In the past, I’ve written about Linkedin Spam and the potential decline of Google AdSense revenue due to Google’s Panda Algorithm update.  Social Media Spam certain doesn’t stop with LinkedIn.  When a new social media platform builds up a large user base, spammers take notice.  Unfortunately, I stumbled upon a new Social Media Scam that involves spamming Twitter and driving traffic to websites loaded with Google AdSense.

Twitter Social Media Scam

Twitter has exploded with users over the last 2 years.  According to Twitter, 140 Million twitter user accounts have been set up.  When there is a new social media platform that millions of people spend time on, opportunities arise for spammers.

Try a keyword search on Twitter and see what results show up.

Try this keyword search on Twitter – “Chicago Lasik”

Identify Twitter Spam Profiles

Let’s examine the first result show, clearly an actual human being and definitely not a fake/spam profile:

1. Use a female picture
2. Use a fake location
3. Claim you are a real professional – In this case “new york lasik eye surgery”
4. Use a Bitly link in your profile to track clicks

Google AdSense Spam

Then Click on the Chicago Lasik Link.  I will not link to the spammers website because the website is wrapped in Google AdSense.  The goal of the spammer is to build a keyword heavy domain name, stuff keywords into the URL, Title Tags, Meta Keywords (which dont work anymore ), meta description, Headers, and body content.  Oh, and the spammer is using Bitly to track click metrics on his spammy links.

Google has a Search Quality Team, headed up by @MattCutts.  The goal of the Google Search Quality Team is to increase the quality of search engine results pages.  I wonder if Twitter has a Search Quality Team.  A search on Google for Twitter Search Quality Team only brings up Google’s Search Quality Team results.

Twitter has raised $200 Million in Funding.  Does Twitter have a Search Quality Team?  If not, do you think Twitter Should have a Search Quality Team?

If you are a small business owner and you would like to grow your business in 2011, you MUST understand that the world has changed.  The yellow pages are dead. Newspaper advertising has become less effective over the last 10 years.  TV, radio and billboard advertising are extremely expensive and marketing results are very difficult to measure.  Purchasing leads is also expensive and becoming less effective (ie: Service Magic for the Service Industry) because those leads that you purchase are typically sent to 4 or 5 other business owners. What is a small business owner to do?

Pushing your marketing message out to people is not the most cost-effective way to acquire new customers.  When consumers have questions, they go to Google and other search engines to find immediate answers. Most consumers subscribe to their favorite industry blogs and favorite newspaper columnists via email or RSS (Really Simple Syndication – pushes new blog articles directly to consumers via a feed reader like Google Reader).   The advent of the internet, search engines and social media has given power to consumers to seek out exactly what they are trying to find.  If you want to grow your business in 2011, you must have an online presence and understand how taking control of your SEO and Social Media efforts will yield great ROI.

Director of SEO and Social Media at Zeta Interactive, Hugo Guzman wrote a blog post targeting enterprise businesses on how SEO and Social Media success is nearly impossible if no one owns it.  Hugo talks about how many enterprise-level companies do not have one person responsible for their SEO and/or Social Media Strategies.  He has found most companies divide the SEO/Social Media responsibilities between a marketing manager and an IT department, neither of which may be SEO-savvy.  Without someone primarily dedicated to these marketing channels, many issues arise as a result, including:

-Haggling over whose budget is going to be tapped into

-IT folks that think SEO begins and ends with outdated concepts like code-to-content ratio (yeah, I’m serious)

-Traditional marketers that wouldn’t know a title tag if punched them in the face

-Little to no actual site and page-level implementation because nobody’s neck is truly on the line in terms of the ROI gained from SEO

-Link building? What the heck is link building? (yeah, I’m serious about that too)

For a small business owner with typically less than 10 employees, no on-site IT person and perhaps no marketing manager, taking control of SEO and Social Media is an even bigger challenge.

So How Can I Take Control Of My SEO AND Social Media Efforts?

