LinkedIn's New Features - a Lot Like Facebook & Twitter with More Opportunities for Marketers Earlier this week I told you how LinkedIn Is About To Up The Ante For Marketers And Brands. Well the changes were announced and as expected the big change was to the "Follow Company" feature that now surely looks a lot like Twitter and Facebook. Let's say you're a company. Well not literally, that would be painful but figuratively. Well not any more... Thanks to the aforementioned changes, admins of company profiles on LinkedIn can post real, honest-to-goodness status updates and actually include a link! So just as your company or your brand gets more exposure when one of your fans or followers share something via Facebook or Twitter to their followers/their network, the same will hold true for LinkedIn. Here's a couple of key points to keep in mind about the new changes to the "Follow Company" feature: Followers of your Company will see the Status Updates on their homepage (when they login to LinkedIn) or by going to your Company’s “Overview” tab.
Online identity Social identity that an Internet user establishes in online communities and website Internet identity (IID), also online identity, online personality, online persona or internet persona, is a social identity that an Internet user establishes in online communities and websites. It may also be an actively constructed presentation of oneself. Although some people choose to use their real names online, some Internet users prefer to be anonymous, identifying themselves by means of pseudonyms, which reveal varying amounts of personally identifiable information. An online identity may even be determined by a user's relationship to a certain social group they are a part of online. The concept of the self, and how this is influenced by emerging technologies, are a subject of research in fields such as education, psychology, and sociology. Online personal identity [edit] Triangular relationships of personal online identity Fluid Nature of Online and Offline Overlapping social networks
Branding: How It Works in the Social Media Age [INFOGRAPHIC] Branding and social media — they seem to go together so well, yet they're both widely misunderstood. While social media can serve as a gigantic megaphone for your brand, social media tools such as Facebook and Twitter can also give a company a golden opportunity to shoot itself in the figurative foot.
Social Good Summit Recap: Good News & Shocking Stats - Day 1 The first day of Mashable's Social Good Summit has come to a close. Here's where we discuss what was announced, explore the areas where social good can improve, and reveal some shocking stats. There were some great highlights from Day One, which we've summed up for you here. If you're interested in following what's happening at the Summit, be sure to join us online at our livestream. The Good News & What Was Announced Ted Turner took the stage at 1 p.m. to talk about Next Generation Leadership. Though only half-joking, Turner offered some more choice words which he received from Jacques Cousteau: "Even if we don't know if we're going to make it, what else can men of good consciousness do but fight into the bitter end... Another bright spot was a panel featuring philanthropist Monique Coleman and UN Under-Secretary-General Valerie Amos. Howard W. Where We Need to Improve It wasn't all sunshine at the Summit, as some of the speakers mentioned the areas where philanthropists need to improve.
Online profiles should be optimised for SEO Note: For SEO, keyword and keyword phrase are used interchangeably. A keyword can be just a single word, but it can also be a phrase or combination of 2+ words. Having decided how many keywords to target and which keywords are best for you to target, based on relevance, commercial intent, search volume and competitiveness, you then need to correctly use those keywords on your website. The aim with this is to keyword optimise the pages on your site without anyone (who doesn’t have knowledge of SEO) being able to tell that you’ve done so. If you achieve this then you’ll please both visitors to your site and Google. These days, keyword optimisation, due to keyword spamming in the past, has been reduced in importance. Keywords are still a factor in how Google ranks websites, however, you shouldn’t expect to optimise your website with keywords and then see your site rise to the top of the search results for those keywords. Where To Use Keywords H1 Tag: The main header tag for the page.
The Top Five Social Media Mistakes Sure you're marketing with Twitter and Facebook, but are you doing it well? Here are the most common traps you might be falling into. No matter how you slice it, reaching out, connecting and having conversations with customers online costs a business owner time and money. Here's a list of the biggest mistakes I've seen business owners make with social media and how to avoid them. 1. When you go online and post in a status update area, do not just talk at people; speak with them. Related: 20 Ways to Make the Most of Your Social Media Marketing Also, take a few minutes to stop by the "neighborhood" of each social site that you frequent and say hello, find out what your neighbors are up to and post a quick reply. 2. I follow the 3/3 rule, whereby I speak with someone no more than three times, for not more than three minutes on each occasion, freely offering tips, exploring another company's branding or directly helping them, before I ask that person for some business. 3. 4. 5.
