Disclaimer: The following post is very long. If you do not like long blog posts then click here to read the one-line summary.
A big complaint I hear in the SEOmoz Q&A forums, and in the industry in general, is from SEOs that have clients that sell boring things that they believe cannot be adapted for Social SEO Campaigns. Those poor SEOs that are tasked with promoting key words like "buy door hinges online", "junk removal smallville" and "personal injury claims".
Well Boo Hoo! Get your head out the sand and get creative!
As an agency-side SEO analyst, I have found that the more boring the industry the more interesting the social campaigns can be. The following blog post describes the actions I have previously implemented to effectively promote a client in the personal injury claims space.
If you are not familiar with the industry the following statements may shine some light on what I was dealing with.
Hellishly Spammy: some of the links I seen would make a black hat pharma SEO wince.
Terrible Reputation: due to some unscrupulous firms, the industry was branded as "ambulance chasers".
Un-sharable Content: can you imagine sharing a link on Facebook for a Fatal Accident enquiry or Road Traffic Accident, then reading below Joe Bloggs "Likes" this.
.jpg)
So, how did I combat these issues?
Step 1: Produce Great Content
The title of Step 1 is slightly misleading; it really should say "Create Epic Content". I hate to say it, as it is rammed down our throats on every industry blog, but it is true. Nobody wants to hear a shitty marketing message; they want a real solid resource created by a real human.
When we were creating the content we wanted it to be as sharable, scalable and linkbaitable as possible. Therefore we decided to create an "ask the expert" daily video, where users could ask there question via an email or blog comment and we would get a solicitor to stand in front of a camera and answer the question. We used a Facebook comments plug-in for our blog to stop any spam and also to connect the questions with real people.
Side Note: having real people visible asking questions on your site via Facebook is a massive trust metric and can make very positive impacts on your conversion rate. Try putting a Facebook Like box somewhere on a sales page and watch conversions skyrocket!
Analyse the Response
Offering this service allowed us to really tap into the long tail keywords in this industry as we started to see patterns in the questions people were asking on our own site.
This meant that we able to answer peoples' questions directly and also able to create headlines for blog posts that were directly related to the searchers intent. Double Win!
As we started to look at the broad set of questions that were coming in and comparing them to the demographic data (thank you Facebook), we started to see trends appearing in the types of questions and the ages of the users. We were actually getting around 50% from students asking legal questions and 50% from potential clients asking about injury claims.
Create Context and Reach Out to Users
At the point when the claims company was starting to rant and rave about students taking the piss out of the service and not using it for its intended purpose I transformed the perceived pain into a business asset.
I knew the student users would never be customers, but I believed that they could be a vehicle for gaining:
- Lots of backlinks
- Lots of free content
- Lots of social shares of said content
Therefore, we created a competition where the students would win a fully paid summer job at the personal injury firm, based solely on the merits of their social network power.
In order to enter the contest you had to complete tasks at different stages, and then get your peer group to vote on your particular contribution via retweets and Facebook Shares in a similar style to the X Factor or American Idol. In order to give you an idea about the amount of work involved in this competition I will outline the processes.
Stage 1
Students were asked to write a blog post on topics picked by the firm* (free content for the win!). The blog posts would then be vetted and the top 20 would be put up on the main corporate blog. The students then had to get their friends to vote on their post by getting retweets and Facebook Shares on the post. (free online promotion for the win!)
*Actually picked by me after analysing the keywords we really wanted to rank for. Moo HaHa!
Stage 1.5
As this was happening we were busy creating relationships with industry bloggers, making up press releases and contacting the Universities to tell them that this was going on and offered them a press pack to help write about it. We got a bit crafty and put a keyword in the competition title and made sure that HTML versions of our promotion packs were available as well as plain text.
HOT TIP: Whenever you deal with Universities DO NOT email them. Pick up the phone and arrange meetings. Make the effort to go see them and they will happily accommodate you when you need links, etc.
Stage 2
The top five blog posts were then put into a final that involved creating a video of why they should win the competition. The finalist then had to get their friends to vote on them for a final time via their social networks.
