Mobile Marketing by the Numbers [INFOGRAPHIC]

The number of Americans who own smartphones rocketed past the number who own basic mobile phones this year, and marketers have been expanding their mobile budgets at a similarly rapid rate.

One study estimated mobile advertising will be $5.04 billion industry by 2015.

HighTable, a startup social website for professionals, compiled data about the key factors in the growing mobile marketing space in the infographic below.





























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How to Make Money with Content Marketing

There’s been a lot of buzz this year around content marketing but no one is really talking about how to directly make money from a campaign.

If you want to generate revenue, it’s important to understand how information spreads on the internet. StumbleUpon and BuzzFeed recently teamed up to figure this out.

They found their most viral stories since 2007 were so popular because of cluster sharing. This means that the biggest hits were all shared lots of time among small clusters of friends instead of a few people broadcasting it to a large network.o figure this out.

Where is the best place to take advantage of cluster sharing? Studies confirm that email is still the most widely used medium for sharing information between small groups.

So how do you make more money with it?

1. Treat Your Emails Like Landing Pages

Each email should have a clear theme with a strong call to action.

• Do you want to sell more of something?
• Get more likes on your Facebook or Twitter?
• Advertise a product?
• Get a donation?

Whatever it is, you need to walk your users hand-in-hand to the finish line. Make it extremely obvious what you want your audience to do. Here is an example:



This streamlines the process and produces higher conversion rates.

2. Sell Your Own Services & Products

If you have a product or service that can be purchased online, email is the best way to advertise because there are no distractions and you have total control over the conversation. If you’re a blogger with a big subscriber list, create a membership plan where those who pay get ‘the good stuff’ and your public content is just for lead generation and getting the word out.

If your goal is more about gaining exposure than making money, consider a social payment option. This gives you the ability to ‘sell’ a product or service in exchange for a user sending out a tweet or Facebook update that promotes your brand which is great for getting the word out.

3. Sell Other People’s Stuff

If you have an reliable audience, you should be using ads in your emails. There are a few options here but one of the most interesting is LaunchBit, which directly connects advertisers to a network of email newsletter publishers.

Another route is affiliate sales. A couple of the more popular options are ClickBank and Commission Junction which both allow you to receive a commission for selling products for their vendors.

Final Thought

With any content campaign, the key is delivering value to your readers. Routinely providing useful and engaging material is the best way to keep your readers happy and get them to share your stuff with friends.
Email is one of the most under-utilized selling channels out there for content marketers.

It’s easy and if done correctly, a great way to increase your bottom line.

























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Four Ways Content Marketing Builds on Thought Leadership

Content marketing is now an integral element of public relations and is an extension of the notion of thought leadership. It varies the thought leadership approach in four ways:

1.It includes content not generated by the organisation

2.It can include content that is not necessarily ‘insightful’ or ‘high-end’

3.It broadens the range of issues an organisation might offer content on

4.It increases the number of organisational employees who might speak, or represent the organisation, on certain topics.

Whether these aspects manifest themselves in an organisation’s approach to content marketing will be entirely dependent on its communication and marketing strategies, especially its reputation management and branding dimensions.

The C word in content marketing

C = content. What’s it all about?

Beyond thought leadership, or not? The answer is yes. Not all content needs to be cutting edge, ground breaking etc. But it should provide value to the target audience.

It can help organisations cover the broad ground of their remit (or their brand) that might otherwise have not been possible due to resources. For instance, providing an insightful, helpful comment on valuable content relevant to target audiences and then sharing it can be a worthwhile activity.

By choosing some core pillars to provide original content on, then having a ‘satellite’ of secondary topics where a content curation aesthetic is applied, can offer organisations the opportunity to have their cake and eat it too.

Certainly, it can help communicate and engage with secondary target audiences where marketing and communication resources are not normally expended. A ‘reverse-flow’ positive impact on primary target audiences can be instigated, as the secondary target audiences become sharers and advocates of that curated information that received the imprimatur of the organisation.

And as word-of-mouth (WOM) now has social media through which to accelerate its ‘virality’, this momentum of sharing has even greater potential than it once did. Especially since the digital age has cultivated the behaviour of social sharing (digital gossip) amongst its netizens.

Branding and positioning in content marketing

The social infinity does not seem to have canvassed the aspect of content marketing that relates to positioning and branding in great depth. Important elements in this dialectic are the sorts of content that are embraced by an organisation and who, from the organisation, does the ‘speaking’.

Further elements include what role does content (and content curation) play in the broader content marketing context, are there any dimensions that are ‘off-limits’ and what is the rationale driving the content marketing plan?

Firstly, in regard to the content itself, each element of content that emanates from an organisational employee contributes to an organisation’s branding, positioning and, to a lesser but still potentially significant degree, its differentiation. Choosing these topics should be driven by the strategy; content topics should not be picked up randomly simply because they are ‘topics du jour’ and of immediate interest to target audiences (i.e. how do these topics relate to brand-target audience relationships?).

Secondly, in traditional command-and-control organisations and those that apply a similar authoritarian approach to their communication, it has been a CEO-and-damn-the-troops mentality. I don’t espouse this approach but, regardless of this, whatever approach an organisation takes will impact on how much content it can feasibly generate and curate.

From a pure practicality perspective, whilst thought leadership can be applied in a limited but still quite effective manner when adopting this antediluvian approach, it is simply not viable to apply it to content marketing:

•A primary reason for this is that content curation is more than just retweeting or otherwise sharing. There needs to be a qualitative value-add from the organisation to some degree some of the time (actually a lot of the time, but I’m taking the low [expectation] road here)

•Involving employees in content creation educates employees on their industry which, one would think, helps them contextualise their work efforts and give them information to get better at their job, increasing productivity

•Employee involvement increases commitment to their organisation – likely to increase productivity – and helps them become a stronger organisational advocate

•Utilising normal (non-marketing Martians?) minimises the need to hire additional marketing employees and can optimise financial investment into the program – increasing productivity.
The most interesting and challenging aspect of this dimension, however, relates back to who are those doing the curating and how is this contextalised within an organisation’s branding?

