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This is a guest post from Melvin Dichoso . It is part of The “Bad Ass” SEO Guest Blogging Contest.

Most people who have just got started in their online ventures usually focus too much on SEO. It’s no secret that its really one of the biggest misconceptions most beginners and even experienced guys run into as far as their online businesses are concern. Today in this blog post, I’m very much hoping I can address this by writing about SEO as well as its connection to SEM and Social Media.

First and foremost I’m not an SEO guru or whatsoever. Heck, my blog is even PR0 up to now, although I have managed to reap a lot as far as  the blog’s traffic is concern. Just consider me as you’re typical online entrepreneur and blogger.

Setting up some Initial things

So what does these three things I mentioned above have something in connection? When building a website or any online-based project, you want to build SEO in it from the get-go. You want to optimize it for those key terms that you’re looking into from the start. I know you’re saying, “how can you do that, you don’t even have content yet?” Yes, you’re right but what I mean is that with every websites you can already set up things from the start that would give you a dramatic effect later on. Let me explain.

For example, if I’m building a site based on a WordPress platform, I can start fine-tuning the site’s search goals by doing the necessary things like adding an All in One SEO pack, canonicalizing the domain, setting up the meta descriptions properly and creating a robots.txt (and many more of course). You see, these are the things that you can already do from the start yet it doesn’t take that much to do those. On the flip side, it may not yield that much results for the first few months but its future benefits would be enormous for sure.

Search Engine Optimization isn’t a short-term goal in the first place right? Organic rankings is something that can be achieved over time and if you’re getting lots of traffic from search engines then you know what I’m talking about.

Before the SEO our site picks up

Now we all know that ranking in search engines does not happen overnight, but does that mean we’re going to wait that long before doing anything? No! That means we have to work on something that would alleviate the lack of traffic from our new site.

There are two things that you can do that would offset the need for SEO for short term. One is utilizing social media and the other one is via search engine marketing. Let’s tackle both of those things here.

Social Media

Social Media is something that everyone these days wants to utilize but only few can do it well. With that my tip has always been to focus on one niche targeted network first and forget everybody else. If you’re into Stumbleupon then focus on it, work on it first.

The problem with people is that they try to get everything from each and every social media sites but the truth is its never gonna happen. These social sites have different audiences and you can only target the ones which is the most relevant to what your business is. Also social media has an effect to search rankings. Indirectly you can see that it can boosts links, search rankings and web traffic in particular.

Popular site Mashable has even written an article on how SEO and social media goes hand in hand together.

Search Marketing

Unlike social media, search marketing does not have an effect with your search rankings. Instead this can be a quick way to boost your site’s traffic immediately from the start.

Let’s go back to our WordPress Site example. After we’re able to set up all the basic SEO-related stuff to our sites, we can immediately focus on running search campaigns for our sites via Pay Per Click. The way I do it is I focus on the top three networks, Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing, and MSN Ad Center. These three have the biggest market share and there’s no reason to go to other 2% of small search engines that can give you almost no traffic.

Running pay per click campaigns can be really tricky and hard. You need to focus on a lot of things like Ad copy, keywords, targeting different demographics, quality scores and a whole lot more. I had learned all of this for quite some time and to be honest, I spent a lot of money testing things but  I could say it’s all worth it.

I know not all of us can run PPC campaigns so there’s always an option of hiring a search marketing person or a team to run your campaign for you. This can be an investment on your part but the way these guys could do the job for you could later on offset the cost.

The logic behind running search campaigns is to immediately drive traffic to your site, find the top markets and top demographics for what you’re business is about and penetrating that market. We could also experiment on our campaigns and as a return this could only give us the whole pie of what we’re trying to achieve. We could forever do these campaigns until our search traffic starts picking up. In short, SEM is for short term and SEO is for long term.

Conclusion

Driving traffic to our website, more generally our business is an unending cycle. We as business owners continue to tweak and test things and try to find more sources that could give us the maximum return for what we spend.

These three components that I mentioned namely SEM, SEO and social media play a key role for that. They have their own ideal time to get implemented and it’s all about connecting them and making  them work harmoniously.What do you think?

This is a guest post from Kaila Strong . It is part of The “Bad Ass” SEO Guest Blogging Contest.

Of late, Facebook has made announcements to unveil changes to users profiles, business pages, and even Facebook’s version of a blog (the ‘notes’ section). It seems the social networking giant is constantly changing and evolving, giving us a change one spoonful at a time. I get it, that’s what has to happen to accommodate for growth, adjust functions for better usability, etc… But it got me thinking: How much time do I have invested into sites like these where- 1) I don’t have much say over the changes they make, 2) I don’t have true authority over my own content, and 3) someday, I might not have anything to show for my endless hours of activity, should something happen to the site.

