In a report by The Wall, Twitter is on pace to surpass the 500 million user mark by the end of February of 2012. This report is based on Twopcharts’ “Estimated time until account 500,000,000 is registered” countdown. With Twitter growing at a pretty rapid pace and more and more people turning to the social network, what does this mean for your online reputation management strategies? First and foremost, as a business or website owner, if you are not on Twitter, it is time to rethink joining.
Why do you need to join and become active on Twitter?
The simple answer to this question — it’s where your customers are and it’s where they’re talking. It’s where your past customers are and it’s where your potential customers are. What are they talking about? They are talking about positive experiences and more importantly, less than positive experiences encountered through your products, services, customer service and basically every other step along the way.
In today’s age of consumers turning to the internet and to their social circles for recommendations on businesses, products and/or services, it is more important than ever to be managing your online reputation.
Take a look at the following screenshot from a Time Warner Cable (@TWCable) search on Twitter:
While Time Warner Cable might have a much larger client base than others, it is very evident that their customers are turning to Twitter as a means of communicating / complaining about products and services being offered. I can tell you first hand that Time Warner Cable is pretty good at responding to Tweets and rectifying situations that arise on Twitter.
I am not even close to being as big as Time Warner Cable, why should I be on Twitter?
If the fact that Twitter will soon be surpassing 500 million users isn’t enough to convince you, keep in mind that their end goal, as announced in December of 2011, is to reach 7 billion users worldwide (yes, the entire world’s population).
Conclusion
If you aren’t a Twitter user (personal or business), I hope this post encouraged you to consider joining the quickly growing social network. Regarding online reputation management, Twitter is just one of the many networks that consumers turn to for information sharing and consumption. While you can’t keep your customers from sharing their experiences, you can monitor what they are saying about your business, reply to their comments and ultimately show others that you are aware of what people are saying and that you do care.
Stay tuned for my follow up post on this topic: Tools to Help Monitor and Manage Your Online Reputation on Twitter
In one of my previous posts featured on Business 2 Community, I made the prediction that in 2012, content marketing + social media will = success. While I also mentioned that this was more of a tip than a prediction, it has already proven to be accurate with the recent rollout of “Search Plus Your World” (SPYW). Budgets and resources being devoted to content marketing and social media were already on the up rise prior to SPYW, but Google’s recent changes make it even more important to develop and execute a strong content marketing campaign while using various social media outlets to promote your content and engage with your audiences.
Take a look at the below screenshot of a search query heavily influenced by SPYW:
Content marketing is now at the forefront of any successful digital marketing campaign.
The example above shows the growing importance of creating [great] content and sharing it via Google+. In my opinion, it is only a matter of time before content marketing is at the forefront of every digital marketing campaign. Small to medium sized business will begin following in the footsteps of the larger corporations that have already deployed successful content marketing strategies.
Coca-Cola is a great example of a large corporation that has continued to successfully execute new and innovative content marketing strategies. Just take a look at one of their “Content 2020” videos and you will see what I mean. It is this type of content that is going to be the centerpiece of every digital marketing campaign in the very near future.
How can you implement a successful content marketing strategy?
When it comes to content marketing, it all starts with an idea. After that, be willing to test different variations of your idea and most importantly, brace yourself for failure. Not often will you brainstorm and execute a successful content marketing campaign on the first shot. Be willing to put time into creating great content.
In addition to testing and creating different variations of your idea(s), don’t be afraid to utilize the many forms of content. Too many times, marketers rely solely on written content and fail to utilize video content, image based content, instructional / tutorial content and presentations which are just a few of the many content delivery methods available.
This is content:
Where does social media come in to play?
The answer to this question will vary from industry to industry but one thing always remains constant – social media gives you the opportunity to share your content and engage with your audience.
For the most part, gone are the days of sitting back and letting your website do the talking. To be successful, you have to engage with your audience on a regular basis. Facebook, Twitter and Google+ are just a few of the many social networks where your audience is engaging with their social circles. They are looking for recommendations, reading reviews and making decisions based off of what their friends are saying. If you don’t know what people are saying, how can you adapt?
Example: If you are Sinatra’s Restaurant in Buffalo, NY and aren’t on Twitter (which in this case they aren’t), how can you interact and respond to the following?
i don’t care what anyone says, sinatras is the best italian restaurant in #buffalo#delicious
As the owner or employee of this restaurant, this is a perfect opportunity to reach out to this individual and thank them for their praise while further encourage them to speak their mind via Google Places reviews, Yelp reviews, Urban Spoon reviews, etc. While this is just a simple example, there are much larger opportunities that will be missed if you aren’t engaging with your audience where they are talking.
