Search: social media

The model of using keywords to promote web sites is not as effective as it used to be. Most people will agree that Google has become the dominant search engine on the Internet. However what does Google think about keywords?

In September 2009, Matt Cutts with the Google Search Quality Team posted an article on the Google Webmaster Central Blog entitled Google Doesn't Use Keywords Meta Tag in Web Ranking. So if Google doesn't use keywords, then what do they use? According to the article Google doesn't completely disregard all the meta tag data, however their web search engine primarily focuses on things, such as "links pointing to a web page."

Now how can you generate more links pointing to your web site from other sites. Two suggestions would be to utilize blogs and social media. Through these two mediums, links to your organization's web site can be generated. This can serve several purposes.

Some people have taken on the concept of striving to be an online content expert, also known as a thought leader, for their specific field of expertise by posting regular articles on their blog and spreading the publicity of those articles through social media networks (such as Twitter and Facebook). For more information about one way to do this, read my post about the Open Graph Protocol.

The team at Facebook has created the Open Graph Protocol. Once implemented on a web page it becomes a rich object in a social graph. This can then be used, for example, to turn any web page into a Facebook fan page.

So what does this all mean? Facebook is providing another means of generating publicity for web pages. If a loyal patron to your organization visits your web site and clicks a Facebook "like" button (see my article about the Facebook Like Button for more details), the Open Graph Protocol will interact with the Facebook Like Button and will treat your web page as a Facebook Fan Page. This provides the opportunity to use your loyal patrons to help generate publicity through viral marketing. When that patron clicks the "Like" button it will then be displayed to all their friends that they like your organization's web site. This in turn can lead to their friends visiting your web site to explore the products and/or services your organization offers.

For more information about how the Open Graph Protocol can be implemented on your web site please contact us.

One of our clients asked us how the Facebook "like" button worked, so we figured we would create a blog post about it.

Facebook has provided a way for their users to share with their friends various things that they "like" including web sites on the Internet. A web site simply adds the Facebook "like" button to the pages of their web site. If a visitor to the site clicks the button, Facebook will be initiated to ask them for their Facebook user account. Then on the visitor's Facebook account, it will indicate on their list of activities (called their "Wall / News Feed") within Facebook that the person "likes" the web site. The friends of that visitor will then be able to see the individual's activity list and the description will provide a link from Facebook to the web site.

Or in other words, it's a way to get people to tell their friends about things they like and provide their friends a way to go find out more information about it. In the end, the visitors to your web site help to advertise for your company/organization.

We use the Facebook "Like" button on our blog - see directly below, under the section "Like It. Tweet It. Buzz It. Digg It."

For more details visit: http://developers.facebook.com/plugins

With the continual growth of "social media networks" such as Twitter and Facebook, new mediums of interacting with your customers are now available to business owners of all sizes. However many businesses are attempting to use the "old school" mentality of pushing out information to their customers using this new medium of social media networks. In this case they are missing the boat, to use a metaphor.

The real power with social media is the ability to engage your customers in a two-way conversation. You are able to receive feedback from your customers in real-time. All you have to do is monitor it. Now this doesn't mean that you have to be at your computer 24/7, but you do need to be listening. Tools have been developed, such as CoTweet (recently acquired by ExactTarget), which aid in monitoring the two-way conversations you are having with your customers. Through these conversations it is even possible to engage your most loyal customers as well as your most disgruntled customers.