LS Staging

Category: Social Media Optimization (SMO)

  • Using LinkedIn to promote your brand effectively

    Using LinkedIn to promote your brand effectively

    Using LinkedIn to promote

    LinkedIn is actually among the top social networks. Even if it doesn’t have the largest number of users, like Facebook, unlike Facebook, LinkedIn is for professional people who prefer to relate to and interact with similar professionals.

    Though not quite popular as other social media networking sites, LinkedIn is relied upon to promote brands and business. Consequently, any promotion on LinkedIn will give you more advantage than that on Facebook or Twitter. If you are wondering how and where to begin with promoting your brand on LinkedIn then this post offers valuable guidelines for the same. So where do you start?

    Creating your Company page on LinkedIn

    In LinkedIn you can make a company page which could be used to introduce your company and its vision, mission along with the services on offer. It can be divided into three sections viz. the first section contains the company’s profile where information relating to the business, employees and the brand is offered.  The second section could provide details about the products, services or information which could be useful to your audiences or contacts. Finally, the third section involves asking for customers for endorsing your products or services which when published and referred to go a long way in generating the trust of prospective customers and encourage them to conduct business with you.

    Expanding your follower base with engaging content

    After you have setup your LinkedIn page, your next step would be to create a follower base. This is the toughest part, and usually takes some time before you reach a threshold when the number increases on its own. You have to engage your followers with the content you share. Share informative and interesting stuff related to your business. Communicate with followers; be responsive to what they ask for. The objective would be to direct the audience from a healthy conversation towards an actual sale. Everyone wants to feel that they are talking with a brand in some way. Doing so will ensure that people become familiar with your brand.

    Create an active LinkedIn group

    After the company page, your next step should be to create an active LinkedIn group. You can either create a group (which would take a long time to have enough members to create any impact) or you can join groups which have members closely related to your business. Here you can share and can also find important and useful content. Your reach can increase by manifolds if you manage to find the correct group.

    LinkedIn is a very important social media platform especially if you wish to increase your B2B relations. So, if your services are more directed towards the B2B approach, then LinkedIn should be at the top of the list of the social media platforms which you should concentrate on.

    LinkedIn has a large population of people who enjoy decision taking authority within their organisation and conducting business. If you are able to reach them, then your chances of expanding your business increases manifold. Hence, use LinkedIn effectively to promote your brand.

    LogicSpeak:

    LinkedIn is a resourceful social space for interacting and gaining insightful knowledge on your business. However, one can make maximum impact with LinkedIn only if you are aware of your communication strategy and the message to share. Avoid using LinkedIn as trial and error platform.

    Previous Post:  How should you optimize images for Facebook?

  • How should you optimize images for Facebook?

    How should you optimize images for Facebook?

    How should you optimize

    Social Media is probably the most important form of marketing. Among the Social Media triumvirate, Facebook has undoubtedly the largest population. With the shrinking attention span of the people, for success on Facebook, there has to be some extra effort put into optimizing the images on Facebook.

    Facebook has made some recent changes with Timeline design, which has markedly given you more control over the way images are displayed and optimizing the image as per your desire. So, what should you do to ensure that image brings out the desired results?

    Currently, most of the posts are focused towards making link images. Beautiful and more involved images lead to greater turn out for people and make your posts last longer on the newsfeed. This is what you should bear in mind when optimizing images for Facebook

    Specifications for the images

    Assuming that you have decided on your high priority target audience, it shouldn’t be very hard to decide the size of the images that you would have to use. For desktop audience, a big image, like 200-by-200 pixels should be used.

    For mobile devices and others, you should use the 600-by-600 pixel images. The rule of thumb is that, the bigger the image, the better it would be. Whatever you do, never go for images of size lower than 200-by-200 px. Facebook strongly recommends against this practice. The images would get blurred in the newsfeed if the resolution is lower than 200 px.

    As for the filetype, the web standard is JPG. You can also use PNG or GIF or BMP. The most preferred aspect ratio is 1:1. You can go for 1:2 or at max 1:3 for images. The problem with images above 1:1 aspect ratio is that they get cropped when displayed in the feeds. So, unless you are sure that the important part of the image is in the center, you shouldn’t mess with the aspect ratio.

