7.4. Week 4: Social Search and Participation Marketing

There are two reactions we get when we tell our clients that it's time to think about social search. The B2B clients often become noticeably uncomfortable and try to change the subject, while the B2C clients are likely to want to dive right in. Want to know something funny? In most cases, these reactions hold true even when our B2B and B2C clients have no idea what we actually mean by social search. What we mean, by the way, are those Web 2.0 sites that compile human-fueled factors, such as votes, references, or recommendations to help you find sites. We're happy to tell you that—no matter what kind of site you have—there's probably some social search opportunity for you.

Let's demystify:

This week, you'll stop feeling uncomfortable when someone mentions the Social Web, and you'll also identify a participation plan that fits your website. By Friday, you'll be a fully qualified Web 2.0 ninja.

Your daily assignments for this week are as follows:

Monday: Study Hall: Surf the Social Sites

Tuesday: Create an SMO Feed Reader

Wednesday: "No Comment" Day

Thursday: Find Your Voice

Friday: Letting Others Spread the Love

7.4.1. Monday: Study Hall: Surf the Social Sites

Today you'll take some time to get familiar with the kinds of sites you'll come across on the Social Web.

Social Bookmarking Sites These are sites that allow users to give a virtual "thumbs up" to a web page, which in turn allows others to learn about it. Digg, Reddit, and del.icio.us are popular examples. As an online marketer, your goal on sites like these is to get votes for your content. Is your organization doing something fascinating enough, or does your website offer something so unique or so useful that a rising tide of voters will push your site to the top? The best way to get a quick read on these sites is to look at the most popular entries and then compare it to the slush in the "just added" section. Every site has its own special audience (Digg, for example, is popular with gamers and techies), so observing the successes will give you an idea of what content will be well received. You can contrast that with the no-vote entries, like the business owner who posted a press release about his company's great customer service. This should give you an idea of what kind of content is and isn't rewarded.

Blogs Your blog mission is either to get mentioned or to join in the commenting in away that showcases your smarts and usefulness to your target audience. Niche B2Bs, yes, there is a blog that is at least loosely related to your industry, and yes, your target 4: audience frequents them. Type your top 10 keywords into blogsearch.google.com and see for yourself. B2Cs, even though your keywords are mentioned all over the blog search engines, that doesn't mean that every blog audience has conversion value for you.

Forums The goal for forums is to join in the conversation, become a trusted voice, and keep your organization in that favorable top-of-mind position with your target audience.

Social Networking Sites Not a medium for the time-strapped, the goal for these sites is to make friends and communicate with them on a regular basis. Some examples of social networking sites are MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn. The marketing on these sites is mostly B2C (for example, you can be a MySpace friend with Rock Star Energy Drinks). These sites allow you to search profiles, which is handy for finding and communicating with members who have specific interests. They are excellent for plugging your videos or images or blogging about your activities. Not just for job-seekers or 14-year-olds with a band crush, these sites have plenty of potential for promoting events, causes, and all manner of expert consultants.

Interactive features on social sites tend to provide a head-spinning plethora of possibilities. For example, Digg combines bookmarking, video viewing, "making friends," and commenting. You do not need to be on top of every latest tweak to these sites' service offerings in order to make a difference in your organization. Just get in the habit of having a little study hall session prior to doing any actual interacting! That's a good rule of thumb no matter what social media site you're dealing with.

7.4.2. Tuesday: Create an SMO Feed Reader

Yesterday you found your target audience and maybe your competitors on the Social Web. (Oh, and did you also find your college sweetheart? "Cause we're pretty sure you looked!) Today you're going to create a feed reader so that you have updates from these sites in one convenient place.

A feed reader is a tool that receives updates about your favorite sites, and displays the newest content from these sites in a single page. Some feed readers actually download content so you can read it when you're not online, others require a web connection to view.

One of the easiest feed readers around is iGoogle. Easy to customize and simple to navigate, it's a newbie's dream come true. See Figure 7.5 for an example.

Other feed readers you might like include MyYahoo!, Sage (a browser add-on), Bloglines, and Rojo. These are all designed for use by normal folk, with easy-to-implement setups. Setting up a feed reader in a readily accessible spot (like your Google or Yahoo! home page) will help you stay current with your soon-to-be favorite blogs and social sites. Being greeted every day by your LinkedIn profile or the latest blog postings by your top competitor will go a long way toward keeping you engaged in the Social Web.

