Oct
25
Anti-Social Media Marketing
Filed Under Networking and Marketing Strategy, SPAM, Social Media and Social Networking Sites | 15 Comments
I’ve already written about different types of SPAM, the reasons people SPAM, and alternatives for SPAM free marketing.
In this article I look at four kinds of social media SPAM, or anti-social media marketing as I sometimes call it.
I also share several ideas for coping with social media SPAM. Although we cannot stop SPAM, we can try to mitigate its effects.
- SPAM Messages - These are the unsolicited commercial messages sent to your Facebook inbox, appearing in your Twitter replies, or plaguing you on other social networking sites. You should block the scoundrels, and report them too if they appear to be really awful.
- Comment SPAM - These are ads or links on your profile pages, blogs, forums or guest books. Beware of innocent looking blog comments such as “Great post. Keep up the good work.” The commenter is only looking for the link back to his site which most blogs (including mine) do provide. Require approval of all comments and use a SPAM filter (such as Akismet for Wordpress blogs) to help you with the job.
- Social Bookmarking SPAM - This is when someone bookmarks only his or her own content on bookmarking sites (such as StumbleUpon or Sphinn) which prohibit this. Be careful not to do this yourself.
- SPAM Blogs - These are blogs that aggregate search results (for profitable keywords) using feeds from services such as Google Alerts, and then publish these search results. They exist in order to spam search engines and other blogs and boost their own sites’ search results. If you have a blog, you’ll receive comment SPAM from them indicating that they’ve linked to you. They hope to get a juicy link back from you. If your SPAM filter fails to kill off their comments, be ruthless and do it yourself.
Creating SPAM blogs is often called autoblogging by the spammers.
In a November 2006 article, What is Autoblogging and How Does It Work?, Gobala Krishnan stated:
No matter how good you get at autoblogging, you’re never going to produce high quality sites that attract a loyal fan base using autoblogging methods. Nothing beats content that is original and written by a human being.
Couldn’t have said it better myself. 
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Oct
21
Why Aren’t Social Networking Sites Easy to Use?
Filed Under Facebook, Networking and Marketing Strategy, Social Media and Social Networking Sites | 14 Comments
Connecting on social networking sites with family and friends requires little forethought or planning. The most popular social networks are easy enough to figure out, even without instruction manuals.
Most of us would agree that social networking sites are easy to use for casual networking.
On the other hand, reaching out to your target audience on social networking sites requires both planning and an appreciation of the fine points of each site. Social networking sites are not easy to use when it comes to marketing.
Facebook in particular is one social networking site that even experienced marketers struggle with, especially using profiles, pages, groups and apps in an appropriate and effective manner.
She Purged All of Her Friends on Facebook
Recently, I was contacted by a Facebook connection who happens to be some kind of celebrity. She was migrating her thousands of friends from her profile to her fan page, so that she could remove them from her profile.
At first glance, this is the Facebook equivalent of unfollowing all your friends on Twitter. However, you realize that it’s even more extreme once you think about it.
Removing her friends on Facebook, she gave up her access to their profile information and status updates. Either she was desperate for privacy 
or hadn’t adequately considered the consequences or didn’t care much about connecting with the fans who were following her.
Separating Business from Personal on Facebook
Yesterday, a marketing friend informed me that he was trying to separate “business from personal” on Facebook. He had set up a fan page and asked me to send people there rather than to his profile.
He also informed me that he was “trying to get to 100 members, so I could get a vanity URL” and asked if I had any suggestions.
This same friend is working on attracting his target audience to his Ning social networking site which may partially justify his separating business from personal on Facebook. Nevertheless, connecting as Facebook friends offers so many excellent networking opportunities that one can’t fully justify passing it up.
Furthermore, his difficulty reaching 100 fans for his page is a sign to me that perhaps he’d be better off starting by building a base of Facebook friends from which he could later draw members for his page.
In Conclusion
A feature on one of the social networking sites may attract you, such as the ability to have an unlimited number of fan page members on Facebook, but it’s critical to carefully weigh the pros and cons of each strategy and tactic.
