Kaila Strong answers: “What’s the best way for me to interact with fans who Like my Facebook business page?”

If you’ve got a question about link building, content, social media, SEO or other Internet marketing topics, just post it on the Vertical Measures Facebook page, or tweet it to us with the hashtag #VMQA.

Transcription

All right, so today’s question is from i-Brag who posted on our Facebook page. They ask: “What’s the best way for me to interact with fans who Like my Facebook business page?”

One of the things you can definitely do is figure out what interests users. What kind of information is going to be most informational for that end user who is a fan on your Facebook page? Are you in an industry that might really be able to utilize content to help sell that end user? Are their blog posts and really great information you can share with your users? Each of those content pieces are things that you can use to add as a status message and share with your fans and help engage with them and help them realize that you’re a sought after expert in your industry.

Additionally you can look at the data and see how engagement happens with each of those status message updates, those photos you might change or update. Each of the actions that your taking on your Facebook page, examine Facebook Insights to see what the users are doing with those images and what’s going to be more successful.

Next you’ll want to research and see if you can glean some information from other Facebook pages. Maybe your competitors have a really successful strategy. Try to see what types of messages and information their sharing and engaging with their users and see if you can integrate that with your campaign.

Drawing the attention of millions, virtual pinboard-styled social photo sharing website Pinterest is all the rage these days. From the comfort of your own home you’re able to pin awesome internet finds and share them with your friends. The site receives a whopping 11-16 million unique visitors a month, who are primarily women (80%) and users are between the ages of 25 and 54 (80%) according to Google Ad Planner.

As internet marketers we seize the moment when new trends and sites emerge. We flock to where people are and in this case it’s a site that caters to the purse strings of American households. A recent Infographic by GPlus.com shows on average 83 to 87 percent of consumer purchases are decided on by women and women generate 58 percent of e-commerce dollars.

So how can you seize the moment with Pinterest? Find inspiration with the below Pinterest marketing ideas for 24 industries and professions! (Still want more ideas? Sign up for our FREE webinar “Marketing Your Brand on Pinterest” Thursday May 10th (11AM PST/2PM EST)).

Wedding Venue

What are brides looking to establish when planning a wedding? What their wedding style will be and how their special day will look. The details are extremely important when it comes to planning a wedding. If you are in the event planning business and are trying to market your wedding venue try putting together wedding board “themes”. Help that bride envision her special day at your location by showing her examples in the form of photos on Pinterest. That newly engaged bride is sure to do her research prior to the big day. Give her photos and information on Pinterest to aid in making the right decision. The 4^th Floor Blues Club has the right idea with their wedding venue pin here, although the resolution and lighting leave a bit to be desired – you get the basic premise here.

Book Promotion

Creating an inspiration board to help you in your quest to write a book is something many authors do. Now with Pinterest you can create a board around the inspirations that led you to write your book – the people, places, things that were your muses. Thanks to Crystal for this idea. She even suggests using your board in the pitching process, “see what inspired XX author to write her breakthrough novel”. As a marketer in the publishing field you can create an entirely new experience by paring the book with social media.

Personal Shopper or Fashion Blogger

Figuring out your personal style and finding ways to develop your style overtime can be a full time job, and actually is for some lucky gals. Being a personal shopper or full time fashion blogger, when it pays the bills, can be incredibly rewarding. Use Pinterest to highlight your style or as a personal shopper put together inspiration boards for that boho-chic client and another board for the soccer mom next door. Showing your creativity and diversity in looks can help you land a wide array of clients. Have prospective clients check out your inspiration boards to see your eclectic abilities, or put your logo or web address on photo looks you put together yourself (and that you own the photo rights to of course).

Hairstylist or Salon

Staying on the cutting edge of styles and trends is at the top of the job requirements for a hair stylist or salon owner. Marketing for a business in the beauty industry seems like a great fit for Pinterest. Create boards of similar hair styles. When your customer sits down in your chair and can’t figure out what style they want – hand them an iPad and let them peruse your boards and pins. Or a hairstylist or salon might put together before and after photos or how-to photos. These seem to resonate well with the Pinterest crowd, as seen here with My Yellow Sandbox. The site’s tutorial photos of hairstyles and beauty are perfect for a board on Pinterest – this blog has over 2600 followers on Pinterest already so something must be working.

Interior Designer

Another great idea for Pinterest is if you’re in the interior design world. From boards about design inspirations to boards of before and after photos you’ve done yourself, there are many design related ideas you can share. Blanca Feldman, an interior designer in Nashville, has quite a successful Pinterest account with over 1600 followers. Check out her design inspiration board, boards for each room of the house, motivation boards and more for some inspiration of your own.

Health Expert or Blogger

I’m a huge fan of Dr. Oz and his no-nonsense way of being able to tell you in layman’s terms what the heck is going on with your body or give you advice that actually makes sense. Dr. Oz’s official Pinterest account is a great example of how to use Pinterest as a health expert or blogger. His team pins healthy recipes, Dr. Oz approved deserts, fitness information and more. As a health blogger or expert, develop pins that are consistent with a healthy lifestyle. Pin your own photos and pin others too.

TV Channel

In recent years, news stations and radio stations have had to join the digital world as their listening audience has migrated to the online space. It’s not uncommon to see references to Facebook and Twitter during the 5 o’clock news. Pinterest very well could be the next social media site to enter mainstream newscasts. TV Channels or radio stations can start putting breaking news photos up on Pinterest and encourage citizen journalists to take their own photos which can be repined. Thanks to Elana at Media Bistro, who suggested giving viewers a sneak peak of an upcoming interview or tomorrow’s front page news by adding pins to your news boards.

Magazine

Looking to increase subscribers to your magazine or promote an online publication? Showcase graphics and editorials on dedicated Pinterest boards for the beats or items you cover in your publication. Check out Martha Stewart Living’s Pinterest profile with boards like “Baking and Desserts”, “Easter”, “Appetizers and Hors d’Oeuvres”, “Drinks” and “Sewing”. Holiday themed boards are perfect if you’re looking to highlight the holiday issue of your magazine. Two to three months ahead of time start putting together your boards and keep up the pinning momentum throughout the holiday.

Funeral Homes

Am I morbid in thinking there is a Pinterest use for funeral homes? Let me explain before you get all judgey on me… Creating a memory board of the people we love is something that can now be done digitally through the use of Pinterest. Funeral Homes can organize boards for the recently deceased, allowing their tech savvy relatives to view pinned photos of them for an uncluttered digital memory board preserving them in time. The deceased’s Facebook page can be cluttered, but with Pinterest photos and memories are displayed easily. A funeral home could take this concept to the next level by having a tablet or computer screen at the viewing for mourners to enjoy the pinned photos.

Chef, Baker or Catering Company

Feature your culinary delights on Pinterest to bring traffic and new business your way. Thematically tie pins together on a board by sticking with a holiday or event theme – Valentine’s Day treats, 4^th of July dishes, one-pot buffet dishes, etc… Get started today promoting a board on summer parties or 4th of July bbqs to pique a prospective clients interest, and you may just hook a client for this summer.

eCommerce Website

Women be shoppin, women be shoppin! If you’re an eCommerce website why not put together a gift board. You can create a board of gift ideas for men, gift ideas for women or even get super specific – gift ideas for eye rolling preteen girls or gift ideas for the Midwest mom. It goes without saying that you shouldn’t be completely self serving on your board, pin items from other stores that fit into your overall theme too.

Professional on a job search

Landing a job today takes a lot of creativity. Make yourself stand out by creating a visual CV of all the projects you’ve worked on. This is especially true for graphic or web designers looking to move up in their careers, or freelancers looking for additional jobs. Check out these 7 cool resumes found on Pinterest, from BusinessInsider.com to get some inspiration.

Dog Shelter or Non-Profit

Raising awareness about your non-profit can be hard. Not only are funds tight it can also be difficult shining the spotlight when so many other good causes exist too. Using Pinterest to start boards about your cause can be a good start. Animal shelters such as the Humane Society of New York use Pinterest to share photos of cats and dogs up for adoption as well as the animals that have gone to a good home and a wish list of the supplies they are in need of. Think about the opportunities here when natural disasters hit, a new animal goes on the endangered species list or checking in a few years after a devastating accident to see how the area is rebuilding (or what still needs to be done).

National Center for Missing Persons or America’s Most Wanted

Help spread the word about a missing person or a wanted person by creating boards. I’ve seen these movements go over well on Twitter, of crowd sourced find the missing person projects. Just this past January several UK celebrities retweeted pleas from one family trying to find their missing son, who was found a mere few hours later in safe condition.

