What is Social Media Marketing? / what is social media optimization?

What is Social Media Marketing?

Social media marketing, or SMM, is a form of internet marketing that implements various social media networks in order to achieve marketing communication and branding goals. Social media marketing primarily covers activities involving social sharing of content, videos, and images for marketing purposes.

With our Social Media Marketing 101 Guide below, you can begin developing your own social media marketing expert plan.

Social Media Marketing for Small Businesses: Learn Social Media Marketing

This education guide gives a basic overview on how to use social media for marketing, serving as a social media marketing for dummies manual. Read to learn about how to reap the benefits of using social media in startup marketing.

Social Media and Marketing: Start With a Plan

Before you begin creating social media marketing campaigns, consider your business’ goals. Starting a social media marketing campaign without a social strategy in mind is like wandering through a forest without a map—you’ll only end up lost.

Create a social media marketing plan and brainstorm about your goals: what are you hoping to achieve through social media marketing? Who is your target audience? Where would your target audience hang out and how would they use social media? What message do you want to send to your audience with social media marketing?

Social Media for Marketing: Developing Your Goals

Social media marketing can help with a number of goals, such as:

• Website traffic
• Conversions
• Brand awareness
• Creating a brand identity and positive brand association
• Communication and interaction with key audiences

Best Social Media Marketing Tips: Learn Marketing with Social Media

Here are some social media marketing tips to keep you on the right track across all your social media campaigns.

• Planning – As discussed previously, building a social media marketing plan is essential. Consider keyword research and brainstorm content ideas that will interest your target audience.
• Content is King — Consistent with other areas of online marketing, content reigns king when it comes to social media marketing. Make sure you are offering valuable information that your ideal customers will find interesting. Create a variety of content by implementing social media images, videos, and infographics in addition to classic text-based content.
• Consistent Brand Image — Using social media for marketing enables your business to project your brand image across a variety of different social media platforms. While each platform has its own unique environment and voice, your business’ core identity should stay consistent.
• Blog — Blogging is a great social media marketing tool that lets you share a wide array of information and content with readers. Your company blog can also serve as your social media marketing blog, in which you blog about your recent social media efforts, contests, and events.    
• Links — While using social media for marketing relies primarily on your business sharing its own unique, original content to gain followers, fans, and devotees, it’s also great to link to outside articles as well. If other sources provide great, valuable information you think your target audience will enjoy, don’t be shy about linking to them. Linking to outside sources improves trust and reliability, and you may even get some links in return.
• Track Competitors — It’s always important to keep an eye on competitors—they can provide valuable data for keyword research, where to get industry-related links, and other social media marketing insight. If your competitors are using a certain social media marketing technique that seems to be working for them, do the same thing, but do it better!
• Measure Success with Analytics —You can’t determine the success of your social media marketing strategies without tracking data. Google Analytics can be used as a great social media marketing tool that will help you measure your triumphant social media marketing techniques, as well as determine which strategies are better off abandoned.  Attach tracking tags to your social media marketing campaigns so that you can properly monitor them.

How to Use Social Media for Marketing: Know Your Platform

We’ve put together a brief overview on how to use social media for marketing according to each platform’s unique environment. Various social media marketing sites will require different techniques, so develop a unique strategy tailored for each platform.

Facebook

Facebook’s casual, friendly environment requires an active social media marketing strategy that begins with creating a Facebook Business Fan Page.  You will want to pay careful attention to layout, as the visual component is a key aspect of the Facebook experience. Social media marketing for business pages revolves around furthering your conversation with audiences by posting industry-related articles, images, videos, etc.

Facebook is a place people go to relax and chat with friends, so keep your tone light and friendly.

Google+

Google+ is the new Facebook competitor, and it promotes the same fun, casual atmosphere. On Google+ you can upload and share photos, videos, links, and view all your +1s. Also take advantage of Google+ circles, which allow you to segment your followers into smaller groups, enabling you to share information with some followers while barring others. For example, you might try creating a “super-fan” circle, and share special discounts and exclusive offers only with that group.

You can also try hosting video conferences with Hangouts and experiment using the Hangout feature in some fun, creative ways. Some social media marketing ideas: if you're a salon, host a how-to session on how to braid your hair. If you own a local bookstore, try offering author video chats. If you're feeling adventerous, invite your +1s to your Google+ Community. Google+ Communities will allow you to listen into your fan's feedback and input, truly putting the social back into social media.