With Facebook groups for example, you can only have 5,000 members, but you can send group messages directly to the inboxes of all those members. That capability may be more useful to you that having unlimited members.
A modest investment of time speaking with an online social networking or social marketing expert could dramatically increase the value of the subsequent time you spend marketing on social networking sites.
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Oct
14
Is Email Marketing Dead?
Filed Under Communication, List Building, News, Personal Development and Success, SPAM, Social Media and Social Networking Sites, Twitter, Web Marketing | 13 Comments
I read an excellent article this afternoon in the Wall Street Journal by Jessica E. Vascellaro about the declining role of e-mail in our day-to-day communication, as services like Twitter, Facebook and lots of other social networking sites continue to grow in popularity.
According to Ms. Vascellaro, we obviously still use email. However, email was better suited to the way we used the Internet in the past, when we’d go online intermittently to read our messages.
“Now we are always connected, whether we are sitting at a desk or on a mobile phone. The always-on connection, in turn, has created a host of new ways to communicate that are much faster than email, and more fun.”
If more of our attention is being directed toward social media and away from email, is there a future for email marketing?
The success of email marketing depends on our ability to efficiently reach our target markets via their email inboxes. As people increasingly turn to social media, and internet service providers apply more aggressive spam filtering, email marketing becomes less viable.
Just last night, a friend messaged me on Facebook saying that she was “shifting over from an e-newsletter to blogging,” and that she was looking for a little advice.
Email marketers want to know how to react to the trend toward social media and social marketing.
Advice for Email Marketers
Here are seven tips for coping with the decline in email communication:
- Act Now - Don’t sit on the sidelines like your old media friends. There are still plenty of newspaper publishers scratching their heads wondering what they’re going to do about their failing businesses.
- Diversify - Adopt a variety of new social marketing channels, but do not discontinue your email marketing campaigns. Build on your past successes.
- Stay Cool - Don’t overreact. Email communication isn’t going away any time soon. Gradually make adjustments and find the allocation of resources that delivers you the best ROI.
- Learn Social Media - There are many social marketing resources and a fairly steep social media learning curve. Either make social media training a priority for yourself and stick with it or find someone to whom you can delegate or outsource all or part of it.
- Learn SEO - Learn search engine optimization as well, or again, delegate or outsource it.
- Keep Testing - Just as you’d test different lists or advertising copy, test different social media venues and content to determine what works for you, and what doesn’t. Be flexible.
- Get Help - Even if you do decide to educate yourself, look to social media and web marketing experts for help along the way. Their guidance will save you much time and money in the long run.
I still use my email autoresponder to communicate with many of my blog subscribers. However, email accounts for only 2% of my total blog traffic. Google, Entrecard and Twitter combined account for about 80%, and all other sources add to the remaining 18%.
I will have more to say on email marketing and on list building in future articles. I suggest meanwhile that you read List Building Paradigm Shift which I wrote at the beginning of the year.
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Oct
12
Social Marketing Momentum
Filed Under Networking and Marketing Strategy, Outside the Box, Web Marketing | 14 Comments
In Social Marketing Leverage, I stated that the Internet gives us the ability to transfer information with relative ease and enables a great variety of online tools to provide us with a virtual type of leverage.
In this article, I discuss another physical phenomenon, that of momentum, as it applies to the non-physical social marketing process.
Momentum is the impetus of an object or a process, its tendency to remain in motion. If you’ve ever skated or cross-country skied, you’ve enjoyed momentum or gliding. 
When riding in a car or bus that stopped short, you were thwarted by momentum as the vehicle stopped, but you kept going. 
Most of the time, we don’t want to lose momentum. We’ve worked up some speed, or we’re highly productive — and we want it to continue.
Losing Physical Momentum
In the physical world, these factors can cause us to lose our momentum:
- Collision - Its outcome is generally hard to predict and is often catastrophic.
- Friction - Air, water and even our own brakes slow us down or stop us completely.
- Turning - To avoid collision, negotiate speed bumps or alter our final destination, we must brake partially or completely to change our direction.