1. You must have the ability to edit and add new pages to your website.  I am not saying to go out and purchase a book on “web development for dummies.”  There are plenty of content management systems that are easy to use without having any web development (html, css, php) knowledge.  Content Management Systems to consider are: WordPress, Blogger, Squarespace or HubSpot (my employer).

2. Once you have the ability to edit your website, you need to understand the language that your target audience is using online to ask questions about your industry/products/services.  You can use Google’s Keyword Tool or (other keyword tools) to give you ideas on the most effective words to use on your website.  Keyword tools give you the ability to scrape your competition’s website for keywords that they are trying to rank for, which will also give you ideas on which words may or may not be relevant for your business.

3.  Once you identify keyword phrases that you would like to rank for, start adding new pages to your website and try to optimize each page for a unique keyword phrase and perhaps a variation of that particular keyword.  Here is an SEO Guide from SEO Moz to help advance your SEO education.  In a recent article on SEO tips for recruiters, I make note of some very basic, on-page SEO tips that every small business owner should be aware of.

4. You MUST have a blog that resides on your website.  Your Business Blog should be set up either like this: http://www.YOURWEBSITE.com/BLOG or http://BLOG.YOURWEBSITE.com.  A big mistake would be to set up your blog like this:  http://YOURWEBSITE.Wordpress.com or http://YOURWEBSITE.blogspot.com or http://YOURWEBSITE.typepad.com.  If you have your blog set up correctly on your own website, every blog article becomes new web page that will be indexed on search engines creating a NEW opportunity to rank in search engine results pages.  At bare minimum, you should write one new blog article per week if you want to have any level of success.  Not sure you understand the value of business blogging? Here are some key take-aways for setting up a business blog:

• Get found on search engines – SEO
• Build thought leadership and trust with your readers
• Blogs are your Social Media Hub or Home Base for all of your remarkable content
• Educate your prospects on how they can achieve success in your industry

5. If you have Linkedin, Twitter, and Facebook accounts for your business, you should share your blog content on those social media networks.  Most Small Business Owners are commonly confused about the use of social media.  If there is any advice I can give to them, it is this:  DO NOT JOIN SOCIAL MEDIA NETWORKS UNTIL YOU FIRST HAVE A BLOG AND BLOG CONTENT STRATEGY.

How Much Time Will It Take Each Week for SEO and Social Media?

You must commit a minimum of 1 hour per day to be successful with your SEO and Social Media Strategy.  Being successful with SEO and Social Media is much like a gym membership.  The more times you go to the gym, the more weight you lose.  If you go to the gym 4 times per week, you will see better results than if you go once a week.  Similarly, blogging 4 times per week will result in more traffic and leads than if you blog only once a week or less.

Please understand that there is a lot to learn in order to be successful with SEO and Social Media in 2011 and this article only scratches the surface.

What is your SEO and social media strategy?

Feel free to Contact Me with any questions on how to achieve SEO and Social Media success this year.

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Social Media Activity and Critics are down according to Forrester’s Social Technographics Ladder.   Forrester Research recently published data analyzing social media activity and created the Social Technographics Ladder.  Since the last time Forrester published their Social Technographics Ladder, Social Media Activity has dropped 2% and critics have dropped 4%.

Forrester’s Social Technographics Ladder

• Creators 23%
• Covnersationalists 31%
• Critics 33%
• Collectors 19%
• Joiners 59%
• Spectators 68%
• Inactives 19%

What This Data Means For Small Business Owners and Marketers

Small Business Owners and Marketers alike have started climbing the the Social Technographics Ladder at different speeds.  According to Forrester’s data, some have given up commenting on blogs, participating in forums, and reviewing products and services.  As social activity drops online, that presents opportunity for small business owners and marketers that want to take control of their online presence to get found, engage with and attract more qualified visitors to their website.  It’s time to take advantage of the prime opportunity that exists and to climb the social technographics ladder today.

Has your social activity slowed over the last 10 months? If so, why?