Pinterest

Pinterest is the latest in social media marketing trends. Pinterest’s image-centered platform is ideal for retail, but anyone can benefit from using Pinterest for social media purposes.

Pinterest allows small businesses to showcase their own product offerings while also developing their own brand’s personality with some unique pinboards.

Twitter

Twitter is the social media marketing tool that lets you broadcast your updates across the web. Follow tweeters in your industry or related fields, and you should gain a steady stream of followers in return.

Mix up your official-related tweets about specials, discounts, and news updates with some fun and quirky tweets interspersed. Be sure to retweet when a customer has something nice to say about you, and don’t forget answer people’s questions when possible.  Using Twitter as a social media marketing tool revolves around dialog and communication, so be sure to interact as much as possible

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is one of the more professional social media marketing sites. LinkedIn Groups is a great venue for entering into a professional dialog with people in similar industries and provides a place to share content with like-minded individuals. 

Encourage customers or clients to give your business a recommendation on your LinkedIn profile. Recommendations makes your business appear more credible and reliable for new customers. Also browse the Questions section of LinkedIn; providing answers helps you get established and earns trust.

YouTube

YouTube is the number one place for creating video content, with can be an incredibly powerful social media marketing tool. Many businesses try to create video content with the aim of having their video “go viral,” but in reality those chances are pretty slim. Instead, focus on creating useful, instructive “how-to” videos. These how-to videos also have the added benefit of ranking on the video search results of Google, so don't under-estimate the power of video content!

Location-Based Social Media Tools

Social media platforms like Yelp, FourSquare, and Level Up are great for brick and mortar businesses looking to implement marketing social media. Register on these sites to claim your location spot, and then consider extra incentives such as check-in rewards or special discounts. Remember, these visitors will have their phones in hand so they will have access to providing reviews which could hurt or significantly aid your users.

Reddit

Reddit, or similar social media platforms such as Stumble Upon or Digg, are ideal for sharing compelling content. With over 2 billion page views a month, Reddit has incredible social media marketing potential, but marketers should be warned that only truly unique, interesting content will be welcomed. Posting on Reddit is playing with fire—submit spammy or overtly sales-focused content and your business could get berated by this extremely tech-savvy community.

If you have content you believe the Reddit community (majority is young, geeky, liberal, and internet-obsessed) would enjoy, you could reap tremendous benefits and earn valuable traffic.

Using social media in marketing does more than improve site traffic and help businesses reach more customers; it provides a valuable venue for better understanding and learning from your target audiences. Hopefully this guide has helped you better understand how using social media for marketing  can improve your business.

Looking for better results? Pay-per-click marketing is a growing form of online advertising that continues to be very successfully for small and medium sized businesses.

Online Marketing - SEO / SMO / Ad Sense / Web Designing: how to boost traffic to your website

Online Marketing - SEO / SMO / Ad Sense / Web Designing: how to boost traffic to your website: Comment Now Follow Comments how to boost traffic to your website Lack of website traffic is one of the most common challenges I...

how to boost traffic to your website

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how to boost traffic to your website

Lack of website traffic is one of the most common challenges I hear from business owners. Many report having lost a significant percentage of their search traffic over the past year or two, and are continuously looking for new ways to drive relevant traffic to their site.

This article is an attempt to give marketers and business owners a whole battery of straight-to-the-point, actionable tips for getting traffic to your website or blog. While some of these strategies won’t be a quick fix, you may be surprised how quickly many of them start to generate results.

Focus on long-tail keywords – The days of focusing on a single keyword for each page are long gone. Make sure your posts include all the relevant terms and phrases related to your topic. For help with finding long-tail keywords, see my post How to Find LSI (Long Tail) Keywords Once You’ve Identified Your Primary Keywords.

1. Start a forum on your website – An active forum can quickly begin ranking for long-tail keywords. They’re also great for decreasing your site’s bounce rate, increasing time-on-site, as well as building a community.

2. Start a Facebook group that drives traffic to your site – Start a niche-specific group where members can ask questions and get support (and don’t forget to point them back to your site’s content where relevant).

