Tag Archive for: marketing strategies

Social Media Engagement on LinkedIn: Proceeding Without ‘Answers’

January 21, 2013/by Corey Padveen

LinkedIn announced that they will be shutting down the Answers feature at the end of January; how should you proceed with your social media engagement on the business network from here on?

Since 2007, LinkedIn Answers has been a forum on the business-oriented social media network where individuals could post their questions then rate users’ answers based on their quality. The premise was simple: the better your answer rankings, the higher you would rate the next time you posted an answer. (Similar in concept to the LinkedIn Endorsement feature.) Well, over the weekend LinkedIn announced that they will not be continuing with the Answers feature, and that it will be shut down on January 31st.

This brings up an interesting issue: how can you go about engaging on the social media network now that the Answers feature will be disabled?

As we never tire of pointing out, social media is all about engaging, and when a feature like Answers disappears from the engagement repertoire of a social media network (presumably to be replaced with something else relatively soon) it is important – particularly if you were a frequent user of the tool – to restructure your strategy accordingly.

Groups are an excellent way of engaging on LinkedIn. Similar to Google+ Communities, Groups on LinkedIn are forums in which everyone shares a common interest. How is this beneficial? This means that if you are posting relevant content to that audience, you can rest assured that the majority of that audience will be intrigued by what you have to say. In some ways this is even better than Answers because you do not need to rely on people finding your answer, rating it and having your credit build up over time. Be careful, though. Our assumption is that LinkedIn Answers is shutting down because of two things: first, there is little engagement taking place within the Answers forums and the cost far outweighs the benefits people are deriving from it. Second, when someone posts a question related to business, it is not uncommon for some less professional users to simply respond with a sales pitch or a link to their website. LinkedIn is a professional network, but it is more about showcasing your intellect and skills through your profile and your posts, not blatantly selling yourself or your product. Groups – particularly the bigger and more well established ones – help avoid this issue by monitoring conversations for such posts and removing them (and those who posted them) whenever possible.

A second area where you might stand to benefit from engagement is your own, or your company’s profile. Engaging content is always a great way to get a conversation going and maintain it. And questions or calls to action are statistically more likely to drive engagement than simple posts without either of those elements.

It will be interesting to see where LinkedIn decides to go with a new feature. If Answers was not the engagement tool they hoped it would be (despite our thoughts that it was an excellent feature) then hopefully what replaces it will be that much better.

What do you think about LinkedIn Answers being shut down? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Facebook Marketing: What You Need to Know About Graph Search

January 18, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Facebook marketing took a major leap forward with the introduction of Graph Search. So how does this impact your Facebook marketing strategies?

Facebook marketing has become relatively standardized in the past few years with the exception of a few minor changes. Apart from the introduction of Timeline and the subsequent modifications to the EdgeRank algorithm, businesses have not had to make many major changes to their Facebook marketing strategies. Well, it looks like that might be changing. A couple of days ago, Facebook publicly introduced their newest feature: Graph Search.

Facebook’s Graph Search does quite a bit in terms of pushing forward the Facebook marketing platform – both internally and externally. To date, Facebook’s search components have been uninspired at best. The limits of Facebook search reached no further than looking up friends and businesses. What Graph Search does is it gives new life to the dying search features Facebook has been struggling to keep up with. Essentially, this seems to be a first step in Facebook’s quest to catch up to Google in the world of online domination, and it means a lot of change to strategy for Facebook marketing professionals.

Some months ago, Google+ introduced Communities. We posted an article about Google+ Communities and noted how they were far superior to anything Facebook was doing in terms of promoting business on a social level. Graph Search appears to be a pseudo response to Communities (and Google in general), and below are a few key points marketers should take away when it comes to Facebook marketing with Graph Search.

1. Facebook Marketing Becomes More Local

The ‘Like’ count on Facebook has always been a focal point for businesses. After all, the higher your ‘Like’ count, the more perceived credibility your business has to the Facebook audience. Well, what Graph Search does is it makes your ‘Like’ count much more important, and introduces an entirely new element to it.

