Improve Your Social Media Strategy – Expert Advice

in Social Media Marketing on May 14th, 2012 | No Comments »

How many social media platforms are you on, as a company? At the very least, we expect companies to be on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. How do you use these platforms? This question might be a little trickier to answer. There is a lot of information on the internet about how companies and brands should be marketing themselves using social media strategy, which can lead to information overload and a desire to never tweet again. However, we at RoryMartin.com have been doing some research and have discovered key Social Media Takeaways from top social media experts which will work to improve your social media marketing strategy.

It’s not about creating accounts, It’s what you do with them – Krista Neher

You might have a wide social media presence, and be visible on every platform a social media consultant can name, but what are you doing once you’re there? You can do so much more than tweet and post company information. Use Twitter to respond to customer queries and complaints, and Facebook to promote sales and offers. Don’t just be visible, be personable.

Life is not about being liked it’s about being effective – Chase McMichael

Are your social media strategies geared more towards getting people to click that ‘Like’ button, or to share and recommend your carefully created content with their friends and family? Some companies chase after the elusive ‘Like’ at the risk of losing their brand message. Stay true to the essence of your company, and see real client engagement with your social media.

Twitter Golden rule – Give before you get – Hollis Thomases

In these times when everyone and every business has a Twitter account, people are becoming ever more aware of when they are being treated like a walking wallet. Provide followers with value on Twitter and they will want to share their experience of your product or service with their own followers.

What can be found, can be optimized – Bob Tripathi

Whatever medium you’re sharing content through can be picked up by search engines. Make sure to use the right keywords, tags and phrases, so that the people who go searching will find you. And remember to link back to your website!

We hope you found these tidbits of advice as useful as we did at RoryMartin.com where we are always on top of the latest news in social media marketing; all the better to pass our expert knowledge onto you.

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Have You Gone Overboard on Your Search Engine Optimization?

in Search Engine Optimization on May 3rd, 2012 | No Comments »

The rules of search engine optimization are always changing, and at RoryMartin.com we keep on top of those changes, for your benefit. Recently, Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts, made a comment about how the search engine will soon be penalizing sites which go overboard on their SEO. Some typical ways of improving rankings will now be responsible for pushing your site off the front page; maybe it won’t even appear at all.

Previously, search engines have assumed that a website or blog post which mentions certain words, over and over, will be relevant to that word, which seems logical. However, some SEO practices repeat certain words more than necessary, to the point where the website content becomes useless, but ranks highly. We are assured that keywords are still important, but optimization tricks such as duplicating content and writing repetitive post and page titles will be no-go. Primarily, the search engine will be looking for signs of life.

We’ve compiled a few tricks of our own to help your website and social media strategies stay afloat as the changes roll out.

To begin with, try to consolidate any duplicated content. For instance, if you have one page on ‘Decorative Lights’ and one page on ‘Fairy Lights’ with similar general product descriptions, this could work against you.

Too many links in your website could become a problem as well. It can be difficult to know where to draw the line, especially if you sell a main product and accessories – you will need a thoroughly linked website – but a footer full of arbitrary links is a distraction for the user and a point against you from Google.

Even too many links into your website can now affect you negatively, although this is mainly a problem if they come in from penalised websites. Instead of arranging linkshares with websites, try to cultivate a social media presence; Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn links are all being integrated into Google search algorithms and are seen as more trustworthy – social media is all about people sharing useful links rather than bots spamming keywords, after all!

We want to help you improve your search engine optimization strategy, so if you’ve noticed a drop in your traffic, or if you’re just starting out with your website, get in touch and let us give you the advantage of our expertise.

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Social Media Strategies Made Simple with TweetReach.com

in Social Media Marketing on May 1st, 2012 | No Comments »

Have you ever wanted to know how far one of your tweets travelled? Or how many people are exposed to your twitter account on any given day? Maybe your company regularly throws hashtag parties, where lots of people join in, but you’re never sure who else is listening. With TweetReach.com, you can know all of this in seconds! Just head on over to their user-friendly search interface, type in your twitter handle, a marketing phrase, or recent hashtag, and get a snapshot report which displays all the important analytic information up front. You can search for free as many times as you like, but each search will only return data for the last fifty tweets. There is a paid option, but it’s still a fantastic free resource for monitoring real-time events.

Let’s look at the ‘Reach’ first. This is how many accounts your tweet, or hashtag, reached. You are able to see everyone who actively retweeted or participated in your event, but all of their followers too. Say you have a reasonably small following on your personal twitter account, around two hundred and fifty followers. Search your twitter handle and you may be pleasantly surprised to discover that a couple of judicious retweets by followers means that you have reached up to eight thousand accounts!

