| LED Digest 2584: Social Media Marketing How-To |
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The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" Data > Information > Knowledge > Wisdom http://www.WillMaster.com/LED : the LED's Key Sponsor Will Bontrager Builds Powerful Software for your Website http://www.SEOToolSet.com/training/ : the LED's Premier Sponsor Bruce Clay's Search Engine Optimization Training & Certification ================================================== Guest Moderator: Published by: Nathan Holley LED Digest nate, led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com .............................................. February 6, 2008 Issue no. 2584 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ==== CONTINUING ================= <Guest Moderator> --== Social Media is Dull ==-- ~ Steve Pronger "How do you 'use' them Nathan?" <Guest Moderator> "I won't tell you, you'll have to figure it out, but here's a summary..." ~ Scott Walker "...they aren't my clients and they aren't my clients' customers." <Guest Moderator> "...you can use these sites to build backlinks, which can help your site rank..." --== Clients & Professionalism ==-- ~ Robert Joy "I really enjoy clients that give us a free reign, but at the same time some direction..." ~ Grant Crowell "I've even had one client swear at me and call me every name in the book..." ~ Peter D'Aprix "...there is no one response to this topic..." ======== CONTINUING =============================== <Guest Moderator> This is fun. I'm probably getting carried away here, but I'm just responding to all the comments on social media directly. That cool with you? Be sure to give me feedback about this whole thing, thanks. On with the program! Nathan Holley -------------------- From: Steve Pronger Subject: Social media > Personally, I was tired of [social media] > long ago. I still use some social sites for > marketing purposes. - Nathan Holley, LED 2583 - http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1998/190/ How do you "use" them Nathan? Do you jump in and say "Hey guys, I'm a marketer, and I'm here to sell you something". If you do, you'll be about as welcome as the telemarketer who rings you in the middle of dinner. Or do you say "Hey guys, thanks for letting me join YOUR community. I'm here to contribute and learn. If you follow my participation in this community - content submission (not just mine), comments, messages, voting etc you'll start to see me as an expert in a particular field. Your go-to guy. And having accepted me as a trusted advisor in this particular field you'll look a bit deeper into my profile and discover that I just happen to sell a product or provide a service which can help you." I'm no expert on social media. I'm still a rookie and I've made PLENTY of mistakes, as do most "marketers". Even the big name Web marketing "gurus" are getting this wrong. And that's because we approach this as marketers and SEOs. The social communities see us coming a mile off. But, get it right and the benefits are real. I'm starting to see tangible results. Links, rankings, traffic. It works. > Will social media sort of die out, at least > a bit, after the hype wears off? Nope, not a chance. Hype? Rupert Murdoch didn't fork out $580 Million to buy MySpace because of hype. Social media and Web 2.0 is a fundamental change in the way your potential customers spend their time online. According to the Online Publishers Association (Feb 2007) they spend only 5% of their time using search engines. Download a copy of Rich Schefren's Attention Age Doctrine Vol 2. Makes for interesting reading. Steve Pronger http://www.stevepronger.com <Guest Moderator> Steve, thanks for your comments. I sense you don't have much experience using social sites - not meant as derogatory at all - you stated yourself that you're not an expert in the space. I've been using sites like Digg since early 2006, not as long as some but long enough to build up very powerful profiles. And I use them every day. When I stated that I use social sites for marketing, I meant exactly what I said. I use social media sites for marketing. I don't use them for fun, or to find news, or to make friends. I use them for marketing. But how, you ask? Good question. I won't tell you, you'll have to figure it out, but here's a summary: 1. Approach social media like you approach a party: attend to join the conversation and add value. Don't look like a drunk loser and don't post your own stuff (until you earn the right). 2. Build your profiles through consistent use of the sites: submitting content, commenting, voting, and sending private messages. 3. Keep a low profile about what you do for a living. I'm an affiliate marketer, I do it for myself professionally, I don't have a firm or even a site that anyone knows about. You can bet I don't advertise my site's on my profile pages - instead I advertise my other profiles. That's key. 4. Learn the ropes. Each site has its own flavour and style. After a time, you'll learn what types of content works where and why. 5. Build content for the sites. See #4 and then create custom content that's just for the sites you're targeting. 6. Keep it non-commercial. The content you promote needs to be valuable and unique, and non-commercial. Blogs are a popular format, but Digg especially dislikes marketing blogs, anything to do with SEO, or lots of ad supported sites. Stay as .org as you can in terms of presentation. 