been, and how people are using them (e.g. for checking prices in store, connecting to their friends all the time, etc.)” – Sarah Worsham, Sazbean Consulting

Marketer’s Takeaway: 2012 is the year to go mobile. Smartphone users are set to increase to 107 million this year from 90 million in 2011; ereader users will increase from 33 million in 2011 to 46 million; and tablet users will jump from 34 million in 2011 to 55 million. On top of that, mobile browsing is steadily rising, and those consumers know exactly what they’re looking for when they’re doing it — things like store hours, price comparisons, reviews, and coupons.

All marketers should be optimizing for mobile. But if you’re running a local or brick-and-mortar business, it’s paramount to your success that 2012 be the year you go mobile. That means you should optimize your site for mobile browsing, optimize your emails for mobile consumption, experiment with mobile apps and mobile advertising if it’s relevant to your business, and get started with mobile SEO, too.

Ian Lurie Ties Social and Analytics

“I’m still more surprised by everyone’s failure to connect social media to indirect value contributed to their company. I just can’t get my head around why folks find it so difficult to equate online customer conversations with offline customer conversations. We’ve invested a lot of time and effort (and money!) in better social media analytics, so that we can better close this loop.” – Ian Lurie, Conversation Marketing

Marketer’s Takeaway: Many marketers assume social media is important to their company, but it’s a common struggle to justify the resources they’re putting into it — especially to a CMO who’s more comfortable with old-school tactics. That’s why inbound marketers need to invest in closed-loop analytics to help track leads from their point of first conversion through to the moment they become a customer. When you can look back and see documentation that not only did social media definitely contribute to a new customer, but that it also brings in new leads, you’ll have an easier time justifying your social media marketing program.

Sharlyn Lauby Incorporates New Social Networks

“What surprised me most about social media in 2011 was the meaningful emergence of so many social networks outside of Facebook and Twitter, such as Instagram, Foursquare, Pinterest, and, most notably, Google+. After what seems like countless failed attempts at social by Google (Buzz, Wave, Orkut, etc.), Google+ is already enough of a hit to force marketers to leverage, if only for its search implications. Our 2012 planning therefore will include a plan for all clients on Facebook, Twitter & Google+, as well as other emerging social networks as needed.” – Sharlyn Lauby, HR Bartender

Marketer’s Takeaway: The incorporation of Google+ into organic search is a controversial but undoubtedly important aspect of the social media changes from late 2011 and early 2012. Regardless of your opinion of every other facet of Google+ as a social network, if SEO is important to you, you’ll be hard pressed to totally ignore it if you’re trying to implement an organic search program without any holes. If you’re leveraging Google+ to improve your organic search presence, we’ve written a Google+ SEO guide with some tactics that will help you do it.

Priit Kallas Now Believes in Just One General Purpose Social Networking Site

“Failure of Google+ launch. This has confirmed my belief that there can be only one general purpose social networking site with a little activity on specialty sites like Twitter and LinkedIn. So, when planning, concentrate on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and verticals.” – Priit Kallas, Dream Grow Social Media

Marketer’s Takeaway: Speaking of Google+, the new social network’s launch has confirmed Priit’s belief in one general purpose social network, flanked by several niche social networks. This is absolutely the way social media usage appears to be going. In research published on the very subject, eMarketer researcher Kimberly Maul notes, “Many internet users are turning…to social networks that offer a more focused experience than Facebook. In the case of several popular or up-and-coming sites, this means giving users the ability to express themselves.”

Marketers investing in their social media presence should invest time in personalizing the experience for fans and followers. Using Google+? Set up persona-targeted Circles. Using LinkedIn? Target your product tabs to a customized audience. Dedicating time to Pinterest? Make boards that appeal to all of your audience, not just one segment. The more personalized you can make your social experience, the more you’ll get out of the investment you put into the social networks that end up being right for your audience.

What are some of the toughest social media questions you face? Share your challenges (and solutions, if you like!) in the comments.

Connect with HubSpot:

There are few terms more overused these days than “social media expert.” Now Unified wants to actually certify those experts, through a new program called Unified University.

Unified calls itself “the first social operating platform” — it offers tools for planning, purchasing, and analyzing social media advertising campaigns. Even though CEO Sheldon Owen says he wants to build a big enterprise technology company, Unified sometimes finds itself working as a social media consultant, of sorts for the agencies and brands that it works with, helping to train them in the best practices of social advertising. With Unified University, the startup can get its customers up-to-speed more efficiently.