3. Submit your blog posts to StumbleUpon – It works!

4. Promote your blog posts to your email list – This doesn’t have to be the main focus of all your emails, but including a link or two back to your blog posts can considerably increase traffic, leads, and sales.

5. Answer a HARO query – Answering a pitch only take a few minutes, and can result in great PR, high-quality inbound links and referral traffic to your site.

6. Work on your headlines – Your headlines are what will get people in the door, particularly when you share your blog posts via social media; make sure they pique interest and clearly articulate the benefit to your readers. For help with that, see “The Online Marketer’s Guide to Writing High-Converting Headlines.”

7. Join a blogging community like ProBlogger or CopyBlogger  – This is a great way to network with other bloggers, and to cross-promote each other’s content.

8. Include links to other relevant posts on your blog – When you write a post, always be sure to mention other posts your readers may find helpful; this is great for SEO as well as for increasing time-on-site, conversion rates, and referral traffic.

9. Guest post on relevant blogs – There’s not much point guest blogging on a site in an unrelated niche; make sure you only contribute to highly-relevant, high-quality sites in your niche. See “The Ultimate, Step-by-Step Guide to Building Your Business by Guest Blogging.”

10. Become a columnist or contributor on a well-known website – If you can become a guest contributor on an authority site like Huffington Post or Forbes, you not only drive targeted traffic to your site, but establish yourself as an expert in your field.

11. Optimize your existing posts – Comb through your old posts to make sure they have unique and relevant title tags, URLS and meta descriptions.

12. Demote irrelevant Google sitelinks – While Google sitelinks are automatically generated, you can demote URLS you don’t want to show; this may increase the chances that the URLS you do want listed show up. You can do this from within Google Webmaster Tools.

13. Arrange an advertising swap – Trade banner ads with a complimentary site in your niche.

14. Post more frequently – Neil Patel of QuickSprout found that by posting high-quality posts 6x per week (as opposed to 5), blog traffic increased by 18.6%. Find your magic number and commit to seeing it through. Remember that in many cases, the traffic increases you see from blogging are scalable.

15. Submit your posts to Reddit – Yes, this also still works.

16. Mention influencers in your tweets – When you cite, quote or mention someone in a blog post, be sure to @ mention them in your tweet when you promote your post.

17. Focus your energy on strategies that are working – You don’t have to do what everyone else is doing. Study your analytics to see your main traffic drivers, and focus on your energy on these areas.

18. Build connections with others in your niche – I know this sounds cliché, but building personal relationships with other bloggers in your niche will often result in organic inbound links and referral traffic to your site.

19. Make sure you have every relevant keyword you can think of on your site – I’m not talking old-school keyword spamming here. I’m talking about focusing on topical content; and making sure you at least have the chance of being found for all your relevant keywords, no matter how obscure they may be.

20. Create a top 10 website post – Select the top 10 blogs in your niche, and write a post about them. You may also want to create a simple badge or banner those sites can embed to show off their award.

21. Make the most of Facebook links – Be sure to include links back to your site in your About page, in your photo descriptions, in the comments of your posts (where relevant), and in your milestones.

22. Get on YouTube – YouTube drives the most engaged traffic out of all social media sites, with an average of 2.99 pages per visit.

23. Add text to your blog post images – Try including your post title and URL in your blog post images for optimal effect when pinned or shared.

24. Become a member of industry Facebook and LinkedIn groups – Offer valuable advice and info to build relationships and drive traffic to your site.

25. Connect with bloggers who are already sending you traffic – If someone has already linked to your site, they obviously like what you have to say. Contact them to see if there are other ways they could help promote your content (and vice versa).

26. Ask a well-known blogger to guest post on your site – They’ll likely share the post with their audience, driving traffic to your site.

27. Respond to blog comments – Respond thoughtfully to all comments on your blog. This is great for building relationships, as well as for driving commenters back to your site.

28. Add your blog to Alltop – As an aggregate for all kinds of web content, submitting your blog increases your chances of getting found by people looking for content in your niche.

29. Answer Questions – Visit sites like Yahoo Answers or Quora and answer questions relevant to your niche.

30. Write a Response Post – Respond to a controversial post in your niche and then let the original poster know about it. Chances are good they won’t be able to resist responding to it on their blog.

