Archive for June, 2009

MySpace and CitySearch recently made big waves in the Local Search and Social Media community with the announcement of MySpace Local. The two companies agreed to a revenue share but no details were released as to what percentages each company would receive. MySpace quickly stressed that this was a completely new revenue source for the company and was not only seen as great opportunity for both companies, but one of the few advantages MySpace would have over rising competitor Facebook.

The more connected your business’ social pages are (by customers, friends, vendors, etc.) the better your chances are to be found by a potential customer. These pages are also indexed by Google and can definitely help drive traffic to your social pages and website.

A business can create a page for their business and post events and offers and the friends/fans of that business will get an update.  Without spending astronomical advertising figures, a business has great potential to bring their brand to mind repeatedly.

Local business’ are appealing to the local community

There are oodles of people online who need your services.  These people will never ever consult a phone book, Google is their information resource.  The more times they see your local business’ name while they are online, the more likely they’ll recall that same business if asked “Do you know of a business that does ___________?” Everyone wants that valuable Word of Mouth advertising.

This becomes a delivery vehicle for the service industry which includes: landscapers, plumbers, AC repairmen, roofers and any other type of service contractor. In reality, these type of business’ are very light on marketing and are even less knowledgeable about Internet marketing.  However, the ones that do a little at a time to show where they are and what they are up to will get their hands on a new sector of business.

Being Passively Active on Facebook or MySpace

If you are bringing your business online in the example of a MySpace/Facebook page.  Here are some tips that will help generate some online recognition.

1. Invite your employees to become friends/fans of your business – You can search to see who has listed themselves as your employee.  Let them know of the companies page.

2. Be active in the community – The things you contribute to in your town should be listed as an event on your page.

3. Link to other sites – If you are sponsoring an organization, talk about it and link to the organization’s website and put their contact information on your pages as well. Remember linking out to trustworthy sites helps establish an authority for your own site.

4. Invite people to review your business – “Search for us on Facebook” is an easy line to incorporate into your current marketing efforts.  It will speak to those who are on there already.

5.  Contribute daily – If you can, post something useful, insightful or comment on others social platforms.  Keep your Brand out there and eventually you will see more people visit your page. Any type of social media marketing effort will take time to build momentum. It is NOT an overnight success story. No matter how many times that ShamWow guy says it is. Trust me on this.

There is a lot a business can do locally without the expense of TV or radio ads.

How it fits with Search Engine Optimization

Social Media Marketing is a relative of SEO, but it is still not pure SEO.  I would miss the mark in giving you this information without telling you how it helps with your SEO efforts.  First off, adding your business to a facebook page will help bring another avenue of your name to the Search Engine Results Page (SERP).  Anytime you can bring another site talking about you and point to you, it’s a blessing in your SEO efforts.

Of course what’s the point of blogging about this unless I had a solution for you. So here goes:

How to Get Local Traffic From Your Pages

1. Set up a blog on your website. Even if you hate ‘bloggers’ it’s time to face facts. Blogging is sharing, and the more people that share your information, the better your bottom line will be. Write about the keywords you want to rank for, also include local information in the title as much as possible. Don’t have a clue on what or how to write a blog? You can hire a ghost writer for cheap. Link these posts to your facebook page via Simply RSS application. Everytime you post a blog, it will echo in facebook, and across all your friends on facebook as well.

2. Network your social network pages up the wazoo. The more profile pages that link to your page the more likely your page is to get noticed.

3. Join popular groups, have stimulating dialogs and conversations with the community. Try not to be boring by contributing more than just an advertising message. I read somewhere that only 20-30% of your social media participation should be about pushing your own product. Help others when you can. Spread other non-competing companies message if they have a great product that people should know about.

If you have any more ideas I would love to hear and share them.