Developing affinity with a group of readers who will actually take the time to link, comment and share your material requires a commitment of both resources and creativity - this is common knowledge.

But all other things being equal, you can and should give yourself an extra advantage by developing a unique brand for your blog. This is beyond being organized and having a plan, this is about standing out in a world of infinite choice.

With that in mind, here are 7 ways to help develop a unique brand for that shiny new blog you’ve just built, or give fresh life to your current site. Ideally, you could incorporate all of these:

1. Develop a post archetype

Develop a compelling post archetype that people respond favorably to and continue to feed your content into it. It can be something as simple as using a certain type of image, post heading, graphic, etc. - just something which makes your posts stand out on their own in an RSS reader as content a-la-carte. Your posts looking nice here is a key factor to getting them to spread between RSS users/early adopters who may never visit your actual blog, but are happy to do things like share content in Google Reader. You want everyone using tools like Reader to click the share button with every post, and they’re likely to do so with posts that stand out format-wise, as long as the content tells the same story of quality.

2. Create a simple or unique design

Most bloggers tend to over-complicate their blog designs. Complexity in web design is standard and expected. Simplicity is a thing of beauty. If you’re more daring, develop a unique design that takes a chance and pushes the limits, it’s a good way to get noticed. Breaking expectation with design/presentation of content is a huge strategy in and of itself.

3. Refine your writing quality and style

The single best way to create a blog with a unique brand is to have writing quality and style which is distinctive, emotive or in some way compelling. Writing is the heart of your blog’s brand, and has the power to transcend all other factors - the importance of this can’t be overstated. This is a long-term process of refinement and as you delve deeply into themes, concepts and topics it will become more defined and known. Some bloggers have become so good at this, loyal readers could pick their writing out of a lineup.

4. Find a way to view your topic from a fresh angle or different lens

As long as there is interest in a niche, it can never be too crowded for fresh thinking. Even within the most popular topics, the ways established sites cover ideas is relatively predictable. New sites can use this to their advantage simply by not covering ideas in the same way. A fresh angle or different viewpoint on a familiar topic may prove the most compelling choice of all. Remember, while there are many fans of popular sites, there are also plenty of dissenters just waiting to give voice to something different. Speak to them and they will spread your content more aggressively than even the biggest fans of the established players.

5. Focus on a unique topic, or intersection of topics

There’s really no topic that’s too specific or unique, in fact, the more offbeat, the better. There’s an audience for it, and if not you can make one (bearing you don’t go off the deep end and it’s too esoteric). The key is simply that you can deliver on the thesis consistently and with quality. If you can’t develop a truly unique topic don’t worry, this may not be possible. Another approach is to find a intersection of complementary topics. Music and inspiration, marketing and sociology, personal development and fitness, search and social media - you get the idea. This is compelling because in time it will form a unique community, and the content genres and mixing of audiences will play off each other to make something more interesting than the separate pieces.

6. Create a better signal to noise ratio

It’s common to publish frequently for the sake of publishing - but the real opportunity is to make your site known for signal and kill the noise. Becoming known as a site with a high degree of signal is how you will build up a silent army of users active in the social web who share your content every time. If you deliver on this long enough, the world will become conditioned to anticipate quality from you, and your content will be shared each time you hit publish.

7. Focus on achieving consistency

Quite possibly one of the most difficult hurtles to get over for developing a successful, unique blog is being consistent. Blogs that deliver high quality material on a consistent basis get noticed. Out of more than 133 million blogs created since 2002, only 76,000 of them (less than 1%!) have a Technorati ranking of 50 or higher - something that is a result of consistency. In other words, being consistent is a unique element of your blog’s brand in and of itself as most fail to achieve this basic, yet essential quality.

Conclusion

The popularity of web publishing is something which only continues to increase, and with it the battle for attention of readers daily heats up. Becoming an outlier in some regard is the element that will put you on the path with the best chance at large-scale success. This is actually not just important for those new to web publishing. In crowded marketplaces with many choices, a strong brand is more than a way to gain a following, it’s protection against unpredictable externalities. Finding a way to develop a unique brand for your blog is worth spending as much time on as anything else in your blogging roadmap.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2009. | 7 Ways To Develop A Unique Brand For Your Blog | 12 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

Forward thinking companies are investing in social media for a variety of reasons, including gaining a competitive advantage through building relationships, creating content and capturing mindshare.  I think it’s safe to say that companies making investments in better connecting with their customers now, will have a distinct advantage over those that are resolved to “wait and see” with this social web thing.

TopRank’s survey of the Top Digital Marketing tactics for 2009 revealed 6 of the top 10 tactics as social media. Marketingsherpa’s 2008 Study of Social Media Marketing & PR reports social media as the top marketing budget line item for increase in 2009.

Why the optimism? Social media offers a variety of benefits:

• Build thought leadership
• Improve customer relationships
• Improve recruiting
• Reduce customer service costs
• Improve search engine rankings
• Increase media coverage
• Influence sales

Despite the optimism, the social web and the practice of better connecting with customers through social technologies is new territory for most companies. Traditionally, communications between companies and customers has focused on marketing, sales and customer service.

Audience at SEMPO AZ Event

According to analysis of Peter Kim’s social media examples wiki, early adopters of social media are focusing on blogging, social networking, microblogging and video in the Retail, Consumer Goods/Services, High Tech, Media/Entertainment, Automotive and Financial Services industries. There are over 900 examples on the wiki.beingpeterkim.com site.

Even with the optimism and efforts at early adoption, social media implementation has been all over the board. Fake blogs, spammy and salesey behavior within social communities and overzealous SEO efforts have represented some of the stumbling blocks and social media fails.

SEO for most companies is tough enough. Add social media to the mix and many are lost. According to Marketingsherpa’s Social Media Marketing & PR survey, adoption of social media is low mostly because of uneducated/in experienced staff along with difficulty in measuring direct ROI. It’s hard to win management buy-in and budget without those resources.

Even when companies do implement social media or SEO tactics, they tend to do so independently or siloed from each other. Core objectives for social media efforts tend to focus on building community. In contrast, company SEO efforts focus mostly on generating leads and sales. The realization that implementing SEO best practices with social media content creation/promotion can actually extend social reach via search as well as compliment an existing SEO program is where the SEO and Social opportunity lies.

A good example of social popularity turning into good search visibility is Blendtec. The video where they “blend” an iPhone has over 6 million views, 6,000 inbound links and ranks top 10 on Google for the search phrase, “blender“.

What parts of social media content should you optimize with keywords? For situations where you are the one creating the content, optimize:

• Titles
• File names
• Descriptions
• Anchor text
• Annotations, show notes, transcriptions

In cases of consumer generated content, you can influence keyword optimization through the content management system and tools used by consumers to publish. Examples include: keyword rich categories built in (and required), suggested keyword rich tags, sorting top content using keyword lists, and many others.

Of course, SEO isn’t much without links and the ability to promote, share and attract links is one of the most significant SEO benefits from social media. The key thing to remember about leveraging social media for link building is to create content worthy of getting a link in the first place.  Then measure content stuctures, formats, media types and sites that work best and refine.

The kicker with creating great content is that no one will know you’ve created that exceptional content unless you tell them. So, promotion is very important as is the development of channels to distribute your content. RSS works well as does building out networks on relevant social media sites ranging from Facebook to StumbleUpon to YouTube.

Working search and social media tactics together can amplify many of the core objectives. The bottom line is that companies who make the effort and investment to figure out how to test, build expertise and mangage though a strategy, will achieve a distinct competitive advantage over companies that wait.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2009. | Intersection of Search and Social Media | 12 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

Brian’s position via our Twitter discussion was that social media is exactly that, marketing directly to consumers - a great point. My perspective is that social media is no place for direct marketing messages.

Companies that rush into a social network with sales offers is a classic example of an inappropriate use of direct marketing tactics on the social web. People don’t join social networks to be confronted with marketing messages, they join to be social with a likeminded community.

