SEO Expert, Evangelist and SEO Consulting Services - Tony Adam

During my daily web research I tend to try to come across some interesting sources to get some good social media links to control my name searches in the SERPs.
That being said, we all know about the main players in the game like Digg, Flickr, MySpace, etc. But, sometimes, you can come across a good personalized wiki or social media site that would create a profile for yourself. Well, that is exactly what I found the other day.

Elitizmr is a wiki for Web 2.0 and Internet Entrepreneurs, powered by MediaWiki. Now, you wouldn’t really be able to do anything with this for a company (unless its your name, e.g. Bruce Clay), but it works great for a personal brand. Actually, I was quite surprised at how quickly this showed up for my personal search term (”tony adam”).

Within almost 2-3 days the Tony Adam Elitizmr entry was already ranking for my personalized search query. I was so excited about this because I’ve been trying to push down all the other entries (e.g. links to Tony Adam the soccer player on you tube, etc.).

This last week has had some interesting events occur over the big revolt against Digg. Now, big news sites like Wired, NY Times, etc. have posted stories, many people are talking about it on twitter, etc. The question is whether or not these constant issues being brought to the forefront are going to effect the Digg site and brand in a negative way, especially in a time when it seems Digg is entertaining a buyout opportunity.
Over the past month I have seen this topic thrown around in person, via twitter and now a live stream on Ustream - The Drill Down (brought to you by Andrew Sorcini, Muhammad Saleem and Reg Saddler). The Ustream podcast is now available for download, RevoltNation, Part 2: Jay and Kevin Respond, this was basically the tempers of top Digg users flaring and demanding some answers. Kevin Rose and Jay Adelson graciously appeared on the show to talk about all of hte issues at hand, including rumors of an “auto-bury”, the banning of digg users, the un-responsiveness and finally, the ever-infamous algorithm change. (For more on the algorithm change, see Kevin Rose’s post: Digg: New Algorithm Changes)
Now, I am not a top Digg user or a power user even for that matter but I still find this debate very interesting, because I have always loved using Digg. But, I have been finding certain things really pestering me lately. I’ve noticed that the user base is becoming almost like that of Slashdot, very quick to judge and with only one mindset. Secondly, the algo changes seemed a bit unnecessary, even with those using Digg as a marketing and SEO tool. Jay did mention that the algorithm usually takes a few days to finally work itself out, but, making that large a change is just too much too soon. I could understand something like 50-60 diggs to make the home page, and then pushing it to 80 over time and then finding the right balance. The overall experience to me now seems like it is only a select few posts that go hot and the rest stay in upcoming, which is not really the main place people look for stories. Is it just me or does that mean relevance is lost?

What I found interested in this whole situation is that Jay Adelson said to Wired Magazine:

“Let’s be realistic about what happened yesterday,” Adelson says. “It wasn’t a revolt. To me, a revolt is when a statistically significant group of people cause a disruption. These guys are significant to me personally, but this wasn’t a revolt. I hope that the next time a small group of users voice their concerns, it’s not represented as a ‘mass movement’ or a ‘revolt.’”

When a large group of your top users stand up and say, “We are unhappy”…that is a revolt. Jay should have understood that from the vibe of the room. Granted, I think that everyone was happy that Jay and Kevin went on the show to talk about the situation, which was the stand up thing to do. I think they recognized how severe the situation could have gotten and they decided to attempt to mitigate that risk. (See Full Wired Post: Digg CEO Jay Adelson’s Take on the So-Called “Revolt”)

Digg has seen its Alexa ranking drop to the mid-hundreds (Digg ranks 144 currently according to Alexa) from being in the top 100 previously.

Here are some great reads about the recent Digg News:
Digg Causes ED Among Social Marketers; Will it Now Go Limp Itself? - Andy Beal
Near-Revolt on Digg Underscores Site’s Dependence on Its Users - Wired
Top Digg Users Revolt Against Algorithm Change on Site - NY Times

What do you think this will do to the Digg community? Will this effect buyout opportunities negatively? Or, does the old Hollywood saying of “Any buzz is good buzz” apply?

Last week I talked about how to stay active, answer questions, etc. to keep brand awareness high and reputation management under control. This week, I’m going to give you an overview of how to dominate the SERP’s (Search Engine Results Pages) by using Social Media to your advantage.

We all know since the “Web 2.0 Evolution” there has been a massive influx of Social Media properties on the web. That being said, you can use this to your advantage from another Branding and Reputation Management aspect by using them to control the top 10 results listed in the SERPs for your branded search. (e.g. digg)

Here is what you do:

1. Find Social Media sites that are relevant: Do some quick research and find the sites that are relevant to you. If you do real estate, using YouTube is a great site…at the same time…if you are a large tech company, TechCrunch’s “CrunchBoard” is a great place to get a public profile about your company. Quick note though, keep this up to date…some brands do a bad job of this.

