A recent post on PC World, “2011: The Year Facebook Killed Google” reflects a common mis-perception about the emerging role of search and social media for consumer information discovery. In the post, the author Dan Tynan shares that he’s finding and consuming more information on social networks vs. Google during “moments of leisure”. Citing unique visitor traffic and time on site statistics from Nielsen, Dan then makes the argument that Google is falling behind.

Was 2011 the year Facebook killed Google? 

People don’t surf the web anymore, they socialize & share.  Consumer behaviors and expectations towards content discovery, consumption and engagement are always changing online and more-so in the past few years with the emergence of today’s social networks and media sharing sites. People use search engines and social networks to find answers, yes – but I’d argue that they use them differently.

As with Earned and Paid Media, Social Media inspires search. Whether initial awareness is created with a story in the media, an advertisement or a mention on a social media site, search is a logical next step. Consumers might get suggestions from friends on social networks but will also take those recommendations and search for them on Google to get more information like hours, reviews, directions and to view the business website.

Search Drives Social. The opposite is true as well. Consumers find things on Google and go to their social networks seeking validation. “Has anyone ever heard of XYZ product, does it work?” or “I’m thinking of going to ABC or 123 restaurants, which would you pick?”. People expect to find what they’re looking for in search as well as to interact with that content. In fact, if social content is well optimized for keywords and topics, companies can grow their networks by being easy to find on search engines as well as through the organic growth that occurs with friends and invites.

It’s a key lesson for marketers to look beyond search rankings and also into the usefulness and share-ability of their content. That’s why we’re such big proponents of  ”Optimize and Socialize“.  Make it easy for search engines and consumers to find and experience your content wherever they might be looking.

The reality of search engines and social networks is that consumers are definitely using social media at an increasing rate to find answers, ie products and services. At the same time, they are still using search independently or in concert with social networks.

Google Apples, Facebook Oranges. Comparing time on site statistics between Google and Facebook is ridiculous. “People spend about 16 percent of their time online just on Facebook – or more than they do on Yahoo, Google, AOL, and YouTube combined”, according to the article.  What about this statistic:  Every 60 seconds there are nearly as many Facebook status updates (695,000) as searches on Google (694,445). Is that really a relevant comparison?

Google wants you in and out – fast. Here’s the fundamental problem with comparing time on site between a search engine and a social network: The very nature of Google is to get users in and out as fast as possible. Leaving Google means a possible click on an ad. Clicks on ads means Google gets paid, period.

Facebook on the other hand, is designed to keep people on Facebook as long as possible.  Ads on Facebook typically send users to Fan Pages within Facebook. Facebook is creating it’s own internet of sorts, so a higher “time on site” is a success metric.  It’s simply not a useful comparison between Google the search engine and Facebook the social network.

2011 isn’t the year Facebook killed Google, it’s the year that Google finally opened the door to it’s social search potential with Google+.  In fact, Google+ doesn’t need to become a viable competitor to Facebook in order for it to be incredibly useful for Google. The social and search data Google can collect within it’s own platform is priceless along with social content creation against which ads can be run. I’d also make this important observation: Google’s efforts towards building a social network are far beyond Facebook’s offering as a search engine.

Google and Facebook compete for people’s time online, sure. But as marketers, it’s important to understand that consumers don’t necessarily see search and social networks as mutually exclusive. Search and social are different tools to find answers, but  in very complementary ways. Understanding those consumer preferences is a big advantage over those who focus entirely on SEO and rankings or exclusively on fans/friends/followers and engagement metrics.

My last thought on this is, while many marketers duke it out over Facebook vs. Google, smart marketers will be focused on understanding their customer’s preferences and behaviors. For one segment it might mean a primary focus on search and for another segment it might be social.

Paying attention to overall trends and platforms, especially with the new year, is important. But it’s also important to focus marketing investments in the places that matter to customers who buy and who share. If that means Facebook or social networking, great! If it means Google and SEO, great!  If you master the ability to use data to attract, engage and inspire your community of customers to buy and make referrals, platform arguments become a lot less important.

What do you think? Is Facebook killing Google? Do you see the search experience and social networking as mutually exclusive or complementary activities?

Here’s the full post on PC World.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. |
Was 2011 The Year Facebook Killed Google? | http://www.toprankblog.com

21 Social Media Marketing Trends for 2012

Curious to find out what 2012 could have in store for online marketers?  This presentation from DreamGrow shares 21 predictions on what 2012 could look like.

Highlights include:

• Social CRM making inroads
• Social media influencing more sales
• Social commerce on mobile devices

Facebook IPO and Most Popular Social Sites:

Social Media: Disasters

“Ocean Marketing vs. Penny Arcade: Paul Christoforo PR Disaster Goes Viral” Documented via email and enacted on numerous YouTube videos, this might be one of the most reprehensible exchanges in the history of customer service. A PR/Marketing contractor representing N-Control, a maker of modified game controllers for hardcore gamers and disabled people has been accused of insulting a customer, plagiarism, extorting a past client and shady SEO practices. Could it get any worse? Yeah. Domestic abuse.  Via International Business Times.