•What are they commenting on?

•What is the nature of their value add?

•Is there a comms or marketing employee facilitating all this curation, or is it the relevant individual doing it solo after, perhaps, some initial briefing and some guidelines have been set? This relates to the third point I flagged above.

Fourthly, and this is perhaps the most fundamental aspect, the rationales driving the strategy will determine all of those issues noted above.

The ‘personality’ of content marketing

One of the interesting questions about both content strategy and thought leadership is should it be refined and targeted to within an inch of its focus group-tested life, or should it be sprawling, multi-faceted and reflective of the tumultuous, fast moving environment in which most organisations exist – and which, in fact, mirror target audiences’ existences?



I suggest it probably all goes back to overarching communication strategy:

•the drivers of communication strategy

•what market research tells us what will engage target audiences and prompt them to enact required
behaviour (e.g. purchase, whisper sweet reputation-enhancing nothings in their contacts’ ears et al)

•perhaps, too, there is a unique emphasis or shading in the content that is delivered via various communication mechanisms

•branding/positioning/differentiation

•and what of the impact on content for each organisational spokesperson due to their own interests, preferences, knowledge, passions and the customer/target audience segment they are responsible for?

Whilst it will be the organisation’s brand/personality that dictates the answers to these points and queries, in general I believe there is room for both schools of thought – the refined and the rambling (i.e. humanistic) – to work hand-in-hand.

A focus on topics and messaging that is relevant to the organisation and engaging for target audiences seems a prerequisite. But, and this is important, to rein in thought leadership or any other content to within a narrow set of parameters risks the organisation being perceived as cold, calculating, self-centred and predictable.

About the author

This post is an edited version of an article in a free white paper, The Holy Trinity of public relations, produced by experienced corporate communication practitioner, Craig Pearce. The white paper is available as a free download for all email subscribers to his blog, Public relations and managing reputation. The white paper provides an overview of the strategic dimensions of, and practical implementation tips on, thought leadership, 3rd party credibility and strategic alliances.
























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How to Stand Out in the Social Media Marketing Frenzy

Social media has long ceased to be a setting for primarily “social” interactions and discussions.

Now social media platforms and services predominantly function as devices for businesses, entrepreneurs, and freelancers to market their skills on the web to a clientele that numbers in the hundreds of millions. Yes, the web is a marketer’s paradise, where the smallest idea can reach countless people in the amount of time it takes for you to tweet it.

But in case you haven’t noticed, the blogosphere is a big place, filled with entrepreneurs and ambitious self-starters who want to share their unique vision with the world. There might be a dozen small online enterprises specializing in selling supplementary educational apps to college students, all looking to be the biggest player in the market.

In other words, there’s some serious competition in the realm of social media.

You could have a solid and commercially viable idea, but if you don’t have the marketing savvy to harness social media, then you honestly don’t have much of a chance. You’ve got to find a way to stand out among the masses if you want to get anywhere in this business.

If you don’t mind, I’d like to offer the following pearls of wisdom in the hopes of boosting your chances at success through social media marketing.

Don’t shy away from the big and bold

Human beings, especially those of us who spend too much time on the web, tend to have short attention spans. This general impatience among web users has fostered the most distilled and concise marketing tactics ever devised, where whole campaigns rise and fall upon on the successes and failures of social media usage.

A cleverly designed infographic with a hard hitting topic paired with vibrant colors and easy to understand language may launch a graphic designer from obscurity to celebrity overnight. On the other side of things, an ill thought out Twitter campaign (think of the recent McDonald’s fiasco with the #McDStories) could backfire on you as soon as you launch it, completely reversing whatever momentum you had built.

The lesson here is simple: stick to big and bold ideas that can be translated into equally big and bold graphics, images, phrases, and titles. You want to grab your potential reader from the get go with the best that you have to offer, and that might mean taking a risk to stand out among your peers. If there’s some hot topic that other social media users might see as too controversial, be the pioneer and dive into it.

Explore all avenues of social media

Social media doesn’t just mean Twitter and Facebook. I know, I know: they’re by far the biggest players in the industry, they have the most users, and they’re the easiest services to make inroads with. Just because they’re the kings of the industry, that doesn’t mean that they’re the only viable social media services in your marketing campaign.

Tons of niche social media services abound, many of which probably go unnoticed by other web marketers who spend all their time tweeting and friending people. The enthusiasm behind Pinterest is just one example of newer social media services taking a chunk out of the figurative pie. Services like Spotify or Instagram, which have niches in music and pictures respectively, are other targeted social media tools that have massive potential for marketing campaigns.

Have the content to back up your pitch

Most importantly, be sure that you can deliver on whatever it is that you pitch through various social media platforms. I said earlier that you should aim for big and bold messaging in order to grab your reader’s attention—and I stand by that. But if you promise your readers the rainbow, you better have it waiting for them on the other side of that link in your tweet. Otherwise you run the risk of coming off as some spammy service that wants nothing more than a few more followers.

Of course, you don’t have to worry about delivering on your social media pushes if you have the content to back it up. Most people in web marketing take a great idea, test it, develop it, and then think of a way to market it to the masses online effectively. This is how it should be; you let the product speak for itself. You get in trouble when you think of a clever social media marketing scheme without anything beyond the pretty infographic or the witty tagline.

What about you?

How do you develop and execute a successful social media marketing campaign?
Do you use social media services other than Facebook and Twitter to get your message out there?
Let me know!





















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64 Pinterest Marketing Tips and Tactics – Infographic

I walked into an electronics store the other day and happened to pass the television department.

The 70 inch televisions with high definition flat screens were displaying videos so compelling that for a minute or two I just stood there watching images so sharp and mesmerizing that I just stopped and watched.