Stage 2.5
As the videos were being voted on we went for round two with the bloggers and online newspapers. As we already created the relationship with the Universities, a simple phone call was all that was needed to get them to add new information to their websites. This time the concentration was on getting the Universities to promote their students by getting the wider student body involved in voting by getting faculty members to blog about it and putting it through their main PR centres, all creating lots of juicy links.
Stage 3
Announce the winner in the most dramatic possible fashion.
In retrospect, we really should have announced the winner and then had a winner's party or a ceremony to make a bigger deal out of the event. This would of allowed us to thank all of the people who blogged and tweeted about the competition and also would have solidified any relationships the firm had created during the course of the competition. It would have also given us some more clout with larger news centres and would have allowed for us to invite some news camera crews along thus, helping the companies offline reputation.
Step 2: Produce Great Content
Client: Ok let's face it. Nobody cares that I am selling door hinges at rock bottom prices. Or that I have invented a new way to recycle junk. Or that I have just started a partnership with a trade union.
Me: Correction. You customers don't care about that stuff. But people in your industry do. So why not use them to promote your content and get those retweets, shares and plus ones?
Client: Why would some other guy retweet/share/+1 my content?
Me: Because, not only are we going to create amazing content, we are going to become a news hub for the industry and allow other people to contribute to the site. We are going to share other peoples content in our social stream and we are going to talk to other content creators about what they are doing in the industry
Client: How long? How much? Why? What's the point? How will this make me more money?
Me: "Falcon Punch to the Head"
How It Was Done
Create a blog on your website on the premise that you are going to become an industry hub for information.
When we created the blog we got as much of the company involved as possible and asked for the strongest writers to be regular contributors so we would have a new piece of quality content going out every day. After the blog was created we started submitting it to a couple of aggregators (Technorati, etc.) and list websites. Also using Google’s advanced operators I searched for "top 10", "best of the year", "top 100" style lists for legal blogs and resources.
After pulling off this raw list of URLs from Google, I imported them into excel and stripped out any duplicates. I then used the SEOMoz API to pull in the MozRank and the number of backlinks to each domain. Using this data I sorted the list to push the domains with the highest MozRank and unique backlink count to the top.
I then went to the websites to find out the twitter handles for the top websites.
I then started contacting all of the website owners to let them know about the new blog and asked if they would like to contribute or if they would like to add us to their list.
Building Your Twitter Following to get More Retweets
This subject is a blog post in of itself; therefore I will just give a quick overview on what we did.
Using Follower Wonk I searched for twitter users that were also in the industry. I then exported them all to CSV then uploaded the CSV of names to Export.ly. Export.ly then pulled off all the people that were following the original list along with some critical information like their website address, followers and friend count.
I then dumped all this data into excel and stripped out duplicates. Using the SEO Moz API again, I pulled off the backlink and MozRank information. I then sorted the list according to highest SEO authority. This produced a list of high authority websites in the industry along with their twitter handles.
I then went to the top 100 sites, subscribed to them in Google Reader and Followed them on Twitter.
DON'T BE A DUMBASS LIKE ME
At the time I went to the websites and subscribed to their blogs on Google reader and followed the twitter accounts manually. But if I were to do it again I would use a tool like Tweepi, to automatically follow a list of twitter users. Also, I would of used a RSS feed discovery tool to bulk find the RSS feeds of the target sites then import into Google reader...if anyone knows of one please mention it in the comments below. ;-)
As I have now established a media base for the industry, I get the client involved.
I give them access to the Google Reader account and I set them up with a Twitter client that can schedule tweets. At the time I was using Hootsuite as it also has analytics and some agency side functionality that lets multiple users work on the same account and send messages to each other. Very cool stuff!
HOT TIP: At present, I am trialling a new Twitter App called Buffer. It schedules your tweets for you and dynamically changes the time according to how many people retweet you. It basically automates your tweets to give you the furthest reach. Excellent stuff!