Those that read this blog and know me personally understand that I’m a huge fan of Twitter, as expressed here. Twitter recently added a feature called “who to follow,” offering suggestions as to “who to follow” based on your current friends and followers and your followers’ friends and followers. While some call Twitter’s new “Who To Follow” feature Social Steroids, others think it’s a distraction.

Twitter “Who To Follow” as Social Steroids

Twitter’s who to follow function is more powerful than Facebook’s friend finder.  While Facebook users connect with family members and offline friends, most Twitter users follow people that they have never met in person.  Twitter users tend to follow other influential people in their industry.  The “who to follow” function is powerful to that end and if you are looking to find other influential people on Twitter, you now have a nice easy way to find those people.  However, we should have an option to hide the powerful “who to follow” feature.

Twitter: Please Give Us An Option To “Hide” The “Who To Follow” Feature

When I first signed up for Twitter in the Fall of 2008, I was confused.  Partly, because I didn’t know what a tweet was, nor were any of my actual offline friends on Twitter.  As I started to follow people tweeting about things I am interested in (Internet Marketing, Sales and Sports), it was not easy finding quality and relevant Twitter users.  I can see the “who to follow” feature being very helpful for those that are new to Twitter or those that are interested in spending time seeking out influential tweeps.

Twitter “Who To Follow” Is A Distraction

The reality is, I do not want to be suggested “who to follow” every single time I log-in to Twitter.  Not to mention, every time I refresh my twitter timeline by clicking “home,” there are new “who to follow” suggestions.  I’ve only had the “who to follow” feature for about 48 ours and it is becoming a big distraction.

Twitter, please give us an option to hide your new “who to follow” feature.

Curious about Facebook and their changes to Privacy options?  This article aggregates in chronological order Facebook Privacy articles in 2010.  Learn about the wacky Privacy Updates that Facebook has made and reactions around the web on Facebook’s radical changes.

*4/19/2010* Facebook Privacy Update

• Facebook Launches New Privacy Section That May Make Your Head Hurt via TechCrunch

*4/21/2010* Facebook Privacy Article

• Facebook Data & Prviacy: So Much Change in 2 years via Read Write Web

*4/22/2010* Facebook’s Original Privacy Policy

• Original Facebook Privacy Policy Page via Facebook.com

*5/5/2010* Facebook Privacy Article

• Facebook Chat Bug Causes Invasion of Privacy For FB Users via Hudson Horizon Blog

*5/7/2010* Facebook Privacy Articles

• Evolution of Privacy on Facebook by Matt Mckeon
• Facebook’s Gone Rogue; It’s Time For An Open Alternative via Wired

*5/12/2010* Facebook Privacy Articles – Private Meeting Called!

• Facebook Calls All Hands On Meeting On Privacy by Huffington Post
• The Big Game, Zuckerberg and Overplaying Your Hand by Jason Calcanis  <— My Favorite article

*5/13/2010* Facebook Privacy Article

• Solve Your Facebook Privacy Articles in Under A Minute by Computer World blog

*5/15/2010* Facebook Privacy Article

• Worried About Your Facebook Privacy? Six Things You Should Know via New York Daily News

*5/16/2010* Facebook Prviacy Article – Defending Facebook (?)

• In Defense of Facebook via Mashable

*5/17/2010* Facebook Privacy Articles – Glitches and Reclaiming Privacy

• Facebook Privacy Glitch Exposes Your Cheesy Movie Quotes via TechCrunch
• How To: Reclaim Privacy on Facebook via Mashable

*5-18-2010* Facebook Privacy Articles – Facebook Didn’t Create The Personalized Web

• No, Facebook, Your “Extraordinary Gift” Did Not Create The Personalized Web by Danny Sullivan
• 5 Essential Facebook Privacy Tips via Mashable

*5/19/2010* Facebook Privacy Articles – Facebook Privacy is NOT an Issue (to some)

• Facebook Privacy is Not An Issue by Mark Cuban
• Facebook Grapples with Privacy Issue via Wall Street Journal
• New Facebook Privacy Options Go Live – May Overwhelm Users by Read Write Web

If you still use facebook after reading these articles, let’s connect on Facebook.

