How solid is your Social Media strategy, really? Are you just using it for SEO? Have you considered the repercussions (positive and negative) that your strategy has on your business in a general sense? In my experience, many businesses and marketers don’t.
Common Social Media & SEO Strategies
It seems to me that so many SEOs feel the extent of Social Media-based link building starts and ends with dropping links in as many spots as possible. We’ve all seen it. How many times have you come across spam selling shoes in an SEO forum? What the hell is the point of that? Many times, I think it happens because businesses hire ‘professionals’ who don’t really know what they’re doing, but that’s not always the case.
I’d like to say that spam is useless, but honestly, we both know that’s not true. If they weren’t making money and sales from it, they wouldn’t be doing it. It’s popular with turn and burn sites for that very reason.
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Poor Use of Social Media Has Negative, Long-Lasting Effects
How would you describe a company that spams social networks? What would you do if someone dropped miscellaneous (or mile-long) ads to a bunch of things you’re not interested in purchasing at that very moment? Here’s the thoughts I get:
- quantity focused rather than quality focused
- customer service is low
- the customer’s wants and needs take a back seat
- The guy in an alley wearing a trench coat going ‘psst, c’mere, I’ve got a real good deal for you’
- There is no respect for any other business in or outside of the industry
Not so great if you’re trying to build up a brand either, huh? Even worse, it can backfire and wind you up in the middle of a PR firestorm (product recalls, misinformation, etc).
Doing Social Right
Social Media is a great place for marketing, and SEO, but not in the way most people think. The way I see it, it has far more value in terms of branding and word of mouth than anything else. You can use it to turn your company and the public’s perception of your company in the most profitable direction, as was the case for Old Spice and its recent campaign.
In reality, that’s all most traditional marketing is too: perception. You can have the best product in the world, but unless the public *thinks* it’s the best thing since beer in a can, it’s not going to sell. Here’s what I mean:
When I first started out, I was like most people trying to get their first website set up; I had more needs than cash. Like most first-time webmasters, I cheaped out on the design in the hopes of upgrading it once I got going.
The first designer I worked with, Selene from iDesign Studios, did a wonderful job with the tiny budget and clueless client she had to work with. Unfortunately, that design was not enough to make up for my inexperience when representing myself. It also meant it was pretty difficult to convince people I could write for the web when I looked like I could barely get myself on the straight and narrow. That was then.
As I got going, I learned tons about my website, my marketing and even my business process to help make it even better. People began to see me differently; they saw me as a professional instead of just a mom.
I changed my business model, my marketing strategy, and my website design (just so they know I’m not playing favorites!) to reflect those changes. The result? I charge a lot more, have a lot more work, and no longer have to dig up clients! My business has essentially tripled since I started this journey and I’m thrilled.
Sure, I’ve gotten better at things like SEO, Social Media, marketing, PR, and usability, but I wasn’t a stranger to these subjects when I finally decided to launch a website either. Clients saw me in a different light, and that made all the difference.
On the SEO side of things, link-building isn’t merely dropping content and backlinks everywhere. This simply doesn’t have the ROI of other techniques. In fact, you’d probably be better off doing blog comment spam. Submitting content to various social networks is all about the secondary and tertiary linking.
Your audience cruises their favorite networks. They find your content, fall in love with it (or hate it), and blog about it. That’s where your biggest benefit is going to come from, and that’s why it’s so important to get the word out about your content. The more people who see your stuff, the more likely they are to blog about it and send others your way.
So, if you run an ecommerce site that sells socks, why would you drop your content on Sphinn or Tip’d, for example? Sure, these people likely wear socks, but are they likely to buy through your spam when they’re not in the mood to buy socks at that moment? Not likely.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. If he doesn’t want to drink, you’re screwed.
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There’s No Out Of the Box Solution
I shudder and cringe each time I hear about a company selling a basic ‘Twitter, Facebook, Delicious, StumbleUpon’ package for every business that comes through their virtual doors. Not every website is ideal for every business.
If I was selling yarn and knitting needles, Twitter is likely not going to be the best place to start. Doesn’t mean that none of my target market is there. It’s just not the wisest use of my time and energy. I’d start at places like the Knitting Network or Etsy, and let the users direct my marketing from there. I’d likely also test a few tutorials and videos on YouTube that I could refer to elsewhere.