7. Track progress. Develop a set of metrics you can apply to social media, and track your marketing progress. If you don't, it's all just a big guess. There, I don't use social sites for fun, because they're all a giant waste of time (except Delicious). And I don't use social sites to make friends. I use them to market - I play the game according to the rules and I benefit from the traffic and backlinks. Don't ask me to give you a digg or a stumble, I won't, and you won't ever know my profile IDs. But you'll see me on the frontpage of Digg all the time - heck I was just there on Monday!! -Nathan Holley ========= Begin Sponsor Message ========= One Way Links to your Site, by the Hundreds? Yes! Get Traffic and Link Popularity to Your Site from Legitimate, General Interest Web Directories. DomainDrivers Makes It Hassle-Free. Details Here: http://www.domaindrivers.com/directory-submissions.html ========== End Sponsor Message ========== -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Scott Walker Subject: Social Media Goes Dull Nathan, I agree about social media sites. Great for people who have a lot of time on their hands. But, they aren't my clients and they aren't my clients' customers. So, what's the purpose behind commenting on irrelevant articles? Also, we're now reading that some social media sites are (or will) no longer allow html style links in comments. That almost totally eliminates any business purpose behind reading and commenting on social media sites. Scott Walker www.PowerWebWriter.com <Guest Moderator> Scott, thanks for the comments here. You're right - this stuff takes a lot of time. That's why the prime demographic of Digg, etc are young males age 22-35 - expendable time in spades. I think you're missing something here though - you said they aren't your clients or their customers, right? That may be true (I don't know what you do) but you can use these sites to build backlinks, which in turn can help your site rank in natural search results. Also, you may be confusing the links in comments thing with nofollow. Nofollow is liberally applied all over the web, including social sites, to help deal w/ spam. All social sites allow html everywhere pretty much, and many allow uncondomed links (that's followed links that pass juice). Digg for example has clean links in comments, but be careful about putting one in - you may end up with angry phone calls or poop in the mail if you spam comments (I'm being serious). Nathan -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Robert Joy Subject: Professionalism Gee, this sometimes comes up and it really is a hard shout. We've adapted a stance, attitude, policy, that we do try and guide the client, but if they really, really want a awful design we go ahead and do it bit no way does our name go on the bottom. We actually got asked by a client why we didn't put our name on his website and we said, because your website is to your liking and design and it does not come under what we want to be associated with. Beauty is in the eye of the beholden, (or something like that). Sure we've been asked to do websites that contravene the law and we refuse, as we consider our time and don't want to get involved in any law suit, or the alphabets. We try and come up with a design that the client wants, initially we offer suggestions as many really do not know what they want and work from there on. I really enjoy clients that give us a free reign, but at the same time give us some direction and general concept. Robert Joy alegriawebdesign.com -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Grant Crowell Subject: Professionalism > As a professional, we have the obligation > to tell our clients when they wish to do > something that is not right. - Maty Matyszak > I think there comes a time when we have to > say, "Sorry, I'm not willing to take your > money. - Michael Linehan [both from issue #2582: http://www.led-digest.com/content/view/1997/190/] Actually, if they've come to me and have a work agreement for me to provide them with consulting, of course I'll take their money. If I determine that they're going down the wrong road and should stop, they're getting they're money's worth because I'm stopping them from a bad investment. I've had to do that with a few clients over the years, telling them what they don't want to hear (which I'm in a much better position to do when I insist starting with consulting rather than going right into development). I've even had one client swear at me and call me every name in the book, but after having time to cool off, came back to me for assistance with a different business venture using the budget I had saved them from spending. You see, bad news can end up being the best advice you can give a client in the long-term for their own success. I myself am an example of that. I took the better part of a year off to do a documentary film on free speech and academic freedom controversies. I hired a director who had several documentaries under his belt (one which got two thumbs up from Ebert and Roeper) as my consultant. When I showed him my pilot piece, his response to me was, I think you're f***d. Sure I was resentful at first, angry with him, even. I felt there was something he wasn't telling me, that he could have been a better help, giving me something that would make it work, which is what I expected. But I got over it. I stopped the project cold turkey, learned an incredible amount I was able to carry over into my current career a new media (video/audio) search marketing and usability analyst, writing regular articles for major search marketing publications on a regular basis about video marketing, producing and optimizing video for a number of clients, and launching a podcast show on video production and marketing tips later this month. If I had continued on the path of the documentary I initially set out to do, I wouldn't have had time for any of that, nor anywhere near the success. Now that doesn't mean I ever force a client to see a contract to the end. That's why I put in retainer amounts at certain stop-points in a larger consulting or development project, so we can see if our findings are positive and we should continue on as planned, or recommend something else to the