I then tell them to open up the Google Reader every day to scan the top blogs for four posts that interest them. I then get them to note the Twitter handle and the URL of their favourite blog posts and get them to schedule four posts to go out at varying times of the day, making sure they copy in the author on twitter.
This builds relationships with the authorities in the industry but also provides your twitter followers with the best information about your industry from a diverse range of sources.
As our posts got retweeted, we also got mentioned in some #followfridays and a couple of Daily Twitter papers. Gradually our follower count started to increase. Now when the firm puts out new content on their blog they have an interested readership that want to share and link to their posts, this providing great SEO value and moreover creating a great business asset.
The next step for this firm was to start a link outreach program by contacting all the twitter followers that we wanted to get links from.
Step 3: Produce Great Content
Every man and his dog and on Facebook but most of the companies on Facebook don't have a clue why they are on Facebook. The other day I had a company registered to a personal profile try to add me as a friend. Yuck!
Facebook is a tough nut to crack but there are some simple things you can do to make it work for your boring ass company.
The following is what I implemented for the personal injury firm.
1. Set Up a Facebook iFrame
This is effectively a mini website present within Facebook itself. This allows for you to have a part of your site with all the same functionality available to Facebook users without having them click off somewhere else.
2. After the Facebook iFrame was setup we started some targeted Facebook Ads to drive traffic to the Facebook site.
HOT TIP: When creating the Facebook iFrame, remember to design it for a width of 520px, no one likes horizontal scrolling. Also, if you are putting any contact forms or calls to action on your Facebook site then make sure the contact form redirect the user to a unique thank you page (so we can track it in analytics) and that any call to action link is tracked (either by adding parameters to the end of the link or using a link shortener like bitly or dftba.)
3. Test Different Images, Headlines and Descriptions.
As you drive people to your Facebook page, you need to nurture and interact with those who like your page to keep your content in there news stream and also to keep users interested. Create Facebook Quizzes and Polls, share the odd joke, share the odd link. Whatever you do, DO NOT spam your own content constantly. This is the quickest way to get zero followers.
Well dear reader thank you for reading all the way through this very length post. I hope it has helped and inspired. In summary....
Just make cool stuff and tell people about it. Nobody cares that the new loan product has X% over 3 years. But they do care that the biggest bank loan ever recorded was $52 Bazillion which was used by an eccentric rich guy to make clones of Rand Fishkin which were used at SEO presentations all over the world so he could be a two places at the same time. Make it fun and it will gain shares and links. Put it in front of people and tell them about it. Email them, Tweet Them, Shout at them in the street- anything to get the voice heard. Just make sure when you are shouting it is something we all want to hear.
If you enjoyed this post please follow me on twitter @rosstav and join the conversation.
"Falcon Punch to the Head!!" Love it. Great article. What an ingenious way to create a hugely successful online campaign. Great idea, I may have to steal that from you at some point :)
I currently use HootSuite, I love everything that comes with it. But I've heard alot of good things about this "Buffer" once you've poked around with it a bit, you mind letting us know what you think of it?
Hi Laki,
I have been using Buffer exclusively now for almost a solid month and I have seen a very nice steady in retweets and clicks on my links. I am also more diciplined about regular tweeting. You just drop it into Buffer and forget about it and they fire it out at the hottest time. They just release an app for Android to which makes it even cooler IMHO.
If you use it let me know how you get on.
Skip buffer and go to Timely. Seriously. Free. PLus and unlimited queue. I honestly don't know why people are so wrapped up in Buffer. Timely is imo so much better.
Hi Eric,
Thank you for your recommendation. I will be sure to check it out. The reason I am so into Buffer is because the guys behind it are very community orientated and tweet with you back and forward. They value the customer, which is a major value add for me.
Now that I re-read my comment, I see that I came across a bit too adamant ;-) Sorry about that. Anyhow, you make a good point. Customer service is big.
Ross,
Thanks so much for the kind words. Indeed, we are trying everything to make sharing as easy and convenient as possible.
If ever anything comes up from our users, the least we can do is respond and help. :)
Congrats on getting the post from youmoz promoted to SEOmoz, it really is a phenomenal piece!!
