Archive for 'Social Media'
LinkedIn Today is Social News for Business Professionals
Posted on 27. Apr, 2011 by Chris Darling.
In March, LinkedIn introduced a new social news feature called LinkedIn Today. The new site feature provides social media help for small businesses and professionals. Top stories are displayed according to the user’s LinkedIn profile so that they can keep up with recent developments and news in their field. This “smart news” feature offers many advantages to business owners.
Targeted News
- Because stories are displayed based on the user’s LinkedIn profile, the news is more relevant than on other social bookmarking sites like Digg or StumbleUpon.
Convenient Information
- LinkedIn Today offers the most popular industry articles in one location so that users can quickly skim the stories and find the ones they are must interested in. This saves time visiting various websites or reading through multiple RSS feeds.
- The news site is available as an iPhone application so that people can get industry news from any location they have mobile Internet access. It is likely that LinkedIn will develop apps for other smart phones as well.
See What Others Are Sharing
- You can view stories that your connections and colleagues are sharing and know what you are getting news stories from people you trust.
- Businesses can also see what stories their industry peers are sharing so that they can keep pace with the competition.
Social Media Education
- Popular websites have the most reoccurring stories, so business owners learn which websites are the most useful and which ones they should be reading on a regular basis.
- Users can not only follow their industry, but other industries as well. This gives businesses a broader perspective on things and the chance to see how things done in other industries can be applied to their own business growth.
LinkedIn Today is still a new feature and has room for growth, but it adds new incentive for business owners to utilize LinkedIn more. Visiting LinkedIn Today is like reading a daily industry newspaper with all the advantage of the immediacy of Internet publishing. LinkedIn users can visit the site at http://www.linkedin.com/today to see it in action.
Chris Darling works with owners of service based businesses who struggle with getting their websites found by effectively using local search SEO and Social Media sites for their business. Find Pain Relief for Your Social Media SEO Aches and set the stage to earn more online revenue from new contacts, clicks, and phone calls. If this speaks to you and your online business goals discover if it is time for Darling Online Marketing.
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Remarkable Social Media Marketing
Posted on 22. Apr, 2011 by Chris Darling.
The buzz around social media marketing is intense. Everyone wants to be remarkable. Innovative businesses with large budgets have raised the bar for everyone. It is a challenge for smaller businesses to succeed in social media circles. The good news, as Ellis points out, is that you don’t always have to be remarkable to be successful.
Debra Ellis, author of Social Media 4 Direct Marketers, wrote a great article titled How to Succeed in Social Media for Less Than Remarkable People for Social Media Today. The author states that, “Success in social media is different for every company.” Ellis also gives readers a great overview of what social media is and is not so they can decide for themselves if social media marketing is a good fit for their business.
The article provides readers with a solid game plan for how to market their business using social media and suggestions for when it might be time to make an exit plan if things don’t work out. If you are wondering if social media marketing is right for you, are looking to be more successful at it, read How to Succeed in Social Media for Less Than Remarkable People.
Chris Darling works with owners of service based businesses who struggle with getting their websites found by effectively using local search SEO and Social Media sites for their business. Find Pain Relief for Your Social Media SEO Aches and set the stage to earn more online revenue from new contacts, clicks, and phone calls. If this speaks to you and your online business goals discover if it is time for Darling Online Marketing.
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A Blizzard, Social Media and an Avalanche of Customers
Posted on 01. Apr, 2011 by Chris Darling.
The Wall Street Journal recently published an online article by Kyle Stock called A Bakery Gets Sweet Returns From Social-Media Blitz that really highlights how much of a difference smart social media use can make for local businesses.
Spot Dessert Bar in New York City managed to take a negative event – lost business due to a December blizzard – and turn into a promotion by offering a 50% discount off hot drinks on their blog and social media accounts. Their efforts succeeded. The hot drinks promotion is just one of a series of successful social media marketing strategies the business has used to bring customers in their front door.
Their clever marketing is paying off because as the article states, “The shop has seen a 15% to 20% increase in sales since it started the social-media blitz, Mr. Rhee says. It’s also getting a wider reach; people in California, for example, are asking via Facebook and Twitter if Spot Dessert ships its concoctions.”
To find out more about how Spot Dessert Bar is making great use of social media, read A Bakery Gets Sweet Returns From Social-Media Blitz on the Wall Street Journal’s website.