Numbers like this are great, but engagement is what Twitter is all about. So, secondly, TweetReach shows you the top contributors – accounts with the highest number of followers to have retweeted you – and the most retweeted tweets.

If a hashtag promotion is a part of your social media strategy, this information is more valuable than gold dust. You can immediately discover the major influencers in your conversation, alongside which tweets in the conversation are getting the most play. In a nutshell, you can find out who is engaging, and why.

Why is this information useful? If you know which users are the most engaged with your product or most vocal about your promotion during a social media campaign, then you can use that data to concentrate your efforts on a more targeted market next time. Instead of spreading out a net and catching empty tin cans, you can bait your hook appropriately to lure the clients you really want to your site.

If your aim is to bring clients back to your website, then a follow-up to TweetReach use is to monitor the click-throughs coming in from Twitter during the promotional time. If you then compare conversion rates to the engagement data, you’ll have a wealth of information on the kind of Twitter campaign which draws in paying customers against the kind which just gets people chatting.

RoryMartin.com specializes in social media strategies, so if you’re as excited by this as we are, get in touch to have social media marketing made simple for you.

 

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Social Media Marketing News – LinkedIn Announces New Features

in Social Media Marketing on April 16th, 2012 | No Comments »

Are you making the most of LinkedIn for your business? LinkedIn doesn’t think so! That’s why they’ve just announced two new upcoming features for company pages – ‘Targeted Updates’ and ‘Follower Statistics’.   At RoryMartin.com, we’re dedicated to keeping ourselves at the cutting edge of social media marketing, and using that knowledge to put your business in front of as many eyes as possible. Early figures from these updates suggest that targeting specific portions of your followers could improve audience engagement with your company by up to 66%. That’s traffic which you can’t afford to lose out on.

Targeted updates mean that you can put relevant information in front of the people who are really interested in it. Say you have a product which you market to small-to-medium businesses and one which works better for larger companies. Now you can choose which size company sees which LinkedIn update. You can also segment your updates according to industry, job function and geography. With this kind of targeting, you can afford to share more information more frequently via LinkedIn. Where you previously, perhaps, updated three times a day in order to catch people on their lunch breaks and other peak browsing times, now you’ll be able to update more often without appearing to be spamming.

Targeted updates works in tandem with follower statistics as you can check out engagement levels, update impressions and recent followers. You’ll be able to see within days whether your targeted updates are reaching people, and improving engagement. This then provides the means to create bespoke marketing strategies for each area of interest among your followers.

Want all of the benefits but can’t spare the time? Let RoryMartin.com do it for you. Social media strategies are our speciality, and we can’t wait to get to grips with this new way of increasing follower engagement!

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Pinterest Influences Web Design Trends

in Web Design and Development on March 15th, 2012 | No Comments »

Pinterest is big in the social media marketing sphere (Haven’t heard of it?  Click here to read about how businesses can use Pinterest), and it’s making waves in web design as well.  The unique layout Pinterest offers is becoming incredibly popular with businesses who are looking to reinvent themselves online.  In fact, some magazines from publishing giant, Condé Nast, are launching new designs using a grid-style layout, with minimal text and tons of pictures.  Not only are publishing houses looking at this new style, Flickr – the popular photo-sharing website – is set to upgrade and redesign it’s site within the month, to make it look more like Pinterest.

The success of this type of layout could be because Pinterest users say they need to create and curate, organize and compartmentalize ideas in an increasingly scattered digital world.

Companies are working to create sites that feel more like brand lifestyles than sales pitches and corporate information.   Mashable’s Community manager, Meghan Peters says that Pinterest allows users to “experience the web in a way that makes them feel productive and inspired”.  This is one of the bigger roadblocks to creating an engaging corporate experience.   In fact, Flickr has switched to this design style because, ““We see in our first metrics that people consume a lot more photos, they interact so much more with photos in this view.”

In web design and typeography, Pinterest is also inspiring designers – not through its layout, but through mood boards created by other illustrators, graphic designers, typographers, etc.   We’ve been using Jquery plugins that accomplish Pinterest-like layouts for the past couple of years. Our vertical layouts emulate the forward thinking of Pinterests vertical layouts.

What we do at RoryMartin.com is remain technology agnostic. Since we use the latest and greatest technology from the vast world of open source developers we can stay ahead of the times when it comes to making our customers’ users happy.

