...at least, not according to a study published by eMarketer. The article, titled "Search Marketers Seed Social Networks," cites a survey conducted by iProspect and JupiterResearch. It talks about how "nearly half of search marketers placed content on social networking Web sites in February 2007." Nearly half = less than half, which surprises me somewhat. Maybe it's because we do a lot of social media marketing and promote link bait on social media sites, but I would have thought that more SEMs would be leveraging social media/networking sites to, as the article put it, "drive traffic, create brand awareness, sell directly, and influence purchasing."
Social media marketing sessions have been increasingly offered at SES shows, and the topic will be the subject of a session at Danny's upcoming SMX Advanced show. Every day at least one of the SEO RSS feeds in my reader talks about Digg and other social media/networking/bookmarking sites. Let's face it, social media marketing is becoming a new facet of SEO. I'm not saying that it will always be a part of SEO--I'm sure that in a while SEO will shift in the near future, just as it always has, and social media marketing won't be as heralded as it is now.
I say it's best to strike while the iron's hot. As long as there are various web 2.0 and social media sites to leverage, why wouldn't you take advantage of this available means of marketing? We've built various social media profiles for some of our clients, and these profiles show up in search results for our client's name and for some long tail searches. Users performing such a search will see the various profiles and can become more aware of the client, which increases awareness of the client's brand. Additionally, there's the obvious benefit of building links on social media sites that can point to your client's domain.
On the other hand, you could argue that if more search marketers start taking advantage of the marketing benefits social media sites can offer, the search results can get over-saturated with social media sites and users can become blind to them. Or, the search engines could start discounting links from social media sites if they see too many SEMs "gaming" the sites.
Are you surprised that "nearly" half of the search marketers surveyed utilized social media sites in their Internet marketing campaigns? Do you think that number is too low? Too high? Just right? Are you wondering why more SEMs aren't more attuned to social media, or are you in the "More for me!" mentality? Lastly, what do you think the future holds for social media marketing? Is it only going to get better for us marketers, or should we enjoy it while we can?
By: Rebecca Kelley
Social Networking Sites Still Aren't Effectively Being Leveraged
Social Media
The author's views are entirely his or her own (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflect the views of Moz.
The question should have been more specific.
Many respondents might have though that answering "yes," means they directly use Social Media sites for marketing.
While, from my perspective, most seo's use SMO at least indirrectly. Unless they are completely unaware of it. Which I doubt!
Also, many respondents could have been deceptive with their answers, cause it is considered unethical to "digg" too much of your own stuff.
I could go on and on ....
Basically, I think the methodology of this survey was flawed.
Although, I do think the question is somewhat interesting.
I agree, Marc. When I saw the report, I had a lot of questions about how it was conducted, how the questions were worded, etc.
I was thinking along similar lines. I'm also wondering how search marketer was defined and if some who really aren't in the industry filled out the survey.
I am one of those folks who has moved forward in an attempt to embrace social networking but still don't know how to fully utilize it. In my case, I am an entertainer with a website/blog that I update regularly as well as a MySpace page ( that I built because everyone said I needed one). The issue I have is...I really don't know what I am supposed to be doing with the MySpace page. The blog I understand...but the MySpace page seems like a different animal. I think many more businesses would embrace social networking if they knew how to use the tools, instead of just being told that they "need to". Even for someone like me who understands the benefits of blogging, sites like MySpace are a little more difficult to integrate.
That's very true. A lot of people may very well understand the benefit of social media marketing, but they might not know where to start, how to use the various sites to their maximum potential, and when to update the sites.
"A different animal" sure is right. Any site that asks you "who I'd like to meet" and asks you to list your "heroes" must be treated carefully when you're marketing something, as you can easily look like a spammer if you're on there plugging a mortage company :)
the funny thing is those about mortgage company myspace profiles is that only one of them even had a link to their site. the page is so horribly designed that i almost missed it and the anchor text? "apply now". that'll boost your search rankings. i always search for apply now when looking for loans.
