Not because their social media clueless – but because they underestimate the power of ‘valuable content’ and overestimate the effort and price involved in creating it.

When it comes to online followers, people don’t want to see polished corporate videos, company ads and formal business lingo. No. Your online audiences want to see real people, real content – published online in real time. In most cases, people want to connect on a human level.

photo credit: Nina Matthews Photography

To do this, businesses need to focus less on using social media as a communication tool and more on being online friends. That is, contributing ides, discussing topics and adding content that is both relevant to the business and even slightly left field. Don’t underestimate how much people enjoy seeing live iPhone snaps from events or real time videos that are free from the strains of organisational review. Poor resolution or imperfectness can even be a real bonus when trying to build credibility from your followers.

The best part of social media for businesses is the ability to create an online personality that transcends to a memorable user experience. By creating a ‘friendship’ with your online audience – you drive consumer loyalty and therefore profits.

You will need to loose a bit of control and go with the flow a bit. But by doing this, there is the potential to create large, loyal friendship groups that will support your businesses and even stick up for you in a time of need.

Creating friendship and content for social media success is a post from: eVenture

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I often hear people within small business or organisations talk about “trying” social media.

Yoda says “Do or do not…. there is no try”.  Social Media is the same.  In order to use social media, Video Social Marketing looks at and assesses the following for every client:

• available resources (time, money, human)
• evaluate current marketing activities
• determine what it is that a business wants and expects to achieve
• obtains a commitment from the client to optimise social media opportunities
• enter into a monthly agreement for a minimum of six months to support and ensure the success of the marketing implementation.

Social Media has the capacity to work amazing wonders in a business and we recently had a “mature” client with whom we were reluctant to work – within three weeks of setting up her Facebook Page and Blog, she reported sales to three people she had never met and two months down the track, she has a customer base of more than twenty, none of whom she knew previously.

Like any business function, social media requires a strategy be built and worked into a business plan and then outstanding tactical execution.  In a landscape that literally changes daily, it can be tricky for a business to stay on top of and remain responsive to the market place.  Clients who take on specialist support tend to be the more successful in utilising social media.

Should Our Business Try Social Media? is a post from: eVenture

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1. Consistent

Integrate your social media marketing efforts into your other marketing campaigns. Add links to your social media profiles on other forms of marketing, such as email signatures, email newsletters, print ads and business cards. Also, make sure you add links to your  recent content, in your social media streams. Don’t forget to offer your social media followers / fans a chance to subscribe to your newsletter.

Start integrating your social media profiles as part of your contact details and you should soon start to see a natural increase in subscribers.

2. Pimp Yo Self

Be sure to give a shout out on social media pointing back to any content you have created, whether it be a contest, email, blog post, and event, etc. Also redirecting your followers to other peoples great content fits under this category also.  This helps establish your position as a great broadcaster of quality content and allows you to be seen as an expert in the certain industry. Remember quality will always trump quantity.

3. Reuse & Recycle

Their are many ways to re-purpose content, you could transcribe a podcast, either video or audio, you could reword a blog post and submit to article portal, you could add content from a blog and re-purpose as a ebook. Get creative, you do not always have to start from a clean slate.

4. Generating Customers

This is the big one … everyone wants to know how they can get customers via social media, yet nobody seems to know how to do it. Those that do muster up the courage to go direct are usually baffled when they are met with quite hostile reactions. People do not like be advertised to, no matter what the situation, but especially in social media.

The idea is to create awareness of your products by creating value through your content, you will slowly gain trust with that person who will then ask you about your products. Get them to come to and ask you, don’t waste your time asking people who are not ready to buy off you. Be patient and let them come to you.

5. Listen

One common theme I have seen when people are starting out is the overwhelming paralysis which can be cause by starring at a blank twitter or facebook page. The pressure to fill the blank screen with some amazing content can be too much and they end up twitting about what they had for lunch. If this is you, then relax, stop trying to force it and simply start listening to the conversations. Just wait and listen, sooner rather than later a conversation will spring up that you are interested in. You do not have to say anything to get value out of twitter. I have got clients before by simply listening.

If I were starting out in social media, this would be where I would start. Get a RSS reader like Google Reader, add blogs related to your industry, do custom searches on twitter, do custom searches on Google Alerts, go to social bookmarking sites like Digg, Stumble Upon, Hacker News and Biz Sugar to see what is hot, etc. Then just listen and learn.