Losing Social Media Momentum
In our non-physical social marketing work, the same factors contribute to our loss of momentum and productivity:
- Collision - Hitting the proverbial brick wall. A major plan is flawed, we accidentally delete all of our Twitter followers, or our Facebook account is phished. My advice in Social Marketing Leverage to “develop good contingency plans for when Murphy’s Law does strike” applies here and to all aspects of our lives.
- Friction - Indecision, multitasking, working at home while the kids are seeking attention, working at the office while a co-worker in the next cubicle is blabbing, slow social networking sites, associates who don’t keep their word, etc. These all tend to slow us down.
- Turning - This is huge. Abandoning a blog, changing our branding strategy midstream and other false starts lead to directional changes that slow us down and cost both time and money.
Social Marketing Prescription
What is my prescription for preserving social marketing momentum?
Planning, focus and consistency.
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Sep
30
7 Questions to Ask Before Signing Up for Social Media Training
Filed Under Networking and Marketing Strategy, Personal Development and Success | 10 Comments
Another social media university, social media academy, guru or training program surfaces online nearly every day. Do we need these social media training programs? Are they worth our time and expense?
I’m old enough to remember the data processing boom of the seventies. There were more computer schools back then than social media gurus or social networking sites today.
Computers in those days weren’t as easy to use as they are today, and people were needed in companies that used them to program and operate them. Computer schools collected large sums to train people for potentially lucrative computer programming careers, but in the end, students were very lucky if they even got lower paying computer operator jobs.
Students weren’t aware that businesses much preferred college graduates with relevant degrees to fill programming positions over graduates of year- long programs. Computer schools were able to rake in large profits because they didn’t fully disclose the reality of the job market.
The same was true years later with medical billing. Schools and home study programs nurtured false expectations. The probability of finding assignments after completing a medical billing course was dismally low.
Making an Intelligent Choice
To determine whether a social media training program is worthwhile for you, answer the following questions as thoughtfully and honestly as you can.
- What are your needs and expectations? Stop and reflect. What are you looking for? To change careers? Broaden your marketing skills? Build your brand? Have fun? Earn extra money? Getting clear about what it is you’re looking for is a sensible place to start.
- Can you partially or fully meet your needs by completing the course? In other words, does the course match your needs?
- Do the benefits of the course justify your investment of time and money? Unless your goal is to turn social media into a hobby that pays off emotionally, not financially, your course needs to help you develop money making skills that justify the cost. Please be wary of courses or systems that promise quick or easy results.
- How qualified are you to pursue the path you wish to take? Do you have the prerequisites to complete the course and follow through on your plans?
- Are you motivated enough? I’ve stated before that the social media learning curve is steep, and results aren’t quickly obtained. You need the mindset of a marathoner to succeed. Look at your track record. If you can persevere over a long period of time and follow through, you might succeed. Otherwise, resist committing to a long-term social marketing plan.
- How qualified and reliable are the instructors? Do they walk the talk? Have they demonstrated the ability to do what you yourself would like to do? Can they provide references?
- Can you afford to lose your investment? If the course costs more than you can afford to lose, discuss your options with friends and advisers before making a decision. Listen carefully to their recommendations.
You should be able to apply the same or similar criteria to evaluate affiliate marketing, network marketing, search engine marketing or SEO courses.
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Sep
23
Social Marketing Leverage
Filed Under Networking and Marketing Strategy, Outside the Box, Web Marketing | 15 Comments
A lever gives us the ability or leverage to move heavy objects with relative ease. Metaphorically speaking, the same is true of any tool that can empower us to perform a function more effectively.
The Internet gives us the ability to transfer information with relative ease, and it is also enables a great variety of online tools to provide us with virtual leverage.
Web-Based Tools
Here are six web-based tools that we’ve come to rely upon to save us time or money or to help us be more effective:
- Internet-based mail - e-mail, autoresponders and PDF Files
- Live communication - VOIP phone, chat and webinars
- Digital media - websites, blogs and micro-blogging sites such as Twitter
- Social networking sites - Facebook, Ning, LinkedIn, etc.
