Deciding which social networks to focus on
Posted on 15. Aug, 2010 by Dean Whitney in Inbound Marketing, Social Media and has 0 Comments
Focus is important in social media. Without focus it can be like boiling the ocean. So when marketers new to social media begin they wonder which social networks they should focus on. Twitter? LinkedIn? Do they need a Facebook Fan Page? How about MySpace? A YouTube Channel? Flickr? The list goes on.
Wikipedia maintains a list of social networking websites with a column for registered users. It’s shocking how many social networks there are with over 10 million registered users that I haven’t heard of before. Habbo, a social network for teens has over 160 million registered users, over 8 million unique visitors per month, and 75,000+ new registrations per day!
Marketers should look at two things – Audience reach and search engine optimization (SEO). Many times the two are exclusive. For some clients work on getting lots of content on YouTube and a high volume of impressions when it’s not the best site for their audience. The fact is, the YouTube pages get highly ranked in search engines.
An April 2010 study, Social Media Marketing Industry Report by Michael Stelzner of 1900 marketing professionals showed that by far Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and blogs were the top four social media tools used by marketers.
My advice is to target the top 4-5 sites and be sure to include social bookmarking sites separate. You should plan to bookmark new content on a few social bookmarking sites like digg, Stumble Upon, Yahoo! Buzz. Do your research; you may find 1 or 2 sites you haven’t heard of that service your audience. If your audience is teen then discovering Habbo could be a big opportunity.
The CMO’s Guide To The Social Media Landscape from CMO.com, prepared by 97th Floor, an SEO and social media firm, is an interesting take on the top 10 choices.
Sex and Social Media
Posted on 15. Jun, 2010 by Dean Whitney in Marketing, Social Media, research and has 0 Comments
Just as social interaction has evolved over the years so has marketing. The pick-up lines that worked for hipsters would fall flat today just as marketing tactics of the the 80’s wouldn’t earn customers in the Facebook age. It seems a lot less successful pick-up artists are spouting Austin Powers pick-up lines while marketers seem quite content in going for the quick hit in their attempts at customer acquisition.
Today’s playing field has changed and requires a different approach. Sex & Social Media examines the effective pick-up artist and how it applies to new marketing in the age of social media. (more…)
Hubspot internet marketing software
Posted on 01. Jun, 2010 by Dean Whitney in Inbound Marketing, Social Media, Start-ups and has 0 Comments
HubSpot offers an Internet marketing application that helps businesses with their social marketing and SEO strategy and lead generation and conversion efforts. The company is behind tools like Website Grader, which essentially audits websites for their search engine friendliness, and boasts similar tools specifically for Twitter and Facebook. (more…)
Chat with Hubspot CEO Brian Halligan
Posted on 29. Apr, 2010 by Dean Whitney in Inbound Marketing and has 0 Comments
I had the opportunity to visit Brian Halligan at the Hubspot office in Cambridge, MA on Tuesday (April 27th, 2010). This is my second visit to Hubspot and the first time they were about 100 people smaller at a different office. Now they have outgrown their new space in Kendal Square a stone’s throw from MIT and Microsoft’s NERD (New England Research and Development) Center. (more…)
Zero to Social – taking the social media marketing leap
Posted on 15. Apr, 2010 by Dean Whitney in Inbound Marketing, Marketing, Social Media and has 0 Comments
Everyone sees that the role social media plays in marketing is growing quickly if not exponentially. There were 4 Billion Tweets on Twitter in 2009 – analysts predict 40 Billion in 2010. Marketers hear about the millions of dollars in revenue Dell has generated. Reports of major brands increasing social marketing budgets, moving spending from print and TV. It’s a gold rush. (more…)
YouTube for Marketing
Posted on 30. Mar, 2010 by Dean Whitney in Marketing, YouTube, analytics, video and has 0 Comments
For some time now YouTube has been a staple of social media and viral marketing. SEO experts know that lots of views on a YouTube video can help boost search rankings and also get the video content in top search results. YouTube has been less embraced by the majority of marketers; seen as a guerrilla tactic. Over time YouTube has matured and its more than ready for mainstream marketing. New features such as annotations, linking content, promotions, insights, captions and subtitles make YouTube a sophisticated video marketing platform. (more…)
Is Flash still viable for marketing?
Posted on 04. Jan, 2010 by Dean Whitney in User Experience and has 0 Comments
Flash has been losing ground with online marketing for the past few years. There are some cases where it can be effective. Less as a user experience and more as a media asset. When creating content for a variety of applications Flash can be the right medium.
Semantic Web and Marketing
Posted on 15. Nov, 2009 by Dean Whitney in Marketing, Semantic Web, Social Media and has 0 Comments
I had the opportunity to speak to the Cambridge Semantic Web Group at MIT on Tuesday, November 10th. There are numerous applications for semantic web technologies in the marketing and advertising space. Brand managers, ad agencies and strategists need to understand the value if they are going to start leveraging it. (more…)
Wharton Undergraduate Marketing Conference
Posted on 08. Nov, 2009 by Dean Whitney in Marketing, Social Media, Speaking and has 0 Comments
I had the opportunity to speak at the Wharton Undergraduate Marketing Conference on November 6th. We got some great feedback and it was exciting to hear some of the students put some ideas in action right away.
Featured
Social Bookmarks