Online Marketing Solutions

This month Stir’s CEO Brent Purves provided insights on Social Media Marketing best practices to the Financial Post for a Canadian business case study called “Focused Messaging: Social media helps us stand out in a noisy new market with many competitors” (Denise Deveau, Financial Post, Mar. 5, 2012).   

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Excerpt: "When considering a social media strategy to build buzz around a new business, it's easy to go wrong if you don't follow some best practices. Hear are some basic things to consider when targeting a niche market: 

Stay engaged with customers. "Anyone who downloads our product or is even remotely interested gets one-to-one support," says Andi Wilson of MyVoice. "Follow up with anyone who talks to you, and remain active on your feeds. Spend every day searching out people, groups, keywords and hash tags that could bring people to your community." 

Make good use of search terms. For MyVoice, that meant understanding the vernacular of the speech language pathology community among other words (e.g. #SIpeeps - a term for speech language pathologists or #AAC - augmentative and alternative communication). 

Use multiple forms of social media. Link videos, photos and tutorials to your site. Add this type of content to Facebook and Twitter to create a richer experience. Don't forget to tweet new posts. 

Be aware. The more you follow people and access their posts, the more posts will appear in your home feed. Make the most of your connections with big users. 

Keep it going and current. "Don't start unless you have a plan in place or you might bite off more than you can chew," says Brent Purves of Stir Media. Post items daily, then listen and engage. "Wait for opportunities to join conversations rather than just pushing information out," he advises.  

[And] use analytics to track conversations, time spent in conversations, pathways, etc. Don't discount negative feedback Use those comments as opportunities to directly answer questions or concerns."  

Click here to read the full article. 

Stir is a full service internet marketing  and web solutions agency. We provide marketing and communications strategy and consulting specializing in internet marketing, social media and business web solutions.

At the beginning of 2012, Google launched “Search Plus Your World” -- a change to the way the search engine performs that promises to make internet search more personalized than ever.

“Google Search has always been about finding the best results for you. Sometimes that means results from the public web, but sometimes it means your personal content or things shared with you by people you care about. These wonderful people and this rich personal content is currently missing from your search experience. Search is still limited to a universe of webpages created publicly, mostly by people you’ve never met. Today, we’re changing that by bringing your world, rich with people and information, into search” (Google Blog). 

This development follows the launch last year of Google+ -- Google’s own social network that turns the whole search engine into one giant social network, and makes connecting online more like connecting in the real world. Now, your personal Google+ platform will be integrated with Google Search. 

That means that when you perform a search, not only will Google search the world wide web for results, it’ll search your Google+ world -- drawing on content from inside your Google+ social network for incredibly personalized results. Exciting? Sure. But it changes Search Engine Optimization (SEO) quite a bit.

Up until recently, Social Media was an important part of any good Internet Marketing and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) campaign. Now, with the launch of Search Plus Your World, it’s an absolute essential.

“Since Google is the most influential search engine and they are clearly integrating and favouring results coming from people’s Google+ circles, this becomes the most important social outlet to focus on from a SEO-Social perspective. No more ignoring it” (www.agent-seo.com).

In that sentiment, all of Stir’s comprehensive and customizable SEO packages include Social Media Marketing, Management, and Engagement -- that’s including (but not limited to) Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and (of course!) Google+. So, Search Plus Your World has changed how your SEO agency will have to think about and incorporate Social Media. What else? Keyword/keyphrase usage (both on- and off-page) and link-building (among other aspects of SEO) will have to be approached quite differently. In reality, you need an expert now more than ever. 

Further, during these early days, some people have expressed concern about security and privacy now that personal content is going to show up in search results. Google assures us that we needn’t worry:

“Unprecedented security, transparency and control -- When it comes to security and privacy, we set a high bar for Search plus Your World. Since some of the information you’ll now find in search results, including Google+ posts and private photos, is already secured by SSL encryption on Google+, we have decided that the results page should also have the same level of security and privacy protection. That's part of why we were the first major search engine to turn on search via SSL by default for signed-in users last year. This means when you’re signed in to Google, your search results—including your private content—are protected by the same high standards of encryption as your messages in Gmail” (Google Blog).

These developments might seem scary for businesses just trying to get a feel for social media and search engine optimization. But they shouldn’t. The internet is always changing, and -- once we all get our head’s around this new search style -- the results will be exciting. And Stir is here to help. 

We’re Google experts and are looking forward to helping your business make use of these new steps. Book your free Internet marketing consultation now. 

• Click here to learn more about Google+
• Click here to learn more about Google and Search Engine Optimization

Last month, Google changed the face of “internet search”, and made search engine optimization (SEO) just a bit more ponderous. How? They launched Search Plus your World, which makes searching the internet more personalized than ever: your personal Google+ platform will now be integrated with Google Search. 

For SEOs, that means that while Social Media (Facebook, Twitter, and now Google+) used to be complements to a good SEO campaign, they’re now essential components. 

Google+, launched last year, is Google’s own social network, one that claims to “turn the whole search engine into one giant social network”, and makes connecting online more like connecting in the real world. 

“At its core, Google+ is a social network” (B. Parr, 2011, Mashable.com), and its “stream” feature is a lot like Facebook’s News Feed feature: it allows users to share status updates, news and views, photos, videos, and links. But that’s where the similarities sort of stop and Google+ starts to look quite different from its counterparts.

Here’s what Google said: “Google+ makes connecting on the web more like connecting in the real world. Share your thoughts, links and photos with the right circles. Use easy, spontaneous video chat to strike up conversations with as many as nine people at once. Get everyone on the same page with fast, simple group chat. We’re very excited about the new approach to sharing we’ve created through Google+, but this is really just the beginning.”

Google+ is a “project” that will be rolled-out/revealed in stages, but here’s what we’ve been introduced to so far: Circles (which allow you to group your connections and communicate with them as specific targeted groups); Huddle (which is a group chat feature); Sparks (which allow for “accurate and personalized content discovery”), Hangouts, Games, Search, and more! If Google+’s goal was to “topple” Facebook, it might have a shot: “[Google} certainly has a lot to work with, including Picasa, Gmail and Google Maps and information and functions from all of these will be integrated into the Google+ experience” (B. Parr). 

But only time will tell. In the meantime, as a business owner looking to leverage the power of social media to build brand awareness and brand loyalty, network, benefit from powerful word-of-mouth advertising, increase sales, and garner support, is Google+ something you should consider devoting time, staff, and resources to?

Should business owners join Google+?

Hot on the heels of the Google+ launch, Google announced the release of Google+ Pages (like Facebook’s Pages feature): “So far Google+ has focused on connecting people with other people. But we want to make sure you can build relationships with all the things you care about—from local businesses to global brands—so today we’re rolling out Google+ Pages worldwide” (Google Blog). 

To get your feet wet (before creating your own business page), consider signing up for an individual/personal account and learn the ins-and-outs of what’s poised to become the next big thing in social networking. 

Click here to learn more about Google+ and Google’s new “Search Plus Your World” and what it all means for Search Engine Optimization (SEO).