“Social media, rumors might have fed melee at MOA”  On Sunday December 25th it was rumored that rappers Lil Wayne and Drake were going to be making an appearance at Mall of America in Bloomington, MN.  In the afternoon mayhem broke out involving more than 200 young people, one of the most serious disturbances at the mall in over 15 years with 10 people arrested.  Via StarTribune.

“Top 5 Most Common Networking Mistakes”  Good networking is an art and a science.  While some people may not have an innate networking skill this article points out basic mistakes and how to avoid them.  Via Inc.

Network Growth: Exceeding Expectations

“Pinterest: Crazy Growth Lands it as Top 10 Social Site”  Pintrest has grown 4,000% over the past 6 months marking it as the number 10 social media site.  While most traffic comes from California and Texas, Pinterest also receives unusually high traffic from states like Utah, Alabama, and Tennessee.  Via cNet.

“Instagram Becomes the Largest Mobile Social Network” In the past two months Instagram has added over 2 million new users.  While currently only available on iPhone, Instagram is poised to outpace Foursquare, the largest mobile focused social network available today.  Via Social Fresh.

“Google+ may reach 400 million users by end of 2012”  Google+ is on average adding 625,000 new users per day.  While the numbers are reflecting total users not active users, there is no denying that Google+ is growing.  Via LA Times Blog.

Cashing in on Christmas:

“Final Christmas Push Propels U.S. Online Holiday Spending to $35.3 Billion, Up 15 Percent Versus Last Year”  Spending reflected in this report takes into account the first 56 days of the November – December holiday season.  It is said with certainty that Cyber Monday 2011 ranked as the heaviest spending day of the season for the second year in a row.  Via ComScore.

Battles In the Court & On the Screen

“A Dispute Over Who Owns a Twitter Account Goes to Court” How much is a Twitter follower worth?  In a world where social media influence can mean the difference between a new customer and a fruitless cold call, one company thinks it’s worth a lot.  The question remains, can a company claim ownership of an employee’s social media account, and what does that mean for employee’s posting during work hours?  Via NY Times.

“YouTube Slam Begins Video Clip Battles for Users’ Votes”  Each week YouTube will put user submitted videos head-to-head to battle it out on screen.  Users will be asked to submit a vote for their favorite video.  This contest is designed to keep visitors on YouTube for longer periods of time and deepen their connection to the site.  Via BBC.

Online Marketing News You Can Use = TopRank Team Edition

Ken Horst – “Google Will Change Web Marketing in 2012”
Google has designed a new method for websites to structure data so that its crawler can pull better information. These plans revolve around metadata that will allow Google to access more rich data about a topic.  This may be a wakeup call for marketers and web masters to start looking at the new data and plan for the deployment of the new code in order to improve or maintain rankings.  Via Harvard Business Review.

Emily Conley – “The 22 Best Infographics We Found in 2011”
This is a compilation of some of the best infographics released in the past year.  I thought this was a pretty cool trend feature to reflect on the past year and gear up for 2012!  Via Co.Design.

Alexis Hall – “77 of Top 100 Brands Now Have Google+ Pages”
This article from Marketing Land discusses the fast adoption of Google+ by businesses, since its launch on November 7th.  According to BrightEdge’s December SocialShare report, 77 of the top 100 brands now have Google+ pages. This adoption rate will likely continue to increase in 2012 as big and small businesses begin to leverage Google+.  Via Marketing Land.

Ken Horst – “Will Clever Sense Help Google Become The Perfect Search Engine?”
Google is beefing up its voice search capabilities with the recent purchase of Clever Sense.  Similar to Siri for Apple, Google’s new voice search app will remember things it learns about the user so that future search results are even more targeted.  As more people use voice search on their mobile devices, online marketers will need to learn what it takes, other than location, to acquire a high ranking in the SERP.  Via Search Insider.

Happy Birthday TopRank Online Marketing Blog!

We’ve celebrated our 8th year of blogging this week. Thank you to everyone who has subscribed, shared, linked, commented and reached out over the  years. It’s an honor to be a part of such an amazing community and in this world of information overload, we appreciate your attention a great deal.  Thank you!

Have A Safe Holiday Weekend!

From the entire team at TopRank Online Marketing

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. |
A to Z Internet Marketing News: Happy Birthday TopRankBlog!, 2012 Marketing Predictions, Social Disasters, Cashing in on XMAS | http://www.toprankblog.com

The New Year will soon be here and we are looking forward to continuing to learn from some of the top marketing minds on the web about the strategies and tactics that will shape  online marketing efforts in 2012 and beyond. To help you get a jump start, I have compiled a list of books coming out in 2012 that cover a range of online marketing topics including:  mobile, social media, content and search engine marketing. Enjoy.

[Note from Lee: We didn't include second editions, re-releases in paperback or books that didn't have cover images uploaded yet.]

Mobile, Local, Location Based Marketing

Mobilized Marketing: Drive Sales, Engagement, and Loyalty Through Mobile Marketing (Wiley) by Jeff Hasen

Jeff Hasen, CMO of mobile marketing forerunner Hipcricket, provides timely mobile strategies and tactics leveraging his experience from more than 130,000 past campaigns.  As mobile marketing continues to move to the forefront of the marketing world, the insight Hasen provides into mobile optimization, budgeting, and measurement should prove to be indispensable in 2012.