Pinterest’s success is an example of proving our philosopy; that new information architecture can and should be adopted based on what users tell us they want. In this case – Pinterest users spoke up – and we will continue to listen.

 

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Pinterest for Your Business

in Social Networking on March 6th, 2012 | 1 Comment »

The new rage in the social media sphere is Pinterest – an online scrapbook where users can pin and share images in an easily customized way.  Users create boards inspired by their favorite topics or brands; using a “pin it” button from their toolbar, they can instantly share their inspirations to their network of friends.  Within moments, other users can pin that image to their board, creating a social network of image sharing and inter-linking.  Some of the best candidates for Pinterest’s vast network of sharing include wedding planners, digital designers, foodies, fashion lovers and interior decorators.

Image courtesy of http://www.verenettawarner.com

Why is this good for a business?  Members use images from the web – and those images are often linked to the websites where the images originated.  But it’s not just all pretty photos – California restaurant chain Tender Greens uses Pinterest to showcase images of chefs at work, and the ways in which they plate catered foods.  Another example – retailers like Raymour & Flanigan or West Elm can show off catalogue shots featuring their designs, and users can talk back by showing those retailers inspirational images for their living spaces.  This gives businesses a chance to have a two-way visual dialogue with their customers.  Some businesses using Pinterest – such as Wedding Republic – have seen a 75% increase in traffic through Pinterest.

Users say they love Pinterest because it’s like getting magazines delivered straight to your desk, without adding clutter or cost.

How do you use Pinterest to promote your business?

Spend the time using the platform.  Like any social media site, you will not see results unless you can put in the time.  It takes constant interaction on any platform to keep your brand relevant.  Also build relationships with “Pinners” who have quality boards, and who post quality images.  Influencers who have a solid relationship with a brand are more likely to talk about that brand.

Keep it simple – cluttered boards are a surefire tactic to keep “Pinners” from NOT clicking on your page.  Mimic Pinterest’s uncluttered design, but be sure to include ONE link back to your site through each pinned photo.  Also, make sure your business is a good match for Pinterest.  If you sell pianos, make sure you can provide aesthetically pleasing imagery to “Pinners” who will use your images.  If you sell power sanders?  It will probably be difficult to see a return on your time investment using Pinterest.  And remember – don’t just promote yourself.  Social networking is about sharing a vast array of ideas.  Pinterest users are savvy when it comes to spotting boards that are too-self serving.  This means you must interact more than just promoting your own products.

If in doubt, try out a daily theme!  Come up with a theme or slogan and build themed boards around that, using at least 1 product from your homepage.  Be selective, be inspiring, and be creative.

Read the Terms and Conditions – Pinterest is based on pinning images, but make sure the images you’re adding are your own.  There could be ramifications to pinning copyright images.

And above all, remember to interact – Pinterest is built on a concept of networking, and networks all depend on connection.  Ensure you take a little time to build that connection with other Pinterest users.

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At RoryMartin.com, we are focused on creating and executing effective social media campaigns for our amazing customers.  We offer a full set of services; whether you need website design and web development, search engine optimization, or social media marketing.  From entrepreneurs to established businesses, we do the work so you don’t have to – making social media simple.

 

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Engagement Focused: Sevenly.org

in Web Design and Development on March 1st, 2012 | No Comments »

We’ve heard a lot about the hip new startup, Sevenly, that provides users with an easy and efficient way to make a difference in the global community.  What we like about Sevenly is that their web design offers a strong call to action, content that is presented in a way that’s easy for users to digest, and places a focus on how users can give back to their community.  Sevenly CEO, Dale Partridge says, “In today’s world, if you aren’t constantly improving your website… you’re falling behind… We listen to our customers and figure out what they want and what would make the process of supporting our causes easier…”

The site makes sure to include an in-depth explanation of what they do and how they donate their funds.  They also offer cause statistics, and highlight how Sevenly users have contributed to their charity partners.  Sevenly’s users are encouraged to support campaigns by both making donations and promoting the cause through social media.  The new site design is committed to building awareness, finding funding, and building a following.

The design is heavy on imagery, light on text and highly graphic for impact.  It focuses on numbers, statistics and charts to show each user how they’re helping the community.   They also have full Facebook integration, allowing users to comment and share their own stories.

We liked the way the site was focused on user engagement.  As businesses start to use Facebook more, we feel it’s important to remember that Facebook should be a social media tool, but it shouldn’t be the ultimate landing page for clients or users looking to find out more about your brand.  It’s important to have an engaging corporate page, where users can go to ultimately connect with your business.  We give Sevenly’s site an A+.

