seo and social search: facebook, linkedin and twitter
DESCRIPTION
This webinar was given by Gary Angel of Semphonic.com and Scott K. Wilder of Edelman DigitalTRANSCRIPT
The Big 3
Search on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter
with Gary Angel and Scott K. Wilder
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Gary Angel, President of SemphonicCo-Founder and President of Semphonic, the leading independent web analytics consultancy in the United States. Semphonic provides full-service web analytics consulting and advanced online measurement to digital media, financial services, health&pharma, B2B, technology, and the public sector. Gary blogs at http://semphonic.blogs.com/semangel
Introductions
Scott K. Wilder – SVP – Social Media Architect, Edelman DigitalCurrently SVP/Social Media Architect at Edelman – Digital. Founded and managed Intuit’s Small Business Online Community and Social Programs. Before Intuit, Scott was the VP of Marketing and Product Development at Kbtoys / eToys, the founder and director of Borders.com, and held senior positions at Apple, AOL, and American Express. Scott is also a founding Board member of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association. He received graduate degrees from New York University, The Johns Hopkins University and Georgetown University
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Overview
What we will cover:
Introduction
Summary – Final thoughts…
This will be a good webinar if….you‟ve gained insight into how to optimize
your presence on the Big 3 Social Networks
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It’s an Art and a Science
“Can’t manage what you can’t measure”
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Definitions
• Social search or a social search engine is a type of web search method that determines
the relevance of search results by considering the interactions or contributions of users.
• Earned Search: Based on content you create!
• Real-Time Search: material where there‟s practically no delay between composition and
publishing.
> For the most part, Blogging is not real time
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A Three Ring Circus
Hey, what
about me,
Googlebuzz?
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Why should you care?
You are your own media company
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Lets take a look at Facebook
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Facebook – The obvious and the not so obvious
• More than 400 million active users
• 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day
• More than 35 million users update their status each day
• More than 60 million status updates posted each day
• More than 3 billion photos uploaded to the site each month
• More than 5 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts,
notes, photo albums, etc.) shared each week
• More than 3.5 million events created each month
• More than 3 million active Pages on Facebook
Source: Facebook
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Average User Figures
• Average user has 130 friends on the site
• Average user sends 8 friend requests per month
• Average user spends more than 55 minutes per day on Facebook
• Average user clicks the Like button on 9 pieces of content each month
• Average user writes 25 comments on
Source: Facebook
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Facebook: Impacting your Search on FB
• Name of page: www.facebook.com/scottwilder
> Can't be changed
> Need to have a 100 fans
> Impact of other URLs
• Profile Info:
> Fill out all information
> Photos should have captions, events with descriptions.. maybe even
discussion forum, important cause all pages are indexable (also important
to get users to comment and like your content
> Use „info‟ tab for keywords – help with Google too.
> Photos should have captions, events with descriptions.. maybe even
discussion forum, important cause all pages are indexable (also important
to get users to comment and like your content)
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Facebook: Fan Page vs. Group Page debate
Source: http://www.allfacebook.com
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Facebook: Fan Page
• Plan out your approach – and the intention of keeping some items locked in
and some evolving
• Choose a name for your Fan Page and don‟t change it
• FB will disable generic names (Kleenex)
• Leverage the „About‟ text box – with key words / phrases
• Photos should have captions, events with descriptions – “text is key”
• Discussion forums create „Search engine juice‟ cause all pages are indexable
(also important to get users to comment and like your content)
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Facebook: Fan Page
• Create 'Static FBML' boxes and tabs to place lengthy
content and more static pages
• FB allows owners to create addtional boxes or tabs
> Each can contain static text, links, images
> Good for FB search, but not for Google cause it is a
separate url
• Links to your page from FB and from the web
• Fan Count (or group or application numbers)
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Facebook: Fan Page
• Google Juice:
> Link from your home page to your FB page (reputation management -- links
like Google) - Inbound links important
> Profile Page searched by Google.
> Make sure as much content is open/available to everyone
> Set Privacy settings to Public (at least double check)
> Note: On Facebook itself: - If people have chosen to make their content
available to everyone, you also will be able to search for their
status updates, links and notes, regardless of whether or not you are
friends. Search results will continue to include people's profiles as well as
relevant Facebook Pages, groups and applications.
