As if Social Media isn't new and exciting enough, there's lots of things going on recenetly and soon in the social media world.  Not only will it shed some light on your efforts, but also integrating more and more with your other marketing mediums especially, Search Engine Optimization.

Facebook just announced that their new insights/analytics is being released for Facebook pages tomorrow, October 6th, 2011.  For our clients, we'll be reviewing your insights more this month and providing you some more detailed information about our successes with our new Social Media Specialist, David Hutnik.

If you haven't seen anything about the new Facebook insights, here's a quick blog on it:  http://www.insidefacebook.com/2011/10/03/people-talking-about-this-page-insights/

Impacts on SEO
Squidoo is launching magazines.  We use Squidoo for our SEO efforts to build content supporting your popular keyword phrases we're targeting on your site.  Just recently, they've become #73 in the top websites surpassign Hulu, NBC, or Digg. 

By launching online magazines, Squidoo will give us more power to publish our online content supporting your site and should have a great impact on supportive PR for SEO purposes.

Google+ button is a pretty huge success - A couple Key Announcements:

 "Since introducing the +1 button earlier this year, we now have more than 5 billion impressions on publisher sites a day." Nick Fox, VP of Product Management at Google

And on the enhanced search ads marketing website, the company claims: Our +1 button is being served 2.3 billion times a day all over the web.

That's incredible impressions of the new Google +1 button.  It is so important you jump in the game now and get this implemented on your site.  Give us a call if you still don't have it.  If we just put it in your header we can implement it in less than an hour.

Last but not least - Facebook is launching the new "timeline" profile, which I'm sure you've heard about.  Facebook is testing it out on some profiles so you may already see it,  but it should be rolling out to everyone soon.  It was pushed by a week by the court as there is a potential issue with the "timeline" name and a small Chicago based company.

Also, Facebook is launching their new “Gestures” which means that developers can turn any verb into a button.  Instead of "liking" something, we will start to see "booking", "watching", "listening", etc...  We'll be leveraging this for our customers as well.

Couple new Facebook Stats:
1)  Facebook has now hit 800 Million users adding about 50 million since July; and most are considered active.
2)  Facebook just saw a new record for the most visitors in one day: a ridiculous 500 million!!

If you haven't taken advantage of our Social Media services, now's the time.  Give us a call or contact your account manager for further details!
 

Now you don't have to wait for a website to put the Google +1 on the site  (though it's our expert opinion that you should).  Google just announced "+1 a web page, anywhere you go on the web."



Right now the button is only available for Google’s Chrome browser and there have been no indications as to when it may show up on other browsers as well.

Jumping into Social Media is all about cultivating and building new and existing relationships.  Is it important?  -Some experts say that Social Media will be more valuable and widely used than search engines within the next 3 years!  With Intercoastal Net Designs, you WILL see increased traffic to your website, search engine placement, new relationships, sales and MUCH MORE…
 
Building Relationships
Social Media is all about building new relationships and cultivating existing ones.  By encouraging interaction, facilitating a platform for questions and activity, and networking with individuals on a more personal level; we will build these relationships, develop your connections and gain trust from clients and partners.

Managing the Conversation
Whether you like it or not, people are going to talk about your company and brand.  We are providing a platform for people to speak so that you can control the conversations and leverage them to your advantage.

Maintaining a platform for questions
Potential clients often need a place to ask their questions, whether they are intended for you or other clients.  We will encourage this activity and facilitate the questions that are asked.  A relatively quick response time can be very important to retain an active page.  With questions that require specific knowledge, we will notify you to either answer the questions or direct Intercoastal Net Designs how to correctly answer these questions.

Brand Recognition
The number of users that will see your brand, your logo, and your name on a daily basis will increase drastically.  Because of the nature of how Facebook was created with News feeds, viral marketing tactics to increase brand recognition is a great advantage of using Facebook for business.  Every time that there is an update given on one of your Facebook pages, all of your friends see this on their “News Feed” when they log in.  Further, every time one of your friends interact on your page by leaving a comment or doing a number of other interactions, a message is posted on all of their friends news feeds!  This puts a great deal of value attached to each additional fan.

More Interaction by Fans = Greater Brand Recognition

Creating Brand Loyalty
This increased brand recognition will develop into brand loyalty.  You don’t want to just sell a product or service; you sell an experience that brings them back time and time again.  Further, this experience makes them want to refer you to their friends and family.  By building relationships and increasing brand recognition, you will be cultivating this brand loyalty through-out Facebook and encourage users to come back to company again and again.

