Boost your Traffic and Success Online with Social Media Optimization (SMO)

Beau Mueller (http://www.beaumueller.com)Presented at the University of Hawaii at Manoa

Outreach College: Pacific New Media on 3/21/09

Generation of◦ Customers◦ Leads◦ Fans◦ Followers◦ Buzz◦ Revenue

Quality Traffic Generation◦ The long-tail effect (niche power!)◦ Improves User stickiness

SEO Benefits Reputation/Brand Management Enlargement of Targeted Segment Improve your products/services (feedback)

What can SMO do for your business?

Entertain Educate/Inform Establish you as:

◦ An expert◦ A colleague◦ A friend

Increase ◦ Your network◦ Your popularity◦ Your reputation

What can SMO do for you?

Get you elected?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOTJ-mn5Uv4

What can SMO do for you?

http://adultaddstrengths.com/2008/11/05/obama-vs-mccain-social-media/

Seriously, did SMO Get Obama elected?

Did SMO Get Obama elected?

http://adultaddstrengths.com/2008/11/05/obama-vs-mccain-social-media/

http://adultaddstrengths.com/2008/11/05/obama-vs-mccain-social-media/

Did SMO Get Obama elected?

http://adultaddstrengths.com/2008/11/05/obama-vs-mccain-social-media/

Did SMO Get Obama elected?

http://adultaddstrengths.com/2008/11/05/obama-vs-mccain-social-media/

Did SMO Get Obama elected?

Social Media in Plain English

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpIOClX1jPE

• Social Media is:– Sharing content, opinions, insight, experiences,

perspectives• The Media Forms:

– Text, images, audio, and video• Tools/Venues:

– message boards, forums, podcasts, videos, TXT/SMS, bookmarks, communities, wikis, blogs, etc.

• It’s the connection and the conversation…

Social Media : Introduction

« Markets are conversations » « Markets are getting smarter, more informed, more organized. » « People in networked markets have figured out that they get far better

information and support from one another than from vendors. » « The networked market knows more than companies do about their own

products. » « Companies that assume online markets are the same markets used to

watch their ads on TV are kidding themselves. » « Companies that don’t realize their markets are now networked person-to-

person, getting smarter as a results and deeply joined in conversation are missing their best opportunity. »

« Companies can now communicate with their markets directly. If they blow it, it could be their last chance. »

« Companies that do not belong to a community of discourse will die. »

(http://www.cluetrain.com/#manifesto)

The Conversation

The conversations are going to happen!

For better control of your brand, your image, your reputation, etc. you must participate

Once you trigger a conversation, you should not leave it

With or without you…

SMO Discussion Video

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1427892/social_media_optimization

/

Misconceptions◦ Not for everyone?

Common objections◦ Not enough time (response: ease in slowly)◦ Information overload (response: matter of priorities)

Reputation Management◦ Monitor your SE results (but just google? C’mon…)

Participation, Engagement, Conversation◦ Social media allows you to control the conversation (but

how should you?) Ease of Entry YouTube as marketing vehicle? Future of Social Media? (What was Mayor Mufi thinking?)

Reflections/Summary on Video

Get ready for more SM apps on your phone…

The iPhone Facebook app already has 1.5 million users

Another Justification for cell phone ban?

Final vote next month could end drivers' use of electronic devices

Do we really need a justification?

Advent of Social Media on Phones

The Social Media Landscape

Go long! Find niche communities/groups Find niche keywords (high demand, low

supply) and target them in your:◦ Press releases◦ Tweets◦ Forum postings◦ Video tags◦ Articles◦ Website◦ Etc.

The Power of the Niche

Wordtracker

Established in 1997 to answer a fundamental question:

What are people searching for? Helps you

◦ Identify phrases and keywords relevant to you◦ Identify competing sites◦ Identify phrases that have the highest traffic

potential Some similar tools:

Nichebot Keyword Discovery

Use multiple forms/tools/venues Be patient

◦ You will only see small changes in the beginning◦ The strategy is powerful when users see your engagement◦ One page on facebook is not going to create miracles but the

combination of multiple tools might◦ Never release your presence because communities need to be

animated Join social networks one-at-a-time and don’t worry

about active participation, it will come naturally Target and rally your niche, your sub-niche, your

sub-sub niche, etc. Monitor your reputation

SMO Strategy: General Tips & Tactics

The cocktail party analogy Become a real member of the community

◦ Ask and answer questions WAY more effective than live cocktail parties

No boundaries of time or space Other people can listen in easily

SMO Strategy: General Tips & Tactics

Can be! No external company needs to be engaged Often just will cost you time

A cost-free strategy?

