Archive for category Social Media Marketing

Use LinkedIn for Link Building – RoryMartin.com Seattle Social Media Expert

Posted by Rory Martin in Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing, Social Networking on May 7, 2009

Great article from this guys blog:

As a Seattle Web Design company that specializes in Seattle Search Engine Optimization and Seattle Social Media Marketing, I really like this article…for more information please visit our site at RoryMartin.com

Many of you may know about LinkedIn. If you don’t, then let me enlighten. Linkedin is a social networking site that targets business professionals. It is helpful in setting up relationships for business opportunities and partnerships. It also has a more social aspect that is gaining in popularity.

And while the business networking aspect is great, I’m writing to tell you it can be useful for your SEO efforts too, specifically link building. You may not know this, but LinkedIn does not employ the nofollow attribute on its links, like most other social networking sites. So that means we can use LinkedIn responsibly to build some nice one-way links to our sites and blogs. Even better your employees can use this to build some SEO-friendly links to your company site.

Lets look at the easy steps to do this.

1. Of course the first step is to get a LinkedIn account, if you don’t have one already join today.

2. Go to your profile page and click the link at the top right, “Edit Public Profile Settings”.

3. You can edit “Your Public Profile URL” and choose either your name or your company name. I used my name. Company owners may be better off using the company name for branding purposes. Some of you more SEO-minded people can use keywords in your URL, but I don’t believe spamming your url with keywords is the best option. When you have decided, set the address.

4.Choose “Full View recommended” as your option so search engines can see your links.

5. Be sure to check the “Websites” check box so they are showing on your public profile. You don’t want to hide from the search engine spiders. If you don’t have any sites, go add them (see step 6)

6. Add your websites, if you haven’t already. Be sure to use descriptive keywords in your link text. LinkedIn will give you the default text of “My Website” and “My Blog”, but I’m betting you can do better. I used SEO Company and SEO Blog. And try use all three website options, deep link to one site if you don’t have three sites. Be sure to choose “Other” when editing the website or you can’t enter your custom text.

7. To make these links have more authority, you will need to link to your public profile page. Put it on your own site, on your blog, in your comments on other blogs and so forth. Oh, and of course make connections with LinkedIn.Tthat is why you joined, right?

You have just created up to three one-way links on a high-ranking, high-authority site…for free.

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Use Twitter for Search Engine Optimization – RoryMartin.com Seattle Web Design

Posted by Rory Martin in Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing on May 7, 2009

Great article from this guys blog:

As a Seattle Web Design company that specializes in Seattle Search Engine Optimization and Seattle Social Media Marketing, I really like this stuff.

With the newfound popularity of microblogging/presence networks like Twitter, these may well be the next haven for people looking into optimizing their sites for search engines. Twitter can be used not just for messaging, but also to generate traffic, particularly since Twitter allows for embedding links in tweets. Plugins like Alex King’s Twitter Tools even automate things for WordPress bloggers. You can set it to post a tweet automatically every time you publish a blog post.

Secondly, Twitter status pages themselves are starting to get indexed by the search engines, and I would think many of these have been getting good Google PageRanks on their own. To illustrate, the twitter.com home page has a PageRank of 9/10, which is considerably high. Matt Cutts’s Twitter page has a pagerank of 6/10, while my own Twitter page has a PR of 0/10, as I have joined twitter recently.

SEO-wise, subfolders are treated as part of the original domain, while subdomains are treated as separate sites altogether. Therefore, whatever SEO benefits twitter.com is getting will trickle down to its subfolders, including user status pages and tweets.

And then there are the alternative uses of Twitter. And I think this is better than link blogging using a full blogging platform or even social bookmarking services like stumbleupon.com because of the push aspect of Twitter.

And it’s not only the push aspect. Each time I post a link on my Twitter status page, all of my followers’ friends pages get to display that link, too. If I have thousands of followers, not only does Twitter push the link to their clients (IM, desktop client, mobile phone, or even web), I also get thousands of new inbound links toward that link I just posted.