2. Build your branded social media page: Getting a public page on hot spots like MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, etc. is very easy to do and build. There is already a template behind them, all you need to do is adjust it so that you are branding your page appropriately. Some sites, (e.g. MySpace) require some markup/css, but still very simple. Most organizations have already done this, if you have, GREAT!, you’re already one step closer to success.

3. Subdomians: Google has cracked down on the subdomain issue as of late, but, that being said for branding purposes, it is still helping out in dominating the SERPs. For example, having a careers or jobs mini-site/subdomain on your brand (e.g. careers.myawesomebrand.com) will give you yet another listing.

4. Blogging: O.K., I realize this is not so much related to a social media site…but it is related to the SERPs and control them. Blogging around your topic and creating linkbaitable items will not only get you a ton of traffic, but the true success comes from the amount of links for your site. So, be sure to set your blog up on your domain as a subfolder (http:://thegreatestbrandever.com/blog) or as a subdomain (blog.myreallycoolbrand.com). Along with all of that, you can use your blog as a great tool to pass some great PR value and Link Popularity to your Social Media sites.

5. Link Building:  Doing link building on your “.com” is not the only place to focus.  Granted, that being said, most social media sites do contain some heavy PR value and a good starting point.  So, with very little effort, but an effort none-the-less, you will be able to rank those pages.  So, send a link from your “.com”, your blog, etc. and a small link building effort should help.

Now, remember, these are the 5 steps to achieving Search Engine Results Page domination.  Doing only 1 or 2 of these things will help your organization, but, you will receive the most effectiveness by following the steps and ensuring the dependencies.
Overall, your goal for the overall effort is reputation management and ensuring that your brand is controlling the SERP for a branded search (e.g. “Digg”).  Doing so can have a tremendous amount of value and reduce a ton of negative publicity for your brand.

I’ve wanted to start writing more about Social Media and I think the best way to start would be to talk abut what I love doing, and that is building my own personal brand and how it applies to an organization as well.

I have always considered it to be tremendously important in getting my name out there whenever possible, it has been absolutely crucial to my career development. This approach also really applies to companies and organizations as well. How you represent yourself online through Social Media can play a very important role in how your business is perceived by many. Building an online brand as a whole might be a bit more complex than building your own brand. But, when it comes to the aspects of Social Media though, more specifically thought leadership, it is definitely not as complex.

You can do this quite simply by doing the following:

Answering questions online: LinkedIn and Yahoo! Answers can be a great place to get some Brand Awareness by showing off some of your knowledge and expertise with a community. Branded usernames and/or individuals representing your brand through these services also builds a trust in your organizations ability to follow through on the products/services offered.

Comment, Comment, Comment: Commenting on Blog posts by sharing feedback and or getting involved in the community shows a real passion about the topics at hand. Especially in communities like technology/web/internet, you will gain a massive amount of respect if you can hold your own.

Be active on your own blog: So, you wrote a blog, people are getting to it, linking to it, and commenting on it…you’re done right? WRONG! There is still another step to this, staying active and responding to your comments shows that you care about the community following you. The Mozzers over at SEOMoz do a great job of staying active on their own blog, and same with Aaron Wall of SEOBook.

Ever heard of “Twitter”, if not, you better!: Microblogging using sites like twitter is an awesome way to reach users and amazingly enough, control any negativity. Although it is widely used for sending out updates and such, using the “track” feature, you can find out what people are saying about your brand. Steve Ganz at LinkedIn does this CONSTANTLY and I am always watching him follow up with complaints, issues, etc. and it just makes me feel good knowing that some people really “get it.” As a matter of fact, a blog post recently talked about how LinkedIn Hits the Mark.

All of the above items will help you build brand awareness and control the reputation of your brand.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and how you are using this or other things to either build your personal brand or corporate brand through the use of similar strategies.

This is a continuation post as a follow up to Blogging for Customers, not Dollars. I felt this was important for corporations and in-house talent to look at when writing a blog. Sometimes we tend to think about a blog as a way to push products, which is what I talked about previously. The truth is, this is o.k. to do, but ONLY as part of your blog content.
Being at a large organization, you are already at the advantage of having a following, your blog will benefit from this. You want to make sure that you are keeping your readers interested. Continuously blogging to your users only about changes to the company or new products, etc. are a way of losing readers and interest.