I loved this post, but the automated tweeting raised a red flag for me. Do you use it to schedule tweets in advance, or do you automate 'post/page title - URL' like an RSS feed?
Ian Lurie has a good post where he talks about using Timely: https://www.conversationmarketing.com/2011/08/content-curation-13-minutes-day.htm
I would imagine you would follow the same steps with Buffer.
Thanks, that link was useful. Following the brands on Twitter would eliminate the RSS reader step, but I guess it's swings and roundabouts really.
Hey Eric,
Great Link Resource. Ian Lurie really knows his stuff. I would also recommend having a look at Gianluca's blog https://www.iloveseo.net (@gfiorelli1) he produces some stellar content curation ideas using Yahoo Pipes and alsorts of advanced tactics.
Hi Jenni,
When I mention automated tweeting what I meant to communicate was "scheduled" tweeting. The content of the tweet is create by the user who has genuinely found something interesting to share. The programs just allow them to batch the work together to save time and post them at regular intervals so their users don't get annoyed with 10 updates at a time.
RSS automation that is put infront of real people is pretty sad stuff.
you can do some pretty amazing stuff with automated tweeting.
Ross - Buffer and Tweriod make a great combo. Tweriod.com tells you the best time to tweet.
Hey Web Jedi,
I will be sure to check Tweroid out. Thanks for the recommendation.
Yes, absolutely, that is a super powerful combination for maximum Twitter impact, exactly how I use it too, thanks for the heads up Web_Jedi! :)
The problems I am having is if I make it funny people will think its offensive.
I'm grateful that model warships shooting and sinking each other is fairly easy to make interesting, so I haven't directly faced this issue. However, I think you might find inspiration by watching Dirty Jobs and Mythbusters. Dirty Jobs has made a hit out of dealing with thinks like pest control and sewer cleaning. I know there's at least one Mythbusters episode about hot water heaters becoming rockets.
SEOmoz also has an active user who is involved in the pest control business and might be cajoled to share a tip or two here in the comments about what he has done.
If by cajoled you mean send him a tweet, then Yes.
Hi Keri,
That is a great idea. Pivoting and going in a totally different direction from how the product was intended can be an excellent way to sir up interest and build engaging content. I remember the guys at BlendTec started the YouTube video campaign "Will it Blend" where they blend things from Bricks to Ipods. Now a viral success.
Pest Control could be a great one to do. I used to do SEO for a Pest Control client to I already know a little about the industry. Thanks for your help an input with this article it is greatly appreciated.
Thanks RossTav.. this is lovely way of promoting any boring business. In conclusion .. i learned that no matter how much boring is your clients buisness/products/services but if we promote that by creating intresting content for which people crave for, that can grab a lot of attention additionally, for getting people inside your campaign, you have to give them somthing for free e.g. You conducted the competition among the students..
there any many things which I would love to share but for now.. i will make my keys to be stopped here!
Thanks Lovel;y post.. Everybody loves to read the "Strategy/campaign Posts".. would be waiting for more from you!! Lots of thumbsup to you!
Hi Ajay,
I am glad you enjoyed the post. Glad you could take something away from it. :-)
All I can say is WOW! What a Great Post Ross. You have some really creative techniques to getting social activity for those cold, boring spaces for SEO. I think I will need to borrow some of these techniques for one of our clients.
Hey Render,
Borrow away my friend! If you don't mind could you share the industry sector of some of you most boring clients? I would love to do a follow up aimed directly at one industry.
Cheers.
Two boring clients we have/had:
1)Plumbing company (i am really interested for your cool ideas for that industry, we've been trying to crack it for awhile)
2)Self Storage
Hi Romanz,
Thanks for letting me know some of your boring clients. I am collecting all the ideas and making follow up posts. My old agency worked with a plumber but never any social campaigns. This one might be very interesting.
You've just nailed it. This post is too important not to promote. So many folks need to see this!
Good job :]
Hey Ed!
Glad you liked the post. I put a lot of effort into it :-)
Excellent post. I think you are short changing yourself when you say that this is for "boring" clients. I think these techniques are relevant for anyone.
