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Risdall Marketing Group invites you to explore and discuss a healthy dose of industry news, agency culture, and some brilliant marketing ideas.
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In the month of July, RMG did a series of radio broadcasts on Social Media. Below is a script of my interview with Jim Poole on July 3 covering Social Media and Linking. This is a longer version than what you heard on WCCO as we had to cut down on the length in studio, but I thought you would want to see the whole recording.
Jim Poole: Jennifer, last week you shared that linking is important to your online visibility and search optimization. What role does linking play, if any, in social media?
Jennifer Risdall: Social media is all about creating dialog with your audiences… your customers, your vendors, your prospects, media, industry analysts or others …
virtually, ANYBODY who is looking for information about your brand, your company, your products, your services or you.
The operative word here is “looking”. We like to say, if people are raising their hands in social media, you better be there to answer those questions. If you’re not there, your competitor will be.
Search engine optimization is about being there when your audiences are looking for you in the search engines. Social media optimization is about being there when your keyword terms are being mentioned within social media. This can be accomplished in two ways:
• Listening and responding when your keyword is mentioned
• And creating social media content based on keyword phrases
As you can see, social media and search optimization are inseparable when talking about linking. Linking plays an important role in both. A link to your website:
• Drives traffic
• Builds online visibility
• And gives you the opportunity to create new customers and serve existing customers.
Linking can take place on all types of online media – from
• websites
• to Social Networks
• to Blogs
• to Wikis
• to Forums
• to Videos
• to RSS feeds
• within Applications
• to directories
Practically anywhere online.
Jim Poole: How do you get links within social media?
Jennifer Risdall: Remember that social media is all about building a relationship. Listening to your audiences and then joining in the conversation starts and builds the relationship with your audience. It is INVALUABLE.
The secret sauce is to listen first and provide value through engaging.
The conversations and networks you are listening to will shift and change – but the key is to be a part of the conversations, not just a fly on the wall.
Linking is part of this process. It may be an answer to a question on your brand or a customer service question, it may be an offer to your social media following, it may be sharing industry news…Whatever it is, a link to the appropriate web page can give your audiences the information they are looking for.
Jim Poole: How do you know where to listen and when to join in?
Jennifer Risdall: That’s social media optimization. At Risdall, we have 5 key pillars that we use to optimize social media for our clients. They are:
• Listen
• Identify
• Strategize
• Engage
• And Measure
Each is integral to being successful on social media and together, they create an ongoing process that needs to be nurtured.
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(…don’t believe everything you see on the Internet)
With the real-time speed and global reach of the Internet, information can spread far and wide like wildfire as a recent posting revealed. In it, a woman quits her job via a series of email messages in which she uses a dry board to tell her office why she is leaving. It was funny and connected with all of us that get fed up with our jobs now and then.
It was also not true.
It turns out it was what is called an Internet meme (rhymes with cream) that fooled even the mainstream media. In its simplest form, a meme is the propagation of a digital file or hyperlink from one person to others using email, blogs, social networking sites, instant messaging, etc. This is also commonly referred to as something going “viral”.
In business, a meme can work for or against a company. Viral marketing is a fast and cheap way to create brand awareness and spread information about your company or product to a huge audience.
There is a meme currently circulating about a drinking game called icing that many suspect Smirnoff is behind, although the company denies it.
Unfortunately, memes may also take the form of a false or disparaging rumor about your company. This is where it pays to actively listen to what is being said about your company online via social media monitoring. In this case, being aware of information critical of your brand or company enables you to respond quickly and put the cork back in the bottle before the genie gets too far away.
Being a consumer today allows for many different perks than it did 20 years ago. Today, consumers have the ability to voice their opinions about businesses in the online space, for the whole world to see. As a business owner, it is uncomfortable not being able to reply back to these comments. Well, the tables have turned. Google rolled out an update that allows business owners to respond to reviews posted to Google Place Pages of Google Maps.
The means of online communication today are very transparent and emphasize connectivity, so this feature seems like a great supplement for business owners. But at the same time, these business owners should be cautious with responses and consider listening to the conversations before jumping right in. These comments have a lengthy shelf life, so you can imagine the weight they hold. Let the chatter begin!
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Last night Brian Solis was speaking in Minneapolis. The key points I took away were the following:
- Every company is a media company, EC=MC
- You: “My boss doesn’t get social media.” Brian Solis: “Get another job.”
- The new five I’s = Intelligence, Insight, Ideation, Interaction, Influence
- Before being a marketer you are a person & it’s people at the center of social media
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