Conversify

Why We Went Quiet Yesterday

Nik Hewitt — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 09:29:09 +0000

Stop SOPA

Yesterday we had a redirect on these pages and said nothing in our social channels. Not a Tweet, not a Post. Nothing. Let’s face it, this was out of character. So why? What motivates people like us and sites like Wikipedia, Redit, G00D, even Google to take a stand?

Currently there’s legislation under consideration by the United States Congress that gives many of us serious concern. The ramifications of this legislation go beyond the US and stretch across the whole internet. Many websites, especially social sites, are based in the USA and, if the legislation passes, many countries will likely follow the USA Government’s lead.

This legislation is called the “Stop Online Piracy Act” (SOPA) in the House of Representatives and the “PROTECT IP Act” (PIPA) in the Senate. These bills are an attempt to control the illegal piracy of copyrighted content (like movies, software, and music). Preventing piracy of copyrighted content is a commendable goal, and we totally support legitimate and sensible efforts to combat these activities and protect content creators.

However, SOPA and PIPA goes far beyond simply addressing piracy. This proposed legislation actually threatens any website that features user-generated content. SOPA and PIPA don’t attack the real problem, and do nothing to build up the services that do solve the problem, and simply can’t work from a technological standpoint.

Imagine if any copyright holder could file a claim that your website is hosting unauthorized content (such as a song in the background of a video or even a link to downloadable content in one of your forums). Under the proposed law, ad networks, payment providers and ISP’s will be liable for their user’s infringement. While PIPA targets only foreign sites, the mechanism by which it does so is to put tremendous levels of compliance and liability on third party service providers in the US. All these services would be compelled to immediately remove support for a site or face a costly legal battle that would likely shut off the service entirely. Many small and niche services would be simply unable to meet the costs that come with defending their sites against possible violations.

The real fear is the massive unproductive damage these bills will have to communication, jobs, the economy, and innovation – not just in the US but world-wide. It’s because of this we felt we had to take a stand and go quite yesterday to support our clients, tens of 1000′s of our fellow web-workers, and the core principals of the Internet. Thank you for your understanding.

It seems yesterdays web-wide action may have had an effect. There are now 35 Senators speaking out against Mondays vote on PIPA. Last week there were just 5. It will take 41 “no” votes to permanently stall PIPA (and SOPA) in the Senate. When communities speak with this level of volume, congress has to listen. President Obama’s 2008 campaign success was due in large part to the social media support of under 30 voters, and congress knows the power of the WWW to raise an issue in the public conscious.

If you would like to know more about yesterday blackout please visit the SOPA Strike website.

Five Tips to Increasing Fans & Followers in Social Media

Monique Elwell — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 18:13:55 +0000

I was in a LinkedIn Group the other day and came across a member in group who wrote, “We all know how it can be challenging for a new business to grow a fan base. So let’s follow each other’s business on Facebook. If you’ve got a business page on Facebook simply leave a link to your page in a comment. This is a simple, easy , painless networking tool and can benefit everyone in the group! I am borrowing this brilliant idea from other Member on LinkedIn – Thank You. ”

Okay, so we’ve seen this in every LinkedIn group at some point. I know whoever wrote this had great intent, but I am sorry to say, your result is not going to be what you want it to be. Why? Because there was no thought toward strategy. Before doing anything in social media you need to ask two rather critical questions.

First, who is your target audience?

Is it your employees?
The people who buy your products & services?
Your partners or vendors?
Or some combination of all three?

Second, what are your objectives?
Depending on the audience there are dozens of things you might want them to do in the short-term and that might differ from the long-term. Some examples are:

Increase communication between management and employees.
Respond quickly to complaints for people who have purchased your product/service.
Develop a community/database of individuals who are interested in your brand or have had a satisfied experience.
Engage with your community to develop an emotional connection and convert them to loyalists who evangelize your brand.

Without that your results will be accidental, and accidental efforts produce accidental results.

