We debate about social platforms (and their subsequent CRMs) frequently at GPO. Proper retweet etiquette, tweet automation, and incorporating Klout scores into our engagement strategy have all been items up on our morning coffee chopping block. However, one thing we can agree on is that optimizing content exposure is important and crucial to an effective social media marketing strategy. Timing and social profile choice can play a significant role in how people engage (or don’t engage) with your status updates.

The graphic above (via Breaking Copy) is a sarcastic dramatization, but it brings up an important point: Certain types of content perform better on different channels! Facebook, Google+, YouTube, and Flickr (among other media sharing sites) are great choices for images and video because your target audience will not have to navigate away from the page to view the embedded content. Also, the functionality of these social networks allow you to use your text as a call to action, yet keep focus of your status update on the image or video itself.

Has someone from your company given an important public presentation relevant to your industry recently? Post the slides on SlideShare, and use several tags to describe the content and make it easily searchable for others. Hosting your PowerPoint presentations on SlideShare is not only a good SEO strategy, it is also is a widely-shared opportunity to showcase your brand as a thought leader of your industry.

For questions, ditch the “poll” function on Facebook (for now) and ask questions directly in the status update. Now that Google is indexing comments in Facebook (note: this may change in the future), there is real SEO value in getting your keywords and focused topics to show up in the SERPS. Questions with designated hashtags are very good for Twitter as well. You can facilitate a conversation among followers and harbor it all under a searchable tag, which makes it easy for others to chime in. Finally, another great place to post an industry specific question is in a LinkedIn discussion thread.

In summary, your social media marketing goal should be to publish your content-rich status updates in networks where it is easiest and more inviting to engage. Cross promote on all channels to boost your reach, but always keep in mind the advantages and strengths of each social profile you have created for your brand. They are all different for a reason!

Have you considered adding social share buttons to your website or blog as part of your search engine marketing strategy? Although the implementation seems daunting, it is actually an excellent call-to-action for visitors to engage with your content or retail items. According to the inbound marketing big boys at Hubspot.com, “Websites that use Google’s +1 button generated 3.5 times more traffic from Google+ than websites that don’t have the button installed.” That is a compelling nugget of knowledge that is very hard to ignore.

Our search engine maketing interpretation: Out of sight, out of mind. So put yourself out there! Still on the fence? Here are 4 more reasons for you to consider installing a plugin like Socialize or DiggDigg2u on your website:

1. It offers people many ways to share your content directly - Save your readers a few steps! With multiple social share button options (like Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, or even personal e-mail) they can save time and avoid any hassles in order to promote your message. If you make it easy, they are more likely to act on their impulse to share relevant content with their friends.

2. It diversifies your web presence – Niche community buttons like StumbleUpon, Digg, Tumblr, Reddit, and LinkedIn are used heavily by those who actively engage with the Tech, Fashion, and Politics communities. If your brand resonates with pop culture gurus, it is a good idea to have a wide portfolio of social buttons and ways to engage.

3. It encourages conversation about your brand or organization – Once a blog is shared via a social share button, another avenue opens up for others to continue the conversation about your blog topic or your brand. Put simply, social share buttons increase visibility. And visibility begets more opportunity for conversation.

4. Social shares become links back to your site – While they may be “no follow” link, social shares still organically increase the amount of unique page views your receive on your site. It’s another case for visibility: The more social paths you create that lead to your content, the greater chances it will be seen by others and shared through 3rd party streams.

Treat your fans like house guests. Make things more comfortable and easier for them when they visit your home[page]. Be open, be friendly and encourage conversation. And make it easier for people to amplify your message through social shares. It is a search engine marketing strategy that is getting very hard to put off!

Last month, we wrote how the combination of search marketing, social media marketing, analytics and consumer experiences can combine to tell a more complete story about how a brand uses the Internet to market products and services. Creating a unique online experience helps answer questions of why the consumer should pay attention to your business and why they should keep coming back to your website or social network. Businesses must also answer the fundamental question of how to build a long-term strategy around these platforms and who will implement and monitor them.