One successful method for brands to engage social communities from a marketing perspective is to make an effort to listen, participate and leverage email as a transition opportunity.  Email works very well in conjunction with social media for direct marketing purposes.

The marriage of social media relationship building and building up an email list is more congruent to direct marketing than most people think. I think what can make direct marketing work best on the social web is to exercise “give to get” in terms of providing value first. Generate attention and interest through interaction, participation and education. Blogs, social networks and other social apps that allow a community to interact with the brand are good examples.  As the brand provides value and trust, interested community members can move from casual social connections to joining an email list with added benefits. The key is transparency about what providing an email address means, in terms of receiving commercial messages and offers.

What do you think?

• Can direct marketing be social?
• Can direct marketing messages succeed on the social web?
• What’s the difference between marketing directly and direct marketing?

John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing may be doing a podcast of Brian and I next week on this topic and I’ll be sure to Tweet a link to it if he does.

For those direct marketers reading this post, you might be interested in the DMA’s new Social Media Council - special interest group on LinkedIn to help educate direct marketers on social media best practices, share insights with others in the community.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2009. | How Direct is Social Media Marketing? | 34 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

If yes, your business is structured for a pre-Internet world, and unfortunately this means you will always be at a disadvantage compared to agile competitors designed to take advantage of a connected society.  An inescapable truth is the web rewards companies (and people) that are nimble.

People interact deepest with thoughts and ideas that have character and personality.  And if there is one thing that removes this, it is the superfluous layers that design by committee creates.  It rips the personality from content piece by piece as it passes though each filter, and is the antithesis of agility and what makes for compelling communications.

With social media topping the most popular digital marketing tactics of 2009, there are many challenges and opportunities for marketers.  Concurrently one of the largest challenges and opportunities is the idea of being agile, a quality that defines brands and individuals who have leveraged the web to become industry leaders.  This runs counter to the past - decades of marketing in a pre-digital world have created unnecessary redundancies, since previous generations of communications tools and processes moved slowly by comparison of what we have today.

As we see businesses and marketing ideas designed to take advantage of new systems permeate our world, the previous models become more dated and disrupted.  This is the natural order of things in a society undergoing changing technology and communications trends at an accelerated pace.

What hasn’t changed is that share of voice matters as much, perhaps more than ever.  Right now, it’s being siphoned from the overly cautious to those able and confident enough to move effortlessly.  Survival for marketing professionals depends on their ability to find a way to work around the artificial barriers that can’t be removed and carve out a path of least resistance for their external messages.  In essence, they need to become more agile.  Companies that attain influence in the social web are defined by this.

Fresh content only happens as a by-product of being agile

As Lee previously noted regarding developing a social media and SEO friendly website, fresh content is an essential element of popular sites:

To play the search and social media game, a web site must be in the content publishing business. Search engines and participants of the social web respond favorably to the signals created from frequent updates.  Participation in off site social channels can be brought into the corporate web site through RSS or widgets providing web site visitors access to additional forms of information and interaction with the company.

Consistency with publishing fresh content - without sacrificing quality - benefits both social media and SEO.  More content simply means more potential entry points from the engines and consistent publishing plays naturally into building a brand and subscriber base in the social web.  You don’t achieve consistency and quality in a timely manner without agility.

Every company is now a media company

As more businesses realize the truth, that every company is now a media company, the number of organizational entities contributing content to the web will continue to increase.  Yet as the supply of content increases, the aggregate amount of attention available remains static, meaning the fight for attention is an aggressive, daily battle across the spectrum of niches.

Media companies, businesses and individuals are all vying for that finite amount of attention, and the most responsive and active (with a purpose, of course) reap the traffic, links and attention of the social web.  Thinking like a new media company - being agile and quick to adapt, is the right mindset for success.

Being agile let’s you jump on opportunities at the intersection of digital PR and SEO

Capturing search traffic from journalists, bloggers and other web influencers by responding and reacting to hot news items in your industry is only possible if you’re able to move your responses quickly from draft to publish status.  You’ll get on the radar of journalists covering a trend story this way before the competition.  According to a recent survey from the Arketi Group:

When asked how journalists use the Internet:

• 95 percent say search (Google, Yahoo!, etc.)
• 92 percent say reading news
• 92 percent say emailing
• 89 percent say finding story ideas
• 87 percent say finding news sources
• 75 percent say reading blogs
• 64 percent say watching webinars or webcasts
• 61 percent say watching YouTube
• 59 percent say social networks

Nearly all journalists use search as a research tool for discovering content related to their story.  The very real result of being an agile web publisher is gaining visibility amongst reporters, which leads to placement as an expert within a story and puts you on the path to develop a relationship with that reporter as a reliable source of information. It’s an area that has been proven time and time again to be true - traditional media, social media and SEO are interconnected in a symbiotic fashion and being weaved together tighter daily.

Hedging negativity

A few companies have been able to prevent a groundswell against their brands by being free to respond directly to consumers and rectify negative situations before they reached that unstoppable tipping point several unfortunate companies have experienced.  So agility doesn’t just help build your brand, it’s also a factor in social media reputation management.

As the Internet shifts into real-time, the advantage of even being slightly more agile goes up

What makes real-time compelling is the immediacy of information, and consumers are being trained to demand content from media, businesses and each other instantaneously.  Agility is the only option here - and if you can become even slightly more agile than competitors, you can position yourself ahead of them with ideas, products and content time and time again.

Conclusion

Agility mixed with the right content marketing strategy and long-term planning is a surefire formula for success, and is the mindset we’re excited to see more and more companies and forward-thinking marketers embrace.  Enabled by the web, individuals have long used the fact that they are able to be more agile than media to level the playing field with traditional gatekeepers.  Now savvy marketers are doing the same thing for their clients and companies.  Embrace agility from the top down and watch your social marketing efforts soar.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2009. | Influencing The Social Web: Agility Is A Factor | 10 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

The best links from one site to another are often a byproduct of something much bigger than standard link building.  They’re evidence, in most cases, that the link destination offers value and that the linker feels will be of value to their readers. Being cited by an online publisher of content that has credibility is meaningful to readers and builds credibility in the same way that being cited by a well respected print publication results in brand influence. Links can drive traffic and search engine bots to your web site.

Building links is a goal, but many companies that do a fantastic job of it see links as a KPI or a proxy measurement to something else. Something more meaningful and bigger picture in a marketing sense. Strategic link building means having an understanding of audience, tactics and measurement as well as how links can be achieved anciallary to other marketing activities. Many of the most successful sites (at link acquisition) don’t ask for links at all. They build up their channels of distribution and focus on providing useful content that recipients link to and pass along to others who might link.

Google’s offers this advice, in it’s special way, on link building:

“The best way to get other sites to create relevant links to yours is to create unique, relevant content that can quickly gain popularity in the Internet community. The more useful content you have, the greater the chances someone else will find that content valuable to their readers and link to it.”

That’s fine as a guideline, but there’s a lot left out as far as planning and execution. The web is a competitive place and it’s getting more so. Companies can’t gain a competitive edge by leaving link acquisition totally to the collective wisdom of the web. There needs to be a mix of efforts by internal resources as well as outside expertise. The question is, how to do that.

Our agency’s roots are as a public relations firm and in the course of providing media relations services (pitching journalists to write stories about our clients) the goal of being covered in a relevant industry publication was first and foremost. Often times, those newspapers, magazines and media would publish stories online, as well as in print, and would include a link to the companies being mentioned.

As far back as 2001, we noticed that pure media relations clients (no SEO) would experience increased search engine rankings on important phrases, even though there was no formal effort to optimize content or conduct specific link building tactics.  We would do a certain amount of keyword research for those companies to facilitate searching editorial calendars like Bacon’s (now owned by Cision), MyEdCals or Vocus for potential stories and publications. We’d coach executives during media relations training to use some of those phrases in order to stay on message.  A byproduct of the story being published online was a link. Sometimes those links would use anchor text for the keywords mentioned in the interview. Those links from highly credible editorial sources were recognized by search engines and boosted search rankings.