FourSquare For Small Business Marketing

FourSquare is a location based game service that rewards users who “check in” when they are at certain geographic locations by awarding “badges.”  The FourSquare user who checks in the most times at a particular locale gets the honor of being “the Mayor” of the establishment.

I’ve been using Foursquare for 6 weeks now and every time I walk into a restaurant/bar, coffee house, I check-in and wonder when these places will figure out the Viral Marketing opportunities they have.  Small Business Owners (B2C – Retail) should take a page out of Business Owner Joe Sorge’s book.  Joe is a small business owner that Increased Sales by 110% with a FourSquare Badge Party.

Why Should a Small Business Marketer Consider Using FourSquare?

1. As of Saturday, January 9th, 2010, FourSquare was a seeing a check-in every second!
2. As of March 17th, 2010, FourSquare has over 725,000 Users and over 22 Million Check-ins!
3. According to Coda, Mobile Data Traffic is expected to rise 40-fold over the next five years!

FourSquare has seen tremendous growth and it doesn’t seems to be slowing down any time soon.  To learn more about how to leverage FourSquare for Small Business Marketing, check out the Presentation below.

FourSquare For Small Business

In our iPhone and mobile_web app, we call attention to venues who offer special treatment to foursquares users. If a foursquare user is at your bar/restaurant, we’ll tell them what they have to do to unlock a free snack or discounted drink. If they happen to be across the street or two blocks away from your venue, we’ll let them know that your business gives special treatment to foursquare users and that they should swing by for a visit.

]]> http://rbeale.com/social-media-marketing/small-businesses-marketing-using-foursquare/feed/ 1 http://rbeale.com/social-media-marketing/social-media-cheat-sheet-for-b2b-marketing/ http://rbeale.com/social-media-marketing/social-media-cheat-sheet-for-b2b-marketing/#comments Mon, 22 Mar 2010 01:54:57 +0000 rbeale http://rbeale.com/?p=567

I’m a big fan of Social Media.  You probably know that if we are connected on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook.   I recently stumbled upon Drew McLellan’s Social Media Cheat Sheet (see to the right) and had a few thoughts on it as it relates to business.  Drew is a public speaker and gets questions from his audiences on which social media networks should be used for business.  His response to that question is prefaced with:

Social Media Cheat Sheet

there is no single, magic or easy answer to that question.  It all depends on your goals, your overall marketing strategy, your resources and your industry.  It’s not a cookie cutter sort of thing.

I agree.  Goals must be defined, marketing strategy, target audience, time and resources are all factors that must be taken into consideration prior to identifying which social media networks should be used for business.  Drew then took the next step and created “The CMO’s Guide To THE SOCIAL LANDSCAPE,” describing the business value of 10 social media networks.

Today is March 21, 2010 (and the first day of golf season-totally unrelated side-note).  If a CMO has not familiarized themselves with the top Social Media Networks and the business value to social media marketing, then they need to do their homework.  Social Media Marketing can have a potentially large impact, on both short term and long term goals, for just about any business.

The Social Media Cheat Sheet certainly adds value to anyone unfamiliar with Social Media Networks, but I want to make one thing clear:

B2B Social Media Marketing Is Useless Without a Business Blog

B2B Companies that create LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook pages for Business, with the intention of generating quality traffic to their website and converting that traffic into leads are setting themselves up for failure without a business blog.  I speak with business owners and marketers on a daily basis that are trying to figure out why their social media marketing strategy has not yet worked and very few of them have blogs.

Why is blogging important?  Stay tuned for my next post on the “Value of B2B Blogging.”

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Let me start off by saying that I enjoy LinkedIn and it’s functionality. LinkedIn has helped me stay in touch with family, friends,  and colleagues in a business capacity and ultimately helped me connect with like-minded people.  Social Media Networks like LinkedIn have opened the door for traditional sales representatives to connect with spam members of the same LinkedIn Group.