Since the original request really focused on ‘increasing fans’ as an objective, let’s look at some tips to increase fans of your targeted audience.

Reach out to influencers.
Develop a Conversation Guide and Social Media Editorial Calendar.
Import your email list.
Run ads on Social Media sites (currently Facebook, Twitter and Linked In have them.)
Leverage Hashtags.

But…be careful when buying fans and not spending any efforts to engage with them, resulting in what we call Fan and Forget.

What are some other tips to get quality fans?

Does Your Social Media Style Match Your Brand?

Karen Woodward — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 18:20:53 +0000

You know that annoying girl at the office who talks in acronyms? Or that guy who won’t stop clicking his pen in meetings? Your social media style can be just as irritating to your fans. Make sure you know your audience and are talking to them accordingly. Monique wrote about brand personality and tone last week, and there are a few things that I want to add:

Establish your brand’s style and voice
Don’t just make this up. Know who your customers are and how they talk and want to be talked to. Are they teenagers? Are they sophisticated? Are they primarily men, or women? Without naming names, there is a home improvement company that frequently talks like a teenager in their social channels. Lots of 2’s in place of to and OMG!s and fave!s Someone remodeling or redecorating their house is an adult. So it’s off-putting when the voice of a leader in home renovation sounds like someone who rides a skateboard.

Think before you post
Have fun, be creative, but don’t go crazy. It’s always okay to try something new, such as going a little more casual, or adding some humor. But don’t swear (it’s rare that anything heavier than a “WTF” is appropriate) and only use jargon if it’s appropriate for your brand. For example, if you work in financial services, or the law, anything other than the appropriate jargon sounds odd. And I’ve said it before, but please do not talk like a PR bot. Don’t say, “We apologize for any inconvenience,” when you mean, “I’m sorry.” Only use words like “optimize,” or “leverage,” or “robust” if it fits your brand’s personality. You should never sound like you cut and pasted from a press release.

Humor is good, but remember that it often doesn’t translate well when typed out (which you’ve probably already learned with email). Also, people have different senses of humor. What’s your brand’s humor? Dark? Silly? Teasing? You better know it.

Where do you sit?
Not literally, although it could be. Do you sit in an office and have “office bets” you can talk about? Do you work at a major Big Box store and “grab time to tweet” between helping customers? Are you a tour group leader who’s traveling all the time (with loads of pictures and videos?). Figuring this out will often help you with voice and ideas of what to post.

Are you a We or an I?
Are you speaking as a group, or are you speaking on behalf of the group? There is no right or wrong here, and it may just be a matter of your personal style preference.

The above is just a sample of what we consider when developing a Brand Voice and Style for our clients, and it’s something I love. Every brand is different, and your voice should be too. Listen to your customers – they’ll tell you how to talk and behave.

Have you ever been irritated with the way a brand speaks to you on social media?

Social Media Predictions Beyond 2012 [pt. 2]

Nik Hewitt — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 10:59:15 +0000

“I figure lots of predictions is best. People will forget the ones I get wrong and marvel over the rest.” ~ Alan Cox

With a few basic top-level predictions earlier this week – namely brands beginning to better understand social ROI, integration of shopping functionality into social channels, and web 3.0 and the semantic web doing our discovery and finding our markets for us – let’s take a look at a few more for the coming year (and for the future of social media and the Internet in general). It’s fairly safe to make predictions this year, as apparently the world is going to end before I’m proven wrong. Here goes:

Social Gaming, and Gamification

With games like Farmville attracting millions of users and creating billions of dollars in revenue, it’s not surprise that the social gaming industry is huge. Around 60 million players strong in the US alone, and growing daily. One in five Americans from the ages of six and upwards currently take part in some sort of online social gaming platform. Revenue possibilities don’t only look good, they are the sort of 20ft barrel throwing gorilla we just can’t ignore. In 2009 social gamers spent $2.2 billion on virtual goods. In 2013 it’s expected to hit over $6 billion.

