 |
 |
 |
|
06.30.09 Understanding The Mixture Of SEO And Social Media  By
Lee Odden Earlier this week I gave a presentation on the intersection of SEO, online PR and social media to a great mix of people (mostly agencies) at a SEMPO Arizona event. The SEO/PR/Social topic is an interesting mix due to the convergence that's been happening over the past 2-3 years and of course, because it's the essence of what we've been doing at TopRank. 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.
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". Continue reading this article. About the Author: Lee Odden is CEO of TopRank Online Marketing, a digital marketing and public relations firm in Minnesota that specializes in search, social and online PR consulting and training for companies worldwide. Odden has been cited for his internet marketing expertise over the past 10 years by the Economist, Forbes and U.S. News and contributed a chapter to the book, "Online Marketing Heroes" published by Wiley. For the past 5 years he has also been the editor of TopRank's Online Marketing Blog, a Technorati 100 favorite blog and one of the top marketing blogs according to Advertising Age. |
|
| ||||||||||||||||
-WebProNewsFrance est un publication de iEntry, Inc. iEntry, Inc. 2549 Richmond Rd. Lexington KY, 40509 © 2009 iEntry Inc. All Rights Reserved Privacy Policy Legal archives | advertising info | news headlines | free newsletters | comments/feedback | submit article |
