Social Media Optimization: Is SMO the New SEO?

Transcription

1 Social Media Optimization: Is SMO the New SEO? 5 essential elements every organization needs to know Bill Rogers, CEO, Ektron, Inc.

2 Spreading the message CommonCraft.com produced video Twitter in Plain English, available on: CommonCraft.com YouTube Twitter Vimeo And more Spread virally to mainstream media CNN ABC NPR CBS

3 Reaching out to your market Social media is the way to reach out to and educate your audience and expand your market space Ektron is using the video, Web Content Management Explained to: Redefine what content management means Reach new audiences Grow the Ektron brand Part of social media strategy

4 Search Engine Optimization Used to be able to optimize only some pages for good organic search rankings Social networking has changed Web Search engines want to display the most important sites Will start measuring social media Google SearchWiki Google has added Digg tools to their search bar Search engines are indexing Tweets

5 Search Engine Optimization Traditional SEO Still critical Have to find information before you can talk about it

6 Social Proof Both searchers and search engines are looking for social proof Your organization needs to understand it in order to maximize it Turn your site into a trusted source and encourage social media to grow your placement in organic search engine returns

7 Social Media Social Web/Social Media Twitter, Facebook, myspace, etc Web 2.0 Communications platforms where people will spread the word for you, good or bad Blogs Forums and discussions boards Wikis Multimedia YouTube Podcasts

8 5 elements to maximizing SMO Content is king Understand the phenomenon of Social Proof Product Reviews, Ratings and Forums Hooking into the Social Web Understanding the importance of off-page communities

9 Content is king Good content on your Web site is foundation for organic SEO and SMO It s the reason people will find and come to your site It s the reason people will talk about your site Establishes you as a trusted expert Keeps people coming back

10 Content is king Need good content management to make sure it s always good content No longer enough to make it easy to update site Permissions and approval chains Metadata controls and checks Traditional SEO People still need to be able to find information

11 Content is king Bad content = bad press Spreads over social media just as fast, if not faster than good content Spend more time cleaning up the mess than promoting your good information Make sure your content is good and establishes you as the place to go

12 The phenomenon of Social Proof Trust building on communities off your own Web site Increases your status as experts Other experts will start to refer to you as experts Search engines indexing social media sites will notice more activity about you The more people that are talking about you, the more your backlinks will grow organically

13 The phenomenon of Social Proof Understanding social proof Get people to join in and grow your conversation Build social ranking

14 Product Reviews, Ratings and Forums Encourage user participation on your site Gives you a level of control to respond to reviews that you don t have off your site People will talk about reviews and happenings around your product Spreads the word that links back to your site

15 Product Reviews, Ratings and Forums Testimonials Gives you the read what our customers are saying about us marketing tool Use them to drive people to your site to participate in user-generated content Forums and discussion boards Promote the conversation on your Web site

16 Hooking your site into the social Web Make your site part of the information flow on the social Web Blogs Forums and discussion boards Commenting RSS feeds

17 Hooking your site into the social Web Give visitors the tools to spread your message Social bar Make it easy for visitors to spread your message via popular social media (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, myspace, etc.) RSS Feeds and Web Alerts Get updates to interested readers in real time

18 The importance of off-page communities Off-page communities are where information crosses to new listeners Your on-site conversation can find new audiences on other sites Readers and communities are natural link builders People who learn about you on one community will take you to others

19 Getting started Optimize your Web site for your social media strategy Content management to ensure good content Implement Web 2.0 features for interaction and user-generated content Add social sharing tools (ShareThis, Add This, etc.) Choose how you want to use social media For networking: Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, Ning, Toolbox.com For linkbuilding: Squidoo, Weebly, Del.icio.us, Digg, Propeller For both Identify your audience, find out what communities they are part of and participate in them Find them via Twitter and other social media Don t overwhelm yourself by trying to join every community Communities link to other communities, spread the word organically Get other people in your organization active in relevant communities

20 Q&A Bill Rogers