Craft Supply or Wedding Supply Website

If you sell products that are part of a large project, such as an online retailer of craft supplies – why not start a board that shows the “after” result of a project. What does a craft project look like after they’ve purchased your items? Create your own instruction graphics to inspire prospective customers. Get customers to send in their photos so you can share on Pinterest and inspire others to purchase products.

Home Improvement Stores

Everyone loves a great photo of a demolition job for a home improvement project. Before and after pictures too! For any home improvement store such as Home Depot, Lowes or even Ace Hardware, Pinterest seems like an easy enough fit for marketing. Put up photos of renovations and home projects. Sponsor a contest, asking fans to submit their home improvement photos. This user generated content can be then repurposed throughout your social media profiles, including Pinterest. Take a look at Home Depot’s Pinterest account for some more inspiration.

Before and After Photos

The theme of using before and after photos can transcend many industries. From contractors, home builders and architects to even a plastic surgeon. If your industry heavily relies on images, then use before and after to showcase the staunch differences before and after your services. A clean and professional looking before and after cosmetic surgery photo, a before/during/after construction job photo or a time lapse photo of a building being erected, all can be used effectively to illustrate before and after.

Travel Agent or Concierge

Are you a travel agent or travel concierge service? Create boards for travel inspiration. Try a bucket list travel themed board with photos of the Seven Wonders of the World and other places someone might have on their bucket list. Create an entire experience for a trip to Africa or even Disneyland. Cater your boards to the experiences your customers want to have on vacation and let Pinterest users know you’re available to help them plan their next vacation too.

School

Take Duke University for example, they’ve built out boards revolving around their sportsmanship, student life, traditions and even around their Arts & Humanities department. If you’re in the education space try out degree program boards full of photos and information that would interest a student in that field of study. Someone who is a fashion student would be interested in a fashion related board, develop boards that highlight a specific degree program and appeal to a specific type of student. Create your own images that cater to that fashion student and promote them on Pinterest. Start thinking about ways to integrate Pinterest style into all your image assets!

Hotel

Creating boards centered on your hotel or lodging facility is a great use of Pinterest. Things to do in the city where your hotel is or places to see in the city your hotel is located are two boards you can (and should!) put up right this minute. Local eateries, transportation, travel resources or even area emergency clinics or facilities could all have their own board. Additionally, you can create boards dedicated to your event facilities showing past weddings or events held at your hotel. While not many hotels are currently utilizing Pinterest, there are a few you can look to for examples: Crowne Plaza NYC, Hotel Berlin and Forest House Lodge.

Extermination or Mold Remediation

This Pinterest marketing strategy is enough to make you batty – well maybe not literally but you get the idea. Pin photos of the types of the insects and bugs found around your area. Share before and after photos of infestation or mold remediation projects. Create boards focused around poisonous insects to help educate. There are many ways an extermination company or mold remediation company can use Pinterest.

Gift Registry

Who wants to get all their gifts from one store? With links to each of the images in the board, guests can see a bride’s Pinterest account and choose the gifts they want to give from all across the web – not just one store! The same can be done for a baby registry too. Pin photos onto your own gift registry from Etsy too, what other time would you be able to add those types of items to a wedding registry?

Blogger

Market your blog posts on Pinterest. One example of a great Top “10″ type post doing well on Pinterest is “17 Tips to Make Your Life Easier”. They’ve simply pinned one of the images in the top 10 style post and added a brief description about the post. This is a relatively simple concept, but one that could be done by any blogger out there. Try giving some new life to an old blog post by pinning one of the images and adding to Pinterest.

Early Childhood Education

One brand I’ve started following on Pinterest is PediaStaff, a pediatric/school based therapy staffing and placement firm. They have a mission to serve the special needs community through great resources, so they’ve started using Pinterest to help share. Anyone who first visits their page is guided along their mission, with the first board dedicated to introducing their brand. They’ve built out many of their boards to encompass topics important to parents of special needs children: sensory activities, fine motor crafts, rhyming games, social skills and pragmatics, visual supports, and more! They have over 17,000 followers and a very engaged community.

Well there you have it, Pinterest marketing ideas for 24 varied and interesting industries and professions. From the obscure the obvious, we’ve covered quite a few. Feel free to add to the list in the comments below!

In the not so distant future, an advertising agency will become more involved with social media websites. Software and hardware will become more prominent in their distribution of advertising not only online but through electronic devices and even the U.S. mail.

In previous years, some politicians sent DVDs to homes through the U.S. mail. The concept was relatively new and certainly innovative. No doubt, there was an advertising agency behind the idea, and rightfully so. Software is destined to become the new paper and with the development and expansion of electronic devices, software will eventually change formats much like records changed to CDs. In the future, an effective advertising agency will need to adopt and adapt.

The advertising agencies of the future must adopt and adapt to sites like Facebook and others to inspire consumers to examine products. Especially since a person can access the internet with electronic devices, linking ads to Facebook and other sites will be imperative.

Of course, many users will pay extra for apps that can circumvent or avoid commercial advertising. However, the smart thinking ad exec will link up with those app producing companies and discover ways to make a profit on those users as well.

All in all, future advertising agencies will need to reexamine their campaigns and even retool their entire way of enticing consumers. It may be an expensive venture but in the long run, it will be very rewarding.

Kaila Strong answers: How can you use content marketing to generate leads?”

If you’ve got a question about link building, content, social media, SEO or other Internet marketing topics, just post it on the Vertical Measures Facebook page, or tweet it to us with the hashtag #VMQA.

Transcription

Today’s question is: “How can you use content marketing to generate leads?”

There are several ways you can use content to bring in leads to your site. A free guide for example, or some kind of case study, could be used to bring in leads. You can drive traffic to a gate page that would have a user fill out their information. You know, as little information as possible because you actually want them to fill it out. Then that lead capture form is going to generate either an email or information back to them, showing them that free guide. So not only are you driving traffic to your website, you’re keeping them there, you’re engaging them. You’re giving them a free piece of content and you’re getting their email address — their information — maybe a phone number, or whatever information is going to help you.

Content can draw in traffic with the right call to action and can improve lead count with conversions as well. So it doesn’t necessarily have to be a content piece that immediately has that call to action on it. It can be something that draws the user to another lead form page that you’re still using that content piece to drive leads — it’s just in a more indirect way.

Content can also help sell throughout the buying cycle. So if a user, if a prospect is very close to making that sale or that purchase, remarketing a piece of content, adding that person to a distribution list and providing them with content that is better served later on down the line on their buying cycle, can also help increase conversions by utilizing that content.

What is at the top of growing challenges facing marketers these days? Generating high-quality leads. Lead generation can be a timely endeavor that requires research, know how and of course time. Soliciting inquiries from potential customers has traditional applications with tactics like cold calling or trade show marketing, but modern lead generation usually involves a web component.

Businesses can use their websites to help generate quality leads, especially in a field such as the travel services industry. Web visitors can fill out inquiry forms online just like over the phone with cold calling or in person via trade shows.

In order to understand how to generate quality leads, you first have to define what a quality lead is for your initiatives. In this post we hope to help you through the multi-step process of understanding quality lead generation.

What is a quality lead?

A ‘quality lead’ is defined differently across industries and even within your own organization – although it really shouldn’t. This often happens because different departments, marketing and sales mostly, have differing ideas of what quality of a lead is. Lead generation expert Ardith Albee helps us understand more about why these departments often have conflicting views on what a quality lead is in her post “How do you define a high quality lead”.

Marketing initiatives are usually big picture, future thinking – addressing the needs of those buyers that need help making their decision before converting into a sale. Sales initiatives on the other hand are shorter term and laser focused, hoping for the quickest sale. The types of leads and intrinsic “quality” or value of those leads are inherently different for each of these departments. This difference often causes issues when trying to define what a quality lead is for your business.

A consistent definition should be in place for what you consider a quality lead. If your business wants to generate quality leads you have to define what you think quality is first. Make sure you consider the needs of both marketing and sales in your definition.

Examine personas and define the type of prospect you’re looking for. Who are you targeting, who are your ideal leads? You may examine past data to help you figure out who you really should be targeting with your lead generation initiative. Remember, your definition of a quality lead is going to be different from companies. Make your own definition using the data and information about your business you have at your fingertips.

Lead Generation Tactics

Several lead generation tactics exist to help businesses maintain and increase website inquiries. Utilization of multiple channels of lead generation is suggested by many experts.

