Social Media « Ferguson SEO Consulting

Keep Your Customers Atwitter With These Social Media Marketing Tips

No other advertising option offers the possibilities and freedoms of social media marketing. Your customization choices are only limited by the technology of the time, and you should always keep ahead of the curve. This article will focus on how to build a unique marketing plan that helps you stand out from the competition and create a name within your niche.

Relax, it is just an online conversation. Email used to scare the pants off of companies who did not understand the good, the bad, and the ugly of the whole thing. Now it is the go-to communication channel. Social media is the new channel, and all you need to do is sit down and talk to your customers. It is what they want and what you need.

Whatever your choice is for social media marketing, make sure that you use correct grammar. Meanwhile it is tempting to use abbreviations such as LOL or LMAO, remember that you are trying to come across as a professional who knows a lot about his or her company. Do your best to spell everything correctly and use punctuation where it is needed.

Invite everyone you know to your page when using social media marketing. Even if these people do not have a need or interest in your business, having them become aware of your business and having the ability to share it with others at the click of the mouse could mean your next big deal.

Respond with care to tweets that contain rude or hateful messages. Everything you tweet is a reflection of your business. It may be tempting to shoot back a sarcastic tweet but, that will harm you in the long run. Remain professional and calm when you respond. Remember, the whole world has access to what you tweet.

Find out about the different tools associated with social networks. They will help you find your niche, post content and have access to your accounts faster. You could use tools like ReFollow if you have a Twitter account or toolbars offered by social networks in order to always have access to your notifications.

It is important that the consumers spot your differences from older competition, or they will often go with the more established name. You can stand out from the rest by putting your own personal touches on the tips and techniques listed in the paragraphs above. If you follow those tips and your product supports your claims, it will help build a company you can be proud of.

Online schooling in marketing via Guide to Online Schools is an option if you want to educate yourself more about these things.

The Best Five Blog Guidelines

I’ve been posting a blog for several years now and hopefully I’ve learned a handful of points that everyone might be able to find valuable.

1 – Realize Your own Area of interest

This is certainly the essential concept I attempt to stick to. Realize your area of interest. Publications are usually divided up into numerous genres – sports, digital design, women’s interest, men’s interest, children’s, puzzlers and so on. Your own weblog should be no different. If you do not have a coherent blog identity subsequently your audience will end up being slightly confused if they have navigated to your blog on a movie you have reviewed only to come across you then talking about your car. Private weblogs tend to be exempt from this because they’re much more like journals. Nevertheless I highly suggest picking a topic you are interested in and adhering to it. You may find that your web log can pick up a whole lot of page views with a great deal of keywords and phrases within the same topic as soon as it gets indexed by Google as well as different search engines.

2 – Show Your Personality

One thing which a excellent article writer does is to stand out from the masses. Being able to demonstrate your individuality throughout what you create is very important and will keep people coming back to your web log (naturally it might also frustrate them but you are unable to win over everybody). To do this is difficult, because we’re often used to reading quite straight and impartial writing in news. However, everyone likes to express themselves and their personalities. This is exactly why there are many personalized homepages on the net and personalized social network web pages. So never forget to express yourself within your writing – after all the blog is definitely very much a expression on you.

3 – Write Fascinating Posts

This is another important one. Frequently I will find blogs which will be only videos or even photos but with zero text or description. This might sometimes work great if you’re going for a truly visual statement – but it may also end up being difficult to pick up traction simply because people just really don’t wish to devote time trying to figure out the point of your posting. I’ve seen that the more in-depth an article is, the higher chance people will read it and stay around. I have published a bunch of short articles before however they never work as well as lengthier posts due to the fact in the shorter ones, you aren’t supplying something different than what your reader may discover through a media aggregator.

4 – Include Media

This is actually a simple one and it doesn’t always hold true. But if you have at least 1 interesting picture or movie file within your article – it greatly helps your readers understand just what your weblog post is actually going to be about. If you are writing a blog as a personalized journal, once more, that is different.

5 – Interact

This is actually yet another important point. Just like how firms grow via friends and connections, everyone can discover a fantastic improvement to your web traffic if you begin networking around. Leaving comments on other people’s sites, writing to all of them, exchanging links. Even though this may be challenging and you might be frightened of rejection – the majority of writers actually genuinely enjoy getting approached and really like it when they get emails. Plus, trading hyperlinks means that you will get an improved position by Google which may help with your search engine results. You can also join social networks and social bookmarking websites for additional channels of your content and further engage with guests.

In conclusion, the internet facilitates, and actively encourages, reader/author conversation. Most weblog platforms have an option for readers to publish feedback effortlessly opening up routes of conversation unlike traditional print media. It is this particular interaction which I appreciate the most. I’ve gotten to know a good deal of pleasant people by running a blog and without this particular connection I think running a blog would be less interesting.

R.E. Ferguson December 9, 2011 Blogging, Social Bookmarking, Social Media blog tips, blogging guidelines, blogging tips

Facebook for Article Writers – Developing a Social Media Strategy as an Article Writer

The allure of Facebook is undeniable, especially for people with insights or content to share.

With more than 750 million active users, the social networking site is quickly becoming an attractive option for article writers hoping to build business relationships and generate additional website traffic.

But, launching a social networking account for your brand without having a plan or strategy to implement, as well as a way to evaluate your progress, is a big mistake.

Don’t let a lack of planning or a misunderstanding of what Facebook is all about slap you around or you’ll end up like Delores – confused and misunderstanding the power of the technology. Instead, follow these tips for creating a social networking account to extend the reach of your article writing:

Proper Branding – One of the first things you have to decide is how you are going to brand your Facebook page – i.e. are you going to use your name, the name of your company or the name of a specific product? Also, are you only going to use the profile to share professional items or are you going to mix in a combination of personal and professional? You’re better off separating your personal profile, if you have one, and a profile you’re using for promotional purposes.
Do Your Research – Devote set amounts of time to listen to what other people are doing with Facebook. The set amount of time will help keep you focused until you figure out the most memorable strategies for building your brand as an expert. Then, scale back and focus on those powerful strategies.
Making Connections – Make real connections with real people, not bots or spammers. Build your fan base on real people. The bots and spammers don’t add any real value, so focus solely on the real ones.
Manage the Proportion of “Salesy” Messages – Treat social media sites as you would a table full of friends. Listen and contribute when you have something valuable to say. Build the relationship first and then ease into your sales message. That is (and always will be) the best way to acquire long-term customers no matter what form of marketing you’re using.
Engage Others – Join conversations on social media sites and share the same level of great content you do in your articles. If people have questions and you already have an article written on the topic, connect them to that article. If you don’t have an existing article answering the question, consider writing one and sharing it.
Evaluate – Take note of your average article stats before you start using Facebook to promote your articles. Then, as you start implementing your strategy, take another look at those same statistical categories to see what has worked and what needs to be changed.
Share New Articles – You can also use Facebook to share your newly published articles when they come out. It’s a great way to promote the new article and showcase your expertise.

Use these tips to develop a strategy to help you get a higher return on your article writing efforts.

R.E. Ferguson July 8, 2011 Facebook, Social Media, Social Networks facebook, facebook article writing, facebook for article writers

Top 10 Social Bookmarking Sites 2011

What are social bookmarking sites? These are sites that allow users to post their favorite sites, using tags (or keywords) to categorize and organize them; then other users can take these bookmarks and add them to their own collection or share them with even more users. Here are my picks for the top ten social bookkmarking sites on the Web – the sites that consistently deliver some of the best content you’ll want to share, discover, and store.

PR	Description
8	Digg is social bookmarking and social networking gone a little crazy due to the fact that anyone can submit a Digg (site), and then anyone can comment on those same Diggs. For me the most interesting feature of Digg has to actually be the comments on the sites and stories, since the Digg community is not shy about letting folks know how they feel about a particular Digg. Primarily focussed on geeky, technology-type items.
7	del.icio.us is a social bookmarking site that has rapidly taken off even more in popularity since being purchased by Yahoo. Most recently, after being acquired by Yahoo in 2005, was sold off to YouTube founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, who plan to integrate it into a new, enigmatic start-up called Avos. I use del.icio.us probably the most out of all these top picks, particularly to post interesting sites that I’ve found around the Web. I also subscribe to quite a few del.icio.us tags, such as popular and reference, and I get all the sites tagged with these keywords in my RSS reader of choice, Bloglines.
8	Reddit is a social bookmarking Web site that works much like Furl and del.icio.us: you register a username and password, and then start submitting and sharing your bookmarks. Reddit is similar to del.icio.us in that users are encouraged to vote on the links and stories that they feel are deserving of being in the top dog spot: it’s kind of a popularity contest, so to speak.
8	The beauty of StumbleUpon, to my mind: you are able to take advantage of a vast network of dedicated Web searchers who are finding utterly brilliant sites and sharing them with you. I do have to warn you, though – StumbleUpon is an incredibly addicting way to search the Web. I found myself up till 1:30 AM one weekend, blearily clicking the Stumble! Button over and over again, because the quality of the sites are just so amazing; you just keep on coming across stuff that instantly merits a bookmark of your own.
8	Mixx offers up an eclectic mix of all sorts of bookmarkable content; anything from videos to news to popular stories can be found here. Just pick a category and you’ll be able to find lots of stuff that might merit a bookmark of your own. Mixx was recently acquired by UberMedia.
8	Summaries of stories and links to news articles are submitted by Slashdot’s own readers, and each story becomes the topic of a threaded discussion among users. Discussion is moderated by a user-based moderation system. Randomly selected moderators assign points of either -1 or +1 to each comment, based on whether the comment is perceived as either normal, offtopic, insightful, redundant, interesting, or troll (among others).
5	With Clipmarks, you can clip the best parts of web pages. Whether it’s a paragraph, sentence, image or video, you can capture just the pieces you want without having to bookmark the entire page.
8	At Newsvine, you can read stories from established media organizations like the Associated Press as well as individual contributors from all around the world. Placement of stories is determined by a multitude of factors including freshness, popularity, and reputation. Contribution is open to all, and editorial judgement is in the hands of the community.
7	Diigo is one of my newest favorite Web tools. Not only can you use Diigo to save your favorite Web bookmarks, yalso ou can use Diigo to put sticky notes on websites, highlight stuff you like, comment, and more.
6	Faves is a social bookmarking and networking software that installs a single browser button for users to “fave” a webpage, making a link to the page part of their Faves profile. Until October 2007, Faves was called Blue Dot.