31. Contact influential bloggers – When you write a groundbreaking or newsworthy post, notify influencers in your field. You may be surprised at how many link back to your post.

32. Make proper use of categories – If you haven’t already organized your content into relevant categories, now’s the time. Categories are great not only for SEO, but for helping your readers find relevant content.

33. Write landmark posts  - Create at least a few long-form, authoritative posts that will organically garner links and attention over the long haul.

34. Comment on industry blogs  - Become a regular commenter on a popular blog in your niche to help drive referral traffic and to establish relationships with other bloggers.

35. Interview influencers in your niche – They will be very likely to promote the interview to their audience.

36. Share your blog posts regularly on Facebook  - Post a short excerpt from your posts to entice them to click through.
37. Share your posts on Triberr  - Meet other bloggers and share each other’s content.

38. Add your blog to Technorati – As the world’s largest blog directory, claiming your blog should be standard procedure for all bloggers.

Types of WebSites / different types of websites

Types of WebSites

Affiliate: A site where you post link to products and services you recommend and when a visitor clicks the link or purchases the product the website owner receives a commission. Example affiliate agency sites are Commission Junction, ClickBank, eJunkie, etc. (see Affiliate Marketing)

Archive site: This kind of site is used to store older information about a particular subject, intended for research or entertainment. Two examples are Internet Archive and the Way Back Machine, both store entire copies of current and past websites.

Blog (or weblog) site: Sites that are generally used to post online diaries which may include discussion or forums. Blogs have evolved over the years to do much more than post your random thoughts. The blogging system you choose can be modified and be used for any type of site on this list. Example blogging sites are WordPress, Movable Type and Blogger. (see Make a Blog)

Corporate or Business site: Used to provide background information about a business, organization, or service. Example corporate sites are General Motors, General Electric, and PepsiCo.

Commerce site or eCommerce site: For purchasing good or services such as Amazon, Walmart or Target.

Community Site: A site where a person with similar interests communicate with each other, usually by chat or message boards.

Database site: A site who’s main purpose is to search a display stored data such as the Internet Move Database or the Political GraveYard.

Development Site: A site where information and resources are provided for subjects related to software development, web design and programming.

Directory site: A site that contain lists of information organized into categories and subcategories such and Yahoo! directory, Google Directory and Open Project Directory.

Download site: Strictly used for downloading electronic content like software, games, demos and desktop wallpaper. Example sites are Tucows and ZDNet.

Employment site: Allows employers to post job announcements for a position so prospective employees may apply. Example job sites are Monster, HotJobs and CareerBuilder.

Erotica sites: Show sexual videos and images. Sorry folks, I’m not posting any examples for these. Do your own dirty work!

Gripe site: A site devoted to the critique of a person, place, corporation, government or institution.

Humor site: The sole purpose of these sites are too amuse and entertain. Example sites are Stuff White People Like and Bored.com.

Information site: Contains content that is intended to inform visitors, but not necessarily for commercial purposes. Such as Rate My Professors and Encyclopedia. Most government, educational and no-profit institutions have an informational site.

Intranet site: A site created for a group of employees that work for a specific company. Intranets are only viewable by employees currently working there and typically store information on internal projects and corporate happenings.

Mirror site: A complete reproduction of a website.

News site: Similar to an information site, but dedicated to dispensing news and commentary. Such as CNN, The New York Post and Fox 5.

Personal homepage: Run by an individual or a small group (such as a family) that contains information or any content that the person wants to include. Such as my portfolio site.

Phish site: A website created to scam people and acquire sensitive information, such as passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy person or business (such as Social Security Administration, PayPal) in an electronic communication.

Political site: A site on which people may voice political views. Such a the Huffington Post and Politico.

Pornography (porn) site: A site that shows pornographic images and videos. No examples again buddy!

Rating site: A site on which people can praise or disparage a product, place or service.

Review site: A site where people can post reviews for products or services.

Search Engine site: A site that provides general information and is intended as a gateway or lookup for other sites. Some examples are Google, Yahoo! and Bing. (see Make Money with Google)

Warez: A site filled with illegal software and other electronic media for download.

Web portal: A site that provides a starting point or a gateway to other resources on the Internet or an intranet.

Wiki site: A site which users collaboratively edit information to serve as an online resource. Such as Wikipedia and