Conversion Matters

I assume most people are aware of the fact that many companies perform their SEO in-house with their own search engine marketeers. It’s cheaper, they have more control and they get full time SEO work - whereas with an agency the time available to provide SEO services will be spread over multiple clients.

There’s a good overview of in-house SEO here.

In-house SEO makes sense, you can [try] hire someone really good who can then train someone else/a small team up to take over, or you can probably get away with a couple of mediocre in-house SEOs too. Either way it probably works out quite well, probably wise to take on board advice though.

Is it equally feasible to do social media marketing in-house?

I’ve been asked if I think it’s possible for a company to hire an SEO to help with in-house social media marketing as well as just plain SEO and I’m not honestly sure it is.

There are some high quality social media marketeers around but I think it’s a pretty rare breed at the moment.

It’s not easy to become a power user on a social network, it takes a huge investment of time.

I don’t think it’s something that is as obviously suited to in-house as general SEO. You’re more than like going to have to invest a month or two of stumbling/digging/mixxing aggressively before you will be respected enough to promote your own content successfully.

Likewise, if your social media strategy revolves around blogging you’re initially have to go and invest a substantial amount of time in building up a blog - it won’t happen over night.

Personally, I’d just hire someone to help and consult with the social media marketing and stick to general SEO with the in-house team. Obviously there is no harm with tinkering with social media you just have to be aware that it could be a while before you see any real ROI.

What do you think?

So apparently ‘people’ are getting bored of facebook, reverting to simply using twitter, or giving up on social media altogether. Who are these people and why are they not enjoying facebook?

Facebook is not built for marketeers

Sorry guys, facebook wasn’t built for you. It was built for people to socially interact with their friends. I don’t market myself or my brand on facebook I just chat with my friends, colleagues, family etc.

It’s like an answer phone for instant messaging!

Using facebook for marketing is a bit like blogging on a topic your not interested in, purely for profit, it’s not interesting and more often than not you get bored and give up pretty quickly.

Should marketeers use facebook regardless of who it was built for?

I strongly believe that for any marketeer it would be a mistake to ignore facebook. Firstly, there are a few groups where marketeers/SEOs/webmasters etc. hang out and discuss things. Facebook Whores for SEO, SMO and SEM Awareness where you can chat to and build up relationships with other like-minded individuals if you’re so inclined.

Another reason to embrace facebook is if you work with clients who either already have a brand name or are trying to build one up. Strategic use of facebook as a medium for brands to talk to consumers is clearly going to be beneficial for both parties. One of the ways this can be done is through facebook pages. These are essentially sponsored profiles on facebook that allow a brand to reach out to fans (or haters) and interact with them.

There are also many unofficial groups centred around brands that marketeers should be aware of. They can paint a positive or negative picture of your brand depending on the nature of the group. It is important to keep tabs on these as you should be of the web in general as part of your reputation monitoring strategy.

For marketeers who don’t work for big brands there is also facebook flyers/advertising/whatever it is officially called now. Essentially, you can advertise down the sidebar:

Or you can advertise in the news feed or users:

These adverts can be target to specific categories of users but I’m not entirely sure of the exact specifics

There did seem to be a lot of talk of the facebook ads performing really poorly. I assume it varies on a campaign by campaign basis but I’d say it’s worth checking out, at least some people are having success.

Facebook is much more suited for people interested in social interaction

While facebook is certainly going to be more interesting for people who use it for what it was meant for, keeping in touch with your friends, it’s still a service you cannot ignore as an internet marketeer. There are so many ways it can be used, from brand building and reputation management, to advertising/affiliate marketing, to simply building relationships with other industry contacts.

Don’t ignore facebook, it’s not going away any time soon!

P.S - Don’t worry I don’t actually think you guys are sleezy marketeers ;]

French advertising on Facebook? That’s not very relevant! They can’t be getting a very high click through rate or many qualified customers if they’re showing it to non-French people.

If like me, you want to fully embrace and participate in social media/news etc. and also learn a thing or two along the way, you have to read lots of blogs!

So here, just for you, is a large list of all the interesting blogs I’ve been reading. I’ve categorised them in the same way they’re categorised in my feed reader, it’s not perfect because some blogs cover multiple topics!

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Lot’s of people blindly throw statements around such as:

• “digg is a great way to promote your site”
• “get free blog traffic from digg”
• “increase your brand exposure on social news sites”

While hitting it big on one of these sites is a great way to gain links, traffic and exposure, what these people neglect to tell you is that it is very tricky to do so.

Writing great content is unfortunately not all it takes - it’s a little like the old saying “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know”.

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