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Social Media Marketing, eh? Let's See What's in Our Bag o' Goodies.
Posted by randfish on Tue (8/29/06) at 04:17 PM Social Media
Danny's hoping that I'll post something on social media optimization marketing and it's hard to let a soon-to-be-unemployed man down (too soon?). Thus, I give you my version of an introduction to the social media space - what's important, what's worth your time and how to go about working the SMO SMM angle.
What Can You do with SMO SMM?
- Create pages that provide links back to your site (for both traffic and link popularity)
- Create pages that will rank well in the search engines for low-moderately competitive terms/phrases
- Build profiles on sites that can attract links, attention and contacts from other members
- Contribute to the growth and value of social media sites
What are the Best Strategies?
To my mind, you first need to outline your goals - oftentimes, many of the purposes above will overlap, but you should still focus clearly on what you want to achieve. For many folks, SMM is about pushing a negative link out of the top 10-20 results at the search engines. For others, it's about getting free, low-hassle backlinks. For many of our clients, visibility itself is the achievement - getting recognized as a company/person who's consistently participating in the social media world has great benefits. Since the first two goals are fairly obvious, I'll put a little effort into explaining the visibility argument.
When you have a profile that people recognize on sites like Reddit, Digg, Wikipedia or in a set of industry blogs, you have a significant ability to influence discussion, create content and push visibility for links. My post on Digg's top users could easily describe Newsvine or Wikipedia. Once you've built up a profile that people recognize as a valuable source for information, you become more powerful in that community. Your bookmarks/articles/submissions/etc take on a greater value than the anonymous contributions of newbies. This mirrors the social structure of many web forums - big voices carry greater weight.
The ultimate goal of this visibility is to have the power to influence - once you have a voice, marketing becomes a soft-sell, rather than a hard one. Your SMM strategy may be to build links, rank a page in the engines or simply to generate leads, and all can be better accomplished with a prominent profile.
Assuming you have your goals defined, you'll need to know where to go to start profile-building, content creating and spamming on the square.
Where to Go SMMing?
The best sites for SMMing (Social Media Marketing) are those that have achieved popularity enough to attract visitors, links and search engine rankings. I'll give a rundown of the ones I believe are valuable to participate in. I've ordered these from most valuable to participate in to least valuable (although there are hundreds below the 25 I've listed and probably some that belong on here that I've forgotten).
1. Digg
2. Del.icio.us
3. Wikipedia
4. Flickr
5. Reddit
6. Newsvine
7. StumbleUpon
8. Technorati
9. MySpace
10. Yahoo! Answers
11. Ma.gnolia
12. Yahoo! 360
13. LinkedIn
14. Squidoo
15. Wikihow
16. Ning
17. Frappr
18. Furl
19. Wetpaint
20. 43 Things
21. Shoutwire
22. Shadows
23. YourElevatorPitch
24. Jotspot
25. BlinkList
Each of these sites have different foci, unique benefits and demand attention to detail and a sub-strategy that considers the quirks and peculiarities of the userbase. For example, making it to the top of Reddit with a politically focused article is far easier than doing so at Digg (or Del.icio.us/popular). Experience is the best way to learn, so start browsing and playing. The only rule I'd apply to SMMing is to look before you leap. Don't just start spamming or submitting content to these sites without getting a good grasp on what's getting popular and receiving attention on them. There's nothing worse than getting banned from a small-time social media site because you spammed 'em, only to find out that site is the next Slashdot.
Good luck to all you SMMers out there. A year from now, the list and the tactics will surely be far different from what they are now.
Got any SMMing strategies of your own to share?
UPDATE: I changed the name to SMM - I think it's a far better decsriptive (thnx, Matt). I've also added Wikihow to the list, as I see their content having the ability to achieve great popularity and you can add external links to relevant sites.
UPDATE 2: Jane has written a brilliant piece outlining 30 unique sites worthy of targeting for social media marketing. For anyone interested in the subject, this is a must-read.
