Entries from March 2014 ↓

Why You Should NOT Outsource Your Social Media Activities

March 7th, 2014 — social media, social media marketing, social networking

Social media is a must for any business these days.

It’s a fantastic way to have immediate contact with your customers, interact with them and develop long lasting relationships.

That word, ‘relationships’, is very important, which is why I’m dumbfounded at the number of companies that farm out their social media activities.

As the image above shows, social media is all about interacting, chatting, having a bit of banter and generally conversing with your customers.

Your customers follow you on Twitter and Facebook because they want that immediacy of contact, they want to feel part of your business and they want to be able to talk to you whenever they want.

Granted, social media can be time consuming (if you let it), but that’s no excuse to get someone else to do it for you.

Feeling cheated

If you followed your favourite celebrity on Facebook or Twitter, how would you feel if you posted something and they responded to you?

On top of the world probably.

But how would you feel if you later discovered that the celebrity in question hired someone to write the tweets and updates for him or her? What you thought was a personal message from them was in fact nothing other than a response from a faceless person.

Well that’s how your customers will feel if they knew their messages weren’t being read by you or responded to by you.

Any trust they had in you would be eroded beyond repair.

Immediacy of contact

The whole point of social media is to be able to instantly reach your customers with news, information and updates.

If you hire someone to do that for you they have to phone or email you to find out what’s happening, wait for you to reply, then put out tweets and updates. What’s the point? In the time that took, you could have sent out the update yourself.

A bit of banter

For me, one of the greatest aspects of social media is the way you can show the personality behind your business.

People can get to know you, like you and trust you.

But if you’re not the one sending out the tweets and updates, how can your customers really get to know you?

It’s not your personality that’s coming across so there will be a disconnect between what they read and what they see when they meet you or do business with you.

Stop outsourcing your social media and talk to your customers. It doesn’t have to be time consuming and, assuming you have a smartphone it can be done anywhere.

Rant over.

Sally Ormond – copywriter, tweeter, MD Briar Copywriting Ltd

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Link Building is Still an Important Ranking Factor

March 5th, 2014 — Google algorithms, Link Building, Matt Cutts, seo

The search engine optimisation industry has been hotly debating the relevance of back links in search engine algorithms.

Some SEOs believe that social signals have replaced links, making link building techniques (such as article marketing) irrelevant to today’s internet marketers.

Certainly, social signals are important, but links will always play a dominant role as a ranking factor – at least for now.

If you don’t believe me, here’s Matt Cutts:

Links are here to stay, but there’s little doubt that ranking factors are getting more complicated.

Google wants to provide the best possible search experience for its users, therefore (whether you like it or not) it will continue to tweak its algorithms.

So, if you want to keep ahead of the ranking game, don’t try to out smart Google, just stick to giving your readers what they want:

Great content, products and services that your customers want
A responsive website
Interaction with the social channels relevant to your market and customers

Above all, abide by Google’s rules, forget keyword stuffing and writing content that’s aimed at the search engines, and create a web presence that’s designed to give your customers what they want.

Sally Ormond – Copywriter, Briar Copywriting Ltd

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The 29 Best Social Media Tools

March 3rd, 2014 — social media, social media marketing, social networking

Social media is a revelation.

It is immediate, interactive and great fun. Now you can chat with your customers any time, any where and you can ‘get’ to those hard to reach decision makers who have always hidden behind an impenetrable wall of secretaries.

But with all the different platforms about, it can be difficult to make sure you’re getting the most from them.

Well, as usual I’ve been scouring the Internet to find some tools that will help you use social media more effectively.

My search led me to Social Media Examiner who have asked a gaggle of social media professionals for their take on their favourite social media tool.

They came up with a list of 29: