Social Media and Social Development

Launching a new website/blog requires extensive planning, organizing, and strategizing. One of the key components towards a successful web site is effectively marketing and promoting your website. The key aspect of any social media marketing campaign relies on building "social authority." Social authority is developed as an individual or business establishes themselves as an "expert" in their given field or area of expertise, thereby becoming an "influence" in that field or area.

Social media is not about earning Page Rank or gaining rankings in the Google SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) per se. It is about generating an online "buzz" about your company, product or services. It is the promotion and marketing of your business for the purposes of creating an online presence. It is the modern equivalent of traditional advertising.

If done correctly, social media can grow your online business faster than any other means available. However, it must be done organically. Google has taken dramatic steps to penalize sites that spam content. If used correctly the social media services can give you a platform for brand awareness, exposure, networking, and provide a huge boost in web traffic and sales.Focus on creating valuable content and not "marketing" or spammy content. Plan what content you believe your customer or your visitors wants from your site (forums, blog,).

Build up a rapport with your audience. Don't spam them or they will lose interest in what you are saying. Get involved with you audience. Have a voice in your discussions, reply to blog comments and ask for feedback from your audience as well.

Quality content will do the marketing for you by attracting people to it. Provide easy access to social media services on your website where your readers can share your content with their friends and social media groups. When followers enjoy something they have seen or read, they like to share it with their friends. This is the true power of social media and the essence of viral marketing.

There are many diverse content creation methods you can use to engage your audience. Create a distribution network of videos, white papers, eBooks, and podcasts in a multi-tiered approach when developing your marketing strategy.

There is a good way and a bad way to link to resources and content on social media sites. People do not like to feel forced to read content. You will have more success by sharing a cool link from your site (or someone else's) and trying to open a conversation on it. When linking content back to your website, be sure to distribute links between your home page and internal pages. Typically hundreds of links pointing to your home page looks suspicious to Google.

"Deep Links" or links pointing to internal pages on your website (or blog) help to give it authority and depth. It is not natural (in the Google bots eyes) to have hundreds of links pointing to your home page, and very little pointing to your internal pages. Social media is all about micro-topical discussions. Consider how you can introduce internal sections

or pages of your website into these conversations. You want to become a valuable resource in your market niche. One effective way to accomplish this is to link to domains

that you do not own. These should be domains that you have no affiliations with.

Develop a blog or forum for your site that engages the public and elicits a response or gets their attention and feedback. You should blog 2-3 times to per week about new

products and services, industry news, trade shows, or promotions.

Be consistent with your overall blogging objective in mind and post in regular intervals. Being consistent with your message allows for both relevance and theming with are

important for building trust and authority with Google (or Bing, or Yahoo)

Polls, quizzes and reviews are another great way to engage your viewers. Have a forum where people can discuss your products or services and where they can ask questions. This will provide good public interaction, increase the time spent on site and provide

some great relevant content for your site.

Work closely with your SEO specialist and site designer to come up with an effective social media marketing strategy. One of the most common questions asked is: "What

Social sites should I publish to?" The answer is: "as many as possible". Popular social sites include Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

The bottom line is that you want to have a clear objective, be a valuable resource, and use the social media services in the ways they intend to be used. Anything else will get you filtered out, unfollowed, banned or blacklisted… and ultimately be a complete waste of

your time.

Creating a successful website/blog requires time for research, planning, marketing and strategizing. It is imperative that you find a designer you can work and communicate well with. Hire a company that specializes in Social Media marketing. Using these strategies

in conjunction with a fully optimized site design and an implementation strategy will help ensure the success of your new website/blog.

Social Media/Business Marketing Management Team

Lisa & Teddy Simpkins

Contact Us:L&T Social Media Managers