- Content sharing sites - YouTube, Flickr, StumbleUpon, Digg, Delicious, etc.
- Search engines - Google, Bing, etc.
I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve had some experience with each of them, and this is a very partial list.
What Can Go Wrong
I probably don’t have to tell you that things don’t always go right. Here are the three obstacles that can most easily sidetrack you:
- Using the wrong tool - Download a large file using dial-up Internet, and by the time it finishes downloading, you’ll forget why to wanted it in the first place. Use a shabby autoresponder, and most of your e-mails will end up in recipients’ spam folders.
- Using the tool wrong - Social media tools and search engines have steep learning curves, and learning how to use them properly is typically a big undertaking. Misunderstand or misuse social media or SEO techniques, and your work can be set back by months.
- The tool breaks - Your Internet connection goes down for a week, your Facebook gets phished, or your blog gets corrupted. You’ll be pulling out your hair, unless of course you’re fortunate enough to be bald.
Many marketers contact me for help because they’ve been using the wrong tool or using the tool wrong.
An Ounce of Prevention
So — choose the right tools, learn to use your tools properly, and develop good contingency plans for when Murphy’s Law does strike — because it most certainly will, and at the worst possible moment.
What do you think?
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Sep
2
List Building Using Facebook
Filed Under Best of 2009, Facebook, List Building, Networking and Marketing Strategy, Social Media and Social Networking Sites | 22 Comments
I have already written List Building Using Ning Social Networks and List Building Using Twitter. I will want to revisit Ning and Twitter in the future. However, in this article I discuss the use of Facebook for building your list.
As explained in List Building Paradigm Shift, list building in today’s social media world is the process of acquiring and nurturing a rich and heterogeneous following across diverse platforms which include Rolodex, autoresponders, social networking sites and RSS feeds.
On Facebook, friends, page fans and NetworkedBlogs followers, all belong to your list, and all receive communications from you in one form or another.
If Facebook would enable you to have an unlimited number of friends, you could probably get along without fans and NetworkedBlogs followers. However, Facebook models itself after the real world and therefore limits you to 5,000 friends, presumably the exact size of CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s personal Rolodex.
Facebook does enable you to have any number of fans and followers. List building on Facebook consists of acquiring and nurturing friends, fans and NetworkedBlogs followers belonging to your target audience.
Acquiring Friends
I covered a technique for targeting and connecting with friends on Facebook in Targeting and Connecting on the Top Business Networking Sites.
You find members of groups, fans of Facebook pages, and blog followers on NetworkedBlogs, all of which you consider relevant to your target audience, and you invite those members people — in a congenial manner, of course — to connect with you.
The more friends you have, the more your content is displayed to their visitors helping you get even more friends and followers.
Acquiring Fans
These are a few of the many ways to acquire fans for your Facebook page:
- Place a Fan Box widget on your website or blog, so that your visitors can become fans with one click.
- Post a message on your website or blog requesting that your visitors become fans.
- Ask your Facebook friends to become fans. There is a “Suggest to Friends” link on your Facebook page.
- Place advertisements, but take care to adhere to the Facebook guidelines for advertising fan pages.
- Post outstanding content on your Facebook page that will spread virally on Facebook and attract new fans.
Acquiring NetworkedBlogs Followers
NetworkedBlogs is a Facebook application to promote your blog and acquire Facebook followers and blog subscribers.
Here are some ways in which I acquire NetworkedBlogs followers for my Online Social Networking blog:
- I have a NetworkedBlogs widget on my blog’s sidebar.
- I ask people on my blog, Facebook and other social networking sites to follow me.
- I try to write useful articles so that friends of my Facebook friends and followers will start following me.
A Special Request
Please subscribe to my blog and follow it on NetworkedBlogs. I’ll do my best to write useful articles that you’ll enjoy, and to reply to your comments promptly and helpfully.
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Aug
26
Twitter Targeting Tweak
Filed Under Networking and Marketing Strategy, Social Media and Social Networking Sites, Targeting, Twitter, Twitter Tools | 25 Comments
Connecting with your target audience on Twitter is difficult, and with all the bots and spammers joining the site, it’s getting to be more and more difficult to find real people each day.