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EGOL EGOL Premium Member
Tue (8/29/06) at 05:23 PM
This strategy probably has the greatest impact on your link juice when your site is just getting started. Once you have an established site with tens of thousands of links the time involved in maintaining your presence / status at the social sites would probably better spent creating great content on your own sites.
If you are going to do this a good approach might be to marry the two activities so that your research, writing and energy works for the benefit of the community site and your own.
I think that this strategy is cousin to being an active forum member for profile and signature links? No? These are often abused by the creation of sockpuppet / inactive member accounts with names that will post at the top of alphabetical member listings.
http://forums.seochat.com/memberlist.php
Another variant is the "about me" pages for Ebay members (and other member "communities" that are more biz than social). There you are allowed to post links to your own site. These show in my yahoo backlinks. Edited by EGOL on Tue (8/29/06) at 05:24 PM
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Jarrod Hunt Jarrod Hunt Premium Member
Tue (8/29/06) at 06:11 PM
Great Stuff,
Any companies out there offering outsourced SMO services?
This is a product we would love to offer to our clients, and use for ourselves.
We are currently SMO'ing some of our new sites, but we are far from experts at it.
Jarrod Edited by Jarrod Hunt on Tue (8/29/06) at 06:14 PM
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Jason Weaver Jason Weaver
Sun (9/17/06) at 01:59 PM
Hey Jarrod. We offer SMM services. We do it for clients such as Miller, Rayovac, Wrigely. Check us out: http://www.swayonline.com
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Sally Falkow Sally Falkow
Tue (9/26/06) at 08:08 AM
Jarrod, We offer Social Media Marketing as a part of our SEO PR services. Check our site
Sally Edited by Sally Falkow on Tue (9/26/06) at 08:10 AM
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EmergenceMedia EmergenceMedia
Tue (8/29/06) at 06:46 PM
Rand, nice to see you contribute on this. There is a NewPR wiki article on the 5 folks who followed Rohit on his SMO post back in mid-August, including a SMO link to yours truely.
I'm still trying to work with how SMO would fits into the online marketing world and how to best communicate the idea. Maybe we can chat about this on Wednesday? ;) Edited by EmergenceMedia on Tue (8/29/06) at 06:56 PM
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randfish randfish
Tue (8/29/06) at 06:56 PM
Daniel - absolutely. I think EGOL's comments about the links themselves being valuable at the start of a campaign are very true, but for more established properties, there's still a lot of weight in building the branding, visibility and potential connections through SMO.
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Jarrod Hunt Jarrod Hunt
Tue (8/29/06) at 08:43 PM
SMO is great for anyone. Absolutly!!
Variety in link building is one of the things I preach the most. Whether your site is old or new, getting some new links from new sources is always a good thing.
Plus, we all know how awesome links coming from Community/Social Bookmarketing/Social news/Social Networking sites can be.
There is definitly a shift in the search engines towards giving those kinds of links more weight. I believe it was Matt that said that… (Can't remember the post)
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Aaron Pratt Aaron Pratt
Tue (8/29/06) at 07:40 PM
Looks like you have already been beaten out of the gate, is that Lee Odden I see on that Rohit list Rand, you guys are funny but interesting. ;)
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randfish randfish
Tue (8/29/06) at 08:05 PM
Sorry Aaron, you've completely lost me…??
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Aaron Pratt Aaron Pratt
Tue (8/29/06) at 08:43 PM
It's ok I sometimes lose myself. :)
Let me mix up another verse.
If new buzzwords were real estate those who define them first would rank within the engines higher. Lee Odden is an example of an SEO who rushes to blog every keyword phrase that is related to "internet marketing" and has good success in ranking for those phrases in Google, Yahoo and MSN.
I am not saying this is what you do Rand; I was just getting a kick out of the creation of buzzwords within the marketing community as a whole. SMO is a buzzword and is not yet fully defined.
If you look at who contributed to that cool Rohit list you will find a few of those who are aware of the value of viral buzzword creation, come on Rand, you almost own Web 2.0 right, right?
