Author : +Bharati AhujaImage via Wikipedia

Every online marketer today is harping on the social media mantra but everyone is still experimenting with this media for getting the outreach, visibility and that extra mileage which is possible from this marketing platform but there is no sure shot formula to achieve these objectives.

Hence, it is highly important to focus on the purpose of using the social media sites and have a strategic plan else it is very easy for your voice to go unheard inspite of you putting in so much time, effort and resources.

I am sure every one who has experimented with this media has made mistakes, got carried away with the tweeting and realized the futility of just having a presence on blogs, Twitter, Facebook and now Google+ and not achieving anything out of it despite all the efforts and time which has been invested by them.

Every SEO recommends that the company should have a social media presence and thats a valid suggestion indeed, because the search engines have integrated the social data and signals with search results to add more value, quality and are also adding the preferences of your social network to the search results.

So The Questions That Need To Be Answered By Businesses Are –

• what is the purpose of our presence on social media sites?
• Is our target to create more klout on the social media site in our niche industry or to make our search presence stronger using social media as one of the options?

The Difference Between Social Media Marketing And Social Media Optimzation

Social Media Marketing is usually creating content and distributing content by sharing it on the social network for maximum out reach. It is usually in the form of a corporate message for its targeted audience which if effective gets shared further just like an advertisement. Its like pushing the message across to more and more people .

Whereas in Social Media Optimization is sharing the content usually in the form of a link so that it gets further shared and people come back to the site so it pulls the targeted visitors to your site via the social media platform.

The selection of the social media platform entirely depends on this purpose .

Social Media Marketing focuses mainly on:

· Advertising

· Direct Selling

· Customer Support

· Public Relations

· Branding

· Communication

· Direct Marketing

· Sales Promotion

· Publicize An Event By Using # tags To Make It A Trending Topic

Social Media Optimization Focuses Mainly On Driving Inbound Traffic From Social Media Sites By:

· Having URL Links For The Content In The Posts So It Can Generate Inbound Traffic

· The Content Can Be In The Form Of Images, Infographics, Videos, News, RSS Feeds, etc.

· Sharing Content Related To Your Industry – Which In A Way Promotes Your Company Beliefs And Value

· Connecting To Communities

· Make Sharing Content Easy So That It Becomes Viral

· Having Rewards For Sharing The Content

· Setting Up The Social Media Profile With A Focus on Linking To The Other Web And Social Media Presence Of the Company To Create Corelation And Improve Quality External Linking.

· On The Proper Bio Description On The Social Media Site In Order To Establish Online Identity And Also Link To The Relevant Site, Blog Or Profile.

Hence , depending on the purpose of your presence on the social media platform the efforts have to be focused on that particular activity to achieve the right objective of either marketing directly or get inbound traffic .

Every business activity needs to have a plan and a purpose , engaging on social media for a business purpose without planning the task is a sheer waste of time and other resources  and may harm the social business image of the company rather than heal it and leverage it.

Author : Bharati Ahuja
Image by Intersection Consulting via Flickr

The internet has changed the way we think and execute our professional and personal interactions and activities. It has touched the lives of all age groups in accordance to their need and requirement.

Moreover, its high time we accept it whole heartedly with full positivity as the internet and its technologies are here to stay and have already got woven as a part of the DNA of our day to day lives. Whether you are a grandchild , parent or a grandparent everyone is using the internet in some way or the other.

From the business perspective the internet is the lifeline of every office. All the activities come to a stand still if the broadband or wifi is down for some time as the office just cannot function if the data packets are not flowing to and fro through the router.

From the marketing perspective too, the focus is on search marketing and bringing people to your website and having a web presence on the online platforms where the netizens are available in numbers.

Optimizing a site for search engines is a must for the search engine presence . Majority of your targeted visitors reach your site via search engines hence ranking high for targeted keywords is important. For that it is highly essential to have the on-page optimization as per the norms of the search engines of course, but it is all the more important to have an over all quality web presence on the web to retain your position on the SERPs.