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RoryMartin.com is a Seattle Web Design company that specializes in Seattle Search Engine Optimization and Seattle Social Media Marketing.  To make an impact with your website visit us at RoryMartin.com.

 

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Build a Better Website with Tips from Rory Martin

in Web Design and Development on January 5th, 2012 | No Comments »

Netcraft reported that as of November 2011, there were approximately 525, 998,433 websites out in Internet-land  – and many of them aren’t perfect.  Think about it:  when you look at your website, what do you see?  Do you see a sleek design?  Is it easy to navigate?  Do you see compelling imagery or a big block of text?  Are you missing the little things like SEO or a Footer?  Are you effectively using Social Media?  Or have you forgotten to actively add that element to your website?

To make your website more “perfect”, you need to think about all the things we’ve just mentioned.  Seattle Web Design and Social Media Marketing company, RoryMartin.com can help you perfect your website with a few tips on designing a better website.

It’s true that content is key when it comes to making an impact on the web, however design is also key.  There are a variety of browsers, processors and monitor sizes, so it’s important to design a site that looks great on all of them.  While you may use Firefox or Chrome, and so you may design for those two browsers, consider the fact that 40% of internet users STILL use Internet Explorer.  Cross-browser compatibility can be a difficult problem to solve, but producing a sleek design without all the extra bells and whistles can save you some time in trying to determine why this or that widget doesn’t work.

Design also plays a big part in your website’s layout and navigation.  Consider this – 60% of the time, users cannot find the information they’re looking for – and much of that is due to poor execution in navigation and UI design.  Making sure your site is simple but well-designed could save your visitors a lot of time and effort trying to find out where you’ve hidden that gem of information they’re looking for.  And where user interface is concerned, users report clicking away from a page that has pop-ups or plays music or video automatically when the webpage has loaded.

One big part of web design that is often overlooked is the footer.  Often, businesses forget all about the SEO properties and usability of their footer in favor of more visible elements like header images and information.  At RoryMartin.com, we build footers for clients that include copyright information, the company address and contact info, their business tagline and even quick navigation links for the web-user who’s made it to the bottom of your page.   We also recommend links to your social media profiles, because, as users arrive at the bottom of your page and want to know more, the footer can convert your web visitors into Twitter or Facebook followers.

Are you actively using social media?  Is it easy to find your social media links (and maybe even your Twitter stream) on your website?  Web marketing consultant Chris Brogan says, “Social Media puts the ‘public’ into PR and the ‘market’ into marketing.”  Social media is one of the easiest, most direct, and most prominent forms of both public relations and marketing, available to businesses today.  If you’re not using social media, and displaying your information prominently, you’re missing out on a huge target audience.  And, studies have shown that social media builds customer loyalty.

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is probably the biggest key to driving customers to your site.  Using a correct combination of keywords and search terms throughout your website in strategic places will help propel your website to the front page of Google.  Of course, being on the second page of Google’s search isn’t bad either – considering a quarter of all web searches progress to the second page of Google.  But keywords aren’t the whole story:  Though 42% of users click the top ranking link on Google, the text that shows up beneath your link is REALLY the driving factor.  It’s this text – copy pulled directly from your website, that truly drives traffic to each site, while your strategic keywords ensure you’re listed in those search results in the first place.

If you’re looking to update your website, grab the wide world of social media marketing by the horns, or just looking to manage brand communications, our skilled staff of social media marketing and web design experts can help.  Find out more about what we can do for you at www.rorymartin.com.

 

 

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Making the Best Use of Edge Rank

in Social Media Marketing on December 14th, 2011 | No Comments »

A while back we wrote  an article on making an impact on Facebook through your business Facebook page.  We wrote:

While Facebook updates may seem like a way to alert fans to events and news – showing up like messages in users’ in-boxes – a very small percentage of updates are actually visible to fans, because of an algorithm called EdgeRank.

EdgeRank gives every post a quality score – measuring the number of comments, likes, and shares per post against the number of fans a page has. Businesses who want to be seen need to build up their EdgeRank, by making their posts interaction friendly – which means businesses need to spend more time building community with their fans.

If you can succeed at building your EdgeRank, your business has a higher chance of increasing your brand recognition and therefore, your revenue.     If you’re like most businesses, this means that EdgeRank should probably play a larger role in your marketing efforts.

As a Seattle Social Media Marketing company, Rorymartin.com focuses on helping our customers build their EdgeRank.  Our clients are better equipped to educate their target audience and build brand awareness.  Our clients are able to win and retain customers with engaging and impactful websites and web marketing.

