Marketing Automation, Web Video and Social Media
Posted:
2/26/2010 10:45:00 AM by
Mike Rogers | with
0 comments
Could you run your business from an iPad? That's what Internet Marketer and technologist Paul Colligan is going to do. For the first 30 days after he picks up an iPad, Paul will perform his daily work only via an iPad. He will chronicle his experience here at http://www.paulsipad.com/.
I wish him luck and am eager to learn some tips. Some of my work is programming and database driven, so an iPad certainly won't cut it from that standpoint. However, much of my daily work is spent writing technical documents and specifications, as well as using web based applications and testing web software. I think a great amount of my work could be offloaded to an iPad, potentially eliminating my need to a laptop to travel with.
Most of the travel I do is one of two types, going to a client for meetings and visiting family/vacations. When visiting clients, all I really need is the ability to take notes, show off web applications (hopefully the iPad will allow the browser to be sent to a TV for presentation purposes), and monitor email.
When I am vacationing, I primarily need to monitor email and manage staff remotely. Both tasks seem ideal for the iPad. I will be waiting for the 3G model so Paul should be at the end of his journey by then. I am certain I will pick up some good tips.
Posted:
2/24/2010 11:37:20 AM by
Kristen Prestano | with
0 comments
Public Relations efforts are beginning to take shape in many aspects of the online world. In providing better, quicker and less expensive communications, online PR is facilitating the ways in which businesses can share information, create a viable online presence and drive traffic to their site.
As opposed to traditional offline methods of PR, online public relations can help you reach the goals of driving traffic to your site in a cheap and efficient fashion. If done correctly, online PR can create a positive image for your company in the mind of the consumer, which will in turn enable you to reach a wider audience, increase your visibility and ultimately lead to increased access to your site through natural backlinks. PR is the prime tool for giving yourself an edge above competitors and will help position you and your company's website as a trustworthy, professional source for your market. This, coupled with your various social media efforts, blogs and videos will increase your network of media contacts and create positive opinions and news pertaining to your business’ industry.
Writing a quality press release is the main way to begin with online PR. If you are having trouble, there are various sources, like
www.prnewswire.com, that can help serve as templates and provide guidelines for writing a press release. Make sure to write a press release with a real and creative news angle that is interesting and will generate public interest. This takes a lot of time and effort, but the results of a quality press release are invaluable for your company’s image.
A pitch letter can also be utilized to your websites benefits. This type of PR is similar to a press release, however a journalist is asked to cover a story relating to your business. The content of this piece is usually related to a specific type of product or feature, which eventually becomes more of a review type article. Having another individual write on behalf of your company is very beneficial in creating a trustworthy image. Since these sources of PR are not generated from the specific business or website itself, consumers are more willing to listen to the article’s content because they do not feel as though they are being sold something.
Blogs are also becoming the new paradigm for online PR. They provide business/website owners with the ability to reach their key audience, gain direct feedback and build a positive image. PR’s main goal is to ensure that each message is delivered to a company’s target market and building an effective blog does just that. Blogs allow you to not only track the number of specific individuals actually reading your content, but provide you with direct feedback based on the number of posts read and comments from your audience. With this information, you will be able to start gearing your stories toward these target readers. This will ensure that you build and maintain a positive PR message, which can be crucial to the success and image of your company.
After you have researched and written your press release, it is then time to find specific, local media channels or outlets to which you can submit your press release. A good place to start is by looking up local town or county newspaper and magazine websites. These communication channels are particularly useful because you can contact an editor or writer directly and pitch the story to them through a simple email. One plus is that many of these local websites also allow you to submit a press release for
free, so it is not only quick and easy, but cost efficient. In terms of quality backlinks, a few positive pickups from these types of online PR sources can give you them the very beginning. This can eventually translate into a pickup of larger media outlets and other niche blogs and sites, which will even further establish backlinks for your website.
