The Maine SEO Blog

The following is a recap from a session at Search Marketing Expo (SMX) East. Follow the conference and session on Twitter.

Google stats

• Billion users, billions of searches
• August 2008 – over 7 million search for Britney Spears, over 1,000 misspelling of Britney’s name, top 10 misspellings of those misspellings add up to over 900,000 additional searches

Longtail search

• 55% of queries have more than 3 words
• 70% of queries have no exact keyword match
• 20% of queries in a given day have not been seen in the previous 90 days

What to use?

• Wonder Wheel
• Search-based Keyword Tool
• Insights
• Traffic estimator
• AdWords Keyword Tool

Final thoughts

• Problem: You need features from all products, and need to use them all.
• Keyword Tool has 2 million + users and gets 300 million + ideas a month
• Recently, the tool was updated and relaunched, including using Google.com – specific numbers.

Q&A

Why’d you get rid of the old tool?

The only infrastructure was going away. The new tool primes Google to be able to add a lot more functionality.

Geotargeting: Will that be available for the new keyword tool?

Getting stats for a city/state level is in the works.

Global monthly/Local monthly

Global: last 12 months and global search volume

Local: only what you have your settings on (e.g. English United States) Local is actually National.

What is the minimum keyword volume a keyword has to have to show up in the keyword tool?

No volume threshold. Pricing threshold. Any query has an opportunity to show up in the keyword tool.

Google has various filters to show only things that are commercial.

How much is filtered out for privacy?

No stats; but from a search advertising perspective, you’re getting a good coverage of all search terms.

Logged in vs. non-logged in

When you’re logged in to KWT, you could get up to 1,000 queries.

When you’re not logged in to KWT, you only get up to 100 queries.

Google Suggest

Keyword Tool uses Google Suggest, on top of a lot of other metrics.

Commercially used keywords

The KWT uses commercially used keyword. A trigger is when a keyword is used in an ad.

Search-based keyword tool

Thresholds on search-based keyword tool are very similar.

Search-based keyword tool is being phased out because the technology has been incorporated in KWT.

Who wants a tool that shows all the raw data of Google search terms?
EVERYONE. (Look for something like this in the next year.)

Do you pull in realtime data?

Volume numbers given are for the past 12 months.

Similar words have similar volume numbers.

Volume is rounded.

Traffic Estimator

You can get the estimated traffic for terms inputted, and can filter exact/broad the same way as KWT

Filters on KWT

1. Commercial filter
2. Privacy filter

Ad impressions vs. search volume

Keywords are shown for AdWords keywords that have been purchased. The search volume is for all searches.

Why am I seeing different numbers when I’m not logged in vs. when I am?

That bug should be fixed – it was because of switching over from the old interface.

How is punctuation treated?

Gather separate results for punctuation vs. non-punctuation

Baris Gultekin, Group Product Manager, Google

The following is a recap from a session at Search Marketing Expo (SMX) East. Follow the conference and session on Twitter.

Realtime Search, from Google

Deep investment in search technology

• Instant – brand new technology that finishes your search query as you’re typing
• Caffeine – new indexing technology
• Social – public content authored by people you know
• Realtime – scrolling search of any updates online (Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc.). To realtime search, go here or click the updates option in Google:



• and hundreds of changes you probably didn’t notice

History of realtime

• Launched in December 2009
• Launched Replay in April 2009 – search back in time across Twitter
• Currently pull from Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook, and more

Realtime Search options

• Time (Any time or Latest)
• Location (Anywhere, Nearby, or Custom Location)
• Images (All updates or Updates with Images)

Jeremy Hylton, Software Engineer, Google

Realtime Search, from Twitter

Overview of Search at Twitter

• Infrastructure
  • A highly efficient inverted index (based on Lucene)
  • Over 1,000 tweets inserted per second
  • Over 12,000 queries per secnd (>1B queries per day)
• Used to power
  • Twitter search API (mobile, apps, widgets, etc.)
  • Search on Twitter.com
  • Numerous services on Twitter.com (ex. related tweets)

Examples of types of Twitter searches

• Follow an ‘event’ in realtime
• Address a hyperlocal questions
• Communicate with a realtime community
• Vanity searches (@mentions)
• Standing search around an interest
• Gadgets integrated on a website (e.g. mentions of an article)

Different relationship between search engine and information

• Traditional search = routing
• Realtime search = filtering

Pothole theory: it’s all about context

• Current focus
• Location
• Communities
• Trends
• Events

What does ranking mean in the realtime world?