• Team of community managers that interacts with community on blogs, forums,…

• Monitoring all mentions of Dell online (RSS, Searches) and tracking mention of positive , negative, neutral

• Dell never censors critical blog comments and responds quickly to criticisms on their blog and on others

• All Dell employees are allowed to comment on blogs that discuss their company, but they must use give their name and identify themselves as Dell employees

• Since 2006, when Dell launched its DirectDell blog and major online community initiative, online mentions of Dell have gone from more than 50% negative to only 20% negative

• Dell’s community initiative strongly supported by CEO Michael Dell• Dell is routinely cited on blogs, white papers, at conferences…as an example

of a company that understands and embraces the value of community

http://en.community.dell.com/

Case Study: DELL

Communities: Facebook Over 120 million users Adding 250,000 new users each day since

Jan 07 Most trafficked SM community site, 5th most

popular site overall Top Social Search Engine More than 55,000 networks 25+ fastest growing demographic

Create a facebook fan page for your brand, store, and/or product

Create a myspace group page, and join existing relevant groups

Find join and participate in niche communities relating to your industry (RE: ActiveRain, Hawaii Tech: TechHui, etc.)

Create a powerful profile page Add media regularly

Communities: Tactical Tips

Blogs

Use SEO friendly article titles Steady readership? Blog often. If your postings are SEO focused frequency

is less important Usually a given, but RSS is a must Include call to actions that make sense

contextually Use your blog as an instant feedback

mechanism

Blogs/: Tactical Tips

http://blog.mannixmarketing.com/2009/03/twitter-review/

Microblogs“Brevity is the soul of wit”

Allow you to share brief text updates or micromedia and publish them

Submitted by: SMS, IM, e-mail,

audio, or the web AKA “Status Updates”

on:◦ Facebook, MySpace,

LinkedIn, Xing

Inane chatter or useful news? 140 character limit Benefits

◦ Brand building◦ SEO ◦ Buzztracking◦ Other benefits

Microblogs: Twitter

Start small◦ Use the twitter search to find twits and tweets

relating to your niche◦ Announce new blog posts, articles

Build buzz Inject your personality into your tweets Manage your reputation In BETA? Have frequent downtime? Use for job hunting or hiring Exclusive deals (twitter-only coupon, etc.)

Twitter: Tactical Tips

Tweet often:◦ Real-time market conditions – i.e. if you’re a RE

Agent inventory, surprise multiple offer situations◦ Reference timely local industry articles (“Home

Prices in Ewa Beach dropping”)◦ Upload pictures with twitpic◦ Live twitter from industry events – tours, open

houses, parties

Twitter: Tactical Tips

Wikis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsFU3sAlPx4

If worthy, post your unbiased company history on Wikipedia or others

Wiki communities such as Wetpaint.com great tools to utilize and learn from and utilize the collective power of the niche community

Start a wiki community for niche interests relating to you

Wikis: Tactical Tips

One of the oldest forms of Social Media on the web◦ But still very relevant

People participating in an Internet forum can build bonds with each other and interest groups will easily form around a topic's discussion, subjects dealt with in or around sections in the forum.

Message Boards/Forums

On your own site and industry forms, Identify:◦ Themes◦ FAQs

Use these for niche identification, product development/modification/etc.

On industry forms browse for questions to answer◦ Provide quality answers (don’t forget your

signature or non-salesy call-to-action)

Message Boards/Forums: Tactical Tips

Video Sites: YouTube A story of big numbers:

◦ FAQs Registered Feb 15th, 2005 By 3/06

200k+ users 25mil+ videos

watched/per day Currently the 3rd most

visited site◦ 100 million views per day◦ Over 17% of global users

visit this site daily

Video Sites: Metacafe & Others

Metacafe Wikicafe

Others: Videojug (educational) Revver (share the revenue) Find your niche…

Publish videos!◦ Tags, tags, tags!◦ Try different sites◦ Go viral

Make it fun, interesting, or otherwise worthy◦ Educate

Grab a niche! Embed videos!

◦ On your blog, your site, your community profiles etc.

◦ Beneficial for SEO

Video Sites: Tactical Tips

Social Bookmarking/Digging: Tactical Tips Don’t manipulate or spam, but… Make your content worthy. Should they

bookmark or digg it? Can they digg it?

◦ Make it easy for them to:

Friendfeed: the Lifestream

Friendfeed: Continued

Smooths the online networking process

“The concept behind SMO is simple: implement changes to optimize a site so that it is more easily linked to, more highly visible in social media searches on custom search engines (such as Technorati), and more frequently included in relevant posts on blogs, podcasts and vlogs.”

—Rohit Bhargava

SMO Strategy for your site

Online Reputation Management (ORM) Definition: the practice of consistent

research and analysis of one’s personal or professional, business or industry reputation as represented by the content across all types of online

Improve customer satisfaction by gaining insights from consumers about what is good and bad about their product or services.

Increase perceptions of brand by creating opportunities to listen to and engage consumers.

Gain insights about competitors and their customers’ perceptions about their products and services.

Maintain shareholder value by mitigating risk by having ears close to the ground where opinions about a business are being formed and propagated.

Engage in more effective public relations by understanding who the real influencers are.

How can ORM positively or negatively affect a person or business?