In addition to the engagement possibilities, social media serves as a source for sharing and promoting your content.
Summary
Combining creative content with strategized social media efforts will lead you towards success in 2012 and beyond. Be willing to adapt to these digital marketing changes while still devoting time to the basics and you will find yourself dominating more and more real estate on the web.
Stay tuned for my follow up post on this topic: “Tools to Help Businesses with Social Media Outreach”
What are your customers saying about your business, products and/or services? What are your potential customers reading about your business practices? Where do your customers talk about you? Knowing the answers to these questions are the first steps towards building a positive reputation on the web.
If customers aren’t talking about your business online (that you know of), why should you even bother with online reputation management (ORM)? Being left in the dark when it comes to your online reputation can be compared to collecting customer comment cards at a brick and mortar store and tossing them in the trash without reading them. Stay active with your company’s online reputation.
Proactively monitor your online reputation, be ready to take action and you will find yourself sitting in a better spot should negative information about your business arise.
Looking forward to 2012, below are a few online reputation management tips for the New Year:
1. Know What People are Saying:
First and foremost, you have to know what people are saying about your business. If you aren’t aware of what’s out there, how can you manage it? Browsing the web for your brand and setting up email alerts are just a couple of actions you can take towards knowing what is being said about your business. Go to http://www.google.com/alerts and be informed via email when new occurrences of your brand show up on the web.
2. Be Active in Your Online Community:
Whether it’s via blogging, forum participation or physical community outreach, being active in your community will help give your brand a positive image. When it comes to the online actions, the more involved you are on industry related blogs, forums and other websites, the number of positive occurrences of your brand will increase. Physically participating in your community helps create positive press that you can use online and in turn, contributes to a positive brand image. The more positive citations and sources of your brand you can create on the web the better.
3. Use Social Media to Your Advantage:
The following infographic shows how companies are integrating social media as a form of communication and a medium for customer support. Consumers are turning to social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) more and more as a way of reviewing their experiences, both positive and negative. Below is a screenshot of an individual dissatisfied with an experience they had with a company:
Below is a positive Twitter mention.
As a business owner, what do you do when someone shares their experiences with your company publicly? There are a number of different approaches you can take when responding. Based on my ORM experience, the worst thing you can do as a business owner or employee is to ignore these complaints. Whether it’s a negative or positive mention, respond!
Below is a screenshot of a tweet I made on behalf of my SEO firm to a less than pleased customer:
At the very least, this is showing the customer and the public that we are aware of the issue and are willing to resolve it. Simply ignoring a negative mention on any social media site will not go unnoticed.
All in all, social media websites such as Twitter and Facebook are great ways to interact with your following and one of the easiest ways to get feedback on your product or services. Use social media to your advantage in 2012.
4. Promote Customer Reviews:
As I mentioned earlier in this post, potential customers are going to turn to the web in search for reviews of your business. Promoting customer reviews is the best way to keep your information fresh and accurate. Business citation sources such as Google Places will pull information and reviews from a handful of 3rd party review sites. It is not uncommon to come across poor reviews, submitted years ago and in certain cases, they may no longer pertain to your business practices. Handing out comment cards, including links to your business profiles in newsletters and adding links to your business profiles on your website are just a couple of actions you can take to promote and generate new customer reviews. Be careful how you ask for these reviews though. Business directories are smart enough to detect fraudulent reviews and most of the time, do not promote businesses coming right out and asking for reviews.
Conclusion
To conclude, if you don’t already realize the importance of managing your online reputation, don’t wait any longer to get involved with it. With consumers spending more and more time and money online, every review counts. Even if you don’t offer products online, potential customers looking into your products or services are going to turn to the web as a source of information. They will read what people are saying about your business and they will make decisions based off of this. Know what’s out there, know how to react and never take your foot off of the gas when managing your online reputation.
Good luck managing your online reputation in 2012!
If you have yet to experiment with Google+ for businesses, I recommend you wait no longer. With more and more individuals hopping onto the Google+ bandwagon and the recent announcement of “Search Plus Your World”, logged in Googlers may start seeing (depending on the query) results that are heavily influenced by Google’s social recommendations. This is going to affect searches for individuals, brands and general search queries. Below are some screenshots of each.
Searching for Individuals:
General Search Queries:
Search for Brands:
So What Does This Mean for Your Online Business?
If you rely heavily on organic search engine placement, pay close attention. Certain queries are going to be affected more than others but it is inevitable that logged in Google users are going to see personalized results. You need to adapt to these changes in order to keep a strong organic search presence.