Online newspapers, magazines and niche media outlets are not the only places to reveal your press release; your very own website is! In previous articles relating to
web videos, we have discussed the utilization of quality back links in every online source related to your business, including your website, blogs and videos. It is important that you do the same in regard to your PR efforts by creating links on your website that can send consumers to a source of your online PR and then back to your original site. Remember to include these links in your blogs and videos as well. The main use of public relations is to build and maintain awareness about your company. Continually updating, writing and adapting PR to the online world will not only raise awareness of your site, but also create natural backlinks, name recognition and enhance your SEO status.
Posted:
2/24/2010 11:34:30 AM by
Kristen Prestano | with
0 comments
On YouTube, where 1.2 billion videos are streamed worldwide per day (techcrunch.com), there is an increasing competition regarding video content for businesses. Although this may seem overwhelming, there are a few important ways to optimize the rankings of your video and ultimately drive traffic to your site.
The first important way to effectively increase your video rankings on YouTube is to understand ranking analysis within Youtube itself. The following are all important factors to consider: title, description, tags, views, ratings, playlist additions, flagging, embeds, shares, comments, channel views, and subscribers. Although the standard SEO rules apply, there are additional ways in which YouTube ranks the videos within its website. First, Youtube has its own built-in search feature, which relies on keywords in the title, keyword tag and description of your video. In order to be found by individual searchers, you must therefore include keywords in all 3 of these features. Second, YouTube indexes its video content first by search engines and then places them into their database. This makes your keyword choice more vital than ever because major search engines, like Google and Yahoo acquire some of its content from Youtube. This is yet another reason why keyword rich information is extremely important in attracting proper viewers. It is important that you think holistically and integrate many of these elements while working on optimizing your video and site. These are only a few minute changes, however they can increase the traffic to your YouTube video in powerful ways.
While keeping this in mind, you must also remember the 3 main factors YouTube uses when indexing material on its website, which include: votes, bookmarks and viewings. Encouraging viewers to rate your video in the form of votes is invaluable to your video success and experience with the YouTube community because it allows you to track its quality and make sure consumers understand exactly what you are offering. This will allow you to assess how well you have captivated your audience and how clearly your video expresses the benefits and offers of your site. If your video is unclear, it will be evident in the number of votes your video receives.
The number of times that your video has been bookmarked by other users is important for your video because it determines the average rating of your video. This thus shows the video's acceptance level, which stems primarily from your votes, ratings and comments made by users. Since this is all user based information, bookmarking is an important feature to utilize in order to gain feedback and understand how important customers find your products and services.
The number of video viewings by users is also vitally important when considering the impact of viral marketing on consumer awareness. In order for the right types of consumers to gain insight on your products and services, they must first be able to easily hear about it. On YouTube, this is done primarily through the sharing feature on each video page. Sharing and discussion posts on websites like Facebook, Myspace and Twitter are great ways of creating buzz and ensuring that consumers are engaged in key aspects of your business. The lesson here is to never underestimate the impact of social media. If your videos are shared and recommended between users, the number of people who will see your video on Youtube will grow at an unprecedented rate.
After the creation and post of your video, simply putting it up and waiting for responses is not the way to increase ratings. You must be proactive in continuously checking your videos status and effectiveness, while also analyzing your results. A feature known as YouTube Insight is one such tool that is available on YouTube and provides pertinent information regarding consumer access to your video content. Always make sure to remember the general SEO tricks we have discussed in previous blog posts in order to make sure consumers know where to find you and your URL because this will also help give you a boost on YouTube Insight. By incorporating all the elements above, you will be able to create more valuable content, build a network of trust with potential customers and ensure optimal YouTube ratings for your video.
Posted:
2/18/2010 9:11:24 AM by
Mike Rogers | with
2 comments
I just read a great article about the long tail key phrase "promote your website for free," and it got me thinking. As you already know, gaining increased access and traffic to your website are vital for increasing sales conversion, however the actual implementation of tools to facilitate this can be overwhelming and difficult to launch. Although there is a misconception that efforts to promote your website place great financial strains on the marketing efforts of your business, there are various social media and digital marketing techniques that guarantee optimal search engine results at virtually no cost! Web video is one such tool and is a fantastic way to create traffic driving content on multiple external sites where people can find you and help promote your website for free.