The vibrant colors and  high contrast were almost hypnotic.

It was only ten years ago and a flat screen TV half that size was $20,000.

Now everyone has at least a  42 inch plasma or LCD screen and that is in the smallest room in the house!

The Visual Sharing Addiction

Reality television, lifestyle and cooking shows have taken food to new levels of visual and visceral appeal and taking photos of food and sharing them on Facebook or Instagram seems to becoming a standard activity these days.

Generation X and Y would rather watch a video or an infographic in small snack size bites of information than read a paragraph of text.

Several  key factors seem to be driving this visual sharing revolution.

• Broadband access whether it is fixed or wireless (images and videos no longer take hours to upload)
• Social network platforms – that make it easy to upload images and videos in seconds
• Smart phones with cameras (high definition is now the norm)
• Apps that make it easy to shoot and share (Instagram)

This increasingly visual generation is creating opportunities for creative people to engage with friends, colleagues and customers using images and videos.

Pinterest has over the last 6 months, become the social network with buzz, which provides a visual platform that offers the ecosystem to experiment, play and trial images as a means of engagement and even selling.
It is even being used to drive people to landing pages to capture information and buy.

How do you use Pinterest to Market your Business?

Here are 64 marketing tips and tactics that you can apply to your Pinterest account to get you started and refine your strategies.




So How About You?
How are you using Pinterest? Have you even heard of it before? Are you finding it driving traffic?
Is it working for you? What has surprised you about Pinterest?
I look forward to hearing your stories..
























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Why Automating Social Media Marketing Could Change Facebook

Jeremiah Owyang is an industry analyst on customer strategy and partner at Altimeter Group. As author of the blog Web Strategy, he focuses on how corporations connect with their customers using web technologies.

What if there was a way to determine the best time to share your tweets, Facebook updates, and response-worthy content? And what if you could automate the entire process?

That’s the thinking behind a new wave of companies that claim to have social media communication down to a science. Recently, I analyzed nearly a dozen vendors in this burgeoning field, which I call the “social performance” category. These firms offer software tools and methods that analyze, plan, deliver, and measure media such as ads, content, and conversations published in social channels. For a price, of course.

Although the business is young, there are a lot of players out there already. New entrants include Adobe Social, which employs Adobe acquisitions Context Optional and Omniture; BuddyMedia, which is optimizing earned content to be ads with its Brighter Option acquisition; Bazaarvoice, which has introduced a solution to launch social ads outside of traditional social networks; and Webtrends Social, which tracks social content off domain, ads and their performance back to the corporate website; and finally, Wildfire which has partnered with Adaptly to measure the paid-to-owned transition.

In addition, there’s also a focused group of companies which help with optimized publishing including: Crowdbooster, which measures and optimizes when content should publish; Prosodic, which analyzes
the who, what, where, and aids publishers; Shoutlet, which helps companies manage complex publishing at scale; SocialFlow, which offers a solution to optimize content resonance and publishing timing; Tigerlily, which optimizes social content to publish by theme, audience and location; and UberVU, which first mines the data then optimizes content to be published.

For any marketer looking to get a handle on their social media marketing, these companies have a solid selling proposition. Some of them claim that average click-through rates could increase up to 50%, drive up more fans, and even influence larger order values or the ability to drive additional sales. Ultimately, though, these vendors have the potential to not only improve branding, but to disrupt Facebook’s business as well.

Here’s how:

• Alternative social networks could emerge. The firms could take what they’ve learned from the social media ads they run on Facebook and apply that information to outside the network. Bazaarvoice has already used its earned content to create new forms of social ads that can appear off-domain of Facebook and Twitter.
• Brands could integrate paid, owned, and earned. Brands will start with content publishing optimization, analyze this content and re-purpose earned content into social ads ala Facebook’s sponsored stories (or its new premium ads.) Expect the media buyer to bring her chair closer to the corporate social strategist as they work together to reach communities like never before.
• Social media agencies might get in the ad game. Social media agencies will no longer offer community engagement only, but now start to offer media buying in social networks, then become or combine with existing digital agencies. The term “social media agency of record” dies out and we return to “agency.”
• The category could heat up. This would make firms prime acquisition targets. Likely suitors include existing direct and performance marketing software companies, which would incorporate them into their suites. As the tools become standard, social media content created by brands will start to become automated as these tools suggest what to say, when to say it, and to whom.

There is, of course, one possible downside to the spread of social media automation. As marketers become more targeted and eventually predict what content an audience will want, authenticity could leave the room, making social yet another over-branded, corporate medium. Consumers will then question if they’re speaking to a real-life community manager or an automated robotic script. In this scenario, consumers will move on to a non-bastardized channel that we’ve yet to see, and the cycle will start anew. Meanwhile, Facebook’s social ads will have lost much of their potency.

















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Twitter Update Makes it Easier for Users to Discover Your Marketing Content

The savviest of inbound marketers know that content creation is at the heart of a successful inbound marketing strategy. But if marketers are consistently pumping out tons and tons of content, what you end up with is a cluttered web that will only get more cluttered, right?

These days, content discovery is a big problem, both as a user and as a marketer. Your audience is constantly struggling to separate the wheat from the chaff, and as a marketer, you're always looking for ways to make sure your content gets in front of the eyes of that audience.

The good news is, search engines and social networks have been trying to make content discovery and delivery a little bit easier lately. For example, we've witnessed LinkedIn's launch of more robust content targeting tools; Google's pushes to reward high quality content and penalize low-quality, spammy content in search; and various other efforts by Google and social networks to provide more relevant, personalized content to its users.

Well, here's one more for ya! Yesterday, Twitter announced an update to its Discover tab, which aims to provide users with content that is even more personalized and relevant to them.

The Twitter Discover tab was originally created to make it easier for users to discover meaningful information without needing to follow other accounts. With Twitter's new update, the tab will now take into consideration additional personalization signals to surface stories and tweets that are popular among the people you follow -- and the people they follow.