Go Mobile: Location-Based Marketing, Apps, Mobile Optimized Ad Campaigns, 2D Codes and Other Mobile Strategies to Grow Your Business  (Wiley) by Jeanne Hopkins and Jamie Turner

Go Mobile offers a step by step guide for mobile marketing in 2012.  It includes practical campaign instructions in order to develop a mobile website, deploy SMS for business, utilize QR codes, leverage mobile apps and more. One can also benefit from strategic instructions to use location based marketing in order to build your customers base and how to integrate social media into mobile campaigns.

Search & Social Media Marketing

Social Media Intelligence: Extracting Knowledge from the Fire Hose of Conversations (Que) by  Sally Falkow

Upcoming in June of 2012, Social Media Intelligence illustrates how to use the leading social media analytics tools in order to gauge the effectiveness of social media marketing and make strategic decisions. Sally Falkow will guide you in moving from reactive brand monitoring to proactive information gathering in order to take advantage of business opportunities. This is a great read for those looking to progress from just doing social media to using it as an effective piece of their marketing strategy.

Google+ for Business: How Google’s Social Network Changes Everything  (Que) by Chris Brogan

The much buzzed about Google+ seems likely to have a big impact on search in 2012.  Author, Chris Brogan, discusses how businesses should be taking advantage of the newest social network and defines those strategies and tactics to use for business.

Content Marketing

Optimize: How to Attract and Engage More Customer by Integrating SEO, Social Media, and Content Marketing (Wiley) by Lee Odden

TopRank Online Marketing CEO Lee Odden helps companies develop an optimized and socialized content marketing strategy to attain new levels of customer acquisition and engagement in 2012.  Balancing the practical with the innovative, Optimize is ideal for those marketers that want a more effective content marketing strategy that wins and retains more customers, builds thought leadership and dominates the competition. Scheduled for release mid-March 2012.

Content is Currency: Developing Powder Content for Web and Mobile (Nicholas Brealey Publishing) by Jon Wuebben

Already receiving great reviews, Content is Currency, by Jon Wuebben delivers practical instructions and step by step guides to manage content through four key phases: Creation, Optimization, Distribution and Curation.  This book is a great opportunity for business owners and marketers to understand how to create content which will engage their audience and drive results.

B2B Marketing

The B2B Social Media Book: Become a Marketing Superstar by Generating Leads with Blogging, LinkedIN, Twitter, Facebook, Email, and More (Wiley) by Kipp Bodnar and Jeffrey L. Cohen

The B2B Social Media Book is the ultimate reference guide for B2B marketers looking to expand their knowledge of social media strategy and contribute to their business growth.  Readers will discover actionable items for leveraging blogs, LinkedIN, Facebook, Twitter and more to form the cornerstone of their B2B marketing strategies.

B2B Digital Marketing: Using the Web to Market Directly to Businesses (Que) by Michael Miler

B2B Digital Marketing looks to be a great resource for B2B marketers interested in learning how to sell directly to other businesses using digital marketing. Leading with a broad summary and then diving into individual channel tactics for strategy, implementation and measurement, B2B Digital Marketing is another good guide for those looking for a B2B marketing overview.

There are many books publishing in 2012 that promise to introduce us to new ways to strategize, develop online marketing plans and deploy campaigns across a variety of channels. What books are you anxiously awaiting in 2012?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. |
Top Online Marketing Books for 2012 | http://www.toprankblog.com

Content Marketing is a hot, hot topic right now as are social media, mobile and local.  Along with being a popular focus for marketers, there’s really a deluge of information being published and it’s not always clear what the best advice is.

The recent kudos for TopRank’s Online Marketing blog in the areas of Content Marketing (#1 on Junta42 list) and Social Media Marketing (#2 on Social Media Examiner list), made me remember what a great network of smart, accomplished, “walk the talk” content marketers I get to connect with.  So, I reached out to a few of the people I respect most in these areas to share a single tip on Content Marketing for the benefit of readers trying to make sense of where it might fit in their mix:

Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer at MarketingProfs and co-author of Content Rules
Even when you are marketing to your entire audience or customer base, you are still simply speaking to a single human at any given time. Worry less about sounding professional and worry more about creating remarkable content that other humans can relate to.

What does that mean? It means losing the jargon and Franken-speak (“end-to-end,” “win-win,” “synergy,” and other cruddy phrases). It means being conversational (writing a blog post as if you are writing a letter to a friend). It means showing more than telling how your products and services live in the world.

The inherent tension in marketing is that businesses always want to talk about their products, when your customers want to hear what your products can do for them. Use your content as a way to show the human side of the your business. Which is the side, by the way, that will resonate best with your customers.

David Meerman Scott, Marketing Strategist, Speaker and author of Real-Time Marketing & PR
Nobody cares about your products and services except you. This knowledge is essential to great marketing because it gets your organization away from just yakking incessantly about your products and services. What your buyers do care about are themselves and they care a great deal about solving their problems (and are always on the lookout for a company that can help them do so).

Brian Solis, Principal of FutureWorks and author of Engage!
There is no market for your messages. Become a resource for your communities in your communities. They’re looking for insight, answers, direction, keys to unlock solutions that they did not know existed before you. The key is empathy. And to find this key takes research and understanding. Develop content based on what inspires interaction today and then build bridges between those conversations, communities and you.