One criticism local businesses often have when it comes to social media marketing is that, because they are local, they do not stand to benefit from a social media program. While there is plenty of evidence to the contrary, Graph Search adds another argument that even the most skeptical of local businesses cannot ignore. Using Graph Search, Facebook users can now search for specific businesses that friends like in a given area. For example, someone can search for “Restaurants my friends like in Los Angeles” and see results of restaurants that their friends have liked in that particular area. So the quality of your ‘Likes’ now matters far more than it did before. While there is no shortage of services that businesses can use to buy additional ‘Likes’, they will have little to no impact on results generated through Graph Search. The screenshot below is an example of this.

Promoting your business to a local audience becomes all the more important with the Graph Search capabilities. This is an element that should be taken heavily into account when Graph Search goes live and marketers are putting together Facebook marketing strategies.

2. Engage with Your Audience

We stress engagement so often, that it almost sounds like a broken record. But in the end, engagement is what will drive a successful social media marketing campaign. In addition to boosting your EdgeRank score, engaging with your audience will also improve your Graph Search results. By maintaining an active Facebook page and engaging with your fans, you stand to reap a whole set of new benefits from EdgeRank. Recommendations and conversations are the cornerstones of Facebook success, and your ability to get found using Graph Search will only increase when you are engaging with your audience – local or otherwise.

3. Prepare to Invest More in Your Facebook Marketing

Like Google AdWords or other paid search campaigns, Facebook’s Graph Search will require somewhat more of a commitment to your social media marketing budget. Garnering local ‘Likes’ will cost a bit more than conventional Facebook marketing, but the benefits will be much greater. It is no secret that Facebook has been looking for a means to increase their revenues from businesses, and this new tool seems to be one of the ways they intend to do it.

Simply building a page and hoping for the best will generate few quality results. As we have noted in the past, an effective social media marketing campaign requires commitments of both time and resources. Graph Search will mean both of these. Building and executing campaigns to effectively drive local traffic to your page will not happen overnight, but if it is done properly, it can certainly mean added benefits from Graph Search.

Visit the Graph Search page and find out more about what this tool has to offer. Let us know what you think by telling us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Social Media Report 2012: The Highlights

January 17, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Social media has undergone quite a bit of change in the last year, and the recently published ‘State of Social Media: The Social Media Report 2012’ from NM Incite and Nielsen reveals some interesting statistics that should not be ignored.

In the last year, social media has evolved and proliferated considerably. In nearly all aspects of both business and every day life, social media has become fully integrated. The 2012 Social Media Report from statistical bureaus NM Incite and Nielsen highlights how these changes have manifested.

Below are a the four most notable changes from a business perspective, and some explanations as to how these changes should affect decision-making when it comes to social media strategies for your business.

1. The Impact of Social Media on Marketing

It is no secret at this point that social media plays a major role when it comes to marketing. The report makes that clear early on with three key statements. First, it highlights the importance of word-of-mouth when it comes to consumers’ decision: “Social media enables consumers to generate and tap into the opinions of an exponentially larger universe.” (2) Essentially, this relates to the term coined by social media expert Erik Qualman, ‘world-of-mouth’. People no longer need to use friends and acquaintances as resources when it comes to purchasing a product. Review sites, blogs and microblogs (i.e. Twitter) allow prospective buyers to seek out first-hand reviews of a product from anywhere in the world before making their decision. Consumer are now more informed than ever, and brands’ hihglights and flaws are no longer relegated to individual client experiences.

This relates closely to a second point made with regards to social media’s effect on marketing: “Social media is transforming the way that consumers across the globe make purchase decision.” (2) The report deems this phenomenon, ‘Hyper-Informed Consumers’. As noted above, there is no shortage of information on new and existing products as a result of social media. Therefore, consumers are able to research every aspect of a product before making a final decision.