Looking at this another way, being on a diet is now a social game. We are encouraged by our peers and through input by friends and relatives. ”I ran 5 miles and burnt a bazillion calories” is now a common thing to see from a friend in our streams, and we give them a quick casual click to say well done, point, “go you”. Facebook is encouraging this still further with it’s new integrated apps and imminent ‘Timeline’ (legal problems pending) and Google+’s inherent games platform.

A lot of iPhone and Andriod apps seamlessly connect to our social profiles, almost by default, and let us keep track of our progress as well as share the data with our friends. We want to share our achievements, and there’s a certain ‘gamification’ that bridges social and real world together almost seamlessly now.

Social gaming is definitely growing, but more brands are going to cotton onto it. Already we’re seeing growing game sponsorship, especially by the entertainment industry, and free sharing applications based on achievement (all sponsored by brands).

Even Klout is a form of social gaming, gaming the channels themselves, and it’s possible we’ll see a call for regulation in 2012 and for an ‘independent social standard’ in this area to fight current skepticism of such metrics.

Mobile is MASSIVE & GROWING

All serious social channels have a mobile component. Smartphone access to our channels is in our pockets 24/7. There’s 160 million Apple iDevice users and 152 million Android users. I’ve personally posted photographs to Facebook (and Twitter) from just about everywhere, and logged into 4SQ from the top of the highest peak in the UK. I love Instagram (and it’s coming to Android any day). Network coverage is growing, functionality is growing, apps are getting more affordable and the internationally accessible skill base for developers is growing. We share our lives, immediately as they happen, via mobile. We share our experiences of products and places, immediately as they happen. If we want an app it’s within our reach to build our own, and we can already see a massive shift in the time spent on social networks on mobile devices. This is going to continue to rise. Soon, word-wide, the majority of people will experience the World Wide Web in their hand, and not their desktop or in their lap.

Imagine combining our geographical location and with added Web 3.0 targeting. Imaging that Mall scene out of Minority Report where Tom Cruise walks into the mall and the advertising knows who he is, but instead your phone is receiving push notifications when you’re in a certain geographical area with products, deals and services that are targeted just to you. Imagine quickly sharing that with your networks. Delivering advertising based on your geo-location AND your interests could be gold, both together. Ok, maybe not so much in 2012 but we’re getting closer (Japan is way ahead of the game) and it’s only just around the corner.

Starbucks and others are already using smartphone technology to allow you to make payments. We should keep an eye on this for sure. The Google+ app for Android has a mobile payment system, which could open a wealth of possibilities for shopping and payment.

The age of the all purpose Star-Trek Tricorder is with us NOW, and it’s growing. Just wait ’till India catches up, which brings us on to…

Access

Right now there are 860 million social network users, and growing. Anyone can set up a social channel. It’s part of our every-day and integrated into our routines. Look at the London riots – from coordinating clean-up to coordinating unrest – it’s part of life now…

India and other countries and catching up. Wi-fi and 3G, soon 4G, are everywhere. More an more people will get access, and the world is multi-linqual. The point of social is it gets people talking, from the scientific community to hobbyists, and this will continue to grow and people will find new ways to use social media that we just don’t expect. It’s social. It’s the best and worst of us (well, those of us who have access) as a species, and the number of people getting access to connection and technology is growing by the hour.

Changing Channels

Sort of obvious really. Things will become more popular, and less popular, and things will stay the same. I know, I know, but it’s true.

Sure we can make some broad sweeping statements. Google+ will get integrated into EVERYTHING Google does in a very obvious way, but will grow slowly. Facebook will still rule the playground, but be prepared for supersaturation and further security related back-lashes. Tumblr will grow in popularity. Traditional blogging will get less prevalent, but increase in quality and retain it’s SEO value.

On the whole we’ll still have to monitor audiences closely, but be sure they will change and the channels will keep moving the goal posts. The only thing we can do is be vigilant, maintain strong standards, and be true to our friends, fans, and followers by listening.