How Twitter Decides Which Content to Highlight on the Updated Discover Tab

The Twitter Engineering Blog had a bit more to say about how Twitter determines which content is relevant to a particular user via the Discover tab. Here's how it works:

• Twitter uses a 'graph processing library' called Cassovary to identify a user's connections.
• It then ranks those connections based on how strong and important they are to the user.
• Once it identifies that strong network of users, Twitter uses its search function to find URLs that have been shared by that group of people.
• Twitter then converts the links it finds into stories to display in the Discover tab.
• Before it displays the stories, Twitter does a final ranking of the stories based on how many people have tweeted about them and how important those people are in relation to the user.

Twitter states that this all happens in near-real time so they can surface breaking, relevant stories to users in the Discover tab soon after people start talking about them.

New Discover Tab Design

The update of the Discover tab also comes with a new design, which features avatars of the users who have tweeted about particular stories. You can also view popular tweets about that story from people in your network as well as recent and relevant tweets by clicking 'View Tweets' on any given story, giving you the social context to understand why particular stories are relevant to you. Furthermore, you have the option to easily share your perspective on the story with your followers by clicking 'Tweet this story,' or to retweet, favorite, or reply to tweets about the story.

Content Discovery and Marketing

Twitter has indicated it will be rolling out this new design and functionality to users on Twitter.com as well as for iPhone and Android devices over the coming weeks. Twitter also mentioned that this is just the first of an ongoing effort for Twitter to bring users closer to the content and tweets they care about, so you can bet there is going to be more from Twitter in the future to make content discovery even easier.

As a marketer, think of Twitter's update as yet another way for your audience to discover your content -- and another reason why using social media as a vehicle for content promotion is so important. To optimize your marketing content for social sharing so it's easier for your audience to share the content they love, add share links/buttons to all your content -- every blog article, every landing page, every case study, within every ebook -- you name it! Putting your content out there and making it easy for others to do so will make it more likely that it will pop up in content discovery engines like Twitter's Discover tab for your target audience, especially if it's getting shared by likeminded people!

What do you think of Twitter and other platforms' attempts to improve content discovery? What other implications does it have for marketers?
















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New Gmail Image Feature Makes Email Marketing More Social

Last week, Gmail introduced a new feature allowing users to share inline images from emails with their Google+ networks. Since the 2011 announcement of the integration between Google+ and Gmail, Google has now taken yet another step toward integrating email and real-time social networking. And this topic should concern you, my fellow marketer.

Email to Catch up With Social; Google to Catch up With Facebook 

In early 2012, it was announced that Gmail had 350 million active users. While this is an impressive number, Gmail still has a lot of catching up to do to reach Facebook’s 800 million users. In fact, not only is Gmail behind Facebook on overall user adoption, but it also seems to be behind in terms of engagement. A 2010 Nielsen study shows email as the third online channel on which Americans spend most of their time, ranking behind social networks/blogs and games.

In attempt to reverse these numbers and become a leader in both user adoption and engagement, Google is intently working on making its email platform more social. In other words, all focus seems to be placed on integration between Gmail and Google+.

Taking Email Sharing to the Next Level

With the rollout of Google+, we instantly spotted some user interface elements that allowed for email messages to be spread outside the inbox. The upper right-hand corner of your Gmail account allows you to share a piece of content straight from your email inbox.

Last week, Gmail made it even easier to share email content with an outside network. If you have rich formatting enabled and receive an email with an inline image in it, you can hover around the visual and click on the “Share” link.

Then, by simply clicking on that green "Share" button, you will be prompted to enter a custom message and target your Google+ circles (as well as email connections who are still not on Google+). Don't forget to add a link to your message so that people can visit your website and learn more about your company or offer; sharing links in social media updates is the backbone of social media lead generation!

When you visit your Google+ profile, you will see that the image was shared through "Google Mail." Now your connections can +1 and comment on the post:

 You, Too, Should Integrate Email & Social Media

So what does this all mean for businesses? The most important marketing lesson here is that you need to stop putting email and social media in silos. These channels are being increasingly connected and you need to make your email content shareable. For instance:

Ensure that you have social media sharing links within your emails.Add social media following links to your email signatures.Start incorporating behavior-based communication that spans across email and social media, and is mobile-friendly.

Use Compelling Visual Content

Gmail's new feature makes a direct statement about the importance of visual content. Visual storytelling has already penetrated many marketing efforts. With the evolution of Facebook and the emergence of Pinterest, we see the web move steadily in a photo-sharing direction. Online users enjoy making discoveries by flipping through images, so make sure your email messages contain compelling visual content that can be easily shared with the recipient's friends and coworkers. In fact, start watching and learning from new trends and memes on social media sites. That will surely help you stay ahead of the competition and up-to-date with the lastest developments in email marketing technologies.

Did you notice the new inline image sharing Gmail feature? What do you think about it?

















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5 Reasons Images are King with Social Media Marketing

It’s a well-known fact that people are visual.

They like things that attract their eyes. Color, images, movement, all these things bring them in and make them stay and brings them back.

So why do so many business bloggers forget this little tidbit? Why are their sites filled with words and empty of color, photos or images?

Here are five reasons to add images to your blog, Facebook, and other social media accounts right now:

1. Drive Traffic from Pinterest

The new big thing in social media, Pinterest is all about the pictures. This growing monster is something all businesses should keep an eye on and utilize as soon as possible.

Everyone can see everything on Pinterest, which makes it ripe for the picking. All you need is one great image and people will come flocking, people will click on the link embedded in the image and end up at your website or blog.

Of course, the image will need something to back it up or it is sort of pointless, but still. The idea is there.

2. Generates Likes and Comments

Facebook likes and comments are great. They get attention, they add to each other, and they get the word out. The problem here is engagement. There is so much on Facebook, how do you stand out? Images. The perfect picture will make you pop, and is so much more viable than any blog link or status update. Try it. You’ll see.