What You Need to do to Adapt?
First and foremost, familiarize yourself with Google+. Do this from a personal and business standpoint. If you are anti social media and have gotten by until now without developing a social presence, I highly recommend opening yourself up to Google+ (at the very least). Now that you are willing to participate, go create yourself a Google+ business profile.
Come up with a Content Marketing Strategy
Now that you have your Google+ business profile created, you need a content marketing strategy. If you already have a strategy in place, great, if not, you have some extra work cut out for you. If you aren’t sure what content marketing is, read the following post on Entrepreneur.com. Once you develop a content marketing plan of attack and have a target audience in mind, use Google+ as a means of sharing your content and interacting with your readers. Developing great content, getting it in front of your readers, engaging with them and allowing your content to be shared is what’s going to allow you to dominate the SERPs when it comes to Google’s Search Plus Your World. Don’t stop there though.
Measure the Results
I predict that it is only a matter of time before Google Webmaster Tools / Analytics rolls out features for webmasters to measure how their content is being seen in personalized result scenarios. In the meantime, utilize Google Analytics and their advanced segments features. Raven Internet Marketing Tools does a great write-up on how you can segment Google+ traffic in your Analytics dashboard. Keep in mind, this will measure clicks to your website from Google+. It will not measure clicks from Google’s results to your Google+ page / posts.
In Conclusion
Hopefully after seeing the screenshots in this post and getting some ideas on how you can leverage Google+ from a business standpoint, you will take action. With Google taking up as much of the search market as they do, I strongly believe that this is one change that webmasters / marketers MUST adapt to. Say what you want about Google and social media but the bottom line is, it’s here to stay. Whether it’s Google+, Facebook, Twitter or any of the other social networks out there, search engines have been and continue to incorporate social elements into search. It’s time to stop bitching about it and to start adapting.
As we say goodbye to 2011, there is a lot to look back on in the world of SEO and digital marketing. From algorithm changes to the introduction of new social networks, 2011 kept SEOs / digital marketers on their toes. Below are 4 digital marketing predictions I am making for 2012:
1. Content Marketing + Social Media = SUCCESS: This might not be a prediction as much as it is a tip. Great content in combination with social media has already proven successful time and time again. I guess my prediction is that in 2012, more and more digital marketing agencies and in-house marketers will see the power of great content and what social media can do to help it spread.
It all starts with great content.
Whether it’s a great piece of writing, an infographic, an instructional video or a contest, there are so many ways you can go about creating intriguing content. In 2012, marketers are going to devote more of their time to creating high quality content and audiences are going to eat it up.
Add to this the already proven power of social media and you have yourself a winning combination. New types of content and ways of creating it will evolve in 2012 and social media will play an even larger role in sharing it.
2. The Internet Will Be Flooded With Low Quality Infographics: SEOs tend to have a bad name. Infographipcs are making it worse. Megan McArdle wrote about Ending the Infographic Plague and how infographics are growing to serve more of an SEO purpose rather than delivering quality, truthful information like they should be and they were originally intended to. She goes on to say:
“The reservoir of this disease of erroneous infographics is internet marketers who don’t care whether the information in their graphics is right … just so long as you link it. As a Christmas present to, well, everyone, I’m issuing a plea to bloggers to help stop this plague in its track.”
I personally love infographics and have witnessed their SEO power but to say that there are some bad ones out there is an understatement. Now that infographics are better known within the internet community, I predict that 2012 will bring a tremendous number of low quality infographics.
3. Conversion Optimization Will Take Over: Long gone are the days of optimizing a website simply to rank well on search engines. In my opinion, it is all about conversion optimization in 2012 (if it isn’t already). Ranking is great, traffic is awesome but conversions are where it’s at. If you have the rankings and you have the traffic, do you optimize for conversions? In 2012, I predict that conversion optimization will take over. Agency and in-house marketers will devote more of their time and resources into conversion optimization in 2012.
4. Twitter Will Not Reach its Goal of 7 Billion Users: Twitter currently has roughly 100 million users. In December of 2011, Twitter set itself a goal to reach 7 billion users (world’s population). While I will not say that this is unreasonable (even though it probably is), it will not be reached in 2012 alone and probably not any time within the next few years. Twitter is the go to source for finding trending topics, celebrity news, content sharing and pretty much anything else you can fit in 140 characters (or less). I LOVE Twitter but they will not get to 7 billion users in 2012.
What are some of your digital marketing predictions for 2012?
