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5 Reasons to Avoid Twitter, and Why You Shouldnt Join

MoeTamani — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 04:44:35 +0000

5 Reasons to Avoid Twitter, and Why You Shouldnt Join

internet marketing Articles from Moe Tamani, the SEO Services Consultant.

If you’re not familiar with Twitter then you are probably not up to speed on social networking. But if you haven’t decided to create a Twitter account, you’re definitely not alone. Many internet marketers are wary of using Twitter for a number of reasons. Here are the top 5.

1. Useless Information. It’s true that many Twitter users update their Twitters with completely useless information. Do you really need to know that someone just finished their second cup of coffee or is leaving the office early for a pedicure? The good news is that if you find that you don’t particularly enjoy a person’s tweets, you don’t have to continue following them. But don’t eliminate this option altogether. One of the most important aspects of Web 2.0 is engaging people in all aspects of their lives, even the mundane stuff. Share yourself, welcome the opportunity to let others share themselves with you, and you will go a long way toward building a loyal customer base. People are much more willing to do business with you if they think you have a vested interest in their needs and thoughts.

2. It’s a Waste of My Time. This is probably the most valid reason of all. But the truth is that many marketers generate traffic and leads when potential customers find them through Twitter. When the content you share is relevant and high-quality, you can drive visitors to your website to learn more. Twitter is simply another tool for online marketing, so don’t write it off until you’ve given it a shot to see what it can do for you. Do some of your own research to discover the multitude of business uses for Twitter and you might just be convinced that it’s not a total waste of time after all.

3. It’s Time-Consuming. Like any online endeavor, you can blow a lot of valuable time following your streams and entering your own tweets. But you can salvage some of your time by using RSS feeds to follow relevant conversations. Visit search.twitter.com and click on the link to “Feed for this query.” You can then follow the conversations that are most important and relevant to you and your business. If that’s not optimal for you, simply discipline yourself to check only once or twice per day.

4. Twitter Doesn’t Cater to My Customers. Before you decide that your customers aren’t on Twitter, look for yourself. Go to Search.Twitter.com. Search for the name of your company, the name of your product, and keywords relevant to your business. If you’re afraid that your market may be too niche-y for Twitter, remember that your job as a marketer is to find people where they are. If there are a few folks on Twitter within your niche, put yourself there as well.

5. It Could Lead to Bad Press. Whether you’re on Twitter or not, people are still talking about you, and you need to know about it. Even if there’s poor feedback on Twitter, you need the opportunity to let folks know that you’re aware and that you’re going to do something about whatever it is that has disappointed them. If you respond quickly to the concerns of your detractors, you will go a long way towards putting out potentially damaging fires. Thoughtful responses make a huge difference in customer attitudes. Remember that if a critical mass of bloggers pick up on negative press and write about it themselves, things can get out of hand very quickly. On the other hand, you can make a great name for yourself if you address customer concerns promptly and tactfully.

There you have it. No more excuses for avoiding Twitter. Even if you think it’s the most ridiculous tool ever invented, you still need to check it out for yourself. Give it some time and see what it can do for you. Explore different applications of this valuable tool and let it help you grow your business.

6 Reasons to Avoid the Social Media News Release

admin — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 14:55:25 +0000

6 Reasons to Avoid the Social Media News Release

internet marketing Articles from Moe Tamani, the SEO Services Consultant.

The Social Media News Release is a template available for the sole purpose of incorporating social media and multimedia into press releases. And while it may sound like an absolutely ingenious idea, it probably isn’t the best use of time and money for your business. Here are 6 reasons why using a SMNR may be one of the biggest mistakes you’re making.

1. People Don’t Read Them. Let’s face it, this is not the best way to get your information out to the general public. The number of people who actually view releases on news release websites is quite small. There are better ways to reach your potential customers that aren’t nearly as expensive or time-consuming.

2. They’re Expensive. The optimal use of an SMNR is to send a Social Media News Release with Multimedia, and it’s expensive. Even a limited distribution will cost you hundreds of dollars at minimum. Compare this to the cost of writing a blog, which will also allow you to include images and video. The blog is far cheaper and gives you a much higher return on your investment.

3. There’s No Critical Mass. One of the most important aspects of marketing with social media is that you can gather a huge number of like-minded or like-interested people in the same place. If you use an SMNR to send your information out to 500 websites, you may only get one or two comments on each website. If that’s the case then your interested parties aren’t talking to each other, which defeats the purpose of social media marketing. Not to mention the time and tedium involved in responding to comments on each of the 500 websites to which your release was sent. Consider instead how you might get those 500 commenters to have a conversation with each other.

4. They Don’t Help Your SEO. The whole point of news releases in general is to get inbound links to your site. And while SMNRs contain links, those links are not optimized and generally link to resources other than your website. Use the online Press Release Grader to see how your SMNR release stands up. You’ll most likely find that you have too many links, and that diminishes the effectiveness of your release greatly.