Lastly, the report notes an aspect that we continually stress as one of the cornerstones of proper social media marketing: Engagement. In fact, the report focuses in particular on an issue we constantly stress: “Though roughly one-third of social media users find ads on social networking sites more annoying than other types of Internet advertisements, research suggest that there are opportunities for marketers to engage with consumers via social media.” (2) The statistics clearly show that aggressive, self-promotional marketing via social media can hinder a consumer’s decision to buy, but the opportunity to engage directly with consumers is made available in a way that had previously never existed.

2. Mobile is on the Rise

Apps and mobile media were in the spotlight when it came to social media in the last year. The image below shows just how many more people are accessing brands via their mobile devices.

It would be hard to suggest that these numbers are not significant. In a single year, the number of people accessing the mobile web and mobile apps increased over 80%. This upward trend suggests that we can see continued growth when it comes to mobile being a driving force behind social marketing. And this is something marketers should keep in mind when devising strategies for clients. Mobile is not to be ignored! It should also be noted that when it comes to spending time online, people tend to spend it on social networking sites. With regards to mobile, 30% of time spent on mobile web is spent on social media.

Furthermore, in the last year, the amount of time consumers spent on social apps increased by 76% – time spent on apps now accounts for more than a third of social networking time. Effectively, if you or your client are not engaging with the mobile audience, then there is an entirely untapped market of millions engaging with competitors who are.

3. The Unprecedented Growth of Pinterest

Pinterest is quickly becoming one of the most popular social networking sites, and its business uses are growing every day. With the introduction of business pages a few months ago, and the subtle yet powerful business capabilities Pinterest has to offer, we can expect to see its use in business increase even further. Below are a few key statistics about the demographics using the photo sharing social media network, and a graph showing the shocking growth of Pinterest’s popularity in the last year.

In the coming year, Pinterest will certainly continue to evolve and grow, and this unprecedented level of growth in its incipience suggests that it will become even more of a powerful business tool in the coming year.

4. Social Care: Customer Service Through Social Media

According to the report, one third of social media users say they prefer social care over conventional telephone-based customer service. What is social care exactly? Social care is is customer service via social media. Effectively, it is using social media – a very public sphere – to deal with customer complaints, questions, comments and any other client interaction. While some companies use social care in a manner that is simply directing clients to call a customer service line, those using it correctly are engaging with clients on social media in real time as an issue arises.

This does two things. First, it creates a public sphere in which leads can see how you deal with your clients. And second, it provides a degree of control over what is said about your brand and how it is perceived. If you simply bury your head in the sand when an issue arises, it remains on social media networks for anyone to see, and not engaging as a crisis takes place can be devastating. Considering the fact that the findings show that 47% of social media users engage in Social Care, not taking advantage of the potential it has to offer can be quite detrimental to the public perception of your brand.

You can access the full report here. There is plenty of useful information available to marketers in the report, and we thought the points above were some of the highlights. We would love to know what you think other key takeaways might be, so please share with us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Twitter Marketing Done Right: 3 Tips to Maximize Your Twitter Marketing

January 15, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Twitter marketing can be an excellent resource, but only if it is done properly.

Time and time again we stress the importance of a strategy when it comes to Twitter marketing and other forms of social media marketing. Where Twitter marketing differs, however, is in the approach you take to promoting your brand. As we never tire of pointing out, Twitter is not a realm apt for self-promotion. And if you approach the social network as a place to simply tout your brand and aggressively pursue conversions, you will be disappointed with the results. So how can you go about conducting your Twitter marketing in an efficient manner so that you get the most out of all the social network has to offer from a business perspective?

Below are three pointers that should help you get the most our of your Twitter marketing efforts. Twitter can be an exceptional tool for driving business, but your strategy must be in line with Twitter best practices in order to see the best results.