Were links the goal? No, media coverage was the goal. But additional value and market visibility was achived by focusing on the marketing and not on individual link acquisition.  Long term “meritocratic” link building is strategic and focused on creating and promoting content of value that publishers can decide to link to. The idea is to have an understanding of what structure/syntax/format to flavor content with in order improve the chances of earning such links.

What does this have to do with strategic link building for SEO?  My point is that while it does make sense to do a certain amount of forms, profiles, content syndication and link bait type of link building, the longevity of a linking for SEO effort needs to be tied to broader marketing, communications and PR activities. Companies interact in many ways on the web that produce links, or could produce links.  The key is to take advantage of what’s already being done and uncover the link opportunities as a process.

One of the most productive link building strategies is where companies leverage a SEO consultant’s expertise for the mechanics of content based link building in addition to gaining an understanding of how to leverage what corporate communications, PR, HR, Marketing, Sales and even Investor Relations are already doing that could result in relevant inbound links. A process of creating awareness, building value, training on link building mechanics and mechanisms for feedback on performance within a company can do wonders for link acquisition by leveraging existing content publishing and promotion activities.

Here are a few examples:

• Public Relations: Links can be included in press releases, an online newsroom, within email pitches to journalists and bloggers, pdf documents of case studies, media coverage and one of the best tips:  When a journalist confirms they’re running a story citing your company, ASK FOR A LINK.

• Human Resources: Job listings and open house events are good opportunities for links when promoted on aggregation sites for jobs and events. Optimize the job and event listing titles and always add a link back to an optimized web page for more information. In some cases, paid job listings will include a link, but one that gets redirected by ad tracking software. ASK FOR A LINK that is direct.

• Marketing: Companies partner with other companies, join associations and often produce microsites, buy ads, sponsor events/conferences/causes and many other off-corporate-site communications. All of those present some type of link opportunity.  For example, find email newsletters that are archived to the web and that include good links from the ad (and anchor text if possible) and sponsor them. You get visibility via email distribution and when the HTML version of the newsletter is published online, there’s a link back to your site.  Charitable giving often involves a web site that lists donors. ASK FOR A LINK back.

The bottom line here is that for a productive link building strategy, it makes sense to leverage both company communications and marketing resources as well as those of a SEO consultant that understand the specific mechanics of linking and can train client side departments how to leverage their current activities to earn citations online. The resulting links tend to be more valuable for driving traffic and for providing search engines with a signal with which to better rank your content.

If you work as a client side marketer on SEO, what other ways to leverage existing content publishing and promotions have you found to be useful for link building?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2009. | Strategic Link Building for SEO | 23 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

I’m happy to announce that Adam Singer has joined TopRank as an Account Manager.  At Adam’s previous position as a Digital Strategist with a PR firm in FL, he championed many social media, SEO and online PR programs providing client executives with strategic guidance on their digital strategy. Adam is a savvy blogger at FutureBuzz and we’re looking forward to his social media smarts as a welcome addition to the TopRank Online Marketing team. Please read Adam’s first post and welcome him. Watch for his regular contributions to Online Marketing Blog in the weeks and months ahead.

Can a blog motivate you to move 1,770 miles, change your life and pursue a career with a new organization?  Many of you reading this would agree that yes, in fact it can.  There is no better way to get to know a company’s DNA than by reading the thoughts and insights of their team members and leaders daily over the course of several years.

As a longtime fan of TopRank’s blog, client work, and philosophy, I am honored to be joining the team not only to provide high-quality client services, but also contribute digital marketing and PR strategy to the Online Marketing Blog community.

Readers here know Lee and his team have set the bar extraordinarily high through content presented on this blog; tirelessly sharing strategy, insight and advice on digital marketing.  I am inspired by the challenge of contributing here and maintaining the level of excellence you’re used to.

What I can promise you?  My best thinking, and add to the themes and ideas you’re already reading and sharing, viewed through the lens of someone who has dedicated their life - personally and professionally - to helping others succeed online.  From corporations and small businesses, to non-profits and artists, my career goal is to help those with the right motivations activate their ideas on a global scale through creative web marketing.

For those who don’t know me, here’s the short version:  I’m Adam Singer, and I’m a passionate online marketing professional.  My experience includes:

• Social media, SEO and digital marketing/PR strategy, planning and implementation for clients ranging from small startups to national consumer brands
• Web application, linkbait and pull marketing campaigns
• Blog development, community building, permission marketing
• Translation of ideas articulately between clients, project managers, communications professionals, and developers
• Hands-on consulting for C-level executives at national consumer brands
• Successful encouragement for major companies to make their foray into social media
• More than 12 years combined experience as an active participant of the web as a blogger, marketer, PR strategist, digital artist and freelance writer

I plan to contribute posts here supporting all the disciplines of digital marketing - from social web strategy and ideas, to insights on technology trends, to how you can stay ahead of the curve and be successful in your Internet marketing initiatives.  I hope to provide value to you and help you become successful in spreading buzz, increasing sales and achieving your objectives

And if you want to learn more about me - just Google me.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2009. | TopRank Digital Marketing Talent Pool Grows with Adam Singer | 20 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

We’ve listed regional Interactive Marketing Associations in the past and thought it would be time for an update. This post will be a work in progress, so please share in the comments the name and working URL of other interactive marketing associations that we’ve missed.  We decided not to include groups and meetups that are primarily dedicated to SEO/SEM or social media.  You can find a list of local Social Media Club chapters here and a list of Social Media Breakfast cities here.  You can find abundant internet professional meetups here.

• Association of Internet Marketing and Sales Canada
• Atlanta Interactive Marketing Association - (AIMA)
• Arizona Interactive Marketing Association - AZIMA)
• Refresh Bmore (Baltimore)
• Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization Arizona - (SEMPO AZ)
• Austin Interactive Marketing Association - (Austin IMA)
• Baltimore Chapter of the American Marketing Association - (AMA Baltimore)
• Boston Interactive Media Association - (BIMA)
• Charlotte Interactive Marketing Association - (Charlotte IMA)
• Chicago Interactive Marketing Association (CIMA)
• American Advertising Federation Cleveland (AAF Cleveland)
• Dallas Fort Worth Interactive Marketing Association
• Dayton Marketing Community
• Internet Marketers of the Delaware Valley
• Direct Marketing Association (DMA) National
• Internet Marketers of New York - IMNY
• Houston Interactive Marketing Association - (HiMA)
• Las Vegas Interactive Marketing Association - (LVIMA)
• Milwaukee Interactive Marketing Association - (MIMA)
• Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association - (MIMA)
• 212 New York’s Interactive Advertising Club - (212)
• Internet Marketers of New York - (IMNY)
• Triangle Interactive Marketing Association - (TIMA) central North Carolina
• The Web Association - (NE Ohio)
• Philadelphia Interactive Marketing Association (PhIMA)
• Gateway Interactive Marketing Association - St. Louis, MO
• San Diego Ad Club
• San Diego iMarketers
• Bay Area Interactive Group
• Northwest Internet Advertising Group - Seattle
• South Florida Interactive Marketing Association
• WebGuild Silicon Valley

What interactive marketing associations and organizations did we miss? Please share in the comments.

Thank you to the following Tweeple for making suggestions:

@DJLitten
@tornow
@davidebowman
@DavidWallace
@Juliesquires
@AussieWebmaster
@cathymccaughan
@kroonoverdrive
@melgallant
@Jlee350
@AaronGoldman
@hifisamurai
@chriswinfield

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2009. | TopRank BIGLIST: Interactive Marketing Associations | 9 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

Whether you communicate to your audience via a blog, Twitter or social networking sites like Facebook, the only true way to build relationships with a growing network is to listen, engage and provide content they find valuable.

When developing a social media content strategy, start by asking questions like: “What does my network find valuable?”.