Jay Baer, Social Media Strategy Consultant and co-author of The Now Revolution
Content marketing can be scary. Staring at the little blinking cursor can paralyze even experienced content creators. To make it easier, focus first on “atomizing” your existing content. (Thanks to Todd Defren for that term).

Be a digital dandelion. Take one of your existing white papers (or other form of comprehensive content) and deconstruct it. Make it into five blog posts. And a Webinar. And a podcast. And a Slideshare presentation.

Each of those content modalities will have different audiences, so you’re building reach. Plus, each of those content modalities will be found and indexed by your most important customer – some guy named Google.

Repurposing and repackaging your content makes your content marketing task easier, AND more effective.

Joe Pulizzi, Founder of Content Marketing Institute and co-author of Get Content, Get Customers
Stop Writing about Everything. So many brands create content and try to cover everything, instead of focusing on the core niche that they can position themselves as an expert around. No one cares about your special recipe. No one cares about your iPad review, that has nothing to do with marketing automation.

Find your niche, and then go even more niche. For example, let’s say you sell travel gear for pets. If that is the case, don’t create a blog on “pets” or “pet supplies”. Create consistent and valuable content to solve your customers’ problems around traveling with pets. Seems simple, but many companies make this mistake.  For more, this one may help: Content Marketing Stinks: Fix It

Each of these great people writes online in numerous channels, offline and has published a book, or many books, on the intersection of content, social and PR.  They have experienced hard-won insights and I’m guessing so have you. If you were giving advice to budding marketers or even experienced marketers looking for direction on Content Marketing, what would your tip be? What one piece of advice would you give them?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. |
Content Marketing Tips from 5 People Who Know | http://www.toprankblog.com

This morning I received a pleasant surprise email from the folks at Junta42 with congratulations to Brian Solis, Brian Clark, David Meerman Scott, Jay Baer and TopRank’s Online Marketing Blog on making the top of the first Junta42 Top Content Marketing Blogs list in 2011. It is more than a little humbling to be included amongst such talented and respected industry veterans.

Joe Pulizzi runs Junta42 and is the first person (that I know of) to really popularize the notion of “content marketing”. In that regard Joe and his team really walk the talk: He also runs the Content Marketing Institute, Chief Content Officer magazine and the upcoming Content Marketing World conference. The blogs and writers that make the Junta42 list also “walk the talk” with content marketing and serve as a great example for those that want to better understand how content fits within the marketing mix.

The Junta42 list has been published since 2007 and the top 42 scores (thanks to Janet Robbins) are calculated from a pool of over 400 blogs using a combination of:

1) Relevance to Content Marketing
2) How much the blog adds to the Content Marketing conversation
3) Google Page Rank
4) blog consistency
5) previous ranking

Thanks to a great blogging team, TopRank’s Online Marketing Blog has made the number one spot on this list 3 times.  This is the 10th edition of the Junta42 list and 2011 marks the 10 year anniversary for my agency, TopRank Online Marketing.

If you look at our tag cloud (the tab in the right column), it’s easy to see why we are included in this list, since we’ve been focused on content creation, optimization and promotion for quite a while. In fact, before Joe started promoting the idea of “content marketing” I used to say we focused on “editorial marketing” when explaining TopRank since our Online Marketing consulting practice emphasizes earned and owned media vs. advertising.

Here’s the full list of 42 Content Marketing Blogs. Congratulations to all and more so, thank you for your contributions.

1 TopRank’s Online Marketing Blog
2 PR 2.0 (Brian Solis)
3 Web Ink Now
4 Convince and Convert
5 Copyblogger
6 Social Media Examiner
7 Grow
8 Influential Marketing Blog
9 Inbound Internet Marketing Blog
10 Conversation Agent
11 Marketing Experiments
12 Jeff Korhan
13 Sparksheet
14 ReelSEO
15 ConverStations
16 Post Advertising
17 Conversation Marketing
18 Marketing Interactions
19 Mack Collier
20 FASTforward Blog
21 Ducttape Marketing
22 Logic+Emotion
23 B2B Ideas@Work Blog
24 The Search Agents
25 eMedia Vitals
26 Social Media Explorer
27 No man is an iland
28 B2B Bloggers
29 Freelance Copywriters Blog
30 Simple Marketing Blog
31 Straight Talk with Nigel Hollis
32 Digital Marketing Blog
33 Windmill Networking
34 big star content
35 Drew’s Marketing Minute
36 Campaign Monitor
37 Vertical Measures
38 Web Analytics World
39 White Paper Pundit
40 Vertical Leap
41 IdeaLaunch
42 Site Booster

This excellent collection of blogs covers a  range of topics from general Internet Marketing to Social Media to Search and of course – specifically Content Marketing.  Of course I’d like to continue addressing the curiosities about content and online marketing for our readers and would love your continued feedback.  What content marketing topics would you like to see us cover more here on Online Marketing Blog?