Let me share a targeting example with you.
Suppose that you want to locate wine enthusiasts. You happen to find my Twitter profile through Twitter Grader or a similar program, because I have identified myself as a wine lover in my bio.
You decide to follow all the people who follow me reasoning correctly that many of them are also wine lovers. If you’re lucky, a few hundred of them are real wine enthusiasts, and they will follow you back as soon as you follow them.
All this sounds good, but there’s one tiny little problem.
If you follow all the 30,000 people who follow me, you’ll have to follow – and subsequently unfollow — the more that 29,000 people who follow me but know as little about fine wine as a politician tends to know about ethical conduct.
There has to be a more efficient approach. Don’t you think?
Searching Twitter Profiles
There are quite a few Twitter tools that search through profiles and tweets. I like TweepSearch, since it searches profile bios but at the same does its best to sort the results by the time since the most recent tweet, making it easier to locate active Twitter users.
When you log in through Twitter, TweepSearch shows you whom you’re already following and enables you to follow, unfollow or block people within the search results.
You can limit your search to followers of a particular Twitter member or search through everybody. In other words, you could search the profiles of my followers to find the wine lovers among them, or you could search the whole Twitter database for wine lovers.
You’ll have to play with TweepSearch and other Twitter resources and search tools until you find the ones that best suit your needs.
Automated Twitter Tools
There are a variety of Twitter tools that help you identify your target market and do all the following and unfollowing for you. Since I am following and unfollowing many people and managing several Twitter accounts for clients, I decided to experiment with one of these tools, a cute program called TweetAdder.
TweetAdder searches through profiles or tweets for keywords and can search by U.S. postal code too. It creates, saves and manages a list of target users for you to follow at a reasonable pace which you specify. The program isn’t free, but they do provide a limited version for free, so that you can see how it works before you buy it.
I like that TweetAdder works in the background while I perform other tasks, and that the vendor doesn’t make all sorts of hypey claims. They encourage proper use of the TweetAdder tool.
Twitter Style Networking
I must at least mention the natural approach to adding followers and making connections — slowly and methodically through careful examination of bios and retweeted updates. This is how I was taught, by purists no doubt, when I first started using Twitter.
I consider this approach much too slow to use for social marketing, and you don’t really want to spend all your time on Twitter.
Or do you?
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Jul
12
8 Great Choices for SPAM Free Promotion
Filed Under Best of 2009, Blogging, List Building, Networking and Marketing Strategy, SPAM, Search Engines, Social Media and Social Networking Sites, Web Marketing | 13 Comments
I’ve written about the problem of spam both offline and online at social networking sites in How Do You Like Your SPAM? and Why Do People SPAM?
With this article, I’m delivering on the promise I made last week to discuss marketing channels you can use to promote yourself or your business — without ever resorting to spam.
Legitimate promotion alternatives fall primarily into these basic categories:
- Advertising - Expect to pay — unless you prefer getting marginal results, running around town, lurking in parking lots and posing for security cameras, all while schlepping around stacks of flyers and carefully avoiding people you know. Online, free advertising attracts people without money and spammers, although you may get good results with Craigslist. Offline advertising includes newspapers, magazines, direct mail, radio, television, offline directory listings and billboards. Online advertising includes Pay Per Click, e-zines and online directory listings. I do not recommend using banner ads. Advertising ROI will depend on the net lifetime value of each acquisition or conversion and the cost of each acquisition.
- Press Releases - If your business is newsworthy, or if you can create a newsworthy event, then you may be able to get some free exposure. Your press release needs to be well written in a suitable format and distributed either offline, online or both.
- Speaking and Contributing Articles - It is an accepted practice to establish your reputation and generate leads by speaking at meetings or contributing articles to journals. Don’t expect to get paid anything until you become a recognized expert in your field.
- Strategic Alliances and Joint Ventures - A business or list owner promotes your offer to his or her clients or e-mail list based on an agreement through which you both stand to gain. It’s not uncommon to give a joint venture partner all the profit from an initial product offering in exchange for helping you to add new contacts to your list.
