If you know anything about this blog, it’s loaded with SEO related posts.
Time to time I do blog about social media and other online opportunities. Well, this is one of those posts where to venture of the SEO path to introduce you to a amazing revolution.
I’ll tell you what that revolution is a bit.
Your Market Is Online
Your potential clients are online. Some of them even use social media. The chances are good they’re on Facebook, Twitter or Google +.
But you already know that. You tweet and share stuff out none stop hoping that you will reach these people. However you need to leave your home base from time to time to find new potential clients.
You can’t stay at home and expect to always have people come to you. Nope. You have to get out there and find them.
How though?
The Social Media Revolution
So what is this social media revolution I was speaking of? It’s two things actually. I’ll talk about the second one in a bit.
The first one though is the hashtag. Yeah this thing # that is the pound key or numbers sign.
In the social media world, it’s oh so much more.
You probably think it’s just some cool trend. But in the online marketing world, it’s how you can find people in your hometown.
Example.
Go to Twitter and type in the search function a hashtag and the city your market is on or it’s airport code.I live in Victoria BC Canada so we could use the search “#Victoria” or “#yyj”.
This search would bring up a massive list of tweets from people talking about Victoria. If I wanted to get more followers, I would simply follow all of those people who have tweeted about Victoria. This would give me a nice targeted follower list.
Of course I would have to engage with them and build a relationship with them. But I at least have potential targeted customers who I am now following.
Even Facebook is allowing people to search hashtags. Here’s a link to a Facebook hashtag search of #yyj https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/yyj
This will bring up users who have softer privacy settings so you can see their post with the #yyj hashtag.
Twitter Search & Reverse SEO
I blogged last month that Twitter can act as reverse SEO. SEO is where people search for your business, but using the Twitter search function will allow you to search for them.
All you have to do is generate a list of key phrases and narrow your search down to tweets within your city.
Example.
I do contracting work for a DJ website. They wanted to promote a blog post they just wrote which helps those who want to learn to DJ.
I told them just go to Twitter a few times throughout the day and search for people who tweeted they want to learn to DJ. Amazingly there about 50 tweets a day with people tweeting they wish they could learn to DJ.
Since we had a blog post that was very helpful, we felt those people should read that post. So we started to respond to those people directing them to that blog post.
We never tried to sale them right away. Instead we wanted them to read our blog post and hopefully others. Then make the decision to purchase a monthly membership.
This is really the best way to find potential users online right away.
I’m sure you have a really pretty new website. Really, I’m sure it is. By no means am I attacking its design.
All I am saying is that a nice new website is nothing without SEO. Sure some industries and businesses that are doing social media well don’t need to invest into SEO.
But the majority of you do need improved search rankings and more website traffic.
After all, why did you invest all that money into a new website? Because you believe it’s important. Of course it is. But if it’s not optimized for search or ranking well, what’s the point of that pretty website that no one can find?
Having a pretty new website but not investing into SEO is like buying a nice car that doesn’t come with an interior. The exterior of the car is like your website, nice and pretty. And the interior is like SEO, functioning as tool to generate more leads and sales for your business.
But without an interior you wouldn’t be able to maximize the car without being to sit and drive it around right?
The same can be said without SEO. You can’t maximize your pretty website without having it optimized so people and the search engines can’t find it.
Don’t Listen to the Hype
Social Media Experts or Ninjas or whatever self proclaimed cheesy name they have will tell you it’s all about social.
Gary Vaynerchuk happens to be one of my influencers. But he tends to blur the lines between local businesses and global businesses. He helped his family wine business by using social. But he had an e-commerce website and a very entertaining Video Wine Blog.
He does provide many great examples of local businesses doing well using Social Media in the “Thank You Economy”.
But local SEO is not dead and still important for many local businesses. Especially those whose products or services aren’t all that sexy. Think of any form of contractor, dentist or any business where their clients aren’t raving on Facebook or Twitter about their latest bike rack they got for their car.
I guess this is why we’re finding many of our clients and leads are either in the auto or home improvement industries. They’re not super sexy. You have to get creative when using social media if your product or service isn’t sexy or talked about much.
Besides, it’s hard for business owners like you to find the time to post and monitor your social media accounts.
That’s why I like SEO as an option. Someone else does it and your rankings stick. Plus, people will always be searching. It’s a fact. And they’ll be searching for your business.
The question is, will they scroll past the first page and discover that pretty new website of yours?
If you follow this blog, you’ll know it’s mostly SEO related. I personally find that it has more value and results for my clients who don’t have the time to invest in social media.
But I do post tips on how to use Twitter from time to time. This is one of those posts.
Regardless if we are an SEO Victoria company, this tip I’m about to share on using Twitter is so powerful. It can help you find clients and hear what people are saying about your product or service in real time.
The best part about this is it takes all of 30 minutes a week. So when you hear about the ROI of social media, well, it’s right here with this simple and profound tip.
What exactly is it?
The Search Function!
In SEO people search your business. But with Twitter, you can actually seek them out.
It’s like reverse engineering in a way and why I call it the opposite of SEO. Make sense?
Depending on how big your market and reach are, using the search function will make way to larger results. If you’re a small business in a small town, you should still see results.
So what do you do?
You create a list of terms or words (much like you would with doing keyword research in SEO) that people might talk about when using or looking for your product or service.
He created a list of words people might using when buying or selling a home. A couple of words were:
realtor
house for sale
home
moving
house value
I also chatted with our newest clients The Wonderdogs a few weeks back on ways they could use Twitter.
