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Social Media SEO Success with Blogging

Written on August 31, 2010 by admin

Filed Under: marketing, seo

Army Golden Knights: SFC Dave Herwig (@gkdave), SGM Steve Young (@gksteve), LTC Joe Martin (gkjoe)

My presentation on how to leverage Social Media SEO to improve the reach and effectiveness of blog content for marketing at OpenCa.mp DFW this weekend ended up being a lot of information in a very short period of time. The use of a video interview I did with Brian Clark as the segue into my presentation ate into some of the 30 minutes I had to present plus I simply had too many slides.

(Thanks to Lt Colonel Joe Martin for the photo taken right after the presentation. His team were literally sponges for information at the event.)

The good news is that there’s Slideshare, so I’ve embeded a copy of that presentation below. Chris Pirillo and Brian Clark gave witty, informative and entertaining presentations on blogging and copywriting for blogs before me, so the stage was set to talk about marketing that blog content.

Marketers familiar with “Push and Pull” can relate to Social Media being the push, where (along with listening & engagement) you syndicate, update and share your content via social channels. The pull is SEO, where you optimize that content with customer centric keywords they can use on search engines to easily find your content ahead of the competition.

My presentation shared a model that I call the Cycle of Social & SEO that starts with creating, optimizing and promoting content along with listening to and growing social networks. As the relevant content gets shared socially and others link to it, the exposure and traffic builds momentum to a point where search traffic and the social community you’ve fostered provides priceless data via social media and web analytics on what content to create and share on a go forward.

Guessing what keywords and what social channels your customers are connected to is the reason why so many companies don’t see an impact from their efforts. Being smart from the start and planning on developing a cycle that continues to provide value and refine effectiveness at meeting customer search and social media needs is a win for all.

Companies in the marketing space like Marketo, PRWeb and our own agency at TopRank Marketing have made strong commitments to content as well as SEO and Social Media with the payoffs coming in the form of competitive search visibility and growing social communities.

We’ve recently been engaged by another well known company in the online marketing space that sees the value in both our strategic marketing & implementation expertise, but more importantly, is making a commitment to content and it’s role in customer acquisition and customer retention through Social Media & Search Optimization.

Check out the presentation below and let me know what you think.

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Chris Pirillo on SEO & Social Media @ OpenCa.mp

Written on August 29, 2010 by admin

Filed Under: marketing, seo

At the OpenCa.mp conference in Dallas this weekend I was able to re-connect with Chris Pirillo of Lockergnome and the Gnomedex conference (We’ve interviewed each other in the past). We both jumped out of the same airplane with the Army Golden Knights last week and are also speaking today about blogs at OpenCa.mp.

I caught up with Chris to talk about his take on SEO and social media.  He had pretty strong opinions about people who are too aggressive and not always relevant in the social connections they’re making.  This is what he had to say:

You can find Chris online by Googling “chris“. How’s that for the effect of links on search engine visibility?

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Is 2011 The Year of the Social Media Bubble

Written on August 28, 2010 by admin

Filed Under: book, marketing, searchengineguide

by Eric Brown

Several camps are starting to chant that 2011 may well be the year of

Jumping Army Strong on Social Media & the Golden Knights

Written on August 27, 2010 by admin

Filed Under: book, marketing, seo

Army Strong Stories is a program to draw attention to the real life and experience of being in the Army through soldier stories communicated via media socially. Recently Greg Swan of the Minneapolis Public Relations firm, Weber Shandwick, that is behind the Army Strong Stories campaign contacted me with a compelling opportunity to create my own Army story: “Would you like to go skydiving with the US Army Golden Knights?”

Who are the Golden Knights? In 1959 13 men joined together to form the Strategic Army Corps Sport Parachute Team, to compete in the communist dominated sport of skydiving. The team performed so well that on June 1, 1961 the Army maded them an official parachute team and the Knights (men and women) have been wowing audiences at air shows ever since.

Greg is a well known “social media guy” and works with the Army account for his agency. At first I was uncertain about the jump, but after looking at the competitive skydiving team’s website, YouTube channel and blog, I decided it was worth checking out.

One thing Greg didn’t know when he invited me was that I spent several years on active duty in the military. We later discovered I was stationed on the same base in Alaska as his Grandfather. My experience as a small town kid from Minnesota being exposed to a completely different world of the military allowed me to grow and mature in new ways.

My short experience with the Army exposed me to structure, challenge and reward in combination with raising my awareness of teamwork and a sense of purpose that was instrumental in the development of  things like character, integrity and confidence – All essential for success as an entrepreneur and business owner.

