Are You Ready for the Reality of Social Media?
Social media seems like a marketer’s dream come true. It’s one of the few forums where people willingly talk about your brand and products; they reach out to your company, share stories, recommend you to their friends—all without being asked to or paid! No matter how hard you try, that kind of engagement can’t be forced, it just has to happen. Social networking sites are where customers and brands are all on the same playing field and great relationships can be built. However, that level playing field means that customers are just as in control of your brand as you are—what they say and share can drown out your own messaging, and sometimes that’s for the worse.
Social media is a two-way street; it requires a give and take between your company and your network. And that sometimes means taking the bad with the good. Studies have shown that customers are far more likely to share a negative experience with your brand than a positive one on a social networking site, which means when you enter the world of social media you are opening yourself up for attack and criticism. Your brand is now in the hands of your audience, and what they say can have a massive ripple effect around the social world in a matter of moments.
When it comes to social media, there is nothing more deadly than silence. When you aren’t talking, responding to questions, posting content and so forth, the only messaging going out about your brand is what your customers are saying. Hopefully, most of the time this is all positive, but bad news spread fast on social networks and one pissed off customer can quickly morph into a firestorm or negative press. Social media allows people of like interests and opinions to find and connect with one another; what are you doing to make sure your network isn’t connecting over their mutual frustration with your brand!
Above all else, it is so important that companies be open and transparent on social networking sites. The more forthright you are, the easier it is to get the in good graces of your customers. For instance, a few weeks ago FuseMail suffered a major power outage and hundreds (maybe thousands) of their customers went 24-48 hours with email. Twitter exploded with users complaining that FuseMail wasn’t giving them any idea of what was going on, what measures were being taken to fix it or how long until the issue would be resolved. Had FuseMail just kept the lines of communication open during the entire outage, customers would probably have been much more understanding. Keeping quiet cost them a lot of business.
Having a social media presence is essentially in today’s marketplace, but companies need to understand that there are a few dangerous realities they need to account for. At the end of the day, the combined voices of your audience are far more powerful than your brand could ever be, so companies have to be willing to stay open and honest with their network.
About the Author
Nick Stamoulis is the President of Brick Marketing (http://www.brickmarketing.com) a Boston ares white hat link building and social SEO solutions company. With nearly 13 years of industry experience, Nick Stamoulis shares his B2B SEO knowledge by posting SEO tips to the Brick Marketing Blog and publishing the Brick Marketing SEO Newsletter, read by over 150,000 opt-in subscribers.
News
May Boston SEO Meetup Recap
This month’s SEO Meetup was hosted at the Microsoft New England Research & Development Center in Cambridge. The guest speaker, David McBee of Text Link Ads, gave a highly informative presentation called Paid Links: A look at the Truth and the Disinformation.
David McBee made the case that all links, in one way or another, are paid links. Either one site owner pays another directly for a link, or a site owner pays an SEO professional to go out and build links for them. He explained that there is a teeter-totter of links (total garbage vs. good) and the issue isn’t whether paid links are good or bad for SEO, it’s what kind of paid links are you getting.
McBee explained what kind of link building activities (paid or unpaid) that might trip Google’s filter:
- Links on sites are that unrelated.
- Sites that acquire too many links too quickly.
- Too many links on sites with high PageRank.
- Anchor text is over optimized.
- Not enough branded links.
- Not enough variety in kind of links.
- Too many links pointing to the homepage.
- Bad “neighbor” links
- Too many Do Follow links
He went on to explain that some sites may think they have penalized by a Google update (like Penguin), when in reality their “bad” links were devalued by the update, making their link portfolio much less useful. In essence, Google “out gamed” the site owners that were trying to manipulate the search rankings with low quality and easy-win links.
When one of the attendees asked which back link tool was the most useful for investigating the value of each of their inbound links, McBee pointed out that SEOMoz and Majestic were probably the best two available, but even they aren’t capable of crawling the entire web, only Google is. Back link tools that grade your link portfolio can only see a percentage of the web, so while the numbers are a good indication of the overall health of your link portfolio, it isn’t 100% accurate.
McBee also outlined a few best practice tips for link building:
- Acquire links on relevant websites.
- Build links slowly and consistently.
- Acquire links of varying PageRank.
- Vary anchor text and focus on branded anchor text (The best performing sites since the Penguin update have 50%+ branded anchor text)
- Get links from a variety of sources.
- Point a percentage of your links to internal pages.
