“Free Traffic” Social Media Optimization and Marketing 101

“Free Traffic”

Social Media Optimization and Marketing 101.

Notes‣ The presentation will be available online.

‣ All the research, charts, figures, and articles referenced will be available online.

‣ Links and additional notes will be online.

‣ Any direct questions should be directed to:

‣ MSALEEM@GMAIL.com

Before We Go On‣ What is Social Media?

‣ Blogs

‣ Social News

‣ Social Networking

‣ Online Video

‣ Why Should I Use Social Media

‣ Low Cost

‣ High Return, High Impact

‣ Compatible With Other Campaigns

9 Industry Rules of Social Media Optimization

‣ 1. Know your audience and how to target it. Use analytics.

‣ 2. Create original content and don’t be afraid to try new things (stay fresh).

‣ 3. Increase your linkability by creating evergreen content (resources) and rewarding links.

‣ 4. Make tagging, bookmarking, and sharing easy.

‣ 5. Help your content travel through RSS, email subscriptions and newsletters, embeds, mashups, e-books.

9 Industry Rules of Social Media Optimization‣ 6. Reward and thank helpful and valuable users,

linkers, and traffic sources.

‣ 7. Be real and genuine.

‣ 8. Participate.

‣ 9. Make SMO part of your process and best practices, develop a strategy and use the tactics wisely.

Some Notes:‣ Less than 10% of Fortune 500 companies know,

understand the value, and correctly use social media.

‣ Almost all social media campaigns are too generic and unfocused (don’t have a clear goal or don’t pay attention to specific communities and demographics).

‣ Most social media campaigns don’t last long enough to be valuable and expect too much in too little time.

Short-term strategy

Long-term strategy

Statistics that matter (Digg culture)

‣ Audience preferences.

‣ Popularity by container.

‣ Popularity by keyword.

‣ Popularity by day.

Audience preferences

Audience preferences

Audience preferences

Audience preferences

Demographics

Links by container

Links by keyword

Conversion rate

Two Main Components‣ Content

‣ Copywriting.

‣ Design.

‣ Community

‣ Participation.

‣ Presence.

‣ Connections and Conversations.

Content - Actionable Items‣ The 10-second rule: making your content pop!

‣ Writing for regular readers, search engines, and social media.

‣ Social media friendly site design.

‣ High impact content above the scroll.

The 10-second rule: making your content pop!‣ The average reader reads about 240 words per minute,

where as a diagonal reader ‘reads’ (actually scans) closer to 15 words per second or about 900 words per minute, looking at the following aspects of your content:

‣ 1. The title or headline of your post.

‣ 2. The subtitles or subheadings within the post.

‣ 3. Any bold, underlined, “quoted”, or otherwise highlighted text.

‣ 4. Pictures, graphs, charts, or images of any nature.

‣ 5. A summary of the article.

‣ Questions you must answer before you’re finished:

‣ Do you really have something to say? Is it an original thought?

‣ Is it possible to quickly summarize your point?

‣ Is the point you’re trying to make apparent?

The 10-second rule: making your content pop!

Writing for regular readers, search engines, and social media.‣ 1. The page title should be short and to the point. Titles

lengths should average between 60 and 80 characters.

‣ 2. Your keywords must be in your title, but the trick is doing this without making the headline unattractive and boring.

‣ 3. If possible, use your key words in the beginning. Because these readers are scanning the search results for keywords they will want to see certain words pop out from the onset.

The Social Media Title

Example

‣ The formula:

‣ [Number] [Adjective] [Key Phrase]

‣ Examples (all different niches):

‣ [10] [Impressive] [Parkour and Free Running] Videos

‣ [8] [Remarkable] [Palace, Fort and Castle Hotels]

‣ [20] [Eye-Catching] Pieces of [‘Recycled’ Urban Furniture]

Writing for regular readers, search engines, and social media.

Social media friendly site design

‣ Your Site URL Structure and Hosting Service, Things to Avoid:

‣ 1. Hyphens or numbers in your domain name.

‣ 2. Keyword-stuffed domain name.

‣ 3. Any non-dot-com domain name.