A little listening can go a long way to get to the heart of a community’s needs. By understanding the pain points of those your company wishes to connect with, the better you’ll be able to provide the resources needed to make better decisions and improve their business.

You may have heard Lee Odden reference the need to create a social media roadmap, starting first by gaining a better understanding of the intended audience and identifying objectives. A social media marketing strategy is the bridge between reaching that audience and mutual goals. Gain an understanding of how you are going to speak to the community and what you want them to do.

Think realistically about providing and receiving value. For example, will building a network of 1,000 friends on Facebook have an impact on your business without clear goals around what you want those friends to do? There’s an implied connection between quantity of network and marketing effectiveness, but with social media it’s more about quality, not quantity.

If the objective for your social media efforts is to sell more product, become a resource to help your audience use that product and give insight into what’s in it for them. Make a bigger impact with your community by giving them the knowledge and tools to help them accomplish their goals and in turn, they will see your company as a valuable resource. Follow the ‘give to get’ mentality to build relationships.

How do I create unique content that speaks to my audience?

Provide opportunities for your network to create their own content. Run promotions involving user generate articles, videos, images or other content that can be shared, promoted and recognized.  You can also collect and examine the resources you already have, including case studies, articles, white papers, PPTs or blog posts. Chances are, you have the makings for great unique content or can lay the ground work to repurpose that content.

In this age of Web 2.0, those who are active in social media are essentially publishers. Content creation plays a key role in your social media strategy. One way to ensure you publish consistent, unique content that speaks to your target audience and aligns with your target keyword concepts is to create a content calendar.

As an Account Manager for TopRank Marketing, I work with clients to develop a content marketing calendar that aligns with their strategy and guides development of meaningful information, resources and media to connect with their target audience. Social media publishing platforms like blogs can use content or editorial schedules to serve as a guide and keep messaging within the ballpark of the overall content strategy.

I’m curious as to how many of our readers active in social media have developed a content marketing calendar?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2009. | Content Marketing Strategy with a Side of Social | 17 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

Photo credit: Susanica

Of those that reach out to our agency at TopRank, most of the companies I talk to are intrigued and even excited about social media. The challenge for organizations is that they’re often not exactly sure where to start or what will happen if they do.

For many companies, kicking off a social media effort is like jumping off a cliff. The question to consider, as asked at last week’s OMS event, is whether your company is jumping as a base jumper or a Lemming?

What I mean by that is a question as to whether your organization is following others blindly into the chasm of social web participation or are planning and preperations being made first? Are the right people being educated and given the proper tools? Is there a plan with a specific objective?

Chasing after the competition into Facebook, Twitter and blogging without a plan is the Lemming approach. You can almost visualize swarms of companies jumping off into the abyss following competitors, self serving social media consultants and momentum created by mainstream media hype, each yelling “weeeee, social meeeeeedeeeeahhhh” and then realizing (maybe too late) with wide open eyes that they’re not prepared (no social media policy, no roadmap). There’s no chute, and the ground is coming up fast.

According to Forrester Research, Using Buyer Social Behavior To Boost B2B Social Media Success, “Starting with social tactics spells disaster”. Why?  because social media puts buyers, not marketers, in control and “Build it, they will come” seldom works. Launching a company social media program by emphasizing specific tools rather than an understanding of the audience you’re trying to reach, goals or strategy, leads to wasted time, inefficiency of effort and in some cases, embarrasment.

Capturing insight about your audience in a social media context can be accomplished through a variety of tactics ranging from social media monitoring to conducting surveys of existing customers to determine their social media usage.

The base jumper approach is another metaphor that emphasizes having a plan: a goal and the right tools.   A good place to start is developing a clear understanding of what social media is and isn’t.

I think it’s safe to say that social media is a set of technology and platforms that facilitate:

• Conversations
• Connections
• Sharing
• Influence - acquisition and exertion
• Customer Relationships
• Muliti-disciplinary: marketing, PR, sales, customer service, HR, research
• The opportunity to listen, engage & be useful

You could also say that social media is not:

• Just like direct marketing
• A replacement for other marketing
• Controllable
• A campaign with a defined start and stop
• Easy to measure (in the same old ways)
• Another place to publish offline Advertising media

The idea of jumping off a cliff is scary as hell to many and exciting to others. The reality is that becoming an active participant on the social web isn’t like jumping off a cliff at all.  It’s perfectly fine to test programs at the product or departmental level before committing enterprise wide resources. With the right planning, tools, guidance and education, companies can equip themselves for a journey that focuses on meaningful social media efforts online that provide value both to customers and as well as growing the business.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2009. | Jumping off the Social Media Cliff | 17 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

Why social media?  It comes down to gaining a competitive advantage. I like the quote from Oliver Young at Forrester Research:  “Marketers who embrace social media will outdistance competition, build community following, and boost loyalty” 

What better time to build better relationships with your customers than during a recession? Budgets are slim and purchasing decisions are often made based on relationships and connections right along with price. Word of mouth is powerful in good economic times and it’s even more impactful when economic pressures drive companies to be more creative and resourceful in purchasing products and services.

TopRank’s informal polls as well as the research of other organizations offer insights that report a growing optimism and interest at the budgetary level for social media investment. This is in contrast to the “instant social media marketing gurus” setting up shop and trying to drum up business by evangelising all things social. 

TopRank’s poll on top Digital Marketing tactics for 2009  earlier this year with over 530 respondents resulted in six out of the top ten digital marketing tactics involving social media: blogging, microblogging, social networking, social media monitoring, blogger relations and social media advertising.

Recently, Forrester & MarketingProfs published the results (eMarketer coverage) of a joint study of B-to-B Marketing in 2009 that ranked changes in marketing budget allocation. Of the top ten tactics, four were social media focused: online video, podcasts or rich media; discussion forums, social networks or communities; other web 2.0 media.

In Marketingsherpa’s 2008 Study of Social Media Marketing & PR, social media ranked #1 as a marketing budget line item for increased funding next to email marketing.

There’s reason for such optimism surrounding the social web. Companies that properly plan and implement social participation, can reap a variety of benefits:

• Build thought leadership
• Improve customer relationships
• Improve recruiting
• Reduce customer service costs
• Improve search engine rankings
• Increase media coverage
• Influence sales

Despite such optimism and benefits, social media is new territory for most companies. One issue is that a discconect continues to exist between how companies are structured to formally  communicate with customers via marketing, sales and customer service touchpoints and customers that increasingly want to have a conversation with the brands they buy from. Microsoft Advertising put out a great video a while ago called “The Break Up” that does a good job illustrating this point.

The notion of engaging with customers socially is a new paradigm and will take a shift in thinking for most organizations to adopt.

In fact, there are a number of barriers to social media adoption. Marketing Sherpa’s Social Media Marketing and PR Benchmark Survey reveals that the most significant challenges for implementing social media within organizations include: lack of knowledge, inability to measure ROI, lack of budget/funding, management resistance, technical complexity and the perception of social media not being relevant to the market.

Clearly there’s an opportunity to boost awareness and knowledge of social media best practices as well as models for strategic planning and adoption. A big part of the problem is that most companies start social media initiatives, ad hoc without any strategy. Building a business case for social media means doing homework on the target audience, setting goals, creating a strategy and making a plan that outlines what tactics and technologies make the most sense. Measuring the effect of such a plan is where confidence will increase regarding value and help answer the ROI question. The key thing to understand is that Social Media is less about ROI and more about influence

While companies are trying to figure out their broader social media strategies, it’s fine to test certain social channels, but there should still be a plan with goals, objectives and defined ways of measuring success. 

There’s been progress in opening lines of communication between brands and customers through brand sponsored forums (like Best Buy below), review sites and social channels such as Twitter, Social Networks and crowdsourcing sites like Dell Ideastorm and My Starbucks Idea.