SEO
Search engine optimization is certainly a lead generation tactic. A website can be optimized for terms that will draw in targeted and qualified traffic. Doing keyword research and finding niches within your industry very well could draw in the traffic you need to generate a substantial amount of online leads. Being able to understand trends in search patterns and buying cycles is important as well – timing can be everything.

Content Marketing
Many pieces of content can be used as lead generation tools. Boost lead generation by building trust through effective content marketing. Provide content after users provide you with a filled out lead form. Content you can entice users with may include:

• Webinars
• Free Guides
• Blog Posts
• Video

Exclusive content has its appeal to a certain audience, and you may find that lead forms start to increase once implementing this type of tactic.

Social Media
Soliciting leads direct via social media is one available option for businesses. Use content to garner followers on Twitter, fans on Facebook. Reach out to users online through social media and drive traffic to your website and lead forms.

Blogging
Developing content that is optimized for search engines, written well, sharable and interesting in the form of a blog post can garner leads online. Using your expertise to drive traffic to your site from others websites isn’t impossible and sometimes can be free. Guest blogging on notable website with your industry is great for lead generation.

These are just a few of the lead generation tactics to wet your appetite for part 2 of our post. If you’ve used one of the tactics above to successfully drive quality leads, share with us in the comments below.

Kaila Strong answers: “How much is enough to be successful with content marketing?”

If you’ve got a question about link building, content, social media, SEO or other Internet marketing topics, just post it on the Vertical Measures Facebook page, or tweet it to us with the hashtag #VMQA.

Transcription

Hello there!

Today’s question is: “How much is enough to be successful with content marketing?”

The first way I want to answer this is to really think about what success is to you. What are your goals? How are we going to measure those goals? Are you looking for leads? Is your goal traffic? Is your goal search engine rankings? What is the real goal? That will really help you to be able to figure out wither or not your content marketing plan is successful.

Then you have to figure out what types of content are going to be right for your particular industry. Is a free guide going to work? Is a blog post going to work? Is video? Is an infographic going to work? How are we going to measure that with Google Analytic’s or with ranking tools or however you are measuring your goals? Then you just evaluate each particular content piece and if it fit your goals and if it reached those particular milestones you wanted it to fulfill. If it didn’t, then reevaluate. Maybe the piece of content wasn’t the right way to do it. Re-purpose that piece of content; if it’s a blog post maybe try a free guide out of it or a video. Maybe that will resonate better with your market and then you can determine wither or not you were successful with your content marketing.

On Monday, Google’s inside search blog announced they were rolling out (and had already rolled out) 40 changes to the Google algorithm, “Search quality highlights: 40 changes February“. While Google makes changes to their algorithm on what seems to be a daily basis, updates such as these can cause some alarm. After highly publicized updates, such as Panda, more and more website owners are paying attention. With so many changes, updates and announcements, however, it can all be so confusing! What do you do with the information?

When any of these announcements are made it’s always best to step back and remember – Google makes changes to their algorithm all the time, daily even. Hundreds and hundreds of changes were made just last year and even more will be made this year. It’s important as a website owner to take notice, but remember: don’t freak out!

The announcement made recently certainly showcases some of the great things that Google is improving upon, but many of them we were already made aware of. It’s just a continuous tweak made to the Google algorithm. How a website owner or marketing manager can use this information is to speculate what’s on the horizon. Whenever Google makes an announcement they’re showing us a little bit of what goes on behind the curtain and what they’ve been working on for the past few weeks/months.

So what can we speculate with this recent announcement? I’ve identified a few key updates that you should take notice of. Did one update over another stick out to you? Share with us in the comments below (and you’ll even get a do-follow link out of it!).

Images

“Expand the size of image index in Universal Search, fresher images, & improved detection for SafeSearch in image search”. This was certainly needed and with the growing popularity of sites like Pinterest they’ll need to keep improving. Being able to properly identify images and rank them appropriately can be a tough job using only the semantic data available.

Make it as easy as possible for Google to identify the images on your site. If you have great images on your site make sure they are optimized. Do you have your priority keywords in the filename of the image, alt tags and caption? How large are the photos and do they cause page load speed issues? Each of these items is important for your image optimization.

Takeaway: Make image optimization a priority in 2012.

Local Search

Traditional SEO has previously impacted local universal results but now even more with Google’s recent update. Local citations, local links with geo-modifiers, reviews, etc… are all important factors to local search. This recent announcement leads me to believe that social factors, link factors and local content factors will be even more important for local search, due to it’s large importance in traditional SEO. Google also announced more locally relevant predictions in YouTube too – so don’t forget about local video in 2012!

Takeaway: Link build with a local focus and integrate video into your local search marketing (optimize video with Schema.org) in 2012.

Links

One update that stood out from the rest was the “Link Evaluation” item near the bottom of the list.

“We often use characteristics of links to help us figure out the topic of a linked page. We have changed the way in which we evaluate links; in particular, we are turning off a method of link analysis that we used for several years. We often rearchitect or turn off parts of our scoring in order to keep our system maintainable, clean and understandable.”

It’s hard to speculate what this particular change is or how it might impact our industry. Speculations have ranged:

• Anchor text is growingly less important and the update reflects this
• Stopped considering rel nofollow
• Devalued Page Rank
• There are a few others in the Warrior Forum if you’re curious

With such an ambiguous statement you can’t really speculate. In these instances I just remember to keep doing the right things and not get caught up in the hype: build website authority, get in content links, build social proof and make sure your onsite SEO is tight.

Takeaway: Sometimes there are no takeaways just reminders to keep doing the right thing.

Freshness Factors

“Improvements to freshness & consolidation of signals for spiking topics”. Freshness of your onsite content is still very important and Google is slowly but surely improving how quickly they surface fresh content in their results. Site speed , in my opinion, plays a part in this. If they want to identify your content as quickly as possible then: use CSS sprites, use a CDN, compress files at the server level, and follow these tips to improve your website load speed.

Takeaway: Freshen/thicken your content and improve page load speed in 2012.

I think the most important takeaway from any announcement like this is that Google is just one of the many inbound marketing channels we have in our arsenal. We have to play by their rules and they change them on us all the time. Use their announcements as a tool to help you forecast industry changes and help you to align your priorities for the coming year.

What were your takeaways from the recent announcement?

Consumer psychology is actually one of the older branches of the discipline, as businesses were able to recognize its commercial potential from early on.  Its always made sense to know more about your customers and what makes them tick.  Edward Bernays, whose nephew was the famous psychologist Sigmund Freud, began applying some of his uncle’s theories to advertising in the 1920s.  Bernays was extremely successful and became a leading figure in the world of marketing.  Bernays is credited with inventing many of the most commonly used tools in marketing, such as the photo-opportunity and the use of staged events.

After Bernays proved how useful a background in psychology could be to advertisers and their clients many other psychologists began to be recruited to help businesses better reach their consumers.  The field of consumer psychology has always existed in a sort of in between place.  Many researchers still work exclusively in academia and endeavor to gain a better understanding of how consumers think just for the sake of advancing their knowledge.  The knowledge that is gained in this way, however, has often found an immediate use in private business.  Business executives are desperate for any idea that might help give them an edge on their competition.

If you chose to pursue a masters degree in psychology you will likely have a very wide range of options for how to apply your knowledge once you graduate.  Businesses will often employ researchers with psychology backgrounds to find out more about their clients and how they can better communicate with them.  Advertising is all about who you target and a different message might have a different kind of appeal for a different group of consumers.  Consumer psychologists have become experts at discovering more about a company’s consumers by using surveys and other sampling methods.

Predicting how a customer will behave once you already have him in the door is also a very important factor in a company’s long term success.  Companies crave customers who are loyal and offer them their repeat business.  Consumer psychologists can help by training employees on how to provide the best service and also by identifying any problems in service that might be hurting repeat sales.

The truth is that it is almost always a new age in consumer psychology, as new ideas are constantly being proposed and new information about consumers being discovered.  Businesses and marketing firms want psychologists with the most up to date knowledge possible.  Any idea might give a company an advantage and it is vital to the success of larger businesses that they learn about new facts sooner than their competitors do.

Its in the nature of the free market that businesses will try almost any idea for at least for a little while to see if it could work.  Consumer psychologists are able to offer businesses more value for their money by providing them with ideas that have already been empirically tested and then evaluated by top minds in their field.  A degree in consumer psychology has the potential of taking you very far in almost any industry that you could be interested in.

Back in November here on the Vertical Measures blog we published a content piece we’d been working on for quite some time, “The Authority Building Machine Infographic”. Producing one great piece of content each quarter is something every business should strive to do, whether it’s a video, case study, webinar or even an infographic.

