!!! Index! 1. Introduction! 2. Developing a SMO Strategy!

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2 Index 1. Introduction 2. Developing a SMO Strategy 2.1 The right communication strategy 2.2 Choosing Social Media Channels 2.3 Defining content 2.4 Develop and online profile 2.5 Finding niches 1 3. Facebook SEO 3.1 The Facebook-search 3.2 Finding a title for your own page 3.3 Using a Facebook username 3.4 Using the info-site 3.5 Establishing further boxes and tabs 3.6 Create content in the newsfeed 3.7 Offering informative content for users 3.8 The right timing for postings 4. SMO for external sites 4.1 Facebook Open Graph Protocol 4.2 Optimizing destination site 4.3 Making it possible to share content 4.4 Using Google Plus 4.5 Overview of SMO for external sites 5. Check list Social Media Optimization This document uses stars to demonstrate the importance of a topic. The stars are located behind the tiles and in the checklist of the Social Media Optimization. Very important topics are awarded with three stars which is the highest number of stars. The lowest number of stars is one star. If no star is awarded, that means that the topic in question is not relevant for the optimization.

3 1. Introduction Until now, Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, was the best possible way to achieve a higher ranking with the search engines by having interesting content on your website. Google has always placed a high value on natural back-links that were created by users and not by search engine optimizers. Today, more links are placed artificially instead of naturally. The rebuilding of naturally operating links, is becoming harder. Social media has, in the last years, undermined the structures that were solely reserved for search engines. 81% of all links placed on Facebook are natural links and just 19% are artificially created through online campaigns. Facebook has over 800 million members world wide. Over 21 million of those users are from Germany. Social Media plays part in the ranking Now Google can also not look past the vast influence that social media has as a communications channel. Google scans next to articles also comments that were written on Facebook and on external website that were written using the Facebook-comment function. All media, links, mentions and trends that were incorporated were collected by the Google algorithm as a further factor in the positioning of search results. How big the influence of these factors are, has not been determined. The first signed point towards the fact that Facebook shares have the biggest influence on the ranking. The Social link is important Although all links from Facebook are marked with the Notfollow-Attribute, Google has recently confirmed that websites are positively influenced through links from social media portals. Yes, we do use it as a signal. It is used as a signal in our organic and news rankings. We also use it to enhance our news universal by making how many people shared an article. The links from users and profiles from social media portals can positively affects the ranking of a website. Back-links are not solely measured with the inheritance of the PageRanks anymore, but also with the actual traffic has become an important quality factor. Which blog has the biggest influence? Which website has the highest traffic. The right combination of SEO and social media provides clear advantages for both channels and can increase the ranking through a change up strategy. Content with added value is demanded Just like with the search engine optimization, the decisive factor for Social SEO is content. Content is King is not just a saying, it is the law. Interesting, funny and topic relevant content is often viewed and shared. If these contents are fitted with graphics, pictures or videos, they provoke more interest than plain text. In order to create added value, it is important, that the social media profiles are constantly filled with new interesting and fitting topics. Incentives such as discount promotions or contests animate people to share and like the article and make the content more attractive. The continual management and the right use of brand names or important keywords make the profile, in the frame of a Social Media Optimization (SMO), move up in the rankings. SEO and Social Media connect Just like with social media marketing, there is a remaining risk for public criticism for SMO. Here, proper action can be taken in a short time frame to the reputations management. Yet social SEO, with its spread of content, provides a large potential for increase in back-link quality and the ranking from social media profiles in search engines. Furthermore, huge successes can be

4 achieved in social media campaigns. The aim is to intelligently combine classical search engine optimization with social media optimization and community management and integrate them into the already existing strategy. Whoever uses the constantly growing relevance of social content from themselves, they will be able to successfully implement future marketing campaigns. 2. Developing a Social Media Strategy In order to implement social media optimization successfully, the right strategy and tactics need to be in place. If in the past, the marketing campaigns were about acquiring customers, today they are about creating customer loyalty. The users are not supposed to be plain targets anymore, they are supposed to become brand ambassadors by recommending the brand through their own actions. The users becomes part of the brand and the brand becomes the medium. The right contact tactics and the conversation ability of the brand ambassadors will decide the success of the communications strategy. The ultimate goal should be to develop the consumers into fans of the brand and advocates of the brand in which in the user is always at the center of the communications strategy. The goal is the transformation of the non-user to the loyal user all the way to the activ-loyal user which is shown in the pyramid.