3. Promotes Shares

Like comments and ‘likes’, shares are great. But they go one better, they get your name out there in a way that says ‘valid’. If you can get other businesses to back you up, then you’ve got it made. Even better, friends backing you up means that you are trusted, which means you’ll get more interest from customers.

4. Gets Attention

To simplify, pictures get attention and keep it. It takes only a split second to look at an image, versus a few to read a summary or small paragraph. Which one is more likely to get instantly ‘liked’? Yes, that’s right. Don’t make people think too long or hard at first. Get them in and then you can work on keeping them with content.

5. Improves Memory Muscle

Pictures stick out in your mind. It is just a fact.

You can read something and then never remember a single sentence. But if you see a great photo, you remember it. Make your business memorable with great images. No matter what your business is or your blog is on, images will only help you out. A person is smart, people are stupid. Cut them out of the crowd with pictures and then you can work on their higher thinking. Until then, attention is key. Grab them with a great image and then don’t let them go.

How do you use images in your soci?














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How to Optimize Your Business For Local Search and Social Marketing

If you have a local business or one that targets audiences in a specific geolocation, then you will want to move beyond general guides for search and social optimization. This post will take you through several marketing strategies for local search and social media marketing.

Keyword Research for Local Search

Before you can optimize your website, social media profiles, or anchor text for link building, you have to know what keywords you want to use. When it comes to local search marketing, you are not only targeting industry-specific terms, but geo-specific terms as well.
Let’s look at an example of a local plumbing business that might have several locations in Washington. When planning their optimization strategy, the first thing they might do is take a look at some geo-specific keywords + plumbing to see how many times they are searched using Google AdWords Keyword Tool.

While the numbers may not be exact, you can rest assured that, in looking at the above data, seattle plumbing is searched more than tacoma plumbing, but tacoma plumbing is searched more than everett and edmonds plumbing combined. When you start with terms like that, you will also get additional suggestions plus the approximate number of times those phrases are searched monthly.

Want to try some other ways to get keyword ideas? Try typing in your keyword ideas in Google search, then scroll down to the bottom to see the related searches.

You can also take your most popular competitor’s website (the one that ranks highest for your main targeted keyword phrase) and look at the keywords they rank for using SEMrush. A free account will show you 10 keywords they rank well for.

Using a combination of these tools and researching other local competitors in your industry should help you develop the right keywords to use for the local search optimization of your business.

On-Site Optimization for Local Search

Once you have your keywords set, the next thing you will want to do is optimize your own website for local search. Let search engines know what locations you are targeting by including geo-specific information, keywords, and phrases in the following places on your website.

Title and Meta Descriptions

When it comes to search results, people are going to see your website’s SEO title tag and meta description or other related snippet from your website first.

Note that, when searching for air conditioning repair seattle, those keywords are bolded in both the title and snippet about the website. Make these two areas count for local search by doing the following.

• Locally Optimized Title Tags – The SEO title tag is still one of the most important elements for on-site optimization, even if Google sometimes chooses alternate titles for search results. Regardless, you should still assume that Google might choose your specified title tag to link to your website in search results. Hence, you will want to make sure it not only includes your primary keywords, but your location as well within 70 characters.
• Locally Optimized Meta Descriptions – Again, Google might choose a snippet of text from your website instead, but it never hurts to have an optimized meta description. Make sure it includes your primary keywords, areas your business serves, and phone number if possible within 165 characters.

Local Address & Phone Number on All Pages

Another good signal to search engines is a local street address and phone number on all pages. Most businesses will place this information in their website’s footer. Be sure that it is actually in the text and not in an image. This is good for search engine bots and for people on their mobile phones as your phone number will be clickable!

Location-Specific Pages

Have more than one location but only one website? That’s not a problem. Just create a page on your website specific for each physical location. This way, anyone searching for your business in a particular region, city, state, or country should be directed to the appropriate page.

Embed a Map

If you enter an address on Google Maps, you can get HTML embed code to add the map to your website. Just click on the link icon to get the code.

You can also click on the customize link to choose sizing and other features for your map before embedding it on your website.

This is a great way to help visitors to your website find your location easily and who knows – it might tell a Google search bot more about your location.

Create a Geo Sitemap

Want to make absolutely sure Google knows where you are? Then create a geo sitemap and KML file for your website. Geo Sitemap Generator makes it easy. Just fill in your company details, download the files, and upload them to your website’s root folder.

Then go to Google Webmaster Tools, add your website (if you haven’t already), verify it using your Google Analytics code (other options available), and then add your geo sitemap’s URL under Site Configuration > Sitemaps. Instead of waiting for Google to find out where you are, this will tell them where you are!
Local Search Directories
Once you have optimized your site for local search, you should begin to start some off-site optimization. The first places to begin are applicable local search directories.

The above graphic shows the current landscape of local search directories and how they feed into each other.
The following are seven of the top local search directories.

Google Places

The ultimate goal is to have the best Google Places listing. For local businesses, it could mean having your business show up on the first page above some of the organic search results.

To get started, add or claim your business on Google Places. When you create your profile, be sure fill out as much information as possible and add up to 10 supplementary photos. You can even link five videos from YouTube about your business.
Also note that you can hide your address on your listing by selecting that your business serves customers at their location. When you select that option, you will get a checkbox to not show your address.

This is a great option for home businesses that target local clients. Once you have completed your profile and hit submit, you will need to choose a way to verify your business. Some will have the option to verify by phone immediately – others will have to wait two to three weeks for a postcard by mail to the business address.
Once your Google Places profile is live, be sure to encourage your customers to review your business. Be sure to also monitor your business reviews. You can respond good or bad reviews as the owner – this is a great way to demonstrate your customer service skills publicly!

You can even use your responses as a way to advertise your friendliness to potential customers as the above business has done. And don’t worry if customers review you on other sites as many of them feed into Google Places.

