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At the Search Engine Strategies conference a few weeks back, we had the pleasure of interviewing Bruce Clay.  We asked Bruce about the importance of online video when it comes to organic and universal search ranking algorithms in Google. For those of you not in the search marketing industry, Bruce is sort of a “big [...]

more about “Internet Marketing – Search Engine Op…“, posted with vodpod

Most companies are reluctant to enter the social media space because the ROI is a tough nut to crack. Unfortunately for most marketing efforts in the social media space, there isn't a direct correlation from click to purchase or click to action like other forms of online marketing.

SEO, PPC, and media buying have very easily measureable ROI. These goals are very simple: be found -- get person to click -- get person to act.

With social media, it isn't so easy. But new measuring tools like Radian 6 and ClearSaleing are starting to make things a little easier.

There isn't a formula to make sure you're found in the social media space like there is with Google's organic algorithm, or even their PPC algorithm, where everyone can easily see the rules and know how to work within them. With social media, the rules are different for everyone. There are very few rules when it comes to social media, which is why it's hard to gauge ROI on a "standard" basis.

Knowing your audience is vitally important if you plan to venture into social media. When you understand who they are, you can better understand how they function in the social media realm and how to measure your success with your marketing efforts. You can better adjust your marketing strategy and goals by understanding what your audience is doing in the social media communities they're intensely involved in.

Your social media goals will be strikingly different than an SEO or PPC strategy. SEO and PPC strategies are a straightforward "click=action" for success. A person searches for "red shoes" in a search engine, you're listed in organic or paid results for "red shoes" in said search engine, the person clicks on your result, the person sees red shoes on your site, the person buys from your site. That's reaching your goal successfully with SEO and PPC.

If social media were that easy, CEOs and CMOs wouldn't be so hesitant to dump money into strategies. With social media, different goals are defined according to the soc

Google has launched a new dashboard feature for Local Business Center that lets businesses get greater insight into how customers are finding their local business listings. Best of all, it's free to use.

Your local business listing on Google looks something like this:

Users can find this by doing a regular old Google web search, or a search on Google Maps. Either way, the more data you can learn about how they found it, and about them, the more you can utilize this information to make improvements. It's classic web analytics.

With the dashboard, you can get access to data like:

- impressions
- actions
- top search queries
- zip codes where driving directions come from

That's some valuable data to have. The dashboard also lets you dig into the data using lists, maps, and graphs like the one below.


"When you log in the the LBC today, you'll find that we've already populated the dashboards for claimed listings with data from the last 30 days," says Amer Shahnawaz on the Google Blog. "After that, new information will be added every day, so you can check in often to see how things are going. We're also working hard to add more historical information, and to make this available for businesses outside the U.S. All the data we share through the dashboard will be anonymous and aggregated, to protect the privacy of Google users."

The Yellow Pages has redesigned its consumer website, focusing on better design in order to improve user experience.

Included in the redesign is a new homepage which spotlights search and offers one-click access to other search options, such as searching by distance, new tabbed navigation for features like People Search and Map & Directions, and better local search for filtering results by neighborhood and other identification tools. There’s also more information provided for businesses, and user reviews and registration processes have been simplified to encourage more use for these very important features.

It doesn’t matter if you’re on Facebook (), Twitter (), YouTube (), Flickr (); your online personality is not only part of your overall brand, it becomes an interactive experience for you and your business. So, who is the face or voice of your brand and what do they share? It’s a very important decision in and of itself.

Just as you create branding guidelines and key messaging guides, so too should you dedicate time to creating your social media personality. There are multiple combinations that you can use to increase your brand visibility and converse with your customers.

View the rest of the article here:  http://mashable.com/2009/02/27/social-media-for-business-2/