The Ninja’s Guide to Google Alerts Google Alerts is one of the most powerful free tools available, but it is often overlooked. It monitors the Web for words and phrases and even sends you an email or updates an RSS feed every time it finds a new result. Sounds pretty simple right? I’m going to reveal how I use Google Alerts to leverage brand, authority, traffic and sales, as well as share the exact alerts I have setup for my personal SEO blog. Monitoring Brand Just like John Chow, my name (Matthew Woodward) is my brand. You can then take action by addressing the feedback and getting links added. matthewwoodward.co.uk www.matthewwoodward.co.uk matthewwoodward matthew woodward Monitoring Competitors In addition to monitoring your brand, you should also be looking at what your competition is doing. Monitoring Questions in Your Niche This is great for driving traffic and building authority and loyal subscribers. I have alerts like that set up for Link Building, SEO, Google Penalty, and so forth. Monitoring Content Distribution
247 web usability guidelines Web usability guidelines Home page usability: 20 guidelines to evaluate the usability of home pages. Task orientation: 44 guidelines to evaluate how well a web site supports the users tasks. Navigation and IA: 29 guidelines to evaluate navigation and information architecture. Download an Excel workbook containing all 247 web usability guidelines You can also download translated versions of this checklist (in French, Spanish and Russian). How to use these guidelines Work through each of the guidelines in each list and mark your site as either conforming or not conforming to the guideline. Remember that all guidelines are context specific. The guidelines are purposefully expressed as positive statements, so that when you feed the results back to the design team you can identify some strengths of the design before you launch into the problems. And remember that guidelines can get you only so far. About the author Dr.
Enterprise: List of 40 Social Media Staff Guidelines Managing staff who participate in social networks. This list also includes policies called; Staff blogging policies, enterprise social network guidelines, Employee Blogging Policies, Staff engagement in online communities, and so on. I’ve done a few press (radio, print) interviews this week re: Telstra so I thought I should have another look at how Enterprise, Government, Corporates, Not for Profits are handling the fact that their staff are members of social networks too. I once had to step in to calm down a forum that was off the charts with negativity and general unpleasant comments. To be even heard, I started to IP and MAC address ban anyone who posted under secondary IDs for the purpose of trolling (making up a temporary persona who’s only purpose is to create negative comments). I shouldn’t have been surprised – victim number one was the entire Customer Service department. Behavioural and Etiquette Guidelines for Organisation Enemy Media? I thought I blogged this chart before?
5 Noteworthy Examples of Corporate Social Media Policies So your company wants to implement a social media policy, but you're not sure how to go about it. How lenient should you be? Will being too strict diminish social media's effectiveness? Does marketing handle customer service? Should we even let customer service represent us on social media? Take a gander at these five companies and what they chose to do. Best Buy Known for having great customer service via Twelpforce, Best Buy has a social media policy in place that preemptively addresses privacy concerns that could arise using social media. The company does not want information shared that isn’t meant to be public. Oracle Oracle’s approach to social media is a little on the stricter side. Oracle appears to be of the ilk that using social media in the workplace is a hinderance to productivity because it could lead to too much personal use. Ford Ford’s social media policyUse your common sense.Beware of privacy issues.Play nice, and be honest. Walmart Too strict? Image credit: cambodia4kidsorg
5 Ways Your Business Should Use Twitter Hashtags This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business. Assuming you already have a Twitter account dedicated to your small business, you should also be investing in hashtags as part of your social media strategy. But let's back up a bit, in case you're unsure what a hashtag even is in the first place. Designated by a number sign (#), the hashtag is paired with a word or phrase to perform a variety of functions. Twitter users attach hashtags to tweets as search mechanisms, categorizing tools and marketing tactics. In your business' case, you may choose to attach a hashtag, such as #smallbiz, or even your brand's name itself, as #nike might do. Now that you're familiar with the basic hashtag concept, let's apply principles specific to small businesses. 1. If you use Twitter for nothing else, use it to learn from others. 2. 3. Finally, get creative. 4. 5.
Social Media Handbook 2011 The growth of an enterprise social network at BASF By Cordelia Krooß An industrial company with approximately 110,000 employees and an almost 150-year history hardly sounds like a social media pioneer – yet many BASF characteristics are a strong fit for Web 2.0. These include employees who embrace innovative technologies to the existence of large Verbund sites whose individual production plants are interlinked through a complex network. BASF started work on a corporate online business platform as early as 2008. For an online business network to create true value for an organization, there are multiple steps that need to be taken. Forming the best team Any social media strategy in a company should always tie in with the corporate strategy. Social media not only offers new opportunities in terms of external communication but can advance virtual networking and employee collaboration inside the organization, too. Establishing a corporate network 1. 2. 3. Tackling challenges 4. 5. 6. 7. “If we build it, they will come.” 8. 9. 10. II. III. IV.
A Dongle Joke That Spiraled Way Out Of Control In an age of blogs, tweets, Hacker News, Reddit and Anonymous, an off-the-cuff joke can spin wildly out of control. At least it appears that’s what happened with PyCon this week when a sexual joke led to some very public firings, a virulent debate about women in technology, another virulent debate about public shaming, and now, a DDOS attack. So here’s what happened: 1) While sitting in the 10th row of a Python programming conference, a developer who used to work for mobile monetization startup Playhaven apparently made a joke about “big” dongles and “forking someone’s repo.” 2) Adria Richards, a developer evangelist sitting in front of them, called them out on Twitter and in a blog post for making the conference environment unwelcoming toward women. “Women in technology need consistant [sic] messaging from birth through retirement they are welcome, competent and valued in the industry,” she explained in a blog post. 3) Shortly afterward, Playhaven said it had fired the developer. Hold on.
10 Best Pinterest Practices In the world of social media there are few mediums that go untouched, but there are those that are significantly more prominent than the others. Facebook and Twitter being the reigning kings and others trailing behind with users unsure of what to do. However, Pinterest is proving to be an extremely useful tool for businesses to engage in. So why should you be be interested in Pinterest. Recent new data is showing that it has now become the 4th largest referral network after passing Yahoo and now only sits behind Google, Facebook and Twitter. Its referral traffic grew by 43.7% from June to July and grew again by 33.33% from July to August. It is a visual niche social network that is proving to be a driver of significant traffic driver for image rich eCommerce sites. Here are some tips from ZOG Digital when it comes to Pinterest and your business: 1. Create a content strategy that is centered around the lifestyle of your target audience. 2. Define your goals. 3. 4. Google LOVES Pinterest!