Top of Mind Advertising
The Facebook News feed is a powerful tool that keeps your brand and name in front of users on a daily basis.  Like any advertisement, you want your name to stick in a client’s head.  As we post more content within the fan pages and users interact as well, News Feeds will be filled with content to keep your name on the top of a clients mind for the next time they are looking for a home or asked for advice on home buying from a friend.

Create referrals through personal connections
A personal referral is much stronger than a random advertisement that you see online or on television.  By having a Facebook presence, you are giving users the opportunity to “Suggest to Friends” the pages and brands they enjoy.  Additionally, the interaction on a page suggests to their friends satisfaction with a company and entices them to come and look at a page as well.

Utilize viral marketing
Viral Marketing is all about encouraging clients and brand supporters to share content with their sphere of influence.  Both Facebook and Twitter are two of the most widely used forms of viral marketing as it is easy to do and many of their connections are already on these social networks.  On Twitter, you can simply “Retweet” a comment to all of your followers to share content that you thing they will enjoy or find interest in.  Further, you can give credit to someone on Twitter by “Mentioning” them which will link back to their profile. 

On Facebook, viral marketing is done through a news feed with every action you take place.  Although there are security settings that you can use to restrict the content that is shared, most users do not restrict this content.  Fans can “Like” posts as well as comment on each post, both of which are generally shared in all of their connections news feeds.  Further, they can leave a new post on your pages which will also be shared in the news feeds of their connections.
We want to turn “Fans” into fanatics that enjoy sharing content and news from your company to fully take advantage of this very powerful viral marketing strategy.

The Human Side
Advertising with Social Media has turned the old way of marketing from a “1 to many broadcast” (Television Commercial) to a “1 to 1 conversation”.  Users don’t want to think of themselves as 1 in a crowd that is bunched in your target market.  They want to feel noticed and have more of a connection with companies that they deal with.  By putting a face and a name to a business, you are showing off the human side to your company.  You are creating relationships and showing the average user that you care about each individual.  Through social networks, we are going to show off the human side of your business.

Gather Feedback & Listen
It is great to think that every little effort is going toward bringing in new clients, but sometimes you need to stop and ask about the customer’s needs.  This is why you often research with surveys and questionnaires.  Through Facebook, you can retrieve immediate feedback from the “Fans” that care the most.  By asking the users on Facebook and Twitter what they think, you get real feedback on ideas while showing them that you genuinely care.

Give advice and become an industry resource
By giving advice on industry news, giving tips, and sharing your industry thoughts; you are opening up to the type of people that will come to your fan pages and share your brand.  Becoming a resource in the industry lets people know your stance and that you are here to help them.
Joining industry groups

Again, opening up your target market and bringing more users into your social circle to share your name is a major point of emphasis.  As you join industry groups and connect with big industry players, you will find that they have a larger network to share your content with.  We want to build strong relationships with these influential socialites and encourage them to spread your company’s brand.

Becoming friends with industry professionals
Industry professionals can be very influential and have a strong following on both Facebook and Twitter.  We want to connect with their existing fan pages to reach out to a larger crowd.  Also, these industry professionals have a strong network of personal connections that we would like to tap into.  Leveraging these partners and taping into the connections through a personal referral will be a key strategy to build a fan base and following.

Hosting fun competitions with giveaways
Once we are able to build strong social networks, we want to keep them active and coming back.  We would like to host competitions and have giveaways enticing them to share your company with their networks.  This will grow your social networks in numbers and in loyalty.  The bigger the giveaway, the more effective this competition will be.

Follow like-minded users on Twitter
As we tap into the industry professionals on Facebook, we will be doing the same on Twitter.  Sharing their content and building relationships with existing influential Twitter users will aid in the growth of this network so that when we have a message to get out, we will have more targeted followers to receive this message.

Making the Connection
Creating links between all of the social networks and cross connecting them with your corporate website and blog are vitally important.  This is where we turn your typical interactive fans to closed sales.  Don’t worry about how to set these up, where they go or how to implement the process; we take care of it all.
Utilize the highly targeted “Facebook Ads”

Facebook ads are some of the most effective online advertising as they allow you to target a very specific group based on information provided in a users profile.  We can leverage this information that is provided by Facebook users to find potential clients and bring them to your company’s Facebook Fan Page.