If you’re hungry for more practical and in-person tips on the topic, I’ll be giving two presentations on the intersection of Content Marketing and SEO in San Diego and London:

Feb 10, 2011
SES Accelerator – San Diego
“Content Marketing Strategy”

Feb 22, 2011
SES London
“Content Marketing Optimisation”

I hope you can make one of them because I’ve added more case studies and tips. I will also be giving away a Content Marketing ebook with which can really give you a jumpstart on incorporating better SEO with your Content Planning. If you’re a SEO practitioner, it will give you practical insights into developing a content plan within traditional SEO strategies. I hope to see you there and congrats again to the blogs on the Junta42 list.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. |
Top Content Marketing Blogs to Start 2011 | http://www.toprankblog.com

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and on the social web, that flattery goes one step further, often in the form of a mash-up. Google has launched a variety of services to much fanfare by the media and yawns from the masses (Google Wave, Buzz).

However, the recent implementation of Google Instant has resulted in a number of “instant” implementations on other types of search. Twitter has tempted us with the promise of real-time, all the time and Google’s effort at real-time results has resonated with a number of developers. How much it has resonated with the searching public at large, is not yet being disclosed.

Check out the following Instant Search applications and see which you like best:

YouTube Instant: Need videos NOW?! Try YouTube Instant by Feross Aboukhadijeh, who was offered a job by YouTube CEO Chad Hurley.

Google Images Instant: Apparently Demi Lovato has “D” nailed down but the puppies have the market cornered on the letter “p” using this instant Google image search site created by Michael Hart, who also created instant maps, instant Amazon and others. Oh, and he’s also looking for a job, Google.

Bing Instant: If you want an alternative to Google Instant, then check out the real “live search” version of Bing Instant made by Long Zheng.

iTunes Instant: Why not iTunes instant search? 15 year old Stephen Ou answered the call.

Meta Instant Search BL3NK: If you want a meta instant search experience, try BL3NK

Have you found other instant search applications? Any that are actually useful?

Here’s more info on Google Instant and what it means for searchers as well as search optimizers.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. |
5 Instant Search Engines & the Mash-up | http://www.toprankblog.com

Even though a company sees the value of social media, it doesn’t mean the organization or its members are ready for it. Have you started something you really weren’t ready for? Sometimes it works out and other times it doesn’t.

In order for companies to realize the maximum benefit from social media marketing, there must be a certain level of understanding about the nature of online communities, social media sharing web sites and applications. One of the most effective ways TopRank Online Marketing has found to assess a company’s awareness, capabilities and resources for social media marketing is to conduct an external audit and an internal survey.

Identifying a company’s current state of social media readiness helps determine benchmarks and sets a baseline from where to build from. This is part of developing a social media strategy and helps avoid the random testing many companies are calling their “social media strategy”.

There are a number of free or low cost tools that one can use to identify a brand’s current social web participation, ranging from social media monitoring software to profile checking tools like KnowEm to social search tools like How Socialable, 48ers or socialmention.

With many companies, there are often a mix of official and unsanctioned social media accounts setup. It’s important to get a handle on such participation, who’s managing the accounts, whether they are run by employees or fans and what the company can learn from them. Getting a handle on the difference between how social the company is and will need to become is essential for planning, training and strategy development.

As part of the evaluation process, here are a few questions companies might ask themselves and answer as they embark on a social media marketing journey:

1. What goals do you hope to achieve from a social media marketing effort?
2. What measures of success will be used to evaluate a social media marketing program?
3. What are your current social media channels and destination web sites/pages?:
4. Do you employ a full-time community manager?
5. If not, do multiple staff share the role of community manager?
6. Are you conducting a formal effort at monitoring social channels using a social media monitoring/analysis software application? (Ex: Techrigy SM2, ScoutLabs, Trackur, Vocus, SocialRadar, Radian6)
7. Is there a particular business unit, division or product that can serve as a test case?
8. If active, how long has the company participated with social media sites and which? Blogging, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Wikis, Delicious, Digg, StumbleUpon, etc
9. Are current social media participation on different sites coordinated?
10. Is a dashboard and campaign management tool used for social media content promotion?
11. Have you noticed any particular preferences within the target audience in their social web participation?
12. Do they prefer particular sites? (Twitter vs Facebook – blogs vs forums)
13. Do they comment, do they contribute content, do they tend to observe, do they not participate at all?
14. Have you identified and engaged and/or networked with influentials in your target industry on social web sites?
15. What unique value do current social media efforts offer clients/prospective clients? What need do they satisfy better than the competition?
16. Are text content or media regularly shared on other social media sharing sites?
17. Is there a user generated content component of your web site? Profiles, comments, reviews, content sharing: text, image, video or audio?
18. What departments, business units, cost centers and approval entities would be involved with the Social Media program? Is there an internal social media council?
19. What internal human resources are available within the company for support and implementation of social media marketing initiatives? (Content creation, network development, promotion, monitoring & analytics, community engagement)

Obviously each situation is as unique as the company and its objectives, but the list above can provide valuable insight into a company’s state of social media marketing readiness as well as provoking new thoughts and concepts. The more informed companies are about the social web, the more successful they will be at qualifying and managing social media marketing agency engagements.

