Archive for the ‘Web Presence Optimization’ Category
Enterprise Social Media and Personal Branding
Thursday, June 30th, 2011Personal branding is a hot topic for entrepreneurs and solo consultants, but does it matter to large enterprises? Oh yeah.
Consultants and small business owners get the concept of personal branding, because in one-person or very small companies, one person is the “corporate” brand. Having optimized profiles on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook as well as personal profile / reputation management sites like Google Profile, Plaxo, LookupPage, VisualCV, PeoplePond and BusinessCard2 is crucial to optimizing one’s business online presence.
But isn’t it different in large enterprises where there’s already a strong corporate brand associated with high quality, great value, outstanding service, prestige or some other positive attribute? Not at all. That brand image matters little in social media. If anything, personal branding for key public- and customer-facing individuals is even more important in big businesses than in small firms or one-person shops.
First, if you want to talk to the “CEO” of your local bakery or neighborhood bar, you can likely just walk in and often find him or her on the premises. You can’t do that with executives at GE, IBM, Ford, etc.
Second, “social” media is by definition a person-to-person (or person to many persons) activity. You can have a conversation with a person, or participate in a conversation in a group of people, but you can’t talk to a “company,” which is merely a soulless, bodiless legal entity.
Third, while you can certainly buy many types of products from companies (e.g. books from Amazon, coffee from Starbucks, electronics from Best Buy), there are many products and services that purchased from individuals, even though there may be large company behind them. If you refinance your home, you work with a mortgage banker—an individual—even though that person may work for a large bank. Insurance is typically provided by large companies, but sold by individual agents. Ditto for other financial services, legal services, cars, motorcycles, heavy machinery, exotic travel, some types of luxury goods… You purchase something supplied by a company, possibly a very large company, but you buy from an individual person.
In that sense, the individual’s personal brand becomes, to you, the corporate brand. Your experience with that individual, good or bad, influences, often strongly, your perception of the corporate brand.
So, big companies have an interest in making those individual interactions as positive as possible. It’s essential to hire good people, of course, but it goes beyond that. Often, a bad experience isn’t the result of a having a bad agent, broker, salesperson, customer service rep or consultant, but rather from a mismatch between the individual buyer and seller. The transaction is more likely to be positive if the connection is appropriate based on geography, area of expertise, hobbies or other factors, possibly even age (e.g. a couple nearing retirement may prefer not to work with a twenty-something financial planner).
How is this achieved? Through personal branding. It’s easy to investigate companies and product attributes online, without ever giving up your contact information. Why shouldn’t you to be able to “shop” for the individual you’ll eventually buy from or work with as well? You should, of course. And smart companies, big or small, who recognize that in a social media world, their people are their differentiation, will find ways to capitalize on personal branding. Read more about this in Why Personal Branding Matters to Big Companies, my guest post on the Workface blog.
How to Build the Ultimate Online Newsroom
Wednesday, June 8th, 2011by TomPick and guest blogger Maria Verven
Almost every PR pro over a certain age remembers press kits–actual physical folders stuffed with a company’s recent press releases, management bios, a corporate fact sheet, a few case studies, and maybe an article reprint or two.
They were expensive to print and ship and awkward to lug around—for both PR people who produced them and the journalists who ended up with them. They were bulky, killed lots of trees, and of course weren’t searchable.
And there was the constant balancing act: include too much information, and nothing will get read (it will seem overwhelming). Too little , and the writer won’t understand how cool and unique your company really is. Yeah, no one today mourns the press kit, but they were the best technology available at the time.
As the web took off and corporate sites proliferated,press kits (or at least elements of them) were moved online. Searchability improved, trees were saved and shipping costs plummeted. Online newsrooms are a dramatic improvement, but even today many are sub-optimized; it’s not at all uncommon to see websites where the “news room” or “media page” is little more than a list of press release links, with perhaps a PDF of some media coverage and some sketchy management bios.
