How to Leverage Social Networking for Your Business: Part 2 – Facebook

How to Leverage Social Networking for Your Business: Part 1

Since posting Part 1 of this series, where I mentioned that Twitter hasn’t released information about its user base, I’ve found references to indicate that Twitter has grown from 6 million users in February 2009 to over 28 million users in February 2010. This is an unprecedented growth rate, and Twitter is now a prime social networking tool you can use to reach millions of users with a relatively simple, inexpensive marketing campaign.

Why to Pursue Social Networking for Your Business Through Twitter

Twitter provides you an ready-made platform through which to interact with your readers and customers. Twitter is useful from a social networking standpoint in that you can do many of the same things as you can with Facebook, but due to the 140-character limit imposed by Twitter, it’s more appropriate for discussion and interaction. Maintaining a Twitter account gives people a direct way to contact you immediately, instead of having to go to your website and type a lengthy email or go through other contact channels. Twitter also provides a great way for you to update followers and generate traffic to your website.

Grow Customers Virally Through Twitter

One of the biggest benefits of using Twitter is the opportunity to grow customers virally through Twitter. When you post updates to Twitter, your followers can click a simple button to ‘Re-Tweet’ your content. This means they can easily and quickly share your updates with all of their friends, and their friends – on and on. You can easily grow your customer base by dozens, hundreds or thousands of people with a few well-placed Tweets. In fact, if your Tweets get picked up by one of the many celebrities using Twitter, your content could reach over a million people.

Link Your Profile to Your Website

Twitter provides very basic ways of interacting with your readers. On your profile itself, you have your Twitter name, a picture, a link to your website and a 140-character biography. Use your profile to link to your website, because readers won’t be able to find out much about your business from your Twitter profile itself.

Choose a name consistent with your business. For example, in my Facebook article, I did a case study on a local business called Formaggio Kitchen; their Twitter username is Formaggio. Keep your Twitter username relatively short and easy to find. Every time users Re-Tweet your content, your name counts as part of your 140-character limit, so part of your content may get cut off if you have a long username or post at your 140-character limit.

Initiate Discussion

One of the best ways in which Twitter can serve your business is to use Twitter to initiate discussion. You can elicit feedback from your clients via Twitter, or even just chat and trade messages with your clients via Twitter. If you want to widen your metaphorical net, offer a really good promotion or introduce a controversial topic for discussion. This makes people more likely to re-Tweet your content and spread your Twitter ID – and therefore your business – to more friends. At the very least, you can use Twitter to get feedback about your business and services; and at best, you can use Twitter to discuss new potential offerings or item features so you can improve your product or services.

Share Information with Your Followers

Another way to get your name out via Twitter and get people following your posts is to share information with your potential clients via Twitter. Share early updates with your followers, with links to press releases or new product information. Or discuss special offerings, company downtime or anything that is relevant for your readers to know. By sharing valuable information, you’re more likely to induce people to follow you via Twitter, and are more likely to have those people visit your Website when they’re ready to use your services or buy your product. You can also use Twitter to share information about upcoming events and drive traffic to your site.

Manage the Perception of Your Company

Another valuable aspect of using Twitter for your social networking campaign is that it provides you with a ready-made tool to manage the perception of your company. For example, you could use Twitter to respond to customer concerns or feedback. Or you can simply portray a personable, friendly person via your Twitter account – adding an element of humanity to your business.

For example, Southwest Airlines reached out to actor Kevin Smith via Twitter a few weeks ago when he had an unfortunate incident on their flight. Southwest used Twitter to quickly respond to Smith’s concerns, and it gave them the ability to show clients “Look – we responded to this man’s concerns right away.” In that particular case, the Twitter contact didn’t resolve the issue, but it was one outreach tool that the company could utilize to manage perceptions of the company.

Use Special Offers to Gain Followers and Mentions

If you want to build followers on Twitter, you have to give them a reason to mention or re-Tweet your content. One effective way to quickly get the word out about your business is to use special offers to build followers and mentions. Some companies offer giveaways to people who re-Tweet or mention the company name in Twitter posts on a certain day, or during a certain time frame.