• Impact of ranking is different because of time factor in consumption
• Dynamic and relative concept of credibility
  • In traditional search, credibility is relatively static and uniform
  • In realtime, people’s interests are expressed naturally
• Time effect is critical/micro-trends
• Context, context, context

What in PageRank’s sake does this mean for SEO?*

• Traditional SEO: ‘Hacking’ the search algorithm
• Realtime SEO: ‘Hacking’ human interest
• Realtime traffic perhaps closer to gamin dynamics than search optimization?

Perhaps think of objectives differently?

• For websites, traffic is a proxy for goodness – action is on the website
• In realtime world, engagement may be better proxy – action is more immediate
• Is SEO for realtime more about creating engagement?

*Isn’t PR synonymous to ‘God’ in search world?

Potential metrics that matter

• Follower counts
• List inclusions
• Retweets
• Trending topic
• Clicks/pageviews

Othman Laraki, Director, Twitter

Realtime Search, from Microsoft Bing

Microsoft has done a lot of research around searching vs. asking your network and the implications of each. Below are questions people actually ask, based on type, topics, and motivation.

Questions: Types

Questions: Topics

Questions: Motivation

Answer comparison: search engines vs. Facebook Bing and Ping Social Networks & Search engines Search engine “friends” offering answers to questions

Meredith Ringel Morris, Microsoft Research

Realtime Search, from Yahoo

Social/Realtime Activity

• Yahoo! users are linking their Facebook/Twitter accounts in record numbers
• Twitter integrate into Y! search

Industry Trends – MS-DOS lives on Twitter brand is mass-market, but content often isn’t… Use the “Mom” test. (Does your tweet make sense to the average person – the Mom?) Massmarketing consumption patterns are emerging:

• “Trending now” aggregation
• Algorithmic curation of linked content
• Easily identifiable and filterable service auto-tweets and retweets
• “XSLT for Twitter” ought to be the norm, not the exception

Industry Trends: Rivers are hard to tame Most realtime search experiences target ‘professionals’ Changing consumer behavior is a barrier for mass adoption

• Only limited user value when looking through a pinhole
• Thematic clustering and time-series analytics provide a good proxy

What have we learned?

• Celebrity tweets have higher user engagement than News
• Needs to be easier to find/coverage expanded in-SRP
• ‘Influencers’ rule!
• Signal/noise is sub-optimal and ML ranking is hard

Leading vs lagging indicators of realtime “buzz”

• Realtime “buzz” detection can be derived from multiple signal sources
• Realtime “buzz” detection needs to include a local event baseline

Tweets only an advertiser would love

• Challenge: filter out a handful of intensively positive tweets from 100s of millions in realtime with ultra-high precision
• Solution: Y! Deep science over a deep basket of tweets with many sentiments with filtering

Brian Theodore, Yahoo

I’ve been participating in the GuestBlogging.com Apprenticeship Program, run by one of Copyblogger’s associate editors, Jon Morrow. In the second workshop, Jon talked about How “Ditching Your Niche” Will Help Your Blog Get More Traffic.

A little background

Google doesn’t do a great job listing popular blogs. Historically, Bloggers have been forced to make lists of influential blogs and bloggers. Then, Guy Kawasaki created Alltop; a glorified collection of (the best of the best) blogs. Guy started by creating lists by hand and organizing them into categories.

How to make sense of Alltop

Alltop has hundreds of niches, from SEO to Auto Racing to American Idol. So start by searching for your niche.

Searches don’t just search for the topic you search for; you’ll also have related topics served up. The other topics will help expand your focus as well as inspire you. After choosing a category, you’ll find the most influential blogs at the top of the page:

Then, use this list to search for influential blogs for both links and guest blogging opportunities.

How to find the best guest blogging opportunities

Some guest blogging opportunities are going to get you more bang for your buck than others. Once you’ve found a few blogs you’d be interested in blogging for, start by doing a little background.

1. Scan Alltop

Scan through the blogs at Alltop and pick blogs near the top that look interesting.