Hey Gamma,
I am glad you think so as I am planning a follow up aimed a a specific industry that is considered to be "boring". Thanks for commenting.
u said boring ass
This is a very informative post, and has a lot of great ideas. It could use a once-over for spelling and grammatical errors, though!
I especially like the Facebook iFrame suggestion. I'm going to put that one to use.
Hi Andrew,
THough I got away with the typos. Thanks for checoking out the post.
Outstanding post (yes, all of it). Spot-on promotional efforts!
Over the years, I've noticed a pattern with some of our most notorious "boring ass" clients: They allowed us to merely dabble in some of these promotional concepts. Unfortunately, many never seemed to want to dig deep enough into the SEO process, or even implement the social networking aspects long enough to see and reap positive results. Made it very difficult to convince them of the value of the effort. (Sometimes, it isn't the product or service that makes for a "boring ass" client, it's their generational ideas about how to reach and interact with their target audiences.)
Thank you! All three ideas you shared will be implemented into my standard PR campaigns, point-by-point. The internship contest, most definitely!
Hi Hunter,
I am with you on this one. The hardest part of a social media campaign is not the creative side it is getting clients on board.
In more traditional industries it is hard to get the CEO of a company to buy into social SEO when they have spent the last 20 years buying billboard and newspaper ads. I find that being quite obtuse with some can help, putting some simple figures infront of there nose usually helps them see the light too. :-)
Nice! Totally reminds me of trying to promote regulatory software for the insurance industry.
That industry is a minefield. I wish you al the best with it :-)
Great post and great tips. I myself have struggled in the past with boring topics on social media. I am learning to be more creative with them. Try to look at like fun because it is a challenge at times. Thanks for the post.
Genius! Thanks for posting this, it's opened my eyes to whole world of sneaky SEO-related ideas.
Sneaky SEO? lol. My favourite. Thanks for commenting
Great read. Thanks for putting it together. Time to start thinking outside of the box!!
Cheers man!
Great tips Ross. I've been scratching for ideas lately and really like the Google Reader idea to better connect. Hopefully will give this a try over the coming weeks :)
thanks for checking it out wisie. good luck with your strategy.
I think you make a great point about analyzing user's responses. Many times, firms post something great, and are satisifed if they get X number of likes or retweets. There is some great data to learn from in there... Dig in!
You are right. Data has, and always will, drive marketing decision.
Really a great stuff. Goint to tyr this soon.
-Link Removed
Long post worth reading. Thank you for including such detailed examples!
Great post.
I'm in the middle of writing Facebook and Twitter strategies for a company who's products aren't necessarily sexy, so I found this very useful.
I know you said you got more RT - what was the percentage increase from that tactic? I already have a reasonable following with around 300 but an extremely small engagement rate which is the main metric I am trying to change.
Wow your language is foul. Edgy! I like it...
Great stuff Ross. I especially like the systamatic way you have your client's handle twitter outreach.
Hey Brent,
Thanks for commenting. Clients love lists and sytems and it makes it nice and easy to get them to stick to it if it is published somewhere like gogle docs where they can tick off each thing on the list.
Great ideas, Ive always thought the same thing about promoting my websites on social. Ie they are to boring why would anyone be interested. Your method sounds like alot of work but also rewarding in the long run. Now I just have to find a few more hours in the day!
Hey Blac, Yes it is a real load of effort but it does pay off. Your business is for life not for one campaign. :-)
Wow!
These are some really creative ideas. Well done.
I'm new to SEOMoz by the way. I'm looking forward to learning and connecting with all of you!
Welcome to the communinty Mike. :-)
I am one of the clients with a boring product, and I am learning to do SEO in-house.
This is a great post and has sparked a couple of ideas of how we can generate links and followers - thanks!
Hi Lisa, Good luck with your endevours with your company. Hope you can take something useful from the post.