For example, one company held a drawing to give away a free Mac laptop to users who mentioned their business name anytime during a specific week. Users could mention the company once per day for a chance to enter the drawing that day. Hundreds of users mentioned the company every single day, which drove more people to research the company and enter the contest; and this company gained thousands of mentions during the course of that week.

Celebrity Twitter Users

Twitter is somewhat unusual in that it has introduced a way for ordinary people to interact with celebrities. Some celebrity Twitter users have over a million followers on Twitter. When a celebrity on Twitter mentions something, potentially over a million people could see that mention. Some celebrity Twitter users have been known to ‘break’ websites by sending too much traffic when they Tweet content. Wil Wheaton, for example, has over 1.5 million followers, and has repeatedly ‘broken’ websites when he has posted links to T-shirts or interesting items he’s found on the Web. Imagine getting 1.5 million people to your website. This is the power that celebrity Twitter users wield.

Conversely, that power can also turn to power to hurt your reputation. Kevin Smith, for example, had around 1.5 million followers when he Tweeted about a negative experience he had with Southwest Airlines. This turned into an ongoing saga that led to news articles and even TV show offers for Smith to talk about his negative experience. And all of this started because Kevin Smith sent out a barrage of negative Tweets about Southwest Airlines when he was in the middle of having a negative experience with them.

Twitter is a Powerful, Free Social Networking Tool

Bottom line: Twitter is a powerful social networking tool that you can use to generate traffic, build followers and manage perceptions of your company. And Twitter is a free tool. You don’t have to pay thousands of dollars for a television ad, or even hundreds of dollars for a print media campaign; all you need is a few minutes each day to create and maintain a company presence on Twitter. Take advantage of this powerful, free social networking tool to market to today’s Twitter audience of roughly 28 million people.

What is Content Optimization?

Content Optimization is the practice of creating content that is targeted to perform well for specific keyword searches. For example, if I wanted to create a page that would pop up high in the search results when people looked for “Root Beer,” I’d want to optimize my content on the page to capture a high search engine page rank. The more competitive the keyword set, the more difficult it is to capture a high keyword page rank – because more people are going after the same page rank. One thing you can do to ensure you get a high page rank is to optimize your content so the search engine ‘likes’ it.

Long Tail, Short Tail and Alternate Keywords

When you’re optimizing your content for SEO, you’ll run across a few phrases that you might not have heard before: long tail keywords, short tail keywords and alternate keywords. I’ll give you a clue: these phrases have nothing to do with furry woodland creatures. These are the various types of keywords you can use in your content optimization pursuits:

Long tail keywords.

Long tail keywords are the exact keyword phrases that people search for on the Web to find their content. Long tail keywords might be awkward and difficult to work into your copy, but it helps to have at least one instance of a long tail keyword in your copy, as well as in your title. While long tail keywords are typically very specific, they also tend to target a demographic that is prepared to make a decision, which translates to a higher potential for conversion with long tail keywords.

Short tail keywords.

Short tail keywords are short, general keyword sequences that may describe the overall purpose of your page. While long tail keywords are very specific, short tail keywords are very general. A good example of the difference might be:

Long tail: business writer Cambridge, MA

Short tail: business writer

As you can see, the short tail is a much more general keyword set. When you use short tail keywords, you’re likely to come up on a wider range of websites, but because short tail keywords are so general, you’ll be competing with far more pages. That means you’re less likely to come up near the top of the search. Long tail keywords are much more targeted, but because they’re so specific, you’re likely to come up near the top of a long tail keyword search. You can use both long tail and short tail keywords in your copy, but where you place them plays a big role in how your page comes up.

Alternate keywords.

Alternate keywords are variations on a keyword set that people might use when referring to a product or service. For example, some people might search for “business writer,” while others might search for “corporate writer.” If you see variations on your primary keyword, you’ll want to find a way to work alternate keywords into your copy so you have a chance of getting traffic for those keywords, too.