The best online newsrooms go well beyond that and really take advantage of the web medium. Combining rich content with careful organization and search capabilities, they enable PR pros to provide the media, analysts and bloggers with a vast amount of information without seeming overwhelming.
The ultimate online newsroom should house everything media are looking for in one convenient, easy to navigate spot. It ideally should include:
- • The primary media contact’s name and contact information (including social network profile links). This is preferably one single individual, but can be multiple names (e.g. based on division, product line, purpose etc.) if absolutely necessary.
- • Links to news releases (current year and archive of past years). If your company produces a lot of news releases, also provide the ability to view by topic (e.g. product line, financial releases, personnel announcements, etc.).
- • Links to media coverage and bylined articles.
- • A company backgrounder or fact sheet (see below for detail).
- • FAQs (real ones, that real media people would care about).
- • Management team bios and photos (downloadable JPGs in high-res and low-res versions for print and web). Bios should specify each executive’s area of expertise and best topics for quotes or interviews.
- • Story ideas (again, thoughtful ones).
- • Upcoming events / sponsorships / speaking engagements (with speaker bios included).
- • Links to white papers, PowerPoints, videos, ebooks, infographics, and other company-generated content and thought-leadership assets.
- • Links to analyst (industry and/or financial) research and coverage.
- • A link to the company blog(s).
- • RSS feeds for press releases and blog posts.
- • Downloadable JPG images in hi-res and low-res formats. These include the company logo and other important images such as the company headquarters building, product photos, software screenshots, photos of executives at industry events, etc.
- • Links to all of the company’s social media profiles (LinkedIn company page, Facebook, YouTube channel, Twitter etc.).
- • A search-friendly URL structure with “news” included, e.g. news.company.com/section/pagename or company.com/news/section/pagename (where “section” is the content type: news releases, bios, images etc.). See the 2011 Online Newsroom Survey (PDF) from TekGroup for more guidance here.
News releases should always be in HTML format for searchability. If PDF or printer-friendly versions are offered, these should be stored in a separate subdirectory that is excluded from search in order to avoid duplicate content issues. Releases should be presented in reverse date order and links should include the headline, date and one-line summary (preferably Twitter-friendly 115 characters or less). Again, current releases should be displayed on the newsroom main page with a link to archives, and the media contact name should be easy to find on every release. Also consider creating social media releases (which can include videos, images, links and other items) using a tool like PitchEngine.
One thing that’s often overlooked: updating the media contact name on older releases if that name changes. You don’t want to direct media to contact former employees or your old PR firm (!).
The media coverage page should highlight the two-three most recent articles, with an archive section for the rest (assuming the company gets that much coverage).
The company backgrounder needs to be factual, objective (non salesy) and written in the third person. It’s best to provide both a short version (often just the news release boilerplate) and a longer version that includes more company history, competitive differentiation, and how the company’s products and/or services help customers solve problems (backed up with facts).
Management bios should include information on how long that person has been with the company, key responsibilities, any outside leadership roles held, and social media profile links.
To develop story ideas, start by looking at looking at editorial calendars from “A tier” publications in the industry and look for recurring themes. Make it clear which executives are the best sources for each topic.
Upcoming events and speaking engagements should include the date, name of the conference or event, a description of the company’s participation in the event, and links to the conference website and the speaker’s bio (if applicable).
All content should (of course) be search optimized, with the ability to limit the search to just information within the newsroom section of the site.
It almost goes without saying, but important news should be shared via the company’s Twitter feed, Facebook page and other important social media outlets. All newsroom content should be easily sharable using social media buttons for the most popular sites and networks (tools like AddThis, ShareThis and Meebo make it easy to add these buttons to any site or page). Use and link to social content sharing sites for your media assets as well, including YouTube and Vimeo for company videos, SlideShare for presentations, Podcast Alley and iTunes for audio, Flickr for photos, plus Scribd and Docstoc for PDF files.
The days of the press kit are far behind us, and there’s no need to simply replicate that old format online. The ultimate online newsroom can simultaneously provide far more information and yet give each reporter exactly what he or she is looking for.
