Twitter and Micro Blogging

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Permalink Reply by Diane Bjorling on February 11, 2010 at 8:31pm

Hi Steven and hi Scott, sorry i am late joining this conversation, got a wee bit tied up with things.

I have to agree and disagree with your thought about social sites... "in my opinion, they are more for social inter-action than for business..."


I consider social communites as a way to make friends with benefits. But and there is always a but...lol, you have to do it right and in the right places.

For a while there, i think i joined every community under the sun, in part to learn about how they worked, but also like many people i thought this was the way to get the word out on what we were doing. It was time consuming and the amount of work needed to keep up..well when would one have time to sleep ( maybe that is about to change?)

I got smarter in my old age. I now have two kinds of communites, the ones where i can relax and enjoy and the ones where i have the friends with benefits ...lol

yes i am aware that terminology might have a different meaning to some people, but the fact is social communites is about making good business friends and then creating a buzz or quality content so that i can keep in touch with my colleagues as well as just say hi, how is the family.

Those communites where i work, if you will and i chose the ones that i am active in - those are the places that i combine the relationship aspect and the SEO as they go hand in hand.

I would add that you should do your research on which communities you want to be involved in, that will be the most productive for you to participate in and where and this is the most important..where you will visit every day.

The wonderful thing about twitter as a social community by the way, is that it has challenged people on how to talk to others. With 140 characters people now have to really think about what they are going to say. Twitter i would add is challenging marketers in particular, to change their traditional content delivery and the learning curve for some has been quite difficult as one can tell from all the spam all of us get every single day.

We all talk about content, keywords, SEO and there is a shudder in our virtual voices and a bewilderment about the whole process.

I will keep this very simple... to me social communites is about finding like minded people to have a CONVERSATION... that equals CONTENT.
when that conversation is targeted to what your like minded people are doing and what you are doing, then what do you have? To put it again simply, you have potential customers. It was never about selling anything, it was all about sharing information and when you know your business, talk with authority about what YOU KNOW, then folks you will get the customers.

SEO is needed on the net, no two ways about it, but how to keep it simple?

First off understand that the role of SEO in social media is to directly influence discovery of social communities or content via the search engines and we all know that means Google. Translation please? The role of SEO is to help people discover you through social communites and content through the search engines.

To start your SEO off right, you need to think like a web surfer and trust me, there are more people who surf on the web, than marketers, so think like an everyday person.

Write down ..um get your handy virtual notepad out and put in words and phrases that people would type in about your business.

To help you, use the various keyword research tools and study what is in your niche.

When you have compiled that list, then start writing content with those words or phrases on your blog ( you do have a blog don't ya?)

Now on the social communities that you have decided to be active in. using some of those same keywords, create a conversation, refer to your post ( use the link for the actual post), maybe you could ask a question about some of the content in your post...or you could tell people that you were talking to so and so ( be polite please and give that persons link) about...enter keyword phrase... make it interesting and just talk your head off...be real and of course always talk to what you REALLY know.

I compare it to going to a coffee shop with friends and talking about the Olympics in Vancouver, we all have knowledge, we are all using keywords and we are all doing a form of social media?

i know i could go on and on...lol...tends to happen at times, but i am talking to what i know and that is what this is all about.

Would love to hear from others about whether the coffee shop analogy is a good one or can you think of one better?

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Permalink Reply by Scott Reynolds on February 11, 2010 at 9:47pm

I am not sure that what I said was taken the same as I meant it. That is the problem with commenting..... you think of something as you read the post and know how you see the persons opinion, you write about what you saw and thought. The next person will do the same..... Everybody will see what the original author wrote in a slightly different way, and on down the line..... This is an excellent way to test, or get an Idea of how other people will see thoughts and opinions. Also on how to better get your position across to others.

But I am getting off subject even further...

I think social communities are still great, and can be used for any type of social situation including marketing. The problem I have is most all of them allowed marketing in. Like Steven said, you will get spam almost everywhere now. You should be able to go to some social sites and just relax and have fun without having to delete this and say no to that.....

WE have all been told over and over again how hard it is to market online, we need to buy this program or join this group. We have to pay for lessons to learn the wrong way to market online, read this book or buy that report.... It was all just hype! Marketers trying to tell us we are stupid and can't do anything without their help!
Some even sold software that filled the internet full of crap and made their job even harder.

Folks if you think like an internet surfer or buyer like Diane said when you are trying to attract people to buy your products. You probably will attract them! Trying to figure out how to get them will never work, As you see in these comments, everybody sees things differently and most will see the same thing differently tomorrow when they are in a different mood! Deep eh?

I have posted and posted...... ask yourself how would you look for it? would you read it?...... would you buy it If you were the one that found it in a search? Would you come back again to read the next post?

Looking at things form just a slightly different angle can make a huge difference in what we see. The different people on twitter, social networks, and your blog readers will all see things differently. Each place will attract a different mind set..... just another twist in the mix... lol

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