Author: David LeWallen, International SEO Strategist

Establishing a global web presence and optimizing for search engine results is more than just translation. In fact, without a true understanding of the cultural, political, linguistic, and social differences of the targeted country, marketers run the risk of driving users away.  And, without the proper International SEO Strategy, they run the risk of something worse – never being found by users in the first place. Take a look at some of the best-practices and strategic tips below to help you gain international exposure and SEO value.

1. Select Your Domain Name – Your domain name is the unique address that defines who you are and where you reside on the World Wide Web. When selecting an international domain, there are three options to consider:
   1. Country Code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) – Purchasing the ccTLD of your target country lets the search engines know where your business is located and what markets you are targeting for a specific website. This also helps to keep brand equity with your company. If you do not purchase your ccTLD for a specific country a competitor could buy http://www.yourcompanyname.fr for example.
   2. Country Code Sub-Domains – The second option for an international URL structure is to set up country specific sub-domains. E.G. http://fr.yourcompanyname.com this gives the search engines the ccTLD and lets them know that you are targeting France.
   3. Country Code Sub-Folders – If the previous two options are not viable then use a specific sub folder with the ccTLD of the country you are targeting (E.G. http://www.yourcompanyname.com/fr/).
       
2. Set the Country You Are Targeting in Webmaster Tools – If you choose “country code top level domain,” Google Webmaster Tools will target the country for you. If you choose “country code sub domains” or “sub folders,” you should set the country that you would like to target within your Google Webmaster Tools account. This is a secondary way of letting Google know what country you are targeting. Other search engines have a webmasters area as well and this varies by engine.
    
3. For Countries Where Google Is Not the Major Search Engine – You will want to host your site in the country in order to let the local search engines know that you are relevant for your target country. You will also want to submit your site to these search engines as well. Countries where this is the case includes Russia and China.
    
4. Localization – Your customers drive your business, so you need to not only speak their language but also their culture. If you simply translate your site, you may be missing out on some opportunities to target localized versions of the language. For example, if you were selling “soccer cleats” you would miss the localized version of that keyword “football boots” which is used in the United Kingdom
   1. Title and Meta Data Localization – Make sure to localize your title tags and Meta data, using keywords that are highly searched in the market you are targeting. Some companies will create a new site and translate the content into the language but leave all of the Meta data in English. In order to capture search traffic in the target country you need localize and optimize your title and Meta data.
   2. Content Localization – You need to have your content localized into the language you are targeting. Don’t forget about images that contain text, many times companies will translate/localize their text but they leave the same images from the U.S. site, and if those images have text in them that text will still be in English.
       
5. Global Gate Way – Your global gate way is your language or country selector page. It is important that this page be written in HTML as opposed to a dynamic script like Java or Ajax. By writing your global gate way in HTML the search engines will be able to read the links and pass link value to all of your international domains and URLs.  We do not recommend using flags to represent the countries because if one were from Mexico they may get offended if they have to click the Spanish flag in order to get content in Spanish.

There you have it. The five foundational steps to international SEO success. Implementing these best-practice recommendations will help you set a solid foundation, and you’ll be well on your way to establishing a strong global web presence.

Making sense of social-media ROI with Olivier Blanchard
By Rob Birgfeld

Olivier Blanchard is perhaps the most sought-after expert for those looking to connect the dots between social media and return-on-investment. Not only are we lucky enough to have him on our SmartBrief on Social Media Advisory Board, Olivier is sending off the Buzz 2010 Summer Series with a serious exclamation point. Before we introduce him to the association and nonprofit world here in D.C. on Wednesday, we wanted to throw some questions at him for the greater good.

The chatter around ROI seems to be as loud as ever. What would you attribute this to? Are we at a pivotal moment for business proving value for social media activities?

The chatter around social-media ROI is as strong as ever for two reasons: The first is simply because ROI [points to] one of the most important questions an organization can ask before green-lighting a social-media program: I could spend this budget somewhere else — Why should I spend it on social media? Before any other questions can be asked, you have to start with “why.”
The second is that most social-media “experts” seem incapable of a) being able to define ROI … and b) plug social media into a [profit-and-loss statement] and actual business objectives. Most [social-media marketers], having no true management background, they simply don’t understand how to tie social-media measurement and performance to business measurement and performance. This lack of business-management experience is a major problem in a field where everyone seems to have become an “expert” overnight.

