Mike Smith asked:


“Word of mouth” is the strategy behind marketing on social media. 2008 saw much hype over the emergence of this new form of marketing and now that the dust has settled, it is time to come to terms with the challenges of social media marketing. No longer a fringe benefit or additional service, online marketing sees social networking, blogs and bookmarking sites as the latest thing, picking up from search engine optimisation. Apart from the upswing in popularity that social media has seen, there are advantages that remain untapped by many SEO firms that provide social media marketing services as well.

Online communities have had a profound effect on popular culture evident from the widespread use of sites like YouTube, Flickr and other media outlets. Organisations that do not realise the business development potential of this cultural phenomenon will find themselves struggling in the marketing world of 2009. The recession caused by the meltdown of financial institutions worldwide is now prompting a new wave of media marketing that is driven by smaller staff and tighter budgets. For conformists, holding on to traditional marketing avenues will probably spell PR doom. There is a demand for open, transparent and direct conversation between customer and merchandiser that only the social web can fulfil.

Adapt, evolve or perish has been the principle guiding success within every industry and the marketing world has seen the advent and decline of other media in the past. The first to embrace new forms of marketing have always been most successful and in this transitory period the question of when rather than why is now significant. The advantages of social media marketing are manifold. Enabling your customers to act as spokespersons, targeting relevant bloggers to endorse your services and initiating discussions between employees and customers are some of the many ways in which marketing is revolutionising online business.

Very often social media marketing is confused with social media optimisation. The two terms while similar, have taken a more definitive meaning in this new year. 2008 was the year of SMO – where websites were encouraged to be more social media friendly, add social bookmarking links and create user friendly content. Social media marketing, on the other hand, is an extensive field that finally aims at promoting content via social networking websites. As SMM makes its way to the forefront of online marketing, there is a compelling need to embrace this new medium to survive in the cutthroat world of online retailing.



Caffeinated Content

Gregory L Burrus asked:


I am sure you have heard the latest buzzwords, social media, social media marketing, word of mouth marketing, buzz marketing and web 2.0. Where did all these terms come from and will you find these terms in the English language dictionary is debatable. However these terms provide a serious benefit in the search engine optimization ranking services and should not be ignored.

Social media websites and networking web sites provide you an easy way to connect with people who share similar interests like you. Some social networking websites group people with common interests, but some websites are “traditional networking sites” and allow you to search for friends based on your interests. So now how do these websites really operate. In websites like MySpace users share music which was what helped rocket MYspace into the well renown place it is today and in Facebook, users create their personal information that they want shared and use pictures, software programs and audio, videos to display or depict their business environment. In websites like Fastpitch, Joe Popular and Adlandpro the users create product and sale pitches and work with each other. Promotiing your website using these new tools is termed social media marketing.

So how can you take advantage of this obviously new but what seems beneficial activity? When you use social media marketing and social networking , you have the opportunity to expose your website to a much larger group of people. When your site becomes popular in a social media site, people talk about your site and the post that becomes popular. Do this is taking advantage of a form of marketing that you may know it as word of mouth. The additional links means that as you grow these natural links from a large number of relevant websites, your rankings improve in the search engine due to increased organic search traffic.

Another advantage is that search engines programs that roam the web are keen on social media and networking websites and typically go after links on these websites. This means if you have your site link on social networking and bookmarking websites, your search engine optimization ranking is better and your website site will be indexed quickly. Getting bookmarked from different users and different social media websites will definitely help your site rank better on search engines.

Like it or not, social media websites have become an integral part of the internet because social marketing is easy to do, search engines love social links and hence your business by default will benefit. So if you are engaged in operating a website, and search engine optimization is important then you must realign your site to exploit the popular social media websites for increased traffic. To take advantage of this new method of building business you need to know what steps to perform? Well explore search engine optimization services. Also explore social media marketing and the difference to social networking websites.



Caffeinated Content – Members-Only Content for WordPress

Steve Waganer asked:


Socializing is known to be the best way to get the latest news and the hottest gossips on just about everything. So if it works for people there is no reason why a social media platform should not work for online sites on the web. Internet as we know it today is one of the biggest platforms for interaction and knowledge sharing. It is no wonder therefore that social media optimization is one of the most popular methods for enhancing the visibility of the site and giving it a higher ranking on the search engines. Search engine marketing firms often employ various methods of social media optimization for their online clients. The process involves carefully planned and laid out strategies that keep in mind the strengths and weaknesses of the client and are implemented accordingly.