These efforts in combination with increased buzz about the social web have motivated many companies to launch vairous social media initiatives. In fact, the list over at Peter Kim’s wiki currently lists nearly 950 examples of companies using social media with blogging, social networks, microblogging, online video and widgets attracting the most attention. Retail and consumer goods make up the overwhelming majority of social media participation by vertical, but  Government and several B2B verticals are also represented. Analysis of the social media examples was deftly handled by Eyal Sela.

There are many interesting examples of social media mediocraty, outright failures and successes. Even with numerous examples available, implementation has been all over the board. Starting the corporate journey on the social web as a tactical excercise can be a waste of resources or worse, damaging to the brand.

A program of listening/monitoring combined with testing and participation can provide a company with a  good basis from which to create a Social Media Roadmap that profiles the intended audience and  their behaviors/preferences, sets clear goals, documents the strategy and recommended tactics and clearly identifies how success will be measured.

Researching competitor social media usage as well as success stories and case studies that reflect possibilities for your own company can go a very long way in convincing corporate management that social web engagment makes sense for your company.

The bottom line in making a case for social media is going to involve some homeword towards understanding the channel & tools, setting clear goals, understanding how your customers behave and what their preferences are for media discovery, consumption and sharing. With goals, strategy and tactics in hand, the metrics piece that measures value can be associated with comparable advertising models in order to associate $ amounts. Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li do a good job of explaining this in their book, Groundswell, when describing the ROI of blogging.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2009. | Making a Case for Social Media | 15 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

1. For people who think Facebook is just for kids, go search for groups relevant to you and you will find them!  Facebook offers many targeted marketing opportunities.

While there are hoards of people, both professional and not, look for niche social sites where you can reach 100% of your target audience as well as an audience that is more engaged than perhaps the average Facebook user.

People with more friends aren’t necessarily more valuable. Do they know all their friends and who are they? However, on a niche social network like BakeSpace.com, the friends are much more targeted than a big brand like Sara Lee.

2. Check out the IKEA video channel on YouTube. Creating video content, if relevant to your target market, is excellent. In addition, the video content can create more for your target audience to bump into online.

3. Launch a blog if you have the time and resources to allocate to it. Think about how big  the conversation is that you want to have. Do you have something to say every day, every other day or every other week. This should help you determine whether or not to start blogging.

Do the planning before you do the blogging. If you outline a content plan and you don’t have content beyond month 1 or 2, you are going to run into problems. Get going on aligning your blog to overall marketing initiatives to help you create a content plan that extends 6 months and beyond.

If you do start a blog, keep in mind that in the first 2 months no one will read it, comment or maybe even care. But don’t give up! Give it the time it needs and socialize. Go comment on other blogs and bring those bloggers back to your content.

4. If you aren’t tweeting yet, start listening. What are Tweeple saying about your brand. And what are industry thought leaders saying?  Knowing what people are talking about can help you decide how and when to engage. At the very least, go register your Twitter handle so a competitor or money-minded company doesn’t do it first.

5. You can connect Social Media to ROI, but only after an extended period of time and not your first priority. The first priority is connecting with the target audience via conversations, not marketing messages.

Questions from the Audience:

Q - How do you find niche social sites?
A - You can find niche social sites by searching, looking at blogrolls and sites that target market friends are talking about.

Q - Can you reach out to bloggers as an individual or as the company?
A - You can do both, dependent on the blogger. If the blog you are talking to is small, then tailor the message and reach out with a non-mass email type note.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2009. | Online Marketing Summit: Social Media Basics | 16 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

People discover new sites through search, but also through recommendations made via email, word of mouth and through social media content. Making a web site social media friendly will facilitate the saving and sharing of content with others, extending reach and facilitating engagement. 

Consumers find new content via social networking sites ranging from links on Twitter to Facebook to their favorite blogs.  Content creation and links that occur as an outcome of social media participation can provide positive signals to search engines and affect search visibility. Making a site more social media friendly will expand the opportunity for content to be discovered directly and indirectly.

Search is the most efficient and effective way for consumers to discover content. Companies that want to take advantage now of where trends in information publishing, discovery and marketing would do well to ensure their content strategy factors in the value of search as well as social media.

Core concepts to understand search engine friendly web sites includes:

• Crawlable content
• Site organization
• Internal links
• Keyword usage - content optimization
• Code/HTML optimization
• Inbound links from external web sites

The notion of “search engine friendly” basically means making a web site easy for search engines to find, make a copy of, understand and rank in search results.  Search engines are by no means perfect, not even Google. Making web sites more search engine friendly means making up for shortcomings in the search engines’ ability to crawl, index and sort web content.

This is why SEO is an important asset to the performance of natural seasrch results. All major search engines invest in continued improvements in order to achieve a better search experience for users. Some of the things that SEOs have traditionally done for web site publishers are now handled automatically by search engines such as many of the features included in Google’s Webmaster tools.

Improving a web site’s availability to search engines as well as keyword usage and links (internal/external) helps the search engine provide better search results to consumers. It’ also helps companies marketing their products and services to attract more qualified buyers. Not only can web site traffic increase, but the right kind of visitors will self segment themselves by the keywords they use to search.

Many companies have the search issue handled or at least they’re on their way. A recent study by eMarketer shows B2B companies rate Search Marketing as one of their top marketing investments for 2009.  A poll run on Online Marketing Blog with well over 500 responses also ranked SEO as a top digital marketing tactic for 2009.

Standard search is evolving but it’s not enough to remain competitive to focus on standard Search Engine Optimization tactics.  The social web is the web of the near future and real time search results through services like search.twitter.com or even the new sort by recency option within Google are giving consumers more control over the freshness of the information available to them.

The increasing demand for fresh, live web content as well as the expectation of consumers to interact with what they find in the search results demands that web site owners and content publishers make their web sites both search and social media friendly.

Here are a few ways web sites can make themselves more “Social Media Friendly”:

• Fresh content - To play the search and social media game, a web site must be in the content publishing business. Search engines and participants of the social web respond favorably to the signals created from frequent updates.  Participation in off site social channels can be brought into the corporate web site through RSS or widgets providing web site visitors access to additional forms of information and interaction with the company.

• Social content - Not all of a company’s social web participation needs to happen offsite with third party tools. The addition of a blog, reviews, forum or even a social network to the company web site can provide intersted consumers opportunities to interact with other brand fans as well as the company.  

• Easy to share - Besides the ability to contribute to conversations happening on a corporate web site, there’s a tremendous opportunity and benefit to making it easy for site visitors to share that content with others.  Many sites offer “share this” options that make it easy for readers to submit the page being viewed to popular social bookmarking and social news web sites such as Digg, Delicious and StumbleUpon.  Sharing options for Facebook, Twitter and email are also popular.Making it easy for web site visitors to share interesting content (web pages, video, images) facilitates the word of mouth recommendations people make in real life, except when done online, they become searchable assets.

The advantages of incorporating social features include improved online word of mouth, stimulating conversations with prospective customers and advocates and expanded market reach. The question is, are web marketing teams incorporating a social media strategy with their overall search marketing and vice versa?  

Are you making your web site search engine friendly for the social web?

You can find 5 ways to make your web site search engine and social media friendly in this companion blog post at Mashable.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2009. | Is Your Web Site SEO and Social Media Friendly? | 22 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

Does less than 100% or even 50% market reach for marketing content mean a blog or web site should republish exact duplicates at every opportunity? Of course not. Repurposing content probably isn’t substantially “green” either, but as marketing messages are made unique for distinct audiences, content can be repurposed or customized from one format to another or be updated to deliver value to a different distribution channel.  Here are 5 of many ways companies can repurpose content for marketing purposes in ways that are efficient and meet the needs of target audiences.

1. Turn Powerpoint decks into articles/blog posts and vice versa.  Companies that leverage public speaking involving PowerPoint presentations can leverage the research and content created for the presentation as a compliment or inspiration for supporting materials.

For example, a single PowerPoint presentation can literally be leveraged as content for a series of blog posts promoting the event for which the PowerPoint presentation was created. Alternatively, a series of blog posts or articles can serve as the structure for a presentation.  Such inspiration doesn’t need to be limited to blog content and can be extended to contributed articles, microblogging and other media such as video and graphical diagrams.  

