Google have also completely overhauled their front end with Google+, making user experience easier (!?) and more streamlined. Although this time we didn’t have to change the profile page, we did need to adjust to the new layout.

We see this pattern of behaviour repeating across all networks, from the dominant Facebook /  Twitter / LinkedIn to the smaller ones – Foursquare, Path, and Pinterest.

No Biggie, right? Things change, and we’re ok with that, right? I wish… Although companies may say they understand the social media space, their budget allocation shows the exact opposite.

In many cases, companies allocate minimum resources to social media. A recent study has shown companies around the world allocate less then 10% of their marketing budget to social media activities. A couple of weeks ago I was made aware of a major company (mainly B2C), with revenues in the $10s of Billions, asking marketing and advertising agencies to bid for outsourcing their Social Media activities, allocating up-to $60,000 PA. This includes setup, content calendar, ongoing maintenance, responses and monitoring, detailed progress reports, and campaign management. This particular company have realised that they need to participate in social media activities. By reading their brief they understand the importance and magnitude, but their budget doesn’t reflect this. What is likely going to happen is that the company ending up winning that tender will allocate some time to set up the networks and tools, and put it on autopilot, scheduling posts and updates months in advance, and try to keep up with the inflow of information. Since the time allocated on an ongoing basis will be minimal, there will be no time or money to keep track and update the appearance and functionality of the social networks. But as the company will be expected to keep on top of things, and in order to keep the account (it’s a major global brand, after all), they will allocate more resources than they are paid for.

What we need to keep in mind, that social media changes daily. It would’ve been great to have a Facebook page, a twitter account, schedule some updates and be done with it. Unfortunately this isn’t the case. Social Media takes a lot of time and effort. It’s no longer a question of whether or not we need to participate – many companies are already over this hurdle. Now it’s a question of how seriously we take Social Media, and what resources are we allocating to it. It’s perfectly ok to outsource some of your social media activities. There are companies out there who will monitor, design, create copy, and ran campaigns on your behalf. What’s NOT ok is to think that that’s where it ends.

Since social media is a two-way communication platform, people will talk TO you, ABOUT you, and you’d need to respond. NO ONE can do this for you, successfully. You would have to have someone internally to analyse the reports, to respond to inquiries and comments (negative or positive), and implement changes to your products or services as market demand.

What internal resources does your company allocate to Social Media?

So we surveyed top SEOs and online marketers from around the globe to understand which metrics the industry as a whole considers to be valuable for evaluating the suitability of a link partner.

Results have been compiled and we created an infographic for easy data consumption.

We decided to host the infographic with our friends at SEOgadget, a top UK SEO blog. To see the original post and get the embed code for this infographic, check it out here:

https://seogadget.co.uk/link-evaluation-survey-2012-infographic/

Now for the results:
Link Evaluation Survey 2012 infographicBy Orange Line SEO

Survey results are currently being compiled and analysed. We plan to share the data over the next week.

Stay tuned!

The post has received considerable social media activity, including over 500 tweets, many from influential SEO and online marketers world-wide.

I’ll try not to spoil the anecdote at the beginning, but it’s about two men being chased by a lion. Not only will it bring a smile to your face, but perfectly sums up how you should be approaching your SEO strategy.

SEO is not about trying to “game” Google, nor is it a one size fits all approach. Rather, SEO is about analysing your market (in your specific location), understanding the factors responsible for the success of your competitors, and then eventually outpacing them with more stable, longer term link building activities.

The article includes a detailed case study, comparing the competitive landscape for the term “online shopping” across 3 Google locations – Australia, UK and USA. The analysis shows that ranking factors vary significantly between these countries. For example, social signals play a much larger role in Google.com than in Google.com.au, where anchor text and lower quality links are still important signals for achieving top search engine rankings.

What’s the take-home message? Successful link building involves a detailed understanding of your specific market in order to outrank your competitors in the most cost-efficient manner for maximum ROI. At the same time, be sure to future-proof your SEO efforts for long term stability by understanding the competitive landscape in more SEO-advanced markets.

The first thing Apple acknowledged and made a point of, starting their document with:

The lines between public and private, and personal and professional are blurred in online social networks. This means that there will be consequences to stuff you post online, as a company employee, whether you identify yourself as one, or not. If you post anything on online networks which is against company policies, or “deems inappropriate”, there will be a price to pay.