The only unfortunately part is off-site reviews won’t count towards the number of reviews and stars shown in Google search results.
While Google Places one of the most important places to get listed on, you have to also build profiles on other sites to build citations for local SEO. The more consistent listings you have on additional local search directories, the better your local rankings will be.

Yahoo Local

Yahoo Local should be next on your local search listings and citations quest. You can add or claim a basic listing for free which includes the vital information (contact information, link to your website, hours, payment options, email address, products, and services) or you can choose the enhanced listing for $9.95 per month which allows you to add photos, coupons, a 3,000 character company descriptions, and a 150 character company tagline. You can also run a report to see the number of impressions and clicks you have received with an enhanced listing. The nice part about Yahoo Local compared to Google Places is that verification is done on Yahoo’s end and takes a couple of days to go live.

Bing Local

Bing Local allows you to add or claim a free listing with up to nine photos for your business. Their submission system (the Bing Business Portal) is currently in beta and not the most user-friendly compared to Google or Yahoo. Verification is done by mail and can take two to three weeks. One nice thing about their local pages is that they pull in reviews from a variety of other local search sites and, unlike Google, the total number of ratings and stars from all sites are listed in Bing’s local search results.

Yelp

Yelp is one of the most well-known local search directories. You can add or claim your business listing for free and add photos and lots of additional details beyond just your contact information. Business owners can respond to reviews on their page, which is a plus for demonstrating customer service skills. Yelp also offers pay per click advertising within their network so you can get your business listing in front of more people.

Merchant Circle

Merchant Circle is another popular local directory that allows businesses to add or claim free listings with an extended description, profile picture, and link to your website. They also offer free basic statistics about your listing including keywords driving traffic to your listing and the amount of visitors your listing has received in the last thirty days compared to average businesses and the top business on Merchant Circle in your category. You can click on the who is this link to find out who the leader in your category is to learn more about your competitor’s local marketing strategy.

Superpages

Superpages allows businesses to add or claim free listings that include an extended description of their business, multiple categories, a listing of products and services, one related business image, and a link to their website. You can add or claim your business listing here.

Yellow Pages

Yellow Pages allows businesses to add or claim free listings that include an extended description of their business, multiple categories, and a link. You can also add additional photos for the business listing.

Additional Local Directories

Looking for more? You can use tools like Whitespark Local Citation Finder which will help you find the best local directories for your business. You can also search for the names of your main competitors to see what sites they are listed on and make sure you get listed there as well.

Why It Is Important to Claim Your Listings

If a business has been around long enough, there is a good chance that the business is already listed with their address and phone number. With that in mind, is it important to claim your business listing? Absolutely! Many local directories do not have any verification method to prove that someone editing a listing actually belongs to the business.
If you take the initiative to claim your listings on major local directories and networks, it prevents other people from modifying (or even completely removing) your listing.

Getting Local Reviews

Once you’ve claimed your business profiles on local search directories, the most important thing you can do to boost your visibility is get reviews. Having a positive rating can help your elevate your business in search results, especially on sites that allow visitors to sort businesses by the number of positive ratings.
Here are some tips to getting great social local search reviews.

• Add Buttons / Badges to Your Website – Let your website visitors know they can rate your business on directories like Yelp by adding links to your business listing on your website. 
• Encourage Reviews in Your Store – If you have a store or restaurant, encourage local reviews by simply putting a mention or link to your Yelp or other business listing on receipts. 
•  Encourage Reviews via Emails – Does your business have an online ordering system? Do you encourage people who buy from your website to sign up for your mailing list? If so, email people after they should have received their purchase and ask them to rate their experience with your business on the business listing of your choice. 
• Simply Ask – If you interact with people on a daily basis in your business, simply ask people to add a review on your business listing. Most people will be happy to oblige.

No matter how great your business is, you still might encounter the bad review. As I mentioned previously, many sites like Google Places and Yelp allow business owners to respond to their reviews individually. Be sure to regularly monitor your reviews and respond to them as necessary. Leaving bad reviews unanswered does not make the go away… it just makes visitors to your profile wonder what, if any, resolution your unsatisfied customers received.
By responding to your bad reviews, you show potential new customers that your goal is to make sure everyone is happy no matter what.

Link Building for Local Keywords

Once you’ve built your local business listings up, the next thing you should start doing is building links to your website. Keep in mind that you don’t want to over do things as Google is hard at work on an over optimization penalty as we speak. That said, there are many great ways to acquire links.
Since I’ve already discussed 10 hard-hitting link building tactics and leveraging link blending to maximize rankings, I won’t go into any more general link building strategies here. Instead, lets look at some local linking options including the following.

• Related Local Businesses – Look for businesses that are in the same industry, but are not competitors. See if those websites have resource pages that link out to other businesses similar to yours. Then see if you can strike up a dialog with the business owner and convince them why they need to have your link listed as a valuable resource their visitors.
• Local Bloggers – Find bloggers that are in your region whose audience might be interested in your business. See if you can arrange to do a guest post for them, or get them to sample your products or services in exchange for a review on their blog.
• General Local Resource Pages – Search for local business resources that may not have come up in your local directories search and find out if you can get your site listed.
• Competitor Backlinks – Using tools like Open Site Explorer, find out what backlinks your local competitors’ websites have to see if you can get yourself listed on them as well.
• Local Events – Be on the lookout for events in your area, such as industry conferences, expos, or shows. Check the event’s website to see if they link to their exhibitors and sponsors. If they do, invest as an exhibitor or sponsor of the event so you can get your link on their site as well.
• Local Charities – Give back to your community by sponsoring and donating to local charities. Many will have websites that thank their local sponsors and donors, linking back to the sponsor’s and donor’s websites.

Now that we’ve covered most of the local search marketing bases, let’s take a look at some local social marketing strategies.

