Social Schmoozing » Google

Music Industry Uses Viral Marketing & SEO To Extend Brand Awareness

derekshowerman — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 00:25:23 +0000

So lets be honest, Charlie Sheen is creating quite a fuss. His name is everywhere, so what did one mid-level band do? They went viral and recorded “Wild Thing” while in the studio recording their next record. All the while they have pimped out the “Charlie Sheen ” name so they can come up in Google searches and Google alerts for……..who else…..”Charlie Sheen”. Very viral of Chimaira dont you think? Check it out….

You know whats cool? In Chimaira’s first DVD, my website was proudly worn by the drummer during the show. How cool am I? lol

Reputation Management & It’s Effect on SEO & Social Media

derekshowerman — Fri, 14 May 2010 15:27:11 +0000

The question was posed to me, what is Reputation Management, and as a marketer should I be concerned about it? Here is Wikipedia’s official explanation:

Reputation management is the process of tracking an entity’s actions and other entities’ opinions about those actions; reporting on those actions and opinions; and reacting to that report creating a feedback loop. All entities involved are generally people, but that need not always be the case. Other examples of entities include animals, businesses, or even locations or materials. The tracking and reporting may range from word-of-mouth to statistical analysis of thousands of data points.

Historically marketers have used Reputation Management to monitor negative sentiment in Social Media channels by creating and optimizing content around keywords that would move negative sentiment off of page one in Google. Smart- right? It also allows the company to address that same negative sentiment and document a case study of success. Make the naysayer happy! Good stuff and smart as well.

That was the past, today Reputation Management is a must for any brand swimming in Social Media channels. Here is why! I have tried to tag and #hastag alot of keywords I am interested in being found for. Sure enough, some of the organic keyword traffic this blog is receiving comes from social channels, as well as those tagged keywords from Google. I don’t link build, so that direct Google traffic (attached to a specific keyword) is a direct byproduct of tagging my content and Google finding the correlation to my Social reputation.

Since Google started indexing tweets, I have seen Twitter pages and even individual tweets I have posted start appearing within Google search results. Same with ReTweets (RT) of me, or of my valued Twitter peeps! The result has been more referral traffic and the direct connecting of the dots to SEO.

What I outlined above is a way you can show ROI in relation to Social Media. If you are not engaging socially, you might want to reconsider. Social Media now has a direct quantifiable relationship to SEO with a pivot point named Reputation Management.
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We Are Each A Brand – Twitter Best Practices For Anyone!

derekshowerman — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 21:40:56 +0000

I was flipping through ESPN the magazine last night when I was reminded of a disturbing trend. Aaron Curry of the Seattle Seahawks has a Twitter handle of @SeaHawk59. What is worse is Stephen Curry, a soon to be drafted NBA player, has a handle of @classof2027. My question to both would be, how are people supposed to find you if they actually wanted to follow you? How is Google supposed to attach your Twitter feed to your search rankings? As it stands now, when you Google “Stephen Curry” his Twitter address does not appear within the first 50 search results. I gave up after 5 clicks on the next tab. Not good, and certainly not good for his Twitter presence. A SEO nightmare by his own creation!

This got me thinking about how companies can utilize Twitter more efficiently. Really the same way athletes should, but don’t! An athlete’s name is not their brand due to free agency. Sales is nothing more than real world free agency. With that in mind-I have compiled a list of Twitter best practices with an eye on maximizing your companies brand on Twitter, and ultimately driving brand awareness and affinity:

Twitter users are 37% more likely to be followed when they spell out their full name instead of attaching their brand to their username. With that data in hand, I suggest that your company have one corporate username and all other employees make their user name an extension of the company’s brand. This will allow your company to be able to speak to all business avenues -instead of being pigeon-holed based on his/her username.
Every piece of content created in blogs, Youtube, Flickr, deep discussions, new events- need to be shared on Twitter. We suggest connecting Friendfeed to the corporate Twitter account.
I suggest your company share tidbits of knowledge daily. At least 10 twitter posts per day using keywords from a yet to be established keyword list. 60% should be of the thought leadership variety, while 40% of the posts should talk about the Twitter personality’s life. The corporate account should be purely talking about company happenings and posting links for “link juice”, while responding to mentions. Always post an opinion on industry specific news.
I suggest creating a template thank you note for every new follower. This template will link to the company’s website and be accompanied by a thank you with a clear call to action.
I suggest your company closely monitors the Twitter members that are talking about the organization on http://www.search.twitter.com. Track the results by simply copying the RSS feed of the results and placing it in an RSS reader.
Your organization should comment on other posts of interest as much as time allows. This opens up free flowing conversations. The organization can track these conversations by keyword and put the RSS feeds into a Netvibes to follow effectively.

Summary:

One Corporate Account (example @authoritydomain)- At least 10 Tweets a day (60% business/40% casual & fun- be a human) Attach a trending term: Example #authoritydomains. If you are a Mets fan: #Mets
Numerous Individual Twitter accounts–For example put http://www.authoritydomains.com in the BIO, spell out full name (example: @derekshowerman). Shot for 10 Tweets a day, 60% business/40% casual & fun- be a human!
Follow other Twitter folks who mention your business on http://search.twitter.com
Thank every follower and have a clear call to action.

Suggestion:

Please be sure to engage social media with an eye on fulfilling real business objectives and a roadmap to see real ROI. Please let me know if you have any questions.

Monday Smorgasbord: Zillo, Bing, Google Wave, Jeremiah Owyang

derekshowerman — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 16:44:15 +0000

I was going to devote this post to talking about iPhone apps that will change the Real Estate landscape., but I found many really great items to comment about. So with that, I reference the Joker and say “here………………weeeeee…………………………………GO!”

Zillo- Zillo is a game changer! Instead of having to call to get information on a home you are interested in, you can now use this app to simply look. In fact, you can put in an address and widow shop what is for sale in the area and what other homes are selling for. You don’t have to be sitting on that street to use the app. This makes selling, buying and browsing for real estate much easier. Not to mention you can make educated buys and know the right time to sell based on selling trends in your neighborhood.

I thought that the website, when it came out, would make the Real Estate agent more of facilitators of transactions. The app can virtually make you a short term real estate agent.

Bing-Google now has more competition! After playing with it this weekend I was impressed to find that a search of me turned up everything Google did and then some.

Microsoft has made no bones about their hot spots at the outset being in these buckets:

Automobiles (car models, car manufacturers)
Travel & Local (countries, cities, states, points of interest like stadiums and parks)
People (celebrities, athletes, musicians, bands, politicians)
Sports (NBA, NFL, NHL and MLB teams)
Health (cancer, diet, over-the-counter and prescription drugs, symptoms, genetic and conditional disease, injury trauma)
Entertainment (popular television shows, movies)
Retail (certain electronics such as cameras, cell phones and optics products)
Events (Oscars, Fourth of July, NASCAR, etc.)

I however loved how clean everything looks and how in-depth my search was. I would love to see a rating & review section for each search result.

Two questions, did they steal Google’s algorithm? What effect does Bing have on SEO optimization?

Google Wave: I sat down and watched the video and came away with this: Google Wave is a wiki on steroids that has the usability that traditional wiki’s have not had. Personally, I think wiki’s could have replaced a companies need to create a user manual for products. Let the users create it and download it upon purchase. Anyways, I digress…what’s your opinion?

Jeremiah Owyang- Went transparent and teed up the ability for anyone to tell him how he can improve. A great post! Now if every CEO would take his lead-we might now have any more GM bankruptcy’s on our hands!

That is it for now. Make it a great week!