Questioning how much time you have invested is not just a question for branded business profiles, it’s also an important question for the casual user looking to brand themselves, non-profit organizations, clubs, and groups too. If you are spending hours upon hours per week on social sites like Facebook, Twitter, niche sites, forums, review sites and commenting,  it’s worth it to look at your other options. With so much time being spent on social networking sites, some brands may be missing out on other opportunities.

What opportunities are you missing out on?

Other Social Sites

In some cases, branded profiles aren’t successful on big sites like Facebook and Twitter. If engagement levels are unexpectedly low, growth is slow, metrics aren’t in an upward trend, it may be worth a look at your demographic profile. Who is your audience? Is your messaging targeted to this specific audience, or is lack of participation because of functionality onsite?

You might be standing in the way of your own success by limiting your interaction to the wrong sites. Check out other leading sites like LinkedIn, niche sites like iCareCafe (for Medical niche), forums like Wet Canvas (Art niche), review sites like Yelp, or commenting on some of the best blogs in your industry. I like to check out the prospective sites stats on Quantcast.com, and use the info to make decisions on which sites to focus on.

If you want to delve deeper into research start using a new site, and compare the functionality. In some instances, however, building your own social site on your website can solve your problems. Driving traffic from large sites to your own site can give you more control over your information, not to mention the potential for higher conversions since all activity is onsite. The investment may be large to build your own customized site, so weighing out your options will be very important.

Onsite Social Components

There are many onsite components you can customize, which will give your website visitors the ability to interact, and socialize. Adding a forum to your site if you are say, an eCommerce provider is a great way to give users an area to engage, ask questions, find answers, and review products. Optimizing your efforts can help your search engine rankings, in addition to better managing the time you invest into your social networking.

Even just adding a blog to your site can drive traffic onsite, and still allows for some user generated content: comments, and reviews. Don’t forget about plugins, proper monitoring, and cross promotion on all social platforms.

You can see examples of larger brands already integrating more than just the usual social components to their websites. Checked out Skittles lately? They’ve created a very interactive homepage, that changes regularly, and captures their audiences attention. Think about what you can do that will equally engage your public.

Reviews

Ability to review or vote on products or services onsite: why add reviews? Increase sales and also for SEO. Not to mention the improvements to usability for your visitors. Make sure you monitor reviews, and respond appropriately.

Comments

Commenting enabled, and monitored as well. Take into consideration suggested pointers for monitoring comments, and interacting too.

Forums

Online forum to help users throughout the buying cycle. Write your own content to help answer most frequent questions, allow users to ask each other questions, and interact. Building a forum can be pretty time intensive, but think of the customization abilities.

Cross Promotion

Pulling in data from other social sites like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. You can use a widget, you can use a badge, or a plugin; whichever way you do it, give your users a way to interact using their own favorite social site on your website. Allowing users to sign up for your online community using their preferred site is a good idea.

Eye Catching

Games, graphics, and video onsite. Make sure you have the space available, and take into consideration the impact on users experience (slow browsing).

Profiles

User profiles are where ideas can be shared. Let users build their own space, share their own thoughts, find friends, and upload other information.

Other Marketing Types

On rare occasions, social media just isn’t for your brand. You’ve ran the numbers, talked to the experts, and it’s just not the best return on investment. Determine what your best advertising assets are, and utilize them appropriately. Stop investing a lot of your time in an area of advertising that isn’t proving to be the best use of your time. Don’t just get rid of your profiles: limit the amount of time you spend, and evaluate the tools you are using to manage the profiles. At the very least, you are utilizing the SEO benefits of social profiles, and ability to help with your promotions.

Have you looked at integrating more social components onto your website?

This is a guest post from Onibalusi. It is part of The “Bad Ass” SEO Guest Blogging Contest.

One problem many people just starting out in the social media world face is that they find it difficult to get traffic and attention from all their efforts and they believe they have already done all they can to no avail. Social media is great and really effective and it is not meant for some specific type of people only. Everybody can get the best from social media.

Before I continue, I will like to tell you that getting the best from social media is not about having a gazillion followers but it is all about the impact you are making in the social media world, this post will be talking about some great ways to get the best from social media.