You might be wondering, why did I pick 19 questions when 20 would be a much nicer, even number? It’s because I’m curious what your 20th question would be. What are we missing? What else would you ask to determine the social media readiness of a company, business unit or division?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. |
19 Questions to Determine Corporate Social Media Readiness | http://www.toprankblog.com

With the growing momentum of content marketing, a lot of companies get hung up on making investments in quality articles, white papers, videos and other media only to find they’re not getting much traction. I’ve heard it time and time again at conferences in discussions with brand marketers where they’ve invested in creating great content and digital assets but are frustrated at the lack of reach.

Over the past 6 1/2 years of blogging, followed by contributing articles, posting videos, photos, PowerPoint slides, reports in PDF format and other types of content publishing for our own agency and for clients, here are a few guidelines that stand out for helping content get better reach.

1. Purpose: What do you expect this content to accomplish?

The purpose for a content object can be complex and multi dimensional or it can be as simple as getting readers to click and visit a web page.  Either way, some real thought should be put into being specific about primary and possibly secondary objectives.

2. Message:  Compelling, Unique, Inspiring, Actionable

One of the biggest issues with content companies publish is that it tends not to be customer centric.  SEOs use keyword research to inspire their content recommendations. Keywords are a reflection of demand for topics customers are interested in. Same goes for social keyword research and using personas to guide editorial.

The message is obviously tied to the purpose for the content, so the degree to which it’s unique, inspiring or actionable will vary. You should be able to boil down the essence of the content into a single or two sentence summary.  Think elevator pitch. It should also be crystal clear what you want the reader (or watcher) to do after consuming it.

3. Packaging: Quality, Creativity, Usability & Design, Sharability

It used to be that typos, mis-spellings and lack of design were the norm with blogs but these days business blogs need to be as professional, albeit conversational, as company web sites.  In today’s short attention span world, crap content with snappy packaging will often win over quality content and normal appearance.

This doesn’t mean you need to adopt tabloid tactics, but it does mean that there should be a very strong motivation to employ creative resources to design a great experience for consumers.  Readers should be able to tell quickly what the top level concept is (as well as search engines), it should be easy to consume or scan and it should definitely be easy to share/save/post to social news and bookmarking sites.

Essentially, if the actual content is interesting then make sure the design is interesting too.

4. Distribution & Promotion – Push / Pull, Syndication

This is where I get to use the “Build it and they will come.” quote from Field of Dreams because this is the source of frustration for many marketers publishing new content with frustration over the effect.  First, make sure the publishing system offers automated distribution such as through Email subscription or RSS.  Cross posting updated content to a news roll on the home page or newsroom is also helpful

Building social channels is key for the “pop on the social web” part of this post.  Develop social networks on the channels where conversations are happening relevant to the people and companies you’re trying to reach. If they’re on Facebook for example, you might find it makes sense for your Fan page to accept posts from the blog and that the blog also posts to Twitter. Then have Twitter post to LinkedIn.

Pushing out content automatically must be designed carefully to avoid duplication and especially avoid a high ratio of self promotion.

“Pull” in this case means optimizing content with keywords people search for relevant to the content you are publishing. Make SEO part of the publishing process so content creators have keyword lists they can draw from and guidelines to follow when writing new text content or creating other types of media.

5. Call to Action

Give readers something to do next, whether it’s share, subscribe, join or even buy. The call to action is tied to the purpose of the content. Not all content needs to have an explicit outcome, but if you don’t ask or even tell readers what to do, it’s pretty much a certainty they won’t do what you want. The story of the content should guide the reader to a conclusion that involves a next step. This might be as passive as reading the next article in a series or proactively soliciting a visit to a landing page.

It’s also perfectly fine in many cases to offer more than one thing to do next. The additional options can be part of the design of the web page (White paper, Webinar, Newsletter, Consultation) or included in the copy of the article/blog post/video or whatever the content format is. However, the call to action should never distract from the key message.

6. Monitor, Measure, Analyze & Act

Make sure you have some kind of goals in place along with tools and processes for measuring performance, both in the short and long term.  Whether you use Google Alerts, social media monitoring tools, web analytics, clipping services or something else like PostRank, make sure you track the reach of the content you’re promoting. Analyze where you’re getting traction and document what appears to be working or not.

Be free to test and understand that not everything you post and share, no matter how well-written, packaged or promoted, will gain traction.  Pay attention to time of day, headlines, link sources, traffic sources, citations without links and anything else that could affect reach and outcomes.

Be strategic and opportunistic. Plan content out, use overriding themes and metaphors to tie the message and call to action together.  Understand that developing and promoting content to achieve a desired outcome is a very different thing on the social web vs. direct marketing/response.   Also be aware that opportunities might arise and you should be prepared to create and promote content on demand in order to take advantage. Responding to breaking news or trending social topics for example.

Bonus tip: Give recognition! People will work for money but die for recognition. Give deserving kudos to commenters, those that share and help promote. Also give recognition internally to those that help create content. Positive reinforcement is a powerful tool for shaping desirable behavior.

I hope you’ve found these tips helpful. If you have any content creation, packaging, promotion or analysis tips, please share them in the comments.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. |
6 Tips For Making Content Pop on the Social Web | http://www.toprankblog.com

Next week I’ll get to experience two firsts:  A visit to Hong Kong for the first time and speaking at an all new Search Engine Strategies conference for Asia. SES Hong Kong includes a great mix of expertise and leadership on all things search and social media. The opening keynote on day 1 features Avinash Kaushik, Author, Blogger, Analytics Evangelist at Google and day 2 will feature Tianfang Feng, Chief Consultant, Search Engine Marketing at Baidu.