- E-Mailing Your List - You can send relevant commercial messages to subscribers who previously opted into your database. Try to avoid using purchased lists. If you must, be sure you know with certainty that the subscribers agreed to receive offers from third parties. Be genuinely helpful and careful not to abuse your list.
- Search Engine Optimization - You’ll need a web site, and unless you’re an SEO maven, you’ll have to pay for SEO services. There’s more to doing effective search engine optimization than most people realize. However, SEO will be worth the trouble if it gets you ranked high up in the free organic search engine results that most searchers look at and care about.
- Social Media - Social marketing is similar in philosophy to speaking and article contribution mentioned above. You share online videos and articles to educate, inform and entertain people, and to build a relationship with them. If they want your product or service, they’ll be inclined to buy it from you, since they know you, and you’ve earned their respect. Your blog on a social networking site, a blogging community such as Blogger.com, or you own hosting, are good places to share your content. For ideal results, create and post new original content on a regular basis. If your content is geared toward your target market, then you’ll attract qualified customers to you and your site.
- Business and Social Networking - Networking is meeting new people and developing relationships with them. You can network at your local Small Business Association, Chamber of Commerce or BNI. I can go to Network Plus, a group in my area founded by Ted Fattoross. Online social networking is more convenient. You network from your computer at any of thousands of social networking sites. My favorites are Ning and Facebook. You build relationships by asking questions and getting to know people. Keep in mind that spamming doesn’t work at all, and exchanging business cards is no more than a cordial first step in starting a relationship.
I like the web marketing channels: my e-mail list, search engine optimization, social marketing and business networking. I coordinate them to benefit from the synergies between them.
Now it’s your turn.
Which methods do you use? Which ones are you hoping to use in the future? What challenges do you foresee?
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Jun
23
What is Wrong with Ning
Filed Under List Building, Networking and Marketing Strategy, News, Ning Sites, SPAM, Social Media and Social Networking Sites | 18 Comments
Nearly a year has passed since my first Ning article, Ning Social Networking Sites.
Since then online social networking has taken some exciting twists and turns. MySpace has lost luster, while Facebook and Twitter have become social media darlings.
Ning Still Facing Obstacles
Ning seems to be in somewhat of a holding pattern.
There have been some changes here and there, mostly for the better in my opinion, but no exciting breakthroughs. There are new apps, a new Ning central networking site, and new flexibility, but site creators and users still have their reservations.
As mentioned in Ning Social Network Controversy, the Ning management has been criticized for its policies and its tactics and, as too many people are aware, Ning sites haven’t been immune to spamming by both Ning members and by intruders.
My Ning sites now all require membership pre-approval, since I know of no better way to deal with persistent outsider spamming.
What is Right with Ning
Despite any shortcomings, I still feel as when I wrote about the Ning controversy, that Ning truly epitomizes Web 2.0. Ning sites are communities of people, and Ning is a community of community sites.
I’ve certainly written a good deal about social media list building including both List Building Paradigm Shift and List Building Using Ning Social Networks. Nevertheless communities are the essence of social media, not lists, and social marketing must therefore favor community building over list building.
Fortunately Ning can be used to build either communities or lists. There are creative ways to build communities within Facebook and Twitter, but Ning networks were designed expressly for that purpose and afford marketers a variety of useful tools and a degree of social media ownership.
Ning Still My Favorite Networks
I still use Ning social networking sites more than all others. I like them for the reasons cited above and for the many other reasons I’ve discussed in previous Ning related articles.
I have so far created four Ning sites of my own and hope to create more in the future:
- Let’s Follow Each Other - This is a fun networking site for Twitter folk who want to gain followers, share ideas, promote themselves and network with each other.
- Beyond Business Coaching - This is a site for entrepreneurs and marketing professionals who are interested in social media, customer acquisition, customer retention and CRM.
- Online Kosher Networking - This is a niche site for orthodox affiliated members of the Jewish faith to network and share their ideas about Jewish values, Israel, religious observance, charities, politics, jobs, business, etc.