Thanks for the detailed examples! Very helpful, and I completely agree - there is lots of "poor me" in some B2B industries, but I think there are still tons of opportunities. Back in the day I did SEO for a company that made HUGE shipping boats, and it was not exactly glamorous but we could have done some really fun stuff - alas, the creativity wasn't really welcomed at that point, but I'm glad to see you advocating for this!
If the decision makers are old cigar chomping CEOs it is hard to get any creative input, I agree. Good luckin future campaigns.
really a great idea and as today people are mostly facebook friendly so this idea will really work a lot thanks for sharing this tips its helpful
Yup Facebook are where the eyeballs are. You just got to divert their attention to your page :-)
Great article. Pulled some killer ideas for some of my boring-ass clients.
Hey there,
Glad you liked it. Thanks for stopping by :-)
Great post, Great content is key to everything in my opinion. Also, don't be spammy in everything that you do. We have a few "very boring" clients, thanks for the great ideas!
Hey JS,
Would you be able to give a few example of some of your boring clients? I was thinking of doing a follow up on specific industry sectors and would like to guage the most popular industry. Thanks for reading and commenting.
Hi Ross,
Very creative campaign - and detailed post. Great stuff.
Hi Ken,
Thanks very much mate. Glad you liked it. :-)
There are a lot of people saying what we should do to make social media work, but not so many showing how to make it work for dull businesses! I struggle with this in the *ahem* exciting world of stoves and fireplaces, but you've given me some great ideas for shaking things up a bit.
Hey There,
I think you need to be very careful with the advice you take. There are a lot of "social media gurus" out there that just rehash the same content with no actionable steps. The secret to social media is there is no secret, just make cool stuff and be authentic.
Good luck with the fireplaces and stoves business. If you are stuggling for social ideas then start up a post on the forums and we will all chip in.
Yes, I have had fantasies of working for something cooler than pest control. You know, I was actually a wedding photographer back when I was working my way through school. Now that did have a hint of glamour to it.
... But back to point at hand. On the surface many things can seem dull and boring. Take a man name David. Dull. Common. Boring. How common? Well 179,367 were born in this past decade alone. It's probably safe to say there is close to 1 million David's alive today. A very common name. Most of them probably have 2 legs, 2 arms, 2 eyes, 2 ears... But take that common name and place it on a sculpture carved by Michelangelo and it takes on a whole new meaning.
I think this post hit the nail on the head in the first few lines, "get creative!"
However, I will have to disagree a bit with another line... "You customers don't care about that stuff. But people in your industry do."
I think customers do care about what you produce. If they didn't care about it then they wouldn't be buying it. They may not care about the details... yet.
You ever wonder how ants walk in such perfectly straight lines? I bet you are wondering now.
Social media is about people. Address humans. Humans are warm blooded creatures and they like passion. Be passionate about it. Be creative. Be engaging. Be funny. Insert emotion.
Hi Thos,
I think you have this one down to a fine art. You are right on about jsut being human.
What people tend to forget is that a person sat at the other end of the webpage they are reading and typed it out. If you can bring that point to the forefront and engage them in conversation you remove the cold sterile nature of just reading a page of information.
With regards to the customers "not caring" about what we put out, this statement was sensationalised for effect but to an extent I don't think they care. For Pest control, yes I am seriously interested in how ants walk in a straight line now that you hae said BUT I am not interested in the difference in chemical composition between ant control formulas and their effect on the environment, etc.
BUT that being said, if you presented a video showing how one was extremely volitile and demonsatraed some shocking amazing examples, I would probably be captivated.
I would love to set up a thread in the forums and get the community brain storming for a Social SEO for Pest Control Blog Post.
Good job of actually providing a method. Although it is not step by step instructions, you lay out a simple plan that can used in many industries if you're willing to put the work in.
Hey austadpro,
You hit the nail on the head. You just got to put in the work when implementing your ideas. I really like the Will Reynold philosophy couple with the Tom Critchlow frame of mind:
1. There are no shortcuts.
2. You can't outsource giving a shit.
Great Post!
We have some extremely boring clients (even in the same industry as this post). And we had all but abandoned updating their twitter because the ROI of the time spent was so low. Gave me some great new ideas I am going to try to implement immediately.