1. Establish Your Goals and Measurement Criteria

There is an entire world of untapped leads and potential clients on Twitter, and heading into the social network blind may leave you stumbling to get on track. Therefore, before embarking on your Twitter marketing campaign, you should first define both your goals and how you plan on measuring said goals. If you jump into Twitter expecting that your first tweet will garner dozens of retweets and loads of conversions and followers, you’re going to be disappointed. (Unless of course you’re a celebrity, in which case we appreciate you reading our blog!) Your strategy needs to include a few key criteria. Below is a list of things to consider when launching your Twitter marketing campaign.

Who is your target audience?
Are you looking for followers in a geo-targeted area or worldwide?
Are you hoping for conversions on a website or at a location?

Once you’ve answered these questions, it is time to get a little more specific.

Do you already have a set of followers? If so, how would you categorize them? If not, how do you plan on acquiring them?
If you are looking for followers in a specific location, how do you plan on finding them?
What do you consider a conversion from Twitter? Is it s click through? A download? A subscription? A purchase?
Are you hoping to use Twitter to increase your current business or start something new?

The answers to these questions are essential before you begin marketing on Twitter. Once these goals are defined, you can establish your measurement criteria. This is a little trickier, because in order to measure the success of your Twitter marketing, you need to have answered the third question in the second set of bullet points above: What do you consider a conversion from Twitter? Once you have this answer, you can set up the appropriate criteria for monitoring the success of your campaigns.

2. Design Your Messages Around Your Niche

As you begin building your audience, you are going to want to keep them captivated. One devastating mistake many marketers often make is sending out nothing but self-promotion. While you might be the expert in a given field, constantly telling people about it and ignoring engaging content will get you nowhere. You will want to design your messages around the niche you wish to target in order to keep them engaged. Below are a few helpful tips to consider when drafting your messages and content.

People love advice and garnering knowledge, so share what you know to showcase your expertise as opposed to simply stating that you are the expert.
Quick, entertaining content is a great way to engage with your followers. Share fun facts and quirky anecdotes that people want to see.
Focus on a designated subject or theme that stretches across all of your messages. Keep your content on track so that the niche audience you build stays engaged.
Do not bombard you followers with links and promotional content. Once in a while a message like this is fine – but this should under no circumstances be your starting point.

Engaging content should be the focal point in drafting all of your Twitter messages. One goal that should always be present is to convert your audience members into brand advocates. We can’t all be Coca-Cola or Harley Davidson – we have to work to get our fans coming back. And, as with all social media, content is king when it comes to boosting your audience.

3. Narrow Your Audience with Twitter Lists

Twitter Lists are a fantastic way of segmenting your audience into appropriate categories. Say you have a thousand followers. Great! But not all of them will be following you for the same reasons. Some might follow you because they are in the same industry. Some might follow you because they are interested in your online product or service. Others might follow you because they live in your area, and are already physical customers. Each of these three categories will respond to your content differently. Lists will help you engage with all of them in the right way.

Once you have segmented your followers into lists, you will be able to design campaigns and messages to go out that are geared towards engaging with one of these groups specifically. The industry members might not be interested in your sales and promotions, but they might find some of your industry-relevant messages much more useful. Your physical customers may have no use for online promotions, but they might jump at the chance to collect in-store offers promoted via Twitter. Take this into account when setting up your campaigns, and use the Twitter Lists to your advantage.

These are just a few of the best practices when it comes to Twitter marketing. Over time, your Twitter strategy evolves and some of these points change and disappear while new ones are added. But to get the most out of your Twitter marketing when you are getting started, these pointers should certainly help.

Can you think of any other best practices when it comes to launching your Twitter marketing? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Social Media Marketing: 4 Reasons for Business Blogging

January 14, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Social media marketing is not relegated to social networks; a business blog can drive some of your best engagement.

