Social Media is hot in 2007 and should continue in 08.
Rand is up first.
Social Media Marketing Essentials - he has 2 presentations.
socail Media 101 (pure basics) - 60 websites worth watching (more advanced)
Rand takes a vote - small group pics 101, 98% pick advanced.
60 websites worth watching (other one will be available on the site) in order of importance.
flickr.com - live link on photos deviantart.com - comments, live links care2.com - group billboards dfinitive.com - social bookmarking site adultswim.com - message board fanpop.com - profiles have links sphinn - live links tweako - socail bookmarking mixx.com - fantastic site bloggoggle - not a bad site even if you havent heard of it couchsurfing - profiles have links comagz.com - has some spam (reads off some of the live links) only one of the group like this (as of now) ballhype.com - sports based digg like qoolsqool - andy hagans (thanks) as some were taken from andy's presentation buzzflash.net chipin.com scoreguru.com - like ball hype blogs4god.com - religious dnhour.com - profile link hugg.com - green community sk-rt.com - profile links memeorlame.com - getting more popular showhype.com - pop celebrity photographyvoter.com - photos pixelgroovy.com plugim.com - pretty popular smallbusinessbrief.com - babblz.com - videosift.com 23hq.com
20 domains with strong profile rankings digg.com - stumbleupon.com myspace.com - bands and groups do well wikipedia.org - profile pages if you do alot of edits on the wiki mybloglog.com - very strong as of late technorati.com - tag pages do well slideshare.net - rising star youtube.com - channel and profiles amazon.com - rate things and your profile could do well deviantart.com linkedin.com bookclubs.barnesandnoble.com - very strong del.icio.us epinions.com yelp.com last.fm imdb.com - blogger.com tribe.net stylehive.com
12 Sites (that you're probably not using yet)
Fark.com slashdot.com picks.yahoo.com - site of the day hacker news - news.ycombinator.com - everyone should be reading it. Its for web folks and should be read adobe showcase askmen.com site of the day cssbeauty.com and cssvault.com newsvine.com - good source meneame.net - spanish language and lots of traffic boingboing.net techmeme.com - great traffic if you can get on it
shameless plug - they sell things at seomoz
Graywolf - How to go beyond the single Digg, Delicious, and Reddit
Think long term - dont go for the single event.
Target your story to each niche - target sites.
digg : how to paint the digg logo on your wall propeller: what does the color of your walls say about your personality lifehacker: how to paint your living room in a weekend hugg: how to pick environmental paint
Use calendar and current events Tax time spring time back to school Fall: save money on heating bill Winter: last minute tax saving
*shows slide of 120k visits to a brand new site in the last 2 months*
*shows blog subscribers over a long term - it trends upwards*
Its about building an audience that doesnt rely on the engines
Steady link growth - read the google patent.
Links to deep portions of the site, you can get different stories linked
increased brand awareness (takes 7-8 times b4 they will remember it)
Building an audience that knows how to use social media - they in the end will do the work for you
Join the community for the long haul - be involved
Link to other blogs - dont be shy to let them know you are sending them traffic.
10 Tips - eye catching titles - above the fold, images - short easy to read, easy to scan content - dont make the page deadends - dont be a grinch - share the links - be topical and watch trends - solve someone's problem - use buttons and widgets to encourage voting - minimize advertising and go for the links - everyone loves top 10 lists - break some rules and make yours go to 11
Neil Patel - Dark side of social Media
1. Paying for votes - whenever he has used the pay sites, they have worked 2. social media rings - email lists and have friends vote - bigger the ring the better - join multiple rings - dont vote right away - donte vote on everything - dont abuse the ring - use hxxp instead of http - helps block the referral 3. social media apps - add friends - vote on stories - have a developer build you an app 4. Forced Actions - use iframes to vote/add a friend/subscribe to something 5. the dark side - you will think of the best stuff. think within your head. think shady and it will come out sooner or later (gets a lot of laughs)
6. Light reading - 10e20.com - brentcsutoras.com - seomoz.org/blog has some more but takes it down too quickly
Cameron Olthuis
Common forms of linkbait
Remakable content of feature on your website that compes other peaople to link to it from other websites
Informational controversial - Jason Calicanis humor news - be the first to break a story tools - calculators, widgets
Benefits of Linkbait
links link profile traffic branding bookmarks media publicity
Case Study
Sobercircle.com
First thing to do: research. Look through social media sites and see what others have liked. You can use Digg and Del.icio.us to see what each audience will like.
Del.icio.us gives you other related tags and can help expand your idea. You will also see what has been popluar.
Brainstorm - Try and get as many ideas as you can. The more the better - you will whittle it down over time.
Create the content
- Keep it simple. Most of the people are channel surfing. - format lists, make it scanable, use images and vidoes. - *shows example* Used a little known drug and talked about it. Slide shows 1001 Diggs and a video, image, and a fair amount of content.
After content, you need to seed. Submit the site and pick the topics and tags.
- Use a Power Account - Good titles & descriptions - a good/bad title can make or break you - proper category & tags - dont go with what is popluar, go with where it belongs - targeted sites
Results: 1000 diggs 150 comments 800 links Wikipedia link read/write web found the page and gave it exposure
Takeaways - Research your audience - Content should appeal - Power account - TEst test test - Write good titles and descriptions - Keep your server up!!!!!
Q & A
How much traffic can you expect? What type of servers?
Cam: 5-25k vistors from reddit. Digg can do 100k+. Gray: Call your hosting provider before hand Rand: for images use flickr and other sources. If your page uses a DB, make the page static and it will help you. The Database could really hurt you so just make it static. Neil: CPU somewhat matters, its the memory. Have 4GB of memory and use Memcache.
What amount of time from when we contact you to the spike. Cam: 30 days. It takes research and time. Rand: Its usually the client holding things up. Estimates it at 30 as well.
One question leads into alot of talking and jumping around.
How effective are these strategies BtoB? (Credit Card Processing specific)
Gray: pull it back a bit for the consumer level. Suggests making a video of trying to use a fake credit card and show what happens
Rand: Gives idea for reddit and digg about Credit Card Processing. Suggests that you leverage your data stream for content.
How do you get access to power users?
Rand: the power users are for sale. Find the users and freind them. Gray: Vote on their stories early so they see you. Really pay attention to stories they are interested in.
What is your estimation of conversion rates compared to PPC/Organic traffic? Or how does it compare on a ROI metric?
Gray: Social media for sales is different then going for links. Most people arent going to Digg and thinking "what can I buy today" Cam: Most ROI is from links, you usually have super low conversion rates for sales. It has to be very targeted. If looking for sales, look outside the social media sites. Suggests looking at the Blender company who does the viral videos of them blending products Rand: Your conversion is how many recall my brand, how many sign up for RSS, how many become repeat visitors, how many link? The first goal isnt to monitize, it is links. Neil: first figure out what your overall goal.
What are some other measures of success?
Rand: Hard core tracking. Track your brand name in the results. Blog Search in Google reports accurate links, or use Yahoo Link. Watch your referring stats, where did it come from? watch your repeat visitors.
Neil: Track your PR. Watch magazines, web sites, and other press contacts. Rand suggests using Google/Yahoo news to see how often your brand was mentioned.
How many man hours goes into an idea?
Neil: as little as possible (gets laughs) The hardest part is the idea Rand: As little as a day, as long as 60 days (it took Jane 60 days to put together the Web 2.0 awards and get the votes) Gray: 2 Sides: Maintaining the Power Account and then creating the content/idea. Cam: No cookie cutter approach.
Contributed by Dave R.