How to Find Your Keywords

Don’t just take a stab in the dark as to what keywords people are using to find your website. You can use several tools to find your keywords.

1. Use a keyword search tool. Free tools exist and they’re easy to use. Try Google’s Ad Words Keyword Tool or Google’s Search-based Keyword Tool. You can also find other free or paid keyword search tools, so feel free to shop around.
2. Do a Web search for the keywords you might use to find your site. Think about it logically. How would you go looking for your product or service, if you were a client? Do a Web search, and see what comes up. If you see a huge website, such as Yahoo or Travelocity, you’ll know you need to use more long tail keywords to stand a chance of coming up high in the search results.
3. Install a Web tracking tool on your website. I use Google Analytics, which is free, but a friend of mine uses a paid Web tracking tool. Use whatever tool you’re comfortable installing and using. Most Web tracking tools tell you what keywords people are using to find your page, and whether or not they stuck around to read it after finding it. Capitalize on the popular keyword searches, and you might want to consider changing pages that don’t have high keyword hits.

Where to Use Keywords

Writing organically is a great way to provide human-readable content, but it might not rank the highest with search engines without a little help. When you’re optimizing your content for SEO, try to include the long tail keyword as close as possible to the beginning of your article. One rule of thumb is to make sure the long tail keyword occurs within the first 9 words or your article. You should also try to include the long tail in your title. After that, you don’t have to use your long tail keyword again at all! If you’re working with short tail or alternate keywords, try to work them into the content organically, and you get a bonus if you can work these keywords into titles.

How Not to Use Keywords

One mistake that people make is to overload their article with extraneous keywords. “Keyword density” is a phrase bandied about when people are talking SEO, but it’s becoming less and less relevant in SEO rankings – except to penalize you. That’s right – if you use a keyword too many times in your copy, you can actually be penalized in search engine rankings. When a search engine, such as Google, sees a high keyword density, it assumes the copy is written to ‘trick’ the search engine into ranking it well and actually gives it a lower placement because the data might not be valuable. Write your articles organically, and make sure you don’t overload them with keywords, or you can actually find your search engine rank dropping.

Note: Keep in mind that search engine algorithms change periodically, and aren’t exactly the same from search engine to search engine. Stay up to date with current SEO practices to ensure you’re putting your keywords in the right place and using them the appropriate number of times. If all else fails, write organically and see what the search engine thinks of your copy!

Formatting Your Content

Take advantage of the formatting tips I provided in the DIY article. Use Headers in your content formatting instead of Bold tags to break up the sections. You should also try to break up the text into manageable chunks, and use bullet points or ordered lists to make the text more human-scannable. While you want to get a high page rank to drive traffic to your page, there’s no point in driving traffic only to create a page that people can’t read, and will click away again immediately!

Target Your Pages to Specific Content

Finally, don’t try to cover too much content on a page, because you’ll dilute the message. Target the content on your page to a specific message or keyword set. You might need more pages on your website, but you’ll vastly improve your search engine results if you aren’t trying to cram too much on a page and confusing the search engines as to what your page is actually about. Less is more – try to keep your content in the 500-1500 word mark (although 1500 is a bit long) and use more pages if you need to talk about a variety of different topics or products.

Identify your target audience.

One step that many companies miss when they’re developing marketing materials is to identify their target audience. Many companies make the determination “This is what I want to convey,” without thinking about the intended recipient. This is important because you might convey your message differently to different audiences.

For example, if you’re trying to sell a service, you might have two targets for your copy: people who have already had your service and understand it, and people who have never had your service and don’t know anything about it. These are two entirely different audiences, and it’s challenging to create a message targeted to both of them. You get a better ROI when you invest in a specific message for a specific audience.

Develop different messages for different audiences.

Once you determine your target audiences, work on developing different messages for each audience. In the previous example, you might want to talk to prior clients about how using your service again can benefit them. You’d probably want to create a different message for new clients, explaining what your service is and why it helps them, or how you differentiate yourselves from your competitors.

Talk to your audience.