Web video is a great attractor of potential consumers. Millions of people visit sites like YouTube, blip and cuddled every day. YouTube is now the number two search engine in the world behind Google, so it is important that you utilize this site and related sites to your benefit. In order to ensure that you achieve a high SEO rating like you do for your articles and website, when creating web video to attract consumers, the same SEO rules apply. You want to create a strong keyword optimized title, have great content and provide a link to your related content.
Video-like content, like article content, is evergreen and will continue to be relevant for searchers as long as your content is attractive. In order to keep your content interesting and exciting, you must always keep your target audiences needs and wants in mind. Although you do not want to make your video too over the top or silly, you must make it entertaining enough so that consumers will want to hear more of your content and return to your website in the future. Also, since most video sites do not pass SEO juice, your content should have a strong call to action at the beginning, middle and end of the video. This way, users are well aware of your video's purpose and will be able to remember much more of your content. If you refer to our article about creating a call to action in a YouTube video, you can place a custom link that appears right in your video instead of in the normal link location. For users, this will alleviate any problems of finding or understanding your call to action.
Creating video content is the new tool that can be used to facilitate customer interaction and ultimately drive sales. It can not only promote your business and have a positive effect on both online and offline sales, but can also create a more professional image in the mind of the consumer. When done correctly, you can dominate video search results by focusing on your target market, providing quality information and publishing regularly. Did I fail to mention that having multiple videos on your site builds credibility and encourages people to listen to more of what you have to say? By publishing frequently, people will start to see multiple videos in their search results, which will finally attract the attention your business deserves.
Posted:
2/17/2010 12:00:01 PM by
Mike Rogers | with
0 comments
Podcasting is becoming a great marketing tool that offers efficient and portable ways for individual users to consume your content by downloading and uploading it onto a telephone or audio device. An important aspect of creating regular audio and video podcast content is to have a format to follow. Similar to the way news shows are structured, you want your podcast to have a strong introduction where you discuss the key topics you will be speaking about. You should also plan to have short segments about a few different topics where you can go into greater detail about the key points you referred to in the introduction. By developing segments and creating a show made from those segments, you will be able to pack a lot of juicy content into a single podcast.
Another technique that many top podcaster and web shows employ is to have multiple people on the show. Having different voices and faces on the show will keep it interesting in combination with multiple topics and segments. By hearing voices of real individuals, podcasting creates a more personal and enriched experience for the audience that will encourage them to hear more about your business and download future podcasts. This will not only make the show more interesting, but will also be more informative for your audience.
Does all of this seem daunting? Don't let it be. Start small with an introduction, create a feature story and then wrap up the show. Your podcast topic can range from a broad overview about your business to information about one of your products or services. Although a typical podcast may be a bit longer than a web video, you can also parallel your podcast with some of the content discussed in previous videos on your website. Another great way to add content and provide your own unique point of view in your podcast is to pick some top news stories from the week, discuss the background (don't forget to acknowledge the source of the story) and then describe your own point of view. Make sure your opinion is clear and concise. If you are still having trouble, there are also a few instructional software tools that can manually guide you through the process of creating a podcast. These include:
ePodCast Creator: http://tinyurl.com/do7sq
Pod Producer: http://tinyurl.com/9dwrh
FeedForAll: http://www.feedforall.com/podcasting-tutorial.htm
The use of podcasting as a marketing tool is gaining popularity among many large companies and small businesses. According to Forrester Research, podcasting is expected to have about 12.3 million listeners by the end of 2010. With all this increased usage among consumers, podcasting can be a vital tool for marketing and providing information regarding your products or services. This simple, inexpensive form of promotion is just another way to create more buzz about your business. Also, with the introduction of the new iPad approaching, consumers may be even more motivated to search and download podcast content. This, coupled with various marketing strategies, will undoubtedly enable podcasting to enhance and engage customers in a more personal and interactive way.
In summary:
1. Start small
2. Develop unique segments focused on a particular topic
3. Include multiple people and personalities to keep things fresh and entertaining