5. They Don’t Help You Reach Your Goals. The whole point of marketing your business is to get people to come to your website and get them to buy your products. So why would you spend money to put your information on another website? We’ve already noted that SMNRs generally don’t result in optimal links to your site, so there’s really no sense in using them for that purpose.

6. They Don’t Allow You to Use Your Own Mutlimedia Accounts. Did you know that if you want to include a video in your SMNR then you have to upload that video to the news release service’s YouTube account? That’s right! Never mind that you’ve already uploaded the video to your own account; now you have to upload it to theirs as well. This means that your video is sitting in an account with thousands of other videos that aren’t at all related to your product or service. So if a potential customer actually finds your videos and wants to see more from your business, he has to search a lot harder than if all of your videos were lumped together in your account. Another problem is similar to the one we mentioned in #3. The comments left on the new release service’s account are separate from the ones left on your account, so your commenters don’t have the opportunity to interact with one another. And you have to visit your video in both places to respond to all of the comments.

You’re much better off simply creating your own release, without images or video, and sending it over the wire, specially if you don’t have the know-how to optimize them. Save the really cool release for your own website where you have control over what happens to it. You’ll save time and money, and the results will be greatly beneficial.

The Response was as expected … rightly so to a certain extended that is why there is a second part on how to do it right! Checkout the second part of this post Social Media News Release Part II

Using Social Media as an HR Tool

admin — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 15:57:32 +0000

Using Social Media as an HR Tool

internet marketing Articles from Moe Tamani, the SEO Services Consultant.

If you’re a business owner, have you considered the myriad of ways that social networking sites can help you in your hiring decisions? Given the number of individuals using social networks like Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter, it’s almost foolish not to do a little digging on such sites when you’re looking for prospective employees. In the past, many employers have entered prospective employees’ names into search engines, but social networking sites are a whole different ballgame. They encourage users to post personal information and have broken down the barrier between what is kept private and what is shared with everyone.

CareerBuilder recently released survey results showing that 22% of the respondents check social networking sites when considering adding a prospective employee to the candidate pool. And almost one-third said that information they had found on social networking sites caused them to release employees from the pool of candidates. Respondents said that information most likely to influence them included alcohol and drug use, poor communication skills, negative information about coworkers and employers, and inappropriate photographs.

Twitter, the newest of the highly-popular social networking tools, also offers employers a way to obtain information about employees. Twitter displays the time and date of each post, giving employers invaluable information when they read that Employee X is “sneaking away for an hour” while he’s supposed to be working on a project. Can you imagine how it will affect your hiring practices to know what your prospective employee has tweeted in the days and hours before her interview?

Social networking sites can play a huge part in your hiring practices. But what if you’re the one looking for the job? Keep these 5 rules in mind:

1. Be Picky About Your Friends. No matter how clean you keep your comments and your profile, you may have friends who post those photos from last weekend when you couldn’t even stand up straight. If you have friends whose discretion leaves much to be desired, at least request that they not provide compromising content about you.

2. Be as Professional as Possible. It’s fine to chit-chat with friends on your profile as long as you keep it to a minimum and as long as your banter is innocuous. Be careful about everything you post.

3. Ponder the Details. Part of the fun of social networking sites is adding interesting applications and updating your status. But think about how a person who hardly knows you will interpret your applications and updates. If it’s at all questionable, leave it off of your profile.

4. Use Your Time Wisely. If the social networking site you’re using has a time stamp, current and potential employers can quickly see how long you’re spending online. So minimize that time.

5. Check Regularly. You don’t need to check your accounts every five minutes, but be aware of what’s going on as much as possible. If a “friend” posts something embarrassing and you don’t notice it until three days later, a potential employer might have already seen it and made a decision based upon it. Likewise, if you have older accounts that haven’t been updated in awhile, delete them or update them. Potential employers should have the most up-to-date information possible.

Social networks are a great tool for getting “insider” information on potential employees, that information that you always wish you’d known before you made a hire. Don’t hesitate to use it to your advantage and weed out candidates before you have a chance to waste your time interviewing them. And if you’re really excited about positive information you find on a candidate’s profile, use that to guide conversations once you actually have the chance to talk to them. Social networking is an invaluable tool, so use it!

The 4 P’s of Inbound Marketing

admin — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 14:19:56 +0000

The 4 P’s of Inbound Marketing

internet marketing Articles from Moe Tamani, the SEO Services Consultant.

Anyone with a background in marketing remembers the 4 P’s, right? If you don’t, they are Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. While the 4 P’s are still important, it’s time to get familiar with 4 new P’s of inbound marketing: Persona, Publishing, Participation, and PageRank.

Inbound marketing is anything you do to make connections with potential customers. It may be social networking, search engine optimization, or article marketing. The power of inbound marketing is that it is an efficient way to generate sales leads through relationships created by social media, through inbound links, and through search engine rankings.

So, what do you need to know about the 4 P’s of inbound marketing?