Hi Spencer,
Would you be able to let me know a couple of the industries that the cleints are in? I am looking to do a follow up with actionable steps for specific industries and would love to brain storm some ideas for cleints in the industries you are tackling.
Some of the hardest I have had included junk removal and pest control.
Glad you got something out of the post.
What? You mean pest control isn't sexy?
Let me answer you question with a question.
Does a bear poop in the woods?
Nerd Friendly post, I approve friend! Great work.
Cheers frontline. Live long and prosper!
Hi mate, good post alot of information for people who may not be using these tools in the past and some good tips. But yeah using uni students/ comeptitions/ creating good content ect are all good ideas which I have used.
But also one area I did not see a lot about in this article (maby things about different in the UK), esecially dealing in the personal injury sector is the legislation and restrictions which control this specific niche in my market Australia. I have done various campaigns in the niche over the last 3 years most are in the social area, yet also a fair bit of SEO/PPC. I mean from an organic perspective things are ok but if you are a big firm then you need to get secific elements approved or you se big fines if you breach online policy.
Also been transparent with Directors in legal firms is interesting, I remember I did a presentation a while ago and had some slides about social bookmarking/ Facebook pages integration, then the directors started throwing all these questions about legal elements of the camaign and what not, lucky my sister is a lawyer in the space so I followed up with that later ;)
Hi James,
You raise a great point about the legality of what we are doing as the industry is regulated pretty heavily. What I didn't mention was the months previous we sat dowm work out terms and conditions and disclaimers and running ever possible bad scenario and coming up with an answer for the firm. In the end it was actaully the internet that saved us. As a digital signature is now legally binding in the UK we were able to put alot of terms and conditions behind the contact forms so we were covered. But the hassle involved and the need to constantly go back to the client and get the smallest thing approved was a nightmare.
With regards to collecting demographic informaiton via the facebook apps, As far as I can remember, we came to the conclusion that the Facebook terms of service covered this so we just worked some of it into our own. I remember there was a distinct difference between collecting the informaiton directly, collecting through a 3rd party and actually using and broadcasting the information. But it is a minefield of rules and regulations to get through.
Seeing the power that it has I would seriously recommend using video but only if you have a presentable lawyer in he company your are with. I think it softens people up and removes the "big scary legal firm" barrier and humanises the whole process.
Would be grat to see some of the things you implemented in your campaign to drive traffic to the client site.
Freakin' Awesome!
Cheers dude!
"Create a blog on your website on the premise that you are going to become an industry hub for information."
Excellent advice that I am constantly trying to get my clients to adhere to. A well-written business blog has so much potential and long term value if you just take the time and invest in it.
Hi Nick,
Thanks for stopping by. Yes building a business blog is a major asset and I find it also helps you with out reach. A mid to high level blogger in your niche is much more likely to entertain you if you have your own following and a track record of creating good content.
That's the best advice I read on your post. A blog is your social home on the web and can lead to more:ClicksConversionsConversations :-)
Hi Adriaanb,
Good point. One thing to remember is that even if Social does not bring massive ranking gains, it will bring good return on investment and increase brand equity.
Awesome post. This bufferapp.com looks great. They reckon a CTR increase of 200%. Curious.
I would say they are being modest. I have noticed a much high click through. If you follow it up and chat to people on twitter it goes even higher. Let me know how you get on. Tweet them if you have any questions the usualy get back within 72 hours.
Great post! Very frank, and I love the delivery and straight talk. BTW, Feeddemon is one tool that I would suggest for RSS discovery for keywords. I'm also going to check out Buffer as it looks like a good tool.
This is right up my ballpark. One of our clients is a company which sells and restores precious antiques. This will help me greatly when I devise their social media program. Turn something boring into something exciting, great idea.
Hi Gene,
Antiques sound challenging but the trick is to play ot the audience. For example, creating an animated gif of the mona lisa making silly facial expressions launched on reddit and stumble upon then mixed with some niche industry sites could get you a lot of shars and links. On the other hand the antiques world might look at it as crass and distasteful. Hard One.