Tips For Social Media Marketing is a post from: eVenture

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Domain Name Registration

Ok let’s start with the basics. A website requires a domain name, otherwise known as a URL (universal resources locator), or a web address. These are are purchased from outlets such as crazy domains and godadddy. Purchasing a URL gives you access to that particular address name. However a URL alone won’t allow you to set up a website. For that you’ll also require hosting. Your hosting solution will allow the series of files that make up your website to be viewed through your web address.

Hosting

Hosting refers to the servers where your website’s files live. A website essentially is a series of files – text docuemtns with barely readable computer code and images – that sit on a computer (the server), that get transformed by your internet browser into the website you see before your eyes. Hosting solutions differ greatly in price, size and service, and really depend on the parotuclar needs of your site. Hosting is something usually organised (or at least recommended) by a web developer, however if you already have a website then you’ll have an existing server and your new website may just utilise that solution.

Web Designer / Web Developer

These two terms are used somewhat interchangeably by many people. In fact amongst professionals there’s not a completely clear idea whether these terms describe different roles. But if there is a difference it’s this – a web designer determines how the site will look visually, and how it will work. Really this role spans the terrain from graphic design to project and account management. These roles are often done by completely separate people, so again that’s why the term is quite imprecise. The developer is responsible for all the coding that’s required to make the page look and function according to the brief received from the client. She’s your coding nerd.

Content

Content primarily refers to the text and images – the ‘articles’ if you will – in the site. Websites are often built before much of the actual content is ready, with the understanding that the client will supply content after core functionality is complete. Often the site’s content is the responsibility of the business or owner and will be created either in-house or by a copywriter. Content is typically added by either sending it to the developers, or via  a Content Management System (CMS).

Review Time

A website is made up of various components, each of which tends to be the responsibility of different parties. It’s the job of a competent online producer to oversee the various tasks and to pull the project together.  As a business owner, make sure you’ve got your head around the varying components of your website and stay on top of who is responsible for what.

Website Components is a post from: eVenture

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The reason for this is:

Inbound Links … People are much more likely to link to content that is unique and different.

The beauty about the internet is the ability to reach so many potential customers, however the downside to the internet is the large amount of competition. These days the majority of industries and categories are becoming heavily populated regardless of how narrow the topic.

However those who understand how the search engines work have learnt to take advantage of how the algorithm works. They are aware that the more content they create the more links they will get, but more importantly they realise it is not about the quantity of the content but rather the quality. It is all about being unique which in turn will generate buzz and conversation.

A Link Building Example

Ok so lets say you own an online wine website and you sell 100 different types of wines. You are in direct competition with 100 other websites of which are selling the same products as you. All 100 websites are more or less doing the same exact thing, their is no differentiation.

Now imagine a popular wine resource site, with resources, forums and videos all relating to wine. They are not going to link to all 100 wine sites, they may pick 1 or 2 in which to support.

So in your link building efforts you decide to contact them and tell them about how good your website is and why they should urgently place a link to you on their site … they agressively reply, labeling you a spammer and you have completely ruined your relationship with them with any future relationship being extremely unlikely!

Don’t Do It … Everyone Does It!

Think about it would you link to a site that contacted you for the first time and began blowing their own horn? NO! You Wouldn’t!

Rather be a little more creative:

Run a competition and give away a trip to an Italian winery for example. Then tell the blogger about this, and ask if they are interested in promoting it.

Create a useful widget, they would be interested in putting on their site

You get involved in the community and notrice you know the answer to a question. You simply answer it with a link at the bottom back to your site. (No further promoting)

Want To Rank Higher In Google? Then Be Different! is a post from: eVenture

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Here is a sneak peak of their data, but I highly encourage you to go over there and take a look, regardless of if you are a newbie or a veteren:

Top 5 Ranking Factors:

1. Anchor Text From External Links: 73%
2. External Link Popularity: 71%
3. Diversity of Link Sources: 67%
4. Keyword Use in Title Tag: 66%
5. Trust Worthiness of Domain: 66%

Search Engine Ranking Factors by SEOmoz is a post from: eVenture

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However I am beginning to notice a bit of a trend … the majority of the sites I am reviewing, have very little content!

In a previous post I talked about the announcement of Google Caffeine. This is the future of Google’s search algorithm and from what I have seen it is starting to favour content over links. Ah yes the epic SEO debate … links or content?

I am not saying you should stop link building and just concentrate on content creation, but I am saying I think the Google algorithm is slowing starting to favour content more and more.

So if you have not already started a blog, then get a blog design now and begin growing your online footprint

Content Optimisation Now More Important Than Ever is a post from: eVenture

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