Every company--from a major conglomerate to a fledgling enterprise to every local operation in between--has goals. Profits must be increased; reputations must be earned; and a brand must be quickly inserted into the public consciousness. These are the common expectations.

Applying those expectation to a social strategy, however, doesn't often occur. Web sites, blogs and other mediums are instead hastily put together. They lack planning. They lack strategy.

And they fail.

Utilizing the Internet for marketing only works when a company clearly defines itself and its goals.

Every business wants to succeed. Not every business tries to succeed online, however. Carving out a niche is considered too difficult and search engine marketing is ignored.

This is a mistake.

It’s also, however, one that can be easily rectified. 

Before starting a social campaign companies must recognize their goals: 

Answering these questions is essential, sparing users the frustration of poorly designed sites and limited traffic. Understand what needs to be done and then chart out a way to do it. Randomly spinning together data and images will only serve as a waste of time (and a waste of patience).

Click here to read the original article.

Contact One Big Broadcast to learn more about social goals and strategizing.

It’s an easy deception: flooding a site with back-links, filling every post with unrelated  extensions. Companies take advantage of their rivals’ popularity, siphoning traffic and search engine rankings. Inbound links shape each blog and dominate the front pages of Google.

This is the current state of many SEO strategies.

It’s no longer, however, the future of marketing.... because the Penguin program is fighting back.

Google Penguin is an analytics tool. It’s meant to examine each site for excessive back-linking, penalizing the top contenders with lowered rankings. 

The purpose of this is to curtail engine manipulation, forcing each page to rely on the merits of its content rather than extensions. A high profile can no longer be gained through false-positives and irrelevant linking. Optimized information, images and videos are instead needed.

And every company must take note of this. 

A social presence is no longer defined by back-links. Instead relevant data is required, as well as full integration. Google’s Penguin program continues to develop new ways to defend against black-hat tactics (it will eventually cast its algorithm net over keyword stuffing, cloaking and more). SEO will have to change to meet these new standards.

Click here to read the original article.

Contact One Big Broadcast to learn more about a Penguin friendly strategy.

I came across an article this morning that reminded me of the early days of us creating OneBigBroadcast.com. Everyone laughed and thought we were mad. Funny thing about being a pioneer a friend of mine once told me; "It's a very lonely place."

The writer talks about how business is loosing out on brand awareness not to mention SEO visibility - all the hallmarks that our platform delivers except we deliver the 'easy button' to attract visibility back to a client's web property.

If you are building your brand - why not use social to help promote your brand while enhancing search vusibility or SEO!

The article starts out with; "We all know that social media is getting bigger and bigger with every passing day, and more brands are engaging in social media every hour, but what about those brands that are still hesitant to get in the game?  What do you say to them?"; and goes on to show why brands are loosing out.

Great job Cory. You can read the article here. http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=159003#comments

Looking forward to other articles in this space.

Our team has spent the last week redesigning our direct interface into Facebook's new Page features with some way cool features. Have a look for yourself from the folks at  http://bit.ly/hvMN1F  practicalecommerce.com 

I never thought I'd see the day that Craigslist was down. I've been so used to logging in daily to check up on things like Home Theater equipment I've been looking for or rare parts for my XK 150. The thing is it's part of what I do daily and I take for granted. Once the service is no longer available I begin to realize just how much everyone's lives are effected by technology and the void it creates if it disappears.

Todays Internet is very much that way as well. We become comfortable in the things that work for us. When something new comes along it may take a while to adopt but then everyone starts using it. If the service disappears there are questions but eventually something comes along to fill the void. Hopefully Craigslist will sort out their problems and come back again. I've gotten used to its interface and don't want to learn another.

I read this great article the other day about the trends in social media and what the writer predicts will happen.

What jumped out at me was the following.

“Small, medium and large companies want to know how they can streamline, automate, budget, and measure social media and social marketing.”

Then the follow on comment:

“How can it move from a series of handcrafted singular projects to a more consistent, more repeatable, more predictable undertaking?”

Later on:

“Many agencies that initially dismissed digital as a peripheral activity are now bent on not making the same mistake again with social.”

Finally stating some powerful statements and the very principles that the OneBigBriadcast platform has been developed upon:

• “Start thinking about ongoing engagement. Audiences can no longer be turned on and off on demand.”
• “The long-predicted new marketing paradigm is finally here. Marketers need to start thinking, behaving and organizing themselves as content producers who treat engage consumers as audiences, instead of fully outsourcing this function to external publishers. Content is still king, after all.”

I'd recommend that everyone read this piece along with the reader comments.

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=138522&nid=120237#comments