These, among other reasons, make me think Twitter and other microblogging/presence services may be ripe for the picking for SEOs. Unfortunately, spammers have also started to mass-produce tweets with links to their own sites. At least they won’t be disturbing anyone, unless they have friends/subscribers in their networks (which can be done with some social engineering).

Of course, sometimes this may not work as intended. For instance, Twitter is limited to 140 characters per post, and so most Twitter clients (including Twitter’s own web interface itself) use URL shortening services like urltea.com and tinyurl.com. I discussed the disadvantages of short URL services a while back with some friends, and my concern is basically about the URL shortening services getting the link love instead of your own domain.Where there are web apps, there will always be people looking for ways to explore–and possibly exploit–these for their own purposes.

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4/22 Expert Panel: Using Social Media to build better products and engage with customers

Posted by Rory Martin in Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing, Social Networking on April 13, 2009

As a Seattle Web Design company that specializes in Seattle Search Engine Optimization and Seattle Social Media Marketing, I really love these events…for more information please visit our site at RoryMartin.com

Rory Martin will be speaking at this event.

Details:
Date: April 22
6:00 – 6:30 Light Snacks & Networking
6:30 – 8:00 Program & Facilitated Discussion
Location: Amdocs, 2211 Elliott Ave, Seattle

Join us on April 22 as a panel of Social Media experts goes beyond buzzwords and explains social media from a Product Manager’s perspective.

Chris Noble, CEO of Kompolt, the cause branded social media agency, will kick off a discussion about why product managers should care about social media. As a former Product Manager, Chris will clarify the possibilities it offers throughout the product life cycle. He’ll also lead an open discussion with some local social media experts, including Jude O’Reilley, former VP of Product Management and Marketing at Trusera, (and a former Gartner analyst) Scot French, Product Marketer with social network company Zooppa, Trevor Rotzein, Product Manager at LexisNexis, plus Meighan Berberich and Rory Martin of Conenza.

You’ll get:
• A quick primer on social media basics, including what it is and isn’t, why consumers dig it, how businesses and product managers can use it.
• Clarity on social media myths vs. facts
• Tips and practices you can use, from a panel of social media/product management experts

We’ll have a live Twitter session going and will be blogging from the event. Come with your questions and get ready to get social!

As a Seattle Web Design company that specializes in Seattle Search Engine Optimization and Seattle Social Media Marketing, I really love events like these…for more information please visit our site at RoryMartin.com

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Top 21 Twitter Apps According to Compete that Seattle Web Designer RoryMartin.com love

Posted by Rory Martin in Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing on April 4, 2009

Read the full article on TechCrunch

As a Seattle Web Design company that specializes in Seattle Search Engine Optimization and Seattle Social Media Marketing, I really like this list below on Twitter Apps.

Twitter Applications	Monthly unique visits (Compete)
1. Twitpic	1,236,828
2. Tweetdeck	285,864
3. Digsby	233,472
4. Twittercounter	212,200
5. Twitterfeed	149,812
6. Twitterholic	147,164
7. Twhirl	143,333
8. Twitturly	88,793
9. Twtpoll	74,154
10. Retweetist	60,051
11. Tweepler	51,304
12. Hellotxt	45,754
13. Twitdom	45,411
14. Tweetscan	44,463
15. Tweetburner	41,754
16. Tweetvisor	31,621
17. Twittervision	30,708
18. Twitterfall	29,592
19. Monitter	25,433
20. Twibs	17,168
21. Twistori	16,229
22. Twitbin	14,986

We’ve accumulated a list of the twenty most popular Twitter applications, based on monthly unique visitor data from Compete.

Twitpic, an app that lets users share photos on Twitter, took the top spot with 1,236,828 unique visitors in January. Tweetdeck, which came in second with 285,864 monthly visits, is a Twitter app that streamlines notifications and tweets. Third place went to Digsby (with 233,472 monthly visitors), an application that centralizes e-mail, IM and social networking accounts into one desktop program. With 149,812 visits, the fourth most popular app, Twitterfeed, offers to automatically tweet posts published on a user’s blog using RSS. A Twitter user ranking site, Twitterholic, is the fifth most popular application, with 147,164 people visiting monthly.

