Your Social Media Marketing Should Include Creating and Distributing Relevant Videos!
Feb 20th
The fact is that search engines are now giving preferential treatment to videos. It is their attempt to provide online shoppers with a better variety of specialized content when searching for our keywords. One company, Forrester Research, reports that compared with standard SEO and social media marketing optimization techniques, a properly submitted (and relevant) video is 50 times more likely to achieve a first-page Google ranking.
In the past, when we searched for a topic, take trust seals, for example, we were provided with relevant articles and news on how they increase a website’s conversion rates. Then came fresh, newly conceived, yet highly related blog posts telling how effective trust seals are at helping websites build high levels of trust with their visitors – turning more of them into valued customers.
After that, the search engines began including pertinent photos about what a trust seal looks like. With the photo, a link would take us right to the business selling the trust seal, making the process clean and convenient.
But photos were given more privileges, in many ways, than most content-driven articles and posts simply because it was different. Search engines were quick to rank relevant photos higher than equally useful content. Few complained as searching become more colorful.
Then YouTube showed up and offered the ability to find out about trust seals by watching a relevant video – much more attention-grabbing and in many cases just as informative as reading an article!
Because of this shift, YouTube is now the second largest search engine, requiring other search engines to modify requirements for reaching the first page in the search to increase the number of videos searchers see when they utilize their services.
Today, search engines are classifying relevant video ahead of photos and most articles and posts, with the intention of making the first page in almost any search topic (including trust seals) an aesthetically pleasing experience for the person searching.
Because of this truth, it is critical that videos become a large part of our social media marketing campaigns. And the quicker we respond to the video tidal wave, the easier it will be to reap the benefits. That’s because, relatively speaking, valuable video is in short supply.
Here are a few things you need to consider when creating a video to increase the SEO value of your daily social media marketing.
First, post quality, relevant video on your website – and place it on the top fold of your home page. This will make the initial contact with online visitors a relaxed, enjoyable, yet informative experience.
Post lots of quality, relevant videos on YouTube and the other dozens of video search engines. But don’t assume that because you have posted there, that you are finished. Submit those videos to other non-video exclusive search engines too, and include the pages that the videos appear on.
Videos are critical today in optimizing social media marketing. But make sure that your video and its pertinent content are properly indexed back to your website rather than to the video platform provider’s website.
In conclusion, the ways that our potential clients are using to find our online products and services are changing. Information about the value of trust seals, for example, is found from articles, posts, pictures, tweets, buzzes, fan pages, and, more and more often, videos.
If we want an easier way for our keywords to enter the hollowed confines of the first page in any search engine, we must include valuable, relevant videos in our social media marketing.
From Good To Great Social Media Marketing
Feb 9th
If Jim Collins (author of the bestselling book Good to Great) is right, and “greatness is largely a matter of conscious choice,” then all website owners can, theoretically, become great at social media marketing.
Good companies do a few things right. Great companies do all of the important things right. Let’s review a few of the important areas of the book, as they pertain to social media marketing greatness.
The book talks about making sure we have the right person in the right spot. If we have good people working with us, find out what they’re good at and have them focus their energies in that area. Don’t fire an intelligent, hard worker with a great attitude just because she isn’t performing in the area you chose for her to work. Find an area where she is More >
Social Media Marketing – An Hour A Day
Jan 13th
There are many activities that fill up our days besides social media marketing. An hour a day might seem like a lot to give up to focus on increasing our online presence and building our social equity. But there are some bonuses that come with organizing a small portion of our time with activities that really matter.
We’re not just talking about decreasing the amount of TV or movies we watch, although the sacrifice for doing so is minimal. We are talking about organizing our work day so that we can spend a solid hour working on increasing our relationships with customers, clients, partners, co-workers, vendors, and even competitors.
Here are a few specific social media marketing activities that will pay off huge dividends if we are committed to spend an hour a day doing them.
1. Find one social marketing program. We shouldn’t waste our time constantly looking for systems and programs. We could spend months looking at different systems without ever starting to increase our business’ visibility and that is not productive. Preferably, the system we choose should combine search engine optimization (SEO) with social media marketing.
2. Start spending and hour a day working through it’s modules. Set time a part during the work day. We shouldn’t start a new module until we have extrapulated everything that we can from the module we’re on. When we do so, we will build a global identity, while creating professional, honest, one-on-one relationships.