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Facebook: Search
• Search powered by Bing (just renewed)
• Real – Time results (As of August 09)
• Site indexing completely automated – no human intervention
• Ranking algorithm looks at: web page content, number/quality of websites that
link to your webpages and relevance of your websites content to keywords
• Branded keywords or branded events might have greater impact
> Theory: Advertising might help you steal some FB search traffic
• Updates from your friends, which are not usually public, come before updates
from everyone
- All updates contain rich content in-line from videos to music to thumbnails
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Lets now take a look at LinkedIn
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LinkedIn - What’s the Business Strategy?
• LinkedIn is professional networking site – one of it‟s main functions is personal
job search. This makes it a double-edged sword for businesses.
• Because LinkedIn is a professional network – participants are generally
comfortable getting and distributing business information – it doesn‟t have the
“content conflicts” that Facebook may.
• Likely Business Strategy:
> Optimize access to your public-facing people
> Optimize job-seeking capabilities
> Use Groups for professional marketing
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LinkedIn: Types of Search
Types of Search
> People Search
> Jobs Search
> News Search
> Forum Search
> Group Search
> Company
Search
> Reference
Search
> Address book
Search
> Answers Search
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LinkedIn - Basic Facts
• Goal: Optimize Access to
your Public Facing people
• Basics:
> People Search on
LinkedIn is the default
option and almost
certainly dominates all
search on the system
> Search is keyword
based and faceted. It
searches all entered
fields. Advanced options
allow for numerous
facets.
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LinkedIn - Social Advantage
• Goal: Optimize Access to
your Public Facing people
• Social Advantage
> LinkedIn suggestions
are based on your
existing network – so
people and companies
are surfaced first if you
are closely connected.
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LinkedIn - Strategy
• Goal: Optimize Access to your Public Facing people
• Strategy
> Create a standard for all public-facing sales/marketing/communications
employees. Make sure that key fields are filled out (company, website,
company info, industry) in a standard fashion and that strategic keywords
are used in basic profiles.
> Make sure your company profile is accurate and has appropriate
keywords.
> Make sure that employees join key groups.
> Encourage broad networks for the appropriate people.
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LinkedIn - Basic Facts
• Goal: Optimize Job-Seeking
Capabilities
• Basics:
> Linked-In Job Search is
keyword based.
> Listing are posted for 30
days and are not sorted
(by default) by listing.
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LinkedIn - Advantage
• Goal: Optimize Job Seeking
• Social Advantage
> Nearly all LinkedIn Members are open to job postings. You can use your
employee networks to get qualified eyeballs on your postings.
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LinkedIn - Strategy
• Goal: Optimize Job-Seeking
• Strategy
> Keyword Stuff your posts. The search algorithm is basic and rewards
heavy density of keywords. Notice that very few listings are shown and
since date isn‟t the key sort a keyword dense listing will pull many more
eyeballs.
> By default, LinkedIn populates the search with the searchers zip code
(assuming they are logged-in). Make sure your job listing is targeted to the
area from which you expect the best pull.
> Make sure you have a corporate image uploaded – it really adds visual
snap to the listing.
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LinkedIn - Basic Facts
• Goal: Using Groups for
Marketing
• Basics:
> User Groups are
Keyword matched but
not sorted by keyword
relevance or user group
communications.
> The default sort is by
Group Size.
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LinkedIn - Social Advantage
• Goal: Using Groups for Marketing
• Social Advantage
> Most group sign-ups are social based – so search is definitely a fall-back
tool.
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LinkedIn - Strategy
• Goal: Using Groups for Marketing
• Strategy
> Target secondary core words if there are already large groups in your
field.
> Since this is a “rich-get-richer” search system, aggressive recruitment is
definitely rewarded.
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LinkedIn - External
• A content rich site!
• External search engines such as Google love LinkedIn (note: Facebook and
Twitter are quickly getting the love!)
• Keyword strategy important:
> Search will be done in all profile text including summaries, job descriptions,
school names, job titles,
> Fill in all fields
> Consider carefully job titles, descriptions, etc.
