seobridges.com

Over the last couple of years, SEO Bridges has served a two-fold purpose. To generate income and to be a marketing engine for myself and my writing. When I started writing my novel, an author friend suggested I begin marketing. I had wanted to start a business, and I figured starting a business that allowed me to focus on the needs of readers and writers would help me market myself and my writing.

Over that time, I have treated myself as I would any other client. Or at least that has been my goal. For the first year, @SEOBridges maintained a larger following than @ErickWrites. Then, my personal Twitter feed began to outgrow my business Twitter feed. I had adopted a new strategy. I started to focus more on conversations, rather than just dissemination of information.

Once I started doing that, I found more Twitter followers who Tweeted well and just liked to chat. Now, as I continue to chat, I am changing my Twitter strategy once again. I will continue to use Twitter to find conversationalists and get into conversations, but I will also use it for market research.

If you feel your Twitter strategy has become mundane repetition, you might want to consider changing your Twitter strategy. If your Twitter strategy is all about you and not about your followers, you might want to change your Twitter strategy.

Have you considered changing your Twitter strategy? How has your Twitter strategy changed? Is your Twitter strategy working for you? Do you have a Twitter strategy and what is it?

Stay social, my friends!

Erick

Last week, Avinash Kaushik tweeted that some people don’t think before they Tweet, and that can lead to adverse consequences. I Replied, “It makes one consider that the freedom of speech has given rise and justification to the freedom of criticism.” I thought I’d write out a Social Media Marketing Rights version of U.S. citizens’ Miranda Rights:

“You have the right not to post or tweet everything you’re thinking or doing all the time. Anything you post or tweet can be used against you by anyone, anytime, anywhere for any reason at all. You have the right to maintain a social media presence separate from your everyday social and personal life, now and during future interactions with your friends, followers, and fans. You have the right to hire or consult a social media marketing agency, before you engage in social media. If you cannot afford to hire or consult a social media marketing agency, you’re on your own. If you must let everyone on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and other social media sites know what you’re doing and thinking all the time, all those free social media tools you use may cost you your job, privacy, and dignity.”

Like your Miranda Rights (If you’re a U.S. citizen), which are meant to remind you that you don’t have to incriminate yourself under police interrogation or in a court of law, your Social Media Marketing Rights should remind you that when engaging with your friends, fans, and followers on social media sites, there are just some things better left unsaid because not leaving those things unsaid could spell trouble.

Stay social, my friends!

Erick

When it comes to a person’s online reputation, there are two sites that are most commonly used as a barometer—Klout and PeerIndex. My Klout has been bouncing between a 49 and 50 for a while, whereas my PeerIndex rank just bounced from a 21 to a 22. Just as we use those sites as barometers to measure our online influence, those sites’ online influence is measured according to sites like Alexa and Compete.

According to Alexa, Klout ranks 390 in the U.S and PeerIndex ranks 7,891 in the U.S. Alexa also records that 1,567 sites link to Klout, but only 254 sites link to PeerIndex. Google records different numbers, but we’ll leave it at that. Compete is  much more incognito and stricter about how they rank sites, and why they rank sites the way they rank them. They rank Klout at 14,533 and PeerIndex 100,341. You get the idea that those sites that measure those sites that measure people’s influence consider Klout more reputable.

Whether you use Klout or PeerIndex or another online reputation monitoring site, I would advise you to get a holistic understanding of your online influence and not just one site’s bulk number. There are many more sites you can use; though, as I mentioned in a recent blog, due to so many sites shutting down, I am going to steer away from linking to other sites unless I am confident they’ll stick around for a while. If you’d like to research for yourself, search here or here, or peruse the cloud of blogs to the right.

Stay social my friends!

Erick

Adam Singer of TopRank Blog said of BlackHat Social Media, “The intention of being black hat is getting better results faster.”

Have you ever seen a tweet from someone you don’t recall following?  Those are those people who bought thousands of Twitter followers, and you happened to be one of the Twitter followers they bought.  That’s immediate grounds for us unfollowing them and reporting them as a spammer.  Or have you found that someone added you to a group page without your permission?  Facebook allows people to add people to groups, which is intrusive and a very good reason to unfriend someone.

So, what does the future of social media marketing look like?  It will become more compartmentalized to combat black hat social media.  Google is integrating links that people’s friends and followers tweet into search results.  When you search for a term, each page results in the top ten ranked results via SEO.  On the same page, below those ten results, there are ten results from people you follow on Twitter.

This is great for boosting SEO with quality links and content via Twitter; though, it will also lead to a higher necessity for reputation management.  It will lead to people needing to be more diligent about following quality Tweeters, so that, in turn, they attract more quality followers.  It will also lead to people or companies spending less money to buy fans, followers, and friends and more time posting quality content via search engines or other quality tweeters.

Stay social my friends,

Erick

#Panera #brandidentity #socialmedia #businessmodel #marketing

Yesterday, I went to Panera Bread in Vista, CA. I’ve only been to about half a dozen of Panera’s 1300 US locations, but their Vista location is my favorite. I’ve also been to the original Panera in Boston, which is much more compact.