2. Aggregate email interviews (answers you’ve given” into a blog post/article).  If there are people at your organization that give interviews often either because of being pitched in a media relations effort or simply because they have a good profile and are respected in the industry, the responses given in those interviews can be aggregated into blog and/or article content. 

Many times, journalists are looking for something fairly specific and will only end up using part of your responses. Or, the editor of the piece may chop parts of your contribution out. Unused portions of your interviews can be used in your own blogging or article writing. This assumes you are responding in text or are recording audio from phone/in person interviews.

Note, do NOT post content from an interview before the journalist or blogger interviewing you has published their piece first.  They may pull your contribution entirely feeling you’ve stolen the story.

3. Break up a long article you’ve had published in a notable publication into a series of blog posts. Add unique introductions and summaries to each. Depending on the arrangement you have with publications that you submit articles to, there is ample opportunity to take key concepts from a long article and turn them into several blog posts. If the article is modular, then it can easily be customized for a different industry with new examples, but the same core message.

4. Repurpose press releases and rewrite conversationally as a blog post or article, linking out to relevant resources.  It’s an interesting exercise to take a formal announcement and imagine how the same news would be explained conversationally, without marketing hype or PR speak. Do that and write it as a blog post including links to supporting articles, blog posts and resources within the post or at the end as recommended reading.

5. Revise old blog posts, updating titles, recent news references, examples and links to updated external resources.  Blogging has been around long enough that there’s a substantial amount of content that continues to offer value, but is lost in the sheer volume of blog posts.  The social web has a short attention span and if there have been substantial changes to a topic, it makes sense to revisit it and update with current supporting references. 

Repurposing content for marketing will only work if the new articles, blog posts, videos, diagrams, presentations or other media offer value and are sufficiently different so as to not be categorized as duplicate content.  There’s no question that in order to compete on today’s search marketing world, content plays a tremendous part.

Whether companies repurpose offline content for online use (ex: tradeshow videos converted to a series on YouTube) or mine their sales and customer service conversations to develop online resources (ex: FAQ blog post series based on top prospective customer questions), there’s plenty of room for creativity in order to become more efficient with content marketing. 

As a percentage of online marketing content creation as a whole, repurposed content should probably never exceend 5% or 10% and it certainly needs to serve corporate messaging and marketing objectives. Over time, the kinds of repurposed content that yield the best results can be tracked and made part of the overall online content development and marketing process.

What creative ways have you found to repurpose content for online marketing that provides as much or more value than the original? Is there really any way to make your online marketing efforts “green”?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2009. | Green Online Marketing: 5 Ways to Repurpose Content | 17 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

For many webmasters, managing link building campaigns can seem pretty daunting. Identifying a link building strategy is one key to success. Another is ensuring link building efficiency and follow up. Identifying processes and tools to help increase this efficiency can greatly increase the amount and value of links you achieve.

BuzzStream is one such tool. Developed by the creators of ApartmentRatings.com, BuzzStream helps identify sites from which to request links, and makes this link building process efficient and human. The BuzzStream for Link Building tool works in 4 key ways: Identifying contact information, managing communications, managing link opportunities and link request sent, and monitoring backlinks achieved.

When searching for link building opportunities, BuzzStream’s BuzzMarker can help quickly identify contact information and website information to easily categorize within your BuzzStream Dashboard. By pulling this information automatically, BuzzMarker helps save time, rather than the link builder spending minutes searching for a contact email address or documenting content categories. Then, when this information is placed in the BuzzStream Dashboard, you are able to sort by a variety of factors, such as PageRank, date found, type of link, and contact status.

BuzzStream also allows you to easily manage communications between themselves and the website’s owner or writer. BuzzStream identifies Tweeting between your accounts, as well as emails being sent back and forth. This communication monitoring helps you, as a link builder, begin a relationship with this webmaster, and build it over time. The website owner is more likely to link to a person they know, so these relationships matter.

Once the link request is sent, BuzzStream catalogs this request to easily be found later. You can search by requests sent within a particular timeframe, requests sent to sites with a certain PageRank and many other sorting factors to make documenting and reporting these request simple and efficient.

The main objective to all of this opportunity documentation and relationship building is acquiring the link. BuzzStream keeps with its efficiency trend and employs a backlink checker which automatically runs each week to detect the achievement of a link from the link requests you’ve sent out. This information is then automatically documented in your contact dashboard, allowing you now to easily sort by which link you’ve received. On top of that, the backlink checker also identifies if any links were taken away, if the links were NoFollowed, if the anchor text changed, or if the page that holds your link all of a sudden becomes populated with spammy content. Because of this, you can also easily see the value of each link you’ve achieved, and you know how to request updates if necessary.

BuzzStream does an great job of streamlining the link request process, and the automatic documentation of it all is incredible. With affordable price points for up to 20 different users, BuzzStream can be an effective linking asset for individuals starting their own link building to agencies looking to automate some of their processes.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2009. | SEO Tool Review: BuzzStream for Link Building | 21 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

In the marketing mix, SEO is only one slice and company marketers are tasked with many other responsibilities. Wearing many hats does not leave much time to stay on top of SEO current best practices, let alone being able to test and experiment to uncover competitive advantages.

The snapshot of SEO knowledge taken months or years ago starts as a well intentioned premise, but without current information and best practices, can become outdated. Client side marketers and agencies that don’t specialize in search that rely on infrequent snapshots of information can end up unitentionally sabotaging the SEO effort.

Some companies rely on the web and search specifically, enough to warrant full time or part time SEO staff. However, what often happens with in-house SEOs is that they become tasked with many other responsibilities besides content optimization, link building and ongoing analysis. Educating and evangelizing SEO within companies can take a significant amount of time. Coordinating cross functional teams and reporting can also take away from core SEO implementation and oversight efforts.

With so much time spent on SEO tasks as well as ancillary activities, there’s not much time for experimentation and testing of new tactics. Without innovation, competitive advantage decreases and search based revenues can fall to competitors.

Other companies forego hiring an internal SEO professional and either task web developers, marketing and/or PR with SEO tasks. Each person performs their duties based on a different snapshot of SEO knowledge and experience, causing differences in implementation or a focus on things that are no longer impactful.  This is where you hear arguments about the importance of toolbar PageRank, keyword meta tags and latent semantic indexing silliness. Hell, some people still bring up “Florida Update“. 

I hate to say it, but hiring an outside SEO firm is not always the answer either. Some SEO consultants are structured to follow established processes with their own snapshot of SEO knowledge. Being accountable to increasing revenues puts an emphasis on efficiency and automating as many redundant processes as possible. Some SEO companies develop software for much of their solution to improve efficiency and ability to scale. 

The problem with relying entirely on software based solutions to solve SEO problems is that it’s tough to innovate and stay current when your SEO expertise is based mostly on predefined checklists. Round pegs into round holes is great, but how do those programs deal with square pegs, triangles, rhombuses and trapezoids akin to some of the algorithmic, user interface and social media developments?  The focus on efficiency and profitablity leaves little time to innovate SEO knowledge, at least not quickly.

The solution to staying current with search marketing isn’t a magic pill or silver bullet software solution. It’s not adding more SEO staff in-house or outside vendors.  The answer is organizational and strategic. The environment in which a company web site serves as a tool to grow the business via new customer acquisition, product sales, lead generation, communicating with existing customers, marketing partners, the media, potential employees and industry influentials must allocate time for and reward innovation. 

A common and shared purpose and goal that is understood by all in the organization that is then translated uniquely to each department and person helps build a framework for the kind of innovation that not only affects SEO, but marketing, customer service, media relations and human resources.

Call it content strategy or just call it marketing, but don’t ignore the need for a  holistic approach to making digital content available and easy for intended audiences to discover, interact with and share. SEO of digital assets and text content improves sales for marketing, reduces customer service costs, can increase media coverage with news content and can improve job placement performance, among many other benefits.  