Swinging to a more positive note, you need to start thinking of your blog as the “Thought Leader” for an industry. There are many ways to do so and it will dramatically improve readership and reach. People expect this out of a large company that is an industry leader already, so, being that thought leader that I speak of, will really set you at the top.

Pay attention to the industry: Listen for what people are looking for. If identity theft and security on the web is a big part of your industry, then use that to your advantage. Write an article about how it applies to your company and how to prevent it, or something along those lines.

Don’t spam: As I mentioned above, do not…and I’ll say this again…DO NOT write solely on new products or what your company id doing. This is boring, tends to decrease interest, and looks to much like an advertising tool.

Write great content: By paying attention to the industry, you know what your readers are looking for. This is crucial info, now go out and apply it. Write articles about the industry, keep people informed of the industry news, etc. Then, every so often, you can write an article that is great and increase visibility.

Linkbaiticize: As apposed to publicizing, you want to write great content that leads to great link bait. Also, get to know the top evangelists, sites, etc. around your industry in the blogosphere. Hopefully they will pick up your article and maybe even submit it to digg/reddit/etc. user that could submit your story is another way to increase readership. Doing this and getting this kind of traffic is of course, one of the best ways to increase your blogs overall ROI. The amount of in-links and subscribers alone is worth the time and money invested, then you have the users that actually follow through on product specific blogs and convert into real $$.

Keep it Fresh: Don’t stop there, continue to fire away and keep content fresh. Stagnant content will lose readers…so keeping it up to date will keep people interested and looking for more.

I can’t stress enough how important it is to follow the 5 rules above about being an industry thought leader. There is definitive ROI through the amount of link popularity, subscriber-ship, and readership that is gained through Social Media. All that, plus, conversion and click-throughs to product subscriptions, etc. that could quite possibly lead real dollars.

Here are some good resources to check out for an understanding of the power of social media are:
A Visual Tour Through the Basics of Social Media Marketing by SEOMoz
SEO Book Bloggers Guide to SEO

Many companies completely forget to include the following viral strategies or they are simply looked over. The sad truth is that these strategies are almost always EXTREMELY simple to implement.

1. Add to Favorites: One of the easiest tools and effective tools for getting people to come back to your website. There are typically pre-written scripts or scripts easy enough to implement. A must have to start with…

2. Recommend / Email to a friend: Not allowing your customer a route sending your website off to his friends or co-workers could lead to a major amount of lost opportunities. Make sure that you have some form on allowing customers to recommend, and definitely make sure it is EASY.

3. Add to Del.icio.us: Although this is not as easy as the first two, with today’s age of social media and how much it is used, it is crucial to getting recurring site traffic, almost as much so as “Add to Favorites.”

4. Share on Facebook: Customers and site user’s are spending more and more time on Facebook and giving them the ability to share stories, articles, landing page’s, etc. on their profile can get you some major traffic and conversion.

5. Social Media Madness: Other than the above listed items, social media is your friend. If you are a blog or publisher network, then add items like “digg this” or “submit to netscape” and even things like google bookmarks.

Giving your customers and/or users an opportunity to pass the word along and keep coming back to your site can only be an advantage to your overall success. Obviously you don’t want to over do it, with links ALL over the place and scattered that it would drive someone insane. Just make sure that you are giving people the opportunity to spread the word.

Yesterday night I had a conversation with a friend of mine that I hadn’t seen in a long time and it has inspired me to write a post about networking. I have found that over the last couple years and as I get older, how powerful and valuble networking really is.

I have attended conferences and networking events since around 2002 and never really found value in this until around 2004. Granted, I was just barely learning the ropes and very “green” at the time, but I had no idea the value of networking almost 5 years ago. I was sent to many vendor related events, many conferences and such, my focus was to try to solicit business for my company at the time. What I didn’t realize is how important it was to build my network of people that I knew and stay in touch with them.

Fast forward to now and the last year or so. I have been trying to attend conferences, networking events, meet-ups, meet and greets, and even inter-company related events. I have goals of attending these events, sometimes its for knowledge and almost always it is to expand my network.

Okay, so it is question time…Why are these events are so useful?!

Answer: Expanding your network is absolutely critical to your future successes, no matter what they be.

Chatting with my friend last night I really stressed the importance in this. Building your networking and laying a foundation for your own personal brand is extremely empowering, at least, in my eyes it is. Obviously, if you are young and shy, that is absolutely normal, but give it a go and try it out.

You might say to yourself, “well, I am still in school” or “I am just starting out.” The truth is, typically people are very understanding and you never know the value you might have until you actually talk to people. I use to be this guy until 2004. I attended multiple events in which I didn’t have a card, I didn’t save the cards and I didn’t keep in touch with those I met. To this day, I think of the relationships I could have maintained and wish I would have.

