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!

Last Thursday we attended a full day of online marketing sessions/panels at the annual InnoTech Austin eMarketing Summit. The crowd was largely made up of local online marketing professionals, but there were a few that hailed from the likes of Portland, New York, and Seattle that we got a chance to meet. From our experience, there seemed to be a few over-arching themes that prevailed throughout the conference. If you didn’t get to attend, or would like a quick refresher due to the “undoing” of your mind during the lavish post-conference Happy Hour(s), here are the Cliff Notes!

Mobile Marketing

The QR code debate was not spared during the Austin Innotech eMarketing Summit. Speakers did not shy away from this “controversial” topic in the least bit, avidly supporting the QR code and the role it will play in the future of marketing. Craig Wax, CEO of Invodo, presented some innovative uses paired with video, such as QR code links to assembly instruction videos on product boxes. In his view, linking QR .

The bottom line across the Austin Innotech eMarketing Summit sessions: the QR code will soon be a “native feature” to phones, making it easier and more natural than ever to scan while you shop, or while you wait at a bus stop. The unanimous agreement seems to be QR codes are good, but their marketing execution must be on point. Good call to actions (that explain what content you will be consuming after you scan and mobile friendly pages that require very minimal navigation (clicks and scrolls) in order to convert are key.

Geo-targeted Marketing Efforts

Location focused search engine marketing goes hand and hand with mobile, because search engines serve results based on your physical location on mobile devices. The importance of registering your business on review sites and directories, as well as having pages for your address(es) was stressed in Brian Combs “#Winning With Google Places” session.

Aside from having the proper anchor text, verifying subdomains for each location, and other nerdy and necessary SEO stuff, local listening was touched on by Kate Niederhoffer of Dachis Group. She discussed several tools that can help marketers use social searches to listen to and monitor the conversations that surround their brand. Creating specific searches that hone in on regional target markets can help you filter the noise and tap into what people are really saying about your brand on a local level.

The bottom line across the Austin Innotech eMarketing Summit sessions: Zero-in on your local and regional markets from a bird-eye-view. Monitor the geography of your conversions and brand conversations, and use this info to target and improve your market segments. Also, don’t forget to register your physical address to any and every directory/review site you possibly can.

Optimizing for Bing

“There are more daily searches on Facebook than on Yahoo and Bing combined”, according to Chris Treadway, CEO of Polygraph Media. Yet, Bing searches dominate 30% of the market. “Don’t be surprised to see a data exchange between Bing and Facebook in the future”, says Bill Leake, CEO of Apogee Search. Since Facebook is the number two search engine, and Bing is associated with Facebook, it is wise to cover all of your search marketing bases. And let’s not over look that “you could make a decent living off of 30% of the search market” (Leake).

The bottom line across the Austin Innotech eMarketing Summit sessions: Don’t forget about Bing! Making sure that video sitemaps are verified in Bing, is just as important as verifying them in Google’s Webmaster Tools. Also, don’t be surprised if Bing plays a more significant role in the future as the battle of the search engines becomes even more heated.

Did you attend the Austin Innotech eMarketing Summit? Tap into the conversation about the conference on Twitter using the #innotechatx hashtag.

Creating effective Ads on Facebook can be an essential strategy for your social media marketing campaign. You may have used Google AdWords in the past for your online business, and have pulled up the Facebook Ads info-page to find that this type of Ad placement is a whole new ballgame.

One of the biggest differences between Google Adwords and Facebook Ads is that Facebook Ads allow you to tap into the interests and traits of your target market. Facebook has over 730 million users that have created personal profiles with their marital stats, college degrees, gender, age, and interests displayed on their profile. As a marketer, you have the ability to target specific demographics and tailor your message to their likes and interests. Does that sound creepy to you? To some yes, but others figure that if they are going to have to see advertisements anyway, they might as well be relevant to their life in the off-chance that something may beckon their name. Another item to note: You cannot target specific individuals when rolling out your social media marketing campaign; You can only target specific interests.

With that in mind, you may want to do a little research about your demographic before you create your first set of Facebook Ads. There are many free tools that can help

with your search marketing Ad campaign. Alexa.com can help you assess your SEO reach across the global web on a very broad level. QuantCast.com offers a high-level quantitative overview of your demographics of site visitors. Try Yahoo’s Search Clues function to feel pulse of global search trends. You will be able to see what certain demographics are searching the most throughout the web.

Another helpful metric to look at is your “Facebook Insights”. However, if you are a optimizing for a B2B industry or a broad service industry the insights may not tell you much. You can also look at the open profiles of avid fans to get a feel for what they like. You may be surprised to discover trends that can be applied your campaign. Next week, we will stay on the topic of social media marketing with Facebook and go more in depth with how to write effective Ad copy. Stay tuned and see you next week!