5 2.1 The right communications strategy The consumers of a product do not have to necessarily be the best ambassadors of the brand. Added value for communication is created where active and brand loyal users act as multipliers for the brand-communication. That is why the right choice of one or many social media channels is extremely important for the implementation of the strategy. 2.2 Choosing Social Media Channels Which social media channels will be used for the communication has to be decided depending on the type of communication. Facebook and Twitter are strong factors in influencing the ranking, due to their spreading ability. Also blogs, micro sites and forums offer, in combination with social media, a large potential for brand communication. - What is being said where about my brand? - Who buys our products where? - Who recommends our products? (Blogger/multipliers) A few questions have to answered before hand: - In which channels are you being rated and discussed? - Where and how does the competition sell? - Are there interest groups for the product/brand? The choice of the communications portal should be linked to the type of information and the influence that the brand ambassador has. The information has to be trimmed to the medium and the large spread of information has to be given. The user can be brought to recommend the brand him/her self through cooperating marketing. All results from the communication should the actively used to further develop the products. 2.3 Defining Contents A defined awareness of the impact the brand has is a prerequisite in order to define suitable content for the communication. The spread content has to engage the user in a way that the user wants to the share and actively participate in the communication. - What makes the company/ brand strong? - What is our competitive advantage? Before choosing the content, following questions should be answered: - Which information from the company could be interesting to the user? - Is there a unique idea, like something funny or special? - Which content offers communication potential? Generally speaking, the information in the fan community should provide added value. Videos, pictures and interesting news are always popular but have to always be relevant to the topic and the desired strategy. A well structured editorial plan is important to know which people can share which information at which time. When choosing content, it is important to make sure that it can regularly be produced. All information should be simple and easy to understand and be specific about the topic. Furthermore, every content has to display several options to be shared. You have to generally

6 know that you have to publish a lot of content in order to gain something from the community. The production and preparation of content is a continual task. 2.4 Creating an Online-Profile The correctly placed online-profile provides the brand or product with a face and character. It orients itself on the already established brand image and is expanded through a personal component that has to transport emotionality and credibility. Blogging CEO s are no longer a rarity and are very popular because they generate a feeling of being reachable and sympathy. A Face for the Online-Communication: Before choosing the online representation, it needs to be clear, that the chosen face will be viewable in all social media channels. Thats why it is important to chose an employee that can carry information from social media channels into the company. It is a great advantage if that employee is already strongly connected within the organization. The way the employee communicates should be fitted to the company/ brand in order to eliminate discrepancies or irritations with the users. - CEO Possible social media representatives: - individual employees with complete name and function - A team of employees Profile picture: The profile picture should be very expressive and should ideally not be changed. This increases recognition. Another advantage: Google makes it possible to look, with pictures, for similar pictures. The picture can therefore also be used in the Google image search at a later time to find further content for the Face. Short description of the company/ brand: A short information about the position and function of the company/ the social media representative. Look & Feel: Authenticity: The profile should be regularly monitored since there have been cases of miss used brand/ The design of the social media profile should orient itself on the CI of the company / brand. company profiles in the past. One possibility to avoid this miss use is to verify your account. Social media channels such as Twitter, offer an official verification that is not accessible for the public. Alternatively, you can link people to your Facebook or Twitter profiles from your official website. The New York Times for example, links people from their official website to the Twitter profiles of their reporters.

7 2.5 Finding Niches Just like for search engine optimization, social media optimization is most effective when used in areas with minimal competition. That or keywords should offer a potential for the optimization in social media services and search engines. When keywords are already taken by big competitors it is essential to look for less strongly optimized keywords. 3. Facebook SEO Facebook with over 800 million members is the biggest social network in the world. Because of its reach, Facebook offers a huge potential for social media optimization. Which rules need to be followed in order to create added value for the own online universe? This chapter provides an overview of all important actions that need to be taken to optimize the Facebook page and their own website. 3.1 Facebook-Search Before tackling the optimization of the Facebook-site, one should firstly understand how information is found in Facebook. Facebook uses their own in-house Edgerank-Algorithm which can only be slightly compared to Googles algorithm. Search results in Facebook are shown based on the connections and behavior of the user and not just based on relevant keywords. The user is not supposed to just look for keywords but find search results based on their interaction and networking. The Facebook Edgerank-Algorithm is based on two sources: Objects and edges. Objects are posts which can contain texts, links and pictures. Edges are actions that are taken all around the post. These actions refer to likes, comments and shares. The Edge-score is calculated through these three factors: The affinity of the user to the Facebook site - How often does the user open the page and how often does the user integrate with the site? Weighting the posting - Postings that contain links, pictures or videos receive a higher weighting from Facebook. Age of the posts - New posts are rated better than old posts. The keyword is the most important factor during the search and should be included in the Vanity- URL, the title, the infobox and in the comments of the fanpage. Pages with a lot of likes and a high interaction are treated superiorly. If links, pictures or videos are integrated into the postings, they receive a higher weighting. Next to that, the affinity of the user to the fan page plays a big role. It is important how often the user opens the page and interacted with the site. Information in the profile of the users (interests, personal information etc.) are taken into consideration. If friends of the user liked or commented the site, the relevance of the site is increased. New entries are generally weighted stronger than old entries. From that, following factors arise that are important for the Facebook search:

8 1. The keyword is found in the title, infobox and comments 2. The interactivity of the fanpage 3. The keyword is in the Vanity-URL 4. Friends of the user are fans of the page 5. Number of fans 6. Age of the postings The search results are generally organized after the user connects with other sites and his interests. A classic structure does not exist, it differs from user to user. Following factors are used to determine the results: - Community-sites that are suited for keywords - Community-sites that are used by the user or his friends - Fan sites of the user or friends of the user - Friends with the keyword in their name - Pages with a high fan number - Places on Facebook where the user was recently active - Events where the user takes part or where the user is invited - Pages that the user likes - Popular sites that fit with their keywords to the profile - Posts with keywords in the newsfeed - Mentioning friends of the user The instant- search delivers search results while still typing the keywords in the search engine. The maximum seven most relevant search results according to the keyword are displayed. If the enter button is pressed after entering the keyword or the magnifying glass icon is clicked, the search will beginn. This search delivers a more comprehensive search result compared to the instant search. 3.2 Finding a Title for your own Page The name of the Like-Page should reflect what the user is supposed to expect. The ideal situation is to use the keyword while choosing the name. If the Like-Page is for a brand, the name has to reflect the brand. Otherwise names or features of the products/ services are also imaginable. Generally, the name of the site should be authentic and should not be changed after the first implementation. 3.3 Choosing a Facebook User Name Here, the same rules apply like for the site names. The URL should not be to long and should be easy to remember ( ). When choosing the URL, laws and Facebook s general business terms have to be obliged in order to avoid complications later.

9 3.4 Using the Info Site In order to incorporate more keywords into the title of the site and the comments, the info page should be used. Here, information like a short description of the site (Info), a full description of the Like-Page, links to the homepage and contact details can be stored. The short description also appears on the left edge of the site in the info box. This page s first priority is to provide further information, thats why it should not contain many keywords. One keyword for every sub point is enough to create a higher relevance for the Facebook search. 3.5 Creating further Boxes and Tabs Facebook allows further boxes and tabs to be added to the page. This is a good opportunity to keep adding content to the page in the form of text and links. A big advantage is that Google sees every tab as a separate URL.

10 3.6 Creating Content in the Newsfeed The development of postings for the newsfeed (wall) is the most important part of the social media optimization. Postings (or status updates) appear high up within the page structure and appear in the newsfeed of the page fans. That is why the postings should contain links to the target page. All postings and comments are also read from Google. That is how content and links spread very quickly in the social web. Of course, strongly discussed topics on Facebook are preferably indexed by Google. Links in postings are always attached beneath the status update, unless the attachment is deactivated. The link with attachment can easily be spread with the share function. The use of relevant keywords in postings is extremely important. Because the newsfeed of the Like-Page displays the main content of the Facebook-site and is ranked highly form Google. When using keyword-seeding the rule applies: Class before mass. One keyword per posting is sufficient yet not every posting needs a keyword. The best way is to then combine the status update with a link, picture or video. Facebook uses the NoFollow-Attribute for its links. That means, the links are officially not measured by Google. It could be proven that links with a certain structure are measured anyways. In order to achieve this, it is important not to use a URL shortener (very popular with Twitter). Full links are read by Google and Yahoo. 3.7 Offering Added Value for Users Generally speaking, the content that is posted on the wall and the rest of the Like-Page should always be of the highest quality. Important information and extra services like linking other pages on yours, increase the relevance of your own page. guest entries in blogs or the moderation of a forum will help you to generate trust. That also applies to thanking users for helpful posts, either per or direct message. 3.8 The right timing for the Posting The target group decides when the right timing for postings is. That is why it is important to find out when the relevant users are online. That can be very different depending on the target group. Studies have shown that Mondays at 11am the best time is to post blog entries. Brand-sites on Facebook have their highest reach weekdays at 3pm. Some content is preferably read during lunch break. The weekend is not the ideal time to post new postings. At the end of the day, the company has to decide for themselves when they want to post. Another question that has to be asked if why users are likers of a certain page. Is the reason a discount? Do likers not want to read another post unless it has something to do with a discount?

11 Fact: Users with a high affinity to a brand want to regularly receive new postings with new information. Studies have shown that on average 3-4 postings per week generate the highest activity. 4. SMO for external Sites In order to establish an efficient change-effect between the goal-website and social media services like Facebook, different connections needs to be established. How the Facebook-site moves people to the actual website was already discussed in the previous chapters. You should follow the following rules if you want to permanently and successfully connect your website with social media services. 4.1 Facebook Open Graph Protocol specially for Facebook, there is a very efficient method to make your website easily spottable in the Facebook-search: the open Graph Protocol. Facebook firstly introduced the protocol during its own F8-conference in 2010 but it is not used by many so far. All data that is relevant to Facebook is placed over the protocol into the meta-tags of the headr of the site. That way, the title, a picture and the content of the page can be transmitted to Facebook. If the open graph protocol is integrated into the site, a like-button can also be integrated. During confirmation, the website will appear in the likes as well as the interests of the user. Because of that, it will also appear in the Facebook-search.