Maria Verven is a PR and content marketing executive with KC Associates, a Minneapolis-based b2b technology PR and marketing agency. She’s well-versed in the “new rules” of doing PR, with expertise in social media, SEO (search engine optimization), content marketing, social media and blogging.
Best Web Presence Optimization Guides and Tips of 2010
Wednesday, January 19th, 2011Web presence optimization (WPO)—using tactics like SEO, PPC, online PR, social media, content marketing and reputation management in a coordinated fashion to maximize your online visibility and business results—is the core theme of this blog. It’s also frequently written about in popular blogs and online publications, though strangely almost no one uses the term. It’s almost like a big game of Taboo, Catch Phrase, Password, or even Red Green’s Possum Lodge Word Game; all of these writers are describing the concept of WPO, but are apparently forbidden by some cosmic rule book from using the actual phrase.
Or maybe it just hasn’t caught on. Yet. Whatever.
But fundamentally, 1) there are now far more online venues than just your website or blog where you and/or your company be found (social media pages and profiles, articles, videos, etc.), and 2) there are more ways for people to search than just Google and Yah-Bing (YouTube is now the second-largest search engine and Facebook SEO is its own emerging discipline). WPO is about capitalizing on these trends, so learn how to integrate your social media, search, SEM, content marketing and other interactive marketing and PR efforts to optimize your web presence here in some of the best articles and blog posts on (shhh! Don’t say those words!) of the past year.
Web Presence Optimization Tips and Tactics (Though They Don’t Call Them That)
4 tips for higher rankings through better links by iMedia Connection
Great content naturally attracts links, but Matt Malden points out ways to go beyond that by blogging, sending a regular email newsletter, using Twitter, social networks, YouTube and other sites to expand your online presence.
Social Media Affecting BtoB Buying Behavior by The Proactive Report
Sally Falkow reports research on new influences in the B2B buying process (e.g., 59% of b2b buyers engage online with peers who have addressed similar challenges; 48% follow industry conversations on the topic; and 37% have posed questions on social networking sites), then emphasizes that your “content must be visible as your prospective customer moves through all the possible sources of content” including social bookmarking sites, forums, blogs, your website and in the industry press.
How to use search to shield your brand from negativity by iMedia Connection
Eric Papczun delves into three key components of online reputation management: SEO (long-term promotion of content in search), paid search (SEM—addresses immediate needs), and social media (message distribution and brand engagement).
Don’t let your social media presence crush your brand’s future by iMedia Connection
Eric Papczun follows up on his post above with more guidance to help “dominate search engine results pages” including leveraging alternate domains, creating a corporate presence on social networking and content-sharing sites, and search-optimizing your press releases. He also lists several tools to help track and monitor your brand reputation online.
Why B2B Marketers Should Leverage Flickr by Search Engine Land
Andy Komack explains why business marketers should use Flickr, the social photo-sharing platform, what types of images to upload (e.g., product photos, diagrams, infographics, trade show pics etc.), and how to leverage Flickr through blogs, articles, Facebook and other tools.
Tools to Include in Your Social Media Marketing Strategy by CompuKol Connection
Michael Cohn supplies an excellent list of “useful and effective tools that will help you create a buzz for your business,” from social networks and photo-sharing sites to wikis and review sites.
Social referrals: How to attract this vital currency by iMedia Connection
Noting that, for an increasing number of websites, “referral traffic is as significant from social networks as it is from search engines, making social the next search,” Liza Hausman details three components of what she terms “an effective on-site social optimization strategy:” social connectivity, the connected experience (e.g., making it as simply as possible for visitors to share your site content across multiple social networks), and social analytics.
The best 159 social websites by Populair
Social media profiles and content promotion are key elements of WPO, and here is an excellent list of social sites across various categories including social networks, answers and knowledge, social travel, local social, social phone apps, business social, events and more.
Social Media and Search
Social Media and Search Optimization Integration by SEO Wizardry
Frequent best-of contributor Pete Hollier details the social media optimization (SMO) process, explains how a corporate website and blog integrate with social bookmarking and social networking, and shows how SMO and SEO efforts support each other.