I recently received this spam email and wanted to share what NOT to do when using LinkedIn for Business. [The Spammer will remain anonymous, but the content of the email will not.]

How To Fail At Using LinkedIn

LinkedIn Email Spam Headline

LinkedIn Spam Email Title

How did I get spammed?  I share a LinkedIn group with the spammer, opening up the opportunity for the spammer to contact me via email.  The Title of the email is “Build your sales pipeline.”  Ugh. Really?  Yes, I am a “Sales Representative” but, really?

LinkedIn Spam Email Introduction

LinkedIn Spam Email Intro

The Spammer says, “Hi” but does not reference me.  If you are going to spam someone via email, at least have the courtesy of personalizing your message.  If the spammer was genuine, I may have responded to the email.

Want to fully understand how to use LinkedIn and learn LinkedIn Best Practices from The Inbound Marketing LinkedIn Group?  Here is a video and eBook:  LinkedIn Best Practices from LinkedIn’s Top Marketing Community

I recently read a blog post on “How To Set Up a B2B Corporate Blog,” but thought a more appropriate title for the post should be, “4 Ways To Start a B2B Corporate Blog.”  Jeffrey Cohen offers 4 different ways B2B corporations can set up a blog, but I wanted to expand on his post and offer my opinion as it relates to the “The Right Way” to set up a B2B corporate blog.

This post is not going to get into technical aspects of setting up a B2B Corporate Blog or which blogging software to use, rather, my personal opinion on how to set up a B2B Corporate Blog the Right Way.

Questions B2B companies need to ask before setting up their B2B corporate blog:

1)  How much time/resources can we commit to a corporate blog?
2)  What is the goal of the corporate blog? (For example, Lead generation, Branding?)

How To Set Up a B2B Corporate Blog The Right Way

1.  ALWAYS have at least 1 B2B corporate blog on your corporate domain either in a sub domain (blog.site.com) or sub-directory (site.com/blog). Why? Each blog post written is another web page for Google to index.  It is important to continually add web pages to your B2B Corporate domain and one easy way to do that is to blog.  If a corporation is thinking about blogging but using another domain as the blog BEFORE setting up a blog on the corporate domain, I would not recommend that as a best-practice.

2.  Use a Keyword Phrase in the Sub-domain or the page slug for the Blog. For Example, instead of having “blog” as the keyword used in the URL, add a keyword phrase relevant to your business in the URL.  If my company originates loans for corporations, I may title my blog, “Corporate Loan Origination Blog” (CorporateLoanOriginationBlog.site.com or site.com/Corporate-Loan-Origination-Blog).  Adding a keyword phrase relevant to your business increases the relevancy of your website and on-page SEO.

3.  After your B2B Corporate Blog is set up in either a sub-domain or sub-directory on your Corporate Domain and you are having success, it is then and only then that I would consider creating another website with a keyword focus as a second Blog, perhaps with a strategic focus.  Blogging takes time, effort and resources.  The best way to build the authority of your corporate domain is to add web pages continually to that domain and increase the quality and quantity of inbound links to that particular domain.  Once the authority of your B2B corporate domain is built up, then companies should consider other options, like keyword focused web sites as a blog.

If you enjoyed this post, you may want to learn about “Creating a B2B Social Media Marketing Strategy.”

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New to Twitter?  Are you overwhelmed, confused, or unsure how to identify quality Twitter Users?  According to Mashable’s Adam Ostrow, as of April 28, 2009, Twitter had roughly 6 million registered users and that number will likely double by the end of 2009.  How do I wade through the 6 million + Twitter users and connect with Quality Twitter Followers?  The goal of this post is to help Twitter users identify quality and relevant tweeps!