So there we have it, combined with the post earlier this week that’s my top-level guesses for 2012 and beyond.

Oh, also, just to put your mind at ease, I very much doubt the world will end and I’m prepared to go on record saying that. If I’m wrong, who’ll be around to hassle me on Twitter about it?

I’d love to know what you think, and if you see any top-level patterns forming you’d like to add?

Social Media Predictions Beyond 2012 [pt. 1]

Nik Hewitt — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 14:37:58 +0000

“The groundhog is like most other prophets; it delivers its prediction and then disappears.” ~ Bill Vaughan

It’s that time of year again when we have to dig out our crystal balls and do the obligatory blogging of predictions for next year. As a futurist, here’s a few top-level guesses based on the technology, trends, and the direction we’re naturally drifting, for 2012 and for the future of the social web:

Brands ‘Get’ Social ROI

Companies are going to start understanding one of the core elements of social media. Sure, they do ‘a little’ already, but be prepared for every niche commodity and his dog to see the light of day. They have to or they’ll fail, and watching those of us out here making the headway is going to educate them. If they don’t get it in 2012 they’ll miss the boat.

Social media ROI is not about numbers of followers, it’s about engagement, evangelism, and good will. Businesses is going to genuinely start to see the real opportunities of letting B2B and B2C customers behind the curtain and the advantages in sharing what they do.

In the very near future just about everyone will be able to see a place for themselves in the social space. They’ll realize that ROI depends upon what you are trying to accomplish with your social media campaign, and that channels are a tool toward accomplishing that. Social CRM will go ‘prime-time’, and I’m glad we’re already here.

Online Shopping

All the digital heavyweights are making a play for your living room. Apple, Netflix (especially in the UK), Hulu, Amazon, Google…

It started with Warner Bros. offering The Dark Knight through its official Facebook page, and now brands are really starting to see the real results driven value in having a custom eStore in their social channel.

Look at Starbucks. They have a captive audience of nearly 27 million people in Facebook. They add one tab, that’s a lot of coverage. Who needs to direct people anywhere else? There’s less and less need for a destination site when there’s the potential for people to click away by clicking on yet another page. Why not do it directly in the social channel? We’ve built store fronts for clients selling everything from souvenirs, to wine, to concert tickets and it’s always boosted sales massively.

In the next year your favorite social sites are going to become some of the major channels of future online shopping, maybe (eventually) even giving Amazon a run for their money. Even better if we can gather recommendations from our friends and get trusted input in our purchases. As reported by Internet Retailer, an online study showed that a massive 68% of consumers with Facebook accounts say a positive referral from a Facebook friend would make them more likely to buy from or visit a retailer. The future of social-shopping is very bright indeed.

Social is an integral part of the marketing mix, and the big companies will be leaning on it more and more to keep their customers in-the-loop. Best Buy, Macy’s, Target, and Wal-Mart publicized their Black Friday deals early to their Facebook fans. Amazon and Toys R Us ran contests, giveaways and flash sales to coax consumers into “liking” their Pages. Best Buy created an event page for Black Friday and got nearly 28,000 people to RSVP as “attending.” The future is shopping.

Web 3.0

The back-bone of the web is changing all the time. Flash is on it’s way out. @font-face is on it’s way in. HTML5 is going to get more widespread and designers will find ways to make it rock our world (for better or worse). User experience will continue to grow as a paramount concern. These are technical certainties, but it all goes far beyond the code we see on the surface.

Web 3.0 will be, for want of better description, a self-aware web. Already, if we ‘opt-in’, we have an integrated social media experience. We tag pictures, register our thumbs up with e-commerce sites and publish them to Facebook, we have our Twitter feeds publishing on our Linked-In and Facebook profiles , we give a casual +1 to a button on a niche site about the new Avenger Movie and Google might soon be generating us a Spark for Marvel Comics.

Companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon are collecting this (and other) information about each any every one of us: Our likes and dislikes, our interests and preferences. A massive, and some might say scary, amount of data attached to each and every one of us. This, as defined by the Director of the World Wide Web Consortium, Tim Berners-Lee (who coined the phrase), will be called The Semantic Web. This is Web 3.0, where machines will become capable of analyzing all the data on the Web – the content, links, and transactions between people and computers.

Soon, we’ll not need to search for information in the way we do now. Instead, data is going to find us based on the collected pool of information about us. 2012 will see the web, no doubt driven by search giant Google, moving more and more in this direction. It’s all about the data, and if we embrace it without a skeptical back-lash the right information will be served to the right people at the right time, saving us all a lot of effort and energy. Imagine the applications for this within, and because of, social channels. The semantic nature of social networks is going to allow us almost unimaginable targeting to whatever we see as our perfect demographic.

We are going to have amazing targeting power in the future, and 2012 will move us closer. Just look at Facebook Social ads, and that’s only the beginning.

Anyway, that’s a few to begin with, more in Part 2. As per the groundhog, I shall now disappear.

I’d love to know what you think, and if you see any patterns forming you’d like to add?

Why You Shouldn’t Buy Your Fans

Karen Woodward — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 19:05:28 +0000

We often say that numbers don’t matter as much as engagement. Having 100 followers who talk to you all the time is more important than having 1000 who never talk at all. Social media is about conversations, and discovering and fostering your evangelists. Yet we still see companies who are more concerned with the quantitative results over the qualitative. And that’s understandable. It’s easier to measure how many followers you have than it is to figure out what a good conversation has gotten you. But we’re sticking to Numbers Don’t Matter as Much as Engagement.

What happens when you buy fans

There are lots of ways to drive people to your Facebook, Twitter etc. You can buy them, you can upload mailing lists, you can host a sweepstakes or contest. That will work. You will get fans. But then something happens that we call “Fan and Forget.” This occurs when people fan your page and then forget about you. Your lights are on, people are in there, but they’re not paying attention to you. It’s like your 3rd grade birthday party when your mom made you invite the whole class but half them didn’t want to be there. You light your birthday cake, you talk about how great this party is, but no one is listening.

Compare that to…

Compare that to a channel that’s filled with people talking to you – posting to your wall and commenting on your posts. These are your friends that you hang out with all the time.They love you, they are loyal, and they tell other people how great you are. When something goes wrong they have your back. When you ask them to buy, they will. This may be a smaller group, but you can count on them.

One of our clients has an organically-built fan base that is incredibly engaged. This doesn’t mean that we just chat all day, although some of our posts are just silly fun. We strategically post at least once a week about the product and where to buy it. Over time, we’ve seen that whenever we post something encouraging people to buy, they do. (But if you slam them over the head and ask them to buy with every single post, they won’t. That wouldn’t make a very fun birthday party.)

When you buy or bribe followers, you haven’t affected them emotionally. They won’t feel as if they’ve chosen to be your friend, and they won’t feel any reason to be loyal to you. Having said that, it is still possible to turn these followers into fans, it’s just more difficult. If you have an entertaining page, and you consistently post/tweet, and you listen to your followers, you can capture some of these people and eventually turn them into engaged fans. One of the ways we have accomplished this is by paying close attention to the people who are following us and providing them what they are asking for, or responding to their concerns.

So what’s the lesson here?

Don’t buy your fans. But that’s not always possible is it? Unfortunately, numbers still matter. So if you have to buy or bribe in order to get fans, make sure you have an entertaining page that is updated constantly. Listen to your followers, especially on Twitter. Find out what they want and see if you can give it to them. The whole purpose of social media is to act as a friendly place for you to chat with people who love you or are curious about you. If they don’t already love you, at least make them curious. That’s a much better party than your awkward 3rd grade one where people couldn’t wait to leave.

What are your thoughts on buying fans?

(And you really want a cupcake right now, don’t you?)

HOW TO: Create Your Own Influencer Outreach Campaign

Shelli Martineau — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 13:15:04 +0000

Do you know how to reach your Influencers?

