Ever since Google launched the Search Plus Your World (SPYW) feature in their search results, “social signals” have become a hot buzz phrase to describe the way Google has adapted their ranking algorithm to take social media into consideration. We understand that it can be a bit confusing, all of a sudden you see pictures of your friends in the search results and wonder if Google is keeping tabs on you (and your brand) now that you have a Google+ account. The short answer is yes, and it has for a long time – Even before Google+ was even a glimmer in Larry Page’s eye. This is just the first time you have seen it so visually displayed. Don’t worry, though. They haven’t completely thrown their “Don’t Be Evil” motto out of the window. Google+ and SPYW are merely new ways to find content and info relevant to you and your brand based on what you search and what your friends like through social media. It’s about tailoring your search results (and on-page Ads) for you.

Now, let us explain what the “social signals” hoopla is all about. 

A social signal is a digital “vote” for a link. When you view social signals in this context, it is easier to understand the bigger picture of what it means for search. For example: When you +1 a sweater on the ASOS.com’s website, you are casing a vote in favor of that link. A vote cast by liking or sharing equates to authority by you of that page. You are saying to Google “this is relevant to me and this is what I like.” The next time you search for a new scarf you may see a link to ASOS.com’s scarf collection appearing in the top of the results. And, if your best friend +1-ed the Banana Republic page, you may see it listed on the first page as well (provided that you follow your best friend on Google+), because that is what he or she likes.

In a larger context, the more social signals created in favor of a website or a particular product page, the more it impacts it’s search ranking as a whole. By taking on this big picture view of how social signals are part of how Google ranks for pages, you can start to realize what Google+ is really all about. Many journalists and thought leaders in the world of search and social media pontificate about how Google+ compares to Facebook and Twitter, and whether or not it is going to be a key player in the world of social media. They are missing the point, or rather, distracting you from the real point of Google+. What is the real point, you ask? Let’s consider this quote from The B2B Social Media Book by Kipp Bodnar and Jeffery L. Cohen:

Google+ is about maintaing and expanding Google’s dominance in the search engine market. Google+ will likely not have as many users as Facebook, but that doesn’t matter. The value that Google+ holds is that it is a treasure trove of personalized signals of authority that Google owns and does not have to lease from another company that could decide to cut Google off at any moment.

What Bodnar and Cohen are saying is that Google is already competing with the likes of Facebook, Linkedin and even Salesforce.com. These social profiles offer information that is “all signal and no noise” for people plugged into these networks. These sites work like miniature search engines for people with specific questions and answers within the online community where they participate. Even though searches on social networking and blog sites are happening on a vastly smaller scale than on Google’s search engine, they are still searches that are siloed off from Google. Now that Google has married search and social with SPYW, it has the best of both worlds! Social signals are bait for Google to stay relevant in a changing search landscape. When you +1 a post, they have your vote, and have skipped past social sources where they do not have access, and where you have also shared content.

If you now ready to create a  Google+ presence and to participate in Google’s newest search ranking factor, Search Plus Your World, follow along with GPO! Our search marketing strategists have been exploring the space since its inception and have insights from our experiences. In our next article, we will explain, step-by-step, how to set up an optimized Google+ page for your brand so that you can get started.

Do you plan to promote your B2B company’s holiday party through social media this year? Does your social media marketing strategy aim focus on lead generation? Are you inviting current, future or potential clients to your big bash? Then buckle up team, you have an awesome opportunity to optimize your event marketing strategy with social media!

5 ideas to help with your event planning using social media:

1. Create online invitations (you can also send print ones if you like to keep it traditional) that include links to your social sites. Incorporate a call-to-action above the links that encourages your guests to follow your social networks and join in on the holiday fun leading up to the event.

2. Blog about it on your company page and share through social media. Invite media or industry bloggers to the event to get more press afterwards. Evoke a sense of anticipation and urgency in your expected guests by giving clues to a special guest or party surprise via your blog and social media.

3. Engage your fans leading up to the event through social media. Even if they are not invited or cannot attend the event you can still include them in the festivities. You could create an advent calendar in Wildfire leading up to the big day with industry tips or holiday haikus written by employees. Allow fans an opportunity to be a part of the experience by a polling fans on Facebook for decor theme ideas. Creativity is key!

4. Take photos of party attendees and post an album to Facebook after the event. Set your album tagging preferences to fans only. Announce via your social networks that you have posted the album and let fans tag their pictures. You will encourage attendees to “like” you on Facebook in order to tag photos. It is likely that if they attended your holiday party, they will have no qualms with liking your brand on Facebook and hearing more from your company after the event.

5. Create an event hashtag that is relevant to your brand and live tweet from the holiday party. Play with your target keyphrases when crafting creative messaging. A party is a good time for many to discuss the event via their social networks and share their experiences with their followers. Having a dedicated hashtag can help you capture, organize and follow-up with the conversation during and afterward. You can even include an event tweet digest as part of your party re-cap blog post!

Do you have more ideas for how to promote your holiday party through social media? Share them with GPO through Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. Happy Holidays!

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!

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.

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.