    Use og:image tag

    Since your primary goal is to make people share your posts, you should give them as much freedom as is possible. Give the og:image tag to the images, because it gives the sharers the option to change the image that would go with the post and also to remove the thumbnail altogether if necessary.

    Post Image Posts

    If you are trying to decide whether to post image posts or link posts, then you should use the stats for your page to decide it. There is no general rule for this. For many types of promotions, image posts work way better than link posts, while the opposite is true for the link posts. So, see which one works out the best for you.

    Like all marketing concepts, posting the right sort of image depends almost entirely on the type of promotion you are trying to do. So, test as much as you can. There would be many hurdles before you can actually arrive at the best settings for your type of posts.

    LogicSpeak: 
    Image optimisation for your social media page, plays a major role, in ensuring your page is attractive and people friendly.  Images should be such that people would be proud of sharing and will add to their personality.

    Previous Post: Content creation insights for a social media beginner

  • Infusing intelligence into its search engine: Knowledge Graph by Google

    Google has taken a big leap forward with its unveiling of Knowledge Graph, a gen-next kind of search engine, which is bound to expand its market share further. With this, Google has moved beyond keyword-based search, opening new frontiers for the company as well as the users.

    Knowledge Graph is embedded in Google’s search engine and is designed such that it understands real-world entities and their relationship to one another; not just strings of alphabets/words (Keywords). So, along with the conventional list of websites generated by the search engine for a particular keyword, Knowledge Graph displays a categorised list on the right-side of the conventional list, giving valuable data and hints to the user regarding the keyword he/she is seeking. The following example will make the point clear regarding the concept. Suppose the user has typed in the keyword ‘Bose’. Conventional Google search yields a list of websites containing the keyword. This list contains a mix of websites containing the keyword, immaterial of whether it’s the website  of state-of-the-art Bose sound systems or websites containing information about Satyendranath ‘Bose’ / Jagadish Chandra ‘Bose’ / Subhash Chandra ‘Bose’.  But, the new interface with Knowledge Graph embedded in it will yield two sets of lists:

    • Left-side of the screen containing the conventional list
    • Right-side of the screen, inviting users to select one of the options out of
      • Bose Sound System or
      • Satyendranath Bose or
      • Jagadish Chandra Bose or
      • Subhash Chandra Bose

    Suppose the user selects ‘Bose Sound System’, the left-side list is filtered to yield results specifically for ‘Bose Sound System’ and on the right side, Google will push lots of ready-to-use information about the same and some valuable hints as well.

    Important point to note here is that the information compered by Knowledge Graph isn’t sourced from just a handful of websites like Wikipedia, CIA World Fact Book and Freebase; but a huge collection of websites, making the information highly comprehensive. Right now, Knowledge Graph contains over 500 million objects and over 3.5 billion facts about these objects and the relationship between them.

    Knowledge Graph is available for US-based English language users right now and will be gradually extended to other regions. The feature is also available on tablets and smart phones. The redesigned search engine interface will prove to be of immense help in academics as well as for social media marketing company who wants to maximise on this added feature. Further, Knowledge Graph is one great way of retaining users in Google environment for long periods, which will enhance value for Google’s advertisers. This in turn, will increase the revenues of Google by leaps and bounds. Again, this is expected to bring in lots of changes in online marketing techniques.

    Knowledge Graph helps users to heavily cut down on their search-time so that they can effectively spend more time going through the information they’re looking for.

    Previous Post: Guidelines for choosing the right PPC Company

  • Brands need to strategize Social Media plans and adapt to Facebook Timeline Feature quickly

    At a recently held Facebook Marketing Conference, New York, Facebook announced that brands will also have Timeline pages which are similar to personal pages. This change will be done by default. This proves to be yet another valuable initiative by Facebook in order to provide enhanced marketing opportunities for brands to promote and boost their sales.

    Through Timeline, the look of the Facebook pages of a brand will undergo a total revamp. Beginning with the brand’s landing page will be replaced by its Timeline Cover photo. In all, there will be four logos which could be synonymous with their application and tabs. At the same time, brands will be able to highlight their favorite posts on the top, if they wish to.