Of course, being the geek that I am, I will bring in “LinkedIn” and the social media aspects of it into play. Finding a place to stay in touch with people, use it as a “next-gen rolodex” and keep people updated of what’s going on in your world is highly crucial. It all goes back to building your personal brand.

LinkedIn has been a lifesaver to me because I am able to maintain a contact list that is literally in real time keeping me updated with the happenings of the people in my network. Also, not that I am advocating buying a business account, but, business users are able to expand their network through features like introductions, in-mail, etc. Being able to connect with people outside your everyday network or someone that you would never really meet is just one more touch-point in your personal growth.

Truthfully, in the end, it’s all about the relationships you make and maintain, bottom line.

After receiving a book about Creating Customer Evangelists, I was inspired to re-visit a post I had written a while back on the new generation of Word of Mouth Marketing (WOMM), Viral Marketing and Evangelism.

Currently we live in a very technological and extremely different world than even as little as a 2-3 years ago, let alone a decade. It seems as though the traditional marketing years are losing their dominance rather quickly. Although, it is true, the traditional marketing strategies will never go away. The question we really need to ask ourselves is difficult as we are individuals from all sorts of groups, such as marketers, advertisers, search marketers, SEO experts, evangelists, etc. etc. So, what is this difficult question that I speak so highly of?

Where is marketing going?…and..Who are the real evangelists?

This question has really to deal with a couple major techniques and I will explain this. But, really, we are talking about Word of Mouth Marketing, Viral Marketing and Customer/User Evangelism at it’s best.

I’ll start with an example. Let’s look at digg.com. The site is a breeding ground for open source evangelists that are really technologists at heart. This is a prime example of viral marketing strategies that are really driven by the customer. Well, in this case open source software, it would really be the user.

Another example with digg.com, is Apple. Apple’s customer base is really expanding at a dramatic pace. Yes, they do have those extremely comedic commercials on TV and traditional marketing techniques, this much we know. What I want to delve into is the number of evangelists they have developed around the world that continuously tell others about their products. I’ll even give you a personal example, anyone that asks me whether to buy a Mac or PC, I recommend the Mac. This is an example or word of mouth marketing and customer evangelism at its best.

So, why is this important to the rest of us and why is this important to marketers?

Well, the answers to these questions are quite simple. We need to learn as marketers and brand marketers to really build around our customer base. Create an outlet to ensure that our customers are becoming evangelists for our organization. Just like the traditional marketing tactics, we will not see an end to internal company evangelism roles, this is in-escapable. There is though a great opportunity, now, more than ever, our customers, employees and clients are becoming evangelists and marketers on our behalf. Thus, we are enlisting volunteers to speak highly about your company’s products and services without any internal campaigns or effort.

So, we have address the what’s, the who’s, the why’s. But, really, how do we get this done and how do we execute on this.

Truthfully, the answer is right at your fingertips. As I mentioned above about Apple and digg.com. Find out where your users/customers are going and doing and really ensure that they have an avenue to speak highly of you. Creating catchy and sticky products and campaigns will also give your customers an opportunity to spread the word. Learn your social media sites and how you can use them to your advantage.

From a search engine optimization and/or marketing standpoint, you can use blogging to increase rankings and readers. Most people really relate blogging to blogging for dollars, but in this case, blog for your brand. Ensuring that your blogging is very well optimized for word of mouth and viral techniques, like email this, digg this, share on facebook, etc. is highly critical. Gives your brand a massive growth opportunity without you even lifting a finger. Make this all highly accessible and let your customers spread the word for you, because, like the saying goes, “If you build it, they will come.”

I just need to go on a quick tangent regarding the friendster patent that has been released recently. I wanted to take a step back and look at it from Friendsters point of view, but i really couldn’t see anything positive. The truth is, friendster is doing just what i was hoping it would not, trying to steal away funds and hurt the current and future social networking prospects. This last second dive is just that, a dive, like a cheap boxer taking a dive just to make some cash, Friendster is doing just that.

The other thing that upsets me is the fact that they are tagging themselves as an originator in social networking. The truth is there were sticky features in most other major sites like PlanetAll and Webmaster World that were doing these types of things, like building communities, since the mid 90’s.

I just wanted to come out and say this was an EXTREMELY cheap effort by Friendster who is trying to effectively use the courts to make its final heave for cash in their failing business model. Shame on friendster for not trying to do something new, specialized and exciting and blatently saying other companies are stealing their ideas.