7.4.3. Wednesday: "No Comment" Day

Etiquette is so important on the Social Web that we're devoting a whole day to keeping you from making a dope of yourself. The key is to take your time and read through as much as you can before you even think about clicking the Comment button. The penalty of breaking etiquette takes various forms, including being banned, ignored, or ridiculed. The surest path to this pain is to over-market yourself.

Let's say you're marketing your company's product, a foot massager, and you want to promote it on the Social Web. You used your Study Hall wisely on Monday and found the following four potential outlets:

• Foot Pain Forum

• The Gadget Review blog

• Shoeholic Cecile's blog

• Digg Health News

To the uninitiated, it might seem like a good idea to craft a cookie-cutter marketing spiel such as, "Our Toenado massager is the choice for millions of foot-pain sufferers. With patented "heal the heel" technology, this massager will erase your pain. Don't pussyfoot around—come to www.toenado.com to buy now!" Then it might seem reasonable to start a new forum thread with this information, post it as a comment in the blogs, and submit your home page to Digg.

But that would be the wrong approach. The moderators of the Foot Pain Forum will delete your posting, you'll make no friends on the blogs, and Diggers won't know you exist.

Approach each venue with a plan:

• For the Foot Pain Forum, find a few folks who could really use some solid advice, and give it. "Oh, I know what you mean about how hard it is to walk the dog. Soaking in warm water is a great cure for this problem, but I also think you might need to contact a board-certified podiatrist about those jabbing sensations." Make sure your signature contains your company name and URL.

• For Shoeholic Cecile's Blog, you'll need to wait for a good reason to join the conversation. After a few weeks, she may complain about her feet hurting after a night on the dance floor. Then, give some nonpartisan advice about foot massagers, without explicitly mentioning your product. Again, make sure your signature contains your company name and URL.

• For the Gadget Review Blog, it's best to contact the blogger directly and tell them about your product. If it's valuable for their readers, they'll be interested in giving a review of your product.

• For the Digg category, unless you have something to contribute that's unique, interesting, and absolutely newsworthy, you probably shouldn't even bother. Either wait for some real news (Celebrity Says That Foot Massager Cured Her Migraines?), or put some serious effort into writing an article that sounds interesting and unique (Top 10 Reasons to Keep Your Foot Massager in the Refrigerator?). Another option: Comment on an existing article. Just be sure you follow hyper-strict comment etiquette.

Yep, it's a looong slow curve to the sale. But there is value in being the expert on a particular subject, and putting a personal face to your company can do worlds of good for your branding.

7.4.4. Thursday: Find Your Voice

One of the most common questions we're asked as SEO consultants is this: Should our company start a blog? The answer is a definite maybe. Not every organization needs a blog, but many organizations can benefit from having a voice on the Social Web. Today we'll help you find yours.

7.4.4.1. Blogging

Following are indicators that your organization has the capacity to create an excellent blog:

• You produce press releases on a regular basis—once a month or more.

• You currently post "What's New" or "Events" content on your website.

• You have products that change, update, or are released (as in comics, media, magazines, or books) often.

  If You're Not the Expert The exciting thing about the Social Web is that the barrier to entry is low. It's easy to participate and easy to operate, and it doesn't cost any money. But it does require a bit of reprogramming for the traditional marketer. Instead of promoting your company or products, often the venue is better suited to disseminating the thoughts or activities of a single individual in your organization. As an example, new product announcements in the Social Web are far outnumbered by musings, advice, and opinions of CEOs and consultants. Which participants rise to the top? Those with higher-than-average quotients of expertise and personality. What this means for your organization is that your outreach on the Social Web will need to come from a person—or persons—who are willing to show their real face and use their real name on the Web. Whether posting in forums, writing their own blog, or commenting on another's, this person will need to know their stuff and have passable writing skills. As the in-house SEO advocate, you may be a bit distressed to realize that the best candidate for Social Web outreach in your organization isn't you. It's possible, and preferable, for you to assist in the coordination of the Social Web outreach efforts, and you can certainly help write some of the blog postings or communications. That said, we believe it's best to keep it as real as possible. There's value in transparency. Participating in the Social Web can be time-consuming, and ROI can be difficult to track. But it's certainly worth trying. What a wonderful idea, and rife with possibilities, to put a personal spin on your company's image! Perhaps you can nominate someone to fill this role today.