As I like to say, “If it can be searched on, it can be optimized”. People are searching for products, solutions, jobs, support info, news - you name it, it’s being searched on. The key is to leverage internal and external resources towards commonly understood goals, having a plan and the tools/support/education to execute on reaching those goals as well as the analytics/reporting to provide feedback on progress.

It’s not enough to easily be found, web marketers need to understand how to make their content social media friendly just as they would make it search engine friendly. Consumers increasingly expect to interact with what they find in search.  The impact of search and social media on each other is just beginning.

Continuous focus on improvement on content marketing efforts leads to testing and innovation that creates an ongoing competitive advantage whether it’s search, social media or any other digital marketing channel. The question is, are companies and agencies willing to invest in making those strategic changes or will they be satisfied with status quo snapshots of old and possibly outdated (yet seemingly safe) tactics?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2009. | What Snapshot of SEO Drives Your Web Business? | 17 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

Topics during these events will emphasize the practice areas of our agency: Search Marketing, Online Public Relations and Social Media Marketing. Locations will range from New York to San Francisco to Minneapolis.

May 19: Media Relations Summit, Crowne Plaze Hotel in NYC (event info)

4:30 pm: Mastering SEO, Google AdWords and Other Search Tools to Increase Visibility
If you’re ready to vault your website, landing pages, corporate videos, blogs, press releases, and online newsroom into the top of the search rankings, take in this one-hour bootcamp. You’ll learn all the latest tools, tips and tricks for making Google and Yahoo love you.

Panelists:  Howie Jacobson, Consultant/Author, “Google Ad Words for Dummies”, Bill Barnes, EVP, Business Development, Enquiro and Lee Odden, CEO, TopRank Online Marketing 

Tweetup Monday 5/18

May 28-9:  Private Company Training Engagement, San Francisco (Contact TopRank for our on-site training services)

• Social Media Monitoring and Brand Positioning
  
• Search Engine Optimization Skills for Corporate Marketing & Public Relations
  
• Social Media Roadmap: Strategies and Tactics for Large Organizations

Presenters: Susan Misukanis, President, Jolina Pettice, Senior Account Manger, Lee Odden, CEO (All from TopRank Online Marketing)

Tweetup Friday 5/29, location TBD 

June 2: ClickZ Online Marketing Summit, The Depot in Minneapolis (event info)

3:30 pm: Twitter and Advanced Blog Strategies
The Social Media Road Map:  Many companies are jumping off the cliff of Social Media, while others fear directly engaging customers.  Learn how to strategically align your marketing objectives with long-term social media strategies that work.

4:40 pm: Big Brands, Big Plans Panel
This is the highlight of the day… join a  round-table panel comprised of  the world’s leading brands and practitioners and get the inside scoop on how leading brands are driving success through social media, SEO, websites, and testing, and how you can apply these principles to your own initiatives. 

Panelists: Jeanniey Mullen, CMO Zinio, Founder of Email Experience Council, Kevin G. Espinosa, eBusiness Platform Manager, Caterpillar Inc., Lee Odden, CEO, TopRank Online Marketing, Keith Dieruf, Manager, Online Marketing, Ameriprise Financial, Matt McGowan, Vice President of Marketing and Publisher, ClickZ

Tweetup - meetup 6/2

June 4-5:  Social Media Smarts, DMA Seminar Facility, NYC (event inf0)

9:00am - 5:00pm Introduction to the Intersection of SEO and the Social Web Through Strategy, Tools and Tactics
Intensive, 2 day workshop will help companies better understand the social web and how social media and SEO can help increase brand awareness, improve customer relationships and compliment both PR and marketing efforts at growing business.

Tweetup June 4, location TBD

June 10: PRNews Webinar (event info)

1:30pm (EST):  Boosting Your Bottom Line with Online News & Other Cost-Effective PR Tactics 

From savvy email marketing campaigns to press releases that attract media attention, there are simple, cost-effective strategies that will help you increase revenue. This webinar promises insight from a mix of expert practitioners in a wide range of areas including: 

• How to generate buzz and word of mouth around your small business
• Integrating PR efforts with marketing and advertising to increase sales
• Driving traffic to your website through search engines
• Building a strong community around your brand
• PR’s role in uncovering customers’ needs for new products/services
• Getting buzz and coverage among bloggers and citizen journalists
• Best/worst tactics for holding media or customer events for your business
• How to effectively leverage Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook & MySpace
• Blogs and Video sites: what you need to know
• Pitch your stories to bloggers and to the Twitter community
• Writing social media press releases that work
• Conducting keyword research and finding the keyword sweet spot
• Optimizing PR content online, posting it and building reciprocal links
• Linking techniques: from blogs to social networking pages
• Identifying the most popular search terms for your campaigns
• SEM tools, resources and SEM for-hire checklists
• Email marketing Do’s and Don’ts

Panelists: Idill Cakim Vice President, Golin Harris, Sally Falkow Principal, ExpansionPlus & Senior Fellow Society for New Communications Research, Greg Jarboe President, SEO-PR, Lee Odden CEO, TopRank Online Marketing, Sophie Shiatis
Vice President Ecommerce, PRWeb, Moderator: Courtney Barnes Editor, PR News

If you’re attending any of these events and you would like to connect, please @ or DM on Twitter: @leeodden

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2009. | Learn SEO, Social Media, Digital PR from TopRank | 6 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

Measuring the effect of SEO for Public Relations benefits should start with well defined outcomes. To get a good handle on SEO effectiveness, it’s important to match the purpose for the effort with specific metrics.  For example, if improving brand visibility is a goal, then documenting brand mentions in connection with news & PR content at regular intervals can demonstrate the effect of content promotion and link building. 

Online PR metrics and tools often include:

• News wire service metrics (see screen capture below)
• Web analytics for landing pages and web site
• Google and Yahoo alerts
• Monitor blog search engines (via RSS)
• Press release landing page conversion tracking
• Social media monitoring
• Inbound links
• Pickups on blogs
• Pickups on other web sites & online publications
• News and Standard Search Engine Rankings
• Conversions: Less likely sales, more likely white paper downloads, webinar signups, newsletter subscriptions, demos, etc

As I’ve mentioned, the specific metrics and tools to use should match the news content being optimized and it’s purpose. For example, a press release that is keyword optimized and announcing a promotional offer of some kind, should have tracking codes added to the links embedded in the release. Those links should point to landing pages designed to convert visitors from the press release to the desired outcome. Ranking is not a worthwhile metric in this case but conversions are.

Capturing various measures and key performance indicators isn’t enough to gain support for optimizing news content in many organizations.  These efforts belong within the Public Relations effort and should emphasize goals consistent with PR objectives. Sometimes it takes a little creative packaging of analytics to help other departments or upstream executives “get” the value of  optimizing PR content for search.

Here are a few tactics to use in order to sell the value of SEO within a PR effort:

• Show competitor social search visibility vs client/company
• Show competitor’s optimized news content ranking in various types of search engines where the company/client is not (and probably should be)
• Research a keyword glossary and run a ranking report on those phrases. Show the lack of search visibility for what search audiences are actually looking for, relevant to the business
• Run a test of a few news items, whether they be blog posts, press releases or a digital asset like video. Take a benchmark measurement first and then show progress.
• Set keyword ranking goals for news content and estimate the cost to achieve the same goals with PPC advertising over time. Demonstrate the cost of organic search traffic vs PPC traffic.  

If you can’t get budget approval for an overall search campaign as part of specific PR efforts, then using a competitive example or a small scale test might be enough to demonstrate the value of incorporating SEO with Public Relations.

That wraps up our series of posts on Top Ten SEO Tips for News and PR where you can find an index of all 10 posts as well as the PowerPoint deck that inspired it.