Chris Darling works with owners of service based businesses who struggle with getting their websites found by effectively using local search SEO and Social Media sites for their business. Find Pain Relief for Your Social Media SEO Aches and set the stage to earn more online revenue from new contacts, clicks, and phone calls. If this speaks to you and your online business goals discover if it is time for Darling Online Marketing.
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SEO Tips for LinkedIn
Posted on 30. Mar, 2011 by Chris Darling.
It is more difficult to make connections on LinkedIn than on other social media sites, so many people tend to use it as an online resume or just another profile for their business and ignore the network’s rich SEO value. Most people also do not realize that LinkedIn profiles show up very highly on search engine result pages (SERPs). Even if you don’t have hours a day to spend on LinkedIn, there are easy profile changes you can make to help boost traffic to your website.
Create Anchor Text
- LinkedIn allows you to add up to three links in your profile. Instead of using the generic pop-up choices like “My Website” choose “Other” and type in keywords to go with the link. For example, if you are a contractor you can use keywords like “Kitchen & Bath Remodeling” as your anchor text.
- Do the same thing for your blog and a social media profile as well.
- Using keywords for the link text helps searchers find your profile and, in turn, to your website, blog, etc.
Use Keywords
- Include the same keywords you use for your website in your summary. Use keywords naturally and don’t repeat each keyword or keyword phrase more than twice.
Import Your Blog Feed
- You can import summaries of your recent WordPress posts into your LinkedIn profile. This is a great way to attract new readers to your blog, especially if your LinkedIn profile shows up higher on SERPs than your blog.
- LinkedIn has an application called Blog Link that allows you to import blogs created with other content management systems such as TypePad or free hosting sites like Blogger.
Add a Twitter Feed
- It is easy to add a display of your recent tweets on your LinkedIn profile and connect the two social media sites so that your status updates cross-post to both.
- Connecting your accounts helps maximize your online visibility gives more social media credibility to every link you post.
An SEO-friendly LinkedIn profile can be a powerful part of your online marketing strategy. You can implement all of the tips included here in just an hour or two. Instead of putting a lot of work into LinkedIn, create a profile that puts LinkedIn to work for you.
Chris Darling works with owners of service based businesses who struggle with getting their websites found by effectively using local search SEO and Social Media sites for their business. Find Pain Relief for Your Social Media SEO Aches and set the stage to earn more online revenue from new contacts, clicks, and phone calls. If this speaks to you and your online business goals discover if it is time for Darling Online Marketing.
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Postling’s Social Media Metrics for Small Businesses
Posted on 28. Mar, 2011 by Chris Darling.
Neil Glassman wrote an interesting article called Facebook and Twitter Dominate Small Biz Social Media Use for Social Times about metrics gathered by the social media account management service Postling.
According to Postling’s data about their own users, Twitter and Facebook are, by far, the most popular social media sites for small businesses. The third ranking site, LinkedIn, is used by less than half the businesses that use Facebook and/or Twitter.
The author keeps his own commentary to a minimum and instead uses an infographic created by Postling to share the data. It would have been nice to see a little more information in this article; however, the infographic conveys information quickly so that readers do not have to wade through long paragraphs of data. The infographic presents their findings clearly and offers suggestions for how small businesses can better utilize social media.
If you want to maximize the value of your business’s social media accounts, read Facebook and Twitter Dominate Small Biz Social Media Use.
Chris Darling works with owners of service based businesses who struggle with getting their websites found by effectively using local search SEO and Social Media sites for their business. Find Pain Relief for Your Social Media SEO Aches and set the stage to earn more online revenue from new contacts, clicks, and phone calls. If this speaks to you and your online business goals discover if it is time for Darling Online Marketing.
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3 Tips for Getting More Retweets
Posted on 23. Mar, 2011 by Chris Darling.
On the Internet, going viral is a good thing. Viral content is content you create, such as a Twitter updates, which a lot of other people share. This helps build awareness of your business. In Twitter’s case, content goes viral when people retweet it. Retweeting is other users sending your tweets to their followers. Having a large amount of your content retweeted is the best way to expand your audience online.
Be a Resource
- People like to share things that others find useful; it makes them look like a resource themselves.