Social media optimization is a method of generating publicity through online processes, communities and websites. The internet savvy people today frequent a number of websites that act as a social media optimization platform. The videos uploaded on sites like ‘you tube’ and the various sites offering blogging facilities, forums and discussion panels further enhance the effect of social media optimization. The social media optimization uses the technique of viral marketing to spread their word across the web. The main idea is to get people talking about a product, service or idea. The word of mouth then serves as the publicity vehicle thereby popularizing the website that is most talked about by the internet users. Social media optimization utilizes the techniques of social book marking, video and photo sharing and blogging.

The term social media optimization was coined by a person called Rohit Bhargava and he also suggested some guidelines as to how websites can reap the maximum benefits from social media optimization. The main emphasis is to be laid upon increasing the link-ability of the website and also encouraging the inbound links to the site in question. Social media optimization also stresses the need to make tagging and book marking of a site an easy process. Once a visitor to the site can easily book mark it and go back to it as and when required he is bound to achieve a comfort level with the website. This is in turn would make him recommend the website to other acquaintances thereby serving the inherent purpose of social media optimization.

Social media optimization platforms also face the common problem of spam and this might cause inconvenience to a group of users. However the advantage in this scenario is that the users on a social media platform are usually active participants and hence they can easily delete and block the spam as and when it is placed. Some media platforms have specifications about qualifying matters into relevant data and spam and have taken precautionary measures to avoid influx of spam in the website. Social media optimization has reached a high level in recent times and the growing popularity of platforms like Facebook and Orkut show positive indications for this phenomenon. As the internet community becomes wider social media optimization is becoming a crucial tool for the websites across the globe.



Caffeinated Content

Bob Withers asked:


Social Media Optimization is an internet marketing technique that includes a number of methods to promote your product, service, business, or website on social media.

Social Media Optimization is associated with search engine marketing, but differs in that the primary focus is on driving traffic from sources other than search engines, though improved search ranking is also a benefit of successful Social Media Optimization.

Social media optimization is similar to viral marketing where word of mouth is created through the use of networking in social bookmarking, video and photo sharing websites.

It is still very much in its infancy and is only one element of being everywhere online. Social Media Optimization is essentially based on quality, or how good is my content?

It presents businesses with a way to connect and interact with their customers and prospective customers that was never available to them before. It is interacting with consumers wherever they are online and in whatever format they want the interaction to take place.

Social media optimization is all about creativity, finding creative ways to get your message out there and using creative tools to have your content easily found, distributed and shared online. It is about improving the linking structure of your website to make it highly visible in social media searches.

Social media optimization is the latest buzzword that is capturing the attention of webmasters and is simply the practice of ensuring that a website, article, or video is primed to become a part of the social media network. Social media optimization is utilizing these social media sites and the social media networks to popularize a product, a service, an organization or a concept.

It’s an excellent technique for website promotion and gives your Website and business more visibility and instant results. It is the process of distributing your content across all available Social Media networks and enhances your internet presence by effectively using these media, including social networking, social book marking, blogs, wikis, groups, and other social sites.

Social media optimization is driven by the technology of Web 2 and is all about forming groups of like- minded people and sharing information. Social Media Optimization is more than just writing content for the purpose of garnering links to your website.

It’s about optimizing your pages to help them connect with online communities and is defined by Wikipedia as a way to optimize websites so they would be more easily connected or interlaced with online communities and community websites.

According to Wikipedia: Social media marketing (SMM) combines the goals of internet marketing with social media sites such as Digg, Flickr, MySpace, YouTube and many others.

Social media optimization (SMO) and Social Media Marketing strategies are employed by empowered Search Engine Optimization to promote the site through the use of networking in social bookmarking, social networks, video sharing sites and photo sharing sites.

Social media optimization is a set of methods for generating publicity through social media, online communities and community websites.

The evolution of social media optimization will take some time in coming and has yet to reach its full potential but has the opportunity to replace Search Engine Optimization as one of the top Internet Marketing strategies in use today.



Kansieo.com