As long as these so called “experts” fail to answer the ROI question, the chatter will continue. Ironically, the question can be answered in about three minutes. All it takes is someone on the social-media side of the table who understands how to plug new communications into a business from the C-suite’s perspective.

Have you noticed a recurring point where businesses and organizations decide to get serious about applying ROI to social activities? Is it based on experience, resources allocated or both?

Every organization is different. Some want to establish upfront measurement practices that include ROI from the very start. These are organizations with a specific focus or clear goals. ROI is based on accomplishing those goals. The program won’t get the go-ahead until every “t” has been crossed.

Others don’t get around to asking about ROI until 6 to 18 months after a program has begun and budgets need to be reviewed. Trust me, when 10% of your group’s budget is being cut, you start asking hard questions. Social-media programs not clearly in support of specific business objectives had better come up with a good answer when the budget hatchet starts to come down.

Typically, companies that start by identifying ROI before a social-media budget is assigned, people [are] recruited and the project is even outlined, fare better than their counterparts.

How can those who are in the trenches, but not selling product or services themselves, best justify their social efforts/hours to their bosses and peers?

By aligning their activities and objectives with key business objectives. The fastest way to ensure that your budget is renewed or validated is to show that you play a part in making the P&L positive.

Perhaps your group saves the organization money by using social media. Customer service is an example. Media buying, reach, could show some interesting cost reductions, [with social media] increasing reach while reducing relative Cost Per Impression. Perhaps your group generates not sales but leads by using [social-media] channels in insightful ways. There are dozens upon dozens of ways to ensure that your program can be shown to contribute to either reducing costs or generating revenue. What you don’t want to be is a “cost center” alone, or worse yet, the project team that can’t articulate its value to the organization. Which happens.

By Jill Whalen (c) 2010

Looking at the latest search marketing conference agendas, articles, and online news in the SEM space, it certainly appears that social media marketing and networking are the wave of the future.

To a certain extent, they are.

Social media, and social networking in particular, create a back-and-forth conversation with your target audience, so you can virally market your website through the “buzz” that can be created. When something interesting, cool, or unique is being talked about in “all the right places,” it can certainly provide a boost in website traffic.

We search marketers tend to hang out in numerous online and offline communities where it’s easy to promote our own products and services, yet I can’t help wondering if our view of Web marketing is skewed because of this.

Are potential B2B clients and even B2C customers spending time at Digg? Do they attend SEM conferences in order to hire a company, or are they just trying to learn to do it themselves? And what about other industries? Is there a Sphinn equivalent for developers of product lifecycle management software? Are there groups of people online comparing the various brands of auto parts? Are there really people seeking out articles on these topics?

Perhaps.

And if so, we’d be remiss not to promote our clients’ websites in those spaces. But is this search marketing? Or is it simply marketing? Arguably, it becomes search marketing when it increases link popularity, but surely that should be the secondary goal of this type of marketing campaign. True link popularity comes from having something worth linking to, not something you’ve asked your insulated circle of cronies to link to.  

Certainly, the boost in direct traffic that a site can gain when it is being discussed in all the right places online is not to be taken lightly – and that alone is reason enough to try to be found in all the right places. Yet how much of that traffic actually converts into anything good, and how much does it help your organic search rankings?

More important – how does it incréase your bottom line?

For instance, I’ve written a few articles that receíved upward of 1,000 visitors a day from StumbleUpon alone. The spike in traffic was nice, and the slight addition in newsletter subscribers was certainly welcome, but for the most part, those StumbleUpon visitors spent just a few minutes on our site, and only a small percentage signed up for our free newsletter. None of them were interested in using our services. They read the article and then stumbled their way to the next site of potential interest.

Isn’t participation in social media really just preaching to the choir?

You reach your peers, not the people who will purchase your product or service. Sure, it’s a nice ego stroke to have others in your industry tell you how cool you are, and there’s something to be said for building credibility within your community. I’m certainly not knocking that, and have built my own credibility via various online communities in which I’ve participated over the past decade.