• Links into your page / links externally
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Lets take a look at Twitter
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• Growth:
• November 1, 2008: 1 million Tweets
• November 1, 2009: 5 million Tweets
• March 4, 2010: 10 million Tweets
• Check out the Gigatweet.com counter
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• Real-Time Publisher
• Items that could negatively impact your placement on Search Results page
> Repeatedly posting duplicate or near-duplicate content (links or tweets)
> Abusing trending topics or hashtags (topic words with a # sign)
> Sending automated tweets or replies
> Using bots or applications to post similar messages based on keywords
> Posting similar messages over multiple accounts
> Aggressively following and un-following people
• Some challenges:
> Finding your Tweet from the past
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Twitter - What’s the Business Strategy?
• Twitter is a huge community but the format is quite limited. Companies have
engaged with Twitter in quite a few different ways:
> Evangelistic Engagement
> Customer Support
> Brand Management
> Crisis Management
> Marketing
• As will all social networks, search is a secondary mechanism after network
building – but your goals will impact how you choose to optimize for search.
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Twitter - Basic Facts
• Goal: Optimizing Your
Search Presence
• Basics:
> Search is very primitive
– creating a recency
ordered list with NO
relevancy ranking at all.
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Twitter - Basic Facts
• Goal: Optimizing Your
Search Presence
• Basics:
> Popular Hashtags can
get swamped from a
search perspective
> Re-Tweets count
equally so a popular
tweet can dominate
search results
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Twitter - Social Advantage
• Goal: Optimizing Your Search Presence
• Social Advantage
> Every Re-Tweet brings your message back to the top of search.
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Twitter - Strategy
• Goal: Optimizing Your Search Presence: Evangelistic Engagement
• Strategy
> Hire an evangelist or make sure your evangelist is engaged with Twitter.
Even if the short term value is small, the value in a crisis situation is huge.
> An evangelist can build up a large community of willing re-tweeters
allowing you to dominate search threads at key times.
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Twitter - Strategy
• Goal: Optimizing Your Search Presence: Crisis Management
• Strategy
> Tweet often and engagingly. Encourage re-tweets. The more you push
out, the more you will show in search.
> Prepare by building a network with evangelism.
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Twitter - Strategy
• Goal: Optimizing Your Search
Presence: Marketing
• Strategy
> Go after the mid-tail.
Results on secondary
terms can often persist for
quite some time.
> The core words for SEO
may be totally
inappropriate since they
are too popular and will be
quickly swamped.
> Test timing carefully –
since recency is key.
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Twitter - Strategy
• Goal: Optimizing Your Search
Presence: Marketing
• Strategy
> You can‟t own the long tail
with your marketing or
evangelical teams – but
your product teams might
be able to…
> These tweets can last for
quite a long time.
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A word about: Social Search• Social search or a social search engine determines the relevance of
search results by considering the interactions or contributions of users..
(Wikipedia)
• Benefits:
> Reduces link spam
> Users determine relevance
> Leverages network of trusted sources
> Each web page has been endorsed by one or more people
> Pages / Results become more relevant
> Adopts quickly to changes in peoples tastes, etc.
Source: http://blogs.oracle.com/retail/2009/03/sears_and_social_search_1.html
TouchGraph via their Facebook application ---
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Final Thought – (before summary)
• Think of creating a content as part of your lead generation strategy
> You implement key words so people can find you
> You reach out to friends, family and experts to help be found
> Consider what you want them to do when they find you:
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Summary:
• Think of the Big 3 as BIG part of your SEO and lead generation
strategy
• Remember: The criteria for getting a prominent spot on Search Results
is evolving
• Leverage the real estate on your profile, fan and other pages – (can‟t
hurt with search results)
• Recognize that Social Search will become increasingly popular
• Remember: If you work at a company, mobilize your employees and
motivate them to populate their profile, fan and other pages.
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It‟s an overused cartoon now, but it still applies…
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Thank You.. Questions?
• Gary Angel:
> Blog: http://semphonic.blogs.com/semangel/
• Scott K. Wilder