    With this initiative, social media agencies will have to revaluate their services and offer something related to the Timeline application which is equally engaging and user friendly.  Taking things forward from here, brands will have more space and opportunity to promote themselves by providing company information, trivia, images and even a whole lot of apps and other pointers.  Since it is a “Timeline” feature, it can indeed incorporate the past, present and the future in a creative and engaging manner using images, quizzes and host of other interactive applications.

    As suggesting earlier, Facebook’s Timeline is more likely to reach the viewers at an emotional level rather than merely marketing or promoting a product or service. For most viewers who are die hard loyalists of particular brand, they should be provided with the right channel and engaging moves which allow them to connect with the brand in a more meaningful engaging manner.  This is despite the fact, that viewers are known to like a product or service more in order to enjoy sales promotions and offers. At this point hosting small quizzes, regular posting of images, trivia and even brief announcements of upcoming changes in the brand pumps in more life into the brand’s Timeline page.

    At the same time, social media agencies managing brand’s Facebook pages will have to revamp the total look and feel of the brand page and promote the products and services in a more relevant manner. This could mean discarding unwanted and non relevant matter and adding photos and videos which relate to the brand in a better way.  Since Timeline incorporates a map feature, providing accurate location details of the brand become even more essential for they lead the way to the brand in a better way.  Once again, it is time to review the performance of the brand’s Facebook page and making sure it is truly engaging and even better than before.

    Along with this, Facebook has announced the introduction of the Reach Generator through which brands will be able to create and manage sponsored stories. With ads being included in the newsfeed, once again brands will find it equally engaging to promote themselves in a subtle way rather than a blatant or outright fashion which could turn away prospective customers.

    It is time for Social media marketing company to spring into action once again by showing their dynamism as they plan, strategize and implement social media marketing plans. Social media and Timeline have to be integrated in a seamless manner so as to maximize on the online social reputation of the brand while simultaneously moving towards its marketing challenges.

    Previous Post: Key Nuances of PPC Advertising and PPC Management

  • How Important Is Social Media For Internet Marketing?

    These days, it’s quite clear that the internet can play a huge part in the success of a business, and it is now even more important to have a presence for your business online. This is why many people employ an SEO Company to create and manage their internet marketing campaign. With the right strategy put in place, including social media marketing, you can target the right demographics. In turn, this has the potential to increase profits. The success of your campaign can be measured easily, as you can track the hits to your website using online analytics. You’ll be able to see how much traffic your website is getting, and exactly where it’s coming from.

    An SEO Company takes on a lot of roles to make sure that your website ranks highly on search engine results pages. Blogging and article writing just a couple of ways that this is done, and it is a vital part of online marketing. The blogs and articles are separate from your website, and posts are created in order to include keywords that relate to what you are selling or promoting. Doing this improves search engine optimisation, as it is all centred around using the right keywords. This and PPC (Pay-Per-Click), which is a paid campaign, all make sure your website comes at the top of the list when people are searching for those keywords.

    Social media marketing is now even more important than ever before, with many companies setting up Facebook and Twitter pages. Recent studies have shown that social networking sites have a big impact on how people research, and even purchase products – more so in some countries than others. Research showed that people in countries like India, China, Indonesia, Brazil and Mexico, as well as in the USA and the UK all believe that social networking sites are a great place to find out about products, and even purchase them too. This shows how important social media marketing is for businesses, as it is such a great way to reach people that you would never have thought of reaching before – as a product, service or idea can go global very quickly.

    For any business large and small, social media marketing is an ideal way to promote a business or website. You can do this by sharing links, which are are then passed around. The great thing about it though, is that it’s very simple, and anyone can set up an account. Therefore, it is easy to manage yourself if necessary.

    Previous Post : Enhance your Business prospects with expert Social Media Marketing services

  • Enhance your Business prospects with expert Social Media Marketing services

    Promoting your business is essential for simply owning a business does not guarantee you with profits and success.  Business marketing and promotions do need effective social skills which reflect your products and services in a positive manner.  Through which your potential clients are likely to become your actual customers.

    With online marketing and social media quickly gaining acceptance amongst the customers, it does make sense to check out them out so that you can capitalize through them as well. When discussing social media and online marketing, most discussed topics include SEO, SEM, Facebook, Twitter and even PPC marketing.  These trends could be well understood by you but in order to effectively put them to practice and enjoy desired results, you could hire a social media company who are professional experts in designing and developing your social media activities. Social media campaigns do take time to establish and hence you need to be patient enough to enjoy its results.