Titles, Tags & Tweets: the Role of Search in Social Media Marketing by PR-Squared
Todd Defren emphasizes quite properly that when it comes to titles, headings and tags for blog posts or other social media content, descriptive words (i.e., what your audience is likely to be searching for) are far better than “clever” titles. He also advises, “many brands will supplement their blogging with Blogger Relations, YouTube videos, Twitter, Facebook, etc…the content created for one outlet, e.g., a YouTube video, ought to be promoted across any other frequently-used channels. Tweet about the video. Post it to the Facebook Wall. When appropriate, let key bloggers know about it.” Hmm, sounds a lot like WPO.
How search can boost your social media campaigns by iMedia Connection
Vanessa Newkirk shows how insights gained about your prospective customers and the search keywords they use from social media, SEO and SEM efforts can be applied across all of these online marketing activities to make each one more effective.
B2Bs Tap Social to Boost Search by eMarketer
In a recent survey, 44% of B2B marketers said that their social media activities have had a positive effect on search performance for their websites (a figure that is likely much higher in reality, as another 27% respondents admitted they “don’t know” what effect social has on their search results). This makes sense, as SEO success is driven by links, and social media sites can be a rich source of relevant links. The top two goals B2B marketers identified for social media are building brand awareness and increasing website traffic.
How to adapt to the evolving search landscape by iMedia Connection
Jonathan Shapiro shares some thoughtful, strategic insights on how search is evolving, how social media impacts search, how social+SEO+PPC efforts can work in tandem, and how to utilize off-site content, (e.g., YouTube) to enhance your brand presence online.
Why Social Media Is Top Priority for Search Marketers by eMarketer
“Is 2011 set to be the ‘year of Facebook,’ even among search marketers?” That’s the opening question here, and recent research indicates the answer is a clear “yes.” SEO and social media program integration is the top organic search priority, while social media advertising is the paid search priority; at 46%, it’s ranked well ahead of tactics like local search advertising (18%) and mobile search ads (11%).
Online Reputation Management
20 Common LinkedIn Mistakes Online Job Seekers Make by New Grad Life
Though aimed at job seekers, this post provides an excellent checklist for anyone on LinkedIn to review. Among the common mistakes to avoid: not creating a personalized public profile URL, not making your headline (and profile summary, and specialties) searchable by including key search words, not proofreading your profile for typos and grammatical errors (ouch!), not personalizing your invitation-to-connect messages, and more.
5 Ways to Weave LinkedIn Into Your Marketing Mix by TopRank Online Marketing Blog
Noting that LinkedIn has more than 60 million members, including executives from all of the Fortune 500 companies, Michelle Bowles presents five excellent techniques for optimizing your personal marketing through LinkedIn, such as optimizing your profile, leveraging third-party apps such as Slideshare, and promoting your LinkedIn profile through other channels (your blog, email signature and business cards, for example).
Google on Manipulating Search for ORM by Outspoken Media
***** 5 Stars
It can happen—negative commentary about you or your company gets posted online. Maybe it’s valid (e.g. an instance of less-than-optimal product or service delivery; no organization or person is perfect) or maybe not (e.g. a disgruntled ex-employee seeks online revenge), but either way, it’s potentially damaging, particularly if it appears prominently in search results. Rhea Drysdale walks through several steps you can take to push the bad stuff off the front page of Google by creating and promoting positive content—profiles, blog posts, news, favorable reviews, and other items.
What is Webbiquity? How to Be Everywhere Online
Tuesday, January 12th, 2010Welcome to Webbiquity! What exactly is that? Briefly, Webbiquity, or web presence optimization (WPO for those who prefer TLA’s), is the fusion of SEO, social media, interactive PR, online reputation management and other disciplines to make an individual or organization ubiquitous on the web for their name/brand and unique descriptive phrase. If SEO is about getting your website onto page one of Google, WPO is about owning that page.