Cultivate Targeted Followers
We will be using “Tweet Adder” to find targeted Twitter users.  This is software that allows you to search for users who might be interested in your service based on things that they mention and people they follow.  This will allow us to grow a following base of users on Twitter and bring your company potential clients.

Staying Current
In an industry that is evolving so quickly like Social Media, it takes many hours a week to stay up to date with the newest trends, strategies, and techniques to become successful.  If you look at the evolution and impact of Social Media in the last:  1 year, 3 years, 6 years (Facebook Launched); it’s mind-blowing the ongoing change that has occurred.  Many predict that Social Media Optimization will be more important and valuable to a company than Search Engine Optimization in less than 3 years!

CONTACT US TODAY TO LEARN MORE!

Google+ is the next big social network released by Google and poised to be a major threat to its’ much larger rivaled competitor, Facebook.  While Facebook has accumulated an incredible 750 Million users in the last 7 ½ years and Twitter has reached over 200 Million registered users in 5 years, in just 2 weeks Google+ has jumped to over 25 Million users.  Further, it’s not even open to non-Gmail users or to brands yet!  So why should your business jump on the Google+ bandwagon? …because it’s not a trend, it’s major shift that will affect where your customers and potential customers spend time online.

Let's face it, Google is an internet powerhouse and they create the best platforms.  The term “Google it” has become a commonly used house-hold phrase for “Google.com”.  As the #1 most popular search engine (by far), can you guess what #2 is?  It's YouTube, also owned by Google.  Blogger is one of the worlds most popular blogging platforms and Android is the most widespread mobile operating system... all owned by Google.  The most popular rss reader is “Google Reader”; and I can go on and on!  Gmail, Maps, Chrome browser, Analytics, Docs, News, Calendar, Buzz, Talk, Adwords, Translator, etc... all extremely successful tools owned by Google.  So why all of the Google Talk? (no pun intended) Google's new social network Google+ will be the future of Social Networking.

Let me compare the 3 big game players in social media right now.  This graph describes a few common features and how they relate to each other.  Privacy is one of the biggest concerns with Facebook users and this graphic also touches on that as well.


As you can see, Google+ might be a little more tricky to understand right now, but it certainly makes things better in the long run with privacy.

With its' 25 million users so far in just a few weeks, they are making huge strides in functionality and features every week.  They recently reported the introduction of gaming, which is a huge part of Facebook, and Google just announced this week that it will be re-introducing their real-time search feature with Google+.  If you're a brand that wants to stay ahead of the curve in social media and leverage it for your business, here are just a few reasons why you need to jump in NOW:

Search
Google owns search and that plays a huge role in how people find you online.  If Google owns search, don't you think it'd be crazy for this search giant to not have benefits for Google+ brand pages?  It's specualtion at this point, but they will definitely be searchable and integrated with real-time searching.  Possibly a call-out in search results like a colored box or a simple priority placement.  Regardless, there are sure to be major benefits for brand pages when it comes to search results on Google.

Advertising
Google is fully prepared to support this platform with its Google Display Network, AdWords and DoubleClick advertising products.  There are tons of optimal ad placement for brands.  Also, with all of the video capabilities, rich media ads are sure to be a key enhancement over Facebook ads to give brands better opportunities and deliver a strong message.

Statistical Information
It seems inevitable that Google will integrate its analytics tool into Google+ brand pages for the valuable insights into who their fans are, what content they're consuming and where they're coming from.

What can you do NOW to be prepared?
First, you could jump in with our other social media packages to become fully immersed into the social atmosphere.  We have some incredible packages that are helping other clients engage with fans and build this online presence.  As a current social media client with us, you will get priority rights to a new Google+ brand page when it becomes available.

Also, getting involved with our social media team, you will get all of the updates about this platform including assistance in setting up a personal profile and a white paper on how to enhance your personal Google+ page.  If you have a personal Gmail account, contact our team to see how we can help you get into this new platform now so that you are prepared to get your brand page started right away.

Local Search – Make Sure You Claim Your Listings!