But how does it sell your products and services?

Do you gain customers and sales from your social media marketing and/or your participation in social networks? Does it increase your rankings for the keyword phrases your actual target audience is typing into the search engines? If your business model depends on traffic for traffic’s sake, or on how many ad impressions your site generates, then there’s an obvious value. But if you sell a product or a service – then not so much.

My fear with all the hype about social media marketing is that people new to search marketing will believe it’s what SEO demands and what SEO is all about.

It isn’t. Not by a long shot.

Social media marketing is a great addition to any traditional SEO work that you do, but it’s not a substitute. It’s more akin to hiring a PR firm once you’ve launched your already-SEO’d website. On-page SEO is definitely not as sexy as social media marketing, but it is still the most important investment in your website that you can make. Period.

So, go to all your social media conferences, and Digg your way to increased traffic. But first learn exactly who your target audience is, what they’re searching for in the search engines, and how your website can solve their problems. Then make sure your website does exactly that. All the social media buzz and traffic won’t amount to anything if your target audience isn’t already part of the online conversation.

Be sure to have your house in order before you give social media marketing a try.

And don’t be surprised if it doesn’t actually provide you with the ROI you hoped it would. In most cases it will depend on who your target audience is, where they hang out, the types of services or products you provide, and whether your website truly provides people with what they’re looking for.

Getting back to SEO basics – that is, creating a crawler-friendly website that is built around the keyword phrases people use at the search engines to find what you offer – is the first and most important thing you can do for your website and your business. Yeah, it’s not as fun and exciting as social media marketing, but skip this step at yóur own peril!

By Anadi Taylor (c) 2010

Web pages and their design are laid out using HTML. HTML stands for Hyper Text Mark-up Language. HTML is comprised of ‘tags’ or elements that tell your browser what the different areas of your webpage are. You can use these elements to define paragraph areas, images and their dimensions and also font sizes, colors and styles etc. There are many HTML elements and a lot of these have varying attributes like width, height, name, etc. This article will not focus on specific HTML elements; our aim is to give you a brief overview of HTML before moving on to how it has developed into HTML 5. 

HTML came to life at the end of 1990. The original HTML, developed by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, comprised of about 20 elements which were strongly influenced by SGML, Standard Generalized Mark-up Language (The exception to this was the hyperlink tag that allows links to be placed in web pages).

As the internet became more widespread, users demanded more functionality. This meant a huge development in browser technology and also in HTML. In fact, HTML was developed to version 4.01 before evolving into XHTML which incorporates HTML 4.01 and XML (Extensible Mark-up Language).

With HTML 5 a lot more emphasis has been put on the use of ‘Cascading style sheets’. This means HTML programmers can no longer depend on using ‘tags’ like <font> to style text with color, size, and font type. This now has to be done using ‘Cascading style sheets’ or CSS. The use of CSS means, for example, the text style on a website can be updated or changed with one small change in the CSS rather than having to update or change every <font> tag on every page. In fact, the <font> and <center> tags have been completely dropped.

A lot more importance has been placed on the use of ‘JavaScript’ and other client side programming languages that run in the visitor’s browser. This style of creating website pages is now highly encouraged. This is known as DOM scripting or ‘Document Object Model’ scripting. The DOM or ‘Document Object Model’ is a representation of how your browser structures the page you are looking at. In the browser everything is seen as an object that can be manipulated in some way by a client side scripting language such as JavaScript. A simple example of this is to have a background image with a ball moving over the top of it. In the DOM these are known as layers.

HTML 5 also introduces various new elements such as <nav>, used to define navigation areas and <footer>, used to define an area at the bottom of a page that will be used as a footer. This article will focus more on the multimedia elements <audio> and <video>. 

The HTML 5 <audio> and <video> elements are a fantastic way of standardizing audio and video over the internet. This has been a long time coming. With so many operating systems being used to browse the internet it can be hard to decide what format to use. If we encode a video as a Windows Media File (WMV) it will not play on a Mac unless that user downloads a certain player or plug-in. The same can be said for encoding a video as a QuickTime file. It will play on a Mac but not on a Windows operating system unless a player is downloaded. And now we have so many variations of Linux operating systems being used, choosing an audio or video format that will play on all visitors’ computers is a next to impossible task.