Interestingly, two of the top twenty apps – Digsby and Hellotxt, an application that allows users to update their status across social networks – are not exclusively focused on Twitter. We recently wrote a detailed post on why we cover Twitter-related news so often, and we think the fact that there are so many applications developed as an offshoot of the microblogging system is another testament to the fact that Twitter is not just another startup. This is our attempt to figure out which ones are gaining the most traction.

While we think this is a pretty comprehensive list based on the chosen proxy for popularity, it’s but a first pass at a list we hope will become more authoritative over time. Keep in mind that this methodology is only one measurement of engagement; many people use Twitter iPhone apps and other clients without ever visiting these services’ websites. Derivative site traffic is only a proxy for usage but the most easily measurable one.

We also ran these sites though Quantcast and Google Trends, but chose to measure by Compete because it had the most comprehensive set of data, especially for the smaller sites. So the absolute numbers are unquestionably higher for some of these Twitter apps. If you know additional Twitter apps that should be listed here, or if you have better ideas on how to compile this list, please leave a message in the comments.

As a Seattle Web Design company that specializes in Seattle Search Engine Optimization and Seattle Social Media Marketing,we are committed to posting more of these posts..for more information please visit our site at RoryMartin.com

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Top 10 mistakes made by people in Social media in 2009.

Posted by Rory Martin in Social Media Marketing on March 19, 2009

Great list from ezarticles:

“1) Lack of Consistent Visibility.
You cannot make a path and create a presence in Social Media, without CONSISTENTLY being SEEN and HEARD with your message. Ask Carrie Wilkerson. Or Timothy Carter. NOT going to happen. That is why that you MUST create a Presence on the web DAILY- and be seen and heard as part of the community. A tree does not grow part time. It must be consistent in it’s efforts. It is the same with your Social Media marketing.

2) Focusing too much on being heard.
LISTEN first- THEN talk. Social Media is about Listening to what is being said- by your prospects and customers- and social media in general. You would never enter a party or social event and immediately start yelling out what you wanted to talk about.
Neither should you in Social Media. LISTEN and then LEARN- and then Let your voice be heard- ONLY as a part of the existing conversation. Your time to start the conversation will come.

3) Taking, instead of GIVING to the Social Media Community.
Ahhhhh- lots of takers out in the Web 2,0 world. But NOT YOU. GIVE first. Give Value. Give Suggestions. Give Advice. Give ideas. Give Encouragement. Give News. Give New Possibilities. Give Words of Gratitude. But do NOT take relentlessly. You will be shunned and labeled as such.
If you REALLY want to create powerful influence- GIVE. How does that work?
GIVE = Gain Influence Very Easily. Give FIRST – and you will never come in Second.

4) Not Joining groups.
Groups are where you can have some of the greatest growth and learning. I belong to a ton of groups. Why? Because of 2 reasons: 1) I learn a lot from other people. 2) I CONNECT with the folks in the group.
Groups are a “secret weapon” that you should use on as many social sites as you can. They will not only Enlarge you- but also the possibilities that the group can bring to your life.

5) Not attending Events.
Events ROCK. And you should be attending at least 1 event a week to do 2 things: 1) Become more Visible. 2) To learn from people that know things you do not.
Events are what i call the “Hidden University” of social Media. You can learn a LOT and grow a lot from events.
Look at the events that interest you. And pick on event that mildly interests you. And see if you can learn something even from that event. I have an event journal. and every event that i attend- i keep a log of what was said so i can review it later. You may want to do the same.

6) Not enough VALUE in what they are doing.
Value RULES in Social Media. And we train on what we call “Surprising Value.” This is the type of Value that is so great and unexpected that it surprises the person that discovers it. Put More Value in your POSTS. Put more Value in your PODCASTS. Put more Value in your Conversations. Put more Value in your Articles. Put More Value in your Recommendations. Put More Value in YOU and what you bring to the Social Media table.
Value RULES. And the one with the MOST value at the end of the day- reigns.