A one-to-one social media marketing campaign (sometimes called an influencer outreach campaign) enables brands toconnect with influencers, promotes authentic conversations about a brand or product and empowers influencers to use their social media standing to tell their audience about goods/services they love/hate or feel indifferent about.

Influencer outreach campaigns can get people talking about your brand but require careful strategy to ensure you’re not spinning your wheels or wasting your time. Follow these 5 steps to start your Influencer Outreach Campaign off right.

1. Define your Objectives

Influencer outreach campaigns have the power to harness the power of influencers (who may not yet be aware of your brand/product) and convert them into brand loyalists or evangelists. They can also convert casual fans into staunch supporters and increase “buzz” in social media about a brand/product via influencers and fans. When creating your influencer outreach campaign, determine what you hope to accomplish and what you can do realistically. Do you want to build your email list? Increase sales? Generate awareness? Create leads? If you’re not sure what you want or can feasibly do, start small with one or two objectives and grow your strategy after measuring some results.

2. Determine your Target

While you may think celebrities are the best influencers to chase after because they have lots of influence over their millions of fans, they’re also difficult to reach and persuade (even if you have an amazing product and an awe-inspiring network of connections). Plus, they often see gifts and products regularly and are less likely to genuinely promote your product or service. Many successful influencer campaigns target people who are not already bombarded with free gifts and perks. They pick influencers because they regularly tweet, post to their Facebook page, and/or have a popular blog.

When thinking about your target it is important to take into consideration things like age, gender, location and any relevant hobbies/interests your hopeful audience may have. If you’re unsure where to begin, a good place to start is your Facebook Page’s insights and what you know about your current fanbase.

3. Establish a Code of Ethics & Create a Disclosure Agreement

Staying true to your brand’s established voice and the spirit of your online community is key. Fans will recognize if you are being fake or insincere which is why a code of ethics for your campaign is important. Will you be following up with influencers after you’ve sent out your product? Will you expect them to write something or send your product with no strings attached? Are there any legalities that need to be considered? Do your influencers know they’re not obligated to promote you? Writing out your code of ethics and disclosure agreement makes your fans/influencers aware of the policies and legalities behind your campaign.

An excellent example of an Influencer Outreach Campaign’s code of ethics can be found on the Klout Perks website: http://cmp.ly/2/va.

4. Choose Tools, Tactics and Channels That Match Your Objectives

There are lots of tactics, tools and channels at your disposal. While this is by no means a comprehensive list, here are a few possible tactics to get your campaign started.

Make an open/ongoing Twitter List (private) of influential tweeters from relevant content categories and themes and use this list to cultivate conversations.
Use Klout scores as one part in your formula for determining influence
Create an ongoing list of influential bloggers and regularly visit these blogs to engage in conversations about their posts.
After finding an influencer and sending your product, follow up to ensure its been received.
Create a Facebook Tab or Microsite that draws the attention of your influencers and collects their email addresses.
Adjust your social media editorial calendar and ad campaign to focus your messaging and draw the attention of influencers.

5. Measure Your CampaignThe success of a campaign is really only as good as its measurement. What does success look like for you? How do you know you’ve met your objectives? How do you track and quantify all your efforts? To be successful, regularly measure your campaign and use the results to readjust and change tactics as necessary. For tips and examples on measurement, check out Haley Kilgour’s Tips for Social Media Sucess Measurement.With Conversify, I’ve worked on several successful influencer outreach campaigns for companies like Apple Bottoms Fragrances and Wine Sisterhood (case study to come!). From experience, I’ve learned that an organized strategic influencer outreach campaign can be easy, fun and quite beneficial. Having a solid strategy in place makes a tremendous difference.

Are you considering an influencer outreach campaign? What tools and tactics seem interesting to you?

How Holiday Shopping Affects Your Facebook Ads

Karen Woodward — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 18:22:19 +0000

Facebook ads are not a “set it and ignore it” ad buy. On the contrary, you should check your ads a couple of times a day to see how they’re doing. Bids can fluctuate during the day depending on what the competition is bidding and how much of your target audience is on Facebook at a given time.