Leverage Twitter People Search to Identify Quality Tweeps

Twitter People Search

Start following people that you know.  Search for your family, friends, and colleagues.  Twitter People Search is a great starting point to find people that you know on Twitter.  Twitter people search offers “twitter suggested users,” but most of them are large businesses or famous people and likely not 100% relevant to you, or your business.  I’m sure this feature will get much better over time with respect to identifying quality and more relevant users.  For now, there are a few 3rd party applications that help to identify quality and relevant users.

Identify Quality Tweeps with WeFollow

WeFollow

WeFollow is a Twitter Directory.  The wefollow twitter directory is a user generated directory, where Twitter users sign up and associate themselves with particular keywords and hashtags (#).  In my opinion, wefollow is the best tool for Identifying Quality and Relevant Twitter Users becuase you can sort by “Influence” and “Followers.”  Are you a PPC Marketer? Want to connect with other PPC Marketers on Twitter?  No Problem.  Go to wefollow and search by keyword “PPC.”  You will find a list of 390 (today) twitter users that identified themselves as PPC Marketers and you can sort those 390 twitter users by “Influence” or by “Followers.”

Identify Quality Twitter Users with Mr Tweet

Mr Tweet

Mr Tweet is a twitter recommendation engine that is updated daily (almost real time). Mr Tweet’s slogan is: “Filtering through the twitterverse to find people your network trusts (including followers you are not following yet).”  Mr Tweet is is helpful over time as you build up followers and friends on twitter to identify other like-minded, quality and relevant tweeps.

Using Twitter Search to find Quality and Relevant Twitter Users

Twitter search is my favorite way to search for like-minded tweeps.  Simply, type a keyword phrase (with or without a hashtag in front of the keyword phrase) that is relevant to you/your business into the twitter search function and you will see the most recent Tweets for that particular keyword phrase.  For Example, if I want to find experts in creating a B2B Social Media Marketing Strategy, I may search twitter using the following keyword(s) and hastags:

• B2B
• B2B Marketing
• B2B Social Media
• B2B Social Media Marketing
• B2B SMM
• SMM
• #SMM
• #B2B
• #B2Bmarketing
• (you get the idea)

How To: decide if the Twitter user is Quality and Relevant

Here is a twitter checklist for determining Quality and Relevance of a Twitter User.

What do I look for in the Twitter User Profile and TwitterStream?

• Do they have a picture/avatar?
• What is the picture/avatar?
• What is the name of the twitter user?
• Is the twitter name real? (Don’t be that sketchy twitter user)
• Is the twitter name a business?
• Is the twitter name a keyword phrase?
• Is there a link in the twitter profile?
• Is there a link to a personal blog or linkedin page?
• Is the link in the twitter profile a shortened link?  For Example, a bit.ly link in the twitter profile?
• Does the description describe a person or business or something else?
• What keywords are in the description?
• How many followers do they have?
• How many people do they follow?
• How many times are they listed?
• How many tweets do they have?

Red Flags in the Twitter User Profile and Twitter Stream

• Any Porn relate photo/avatar
• No photo/avatar
• Following thousands of people with not many people following back
• Following thousands of people with not many tweets or no tweets
• Following tens of thousands of people and having tens of thousands of followers, but not many tweets
• Following tens of thousands of people and having tens of thousands of followers, but not listed or listed very few times
• Anything MLM related in the description or Twitter Stream?
• What links are recently posted in the Twitter Stream?
• Is the same link posted more than 1 time in back-to-back tweets in the Twitter Stream?  More than 3 times in back-to-back-t0-back tweets in the Twitter Stream? (Dear, Lord)
• Does each Tweet start with “RT” in the Twitter Stream?
• Are comments added to RTs in the Twitter Stream?
• Any other language besides English in the twitter stream? (This is an interesting one.  I do follow some people that Tweet in English and a few other languages, but the primary language used on Twitter is English)

What questions do you ask yourself and/or what do you look for in identifying quality/relevant Twitter Users?  Please add to the list in the comments section!

Like this post?  Follow Ryan Beale on Twitter