- Good resources are links to well-researched lists posts (50 Best Plug-ins for WordPress, 10 Ways to Save on Home Heating Costs, etc.) and “How To” posts. Anything that people will want to bookmark and reference later is a good link to post on Twitter. Even if you are sharing another site’s content, it still makes you look good.
Don’t Spam
- Twitter users who post several times a day promoting their own product or brand come across as too self-serving and people are less inclined to retweet advertisements. Split your own promotions up by promoting valuable content from others.
- Good resources are links to well-researched lists posts (50 Best Plug-ins for WordPress, 10 Ways to Save on Home Heating Costs, etc.) and “How To” posts. Anything that people will want to bookmark and reference later is a good link to post on Twitter. Even if you are sharing another site’s content, it still makes you look good.
Use Hashtags
- Hashtags are a great way for people who aren’t following you to find your tweets. If you are not certain about what makes a good hashtag, visit http://hashtags.org/ and search for keywords related to your tweet.
- Many websites, such as The Authors-Writers Daily, are composed of content gathered from tweets, which results in both a link and often a retweet. Websites such as this often search for hashtags to find content.
Because people send out tweets several times a day, they are more inclined to peruse a large variety of sources for content. Keep your tweets informative, findable and useful. If you do these three things you won’t have to find people on Twitter, they will find you.
Chris Darling works with owners of service based businesses who struggle with getting their websites found by effectively using local search SEO and Social Media sites for their business. Find Pain Relief for Your Social Media SEO Aches and set the stage to earn more online revenue from new contacts, clicks, and phone calls. If this speaks to you and your online business goals discover if it is time for Darling Online Marketing.
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SEO for Social Media Marketers
Posted on 21. Mar, 2011 by Chris Darling.
If your company’s web designer handles your SEO and someone on your marketing team handles your social media, there can easily be a wide disconnect between the two. The Social Media Marketer’s SEO Checklist posted by Jennita of SEOmoz, helps bridge the gap between them. Jennita’s post teaches Social Media marketers how to effectively implement SEO in their campaigns. Even many professional Internet marketers do not always know the best ways to combine SEO with social media campaigns.
The post is broken down into simple checkpoints: keyword research, tracking social segments, URL shorteners, linkable content, page canonicalization, load time, title tags, meta descriptions and measurement. Some of the information may be a bit difficult to understand for those who don’t have extensive SEO knowledge, but Jennita includes supporting links under every section for more explanation.
Whether you are trying to coordinate your SEO personnel with your marketing staff, or you’re doing your own marketing, this post is well worth reading. For small to large businesses and DIY marketers, bookmark this article and use it as a reference. Integrating SEO and social media properly will save you a lot of time and wasted effort.
Chris Darling works with owners of service based businesses who struggle with getting their websites found by effectively using local search SEO and Social Media sites for their business. Find Pain Relief for Your Social Media SEO Aches and set the stage to earn more online revenue from new contacts, clicks, and phone calls. If this speaks to you and your online business goals discover if it is time for Darling Online Marketing.
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How to Get More LinkedIn Business Connections
Posted on 16. Mar, 2011 by Chris Darling.
For business owners, finding connections on LinkedIn may initially seem difficult. Most business owners want to connect with people that can help their business; not necessarily former co-workers like a majority of LinkedIn users do. Start with the people you know first and finding the right connections for your business on LinkedIn is simple.
Email Contacts
- The first thing you should do is import your email contacts and add everyone who is on LinkedIn. Even if they are not all people you have done business with, adding them as a contact makes you visible to their contacts.
- Importing your email contacts gives you the ability to see who their LinkedIn contacts are. You never know whom they know you might want to connect with. You can request an introduction from any of your connections’ profiles.
- When you are importing your email contacts, pay attention to how many connections they have. Note the ones with the most connections and check out their profile if they accept your LinkedIn network request. They are your best source of leads.
Publish Your LinkedIn URL
- Your LinkedIn profile has a unique URL like http://www.linkedin.com/in/yourusername. Copy that URL and paste it directly in Facebook status updates requesting connections from people. This will help make your Facebook friends connections on LinkedIn. Repeat this once every few days to make sure that it makes its way across the screen of your Facebook friends. Not every update shows up on every one of your friends’ walls at the same time, so it is important to repeat this process.
- Repurpose your Facebook status updates as Tweets. Make sure you put the # sign before the word LinkedIn to make it a Twitter hashtag. Twitter hashtags turn the word into a search phrase that shows more Twitter users your tweet.