A good piece of content can help you build the authority of your site (as we showcase in our Infographic) and additionally can bring targeted niche traffic to your site and paying customers to your virtual door. Don’t believe me? Check out the results of our recent infographic and see for yourself. (We can’t give you this kind of detail for the work we do for clients, but happy to share our results.)

Social Metrics

Engaging with customers through the use of social media is one surefire way to build a community of engaged prospects and also a fab way to get some social links too. Our team tweeted, +1′d, Facebook’d, bookmarked and commented to help promote our content piece from both branded and personal accounts.

After all was said and done we received almost 200 RTs on the original post, 24 Google +1s, almost 4,000 Stumbles (1500 from paid campaign), 17 Facebook Likes, 52 Facebook shares and Topsy shows over 250 posts via social channels. Guest blog posts and others who embedded our infographic showed social media success too:

• SearchEngineJournal.com – Tweeted 294 times, 12 Google +1s and 17 Facebook Likes
• SearchEngineWatch.com – Tweeted 364 times, 21 Google +1s and 63 Facebook Likes
• SocialTimes.com – Tweeted 104 times and 18 Facebook Likes
• MediaBistro.com – Tweeted 70 times

Takeaway? It’s important to cater your social promotion to the content piece and to your industry. In addition it pays to do some pre-promotion and planning. We knew that our infographic was complex, most are. We took separate key concepts from the infographic and wrote very “evergreen” guest blog posts about those concepts: 4 Ways to Use Linked In to Promote Your Website, Using Social Media to Build Site Authority, 5 Content Pieces to Build Site Authority, How Infographics Can Help You Build Site Authority, and Six Ways You Can Use Google + to Build Authority.

With great content like this you can get your Infographic embedded on a niche site and keep the momentum up around the theme of your Infographic. Sure, our Infographic is pretty niche and our industry isn’t like others – but imagine the possibilities with a strategy like this. An online health site could develop an infographic giving facts about a rise in childhood obesity. Then they could develop 5-10 different guest blog posts around that topic: what the leading causes are, recent treatment options, a personal account from a parent, an interview with a doctor who specializes in childhood obesity, etc… A few tips: prepare your posts prior to your Infographic going live, reach out to bloggers ahead of time and get on editorial calendars. It may take 30-60 days to get added to an editorial calendar so be sure to keep this in mind – especially true for large publications.

Traffic Metrics

By no means was our latest infographic the most trafficked post we’ve ever had but wowsers did we see some traffic jumps. Since November our blog post has received over 5,000 unique views and time spent on page is over 5 minutes – and that’s just people who actually went to our original post. By marketing our Infographic with guest blog posts and doing some social promotion we got the most out of our Infographic and expect to see continued traffic driven to our site for months and even years to come.

Link Metrics

As a company who started off primarily in the link building world, we know just how valuable a great link to your website can be – priceless. Our infographic drew in a whopping 1400+ links from over 50 linking root domains with an average domain authority of 52. Sure, our awesome team can take credit for building some of the links (our guest posts & social links). But the rest of the links were about as natural as it gets – embeds or blog posts linking back to our site and infographic. We expected to get quite a few links, heck we’re a link building company aren’t we? But over 1400 surpassed even our expectations.

Investment vs. Return

In reviewing the success of any content leveraging activities you have to think about how the investment stacks up to the return. Our team put in an estimated 50+ hours worth of work developing the graphics, writing blog posts, doing social promotion, brainstorming and strategizing over the course of a three month period. It’s quite an investment, one with a price tag of several thousand dollars. But when looking at the return of over 50 unique liking root domains with average DA 50+ you’re looking to spend almost $15,000 to acquire these links at current industry rates. Not to mention the traffic that was driven to our site; 5,000 targeted visitors at our industry rates would be several thousand dollars as well.

In the end we’re very happy with the results. Have you seen similar results by leveraging engaging content in the past?

Juice Revolution

Join The Reboot is a site built around the health revelations of Joe Cross. Cross’ documentary, “Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead”, is about his personal health issues and how he reversed his chronic diseases with juice. Join The Reboot is a great site that offers advice, study results, a very entertaining blog by Joe himself and an active and lively community. It’s all free and extremely user friendly with great links.

Express Yourself

Fit Day is a website that makes keeping a food journal a breeze. With fantastic free options you are inspired to nurture your psyche and soul along with your body. You can even track your progress. The pay versions unlocks the nifty graphs and data analysis that provide proven results of all your hard work.

Food Fight

Vegan Action is a huge and influential grass roots organization that promotes the plant based diet. Their website is packed full of information and inspiring stories. It is a great jumping off point to a new responsible life style and adds so many facets to how important diet and choice are. You can fold up your high-waters and take out those face piercings because Veganism isn’t just for hipsters any more.

Let’s Get Physical

Everyday Tai Chi packs the A-Z of this super low impact and very relaxing martial art and all it encompasses. Tai Chi has many positive benefits and is perfect for you if you have no time to exercise, don’t like going to the gym, or are just plain lazy. In 15 minutes you can stretch, tone, meditate, strengthen and calm yourself all at the same time. The benefits are plentiful and extend into all aspects of your life. And your Chi will rejoice in this site’s freeness.

Food for Thought

Living Organic reinforces the new attitude that it’s not just about diet or exercise but about changing your perspective and improving your whole life. Easy ideas and great suggestions about adopting a more organic existence. It’s not just for hippies, but it is free.

Seeing the Light

Spark People is a massive online resource boasting over 11.5 million members. The perfect place to find recipes, meal plans, exercise plans, and support from their giant community. And yes, it is free.

More Human Than Human

All this cyber stuff is great and extremely convenient. But if you need the camaraderie of real live fleshy humans Craig’s List can be a great source. Find fitness classes, support groups, and work out buddies right in your area. If you can’t find the right group or activity to join you can start your own. Of course, please use extreme caution when meeting up with strangers, especially if they offer candy (you’re on a diet, remember).

You now possess the most powerful force of all, knowledge. Go forth and educate yourself. Revitalize your enthusiasm and take those all important first steps toward a better life. Remember, every little bit helps and when you feel you have strayed from the path, step right back on to it and continue your journey.

To your health!

What’s Your Mother’s Maiden Name?
You might be surprised to discover how easy it can be for someone to find the answers to common security questions used by your bank, credit card companies, utility companies and other online organizations using the information on your Facebook account. Take the time to review the security settings on any account you have online or phone access to and make sure that the answers to your security questions aren’t being broadcast on your Facebook page.

Opening Doors for Predators
If you have a habit of mentioning on Facebook that you are excited for your upcoming vacation; that your kids have been accepted to a special learning program or the results of your last visit to the doctor’s office, then you are opening the door for the potential for theft, fraud and child protection issues. Even if you don’t broadcast this sensitive information on your own wall, you may find that friends and family members who are involved in your life make mention of it on theirs. Although it may seem overly paranoid to some, talking with your family and friends about what you are comfortable with sharing online can save you a lot of heartache.

Losing Face
With so much access to an individual person’s history, social network, and behavior via Facebook and other networking sites it is becoming easier than ever for potential employers, romantic partners and social contacts to dig up dirt you’d rather keep hidden. The Facebook Timeline update is making all of those nights on the town, rants about co-workers and feuds with acquaintances (or strangers) easy for people you barely know to find. The easiest way to avoid the embarrassment of a stranger knowing your entire past is to remove questionable content from your Facebook account and avoid posting it altogether.

The False Security of Groups
While it is possible for you to set privacy settings to allow people you have classified into groups to view certain sets of content on your Facebook page, don’t let the group mentality give you a false sense of privacy. All of those people you have sorted into groups have their own Facebook and real-world connections, and your private information can still spread like wildfire despite your best intentions. Take care to keep gossip about co-workers, details about destination vacations and other sensitive information off of your Facebook account if you think that it is something that might be discussed at the water cooler the next day.

Keeping it Safe
While it may seem like there is a gaping lack of privacy through Facebook, it is undeniable that it has become an integral part of how we keep in touch with our family and friends. Most, if not all of the hazards of using Facebook, and your home internet for that matter, can be avoided with a healthy dose of caution and common sense. If your post isn’t something you’d want your grandmother, boss, or the town burglar to know, send it in a private message or just don’t post about it all.

How young is too young for social networking? That’s a question my parents definitely didn’t need to ask themselves, but today’s parents are presented with frequently. Social networking sites often restrict users who are preteen, but that certainly doesn’t stop the incessant complaining from your moody adolescent about wanting an account.