2. 5-Step Checklist

Go through this checklist, making sure it’s somewhere you want to write:

1. Feedburner subscriber count
2. Twitter link – Are they on Twitter? How active?
3. Comment count
4. About page and/or advertiser page
5. Commonalities in the blogroll

3. Do they allow guest posts?

Do a quick search on Google to see if they allow guest posts (Google site:[website] “written by” or “guest blog” or “guest post”) or just ask:

Hey, quick question. I’d really like to do a post for <blog name>, but I couldn’t tell if you allow guest posts. Would you be open to runnning a few ideas past you?

Thanks!
<Your Name>

Making it Manageable

• Every day, choose a different topic and go through all of the blogs
• Set a time for 30 minutes, and then do as many as you can before the time goes off
• Only go through 10 or so blogs per day
• Don’t try to do it all at once. Do a little every day, slowly getting to know the blogosphere

Nicki Hicks
Now get out there and guest blog

Social Media FTW is an annual social media marketing conference held in Portland, Maine. Don’t forget to follow them on Twitter and like them on Facebook!

Since I was unable to attend every workshop, I thought it best to recap all of the great summaries and presentations from the conference in one place. Enjoy

Keynote: Discover How to Use Social Media to Get the Edge for Your Business

by Deb ‘Coach Deb’ Micek

• Tina Burnell’s recap
• My recap
• Follow Coach Deb on Twitter

Social Networking 101: An Introduction to Twitter and Facebook

by Chrystie Corns

• Follow Chrystie on Twitter

Who Hangs out Where? Finding Your Audience Across Social Media Platforms

by Sarah Hines

• Tina Burnell’s recap
• My recap
• Sarah’s full presentation
• Follow Sarah on Twitter

Writing a Social Media Policy for Your Company

by Sarah Wallace

• Sarah’s full presentation
• Follow Sarah on Twitter

Blogging 101: A Beginner’s Guide to Business Blogging

by Nicole Ouellette

• Tina Burnell’s recap
• Nicole’s thoughts, post-conference
• Nicole’s full presentation
• Follow Nicole on Twitter

Facebook 201: Take Your Facebook Marketing to the Next Level

by Jaica Kinsman

• Jaica’s full presentation
• Follow Jaica on Twitter

Social Media for Non-Profits

by Alex Steed

• My recap
• Follow Alex on Twitter

How to Use LinkedIn to Build Your Network and Your Business

by Carole Mahoney

• Carole’s full presentation
• Follow Carole on Twitter

Blogging 201: Make Your Blog a Lead Generation Machine

by Rich Brooks

• Tina Burnell’s recap
• My recap
• Rich’s full presentation
• Follow Rich on Twitter

Creating, Publishing and Marketing Online Video

by Chris Cavallari

• Chris’s thoughts, post-conference
• Chris’s full presentation
• Follow Chris on Twitter

Twitter 201: Leveling up Twitter

by Leslie Poston

• Tina Burnell’s recap
• Leslie’s full presentation
• Follow Leslie on Twitter

Is Any of This Social Media Stuff Working? Social Media ROI

by Amanda O’Brien

• Amanda’s full presentation
• Follow Amanda on Twitter

Overcoming the 5 Challenges of Social Media Marketing

by Mike Lewis

• Follow Mike on Twitter

The Power of Email and Social Media Marketing

by Corissa St. Laurent

• Tina Burnell’s recap
• Corissa’s full presentation
• Follow Corissa on Twitter

Building Online Communities

by Derek Rice

• Derek’s thoughts, post-conference
• Derek’s full presentation
• Follow Derek on Twitter

Social Media Success Stories

Heather DiSimone, Calvin Gilbert, Mark Nutting

• Follow Heather on Twitter
• Follow Calvin on Twitter
• Follow Mark on Twitter

Recaps of the Event

• Amanda O’Brien’s takeaways
• Slideshare presenations

Photos of the Event

• Photos from Maine Today
• Photos from Samuel Cousins Photography
• Photos from Angela Coulombe Photography
• cellphone Sketchpad

Twitter conversation

• http://twapperkeeper.com/hashtag/ftw2010
• Twitter Search

If you have notes or access to a presentation I’ve missed, please let me know and I’ll include it!

Social Media FTW is an annual conference held in Portland, Maine. Follow the conversation on Twitter at #ftw2010.

How can you stay ahead (or before) the curve?

In the past, non-profits have tried to move the individual, not the network.

Tea Party – nimble organization which Alex suggests provides the future for organization.