7) Joining Too Many Social Media sites.
There are about 3,600 Social Media sites. You need maybe 5-7. You read that right. You need 5-7 PRIMARY Social Sites. Then you need maybe 25-30, or even 50 Secondary sites for Link Building and traffic purposes. The main sites that you should be a part of- is up to you. My ‘Big 73 are Facebook, Twitter, youTube, LinkedIn, Stumbleupon, Plaxo, and WordPress – along with mashable. These are the CORE of my Social Media Marketing.
Do I belong to more? Heavens yes- a LOT more’ but have automated those through ping.fm and other social software.
Do NOT try and be seen on a hundred sites. Facebook alone can keep you busy with over 200 million people. The same with MySpace, or Friendster. Master ONE site while mastering social media and then another, and then another, until you have YOUR “Big 7.” And then automate the rest.

8) Focusing too much on Monetizing Social Media.
Nothing wrong with monetization on the internet. We do it a LOT- and daily. But focusing too much on that in social media- is , well…not cool. People do not mind knowing about an offer, or new info product. But how about giving some VALUE first with it- then invite them to an event- and then at the end of the conference call or webinar-give them a chance to purchase your product.
What do I see daily? URLs and messages SELLING SELLING SELLING! Whew- wish that would not happen so blatantly. It has gotten better, but if you have a great content rich info product- here is a novel idea: GIVE part of the info away FIRST and let the person ASK you for the product if they like it.
Hmmm….that just might be an idea worth considering.

9) Thinking that You are Nobody and Social Media Success is for other people.
Ask Chris Brogan. Ask Scott Monty. Ask Alejandro Reyes. Ask Brian Solis. Ask Dave Taylor. Ask Shama Hyder. EVRYONE has a great possibility to becoming SOMEBODY in Social Media. THAT is the beauty of the culture. Everyone who contributes Value and Connection- is more than welcome to achieve whatever they want. Chris Brogan once had 10 readers of his blog. Now he has almost 40,000 people following him on twitter alone. Brian Clark of copyblogger fame once had 10 readers. So did Scoble. So did Monty. So did Shama. And the list is endless.
There is GREATNESS inside of you-and there is NO BETTER place than Social Media to unleash it upon the world. You ARE Somebody- and always have been. YOU are a Social Media Rockstar- in training!

10) Not Branding Yourself Strong Enough.
Branding is a tool that we all use in Social Media. It is WHO YOU ARE- and what people remember about you. It could be a phrase-“Just Do It (TM)”- or a slogan- “”We’ve Got You Covered.” Or even a questions- “Can You Hear me Now?” or just a Name-“Trump.”
You need to get a slogan or phrase that you can start wrapping in your messages. You need to get an image that speaks what you want the public to see and know. And you need to decide -what is the ONE THING I want people to think of FIRST- when they think of me and my company? THAT is the start of a good brand build. Do not be just another face in the web 2.0 world. Set yourself apart and above the fray with a brand that rocks. We teach what is called “Connection Branding” and we have saying:
“Do NOT just be known or remembered- become UNFORGETTABLE.” ”
THAT is what you need to do!
These are the top 10 mistakes people will make in Social Media in 2009. Yes, i Know there are others- but these are the ones that i see as the most prevalent in Social Media marketing.”