So how is EdgeRank calculated, and what do you need to do to improve yours?

Every post (status updates, polls, photos, etc) is an “object” and objects all have edges – therefore each of your posts has “edge”.  Every single EdgeRank score depends on individual Facebook users’ post consumption.  The EdgeRank Algorithm was designed to show individual users more of what they “like” to see in their news feed.  The higher the EdgeRank of your particular post, the more likely it will appear across your users’ feeds.

The algorithm looks like this:

edgerank algorithm

So what does this algorithm mean?

Social Media Affinity is the relationship between your business and your target audience, based on frequency of contact, logins, likes, post responses, shares etc.  If a user has interacted with your business Facebook page in the past, the user has an affinity for your brand.  The only way you can build affinity is to create engaging post content that will entice your target audience to come to your page to interact.

Weight is based on how many clicks a post receives against each major Facebook metric (clicks per like, clicks per comment, clicks per impression).  For example, just getting a bunch of users to click “like” won’t cut it – unless you have millions of them each day.  What you really need are comments, since comments have 4 times the weight of “likes”.  How do you create comments?  Comment generation is done in much the same way as building affinity – create engaging content.

Time Decay is KEY.  Think back to your Facebook timeline.  How many times does that page change in an hour?  In a minute?  In 10 seconds? EdgeRank changes the time-decay factor based on how frequently users log into Facebook – so if your users are used to checking Facebook several times a day, your post may disappear more quickly based on this time decay-factor.  EdgeRank Checker explains,

“With the new hybrid news feed comes more objects in the feed, as Top Stories happen at a faster rate than previously. Facebook most likely increased the speed at which objects time decay. It seems that this has created a more “honed in” EdgeRank effect. Meaning, EdgeRank is creating Top Stories for users who are more likely to engage and dropping less engaging objects into Recent Stories.”

How do you overcome time-decay?  Post when your target audience is ready to engage. This means doing a little research on your target audience.  Know when they’re online and what they’re talking about.

Other tips:  Treat each “like” as a potential brand ambassador and make it worth their while to be on your page.  Offer exclusive fans-only content.  Use calls to action – for example “Like this status if you agree!”

Well this all sounds pretty difficult, doesn’t it? That’s where Rorymartin.com comes in.  We’re focused helping our customers create and execute their social media campaigns.  We offer a comprehensive set of services from website design and web development to search engine optimization and search engine marketing and social media marketing.  From entrepreneurs to established businesses, we do the work so you don’t have to – making social media simple.

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Twitter and Facebook Build Customer Loyalty

in Social Media Marketing, Social Networking on October 24th, 2011 | No Comments »

Twitter Image courtesy of Mashable.comAs a company that specializes in Seattle Search Engine Optimization and Social Media Marketing, the RoryMartin.com team likes to keep you informed about new studies regarding social media.  A recent study, generated by Chadwick Martin Bailey, states that Twitter users who follow brands on Twitter are more likely to buy from and recommend that brand.  The group also produced a previous study correlating Facebook users’ purchases with the brands they “like” on Facebook.

This is good news for businesses who are using social media networks to improve their marketing efforts, especially because Twitter and Facebook  users are some of the most frequent internet users in general.  The study showed just how Twitter users were interacting with brands, reporting that 84% of Twitter users who follow brands do actually read brand tweets, making Twitter an effective form of presenting your company and products.  Even better, approximately 1/4 of users who follow brands on Twitter do tweet about the brand.  1 out of every 4 users in your Twitter audience are likely to be talking about your brand right now.

Twitter is proving itself a very useful forum for customer loyalty.  It’s important to know your audience and to make sure you’re tweeting authentic content, though.  67% of users expect unique content from the brands they follow.  In the decision to follow brands on Twitter, customers cite exclusivity and promotions as some of the top reasons they follow brands. Here are the top five reasons users follow brands:

  • 64%: I am a customer of the company
  • 61%: To be the first to know information about the brand
  • 48%: To receive discounts and promotions
  • 36%: To gain access to exclusive content
  • 28%: To receive content/information to retweet and share with others

If your business is not using Twitter right now, you are missing out on a very valuable marketing method.  The report shows that businesses shoud be tweeting to their customers as a means of building brand loyalty.  Don’t know where to start?  At RoryMartin.com, we help businesses customize their social media marketing plans, provide customized facebook pages, overall website overhauls, web design, and perfectly timed tweets.

We can help you build a Social Media Strategy that reflects your unique brand and meets your business goals. From a one-time site analysis to full search engine optimization strategy and execution, RoryMartin.com makes social media simple.

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