Wardrobe Malfunction?

Madonna remained fully clothed during her halftime show, but I’m sorry I can’t say the same for the women in GoDaddy’s ads. Their propensity for using scantily clad (or was that naked) women in their Superbowl ads has now become all too expected. Really? Do we need to worry about our kids watching advertising for domain names and hosting plans? My favorite tweet about the ads: “Maybe Danika needs the money in order to sell out her entire gender.” GoDaddy, you can do better. The sad thing is, their customer service and products are excellent, and I use them despite their advertising. What I don’t understand is, why spend all that money to alienate half your potential audience? Fail.

Weird QR Code Placement

GoDaddy again. Did any of you notice during the second GoDaddy commercial that a QR code popped up in the left lower corner? Since I generally watch TV with my QR app ready to go (sarcasm intended) I wasn’t taken by surprise. Seriously though, while QR codes can be a great way to drive traffic to your landing page, Facebook page or any place else you’d like to send visitors for information and connection, there are places where they aren’t appropriate. Let me list a few here:

• Billboards
• Websites ( people, use a a link please)
• TV commercials

Maybe this particular QR code takes you to a page where you can complain about the offensive use of women in their ads? Doubt it.

Volkswagon Weird Transition

In an attempt to play off of last year’s successful Darth Vader ad, Volkswagon forces (no pun intended, well maybe) Darth Vader into what would otherwise be a fun and uplifting story about our dog hero getting into shape for his run with the automobile. Cut to an alien bar? Made no sense. End with the dog.

What were your thoughts on the ads this year? I’d love to hear your comments.

What is a Content Calendar?

A content calendar is an plan for publishing content to all your social media streams. The format is up to you. I prefer using a spreadsheet, but a Word document, Google calendar, or any other tool will work. If you’re sharing the calendar with other community managers a shared Google Document or calendar using any of these formats is a useful tool.

Your calendar should contain an overview of the topics, the dates, the content and links to relevant information. Include notes on social objects such as photos or videos as well.

Plan for Creating your Content Calendar

Calendars can be set up yearly (very ambitious) or weekly or monthly. If you decide to use a yearly calendar plan to update and change regularly as ideas and topics come up. Remember nothing is set in stone. At the very least, decide on what you plan to post this week to get started. Then as this planning becomes a habit, look farther into the future.

Deciding on Content

Start by looking at your business calendar. What events occur regularly that you want to incorporate into your strategy? Do you have monthly meetings, are there community events you want to promote, do you have a regular schedule of marketing activities? Add these to your calendar and plot out the dates. Remember to include holidays and special events.

Now search for relevant articles, social objects (videos, photos, infographics) and links to your own website to support the content. If you’re new to infographics, Visual.ly is a great place to start. If your strategy includes a blog post per week, this is where you decide on the general topic for those posts. A word or two, a link to an article and an idea for a supporting graphic should suffice at this point.

The Big Picture

Remember, a content calendar is a “big picture” document. Drill down for details as the dates approach. The most important thing to remember is, whatever you are sharing, keep it social and keep your audience in mind. What will add value to their day? What are they seeking?

Put in the effort up front on creating your calendar and you won’t be scrambling for content or neglecting your social spaces and your community down the line.

How do you decide what to share with your community?

Photo courtesy of Plindberg on Flickr

While 2011 was a banner year for social media growth in the business world, those of us in the profession are still struggling with measuring the results of our efforts. In the hopes that 2012 will bring us functional tools for analyzing all that data, here’s my early wish list for Santa in 2012. If you have a recommendation for a tool for any of the items mentioned on my list, feel free to comment and post your links. I welcome your suggestions! And Santa, I promise to be good all year.

Fan Interest Graphing

Facebook insights, for example, gives us information on our fan page demographics such as age, gender, where likes came from (external referrers) and such, there’s still no good way to see and graph the interests (likes) of our fans. Say for example, a majority of your fans are interested in skiing. Providing content on the topic could help keep them engaged and sharing. So far none of the free services I’ve found give us a way to access this data so it’s included here on my wish list.

Social Media Dashboard

While tools like Tweetdeck, Hootsuite, Social Mention and Google Alerts allow us to track and analyze Key Performance Indicators (KPI), I’d like a tool that allows me to aggregate all my social media accounts and posts on one dashboard and then share that dashboard with fans and followers. If you’re interested in tracking dashboards, Barry Hurd’s blog post on Social Media Dashboards give a good outline of the tools available now for tracking conversations. Here’s your chance to make a suggestion if you have a favorite tool for tracking, or for setting up a magazine-like page for all your streams.