Let’s say they wanted find people who needed dog training in Victoria. They could search for terms like:
dog barking
dog misbehaving
dog trouble
dog command
If they wanted to look for potential clients who need doggy day care in Victoria, they could search for terms like:
doggy day care
dog kennel
pet hotel
dog care
dog boarding
Ben Kersen is also a international dog trainer. With this he could leave the “Places” form empty to search globally for these terms:
dog trainer
train dogs
learn to train dogs
The ROI of Social Media
Everyone who owns a business wants to know the ROI of social media. If you can afford 30 minutes a week or 5 minutes at the end of each day searching Twitter for the keywords people might mention when looking for your business, I’m sure you will see improved social media marketing results within 2 months.
Let me know if you have done this before and what type of results you have seen.
I’m going to talk about a way you can super charge your social media marketing efforts. It involves finding influential people online.
I’ll explain an a bit how to do that and give you an example of who social media influencer is.
I’m sure you desire getting your website or business talked about online. Positive word of mouth is the pot of gold at the end or your marketing efforts.
Luckily there is another free internet marketing tool which tells you who the online influencers are.
It’s called Klout.
Klout is a website and mobile app that uses social media analytics to rank its users according to online social influence via the “Klout Score”, which is a numerical value between 1 and 100
Find Influential Klout Users
Last post I talked about a great free tool to help you get more Twitter followers for free. This will post will talk about finding quality people to follow. And how to build a relationship with them.
The key is to build.
You can’t expect them to start sharing your business or website right off the bat. There is too much at risk for them. They have a loyal group of followers. Their word is bond.
They have to get to know you. Trust you. Then they will share your business.
Search for people in your city or geographical area
Click on their Twitter profile link
Follow and add them to your Twitter list
Because you have added the Klout Chrome extension, you’ll be able to see people’s Klout scores.
If they aren’t signed up for Klout, you won’t see the Klout logo and score beside their handle.
You’re looking for people with scores over 45.
The Klout logo also acts as a link to their Klout profile. When you click through to someone’s profile you’ll be able to see what other social networks they are on.
Ideally, you want to find people who are on Google +, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Foursquare as well.
Here’s what to look for:
Are they active on Google +? If so they probably write reviews.
Are they Tweeting a lot on Twitter?
Do they interact with people on Twitter?
Do they check in on Foursquare? If so are they Tweeting it out and sharing it on Facebook?
This person is a prime example of being an online influencer.
People like them are avid social media users. Those are the people who can supercharge your social media marketing.
Once, of course, you build a relationship with them first.
Here’s how to do that:
Follow them on as many social networks as you can
Interact with them (without selling yourself)
Share and retweet any content they put out
After you have built up some online communication, keep doing it.
Then subscribe to my email newsletter because I’m going to be blogging about how you can strategically get these people to talk about your business online. You can subscribe up in the top right hand corner or in the popup box that will appear at the bottom of this post.
Trust me, that post will really super charge your social media marketing like never before.
I could write a real long post on this subject. There are hundreds of ways you can do it. But you’re busy.
So I thought why not share with you the fastest way!
I’m going to let you know that resource in a bit. But I want to explain the psychology behind having lots of followers. and why it will help you get more.
Social Proof
You probably think that more Twitter followers means more retweets and shares right? Well, not so fast. Chances are good many of the followers you get will not be in your geographical area. Therefore how can they buy from you? Unless of course you run an e-commerce website.
I’ll assume you run a brick and mortar store though. Now even though many of your new followers may not be in your area, they alone will help you get others to follow you.
Just how to get more Twitter followers though?
Social proof.
Having lots of Facebook likes can lead to getting people to like your page simply because lots of other people liked it. Read more about social proof in my Facebook marketing post.
So the definition of social proof is:
Informational social influence is a psychological phenomenon where people assume the actions of others reflect correct behaviour for a given situation.
But social proof is online and offline.
Here’s a quick offline example.
Last month I went to a baseball game. When my friend and I arrived at the gates to buy tickets we noticed two line-ups. There was no signage saying “buy tickets” on either line.
So everyone who got to the line-ups was relying on what the other people were doing.
Of the two line-ups, one had 15 people in it. The other only had three people.
Naturally we were excited to watch the game so we went to the smaller line. Surely enough we got out tickets in under a minute. The other line had hardly moved though.
Remember that there were no signs for both these lines. Without any direction people had to rely on what others were doing. So they blindly followed the actions of others by lining up in the larger line. That line was bigger and they assumed that was the correct and only line to purchase tickets. They figured the smaller line was for role call.
Social proof works online too.
If you’re on Twitter and you see someone with over 2000 followers, you’ll probably follow them. You’re essentially following the actions of others by following that person. After all since lots of people are following them, you should to right?
Having a large number of followers can lead you to getting more people to follow you much easier. They won’t second guess following you because you only have 300 followers. Nope. They’ll see you have 3000+ followers and think you must be important.
How To Get Them Fast
Alright. I’m still going strong with my content strategy of writing about the 10 best free Internet marketing tools.
The tool I am about to share with you lists 2000 Twitter users who are very likely to follow you back.
Pretty cool right? I’d give yourself a good hour to go through and see how many people you can follow.
Let me know how many followers you get from using this tool.
PS. In my next post I’m going to talk about another free tool that indicates how influential people are on social networks. Be sure to signup for my email newsletter so you don’t miss that post.
I’m sure you have a really pretty new website. Really, I’m sure it is. By no means am I attacking its design.
