Don't be this guy on Twitter. Image courtesy of Andy Field on Flickr.

Twitter is a wonderful place to promote your company’s product, services, blog posts and news. But we’ve all seen the auto-tweets that make it feel like nobody’s at home for that particular Twitter account. You don’t want your company’s account to look like that.

Our new article, Create a Personality for Your Brand on Twitter, shows you a few examples of companies with interesting, interactive Twitter accounts. We think it mostly comes down to abandoning your fear of being a human being. After all, if you make a mistake, you can always apologize….it’s only human.

Another comforting thing to remember: Tweets go by really fast. If you say something awkward on Twitter, it’s not fatal. The only times we’ve seen really bad reverberations from a company’s Twitter post was when it was nasty, mean-spirited or when the company simply refused to apologize. It turns out, Twitter is a lot like real life

Let your expertise flow to new audiences. Photo courtesy of vl8189 on Flickr.

You know you need high-quality content on your website if you want to engage customers and rank well in search results. Once you’ve taken the time to create great articles and blog posts (and it sure does take time!), make the most of that content by getting it out to the social networks.

You can learn how to do this in our new article, Cascade Content for SEO. We offer an outline for promoting your content to wider audiences, and include some examples, including some great cascading work by New York-based fashion site Refinery29.com.

Apart from sharing your expertise with new people, and persuading them to visit your site, cascading your content can earn you retweets, comments, “likes” and posts. These social signals help your SEO, which in turn can help your site rank higher in search engines, bringing even more new people to your site.

This new article joins the 100+ other pieces about SEO and Internet marketing in the Learn section of AboutUs.org. All our articles are written for business owners and marketers in small companies, and they’re easy to understand, even if you’re just starting to market your business on the Web.

Is there a topic you’d like us to cover? Do you have some Web marketing expertise of your own to share? Let us know: Editor@AboutUs.org.

Image by Anais Ferreira

A recent webinar on Hubspot about improving SEO rankings for small business emphasized two things: create meaningful and useful content about your industry on your website, and make it easy for people to share your content in social media.

The goal: Become recognized as an expert in your field, and get better search rankings and more clients. It’s a double win.

The key: Instead of using your site just to promote your product and your business, create some material that teaches people something useful. Once you’ve educated people on a topic they care about, they’ll trust you and your product more.

You’re winning two audiences at the same time: People who are searching for the kind of product you sell, and people who are interested in the topic you’re writing about. Sometimes, these are the same people, but you’re catching them at different moments – when they’re actually in shopping mode, and when they’re in research mode.

Social media matters: Make sure visitors to your site can easily share what they read there. Place social media links on all of your posts and educational material. It cannot be emphasized enough that Facebook likes, Twitter posts and shares on other social sites tell Google that your site is valuable, and can help your site rank better in search results.

For example: I searched the Internet to find out the best time of year to clean out my gutters. I found a useful article on a gutter cleaning company’s site, and then hired the company.  Finally, I shared the article on Twitter and Facebook. The company got me to their site with their content, sold me their services, and then reached prospective clients through social media.

Write engaging content, and often: It’s easier to generate new content if you think of what your clients want to know – or should know.

- Make a list of questions that you are often asked about your business.

- List the questions you wish people would ask.

- Think of yourself as a teacher to your customers and your future customers.

Keep an eye on your target audience: Once you’ve written compelling content, analyze it for keywords and other SEO elements.  Use Google Analytics and other tools that show you which pages on your site get the most visitors, and which keywords are best for attracting people to your content. Look at the trends and then create more of the content that’s bringing you more visitors.

Thanks to Kathleen Donovan on Flickr

I read Sam Fiorella’s provocative blog post, 12 Most Pressing Reasons Social Media Must Die, just a few days after publishing an article on AboutUs.org about why social media is the poor man’s SEO.

I love social media. No, really, I love social media. I believe it levels the playing field, giving every small business person the chance to compete effectively against companies with much bigger marketing budgets.

So while Sam is right about some of the ridiculous behavior and time-wasting we see on the social Web, I maintain that actually, small business people can do social media better than big business. After all, entrepreneurs are usually much closer to their customers and have more at stake than their big-company brethren. Company owners’ tweets, posts and shares can come from a more heartfelt place, and deliver a stronger message.

All that said, there are some pitfalls to watch out for. Heed these, be smart, and use social media’s advantages to help you grow.

(Oh, yeah, for those of you looking for the 12 points – it’s all sort of bundled into the three below. Read Sam’s blog post and you’ll get it.)

Keep the message clear.   The social Web is a casual place, but that doesn’t mean a marketing message should be carelessly conveyed. Silly titles, meaningless buzzwords and phrases, and blurting the first thing that comes into your head won’t get you what you want: More customers and more business. Be clear in your thinking, understand your message, and use the language your audience will understand.