client. It's true, some clients don't want to hear that they're wrong. They just want you to "make it right." But there will always be situations when the concept, product, or execution is so bad that it's unsalvageable in its current form. My responsibility is to tell it to them straight as early as possible, just like I had done with me. If I think it's far more likely that they will fail with their current marketing plan then succeed, I will tell them so, then recommend to them better strategies, which could even require them undertaking a new business model. Just keep in mind, when you find your job may require you bearing bad news, that can turn into the best advice you can give to make your client successful in a way they never thought of until they came to you. Grant Crowell http://www.grantasticdesigns.com ========= Begin Sponsor Message ========= Latest addition => Spam Resistant PHP Form WebSite's Secret Members area access to a collection of Will Bontrager's handy web tools. http://www.willmaster.com/AreaSecret ========== End Sponsor Message ========== -------- new post - same topic -------- [Peter's post below is very long (and also very good), so I split it up into 3 parts. Part 1 today and the rest to follow! - Nate] ------------------- From: Peter D'Aprix Subject: Professionalism Professionalism - Part 1 of 3 I can't help but feel there is no one response to this topic since so much depends on both the skill set of the designer and that of the client involved. A basic designer is trained to make, hopefully, a functioning web site. The "design" in this case is the programming of the site. Then there is the web designer whose skillsare based in graphic design and add to it the ability to program a site that functions in a mechanical sense. There is no reason to assume that either of these different levels of skill sets has any training in advertising, branding, copy writing, marketing, SEO, web marketing, site promotion, PR or anything else that would qualify them to make decisions or suggestions on what the site should be for their clients. They are there to follow the project specs put forth by the client. If the client hasn't a clue, or if the client has no experience in the difference between web communications and traditional business marketing, that is not the designer's fault. But it is their job to do what they are being paid to do. If they don't want to follow the dictates of their clients, then they are free to turn down the job or refer the client to another designer or design/marketing group who can handle all the skills necessary. But if the client, conversely, chooses to disregard the input of the designer, then the success of failure of the site, not matter what it looks like, is hardly the fault of the designer. And lets face it, there are many skills necessary today to make a site perform and produce a decent ROI. Since it takes SEO to form the search engine "friendliness" of a site, web marketing to position the site, site promotion to get the site noticed, graphic design that conveys both the message of the client's branding strategy, the user interface that allows the visitor as well as the search engine to easily move through the site and find the information they are looking for, copy writing to make the content easy to read, as short as possible and convey the required content to the visitor and simultaneously to the search engines for indexing, and last but no mean least, the coder/programmer who can make the site work for the visitor as quickly as possible and make the site as indexable as easily as possible with clean, minimal amount of code. No mean feat for a single individual who has a hard enough time just keeping up to date with a couple skill sets not to mention all of them. As we have heard a lot lately, SEO, graphic design, site navigation architecture, content, site promotion etc. really all have to be done simultaneously since each relies on the other and like a deck of cards, need to be interleafed. We all need to be working hand in hand with an open mind to each others possibilities and limitations, not arguing who is most important or relevant. All those specialties are important. So where does that leave the rugged individualist working out of his studio? Seems his days are a bit numbered. Where does that leave clients who may be excellent at running their businesses on a playing field they know and own, but may well not understand that the space in which web sites work may use many of the same tools using the same names, but that are different in meaning, implementation and function. I spend a lot of time redefining many names and definitions and functions for my clients. To them, their competition are the other guys who are making a similar product. On the web, it may well be a company who has more to spend on the same key words and have a bigger budget for PPC ads. but makes a significantly different product in the real world. This is really hard for them to wrap their minds around especially since everyone is more inundated with multi-tasking than ever before and so many who have no marketing training are trying to work in this field since budget cuts have deleted their marketing people and they just don't have the time to listen to the explanations or absorb them and the implications even if they do. Given all that, and in answer to the post, I think everyone has to handle this in a way that best suits them and matches their skill sets. For myself, I always try to be constructive in the discussion even if I fail. Certainly I have had clients with whom our communications seem to pass each other in the night without so much as a common idea or touch point. Peter D'Aprix - Visual Communications http://peterdaprix.com (c) Copyright 1995-2008 Orange Wheel, LLC. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- |