- Outside the Box - If you enjoy my blog, but you don’t use Twitter, and you aren’t necessarily business oriented, this may be the right site for us to connect and network together.
In all fairness, I must tell you that Ning has competitors such as SocialGO, GROU.PS and others but admit that I haven’t yet evaluated them. If you have tried other social network platforms, I invite you to share your experiences with them.
To learn more about using Ning, please read Introduction to Using Ning Sites.
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Jun
21
Social Media vs. Search Engine Optimization
Filed Under Best of 2009, Networking and Marketing Strategy, Search Engines, Social Media and Social Networking Sites, Web Marketing | 22 Comments
Social media sites are rapidly altering the web marketing landscape. Now you can use social media to drive targeted traffic to your websites.
You may be trying to determine whether social media is a viable alternative to search engine optimization.
After all, search engine optimization requires extensive keyword research and ongoing content development to achieve top search engine rankings. Is it possible that social media sites might provide a more expedient web marketing solution?
I’ve found in my experience that social networking sites and other social media can generate a modest level of response much more quickly than search engine optimization initiatives. So why not focus exclusively on social marketing?
Social Media AND Search Engine Optimization
Please read The Long Tail and Social Media, and you’ll start to appreciate the extent to which search engine optimization can enhance social media.
Not only does search engine optimization help you promote your website, it also helps you promote your social media content. Your website and your social media together constitute your web presence, and search engine optimization helps you to market your overall web presence.
Interestingly, the converse is also true.
Social media helps your search engine optimization efforts. It adds to the links back to your website generating both referral traffic and credibility with the various search engines.
They key is to coordinate your social media and search engine optimization, creating the maximum synergy between the two through an integrated approach.
The New Online Marketing Professional
It’s no longer enough for online marketing pros to be fluent in search engine optimization technique. They must also fully understand social media sites and their role in building both your online presence and the desired backlinks to your website.
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Jun
11
Why Doesn’t My Website Generate Sales?
Filed Under Best of 2009, Networking and Marketing Strategy, Search Engines, Web Marketing | 10 Comments
Could it be that your website looks nice but fails to help you meet your web marketing objectives? Too often that is the case.
Lots of effort and expense went into building your site, but your return on investment is marginal or non-existent.
Here are possible reasons why your website isn’t generating leads or sales and some ideas that might help you correct the problems.
Too Little Website Traffic
Perhaps you lack an effective strategy for driving visitors to your site.
You set up your storefront but didn’t tell potential customers that you were in business, a mistake I often see both online and off.
Lack of traffic leads to lack of exposure for you and your offer or message.
Don’t assume that traffic will somehow find its way to you through word-of-mouth, search engines or otherwise. It rarely happens that way.
Generate exposure for your website offline via print advertising, direct mail, radio, etc. and online using social media, search engine marketing, search engine optimization and so forth.
Think big. You can dominate your niche, so don’t settle for less.
The Wrong Website Traffic
You have traffic, but either your traffic is not targeted or it’s poorly targeted, the result of using bad copy, selecting the wrong media, or choosing the wrong keywords.
For greater and more targeted traffic, employ a good mix of research, analysis and experimentation.
Direct marketers have been using this approach offline since before you and I were born, and it works like a charm online as well.
Insufficient Stickiness
You have plenty of visitors, but they leave your website too soon.
Consider these questions:
- Are you targeting the right traffic?
- Are your branding and message clear?
- Are your pages too cluttered, or do you give your visitor too many choices?
- Is your font hard to read? Try to avoid white on black in all your media, since it slows down your reader.
- Is important content “above the fold?” Can visitors see your most important content without scrolling down?
- Is your content up-to-date, relevant and interesting?
- Do you use social techniques on your website to engage your visitors?
Poor Conversion
You have plenty of visitors who stick around but nothing happens.
Here are more questions to ponder:
- Do you have a conversion strategy?
- Does each of your pages have a call to action?
- If not ready to buy, can your visitor join, opt-in to or subscribe to your site?
If you don’t have a lead capture mechanism and follow-up strategy, you’re leaving lots of money on the table.
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