Keep relationships, reputation and demeanor professional. People seem to forget that when they go to the social Web to develop business, they’re establishing a professional reputation in a new venue. Don’t tweet or post something you wouldn’t share at a professional gathering. If you want to use social media to connect with close friends in a more playful way, create separate accounts for your business so you can keep your professional and private personas separate. (Just don’t assume no one will look at both.)

Be productive. It’s easy to open up Facebook, Twitter, Stumbleupon and a few more applications in the morning, then look up and realize it’s lunchtime. You’ve glanced at a few shared blog posts, retweeted a couple of people with more Klout than you, caught up with your former colleague’s latest romance and maybe responded to a couple of direct messages. But have you produced anything of value for your business?

Yes, social media is fun. And yes, it’s difficult to link even business-focused social activity to real revenue. That means you must spend your social-media time on things that matter – your company’s blog posts, helpful hints for people in your field, industry news, answers to people’s questions.

Remember that one of the most valuable aspects of social media isn’t the sharing – it’s the responding. Demonstrate that you’re willing to hear all kinds of comments from your public – including critical or angry ones – and that you’ll respond quickly and appropriately. Your attentiveness can help you win a reputation for fair dealing, and that in turn can win yoiu more business.

Thanks to Miss604 on Flickr

In case you haven’t heard yet, the rules of search engine optimization (SEO) have changed. Yes, you still need to have awesome, unique title tags on important pages, you still need a search engine friendly architecture and you should still try to get inbound links from reputable sites.

But the playing field is more level than it used to be for small business, because social media mentions have become so important for SEO. Search engines take note of how much your company, product and website are mentioned on sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, and also who mentions you. Frankly, it can be a lot easier for small business owners – and marketers in small businesses – to create a good social presence than to fix the structure and code of their websites.

Get some tips for using social media to get a higher position in search results in our new article, Boost SEO with Social Media. There’s an introduction explaining how social media has changed SEO, and you can skip straight to the lists of tips for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and blogs at the bottom of the article.

This new article is just the latest in our large, free library of articles for business owners on SEO and Internet marketing. We’ve got articles on email marketing, local marketing, how to be an effective marketer on mobile phones, and more. Take a browse through, and let us know if there’s a topic you’d like us to cover.

Got some SEO or Internet marketing expertise of your own to share? We love our guest authors – contact us at Editor@AboutUs.org.

Can you be found here?

I have been wondering how to improve the Facebook presence for one of my clients.  I just watched a webinar on how to do that.

Facebook pages are a great place to engage your customers and future customers. But don’t neglect your website! Remember that most people will do business with you on your website. But creating a great Facebook presence can actually boost your site’s position in search rankings, as people talk about you both on Facebook and Twitter.  Here are the best of the tips.

Create your company’s identity.

• Create a vanity URL.   Make your business memorable to your customers.  Typically,  using the name of your business is best, since that’s what people will be using in their search.  If you choose to use keywords, make sure they accurately represent your brand and are easy to remember.

• Create a customized landing page. Engage your customers with a personalized page that showcases your company’s unique identity and brand.  Add interesting visuals and videos.

• Complete your About box and Info tab.  Every little bit helps toward increasing your rankings and visibility on Facebook.  These sections of your profile provide opportunities for further customization of your profile and brand, and more opportunities for you to connect with customers.

Post regularly and have a plan.

• Create a conversational calendar to plan what you will post and when.  Make two: one for short term planning and one for long term.
• Ask questions.  Use your customer’s responses to determine what you will post and when.
• Reward your readers.   Special offers, exciting content, sneak peeks give readers a reason to shop and come back for more. Also, adding a welcome tab entices customers to become fans and gain access to your profile’s exciting and engaging content.

Expand your fan base.

• Add Like tabs.  Putting Like tabs on products allows fans to Like your page in multiple ways.
• Give your clients the ability to check in at your location and publicize your profile further.
• Partner with other companies who provide a similar product or service.
• Build your off site links- such as to your website, other social networking sites, blog, and also encourage others to link to your page.

As a freelance writer and blogger, I want my articles and blogs to be read. If people are going to read my articles, they have to find them first.  So, I spent some time this morning reading about search engine optimization (SEO) and its connection to social media.

I discovered that SEO and social media are inextricably linked.  Up until now, I subscribed to the mindset that social media is a waste of time, but I suspended my disbelief and dug further.  I’m a visual person, so finding this fabulous graphic from Lee Odden helped me put together the pieces of the big, complex SEO puzzle- and fit in the social media piece.

Diagram of SEO and Social Media courtesy of Lee Odden at Top Rank Online Marketing

“How do I get readers to share it?” Make sure your content is relevant to your title and catches your readers’ attention.  Linking to your site from other venues, such as You Tube or Twitter, can give people more avenues to come to your site.

“How can increased interest help my site?” When people share links to your site, that tells search engines your site is valuable.  Increasing social media rankings is a great way for you to boost your position in search results.