    Though, the social media tasks seem to be simple enough but you will require time and efforts to monitor them as well as be regular in undertaking. Apart from this, the social media company could be well versed with the prevailing trends while have the foresight of how to promote your business in the coming times. Thus, your business will be very much on par with social media trends enabling you to increase your market share as per your targets.

    At the amateur level, Social media campaign could involve a Facebook and a Twitter account which needs to be updated and well visited on a regular basis. At this point you need to ensure that you well aware of the messages posted in these accounts and they being tackled well.  This means you should appreciate the visitors to your site and acknowledge their recommendations.   At the same time you could solve their issues if they have any, related to your products and services.  At this juncture, it pays if you are regular and seek to solve out issues well on time while pacifying customers if they have been extremely upset over an issue.

    Try to carve out your own social media identity by posting individual content which could easily stand apart from existing content. In a way, the content should be interesting and as well unique which could attract attention and evince interest as well. It is fairly easy to retweet an interesting content but at the same time, try to do things slightly differently which could keep visitors on a look out for new developments on your social media pages.

    Email marketing has been your reliable tool through which you could be staying in touch with your loyal customers who have agreed to receive emails from your end.  By simply adding a Facebook or a Tweet button, you could encourage them to click on the same through which your deal could spread around potential customers which is simply through which you wish to gain from.

    Bearing these activities in mind, you must have realized that it pays to be regular at all levels for which you need to hire the services of a social media marketing company who will not only manage your online presence but enhance it positively as well. Mind you, in social media tweets and like go a long way in shaping up your online presence and on no count you can falter during the process for recovering from it will be yet another story.

    Previous Post : Opt for a Mix of SEO and PPC Strategies to Enjoy a Visible Web Presence

  • Online Reputation Management of Individual or Small Businesses

    Speed has become the order of the day especially with advancement of technology, marvelous things are happening at every moment. The onset of Internet, followed by the wireless technology has led to people accessing the Internet through mobile phones and other wireless interfaces. This feature enables people to stay connected with each other while passing a small bit of information to thousands of people all in one go. This is very likely to happen when people are dissatisfied with their experience related to a product or service.

    A trend of posting consumer reviews has been observed and even encouraged by many special review websites which allow you to post comments of all sorts. Most received comments relate to experiences at restaurants, theaters, night outs, malls and related places. Disgruntled people are very much likely to post their reviews on the social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, review sites – city search using their cell phones as a means to vent off their disappointment and anger. Meanwhile, when a third person uses the same channel to check out a particular restaurant or theater, he can easily bump across the negative opinion or review which is very likely to change his mind about visiting that particular place. And so the chain continues endlessly that too at an unimaginable pace.

    Online reputation is something which you cannot ignore for long as internet market is here to stay. It is not possible at all times to please everyone and grudges and misgivings appear on the scene for no apparent reason, you need to act on them swiftly and efficiently so as they do not adversely affect your business. You need to be very proactive in this aspect nevertheless.

    Regular visits to social networking sites helps, what more you could locate additional information of your business and its reputation by using various other search engines rather sticking to one. It very does pay to embark upon a detailed search using other search engines too.

    On any count, you should always use the same site to send your point across and in too in well phrased manner. Your customer relations skills have to perform to their level best as you stand in your place and put forth your viewpoint while appreciating the review or feedback. But a judicious use of words is what matters and counts. Your post is definitely going to influence other viewers who are likely to visit the page apart from the reviewer to whose post you are responding.

    Though online reputation management firms are gaining a market place these days, this business is at quite an early stage of inception. They assure you an effective campaign and do their level best to clear the client name to a great extent.

    Reputation can be rated as per the reviews received and hence if you notice a trend of negative reviews, you definitely need to take it up seriously and check out the reasons for being so. It could be a prejudiced employee or ex-employee, a faulty customer service or even a policy decision which is creating this confusion. You can always counteract this trend and get things set in the right way by rectifying the situations or decisions as the case may be. But be sure to act in time in the right direction or else you will be left way behind in the race.