‣ 4. Not self-hosted.

Social media friendly site design

‣ The General Site Design

‣ Take Down the Registration-Wall or Pay-Wall

‣ Are You Overselling Advertisements (or Using All The Wrong Ads)?

‣ Stop the Widgetization of your Blog

‣ Show Some Interest in Your Community

‣ Recognition

‣ Access (to popular content, etc.)

High impact content above the scroll

‣ Goal: Make the attention count, maximize conversions.

‣ 1. Put serious thought into your title.

‣ 2. Start with a striking visual cue.

‣ 3. Have substance above the scroll

‣ 4. Make an engaging opening splash

‣ Ask yourself: Does my design draw attention directly to the content? Does it make older content easy to access?

No-impact content above the scroll

No-impact content above the scroll

No-impact content above the scroll

High impact content above the scroll

High impact content above the scroll

High impact content above the scroll

Two Main Components‣ Content

‣ Copywriting.

‣ Design.

‣ Community

‣ Participation.

‣ Presence.

‣ Connections and Conversations.

Community- Actionable Items‣ The social media manual.

‣ How to be sharing without being overbearing.

The social media manual.‣ Start by learning about the site and its audience.

‣ Know why you want to use the site (not just for self-promotion).

‣ Don’t be a troll, consider what the other community members want.

‣ Participate in moderation.

‣ Use your fans don’t abuse your fans.

‣ Give back to the community.

5 Ways to share your content to higher exposure‣ Instant Messenger

‣ Email

‣ Using the ‘share’ feature (share, shouts, site-mail, direct-messaging)

‣ Micro-blogging/Lifestreaming

‣ Google groups, Skype groups, etc.

How to be sharing without being overbearing.‣ If you’re going to share, be open to have others share

with you.

‣ Share with those that share.

‣ Share once.

‣ Don’t share randomly.

‣ Get personal, share eloquently.

‣ Don’t just share, offer to help.

So, Where’s the free traffic?‣ 5 Steps to Free Social Media Traffic:

‣ 1.Study the audience demographic.

‣ 2. Create appropriate content.

‣ 3. Socialize with the target community.

‣ 4. Seed the content to the community.

‣ 5. Understand the algorithm or promotion patterns.

‣ Afterthoughts: Make sure your site can withstand the influx of traffic.

Sample Demographics

The Digg Algorithm

‣ About the algorithm:

‣ Recent participation rank of user and followers.

‣ Voting activity on the site.

‣ Submission category and activity in the category.

‣ Speed of votes and diversity of voters.

‣ Buries received.

‣ Comments and comment ratings received.

The Digg Algorithm

‣ Misconceptions regarding the algorithm:

‣ Wrong: An absolute number of votes is required.

‣ Wrong: You're doomed if your story isn't submitted by a top user.

‣ Wrong: Number of friends is important.

‣ Wrong: There is a 24-hour window for success.

Social Media and Search‣ The beautiful thing about social media optimization and

marketing is that can sit right on top of your search engine optimization and marketing.

Using social media to increase search visibility.

Using social media to increase search visibility.

Using social media to increase search visibility.

Using social media to increase search visibility.

Using social media to increase search visibility.

Examples‣ A couple of examples of good social media content.

‣ Note that the content is relevant to the blog, the root site, and is developed keeping the social media formula (as well as category and title keyword popularity) in mind.

Examples from Scratch

Examples from Scratch

Examples from Scratch

Calculating Return on Investment

‣ Unique Visitors, Page Views, and Time Spent

‣ Comment on the socialized page and comments on your site.

‣ Cross-Pollination.

‣ Explicit Conversions (Registrations, Subscriptions, Ad-Clicks, etc.)

‣ Linkbuilding, Long-Tail Traffic, and SERPs ranking.

‣ Branding and Mindshare.

5 Essential Rules of Social Media Optimization‣ Embrace technology, transparency, and community,

rather than fight them.

‣ Know what you’re doing, your audience demographic, and ultimate goals.

‣ Focus your energy on specific niches and sites rather than hedging your bets.

‣ Create value rather than expecting value.

‣ Encourage and reward interaction and engagement.