SECTION FIVE: SOCIAL MEDIA PROMOTION
May 1st, 2009 |
EXERCISE ONE: CREATE AND PROMOTE VIDEO CONTENT
|
Points to Remember
- Video is the most consumed media online, 83% of internet users.
- Video promotion is currently the quickest and easiest way to get top rankings in Google.
- You’ll differentiate yourself from your competition by using video more in your website, promotions, blogging, and advertisements.
- Video affords you a quick and easy way to create contests for your industry colleagues or buying audience. You can get them to send you video endorsements, testimonials, case studies, stories, descriptions of their experience with your company or offerings, etc.
On the following page, we’re going to go through the steps to create and promote your video.
CREATE & PROMOTE YOUR VIDEO
Read the “How to Create a Viral Video” article here:
http://www.warwagonblog.com/internet-marketing/how-to-create-a-viral-video/
It will give you lots of ideas to get started, along with a step-by-step strategy for creating viral videos.
- Create at least one video. Identify how you plan to use it. Will you put it on your main website, such as a case study or how-to video? Or on your blog, as a video blog post? In all cases, you’ll promote it to YouTube and other top video sites.
- Refer to your keyword research and tag your video with keyword phrases you wan to rank for. Don’t tag it with all of them, we recommend tagging each video with two to three keyword phrases. Make sure the video is relevant to those keywords.
- Then the rest of your tags should be things referenced in the video, including any people mentioned, companies, your own company, etc.
- Create a profile on YouTube & upload your video. Refer back to our presentation slides if you want help with this step.
- Network and collaborate with popular YouTubers as outlined in our Presentation Slides
- Promote your video elsewhere using TubeMogul and other resources included in our Social Media Resources in the Post Training Materials.
EXERCISE TWO: CREATE YOUR BLOG, TAG & BOOKMARK
Points to Remember
Your blog is the easiest way to consistently add content to your website, without the use of a webmaster or dealing with code.
There are tons of blog databases and widgets that make optimizing your blog easier and more automated than optimizing regular pages on your website.
You may choose to have your blog on your main site domain. Or you may choose to have it on a separate domain. You may even have two – the one on your site could include company updates, press releases, and links to any new pages added or collateral available for downloads.
Then use your off-site blog for useful articles, videos, and great content that would keep your colleagues and audience coming back for more.
Follow the steps on the following page to create your blog, choose a template, add useful widgets, set up RSS feeds and subscription options, and promote it via social bookmarking and tagging.
CREATE & PROMOTE YOUR BLOG
Review the following three blogging platforms to decide which one you want to use for your blog. We recommend Wordpress.org (which you install on your own server) because of the added functionality):
www.wordpress.org (installed)
www.wordpress.com (hosted)
www.blogger.com (hosted)
Download and install (or sign up for) your chosen blogging platform.
If you choose to go with a hosted solution, we recommend you create a domain for the blog and redirect it to your hosted blog. Your chosen platform should have training on how to do this.
If you install your chosen solution, decide whether it will be on your main site domain or a separate domain. If you choose to do both, you’ll want to install Wordpress on both domains following their easy step-by-step installation guide.
If you want to use Wordpress as an installed solution, but you find it difficult to do yourself, there are very inexpensive wordpress experts that can do it for you, including Wordpress themselves.
Once you’ve installed or signed up for your blog, the next step is to choose a template. If you have a hosted solution, you’ll have a limited choice. If you have Wordpress installed version, you can review our Blogging Resources in your Post Training Materials for links to free and low cost Wordpress templates.
Next, configure your blog. Create your initial topics or categories. These are the main subjects or categories your posts will be assigned to. You can change, add, and delete these later.
Follow your platform’s training to configure the rest of your blog’s settings.
Sign up for a free Feedburner account at www.feedburner.com and create RSS feeds. Add their widgets to your blog’s sidebar.
Decide what your publishing schedule will be – how often you’ll create new posts. Luckily, you can write several posts at once and post date them with different dates so they’ll “go live” later.
Try not to post twice in one day, unless it is necessary for your company’s news updates. Google and other search engines like to see content added steadily over time, so you might as well save the second post for another day.