Local Marketing on Facebook

With 845 million monthly active users, you’re bound to find some of your target audience on Facebook. Here are some ways to make sure your business gets found by Facebook users in your area.

Optimizing Your Facebook Page for Local

The best way to optimize your Facebook page for a local audience is to make sure it is set up as a Local Business. If you haven’t created your Facebook page, make sure to create your page as a Local Business.

If you have already created it, you may be able to change the category, depending on your number of fans. To check to see what category your page is listed as, go to Admin Panel > Manage > Edit Page and then Basic Information. Here you will see a category and sub-category for your business.

Once your Facebook page is set up as a local business, be sure to enter all of your local details including your street address, local phone number, and business hours. If you don’t want to list your exact street address, you can just enter the city, state, and zip code to give users an approximation of your location.
One thing to mention in regards to the new Facebook pages design is the About information for your business. It will generally show your business category, location, phone number, and business hours.

You can make the area show your website by removing your phone number and business hours from your page’s details. You just have to decide which is more important for your visitors – seeing your phone number on your Facebook page or having the ability to click through to your website. If you do want your local business information to stay intact, you can also add a status update with a link to your Facebook page, then pin the status update to the top of the page so it shows in the top left column.

Connecting with a Local Audience on Facebook

Once your Facebook page is locally optimized, you will want to get your page in front of a local audience. Some simple ways to do this are as follows.

• Invite Your Friends – Go to the Admin Panel > Build Audience area and use the Invite Email Contacts option to invite your email contacts to become a fan of your business page. Then use the Invite Friends option to invite friends on your personal profile to become a fan as well. Be sure to invite contacts in your region to get the most targeted audience for your page. 
• Become a Fan of Local Businesses Pages – Again, you will want to avoid competitors, but become a fan of related local business pages by using Facebook as your page and liking the page. Once you become a fan, you will be able to interact on the local business page as your page in comments on the page’s updates. This will get you exposure with your target audience and will hopefully lead to new local fans of your page. 
• Target Status Updates by Location – Send status updates only to people in specific locations by changing the dropdown for your status update from Public to targeted by Location / Language. There, you can specify an audience within a particular country, state, and/or city. 
• Use Facebook Ads – Facebook Ads are a relatively inexpensive way to target Facebook members in your region. Select your Facebook page as the Destination for your ad, and then use the local targeting option to show the ad to only people in a specified country, state, province, city, or zip code. 

Local Marketing on Twitter

While Twitter may not have as large of an audience, it does have 100 million active users. It is also much easier to gain followers since you can interact with people without them even following you. Here are some ways to make sure your business gets found by Twitter users in your area.

Optimizing Your Twitter Profile for Local

With Twitter profiles, you don’t have to worry about properly categorizing them from the start to make them local friendly. All you have to do is a few minor edits to your Twitter profile. Be sure that you include a specific location in your Twitter information as well as a local keyword phrase in your Twitter bio.

This will help anyone searching specifically for local businesses on Twitter to find yours easily.

Connecting with a Local Audience on Twitter

As previously mentioned, remember that on Twitter, you can interact with anyone regardless of whether they are following you by simply mentioning their @username in a status update. Here’s how you can grow a local audience on Twitter.

• Connect with Local Twitter Users – There are several ways to find local people on Twitter, thanks to Twitter lists and directories. You can start with TwitterCounter, Twitter Grader, and Wefollow to find the top users in your area. Or you can use Twitter directories like Twellow and Follower Wonk to search for users in specific locations by keyword. 
• Check Out Followers for Local Businesses – Look for local businesses on Twitter in your industry (including competitors), and take a peek at their followers. Chances are, they might be interested in your business as well. 
• Follow Local Discussions – Use Twitter Advanced Search to monitor conversations based on specified keywords from users near a particular place which can be specified by name or zip code. 
• Try Twitter Maps App on Bing – Bing offers several apps to enhance the functionality of their maps including a Twitter app. To access this app, go to explore map apps and select Twitter Maps. Zoom into your location on the map and see tweets that are were sent in your region.

Once you find some people that fit your targeted, local demographic, be sure to follow them on Twitter. Don’t just click the follow button though, be sure to actually follow their updates and interact with them. The second part is key if you expect to get any local followers to your Twitter profile in return.

Local Marketing on LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the top social network for professionals, therefore it’s the perfect network for business professionals. Here’s how you can grow a local audience on LinkedIn.
Optimizing Your LinkedIn Profile for Local
To ensure that your profile comes up for anyone searching for professionals in your area, just make sure you have entered your correct location in your profile’s basic information settings. Then, for keyword optimization, include your location in your profile’s headline. Also be sure to list locations in your current and past job experiences.
Connecting with a Local Audience on LinkedIn
LinkedIn only wants you to connect with people in real life as opposed to networks like Twitter where you are encouraged to follow anyone you are simply interested in. To get more local connections on LinkedIn, be sure to do the following.

• Invite Email Connections – The best way to start building your LinkedIn connections is by importing your email connections into LinkedIn. LinkedIn will then allow you to invite anyone who is on LinkedIn to your network. 
• Connect with Colleagues & Alumni – After you have connected with everyone in your address book, you can then connect with current and past colleagues at your jobs as well as alumni from the college you attended. 
• Open Networkers Groups – LinkedIn Open Networkers (LIONs) are people who want to connect openly with as many people as possible on LinkedIn. Search for open networkers in LinkedIn groups, join a few LION groups, and then start perusing the member’s list. You will be able to use the group as how you know the person on the LinkedIn connect form. Then just include a private message explaining why you want to connect with them, such as you are trying to make more local connections on LinkedIn. 
• Local Networking Groups – When searching groups, be sure to also search for local networking groups. After you have spent some time engaging in the local groups, you can start to connect with other members you have interacted with. 
• Email Your Local Contacts – Remember that LinkedIn contacts are not meant to be spammed. That said, you can go to your connections and filter them by location. Then you can select one or more people in a specific location at a time to email. You should probably email everyone individually and personalized if possible, but if not, this could be a good way to get an important message to lots of local contacts simultaneously.