Hong Kong at night – Photo credit: Steve Webel

For my part, I’ll be participating on a panel, “The Business Value of Social Media” with: Scott McBride, Regional Business Director, 360 Digital Influence Asia Pacific, Ogilvy & Mather Asia Pacific and Eden Lau, Co-Founder & Managing Director of North Asia, Brandtology.

Our session is to discuss the answers to some pretty important social media questions that companies are asking world-wide: How do you listen to what is being said about your products or services? How do you unlock the economic potential of social media? How do you measure ROI?

While my copanelists will be focusing on social media insights for companies operating in the Asia Pacific region, I’ll be covering the answers for regional companies that want to engage the U.S. social media market.

As a new SES conference for Asia, this is an exciting opportunity for all, especially as our agency, TopRank Marketing engages more international consulting clients operating abroad in English speaking countries or that are looking for expertise to enter U.S. markets using social, SEO and content marketing.

Here’s a preview of my thoughts on the three main questions to be answered in the presentation:

How do you listen to what is being said about your products or services?

Knowing why you’re listening in the first place is essential before embarking on a social media monitoring program.

Understandably, many companies “don’t know what they don’t know” so it’s important to begin a structured and managed listening effort as soon as possible. Refinements can be made in keyword tracking and reports according to data that is collected and analyzed. IBM realized millions of dollars worth of sales leads from its listening efforts.

Free tools range from Google Alerts and socialmention.com to very low cost and useful such as Trackur.com. There are also premium monitoring tools for corporations that need more comprehensive monitoring such as that offered by Radian6, Alterian SM2 or Vocus. (PRWeb, owned by Vocus is a TopRank Marketing client)

A social media monitoring strategy will provide pre-campaign social insights as well as ongoing reporting and analysis as social content is created and networks are developed.

How do you unlock the economic potential of social media?

There’s what you “could do” and what you “should do” when answering this question.  Listening, research and participation should reveal the channels, media types and preferences for content and topics of most importance to your customers. Many companies rush into the social web with specific revenue growth goals in mind.  Without understanding the community, many of those efforts fall flat.

In Hong Kong for example, comScore reports that 9 out of 10 netizens watch online video with 447 million videos watched during March 2010. Within the Hong Kong video marketplace, Google sites (mostly YouTube) has a little over 52% share followed by Tudou and Youku which are each at 3.6%. Facebook has just under 3%.  That insight in concert with conversation and media tracking via social media monitoring may reveal that videos and video sharing/social networking sites are an ideal channel to engage your customers.

Unlocking the economic potential follows by leveraging video content to reach and engage customers, communicate the value of your products and services and stimulate discussion amongst the community you’re building. That’s exactly what PiperSport did with their video centric campaign that also involved Facebook and Twitter, resulting in the sale of several PiPerSport aircraft (which start at $140k each).

Another example is Minneapolis based Best Buy, and their “Twelpforce”, which is  made up of 2,500 volunteer social-media savvy store associates that leverage Twitter to answer questions on topics ranging from how to hook up a new TV to making gift suggestions. The real-time nature of Twitter allows Best Buy to engage with many more customers in a short amount of time using a platform that costs them virtually nothing.

How do you measure ROI?

Let’s pick a measurement KPI, shall we? CPC, CPL, CTR, CPM, PPC, PPL, PPS, ROAS, ROI, UV, PV and the list goes on. For a great perspective on social media ROI, you must check out this now classic presentation from Olivier Blanchard.

My favorite response to the social media ROI question is another question: How do you measure the ROI of having a phone system in your office?  Or an internet connection? These are communications platforms that are capable of achieving a number of goals according to how you use them. The same is true with the social web.

In a previous post, I shared a basic format for social media SEO strategy that any business could implement. You can’t measure anything if you’re not creating, sharing and engaging, so it’s important to get started with Listening > Content Creation > Promotion > Measurement.

In the course of implementing those 4 tactics, which are cyclical, there will be opportunities to influence and achieve business outcomes ranging from increasing word of mouth referrals, to unsolicited media coverage to an increase in web site visits and sales to attracting more candidates to hire or solving customer service issues more quickly.

Measuring ROI of any communications effort is in accordance with goals and the success of intended outcomes (like referrals, mentions or sales) as well as opportunistic outcomes that are revealed in the course of social web participation (Ex: promoting a discount or special offer for something a competitor is getting negative flack for on the social web).

I think the essential answer to the social media ROI question is to focus both on the performance of reaching intended outcomes as well as being agile enough to take advantage of opportunities that reveal themselves.  Direct opportunities are possible, such as Dell Outlet generating millions in sales on Twitter or BlendTec boosting sales 5x through their now famous “Will it Blend” Videos on YouTube.

Companies that get hung up on treating social media and the social web as a direct marketing channel without community insight and participation will create a new key performance indicator acronym: ROF return on frustration.