Trending Data

I’d like a way to see what was trending in, say, New Orleans, for a date in the past. Twitter’s trending tools allow us to see what’s trending now, and what’s trending in a particular location, but not both location and date specific. At least, I’ve not yet found a good tool to do this. Any suggestions?

Ranking System by Industry

Even though there’s a lot of eye rolling when it comes to discussing metrics like Klout in the social media communities, it does offer some valuable insights. The problem lies in measuring everyone against everyone else, Justin Beiber included. I’d like to know how my clients measure against others in their industry. Since Klout uses the influence of your followers as part of the metric, B2B companies looking to engage with small, niche businesses will naturally have lower Klout scores than B2C companies able to engage highly influential followers. Again, if you have a suggestion feel free to let me know.

Social Media Workflow Tools

I know that Hootsuite allows for post coordination under its paid version, which I’ve not tried. I have heard good things about BufferApp.Com and it looks like collaboration tools are included in the free version. Scheduling posts to fan pages is part of the paid version. While the free dashboard Tweetdeck does allow scheduling to all accounts collaboration tools are absent. Any suggestions?

As the year progresses I’m sure my list will change as fast as the landscape of social media changes. As always, I welcome your comments and ideas here, on Twitter @suereynolds or on Facebook.

Happy New Year!

80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.

Or in business the distribution looks like this:

• 80% of your profits come from 20% of your customers
• 80% of your complaints come from 20% of your customers
• 80% of your sales are made by 20% of your sales staff
• 80% of the work is done by 20% of the people

Named after Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto in 1906 after observing that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population, he developed the principle by also observing that 20% of the pea pods in his garden contained 80% of the peas. Since that time the principal has been used in economic theory, optimization efforts and quality control measures. For example, Microsoft noted that by fixing the top 20% of the most highly reported bugs, 80% of the errors would be eliminated (Wikipedia).

How this works with Social Media

Simple. You’ll get the best results and engagement from your efforts if 80% of what do you adds value to someone else, either by providing free information, sharing articles written by others, offering discounts, crowdsourcing ideas or pointing out others’ successes. The other 20% can be about you, your products and your ideas. In other words, talk about yourself only 20% of the time. That’s 2 tweets out of 10.

Do you see this principle at work in your social media efforts? Share your ideas with me here.

Source:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle

Content Curation

This was a trend for 2011 and I don’t see it going away. As social spaces become more crowded and filled with noise (and those pesky Klout seekers,) content curators will become a more important part of the stream. Curators that take the time to review the content before passing it on will become a valuable resource for peer reviewed articles. Taking cues from these curators, brands will become part of the de facto news media as they curate and stream relevant content to their followers.

Social Media Analytics

I’m amazed that we still don’t have a good way to track and analyze the data available to us in social media. As social media budgets increase and more time is devoted to these spaces, demand for analyzing all that data will become more pronounced. The problem is we’re still relying on APIs that are flawed and even (as Twitter admits) purposely throttled. Manual tracking is still the most accurate. While tools like Crowdbooster and Hubspot are promising, it is still very difficult to analyze the data and the trends well enough to structure spending decisions around it. I predict we’ll make progress toward a solution in 2012.

Tech Marketing

Many businesses struggle with where to house the social media team. Many land in the marketing department, which can cut them off from access to the technology they need to do their jobs effectively, not to mention run the risk of becoming too “marketing” in their messaging. As social media becomes more integrated into business I believe we’ll see an integration of marketing and IT. In my corporate position I’m housed with IT, which I believe is crucial. I have access to designers, SEO analysts, programmers and WordPress developers, so if I need a Facebook tab, help with optimizing a blog or the latest keyword research, I can just turn around and ask. Many social media professionals are housed in marketing departments, siloed away from IT functions. Some are dealing with an IT department housed offsite or even overseas. Time differences and lack of access to data make it difficult for these professionals to work quickly and effectively so I think we’ll start to see a convergence of IT and marketing as we increase our social technology.

Decentralized Social Media

Rather than siloed in one department (marketing or IT) I envision social media becoming part of many roles in business. For example, expect to see more customer service departments using Twitter with accounts like @name_brandname monitoring the brand with keyword analysis and intervening when needed. These folks will report to a social media strategist overseeing a team of tweeters. This is a move toward what I call the social transformation of business. Although I’m sure I didn’t coin the term, it describes a paradigm shift in the way businesses will organize in the next several years. As consumers demand less traditional marketing, more access to immediate feedback and better service, businesses will answer the call by incorporating social principals into their practices.

These are my predictions. What did I miss?

All healthy relationships require listening skills. Social media relationships are no different. So how do you listen in social media spaces? Here are four listening tools I recommend.

