SEM & Digital Marketing Advice New Orleans, Louisiana | WSI

Whether you like it or not, social media is not going away. And aside from what you think about its impact on your personal life, the fact is, it is now a business issue to be dealt with – especially if you are competing on the internet.

Social media impacts traffic generation, link building and now, with the advent of personalized search, it impacts what we see in search results. As search engines become more sophisticated, each time you touch the Internet to search for something you leave a form of “digital footprint” which can affect future search engine results when you search and you can also affect the results when other people connected to you in some way search.

Personalized Search Explained

This is all part of what is being referred to as personalized search, the goal of which is to provide a search experience that is more relevant to your personal history as well as the history of others closely connected to you. Those connections are often through social media.

With the onset of personalized search has come a new concern over privacy. If you have logged into your Google account lately there is a good chance you have seen notices about new privacy policies all designed to help ease these concerns. That is because search personalization does in fact look at your history and serves up results accordingly. So if you are the type that doesn’t want this sort of information being kept than it’s best to do your searching when you are not logged into one of these services.

Getting More from Personalized Search

Personalized search is designed to improve the user experience, so how can we affect personalized search to our benefit? Here are some suggestions:

Get more Facebook friends. If your friends on Facebook like certain content there is a good chance you will see that in search results. So in theory, if you are searching for a car dealership and one of your friends “likes” content from a car dealership there is a good chance you will see that result if you search for car dealers in Google’s natural results.

So how do you get more Facebook friends? Some suggestions are:

• Put Facebook “Like” buttons at the top and bottom of your blog
• Engage your Facebook followers more; ask them questions.
• Use at tags like in twitter
• Do a free gift to your Facebook friends
• Do a live event on Facebook
• Ask your Facebook friends to help you with the future project

Get a good look at Google plus and see what it’s all about. Google plus has just rolled out business pages and now you have an opportunity to create one. Add Google plus to your sidebar and look for opportunities to expand your circles; you can use a Google plus WordPress plug-in.

Make Sure You Control Your Social Media Presence

No matter if you love or hate social media, it is here to stay and now it seems like your social media presence will affect search engine results among your followers and friends and results that go to you as oppose results that you have affected.

Some people believe that at some point in the future, we may look back at the current buzz about social media and declare that the whole thing was a fad. Of course, some people said the same thing about the internet too.

No matter where your opinion falls on the future of social media, the fact is it is here to stay and is an important part of the new internet marketing landscape. Of course, the real question everyone wants to know is how to get good results with social media, and in this blog post we’ll take a look at a couple of tools that have neat features you can use, as well as share a few tips on how to use them to gain traction with your efforts.

Two Useful Tools That Can Help Create More Buzz

There are two new useful applications that may help you obtain better results from your social media marketing plan. They include:

Buffer – One Click Posting

Buffer allows you to share the next best piece of information for your clients and customers automatically. All you have to do is add your Buffer app button to your browser. When you find the next greatest information that your customers just can’t do without while you are surfing the web, simply press the Buffer app button. Buffer app will then distribute your information at a time that it deems best for your new information to be redistributed within your marketplace.

A recent Twitter study showed that new users of buffer app doubled their re-tweets and clicks. They did not need to do anything else but establish their post within Buffer. In addition, Buffer will dribble out your tweets over a period of time so that you don’t overwhelm your Twitter followers.

Triberr – Everybody wants more tweets and re-tweets

Triberr has become very popular, but it’s also controversial. What it does is that it allows you to create or join groups or “tribes” that re-tweet each other’s content.

A problem may occur when users use automated settings, which we never recommend doing. The reason is that it will cause you to re-tweet everything everyone else shares. And this often is way too much too often and too soon. It opens you to abuse if someone in your tribe begins to overuse.

The better strategy is to read the tweets from your tribe and select those which are really worthwhile re-tweeting. You will find the old adage, less is more, works here. And your re-tweets will gain much more traction than if you simply regurgitate everything that is tweeted to you by your tribe.