    Previous Post : Affiliates Sites and Online Reputation

  • Web 3.0 – Unimaginable Technological Advancements

    World Wide Web and information have been interlinked in an inevitable way. If Web1.0 is called a library of information, Web 2.0 allows the world to catch up with each and stay in contact, Web 3.0 will allow you to stay connected as well as effectively retrieve the information from the Internet which basically matches your query and satisfies you thoroughly.

    Web 3.0 is enhanced with APIs and mashups so as to provide the user with the best matched response to his query and even allied and related information which could help him even further. For example if you wish to know about a university and a course, the Web 3.0 will provide you information on the course offered in the specified university but along with it you will get to know other universities which offer the same course, similar courses and various other alternatives ways of learning that course. At the same time you can also get links of education counselors, education loans, scope of learning that degree and so on. With the use of mashup, you will be able to view the exact location of the university on the map. In all, you will be able to get a thorough overview of the keyword you have entered….Pretty interesting.

    While people take some time to absorb a new technology, you can very well expect the development of technology to develop at a faster rate ….people while hardly blink an eyelid and find enhancements and advancements in the same.

    It is very likely that the web will make use of user history and begin displaying things depending upon the keywords you have entered into the browser. In all, you will find the need to communicate with the Internet all the time for smallest of needs and requirements ranging from entertainment, shopping needs, recreation options, education and apart from staying connected with people around the globe.

    Staying connected, networking, online shopping, ecommerce and whole lot of activities hover around the Internet and the World Wide Web technology….But a judicious use of this is what should be aimed for and it is in our hands to accept or reject a particular technology. We are human beings after all, the need to communicate and interact is utmost important and essential…but how and to what extent is something which we need to decide upon.

  • Social Media Optimisation : What and How?

    Social Media Optimization

    What is Social Media Optimization (SMO)?

    Social media optimization (SMO) is a technique of marketing in which you market your website in various social networking sites like MySpace, Youtube, Digg etc. Also known as Web 2.0 marketing, SMO acts as a powerful tool to increase the traffic and page ranking of your website. It engages a wider audience through excessive promotion via the public portals. The success of SMO lies in its interactive content sharing through mediums like blogs, video files and more.

    Why use Social Media Optimization (SMO)?

    Social media optimization, sometimes referred as social book-marking, is about building a relationship between your website and a wide group of potential customer. Social media if effectively used can consistently direct a substantial amount of traffic. Some of its advantages are

    • Increased traffic to your website
    • Increased public awareness of your site and product
    • Increased brand value
    • Increased inbound link
    • Increased ranking due to increased inbound and back links

    Thus, social media optimization promotes your business by increasing high user awareness through social sites. This subsequently acts as the marketing strategy for incremental promotion of your product translating into increased conversion.

    What are the parameters used by Social media optimization (SMO)?

    Social media optimization follows the newer version of the ‘word of mouth’ technique where people have been replaced by social networking sites. The content is spread in the form of pictures, movie clips, blogs and more. This technique is known as viral marketing where user awareness of the site spreads across different community site. Some methodologies/functionalities used by SMO are

    • Social book-marking using buttons like ‘Digg this’
    • Using YouTube videos
    • Interaction through social network sites like Hi5 and Facebook
    • Sharing audio and picture files
    • Blogging
    • Frequently updating data using RSS feed
    • Promotion through news groups, newsletters, e-mails and forums

    What is Social Media Optimization service?

    Social media optimization (SMO) service customizes a complete social media website with optimized pages for the network socialite and search engine. The SMO activity would ideally involve the following steps:

    • Increasing the site linkability by making it social media friendly
    • Creating awareness through viral marketing
    • Using free/paid advertisements as a promotional tool
    • Customizing application to geographical locations
    • Creating brand awareness by integrating blogs, newsgroups etc
    • Community building

    How is Social Media Optimization (SMO) advantageous than Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

    SMO and SEO both have a substantial influence on the web traffic. While SEO focuses on website content, links, structure etc to increase the page ranking, SMO is more about networking through social media. Though SEO is equally effective, SMO is more popular due to the following

    • Easy to implement and needs no expert
    • Result can be seen immediately
    • Good profiling leads to heavy traffic
    • No fee charged
    • Structure of the website not so important
    • Internet community functionalities can be effectively used
    • Gains maximum exposure
    • Encourages online participation by the audience
    • Visual presentation is more important than the content