And they were so very easy to find. All I did was go to Myspace's search page and look for profiles whose tagline was "Mortgage." You don't have to look very hard for spam, horrible design, horrible SEO and various other crimes on Myspace.
I personally loathe MySpace...It's a constant assault on all your senses. Most pages load times are horrendous and make my computer lag.....and most of the time I can feel myself getting dumber just looking at people's profile pages.
Some of the Myspace pages are dead now, or have been "fixed" as they were purposely designed to be awful, but I had to share...
https://www.zefrank.com/theshow/uglymyspace/final.html
https://www.zefrank.com/theshow/uglymyspace/
This one is still around and is still awful. Warning: It WILL crash your browser, so don't say I didn't warn you.
for the love of monkeys...what the hell was that? :-P
we use social media for some of our clients, but i just can't seem to figure out how to utilize this practice for others.
let's say your client rents portable toilets and dumpsters, you think you could gain a lot friends on myspace with that one? or even a client with an ecommerce site that only sells window blinds? where do sites like this fit into social media?
no, really...i'd love to know everyone's thoughts.
With this kind of a business I think the only way to have any kind of positive effect on the Social Media sites is to have a human, a person actually run the page, run it as a person that has a life but have the links on the site to a business related sites. Maybe even portable toilet joke of the day posted on there or something. But I don't think just having a "company" presence on myspace is going to cut it. That mortgage company is probably getting a negative effect from it's myspace page instead of what they were trying to achieve.
Bottom line, there has to be a human running it, it has to be "alive" and can't be blunt about the business part, has to be interresting to an average myspacee. Have to be creative.
Anyway, that's what came to my mind when I read your post.
i have thought about trying the potty humor route, and though that might bring some traffic, would they be the consumers we are targeting? doubt it. and then throw in the fact that it's for a client, i'm not so sure they would want to be associated with potty humor. though i suppose one would have to have some bit of a sense of humor to be in that business.
thanks for the ideas, valik.
On a recent road trip I saw two billboards for the same company as follows:
"We're number 1 in the number 2 business."
"More people in (?) county do their business with us."
They were sufficiently entertaining that I can quote them (or almost quote) after several weeks, despite a really bad memory. Humor can surely work to get attention and create a memorable impression. Chances are that your client knows every outhouse joke known to man. In a business like that you would just about have to keep a good sense of humor.
Sounds like a challenge, but if it was easy anyone could do it.
Right. But then also, who's the customer? A construction company? Contractors? I dought hese people hang out at myspace... but then you never know, now-a-days anything's possible.
If it was me, I'd probably stay out of the social media but I would definetly focus on the humorous side of the business.
I do like the slogan DrDave. :)
Actually I'm a contractor, and you're correct in that I don't hang out on myspace. However, music festivals and all kinds of outdoor events use those things in a large way, and I wouldn't be surprised if you would find concert promoters using social media. Keeping in touch with the streets so to speak. You really just never know who you are going to interact with on the internet. Aint it great?!
Rebecca, I agree with your analysis of the social networking phenomenon. Who knows how long it will last? Who even thought it would even get this bit? All I can say is those who get on this train early will get the longest ride.I know of at one product that was turned into an avatar and now has it's own MySpace page. The product has its own friends, story, pictures, and videos. I think this is a great way to use social media for a product.
How many inventive ways have you seen to take advantage of social media marketing?
Interesting comments. I think those 'in the know' appreciate the value of social media - which is fine. But to do it well requires a certain skillset that traditional, techy SEO people probably don't get, or a budget beyond the reach of the companies who fill the books of a lot of smaller SEO companies.
To make it work, you need a good idea (time + imagination), great content (skill as a writer) and something to get the ball rolling (sockpuppets, 'friends', whatever) and then time to manage and oversee and track the development of the story. Oh - and probably prior experience. Many small companies are paying relatively small amounts of money per month, looking at long-term gains and don't have ready cash for a big one-off operation like that.
I've dabbled - but on a limited, testing-the-waters scale. I'd be surprised to learn approaching 50% of all SEM companies have even done that. We're not all working for big clients with serious money. Alas!
Am I giving away my status as "small fry" here?