Have The Right Friends

This is the first and most important step you must consider when trying to get results from your social media efforts, it is of no effort to have fishermen as friends when you are a barber. The saying birds of the same feathers flock together is also very applicable in the social media world and you must make sure you get many valuable friends in your niche.

Your friends are the one who will promote and share your posts and it must make sense to them before they will share it, if you are writing what they can’t resonate with then they would not share your posts. It is also very important to have the right friends because they are the ones that will help spread the word about you and they will also be your customers.

One of the best ways to get the right friends is to make sure your friends are from your niche, for example, if you are trying to add more twitter followers to your account you can search using keywords related to your niche because this will make sure your friends are targeted.

Another great way to get the right type of friends is to make sure you build your follower base naturally, i.e. you allow people to follow you of their own interest without automating anything as this will make everything easy for you and you will be able to get the right results.

Don’t Introduce Your Business First

Another great mistake many people make when trying to get the best from their social media efforts is that they keep on pumping their business on other people without even thinking about what others will say about them. Take this as an example, if you meet a stranger on the streets who just told you to buy something or your trusted friend introduced the same thing to you, from whom would you buy first? It is very important to try your best to build strong relationship with people before trying to introduce your business to them, doing otherwise can be disastrous.

Help People Out

One of the best ways to get what you want is by helping others get what they want. Another great way to get the best from your social media efforts is by helping as many people who need your help. If you see people contacting you for one help or the other, feel free to help them and they will be willing to return the favor one day.

Another great reason you should help people is that they will also introduce their friends to you and they will also go about spreading the good news about you thereby leading to more social media influence and results on your path.

Share Great Content You Like

Another great way to make sure you are getting the best from your social media efforts is by helping people get what they want. Knowledge they say is power and the more people you help increase their knowledge the more they will be grateful to you.

It is always very important to always share great content on your favorite social media networks because this will make your readers value you the more and it will also give them an impression that you are not there for your interest. It is always very important not to just share just any content but to share what you know people will like and what you know can impact their lives.

Be Reciprocal

Another great way to get the best from your social media efforts is by being reciprocal, if someone tweets your posts, move over to the persons post and tweet any of his post you find interesting. Try as much to help your friends and those who help you because this will make the come to respect and trust you the more and it will also help you get more results.

Another great reason for you to be reciprocal is that you might need your social media friends to help you once in a while and if you have been reciprocal then you will have no problem with them but if not it might be difficult to confront them.

Social media is great and if you do the right things at the right time your efforts would not be wasted, the above are 5 great things to get more from your social media efforts.

This is a guest post from Devesh. It is part of The “Bad Ass” SEO Guest Blogging Contest.

If you are trying to market your new blog, chances are you’ve already looked into search engine optimization then here are 6 Kick-ass ways to market your blog:

1. Building Mailing list

My single biggest mistake was not to build a list from beginning. I did not realize the power of list building until later on.
Building a list is an extremely popular aspect of the internet marketing industry. Everyone says repeatedly all the time, “the money is in the list!” And it is totally true.

Here are 5 reasons why you should build your list

• Connect – Emails give you an opportunity to make your fans feel more closely connected with you.
• Referrals – Put you in a position to receive regular referrals.
• Easier – Make your sales process easier and more productive.
• Sart conversations with people you are targeting.
• This gives you a chance to build a good relationship with them and to show them that you will only provide them with quality products that can really help them

2. Blog Commenting

Blog commenting, one of the easiest and most effective way to market a new site/blog and get targeted traffic and backlinks. If people can see you being so active and commenting everywhere they end up, they will be more inclined to comment on yours, because you become memorable.  Take the time to leave a useful comment often enough, don’t just write “great post” or “thanks”. Don’t SPAM or self-promote when leaving blog comments. Another added benefit to blog commenting is that if you leave useful comments regularly, the blog owner will eventually notice. This greatly increases your chances of establishing a great new business relationship that could result in more links, traffic, and more subscribers to your list.

3. Guest posting

This is one of the best ways of getting website traffic to your squeeze page and/or blog. Make sure it is very high quality, and is something that provides genuine value and your chances of your request being accepted will increase.

Here are 5 Reasons why you should do Guest Posting.

• Drive targeted traffic.
• Build contact with other bloggers.
• Increase your brand awareness? (How to Build a Great Brand for Your Blog).
• Build high quality Backlinks to your blog.
• Get new subscribers.

(more…)

Yes, you read correctly, it’s time for The Bad Ass SEO Guest Blogging Contest. For the next month, I’ll be accepting guest posts right here on my blog. As you can see below, the top guest bloggers are eligible to receive cash prizes (current pot is $2100.) cash and there are a couple non-cash prizes.