Apple’s general approach is – Use your best judgement. As an Apple employee you should always keep to the HRCCC principle – Honesty, respect, confidentially, community, compliance. The Business Conduct Policy and the HRCCC principle apply to all employees, contractors, and anyone who has a business relationship with Apple. What’s interesting here is the holistic approach the company has taken, not isolating direct employees only – everyone who’s doing business with your company has an impact on your brand, and representing you in some shape of form – they should be included in company policies as well.

Another interesting choice of words is that Apple has many internal policies, but when Social Media is concerned, the term for the document is – Social Media Guidelines. The thing is with Social Media, is it is very difficult to police the employees’ activity. Trust is very important, but even when you “trust” thousands of employees, you should still guide them in the right direction, and in accordance with the company culture.

During discussions with many executives about Social Media in the workplace, I often hear valid concerns about how social media can effect productivity, when used during work hours. The fact is – your employees are using social media during work hours, whether you allow it or not – on their mobile phones, their ipads, or any other mobile device. Apple has addressed this concern, saying: “In general, what you do in your own time is your business. However, activities that affect your job perfomance, the performance of other Apple employees, or Apple’s business interests are still covered by company policies and guidelines. This applies whether you engage in these activities in or outside of work, and whether you have identified yourself as an Apple employee or not.”

In the past few years, I’ve trained many recruiting firms on how to use social media, and LinkedIn in particular. The most common concern was (and that was based on a few cases, in Australia and overseas) that consultants may connect to their clients on LinkedIn, and when they leave (and that’s another topic altogether), they take their database with them. Apple have addressed this in a less-trusting manner, putting it under the “customer privacy” banner: “Do not use or discuss any information regarding customers for any purpose. This includes contacting customers for social reasons or soliciting outside business.”

The documents leaked are comprehensive and very detailed, and have many great points. One last interesting point I’d like to mention – the document spelled out the following:”Finally, do not post or disclose the contents of any Apple policy. These documents are intended for the use of Apple employees, and not for public distribution.”

This goes to show that in spite our tendency to trust our team members and employees, there will come a time when the trust will be broken. A well crafted Social Media Policy will at least give you the right of action, in such case.

Since less and less people trust company’s advertising campaign, there is a major shift towards peer reviews, for almost everything we buy. From seller ratings on eBay and Amazon, (I won’t even consider buying from a seller with less than 95% customer satisfaction, would you?), to reviews on location based applications such as Foursqaure, GoWalla, and websites like TripAdvisor – we now rely on what clients say before we make a buying decision.

What does this mean to us as businesses? If consumers are rating us for our service, and other consumers base their buying decisions on their peer’s reviews, I think the answer here is quite obvious, but there are 3 components to it.

1. Provide excellent service. To ALL customers. Good is not good enough – the competition is fierce, and there is very little tolerance now (because the choices are many). The consumer market is, on the other hand, not growing that much – so every client is very important to get, and more important – to keep!

2. Be aware of what people think about you. If your customers are rating you (and your competition), wouldn’t you like to know what they think (and say) about you? Are you really providing the service you think you do? This message works for a small business owner, often trying his best to juggle his different hats in the business, trying not to “drop the ball”.  However, it is most important to larger businesses and corporates, where the customer-facing staff are executing top level management policies – are they executing it like it was meant to be?

3. If it is broken – FIX IT!  you may have burnt a few customers to date, with mediocre service, and made a few mistakes… Once you realise what people are saying about you (see point 2 above), you can address the problem, and fix it. You can also go the extra mile, and offer some sort of compensation to the disgruntled customer (un suspecting, of course – they don’t expect you, in most cases, to be tuned in to their criticism), and make them an advocate for your business.

In many cases, and on many sites, you can “claim your venue” – declare an establishment as your own, and manage it, add promotions and special deals, reward loyalty and much more.

Social media plan for marketing, recruiting, or customer service can work really well, if done right. These components should be included in your social media plan, regardless of organization type, size, and structure.

• Initial self-benchmark

In order to improve, we need something to compare to. A baseline. Doesn’t matter what it looks like now, all that matters is the up-trend…

• Competitor Benchmarks

Competitors make an easy (and fun) target. See what they do; learn from what they do well as well as their mistakes.

Whatever you do, don’t assume that because a competitor seems to have their act together that they actually do. Follower counts, engagement and a well-designed presence are often the result of pure longevity, and not the implementation of unique ideas.

• Goals and Objectives

Social Media activities aren’t as easy to measure as a Pay-per-Click campaign, or email direct marketing. Some of the objectives will be not as tangible, like “engagement” or “awareness”, and some will have a number associated with them (follower/following ratio or sales inquiries).
Although it isn’t an easy task, you should get creative, and put together a set of easy-to-reach goals and objectives, to help you get started.

