Are You Welcome in the Neighborhood?
In a previous post I wrote about how to implement a social media optimization (SMO) marketing strategy. In phase one you added some terrific content to your web site, and traffic and links have increased. So now you are ready for phase two: venturing into the world of social media optimization.
Why Social Media Optimization?
The goal of SMO is to make your web site more visible in social media circles. The SMO strategy developed in phase one has similarities to a traditional search engine optimization strategy. Once you head into the social media space, there are significant differences.
- The conversation moves from one-way to two-way
- It is more conversational marketing instead of traditional marketing
- Different communities require different messaging. One size does not fit all
Now you have a web site that is performing and attracting visitors through a combination of paid and natural search. You may wonder, “Why should I focus on social media when all the content I need is on my web site?” That’s a valid question to ask.
The mindshift that you have to make with social media, is that your online strategy is not solely focused on your web site! It includes the “neighborhood” around you.
Imagine that your web site is a store in a good location where people congregate, sort of like a Dunkin Donuts or Starbucks. Your store (ie website) gets a lot of walk-in traffic from one main road (your SEO strategy). Now, you’ve noticed some new suburbs have sprung up and there’s a new place that may support another store. What would you do? Probably consider building another store in the new location – that’s where the people are. The concept of social media optimization is similar. You want your web site and message to appear where people are congregating online.
In any city there are good and bad locations for your store. Sometimes it is very obvious from your research whether one neighborhood would be better than another. Same with social media. Not all social media sites are appropriate neighborhoods for all businesses. That is why research is very important, and just like in the brick and mortar world, sometimes a neighborhood doesn’t turn out the way you thought it would.
Best Social Media Sites
The best social media sites for your company is depends on your target audience. For example, if you sell a technology product or service, then Digg might be a perfect site for you to target. If you sell women’s apparel, then Digg is not a neighborhood that you want to be in.
Keep in mind that different product mixes work in different neighborhoods in the offline world. The social media world is the same. Different communities want information presented to them in different ways. So while your overall marketing message might be the same, how you deliver it could vary from community to community.
So find the best social media sites for your brand, company, and product. In future posts we will examine the social media sites and talk about which stores would be welcome in these neighborhoods.
Filed under Brand Marketing, SEO, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Optimization : Comments (7) : Sep 15th, 2006
September 20th, 2006 at 12:47 pm
[…] Someone asked me last week about the best way to communicate with your target audience once you had identified their neighborhoods. I was catching up on some blog posts over the weekend when I saw this great post by John Cass on conversational blogging. […]
October 5th, 2006 at 2:25 pm
Just wanted you to know I appreciate the information you\’ve provided here. Look forward to reading future posts. Sincerely, AV
October 19th, 2006 at 9:40 am
[…] Why should Yahoo Answers be a component of your social media marketing plan? One reason is this Yahoo Answers is a social neighborhood with 30 million people between the ages of 15-24. If this is your target demographics, then you are missing out on a lot of branding opportunities by not being in front of them. Second reason is that Yahoo is incorporating Yahoo Answers results within their regular search results, so by providing answers you are capturing more real estate on the Yahoo search engine results page. […]
November 9th, 2006 at 9:40 am
[…] I am sure that someone at Virgin Money is walking around saying I told that social media web sites are bad. The problem here was that Virgin did not research and understand the target audience of b3ta.com. Not all social media communities are the same. They all attract different audiences and communities. If you want to be successful marketing to the social communities you need to understand who is in the neighborhood that you are targeting. […]
January 3rd, 2007 at 10:07 pm
[…] To me SMO is all about driving traffic to your web site, which makes SMO very similar to traditional internet marketing tactics like search engine optimization (SEO) and Pay-Per-Click (PPC). This is one of the reasons why SEO’s jumped on the SMO band wagon in 2006 as they understand how to utilize social networking sites like Digg and Netscape to game the search engines. SMM is something very different as the goal is to drive traffic to your web site. In a previous post called “Are You Welcome in the Neighborhood” I wrote that: The mindshift that you have to make with social media, is that your online strategy is not solely focused on your web site! It includes the “neighborhood” around you. […]
February 21st, 2007 at 3:16 am
[…] Are You Welcome in the Neighborhood? […]
July 17th, 2007 at 11:50 am
Hi.. cool blog.. I was wondering if you would consider allowing me to add your blog feed to my news section on my webmaster website . I realise that not all of your posts are strictly webmaster related but ive written a script to only show posts containing certain keywords so theres no need to worry. Anyway, like i said.. cool blog.. some interesting stuff.. thanks