Everyone wants to know more about social media marketing and how to use it cost effectively to improve online brand exposure and develop creative marketing strategies.  Social media optimization can also be a powerful tool for improving natural/organic search engine results through continually creating more inbound links.

Here are some great examples of current social media campaigns we are doing and how simple efforts can have a huge impact.

Twitter Campaign

Services Performed:

• Ongoing campaign on Twitter.com
• Building brand identity
• Building “followers”
• Post comments and offerings on a regular basis

Social Media Marketing Example Result:

• IMI posted a comment on Twitter.com about the website and provided a link
• The comment prompted a Twitter.com user to follow the link and purchase flowers
• The customer was so satisfied with the experience they then posted a comment about the website
• The complimentary review spurred others to follow the link and purchase items!

“A Small World” Campaign

Services Performed:

• Website development
• Organic SEO
• Running campaign on “A Small World”

Social Media Marketing Example Result:

• IMI developed a profile and gained user following
• IMI posted a comment on ASmallWorld.net about the new homes for sale
• The comment spurred multiple inquiries from investment groups and buyers
• The leads were sent to the client
• Interested investors flew from Europe to Mexico to visit the property

Social media marketing can of course be much more in depth than this as well as include very creative/specific marketing strategies.  These examples are meant to show how social marketing efforts can foster viral results that lead to actual sales!

The first alert to UC Berkeley student James Buck’s arrest in Egypt in April of 2008: a one-word post to his Twitter account from his cell phone. The first picture released of the downed US Airways Flight 1549: a cameraphone picture uploaded onto Janis Krum’s Twitter. Throughout 2008 and the beginning 2009, we have seen how Twitter provided real-time, eyewitness accounts of natural disasters such as the October 2007 San Diego fires, critical emergencies such as the Virginia Tech shootings, election updates, and widespread attacks such as the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks.

It takes very little to Tweet a story. The start and end of James Buck’s ordeal was encapsulated in two words and two posts: “Arrested” and, later, “Free.” And the Hudson River plane crash was just another example of traditional media being beaten to the punch by social media. Family members in Taiwan could learn about it raining here in California ten seconds after the first raindrop hits the ground. (Miraculously, the rain just suddenly stopped) Social media is tranforming the way news hits the world and who is responsible for it. It’s like you’re IM’ing the world. Or at least your world.

Considering how vast the potential of social media and how fresh the news one hears from it is, it’s no wonder that your company should invest in social media accounts such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, to name a few. A well-managed social media optimization campaign allows your company to blast your networks with news and exposure. Focus on expanding your networks and providing quality updates. A shortcoming of social media is its lack of accountability: social media doesn’t impose the kind of regulations on integrity of reporting that traditional media does, and this has caused many to view social media as a world of fluff and real-time gossip. Ensure that your social media is committed to quality, integrity, and a sincere desire to listen and be heard.

Tweet away!

If you’re building a website, you obviously want people to eyeballs on your pages and traffic.  Not too long ago, you could get your website organically in top of Google and other major search engines with proper link building techniques, content writing, and correct site structure.  This is still of vital importance when creating a website and any good internet marketing company will say the same.  However, with the advent of social media sites like facebook, twitter and etc, more organic traffic is being generated to sites and the search engines are starting to realize that this needs to be a huge part in any organic seo campaign.  And the best part about this, is that this is FREE traffic…or is it?

I have been an avid MySpace and facebook user for some time now and I have recently started to dabble in twitter.  I, like my friends, really enjoy catching up with one another through these sites and like seeing pics and updates about one anothers life.  However, the true power of these social media sites can be seen when users who have huge followers – like twitter – can promote what ever they deem important – blogs, websites, events and etc.  Companies are starting to realize this and have assigned people to stay on top of the companies facebook, twitter and other social media accounts daily – update them, add new blogs, new status updates, new tweets and etc.  This takes not only a lot of time but you also have to get to know your users.  You have to constantly interact with users, gain their trust to do what you want them to eventually do.  I have to wonder though if companies do or eventually will hire employees strictly to stay on top of their social media accounts.  I wonder if start ups will eventually have a line item for “social media” employee on their books.  The social media optimization aspect is fairly new but has taken off and will be a part of individual’s lives and companies success’ in years to come.  Companies should really heed the advice of internet marketing companies and begin to dedicate much time in the social media realm.