- An example of a good tweet would be: Contractor looking to connect with other skilled trade professionals on #LinkedIn.
LinkedIn is not the kind of social network where people can post things that damage your reputation, so there really is no such thing as a bad contact. Think of LinkedIn as a large online cocktail party for your business. First you mingle with the people you know and then, hopefully, they will introduce you to the people they know.
Chris Darling works with owners of service based businesses who struggle with getting their websites found by effectively using local search SEO and Social Media sites for their business. Find Pain Relief for Your Social Media SEO Aches and set the stage to earn more online revenue from new contacts, clicks, and phone calls. If this speaks to you and your online business goals discover if it is time for Darling Online Marketing.
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10 Reasons to Outsource Work with oDesk
Posted on 09. Mar, 2011 by Chris Darling.
Small businesses often have to outsource work such as website content creation to freelancers. This can be a risky proposition depending on how well you know the freelancers. However, there are ways to minimize the risks. One of the best ways is to manage your freelance workers with a company like oDesk.
- It is hard to determine if a freelancer who works remotely is actually working the number of hours they are billing you for. oDesk eliminates this problem by having freelancers download a time-tracking application that employers can monitor.
- Hiring freelancers involves extra tax paper work such as making sure they receive 1099 forms. You pay oDesk and they take care of the tax work.
- It is free to sign up with oDesk and they manage freelancer payroll so that you do not have to.
- You can interview potential freelancers through oDesk before assigning them work to decide if they will do a good job for your company.
- oDesk verifies service providers’ work history and certifications before allowing them to offer services so you don’t have to worry about doing a background check or being misled by a freelancer who produces bogus qualifications.
- Much like eBay, oDesk has a feedback system so that you can see feedback from other employers before you decide to work with a freelancer. You can easily see if other employers have been satisfied or unhappy with the freelancer’s work.
- oDesk acts as an intermediary and will help you negotiate any conflicts that may arise if a project isn’t completed to your satisfaction.
- Working with oDesk is similar to working with a traditional staffing agency except you are dealing with remote workers instead of in-house employees.
- Posting assignments on oDesk is free and you will get a broader selection of qualified applicants to choose from.
- You can build a reputation on oDesk as a trustworthy employer that will help draw qualified service providers to you instead of you having to search for them.
As an employer, it is up to you to decide whether a freelancer has done a good job. oDesk provides you with the means and the tools to better evaluate their performance. oDesk also saves you considerable time by dealing with sub-contractor issues. There is no such thing as guaranteed outsourcing, but oDesk comes as close as you can get.
Chris Darling works with owners of service based businesses who struggle with getting their websites found by effectively using local search SEO and Social Media sites for their business. Find Pain Relief for Your Social Media SEO Aches and set the stage to earn more online revenue from new contacts, clicks, and phone calls. If this speaks to you and your online business goals discover if it is time for Darling Online Marketing.
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A Play-By-Play Reputation Management Strategy
Posted on 28. Feb, 2011 by Chris Darling.
Brian Patterson, an SEO and PM at MangoCo in Virginia, faced a very specific problem. Google’s autosuggest tool was associating the word “scam” with his client’s brand name. Brian and his team came up with a great strategy for dealing with the damaging publicity that he explains in his SEOmoz article Our Online Reputation Management Playbook.
Darling Online Marketing campaign packages include online reputation monitoring.
Instead of trying to remove the negative results from the SERP (Search Engine Results Page), Brian and his team pushed down the reputation damaging content with more positive content. They took the search phrase “client’s brand name + scam” and gained ownership of the 19 out of 20 of the listings on the first two SERPs. He speculates that if given more time, they could have actually pushed the negative results back even further.
Patterson does a great job explaining step-by-step how they dealt with the issue and why their game plan worked. His article is full of invaluable advice. Brian and his team formulated a strategy that anyone can use. If your company is dealing with reputation management issues, here is your playbook for fixing them.
Chris Darling works with owners of service based businesses who struggle with getting their websites found by effectively using local search SEO and Social Media sites for their business. Find Pain Relief for Your Social Media SEO Aches and set the stage to earn more online revenue from new contacts, clicks, and phone calls. If this speaks to you and your online business goals discover if it is time for Darling Online Marketing.
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