While a large proportion of social media marketing will inevitably take place on social networks, it is not simply about using Twitter and Facebook and drive engagement with your fans. If the ultimate goal is conversion – be it through a download, a visit, or a purchase – then social media marketing cannot end with social networks. In fact, this is only the first step in your social media marketing efforts. The real engagement and conversion opportunities should be taking place on your website. But without compelling content, you might lose your audience the moment they step virtual foot onto your website. So how can you go about extending your social media marketing efforts outside of major social networking sites? Create and manage a business blog.

Business blogs are a phenomenal way of increasing traffic, engaging with your audience and driving up conversion rates. If your website is nothing more than a multi-page, custom-named and built online ad for your product or service, then the results will be the same as they would if your social media marketing efforts were to simply tout your company without ever making an effort to engage with your audience: poor. Sharing helpful, insightful and engaging information through the use of a company blog is a great way to not only encourage visitors to come back for more reading, but an incredible tool for increasing your discoverability and conversion.

Below are just a few of the reasons why having a business blog can take your online business to the next level.

1. The Proof is in the Numbers!

The inbound marketing experts at HubSpot conducted quite a bit of research and found that a business blog is one of the best ways to increase your business’s exposure and sales. They noted that 57% of businesses have acquired a customer through their company blog and that companies that blog get 55% more web traffic. Those numbers are hard to ignore. Ask any marketer (or business owner, for that matter) if they would opt into executing a program that drives that much additional traffic, and you would be hard pressed to find anyone who says they would not.

2. Blogs Boost Your Discoverability

One of the best (and simplest) ways to increase your SERPs on search engines like Google is to use a blog. Google’s algorithm includes as some of its main components ranking criteria like keywords and fresh content. A blog allows you to both optimize pages for sets of keywords and to consistently produce new content that search engines love to rank. Furthermore, engagement and link building through your blog further helps to increase your search rankings. Lastly, every entry to a blog registers as a new page to be indexed. The larger your site, the greater your chances of having pages indexed by Google, and a blog offers that better than any other alternative. Integrating your social media marketing with your blog – that is, pinning photos, tweeting new articles, publishing links to your blog on Facebook and Google+ – will do even more with regards to increasing your SERPs.

There are few other methods out there that work as well as a blog when it comes to increasing your search rankings. That said, in order for your blog to work, the strategy you have in place when it comes to building your blog needs to incorporate SEO (i.e. optimizing your posts). So be sure to take that into account before you begin blogging.

3. Showcase Your Expertise

In past posts, we have noted how detrimental self-promotion can be when it comes to social media marketing. Social networks are about one thing: being social. And when a brand bombards its followers with promotional content – the social equivalent of e-mail spam – it runs the risk of losing those fans. A blog, however, is a great place to showcase your knowledge and expertise without directly marketing to your readers. Sure, a call to action is essential, but these can be left to the end, after you’ve shown all that you have to offer. By posting engaging, informative content, it becomes increasingly clear to a reader that your company is the right one for a particular job. So take advantage of this opportunity and highlight your genius with helpful blog posts.

4. Engage Directly with Your Fans

Engagement through social networks is a great way to talk to your fans, but your fans might not necessarily take the time to engage with you. There is also the issue of the short shelf life of a social post. Facebook posts have been found to have a lifespan of roughly three hours before the public loses sight of it (and that is on a good day) and tweets have notably less – maybe 20-30 minutes – considering the volume and speed with which feeds fill up.

A blog, however, is an archive of all of your content. And when a visitor reads through your post, you have accomplished two things: first, you have intrigued someone enough that they have decided to visit your site and read further. Second, you have created an opportunity where you can be engaging directly with your fans through comments on your site. This allows you to both communicate with leads in a much more intimate atmosphere, and find out exactly what your audience is looking for, thereby allowing you to tweak your social media marketing strategy appropriately.

While a business blog is a great way to boost your social efforts, it is surely one of the more time consuming tasks when it comes to social media marketing. Creating original, engaging and consistently updated content with a strategy behind it is not as simple as sharing photos on Facebook or short tweets on Twitter. And in order for a blogging strategy to work, you need to be committed to it. This takes time and resources. But the results are proven and you stand to reap a whole lot more from a blog than nearly any other social effort.