3. Fill up down time with proven habits such as listening to motivational or social media optimization (SMO) training, calling a client just to see how they are doing, and taking advantage of the opportunity to visit our competitors just to see what they have up their sleeves this week.
4. Get to know co-workers and vendors better. I once sold an item that had been on inventory for nearly a year simply by asking our delivery personnel if they knew anyone who might be interested in it! They appreciate our concern and our sincere desire that they succeed. Spend some time with them and watch their productivity soar!
In an effort to heed my own advice, and not feed you more than you can chew – at least while keeping your mouth closed – I will end there. Follow these simple concepts of focusing on social media marketing an hour a day and you will be successful.
Social Media Optimization – We’re all OK!
Jan 6th
In our quest to improve upon how we communicate socially – especially on the internet, it’s beneficial to get to the root of the human transaction.
In his best-selling book, I’m OK, You’re OK, Thomas A. Harris discusses Eric Berne’s thoughts on optimizing our social interactions, stating that the unit of social intercourse is called a transaction.
If two or more people encounter each other … sooner or later one of them will speak, or give some other indication of acknowledging the presence of the other. This is called the transactional stimulus. The other person will then say or do something which is in some way related to the stimulus, and that is called the transactional response.
There are key factors that can assist us in our attempts to ensure that there aren’t any discrepancies between the person responding and the person stimulating. Here are a few:
Listen. Whether we are communicating with our brother, client, vendor, or competitor, we should focus first on what they have to say without concentrating on a response while they are still talking. Otherwise we miss the stimulus.
Combining SEO with Social Media Marketing
Dec 30th
Often, what seems so new and cutting-edge, stems from principles learned long, long ago. Such is the case with the latest trend toward combining social media marketing with search engine optimization.
Thousands of years ago we were all hunters and gatherers. The hunters were sly and fearless. They divided and conquered. The gatherers’ stayed together as a close-knit group and, well, gathered.
The hunters all lived together, and the gatherers all lived together. But the hunters did not live with the gatherers. Each thought the other was odd and inferior.
That is until, as many legends attest,
How Trust Seals Will Increase Our Online Conversion Rates
Dec 22nd
In our never-ending quest to increase our online conversion rates, let’s consider the benefits of displaying trust seals on our websites. There are many trust seals on the market today. That’s because online consumers have never been so cautious about shopping online as they are now.
One company, Trust Guard, provides Security Verification Seals, Privacy Verification Seals, and Business Verification Seals – because shoppers are concerned about all three areas of website identity.
It makes sense for us as website owners to remove all the fear, doubt, and suspicion that accompanies making a buying decision online. When there is no hesitation to do what we want our online visitors to do, our conversion rates will increase.
Online consumers worry about
Can We Afford Not to Market Socially?
Dec 12th
Enjoy this video about social media marketing and the enormous advantages of creating online relationships.
If you aren’t sure about the positive, financially beneficial movement towards the social revolution, check out these facts:
13.9 Billion minutes Facebook users spent on the site in April 2009, a 700% increase from April 2008.
35% of Americans 18 and over used a social networking site in 2008.
95% of business decision makers worldwide use social networks to some extent.
After the video, visit Building Social Equity to learn how to turn your new-found knowledge about building your social equity through social media marketing into sustainable, ever-increasing revenue!
Build Relationships That Matter Through Social Media Marketing
Nov 24th
No one likes listening to a sales pitch. But everyone wants to know what his or her friend does for a living. Because of this simple truth, online social sites have gained enormous popularity and website owners are growing their businesses significantly without having to pitch their products.
This article describes specific tools that will increase our social equity online. When we follow these guidelines, we will build relationships that will make a difference in our revenue streams as well as in our personal lives.
First, maintain consistent, if not constant interaction with online associates. This is not just about staying neighborly. When shifts in our industries happen, or are about to happen, our online associates will be there to inform us and give us direction. Having close business contacts could potentially save our businesses. Only through steady, positive communication will we create relationships that matter.
Second, ask for help. When we ask for assistance from experts in our field, it improves our relationship with them, it doesn’t diminish it. People love to feel valued. When they see that our intention to learn is genuine, they will respect us for asking, and our social equity with that person will increase. Stopping other activities to give our complete attention to our online peers is a great way to build social equity.
Third, tell them that you