To clarify, you don’t have to actually be a bad ass SEO (although it wouldn’t hurt) to enter the contest. The general theme is SEO and the contest itself is bad ass since we have several generous sponsors that put up cash and a few other prizes.

What is the Bad Ass SEO Guest Blogging Contest? Blogging is always fun, but it’s even more fun when there is cold hard cash involved. Starting today (August 2nd) until September 2nd, you can submit guest posts to my blog. I’m pretty flexible as far as acceptable topics as long as they fit within the general theme of this blog. So, anything from SEO to blogging to social media will do.

How long does the contest last? The contest starts today August 2nd and ends September 2nd You must submit your post between these dates in order to be eligible to win. The winners will be announced 15 days after the contest ends. This will allow us ample time to publish any remaining posts and to judge all contest entries.

What can you win? Take a look at all the sponsors, cash and other prizes!

$200. Prize Sponsors

Daniel McGonagle Link Building

BestTravelWebsites.com Best Travel Sites

ArrangeYourVacation.com Vacation Rentals

$150 Prize Sponsors

Candy Store

$100 Prize Sponsors

Alisa Bowman Marriage Advice

Internet Marketing Services

SEO Software

SEO Ottawa

Virtual Assistants

Hesham Zebida Thesis Skins

Gerald Weber Houston SEO

Toni J Young Network Marketing Training

Quillcards Distinctive Ecards by Quillcards

Ghostwriter Dad Ghostwriting services

$50 Prize Sponsors

Whitney Segura Whitney Segura’s Internet Marketing Blog

James Brown James Brown

Raxa Design Houston web design

Eric Brantner Freelance Copywriter

The Servant Media Houston Business Development

Ana Hoffman, Traffic Generation Cafe Increasing Targeted Website Traffic

The Lane Real Estate Team Kennewick Homes

Other prizes: Non-Cash Sponsors

Hostgator.com 1 year Business Hosting plan. Includes toll free phone number and SSL $179.40 value Business Web Hosting

David Harry A full years membership at SEO Dojo, a value of $250.SEO Training Dojo

Link-Assistant.Com SEO PowerSuite Enterprise (max. functionality license) $599 worth with a life-time Live! Plan subscription. SEO tools

Special thanks to the contest media partner: My Blog Guest. MyBlogGuest.com is the free guest post exchange community where users meet to exchange guest posts and network.

What are the rules?

1. Register for a user account with SEM Group so you can submit your post for review. Please fill out all of your profile information and if you don’t have a Gravatar please get one. You may have up to 3 links in your bio.

If you have already published a guest post here in the past there is no need to register. If this is the case and you aren’t sure about your login just send me an email and I’ll let you know your login credentials.

2. You must submit your post by September 2nd 2010
3. Your article must be original content, and it must be written by you.
4. On the day your post is published, you must write a post on your blog about the contest that contains a link to the official contest post and links to all of the sponsors using the correct anchor text. Also these links must remain do-follow. You can get the code to link to all of the sponsors here
   ^?View Code HTML