I wish you the very best with it. Thanks for stopping by.
Also try doing a giveaway. People love free stuff. Make one of the ways of entering tweeting, liking, sharing, or linking. No matter how boring your product is chances are someone will need it. Or just give away your boring product or service with an iPod and you'll get a ton of social interaction!
hey there,
Giveaways are a good one too. If you have an ecommerce cusotmer I would recommend doing a visit to their storage facility and look for the crap with the most dust on it then either use it for blogger outreach for reviews or giveaways.
As someone doing SEO in an EXTREMELY boring field, I had already given up on social media as a waste of time. However, this post made me think there might be some things we can do after all. Plus, the biggest upside to trying social in a boring field is that the competition is putting in just as much effort as we are. Even a moderatey successful social campaign could give us a big advantage.
I really enjoyed this article, thanks for sharing. It is not too often that I laugh out loud while reading these posts but you got me.
Hey Von,
Glad you liked it. I have a strange sense of humour. :-)
Thanks for the article Ross, made a lot of sense & reminds me I need to step away from the keyboard everyonce in a while, sit back and try & be creative! :)
My particular awkward one is a Mortgage Broker, such a saturated market with competition running huge PPC budgets and you've got to be so careful not to fall foul of FSA (UK Regulator) Regulations.
A great, well thought out post though, many thanks for taking the time to pop it up.
Hi Dunc,
Thanks for reading the article. Mortgages are a very hard market to be in for SEO. But I think you might be on to a winner. There is load s of data that you can mash up to make cool infographics and presentations. Plues if you are good with code, the amount of widgets you could make are endless!
I used to be a fan of the sentiment "it is better to say sorry rather than be told no" when it comes to SEO. But as your dealing with the FSA I would play it safe lol.
summary... Like
Well, I certainly read this article with interest and it appears that agency life is working out well for you. My personal concerns with this post are the very immature way in which you present yourself, and how this is indicative of large swathes of the industry.
It's this kind of attitude we've experienced in my company from large agencies which has lead us to stop using their services. I'm certainly not impressed by childish comments of swear words when used in any business environment, and I find it irksome that SEO seems to think it is any different.
Perhaps you deal with clients who are immature in their outlook but I can assure you that, for example, our international banking services site promotes exactly the kind of message you claim that "nobody cares" about and that "making it fun" is grossly inappropriate for a lot of businesses and would lose us massive amounts of custom, even if we did gain a few more links out of it.
The most frustrating thing for me about your post is that just as you begin to say something worthwhile; "we are going to become a news hub for the industry...", you follow up the questions that a business manager/owner would be totally justified in asking with a childish comment.
I know that critical comments never go down well on here, but I hope I have expressed myself well enough so that people can understand why I have been so.
Hi there Bludge,
Thanks you for making some very valid points.
In my professional capacity working with an agency I set quite the opposite tone to the blog post you have just read. My concern is with increasing my clients digital ROI and being clear and consise in the actions I am going to take. Hardline, to the point business ideals translated onto the digital landscape is how my professinal affairs are conducted.
With regards to the language I used in the post, I did so for comic effect in order to make a long blog post easier to digest and more entertaining. The fact of the matter is that the SEO industry is predominantly made up of young professionals under 30, a large subset of whom are in touch with popular culture and active on social networks. The way this blog post was presented was to cater for this market. A market which I am also a part of an d find interesting.
With regards to the content production for a site like an international banking site, I would say you are missing the point. The content being created is not being designed for you customer or end user. It is being designed for the social web. If you produce highly informative content of value, then ofcourse you will be able to publish it through the social web and get some interaction from it. However, in approaching the content creatinon in the way you have suggested you automatically strip away any chance of the content becoming viral and you very quickly turn off the Linkerati that frequent the major social sites.
Thank you for comenting but I will respectfully disagree and offer you to have another look at the purpose of the post and who my post was aimed at.
It was designed to inform, educate, entertain and enchant. I have just replied to over 300 tweets about the post that would suggest that my objective was fulfiled.