For example, Jill Konrath is webbiqitous for the phrase “selling to big companies,” holding all 10 spots on the front page of Google for that phrase. The results include her website, blog, a link to her book
From a historical perspective, the web a decade ago (or even a bit less) was still primarily a broadcast medium with limited inactivity. Although in theory anyone could own a website even then, the web presence of most commercial organizations was limited to their own websites and whatever had been written about them by professional publishers and analysts, plus a few directory listings. The last few years have, of course, seen the emergence of social media and an explosion of user-generated content. A company’s website is now only one of myriad places where customers, buyers and other interested parties can find information about it.
This new environment has created the conditions for web presence optimization: using all of the tools now available to make a company as “findable” as possible not only for branded searches but also for key phrases that uniquely describe the enterprise and its offerings. Using these tools properly means not only dominating search, but also presenting a clear and consistent message across channels, wherever buyers or industry influencers may find you.
Specifically, web presence optimization is about achieving webbiquity using the tools show in this diagram, including social networking, social bookmarking, blogging, interactive PR, video and content marketing to disseminate the company’s message as broadly as possible. Just as importantly, companies need to maximize the search value of these different tools and platforms by taking advantage of the linking and cross-linking opportunities they provide.
So, for example, social media releases–part of interactive PR efforts–point readers to company microsites and its media sharing (images, video, presentations etc.). Media sharing accounts are connected to Twitter, which is also used to promote content marketing. Reputation management sites point the organization’s Twitter account as well as social networking profiles. And everything links back the enterprise’s website and blog.
The end result is that when customers, prospects and influencers (bloggers, journalists, analysts etc.) are looking for information on your industry, they find you everywhere. Your story and messages are bolstered by your webbiquity. You have the opportunity to become a valued resource in your industry. Further, the interactions you have with these various constituencies across social networking and other media platforms demonstrate that your people aren’t just smart, they are also helpful and responsive.
This is obviously a high-level view of the elements of webbiquity. Future posts here will delve more deeply into the tools and tactics that can help you and your company “be everywhere online” for your brand and industry discussions.
Surveying the Social Media Landscape
Tuesday, December 29th, 2009| In “The Four C’s of Social Media,” I noted that coming up with a concise definition of social media, like defining “art,” is challenging. Describing it through the four C’s—content, context, connections and conversation—was one approach. Another is to look at the different types of websites and tools that comprise the social media landscape.
The intent of the lists below is to categorize the landscape and show the most prominent sites in each category. They aren’t intended to be comprehensive, but rather to identify the high points in the social media topography. Social Networking Sites where you can post your profile, promote links to your company site / blog / etc., join groups based on various common interests and traits, ask and answer questions, provide updates and engage in other online networking activities. |
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| Site | Alexa Rank (March 2009) | Compete Traffic (February 2009) | Compete 1-Year Traffic Change | Google Pagerank |
| 5 | 73,787,766 | +159.0% | 8 | |
| 14 | 11,246,726 | +137.4% | 8 | |
| Plaxo | 1,440 | 2,629,043 | +144.7% | 7 |
| Friendster | 47 | 1,454,029 | -20.0% | 7 |
| Naymz | 12,476 | 522,953 | +93.2% | 6 |