It’s easy to think that experiential marketing is simple. Use a recipe of creating interactive platforms for conversation via social media marketing, provide entertainment, develop funny advertisements and bingo, you will have customers practically knocking down your door. Yet, for many brands, experiential marketing is actually a difficult concept to grasp. In most companies, core competencies center on the manufacture and selling of products and services rather than marketing.

Just as major organizations use an outside advertising agency to create and develop commercials and marketing campaigns such as the E*Trade baby, the development of experiential marketing campaigns often requires experts who can help uncover the key traits of how a brand resonates with consumers. Television and radio advertisements are unidirectional methods of communication with an emphasis on branding.

Search and social media campaigns work similarly to branding; however, these mediums are more adept at translating resonance and connection with the consumer into meaningful methods of educating, entertaining and engaging an audience. Yet, taking the brand experience to the digital realm requires an expertise in facilitating and motivating two-way communications. It’s not always as simple as having an executive assistant manage a Google Adwords or YouTube video campaign.

At Get Page One, we create search and social media marketing plans with your customer in mind. Our core competencies and expertise focus on helping create the brand experience while you concentrate on developing outstanding products and services.

In his 1937 novel Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck wrote a paraphrased line about “the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” Nearly any business leader will tell you this is a true statement. In today’s technology-savvy world, things that go awry can often times create a publicity snowball effect — both positive and negative — in the mind of the consumer, influencing more and more stakeholders as word spreads like wildfire. At Get Page One, we believe reputation management strategies are a proactive approach to the handling of crisis; identifying brand supporters and developing a feedback loop for communication with publics.

Reputation management once existed as a sub-genre of public relations (PR) personnel in the media industry to create or manage spin and shape perceptions. Because of the real-time communications technologies of today, reputation management has taken on a unique significance in the marketing repertoire. Consumers are flocking to the Internet, taking the water cooler conversations to social media sites, such as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and blogs, expressing evangelism for the brands and products they love, distaste and distrust for those they do not. And it’s not just happening to giant corporations. Small and medium sized organizations are just as susceptible to positive and negative feedback on the Internet. And because this conversation is taking place at lightning speed, ignoring it is not an option anymore.

Of course, it’s always great to be prepared when things go “awry,” and the need for help managing your brand’s reputation doesn’t require a crisis the size of a British Petroleum oil spill. Small customer relations issues, packaging or service problems can turn a seemingly minor dilemma into a major setback that may spread throughout the social web. A proactive approach to monitoring and managing these quandaries can turn a negative into a positive. Conversely, reputation management is not just about handling negative conversations. Encouraging and responding to positive mentions by consumers through social media marketing can enhance brand reputation in the same way.

In days past, coping with consumer perception meant having a journalist at your disposal, a public relations professional on your staff and spending thousands on advertising to help modify public opinion. Now, the consumer is the journalist, social media professionals are your public relations managers and two-way feedback is replacing the expense of one-way advertising. And since we are keen on quoting writers today, poet Oscar Wilde once wrote, “There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.” Search marketing and social media services help get you talked about, and reputation management from Get Page One helps manage that conversation.

If you’re not using social media to promote your business, you’re missing out.

A recent study by Wetpaint and the Altimeter Group, called the ENGAGEMENTdb study, ranks the “world’s most valuable brands based on how they leverage social media to interact with customers.” Able to measure and monitor brand engagement, ENGAGEMENTdb is the first of its kind. Essentially, Wetpaint and Altimeter Group are measuring social media’s financial value. For example, how does a Twitter account actually pay off — or does it even pay off at all?

So the study took the world’s 100 most valuable brands (as measured by BusinessWeek/Interbrand “Best Global Brands 2008″ rankings) and looked at their social media use — how well the brands are engaging their consumers and how that affects their revenue and profit. What the study found was that those 100 brands are “experiencing a direct correlation between top financial performance and deep social media engagement.”

What exactly does that mean? Simply put, companies engaging in social media are more financially successful.

At Get Page One, we’re firm believers in the power of social media marketing. But you can’t just sign up for accounts on Twitter, Facebook, etc. and hope for it to pay off. You have to work hard at it and be consistent in the way you use it — you can’t just sign up and leave. Successful social media marketing involves signing up for social media accounts and actually being social — interacting with other users, regularly updating and participating.

Engage in social media, be consistent and see it literally pay off.