• Naming Strategy

Seems like a simple thing, but it is seldom done right. Your social media accounts can represent individual people, departments, company or brands. Different social media tools will appeal to different audiences, so it is vital to do some thinking before naming a Facebook/Twitter/…. Account.

• Human Resources Plan

You are going to need people to execute your social media plan. That’s right. People, not a person.

Even if you are a small business just dipping your toes in the social media water, it will take the efforts, influence and direction of more than one person to make your plan come to life. You may only have one person doing “the work” but any successful social media plan relies on a group, not an individual to carry the weight of the plan. I could write an entirely separate post on this, but you cannot successfully execute a social media strategy without ideas, support, and resources flowing from throughout your organization.

• Content Calendar

I can’t stress enough the importance of generating content for your social media marketing channels. Each channel has unique audience, which you’ll get to know over time. Make sure you feed them with content they’d like to consume, and put your finger on the pulse, so to speak, to test the level of engagement with each piece of content.

Consider important events, and plan your social media activities to complement them.

• The Ideas!

Don’t create a plan that only revolves around day-to-day tactics: tweets, updates, followers, friends. It may be organized, but it won’t be special.

Special comes from social media Creative Campaigns, not the day-to-day tactics. Stand out from the crowd and create a contest or special-offer campaign.

•  Examples

At some point, you’re going to have to sell this plan to supervisors, investors, or colleagues. Chances are that most will not grasp the business case for social media, and will question whether your plan makes sense compared to other corporate initiatives (when discussing budget allocation).

The easiest way to conquer these objections is to show examples of how similar organizations have used an organized social media plan to achieve specific goals and objectives. You’d need to do your homework, and see what other organizations in your industry have done in the social space. Examples are easy to find, and will mean far more than your own proclamations about why social media can have an impact on your organization.

• Reporting and Analysis

How are we going to track our progress and return on investment? You’d probably get this question multiple times during your social media planning process.

First, based on your goals and objectives, decide what you want to measure. Second, decide how you want to measure against those goals and objectives.

Count on this: While each social media property includes some basic analytics, you may need to explore a variety of tools and software packages to arrive at your ideal reporting and analysis solution.

Social media planning is not easy. As a matter of fact, it’s painful for most organizations, because many of your stakeholders will not understand the first thing about using social media for business. All you can do is embrace and include these components in your plan, develop some thick skin, and get moving!

Google + may not have the volume of users that Facebook has yet, but they have one major advantage up their sleeve, a not so little product of theirs called Google Search. Google is now starting to leverage this to drive their Google + product through the integration of Google + pages into its organic search results.

Businesses with a Google + page will see more information from their Google + page alongside existing organic search results. Links to Google + pages, recent posts from Google + pages as well as the ability for users to add these businesses to their Google + circles will all start to appear in organic search results.

The only catch is that these results will only show for Google+ business pages with Google + Direct Connect and even then it may take some time as these new features are being rolled out slowly.

With so many businesses questioning why they would need both a Google + page and a Facebook page, increased exposure in organic results and updated posts is a pretty strong reason to get on Google + ASAP.

Retargeting, if you’re unsure, works by placing a cookie in a user’s browser indicating that the user has visited a specific page on your site. No personally identifiable data is recorded, but through this cookie, we are now able to target this specific individual with advertising messages as they browse other sites online. Should a site they’re visiting be carrying ads, we then have a potential opportunity to reach them again with your message, tailored to the specific pages we know them to have previously visited on your site.

It’s a great yet simple technology, but one that’s extremely effective – the ads will reach only those people who have shown an interest in your site/brand already. And through some clever but pretty straightforward techniques, we can further refine the targeting, based not only on the pages they visited, but when they visited them.

For example, say you’re an insurance company and you know (through cookies) that an individual has visited your annual home contents insurance product pages, but you also know they didn’t complete their purchase with you online. Through retargeting, you could:

(i)              advertise to them for a month after their initial visit to your site, with the aim being to bring them back to your site and convert them to a customer on a subsequent visit

(ii)            use the same cookie(s) to cross-sell other relevant or related products you may have, e.g. buildings insurance

(iii)           then, a year after their initial visit to your site, when they may be considering a new annual policy, you could leverage the same retargeting cookies to reach them with very timely, very targeted messages about your home contents insurance product offers.

The technology behind this is pretty simple, but from a marketing perspective, it’s hugely powerful; most importantly, it delivers results. I’m actually surprised it’s not used a lot more.