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How to do Social Media!

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James Norquay has been doing SEO & Social Media for large corporations since 2007 as a Senior SEO & Social Media Specialist.

Some of his publications have been featured in the SEO MOZ blog – as well as Search Engine Land Blog.

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to post.

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Five Social Media Sites and Methods you should be using now!

Since social media is an area online which is exploding in terms of popularity, I thought it would be beneficial to new members and some existing members on the forum to make a quick guide and overview to social media sites and methods. I have been doing social media for business for around 7 years since the early days of forums, blogs and then later MySpace where I learnt all the tricks of the trade on how to market via these platforms.

Now the main question many businesses will ask is where should I have a social media presence? You see 100’s of social media websites yet you may be a bit overwhelmed by which specific social media websites to focus your efforts on.

Five key social media sites/methods I would like to talk about are:

  1. Facebook business page
  2. Twitter business page
  3. Google+ business page
  4. Pinterest
  5. Company blog


Method 1 - Facebook Business Pages

Facebook is one of the most popular social media websites online and having a presence for your business is crucial, in today’s market it is easy to set up a Facebook page.

(Australian user base on Facebook is currently – Over 11 million)

Tips for Facebook pages:

  • Make sure you use Facebook analytics to see what is working and what is not working.
  • Make sure you post things which are going to drive user interaction, i.e – ask users questions, the higher amounts of interaction your page gets the more it will rank on users streams.
  • Post daily do not post multiple times each day.
  • Make sure you add information to the info section/about me.
  • Make sure you use Facebook website like widgets on your site to drive promotion – http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like-box/

How do you create a Facebook business page?

Go to the following link http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php and follow the steps it is quite straight forward to set up a page. Facebook has made the process very simple compared to how it use to be.


Method 2 - Twitter Page

Twitter is a very popular social media website which allows you to connect with your customers.

(Australian user base – over 1 million)

Some important points about Twitter:

  • Make sure you write your posts with hash tags in front of your main keywords “#”.
  • To reply to users you can simple hit the “@” symbol in posts followed by the user name.
  • Make sure you connect with users and interact with them.
  • User software such as tweet deck and hoot suite to assist your social efforts - www.tweetdeck.com & http://hootsuite.com
  • Make sure you add 2 links on your profile about me section.

How do you create a Twitter page?

Go to the following link - http://twitter.com/ and choose a user name which represents your business, then follow the prompts it is quite straight forward.


Method 3 - Google+ Business Pages

Google+ is a new social media website run by Google, in my opinion having a content strategy for Google+ for your business page is crucial for social media and SEO success.

(Global user base over 90 million)

Tips for Google+ Business Pages:

  • Make sure you post things which drive +1’s, i.e funny images, cool infographics and stats that people like.
  • Make sure you use unique content on posts! Do not just rip content from other sites or use duplicate content.
  • Make sure you use the profile widgets for your website you should see a prompt for this on sign up below.

How do you create a Google+ business page?

Click the following link http://www.google.com/+/business/ and then follow the prompts.


Method 4 – Pinterest (an emerging social media site)

You may not have heard of http://pinterest.com/ but it is a fantastic site, especially if you have a website which focuses on consumer goods, fashion, images and tech.

What you can do is “pin” various images/content, create walls and add friends and most of all drive traffic to your website. A great factor about Pinterest is that you can also use it effectively for SEO link building. I have personally been using the site for around 6 months and I have seen some decent traffic from it especially in the fashion area.

How do I sign up?

At the moment it is invite only so send me a PM direct and I can send out some invites to my friends at DN trade.

Hang on a second I have never heard of this site it cannot drive traffic?

Wrong check out a recent study by Mashable - http://mashable.com/2012/02/01/pinterest-traffic-study/


Method 5 - Company Blog

Many people say Blogs are not part of social media yet I would disagree, in my opinion blogs are a key focal point to communicate with your customers or your user base and to directly link your promotion and social media to the blog. Blogs are also one of the more traditional social media methods and a key ingredient to the social mix.

Tip for blogs:

  • Make sure you post content weekly to keep it fresh.
  • Make sure you use unique content.
  • Make sure you use SEO keywords where possible in titles, body text and tags.
  • Make sure you use SEO adds on’s such as SEO for Firefox.
  • Use a blog platform on your own domain.
  • Do not host a blog on a sub domain if possible host it on a sub folder.

Blog Platforms:

  • Wordpress
  • CMS level hosting package.

A good guide to setting up a Wordpress blog can be found here - http://www.howtomakemyblog.com/wordpress/how-to-install-wordpress-step-by-step-guide/

Other CMS level blogs you may need to investigate on a case by case basis or talk to a developer.

Overall this is a really top level look at 5 social media sites/methods I highly recommend you take a look at.

If you have any further questions please do not hesitate to ask below.

Kind Regards,

James Norquay.



Where to find me online:

My Blog: http://jamesnorquay.com
Business site: http://www.professionalseo.com.au
My Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/connections8
My Linkedin: au.linkedin.com/in/norquay
My Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/James-Norquay/274502642594977
My Google+ page: https://plus.google.com/104627466131988547008
 
Last edited:

seolyka2

Regular Member
Creating and completing your company business profile in Twitter, Facebook, Gplus, Pinterest as well as Linkedin is really a great way to let people know about your brand and maximize its online exposure.

Setting up also your own company blog also helps drive traffic to your main site, provide quality backlinks for your site, brand your company as an expert in your niche and build trust with your customers.
 

James

Top Contributor
Creating and completing your company business profile in Twitter, Facebook, Gplus, Pinterest as well as Linkedin is really a great way to let people know about your brand and maximize its online exposure.

Setting up also your own company blog also helps drive traffic to your main site, provide quality backlinks for your site, brand your company as an expert in your niche and build trust with your customers.

Yeah company blog was noted in the list above, Linkedin company pages and groups can be good but this was more a basic intro to social media for people who want to the basics, most clients I have dealt with in the past have a presence on Linkedin yet it does not sit in their key list of sites.
 
I noticed that Qantas does this well. A mate recent tweeted a complaint about wifi in the Qantas Club, sure enough Qantas responded quite quickly politely and professionally responding. The probably have a team dedicated to social media.
 

James

Top Contributor
I noticed that Qantas does this well. A mate recent tweeted a complaint about wifi in the Qantas Club, sure enough Qantas responded quite quickly politely and professionally responding. The probably have a team dedicated to social media.

Yeah I believe they have around 5-10 people doing social full time, probably more even working at the agency.

Most large companies with a sizable social presence have at least 5 people working on social media.
 

ScottNugent

Top Contributor
What's your take on YouTube, James? A couple of clients have explicitly requested me to do some YouTube branding work for them. It's something I'm happy to do and I find it normally works well. Would love to here your professional opinion here :)
 

James

Top Contributor
What's your take on YouTube, James? A couple of clients have explicitly requested me to do some YouTube branding work for them. It's something I'm happy to do and I find it normally works well. Would love to here your professional opinion here :)

YouTube is just outside the "basic social media" field that these 5 sites listed site into.

Sure I setting up a YouTube strategy is a good idea but you need to invest in quality materials to make sure the campaign will work, You need to have a good video recorder and you need to have a tri pod because no one likes a shakey video.

But also you can leverage your YouTube user page for SEO benefit too.
 

arrowseo

New Member
It's valuable to keep an on Google+ business page which must be important for social media campaign and SEO.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

soj

Founder
It's valuable to keep an on Google+ business page which must be important for social media campaign and SEO.

Great to have you contribute, but before you start posting links to your own SEO business, could you please do an intro.

This is required of all new members, and is just common courtesy. ;)
 

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