Consider your audience’s knowledge level about your product or service when you’re creating a message. By identifying various target audiences, you can assess their knowledge individually to more accurately create a message encompassing their demographic. In the example we’re using here, the people who have already had your service are starting at a more advanced point than people who have never had your service. This means you can do less explaining your service to the repeat customers, and more targeting the benefits to their return. With new customers, you need to spend more time explaining things up front and setting up your company as a provider.

Each is effective in a different way. If you dilute your message by trying to address both audiences simultaneously, you have to provide extra information for the new clients that might simply bore or turn away existing clients, and the new clients won’t benefit from your targeting of benefits for return visits you direct at repeat clients.

Bottom line: Identify your target audience, and speak directly to your target audience. Consider their knowledge of your services and products. If you have more than one target audience, you may need to develop multiple messages. This produces a better ROI and increased conversion rates, so it’s worthwhile to spend the time and capital to create targeted, individual messages,

Content Optimization.

Content optimization is one of the keys of overall SEO, and it’s a service that I regularly provide for my clients. To optimize your content, you should break your content down into digestible chunks that pertain to a specific topic. Make sure the content relates to the title. If you’re not sure what to write about, or what title to use, try a free keyword search tool, such as Google’s Ad Words Keyword Tool, Google’s Search-based Keyword Tool, or other keyword search tools. These tools can give you an idea of what people are searching for so you can optimize your content for popular keywords in your field.

Use headers in your formatting to improve SEO.

One of the most important things you can do to improve your SEO yourself is to use headers in your Web page formatting. Many people simply use a “<strong>” tag to bold important subheadings in Web page designs. This totally misses out on the optimization available by using targeted headings. If you use a “<h1>”, “<h2>”, or “<h3>” tag for your headings, search engines place more weight on those headings, and give you a higher page rank if your headings relate to your title and your Web page content. By using the <strong> tool instead, search engines read your webpage as having no subheadings at all, and you’ll miss out on the opportunity to take advantage of those headings to boost your SEO and page rank.

Pay close attention to Title tags in DIY SEO applications.

Title tags are perhaps the single most important part of providing good SEO for your Web pages. Search engines look at title tags for keywords, and compare the title tags to your page to see if the content supports the title. If you don’t get your keywords in the title tag, you might not get ranked at all for that content – in spite of optimizing your content. The closer the keyword to the front of the title tag, the more it can influence your page rank. You should also make sure that the important title keywords appear at least once in your copy – bonus if you can work it into your subheadings and use the appropriate heading tags.

Leave the styling for CSS.

We’ve already looked at what opportunities you miss when you bold your headers instead of using header tags. Similarly, you should try to forgo styling in HTML as much as possible and leave the styling to the CSS. When you use CSS to style your page, you can specify how headings should look, how links should look and what visual styles you want to apply to your website. That means less code in your Web pages themselves, since the code is in the style sheet – and a better code-to-content ratio, which improves SEO.

Additionally, by keeping your styling in the CSS style sheets, you can implement standard HTML tags and code and capitalize on SEO functionality. You can also easily change styles via CSS to alter colors and other display properties, and test how these font and style changes affect conversion. This gives you an easy way to improve your conversion rates without having to spend hours changing every page’s HTML.

Deciding when to outsource SEO.

SEO isn’t something that everyone wants to do. Even though much of SEO is simple enough for anyone to implement themselves, it does still take time and requires you to tinker with the website. If you simply don’t want to deal with managing your website, or making the little tweaks that improve your SEO, it might be worthwhile to outsource your SEO.

Beware of expensive firms that charge you thousands of dollars for relatively minor SEO tweaks. Find out exactly what a firm’s SEO services entail, and decide whether it’s worth the cost for you. Much of what SEO companies do breaks down into these SEO categories: optimizing content, optimizing title tags and adjusting formatting. The technical aspects, such as title tags and formatting, are relatively easy tweaks and shouldn’t cost you an arm and a leg.

For more info on things to look out for when you’re outsourcing your SEO, check out my article “Beware of SEO Firms.”