Does you company blog? Have you seen results from your blogging efforts? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

36 Social Media Rules of Engagement [INFOGRAPHIC]

January 11, 2013/by Corey Padveen

When it comes to social media success, knowing the best practices is crucial.

Time and time again, we stress the importance of following certain best practices when it comes to your social media strategy. Sometimes it can be hard to keep up. But, regardless of how much there might to keep track of, it is vitally important to the success of your social media campaigns that you follow best practices so as not to lose out on possible successes.

While these rules might be modified or discarded over time – depending on what you are looking to get out of your social media program – there are some that will always remain. The infographic below details 36 rules of social media engagement and conduct. While some of these may seem simple or even trivial, they are there for a reason. Over time, as your program evolves, these rules should be your constant. Keep in mind that while social media might be changing, people (your customers), in general, stay the same. So have a look at these social media rules of engagement and see if you could be doing anything differently.

Can you think of any social media rules that are not present here? Which ones do you think are the most important when it comes to business? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

SEO Guide: How to Choose the Right Keywords for Your Website

January 10, 2013/by Corey Padveen

You might have great content, but if you are not choosing the right SEO keywords for optimization, you might not get anyone to see it.

There are plenty of SEO tricks and tips when it comes to getting found on search engines using targeted keywords, but the only way to ensure that your results are not only growing, but qualified, is to have an SEO strategy in place when it comes to selecting your keywords. One of the trickiest parts of building a social media strategy is that most people have no idea how search engine ranking positions (SERPs) are determined, nor do they know how to go about maximizing their efforts when it comes to increasing their SERPs. Below are a few of the best practices we have observed when it comes to choosing the right keywords for SEO on your website.

1. Don’t Go Overboard

While you might think that optimizing your site for dozens of keywords is your best option for maximizing SEO, the reality is that too many keywords will dilute your results and won’t help your SEO for any one category. We have found that optimizing for five keywords is the golden ticket when it comes to SEO. So, while your industry might have hundreds of keywords to choose from, try and keep it simple in order to avoid missing the mark entirely. Ultimately, you want a keyword density across all of your content between 2% and 5%. What is keyword density? This is the number of times your keywords are mentioned in relation to the total number of words in you content. So try to keep that in mind as well when drafting your posts.

2. Love Your Industry, Not Only Your Brand

Industry keywords perform much better than specific brand keywords. You might think that the more you mention your specific brand, the higher it will rank. While this is true, people might not be searching for “Acme Car Repair” – in fact, the majority of searches will not. So you are better off optimizing your content for the generic “car repair”, and other industry keywords as opposed to simply optimizing for your brand. While the ultimate goal is for people to be searching for your brand specifically, it may not start out that way. Not all of us are a Coca-Cola or a Harley Davidson, and may not have an internationally recognized brand name. So focus on the generic and allow your brand to reach the top of those results organically.

3. Do Your Research

Before choosing any one keyword, it is important to know whether or not you are choosing the right keywords. In keeping with the previous example, you might think that “automotive repairing” is the right keywords for your brand. But without the proper research, you might not realize that “car repair” has not only more global search results, but less competition density. How can you figure this out? The Google Keyword Tool allows users to search for keywords for free, and helps you choose the best keywords for you industry along with other suggestions for comparison.

The image above shows a comparison of these two keywords in terms of monthly Google search results along with some additional suggestions for other keywords. Studying this data will allow you to choose the best keywords when it comes to drafting your content for SEO.

4. SEO is an Ongoing Process

SEO is constantly evolving, and if you optimize for a set of keywords today, it might not be the same tomorrow. (Well, it might be the same tomorrow, but you know what we mean.) This holds particularly true for seasonal industries. Say you are living in the Northeast – the search term for “cheap winter tires” will be much higher during the winter months than in mid-July. So be sure to update your content regularly (corporate blogs are a great way to do this) and do your research on a regular basis in order to ensure that your site’s SERP does not drop over time.