My ads and I were swimming along nicely until the first week of November when suddenly they took a sudden nosedive. I hadn’t changed anything, they just seem to decide on their own that they no longer wanted to display themselves to my target audience. What was going on?

Two words: Holiday. Shopping.

During the holiday season, consumers turn to social media, especially Facebook, for suggestions on what to buy their loved ones, or their boss, and Like Pages for special deals and discounts. Brands are catching on to this and invest more in holiday promotions on Facebook, which increases competition for ad space.

According to the friendly sales guy I talked to at Facebook, competition starts to heat up after Halloween, peaks on Black Friday, and remains high until Christmas. During this time, some companies will bid way above the suggested bid and this ends up skewing all the other bids. So my bids that work so well from February – October become way too low from November – January. Facebook’s suggested way of resolving this problem is essentially “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em,” and to jack your bid up as well.

So I tried that, and increased my bids to 20-40 cents over the maximum suggested bid. So far this is working, which means I’ll probably have to increase my ad budget as well. But that’s the fun in Facebook ads, right? You can’t leave them alone for a second. And at least now I’ll be better prepared for next year.

Do you have a question (or a good story) about Facebook Ads? Comment below.

Respect my (Social) Authority!

Nik Hewitt — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 19:56:17 +0000

15 years ago when I first worked in search engine ‘submission’ (it wasn’t called ‘optimization’ back then) everyone wanted to be on Yahoo, Lycos was our faithful search hound, Jeves served up ‘natural language’ search, and getting a client listed on Dmoz was like getting a hole-in-one. That all changed with the advent of Google, and it became about bots, spiders, algorithms, and we never looked back. That was then, this is now. Things have changed, but the priorities are still the same.

I get asked a lot about SEO and social media, especially by my old industry colleagues, and the dependencies involved in taking advantage of social for SEO. There’s a relatively new (and underrated) concept called ‘author authority’ (or ‘social authority’ if you’re Bing) that acts as SEO for the social space, and it’s well worth paying attention to.

So how does it work? It’s a fairly simple metric (as to be honest is all SEO, if you know the equation). We can learn a lot from traditional SEO methodology and tactics, and social can have a real impact on SEO in return.

The core of ‘author authority’ relies on a link from a social media profile being initially rated depending on the account (or profile/person/business) that’s posting it, and how ‘authoritative’ that account’s deemed to be. This is just like ‘PageRank’ (in SEO terms) and ‘domain authority’ used by Google to determine the quality and reach of one website linking to another. ‘Authoritative’ seems something of an abstract concert, but here’s how it could be defined in the social space based on my/our SEO and social experience:

Within Twitter you can easily see the number of followers a profile has, and the number of followers the accounts that follow the account have (plus the ratio of followers to people the account is following). Add to this simple metrics like the age of the account, how many times a day it posts, the number of lists people have added the account to, and the reach of the account (perhaps how many times it’s retweeted and the reach (total follower numbers) of those retweeting it). Then look at the network of the other accounts around you, notably the ones who follow you and their calculated ‘social authority’. All this plays a part.

Are we talking Klout score here? Well, maybe something similar, and fostering relationships with your industry leaders has obvious benefits in the distribution of content as well as boosting link ranking, but there are other factors to consider if you want social to benefit your SEO and SEO to benefit your social.