  
  

• There are experts or gurus within your organization who could participate in writing blog posts.

• Competitors in your industry tend to do a lot of blogging.

Do you have two or more "yes" answers to the above? You're probably ripe for starting a blog. Fewer than two? We are still convinced that you have something to offer. Read on for some other options.

7.4.4.2. Participation Marketing

If there's no blog in your future, you can still participate. Here are some indications that you should take the path of participation marketing—posting in forums or commenting on other peoples' blogs:

• Maybe you're not a recognized expert in your field, but you know your stuff and can discuss hot topics intelligently.

• You're already into the habit of surfing the same blogs and forums that your target audience frequents.

• You aren't looking for a quick return on investment, such as a lot of sales. Rather, you're content to build up positive branding for your organization, or yourself, over time.

• You have a good grip on forum or commenting etiquette, or you have the time to observe for a while before you post.

7.4.4.3. Social Networking

While blog creation and participation marketing are good choices for both companies and individuals, social networking sites can be better venues for individuals. Here are some ways to know if creating a profile on sites like Facebook or LinkedIn is a good direction for you:

• Your business goals benefit from keeping in close contact with a number of people, such as former clients or former coworkers. (Independent contractors would fit this description nicely.)

• Your list of accomplishments and work history, as they appear in your personal ?profile, make a good impression.

• You are a "joiner"—you belong to, or you'd feel comfortable participating in—hobby or professional groups.

• You have a good bit of time on your hands to keep your profile looking up-to-date and to respond to friends' messages so that nobody feels ignored or slighted.

7.4.5. Friday: Letting Others Spread the Love

Remember the story of how Tom Sawyer convinced his friends to whitewash his fence? He made it seem so appealing that everybody wanted to do the work for him. This is an approach you can try with social websites, in a way that's relatively easy to implement.

Here are ways to encourage your own site visitors to promote your website for you:

Social Bookmarking Buttons As easy as dropping a little piece of code on your page, you can add a "digg it" or "del.icio.us" button to your page. See Figure 7.6 for an example. These buttons allow your users to submit your page to these sites, or to give your page a vote.

Incentives to Top Commenters If you have user-generated content such as a forum or blog on your website and you want to keep the party hopping, you can create incentives for people to increase their posting or commenting activity level. Forum users can receive a new label in their profile, say, moving from "Newbie" to "Forum Fanatic" as they reach milestones in their number of posts. Top commenters can be featured on the home page.

Photo or Widget Giveaways Give, and ye shall receive. Give folks a badge, a photo, or a signature to display, and you're giving them a chance to spread the word about your organization. Widgets—as you learned in Chapter 4—are great giveaways, too, if you have the resources to develop them.

"E-mail This Page" Links Just as easy as adding social media links are "e-mail this page" buttons. Welcome to the wide, wonderful world of online word-of-mouth marketing, which is a departure from SEO and might just deserve another hour in your day.

Our main goal for today is that you get creative and open your mind to the possibilities. Florists, make a "bouquet of the day" photo widget. Brick-and-mortar merchants, offer a discount to anyone who blogs about you and then prints out the page and carries it into the store. E-commerce sites, create a contest in which the contestant who posts the funniest product review on a shopping comparison site wins.

Success in the Social Web depends on spontaneity, transparency, frequent communication, and being an authority on your subject matter. You could easily spend an hour a day on just social search. We wish we could generate hour-a-day tasks for you, but the Social Web is so dependent on your own offerings that you'll need to make it your own journey. If you want to go the extra mile in social search and participation marketing, follow these Web 2.0 gurus to keep you on the right path:

• Neil Patel's blog at www.pronetadvertising.com

• Dave Evans's articles on www.clickz.com

• www.mashable.com, a social networking blog

You've been at this SEO thing for a couple of months now, and maybe you've even taken a liking to it. Next month, you'll jump into paid search with both feet, get your site wonderfully entrenched in shopping and specialty search, and learn how to research SEO on the Web. Get ready to "establish the habit" of SEO!