Stop worrying about how you create membership, there are already people who are in clusters or networks. Find those people/networks and help them create a narrative.

What are Non-Profits looking for? Fundraising!

Small Pieces Loosely Joined – Alex highly recommends this book

Reputation drives so much for organizations, and it can be lost in an instant – especially with social media.

A lot of talk around open vs. closed systems and how the two work together.

Alex Steed, Steed2010, @AlexSteed

Social Media FTW is an annual conference held in Portland, Maine. Follow the conversation on Twitter at #ftw2010.

What you need:

• WordPress (or another Content Management System)
• Own your own domain name not a WordPress, TypePad, or Blogger subdomain.
• Be committed to the process

Lead Generation: What does a lead mean to you?

Holistic Web Marketing

• Attraction – SEO, Blogging, Business cards, etc.
• Retention – How you keeping communication open with customers, Email marketing, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube
• Conversion – Move them through your sales funnel, Calls to action
• Measurement – Google Analytics

Attraction

• Search Engine Optimization – do a keyword analysis for your blog and find out what your audience is searching for
  • Use keywords in your blog title/page title, headers, links, categories and tags
  • Every blogpost is a new web page and every web page is another opportunity to rank well at the search engines
  • Use the most important keywords front loaded in your blog titles
  • Recent post titles (typically) show up on every other blogpost
  • All-One-SEO: best tool for SEO on a blog
• Sharing Tools
  • ReTweet for Twitter
  • Like button for Facebook
  • Share this for most other networks
• RSS: Real Simple Syndication
• Cross pollination
  • Commenting on other blogs
  • Guest blogging
  • How can you find bloggers in your niche?
    • Google
    • Alltop
    • Delicious, StumbleUpon, etc.
    • Twitter (Twellow.com, TweetFind.com, WeFollow.com)
    • MyBlogGuest

Retention

• Leverage RSS: make sure it’s near the top of the page; use a feed like FeedBurner to syndicate blogposts
• Engage commenters; the more you engage with them, the more you’ll come back and continue to comment
• Disquis

Conversion (Tactics)

• Link to a product/ecommerce page or your contact page or your call to action
• Affiliate programs

Measurement: Google Analytics

Advanced Blogging Tools

• Google Alerts
• RSS
• NetworkedBlogs
• Disquis
• My Blog Guest
• Ping.fm

Rich Brooks, flyte new media

Social Media FTW is an annual conference held in Portland, Maine. Follow the conversation on Twitter at #ftw2010.

Why do we care?

A few social media platforms: forums, Q&A, location-based services, blogging, and so much more!!!

What’s next?

• General demographyics
• Identifying audience
• Using services to get to your audience

Current Landscape

• 78/100 Americans (ages 12+) use the Internet daily (for multiple uses)
• 48/100 Americans (ages 12+) use social media, 39/48 access profile once a week, 24/48 access profile once a day

Put together who you think your audience is and reference it.

• Location: out of towners? geographic location?
• Interests: what are they interested in that cross references with what you’re offering?
• Position/role: what role are they playing? what is their position at the company?
• Who they look to for authoritative information?
• Life priorities: e.g. environmentalism, family, religion, etc.
• Emotional state when they look for your product/service

Google tools

• Google Alerts: track keywords and who’s talking about you
• Google Analytics: track your traffic
• Google doubleclick adplanner

Other Social Media Research Tools

• Flowtown: best for small-medium businesses
• RapLeaf: best for medium-large businesses
• Quantcast

Choose your potion

• Purely social
  • Facebook
  • MySpace
  • Google Buzz
• Professional
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
• Blogging
  • Blogger
  • WordPress
  • Tumblr
• Video
  • YouTube
  • Vimeo
• Photo sharing
  • Picasa
  • Flickr (Creative Commons)
• Niche communities
  • Ning
  • BuddyPress
• Review-based Websites
  • Urbanspoon
  • Yelp
  • TripAdvisor
  • Goggle Places
• Location based Apps
  • Foursquare
  • GoWalla
  • Facebook Places
  • Loopt

Social media is just one tool in your toolbox; it has to work for your business.

Sarah Hines, Shines & Jecker, Full presentation will be available at: shinesandjecker.com/socialmediaftw

Social Media FTW is an annual conference held in Portland, Maine. Follow the conversation on Twitter at #ftw2010.

Why are we on social media?

• Connecting
• Build relationships
• Build trust

80% of success is just showing up. Just by showing up on social media, you’ll get connections and even business. Suddenly, you’re already going to be doing better than your competition who isn’t doing anything on social media.

Deb says LinkedIn is the social network to watch in 2010.

Google CoachDeb and see how she dominates about 10 pages. Why “CoachDeb”? 1. It’s easy to remember. 2. It’s a conversation starting – as in, “what do you coach?”. You want to be top of mind for your clients.

Build a million dollar business without ever leaving your island

• Get rid of the old you have to be face-to-face to do business
• Social media is new media with lipstick on

Deb started blogging and started showing up on Google. She got free advertising for her business because of it.

Deb’s written two books – Secrets of Online Persuasion and Twitter Revolution (with free updates at TwitterHandbook.com).

Want free Super Bowl advertisement? Tweet.

• You can be found in Google’s real time search
• You can be found in Twitter Search

Deb developed software to automate, simplify, and monetize social media – QuanSite.

Should you autotweet or go live? It depends on what suits you best. Deb thinks autotweeting is driveby tweeting.

Why is Twitter so hot?

• Instant
• Mobile
• Easy
• The new American Express card is the cell phone – Don’t leave home without it. (Only 4 people in the crowd don’t have their’s on them!)
• People are using Twitter (and Facebook) to connect.

What is Twitter?

• It’s the new golf (or tennis). It’s where you can make connections.
• Cocktail Party
• Living Rolodex – it’s how you can connect with people
• Free PR
• You’re missing 100% of these opportunities when you’re not there!

It’s a social media revolution!

• “There an app for that!” (games, Twitter/social media, GPS, Foursquare/location-based, Yelp/review-based) – Think about creating an app for your business; Deb is predicting a trend of this for this/next year. Get your clients/community involved with your own app!
• Explosion of mobile devices
• Flash mobs/Bluetooth/Ads
• Everything is focusing on customer engagement
• Everyone’s doing it! (even Oprah)

#flashmob – TMobile’s viral campaign: Deb shared the fun video to show how ideas spread and community is created:

Viral doesn’t just go. You need something extraordinary that will catch on and start a revolution because they just can’t help but get involved.

Social Media ROCKS! Imagine what it could do for your business if you could BEAT Oprah!

Tribal seduction is the ultimate way to market on Twitter

• People – increase community
• Participation – get them involved
• Persuasion – emotional, engaging, entertaining

The Hashtag

• Track keywords
• Become a trending topic
• Links back (SEO)
• Punchline

Jerry McGuire: a lesson in customer engagement. Twitter is showing up and saying hello. (And you had me at hello.) Business is always personal.

Show me the money

• FeedJit.com
• FiltrBox.com
• FlowTown.com
• Track keywords
• Track emotions (track pain/pleasure keywords for this)

Social Media Optimization

• It’s proven
• It works
• It’s the fast that beat the slow

#BeatCancer

• Hashtag that began in Blog World
• Guiness Book – most used hashtag
• Raised Charity for breast cancer awareness/research
• Got on CNN – used new media to capitalize on traditional media
• Brian Williams – Deb’s friend who lost his wife to cancer; thanked Deb for her work on #BeatCancer. It’s all about connection with other people

Coach Deb Micek, QuanSite

This week, MarketingProfs put on the first series of their Digital Marketing World 2010 conference. These sessions covered social media and its implications. A truly digital conference, participants could move about an auditorium, into a networking lounge, check out the sponsers’ booths, and more.

While I thought all of the speakers brought a ton of great information to the table, I couldn’t help walking away thinking that the information was all well and good with large corporations with hundreds to devote to social media and metrics, but what about small businesses with one – maybe two – employees to be in charge of social media? Well, that’s exactly what I’m aiming to do today.

