Mini-Newsletter #1: Social Media Marketing

Topic: Promotion
Featured Item: Social Media Marketing

Social Media Marketing

It's been all the rage lately in the world of online promotion. But what the heck is it? Basically, any site with some social concept is used to specially guide the online presence of a business, and in some cases to drive user and search engine traffic back to the main web site. So, a Yelp review may have a link to your web site, and your LinkedIn profile may mention both your Yelp page and your main web site. A network of links between a variety of sites and your domain is the key.

As with many trendy things, it's still a little early to determine the exact pay off, but I've been seeing some promising results for the experiments I've been running with a few clients. In my opinion, the main reason there has been so much industry buzz is that it's basically free with only a time commitment to maintain the program. The old days of expensive Yahoo! Listings is over. We can now sprinkle links to your domain all over the place without a large overhead budget.

The key part of this promotion method that appeals to me is the fact that it's a positive step for both users and for search engines. All those links are great to help new users find your web site, and it also boosts your domain in the search results pages.

To get a more in-depth overview of social media marketing, check out the following article:
http://searchengineland.com/seo-tips-for-building-your-personal-brand-21380

Microsoft and Yahoo Get Cozy: Beware Google

Some of you might have seen the recent launch of Microsoft's new search engine, Bing. Check out bing.com if you haven't, it has some interesting new features for a search engine. In the ever lasting game of search dominance, Microsoft is gunning for a larger share of the analytics pie. I've seen evidence of this recently while checking the log files of some of my clients. Shortly after launch, Bing was starting to send traffic to some of you.

Now, with a deal that's bound to shake things up in the search arena, Yahoo has agreed to ditch its search engine in place of the Bing. So when you search on Yahoo, you'll actually be searching the Bing database. I'll keep an eye on things in the log files, and see how things go as Microsoft tries to muscle in to Google's territory.

Read more:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8174763.stm

Wrap Up

I'm hoping this newsletter was useful in answering some questions you may have about hot promotion topics. As with any type of marketing, some methods are more useful than others depending on the type of business. Social media marketing is not for everyone, but for certain businesses, it may prove very useful. Let me know if you have any further questions, and I'll be happy to chat with you one on one, or cover your concerns in a future newsletter.