5 best practices to apply

While there are no shortages of “best practices” lists when it comes to social media, no discussion about tools would be complete without a few tips on how to use them. A few suggestions for best practices on these tools include:

1. Target the people you would like to share your content with. This is the opposite of blasting out spam. Look for specific people who have similar interest and send them something of value. Or share something of theirs, re-tweet something of theirs, and establish some sort of relationship with them before you start sharing a lot of your content with that person.
2. Avoid the temptation to automate. Tools like Triberr are fine when used as they are intended, but if you use tools to automate your postings and responses, people will quickly pick up on that and begin to ignore you. After all, the whole point is to have a conversation anyway, right?
3. Join the right groups on sites like Facebook & LinkedIn and participate in relevant discussions. Answering questions or posting your own on these sites is sure to help you make new connections.
4. Sometimes just ask. While it’s always a good practice to share your knowledge and expertise on social channels, many people forget to start conversations by asking questions. Ask your audience about important topics related to your business, or just things that interest you.
5. Don’t forget the calls to action. At the end of the day if you are in business you probably have a goal for your social media program. Don’t forget to add a call to action to you tweets and updates when it’s relevant.

Exciting news for businesses has emerged from Google; they have announced the launch of their new Google+ pages, pages specifically designed for businesses using Google+.

With a growing network of over 40 million members, Google+ pages are a great new internet marketing resource you need to implement and capitalize on today.  It can also give you an additional web property and links to your website which are important in today’s digital world.

Here are some quick and easy tips to make sure you gain the most from your Google+ pages and help you get started.

1. Setting up your Google+ account

Choose an accessible email address

Unlike Facebook, Google+ does not currently incorporate extensive administrative capabilities. To easily overcome this limitation, make sure you create a specific email address for your Google+ business page during the set up process to allow more maneuverability.

A common access email address will allow you to better monitor and manage the services provided by Google+ and offer you the opportunity to incorporate multiple member access and contributors to your Google+ business page, as well as monitor updates and allow direct communication in one easy to find place.

We often setup a gMail account that includes all of the Google services such as Analytics, AdWords and Webmaster Tools.  You can use this account for Google+ as well.

Create your page

To create a page, Google+ has made the set up process as simple as possible. Simply visit http://plus.google.com/pages/create and select ‘create a Google+ page.’

You will then be asked to select from one of the following:

• Local business or place
• Product or brand
• Company, institution or organization
• Arts, entertainment, or sports
• Other

After selecting your classification, complete your basic business information into the form as requested.

2. Customize your public profile

By customizing your public Google+ profile you will increase your presence online. Make sure customers know they have landed at the right place and why they should purchase your products by updating your profile with:

• Your tag-line – or business elevator pitch
• An image, such as your company logo
• Investing a little time to show off some good quality content
• Offer free downloads and incentives to potential customers

3. Promote your Google+ page

Once you have completed the basics of your Google+ business page, you will be asked to promote your page! This means you have completed the Google+ account activation, setup and have gone live to more than 40 million waiting customers!

All you have to do next is allow your Google+ business page to work for you! Great ways to continue in the success of your site is to focus on:

• Generating leads
• Always providing fresh content
• Reacting and responding to fans
• Become engaging
• Adapt your strategy as required
• Optimize your Google+ presence

Good luck incorporating these three easy steps to monetize your Google+!

We all agree that every ‘like’ we receive on Facebook is appreciated and is often accompanied by a sense of accomplishment.  But what is the actual monetary value of a Facebook like?  It’s hard to say.

Unless your Facebook page is generating substantial leads or traffic to your website, you shouldn’t rejoice just yet. If all that ‘engagement’ you are producing on your Facebook isn’t contributing to your overall goals, than how can you justify the time and investment you have made as part of your marketing budget?

Monetizing your Facebook presence

Turning ‘likes’ into leads, fans into actual paying customers, or generating website visitors to help monetize your marketing can be achieved by following a few simple steps:

1. Build a custom landing page or ‘like’ gate

Custom landing pages, or “Like gates” as they are sometimes called, are a great way to turn likes into leads almost instantly as it encourages visitors to like your page before they are able to view your content. This directs your new fans into a specific marketing funnel, which you can create based on your individual goals and plans.