I'm from a non english speaking country. A small country. And it's hard to define what social networking is, we don't have things like digg so what is social networking sites is in my country. There might have been a % of the people who applied to this that live in non english speaking countries.
I just read another article on eMarketer where they quote:
"As a result, eMarketer has increased its projection for US ad spending on social networks to $900 million in 2007, from the previous estimate of $865 million. By 2011, US ad spending on social networks is expected to reach $2.5 billion."
To me this suggests that although businesses may not be effectively leveraging social networking sites at present, they will certainly be putting a lot more effort into it over the coming years.
Personally I think it's impossible to predict that far ahead with internet and other related technologies, but there will definitely be some interesting times ahead.
I agree with Rothman,
the ROI and traction you receive from social networks
for doing real selling or branding is extremely low.
I think that the real reason behind this is working out exactly what the angle is for a particular client. A lot of people will shy away from trying something unproven (for them), rather than jump in & give it a go.
And often, that's the best thing to do - not everyone needs to be on MySpace, although I would also add that with enough thought I would suggest that there is a facet of web 2.0 suitable for any business.
After reading this post again, I went and logged onto a facebook account I created to experiment with groups.
I had not logged on for over 3 months...
It turns out the group now has over 1200 members, 800+ wall posts, and 50+ active discussion topics.
hmmm... amazing how a user community can group like that... with zero input or promoting by me... like I said, I haven't logged on since creating it.
I'm not surprised more SEOs aren't exploiting social-networking sites. We've evaluated about 50 SN sites, reviewed them, etc., but the reality is that all this Web 2.0 has hit our clients too quickly. Believe it or don't, but mainstream corporate America is still getting used to blogging as a business activity. The articles about Wells Fargo & IBM in Second Life are noteworthy because this participation is still unusual, not typical.
It's easy for us SEM folx to forget that we have very specialized knowledge that we take for granted. Since last summer, our company has had to do the same kind of client education regarding Web 2.0, that we used to have to do regarding the importance of SEO to increasing site visitors and ROI. We've presented proposals to several clients for expansion into social media, but it's a bit much for them to bite off and chew right now.
We're finding more success, however, in adding a very different "social media" to our client engagements: autoresponder campaigns. Our clients immediately see the value in establishing an ongoing, two-way, email-based relationship with a very focused, interested group of website visitors. They understand that "it's all in the list."
One client is so pleased with their autoresponder results (including subsequent feedback) that they're planning a special meeting at their upcoming annual conference just for the list members, at which they'll discuss in detail the issues addressed in the autoresponder campaign. I'm sure a lot of ad-agency types are yawning now over such a boring, 2001 technology like the autoresponder, but it's a real sweet-spot for us now, whereas Squidoo and Second Life are still "huh??" items for many clients.
One exception: Google's ridiculous elevation of Wikipedia entries to SERPs higher than websites that are the actual topic authorities has made some of our clients agree, when we tell them they need to become W. editors to have a hand in what W. is saying about their own business topics. Everyone seems to grok Wikipedia's exaggerated importance.
I'm not surprised with the number at all. I've worked with so-called "SEO experts" who still don't get SEO, let alone know what even constitutes social media...
Tell me about it... any self proclaimed SEO person who openly says 'SEO has nothing to do with accessibility, what do blind people need to use the web for anyway' clearly doesnt have a clue whats going on...
Luckily I dont work with them anymore ;)
I actually gave that article by Jane a very thorough read yesterday and thought it had a lot of good info in it. I recommend everyone read through it.
It made my job of looking at sites that much easier because right off the bat I could tell which sites might work for my client(s) and which won't....without having to do the legwork myself. Thanks, Jane!
However you really have to keep your key demographic in mind when trying to leverage these networks. I'm not looking for more useless traffic. I'm looking for the traffic that converts.
On the other hand, using these sites for links to newly established sites does foster some return - depending on just how busy you are.
There's your problem with many online communities. They're often interested in top-ten lists and funny pictures. They want the "white carbs" of the net - easily digestible, give you a spike in blood sugar, and are then forgotten. You want people who are after a steak dinner and who'll pay the price for it.
