Quantifying Social Media

Everyday more companies and more consumers are joining the social media fray.  What does the increased noise level mean? Can you actually measure whether the investment has any impact on results?

Extent of Company Social Media Today

In June 2012 a two-day conference was held in New York City to share and discuss the State of Social Media. The conference served as a forum to discuss the results of data produced by a survey conducted by Useful Social Media from 650 participating corporations.

71% of the survey respondents said that they were responsible for developing and executing the company social media activity using a team of between 2 and 4 team staff members on a part-time basis.

Not surprisingly, 90% of respondents use Facebook for their company and 89% have a Twitter presence. These two are the unrivalled leaders for companies – and an incredible proportion of

businesses have taken the plunge and set up accounts on these two sites. YouTube and LinkedIn were also popular with 75% acknowledging regular participation. Also, 49% disclosed that they have created and promote their own blog.

Measuring Return On Investment in Social Media

Less than a third of respondents feel that they are accurately measuring the impact of their social media activity, and only 40% of respondents say they measure social media ROI (with only 23% confident they’re getting this measurement correct). Early measurement shows:

1. Activity/Engagement 14%

2. Conversion to leads or sales of those engaged 6 to 7%

3. Development of recommendations or customer testimonials from evangelists 2%

What is Next in Social Media?

The most popular replies from survey respondents about what to expect next year are:

1. 200% more companies will use social media to develop better products

2. A third more companies will offer customer service delivery through social media

3. 95% more companies expect to use social media for market research in determining future offerings.

What would participants like to be able to measure in the future? The answer is activity, growth in followers, increase in web traffic, translation to leads, and conversion to sales.

 

You can download a free copy of the full survey report @ www.usefulsocialmedia.com

Reputation Management-5 Tips to Protect Your Online Brand

One of the worst fears for any business is finding out that you are the victim of an unfair, dishonest smear campaign on the Internet.

As much as the Internet can help your business gain exposure and grow, it also provides a huge microphone to people looking to spread terrible rumors about your business.

You can’t afford to be defined by underhanded competitors or eccentric former customers!

Here are 5 Tips to help you take control of what is being said about you company on the Internet.

1. Browse the web and set up email alerts for your brand to be sure you know what is being said about your business. Go to http://www.google.com/alerts and be informed via email when new occurrences of your brand show up on the Internet.

2. Participate actively in your online community with blogging, email news and group forums to help give your brand a positive image. As you get more involved, the number of positive online reviews will occur.

3. Use Social Media to Your Advantage as many of your customers turn to Facebook, Twitter, Google + and Pinterest as a way of sharing and reviewing their experiences. This is one of the easiest ways to get feedback on your products or services and react to offset any negative press quickly.

4. Promote Customer Reviews to keep information about your company fresh and accurate. Business citation sources such as Google Places will aggregate information from third-party sources that may be old or less than favorable. Ask customers on you Website or in your store to give you a  review of their experience at the point of sale and offer a thank you incentive to do so. Then simply post this great new testimonial content on your Website and Social Profiles.

5. Leverage your positive reviews by asking publishers if you can link from the review to your site. This gives your Website fresh, relevant and positive content for new visitors to see and helps you conform to the new Google “Unnatural Links” algorithm that keeps your rankings from organic search  higher than your competition.

If you have any questions or need help with this topic, contact me at emorydigitalmarketing.

Steve Emory, President, Managing Partner Emory Digital

Related articles

• Google’s Unnatural Link Algorithm May Affect Your Website (dmdejavu.wordpress.com)
• 6 Ways to Boost Your Rankings Using Google Authorship (searchenginewatch.com)
• Maximizing Google+ For Your Business (dreamgrow.com)

Google’s Unnatural Link Algorithm May Affect Your Website

Google’s latest algorithm  simply called “The Unnatural Link” update will have more impact on SEO best practices than any previous change of the last 8 years according to the latest buzz from SEO’ers and Google employees themselves.

Unlike the  most recent “Panda” update  that was designed to reduce visitors to sites deemed by Google as having low quality content, Unnatural Link penalizes sites (and their Organic search listings) based solely on a less than perfect linking strategy which includes just about all websites…

Google actually sent unnatural link notices to over 1 million websites letting them know that their SEO rankings may be adversely affected. So what does Google consider  out of favor as an “unnatural link” and in as a best practice?

Below is a summary of what I was able to cull from all of the the industry press, dialog with clients  and from our own SEO resource partner as a guide to what you should or should not do with your Website  SEO initiatives effective immediately:

OUT for SEO going forward-Commercial link networks like Build My Rank, Diamond Links and others, Agency link networks, sidebar links, overuse of anchor text, and collateral damage from legitimate links on your site that have since been sold and posted to unrelated sites.

IN  SEO  Best Practices-relevant links related to your product, service and industry, Social media, Blogs, online videos, Press releases,  local listings, fresh & relevant content and paid search (why do you think Google is making this change?)

SEO & Search Merge in 2012

Since Google has asked people to clean up their links, now is the time to find and hire a reputable Internet  marketing company who specializes in the integration of SEO with all of the online methods listed above that are IN.

Remember that SEO is a marathon not a sprint,  so any links that you have that got your website ranked high in the organic listings fast are likely to be lost as a result of the unnatural update.

If you have any questions or need help with this topic, contact me at emorydigitalmarketing.com.

President, Managing Partner Emory Digital

Related articles

• Google Employee explains unnatural links and cleaning up
• Negative SEO: Looking for Answers from Google (searchenginewatch.com)
• Preparing For Google’s Over SEO Algorithm (seroundtable.com)
• Google Webmaster Tools Notice of Detected Unnatural Links (davidnaylor.co.uk)
• Google Algorithm Changes 1998-2012 (Infographic)