As a follow up to my previous post on online Marketing in a Recession part 1 this is a discussion on how to use social networking websites to build a linking strategy.
Social Networking websites are now the most visited websites on the net, surpassing pornographic websites according to (http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1678586,00.html)
So how do you take advantage of this for your business?
It is simple, …participate… just be social…. online. Be warned, It is very time consuming to set up because there are so many social sites to be on. It takes a little less time to maintain and there are no guarantees but if you nurture the social marketing channel the payoff can be huge.
Startups are creating “social media” everywhere and about everything all you have to do is invest the time to participate. Does this mean that companies needing a director of social marketing position in the future? Possibly, stranger things have happened. Imagine if ten years ago someone told you they just took a job as a search engine marketing manager… Well. Perhaps that will be a followup to this post. The Social marketing channel manager position
Social Video Sharing ________________________________________________
Have a video of you speaking at a conference, a video of your product, a viral video about your industry? Post it on social video sharing websites.
Start with YouTube. When you upload your video you can add a description, title, link back to your site, etc… If you have multiple videos create a branded YouTube channel for your videos. By the way YouTube is owned by Google. When you add the description and title you are adding indexible content to your video making it possible to show up in relevant searches.
Here are some video sharing sites.
Social Photo Sharing ________________________________________________
Same idea as sharing your videos on video sharing sites. Add your pictures of your products, pictures of you at a conference or tradeshow anything that has to do with your company that is real.You will also be able to add titles descrtiptions and more to these as well as create photostreams/ galleries and so on with links back to your site.
Social Bookmarking ________________________________________________
This is a great social media channel. Easy to participate, hard to penetrate. One of my first posts on this blog was about Stumble Upon and how it spiked traffic 600% over night and increased sales.
Social bookmarkingis basically saving a list of favorites and easily sharing those favorites with your friends. Now, imagine you sell motorcycle parts for a antique bikes. Your not sure how to reach your niche audience other than bike shows and trade mags. Now suppose an antique biker comes across your site and bookmarks your site through a bookmarkign service. Now that potential customer has just shared your site with all of their friends on that services. You have just penetrated a “social pool” of niche customers.This is what happened to a former client of mine that boosted their sales and spiked traffic 600%.
Here are some social bookmarking services.
Make it easy for users to book mark your site by using addthis or sharethis
The List goes on ________________________________________________
Wikipedia – Create a page on Wikipedia about your company –
Ever notice how often Wikipedia shows up in search results and often in the top 5. If your site does not appear on the first page, perhaps the Wikipedia page about your company will
Twitter – Start using twitter so people can follow your company updates ( you will be surprised how many companies are delivering timely info this way)
Business – as personal as the local chamber of commerce with a national reach
- LinkedIn – Participate, create aprofile, joind industry groups and create a company profiles
- Xing – similar to Linked in
- ZoomInfo – Create a company and personal profile
Depending on your product and company the “social” social networks may be appropriate as well.
Look for a post on discover Vertical Social networks reach more of your niche.