The <audio> and <video> elements in HTML 5 will make choosing multimedia formats a lot easier. We will probably use the OGG format for audio as it is completely open source and patent-free. This format is very similar to MP3, AAC, and VQF. We will probably use the H.264 format for video. This format has already been adopted by Adobe and so can be used in Flash based players. An example of this is YouTube.com. They can now provide HD video online because they have used the H.264 standard. What is interesting about this is that visitors using Windows, Mac, Unix and Linux can view YouTube.com videos without having to download a new player. All that is needed is the Flash plug-in, which is on most internet browsing computers. With the HTML 5 <video> tag we will no longer have to depend on Adobe Flash Media player to play H.264 video as a cross platform solution.

So, how will HTML 5 effect video streaming over the internet? It will make video streaming over the internet much easier as the <video> element takes away the need to know high level scripting languages such as JavaScript and Action Script 3, it will not be platform dependent and website publishers will be able to relax knowing their video content will be viewable to all their visitors.

Is Google going to add their own links to your web pages? A recent patent application of Google indicates that this might be coming. The name of the patent is “Enhanced document browsing with automatically generated links to relevant information”. It is an update of the patent application that Google filed in 2006.
 
What is Google’s patent application about?
Here’s the official abstract:
“Additional documents are automatically located that are relevant to an original document, such as a document being read by a user, and also potentially relevant to personal information of the user.
The additional documents may be located based on descriptive information that includes personal information of the user and content information of the document being read.
The additional documents, or links to the additional documents, may be incorporated into the document being read. In some implementations, the additional documents may be presented in-line with the document being read, such as through an in-link link or text snippet. The user can thus be efficiently presented with additional information that is relevant to the original document being read.”
In other words: Google wants to read the contents of your web pages and then might insert their own links on your web pages.
According to the patent application, the links will be based on the personal search history and the geographic location of the web surfer as well as on the contents of the page on which Google will insert the links.
How can Google change the content of your web pages (technically)?
Changing the content of your web pages is easy if the web surfer has Google’s toolbar installed.
Google’s toolbar does not only send information about every page that you visit to Google, it also allows Google to change the content of each page that you visit through the document object model.
If you use Google’s toolbar then Google can add any content to the web pages that you visit and you wouldn’t notice that the original content has changed. Note that Google could do this. That does not mean that Google actually does this.
What type of content would Google insert on your web pages?
Google might enter simple text links on your pages, they might link existing content or they might add whole new paragraphs on your web pages. Technically, all of this is possible. It’s not clear what Google will do with the methods described in the patent.
However, since there are several documents about this topic, it seems that they are serious about this.
Google knows a lot about you and they control a lot of the information that we get on the Internet. Will they also change the content of your web pages in the near future?
Being listed on Google’s first result page is becoming more important than before. Google can only recommend your website as a link if they know your site.

Promoting a local business on the internet is something a great number of people have taken to doing, and many are using the social media strategies that are available to them online. The problem is that there are many more online marketing strategies that do not work online, then those that do. This includes specific strategies for utilizing certain tools like Twitter. If you want to promote your local business online, there are some things that you really need to think about to ensure that those efforts actually pay you back dividends for the time you have spent on them.

The Power of Generosity

The secret to being successful when using social media to promote your local business is to focus far less on what you can stand to gain by the process. Instead, focus on what you can provide to, in the case of Twitter, your followers.

If you focus only on what you can gain, you will quickly be disappointed, as it is extremely difficult to directly make a gain from a tool like Twitter. This is especially true if you want to see quick profits. Instead, it is a long term strategy that involves you providing things of value to your followers. There exists a nearly unlimited number of people on the internet who could all be potential followers on Twitter. They might not all be listening at once but, for the ones who are listening (reading) when you Tweet, you need to show them that you’re willing to provide things to them rather than asking them for things. Over enough time, this will grow into something that will invert into momentum into your own sales.