Social Bookmarking Sites where you can post links to articles, blog posts or other content that you find interesting or want to promote, search for what’s being posted on a particular topic, and, depending on the site, do things like join special interest groups, see what others are linking to, view the most popular links, vote on your favorites, promote content, and comment on links posted by others. |
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| Site | Alexa Rank (March 2009) | Compete Traffic (February 2009) | Compete 1-Year Traffic Change | Google Pagerank |
| Digg | 243 | 33,433,760 | +51.2 | 8 |
| 3,777 | 4,908,990 | +114.6% | 8 | |
| StumbleUpon | 832 | 4,418,609 | +38.6% | 8 |
| Delicious | 2,735 | 1,623,083 | +2,176.8% | 8 |
| Propeller | 3,340 | 1,164,549 | -12.1% | 8 |
| Mixx | 589 | 879,108 | +341.2% | 8 |
| Furl | 19,326 | 164,949 | +10.7% | 7 |
| Searchles | 39,385 | 67,406 | +25.7% | 5 |
Blog Tracking Sites where you can promote a blog, search blogs for specific topics, evaluate the popularity of various blogs and track selected blogs. |
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| Site | Alexa Rank (March 2009) | Compete Traffic (February 2009) | Compete 1-Year Traffic Change | Google Pagerank |
| FeedBurner | 522 | 3,581,957 | +42.3% | 9 |
| Technorati | 599 | 3,309,174 | +25.2% | 8 |
| Bloglines | 9,182 | 435,118 | +2.6% | 8 |
| BlogPulse | 58,521 | 51,229 | +89.7% | 7 |
Media Sharing Sites where you can upload, promote, search and share non-text media such as video, photos and podcasts. |
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| Site | Alexa Rank (March 2009) | Compete Traffic (February 2009) | Compete 1-Year Traffic Change | Google Pagerank |
| Video | ||||
| YouTube | 3 | 69,110,425 | +16.9% | 9 |
| Vimeo | 537 | 2,648,778 | +848.1% | 7 |
| Viddler | 5,653 | 688,155 | +669.4% | 6 |
| Photos | ||||
| Photobucket | 36 | 24,470,242 | +5.8% | 7 |
| Flickr | 33 | 23,769,885 | +8.2% | 9 |
| Picasa | N/A | 1,023,139 | +48.2% | 8 |
| Podcasts | ||||
| iTunes | 94,360 | 889,156 | -10.3% | 8 |
| PodBean | 21,456 | 119,812 | +82.5% | 6 |
| Podcast Alley | 27,962 | 79,007 | +15.1% | 8 |
| Presentations | ||||
| SlideShare | 1,100 | 1,008,754 | +250.0% | 7 |
Reputation Management Sites that help you establish your “personal brand” and can also drive traffic to your site or blog. |
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| Site | Alexa Rank (March 2009) | Compete Traffic (February 2009) | Compete 1-Year Traffic Change | Google Pagerank |
| ZoomInfo | 2,702 | 1,864,047 | -6.5% | 6 |
| CrunchBase | 24,789 | 430,057 | +116.1% | 7 |
| VisualCV | 51,989 | 85,993 | +174.0% | 6 |
| LookupPage | 74,220 | 16,525 | N/A | 4 |
Wikis Sites where you can conduct research, create new topic pages based on your expertise, edit existing content pages, and—in the case of Google Knol—rate the contributions of others. These sites use the insidious “nofollow” tag, so they have no SEO value. They are useful, however, for establishing the expertise of an individual or organization on a specific topic, and can drive referral traffic. Wikipedia is the most difficult to edit due to the tight control maintained by the site’s primary editors and their hostility to any content that can be construed, however remotely, as promotional. Knol may lack Wikipedia’s cachet, but it’s a much friendlier place. |
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| Site | Alexa Rank (March 2009) | Compete Traffic (February 2009) | Compete 1-Year Traffic Change | Google Pagerank |
| Wikipedia | 7 | 62,228,655 | +11.4% | 9 |
| Knol | N/A | 386,772 | +22,303.6% | 7 |
| Freebase | 22,726 | 206,489 | +1,132.2% | 6 |
Other Sites that are difficult to categorize. Yes, Twitter is a micro-blogging platform and there are others, but does anyone use them? |
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| Site | Alexa Rank (March 2009) | Compete Traffic (February 2009) | Compete 1-Year Traffic Change | Google Pagerank |
| 314 | 7,935,441 | +964.5% | 9 | |
| Squidoo | 483 | 4,324,281 | +43.3% | 8 |
| FriendFeed | 4,771 | 876,616 | +984.5% | 7 |
| What did I miss? I’d like this to be a “living” post, so let me know of any sites that should be here but aren’t and I’ll update this list periodically.
Note: This post was originally published on the WebMarketCentral blog in March 2009. |
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