” So, when I click on a company’s Facebook page and share it with friends,  I’m influencing that company’s SEO?” Yes! This is the ultimate form of grassroots marketing.  Social shares are votes for a site, which search engines use to help them decide how to rank sites.  More shares makes your site look better to search engines and increase your site’s ranking.

“How do I make the most out of all this new interest?” What you learn from your reader’s interest and votes will help you to plan future content.   I have a new appreciation for social media and a few new ideas for my clients’ websites and my own blog.  Social media = power to the people.

Last night’s talk by social media expert Ian Lurie at SEMpdx’s monthly meeting confirmed what many have suspected for a long time: Social media likes, retweets, followers, friends and favorites can boost even a small website into top search results.

That’s welcome news for any small business owner who wants to attract more site visitors, and has limited time to work on Web visibility. Until social media sites like Twitter and Facebook became so prominent,  it was well understood that one of the most important ranking factors for Google and other search engines was inbound links – that is, links from other (reputable!) websites back to  your own site.

Getting those inbound links, though, isn’t easy. Sure, you can buy inbound links from link farms or link-exchange schemes. But these tactics are viewed with disfavor by search engines, and won’t help you.

Getting links the legitimate way – by creating great content people will want to link to, and promoting it – is hard work and may not produce quite enough inbound links. So people who are really serious about inbound linking find ways to ask other sites for links – a long and laborious task. And you really can’t make people link to you.

So it’s good to hear that using Facebook and Twitter in a truly engaging way is a legitimate way to get more attention from search engines. A small business owner using social media can boost Google rankings in a way that’s more firmly in his or her control.

Not only that, social media platforms are a great place to engage with  your customers and other fans, and win a good reputation. Remember, for many companies, word of mouth is the best form of marketing. Increasingly, that WOM is happening in the social media.

Use your Facebook page and Twitter account to:

• Discuss issues in your industry or your customers’ areas of concern. For example, if you sell eco-friendly picnicware, you might want to tweet links to good articles you’ve discovered about composting, family get-togethers and healthy recipes.
• Promote your blog posts – remember, creating great content and sharing it isn’t just a link-building tactic. It’s also a great way to engage your public and offer them worthwhile information. Make sure you promote your own material along with other people’s – you don’t want to be that person who talks only about himself (or herself).
• Talk with customers who raise issues around your products, service or company in public. You want to address any social-media comments on your company quickly, in a spirit of being helpful and open. This is possibly one of the most important uses of social media, and one that’s often underutilized or done in the wrong spirit.
• You can offer coupons and specials, but just like promoting your own blog posts, do it sparingly. Oddly enough, a corporate social presence that’s solely commercial seems out of place in the social landscape.

If you’ve spent any time at all on Twitter, you know that everyone and his brother are using it to hawk their wares.

That doesn’t mean there’s no room for you. Twitter is great because you can choose whose tweets to follow, and search for tweets with hashtags. That means you can shut out the white noise and get updates only from people who tweet about things that matter to you – such as news in your industry.

Jonathan Brealey’s article, 8 Tips: Promote Better on Twitter tells you how to use Twitter so people will pay attention. He tells you how to find the right people to follow, and how to make sure they value what you’ve got to say. Jonathan’s company, UK hosting company Heart Internet, uses Twitter to communicate with customers and attract new business.

You, too, can get people to pay attention to you in Twitter. And you can learn a lot more about promoting your company and your website via social media and SEO (search engine optimization) by reading the articles in the Learn section of AboutUs.org. We’ve got a substantial library of articles on all kinds of topics – how to market a local business on the Web, how to conduct effective email campaigns, what to do about mobile advertising, and more. Take a spin through them, and let us know if there’s anything you’d like us to cover: Editor@AboutUs.org. Got expertise in online marketing? Let us know if you’d like to author an article.

People spend a lot of time on social sites like Facebook and Twitter, so savvy marketers know they need to be there, too. But social commerce has gone way beyond just putting up a nice Facebook page, and inviting people to like you, or even offering coupons on Twitter. Many companies now sell their products right on Facebook, and their other social presences are interlinked with both that store and their website store.

Helen Fang’s new article, Social Commerce and Social Marketing 101, explains just what social commerce is, and how to make sure all your online activities support it.

Helen works for Vendio, a company whose technology helps merchants sell right on Facebook, without ever leaving the site. While selling on Facebook is a great idea, Helen makes it clear that it’s just part of an entire sales ecosystem.

You’ll find lots of great information about marketing a local business online, helping your site rank higher in search engine results, building good links to your site and more in the Learn section of AboutUs.org, where Helen’s article is published today.

Articles in the Learn section are written by experts in their fields with the small business owner in mind. You’re busy growing your company – you don’t have time to become a search marketing expert. You can rely on AboutUs articles for the essentials of SEO and Internet marketing in plain language, free of industry jargon. Browse through Learn and let us know what you’d like us to write about next: Editor@AboutUs.org.