Despite the “university” name, this isn’t actually something people need to commit to for weeks or months. Instead, it’s a series of online tutorials that can be completed in about a day, and at the end, the “students” get certified in different subject areas. The curriculum focuses on three broad topics — Metrics & Reporting, Tactical, and Strategies for Success.

In the short-term, people need that certification in order to unlock certain Unified features. For example, Owen says there are lots of unique challenges to promoting content on StumbleUpon. Rather than allowing customers to waste their time and money, Unified’s StumbleUpon feature only turns on after they’ve completed the relevant tutorial in the University. In the long-term, Owen is hoping that the certification will become a generally recognized way to recognize social media knowledge, say within large organizations, or when you’re moving between jobs.

You can read more about Unified University here.

By the way, Unified’s co-founders Josh Backer and Jason Beckerman were actually part of the inaugural class of TechCrunch 40 companies with their startup Teach the People.

Apparently, when Facebook filed its plans to go public, analysts saw nothing but “red flags” that the social network had thus far failed to monetize its 425+ million mobile users…

The disclosure sent up red flags for analysts, because the company also said it does not “currently directly generate any meaningful revenue from the use of Facebook mobile products, and our ability to do so successfully is unproven.”

Talk about a “glass is half empty” attitude. For me, that looks like a huge opportunity for Facebook and I suspect that the dire warning was nothing more than the obligatory pessimistic statements needed when making any financial statement.

Anyway, it appears Facebook’s ready to give mobile advertising another crack with a major announcement in New York on February 29th.

Of course, the big question is, will mobile Facebook users tolerate ads appearing in their smart phones and tablets. And the answer? Of course they will!

Oh sure, they’ll be some huffing and puffing by many Facebook users. Heck, I’m sure profile pictures will be changed and anti-Facebook Pages will be created, but when all is said and done, we’ll just get used to it and move on. Anyone remember the outrage over Facebook’s Ticker? Heck, I kinda like it now!

One “social-media expert” went as far as to say…

Facebook could end up “irritating their user base by inundating them with ads,” he said.

Since when has that ever stopped Zuckerberg et al? Over 400 million in unmonetized users? I have one word for ya: ka-ching!

Today’s guest post is written by Adam Justice.

I’m going to let you in on a secret: I’m not a social media marketing expert.

I’m a web developer and online marketing strategist.

When I first started in web development it was strictly for fun. When I learned how to code in HTML I thought it was cool, and within a few weeks I had made websites for family businesses, online friends, and pretty much anyone who could come to terms with free hosting.

The experience I gained from these first projects led me to charge for my work and it started me on a path where I strive to not only improve, but to also add new skills to my repertoire. 

There’s a low barrier to entry when it comes to providing online marketing services of any kind. Fifty percent of the population has a Facebook account, and basically all you have to do to call yourself a “social media expert” is know how to run one.

Some of the networking people I converse with will tell me, “You’re lucky to have design and marketing skills that apply to social media,” but I see it differently. The basic principles and concepts that good design and marketing are built upon work under most circumstances, and they’re going to outlast social media as we know it.

It’s important for millennials (I hate that word) to see value in building a strong foundation of basic principles when it comes to marketing. Our greatest strength has always been to think outside the box. Ironically, that is the same trait that gets so many companies who put their faith in my generation, into social media hot water.

Advice From One Millennial to Another

1. Go to work for an established company first and get some experience.
2. Know yourself. Know your abilities and don’t be afraid to acknowledge weaknesses.
3. Spend some of the time you normally dedicate to reading blogs about “How To Optimize a LinkedIn Profile” by reading from a textbook instead.
4. Measure twice and cut once. Make sure you are capable before taking on a new role. A bad set of circumstances could end your career as far as the Internet is concerned.

The worst thing you can do is discount the methodology and science upon which marketing is built. We may watch YouTube instead of cable now, but grocery stores still place products with the highest profit margins at eye level.

While a lot has changed, a lot has remained the same.

It seems extraordinarily self-serving when a 24-year old bills him or herself as a marketing expert, convincing consumers since Facebook wasn’t around five years ago, prior experience is not pertinent.

Basic PR and marketing skills are much more valuable when conducting business on Facebook than knowing how to send messages and comment. He or she is not only being dishonest with a potential customer, but also cheating themselves of the opportunity to  become better.

And if you are an expert with a ton of experience and a successful platform, go easy on the “fake gurus.”

Remember, everyone started somewhere…. And you wouldn’t look as good by comparison if you were up against contemporaries all day long!

Prosperity requires hard work and strategic thinking. By publishing all this content on marketing and social media, we’re just tempting others to give it a go as well.

What advice would you give to our generation?