Last week, Dan Zarrella broke the Guinness World Record for the “biggest online marketing seminar”, claiming a title that most search engine marketing “gurus” would kill for! Zarrella definitely held down a captive and inquisitive audience (judging by the hyper-active #smsci hashtag) and served up fresh social media marketing stats that dispelled many myths about effective social media strategy.

“The Science of Social Media” is rooted in what Zarrella likes to call The Hierarchy of Contagiousness. Exposure, attention, and motivation make up the three levels that are at the heart of creating content that is highly shareable.

Zarrella’s argument is that you must first set up these strategies for viral marketing success in order for your marketing message or content to be shared on a large scale. It is not enough for you to implement 1-2 of these strategies and achieve a greater chance of longevity. However, Zarrella did not go too far into depth about giving social posts more permanence on the internet and through social media even after showing charts that represented the “fecundity” of social media messages and the life and death of ReTweeted tweets.

At Get Page One, we argue that in addition to Zarrella’s hierarchical strategy, you must also explicitly include influential people that will further champion your social media marketing campaign.

Say that you have written an awesome blog post that is great for your audience. If you are trying to build readership from the ground up, the content of the post is not enough to send viewers flocking to your WordPress site. A call to action and an attention grabbing headline will bolster your content and make it highly sharable or ReTweetable. But, what happens after a few hours or days?

This content gets lost in an RSS feeder, your tweet gets pushed down and becomes out of sight, out of mind. This is where the explicit inclusion of others in your online conversations, the promotion of other content, and being an active member of the industry community becomes mutually valuable. It is a symbiotic relationship that promotes longevity of your message and helps define a clearer voice for your emerging brand.

Form a relationship with influential people in your industry and marketing segment (AKA bloggers and thought leaders). Personalize social media marketing messages with a call-to-action for them to read and share your content when it is applicable to their personal brand, or when it is relevant to topics that they post about frequently. Conversely, promote relevant (but not blatantly competitive) information to your segment. Make no mistake, personal messages and the inclusion of others should be used with discretion and in moderation. It is also a two-way street. You do not want to appear spammy or overbearing to your colleagues or market segment.

The goal of this strategy is to conjur up chances for meaningful conversations that can happen about your brand. Tailoring some of your search marketing vision around influential people can give your promoted content an increased chance of campaign longevity on the internet and across social media channels.

[Image Zarrella, Dan (2011). Annotated by Get Page One, LLC]

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!

In Austin, there are many opportunities for those to learn more about the latest news in search marketing through meetup groups and regular seminars. If you are new to the city, joining a meetup group can be a great way to meet new people and build a network of colleagues. There is a unique group for every niche and most are promoted through event websites and social media. Some of our favorite active groups, which can be found on Meetup.com, include:

The Austin Internet Marketing Meetup: The big boy of search marketing meetups in Austin, Texas! If you would like to learn more about social media marketing, SEO, and PPC, this meetup hosts seminars and presentations about hot topics in the field. Meetings are typically held monthly in North Austin, where many tech companies are clustered.

Austin SEM Meetup: A focused, happy hour meetup for serious search marketers. This is an advanced level group of search engine marketing professionals, social media marketing strategists, and PPC-whizzes. A moderately sized group, these monthly happy hours are a time for members to catch up with each other and talk shop about the most recent events in the industry. Meetups are usually the last Thursday of every month and take place in Downtown, Austin.

The Austin WordPress Meetup: Search marketers know that good content matters, and that WordPress is one of the best platforms for hosing search optimized blog content. During these monthly meetups, members discuss the newest plugins, debate about different strategies for hosting content, and exchange creative ideas. It is a great place to meet a good mix of writers and marketers!

So, grab a Mexican Martini, pull out your trusty iPad or Moleskine notebook, and sit in on a few meetups in town. The Austin search engine marketing community is very welcoming, diverse and highly knowledgeable. It’s time to get out from behind your computer, logout of your Google Reader account, and meet some innovative search engine marketers IRL!

A little more than six years ago, a small startup video-sharing website named YouTube received its very first video upload. At the time, few would have believed that videos on YouTube would eventually receive millions of views each day, or that businesses could effectively use the Internet as a way to broadcast commercials to the public. Video taps into the consumer desire for sight and sound, an audiovisual aspect that can provide an experience that may be difficult to translate into words.

More than just a commercial feature on the Internet that a business may use to reach consumers, video also has an ability to affect organic results within search rankings. However, using web video to aid in a search marketing strategy is not quite as simple as just creating a YouTube channel and uploading a video. In that case, it is unlikely that a video will have any impact on search results. Video SEO is a comprehensive method which draws on the way Google looks at the relevance of the video.

According to a March 2010 article in TechCrunch, Google’s indexing methods can make web video more likely to rank on first page results than the traditional web page. Yet, with all of the sophistication and technology available, when it comes to the algorithms and crawlers that scour the Internet for content, the video itself is actually unseen by Google. Video SEO actually comes down to video sitemaps, robot text files, titles and keywords. In essence, it is still the written word that will factor how Google finds and ultimately ranks videos rather than the content actually contained within the video. Yet it is that content that can funnel traffic to your website.

