Category: Social Media

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Twitter the New Ad Ticker

I started out on Twitter a month of two ago and initially loved the interface, the interaction, and reading mundane information posted by others. Now I am looking at Twitter with a different perspective after having used it for a while.

I think if you have a community of close associates Twitter would be great like instant messaging on the fly, but if you don’t, Twitter is now all about marketing, self-promotion, and advertising. If you look at any mature Twitter site, it is chock full of links to eBooks, to people’s blogs, or how to buy their new T-Shirt. In fact it has gotten so bad now, that mainly I use Twitter to post my blog feed and occasionally monitor it for information.

Twitter is mutating as people figure out how to use it and integrate it into their lives. I do still feel that it’s a fine tool for a network of colleagues or close friends, but for me I am seeing it as a marketing vehicle and I’m not sure I want to read other people’s advertising messages in the rare free time that I have.

I’m sure that the makers of Twitter did not intend for the application to become an ad vehicle, but take a look at my Twitter friends posts and that’s all you see. http://twitter.com/mccordweb

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Social Media Marketing Packaged For the “Extreme” Push

I have been watching this trend and thought it was a good blog post. Social media networking started out as a must have for the everyday person. When MySpace was new, you just had to have a page. Then there was Facebook, then LinkedIn. All the sudden there were too many sites to participate in and it became difficult to find out what you should do and where you should invest your time.

I have all these tools in play, but have found that the social networking is just too time consuming to do personally. What I have seen is all the sudden the PR field has jumped with both feet into social media networking and in a stroke of genius now is packaging social networking sites with viral video, and online and offline push with an effort to spin a client into the stratosphere.

Is it workable, yes you bet, these tools in the hands of a PR expert can get the online media exposure that some clients and products can really benefit from. I have one marketeer who is doing just that and just got a call from Microsoft that may turn into a consulting gig to teach their staff about social media.

What I found totally interesting was that the PR world is not just selling the social media aspect but by packaging set up as a part of multiple services they are hiding the cost of the set up needed to get going and getting a  big fee in the process. Truthfully anyone can set up these account for free, but this is where the parallel ends, it is what you do with them that make the difference. Having the account open means nothing, it is about building, linking, and the viral video aspect that makes these programs different and possibly worth the money you will spend.

Although for many of my clients the social networking medium is a novelty and a must have, but what do you do with it once you have it, the PR firm puts social media on steroids. This trend is definitely worth watching. Here’s just one example that I have found recently that is worth reading about.

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Viral Marketing Using Video

I have a friend who pointed me to this short video and I thought it was interesting to point to you on how others are creatively marketing their business.

The woman in the video is a face reader. She uses an ancient Chinese art to identify things about you from your face. She was consulting with my friend to get more activity for her business. My friend recommended that she show people what she does on a video. She went to Facebook and at random chose people to give reading too. She then posted the video on Facebook, YouTube and on the site below. Buzz was created which has driven traffic to her business in a highly creative way.

Way to go! This was a great idea to get out what she does, offer something free to others, and then market herself doing it.

 

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Using Squidoo For Organic Search Placement

I don’t do much with Squidoo but I have a client that I blog for that has really used Squidoo to garner organic search placement. I think that the approach that he has taken is actually very savvy, time consuming, but savvy.

If you don’t know what Squidoo is check it out now. Squidoo allows you to easily set up a targeted one page content page in their network called a lens. This lens is best if it is very narrow and very keyword dense. Sounds easy, but you will have to use the custom advanced page interface to create this kind of mini website.

My client’s optimization team has literally created hundreds of Squidoo pages on one topic pointing to his main website. When the specific topic is searched, his Squidoo page does appear above his regular website. We are actively pointing blog posts to his Squidoo pages to build links and authority as his blog resides outside of his main web domain.

I have tested Squidoo myself and find it is similar to setting up a LinkedIn or Facebook page; modular in nature, but can be time consuming. If you have loads of time or deep pockets to pay someone else to create these pages for you, I can see that it is a very workable strategy, but not one that I am adopting for my own business at this time, but it is interesting to see how others are using Squidoo.

Here’s a link to our Squidoo page so you can see what one looks like. Ours is on search engine optimization.