There’s a market for social media sites for kids. Unfortunately, not many are available for all ages and most aren’t customized for parental monitoring. So what is a parent to do? Here’s a list of social sites and tips to keep kids safe online.

Social Sites for Kids

Scuttlepad.com

Designed exclusively for children ages 6 – 11, this site is a great website for kids to get started with social networking. The site provides resources and learning material to help children understand how to use social networks in a safe environment.

Privacy Policy

Terms of Service

Togetherville.com

With Togetherville.com parents are able to create a neighborhood for their child (under 10), using Facebook to enable connections with people you already know. Every new friend must be approved by parents, it’s easy to sign up and your child never has to enter Facebook.

Privacy Policy

Terms of Service

Everloop.com

Developed by three moms, Everloop is a site for kids under 13 with state-of-the-art privacy protection. The site is also partnering with educators and was selected by iSafe as the “on ramp to teach kid’ internet safety and social media skills”.

Privacy Policy

Terms of Service

giantHello.com

Designed specifically for tweens age 7 to 13, giantHello offers games, friending, customizable profiles, internal messaging, fan pages and more.

Privacy Policy

Terms of Service

imbee.com

Described as a safer social networking site for the young, hip and trendy, imbee.com offers a one-of-a-kind social experience. Kids can share music playlists, talk to others around the globe, share videos, get updated on pop culture and news, and more.

Privacy Policy

Terms of Service

SweetyHigh.com

A site developed only for girls, SweetyHigh.com is for the next generation of social gamers. In a safe online environment girls can play with virtual currency that can be used to win prizes and opportunities.

Privacy Policy

Terms of Service

Yoursphere.com

Build your sphere and connect with other kids on yoursphere.com. Offering kid appropriate activities, the site is exclusively for kids up to 17. Members have their own blog, access to games, a virtual world, contests, rewards and even a scholarship program.

Privacy Policy

Terms of Service

WhatsWhat.me

Started by a father of three tweens, WhatsWhat.me promises to offer kids ages 7-13 a safe (and fun) social networking experience. Launched in 2011, the site is still new but offers parental approval which is lacking on other sites.

Privacy Policy

Terms of Service

Whyville.net

Kids are encouraged to design their own avatars and chat and play with other members. Kids can virtually hang out with friends and the site encourages learning and being socially responsible.

Privacy Policy

Terms of Service

More Social Sites for Kids

ClubPenguin.com

Offering both free and paid membership plans, this Disney site promises to create a safe and fun online entertainment experience for your kids. The site offers games, mini-games, 24/7 moderated environment, adopt pets (puffles), and customized experience.

Privacy Policy

Terms of Service

Webkinz.com

Popular plush toys with online components, Webkinz.com allows you to virtually take care of your Webkinz pet. Buy items for your pet, feed or play with your pet. There are also quizzes and games for kids to play too.

Privacy Policy

Terms of Service

10 Internet Safety Resources for Parents

Before you allow your children to start their social networking adventure, be sure to examine privacy policies and terms of service on each of the sites. With the links above you’ll be able to fully understand each sites policies and expectations of each of its site members. Additionally, we’ve listed several resources below to help keep your kids safe and teach them about internet safety.

Keeping Children Safe Online – National Cyber Alert System

Safe Searching and Social Networking – GetNetWise.org

National Cyber Security Alliance – StaySafeOnline.org

Keeping Kids Safe Online – FBI.gov

Online Safety & Civility – SafeKids.com

Children’s Online Safety Web Resources – Consortium for School Networking Initiative

Age-Based Guidelines for Kids’ Internet Use – Microsoft.com

Children’s Online Privacy: A Resource Guide for Parents – PrivacyRights.org

Family Safety Center – Google.com

Internet Safety and Help Group – WiredSafety.org 

Have a social networking site or resource we should add to the list? Share with us in the comments below!

So why should you care about meta tags? Well, if you’re only concern is the look of your webpage, you may not need to care at all. However, if you are interested in ranking well among search engines, meta tags are going to be extremely important for you. Search engines are the key to how people find information on the Internet. Without highly sophisticated search engines, it would be very difficult for people to find the information they were looking for online. However, as search engines become more sophisticated, so too must your strategy for ranking well against your competitors. So how does it all work?

When someone searches a keyword or phrase in any search engine, they are actually asking that search engine to use a robot (or crawler) to explore millions of HTML documents. To find those search terms, the crawler robot will examine all of the HTML code—including meta tags. So, those who use meta tags appropriately will be able to get a leg up on their competition or those who simply ignore this key tool.

The robot will visit a website and look at both the content displayed as well as the site’s meta tags and links that connect it to other web pages. The data is indexed and the crawler will come back occasionally to see if information has been changed.  So, when you search, you aren’t actually searching in real time millions of web pages, but rather an indexed database by any number of search engines, such as Google, Bing and Yahoo. You’ll notice that not all of your search results will be the same depending on the search engine you use. This is because each search engine uses their own algorithms, or mathematical devices, to determine how web pages will be crawled and how often.

The frequency and appropriateness of keywords used in your meta tags are important for any search engine. Search engines are sophisticated enough to know when someone is cramming their meta tags full of certain keywords or generating spam online to improve their rankings.  So, while meta tag use is important on your website, make sure you are doing it appropriately and organically. Overusing keywords can hurt just as much as ignoring meta data altogether.

In addition to meta tags, you may want to also consider other options for improving your rankings among popular search engines. For example, one of the ways the search engines’ algorithms analyze the strength of a page is by the number of links to that page from other websites on the Internet. By building links from other sites, you can help improve your rankings. Again, the more organic these can be the better because search engines are more sophisticated than ever.

Your online presence is just as, if not more important, than your offline presence or marketing strategy. Make sure to consider social media marketing as part of your strategy as well. Remember, when people logon with high speed wireless internet, your site needs to be a dynamic place that can be leveraged to help boost your brand and increase positive sentiment for your organization or business.

Marketing for an online school can present some challenges due to the highly regulated nature of the industry. Content marketing and link building may take longer and require additional oversight, not to mention the talent needed to stay up-to-date with trends and still be creative. But for those of us up for the challenge it’s also an incredibly rewarding industry to work in.

I thought I’d share with you a few of my favorite higher education marketing blogs that can help keep you up-to-date with industry challenges via news, case studies, webinars, resource lists, interviews, and more. Be sure to follow my Twitter list as well! Did I miss a few of your favorites? Feel free to give me your suggestions in the comments below.

Stamats.com Blog

On this industry blog, the folks at Stamats share insightful webinars, blog posts, host events, and provide resources and information on marketing in the education field.

RebelPHD.com & DotEduGuru.com

Ph.D. student Karlyn studies the impact of social media on job performance. She’s a writer at dot edu guru and very in tune with higher education marketing. I highly suggest you read her musings both on her site and on DotEduGuru.com.

ForProfitEDU.com

Another industry blog, the folks at For Profit Edu provide great information about news in the field and also share resources for marketing, networking, research and consulting in the higher education field.

MindJumpers.com

Not only does MindJumpers.com provide you with information about social media and EDU marketing, they also share some pretty great Infographics. Check out this Infographic about how social media is changing the education industry.

PatrickPowers.net

As a digital marketing and communications professional, Patrick Powers has the experience and knowledge to help you learn about higher education marketing. On his blog he writes about a number of topics in the internet marketing industry including higher education.

Brandmanager’s Notebook

A few writers maintain the Brandmanager’s Notebook, an open forum for marketing professionals. I’ve found a few good posts about higher education on this blog and continually check back for more tid bits.

InsideHigherEd.com

Another great resource for information, one better known than the rest, is Inside Higher Ed. Look for news, career advice, technology and learning, and much more. This site is the ultimate when it comes to higher education marketing advice.

MarketingForHigherEd.com

Marketing for Higher Education focuses on marketing trends, social media, Infographics and higher education. Higher education blogger and specialist Laura D is a former advertising agency account executive and provides a lot of great information, check it out.

BobJohnsonBlog.com

This blog provides news and notes about higher education marketing and focuses mostly on online marketing. With regular newsletters, the site does a great job of summarizing some of the industry’s best news and posts in one place.

DontWasteYourTime.co.uk

Contrary to the sites domain name, you won’t waste your time on this site that’s for sure.  As a learning technologist, David Hopkins provides readers with great information about eLearning, mLearning, Web 2.0, blogging and general musings.

BlogHighEd.org

Don’t feel like looking around all over the internet for a good resource? BlogHighEd.org aggregates higher ed blogs from many sites across the Internet.

Higher-Education-Marketing.com

As an education marketing provider this site has the inside track on what’s what in the higher education marketing field. With posts ranging from video marketing to the evolution of search, you’ll find some great information on this blog.

These are just a few of the blogs dedicated to higher education marketing. Many other resources are available as well:

Market research reports are available on MarketResearch.com. Check out the education section for 2011 reports.

EducationMarketingCouncil.com has industry news and resources with great up-to-date information.

Attend #FAC Friday After Class sessions with Converge Consulting to ask questions and learn from experts.

Hubspot, an inbound marketing resource provided this recent post on the 4 Detrimental Don’t’s in Higher Education Marketing.

One way to build the authority of your site is through the use of Infographics. An Infographic puts a visual spin on information, in order to make the content more impactful and interesting. Infographics allow you to step outside the traditional method of explaining data and content with readers on a higher sensory level.

So how can you use Infographics to build your authority? With these helpful tips!

Have a Strategy

Even before you sit down to design an Infographic or have one designed for you, you’ll need to conduct research and put together a strategy. What should your Infographic be about? How can get you get the graphic to rank for long or short tail keywords in search engines? With some research you’ll be able to answer these questions. Try some keyword research and social listening to tap the pulse of your industry. What other Infographics are popular in your niche? Who is sharing these graphics? What keywords are they using? Each of these areas is important to help you put together a strategy.

Next, sit down with your marketing team and line out a strategy for promotion. What sites will you reach out to? What tactics will you use to reach out to them? Put together an entire list of contacts you’ll reach out to when the Infographic goes live or just shortly before. Also, think about all the aspects of your promotion and how you’ll measure results too.

Link Building

Link building is tedious work, but when done right it will make a great impact over time to the authority of your site. One of the most important parts of link building is to have a reason for someone to link to your site. Leveraging a piece of content, such as an Infographic, can give you a nice “in” with a webmaster as you start to reach out to sites asking for links. Instead of a proposition for a anchor text keyword link, you now have a great piece of content that just the right website would want to link to!

First, hit up sites that already share Infographics – CoolInfographics.com, visual.ly, and even Pinterest. Next, reach out to industry bloggers who might want to feature the content on their sites. Finally, start the deep down and dirty research of finding resource pages, blog rolls, articles, and blog posts that would find your Infographic interesting. Use advanced search commands to find sites. Approach these sites with your Infographic, what it’s all about, how it would tie in with their site, and give them the embed code to add the graphic to their site.  Make it as easy as possible to have them link to your site.

Social Media

Work to build up those social signals as well. Using Facebook, Twitter, Google +, and bookmarking sites, you can create buzz by sharing your Infographic among multiple platforms. Message out from your branded accounts, get employees to share with their networks; ask friends and family to do the same, and get some natural buzz by placing social networking buttons on the page where your Infographic resides. It might be worthwhile to look into paid advertising to help promote your Infographic on these platforms. StumbleUpon advertising, Facebook PPC and sponsored tweets are all ways to get more of a social push with your Infographic too.

With a well thought out plan that hits all the areas important to building authority you’ll be well on your way to making your next Infographic a success. These are just a few of the ways to build authority with an Infographic, and our graphic below details many more ideas!

Can you think of any that we missed? Please share with us in the comments below.

Internet Marketing Infographic by Vertical Measures

But often making great food simply isn’t enough. There is stiff competition in the restaurant industry, and you’re likely to need additional tools and strategies in order to stand out. Start by making your restaurant visible and accessible. Invest in an attractive sign that’s easy to see, easy to read, and communicates the essence of your restaurant concept. Use a sophisticated font if you’re catering to a fine dining crowd and a simple, friendly font if you serve basic comfort food.

Next, build a website that includes your hours, a current menu, and contact info, as well as a page describing who you are and why you make the kind of food you have chosen to make.

Invest in a basic Yellow Pages listing, and set up an answering machine or outgoing message communicating your hours and your restaurant concept, and allowing customers to make reservations. Add your listing to other sites and claim existing listings on sites like Yelp, Yahoo Local, Google Maps, and these 21 local search sites. Monitor your listings to make sure any bad reviews (or good reviews) don’t go unanswered or responded to.

Social media presence is another important element of restaurant marketing 101. Create a QR code and place it in your restaurant. Place links to your Facebook Page and Twitter profile. This will enable customers to like you on Facebook and follow you on Twitter. Give customers incentives to follow you or like you. These incentives can be as basic as menu information or strategic discounts, or as elaborate as a treasure hunt.

One Seattle fine dining restaurant celebrated their fiftieth anniversary by hiding menus and menu covers from their opening year in different locations around the city, and then providing clues on Twitter and Facebook as to the location of these menus. The first customers to find them dined for the prices listed on the fifty year-old menu. This campaign was wildly successful, and generated considerable media attention. Think of the ways you can integrate creative ideas into your marketing plan.

Keep current with your Twitter and Facebook presences. Provide interesting information, rather than just plugging your offerings. For example, if your restaurant specializes in local, seasonal food, post about what’s in season. How about local events, charities, sporting events, etc…? Also, news about your suppliers without always relating this information directly back to something you’re trying to sell. Customers are much more likely to pay attention to your social media postings if there’s something in it for them as well, such as useful or engaging information.

While putting out consistently good food will earn you valuable positive reviews on sites such as Yelp and Citysearch, your presence and involvement with these sites does not have to be limited to hanging back and waiting for customers to say great things about you. These sites usually have representatives in your area who will work with you to help you to make the most of the resources they provide, offering everything from basic advertising, to helping you flesh out your profile, providing as much useful information as possible.

Paid advertising can also be a valuable restaurant marketing tool, although it is essential to monitor your advertising expenses and make sure you’re getting your money’s worth. Working with a vendor who specializes in paid advertising options is a good idea if you want to venture down the paid road.

Coupons can help to bring neighbors into your restaurant, but make sure they have a good enough experience to also come back and pay full price. Print, radio, and television ads must be repeated often in order to be effective.

With all of these ideas the process of marketing your restaurant should involve creativity, synergy between different strategies and, most importantly, consistency and perseverance. It’s a never ending battle to get more business into your restaurant. Learn about the ways restaurant marketing can help your business by staying on top of trends in the industry.

Have a creative restaurant marketing 101 idea? Share with us, in the comments below!

Frequently Asked Questions

When a customer has a question about your product, services, website, or anything else related to your brand many will end up using social media to ask. They might @ reply you on Twitter, post on your Facebook wall, or even send you a direct message. If your brand isn’t there to answer the question quickly (note the word quickly) you aren’t using social media effectively. I’ve never seen a brand do this better than cable and internet service provider Comcast. Their @comcastcares team takes customer service seriously and if you voice a concern they’re on it like white on rice!

Set up your Twitter account to alert you to any new DMs or @ replies via e-mail so your team doesn’t have to monitor Twitter every hour of every day. Another tip: have frequently asked questions and responses available for your team to utilize on a moment’s notice. Can’t think of any FAQs? Ask your customer service team for their suggestions. Add the information to a shared document available to all who monitor your social accounts. Make the responses short and to the point, and whenever possible take the conversation offline to address the issue.

Sell, Sell, Sell

Sometimes customers want to buy something else or seek an upgrade and they tell the world through their social media channels. Utilizing Twitter to reply to them and give them the information they need can turn that unhappy customer into a happy one. Heck, it might even turn a prospective customer into a customer. Properly monitoring not just @ replies and DMs on Twitter can help with this effort. If you’re using a platform like Hootsuite, make sure you set up a stream that tracks specific keywords or phrases such as “I want to buy ______”, “which is the best _____”, “I hate my ____”, “I want to upgrade my ______”, etc… Instruct your team to respond to these tweets quickly and regularly.

Twitter alert services like Twilert will alert you (for free) via e-mail. Just set up the app with keywords or phrases you want to monitor and they’ll be e-mailed to you regularly.

Brand Advocates

Utilize Twitter to thank brand advocates or turn unhappy customers into brand advocates. Say a user complained on Twitter about the bad service they received at your restaurant. Contact that person immediately and try to make it right. Ask them back for a free appetizer or even a free meal. Coordinate with your head chef or restaurant manager to make their 2^nd visit to your restaurant an enjoyable one. If they are quick to complain on Twitter 9 times out of 10 they’ll be quick to praise on Twitter as well.

The same is true about someone who praises your business. Offer them a discount on their next visit. If they are quick to praise you via social media they’re likely to praise you again if offered a discount.

These are just one of many ways to use Twitter for customer service. How do you use Twitter to help improve customer service?

News from Google last week has the SEO industry in an uproar. In an effort to increase searcher’s privacy, Google will roll out encrypted search (https://www.google.com) results by default for users signed into their Google accounts. This change affects brands who utilize Google Analytics to analyze their search engine traffic and the keywords users search to navigate to their sites. Google made sure to point out that brands that use PPC will still have access to keyword data from users who click their ads, and that this change only affects organic search.

Some industry professionals aren’t surprised by Google’s announcement. Many of us saw this coming, especially with other popular sites going the encrypted route. Not to mention the continuous battles about online privacy. We’ve certainly been spoiled up to this point with all the data available at our fingertips, but it hasn’t stopped many SEO’s from complaining. Most of the complaining is due to the seemingly double standard of the decision. Many SEOs feel that if advertisers are still allowed to view this data for paid search (so much for the “privacy” reasoning), then keyword data for organic search traffic should be viewable as well.

So what does this mean?
Google claims that this change represents single digit percentages of organic search traffic currently. I suppose this is their way of saying there won’t be a huge impact. But as time goes on and web users become savvier with their online privacy or sign up for Google accounts (and the growingly popular Google +) this small percentage has a likelihood to grow. In addition, sites that currently receive traffic from a techy crowd may show higher percentages of missing data. An example would be our very own website. Our demographic, naturally, has more visitors with Google accounts than say a clothing e-retailer might.

Exactly how much data will be lost?
Any data lost is still exactly that – lost data. But Google’s Matt Cutts is adamant that this change represents mere single digit percentages of organic search traffic from Google. Some SEOs are convinced that the percentages are ultimately higher, and of course that any data loss is a travesty. Especially when that single digit percentage on higher traffic sites could result in the loss of keyword data for over 100K visits.

Upon a suggestion from VMer Kristi Hines, I examined a few of our client’s accounts to see exactly how much traffic it represented over the past few days.

In all I examined eleven sites of varied industry and popularity. Similar results were seen over a three day period between October 18th and October 20th. An average of less than 1% of total non-paid search traffic was affected. You’ll see this notated in your Google Analytics account in the Traffic Sources section > Keywords > Google > listed as: “(not provided)”. A higher average was seen with tech demographic sites, but not by a significant amount.

The disclosures: sure, I know this is only a few days worth of traffic, and yes I understand that this new feature of Google hasn’t been rolled out completely. Yes, it’s silly to make assumptions based on an incomplete set of data – but I must admit that I’m relieved. This change has been hyped up over the past few days, not unlike any other major announcement from search engines. The hype certainly scares many, but after examining just a few days of data I think we’ll all figure out a way to cope with this change.

When discussing this topic with colleague Kristi last week she brought up a good point: “If Google’s goal is to make websites better for visitors, aren’t they just hurting that goal by not allowing webmasters to see what people are searching for and maybe not finding when they arrive on a website?  Knowing organic keywords is kind of crucial in that case.  Also, maybe as an alternative, this would make the site search option and tracking in Analytics even more important so websites will at least get to see what people search when they get to a website.” Certainly something to think about.

Data from sites I examined are in the chart below if you’re interested in seeing the numbers. Should be interesting to see how these numbers change in the future as encrypted search rolls out fully.

Have you seen similar numbers?

Client Site Industry Total Google Organic Traffic (10/18-10/20) Total Google (not provided) Data Percentage

• Client #1 Ecommerce 4858 56 1.15%
• Client #2 Ecommerce 1103 9 .81%
• Client #3 News Site 4416 30 .67%
• Client #4 Content Publisher 123,933 1,149 .92%
• Client #5 Content Publisher 195,055 1,904 .97%
• Client #6 News Site 106,369 992 .93%
• Client #7 Ecommerce 6,320 57 .90%
• Client #8 Ecommerce 13,733 152 1.10%
• Client #9 Content Publisher 13,212 136 1.02%
• Client #10 Tech 873 18 2.06%
• Client #11 Tech 1,203 22 1.82%

“Titles change the destiny of your posts” ~Darren Rowse. Headlines matter for a variety of reasons, most importantly of which is more traffic, more reads, and probably more links. Headlines are what entice a user to click through and read more.

But writing headlines for web content can be a bit tricky. Let’s see, you’ve got character limits to think about, SEO keywords, and then the actual creative copy to entice clicks. And oh yeah – about 8 out of 10 of those savvy online users, on average, will only read headline copy and 2 out of 10 will actually read the rest!

Quite a few components to keep in mind, but I’m here to share with you 30 different headline tips. Have a tip you’d like me to add to the list? Feel free to add to the comments below.

Stand Alone

The headline you craft, in the end, must stand alone and for that matter – stand out! Ask yourself, does my headline allude to what’s contained in my post? If it stood alone, without a byline, could the reader immediately understand what they’d be reading upon clicking?

Size Matters

The length of your headline is crucial. Think about how someone might share your post – on Twitter? Well don’t make it too long that it’s untweetable or unretweetable; remember the 140 character limit.  A title with eight words performed the best, according to Outbrain, so try to stick with eight as a max and you should be fine. Unless of course your headline has the longest word in the English language in it….

Creativity is #Winning

Using punctuation and interesting characters that draw the eye may prove to increase click through rates and interest in your post. Some are using special characters in meta titles, so why not headlines? Try these on for size.

• Media Type – [PHOTO], [VIDEO], [INFOGRAPHIC] – when of course the post contains those items
• Exclamation Points – !!
• Question Marks – ? ?
• Hashtags – #
• Quotes – ‘ ‘
• Special Characters ?
• Or these miscellaneous symbols.

Make Promises & Deliver

Deliver what is promised in your title. If you say there are 10 tips, make sure there are 10 tips. If you say there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, make sure it’s there! The last thing you want to do is start a blog commenting riot by not delivering what your headline says you will.

Lists Still Work

Lists work, really – they do! Odd numbered ones seem to work out better than others, as reported by the Content Marketing Institute. The ones I tend to enjoy the most are those that are impressive, just in sheer volume of data. Examples: “Top 100+ Link Building Resources“, “The Ultimate List of Niche Social Media Networks“(sure, it doesn’t list a number – but the list is truly massive!), “Let’s Try to Find All 200 Parameters in Google Algorithm“.

Teach

How-to posts are notorious for being extremely helpful and share-worthy. Try to shy away from talking down to your readers in posts like “How to Brush Your Teeth” or “How to Walk, Talk, and Chew Gum at the Same Time”. These might not be the best use of your time, but others like “How to Build the Perfect Facebook Fan Page, 2011 Edition“, “How to Properly Optimize Your Content“, and “How to be a Badass” are indeed worth it. Use keyword tools to figure out what “How To” phrases are searched the most in your industry to get oomph out of your headline.

Become a Reference or Resource

Ever try to Google something and find parts of the answer you were looking for but never the one true post that would answer all your questions on the topic? Use those unfortunate circumstances to your advantage – write a post, with an accompanying awesome headline, that answers the questions you couldn’t find on that topic.  Those posts, you’ll find, are the ones that are resourced, linked to, and shared years down the road.

When researching for headline resources to write this very post I found some good sources like Copyblogger, SEOBook, and Marketing Pilgrim, but there were still some elements missing. And look – I even linked back to those sources. Use these elements to become a reference or resource within your industry and to craft an awesome-tastic headline.

Present a Problem & Solution

Getting the most out of a headline can be done quite easily if you focus on problems and solutions. “Top 10 Solutions to Real Life’s Most Annoying Problems” on LifeHacker has been liked on Facebook 917 times and viewed 535,828 times since March. Pretty nice little post for a simple concept. Try to find a similar concept within your industry and develop a short but concise headline that identifies the problem and solutions.

Make Readers Aware

Enlighten readers of the ways of the world, industry news, or dirty little secrets. Craft a headline around awareness and you’re bound to get some clicks. “Are you aware of Facebook’s dirty, little secret?” is a good example of an awareness headline.

Myths

Pointing out the myths in your industry or in life in general can prove to be an effective and eye catching headline. “36 SEO Myths That Won’t Die But Need To”, “Four Horribly False Credit Score Myths” and “Some Bankruptcy Myths Proven False”.

Call to Action

Telling a reader what to do before they click on your headline has been successful for some. Just like a call to action on your website is important, using urgency words is important such as: Call, Buy, Register, Subscribe, Donate, Click, etc…

Question

Preparing a headline that asks a question is useful in many senses. For one, it tells the reader what to expect – an answer to this particular question. In addition, it creates interest for the reader, makes them think, helps them relate to the question and to visualize all before clicking – why don’t I know the answer to this question? What is the answer to this question? Read, “The Power of a Provocative Question” and you’ll understand a bit more. Add some SEO power to your question by finding out which questions online users are searching for the most with Wordtracker’s keyword questions tool.

Give The Answer

Might seem simple enough, but have you ever crafted a headline with the answer in the headline? Sure, someone might not click through, but if you write it in a creative way that alludes to the answer you just might have a winning headline! An example from headline writer extraordinaire TheBloggess.com, “And that’s why you should learn to pick your battles“- pretty clickworthy right?

Seasonal

Having a seasonal reference in your headline may decrease the immediate lifecycle of your post, but think about the future potential of the headline. Next winter, summer, fall, or spring the post may resurrect itself. Example: “10 Halloween Costumes for SEOs“.

Cultural Reference

Everybody likes a Jersey Shore reference right? Okay so maybe that’s just me, but other cultural references can jazz up your headlines. Use events like celebrity news, TV shows, movies, sayings (#Winning!), and –isms to add cultural references and appeal to your headlines. Did you read our recent post? “How Justin Bieber Can Boost Your Blog’s Traffic“. Adding Justin Bieber to your headline worked for our very own Michael Schwartz on his blog ValleyoftheSuns.com, and actually drove traffic to his wrap up post on the VM blog too.

Learn From Tony Robbins

Use inspirational headlines to attract links, traffic, and good karma too. Using a few Tony Robbins quotes you can come up with some good headlines. “Make Your Life a Masterpiece in 3 Easy Steps”, “5 Decisions That Will Shape Your SEO Destiny”, “Concentrate Your Power to Master Sewing”.

Give Insider Info

Crafting a headline or blog post idea that involves telling a secret, giving insider information or little known information has shown success. Example: “50 Life Secrets and Tips” – Over 25,000 likes, 427,000 stumbles (generating over 1.3 million visitors), and 1,730 tweets.

Scare the Reader

Scare tactics to entice clicks has worked for some writers. Crafting a headline with the words mistake or fail can make a reader wonder – am I making these mistakes? Am I a failure?

Facts

Simply using the word facts in your headline, or actually stating a proven fact, can transform your headline into a clickworthy and linkworthy masterpiece. “Do You Know These 5 Brutal Facts About Building a Successful Website?“, “Women Are Smarter Than Men and Other Facts About Life”. Okay that last one isn’t a real headline, but it should be!

Quotes

Whether inspirational, funny, famous or otherwise interesting – quotes as headlines can add interest to an otherwise dull topic. “I Have a Dream Too“, “Let Them Eat Cake or a GF Chocolate Torte“, “I’ll Be On You Like a Spider Monkey … Bread“.

Case Study

Everybody loves a case study. Well, maybe not everyone – but you get the idea. Most traditional case studies, like those shown here, have long complicated headlines. Notice anything missing? Almost all of the headlines/titles don’t say what they are – case studies! Sure, some of the headlines are pretty interesting and clickworthy, but why not end (or start) with the words “case study”? Example: “The Bystander Effect: A Case Study“, “Case Study: 5 Factors Behind One Startup’s Rapid Growth“.

Appeal to the Fiscally Responsible

Giving readers ways to save money, make more money, or get something for free can produce great results. When crafting a headline make sure you entice the user to click by letting them know what they’ll receive when they do. DumbLittleMan.com used this appeal in their headline, ““30 Easy Ways to Save Money (and No, you are not doing them all!)“. Sure the title is a little long, but effective: 156 tweets, 1236 e-mail shares, 282 comments, and 28,600 shares on Facebook.

Urgency

Using strong and urgent keywords in your headline is a commonly used technique. In the post “Grab Attention with Headlines“, the writer discusses overuse of certain terms having lost meaning to readers today. Be careful with your choice of urgent and strong keywords in headlines, “readers encounter the same words repeated to the point of the word losing its meaning”.

The writer suggests using a Thesaurus to find alternative words to replace the overused. Use impelling, momentous, paramount, or vital in lieu of overused words like urgent. Keep in mind your target audience, however. Some experts suggest using easier to understand words, due in part to some studies showing that the average U.S. adult reads at the 7^th grade level.

Verb it Up

As suggested earlier in this post, headlines with a call to action are a good idea. The use of present tense verbs, or verbs in general, is often against the rules of newspaper headline writing. But with writing web headlines most experts suggest its usage.

Use Superlatives

This tip is often applicable to writing headlines for social media. Pumping up your headline with superlatives like super big, best ever, the coolest, most bizarre, etc… are an easy way to attract attention.

Controversy

This tip comes with a bit of warning. The use of controversial headlines may have negative effects on your own personal brand or corporate identity. If you do indeed make the decision to go controversial be prepared for the possible outcomes. Here at Vertical Measures a few years ago we tried this out with Arnie’s post “An SEO is Not a Link Builder” which received over 100 comments. In crafting your headline and post you can do so in a way that is controversial but won’t overly tarnish your reputation with a bit of careful creativity and planning.

Tips from the Experts

Use a Formula

CopyBlogger.com’s post “10 Sure-Fire Headline Formulas That Work” can help you out if you’ve hit a road block and can’t come up with a catchy headline.

Stick to the Three Main Classes (self-interest, news, curiosity)

SEOBook.com offers up “How to Craft Kick-Ass Title Tags & Headlines” by playing to self interest, announcing something new, and appealing to curiosity seekers.

Appeal to Two Audiences

Andy Beal at MarketingPilgrim.com offers up his suggestions on optimizing blog post titles. Develop headlines for your initial blog readers, and think about your Google readers too.

Gain Inspiration from a Table of Contents

Sarah Moraes, VM’s Marketing Manager, attended one of Ryan Lee‘s webinars. He suggests searching through Amazon to find a book on a topic you want to write about. Look through the Table of Contents for inspiration on headlines and topic ideas too.

Do (or Don’t) Use These 1,000 “Headline of the Day” Examples

Last but certainly not least these 1,000 headline examples may help you conjure up a great headline idea. Get inspiration from what others are doing well, or what they do horribly. With so many example headlines listed you’re sure to find one that will fit your needs.

Well there you have it, 30 headline writing tips. Did I miss some (I’m sure I did…)? Leave your additions to the list in the comments below.

A great friend of the Vertical Measures team recently informed us of Buddy Media’s “Strategies for Effective Facebook Wall Posts: A Statistical Review”. Have any of our readers had a chance to take a look at this comprehensive data report?

Back in July I eluded to a few of the messaging strategies talked about in this data report in my post, “Targeting Your Facebook Messaging”. Their data certainly helps users to see just how effective certain strategies are. Buddy Media does a great job of summarizing messaging strategies in succinct tidbits for readers to quickly and easily understand, with the numbers to back up their information.

Let’ examine a few of my favorites from this Facebook report:

Shorter Is Better – But Not When It Comes to URLs

Not surprisingly, their data has found that posts with character lengths of 80 or less actually received 27% higher engagement. One quick look through FunnyStatus.com and you can see that short messages, especially of the humor variety, resonate quiet well.

But surprisingly (at least to me), is the fact that engagement rates were 3x higher for posts that used a full length URL vs. a URL shortened. I suppose it makes sense, given a user doesn’t know where the link will go may detract from their need to engage.

From a brands perspective, I like the idea of using a shortened URL to quickly and accurately count click through rates, geographic data, etc… Buddy Media suggests at least creating a branded shortened URL so the user has some idea where they may be going. Here at VM we will also customize the URL, like you can do with Bit.ly. For example, have a How To eBook about Facebook? Use the customized URL: http://bit.ly/eBookFacebookHowTo.

Time to Post… Try Outside of Work Hours on Thursdays and Fridays

Finding the right time of day for your industry can be tricky, but in due time you’ll find that sweetspot. The data found in the report shows that messaging outside of work hours, I.E. early AM or PM, boasted a 20% higher engagement rate than during business hours. Most messages are posted during the week, with Thursday and Fridays as peak days, and with engagement rates 18% higher than other days of the week. Depending on the industry though the peak engagement days varied.

The report did caution, however, not to overlook the weekend. Many are engaged on the weekends, but brands seem to neglect this time to message out to their fans. Are your competitors messaging out on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon? Maybe this is an area where your brand can compete!

Tell ‘em What to Do!

Seems simple enough – ask a fan to “Like” and they will, tell a fan to “Comment” and they will. Be careful, however, with promotional keywords. A soft sell type of keyword will work well. Interrogative keywords like “why” don’t work, but “where”, “when”, “would” and “should” certainly do.

Lots of great information in this report, especially if you’re looking for an easy to digest piece.

What did you find most interesting or surprising? Tell us, in the comments below!