Please share your opinions on the series. Not just the content and whether it’s useful, but the the format of posting a themed series. Did you like the series? Was 10 posts too many?  Your feedback is greatly appreciated.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2009. | Measuring the Value of Search Optimized PR | 12 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

The opportunity for Public Relations is to understand that leveraging social media as a distribution channel to attract buzz and earn links is as important as keyword optimization of social media content to improve visibility on standard search engines.  Simply put: SEO and Social Media go together like peas and carrots.

The nature of the social web encourages participation: sharing, voting, commenting and linking. Popular social content gets exposure, traffic and can result in a substantial number of relevant inbound links.  Keyword relevancy plus aboundant inbound links to content equals improved search engine visibility. Whatever keywords that are used to describe optimized news content that becomes popular within social channels like news, bookmarking and media sharing are what that content will tend to rank highly on in standard search engines.

 The lesson for Public Relations is to ensure news content is not only search engine friendly, but social media friendly.

Social interactions and media sharing amongst social network participants tend to create the kind of content that can improve a brand’s visibility within search results through profiles, videos, blog posts, or other media. There’s no reason the same kinds of activities can’t be deployed by Public Relations practitioners.  However, this does not mean pushing standard press releases or media relations pitches to social networks, news and media sharing sites. They key to news content on the social web is participation first and a focus on packaging information in useful, creative ways.

Making optimized news content “social media friendly” can be a matter of adding social features such as RSS feeds, bookmarking, “Tweet this” and social news submission links. Adding social features to a press release might be another way of saying “Social Media Press Release” but it may not be necessary to go that far in a format change to gain similar effects. It’s best to leverage both traditional and social formats for news releases and measure what’s working and what’s not.

Leveraging SEO and Social Media for PR benefit is meaningful for reaching journalists and consumers alike. In a 2008 Journalists Use of Search Survey by TopRank, 91% of respondents reported using standard search engines to perform activities such as research companies, past media coverage and subject matter experts.  In the same survey, 64% reported using social networks, 55% use blogs and 50% use Wikis as social media tools.

Here is one editor’s story of using both standard and social search which resulted in media coverage:

“I was writing a column about the planned partnership between Google and Yahoo.”

 “I tracked down potential sources first using Google and LinkedIn, and came across a white paper prepared by a senior fellow at the American Antitrust Institute.”

 “While I could not easily find an e-mail address, I went to Facebook where I located him, then sent a message. He replied and we followed up with a phone interview.”

The increased use of search and social media both by the media and by end consumers should motivate PR professionals to better understand the digital PR strategies and mechanics of successful SEO and social web participation.  Keyword optimize social content so it’s more easily discovered within social search and at the same time, leverage social media channels to promote content that can earn links, increasing visibility on standard search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Live.com.

For more insights on SEO and social media, visit these posts.

• Social Media & SEO Tips
• Improve PR with SEO and Social Media
• SEO Social Media Roadmap

This is #9 in a series of ten posts about leveraging search engine optimization with public relations. Read on for our 10th and final post in the series: “Measuring & selling the value of SEO in a Public Relations Environment“.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2009. | Making News Content Search & Social Media Friendly | 4 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

Besides content optimization and making sure a site’s news pages and digital assets can be found and indexed, attracting relevant inbound links is the next most important tactic for improving search engine performance of Public Relations related content.

There are literally hundreds of ways to acquire good links. There are even more ways to acquire bad links, so knowing the difference can be important. Read more about that below. But first, we’ll describe some general guidelines for news content link building.

Whenever PR professionals execute digital communications, there should be links included in those messages. The best content in the world is unlikely to rank well in search engines if there are no links pointing in. It is essential that link sources (whoever you’re pitching stories to) are informed about the content so they know to link to it. Don’t just broadcast links either, give a reason why there should be a link and make it easy to do so.

 News content creation, optimization and ongoing promotion are all critical for successful SEO efforts.  Promoting optimized content makes potential link sources aware and increases the likelhood of link acquisition for news content.   Where should you include links?  Start with emails pitches, press releases, newsrooms and any other news content being published to the web.

Including full URL links in press releases can often result in an added bonus for link bulding efforts because some content management systems that copy press releases as content from newswire feeds will convert full URLs to a hyper link, but ignore or strip out anchor text links. Making it easy for readers of news content on blogs, newsrooms or elsewhere on the company web site to save, bookmark and share can also add to the link building effort. 

General linking guidelines for news content:

• Earn links with great content
• Promote optimized news content on social networks, vial email, RSS and within past media coverage
• Link up with marketing and business partners
• Include links in pitches and other news content promotion
• Cross link internally
• Embed anchor text and full URL links in news releases
• Social bookmark pickups

Many online mainstream news publications do not link out, but some do and blogs associated with online publications tend to be a little more liberal about outbound links. Sometimes it’s simply a matter of knowing to ask. When a media relations effort results in confirmation that a company, product or spokesperson will be included in a story, be sure to ask if the journalist would link to a helpful resource on the company site. Don’t just ask for the link, but provide something useful to link to. Many times a simple request and having a useful resource can result in the highest quality links you could ask for.

When promoting news content on social media sites (we’ll be covering SEO, PR and Social Media in our next post) it’s important that you’re sharing news content and that it offers unique and/or distinct value. Submitting press releases to social news sites for example, is rarely going to be productive as a way to attract positive attention within the social community. Social communities tend to distrust formal marketing communications. They do respond well to creative, clever and useful ways to communicate information and ideas that are not formal or overtly trying to “sell” something.

For an abundance of ideas on link building for traffic and SEO benefit, see these link building resources.

Have you found useful ways of attracting links to news content such as press releases, newsrooms and corporate communications? 

We’re in the home stretch of our series on Public Relations and SEO. Next up is post #9 of 10: “SEO and Social Media Promotions with News Content“.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2009. | Link Building Tips for News SEO | 10 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

Any content that is published to the web can be optimzed for search and that includes online newsrooms. We prefer to implement online newsrooms with blog software, because of the content management features and inherent search engine benefifts. Automatic RSS feed creation is also a benefit.

Newsrooms should offer easy to find contact information as well as a content categorization scheme that considers keywords as part of the taxonomy. Organizing press releases by date isn’t very useful for searchers. Archiving press releases and other content within the newsroom by categories, chronologically as well as by keyword tag (as in folksonomy, not meta keyword tag) can be quite useful to readers as well as search engines.

SEO and user friendly features of an online newsroom include:

Optimizing an online newsroom is similar to optimizing other types of web content. It’s important to consider the audience whether it’s members of the media, industry analysts or consumers and make sure you’re publishing content that meets their needs. Here’s a newsroom SEO checklist assuming a content management system or blog is being used to host and manage newsroom content:

• Research a keyword glossary
• Keyword optimize title tags (dynamic AND hard coded)
• Keywords optimize category names
• Use keywords in document titles, directory names, file names
• Add social links: make it easy fo readers to bookmark and share newsroom content
• Include an optimized RSS feed to facilitate syndication and ease of discoverability within RSS search engines like Google Blog Search
• Optimize digital assets: images, video and audio as well as other file formats: MS Office docs & PDF

Publishing content to a newsroom typically follows a process. To realize the SEO benefits in the most efficient way, make sure those responsible for adding content are trained on basic SEO and include keyword optimization as part of the newsroom update process. 

Besides keyword optimization, it will be important to attract links to the newsroom from other web sites. If the newsroom is managed by blog software, then it can be submitted to a list of blog directories. It can be linked to within press releases distributed through wire services and included in links published on social web sites. Interesting and useful content that has the best exposure will attract the most links that matter.

Besides using blog software for online newsrooms, many content management systems will support newsroom functionality. You can also purchase hosted newsroom services through companies like: Vocus, TEKgroup International, NewsCactus, iPressroom, PRWeb or a marketwire social media newsroom.

This is post #7 in a series of ten about the intersection of public relations and search engine optimization, “Top Ten SEO Tips for PR“. Our next post is “Link Building Fundamentals for News Content“.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2009. | Pull PR and Newsroom Optimization Tactics | 8 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com