Thinking about what to give your listeners, especially in a speed and brevity oriented forum such as Twitter can be difficult.  You have to always look at your posts from their perspective. What might your public be interested in?  If you can, you should do your best to provide information of real value. Links to great free information, breaking news in your industry, insider information, or other things that have real value are preferred.

You Need to Provide Value

Value is the primary concept that you need to focus on. If you provide information in your use of social media that your followers have a need for, you will quickly find them returning to you again and again.

Value is an important concept not only in the quality of the information that you provide online, but also in the quality of the people that you have following you in venues like Twitter. We all know the importance of the qualified visitors to a website. That is to say, that having less traffic that is comprised of people who will, under the right circumstances, make a purchase in your niche online is much more valuable than having many times more traffic made up of random visitors. The same applies to recruiting friends, followers, or any other group of people on social websites.

‘Marketing’ is more important than ‘Social Media’

In the term “Social Media Marketing” it is important to remember that the “Marketing” part is more important than the “Social Media” part in many instances. One of the key skills learned by those who excel at marketing is customer profiling. This means that, when you have a product to sell, you need to carefully analyze who the people are who might buy that product.

For example, the maker of a memorization product might realize that University students wanting to do better on exams, teachers wanting to teach good study habits, and elderly people with memory problems might all be interested in a product like this; each for separate reasons. This is a simplistic example, but it gives you the idea of targeting who your audience is. This is a strategy you can also use to figure out who you want to be following you on Twitter, and in turn, what you can provide that will be interesting to them in terms of the kinds of Tweets that you make.

Once you know who you need to follow you, the primary challenge left to you is to go out and get them. Luckily, there are a number of tools geared towards helping you increase the followers you have for promoting your own local business on Twitter.

Twitter Tools

Use some of these tools to search for potentially qualified followers for you on Twitter. The best strategy for marketing a local business in this regard is to search for both your keywords and geographic keywords located to the area you do business in, such as your State, Zip Code, City, or Neighborhood.

Twellow and WeFollow are the two tools that you are going to use to primarily search out new followers on twitter. They’re like a phone book for people who use Twitter and allow you numerous tools to find people that might be interested in following you on Twitter. For example, WeFollow will allow you to search out people based on their interests, whereas Twellow will let you search for users by various criteria; including the geographic location, which is so important when promoting a local business.

If you find someone you would like to follow you using these tools, be sure to send them a quick note explaining who you are and why they should follow you. Always attempt to make this type of communication as personalized as possible.

There are other tools you might use to simplify your Twitter experience.  As mentioned in a previous social media post,  TweetDeck is a good application to help you run Twitter from your desktop or your  iPhone, which can be very useful. FriendorFollow lets you see who is following you that you’re not following, and PeopleBrowsr lets you analyze how hot your topics of promotion might be on Twitter.

Additional tips and tools can be found at the Local Internet Marketing Blog.

Combined, this advice and these tools give you a powerful head start in having a successful Twitter campaign in place for promotion of your local business.

by TechWyse

Read This Before You Submit to Web Directories
By Manish Shah (c) 2010

As the number of websites grow everyday, it is becoming increasingly difficult for a new site to attain good rankings on search engines. Since major search engines factor link popularity heavily into their ranking algorithms, building relevant links to your site is perhaps the single most important component of search engine optimization.

For a new site with no, or few inbound links, buying text links on more established related sites could provide a boost to your link popularity. But this strategy could prove prohibitively expensive, especially in a highly competitive market where you’d have to buy lots of links to catch up with the competition.

Web directory listings represent a viable alternative to link buying. Apart from driving traffic to your site through direct referrals, web directories provide one-way inbound links to your site, boosting your link popularity and ultimately improving your search rankings.

There are thousands of web directories on the net, with dozens sprouting up every day. Some are general directories; others cater to specific niches. Some are free; others charge inclusion fees. Some are free only if you provide a reciprocal link in return. Many feature both free and paid listings.

The main advantage of a paid listing is the luxury of having your site listed quickly above everybody else’s. Free submissions may take several weeks or months for review. If you work on a limited budget, you may want to submit to a handful of paid directories and a few hundred free ones.

