What is social media? When Chris Shipley announced BlogOn 2004, social media meant blogging and social networking. Today, the term has expanded to also include micro-blogging, Wikis, social bookmarking, social news, photo sharing, video sharing, and more.
At SES Chicago 2009, Byron Gordon of SEO-PR interviewed Brian Boland, Manager, Performance Solutions, Facebook, about the advent of social media. Boland reviewed the social media checklist and addresses the important questions that every business must consider when using social media as a platform.
Boland defined social media as the identity that’s online enabling people to share, create and drive connections across media. Facebook users can build pages to build a dialogue and conversation with their audience and develop their customer-base. Users can also take advantage of Facebook ads as a way of promoting their products and drive people to their FB page.
Boland also discussed the challenge companies find when using social media and how it effects their branding. If a business chooses to stay out of the social media conversation, then it can’t influence and/or shape the conversation and develop meaningful connections with your customers.
22.12.09
#SMO - What is social media? Brian Boland, Facebook, elaborates at SES Chicago 2009
21.12.09
#SEO News | #SMO News | by @tweetsandseo
Just How Real-Time is Google's Real-Time Search?
December 21, 2009, 8:57 amAs you have no doubt heard by now, actress Brittany Murphy tragically passed away over the weekend. As saddening as that news was for many, people wanted information about it. As with any other celebrity death or big news event, people scrambled to find updates. This need for fresh info is really where real-time search has its greatest potential.
Google has only recently begun showing "real-time" results in its search results, pulling tweets from Twitter, updates from Facebook fan pages, blogs, news, outlets, etc. The idea behind Google showing such results, is that people can find the freshest info possible that relates to their query.
Have you found Google's real-time search results useful for finding fresh information? Discuss here.
Real-time search is generally thought of as providing results as they are posted online. In its truest sense, that's what it is, but Google's so-called real-time search may not be as real-time as initially thought. It's close, but not quite there.
Search industry expert Danny Sullivan followed Google's real-time search coverage of Murphy's death closely. He found that Google's real-time results were "wildly out of sync" with the results on Twitter itself. He noted that while Google's most recent result would say that it was 2 minutes old, Twitter would have 700 more results rolling in.
"In fact, I found that Google’s real time results often simply stopped scrolling for minutes at a time," says Sullivan. "To get them to restart, I’d have to reload the page."
But is Google's "real-time" results being slightly behind real-time necessarily a bad thing? As Sullivan says, a lot of this no doubt has to do with Google’s own filtering, and he didn't notice any spam getting through. There is a pretty good chance that those 700 Twitter results contained plenty of spam and/or redundancies (although Sullivan did find a few redundancies in Google's results too).
Google's Matt Cutts commented on Sullivan's report, weighing in on the search engine's handling of alleged real-time results. According to him, the news of Murphy's death was broken at 1:37 PM, and first tweeted about at 1:40 PM. He says Google's real-time results began two and a half minutes later, noting tht this was "entirely algorithmic."
"I think Danny makes fair points about better tools being needed to search the real-time stream and to highlight the important links/stories," says Cutts. "At the same time, the real-time stream worked as intended to highlight a breaking story and to show the flavor of how people are reacting to the event. The rest of the search results are also there to help give important news and context. And even the Google real-time results did a fair job of highlighting news articles, not just tweets."
That said, Cutts does acknowledge that Google can do better, but thinks they're doing a pretty good job for a first-time test of real-time search. Would you agree with him?
Other Ways to “Build Links” for Your Website | @tweetsandseo
Other Ways to “Build Links” for Your Website
re Posted by @tweetsandseo at December, 2009Link building is a time consuming and creative endeavor. In the long run, some links pass value more than others, which is why diversity is the key to creating a stable and trustworthy link profile for your website.
First, a brief synopsis of the more common types of links and link building that one typically pursues, then, a few non traditional unique alternatives will be presented.
Editorial links – carry weight but have more value for flash in the pan promotions or to draw attention to a newsworthy event.
Social media links – such as “Mixx
” or “Stumbleupon
” have an initial spike (until the attention they generate wavers despite the viral nature of social media) and the end result is typically site-wide links across multiple categories if the story goes hot and gets allot of attention.
Directories and article marketing – still work, however their technique is best used as a cumulative tactic coupled with other link building methods to realize their effects, as articles are archived after 30 days and directories take time to enhance a link profile.
Contextual Link building - uses blogs and other websites and uses the premise of content and then provides a link to the target site with a relevant “wikipedia style” link to the site with the ideal keyword, to the ideal page. Excellent technique, but very time consuming and link and IP diversity are crucial for maximum impact. It is better to not build links excessively from one site or same block of IP addresses. In other words, the more site that link to you with trust, the more trust and relevance your sites reputation becomes (diversity is essential).
So, what is left as tangible ways to build links to your site? Here are a few alternate tactics that take more effort, but carry more weight in the long run.
Ways to “Build Links” Other Than SEO
Books: Amazon
is an online powerhouse, so if you take the time to publish a book and sell it through them, you can essentially ensure static search engine positioning for multiple keywords that comprise the books name & category on high traffic Google search engine result pages.
E-books: Just as much potential resides in e-books and PDF files (which have links that are indexed and remain intact). A popular e-book is a great way to position your brand and transform window shoppers into evangelists for your products and services. When you identify with a company’s message, products or services, you tell others about it. Referral based marketing (the traditional third party referral) is one of the most underrated forms of lead generation. So, the time it takes to create pales in comparison to the ripple effect it can produce, if you launch it under the right conditions to the right audience.
Software: Including toolbars, screen savers, java script applications: If you build it, you get the credit for it. Credit in this capacity is a link back from trusted websites with authority.The point is, there is a category of software or useful application for everybody and people are always looking for new items to add to their mix of software or application collection.
Widgets or Free Wordpress Themes- nothing like creating a custom wordpress theme to offer to the masses. Don’t go overboard on linking back to your site, a simple mention in the footer is enough. Aside from the fact that people download and use your theme (which is one form of link building a.k.a enhancing link popularity), the real magic occurs from the directories that list your theme (who provide a link back to your site) like WordPress for example. Dozens of opportunities such as these exist as methods to position your site in front of as many eyeballs as possible.
Video Optimization - video is still a burgeoning new industry online and we know (based on TV) that it is a favorable medium to engage an audience without the need to have a thesis on your page. Video qualifies as content too, so why not add another visual call to action and layer of conversion to your website to think outside the box. Simply shoot a video, create a landing page, title it with the main keywords, tag it and test the waters of conversion.Create Link Worthy Content – conduct thorough research on a topic, compile various sources to support the theory and create something punchy and conclusive. If you incorporate other blogs (power users) or their research, you can attract their attention and they will link back to you to get your piece off the ground. All it takes are a few authority links from the right sources to create a synergistic effect that can have your pages hovering in search engines for months and driving traffic to your site.
By being creative you can find other link building opportunities, the idea is, use quality and diversity, there are thousands of techniques such as these that all produce tangible results to enhance your link profile.
Source: http://www.seodesignsolutions.com/blog/link-building/other-ways-to-build-links-for-your-website/