Gain understanding of the relationship between user generated content and traditional forms of online media, e.g. news, print, etc.

Provide early warning systems for reactive and defensive PR.

Reduce marketing spend by learning how to reach out to customers more cheaply.

Reduce internal costs by employing services which save time and effort, as well as money.

Help identify gaps for products and services which can be developed for profitable niche markets.

Gain insight into online networks and keywords and key phrases found in user-generated content, which can help to bolster natural search results about the person, product, or business.

Source: Wikipedia

How can ORM positively or negatively affect a person or business?

Emphasize and create new good◦ LinkedIn◦ Start a blog/vlog/microblog promoting yourself in

a positive light◦ Establish yourself as an expert in your field

Bury, take down, or publically respond to the bad◦ Only 3% of searchers go past the third page but…

ORM/SERM: Tactics for Individuals

Embrace transparency Do not delete critical comments

◦ These are gems! Build trust by participating Consider review sites such as yelp and

stumbleupon to gage/modify your offerings Incentivize feedback (bribe them)

◦ Surveys◦ Giveaways

ORM/SERM: Tactics for Businesses

15 minutes prep: 5 groups of 3-5 people Task: Articulate a response/strategy to the

situation/situational questions. Pick a group speaker and be prepared to present.

Goals:◦ To absorb and employ strategies/tools/venues

covered thus far◦ To learn from the collective intelligence &

experience of this group Fleshing out/discussion of SM strategies & venues

not yet covered

Group Activity

Situation: You are charged with creating an SM strategy for Neil Abercrombie's Gubernatorial campaign.

Questions:1. What strategies will you employ?2. What venues will you use?3. How will you get your message

out/generate buzz?

Abercrombie for Governor

Young, Drunken ProfessionalSituation: You are a young professional looking for a job.

However, you have a colored past, having had a very public, drunken, run in with the law. When searching your name on Google, a news story detailing your drunken tomfoolery is the first result! Your dated MySpace profile, also on the first page, has some of your wilder times viewable to the public.

Questions:1. How will you use SM to bandage your reputation?2. What venues/online methods will you use to job hunt?3. How can you establish yourself as an expert online?

Hawaiian Air Strikes BackSituation: You work for Hawaiian Air and for some reason a lot

of disgruntled passengers have been posting bad reviews, and these are showing up all over the SM landscape. However, your offline reviews show that your customer satisfaction levels are fine. Hawaiian doesn't have an SM strategy, but sorely needs one.

Questions:1. How should you respond to these reviews? 2. What are some of the methods/venues you will use to

generate positive buzz, and rally your loyal Hawaiian Air following?

3. What would you recommend to Hawaiian in terms of an overall SM strategy?

Goin’ Clubbin’Situation: You are a new local club with a lot to offer, but

your numbers are not where you want them to be. You know that there are a lot of people online who would love your club.

Questions:

1. How do you use SM to get people in the door?2. What are you going to do to keep them as

fans/evangelists?

Taro Chips for the MassesSituation: You are a local Taro chip business trying to promote

your delicious chips to a broader mainland market.

Questions:1. How can you use SM to educate the masses about Taro? 2. What can you do to generate buzz?3. How will you build and retain your group of taro-eating

enthusiasts?

Hawaiian Air Strikes BackSituation: You work for Hawaiian Air and for some reason a lot

of disgruntled passengers have been posting bad reviews, and these are showing up all over the SM landscape. However, your offline reviews show that your customer satisfaction levels are fine. Hawaiian doesn't have an SM strategy, but sorely needs one.

Questions:1. How should you respond to these reviews? 2. What are some of the methods/venues you will use to

generate positive buzz, and rally your loyal Hawaiian Air following?

3. What would you recommend to Hawaiian in terms of an overall SM strategy?

1. create a loyal following2. market exclusive offers via SM3. Incentivize Reviews/4. Manage your reputation5. Educate/inform:

◦ the video strategy◦ press releases◦ write articles

5 SMO Tips for Small Business

1. Consider DELL a model2. Buzztrack3. Put a lot of resources into ORM/SERM4. Go Viral5. Educate/inform:

◦ the video strategy◦ press releases◦ write articles

5 SMO Tips for Big Business

1. The Obama Model2. Generate Buzz

◦ press releases◦ Microblog◦ Etc.

3. Put a lot of resources into ORM/SERM4. Go Viral5. Educate/inform:

◦ the video strategy (also, consider a vlog)◦ press releases◦ write articles

◦ http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/29666704#29666704

5 SMO Tips for awareness, a campaign or event

1. Build your network online2. Tweet away little bird … Use Twitter Search3. Write expert articles4. Post expert videos5. What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas…

(manage your reputation)

5 SMO Tips for a Job Seeker/Professional

Mahalo! Questions? Comments?

Contact: beau@axiomgroove.comMy site: http://www.beaumueller.comMy company’s site:http://www.axiomgroove.comFollow me on twitter: http://www.twitter.com/beaumueller