   <p style="text-align: center;"><strong>$200. Prize Sponsors</strong></p> <p style="text-align: center;">Daniel McGonagle <a href="http://linkvanareviews.com/">Link Building</a></p> <p style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://sem-group.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/besttravelwebsites.png" alt="" title="besttravelwebsites" width="391" height="90" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-1575" /></p> <p style="text-align: center;">BestTravelWebsites.com <a href="http://besttravelwebsites.com">Best Travel Sites</a></p> <p style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://sem-group.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/arrangelogo.png" alt="" title="arrangelogo" width="100" height="100" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-1576" /></p> <p style="text-align: center;">ArrangeYourVacation.com <a href="http://arrangeyourvacation.com">Vacation Rentals</a></p> <strong>$150 Prize Sponsors</strong> <p style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://sem-group.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/bestcandystore1.gif" alt="" title="bestcandystore" width="200" height="39" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-1509" /></p> <p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.bestcandystore.com">Candy Store</a></p> <p style="text-align: center;"><strong>$100 Prize Sponsors</strong></p> <p style="text-align: center;">Alisa Bowman <a href="http://www.projecthappilyeverafter.com/">Marriage Advice</a></p> <p style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://sem-group.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/New-Logo-with-White-Space-350.jpg" alt="Vertical measures" width="350" height="50" /></p> <p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.verticalmeasures.com/">Internet Marketing Services</a></p> <p style="text-align: center;"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1438" title="sheerSEO_banner" src="http://sem-group.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/sheerSEO_banner1.gif" alt="" width="120" height="60" /></p> <p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.sheerseo.com/">SEO Software</a></p> <p style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://sem-group.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/logo_with_border1-150x150.jpg" alt="" title="logo_with_border" width="150" height="150" class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-1499" /></p> <p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.seo-writer.ca/">SEO Ottawa</a></p> <p style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://sem-group.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/logo.jpg" alt="" title="logo" width="334" height="43" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-1591" /></p> <p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://offshoreally.com/">Virtual Assistants</a></p> <p style="text-align: center;">Hesham Zebida <a href="http://www.thesisawesome.com">Thesis Skins</a></p> <p style="text-align: center;">Gerald Weber <a href="http://sem-group.net">Houston SEO</a></p> <p style="text-align: center;">Toni J Young <a href="http://www.tonijyoung.com/">Network Marketing Training</a></p> <p style="text-align: center;">Quillcards <a href="http://quillcards.com/">Distinctive Ecards by Quillcards</a></p> <p style="text-align: center;">Ghostwriter Dad <a href="http://ghostwriterdad.com/">Ghostwriting services</a></p> <p style="text-align: center;"><strong>$50 Prize Sponsors</strong></p> <p style="text-align: center;">Whitney Segura <a href="http://www.whitneysegura.com/">Whitney Segura's Internet Marketing Blog</a></p> <p style="text-align: center;">James Brown <a href="http://www.jamesbrownmarketing.com/">James Brown</a></p> <p style="text-align: center;">Raxa Design <a href="http://www.raxadesign.com/">Houston web design</a></p> <p style="text-align: center;">Eric Brantner <a href="http://ericbrantner.com/">Freelance Copywriter</a></p> <p style="text-align: center;">The Servant Media <a href="http://www.houstonbusinessdevelopers.com/">Houston Business Development</a></p> <p style="text-align: center;">Ana Hoffman, Traffic Generation Cafe <a href="http://www.trafficgenerationcafe.com/">Increasing Targeted Website Traffic </a></p> <p style="text-align: center;">The Lane Real Estate Team <a href="http://www.joelane.com/">Kennewick Homes</a></p> <p style="text-align: center;"><strong>Other prizes: Non-Cash Sponsors</strong></p> <p style="text-align: center;">Hostgator.com 1 year Business Hosting plan. Includes toll free phone number and SSL $179.40 value <a href="http://www.hostgator.com/shared.shtml">Business Web Hosting</a></p> <p style="text-align: center;">David Harry A full years membership at SEO Dojo, a value of $250.<a href="http://www.huomah.com/dojo/">SEO Training Dojo</a></p> <p style="text-align: center;">Link-Assistant.Com SEO PowerSuite Enterprise (max. functionality license) $599 worth with a life-time Live! Plan subscription. <a href="http://www.link-assistant.com/">SEO tools</a></p> <p style="text-align: center;">Special thanks to the contest media partner: <a href="http://myblogguest.com/">My Blog Guest</a>. MyBlogGuest.com is the free guest post exchange community where users meet to exchange guest posts and network.</p> <p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://myblogguest.com/"><img title="myblogguest" src="http://sem-group.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/myblogguest-125-30.gif" border="0" alt="" width="125" height="30" /></a></p>

5. You can be either a sponsor for the contest or you can compete in the contest. Unfortunately you can’t do both.

Post Guidelines

1. Guest posts must be at least 450 words, not to exceed 1000 words.
2. You may have as many links as you wish in the body of the content. However, please limit links to your projects or websites to your bio. Absolutely no affiliate links allowed.
3. Your bio must have a Gravatar. Please use a picture of yourself and not a logo.
4. Keep your post relevant to the overall theme of this blog. SEO, link building, internet marketing, pay per click, social media, blogging tips are all acceptable topics.

How to win

1. Write a post about the contest to help spread the word in the blogosphere. Your post (contest submission) will be judged First on quality of the content and style of the post.
2. Add Sponsors links to your post using the correct anchor text and make sure the links are do-follow. This is extremely important and your post won’t be eligible to win if you haven’t fulfilled this requirement. The sponsors are the ones making the cash prizes possible, so show them some link love.
3. A high value is placed on the number of and quality of comments received on your guest post. Also, be sure to interact with and respond to your commentators. This will help you win! Ambiguous and/or spammy comments will not help you.
4. Spread the word about your post through all your social media channels: Twitter, Facebook, Sphinn, etc. A high value will be placed on number of Tweets and overall social media promotion.