- Pay attention to neighborhood links.
There was some discussion over the idea of negative SEO. Could a competitor buy a large amount of bad links and point them towards a competitor’s site in order to get that competitor flagged by Google for webspam? McBee pointed out that Rand Fishkin of SEOMoz says that cries of negative SEO are really just an excuse; site owners got caught and are trying to escape blame and penalty for their bad behavior. McBee hypothesized that even if negative SEO were true, Google couldn’t let it go on–it would just create a bigger problem then the one they were trying to solve.
Brick Marketing was the food sponsor of the event.
May SEO Meetup in One Week!
We are back! And we’ve got an interesting and provocative topic next Tuesday, 5/15: Paid Links: The Truth and the Disinformation.
We all know that links are critical to search rankings, and that “paid links” are generally considered to be a bad practice by search engines. We will explore and unpack the definition of paid links, and when they might be a legitimate and effective tactic. It is sure to be a lively presentation and discussion.
Pizza, and a door prize for a lucky attendee provided by Text Link Ads.
March Boston SEO Meetup Event Recap
The March Boston SEO Meetup was held last night (March 19, 2012) at the Arlington Library. It featured guest speaker Sam Schwartz, a Boston area marketing specialist and full-time SEO at Edvisors.
January Boston SEO Meetup Event Recap
The first Boston SEO Meetup of 2012 was held January 30th. The event featured a case study about how to attract attention to your brand and build awareness and links. It also featured guest speaker Vitaly Bulgakov, senior software engineer, Ph.D. Bulgakov has created a keyword recommendation tool.
[Read more...]
Search Marketing Jobs
Boston SEO Firm Brick Marketing Hiring Full Time Position
Marketing Assistant Job Description:
Job Title: Marketing Assistant
Location: Boston SEO Firm Brick Marketing in Woburn, Massachusetts Office
Compensation: Commensurate with experience; health insurance; 401K
Duration: Full-time, 40 hours/week
Summary of Position:
The Marketing Assistant will assist in implementing online marketing plans for clients, as well as supporting the marketing efforts of Brick Marketing, LLC. This position will be filled by an individual with strong writing and organizational skills with a keen eye for detail.
Education and Qualifications:
• Bachelors degree required. Marketing, Journalism or Communications preferred
• 2 years Marketing experience required
• Excellent computer and internet research skills
• Must understand and have a LinkedIN, Facebook and Twitter Account
• Experience using WordPress a plus
Responsibilities:
• Assist in all company marketing efforts.
• Assist in Client Internet Marketing Tasks including research
• Write press releases, articles, presentations, blog posts, blog comments
• Schedule newsletters, proof articles and client deliverables
Skills:
• Excellent writing skills a must. A writing sample may be requested.
• Sound knowledge of marketing principles
• Good project management skills.
• Ability to work individually and ability to handle self-driven projects efficiently.
• Time management, organizing skills, attentiveness, accuracy in performance.
For more information about Brick Marketing, LLC, please visit:
http://www.brickmarketing.com
Please Send your Resume by EMAIL only. NO CALLS and NO FAXES
Please send your resume to:
info@brickmarketing.com
Komarketing Hiring Search Engine Optimization Manager
Job Description
Overall Responsibility
The SEO Manager is responsible for coordinating and implementing SEO & SMO strategies for clients. The correct person will be goal oriented, possess exceptional attention to detail, and have outstanding interpersonal skills. This is a role that is interacting with clients as well as working closely with the company team to make sure that the goals of the client are achieved. [Read more...]
Boston Search Engine Marketing Specialist Job Wanted
Boston Search Engine Marketing Job Description
The pay per click specialist will be responsible for all of our pay per click (PPC) accounts and ultimately manage this department as it grows. He or she will work with our clients mostly via email and phone calls with occasional in house/offsite meetings. [Read more...]
Boston Marketing Manager Job – Zoom Info
Boston Marketing Manager Job
Now hiring at @ZoomInfo a BostonSEO.org sponsor of career open houses. Next one is on Jan 17th. RSVP now to show your skills to win Mac book Air, iPad or Kindle Fire!
Director of Marketing – ZoomInfo
Director of Marketing – ZoomInfo
A BostonSEO.org sponsor! [Read more...]
Boston SEO Meetup
BostonSEO.org is a platform for the search marketing community in the Boston area to use to extend the offline collaboration and networking that we’ve been enjoying in our monthly events to the online world.Sponsors
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