Yeah, food analogies are lame, but I liked that one.
Interesting data and find Rebecca. Thought forsure the numbers would be greater than what they reported. There certainly is a small gold mine of opportunity waiting within the Social media sites that have become so popular among users and search engines.
Eventually, if too many marketers use these tactics all at once or in the same ways, there will certainly be a filter of some sort applied by search algos, or they will dilute the index (like you mentioned).
I agree. Strike while it's hot! Get those links, help your brand and do it before everyone else does!
I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought the percentage seemed small!
Hi Rebecca, I agree with you in thinking that social media won't stay this big for very long. It's one of the phases of the Internet. I've already earned a 'thumbs down' for saying that on one of my posts. Oh well, we have to be honest. ;)
How the heck am I going to rely on a report that doesn't include SEOmoz, please.
Some may be surprised about how I feel about this, but there is a glass cieling on what social media can do, and as far as a constant traffic supplier, it will always have a use. That use will in some way be squashed or lessened by Google at some point, just as any other artificial means of traffic generation are. Teehee, I love being controversial :)
Now (or more accurately yesterday, I'm a bit slow) that we're talking about Social Media, MySpace and all that jazz I have a question which you guys probably know the answer to.
A friend of mine has a website with hundreds of incoming links from MySpace pages. Almost all his incoming links are from MySpace and almost none from other sources. The site has been around for a while as well as the links.
He asked me the other day why his website has a PR of only 3 while ours (with a lot less links) has PR 4. I told him that the site has such a low PR because those MySpace pages have no to hardly any PR so they have no juice to pass along. I wasn't really satisfied with this answer myself though because he really has a LOT of links from MySpace.
Now that I'm reading this article and the comments I'm thinking that maybe Google is already penalizing for having too many links from one social media source like MySpace. Do you guys think this makes any sense or am I reading too much in nothing serious?
I would think your first explanation is more what's going on. PR is really a measure of the PR of all the pages linking to the page. One link from a PR 10 page will raise your PR a lot more than many, many PR 1 pages linking to the same page.
Hopefully they stay the hell out or the sociat networks will become less useful. People going to social networks won't come back if the site doesn't fell organic (as in untainted) - which is exactly what placing things with SNs will do.
This is a good post and you shed light on an interesting point- why are so little businesses flooding the viral networks?
I think that Social Media Marketing (SMM) is slowly talking shape. In a recent magazine publication called OMMA, I read about how big companies are slowly creeping into the social networks. Like Wells Fargo opened a bank branch in Second Life (virtual game land) and is using it to teach young people about banking, and surely to get them hooked on that brand.
SMM- it is going to gain traction (as you referenced client profiles ranking etc), but 50% sounds right to me, at least for now!
I've heard of more than one large company getting on Second Life. I just wonder how viable a resource SL is? Have there been any studies as to the demographic on SL?
I know Linden Labs have stats on their users, but I believe they take those stats from the characters (i.e. avatars) that people have created there. The thing is, Second Life is a place for people to do just that -- create -- there's no real drive for them to have a Second Life character who's just like them. So Linden Labs says that X% of its population is male and between the ages of 18 and 35? How do they know that all their male avatars are really male in real life?
If a company can leverage SL, then all credit to them and it would be exciting to experiment with SL. However, I'd think you'd have to be very successful in other online spheres and in the offline world before you put a whole lot of time and money into SL.
I think Navtej sums it up perfectly!
"However, I'd think you'd have to be very successful in other online spheres and in the offline world before you put a whole lot of time and money into SL."
I believe without achieving the above levargaing the power of social netorks is very difficult and time consuming.
I think the number is just about right, although there are lot of subtelties in what ultize actually entails. I don't think a lot of marketers are getting the maximum ROI or value out of their social networking and web 2.0 endevors.
Creating and launching viral marketing campaigns (great to do on social networks and social media sites) is tough and takes a lot of care, creativity and a little luck go to be successful.
I use social networks daily and am planning on being even more agressive in the future.