Some directories charge inclusion fees that are too high for the listing to be cost effective. When considering a paid listing, look at not only the Google PageRank of the homepage of the directory, but also that of the subpage where your link will actually reside. While it may seem like a good deal to have your site listed on a PR5 directory for $15, the deal becomes far less attractive when you find out that the internal page where your link is placed is only PR2.

If you’ve ever submítted to web directories before, I don’t have to convince you that the process is extremely tedious and time-consuming, especially when you submit to a large number of them. Unlike search engines that send out robots to index web pages, web directories rely on more detailed submission forms to gather information about your site. Since each submitted site must be reviewed by a real person, most directories require that submissions are also performed by a real person, as opposed to an automatic script. Many directories use a visual code verification process to prevent automated submissions. Apart from complying with the directory’s guidelines, manual submission is the only way to ensure that your site is submitted to the proper category.

Because of the time involved in manually submitting your site and the sheer number of directories on the web, it’s important that you know which directories to submit to. Obviously, you’d want to submit to only the high-PR directories and avoid the low-PR ones, right? Not really. Just because a directory has a low PR does not mean that it’s not worth submitting to. The directory may be brand new and not around long enough to be ranked by Google. In contrast to the more established directories that continually experience a back-log of submissions, newer directories tend to review and list sites more quickly. As the directory becomes more popular, so will your link. So, don’t judge a directory solely by its PageRank; rather, base your decision on the overall quality of the directory.

Another important thing to look at is whether or not the directory you submit to is search engine friendly. Search engines like static web pages whose content stay the same regardless of who visits the page, or when they visit, not dynamic pages that are created on-the-fly. Browse to a couple of categories and look at the URL in the navigation bar. If the URL looks like, http://www.anysite.com/forums/thread.php?threadid=12345&sort=date, it’s probably not search engine friendly. An example of a static, search engine friendly URL is: http://www.anysite.com .

Another question to ask is: How easy is it to submit to the directory? How many hoops do you have to jump through to get to the submission form? When you finally get to the form, how many fields does the form have? A directory should ask for pertinent information like your name, email, URL, link title, link description, and keywords, but it should not look like a job application. With the exception of a handful of major directories like DMOZ and Yahoo, you should not have to spend more than 3 to 4 minutes to submit your site.

Another consideration is whether or not the directory has a category specific enough for your site. For optimal SEO benefits from your listing, your link should be grouped under a specific category containing sites whose content are related to yours. Such a grouping makes your listíng more relevant in the eyes of the search engines, as well as providing an easier way for visitors to the directory to find your site.

Simply having your site listed on a directory is not enough. Your choice of the link title can determine how much impact your listing will have on your search engine rankings. Ideally, your link title (or “anchor text”) should contain the keywords that you want others to search for to get to your site. Since most web directories require a unique link title, however, it may not be possible to select a common phrase like “Free Web Directory” as your link title. This title is likely already taken by another web directory. Simply prefixing the phrase with your domain name, e.g. “GoDirectory.org Free Web Directory”, would make the title unique.

Oftentimes, a directory has several related categories that are suitable for your site. How do you decide which one to submit to? Ideally, you’d want to submit to the category that has the highest PageRank. However, this may not turn out to be the wisest choice as your link may be buried among a zillion other listings. Going with a lower-PR category with fewer competing links may prove to be more beneficial. When choosing from multiple related categories, choose one with a good balance of relevancy, Pagerank, and number of competing listings.

In sum, submitting to web directories is a highly effective link building strategy that should be an integral part of any search engine optimization campaign. Manually submitting to a large number of directories is both laborious and time-consuming. Just keep the above points in mind to make the most of your time.

Though most marketers understand the value of connecting with consumers on an emotional level, nearly two-thirds (62%) say their brand’s messaging is focused on rational and functional elements rather than emotional benefits, according to a survey form the Association of National Advertisers (ANA).

Just 38% of surveyed marketers say their messaging conveys the emotional benefits of the brand—despite marketers’ belief that brands should be more evenly balanced between rational/functional (48%) and emotional benefits (52%).

“The results are not surprising when we consider how focused consumers have been on getting value for their dollars,” said Bob Liodice, president and CEO of the ANA. “For the average consumer, the emotional benefits took a back seat to understanding how a brand would deliver real value for themselves and their family during the recession. As we progress in the recovery, we expect greater use of emotional benefits by aspiring brands to drive long-term health.”