In a sea full of big fish, you want to make sure that you brand is protected.  One way to do that is to optimize your local search listings.  Beyond Google and the major search engines (Bing Local and Yahoo Local), here are some other useful places to be sure to claim your listing and optimize for your business name and specialties:

Facebook and Twitter Places – Above Facebook and Twitter fan pages for your business, you need to make sure that your Social Media pages for Facebook and Twitter are also included in the Facebook and Twitter Places so that your business info is available via mobile Facebook check in.  Also Twitter is experimenting with this feature so be sure to update your info at Localeze.

Location Based Social Media – Be sure to have a social media presence and business listing information located on all the social media sites that allow mobile users to check in such as Foursquare and Gowalla.

Local Search & Business Directories – There are many local search site directories throughout the internet that get a significant amount of traffic for local search.  Making sure you have an optimized listing on these sites can add traffic to your site for people looking for you or businesses like yours.   Some of the top directories we recommend you claiming your listing would be:
 

•Merchant Circle
•Local.com
•Superpages.com
•Yelp
•YP.com
•Intuit’s Business Directory
•Magic Yellow
•ShowMeLocal
•WhitePages.com – Business Search
•Yellow USA
•Yellowbot
•BOTW Local
•Boulevards
•CitySquares
•Get Fave
•Kudzu LocalLife
•Mojopages
•OpenList
•Tupalo

 
The benefits of optimizing these listings are many:

•Branding – when someone types in your company name your results show and link directly back to your site

•Online Reputation Management – by monitoring these listings, you’ll have instant access to positive and negative reviews about your business.

•Inbound links – having information and quality links back to your site helps build credibility to the search engines

•Increased traffic – These smaller directories account for 10-20 million monthly local search queries.  Having a presence will increase your traffic to people looking for businesses like yours in the area.

For more information about claiming your listings or to get help with this, contact us at info@icoastalnet.com.

Over the week we have noticed that Google has had another algorithm change where you may notices that on some searches, your internal pages are ranking over your homepage.  This has been on of the many algorithm changes noticed in the past month. 

As the search engines rank content they are looking to find the top sites that have the best content and deserve to rank well and base the ranking on their popularity and content.  However, rather than ranking the homepage that may give an overview of the company, they are ranking internal pages based on what page is the most relevant to the performed search.  Over the next few months, there will be a lot of testing going on to see how searches respond to these changes. 

What is Google "Caffeine"?

First of all, Caeffeine is just a code-word (like Shock and Awe) for the secret project Google has been working on. Project was revealed in the last few days on Google's official blog. So, it's not so secret now. And it's no big surprise that Google would reveal some fire power after Microsoft and Yahoo inked their deal.

What is Google Caffeine's purpose?

Reportedly, Caffieine is an under the hood version of their existing search engine. What does that mean? "Caffeine" or whatever it will be called, uses the existing algorithm to produce results. However, those results will be "more comprehensive and streamlined". As the code name suggests, this under-the-hood version will be faster. Faster how you ask? Who knows. Perhaps it will have a separate indexing process, or a more streamlined quality guideline that will be more black and white. If your website is built to Google-perfection, you're in. If not, you're out. Your guess is as good as any ones.

Google could be doing some spin-doctoring here, revealing a reportedly super secret, revolutionary product to pull headlines (and rising consumer use) from MicroHoo. Google is a multi-national state unto itself, so you shouldn't be surprised if it starts acting like one.

Should businesses be worried?

For those business who live and die by their Google rankings, the answer is maybe. Google won't do anything too detrimental to their advertiser base. But, they will shake things up in the name of consumer progress. But if you're business is chasing the dragon (so to speak) with Google, you should get your hand slapped. Diverisify. Diversify. Diversify. Have you learned nothing from the current American economic meltdown? If not...remember what you're grandmother used to tell you. Don't put all your eggs in one basket...even if that basket is Google.

Will Caffeine's search results be any different from the standard Google SERP?

Well. According to Google. Yes. In reportedly "minor but significant" ways. I checked it out and found no differences as of yet...but perhaps this under the hood version relies more on user behavior? There have been rumors that Google has been enamored by real time search results fed by real time source like Twitter. Maybe Caffeine takes a snapshot of real time search behavior rather through the traditional bot indexing process. Is that what makes it like Caffeine, that it keeps you alert? This is all just speculation of course. But if I lose my life in some strange and unexplained way, then you'll know I was right about something. You've seen Conspiracy Theory I'm sure.

Can I try out Google Caffeine?