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The Five Pillars of Social Media Marketing

Posted by Rory Martin in Social Media Marketing on March 19, 2009

Great article from MarketingPilgrim.com

Any and all forms of Social Media Marketing tactics fall under at least one of these five forms of action. Often the same channel will incorporate two or more of these:
1.Â Â Â Declaration of Identity
2.Â Â Â Identity through Association
3.Â Â Â User-initiated Conversation
4.Â Â Â Provider-initiated Conversation
5.Â Â Â In-Person Interaction
Identity-based Interaction is your declaration of your value, who you are, and where you can be found. Your customer happens upon your online identity that you, as a provider, define and declare. This is anything from your About Us pages on your blog or website, to your MySpace profile, to your Naymz profile. Here, there is very little interaction outside of your own declaration, but this becomes critical in defining how you can benefit your marketplace.
There has been a recent outcrop of websites created purely for this function. An expanded business card, if you will. Most also include the opportunity to link to your other forms of presence online, bringing together your presence in one placeâ€¦well, kind-of. They include:
â€¢Â Â Â Naymz
â€¢Â Â Â Ziki
â€¢Â Â Â ClaimID
â€¢Â Â Â SuprGlu
â€¢Â Â Â LinkedIn
Association-based Interaction is your customersâ€™ opportunity to associate themselves with you and you with your customers. Most obviously, this is accomplished through things like becoming â€œFriendsâ€ on MySpace, you and your customersâ€™ BlogRoll, or through their social bookmarking. This is your customer wearing your companyâ€™s logo proudly – Like Andy wears his Beatles shirts.
The most explicit form of allowing for this ability is through social bookmarking sites. I say this, and not social networking sites, because this is the sole function of these sites. Make it easy for your customers to bookmark your site, blog posts, etc with their favorite tool.

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50 Social Sites That Every Business Needs a Presence on

Posted by Rory Martin in Social Media Marketing on March 19, 2009

Great article from Relevantlyspeaking.com

Inside CRM has created an essential list called “50 Social Sites That Every Business Needs a Presence on”. This is a listing of sites you can leverage to help your company network, advertise, recruit, and more.

This is an essential list for any business with an online presence. If you are only limiting your marketing scope to banners, search and blogging then you are missing out on reaching more potential customers, business partners, and employees. Below is an exceprt of the list:

If your business limits its online presence to advertising banners and blogging, it’s missing out. The Internet provides powerful networking opportunities that allow users to effectively target their audience by logging on to social sites like LinkedIn, Digg and more. Take advantage of these tools by asserting your company’s presence online and reaching more potential customers, business partners and employees.

Social-Media/Social-Bookmarking Sites
Share your favorite sites on the Web with potential clients and business partners by commenting on, uploading and ranking different newsworthy articles. You can also create a member profile that directs traffic back to your company’s Web site.

Reddit: Upload stories and articles on reddit to drive traffic to your site or blog. Submit items often so that you’ll gain a more loyal following and increase your presence on the site.

Digg: Digg has a huge following online because of its optimum usability. Visitors can submit and browse articles in categories like technology, business, entertainment, sports and more.

Del.icio.us: Social bookmark your way to better business with sites like del.icio.us, which invite users to organize and publicize interesting items through tagging and networking.

StumbleUpon: You’ll open your online presence up to a whole new audience just by adding the StumbleUpon toolbar to your browser and channel surf[ing] the Web. You’ll connect with friends and share your discoveries, as well as meet people that have similar interests.

Technorati: If you want to increase your blog’s readership, consider registering it with Technorati, a network of blogs and writers that lists top stories in categories like Business, Entertainment and Technology.

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Our Service Areas

Posted by Rory Martin in Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing, Social Networking, Web Design and Development on February 2, 2009

RoryMartin.com offers web design and development in Seattle. We services the following areas and beyond.

Arlington, Auburn, Bellevue, Boise, Bonney Lake,Â Bremerton,Â Des Moines,Â Edmonds, Everett, Gig Harbor, Graham, Indianola,Â Issaquah, Kent, Kingston,Â Kirkland, Lake Stevens, Langley, Los Angeles, Lynnwood, Marysville, Mill Creek, Mukilteo,Â Oak Harbor, Olympia, Orting, Portland, Port Gamble, Port Orchard, Poulsbo, Puyallup, Redmond, Renton, SeaTac,Â Seattle, Silverdale,Â Snohomish, Southworth, Steilacoom, Suquamish,Â Tacoma, Tukwila, Tumwater, Yelm.

Online, or in person.

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