Tweetdeck

Twitter is a giant conversation and link sharing medium, but it can be difficult to monitor all those conversations from the Twitter.com website. The free desktop application Tweetdeck is a dashboard of all your social media accounts-Twitter, LinkedIn, Foursquare, Facebook, even MySpace. Tweetdeck allows you to monitor them all from one location. Download the desktop application, then add your accounts. Make the best use of the dashboard by also adding columns for your Twitter lists and for any Twitter searches you regularly perform. If you run a dental clinic you might search regularly for “tooth decay” for example. Add a search column for those keywords.

Remember to include your brand name in a search column so you’ll be aware of conversations happening about your brand outside your social circles. Doing so will help you grow your audience as well as intercede in any possible customer service issues you come across. Tweetdeck also allows you to look up profiles, follow new accounts, add accounts to lists and send out scheduled tweets. You can include any URL shorterner in the settings to further customize.

RSS Feeds

RSS feeds are alive and well and very useful for aggregating content. If you see an RSS symbol on any newsfeed, blog or publication you can subscribe to that feed and have the content come to you in any number of RSS readers. If you don’t have an RSS feed reader in Microsoft Outlook, for example, search for a free reader and download it to begin aggregating your feeds. Simply click the button to get the address of the feed, then add it to your reader to begin receiving automatic updates of your favorite blogs and news publications. Get in the habit of checking the feed reader daily for valuable content to share with your audience. To show you what an RSS feed looks like, my blog  Carmine Media has an RSS feed that allows you to subscribe to both posts and comments.

Google Alerts

With Google Alerts Google sends you keyword information in email format. For this you’ll need a Google account, so if you don’t already have one, sign up here. Once you’re logged into Google you can set up alerts for any keyword or combination of keywords you choose. You can set the alert to email you once per day in digest format, or as they happen. Make sure you set up an alert for your name and your brand name along with any other industry keywords you’ll use to curate content. You’ll receive a steady stream of news articles and websites in your email you can use to educate and inform your customers. You can also intervene when a negative mention of your brand appears.

NetVibes

 NetVibes.Com is a web based dashboard that allows you to aggregate RSS feeds, Twitter searches, website bookmarks, Google searches and many other features all in one place. Once you’ve signed up for an account you can personalize your dashboard by adding feeds from any blogs or news publications you follow using their RSS feed, or use one of the hundreds of widgets to customize your dashboard. Here’s a screenshot of my NetVibes dashboard, which I refer to every day in order to find relevant articles about social media and web marketing. From here you can share the articles you find on Twitter and on your Facebook page.

These are only four of the dozens of listening tools available. Are there listening tools you’re using you’d like to recommend here? Leave a comment and share them with me!

Complete your LinkedIn Company Page

In order to get started navigate to your company page and choose Admin Tools. Then choose edit.

You’ll now see a setting for Company Pages Admins. Choose “Designated users only” and then under Manage Admins choose from your connections the people you want to have access to company status updates. Type their name in the field and select them.

Now’s the time to make sure your company logo, company specialties and blog RSS feed, if you have one, are updated. If you don’t have a blog that’s another conversation. Once all these fields are updated, click publish.

Post a Status Update as your LinkedIn Page

Now you’ll have the ability to share updates with anyone following your company. They will show up right in the news feed of your LinkedIn followers along with the updates of people in their connection list. Easy, right?

Now that you have more reason to use your LinkedIn company page, think about adding products and services if you haven’t already done so. If you have a video now’s the time to feature it. Can you get recommendations from connections? Ask for them! Since your company pages will be getting more attention take the time now to make sure you’ve provided all the information your new visitors need.

Have you used LinkedIn Company Pages to promote your company in the past? How do you see yourself using this new feature?

One of the highlights of the recent F8 conference is the new Facebook profile format known as Timeline. The new Timeline positions Facebook as the center of your online presence, encouraging users to fill in holes in their profiles with photos and life events, heightening users’ emotional connection with the platform. I’ve enabled the new Timeline on my profile through the developer app. Since many of you won’t be able to view it yet, I’ve included a screenshot. The focus in the timeline is your life events, your accomplishments and the interaction you’ve received from friends surrounding those events. Brand pages you’ve liked take a back seat.

Facebook News Ticker

Along with this change, friend and brand stories in your feed are newly positioned as top stories and recent stories. Stories’ prominence in your newsfeed is based on your direct action with them, whether you like or comment and on settings you choose. You now have control over how these stories are displayed. You can choose “all updates, “ “most updates” or “only important,” allowing you more control than ever over the content displayed in your feed. It isn’t clear whether the Edgerank algorithm for these objects has changed but with the addition of the news ticker, stories previously integrated into your newsfeed may now be relegated to the new news ticker.