If these factors are important in ranking the ‘authority’, then this is an easy comparison to how the big search engines rank SEO values, and therefore how they value what we share in social channels. We can, tentatively, take this analogy a bit further and examine potential common elements between SEO and social media:

Popularity – It’s conceivable this could also be the actual popularity of the link itself. Not only by occurrence and distribution, but also by it’s relation to the stored PageRank and popularity of it’s destination and potentially by ‘likes’, 1+’s, click-through rates, retweets, ‘shares’, and other peer distribution systems. If it’s tweeted to 10000 people, 500 of whom pass it on, this is going to be a flag that (based on a 5% referral rate) the link is popular. The same can be said for ‘other methods of sharing in other channels. Different social channels affect different search engines – Bing likes Facebook, for example.
Relevance – In SEO there’s greater credence given to an inbound link from a relevant website (i.e., it being from a site that’s on the same or a related topic) than one from a non-relevant website. It’s likely this also applies to links in social media. For example, if you are a vineyard looking to foster social media links to positive reviews etc., then links from profiles mentioning wine (with associated domains related to viniculture and from people who regularly post wine reviews or talk about the industry) are likely be considered of more valuable than links from general profiles (who usually have no relevance to wines and spirits).
Text (and possibly text weight) – this is classic old-school SEO. I shouldn’t really use the word ‘keyword’, which are technically a field or tag in a pages code, but I will to demonstrate the concept. We use this tactic for clients all the time when writing blog posts, and weight titles and linked text accordingly. There isn’t usually a lot of text surrounding a link in social media, especially in the likes of Twitter, so we need to make the most of it. There’s a little more for us to play with in Google+, linkedIn, and Facebook. It’s fairly safe to assume keywords play an important part, even in this reduced textual real estate, and that search engines will use the links surrounding ‘keywords’ (and the overall subject matter usually addressed in the profile or other architecture) to further determine relevancy. In traditional SEO text weight also plays a part, essentially the number of times a keyword (and potentially, in social media, other associated on topic concepts) are mentioned. Thinking about keywords and their incorporation, not just when writing the likes of a blog post and especially in channel creation, is going to be critical for the long-term future of your social media efforts.
Link-building – in SEO this is a widespread tactic. Basically, 10 links from 10 different sites is far better than 10 links from the same site. It shows ‘variety’. We can assume the same applies in the social space, and 10 profiles posting a link is better than one profile posting it 10 times. Social media is perfect for link-building, and I now consider it essential in any long-term SEO campaign. It’s easy to see the appeal of social media to those trying to bolster their traditional SEO efforts. Naturally the more relevant and higher profile the links, the better.

Achieving a high level of traction on social media platforms, particularly if that traction comes from profiles with a high ‘author authority’, can have a real long-term impact on your search engine rankings – not to mention your website traffic and core objectives. Just like traditional SEO the fostering of relationships and building of connections can’t be faked. If you’re looking for a quick SEO boost social media isn’t for you. It takes time, effort, and real communication. This is a long-term tactic (unless you’ve got access to lots of high authority and relevant social accounts), but for those invested in their consumers and social media, if done right, in my experience the SEO benefits can be very real indeed.

Any Excuse… And The B2B Social Media Saga

Steven Jackson — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 16:58:04 +0000

Last Thursday evening I attended a get together of the Any Excuse… Yahoo! group. This group was started and is moderated by Ian Finley of the Gartner Group. It’s a group of local Boston current and ex-marketing VPs. The charter is to support one another, with promotion to the group strictly forbidden. Really good group of folks who do a good job of realizing the charter. Given that this is a Boston group, most of the members are with technology and biomed/pharma companies.

I went with a particular interest. With this group being primarily involved with “B2B” activities, I wanted to see what this sample of marketing executives are thinking about the relevance of social media to their business. Even without my prodding, there was quite a bit of chat around social media, and quite a range of opinion. At one end there were those who are adamant that social media has little or no value in the marketing mix for a B2B company. In the middle, people felt that social media was just another tool to pull out of the marketing mix tool box pending the right application. Then there were those who said it was indispensable and even were quick to extend the value of social media tools and approaches as useful to the entire organization – social business or hyper-social organizations.

Interesting stuff. There’s still quite a bit of controversy over social media for B2B. I’m going to refrain from offering my own thoughts on this right now, but wanted to report this and let you talk about it. I’ll weigh in later with what I’ve been thinking about. Social media for B2B? Where’re you in this conversation?