5. Speak with the People

While your car repair company might be full of experts using complicated mechanic jargon throughout the course of the day, that does not mean that your average customer will have any idea what that means. As a result, he or she will not be searching for those terms when trying to find you. Optimize your results on a global level and avoid using complicated internal terms so that even the least savvy customer stumbles upon your page. Expertise is a great thing to have, and will result in increased business, but optimizing for terms that most people do not use will never help your SERPs.

Can you think of any other keyword selection tips that will help boost your SERPs? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

SEO Friendly Websites In Five Easy Steps [INFOGRAPHIC]

January 9, 2013/by Corey Padveen

What steps can you take to make your site SEO friendly?

The search engine experts at SEOmoz have put together a succinct yet helpful image detailing some of the necessary steps when it comes to building an SEO friendly website. There is a certain order of operations one needs to follow when conducting search engine optimization, and this graphic representation of those steps put into perspective what you need to do in order to get your site on the search rankings fast track.

As we (and many others) never tire of pointing out, content is king. Without compelling content, even the most optimized sites will fail when it comes to both SEO and driving traffic in the hopes of converting them into customers. So start by finding your niche and writing engaging content for them. Once that is done, you will be able to move onto these five steps of SEO operations brought to you by SEOmoz.

How do you go about conducting your SEO for your website? Have you followed these tips from SEOmoz? If not, do you plan on tweaking your strategy to incorporate them? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

How to Use SEO for Your Online Reputation Management

January 8, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Reputation is everything, and using SEO, you can manage your reputation to boost your business online.

We all strive to be the best in our respective industries. That said, the larger we grow, the greater the chances that we might find ourselves facing a PR crisis on social media. It might be a simple mistake, but the world of reputation has become much smaller since the advent of social media in business, and the backlash can be significant if appropriate steps are not taken to both address the issue as it takes place, and manage one’s online reputation following one of these issues. Studies show that nearly three quarters of lost business can be attributed to poor customer service or a poor experience, so burying your head in the sand in the time of a PR crisis (and the moments that follow) can prove to be far more devastating to your company’s reputation than tackling the issue head on.

Below are a few pointers that can help you deal with a PR crisis on social media when it strikes, and manage your reputation using SEO tactics following such a crisis.

1. Monitor Your Brand

Whether you’re using a highly advanced listening system or simply following your brand’s mentions using Twitter search, it is crucial that you listen to what people are saying when it comes to your business. Simply ignoring an issue and hoping it will disappear will lead to the issue growing beyond your control. Remember, networks like Twitter have been described as a forum where people tell truths to strangers. Don’t let that truth be something negative about your brand management.

2. Engage with a Dissatisfied Audience

Turning a disgruntled customer into a brand advocate should always be your goal when it comes to social media engagement in the time of a crisis. Instead of a post like, “I hate [Your Brand] because of [Reason],” you should strive to see that same user sending something out along the lines of, “Thank you [Your Brand] for all your help! I will definitely be coming back!” There is a fine line between these two posts despite the fact that they are on completely opposite sides of the sentiment spectrum. And that line rests in how you deal with an issue. So approach dissatisfied customers the same way you would a satisfied one, and resolve their issue before it proliferates.

3. Rebuilding After the Storm

There are a number of SEO tactics that can be employed when it comes to reputation management following a PR crisis. While a crisis might only last a few hours, the backlash on search engines like Google can be ever-lasting – and the damage to your business could be significant. So, how do you go about managing your reputation after it has been damaged by a crisis?

There are several black hat techniques that are frowned upon by both the community as a whole and Google. Review sites like Yelp! are taken into account quite heavily by the search giant, and posting dozens of positive reviews from newly formed accounts will not help as much as you might think. Using proper SEO techniques, you can manage your reputation to promote the positive aspects of your brand while quashing the negative.

