Where Are Social Media Marketers Seeing the Most Success?

More than ever, Inc. 500 companies see social media as important to their business and marketing strategy. While some industries are still behind, most are using a mix of tactics to support their business.

http://bit.ly/fYLQw6

Inside Intel's Social Media Strategy

Kathleen Malone spoke with eMarketer about Intel's budgeting process for social media, how the Social Media Center of Excellence operates, and the challenge of ensuring that staff resources are allocated appropriately.

http://bit.ly/hprchL

Leveraging Best Practices for Social Media

Marketers fall on a spectrum in their engagement with social media, with leaders, followers and others in between. Different strategies to integrate and participate in social media can help achieve a brand's goals, from word-of-mouth marketing to brand loyalty and beyond.

http://bit.ly/hJJtfE

Consumers Force Retailers to Adopt Social Strategy

A majority of major online retailers have a social media presence, especially on Facebook. Like other marketers, they are having a tough time measuring social ROI and deciding which indicators are most important—but had to follow customers to their latest destination.

http://bit.ly/dxKXJp

Getting Serious about Social Media

Inside Letters to the C-Suite: Getting Serious About Social Media, you'll find advice from a dozen of the industry's top social media experts on a range of topics including:

• The importance of planning and implementing a social media strategy  
• How to build stronger customer relationships using social media outlets
• Operationalizing social media marketing and how it directly impacts your bottom line
• The value of social media testing and optimization  

Download Letters to the C-Suite: Getting Serious About Social Media Now.

Five Reasons to Make Social Media Part of Your SEO Strategy

It's well known in SEO circles that most links created through social media are "nofollow"—and therefore don't help sites rank higher with search engines. Some SEO professionals believe there's no SEO benefit to developing social-media profiles at all.

 

Not so, counters Derek Edmond in a recent post at the Komarketing Blog. To search marketers like Edmond, "social-media strategies are much more than a method for securing direct links through submissions, posts, and updates."

 

Edmond offers five reasons to incorporate social-media tactics into your SEO strategy:

 

1. Brand-Based Search Results. LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook Pages and company blogs often appear prominently in brand-based search results. Completing social-media profiles at these sites helps ensure the company message you create gets found.
2. Link-Friendly Content Strategies. Even if newly created content gathers few SEO-friendly links, acquiring and evaluating the number of bookmarks and votes helps illustrate how successful your organization is at connecting with potential customers and audiences.
3. Connection with Content Publishers. A social-media presence can open doors of communication and new link opportunities previously unavailable to you.
4. Connection with Connectors. Social-media sites offer greater access to people and organizations that can help your business grow through new business opportunities, partnerships, and strategic advice.
5. Social Media's Influence on the Search Space. Google, Yahoo, and Bing are all integrating social elements with their respective technologies. Therefore, social media's direct influence on rankings is certain to increase.

Search engines are already smarter than we think, Edmund adds, and they are likely able to determine link intent and so establish some SEO value—even for "nofollow" links.

 

The Po!nt: Make your SEO more social. Adding social media to your SEO strategy is a sure bet these days, Edmond concludes, as the influence of social-media keyword rankings is definitely on the rise.

 

Source: Komarketing Blog. Read the full post.

Nearly Three-Quarters of Marketers Have Social Strategy

Industry watchers and pundits have advised marketers that social media requires a coherent strategy to perform most effectively, and companies have taken the hint.

http://bit.ly/9vkPN9

5 Simple Steps to a Successful Social Media Strategy

Many companies who are timid to adopt social media into their marketing feel that way because they don't know where to start. For those of you who may be just beginning to dip your toe into the social media world, here are five tips to get you started.

Read more: http://bit.ly/boqnB6