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Blog Commenting Marketing Strategy … (Stupid, and a complete waste of time!) Let me just be clear here so there's no confusion. Commenting on blogs as a means of joining a conversation, or being part of a topic or community, is great. It's what makes blogs (and blogging!) Fun. But a blog commenting marketing strategy is just plain stupid, in my opinion. And a complete waste of time. Don't worry - I'm going to back that statement up and tell you why. Given the rash of new blog comment spam that many bloggers are experiencing this week, including myself (grr!) Even if you're not a "spammer"... While I'm referring mainly to comment spammers here, this just might apply to you as well. Blog Commenting Marketing Strategy The main idea behind a blog commenting marketing strategy is that it's an easy way to get tons of inbound links. Most people outsource this task to a team of spammers, or use an automated software to achieve the task.

Issues with a Blog Commenting Marketing Strategy Most of these comments get caught by filters and never see the light of day. Best, SEO Tops Digital Marketing Tactics for 2011. Here we are just past the halfway mark in 2010 and we’ve tapped into the stream of future marketing planning with our readers for 2011 with a poll. Our question? What 3 online marketing channels & tactics will you emphasize in 2011? The number one answer? Not social media, not email marketing. The top digital marketing tactic for OMB readers in 2011 is Search Engine Optimization Our poll this year provided 44 different answers to choose from ranging from display advertising to no holds barred spam. Hopefully the responses from our poll will be helpful in making those choices as budgets and strategies are planned for 2011. The top responses in this year’s survey reflect a more holistic perspective that includes search, social media, advertising, content and email.

A new entrant to the top 10 this year is content marketing which is a reflection of the increasing importance on providing more than just product/service features and benefits to customers in order to get them to buy. The Easy-to-Use Tool that Helps You Build a Breakthrough Blog. Manage Your Brand’s Social Media Presence with One App. Mashable’s Spark of Genius series highlights a unique feature of startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, see details here. The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. Name: Awareness, Inc. Quick Pitch: The Awareness Social Marketing Hub helps marketers publish, manage, measure and engage with their marketing across key social media channels.

Genius Idea: We're living in the age of the social brand. The Social Marketing Hub was designed to make the social media management and tracking responsibilities manageable for large enterprise organizations. These destination sites are referred to as channels, and the Hub supports updates to all of the following: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, WordPress, Flickr and Awareness-branded online communities. Perhaps the most rewarding aspect of the Social Marketing Hub is that marketers can manage all channel behavior — like viewing and adding comments or replies — inside their dashboards. 14 Best Practices for Long-Term Social Media Success. Brian Solis is principal of Altimeter Group, a leading research-based advisory firm. Brian is also the author of the all-new Engage! , an award-winning guide for businesses to build and measure success in the social web.

Follow him on Twitter. As a consumer, you are blasted with the same request over and over: “Follow Us on Twitter, Like Us on Facebook.” Why should I? What’s in it for me? Today, a notable number of businesses are approaching branded social channels from a "ready, fire, aim" approach. The key to zooming in on purpose and usefulness within social channels starts with the realization that there is no one audience. The answer is as simple as it is revealing. So what are the best practices for creating an engaging social stream? 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. Following these best practices will prevent your brand from falling victim to the coming wave of customer unlikes and unfollows.

Interested in more Soccial Media resources? LinkedIn Gives Brands a Platform to Promote Themselves. LinkedIn is looking to get brands more involved with the site's users through the launch of a suite of features designed to give them a stronger presence on the business social network. The new features add product and service recommendations to company pages, along with product listings, product multimedia and a recommender module. "Company pages now allow you to showcase recommendations from your customers, and help build your brand virally and credibly on LinkedIn," said Director of Product Management Ryan Roslansky on the company's blog. "Each time a LinkedIn member endorses your products or services, their recommendation becomes visible to all of their connections and could spread virally. " Company pages now essentially have three tabs: overview, careers and products. The products tab is where all of this new information is displayed.