First, consider the source of a negative post. Google prefers not to rank content from the same domain more than once. So, for example, if you see that a negative post has popped up on a major news site, try and get another, more positive up there and share it in order to replace the negative one. Shares and links are still the most heavily weighted element when it comes to SEO, so if you can get a positive post from the same source to outrank the negative one, you stand a good chance of eliminating the negative result from the top of your searches.

Second, posting positive content about your business will help your improve the quality of your results. Unlike the poor technique we noted above, this has to do with responding to negative reviews and publishing positive content on or about your site to relevant blogs. Engaging with your unhappy audience in a positive way will better your search results, and new, relevant and high-quality content will always triumph. Remember, you will not necessarily be able to remove content from Google – that it not what the search engine is for. But you will be able to replace content if you approach the process the right way.

Last, create a hub that points to all of your positie content. As the circulation of your content grows, so will your search rankings. There are a few ways of going about this. You can create a domain name with your search term (your brand) in the title – if you do not have one already. You can mention yourself in all of your positive content. You can (and should) link all of your content due to the fact that links are a crucial part of SEO. And you should be posting often. Fresh content is always preferred to dated articles, so a blog will certainly help when it comes to reputation management using SEO.

SEO for reputation management can be a tricky process. But this process is made much more difficult if you ignore issues as they arise. So monitor your brand and engage with your audience to avoid a PR crisis. And if they do arise, take the necessary steps to improve your reputation using the SEO tactics highlighted above.

Do you know of any other tips that might be helpful when it comes to managing your reputation online? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Optimizing Tags for Maximum SEO Results

January 7, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Where can you be optimizing your title and description to get the most out of your SEO efforts?

SEO has long been one of the primary tools when it comes to getting found. The landscape of SEO, however, has changed drastically over the last decade (and even more so in the last few years with the advent of social media). Keywords are no longer the most relevant aspect of your SEO efforts, but that does not mean that you should be ignoring them entirely. In an earlier blog post about social signals and their impact on SEO, we noted that shares and links are the most crucial aspect of your SEO efforts. But if you are using your keywords properly, then your SEO will be all the more successful. Below are a few pointers to help you maximize your SEO when it comes to your meta descriptions.

1. Use the Space You’re Given

There are character limits to SEO. Your Page Title can have 70 characters, Meta Descriptions are limited to 160 characters and there can be no more than 10 Meta Keyword phrases. If you think a short, keyword-heavy description is all you need, think again. Use as many of the allotted characters as possible. These titles and descriptions are the first thing visitors will see when searching for your site, and you don’t want it to be irrelevant to their search. While you might have great content on your page, it may not be clear from the lackluster title and description you have provided. So be sure to get the most out of the characters you have so potential visitors aren’t left looking for something else.

2. Organic Results are Derived from Organic Descriptions

Keywords are important for SEO. That is no secret. But what some people seem to forget when writing their titles and descriptions is that Google’s algorithm takes into account the quality of your writing. Content farms that are full of keywords with no real substance are relegated to the bottom of search results. This includes descriptions with no real substance, as well. If your title and description are simply full of your keywords in the hopes that Google will register your page under that category, you might be disappointed. The Google algorithm is designed to produce quality results, not simply keyword-heavy pages. So when drafting your titles and descriptions, be sure that your keywords are included organically. This will produce the best results when it comes to your SEO.

3. Include a Call to Action in Your Description

Posts with calls to action statistically have exceptionally higher results than posts that do not have any. This holds true in a number of fields, and that includes page titles and meta descriptions. Search rankings are increased with organic traffic in addition to quality. And considering the great results observed with calls to action, it is extremely beneficial to have one in your meta description to increase your organic traffic.

These are just a few tips that can help you get the most out of your titles and meta descriptions. By employing these methods, you can expect to see a big jump in your search rankings and, subsequently, your traffic.

Can you think of any other tactics that would help your search results? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!