For instance, let’s say your company sells a product and you offer a discount to new customers.  You could use your custom Facebook landing page to offer this discount to new fans by offering a special code that only appears after you become a fan.  This coupon can be easily tracked in your business to determine how many came from Facebook.

You can activate a custom welcome page by adjusting your Facebook fan page settings as you have a few options under the current settings.  The most popular is to show the custom landing page only to Facebook users who have not yet “Liked” your page.  Once they like the page, they will be directed to the wall as the primary landing page after that, making the next 2 points all the more important.

The harder part is actually creating the page itself and crafting the message.  Many businesses think that they can just put up a pretty looking custom page to get more likes, but the larger challenge is thinking through what you want to do with new fans and what action you would like them to take.

2. Share links to specific content or offers on your wall

Now that they’ve liked your page, now what should you do?  Our recommendation is to give them what they want!

According to research compiled from ExactTarget, a whopping 58% of Facebook users reported they expected exclusive content from business pages. Take advantage of this information and make sure the content you supply is available exclusively to your Facebook fans only, and don’t forget to tell them so!

So don’t just post links to your website’s home page on Facebook.  Helpful ways to offer exclusive content can include:

• Setting up a landing page on your main website for this specific content
• Sharing links exclusively on your Facebook page that are not shared other places
• Require that page viewers must like you to view content

Other great ways to gain interest and connect with potential customers can be to offer:

• eBooks
• Seminars
• Webinars
• Other educational downloads

3. Make use of custom tabs

Customizing your Facebook tabs is another great way to monetize a Facebook page. You can create as many tabs as you like, and we recommend doing this for your most important products or services that drive revenue in your business.

Why not consider creating pages, or tabs for specific purposes such as:

• Highlighting all those great offers you have been compiling
• Downloading all those exclusive content promotions you’ve been generating
• Or a landing page to rotate promotions and offers

Don’t give up just yet

It’s important to find a balance between direct advertising which allows your potential customers to know what services you provide but doesn’t flood them with a long list of obnoxious information all at once!  On the flip side, many businesses make the mistake of thinking they can’t talk about what they sell on Facebook or other social media sites for fear of being seen as a spammer.

Using the tools outlined in this article will allow you to post your sales content in an appropriate place so that when your fans want it, they can get to it.  Follow these instructions and you’ll soon find those likes are turning into leads.

It’s the ultimate internet dream…you have a product you’re passionate about, so you contact a local web developer to build an ecommerce site.  Then you sit back and wait while the billions of earth people trample a path to your new site and buy your stuff.

But for anyone who has tangled with ecommerce, they will attest to the fact that  it’s not quite so simple.

The fact is, there are oftentimes thousands of websites out there selling the same products or services.  So before you can convince someone why they should buy from you over these other sites, you must first get them to your site.  And that means being found on the internet when people search.

Getting traffic to ecommerce sites

There are 3 basic ways you can get internet traffic.  Social media participation is one strategy, paid search advertising is another, and then there’s search engine optimization (SEO) which is the “tried and true” long term strategy.  The problem with SEO is that its harder than it looks, and often times takes time to get results.

Going after good SEO results with ecommerce sites presents its own set of challenges because you have so many products on your website, and so much competition. That’s why WSI is offering a FREE informational webinar called “Five Steps to Optimizing an eCommerce Site for Search Engines” that will give you a step-by-step guide to getting better SEO results.

Just click the image below to find the registration link, or email me info@mywsiconsultant.com if you have any questions.

Google+ is the newest and most anticipated social networking site that I can remember hearing about for some time.  Google claims it does much more than other sites used by most people and that it ties Google’s most popular features together, making it much easier to manage your public profile, as well as, streamlining how you interact with friends, family and business associates and spend your leisure web time.

Google+ is now live, and chances are you have already starting seeing the +1 button showing up on website pages and even in your search results.

Here is a quick look at how Google + works:

Google Circles – these are your friends; you can organize them by lists, such as Childhood Friends or Family, to easily target messaging, share images, music and other important things with only who you want.