Since the presentations were broken down by logical steps, that’s how I’m going to break things down:

1. Social Media Setup
2. Social Media Content
3. Social Media Metrics

Social Media Setup

(primarily from the How to Build Successful B2B Social Media Strategies session)

1. Start by understanding that social media is (probably) right for your business. The fact of the matter is, while social media can be extremely powerful, it’s not going to be right for everyone. How do you know if it’s right for your business? Try asking your current customers where they spend their time online.
2. After you find out if and where your current audience spends their time, then you’ll have a good idea about where your potential audience/customers spend their time. Is it LinkedIn? YouTube? Facebook and Twitter?
3. Before you start building out a custom Twitter background, stop and make a plan. (Marketo has a great example social media plan. Or I created an example plan here.)
   Think about (and document):
   1. What do you want to accomplish with social media? What is your goal(s)? (Get more leads? Sell more widgets? Get more email newsletter signups?) Having more Facebook fans is great, but how does that help accomplish your business goals?
   2. Define logistics. Who will be in charge of social media content? How often will they be responsible for posting a tweet/Facebook update/blogpost/YouTube video?
   3. How will you measure? Don’t forget to base measurements on your business goals (from above).
4. Take the time to properly set up your social accounts: with any custom backgrounds, logos or branding, descriptions, etc.
5. Then set up your listening tools.
   1. Listening tools: If you’re using Twitter, how will you incorporate Twitter Search? How about Google Alerts? Will you use a tool like HootSuite for monitoring?
   2. How about sharing tools? Tweet this/Share this buttons on your blog?
6. Get to work!

Social Media Content

(primarily from the Unleash the Power of Content to Engage Your Prospects session)

• Create a blog, community, and/or forum.
• Commit to creating remarkable and relevant content. If you have an editorial calendar, make sure you stick to it.
• Repurpose your content when you can and publish it to all of your online channels.
• Use SEO to optimize content for search engines.
• Use your audience’s conversation to mine for content topics.
• Offer your content in the format your audience likes. White paper? Video? Blogpost? Email newsletter?

Social Media Metrics

(primarily from the Overcoming the Challenges of Social Media Metrics session)

• Remember to always tie metrics back to goals.
• How can you incorporate social media metrics into the current metrics you use?
  • Sales/Revenue
  • Lead generation
  • Email signups
• Discover your Social Media ROI – [(Gain from Investment - Investment Cost)/Investment Cost] x 100
• Possible metrics:
  • Activity & Engagement
    • Members
    • Posts/Threads
    • Comments or Ideas
    • Inbound Links
    • Tags, Votes, Bookmarks
    • Active Profiles
    • Referrals
    • Post Frequency/Density
  • Revenue and Business Development
    • Speed of sales cycle
    • Number/% of repeat business
    • % customer retention
    • Transaction value
    • Referrals
    • Net new leads
    • Cost per lead
    • Conversions from community
  • Cost Savings
    • Issue resolution time
    • % of issues resolved online
    • Account turnover
    • Employee turnover
    • Hiring/recruiting
    • Training costs
    • New product ideas
    • Development cycle time
    • Product/serv adoption rate
  • Awareness and Value
    • Brand loyalty/affinity
    • Media placements
    • Share of conversation
    • Sentiment of posts
    • Net promoter score
    • Interaction with content
    • Employee social graphs

In summary

It’s a lot of initial setup and work along the way but, when done right, incorporating social media into your business model can take your small business to the next level!

Nicki Hicks
How does it apply to small biz?

This webinar recap is part three of a three part series from the Social Media Marketing conference at MarketingProfs’ Digital Marketing World 2010.

In this presentation:

• Your business needs Social Media
• Fundamental concepts of Social Media Marketing
• B2B Social Media tactics and metrics
• Incorporating Social Media at every stage of the revenue cycle
• The ROI of Social Media

1. Your Business Needs Social Media

The Evolution of B2B Marketing

• Before search engines: branding, mass advertising, tradeshows
• After search engines: lead management, scoring, and nurturing
• Arrival of social media: SEO, content marketing

Why Inbound Leads

• Inbound leads: highest conversion rates to qualified opportunities
• Inbound leads: educate themselves beforehand
• Companies now “get found”

Is your company ready for social media?

• Clear objectives and goals
• Available resources and content
• Target audiences use social media
• Prepared to handle social media
• Ready to incorporate social media through revenue cycle

Developing a B2B Social Media Plan

• WHO: Who are you targeting?
• HOW: Which social media tactics will you employ and how will you measure success?
• WHAT: What goals or objectives do you want to accomplish and what are the action items?