Sure can. It's sandboxed, so Google is keeping the program a safe distance from their Standard Google search engine. After all, they wouldn't want a coding error to pull down the whole sha-bang. Check out Google Caffeine. I would be really interested in hearing what difference people discover while searching.

I'll keep you posted as more is revealed.

Oh my. A lot has been going on in the Search Market. There hasn't been this much buzz since Google went in cahoots with China on censorship and Ashton Kutcher saved someone from a not so glamorous suicide. Wow.

So Microsoft and Yahoo, the number 3 and number 2 companies in the Search Market respectively (and respectively WAY behind Google) have inked a 10 year deal to combine their efforts. Combine ad platforms mostly...letting Bing (Microsoft's used-to-be MSN used-to-be LIVE) handle that. But it's that what it's all about.

From what I see from the individual SERP's, I personally think Bing is way ahead of Yahoo in its clearer quality guidelines and sensible indexing. Yahoo has been all over the place for the past year. Especially in it's PPC results. So, it just makes sense that these two giants combine.

But Google doesn't seem to frightened by the prospect, though certainly there will be a round of anitrust suits to follow the deal. And why not? Google gets in trouble for every company it acquires...and it should. Why should Google, Microsoft, and NewsCorp own EVERYTHING (directly or indirectly)?

Which brings us to Twitter. Though Twitter burns through cash faster than American auto-makers, it's still just a pebble in Google's shoe...but the prospect of real time search results, getting indexing on a real time basis - what's hot NOW because of behavior, NOT because of a long list of code and content protocols - is interesting. Interesting enough to be a game changer. Or so they say.

Check out this article on the top contenders in real time search, and the problems each one faces in immediacy, popularity, and relevancy.

Bing is Microsoft's new upgrade of its search engine LIVE search. Infact, LIVE is now Bing. Live.com is redireded to the new search engine. So what's new? Bing promises to make search easier by allowing a searcher to drill down through the search results until they find exactly what they want. Searchers looking to shop for something (say a digital camera) or book a flight or hotel can get directions, price ranges, specials, and even categories of different types of travel (cheap, luxury, oceanfront, etc).

So the big difference? Most other Search Engines want to give you the best results for your search the first time (whether they really are or not is debateable) and then pass you along to that website. Bing is different. It wants you to keep plugging around until you find exactly what you want (you do your research and reviews within the results page so to speak).

From an SEO standpoint, this means top rankings aren't as weighted as significantly in Bing as in a traditional search engine's results page (though it shouldn't be outright ignored). Why? Because your top ranked page, say for the term "Myrtle Beach hotel" is competing with "clarification" content. Bing says, ok - here are some hotels - but which kind of hotel do you want? Did you really want a condo? Did you really mean North Myrtle Beach?

For Bing rankings I imaginee (if their premise works) that terms will be more long tailed, traffic more qualified so much less quantity (amount of traffic), and the conversions should be higher.

I'm not exactly sure how their PAID ADS measure into all this "drilling down" of content? Or how your analytics would actually track which keyword phrase the visitor came to your site from. If I started with searching for "Myrtle Beach hotels" and ended up drilling down to "cheap Myrtle Beach hotel on the oceanfront" which keyword is actually tagged for drawing the traffic to your website? And better yet - which phrase should you optimize for?

For all you webmaster concerned with the new quality guidelines of Bing.com (not so far off from Live.com's quality guidelines), please read Microsoft Bing Quality Guidelines.

Microsoft is a big player, so it's never a good idea to figure them out of your SEO equation (even though their search market share is nominal compared to Google and Yahoo). If you need a current assessment of your website and how it measures up in the search engines, contact InterCoastal Net Designs today, a North Carolina SEO company.

So, a common thread I have throughout my many discussions on Social Networking and the "conversations" that ensue is out segemented everything is, and how difficult it is to keep it all together. I mean, wouldn't it be nice to be able to view your emails, IMs, and all your social networking activity, all from one friendly interface? Well, Digsby gets the job done (see previous post), but it isn't nearly inclusive enough to handle all the niche communities popping up all over the web.

Well, Google has put something together to address that very issue of segmented conversations across the Web. It's called Google Wave and quite frankly, it looks very intriguing. First of all, Google Wave is an open source development. That means you can customize it to pull in the conversations that matter most to you (and your business).

Watch the Google Wave video to find out more.