Below, other findings from The Brand Management Survey, which surveyed 80 marketing professionals.

Websites Are Primary Touchpoints

Some 82% of marketers say their brand’s website is their No. 1 touchpoint for building emotional connections with consumers. Other highly ranked, service-oriented touchpoints include the sales force (66%), CRM (64%), TV advertising (55%), and call centers/telemarketing (52%).

“While websites began as online catalogs showcasing products or brand objectives, many have evolved into online communities where consumers go to interact with a brand. Consumers see websites as the gateway where they go when they want to begin a brand relationship,” said Liodice.

Asked about what constitutes an emotional connection, marketers cite the following:

Customers telling others about the brand via word-of-mouth: 78%
The values of the brand are similar to my own: 78%
Using the brand makes me feel good: 75%
Customers telling others about the brand via blogging and other online activities: 61%

Newer Brand Metrics Eschewed in Favor of Traditional Metrics

Among the top metrics used to measure success in communicating the emotional benefits of a brand are more traditional metrics, such as advertising tracking (75%), brand equity scores (75%), and copy testing (54%).

Of lesser importance are newer metrics, such as the number of fans on a social media site (36%) and the number of people who provide their email address to a brand (21%).

About the data: Findings are based on an online survey of 80 marketing professionals conducted by the ANA from February to April 2010.

By Marketing Profs

By Duncan Wierman (c) 2010

Twitter has certainly emerged as one of the most popular social networking/blogging platforms of the past few years. There are various reasons why Twitter has become so wildly popular. It is a simple concept where brief messages can be sent to loyal followers. This is why Twitter is so helpful to small businesses. It can aid in promoting a business in the most cost effective manner. Really, this is one of the very best systems for promoting updates, info, and deals to the followers of the Twitter account.

The one problem here is that most entrepreneurs look towards quantity as opposed to quality in their followers. This can prove to be a huge mistake since you don’t ever want to sacrifice quality when looking to amass Twitter followers.

How do people make such a mistake? Well, they look at volume as being the secret to their success. The problem here is that the process is not going to be a very successful one. Rather, it can prove to be disastrous more than anything else because your business ends up promoting itself to those that are really not interested in the products or services you are offering.

Yes, some people will sign on to be followers of your Twitter account with no real interest in being customers. That is why you need to develop a strong niche following as opposed to a large following.

The bottom line here is you do NOT want a large list of followers. You want an EFFECTIVE list of followers.

Some may consider this notion to go against the grain in which a Twitter account should be approached. After all, Twitter is wildly popular so why not follow the trends? The average Twitter account has changed dramatically since July. The number of followers the average account maintains has jumped from 70 to 300. This has led many accounts to boost their number of postings. In July, the number was in the range of 119. Today, it has jumped significantly to 420.

But, is there a great deal of benefit from such increases? In all honesty, if the followers are not going to purchase, the numbers do not really mean much. That means all those increases in updates have less value as well. Again, you want your efforts to be effective. Promoting volume in your approach is not the way to achieve any true level of success.

One problem with a large number of followers is that your tweets need to be adjusted to handle larger volumes. That means your tweets need to be clearly understood by all. As such, you need to promote a generalized approach to the tweets. This is not always the best method because you are not providing detailed and specific information in the tweets. This means those that are serious potential customers may lose interest in the tweets or cease taking them seriously. This is not a good thing if you are seriously trying to sell a product or service.

It becomes a full time job to sort and respond to the real people who are interested in you. Twittering without engagement of your audience defeats the entire process of marketing. I believe many people are using twitter as “lets throw it out there and see what sticks”. I can tell you from testing that this approach does not work. No wonder people are leaving twitter in droves.

This leads to a more potentially serious side effect. If more members of Twitter venture towards promoting generic, uninteresting, and uninspiring tweets so as to boost the volume of people reading, the health of the social network site will not stay strong for long.

Basically, why would anyone would want to follow Twitter when the tweets decline in value? This would certainly not be a positive in terms of the ability for a small business to procure new customers that are vital to the health of the business.