Also, without the Army college fund program, I would not have been able to afford a University education. So, while it was by no means a career for me, my personal experience with the Army left me a different person, better in many ways, than before I joined. It is with that backround and my interest in the Army Golden Knights’ use of social media that I accepted the offer to jump from an airplane for the first time in my life yesterday.

Disclosure: The U.S. Army paid for my transportation and accomodations in Addison, Texas where the jump occurred and I agreed to write a blog post however I wanted.

Meet the Army Golden Knights

The competitive skydiving team of men and women that make up the Golden Knights are the best of the best skydivers in the world.  These men and women have many thousands of jumps under their belts and participate in competitions all over the world, making them truly unique individuals and part of a very elite group.

I watched videos on YouTube of the Knights in competition as well as the tandem jumps I would be taking. These videos included VIPs like President George W. Bush, celebrities like Vince Vaughn and well known Digerati like John Pozadzides, CEO of Woopra. This gave me a pretty good idea of what to expect. As a marketer, I’m fully aware of how effective video can be at telling a story, but being able to watch videos of the Golden Knights do what they do was equally impressive as it was confidence building in that I would be in good hands.

The Golden Knights Use of Social Media

The Golden Knights have an official website as well as a blog, YouTube Channel, Flickr, Facebook & Twitter. Several of the Knights also maintain their own Twitter accounts and blogs.  The content published on these social channels gives potential candidates great insight into the life of a competitive skydiver.

• Official site
• Blog
• YouTube Channel
• Twitter
• Flickr
• Facebook

The Knights are a publishing entity like no other I’ve seen. On the day of our jump, nearly every Army Golden Knight had still and/or video cameras on their helmets. SFC Dave Herwig was busy all day editing videos as they came in for uploading to YouTube and posting online.  The Knights clearly see content and engagement as the key to getting the word out and social media channels are a perfect distribution and community building platform to that end.

Skydiving with the Army Golden Knights

I was not jumping alone of course, there were several other digerati types like Chris Pirillo, Cali Lewis, Trey Ratcliff, Dave Curlee, Scott Ellis, Vi Kim Vu, Frederick Van Johnson, George Ruiz, Jay Batson, Pelpina Trip, John Pozadzides, and Giovanni Galluci jumping as well. Our itinerary called for us to get breakfast and meet early in the morning at the hotel and walk over to a soccer field area where the jump would occur.

This event never would have happened without Carolyn Sullivan from Weber Shandwick & SFC Dave Herwig from Army Golden Knights aka Army social media guy

SFC Mike Elliott starts off by giving a pre-jump briefing

This puts jumpers like Frederick Van Johnson, Vi Kim Vu & Pelpina Trip and the rest of us at ease.

Next we suited up as Scott Ellis has done here

Then we headed to the plane used specifically for tandem jumps

The Army Golden Knights showed their stuff

A perfect landing just 20 feet from the spectators. Amazing accuracy from 2 1/2 miles up.

Media savvy Army Golden Knights are well-equipped to document their jumps on video and photos

After the jump, off came the yellow jumpsuits, which were hot! Rachel, Pelpina & Cali

Major Smith & Lt Col Martin made sure everything ran smoothly.

For more photos, I’ve put some up on Flickr and Facebook. When the Army and Weber Shandwick share the video taken of my jump, I’ll post that here as well.

I have to say, this experience was a blast. The men and women of the Army Golden Knights are true professionals and it was a priveledge to have the opportunity to do a tandem jump with them as well as learn more about what they do.

Thank you to Greg Swan and Carolyn Sullivan from Weber Shandwick for making the offer. Thank you to the U.S. Army for having me along and for all that you do for our country. Thanks to the organizers of OpenCa.mp as well for such a great event.

Here’s a pre-jump interview Cali Lewis of GeekBeat.TV did with Mike and Dave of the Golden Knights that will give you even more info about the Knights and the event:

Next up: Speaking of which, OpenCa.mp and all the WordPress, Drupal, .NET and Joomla! education you can shake a stick at is where I’ll be this weekend. I’m presenting a session on Social SEO for Blogs after Brian Clark and Chris Pirillo give their presentations on blogging. It should be a great event and be sure to watch for a few liveblog posts on some of the sessions.

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How Core Components Of Social Media Have Made Us A Connected World

Written on August 24, 2010 by admin

Filed Under: Object, book

While ‘social media’ may not be a completely new term (see the recent Forbes Magazine article for examples of great social media campaigns that began in the 1990s), the fast development of what social media has now become in the past years is staggering.
The Influence of Twitter and Facebook

There are more people on Facebook worldwide [...]



