Good Habits for Limiting Social Media, but still using it for Marketing

Social Media can be very useful for marketing, but you may find it is also addictive and you need to control your Social Media habits.

If you're looking to limit your personal use of social media while still utilizing it for marketing purposes, here are some strategies you can employ:

1. Set specific time limits: Allocate a fixed amount of time each day for engaging in social media marketing activities. Use tools like timers or productivity apps to help you stick to these limits.

2. Create a content schedule: Plan and schedule your marketing content in advance using social media management tools. This way, you can minimize the time spent on day-to-day posting and focus on other aspects of your business.

3. Delegate social media tasks: If possible, assign someone else in your team or organization to handle the daily management and monitoring of social media platforms. This allows you to stay updated without being directly involved in the day-to-day activities.

4. Utilize automation tools: Explore automation tools that can help streamline your social media marketing efforts. For example, you can use scheduling tools to automatically publish posts at specific times, or employ chatbots to handle basic customer inquiries.

5. Use analytics to prioritize platforms: Identify the social media platforms that provide the most value for your marketing efforts. Focus your attention on those platforms and limit your involvement on others to reduce time spent on social media.

6. Curate content rather than creating it all: Instead of solely relying on original content creation, curate and share valuable content from other reputable sources in your industry. This helps maintain an active presence while reducing the time required to create content from scratch.

7. Limit personal use during work hours: Clearly separate personal social media usage from your marketing activities. Avoid getting distracted by personal notifications and messages during designated work hours.

8. Use social media monitoring tools: Employ social media monitoring tools to keep track of relevant conversations, mentions, and trends. This way, you can focus on engaging with your target audience without aimlessly scrolling through feeds.

9. Implement a social media policy: Establish guidelines for social media usage within your organization, including specific hours or situations where personal use is permitted. Clearly communicate these policies to your team members.

10. Practice self-discipline and mindfulness: Be aware of your social media usage habits and consciously work on reducing personal distractions. Set personal goals and rewards for accomplishing specific marketing tasks to stay motivated.

Remember, the key is to find a balance that works for you and aligns with your marketing goals. By implementing these strategies, you can effectively limit personal social media use while still utilizing it for marketing purposes.

How to get 1000+ Wattpad Followers = Follow + Followback

Wattpad is a social media website for writers to share their short stories, poetry and even novels. You can even sell your writing on there by becoming a "Wattpad Star", but to fulfill the criteria needed you need to do several things: You need to post two finished stories that each have over 50,000 words, and you should probably have at least 1000 followers.

So how do you get 1000+ followers on Wattpad?

It is tricky if you are just starting out as a writer and you don't have any existing fan base.

During the past 3 months I have determined that Wattpad follows a similar Follow/Followback culture to Instagram and Twitter, which implies that if you want lots of followers you really want to be following other writers (especially writers with less than 1k followers) as they are the most likely to give a Followback.

On Twitter it is very easy to reach 5k followers. You just follow 5000 writers (often during #writerslift) and then unfollow anyone who didn't followback with 7 days. Then repeat.

Same thing on Instagram. Follow 7500 people. You can easily follow 100 people per day, over 75 days, until you reach the 7500 limit. Then unfollow anyone who didn't followback. Repeat the process.

On Wattpad it is basically the same thing, but there is a 1k cap, and there is also a bigger delay because some people don't login to Wattpad regularly. So you really want to be following writers who are regulars/have multiple works/posted recently, because it is those people who are the most active who are the most likely to give the precious Followback.

Repeating this process I estimate a person should be able to gain 100-200 followers per week, and they should only need to login 3 times per week (Mon-Wed-Fri) for roughly an hour for a period of 5-10 weeks until they reach 1k followers.

After they reach 1000+ followers the social benefits of having 1000+ followers should kick in and the writer can focus more on writing.

The writer can get those two 50,000 stories done (basically two pulp fiction length novels) and should be able to apply to get the Wattpad Star status. For reference it should only take 1 month to write a pulp fiction novel if a person is a full time professional writer.

Thus it is in theory possible for a full time professional writer to get that Wattpad Star status in about 2.5 months, and it should only take them about 30 hours of following/unfollowing other writers spread over a period of 10 weeks, and the actual time requirements for writing their pulp fiction length books.

After reaching the 1000+ followers mark the writer really needs to focus on producing quality writing in order to build a following of readers. This means posting regularly and often.

But on the plus side, if they have already gained Wattpad Star status they can now sell their stories.

Or use their Wattpad account to promote their Amazon author page. Or their Twitter page, their Facebook page, their YouTube page, etc.

Writers really need to be on top of their social media accounts these days. Even authors who go the traditional route of getting a publisher need to build their social media presence. Publishers expect it of authors to be doing it.

Don't believe me?

Just look at Margaret Atwood's Wattpad page:

wattpad.com/user/MargaretAtwood

It isn't like Margaret Atwood isn't already a world famous successful writer. It is just that in order to get more sales even successful authors like Atwood are expected to be spending a few hours per week promoting their social media presence. Don't believe me? Just look at how busy her Twitter page is:

twitter.com/MargaretAtwood

5 Reasons Why Twitter is Superior to Facebook when it comes to Marketing

WHY?

Ah, the all important question.

Let me illustrate the reasons why by using a simple list of Pros and Cons:

Pros and Cons of Marketing on Facebook Vs Twitter

#1. Better Reach

Pro - You get your own business page or account on Facebook or Twitter for free.

Con - People have to actively Like your Facebook page to see your posts in their feed. On Twitter people can see your posts if they simply see it while looking for specific hashtags. They don't need to follow you to see it. Yes your Facebook page is free, but how does it reach people?

#2. Facebook Spam

Pro - On Facebook you can join various groups dedicated to specific topics.

Con - If you post advertising or spam in those groups they typically kick you out and block you.

#3. Twitter Advertising

Pro - You can post things promoting your products or services on Twitter and most people won't care.

Con - People can potentially unfollow you if they think your Twitter feed is too spammy, but depending on the topic they probably won't care. Eg. If you are a mystery novelist and post an ad for your newest mystery novel then that is really expected to be there and nobody is going to complain about it. Hot Tip - Avoid making your Twitter feed look spammy by using every 2nd tweet to interact with colleagues in the same field. Eg. If you're a mystery novelist, talk to other mystery novelists and interact with them.

#4. More Interactions

Pro - People can interact on both platforms fairly easily.

Con - If you ask someone to Like your Facebook page it is considered to be an annoyance. On Twitter however if you Follow someone many people will give you a Followback. If they don't give you the Followback you can later change your mind and Unfollow them.

#5. Building an Audience

Pro - On both platforms it is possible to just sit back and hope people find your Facebook Page or Twitter account interesting enough to Like or Follow it.

Con - Building an audience on Facebook however is problematic as the platform feels more invasive for people and they are less likely to Like (and actively Follow) your Facebook Page. On Twitter however the Follow/Followback system makes it very easy for people to build a growing audience as it follows a "Scratch My Back and I will Scratch Yours" approach.

Conclusions

Generally speaking Twitter is the easiest and most efficient solution for most companies and people running a business to promote their brand, products or services.

We may write another post similar to this one in the future. "5 More Reasons..." There are other ways Twitter beats Facebook in terms of marketing with respect to audience engagement, visibility to the news media, the ability to interact with celebrities, the use of memes, and much more.


BONUS TOPIC - WHAT ABOUT YOUTUBE?

YouTube does have potential to be better than Twitter for marketing purposes, but it also requires a lot more work and sophistication to create a really good YouTube channel. You need to have or develop some serious film-making skills to make a super popular YouTube channel, and building an audience on YouTube is extremely time consuming before you start to see any results.

Twitter in comparison is relatively low tech and doesn't require as much effort to make a popular Twitter feed. Thus for certain fields, like mystery novelists, Twitter actually makes more sense because it is geared towards writers as opposed to be film-making buffs.

The Facebook Ad Experiment = Failure

So I recently decided to use $11 (a paltry sum but enough for a small experiment) to see if I could get more book sales by promoting the book on Facebook.

The results?

804 people saw the ad.
29 people "engaged" with the ad.

• 22 Post Likes.
• 1 Post Share.
• 6 people clicked on the image.
• 0 Page Likes.
• 0 Comments.

Zero additional book sales during the time period the ad was up.

Now that the experiment is over it really feels like I was paying 50 cents per Post Like.

Less than 3% of people who saw the ad clicked Like.

Now I do agree that if I was to do this experiment over again I would change things.

#1. I would have included a larger amount of text in the ad itself.
#2. More links in the ad to increase the visible opportunities for people to engage with the ad and click the links.
#3. I would have chosen a different image to promote, something that is more visibly appealing and also more quickly delivers the message of what the book is about.

I would also be tempted in the future to only promote a Facebook post which is ALREADY popular and has more viral potential.

Maybe.

Just maybe if I had to done those things prior to conducting the experiment perhaps there would be more Likes, more Shares, and maybe even a few book sales.

But how many more Likes?

Double, triple?

And there would still be no guarantee of any book sales.

I would have just as much luck promoting the post by Sharing it to various Facebook groups which are thematically on the same topic as the book - a practice which is FREE.

And then there is the time consumption.

I would say I spent 3 hours in the past 10 days monitoring this ad, getting and deleting annoying Facebook Receipts in my email, and the actual time it took to setup the ad in the first place.

And since I value my time at $35 per hour, I have now spent $105 worth of my time conducting an experiment that cost $11. So I am out $116 worth of time and money.

This officially makes Facebook Advertising a complete waste of both time and money.

It would have been faster, more efficient and free to just share the post to 3-5 Facebook groups and I would have gained approximately the same number of Likes.

And Likes are essentially worth nothing unless you can find a way to get sales from new customers.

So some people argue there is no such thing as a failed experiment. You either prove that something is true or it is false. In this case we have proven that Facebook Advertising is a waste of money, and for the time and effort involved, it is quantifiably worse than simply sharing the post for the free.

Also I did some research recently and according to my sources if a person wants to be a "Social Media Influencer" they need to be posting on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc at least 80 times per week. Not all at once either. They need to space it out to roughly 1 new post almost every 80 minutes you are awake. 11 to 12 posts per day, minimum.

Who has time to do that? People who are obsessed with social media and don't have much of a life, that is who.

So becoming a Social Media Influencer does take a lot of time and effort. You would need to be posting every 80 minutes in an effort to promote yourself, your products, your services, your website, etc.

And there would no doubt be a social cost in making all that effort. So say nothing of lack of sleep, stress and other problems.

So does it make sense to do it yourself? No. Not really. Time wise it makes more sense to pay someone else to do it. And then see how many sales you get during the first week, to see if it is worthwhile.

But in the case of Facebook... when you consider the time it takes to setup an ad, monitor the results... it doesn't make much sense. In that scenario it makes more sense to just share posts than to advertise posts.

In summary...

Facebook Advertising is a complete waste of your money and your time.

Why is Facebook Advertising so horrible?

Facebook ads can sometimes generate a low click-through rate (CTR) and conversion rate for various reasons. Here are a few factors that can contribute to these outcomes:

1. Ad Fatigue: Facebook users are exposed to a significant amount of ads on their feeds. Over time, they may become immune to or disinterested in seeing ads, resulting in a lower CTR. Ad fatigue can occur if the same ad is shown repeatedly to the same audience, leading to decreased engagement and click-throughs.

2. Targeting and Relevance: If your ad targeting is not properly optimized or if your ad content is not relevant to your target audience, the chances of generating clicks and conversions decrease. Precise targeting based on demographics, interests, behaviors, and custom audiences is essential to reach the right people with the right message.

3. Ad Quality and Messaging: The quality of your ad creative and the clarity of your messaging play a crucial role in attracting user attention and driving clicks. If your ad lacks visual appeal, compelling copy, or a clear call-to-action, users may scroll past it without taking any action.

4. Competition and Ad Auctions: Facebook's ad platform operates on an auction-based system, where advertisers compete for ad placements. Higher competition within your target audience can drive up ad costs and make it harder to achieve a satisfactory CTR. The competitiveness of your industry and the quality of your competitors' ads can also impact your ad performance.

5. User Behavior and Intent: When users are browsing social media platforms like Facebook, they are often in a more casual and social mindset rather than actively searching for products or services. This can result in lower conversion rates compared to intent-driven platforms like search engines, where users have specific purchase intent.

6. Landing Page Experience: Even if an ad generates clicks, a low conversion rate can be attributed to the quality and relevance of the landing page. If the landing page doesn't align with the ad's promise, lacks clarity, or has a complicated checkout process, users may abandon the page without making a purchase.

7. Product-Market Fit: Sometimes, low conversion rates can indicate a lack of product-market fit. It's important to ensure that your product or service meets the needs and expectations of your target audience. If there is a disconnect between what you offer and what your audience is looking for, conversion rates may suffer.

To improve Facebook ad performance, consider the following strategies:

• Continuously test and optimize your ad campaigns by experimenting with different ad creatives, headlines, targeting options, and calls-to-action.
• Ensure your ad content and landing pages are highly relevant, engaging, and persuasive.
• Refine your target audience based on data and feedback, focusing on those most likely to convert.
• Implement remarketing campaigns to re-engage users who have shown interest but haven't converted.
• Regularly analyze and adjust your ad campaigns based on performance metrics and user feedback.

By refining your ad strategy, targeting the right audience, and optimizing your ads and landing pages, you can increase the likelihood of generating higher click-through rates and conversion rates on Facebook.

Facebook dumps reach and what this means for your Social Media Strategy

Facebook recently announced a big change in how Facebook works.

They have gotten rid of something known as "reach" which tracks how many people view a particular post.

So for example lets say you sell kitty litter and on your Facebook business page you regularly post photos of cats and kittens in an effort to get more people to see your product.

Every time you go back and view an old posting, you will see a statistic beneath it showing how many people have viewed your posting, along with the Likes, Reactions and so forth.

This is probably connected to the fact that "reach" has been declining on Facebook in recent years anyway. The average user's number of daily posts is also down, from 4.5 posts per day in June 2016 down to 1.3 in April 2017. The downward trend has become a big thing since August 2016.

So people are posting on Facebook less often than years ago, and Facebook has become "flooded" with brands competing for reach.

Meanwhile some people are doing a "Facebook Purge" in an effort to limit the amount of time they waste on Facebook.

And some people, like two people I went to university with, are going one step further and deleting their Facebook accounts entirely. Their reasoning? They have a baby and don't have the extra time to be wasting time on Facebook when they should be spending that time with their baby.

So could that explain Facebook's decline in recent years in daily posts? People are getting older, having kids and just have less time to waste on Facebook? Maybe so. Maybe so.

Another Big Change

Facebook is de-emphasizing business pages / advertising and putting more emphasis on the posts of friends and family.

"But recently we’ve gotten feedback from our community that public content — posts from businesses, brands and media — is crowding out the personal moments that lead us to connect more with each other. […] Based on this, we’re making a major change to how we build Facebook. […] you can expect to see more from your friends, family and groups. […] you’ll see less public content like posts from businesses, brands, and media." - Mark Zuckerberg.

So people will end up seeing less of your kitty litter / cat photos, and also less of business pages and advertising in general.

But how will Facebook make money off of this?

Well, now your business page posts won't show up in people's feeds for free any more. Instead people will have to PAY if they want to promote a post and get additional clicks / attention.

Which means reach isn't so much gone as they are changing the focus to people paying for clicks.

Which means more profit for Facebook in the long run. More people paying for advertising, no more free advertising.

And for regular Facebook users, it means (or should mean) less looking at advertising.

Coupled with Facebook's continual growth in popularity, this means they should expect more income in the future as there are more and more people to advertise to via Facebook - if you are willing to pay for it.

Special Note

Facebook doesn't even make most of their money off of advertising. That is really a side gig for them. Facebook's real revenue stream is from selling off personal data to advertisers can use to create more sophisticated advertising campaigns. That is where the real money is.

This is why when you sign up for Facebook your email account later sees a rise in spam. People are buying your personal data, learn about your interests, and then send you spam on topics they think you might buy.

So what does this all mean for Advertisers?

Making a Facebook page for your business now is basically useless unless you are also willing to spend money advertising your Facebook page.

Facebook has effectively killed "organic reach" on their website. The only way you will reach potential customers with your posts is if you pay for it.

That means your Social Media Strategy needs to have advertising money behind it, otherwise you are just wasting your time.

Money + Advertising = Reaching Potential Customers

No Money + Posting for Free = Zero Customers

This is a win-win for Facebook.

It allows them to appear to crack down on businesses so that people who enjoy Facebook will be able to enjoy it for seeing their friends and family more.

And it allows them to increase their advertising revenue by forcing businesses to pay up instead of trying to get free advertising.

Some Guest Bloggers are Morons and they Annoy Me

I have written about this before.

In fact it is basically a pet peeve for me when someone contacts me asking to do a guest post on one of my 200+ websites, but they want to do it for free and they don't want to pay anything for posting advertising on my website.

They also don't want to pay anything for my time and effort in posting it for them, which includes formatting it, adding images, editing content for quality (spelling, grammar, making sure it is family friendly, etc).

So like this morning I got an email from a "Stella Evans" - probably not even her real name, insisting that I should give her a free guest post because:

I am already investing lots of money in Content Research and Promoting in Social Media Platform.

It's going to bring traffic to your website too.

Let me know if you are still interested.

Thanks,

-Stella

To which I responded:

Hey Stella!

My website is already SUPER popular. Anything you can offer me social media wise is a drop in the bucket compared to what I already have.

Google tracks incoming and outgoing links - and reciprocal links (which is frowned upon). Incoming links boosts the Google ranking a tiny bit, outgoing links lowers it. However reciprocal links damages it more so.

Unless you are paying for the link, it is not worth my time or the damage to my Google ranking. The number of links you can promise is not worth the damage of the outgoing link unless you are willing to pay for it.

Worse, social media links are rel=nofollow. That means they are useless for boosting Google rankings. Twitter, Facebook, etc all useless. Might get a tiny trickle of people the day of any postings, but it immediately dwindles because so few people click on those things. It would be meaningless compared to the 1000 to 2000 visitors my website gets every day.

And then I ranted for a bit...

Before saying the following:

If you are going to do link building - especially when trying to link build on popular websites - the smart money says you need to pay for it.

Do you honestly think you are the first person to contact me asking for a free link? I get these requests every day. Multiple requests per day. Right now I have 5 other people in my email queue asking for links, but the big difference is that 3 of them are offering money.

Why should I spend time talking to you when other people are paying me for my time?

And now I am posting it here.

Because this is what happens when I get annoyed about something SEO related. I rant, I post it on here, and all my effort ranting has at least been useful and educational.

Worse, less than three hours later there was another two people asking for a guest post on my website. Not sure yet if they are willing to pay. One of the first questions I always ask these people is:

"How much are you offering per guest post?"

Because if they are not paying then they are just wasting my time.

Like this girl who emailed me at 12:53 PM today:

I’m Lori, a new reader of your site, awesome articles and blog section by the way.
On my blog [company name removed].org I write about showers and bathroom related topics.

I’m writing to you because I’d love to contribute a guest post on [name of website removed]

I've been brainstorming some ideas and guest post titled something like these would be a good fit for your site:

- Why is it recommended to use massage shower after workout?
- Reasons Why You Need to Take Cold Showers More Often
- Immune System Benefits of an Infrared Sauna
 
Do you agree? How about I write one of these for you?

Here are some of our previous guest posts:

[list of three website links removed]

Best regards,
Lori L

 Or this girl who emailed me at 1:15 PM today:

Hey there,

My name is Rachel and I am the outreach manager at [name of company removed].

I wanted to see if you would be interested in adding a paid sponsored post to your blog that we would provide.

If this is something you might be interested in let me know and I'd be happy to give you more details.

Thank you,
Rachel W

So which of these two emails do you think I will pay more attention to? It is obviously Rachel. Right in the first email she said the magic words:

"paid sponsored post"

Right away, Rachel has the respect. And today I am feeling generous. I am going to let her know that $30 is the minimum fee. She might have been willing to go higher, but frankly I like her style. Rachel is awesome.

And working with her will make me a happy blogger and SEO expert.


Update at 1:39 PM

Stella Evans just sent me the following:

$5 I can provide a publishing fee.

Which is only one sixth of what my MINIMUM fee is.

Remember how I always ask "How much are you offering per guest post?" ...?

Well I ask that because sometimes people offer $40 to $100 per post. Really depends on what they are advertising I find. So I find it is handy to wave some bait there and see how much they offer.

$5?

$5 is less than half the minimum hourly wage in Ontario. Less than half! Meanwhile my hourly wage for SEO work is $40 per hour. I am not cheap, but I am well worth it.

Basically I am literally swimming in offers from guest bloggers and the fact that some of them like Stella Evans just don't seem to "get it" annoys me. Why should I waste any time on cheapskate morons not willing to pay money for a service when other people are contacting me every day asking for the same thing, but are willing to pay for it???

Common Social Media Marketing Mistakes

An unfortunate consequence of people trying to do Social Media Marketing and being clueless of what they should be doing and not doing means they end up wasting a lot of time on mistakes.

1. Don’t Jump Into Social Media Marketing Without A Plan!

Most companies might have experienced this and you could be one of them. The story goes like this: you decide to join the social network, make your profiles, load it with info, put great stuff out there to attract attention and then disappear. Within weeks of your ‘super’ launch your page is converted into a barren land with followers wondering what they are doing there and some people seeking answers and getting no replies. Your company's social media presence soon becomes a big flop.

So the first step is to actually have a social media marketing plan.

The plan should be such that it should build on your presence and not let it dwindle. Any plan would need:

• Time investment
• Strategy and goals
• Team for interaction

2. Spamming

Another mistake people make is to throw links on the internet on all the social networks. Why post irrelevant links? Spam never works.

What you need to do instead is build relevant content and have meaningful links. Don't post fake stuff either. Everything you post should actually be USEFUL. Posting free tips for example is a great way to make useful content.

eg. 10 Tips on What NOT to do when doing Social Media Marketing.

3. Multiple Profiles On Social Sites

This is another trend where a company has more than one profiles on sites like Facebook and Twitter – all of which link to the main website. For one thing, it is just plain wasteful to spread out your resources and efforts like that! Put your efforts in one direction and get people, real people, to your company.

Another common problem connected to having multiple profiles is people who connect with other people who are just looking for numbers - they have zero intention in becoming a customer and are essentially fake followers, and instead their primary goal is to get you to follow their company too, just for the sake of ego building numbers. However, there’s no point building loads of fake followers who really aren’t interested in your work and are simply connecting to build ‘following’. Having more numbers doesn't actually attract customers through popularity. That is a false perception.

Thus having multiple profiles in the effort to get more followers also doesn't work. It is just a waste of time.

4. Very Little Interaction

In many cases, profiles have updates but no participation in conversation. Lack of conversation with your clients and followers decreases value of your social presence and you don’t build on valuable relationships.

What you should be doing:

Post comments, questions, ask for feedback, have polls (formal or informal), answer questions from potential clients, turn your online presence into a way to find out more about your customers and what they want.

5. No Real Followers

This is a big mistake – keeping an active page with lot of info but no real followers. This means you don’t really have virtual support and weakens the basis of your social existence. To avoid this, it’s important to build a slow and steady network of real people.

Some companies arguably don't even need Social Media and thus don't need a Twitter or Facebook account. They only want them for the sake of ego, but once they have them they neglect to use them - or if they do use them, they are trying to sell something that most people only need 1 time and there is no point in following a company that sells 1 time use widgets.

6. Bookmarking Randomly

Social bookmarking is important and useful. But if you are bookmarking all sites with back-links to your website, with no real relevance (or useful content), then it’s not going to work well for your business. You will just be wasting your time.

Lets say for example you use the website StumbleUpon to bookmark things you like, but you are bookmarking parts of your website which are essentially useless and boring. There is no point bookmarking those pages because other people are never going to bookmark those pages either.

Instead what you should be doing is only bookmarking the pages that are interesting, fascinating and have the potential to go viral. Topics that are useful, fantastic and so forth.

In theory you could also bookmark big sales, as people could end up sharing / bookmarking those pages so share the sale with their friends.

7. Automated Posting of Links

Another mistake is automated posting of back-links to your website. Of course, automation eases the load on your manual efforts, but a structure is needed and randomness doesn’t pay. You only look like just – another – spamming site!

Spamming doesn't work and can even get your site banned / red-flagged by Google. It doesn't matter whether a human posts the spam or it is a computer doing it, it still doesn't work / looks suspicious enough for Google to give you a red flag.

8. Less Visibility due to Low Activity

This is an interlinked factor where you seem media shy! There are various profiles that are extremely careful in a bid to be less aggressive and hence, end up going unnoticed. It’s important to be active and visible.

What you should instead be doing is posting regularly. Daily or Weekly works best.

9. Not Spending Wisely

Social media marketing is an affordable platform which is its greatest charm. Yet, not spending wisely in the bargain is what should not happen. You may spend too much on social media ads but nothing on hiring an SEO/SMO company to do your SMO work. Isn't that a bad choice? Why not make a balance and use your money wisely.

It makes way more sense to hire someone who actually knows what they are doing to garner the best results.

10. Your Target Customers

The most important is to know your target audience. Aiming in the dark may seem like you are working very hard, but in the end, results will suffer!

Thus knowing your target, knowing how to best "hit your target", and learning from your failed attempts to gain customers from your target audience.

BONUS TIP

Never use social media in a disgraceful / greedy way with respect to comment on social issues / tragedy.

eg. Using a recent school shooting or deaths to try and sell your line of widgets.

Why the Kingsway Theatre Manager is a Social Marketing Moron

Awhile ago, a local Toronto actress (a minor celebrity) went to the Kingsway Theatre (located at 3030 Bloor Street West, Toronto) to see a film - and was singled out because she was dark skinned and she was asked to leave her backpack with staff.

However the backpack contained her phone and other valuables. It was ostensibly her purse.

Now imagine if you were a black man and you went to a movie theatre - and you were told you were not allowed to take your wallet in to the movie theatre. Meanwhile white men are walking by, getting let in with their wallets just fine.

That is basically how ridiculous their demands were. Nobody in their right mind is going to hand over their wallet, car keys, cellphone, purse or other valuables - whether they are stored in a backpack or not.

Plus why target only black people carrying backpacks?

So then the manager gets there. (He is also the owner.)

Now a smart manager would realize that not letting people into the movie theatre because they have a backpack is a ridiculous and stupid policy, because many young people these days use backpacks like they would purses and satchels. They are basically fashion accessories that are handy for carrying your valuables in.

The problem is that movie theatres want people to buy popcorn and soda pop - they make most of their money off selling food, not the movie tickets themselves. They don't want people sneaking in extra food or drinks.

The manager's logic behind the policy - and the targeting of only black people - suggests that he believes that only black people sneak in food and drinks. So he only enforces it for people he suspects are not following the rules - primarily by judging them by their skin colour as to who he thinks might be sneaking food in.

So to them having a no backpacks policy makes a bit of sense - but they don't have the legal right to search people's backpacks - because they are not police and they also do not have a warrant. They also legally should not be telling people to abandon their belongings with staff, who frankly are paid minimum wage and just as likely to steal your phone, wallet, etc. And if not staff, what is to stop other patrons of the movie theatre to just steal other people's backpacks?

So yes, the manager. Rui Pereira.

He gets there and he is the dumb fellow who created the whole no backpacks policy in the first place. So he doubles down on the policy and calls the police, claiming that a black woman is threatening him (which she was not).

The police get there, they basically apologize for the woman and explain that they get called there regularly because the manager is a moron who calls the police constantly whenever there is anything that his little brain cannot comprehend that requires more social skills.

So the young woman leaves and she posts about her experience on social media.

And it goes VIRAL.

Seriously, Rui Pereira should be paying her for all the free advertising the Kingsway Theatre got after the whole thing went crazy viral on Twitter, Facebook, etc. Lots of white supremacists started going to the movie theatre thanks to this incident - that is not a good thing!

It also caused a slew of interesting reviews on Google Maps.

Lots of people posted 1 star reviews, basically condemning the Kingsway Theatre and its moronic manager Rui Pereira.

So what does Rui Pereira do?

Instead of deleting the Google Maps listing (which is what he should have done), he doubled down again and posted responses to all the people leaving negative reviews. Some of his responses were longer.

Example:

"Response from the owner3 months ago

The truth is astounding! You and your back pack will be much happier some where else. Do not come back.

The Kingsway is a licensed BAR with a movie theatre in it. Signs are clearly displayed that indicate NO OUTSIDE FOOD or DRINKS. Signs also clearly state NO BACKPACKS or LARGE BAGS in the auditoriums. If you are not willing to follow the rules a ticket will not be sold to you. There are no arguments and no abuse of the staff.

ps you and google go f**K yourself."

And he didn't do this just once or twice. Oh no.

Of 82 reviews (as of April 19th 2017), he has posted 27 responses in which he more or less swears at people (and at Google).

Which brought on responses like the following:

"Yianni Hrisofos

a month ago-

Just by reading the owners responses to people, I will NEVER patronize this place. I feel sorry for people that work for him."

On the list of things not to do, arguing with the general public on the very public Google Maps' business reviews - let alone cussing at them - is definitely a big no no.

Rui Pereira, Racist Theatre Manager

I would not be surprised if a year from now Rui Pereira ends up burning the Kingsway Theatre down so he can collect the insurance money. Or sells the property to someone else.

Plus there is the subtle racism. He only invokes the no backpack policy for black people or other people he doesn't like. White people apparently walk in with backpacks, purses, satchels, etc and get in to the movie theatre just fine.

So clearly the policy is only there so that Rui Pereira can openly discriminate against black people.

Judging by the reviews Rui Pereira also hates people in wheelchairs. The old theatre isn't particularly wheelchair friendly and according to at least 1 review he and his staff are deliberately rude to people in wheelchairs.

And when people social media learn that, they share it. Hence why this story went viral.

THE VIRAL MARKETING LESSON

In theory, if a less reputable (and highly unethical) company wanted to promote themselves and get lots of free press in the media and social media they could do the following:

#1. Hire a really racist prick to be the manager.

#2. Allow the racist manager to make various policies that allows him to discriminate / segregate people at his/her leisure.

#3. Set up a situation in which a minor celebrity goes to the business and is treated rudely by the racist prick manager.

#4. The celebrity then tweets on Twitter or posts on Facebook, and it goes crazy viral.

#5. The owner of the company investigates and fires the manager - for damaging the companies reputation. The owner then issues a public apology for ever hiring that manager in the first place, but by that point the company's infamy has already gone viral, and there is a 2nd viral wave when people learn the manager has been fired.

So yes. That would be highly unethical for a company to do, but the resulting infamy equals free marketing. Only the most unscrupulous and desperate of companies would pull that kind of nonsense.

Lets take for example United Airlines.

This is rather recent news, but the effect is similar.

What happened was (in case you haven't heard about this case) United Airlines sold out all the seats on a place and decided that they needed more seats so they could transfer more staff to a different location.

So they asked for volunteers to give up their seats and take a different flight later.

Nobody volunteered.

So instead they picked a random Asian man (a doctor who needed to be at a certain city by Monday so he could perform surgery) and decided to forcibly remove him from his seat. They physically assaulted him and dragged him from his seat because he refused to move, explaining that he had patients to get to.

So they dislocated his jaw, broke two of his teeth, gave him a concussion, and numerous other injuries.

He is now suing United Airlines for having employees assault him and for their idiotic policy of forcing people off a plane for no good reason.

He will no doubt win the lawsuit. I estimate he will get at least $4 million USD.

If United Airlines' lawyers are smart they will try to settle out of court, because if the judge decides the amount then the judge can also add Punitive Damages as an extra punishment to the airline.

To make matters worse, the CEO of United Airlines, Oscar Munoz, claimed that the Asian passenger was belligerent and violent - which was not true, as the whole incident was caught on video. That compounded problems and Oscar Munoz later had to backtrack on that, during which he admitted culpability (in legal terms this is like admitting that the company did something illegal and is guilty).

So that makes the lawsuit so much easier now. The video. The witnesses. Company staff who say they were just following orders. The CEO who tried to blame the victim and was proven he was a big fat liar.

All of this blew up in the media and on social media.

Let alone the stock price, which dropped over $10 in value, and even after posting strong earnings for the past quarter is still down $6 compared to where it was before the huge scandal.

LESSONS LEARNED FROM KINGSWAY THEATRE + UNITED AIRLINES?

#1. Don't insult your customers (past or present or future) on social media websites.

#2. Don't do it in emails either, as they can later get leaked to the press / social media.

#3. If your company has a policy that is bad for the company's public image, scrap the policy because it is bad for business overall.

#4. Fire all your staff who do racist/sexist stuff. Rui Pereira cannot be fired because he is the owner, but the idiot who picked the Asian doctor as a good person to be removed from the plane should definitely be fired.

#5. Do not have any policy that calls for assaulting customers and making the company open to lawsuits.

#6. When people post tonnes of negative reviews on Google Maps because you did something wrong, don't argue with them. Just delete the listing.

#7. The same goes with a Twitter account, Facebook page, etc that becomes bogged down by bad press. In those cases the person managing the account can also just deactivate it (and it can later be re-activated).

#8. Make a Plan, hire a social media consultant for all your online reputation management. Or in the case of a big scandal, hire a Public Relations consultant.

#9. Do not interact with the general public during a reputation scandal unless you absolutely have to. No Tweets is good Tweets.

#10. Learn from other people's social media marketing mistakes. A scandal can be turned into an opportunity if the company chooses to Do the Right Thing. If they do not, it only makes the scandal worse and they end up paying more for it in the long run.

Never Annoy a SEO Expert

Here is a good SEO tip...

Not just for advertising your business, but also for life in general.

Never annoy or piss off a SEO expert.

Let us pretend for a moment that you are running your business, whatever it happens to be - for the sake of the sheer boring-ness of it, lets say you are an accountant.

And for whatever reason you get into a dispute with a SEO expert.

And the SEO expert knows:

• Your Name
• Where you live
• Your occupation

If you manage to annoy or piss off the SEO expert they might decide to do the opposite of Reputation Management and instead deliberately ruin your reputation.

This happened to a recent potential client of mine. They pissed off a different SEO expert, who then proceeded to leave nasty comments all over the internet, post fake news stories about the person, making up all sorts of nasty stories about the person, and so forth.

And they didn't just post such things. They made links to those articles and comments, and SEO-ed them so that they would be boosted up in the search rankings. They used websites, social media, posted in directories, blogs, discussion forums - they honestly did a really good job of ruining his reputation. Respect.

The client then came looking for a different SEO expert in order to fix their now damaged reputation.

And I said:

"Honestly, it would be easier and cheaper for you to just legally change your name."

Well, they didn't like that idea.

So I quoted a price for what I felt would be required to write enough positive comments / articles to drown out / dilute all the bad ones, but honestly, it is not going to be cheap.

And the client didn't like that either. Too expensive. Can I do anything cheaper?

Nope. Not really.

Plus consider this.

What happens if the SEO expert who hates you simply goes back and does more damage? Again and again?

You could end up spending thousands of $$$ or even tens of thousands over many years trying to fix your reputation, and if the hater keeps posting more it will just be a constant battle that will never be won.

You could try to sue them in court, claiming defamation, but since the things are being posted online anonymously, you would never be able to prove who is saying the bad things about you, and it would never stop. Defamation is super hard to prove when the person posting it is anonymous.

So the best thing to do when it comes to Reputation Management is to never annoy someone who is internet savvy - and definitely don't piss anyone who is a SEO expert.

But if you do, we can help you. It won't be cheap. It will cost a lot and it may take years, but we can fix it for you.

Or alternatively, you could always legally change your name.

The client mentioned above is still mulling over what to do. They want to keep their name, but they are unwilling to pay the costs needed to fix this problem. If they do nothing their reputation will be permanently damaged.

Another option would be to move further away and switch careers. I imagine they don't like that option either.

Offline / Online Synergy Marketing

The "billboard" advertisement shown on the right is an example of Offline / Online Synergy Marketing.

Basically what you do is do something outrageous / funny as a marketing stunt, and then you photograph or film what you did and use it for your online social media campaign.

Your goal essentially is to do smart advertising that is offline, and then use that to ultimately market yourself online.

So for example if I were to do a marketing stunt on the streets of downtown Toronto, and then other people filmed it / photographed it, and then shared what they saw on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media websites then I have just done two things:

#1. I probably just gained a bunch of new clients / customers who saw the marketing stunt in person.

#2. I just gained word of mouth advertising via social media.

It is a Win-Win as far as advertising goes. The billboard above is for Copenhagen architects, and frankly I have no problem giving them kudos for their smart marketing campaign.

Below is some more examples of smart advertising which also garners social media attention:

Social Media Experts = Funny

I must admit that "Social Media Experts" (people who deal primarily in Facebook, Twitter, etc) give online marketing a bad rep.

And what good is web traffic if it doesn't also increase sales?

Hiring a SMO (Social Media Optimizer) should have some kind of long term ROI (Return On Investment) goal.

Note - Less than 8% of people in North America use Twitter. And less than 1% of people actually READ Twitter. Most of them are just posting nonsense and hoping other people are reading.

And Facebook? Facebook is so full of spam that people are turning it off as much as they can, upping their privacy, reducing notifications, etc that trying to advertise a company on Facebook is also largely a waste of time and purely the result of a company bent on egotism instead of profits.

If you are egotist, then go ahead and hire someone to do SMO to promote you and your business for the sake of ego.

If you want to get traffic that will result in sales, hire a SEO expert instead.

Why it is useless to link to Facebook or Twitter or similar websites

Okay here is the funny thing about Social Media websites like Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, etc...

Every time you link to them via your website(s) those websites get the SEO benefit of those links and will rank higher on the search rankings - and your company website will end up ranking lower.

It is even possible that your company will website could end up ranking lower than your company's Facebook, Twitter or YouTube pages.

Why?

A combination of factors including the fact Youtube, Facebook, Twitter all have good Google PageRanks. As such they get ranked higher easier.

Another factor is that Youtube, Facebook, Twitter all use rel="nofollow" on their outgoing links, which means that if you link back to your company website from those pages then those links don't count because they are "nofollow" links that are ignored by Google's search bots.

Thus social media websites get all the benefits of incoming SEO, and none of the negatives because every outgoing link doesn't count as a link.

So let us take an example.

Let us say your website is ArcheryToronto.ca and you are linking to several pages about archery in Toronto on Facebook like The Canadian Toxophilite Society, The Toronto Public Archery Range, etc.

Every link that goes to those Facebook pages benefits Facebook itself and boosts the rankings of those Facebook pages - but your website gets nothing in return.

Even if you were to post links on Facebook to your website (and get a little traffic from curious people who click those links), those links won't count as SEO as far as Google is concerned because it is all rel="nofollow".

And the same goes with YouTube, you could post a link like Toronto Archery Videos, which will ultimately benefit YouTube, but is it going to benefit your company website? Not really.

So the trick then is to make sure all your outgoing links are also rel="nofollow", so your company website maintains its position in the search rankings and the social media aspects of your company are further down in the rankings - but still be there.

Of course if your goal is to wildly promote your YouTube page, Facebook page, etc, then by all means link to them willy nilly. Just don't expect to make a profit off of them unless those pages are somehow rigged up to sell a product or service.

The Changing Responsibilities of SEO

When it comes to keeping SEO clients happy you really have to deliver the goods. Its basically a shopping list of responsibilities you have to do.

However as time goes on its becoming clear that there is many more responsibilities for the SEO expert to do than there used to be.

In the beginning...

1999 - SEO was really just links, navigation and basic keyword search. Over time things like spider readability, avoiding duplicate content, HTML sitemaps and so forth. Blogs started appearing, image ALT text became more important.

2004 - Five years later they were making HTML and XML sitemaps, issues surrounding rel="nofollow" coding, complex keyword analysis, social media was starting to appear, widgets, articles, content research, Search Engine Marketing rears its ugly head...

2009 - Videos and social media has gone mainstream. YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, bookmarking websites, AddThis codes, guest writers, guest bloggers, PR companies getting in on the SEO action, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, reputation strategy and tracking...

2012 - Its become so much that one person can't do it all. You have to have separate people doing SEO, SMO and SEM because one person can't be an expert at all three.

The problem is that the general public sees "SEO" as a catchphrase for SEM (Search Engine Marketing, which is completely separate) and SMO (Social Media Optimization, a whole other topic)... without realizing how different they are.

Here to sort out this mess is three handy definitions:

SEO - The process of creating a network of links to promote specific keywords targeted at one website with the purpose of getting it to the top of the search engine. This process is called Search Engine Optimization (or SEO for short).

SEM - The process of advertising on search engines directly via Google AdWords and similar advertising programs and paying per click each time people click on your ads. Search Engine Marketing does not boost SEO.

SMO or SMM - The process of writing buzz on Twitter, Facebook and other social networking websites. The links all have rel="nofollow" and Social Media Marketing do absolutely nothing for SEO. SMO, wherein the O stands for optimization is a misnomer because it doesn't really "optimize" anything. Its just buzz.

And last but not least...

VVM - Viral Video Marketing. Blame YouTube for that one. Still in its infancy VVM is either a grand waste of time and money or a really lucky win when it actually works. VVM is a bit like shooting a bullet at another bullet and hoping the two will ricochet, that is how awful the success rate is.

See Also
The Laughable Expectations of Non SEO People

How to setup a Facebook Business Page

With Facebook being one of—if not the—most popular websites on the internet right now, more and more businesses are starting to use the site as a means to advertise and inform the public about their product. What you can do is create a dedicated page on Facebook for your business, product, brand, etc. The whole process is very simple and only takes a few steps.

The first thing you need to do is create a personal Facebook account before you can set up a business page. You will then be able to access, modify and update your business page through your personal page. So simply head over to facebook.com and create your own personal page. All you need is an email address.

You can, however, create a business page without a personal page, but you’ll end up going through more steps. Either way, Facebook is going to want personal information, so it is best to create the personal page before the business page.

Facebook will ask you for some typical information on your business: its name, where you’re located, what you do, what your mission is, what your products are, when it was founded, etc. You can input as much or as little information as you would like. That said, it is best to obviously give the public as much information as possible, so you should try be fairly detailed and accurate when creating the business page.

What Facebook offers is a focused ad campaign within their website for businesses. So once you create your business page, you can create a campaign that uses only certain demographic data to target specific viewers. For example, you might want single men who are between 18 and 24 and like to drink beer. Facebook will pick up on those keywords from users’ personal pages and only show them your ads. Your ads will not be wasted on people who do not care about your business or products. Facebook will always calculate for your approximately how many people will be seeing your ads.

You can always change the information you want Facebook to use at any time. Simply modify certain variables and Facebook will automatically recalculate your expected number of viewers. Your new ad will then go only to these specific users.

The final step is to set up your daily budget—how much money you are willing to give to Facebook to advertise your ads. To do this, you tell Facebook how much you’d like to spend for every ad that is clicked on. The higher you “bid,” the better exposure you get. You will have to tinker with this until you find the perfect number for you and your business.

If you have any comments or questions, please let us know.

The Importance of Google Plus on your Website

Watch the video below and see why you NEED to have Google+ on your website. You should have it. You want to have it. You must have it.

If you want to be promoting your website on social media, then Google Plus is pretty much mandatory.

5 Reasons why you should Twitter for your Business

See Also: The Future of Facebook Online Marketing

It seems everyone is twittering these days and you are wondering if you should be using Twitter for your business also. You’re already active on Facebook, why bother with Twitter? You’re limited in what you can say (140 character posts), they use all those weird symbols and heck, even the name sounds stupid. But if you aren’t doing it for those reasons, then you risk not tapping into this great marketing strategy. Here are 5 great reasons why you should consider twitter for business:

Generate more traffic to your website

Twitter is another wonderful way to get traffic to your websites. As of April 2010, the last statistics I could find, Twitter has 105,000,000+ registered users averaging 300,000 new users sign up per day. What is also exciting is that they get around 190 million visitors per month.

Since Twitter posts are in real-time, it has become a place where people go to to find the latest information on topics. Do a keyword search in Twitter’s search tool and you’ll find up-to-date and targeted resources you can’t get with Google (at least not yet or as easily that I’ve found).

But why is that important? Well, if someone is searching on a specific topic and you’re tweeting about it and have a link to your site for more information, they can click right on through. Also for your followers, if you’re tweeting about items of interest, they will want to know what you’re all about and can click onto your site from your profile.

But the traffic generating power of Twitter doesn’t stop there. What can happen, and what you want to happen, is for your followers to “re-tweet” your post, which is basically sharing your tweet to their list of followers. That’s what the mysterious RT means, by the way. Being re-tweeted gets you exposed to more people than just those that follow you. So the potential to have your posts go viral is a marketing dream.

Read the latest news and discover excellent resources

I’m amazed at how much valuable news, information and resources I am referred to by the people I follow on Twitter. In fact, I have to limit myself (I’m on Twitter only about 15 minutes a day) or I’d just be reading all day and not working. You can also subscribe to Twitter feeds for specific websites/conferences, which allows you to receive and view content quickly. This is very useful for active social news participants.

Networking

You can use Twitter to interact with other like-minded people, those in your industry or in related industries. I’m amazed at the people I have gotten to know just by actively communicating with them via the reply function (that’s what the @ symbol means next to the person’s Twitter name). We’ve even been asked to do joint partnerships with some of the respected people in our industry because of all my tweeting from my home computer! Now that’s exciting since that has the potential to really increase our business exponentially and take us on new and exciting endeavors. Imagine how that would help your business.

Find prospects and customers

Twitter is also good for finding potential customers or clients. You can do a search for keywords related to your product on Twitter Search and then follow those users who are posting about it. Most people who you follow will return the favor and follow you back. Then when you tweet about topics relating to your products, you increase the likelihood that they will see what you have to say as well. They can then communicate with you.

You do have to do this with discretion, however. The point is not to try to sell to them right away; the point is to let them know you are a resource for them for the future. If you are consistently posting about issues and topics important to them, then they’ll get to know you and may likely turn into a loyal customer one day.

Improve your copywriting

At first I hated being restricted to 140 characters but see it as an advantage the more I tweet. I found that I now have to not only send eye-catching posts, I also need to be brief. If you’ve ever met me, you know how hard that is for me! But now it’s a fun challenge to say something interesting in as few and as powerful words as I can. I’ve become so much better at copywriting in all of my marketing material as a result.

So if you haven’t started using Twitter for your business, now you have 5 solid reasons to begin. I’ll be covering more reasons it’s such a great marketing strategy as well as tools as to how to do it effectively in later blog posts. But in the meantime, I invite you to follow me on Twitter. I post links that don’t make it on this blog to articles about video, internet marketing, special interest video business and boosting marketing success, among other things.