Again, exploring options for expanding a business’ success should center on niche marketing. This approach needs to be taken with Twitter or else the value of Twitter will decline. Based on what we are seeing, the decline will be difficult to avoid in the future based on current actions.

Does this mean that Twitter is decidedly lacking in value for those seeking to utilize what it has to provide? No, no one is making such a statement as it would be a decidedly inaccurate one.

Twitter, in fact, has taken steps to promote niche marketing. This is evident in the ability to devise “Twitter lists.” Twitter lists allow you to take certain members of your massive group of followers and put them in a particular category. You can then promote your tweets to individual members of these various lists. So, you can present wide, generic tweets as well as individualized tweets to those that may be considered more serious potential customers.

For example, you can create a group of people that have already made purchases in the past. Then, you would be free to issue tweets directly to such individuals as you wish. This would be an effective form of niche marketing that would be far more beneficial than putting forth perpetually generalized tweets. One of the other problems with having 1,000′s of non-niched followers is seeing through the noise of twitter.

As such, it is best to look towards growing these individual lists in order to expand the potential to niche market. Yet, many will seek to put forth the exact opposite goal. They will look towards greatly expanding their number of followers into the thousands while not stopping to examine whether or not such a massive list truly boosts their success potential. Such a strategy is a flawed one that will not lead to the empirical success that is sought.

And, if you are not looking to succeed with your business, then why even bother being in business? Twitter has tremendous value and it delivers great benefit to those looking to expand their small business’ promotional strategies in a cost effective manner.

In conclusion, try not to become hung up on the notion of greatly expanding your followers’ list. Seek to promote effective niche marketing strategies instead.

By Enzo F. Cesario (c) 2010

Twitter, the net’s networking success story, is intriguing and intimidating because of its message limitations: they can be 140 characters, and no more.

This is to say; each message sent on Twitter can be no larger than the previous sentence. Not an additional letter, space, period or dash can be added. These limitations have proven to be the greatest asset and the greatest challenge for people trying to use Twitter for any number of purposes. 

On the advantageous side, the short messages have created an entire culture of Twitter-fluent writers. The brevity of the message stretches creative muscles, making people use every trick to get the most information into the fewest characters. On the other hand it creates a severe headache for the marketing minded, as it doesn’t leave much room to present a case. Thus the vast majority of Tweets are short little social comments or updates, and most marketing revolves around calling attention to particular links.

Of course, there are always ways around limitations, and Twitter is something that every seriously market-minded organization needs to embrace in order to see continued success on the web. In the case of short message services like Twitter, the key lies as much in the peripheral data that builds up around the message as in the content itself.

Be SEO Minded

Twitter profiles are now ranked by search engines, Google in particular. Every SEO technique you’ve learned now has a new, exciting purpose. For example, consider the biography you’re able to construct using Twitter. This is a ripe opportuníty to develop some brand recognition right away. Put the title of the brand you’re marketing in the bio, and consider including the most relevant keywords in your profile. As ever, do so in a way that respects the user’s intelligence, and gives them something worth reading. Simply stringing together a chain of keywords is not the way to go.

Include keywords in your Tweets as well, taking care not to be terribly obvious about it. The first 20-30 characters are the best place, as later words are of decreased importance in a Google ranking search. 
Identify Your Audience

Each brand rises and falls on the whim of the audience, known in this case as tweeple.

There are a number of applications available to help you with the process of identifying the tweeple that you want to cultivate into an audience. Twitterholic can help you identify the movers and shakers based on their Twitter traffic and their location. If you know your field or brand well, you can use this to locate groups with similar interests and woo them to your feed. Tweepz is a similar tool, focusing on location, and Twitter itself has a ‘near this location’ feature that can be used to identify tweeple nearby your center of business.

Let’s Give Them Something to Tweet About

Yes, Twitter is an effective way to quickly distribute information. But its real power is in its ability to create conversations about something interesting.

In theory you could simply gather up a large user list of tweeple and start spamming them with links promoting your latest gig. This is a surefire way to get flagged for abuse or ignored entirely, and thus is rather counterproductive to good marketing goals. 
Instead, consider using alternative methods to drum up those conversations that travel like wildfire.