Use our Social Media Resources to find a list of free widgets (called Plugins) you can install on your blog (for Wordpress Installed version). These will help you tag, bookmark, and promote your blog posts – and also encourage your visitors to promote your posts for you.
Add video and podcast content to your blog as much as possible. Outsource the writing and media creation if you like.
Any video or podcast you put on your blog should also be placed on YouTube and promoted with TubeMogul.
Make sure you tag each post you make. You can use your blog to write a post like an optimized SEO article and write it specifically for a keyword phrase. Be sure to tag it with that phrase.
Create a free Technorati account and add each post to Technorati.
You can get Technorati, Yahoo News, and several other websites to automatically index and rank every new blog post by using a “ping” service. We recommend the free OnlyWire,com at www.onlywire.com.
EXERCISE THREE: CREATE YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA PROFILES (SECONDARY SITES)
Points to Remember
Having additional websites at the top social networks will earn you powerful backlinks when you link back to your website (be sure to link to specific landing pages and use the keyword that page is optimized for in the anchor text of your link pointing to it).
Keep your branding and image consistent. Use the same graphics, colors, and calls to action on your social profiles.
Don’t just create your profile and leave it. The real power in social networks is participating. Add people to your friends and colleagues lists and put your news and event updates in your bulletins (which are viewable on all your friends’ pages).
Social networks allow you to quickly and easily create a list, much like an email list. You can communicate with your friends list and promote promotional offers, your blog, great new free content, and direct them back to your primary website.
But never push a hard pitch. Always try to give your audience what they want and they’ll naturally come to you when they want to buy.
CREATE & PROMOTE YOUR SOCIAL PROFILES
At the least, create a free account at the following social networks:
www.myspace.com
www.facebook.com
www.linkedin.com
www.squidoo.com
To participate in other social networks, you can review our list of them in the Social Media resources.
Create your profile, following each site’s instructions.
Customize each profile so that its design (as much as is capable with the particular network’s platform), colors, and overall branding match your website’s branding.
If you can add additional elements to the page, add your graphical call to actions and links to useful content that your audience would want to consume. Again, don’t hard sell. Push the free content. It will do the selling for you.
Maintain a professional image, but don’t be afraid to get personal and interact with people as an individual. For instance, if someone on facebook wants to “throw a cow” at you using one of Facebook’s applications, you may want to “send them a parrot” back and interact.
Use the update bulletins, content, and blogging options available at each network. For instance, every time you update your company blog, make a quick post in each social profile and link to the main blog post. This is easily and cheaply outsource-able.
Create a sense of community on your page and with your friends lists. Interact as much as you can (put an employee or freelancer on the task if you don’t have the time). You can use this valuable resource to survey your friends to find out their likes and dislikes, launch contests, and more.
CHECKLIST: CONDUCT YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGNS
Most of the tasks listed below are covered specifically in our workbook. However, there are additional implementation tasks that you need to take based on your work done here. So we list those additional tasks here, even if they aren’t particularly covered in an exercise.
- CREATE AND PROMOTE YOUR VIDEOS
- PLACE VIDEOS AND OTHER MEDIA CONTENT ON YOUR PRIMARY SITE, SECONDARY SITES, AND BLOG WHEN APPLICABLE – AND ALWAYS PROMOTE THEM ON YOUTUBE AND WITH TUBEMOGUL
- CREATE, CONFIGURE, AND CUSTOMIZE YOUR BLOG. ADD WIDGETS AND RSS FEEDS
- DECIDE ON YOUR PUBLISHING SCHEDULE
- POST CONSISTENTLY AND FOR EACH POST, TAG IT, AND PROMOTE IT TO TECHNORATI AND SOCIAL BOOKMARKING SITES
- CREATE YOUR SECONDARY SITES (SOCIAL MEDIA PROFILES)
BRAND THEM WITH YOUR COMPANY’S IMAGE, ADD GRAPHICS AND CALLS TO ACTION CONSISTENTLY PARTICIPATE AND UPDATE YOUR PROFILES. GROW YOUR FRIENDS LIST AND USE IT MUCH LIKE AN EMAIL LIST.