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How Core Components Of Social Media Have Made Us A Connected World

Topsy: Now Searching Tweets Back To May 2008

Written on August 24, 2010 by admin

Filed Under: Object

Looking for old tweets? Look to Topsy. The service has just expanded to have what it claims to be the largest searchable collection of past tweets, over 5 billion of them, stretching back to at least May 2008. That makes it more comprehensive than Google’s Twitter search or even Twitter’s own Twitter Search.
Topsy will be [...]



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Topsy: Now Searching Tweets Back To May 2008

Google Places - Do You Know This Place?

Written on August 23, 2010 by admin

Filed Under: searchengineguide

by Sage Lewis

If you aren’t familiar with Google Places please watch this video. It’s growing and could be significantly affecting your business without your knowing.

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

Go here to see the original:
Google Places - Do You Know This Place?

Facebook Community Pages: Your Lurking Reputation Nightmare

Written on August 20, 2010 by admin

Filed Under: book, marketing

By Renée Revetta

It’s been over four months since Facebook launched Community Pages, and they’re still a big mess.  As users were originally told, Community Pages are NOT completely “dedicated to a topic or experience” but just pages created from everything that users list in their Info tab. Sure that might encompass topics or experiences, but, for example, Community Pages are automatically created for employers, colleges, high schools, interests and activities. With 500 million users on Facebook, those interests, employers and activities quickly add up.

There are still thousands of incomplete Community Pages floating around Facebook. When I say incomplete, I mean there are pages that haven’t been claimed or linked to an official website or Wikipedia page. Here’s an example of a claimed page vs. an unclaimed page: The Steelers (where a Wikipedia page has been linked up) vs. the Pittsburgh Pirates page, which remains unclaimed. When an official source isn’t attached, it leaves the Community Page open to Facebook users’ interpretations.  Now enters your lurking ORM challenge you didn’t even know existed. Does your company have an unclaimed Community Page?

A few things to realize about Community Pages:

Welcome to the world of ORM and social media, where monitoring is essential and the results are up to the users.

About Renée Revetta

Join the Marketing Pilgrim Facebook Community

Continued here:
Facebook Community Pages: Your Lurking Reputation Nightmare

Marketers Struggle to Stay Ahead of Social Media Curve

Written on August 20, 2010 by admin

Filed Under: marketing

While it should come as no surprise that the rapid fire pace of social media change can be dizzying, it doesn’t make it any easier for marketers to stay ahead of the game.

emarketer reports on a study conducted with marketing executives asking just how tough it is to stay ahead of the social media wave. The study was conducted by The Creative Group and found that the majority of executives surveyed are being challenged by the pace of change in social media.

Honestly, I call BS on the 35% that said it’s not challenging. Why? Because no one knows everything about social media. I figure those are the folks that never admit anything anyway so they are more like outliers (or maybe just liars?) anyway.

Just because it is a challenge to keep up with the change doesn’t mean you don’t try. Here are where these executives are turning to in order to get ‘edu-ma-cated’ on social media.

In reality, it is actually not even the executives that are in the greatest need of being aware of these trends and the like since they usually don’t get their hands dirty. Could this be a bigger part of the reason that staying ahead is tough?

Most marketers rely on in-house staff to handle their social efforts, but employees still require adequate training and also the time to keep up with the latest developments and trends among both consumers and their competitors.

Does that mean that the executive level marketers should just let the ‘little people’ do the learning and the work? Not if they want to keep their jobs. Has there ever been a time in business marketing history where it was more important to have a strong working knowledge of how the various marketing and social media tools available in the marketplace serve to help grow business? Probably not.

So C-suite marketers it doesn’t matter how tough it is to keep pace these days. You are either in it or on the sidelines. Where are you and your organization?

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Marketers Struggle to Stay Ahead of Social Media Curve

Real Time Storytelling – SES SF

Written on August 20, 2010 by admin

Filed Under: marketing, seo

For mainstream media to survive, if not thrive, it must integrate with the social web and create engagement surrounding content.  For social media to remain relevant and compelling, it must work in tandem with news organizations to create a symbiotic storytelling relationship.

The future may be a stream with the authenticity of the social web and the reach of mainstream media.

Lead by moderator Khris Loux, CEO & Co-Founder, Echo this panel took a bleeding edge look on real-time story telling through an open discussion and Q&A.

Panel participants:

• Dan Schmidt, Senior Product Manager, CBS Interactive
• Andrew Lyons, Commercial Director, UltraKnowledge
• Dermot Waters, Senior Director of Product Development, CNN.com
• Louis Gray, Managing Director of New Media, Paladin Advisors Group

Moderator:  what is a brief definition of real-time storytelling?

Waters:  Weaving a coherent narrative between disparate conversations.

Lyons:  Real-time story telling is disrupting the idea of an editorial filter.