Keep in mind, the sooner you submit your post the more time you’ll have to promote it. So the early bird gets the worm!

Also feel free to use the donkey image in your post. You can get the code here

<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1397" title="badd_ass2" src="http://sem-group.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/badd_ass2.gif" alt="" width="450" height="300" />

Also feel free to upload the image to your server if you like.

IF you have any questions feel free to contact me. Also you can contact me on Skype, I’m searchengineguy.

Let the blogging begin! Woot!

Make no mistake. We’re in a new era. Thanks to social media, the consumer-company relationship has been totally turned on its head. In this new era, companies can no longer get by simply by shouting one-way messages at customers. And no longer do companies hold all the power while consumers struggle to get their voices heard.

Nope, today’s customer can be heard loud and clear. The customer’s voice can be heard everywhere, including review websites, blogs, YouTube videos, Tweets, Facebook updates, and other social media outlets. And companies have to pay attention because social media is changing the way customers do business. It’s influencing the entire buying process. If they don’t pay attention, they risk losing customers and getting upstaged by their once small and powerless competition.

The most obvious way that social media has changed consumer behavior is just by giving customers a bigger voice than they’ve ever had before. In a new study by Euro RSCG, 31.5% of U.S. social media users said they feel empowered to do things they’ve always wanted to do and 20% have lashed out against brands and companies online. In short, customers feel empowered to say the things they’ve always wanted to say but never had the outlet to do so. In short, the anonymity and safety provided by social media lets customers feel more confident in expressing their true feelings about the brands they interact with.

And all this noise does have an effect. According to a study performed by OTX Research, about 2/3 of customers use the information they find through social media to influence their buying decisions. 67% of customers are likely to pass this information on to others, and over 60% trust information they find through social media more than traditional advertisements.

In other words, customers are using social media outlets to research companies before doing business with them. So, if you run a company and the social media space is filled with a bunch of negative information about your brand, you’re probably losing a lot of customers.

How Companies Can Create a Strong Social Media Presence

Clearly, customers are being influenced by social media. And if you want them to be influenced positively to do business with your company, you need to build a strong social media presence. No, that doesn’t mean spamming a bunch of people to build your followers list. It also doesn’t mean going hot on Digg or ReddIt once or twice.

Building a strong social media presence requires consistency. It requires actually engaging with your target demographic, building relationships that help you earn their trust and their business. And it requires having actual goals and strategy for your social media campaign.

What kind of goals should you set for your social media campaign?

• Improve search engine rankings
• Increase brand awareness
• Increase positive brand mentions online
• Improve overall customer service and satisfaction ratings
• Earn more sales

Once you’ve set your goals, you have to track your results. That’s pretty easy because you now have something to measure up against. For example, if you want to earn more sales through social media marketing, you can track your sales before and after your campaign. If you aren’t getting more sales, then maybe things aren’t working according to plan.

Of course, social media marketing does take time. You can’t scrap everything after just a few days without getting results. Social media marketing takes months. Consumers won’t alter their behavior overnight. So, you need to give your social media marketing efforts time to start working. But if after a reasonable period of time you aren’t seeing results, maybe it’s time to change your strategy.

What do you think? Does social media influence your buying behavior?

“Android Tweeting” is a very easy, fun and fast way to tweet. The first thing to do is figure out which Twitter application to use. You may have to go through many applications to see what works for you, some will work up to a point until the next shiny object comes along. If you find it hard to choose, you can maximize your android tweeting experience by having two twitter applications and doing combo application tweeting. You can get what you need by alternating applications. (Yes, this method is for serious android Twitterholics) I have used Twidroid, Seemsic, Hootsuite, and I am now using Tweetcaster (the little birdie is so cute!)

The great thing about tweeting from your phone is that you get to tweet from almost anywhere and at anytime (trust me ANYWHERE …ANYTIME) Examples of such locations include: dinner cruise, dance clubs, while riding in back of brother’s bike, meetings, interviews, restaurants, bad dates, bed and yes, bath or shower (Disclaimer: No harm was ever done to androids while tweeting)

My friends think I am fast when tweeting from my android, yes I am a pro (modest)….but I also sometimes resort to shortcuts….yes, I’m an android Twitterholic that sometimes gets lazy. Shortcuts are the key to fast android tweeting. There are many shortcuts to make your android tweeting faster and better. One great shortcut is “Inserty“(a copy and paste application) with this application you add all your most used comments and tweet art and you can easily copy and paste at anytime by going to this application. I copy and paste all my “•**♥” for my tweets.

Always appreciative of retweets, I make sure to thank or return the favor, but at times I am too busy to do that. A great way to not forget who to thank or RT is to add the tweets to my favorites on Twitter. I just press the favorite option on Tweetcaster and in seconds I have favorited tweets to my RT “to do list.” It is so easy and fast to do. Once I thank or retweet my Twitter friends I go ahead and unfavorite the tweet.

It is also very easy to send a” bulk thank you tweet”. The trick to this technique is simple. Start with selecting the reply option of the retweet, then copying the username, go to the next tweet select the reply option and add the previous username to that tweet by pasting it. Repeat the step over again, copy both usernames and go to the next tweet then reply and add the two usernames by pasting and so on. A handy application for android tweeting is Google Translate. When every someone tweets me with a language I am not familiar with, I copy and paste the tweet to this application and within a couple of minutes I thank the person for the tweet.

A fun application for me is Shazam. I am always looking for new music and if I hear a song I don’t know, Shazam is a great way to tag it and of course you can just go to your android’s YouTube application and view the music video.

The favorite part about android tweeting is how quickly you can take a picture with your android and upload it to Twitpic (make sure you go to your setting on your Twitter application and choose either Twitpic or Tweetphoto) I took and uploaded all my pictures to Twitpic from my trip to NYC and the pictures turned out good.

There are many applications to try, that will maximize your android tweeting experience. Great for a mom who’s life revolves around her kids. Android tweeting can be done while cooking dinner, grocery shopping, laundry and of course the exciting event of matching socks! Once you get used to it, you will get faster and like most of my Twitter friends…most will never know you are android tweeting.

Do you have some good android Tweeting tips? Please share them in the comments.

Twitter is an awesome example of how a basic idea can be evolved into something huge. Started as the way to tell the world "What you are doing", it now has hundreds of various uses.

This is how social media works: you start a social media project and people will make it into what it should be. There is no way to control that.

Various people have different opinions on how Twitter should be used. To my mind, it is up to everyone. I am not a big fan of Twitter ethics: if you don’t like someone, just don’t follow him!

That being said, everyone has the right to use Twitter the way he wants. Would you like to know which group of Twitter users you fall into?

Here’s a quiz I made (with Gerald’s help of course) that will help you define your Twitter user type.

You are highly encouraged to share your result in the comments. You can also Tweet your result, embed it to your blog or share on facebook. Good luck!

As blog commenting becomes more popular as a form of link building and traffic generation, there is a steady increase of those who are trying to abuse the blog commenting system. But as many comment abusers are starting to learn, with the increase in spam is an increase in systems (such as Akismet) designed to thwart their attempts. So commenting abusers are finding more creative ways to bypass these systems and look more legit.

Commenting Faux Pas

So how do bloggers determine which comments to keep and which ones to trash or mark as spam? Here are some major faux pas and red flags when it comes to commenting.

Ambiguous Comments

“Wow, what a great post. This is my first time to visit here, and I like everything so much that I have subscribed.”

Sounds like a great comment, right? It’s easy, especially for new bloggers or those who are struggling to get comments / subscribers to fall for this type of flattery. But the problem with this comment is that it could go with any post on pretty much any site.

Comments from the Same IP

“Angie | this domain.com | angie@thisdomain.com | 122.44.77.35 | Blah blah blah blah blah…”

“Tera | that domain.com | tera@thatdomain.com | 122.44.77.35 | Blah blah blah blah blah…”

“Tom | other domain.com | tom@otherdomain.com | 122.44.77.35 | Blah blah blah blah blah…”

Many blog systems allow blog owners to view the IP address of their commenters. If several comments come in using different names, different emails, different websites, but the same IP address, this is going to be a huge tipoff that the comments are all spam.

Copied Comments

“Social media is a really nice way to generate traffic. And YouTube is the best (in our opinion) means to do it. Maybe this is because one has to invest some time and efforts in making a video, so one naturally tends to make a video which is REALLY interesting for people. It’s much easier to “tweet” something, so more often than not one “tweets” rather “something about nothing” (at the same time – unfortunatlly!! – spamming the internet).”

“I’m happy to see more and more of my favorite charities on Facebook and even on Twitter sometime. I do whatever I can to help by sharing their FB messages and retweeting their tweets.”

“I have had a facebook for a long time but it was just recently that I began using it again actively. I also created a fan page and as of now is on the building and growing process. I know i have yet more to learn regarding using facebook to its full potential and advantage. It is my first time to hear about facebook insight. Will definitely be giving it a try. Thanks for sharing.”