Sparks – is a reader similar to the current Google Reader, that brings content you are interested in directly to you on topic specific Spark pages; easily categorized, your interests will be streamlined, thus saving you search time and having to scroll through unwanted material.

Hangouts – is a video chat room where you can interact with friends in your Google Circles lists.

Notes for Mobile Devices

For mobile devices Google+ is currently available as an Android App, (iPhone app on the way) and offers two significant services:

• Hudddles – is a targeted messaging program that uses your Google Circles list.
• The App will also automatically upload photos to Google+ to share with your Circles members when you take them with your mobile device.

How to get in the action

If you are invited to join, the first step is to accept the invitation to join and finish the simple registration process.  You will then notice a change to your gray toolbar at the top of our Google homepage. The bar will become transparent gray and a, “+You” tab will join the Images, News and other tabs currently on the bar.

Clicking the +You tab will give you access to all the features mentioned above.

Reviews are being closely guarded by Google, but the information I have seen shows positive results thus far.

The competition for social network users is fierce in today’s market as more people are using these sites to manage lives and businesses. Google is counting on branding and reputation to set it above other providers. Releasing Google+ by invitation has done a great job at generating buzz on the net and will undoubtedly generate a surge of users as more invitations become available.

If you have any questions about Google + or any other social media questions, please email me info@mywsiconsultant.com.

There are a lot of technology-based books out there “for dummies,” but I believe that just because you don’t know how to use Twitter or Facebook, that does NOT make you dumb. I know a lot of very successful business people who are slow to adapt to technology.

The reality is that everyone has their own starting point for getting comfortable with using social technology.  And salespeople aren’t always the first group of people to jump on the “change” bandwagon.

Free E-Book:  Social Media for Salespeople

So as part of our regular Social Media University courses, we have developed a special e-book that is free for your download.  Among the topics we cover include:

• How to get started with social media
• The importance of planning
• Online reputation management
• Social media tools every salesperson needs

> Download the Free E-Book: Social Media for Salespeople

If you would like to learn more about our social media training courses, please email us today info@mywsiconsultant.com.

For the last 4 years, I’ve heard many people tell me why the mortgage business wasn’t really a good fit for internet marketing.  After all, it’s super competitive with so many national companies competing even on a local level.  And the big guys have big budgets and resources that local lenders often don’t have.

But the truth is, despite all this the mortgage business remains primarily a locally driven business.  And that makes it, in my opinion, a great candidate for online marketing – and especially social media marketing.

New package offering – Social  Media for Mortgage Professionals

WSI is pleased to announce our new social media program designed specifically for mortgage professionals. This package was created specifically to allow mortgage professionals the opportunity to build their social networking presence without having to invest the time to post, Tweet or otherwise manage social media.

Our package has several options to choose from will generally include:

• Creation of social profiles on the most important sites.
• Creation of a custom blog and regular blog posts by a professional writer
• Posting of your content to your social networks
• A custom email marketing template and monthly newsletter
• Social Media University with courses on:
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Blogging
• Reporting

> Email us info@mywsiconsultant.com to receive a sales sheet

Social Media for Salespeople – EBOOK

Being in internet marketing, it’s fairly common to run into businesses that tell me they are doing just fine without putting a lot of effort into the internet or social media.  The discussion usually centers around the fact that their business has been around for awhile and their customers don’t really rely on the web or social media to find them.

This certainly sounds like a convincing argument on the surface, but the hard truth is that EVERYONE these days is becoming a consumer of digital media.  And there is no better proof than when this year two of the oldest organizations in the world, the British Monarchy and the Vatican, have taken the plunge and moved their organizations full force into social media.

The Pope learning to Tweet

Papal Tweets & Vatican You Tube Channel?  Really?