There are tons and tons of networks out there. In fact, I recently updated a special Excel sheet I have for this type of thing, and if you’d like a copy of it, you can download my list of 885 Social Media Sites here. (You’ll notice that some of them aren’t in English. I figure they don’t hurt anything if they’re on the list and may be helpful to those who link build and work in multiple languages. There’s not a lot for them, but a start, anyway.)
Secondly, don’t expect instant results just because you joined a few networks. Once you get in, you should be looking for several things:
- What format the network prefers their content to be in
- What style they prefer
- The tone that does well there
- What sorts of topics do the best
- What are the sore spots
- Who are the power users/influencers
- Can you achieve your goal in the community? (If you’re looking for people to blog about your content, and most of the people in the community don’t know what a blog is, it’s not going to happen.)
Know What’s Going On and Determine Your Social Media Metric
As Terry mentions in his guest post over at Huomah entitled ‘Measuring Social Media Success‘, ‘When measuring an emerging market channel or internet activity it is important we understand what metrics matter and which don’t. Finding suitable measurement metrics that recognize the full value is an important factor in monetizing websites and services…The most intriguing facet of Social Media is the human element.’
Unlike most marketing, the human element places a number of variables and issues that need to be taken into account:
- Target audience members you interact with and buy directly
- Those who get to know your brand, then buy from the brick and mortar location days, weeks, months, or even years later
- How the impression of your brand has improved or declined (Ex: Your company was seen as more creative before your campaign. Now, people now see you as being more innovative. Which trait is more valuable? Quality and value are another dangerous pair.)
- Success is directly proportionate to the amount of time you invest in it. If you drop your Social Media strategy, dropping a new viral campaign will never be as effective as it would have been if you’d continued to strengthen your professional relationships.
- Reach. Let’s say I introduce someone on the network to a new type of yarn I’m offering. That person isn’t interested, but she has an aunt who will love it. That person tells her aunt while they’re waiting in a train station. A lady behind them happens to overhear the conversation and decides to check out and buy the yarn.
- World events. People were less likely to buy during the worst months of the recession, for instance.
- Changing world views and cultural differences. It’s no longer acceptable to wear fur, for example. In some countries, girls can’t wear certain colors and styles of clothing.
If you’d like to find out more about measuring the success of your Social Media campaigns, you can check out:
The Value Of Social Media Marketing, Part I
The Value Of Social Media Marketing, Part II
Social Media Ad Metrics Definitions from IAB (PDF)
Exploring Social Media Measurement: Collective Intellect
3 Case Studies On the Importance Of Monitoring Social Media from Nonlinear Creations
Social Media Metrics Superlist: Measurement, ROI & Key Statistics from Interactive Insights Group
Altimeter Report: Social Marketing Analytics from Web Strategy
Social Media Campaign Tracking: A Basic Overview from Samir Balwani
What We Need To Track Sales
Site Specific Information:
Facebook and SEO
Facebook SEO: Optimizing For an Audience Of 500 Million
Tutorial: Customize Facebook Pages with “Static FBML” Application
The Facebook Marketing Toolbox: 100 Tools and Tips To Tap the Facebook Customer Base
The Ultimate Guide To LinkedIn
10 Ways To Use LinkedIn
34 Ways To Use YouTube For Business
Video SEO For Ecommerce
How B2B Companies Can Use Foursquare For Marketing and Advertising
How Tumblr Opened My Eyes To the Social Web
Further Reads To Broaden Your Social Media Horizons:
An Idiots Guide To Social Media Marketing
Social Media Higher Learning, Part I & Part II
The Expert’s Guide To Keyword Research For Social Media
Understanding Social Media Metrics: Basic Modeling
Exploring Degrees Of Online Sharing
23 Comments on "885 Social Sites, SEO & Marketing: Fine Tuning Your Marketing Strategy"
This is an awesome article giving very informative solution, who are looking for Social Site SEO Marketing.
Thanks
Angie,
Great post! I won’t even approve a post for my site unless it directly mentions something about the post, me, and or my site. If it doesn’t, I just assume it’s spam. My 3 rules of SMM are to keep it relevant, personal, and conversational. All too often, webmasters and content writers forget that the best SMM practices are to stick to the fundamentals.
Oh, and thank you for the list of social networking sites.