Waters:  Real-time storytelling isn’t any different than it was 30 years ago; it has just become a participatory conversation as opposed to being broadcast.

Gray:  Real-time storytelling gets to find the most accurate, relevant content and floating that to the top.

Moderator:  how do you as a publisher ride the wave of citizen journalism?

Waters:  At CNN, we encourage everyone to be a part of the news and citizen journalism.  Join iReport and you can be a part of the wave.   What we have discovered is that we were dropping 97% of citizen content sent to us without publishing.  That was the inspiration to create iReport, take that content and reuse it in a number of different ways.  We’ve spread that philosophy throughout our site and to the rest of our properties.  Over time, we’ve built a tremendous network around the web of users reporting the news.

Lyons:  On the citizen journalism thing, you see the debate of “journalist” vs. “citizen journalist.”  Have you seen the “dark side” of things, where people try to fake news for profit?

Waters:  Overwhelming we haven’t seen this, we’ve seen it be mostly real stories, real conversations.  It is a testament to the community.  Further, the iReport community is tightly knit and will react to fake content.

Moderator:  how do you moderate/manage real-time conversation without squashing it?

Waters:  I think the community is who will manage that – you can’t stifle conversations or even allow real-time if you’re manually filtering it.

Moderator:  in a world with untold number of news resources, replies/comments/ReTweets, how can curation help?

Dan Schmidt:  People are using their friends as curators.  This is becoming more and more powerful as sites recognize users identities.  An opportunity for a news organization is to help people build their own network.  Users can bring that filter with them wherever they go.

Gray:  You talk about curation – I think CNN and CBS have grown their brand due to authority as a brand.  The act of aggregation and curation today is the act of finding relevant info from a third party source and sharing it with readers.

Dan Schmidt:  We thought about piping in feeds of content into our site – but we decided to introduce an editor to provide context.  In theory, being clear about the relevance of content is important.

Gray.  We’ve seen a battle between traditional media and new media aggregators.  What is the feeling from a CNN or CNet on other aggregators who are taking readers away or using your content to build your brand.

Waters:  Aggregators are a way to get those eyeballs.  We want to work with them not against them to ensure we are relevant and reach users.

Moderator:  there is no longer an opportunity to research stories and be “accurate,” now there is a push for publishers to be first.

Lyons:  The luxury of the deadline is gone.  You now have to be prepared to embrace the real-time world we’re in or be prepared to fight it.  For example, the journalists out there focusing on a specific be used to be thought of as the expert.  Now everyone has a voice – not just the journalists.  Subject matter experts such as scientists or other vertical-specific experts can be even more authoritative.  There has become a “return on integrity” – where you can build relationships with influencers in order to utilize them for information.

Gray:  You’ll find that some users actually have a fatigue about “breaking news.”  What you’ll find is not all of it is breaking.  You also will find a “half life” of a story – that if a newspaper is dead by the time it gets to someone (24 hours) – at what point does a news items actually become old?

Waters:  When does a story become old?  It depends on the consumer, because it might be new to them (it’s interesting/relevant to them, they just haven’t seen it yet).

Moderator:  The daily newspaper used to be the arbiter of truth, because they were the decision maker.  Now that’s no longer the case.  Who is the arbiter of truth in a real-time news cycle?

Gray:  What’s happening is you now have the ability of citizen journalists to create content.  With this, specific individuals have influence within different sub-sets of technology.  There are many citizen-fed blogs in the tech space, as one example.  And a lot of the smaller blogs cover the same story.  For example, Twitter announces a feature, they put it on their blog and then 500+ other bloggers will write their own spin.  Many reasons people do this is to keep users on their page and position themselves as the arbiter of truth.  Why are you choosing to read Gizmodo over Engadget?  Usually the answer is because they have access to something or a certain editorial perspective compelling to you.  So, based on personal preferences users will read items that reinforce their choices.  Now we have this issue, the truth used to be arbited by big names who had the access to real, verifiable facts.

Moderator:  it seems like the truth is being stressed to infinity and a race to break what is news.  It’s de-valuating investigative news that takes time to create.  What do you think?

Gray:  In terms of truth, the way that we solve that is figure out a way to reward the truth discovering machine.  You need to rely on the bigger organizations who can put reporters out in the field.  Are these individuals rewarded for what they’ve done or not?  What we’re finding is that people will break news ahead of embargos and push the limit on real-time to get on top of aggregators and attain pageviews.

Moderator:  with real-time storytelling, how will content publishers monetizing it?

Waters:  There are many ways you can make revenue from it.  By fostering the conversation and encouraging users to come to the site for real-time comments, you’re encouraging more people to your site and raising your brand awareness.  When talking about conversations offsite, we can re-aggregate it and monetize it in our own spaces.

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