Excuse me, I am lacking sleep…
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Jarrod Hunt Jarrod Hunt
Tue (8/29/06) at 08:47 PM
Rand "buzz word maker/spreader" Fishkin…
I would love to see a post about all the biggest Internet buzz words over the past year.
I think I could digg that article!
P.S. I think Rand's ultimate goal is to be a buzzword himself. I can see someday someone saying "Dude, you just pulled off a "Rand Fishkin". What exactly that would mean I dont know…..
Edited by Jarrod Hunt on Tue (8/29/06) at 08:49 PM
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randfish randfish
Tue (8/29/06) at 08:48 PM
Honestly, though - is that the sort of thing we should be celebrating?
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Jarrod Hunt Jarrod Hunt
Tue (8/29/06) at 08:54 PM
Absolutly! Without buzzwords we would end up with a bunch of extremely long run on sentences :)
I.E.
"Hey man, did you see that new Ajax Driven, CSS/XHTML, API Backend, Web Services Oriented, Friggen Cool Website with lots of whitespace and BIG Article Titles and even bigger Logos? " :D lol
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toprank toprank
Fri (9/1/06) at 01:04 PM
I am not so sure I agree with your presumption Aaron, about "rushing" to blog phrases.
I write about the things we do at our agency: search engine, press release and blog optimization. It's natural to include those phrases in blog posts and as a result, rank well for them.
Social media is an appropriate and relevant marketing topic and worth writing about as well. Many blogs including this one have written about SMO/SMM long before Rohit's post. He just did a great job at helping to define the idea and bloggers have responded to it.
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toprank toprank
Fri (9/1/06) at 12:49 PM
I'm late to this party and also a bit lost in your comment Aaron.
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Aaron Pratt Aaron Pratt
Tue (8/29/06) at 08:52 PM
That is a very good question Rand.
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Oatmeal Oatmeal Premium Member
Tue (8/29/06) at 09:16 PM
Why call it "social media optimization" and not "social media marketing?" It seems more like a play off of SEO, which isn't a particularly good name for our industry.
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Jarrod Hunt Jarrod Hunt
Tue (8/29/06) at 09:25 PM
hmm,
SMO versus SMM
SMM sorta sounds like S&M though, if you say it quick enough. Don't want people to get the wrong idea :)
Seriously though Social Media Marketing does have a certain ring to it.
I like Social Media Link Development for describing the link building side.
SMELD
The acronym does'nt really sound that great. It kinda stinks actually :)
Dam, sorry, I'm having a hard time being serious today.
Good times.
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EmergenceMedia EmergenceMedia
Tue (8/29/06) at 09:40 PM
While I love Rohit for starting the trend, I do agree with Matt (Oatmeal) that SMM makes more sense though SMO is easier to pronounce.
One of my big questions on SMO is how is it different from:
- Word of Mouth Marketing
- Viral Campaigns
- Linkbaiting
Is it a fancier word for linkbaiting?
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djseamus djseamus
Sun (3/25/07) at 05:45 AM
What's wrong with S&M? LOL.
Seriously(sorta), I've been reading this with much interest, and quite a few chuckles, being new to to SMM myself.
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Cameron Olthuis Cameron Olthuis
Tue (8/29/06) at 09:52 PM
I think it's a fancier word for marketing 2.0, which isn't all that great of a buzzword to begin with.
When I think of SMO I don't really think of linkbaiting (although it is a great added benefit). Instead, I think of it as optimizing your site/campaign to bring traffic from social media sites. I think buzz marketing fits in there, but it is much more than that.
BTW Matt, I like the sound of Social Media Marketing better, just not so sure about SMM.
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randfish randfish
Tue (8/29/06) at 09:56 PM
Cameron - I'd agree that linkbaiting doesn't fit into SMO or SMM. And I also agree with Matt - SMM, while an awful acronym, is better terminology.