At Get Page One, we believe video can be an integral part of an overall search marketing strategy and one that taps into the consumer desire to see and hear information that entertains, educates and engages them. If you would like to know how a Video SEO strategy could work for your business, contact us today.

Increasing visibility using search marketing practices can be complex. At Get Page One, we emphasize the importance of having strategic vision to achieve favorable search results via the use of organic search engine optimization, paid search advertisements and social media marketing. Yet, rather than falling into the trap of needing to understand complicated jargon such as meta-tags and XML site maps, optimal search marketing results rely on a collaborative top-down approach between a business and its SEO company. Both stakeholders play a part in the success or failure of Internet marketing campaigns.

The components that make search engine marketing work well require an expertise within a multitude of disciplines, many of them technical. Choosing keywords, targeting and optimizing advertisements, deciding on PPC or CPM and setting up analytics are all part of a process that leaves the average marketer puzzled. While complex terminology and knowledge on the technical side of search marketing are a part of your SEO company’s DNA, today’s digital world requires a holistic approach for success.

In other words, best practices in SEM do not always entail your entire workforce having in depth knowledge on the meaning of complicated jargon. However, in addition to the specialized side of the practice, SEM primarily focuses on communication to an audience who is actively seeking out information on the Internet. The saying ‘content is king’ translates into the customer experience. After all, consumers are not simply searching for your site map or what tags you have used. Consumers are seeking relevant information that will provide them some sort of benefit. Simply having a website and Facebook fan page isn’t enough. Great consumer facing content should be a part of the company culture.

Making search engine marketing work for you isn’t simply about nifty software, a website with a few keywords and some inbound links. This is why we emphasize collaboration with our clients so that great content and technical expertise synergize and lead to long-term success in today’s marketplace.

While the practice of searching for local businesses used to stem from flipping through pages found in a several-pound book – now likely stashed away collecting dust somewhere – the consumer is still letting their fingers do the walking. Today, those fingers are both flipping and typing, not on paper, but rather on mobile phones and computers. While business listings in the traditional Yellow Pages and print publications do still exist, the consumer is going digital. For today’s SMB (Small and Medium-sized Business), local search in the online world has taken on even greater importance because shoppers, now more than ever, turn to the search engine and even social networking sites first to discover and buy products and services.

Local search marketing is in essence replacing the traditional Yellow Pages as a method of increasing awareness, while driving both online and foot traffic to the business. Yet, it can be easy to see how an organization may drown in a sea of millions upon millions of search result pages and competing advertisements worldwide. A local search strategy helps optimize these results adding a geographic context to products and services the consumer is actively seeking.

Nonetheless, local search marketing is more than just a business listing on Google Places, paid search advertising or a high ranking in Yahoo or Bing. This comprehensive strategy takes the Yellow Pages ad or listing to an entirely new level with social media marketing and the ability for consumers to connect and search via mobile. For example, social media sites such as YouTube extend local search reach through video, and Facebook Deals let consumers discover local businesses beyond the search engine. Link building through blogs and photo-sharing sites also help tap into the triggers that your customers are using to discover businesses online.

Local search marketing strategies can be an effective tool to attract consumers to your business. If you are unsure of how to get start implementing local search in with your marketing initiatives, Get Page One can help you find out more about this secret weapon.

It may be easy to think that to achieve favorable search results on Google, Bing or Yahoo, simply putting up a video, blogging or posting to Facebook and Twitter will get the job done. However, to achieve optimal results, the combination of search marketing, organic search engine optimization and social media necessitates a cohesive strategic vision. Moreover, this vision is not an end-game approach, but rather an ongoing and flexible process. The need for flexibility stems from the constantly shifting changes in search algorithms and consumer behavior. We are often asked at Get Page One how each of these components operates in tandem to reach results.

While the answers are not always simple, search engines begin the course of online visibility through a complex combination of factors. More than just heading tags, anchor text, backlinks and advertisements, each component in the search process works together to develop placement on search engines, where the best place is, of course, a top ranking. Ideally, through the progression of increasing views and interaction, organizations convert search results into consumer demand and new sales. In a sense, it is akin to a professional baseball team playing for a World Series title. Each element, from pitching and hitting to defense seemingly operate separately. However, these components do not win championships by operating independently. The manager must know when to bunt and steal bases and when to pull the starting pitcher and rely on the bullpen.

Likewise, search marketing, SEO and social media marketing all seemingly function as separate entities. Yet, each has its own objectives. Choosing the right keywords, effective use of ad elements such as targeting and call-to-action, engagement through social networks and measuring results are just a few pieces of the puzzle.

On the Internet, you want to be in the right place at the right time, when the consumer is looking. Each building block in the practice of search marketing helps to realize this goal. Optimal search results typically occur when each building block combines within a comprehensive strategy. Therefore, like a World Championship baseball organization, achieving top Internet ranking is a team effort.