Every once in a while, I like to explore new places and find quaint coffee houses or cafés where I can sit and write, read, or just relax. For me, the quieter and roomier, allowing me to spread out my work, the better.

San Diegans are a laid back, casual group. When we go to Padres games, we don’t go expecting them to win the world series.  We go because Petco Park is one of the nicest baseball parks in the US, and it’s an enjoyable place to spend time with friends and family.  Likewise, when we go out to coffee, we go to relax.

I am not going to say Bostonians are not a laid back casual people, but Boston is a subways culture and San Diego is a beach culture.  That culture reflects well in the Panera Bread at Boston’s Coolidge Corner. That location, like many Boston cafés and coffee houses, is much more compact.

I prefer the more spacious Panera’s, cafés, and coffee houses of San Diego.  That’s probably because I’m a San Diegan. People who live in subway cultures, and are used to rubbing shoulders with other train riders, probably enjoy bumping elbows and getting into conversations with new friends at cafés and coffeehouses that cram as many tables and chairs into their establishment as possible.

When you’re writing content for your website or working on your company’s social media marketing plan, consider your audience. Sure, your clientele may consist of people from beach cultures, subway cultures, and various other subcultures, but they all have one thing in common—You.  And how you brand yourself and/or your business matters.

Stay social my friends,

Erick

When you present yourself and your company, your book, or services online, it’s important to be authentic. People do business with people, and blogs are a good way to let people know who you are. But your readers don’t need to know about all of your dirty laundry. Some may consider this “spin” without an authentic ring to it, but I think of it as putting your best foot forward. It’s the difference between what you would tell someone you just met, and a dear friend you would vent to over a glass of wine. Though you may have regular blog readers, more than likely they are not the same people you love and trust. And remember, things can spread quickly and you’ll be hard pressed to take it back once it’s out there on the internet.

So now I know you’re remembering that last week I said it’s okay to be human, to admit your mistakes, and I still stand by that. But how much you need to tell is where it gets tricky. Especially if you’re mad because someone other than you messed up big time. This happens a lot with vendors; but it could just as easily happen with editors, agents, publishers, and others.

A while back we made some pretty pointed comments on our company blog about a manufacturer with whom we no longer had a business relationship. The comments were not in any way flattering, and we promptly received a letter from their lawyer claiming libel. Now the comments were true, so more than likely a case could not be made for libel in court. We opted to edit the post, and not spend our time, energy and money with our lawyers, but rather on growing our business. We then used the experience as an opportunity to create guidelines for ourselves on what we would—and would not—post about in future editions. Ultimately you’ll have to decide for yourself, but here’s some questions to ask yourself:

Will telling the tale benefit you and your business in anyway? I’m not talking about will it make you feel better to get something off your chest, but will it cause a change in the relationship with your vendor– a change for the good? Will it bring you more business? Will it elevate your status or improve how others perceive you?

Will telling the whole truth, names and all, benefit your customers (those folks reading your blog) in any way? If not, don’t do it. Turn the story into something beneficial for your customer base. Your tale of woe could become a post on Ten Tips for Working With A Vendor (or editor or publisher). In our case, once we made the edits, it was a pretty good post about quality and what our expectations are, which in turn let our customer base know how we do business.

So if your only reason to tell the story is to get something off your chest, I would recommend instead that you write a letter (but don’t send it), scrawl your anger in a journal, or share your frustration with a trusted friend.

Truth be told, we initially wrote our post in anger. And it backfired because you get back what you put out there world.

–
Jennifer Simpson, aka Je Sais (I know)
DID I BLOG YOU?
http://akajesais.com/

If you’re engaged in Social Media Marketing, you should be equally engaged in Social Media Monitoring—the listening side of the conversational web.

You can listen for your name, your brand, other brands, your company, your competitor, or any number of terms.  Though, no matter who you listen to or what you listen for, it’s important you listen strategically and converse actively.  I listed some Social Media Monitoring tools. Some of them have free versions, so go ahead and peruse.

Social Media Monitoring Tools

Jive Software Radian⁶ BrandsEye PostRank BuzzGain SM2 Buzz Logic

Trackur Visible Technologies ReputationDefender Sentiment Metrics Brandwatch

StepRep CISION ScoutLabs Sysomos ListenLogic Vocus Social360 PivotLink

Questions to ask before listening

• Why do you want to listen to what people are saying (market research, customer relations management, etc)?
• What are you going to listen for (Name, brand, etc)?
• What mediums/people are you going to listen to (Find out where the most relevant conversations are and listen to those)?
• Are you willing to spend time and money to listen and respond?  If yes, how much?  If not, is it really worth your time? (There are plenty of free tools, but you don’t get what you don’t pay for).

Do you know of any other Social Media Monitoring tools, or do you have any other suggestions of what people should consider?  If so, comment, e-mail me, or Tweet me.