1. Persona. Persona refers to the profile of the demographic you want to reach. But don’t be fooled into thinking that this demographic includes only potential customers. It also includes bloggers who may write about your market niche, media outlets, and current customers. As you consider the persona of your demographic, think about what their goals are, what types of media they use when solving problems or trying to answer questions, their values, their vocabulary, the types of multimedia that attract them, and what kinds of problems they might be trying to solve.

The more thought you put in to your persona, the more efficiently you will be able to connect with potential customers and others who have the power to get your name and message in front of those who need to know about you and what you offer.

2. Publishing. After you’ve created your personas, think about how you will design content to meet them where they are. SEO experts and internet marketing professionals know that content is king when it comes to inbound marketing. This includes podcasts, blogs, case studies, eBooks, and articles. The beauty of content creation is that you will rarely if ever have to pay for advertising space given the wide variety of free content distribution opportunities available.

Make sure that your content is constantly updated and always relevant. This will ensure inbound links and a higher probability of receiving high rankings for your chosen keywords.

3. Participation. Social networking has forever changed the face of internet marketing. Marketing is now about making connections, building relationships, and sharing information. It is no longer enough to put a marketing message in front of potential customers in order to influence them. Marketers must now use relationships to influence others. Participate in the social web by monitoring your favorite blogs and news sites, commenting on blogs whenever your comments are appropriate, rating and reviewing products that are relevant to your market niche, posting to forum discussions that are relevant to your products or services, creating accounts on MySpace and Facebook and using those resources to your greatest advantage, and utilizing Twitter.

In some cases you will have to do some research about how to most effectively and efficiently use social networking, but the time you put into it will certainly pay off in the end.

4. PageRank. PageRank is Google’s method of measuring the popularity of a website. It is calculated on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the highest. While Google never releases the algorithm that it uses to calculate PageRank, most SEO experts and internet marketing professionals believe that inbound links from relevant sites have the most bearing on PageRank.

You can increase your inbound links quickly by publishing high-quality, relevant content, and by natural search engine optimization. And the higher your PageRank, the more your site will be sought out by potential customers, competitors, and those with whom you can build important relationships.

Know who you’re marketing to, engage in social networking, create fresh content, and optimize your website to maximize inbound links. You’ll be well on your way to mastering the 4 new P’s of inbound marketing.

7 Ways to Make the Social Web Work for You

admin — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 12:55:45 +0000

7 Ways to Make the Social Web Work for You

internet marketing Articles from Moe Tamani, the SEO Services Consultant.

If you haven’t yet realized that social networking is now the focal point of internet marketing, then you haven’t been paying attention. Utilizing social networking is more than creating a group on Facebook or opening a MySpace account. A business owner who truly understands social networking has a gift for taking a broad view of the internet. Where do people gather on the internet? What do they talk about?

How do they talk to each other? The difficulty with using social networking as a marketing strategy is that social networking requires marketers to step outside of their comfort zones and find new ways to deliver their messages. It doesn’t require a total rejection of traditional marketing techniques, but if you’re unwilling to follow your gut and build authentic relationships, then it might not be right for you.

Potential customers are constantly bombarded with marketing messages in some form or another. What they really want is to make authentic connections with other people, which is why social networking is such an overwhelmingly popular phenomenon. To be successful, you have to make those connections instead of simply throwing your message out there to see where it sticks. In fact, if you’re using social networking the right way, you might not even feel like you’re “marketing” anymore.

Here are 7 keys to building authentic communities on the internet:

1. Create of map of your customers. Keeping your niche market in mind, find the places on the internet that have the most influence on your potential customers. What are your potential customers and your competitors talking about? Does your company have anything to add to the conversation?

2. Recruit. Now that you’ve figured out where your potential customers are and what they’re talking about, invite them to talk with you.

3. Determine the appropriate platform(s). Which of the following will work best for your goals: social networking sites, e-communities, blogs, or reputation aggregators?

4. Engage your community. This is where the rubber meets the road. This is the place where you have to put your most authentic self out there and engage the people you’ve recruited to be part of your conversation. Be real and be genuine. Make this about a conversation, not about selling something. Mostly importantly, find a balance between content generated by your users and content generated by your enterprise.

5. Measure involvement. Watch your community carefully over time and pay attention to what resonates most with them.

6. Promote, promote, promote. Your site may not need much promotion. If that’s the case, then consider yourself lucky. But if you find that you need to promote yourself, go seek out places where that can happen. Invite yourself to someone else’s place and then invite them back to yours.

7. Give incentives. Once you have a quality community, focus on giving people a reason to stay. Be aware of what works and what doesn’t, what people enjoy and what they don’t. Always look out for ways to make your community more friendly, useful, convenient, and rewarding.

The most important part of marketing through social networking is to make sure that your community adds values to its users. If your users feel like they’re getting good advice, good information, and making good connections, then they’re more likely to stick around. And it’s your job to facilitate a quality community. It may not feel like marketing, but it may be some of the most important marketing you ever do.

If you’re not sure whether now is the time to make social networking part of your overall marketing strategy, go ahead and take the plunge. Climb the learning curve now, ahead of your competitors, and build your communities. You’ll be glad you did