Social Marketing
There are people who HATE search marketing. I mean really hate it. They make fists, they grit their teeth, and they hit their heads on counter-tops - really hard. You will often hear these opponents to SEO say that, “all you need is good content!” and, “if what you have is worth seeing, then Google will pick it up on its own!” Which is, of course, recklessly stupid. Everyone thinks they have content that is worth being seen by others. If no one is seeing yours on Google, the natural assumption is that the other sites doing better than you have used SEO tactics, and in a world without SEO you would have naturally placed better than them.
A great strategy to be found on search engines is to have many different places to be found at. After all, if your company comes in first place for a search for your own brand, there are still 9 other places a competitor could be listed - and grab your lead.
This, therefore, is another strong reason to take advantage of social media sites. When used properly, they act as additional placeholders on a search engine for you.
For instance, take our parent company Off Madison Ave. In the first place of Google results, (today, anyway - these results change all the time,) you not only see OMA’s main page, but you see a blog posting, the Wikipedia listing for Off Madison Ave, and our Blogflux profile page, as well as several press releases we have done in the past. This holes up the spots that could go to other companies trying to use the “Off Madison Ave” brand to promote themselves in natural search.
People don’t just look for what they want on Google, though - while Google is the #1 search engine in the land, people don’t primarily “hang out” there. More often, people kill time at Youtube, or Myspace, or look for new sites on del.icio.us. In that case, you want to create a presence for yourself on those sites - not to do better on Google, but to do better on alternatives to it.
Off Madison Ave on Del.icio.us - Take a look at the Off Madison Ave collection of bookmarks on del.icio.us. Notice how few of them are actually from pages on the OMA site? Sure, the topmost one is, but the rest are from other sites, other news stories, interesting tools and helpful information you or anyone might want to help them understand internet marketing. The idea here is not to promote web pages, but to instill in the minds of visitors that Off Madison Ave is an authority on marketin, PR and online in general.
London Relocation on YouTube - Another client of ours is London Relocation Services, helping people find relocation accommodation in London. (If you listen really carefully, you can hear haters of SEO actually screaming swear words and epithets at that last bit of link marketing.) London Relocation does not have any video on hand to promote their services. Still, there are a great many bits of video others have produced and uploaded to YouTube. Therefore, it is simple work to collect any video on moving to London, life in London, or sites to see in London and add them to a YouTube Profile made specifically for London Relocation. The idea being that if someone finds a particular video on London they like, they will track back to people who have added it to their collections, so they can see what else is in their collection. When they read the profile page and see what London Relocation offers, hopefully, they continue on to their site. So while having video content is nice, it’s hardly necessary.
Cruise America on Myspace - Another popular social networking site (rather, THE social networking site,) is Myspace. While many people think of Myspace as being a hangout for teenagers, the average age of a Myspace user is roughly 34 years. The reason is that most teenagers’ parents get accounts to the site to see what their children are up to. They inevitably stay on, though, as there are so many things to see and do on Myspace. As such, a company like Cruise America could be picked up in a search on Myspace for motorhome sales or RV information. You can also save videos, audio, or pictures on Myspace, attracting anyone interested in any of these to the Myspace page - and ultimately, your own site.
There are many more examples of many more social media sites. The basic point is that you do not create profiles on these in order to simply help your natural search rankings - you do it to create additional presence online. They allow you to take your existing quality content and spread them around, so you are seen by many more people coming from several different directions. The best way to begin is to look at your own website and business, and see what you have to offer on such sites. If you have a wealth of video, create a YouTube account and upload them. If you have photography, Flickr is the best choice. (Clients of ours who offer Personal Finance Advice Planning, The Global Adventure, are on Flickr with photos of owner Keith DeGreen’s trek around the globe exploring the differences in economics, politics and culture.)
Add this to a full-scale SEO optimized web site, and you can generate a huge amount of new business for yoursef - and ruin Christmas for a lot of anti-SEO enthusiasts.
