Month: December 2010

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Should Local Selling Businesses Start Using Twitter

With the real push from search engines to integrate social network activity into your personalized search results Twitter for local selling businesses has become meaningful. The best feature with Twitter is its totally viral nature. Follow people of interest, write interesting tips and news, get retweeted widely and you have just tapped into a huge social network that spans both locally and nationally.

With search engines now showing reviews, the location, and status updates from those in your network in your search results, getting retweeted or even mentioned is now more important than ever for local businesses. You can’t harness the power of this social networking tool if you are not in the game!

So how would you use Twitter for a local focus? I would recommend first looking to follow people particularly in your geographic area that are on Twitter. If they retweet your information or tip, you may be tapping into a whole local network driven by this one local user; neighbors, friends, colleagues, family members.

Use hashtags to focus attention on your location and service category. You just never know if someone will search on Twitter for a resource or review. Additionally, as search engines figure out how they will use Twitter in their search index, early embracers of Twitter may find themselves way ahead of their competition because they have established a better “SocialRank” based on the number of followers and the authority of who these followers are.

We are not exactly sure what the search engines will be doing with Twitter, but we do know for sure they are carefully considering how to implement Twitter results in their indexes. With the link sharing benefits of Twitter and ability to build a viral base, Twitter may end up being the best new link building, web authority register that search engines will choose to utilize as part of their organic placement ranking. One thing we know for sure is that full social integration with search engines is coming and Twitter is a very important part of the social mix.

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What You Can Expect From Social Media

I have had a few clients say “Facebook is not working for me, I am not making any sales from it!”  It is important to understand what Facebook is and what Facebook is not. I do not consider Facebook, at this time, a strong lead generation tool. That being said, I do recommend that every business have a Facebook Business Page and actively work to connect with client’s and prospects.

Facebook is about connections and creating web authority and a reputation. Facebook is a place for prospects and customers to interact, share information and insights, ask questions, and get to know each other on a more personal level. Now, don’t flame me just yet if you disagree, I have personally done business on Facebook, but creating sales is not the real purpose for Facebook. From my point of view there is no better tool for lead generation than Google AdWords and Facebook is not Google AdWords.

“So if Facebook is not a strong lead generating tool then why should I use it?”  You will want to use Facebook as this is where your prospects and customers are hanging out. By exposing people to your products, services, and your business culture, you can move them off Facebook and into your website where your message is more tightly focused and is about lead generation.

Consider Facebook as a snap shot, a gateway, a teaser, an introduction to your business. With the right impression on Facebook you can encourage a migration to your website where your message is more selling focused.

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Responding to Unfavorable Online Reviews

Getting a bad review online can be maddening, but don’t make it worse by responding without putting in a lot of thought to how your own response will be perceived by other future customers.

I have a client who had a very poor review. When you are in business, you can’t please everyone, but in this case the office manager shot off a rebuttal that when I read it, I just cringed. It made a bad situation much worse. It portrayed the office staff as angry, resentful, argumentative, and vindictive. OUCH!

Sometimes a bad review can be a wakeup call. When you get a bad review, step back and look at it, could it be truthful, or have a grain of truth to it? It is very important to take a careful look to make sure that there is not a change needed on your part such as a change in office policy, customer service, or staff retraining.

If you feel that a rebuttal must be made. Focus on the positive, express concern for a problem, offer special attention from top management to repair the situation. Encourage the reviewer to recontact the office for a refund, redo, or credit on future service. Don’t write a hot rebuttal that trashes the reviewer or accuses them of being unfair or dishonest. This will only work to hurt you and make you look like the review was really true based on your hot angry response.

You can’t fight unfair reviews, but you can work to soften the blow and maybe even become better by taking the review as constructive criticism. Just be careful in your response and work to repair a poor situation not to make it worse with your own comments.

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Social Media More Than Fluff

Danny Sullivan, a pillar in my industry and writer for SearchEngineLand, just interviewed Google and Bing engineers about what they use from Facebook and Twitter in regards to signals that may impact organic placement. I found the article extremely interesting and I think you will too. You can read the full piece here.

The huge take away on the article is that both Bing and Google evaluate and use information, popularity, and activity on both Twitter and Facebook. This is particularly good news for clients of ours who were early embracers of social media and have now built up popular accounts and do regular status updates. The pay off of social media has not been fully realized yet, but the impact on future organic search placement is huge.

Both search engines are now evaluating both PageRank and now SocialRank or HumanRank or SocialRank. Neither have determined a name yet, but are clearly watching, gaging, and weighing social media activity of businesses on both Facebook and Twitter. It is now boiling down to Web Authority and Social Authority (how many updates you do, frequency of updates, number of followers or friends) will now appear to impact positively organic search results.

Both search engines revealed that the links on Twitter and Facebook, even though they are nofollow, do mean something to their search algorithms in regards to Web Authority. Twitter links may in the very near future even be considered as some version of acceptable link building program.

If you are not involved with Twitter or Facebook at this time, you had better take a careful look at this insightful analysis that Danny Sullivan has done as I would recommend at this point you get in the game and do so quickly. Early embracers should give themselves a big pat on the back for seeing a trend and the importance of it and acting to take advantage of the new technology which has now given them an edge over their competition.

We do offer social media services at very affordable rates. We invite you to review our own Twitter and Facebook services.