12 If the like button is pressed, the website will appear as follows on Facebook (the right settings are a prerequisite): Embedding a Like-box is more effective. The like-box shows the website content directly in the users-stream. The post, giving the right settings, will be shown with picture, link and comment function. The page can be discussed and shared more quickly. 4.2 Destination-Page optimization The destination page should fulfill all requirements of the search engine optimization. Managing meta-tags (keywords and descriptions) as well as optimizing content is part of the process. Important keywords should be in the title of the text and in further content. Through placing the right links throughout the website, an optimal connection to a social media service can be established. The references have to fit to the topic. Wildly placed links neither help the page nor the community. A website which frequently updates their content is perfect in order to stay interesting for the target group. A blog to a specific topic or a website with videos, pictures and interesting content is especially helpful. 4.3 Making it Possible to Share Content Many links and mentions to the destination-page are weighted positively from search engines and viewed as recommendations. That is why the page should not just have different buttons to share the content for Facebook. Through sharing your own posts, relevant keywords can be added to the posting. The embedding of content on other users pages should be allowed in order to spread the page content. YouTube was first to do this with their Embed function. 4.4 Using Google Plus Users that are logged in with their Google account will have personalized search results shown to them. The +1 button for the destination page can be confirmed in the search results or directly on the destination page. Similarly to the Facebook like button, the destination page will be shown first during the next time the user searches, even if the destination page is not supposed to be at the top. Friends in Google plus will also see the site at the top results. Google Plus is therefore the best example for connecting social media and search engine optimization.

13 4.5 Overview of SMO for external Websites The general rule is: Everything that creates interactions in a social media network, is relevant for SEO. Likes, mentions, shares and comments all have the potential to create link-juice which will ultimately influence the destination page with a positive ranking. However, you have to be cautious because negative postings can also land in search engines that way. Not the number of likes, fans or followers is important, but the quality of the links and their interactions from fans and followers. The main tasks for SMO for external sites are: - Optimizing the destination page in relation to social media services - Generating your own links - Managing conversations and community - Using personalized search results

14 5. Checklist for Social Media Optimization Did you use all optimization possibilities for your Facebook Like-page? Is your website optimized for social media services and search engines? Check the box if you are already using the listed optimization suggestions for your Facebook page and add together all the stars. In comparison to the total amount of stars, you can see where you stand with your social media optimization. 1. Are you using the optimal Facebook Page title? a. Our page title consists of the most used keywords for our products/ services b. Our page title is the name of our brand or company c. Our page title is the same as our Facebook-URL d. Our page title consists of a maximum of two words 2. Do you have the right Facebook URL? a. Our URL is shorter than 35 signs (including ) b. Our URL consists of a maximum of two words c. Our URL is easy to remember d. Our URL confines with the law and the Facebook general terms of use. 3. Are you using the info-site right? a. We use all infotabs that are available b. The keyword or the brand is mentioned in every infotab c. We use the info-site optimal for links to our website d. The text below Info uses the space in the info-box just right 4. Are you using the possibility of further boxes and tabs? a. We use more tabs than the standard amount provided b. Further boxes connect, through interaction, the content of our Facebook site with the offer on our Website. c. At least a second tab has links to our Website

15 5. Use the newsfeed for optimization a. Some of our posts in the viewable newsfeed contain one relevant keyword or the brand name b. Many of our posts contain links to our offers c. Many posts contain pictures and videos to the topic d. We do not use URL shorteners for our links 6. Are you offering your users a added value? a. We have conversations with our Facebook users b. We thank our users for helpful posts c. We always keep a close eye on the postings of our users in order to provide quick feedback d. Our posts always provide conversation starters for our users e. We allow users to link us to external sites as long as our communications goal is reached f. We sometimes link on external sites if the15y provide an added value to our communication 7. Is your website optimized for social media? a. We use the Open Graph Protocol on our website b. We have a Facebook like-button on our website c. Many links on our website refer to our social media like-page d. We optimized the meta-tags of our website to the content e. The content of the website optimized to relevant keywords f. We allow the sharing of content in other social media services g. We offer a Google +1 button on our website

16 Checklist-Score: All 77 * Congratulations You are ideally set up in the area of social media optimization * You are not using the full potential of optimization possibilities. Make your appointment today in order to get your first consultation in order to use all options to maximize your profit. Less than 55 * You should rethink your strategy of linking your fanpage and your destination page. We strongly recommend a consultation appointment in order for you to optimize your social media.

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