seobridges.com

Google consists of 1,980,000,000 pages. Here are their top ten tools:

Google Realtime – Find out what’s going on in real time.

Google Trends – Find out what keywords are trending, compare them to other keywords, and see how people are searching them.

Google Squared – Type in a topic. Google will return a list of related topics from top resources in boxes. Deselect sources you don’t want, click “Add to this square,” and get information from the most reliable sources.

Quick Search Box – This downloads onto your computer and allows you to search your computer or the internet for any topic you want.

Website optimizer – Set up an experiment, and get suggestions to optimize your website.

Search insights – Set up your search terms; filter how, when, and in what region you want to search; click search and see how people search for your given terms.  You can also localize it.

Keyword Tool – What you once knew as SKTool is now their Adwords tool.  Enter a website, a few search terms, click search, and find top related Google keywords.

Youtube Insights for Audiences – Set up the gender, age range, and region you want to search according to, and click search.  Then, see what categories their searching in and searching the most, along with which keywords they’re using, and the videos they’re watching.

Business offers – This brings the idea of social couponing to your website.  You run it; Google markets it.

Submit Your Content – Tell Google what kind of content you offer, and they will help you get it to your target audience.

Stay social my friends,

Erick

Recently, I tried to connect with a local business person through Linkedin.  I didn’t know this person, nor had I ever talked to this person on Twitter, Facebook, or in any other way.  They responded to my request with a one-word e-mail: “Incentivize.”

I wrote this person an e-mail informing them that though we had never met, we had common acquaintances and our businesses complemented on another.  This person responded a couple of days later, “Nice try. Maybe next time.” They concluded their e-mail by insinuating that perhaps we could connect at a later time. There won’t be a next time.

By writing “Nice try. Maybe next time,” this person set a tone for the future of any dealings between us.  Had this person responded by saying something such as, ‘Thank you for reaching out to me, but I prefer to only connect with people I know or have done business with,’ I would have understood.

Instead, this person’s response seemed to insinuate that I had not yet obtained a level of worthiness to connect with them.  Now, I can understand why that person did not want to connect.  Some people only make personal or past business connections through Linkedin, while others are more open about whom they connect with.

If someone reaches out to make a connection with you, you don’t need to make that connection.  Though, be careful of how you turn down that connection.  Think of how you might feel if the situation were reversed and that person responded to you in the way you’re about to respond to them.

Stay social my friends,

Erick

#Twitter #Social#Media #Social#Networking

Yesterday, I talked about finding and following those Tweeters whose messages offer you the most value.  If you are one of those people who wants to find the most valuable Tweeters, the secret is that Tweeters who offer you the most value are those Tweeters who offer your followers the most value.  That’s right!  The secret is to focus on what your followers want.

As a company, we don’t mind if someone Tweets about their personal life, hobbies, sports games, or what not every once in a while.  That helps us get to know our audience more.  We do tend to unfollow those people who Tweet about nothing other than the latest rapper who went to prison, the latest Hollywood gossip, or the person who cut them off on the freeway.

So, now onto how we decrease our competitors’ visibility.  Well, first you need to know who your competition is.  After you figure out who your competition is, follow them.  But don’t let them know you’re following them.  I know, you’re thinking, ‘How do I follow someone without letting them know I’m following them?’  You can set up a dummy account or your can create a Twitter stream with their Twitter handle.  As far as I know, neither Twitter nor any other Twitter client has developed a way to identify who’s created a stream with a specific name.

We tend to ignore our competition, because we don’t really consider them competition.  The reason is simply that our goal is to create bridges using SEO content and social media marketing (hence the name SEO Bridges).  We have a niche audience.  And we focus on building bridges by forming partnerships and relationships, not by fighting with our competition.

It works for us.  What works for you?

Stay social my friends,

Erick

#social#media#marketing #social#networking #Web#content #Internet#Marketing #Twitter #SEO #SMM

One of the greatest inventions in the history of entertainment is the deck of cards. There are an inexhaustible number of things you can do with a deck of cards. There are countless games you can play, tricks you can perform, and things you can build (house of cards) with a deck of cards. I see writing Web content and doing social media marketing like performing with a deck of cards.

The purpose of a game of cards is to increase your probability, while decreasing your opponent’s probability. The purpose of SEO content and social media marketing is to increase your visibility while decreasing your opponent’s visibility. To do that, you must first know what deck of cards you’re playing with (Web content/Social Media/Internet Marketing/Other). You must also know which game you’re playing. You should know whether you’re playing to get the most followers you can or to get the most value out of your followers.