Sample social media plan from Marketo

Developing a B2B Social Media Policy

• How do you define social media?
• Ground rules for participation – who will participate and how?
• Importance of confidentiality

2. Fundamental Concepts of Social Media Marketing

• Company identity and brand
• Social media monitoring (“listening”)
• Social sharing
• Social validation (social proofing)

Company Identity and Brand

• Develop your identity
• Create permissions and privacy settings
• Use proper logos, colors
• Customize as much as possible

Social Media Monitoring (“Listening”)

• Start by monitoring the most popular social media sites
• Make best use of alerts
• As activity increases, consider using 3rd party tools (Twitter Search, Facebook Search, and LinkedIn Search – be aware they all have some limitations; Google Alerts)

Social Sharing: A closer look

• ShareThis or AddThis (have your content shared to an audience(s) who wouldn’t have otherwise seen it)
• Custom links for increased personalization

Social Sharing: Customized E-mails and Landing Pages

Share emails and landing pages, but no need to be constrained by generic content

Social Validation: A closer look

Adds transparency and credibility

3. B2B Social Media Tactics

• Social Media Networks
  • The Basics
  • Blogging
  • Twitter
  • Google Buzz
  • Facebook
• Pitfalls to Avoid

Social Media Networks

• Blogging
• Microblogging
• Social networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.)
• Online video (YouTube)
• Presentation/Document sharing
• Widgets
• Bookmarking
• Podcasting
• Social CRM
• Photo sharing (flickr)
• More!

Crash Course in B2B Blogging: The 5 Ws of Blogging

1. Why blog? (Increase search engine visibility.)
2. What should I blog about? (Anything! FAQs, How-to’s, Numbered lists, etc.)
3. Who should participate? (Everyone who can. For a technical product, engineers are fantastic.)
4. When should I blog/How often? (2 times a week at a minimum. I agree, 2-3 times/week at first is best.)
5. Where should I post your content? (All of your channels that apply)
6. How should I measure my results? (Measurement tools like Google Analytics)

Crash Course in Twitter for B2B

• Twitter profile: humanize and brand it
• Choosing who to follow: import contacts, follow experts in your industry
• Interacting with your followers: be responsive and engaging, not salesy
• Use tools to create and monitor conversations: retweet, hashtags

Crash Course in Google Buzz for B2B

• What is it?
  • Get into inboxes without email
• Getting started:
  • Update Google profile and link accounts
  • Watch privacy settings
  • Be patient as others get acclimated

Crash Course in Facebook for B2B

• Profile and status update: what matters to you and your company?
• Who to “friend”?
• Personal vs. business content: privacy settings
• Groups and Pages: promote awareness and thought leadership

Crash Course in LinkedIn for B2B

• Profile: make it as comprehensive as possible
• Connections: only people you know
• Recommendations positive comments socially validate your company
• Network updates: new business opportunities

Social Network Takeaway: Be aware of your individual vs. company presences

Pitfalls to Avoid in Social Media

• Don’t dive in until you’re ready
• Don’t be a “big brag”
• Don’t be afraid to try it because the metrics are new and different
• Don’t treat social media like advertising
• Don’t assume every social media tool is right for you

4. Incorporating Social Media into Every Stage of the Revenue Cycle

Social Media Across the Revenue Cycle

• Seed Nurturing – Developing relationships with early-stage prospects before they enter your database
• Lead Nurturing – Building and maintaining relationships with known prospects as they educate themselves
• Customer Nurturing – Deepening and expanding relationships with existing customers

Seed Nurturing & Social Media

• Make valuable content freely available
• Create a reputation that builds credibility and trust

Lead Nurturing & Social Media

• Listen
• Segment & Target
• Notify & Score
• Interact

(Maria uses tools to actually score potential customers and people talking about her company.)

Customer Nurturing & Social Media

• Reaffirm purchases after the decision is made
• Deepen relationships, create personal connections
• Discover new needs and requirements
• Manage customer and retention

ROI of Social Media

• Challenging, but not impossible
• The ROI equation remains the same:ROI = [(Amount Gained from Investment - Cost of Investment)/Cost of Investment] x 100
  
• Establish a baseline and measure progress before and after starting your social media strategy

Marketo Case Study

• Clear objectives for success
• Make it easy to share
• Spread the word
• Validate
• Nurture
• Measure return

Social Media Drives Revenue

• Increased brand awareness and thought leadership
• Enhanced lead nurturing and scoring
• Improved sales effectiveness

Maria Pergolino, Director of Marketing, Marketo