Erick
Hi Erick, I completely, 100% agree with you. There’s far too much crap out there. Style wise, I know each site is different, but even there I have limits. And you’re welcome for the list! Hope you find it useful!
I found this interesting for several reasons. I use twitter, fb, friendfeed, etc. like most webmasters but had never thought if there were specialized social networks that might meet more of my audience, which is metaphysical minded, into natural healing and creativity as a spiritual pathway. I will be looking at social networking very differently in the days to come and pouring over your list. who knew there were 885 social networks out there? I certainly had no idea. Thank you very much for a very informative article.
Hi Neva, you’re most welcome. I really see large sites like Twitter and FB as having ‘circles’ or ‘cliques’, and if you watch who’s on these sites (Twitter in particular), you’ll notice they have dominate audience types. There’s much more to it, but that’s the basic idea, anyway.
Hello Angie,
Things I like in your Post:
1) Don’t expect instant results just because you joined a few networks. Once you get in, you should be looking for several things:
* What format the network prefers their content to be in
* What style they prefer
* The tone that does well there
* What sorts of topics do the best
* What are the sore spots
* Who are the power users/influencers
* Can you achieve your goal in the community? (If you’re looking for people to blog about your content, and most of the people in the community don’t know what a blog is, it’s not going to happen.)
2) “Unlike most marketing, the human element places a number of variables and issues that need to be taken into account:”
Really Need to taking care of it. Its so effective…
Thanks…
Palak Bhatt
Thanks Palak!
Your post is a treatise on social media and SEO marketing! Well done and a good reference for clients/companies to read.
I recently heard, “you can lead with a leash or you can lead by example.” That’s what marketers need to do with their online engagement efforts. You’re right, we cannot make that horse to drink!
Thanks for referencing Terry Van Horne’s tips on social media metrics – lots of value along with your summary about the importance of the human element.
BIG THANKS for sharing your valuable XLS as a download. You put a lot of time in that document (885 social sites), and sharing it deserves more than a simple “thank you!” For now, THANK YOU!
Thanks so much Dana and for the Sphinn attention! Terry’s post was fantastic as were so many others. It was difficult to choose and sort through them all.
And you’re most welcome for the xls. I’ve kept a list from the beginning, but when I decided to do this, I added to it. Mine has a bunch of notes on style, likes, dislikes, categories featured on each website, etc, but figured this would be enough to give everyone a good start
In all it was about 40 hrs worth of work to go through it by hand (should have used a spider or bot of some sort! Duh! Oh well). So glad to see people getting some value out of it!
Thanks for the list and all the work you put into this. Now I need the time to go though all these. LOL…
LOL No worries. The Excel custom sort feature should make it easy for you to find exactly what you need. As you get using them, you can add your own notes and columns to it to make your search even easier. Enjoy the digging haha
Angie, you just gave us 40 hours of your consulting time. For this, we are thankful.
A loyal fan for life, I am!
Helo Angie ,
It is very nice List with Description & very useful for all SMO.
Thanks a lot for share great List with us…
Thanks You , Again…
You’re very welcome! Hope you find it helpful.
Wow, a great resource, with instant actionable stuff. Thanks for the detailed insight, hope your competitors don’t get too annoyed.
You are now on my short list of daily blogs to read.
Hi Angie,
Thanks so much for the article, some excellent links and in particular the excel sheet of social media sites is fantastic. I totally agree, quality over quantity. I too hate getting tweets with the time and a url link, no value added in that.
Many thanks again.
Aine.
Most welcome Aine!
Most fantastic list. I have always liked your posts because they are cute and helps a lot. although today is my first time to really comment, Keep these great post coming my way. Thanks a million for the time you took to get them here.
I agree with the fact that there is no out of the box solution, every company is different and their strategies will vary. You cannot sell a package deal that is the same for every client. What might work for one, definitely doesn’t work for another. That is why it is important to do it and do it right! You want to give quality over quantity, because let’s face it, what we do will stick with our Clients for years.
Great post Angie, between all the automated social media fronts you have out there, it’s great to see a post that relies on actually observing and discovering different social media tactics to connect with your consumer. I totally agree that each one of your clients deserves a customized solution for their website as opposed to ‘basic’ packages that people are sold constantly in this field. Can’t wait to check out the site list – cheers!
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