When it comes to Twitter, if you’re playing to get the most followers, you’ll want to use an automatic Twitter follower and other automatic tools. At SEO Bridges, we don’t use those, so we don’t know which ones are out there. We believe that just as the best SEO practice is to write organic content, the best SMM practice is to build your audience organically. If you want to find the followers with the most value, you must focus on your message. And follow those people whose messages you’ll benefit from the most. If you offer the same quality message to them they offer you, chances are they’ll follow you in return. We’ll talk about this more tomorrow, so come back.

Stay social my friends,

Erick

Related articles

• Five Steps To Social Media Success for Startups (startupprofessionals.com)
• 3 Time-Saving Tips for Becoming a Great Social Media Listener (thebloggersbulletin.org)
• 30 Quick Tips to Get More Twitter Followers for Free (shoutmeloud.com)
• Have You Defined Your Social Media Marketing Funnel? (smallbusinessmavericks.com)
• How to gain more exposure for your Twitter account – 4 simple tips (ubervu.com)
• Getting Started Online: Social Media (wheretheclientis.com)
• 10 Twitterific Twitter Tools (sixrevisions.com)

#social#networking #social#media #social#web #social#media#monitoring #social#media#analytics

One of the most annoying things about trying to choose a social media monitoring tool is all the options.  Often, enterprise social media analytics like Alterian’s SM2 and Radian6 are too expensive and overwhelming.  And those services that will monitor your social media presence using the best value aren’t easy to find.  That’s why I found cost effective social media monitoring alternatives that offer any social media marketer on any budget the most value for the money.  Everyday this week I’ll tell you about a new social media monitoring tool that costs $10 or less per month, and I’ll end the week with a look at this week in social media monitoring.

PostRank

1.     Monitor up to five sites and ten social networking sites.

2.     Use Overview to see your engagement throughout the social Web throughout the last week, month, or three months.

3.     Use Analyze to see how your blogs ranked using a points system, and filter your posts, to see which individual posts ranked highest.

4.     Use Analyze to see which pages on your site receive the most attention and how people interacted with each page.

5.     Use Trends to see your top ten blogs over the last three months, the social media sites they received the most attention from, and your top ten influencers.

6.      Use Optimize to see how people engaged with you on ten different social networking sites.

PostRank offers a free 30 day trial so you can explore everything they offer, and they’re always looking for ways to improve.  They also offer enterprise social media monitoring, so you can monitor up to 200 sites and connect 50 social networking to each of those.

Stay social my friends,

Erick

Every business and entrepreneur has a brand, brand influencers, an audience, and a brand identity.  In terms of social media marketing, the key to managing your brand identity is to listen to the needs of your audience through social media monitoring, while allowing your brand influencers to influence how you listen to the needs of your audience.

Your brand influencers are not your audience, they are those who influence how you listen to the needs of your audience.  Your audience is those people with needs, but they’re not going to tell you what they need.

I hosted at a restaurant for a short time.  Eventually, the restaurant manager made me a day time server (lunch counter style), so I could get into the habit of serving people and looking for their needs.  The goal was that I would work my way up to night time server (dining room only).  I left before I made night time server, but I took those skills of seeing needs and used and improved on them at my next job.  Eventually, I took those skill and others and started SEO Bridges.

When you allow the needs of your audience rather than the insight of your influencers to influence your decisions, you lose sight of your brand identity.  For instance, if one of the guests at the restaurant waved a $100 bill in my face and told me they’d give me that money at the end of the night if I stood at their beckon call and ignored everyone else, I’d be allowing a portion of my audience to influence my key decisions.  Now, if a party of 20 came into the restaurant, they’re going to leave at least $100.  Then, I’m going to focus most of my attention on them, but I’m going to remain aware of the needs of everyone in the restaurant.

In terms of Web content and social media marketing, allow your brand influencers to influence how you’re going to listen to the needs of your audience, listen well to the needs of that segment of your audience that’s in the most need of your services, and remain aware of the needs of your entire audience.  It is when you allow one segment of your audience—search engines, Facebook friends and fans, Twitter followers, and others—to cause you to ignore the rest of your audience that you allow your brand’s audience to become your brand’s influencers.  It is then that you allow your brand identity to be influenced by brand popularity rather than brand integrity.

Stay social my friends,

Erick