In a little over 24 hours I have a very, very long flight ahead of me and Monday’s post will come from ORM expert, Andy Beal. I hope to liveblog some of the sessions from SES Hong Kong and get a few video interviews as well.  If you have tips on visiting Hong Kong (I have 2 days open) please share in the coments.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. |
The Business Value of Social Media & SES Hong Kong | http://www.toprankblog.com

Yesterday Google implemented their new search experience, Google Instant and the SEO and Tech blogs lit up like a Christmas tree. It’s nice to see something get these folks excited for a change. While the notion of instant search isn’t new, Yahoo had it in 2005, Google commands the vast majority of search engine market share so such a major, public change to the Google interface warrants attention.

Essentially, in Google’s quest to improve user experience and increase speed, they’ve already lowered the time it takes to return results on a query.  The actual act of searching and refinement of queries by users is what takes time, so Google Instant is designed to shorten the time it takes for users to find what they’re looking for by showing search results as you type. If you’re logged in to Google, those results are personalized as they have since personalization was implemented.

Personalization has meant that different users searching on the same phrase can see different search results. That change affects the kind of SEO that focuses on specific queries and “ranking” over matching customer-centric keywords with useful content. Good optimization for search has everything to do with holistically viewing the SEO opportunities of any content that can be searched on (digital asset optimization) and presented to searchers. SEO has evolved as marketing designed to engage customers and help make it easier for the search engines to do their job and for customers to buy what it is they’re looking for. Good SEO drives revenue and business growth and is so far beyond the notion of “rankings” that people who say SEO is “irrelevant”, sound a lot like those that say the “world is flat”.

As with any big change there are the FUD (Fear Uncertainty Doubt) perpetrators when Google announces something new:  (Google Instant could lead to blackhat SEO problems and Google Instant Makes SEO Irrelevant). But there are also clever, interesting and smart insights coming out of the search community. Here are 10 posts that cover all aspects of Google Instant ranging from what it is, to how to get the most out of it as a user, what the impact is on SEO and PPC and suggestions on how to leverage Google Instant as a marketer.

Matt Cutts – Thoughts on Google Instant - Q: Does Google Instant kill search engine optimization (SEO)? A: No!  Q Will Google Instant change search engine optimization? A: I think over time it might. The ability to explore the query space and find out new things will inevitably lead to changes for SEO.

Nine by Blue (Vanessa Fox) – SEO is Dead and/or Irrelevant With Google Instant? – I’ve always advised looking at audience needs and building a site that addresses them holistically rather than fixating on ranking for a single keyword phrase. And that strategy continues to be a sound one in light of Google Instant.

Search Engine Land –  Google Instant: The Complete User’s Guide - Does Google Instant “Kill SEO” or Impact Rankings?  In my opinion (Matt McGee): no chance. As long as humans use search engines (like Google) to look for information online, that content will need to be optimized. A well-rounded approach to content development and optimization should actually benefit from Google Instant.

SEO Book – How Google Instant Changes the SEO Landscape - Google instant only increases the value of a well thought out SEO strategy. Why? Well… it consolidates search volume into a smaller basket of keywords. It further promotes the localization of results. It makes it easier to change between queries, so its easier to type one more letter than scroll down the page.

Google Webmaster Central – Google Instant: Impact on Search Queries – “With Google Instant, you may notice an increase in impressions because your site will appear in search results as users type.”

Fast Company – Why Google Instant Is Good for Microsoft – How could Bing ever set itself apart with Google’s reactionary mindset? The answer now is to simply stay where they are — remaining, in effect, as Google Classic.

AdAge – Google Instant Changes Game for Brands – At first blush, the real-time results appear to give more prominence to the web’s biggest brands. Google execs were quick to note that natural search results, and techniques companies use to land higher in Google search results, won’t change. But Johanna Wright, director of product management for Google Instant, said one difference is that they will direct users to “page two” results faster. “As you continue typing and narrowing your search, the instantly changing and refreshing results below the search box will be giving you more relevant results,” she said. “So if you previously looked on the second page, now those same results come to the top of the pile for you.”

Google AdWords Help – What is Google Instant? - Although Google Instant won’t change the way ads are served, ads and search results will now be shown for a new “predicted query.” Google Instant might increase or decrease your overall impression levels.

Search Engine Watch - Google Instant – 10 Things Marketing Teams Need to Know – Google Instant is of equivalent significance to marketers as the Universal Search update, which previously amalgamated their video, news, blogs, maps and image search properties into one search engine results page (SERPs). As was the case then, lost real estate for organic search results presented new opportunities for the savvy marketer. The same is likely to be true now.

FeedBlitz - SEO: Three Things you must do NOW with Google Instant - Disable Search Personalization, Search for your company / product / service and for pages you don’t control, make a comment that links back to your site, Repeat for competing companies, terms and products. Start a quick-hit SEO project and Tune your site for these terms.

It remains to be seen how much of an impact the preference towards brands and the change in impressions will have on marketers ability to leverage Google Insight in new ways.  Some marketers have already published tips on how to track Google Instant using Google Analytics, which will assist in developing insights on what has impact and will be instrumental in learning what to refine.

What do you think of Google Instant?  As a user? As a marketer?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. |
10 Resources on Google Instant & What it Means for Search Marketing | http://www.toprankblog.com