“Social media is a really nice way to generate traffic. I’m happy to see more and more of my favorite charities on Facebook and even on Twitter sometime. I have had a facebook for a long time but it was just recently that I began using it again actively. Thanks for sharing.”

A new trend in spam commenting is taking bits and pieces of approved comments and sewing them together into a “unique” new comment. If the blog owner is in tune with their reader’s responses, they will get a feeling of deja vu which will tip them off if they have received a copied comment.

(more…)

I see this all the time: someone makes a half-hearted attempt to try Twitter and gives up after a day or so because they fail to see the point. While Twitter isn’t for everyone (or every business), I’d bet that 9 times out of 10, that person isn’t seeing the value because they’re not giving it a proper chance and don’t know what to do with it. Twitter isn’t a ride – you can’t just climb in and wait to be wowed. It’s a tool, and you do have to learn how to use it.
Here are some tips for getting ramped up on Twitter, so you can start to see the business value and have a little fun with it too.

Ever have the feeling that you just don’t get Twitter?

1. Use a Twitter client
   I firmly believe that you need a client to get the most value from Twitter. Most of us on the marketing team at WordStream use TweetDeck, which has a number of advantages over Twitter’s standard Web interface. (Other options include Seesmic and HootSuite.)
   For one, it refreshes automatically, with (modifiable) notifications so you can read tweets as they happen. This is important because Twitter’s real value is in real-time use. Reading everything you missed over the weekend is mostly pointless. When you use Twitter in real time, you can interact with people, spot trends as they’re happening and respond to questions and problems before it’s too late. (Likewise, you can get help with questions that aren’t easily answered through search.)
   Keep in mind, this doesn’t mean you have to be on Twitter all the time. Like any other social application, Twitter can be a distraction from work. But devoting a little active time to Twitter every day will make its strengths (both for marketing and making connections) much more apparent.
2. Be generous with follows at first
   You’ll get a lot more value out of Twitter if you have more followers. The larger your audience, the more business contacts you can make, the more traffic you can send to your site, and the more influence and trust you can potentially wield. One of the easiest ways to build up your follower list is to follow others. Start with well-known influencers in your industry and pay attention to who they follow and interact with. Many will follow you back – if not, try sending a relevant @ reply to one of their tweets, which will help get you on their radar.
   It takes time to gain a large number of followers, so have patience. Also, remember that you can always unfollow later if someone’s tweets aren’t adding anything to your stream.
3. Create lists or groups
   Twitter now has a native list feature, which is a great improvement; however, the Web interface only allows you to see one column at a time. With a Twitter client, you can set up columns and view multiple groups side by side.
   There are a number of ways you can use columns to your advantage. You can separate those you actively engage with on a regular basis from those you follow more tangentially. You can separate by specialty (for example, if you work in search marketing, you can set up columns for PPC marketing specialists, SEO specialists, social media specialists and so on). You’ll find this organizational ability especially helpful as you expand the number of people and brands you follow.
4. Create columns for mentions of you and your company
   This step is absolutely key to getting the most out of Twitter. If you don’t pay attention to who’s talking to and about you, you’ll never experience Twitter as a conversation – it will just seem like a million people talking to themselves.
   In both the Web interface and Twitter clients, you can save searches of your Twitter name and other terms you might want to follow (such as the names of your products), but a client makes it easier to track those mentions in real time. (You’ll get a notification when a new tweet appears in these columns.)
5. Follow up on as many mentions as possible
   Knowing what people are saying about you is great, but it’s not enough to monitor mentions. Respond to them! This is especially important for reputation management – if someone asks you a question or has an issue with your company’s product or service, you should respond in as timely a manner as possible. (It should go without saying, but don’t just acknowledge them; offer to help.) It’s not worth getting involved in social media at all if your business is going to seem faceless and unresponsive to existing and potential customers.

But Twitter isn’t just a tool for protecting your brand. You can follow up on positive mentions too. If someone retweets your tweet or recommends your product, thank them! If it’s someone you don’t know, follow them. This is a great way to build goodwill and grow your follower base.

If you haven’t tried the above tactics, you haven’t really tried Twitter. So get back on the horse and I guarantee you’ll at least see what all the fuss is about.

Elisa Gabbert is the Content Development Manager at WordStream, a provider of advanced SEO Tools and pay per click software for search engine marketing efforts. To get in touch with Elisa, send a note to egabbert at wordstream dot com, follow her on Twitter, or check out the WordStream Internet Marketing Blog, where she’s a regular contributor.