Brands have a great deal of control over what is displayed on their pages. Just check out the pages for HP and Dell to see what I mean. Social Media ROI: 5 Steps to Social Media Success. ATTENTION: Join us on 5/30/2013 for a FREE live webinar on Turning Likes Into Sales. Whether you’re an early adopter or finally fell victim to the hype, there’s a moment after you’ve gotten on Twitter or set up your company’s Facebook page where you ask yourself, “now what?” If you find yourself at that point, you may have already skipped a couple of essential steps to building a social media campaign that will grow your business or non-profit. If you’re looking to create a sustainable, effective social media presence, then follow these five steps to social media marketing success. 1. Clarify Your Business Goals. Getting on Twitter is not a goal, it’s a tactic. 2. If you’re trying to promote something, one strategy might be to get influencers talking about it. 3.

One thing to keep in mind when prioritizing your social media campaigns is that you want to go where your audience is. 4. Some questions to ask are: 5. Don’t discount soft numbers. –Rich Brooks President, flyte new media. 5 Reasons Why No One Is Reading Your Email Newsletter. 6 Challenges to Managing a Brand on the Social Web. This series is supported by IGLOO, a leader in helping organizations improve business processes, increase employee productivity and enhance stakeholder engagement inside and outside the organization using social technologies. As more companies and PR firms attempt to manage their brands using social media, there are just as many opportunities for greatness as there are pitfalls.

To broaden our collective understanding of these challenges, we consulted six social media pros with extensive experience in PR, branding and marketing. Each one has gained respect in their respective spheres of work; and each one of them told us about a unique challenge and how to address it. From being transparent to being profitable, from the tools you use today to the ones you'll need tomorrow, here are six specific challenges to managing your brand on the social web. If you've got your own insights to share, please let us know about them in the comments. 1. 2. 3. We love Laura "@Pistachio" Fitton. 4. 5. 6. HOW TO: Better Serve the Social Media Customer. Maria Ogneva is the Director of Social Media at Attensity, a social media engagement and voice-of-customer platform that helps the social enterprise serve and collaborate with the social customer.

You can follow her on Twitter at @themaria or @attensity360, or find her musings on her personal blog and her company's blog. When it comes to social media for business, there's no one-size-fits-all strategy. But to ensure results, you must align it with your overall business objectives and avoid falling for "shiny new objects" simply because they are trendy or hyped. For example, a new business or "first mover" may want to focus on establishing thought leadership, while a more mature business should aim for customer support. In all cases, creating a product that actually solves problems for customers, present and future, should be every business’s top priority — and you should be using social media to help you figure out what that product is. Marketing Touchpoints Sales Customer Service. HOW TO: Respond when Social Media Attacks Your Brand.

This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business. For all the praise that brand advertisers have for social media, they must be aware that it's very much a double-edged sword. And for all the free marketing, advertising and brand promotion via Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and other platforms used to help build an identity and relationship with your customers, it can just as quickly turn on you and your brand. Social media disasters occur for a number of reasons, the first being that your company probably messed up. It may not have been intentional, but something, somewhere down the line, went wrong enough for someone to complain and it was enough for others to vocalize that complaint en masse. 1.

What happened next is a perfect example of how social media can suddenly turn on you, even when you've done nothing "wrong," or seemingly out of the ordinary. 2. 3. 3 Tips for Maximizing Engagement With Facebook Likes and Shares. David A. Yovanno is the CEO of Gigya, Inc., a leading social optimization platform for online business. He can be found on Twitter at @daveyovanno or e-mail dave(at)gigya(dot)com.

When it comes to Facebook, if you’re uncertain where and when to place a “Like” button on your site and when to use “Share,” you’re not alone. Social sharing technologies have evolved significantly in the past several months, but it’s not as complicated as it may seem. Used in concert, "Like" and "Share" are some of the best tools around for driving referral traffic from social networks, opening new communication channels with customers and prospects, and building relationships with your best advocates. Here are three best practices for applying them together. 1. Rather than choose one or the other, sites that combine "Like" and "Share" into the user experience see the greatest level of success in terms of driving referral traffic, building relationships and learning more about their customers and visitors. 2.