The Vatican has done a great job of creating a well conceived plan to utilize digital marketing technology.  Their internet and social media properties now include:

• The Vatican Main Website – While this website has been running for some time, it is very well done with a great deal of information.
• The Vatican News Portal – This news portal is brand new and features a rich media experience including the most recent news, videos, and yes even Tweets!
• The Vatican You Tube Channel – Includes over 1,100 videos on various topics
• The Vatican Twitter Account – The new Twitter account tweets news & events happening within the Church
• Vatican News Facebook – Yes you can now officially “Like” the Vatican.
• Vatican Flickr Page – Includes more than 800 photos of Papal activities
• The Vatican Radio Channel – Publishes podcasts and radio broadcasts around the world.

Weighing the risk / reward of social media

You would be hard pressed to find a more surprising organization that is embracing social media than the Catholic Church.  Opening up to the world of social media certainly seems like a big risk for an organization steeped in tradition and always cautious about what they say publicly, especially given the scandals and controversy in recent years surrounding a number of topics.

But in this case clearly the risks are worth the reward.

And what is the reward?  Simply put, social media is allowing the Church to communicate with its followers all over the world in ways they’ve never done before.  In fact, earlier this year the Church launched its “Catholics Come Home” campaign geared at reaching those who have left the Church and inviting them to come back.  So the reward for the Church is helping Catholics re-enforce their faith by providing information in ways they want to consume them and, I dare say, making it a little more fun to be Catholic.

In the last of our LinkedIn tips series of blog posts, we’ll take a look at some of the more advanced features of the platform – including groups, content sharing and advertising.

Tip #1 – Find Groups & Learn to Participate

I recently completed a social media training course for mortgage professionals, and during this training several of the loan officers who were active on LinkedIn talked about the ways they connect with realtors, builders and borrowers online.  The ones having the most success were using local groups.

Now, there are many types of groups on LinkedIn.  In fact you should have no problem finding a group for just about anything you are interested in.  But professional groups can be scary for those who are new to LinkedIn; so I suggest starting with something easy and moving up to professional type groups.

For example, here in New Orleans one topic everyone loves is food – especially “po-boys.”  In one of the local groups I found a harmless question “What is your favorite po-boy?”  Now this is a great question to start with because really there is no wrong answer.

The idea is that by participating in group discussions that aren’t related to business, you can get a feel for how they work, and also learn to spot what not to do. Because in that same group, someone had posted “The best po-boys are at my shop (unnamed here) and you can get one for (xxx) price on whatever days of the week.”  The rest of the group slammed this person for advertising on the forum as that was not what the group was there for and this type of blatant selling on LinkedIn is considered spam by most.

Once you have a better feel for how it works, it’s time to venture into professional groups where you can really showcase your expertise.

Tip #2 – Create and Share Your Content

If you are taking the time to create a newsletter, blog post, newspaper article or other content, there is no better place to share it than LinkedIn.  Although Facebook has much larger numbers in terms of members and usage, I would argue that LinkedIn is the better place to share your professionally generated content as those who have connected with you have done so on a professional basis.

Sharing your content on LinkedIn will help build your online reputation as an authority in your area and is a great way to provide value to those in your network.  This is especially true if you take the time to create content that is focused on what your connections want.

And don’t forget about sharing your content in groups.  If you are active in a group and present your content in the form of sharing expertise, don’t overlook the fact that it could get in front of hundreds of potential clients with the click of a mouse!

Tip #3 – Apps, Apps, Apps

These days everyone has “apps” and LinkedIn is no different.  The trick is to find the apps that you can use quickly and easily to get more out of your LinkedIn experience.  A few we recommend are:

1. Mobile apps – this is a “must have” if you want to make posting updates a snap.  Most smartphones will allow you to download some version of a LinkedIn application that will allow you at least the basic functionality like posting status updates and responding to messages via your phone.
2. Browser Toolbar – Many web browsers have toolbars that you can download and use for quickly posting new content to your favorite social channels.  Shareaholic for Firefox is one that we like but there are many others out there depending on which is your favorite browser.
3. Aggregators – Tools like Ping.fm and Hootsuite are called “aggregators” as they allow you to manage multiple social sites in a single dashboard.  These tools are free and can greatly reduce the amount of time it takes to either post to sites like LinkedIn or keep tabs on what’s happening on those sites.

You can view a full list of the LinkedIn Apps on their website and see which ones interest you.