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Matt McGee Matt McGee
Tue (8/29/06) at 10:40 PM
My impression of Digg and, to a lesser degree, del.icio.us, is that you would almost need to spend your entire day searching for stories/links to submit (i.e., add to your profile) in order to build up the visibility to have your profile become an authoritative voice. Digg, in particular, seems to be a "boys club" of sorts where there's already a power clique in place and good luck trying to break into it.
So, to me, something like Flickr is much more practical. I started an "Alternative SEM" section of my blog a couple months ago, and it began with an article about using Flickr as a marketing tool. With Flickr being divided into so many (think thousands) small, topic-oriented communities, I think it's much easier for the typical business to be able to build a successful user profile there. Rebecca and Matt may remember me sharing a half-dozen examples at SES of Flickr communities that would be appropriate places for a business owner to market by actively joining the community.
I'll grant you that Flickr will never hold a candle to the power of having a story on the front page of Digg, but that's such a pipe dream for all but the best linkbaiters (see Fishkin, Rand) :-), that sites like Flickr seem to me like a much more practical tool for SMM/SMO.
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tom6a tom6a Premium Member
Wed (8/30/06) at 04:25 AM
I just submitted this to Digg:
http://digg.com/tech_news/Top_24_Social_Media…
One thing I like about the Digg crowd is that you can always count on some candid criticism of your work. I guess that's what I don't like about Digg too. Anyway, hopefully this will get enough diggs and it will generate a good discussion over there as well.
Nice post Rand. Thanks.
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Ben Wilks Ben Wilks
Wed (8/30/06) at 04:51 AM
Huge space. Time to get in on the ground floor. The amount of qualified traffic you can drive to a page is enormous. Like some of GrayWolf's posts where by the time he's linked up all the SMO's the whole front page is near full.
Now that's qualifing and upselling traffic at it's best. Not to mention the amount of new access points for people to find to your webpage.
Oppourtunities are enormous. Rep management 101 should be taught in every business (online or not) who want to maintain their good name.
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Braveheart Braveheart
Wed (8/30/06) at 07:31 AM
One thing that makes SMO different from SEO is that all the focus is not on your main URL. For SEO we talk all about driving traffic and generating links to www.ourdomain.com. This URL is the focus of all out attention.
But if you are reaching into the social networks, it is all about the address that you have there. For example there is a MySpace account for John Kerry (http://www.myspace.com/johnkerry).Unfortunately for the junior senator from Massachusetts, this is not an official Kerry for President site. Instead it is a spoof of his record. But for many 18-24 year olds who spend all their time on social networks like MySpace and not on the regular web, this Kerry MySpace site might well be the only contact they have the Kerry for President Campaign.
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EmergenceMedia EmergenceMedia
Wed (8/30/06) at 10:17 AM
Braveheart, the idea of reaching out into the social networks as part SMO would be a bit confusion for clients. I can imagine them asking "What's the difference between that and what my viral/word-of-mouth team are doing?"
SMO seems like a difference in degree rather than in kind. Edited by EmergenceMedia on Wed (8/30/06) at 10:17 AM
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Braveheart Braveheart
Thu (8/31/06) at 01:17 PM
Good question Daniel. It appears to me that SMO/SMM is the overall strategy that you have and that viral/word-of-mouth are tactics that you would employ as part of that strategy
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Megan Megan
Wed (8/30/06) at 07:43 AM
I think this can be a slippery slope because it is really tempting to spam the social networks. And some of them are much more tolerant of self submissions than others. Technocrati,for example, invites you to submit your blog. On Digg, though, links will often get dugg down as spam if they're submitted by the site owner. It's also sometimes very obvious that some users are just there to promote themselves. That happens on forums all the time too. Nobody wants to be friends with those people.
The other day I found a list of 30 Social Bookmarks 'Add to' footer links for blogs - good way to encourage your visitors to help you out without spamming those sites. Of course, you wouldn't want to put 30 of those on every blog post!
There are lots of more "Web 1.0" opportunities too, like forums, amazon lists and reviews, other reviews sites, things like that. Profile building is a lot of work so I think you need to carefully identify which opportunities will work best for your business.