Water.org - Strategic Thinking on Social Media Automation If you are in Kansas City and not attending Social Media Club of Kansas City (SMCKC) breakfast s, you’re missing outstanding social media -related speakers and content monthly. The September presentation from Scott Monty at Union Station was fantastic , and October’s Social Media Club of Kansas City breakfast (back at the Kansas City Cafe) was equally strong, featuring Mike McCamon, Chief Community Officer from Water.org . I’ve been struck by the organization’s compelling online strategy since meeting Erin Swanson from Water.org at one of the first breakfasts I attended. Talking informally with Erin several times in the last few years, it’s been clear water.org is all over inventive social media strategy. At last Friday’s SMCKC breakfast, Mike McCamon provided a “Social Media 700-level” course on how Water.org uses social media automation, under the banner “Donate Your Voice,” so Water.org Twitter and Facebook fans can share their social network feeds with the organization . Follow Me:
Simple optimisation techniques Although everyone is looking, there are no silver bullets for SEO. For me, successful SEO is about consistently applying some well-known approaches. It's not rocket science, but it is hard graft using a range of techniques which different people in a company and their agencies need to work on together. I've written a lot in the past about "best practices" and on Smart Insights we have summarised the basics of SEO and also the latest SEO ranking factors with which many online marketers are aware of. On their own, the ranking factors aren't so useful, context is needed to illustrate how they can be applied in practice through being creative, so I thought it would be interesting and different to create a series of posts looking at simple SEO approaches with examples. They're relevant for all companies from small to large, but maybe easiest to implement in SMEs where there may be more flexibility in changing page templates. On-page optimisation techniques 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.
Who Are You Writing For? SEO Copywriting vs. Social Media Writing We often think of SEO copywriting and social media writing as two separate ways of creating online content, each requiring a different skill set. But are they? Social media and SEO are becoming more closely related, so your writing techniques should reflect this shift towards a hybrid "social-SEO" writing strategy. SEO Copywriting Keyword-based copywriting for search engines requires you to constantly consider how your content is being "read" by Google and other search engines. The key is to find a balance between writing for consumers and making the page SEO-friendly. The title of your content page or blog post is the first thing to consider, both to optimize your page and attract readers. Encourage action in your headline to create a sense of urgency so your readers will click on it to read more. What you are writing about on your content pages should be focused in scope. Limiting the focus of your pages also makes it easier to insert keywords into your writing. Writing for Social Media
50 Quick, Dirty, and Cheap Ways to Improve Your Social Media Presence - Social Media Zone | Social Media Zone A quick and dirty hit list of helpful social media tips (for little or no cash outlay) – mark this page, return often, and just do these. Please share your stories, adventures, and resulting successes in the comment section. I don’t want to hear any whining about how these are basic tips. Til next time! Vicki @Smartwoman Flaugher p.s. [graphic by ikrichter] You may also be interested in... Search Engine Optimisation guide Welcome to your SEO learning journey! You'll get the most out of this guide if your desire to learn search engine optimization (SEO) is exceeded only by your willingness to execute and test concepts. This guide is designed to describe all major aspects of SEO, from finding the terms and phrases (keywords) that can generate qualified traffic to your website, to making your site friendly to search engines, to building links and marketing the unique value of your site. The world of search engine optimization is complex and ever-changing, but you can easily understand the basics, and even a small amount of SEO knowledge can make a big difference. Combine this information with some practice and you are well on your way to becoming a savvy SEO. The basics of search engine optimization Ever heard of Maslow's hierarchy of needs? Our founder, Rand Fishkin, made a similar pyramid to explain the way folks should go about SEO, and we've affectionately dubbed it "Mozlow's hierarchy of SEO needs."
Social Media Marketing: How to Set Priorities "How do you do it all?" I'm sure I'm not the only entrepreneur who hears this question. But most often, the people asking me this question are referring to juggling the social media merry-go-round. I am, after all, also the author of a book touting the use of Twitter for "an hour a day"–but if I were to apply this same formula to every social media platform, how would I find time for anything else? If you feel pressure to jump on this social media bandwagon, but are also overwhelmed by technology and time, let me fess up to some truths of how I manage "it all." 1. I've been in this business a long time. So while I'm not saying you should ignore social media, let me also say this: You have to make running your business your priority. 2. To say that there are a lot of social media networks is an obvious understatement. As a business owner, some may hold more appeal to you than others. I also like commenting on articles and blogs (or responding to comments made on my articles–hint, hint). 3.
How Big Is the "Social Discovery" Opportunity? - Liz Gannes - Social Want to keep up with family, friends and high-school acquaintances? Want to find the love of your life? Or maybe just someone to hook up with? But what if you want to meet someone new, with whom you might share common interests or perhaps a location? But they do exist. These include quite a few “pivoted” social networks, such as Tagged and MyYearbook, which tried to compete with Facebook and Myspace and moved to a different niche, as well as sites with more of a flirting orientation, like Badoo. Some of these sites are already quite popular. However, at least to my eye, many of the existing sites seem a bit cutesy and cheap-looking — not necessarily as clean and well-lit as alternatives like Facebook and Google+. The sites do have different demographics from each other. What unites social discovery sites is they are free and they have an underlying open social network. Meanwhile, some new sites, like Grubwithus, are specifically oriented toward organizing offline meetups.