Local Marketing on Google+

Although Google+ doesn’t have nearly the amount of users as Facebook or Twitter, they do corner the market in influencing search results. There are lots of reasons you should use Google+ such as the fact that businesses that might not normally show up on the first page of results will thanks to having the right Google+ connections.

Google has even incorporated Google+ people and pages above Google AdWords ads for some searches.

If you want to reap the search and social benefits of Google+, here is what you need to do.

Optimizing Your Google+ Profile for Local

If you want your Google+ profile to appear in search recommendations for local searches, be sure to include your current location in your Google+ profile in your Places Lived section. Also be sure to add locally optimized keyword phrases in your profile’s headline, introduction, and occupation.

This should help people find you both on Google’s main search and Google+’s internal search.

Optimizing Your Google+ Page for Local

For Google+ pages, be sure to set up your page as a local business from the start. You can even use your Google Places information to populate your page’s data.

This is especially important now that Google mixes people and pages in their main search results and within Google+’s internal search.

Connecting with a Local Audience on Google+

Google+ is similar to Twitter in the fact that you can follow anyone you choose, assuming that they share public updates. If they do share public updates and have it set that anyone can comment on them, you can comment on them without having to wait for them to follow you!
Here’s how you can grow a local audience on Google+.

• Make Sure Your Google+ Profile is Publicly Visible – Click on your profile’s Edit Profile button and check to make sure that each section of your Google+ profile is publicly visible. If your profile is not set to public, it will not show up in search results. 
• Add Local Google+ Users to Circles – Use the Google+ internal search to find local Google+ users that might be interested in your business and connect with them by adding them to circles using your personal profile. Be sure to create a separate circle for local users so you can target status updates directly to them. 
• Interact with Local Connections – Interact with your local connections regularly. For those that share their public updates and allow everyone to comment upon them, this is a great way to gain additional exposure with a local audience. 
• Suggest Your Google+ Business Page to Local Followers – Once you’ve built up a good local following, you can suggest your Google+ business page to them through a status update targeted to your local connections’ circle. 
• Follow Your Local Connections Back on Your Business Page – Show your local connections that you value them on Google+ by following them back as your page. One of the perks to Google+ pages over Facebook pages is that you interact with personal Google+ profiles as your business page once people are following your page. Be sure to use this to gain even more exposure for your business to a local audience.

Local Marketing on Foursquare

Last but not least on the social circuit is Foursquare, the ultimate social network for local businesses. If you have a location that you want to share with the public, you will definitely want to add or claim your business on Foursquare.
Optimizing Your Foursquare Profile for Local
Foursquare business pages are as locally optimized as they get, so nothing to worry about there. Just be sure to take advantage of adding extra details about your business, including your other social profile links and a link to your website.
Connecting with a Local Audience on Foursquare
The best thing you can do on Foursquare is encourage people to check-in to your business. One of the top ways of doing this is by offering incentives such as discounts or coupons for people who check-in often at your business. You can offer perks by creating specials for newbies, friends, swarms (when lots of people check in during the same time period), loyalty, and mayors (the person who checks-in the most at your location).
The reasons check-ins are so powerful is that most of the time, users will not only check-in on Foursquare but also share their check-in with their Twitter and/or Facebook audience. This is great word-of-mouth marketing as people are more likely to go places their friends have been or recommended.
Promote check-ins at your business location by putting a Foursquare window cling on your business’ window to remind people to check-in. Also be sure to advertise your Foursquare presence and specials on your website so people will know they are getting a great deal to check-in when they arrive.

More Local Social Media Optimization Tips

The following are general tips that fit almost any network in terms of making sure your social media presence is locally optimized and you are ready to build an even larger local audience.

• Include Social Links in Your Emails – Anytime you send out emails, whether they are to your general mailing list or just regular emails to contacts, be sure that your email signature includes a link to your top social profiles. 
• Include Social Buttons on Your Website – Add social media buttons or badges to your website so that visitors will be able to connect to your business easily. You can add them in the header, sidebar, or footer of your website. 
• Add Social Mentions to Printed Materials and Advertisements – Do you have a brochure in your store, business cards, or advertisements in local magazines or newspapers? Be sure to add a simple “Follow us on Twitter” or “Find us on Facebook” to these items (and direct links if possible).
• Stay Active – Staying active on your social networks will help greatly in encouraging engagement with your current audience. 
• Encourage Sharing – If you create content on your website in the form of articles, newsletters, or blog posts, be sure to encourage that your audience shares them socially. This should help lead new traffic to your website and connections to your social profiles. 

Looking at Local Analytics

To make sure that your local marketing strategies are getting local results, be sure to check out the following analytics.
Google Analytics
When reviewing traffic to your website, you will want to look in your Google Analytics’ Audience Demographics data.

Here, you will be able to see if local visitors stay on your site longer than other visitors by analyzing time on site, bounce rate, and pages per visit. If you have set up goals on your website, such as when a person makes a purchase or signs up for your mailing list, you can see if people in particular regions are completing these goals more often than others. You might find additional regions that you will want to target your local marketing efforts towards through use of your analytics.
Facebook Insights
Want to see if you are getting likes from the right audience? Check out your Facebook page’s Insights to see demographics information for your page’s likes, reach, and people talking about your page content.

If you notice that you are getting more likes outside of your targeted location, you will need to figure out better ways to encourage audience growth in your desired region such as creating more location-specific content or specials on your Facebook page.

Conclusion

If you follow the steps I mentioned above, you should start seeing an increase in foot traffic to your business. But the thing to keep in mind when doing local search and social optimization is that it takes time to see the results. Don’t expect for miracles in the first 30 or even 60 days. It will take months, if not a year before it really kicks in.

What other local search and social optimization tactics do you use?













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