With Google moving toward a universal search model , video optimization has become a must as part of your internet marketing campaign. This is just one more way to attract your target market and keep them coming back.  Similar to the content on your website you need the videos you add to be relevant to your website and give something back to the user.
Make the video for your users! No matter if you are selling products or services you can create videos that your viewers will want to see. Video sites are growing tremendously Yahoo video has grown over 400% and Youtube is still growing at about 160% a year. This is a great time to get your videos in front of your target market.
Here are a couple of tips for your video optimization:
1.    Make sure that your video is relevant! If you want people to keep on coming back to your website you have to give them what they want … useful information.  If your company is selling software don’t teach people how to cook a casserole. Tell them about all the different uses for the software and add how to videos that teach the viewer. These are great and will keep them coming back for more.

2.    Viral Video Marketing – Expose yourself:  we have all heard of viral marketing and the great effects it has. So don’t keep your videos to yourself! This social media aspect gets people talking about them, share your video with the world. Upload your video to sites like Youtube, Google Video, Yahoo Video, AOL Video etc. A few tips when uploading your video to different websites:

• Make sure the video links back to your website.
• Tag it! Always include keywords in the title and description of the video you are pushing out to video sites.
• Let people use you! Seriously, give people the option to embed your video on blogs, forums and websites by giving them the embed code.
• Power to the people: let people rank your video. Search engines pay attention to this when ranking your videos.

3.    Attract attention to your video; make it stand out on the page! Make sure to include information about the video in the title. A great idea is to incorporate keywords into the title of the video. Make sure that the video that you are embedding is relevant to the page its on. Make sure your metadata for the page is relevant to the video.

4.    Keep it short and Concise. Don’t bore your viewers, keep your video short and sweet while still keeping it entertaining and informative. I would suggest a 5 minute max.

5.    Include a brief intro with your logo and make sure each and every video has this 2-3 second intro to build brand loyalty.

6.    Create a video sitemap: this makes it easier for search engines to find and identify your videos.  Make sure to put your keywords in the video anchor text.

Back in the day PR firms were seen as a limiting resource. You send them a press release in the mail or by fax and hope that it gets an article in a newspaper or magazine. The majority of the time it doesn’t make it. Getting content out was difficult and even if it was published it was completely censored and stripped of the most important content.

In this day and age with the rapid growth of internet marketing and Social Media Optimization PR happens at a rapid pace. No more lag time with waiting for a PR firm to publish your content. Post your own blog. Link back to your blog on your Twitter and Facebook. Create relationships with other bloggers and social networkers harness the power of their networks to get your content out to even more people and participate in forums.

Many traditional PR firms have started realizing the rapid rise in internet marketing campaigns that some have started to embrace the new technology. The ones who haven’t are still behind which is important to keep in mind. Rather than hiring a traditional PR firm you may want to consider hiring an Internet Marketing company to create a Social Media Optimization campaign.

There are so many ways to create your own PR campaign that it would be silly to not utilize all the tools on the internet!

-Melodie Tao

The concept of Web 2.0 is not new; it has been discussed and defined many times over. People in the Internet marketing and technology development industry refer to Web 2.0 in many different scenarios and it can be confusing to many of us out there who don’t really understand what the term means.

It is first important to note that the term “Web 2.0″ does not refer to an actual refined technical specification for a particular product, system, application, or the World Wide Web in general. It is a label given to how users and engineers utilize the web as a platform rather than a simple tool to find information. True Web 2.0 sites allow users to contribute content, control content, and run software applications. Users can actually improve the overall experince of the website by building on the interactive facilities. Users expect a participation platform with which they can interact.

The ever evolving infrastructure of Web 2.0 as a platform includes software, syndication systems, messaging protocols, the use of plugins and extensions, and other various applications. Great examples of Web 2.0 platforms are social networking sites. Some of the most powerful Internet marketing campaigns come through social media optimization by leveraging the traffic and interactivity of networking sites. These are perfect examples of sites where users drive the content and overall experience of the site. This gives marketers who are seeking to engage these communities the ability to tap into what people want rather than pushing products and services to a non-targeted audience.

We also hear Web 2.0 referred to from a design perspective. Again, social sites can be used as a great example. This review of Web 2.0 is certainly not technical, and there are many resources out there that go into far greater detail.