Having a good quality website with great content is laying the foundation stone for your web presence but it does not end there . The edifice of your web presence will get structured only when you have a presence on all the search options and social media. This web presence will get solidarity and brand recognition the following metrics in the formulae are put into practice with proper planning and expertise.

Good UX (User Experience) + Trust Factor + Social Factor + Domain Authority = Factors Affecting SERPs , CTR , CR and ROI 

If the website is ranking high for targeted keywords on the search engine options and has a good UX then the probability of a high CTR (Click Thru Rate), More Time on Site and a low bounce rate increases 

A good SEO campaign works on all these factors and as the internet is a network of networks, all these factors are also inter-woven with each other and the improvement in one metric ensures improvement in another. No factor can be considered in isolation and then worked upon or focused upon. Every website is unique and which factor needs to be given priority in the campaign will depend on how well your SEO does the SEO audit before he/she starts working on it.

As you can see that all this can be achieved only through team effort. It is not only your SEO who is responsible for the success of your online marketing campaign but all the members of your web development , marketing and management teams are also responsible as many times your SEO company cannot achieve the set targets without their cooperation and understanding.

Author : Bharati Ahuja

Recently I read some very good posts which discussed about how internet, search and social media have become a part of the DNA of how we execute our professional and personal interactions and activities.

Image via Wikipedia

Vivek Wadhwa wrote on whether Social Media was the start or an end of a golden age http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/may2011/tc20110524_792362.htm 

Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz discussed on whether a company needs “Social Media Experts” on http://www.seomoz.org/blog/everyone-should-hire-social-media-experts 

I have written in one of my blog posts published in August 2010 http://blog.webpro.in/2010/08/is-social-media-new-marketing-mantra-or.html that the merging of the real world and the virtual world is a constant evolution happening right from the day people started using the internet. Some time back email management was a task which needed training and setups at the offices in the corporate world. Today majority of these corporate people who may not be tech savvy flash a smart phone with ease for receiving and sending emails.

Social interaction is nothing new, since ancient times humans have been interacting. Every one must have read the sentence which is usually the first sentence uttered in any lecture on Sociology, Psychology, History or Moral Science - ‘Man Is A Social Animal’.

So the urge to communicate, connect, interact, share is very basic, normal and at the core of human psychology only it is the medium which varies from time to time.

Hence online social media is the new way people want to connect personally or professionally.

The urge for searching (For Knowledge or in primitive times for food) and being social are the most intrinsic parts of human personality so that has not changed it is only the way we are executing these activities has changed as we have woven internet technologies with it which is making it look different.

Its high time we accept this technology in our lives rather than running away from it. The real world is getting reflected on the virtual world and whoever is breathing on earth today has an online presence and you can reach out to him/her . Search engines and social media have a reach with a multiplier effect which makes the world appear small but the basic things remain the same.

The goals and principles of traditional methods of marketing and online marketing methods are the same but the way we achieve them is different in a traditional marketing team we have sales people, advertising people, customer support, etc. and now we need SEOs, social media experts, web administrators,etc. The end is not different we still calculate profits with the same mathematical formula but the data sources are different.

Children are still getting education but have access to more reading material at the click of the mouse and can interact more with their friends and discuss to learn more with more speed and efficiency.

Hence internet and internet technologies are tools which increase efficiency and help us to reach out to more. Whether we use it for our benefit and convert it into a bane or boon for us depends on the user ‘s choice. The technology is not right or wrong the way we use it makes it right or wrong.

The internet, search engines, social media, etc. are surely a start of a golden age and we need more and more search and social media experts who with time are surely going to emerge as an offshoot of the massive usage of the net as they all are busy gaining experience as of know. As you can call yourself an expert only if your knowledge is backed by the valuable experience.

Yes, positive acceptance of this evolution in the way we execute tasks and achieve success is the only way to go ahead .