The argument for quantity.

The argument for quantity is obvious. The more opportunities that people have to see your name, the more likely you are to reach people who wouldn’t see you otherwise. I.e. if you have 10 articles posted on 10 different websites, you’ve got a much higher chance for readers to see your articles than if you have 1 article posted on 1 website.

This is a common mistake that many people make when they’re planning a new marketing campaign. Many people would look at a limited budget, and say “Ok, I can get 10 low-quality articles out of this budget if I hire a low cost provider.” The simple mathematical outcome would drive the decision to select a low-cost provider for the sake of getting a greater quantity. Unfortunately, that approach only examines one part of the picture.

The argument for quality.

The argument for quality has more subtle benefits. If you deliver quality content, you’ll give your readers valuable content – content that they’ll have a reason to stick around and read. When readers see low-quality content, they’re likely to click away again immediately in search of someone else who provides better content. In this respect, quantity gives you more opportunities to get in front of readers, but less of an opportunity to make an impact.

For offisite article marketing, a similar principal applies. If you’re posting content offsite to try to lure readers onto your website and into using your services, you’ll need to give them a compelling reason to click that link. When you post ten articles that are full of the same drivel you can find on any other website, readers have no reason to click through to find more information and no temptation to use your services. If you post only two or three articles that contain unique information and convince your readers that your services are valuable, you’ve given those readers an excuse to click through to your website.

Quality content is your key to conversion.

Quality content also serves a very valuable purpose: it establishes you as an expert. Provide readers with informative, unique information, and they’ll see that you know your field. If you speak only in generalities or fail to give readers something they can’t find on a hundred other websites, they have no reason to choose your services over any other provider. When you’re looking for conversion, quality counts.

Quality content drives page views organically.

The primary argument in favor of quantity versus quality is the argument that a higher quantity of content gets you visibility in more places. While this is technically true, it’s not the only way you can get visibility. If you provide quality content on a wide range of topics – especially if you provide content on an ongoing basis, like in blogging – you’re much more likely to capture readers organically through search engine results and word of mouth. SEO is skewed to provide greater preference to ‘quality’ content; not keyword-laden pieces that are designed to ‘trick’ search engines into providing a higher page rank; so you’re more likely to capture readers organically if you provide quality content. This gives you opportunities you wouldn’t have with poor-quality, high-quantity content.

Quality content is good for word-of-mouth.

Low-quality content may get you page views, but people won’t think of you twice and certainly won’t recommend you. High-quality content – content that provides valuable or difficult-to-find information – is content that people will remember, and recommend to friends and contacts. How do you think things grow virally? It isn’t because it’s forgettable content. The key to viral marketing is to provide memorable content that people want to share – not mediocre content that people just don’t care about.

Bottom line: ROI on quality content is better.

Bottom line: your return on investment for quality content is better than quantity. Sure, quantity can get you page views – but low-quality content won’t get you conversion. Since the key to any business website is conversion, quantity just doesn’t have the bang for the buck that quality content provides. Invest in quality content, and you’ll see a direct return on investment that correlates with the quality of your content.

What is dynamic content?

Dynamic content has different connotations depending on the application. For our purposes, a dynamic website is one where the Web design calls content from a database when it’s requested. Without content, it’s just a basic, blank page, but with that call to the database (and content in the database), the page comes alive.

A blog is a great example of dynamic content, because you’re constantly adding new blog posts with new content. When viewers check out your blog, the default view is to pull X number of posts from your database and display them. Viewers themselves can interact with your content; selecting tags to view all posts linked to that tag, or doing the same things with categories.

Compare this to a static website, where every viewer who comes to the page has the same viewing experience. The only interactivity in a static website is the ability to click links or browse a page, which is far from the experience that you get from a dynamic Web site. A static website might be appropriate in some cases, but in most cases, it simply serves as a decent starting point for a website. In fact, some individuals and companies are moving away from static websites altogether, and using Content Management Systems with dynamic Web sites to communicate with readers.

Traditional blends of static and dynamic content.