Be Relevant with your Social Media Posts

This news ticker feature will challenge brands to be even more relevant in their social media marketing efforts than ever. Brand status updates that once took center stage in their fans’ newsfeeds may now display only in the ticker, unless users choose to showcase them either by selecting “most or top updates” or by interacting with them with a like or a comment. This change gives brands more reasons to produce social media content that is engaging, interesting and that enhances the user experience rather than merely touts their own services. Just as before, but even now more than ever, keep your content focused on your user and what adds value to their life. Remember to be interesting!

Your position in the feed may depend on it.

Are you planning to change your social media posting strategy based on these new features? How do you plan to stay relevant?

Facebook Subscribe Button

Facebook launched a subscribe button on personal profiles last week that allows users to subscribe to other users’ news feeds without sending them a friend request. Much like following someone on Twitter, the subscribe feature allows users to follow public posts.

Especially useful for celebrities, journalists and industry leaders with a large follower base, the subscription feature could replace the need for these folks to maintain a separate fan page. In fact, the option will be available soon to migrate Facebook page fans to profile subscribers. In order to offer your personal profile up for subscription, users must opt into the feature. Once activated, users will see this button in the upper right corner of their profile, allowing them to subscribe to your public posts without friend requesting you.

Facebook News Ticker

Facebook is rolling out a much anticipated and tested news ticker above the chat column. The ticker is a live feed of current updates from your friends and those you subscribe to, while your news feed will show only the most popular posts and topics. The feed will include larger photos as well. Controls in the feed will allow you to adjust the amount of news you receive from individual friends. The ticker will move fast and in real time.

Facebook Smart Lists

Smart lists automatically update themselves based on your friends’ profile info. As the lists rolled out users noticed their friends automatically grouped by Facebook based on where they work, went to school, or where they live. Before this feature it was possible to organize friends into lists but the process was cumbersome. Now Facebook’s taken the lead and done it for us. Users can still create their own friend groups based on hobbies and interests as well. The lists will help determine what is displayed in the news feed. For example being on a user’s “close friend” list ensures they will see your posts prominently in their news feeds. Posts from acquaintances will appear less prominently.

There will be plenty more features rolled out at the F8 conference this Friday. What features are you hoping to see?

Use an SEO WordPress Plug-Ins

This will appear below your edit post field

If you’re using WordPress.org you have the option to add plug-ins to your blog to increase the functionality. The All In One SEO Pack  is an excellent plug-in for optimization and very user friendly. Once you’ve installed the plug-in you’ll see the above field at the bottom of every post and page. Make use of this plug in to fill in the fields with your title (different from your post title – try to keep this one under 60 characters as that’s what Google will display), your description, which is what Google displays under the search results and your keywords for the page.

This is how these items will show up in search results.

Title and description are displayed here

Even if you’re using WordPress.com and don’t have access to an SEO plug in, there are still plenty of things you can do to optimize your blog posts.

Make Use of Your Post Title for SEO

The post title is what will display in your browser title bar as well as determine the URL of your post. To make sure the search engines can understand the content of your article include one or two of your keywords in your post titles. For example, if you’re writing an article about the weather in Phoenix, Arizona you’ll want to make sure to include “weather, Phoenix, and Arizona” in your title. Seems simple enough!

Use Header Tags for SEO

Search engines read the text surrounded by a header tag before they read normal text. Make use of these formatting options and include keywords in the text formatted with them. Here’s where you format text using header tags:

Optimize Your Images for SEO

Search engines can’t read or interpret images, only text. When adding photos or graphics to your blog posts make sure to fill in the Title and Alternate Text field in the image options section. Not only are you adding valuable text to your images for the search engines but you are also helping those using a screen reader understand the visual elements of your posts. You might start seeing traffic from Google Image Search after you add these tags. Of course, by now it goes without say to include keywords in those alternate text descriptions. Here’s where both versions of WordPress provides these options:

Use Formatted Text for SEO

Even in the normal text section of your posts you can still bold, underline or italicize the keywords that appear naturally in your article. Search engines will place higher importance on this kind of formatted text.

Use Links for SEO

Link to other articles within your own blog. Search engines give higher credibility to these links. If you’re linking to an outside resource make sure to wrap that link with text that the search engine will read as pertinent to the post. Note: using “click here” as a link does not accomplish your goal. The search engine cannot associate “click here” with any relevant content. Instead, use “Click here for more about the weather in Phoenix, Arizona” as your link text. Doing that will keep your users happy and increase the odds that the search engines will rank your post accordingly.

These are just a few of the SEO tips for blogging. Do you have suggestions for improving the SEO of blog posts? Leave them below!