More and more businesses these days are blending static and dynamic content on their Web pages. Static content can provide a decent way to introduce your company, mission, overview and service description – things that don’t change often. I’ve incorporated this strategy in my website; my main website is static HTML and CSS, but this blog represents dynamic content. More and more businesses are adding blogging platforms to share articles, post content or even share news updates. Dynamic content can be seamlessly integrated into static pages – like my blog looks like my website and has the same header. It also provides a lot of benefits.

The benefits of dynamic content

Dynamic content is wonderful for a few reasons: it helps to improve SEO and page rank, it provides additional ways for you to reach clients, and it gives you a way to communicate with clients and improve your conversion rates.

Dynamic content improves SEO and page rank.

Search engines like it when new content is added regularly. They view this as a sign that the website is active, and so your page has more value than an inactive website that hasn’t been updated in years. Therefore, you’re likely to get a higher page rank if you’re constantly adding new, valuable content. If you optimize your content to appeal to certain keywords, you can also capture searches targeted to those keywords.

Dynamic content adds new ways for you to reach clients.

Dynamic content can help you drastically expand your content base and gives you new ways to reach clients. Compare a basic company website with a company website that has a blog. In a basic company website, the only way you have to reach clients is if clients actively do a search for your services. For example, if you have a plumbing website, you’ll get hits for “plumbing” searches (or whatever keywords you’ve used on your webpage), but that’s all . However, if you have a plumbing website with a blog about fixing common plumbing-related issues, your blog could come up when people search for “How to unclog a toilet,” or “How to clear a clogged sink.” People who would never have seen your website are now looking at your website (via the blog) and you can nudge them toward your services, or you can simply provide useful information so that you can reach those clients and you’re there when they do need your services.

Dynamic content provides opportunities to increase conversion rates.

Finally, dynamic content provides opportunities for you to increase conversion rates. Let’s stick with the plumbing example. Say that a client is looking for plumbers, and loads your website as well as a couple of other websites. Your website is a static website with basic company info, while another plumbing website provides dynamic content with info about clearing up issues, related news and regular updates. Because there’s so much more content available via the dynamic content, potential clients can clearly see that the other company knows what it’s doing. The company speaks authoritatively about related issues, and customers have confidence in that company to deliver the services it says it can provide. They’ll choose that website with dynamic content in 99% of cases, even if you have good static content, unless the price difference between services is drastic.

Managing static content vs. dynamic content.

Some companies simply create additional website pages when they want to expand their content, optimize the site and provide additional keywords. While that is an option, it’s rarely the best option. It’s much easier to add 10 blog posts that relate to specific issues than to design 10 new HTML pages to add articles to your site. Then you have to redefine your menus and link system, and navigating all of those links becomes cumbersome for readers.

Updating a dynamic content platform is simple. Many Web hosts have built-in support for blogs and other content management platforms. All you need to do is install the platform and begin loading your content. Adding content to a WordPress blog on your domain, for example, is as simple as logging in and typing text in a box right there in your browser. You don’t have to worry about adding HTML or CSS or any other type of Web code, nor do you need to worry about your link system or where it’s an appropriate place to add your content. You don’t have to wait for a Web designer to implement your new content, if you outsource your Web design.

You need content to make dynamic content worthwhile.

Keep in mind that if you do go to a dynamic content platform, you need content to make it worthwhile. For example, consider a blog. If you only post once a month, or post 5 times and then stop posting entirely, you lose the benefits of having dynamic content. In fact, it can actually backfire on you if people go to view your dynamic content and see that you haven’t updated in a year.

If you’re going to invest in dynamic content, invest in dynamic content. Many companies hire writers to populate their dynamic content so they can focus on their business. Good content writers can create quality, targeted content that can enhance your company’s reputation, improve your SEO and boost your conversion rates.

If you’d like to discuss dynamic content campaigns or content management programs, feel free to use the Contact form on my website to send me a note. I provide blog content, articles and other Web content for a variety of clients, and I’m happy to discuss a content campaign for your business, or consult on appropriate content management solutions.