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The Facts: Of the Top 5 websites on the internet, Google and Yahoo! are first and second while numbers 3, 4, and 5 are major social networks MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube. And YouTube just passed Yahoo! as the second most searched page on the internet, after Google.
The Benefit: By creating a presence on Google, Yahoo!, and the big social networks, your business can be in the forefront of your customer's eyes and minds, resulting in greater brand value, higher visibility, and increased profits.
How can your business harness social media forces like Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube, three of the top 5 websites on the internet, and use them as tools for branding, expanding, and increasing the visibility and profits? SociaLight Media can help!
How can you optimize your site to take advantage of organic page ranking and positioning on the internet's top 2 most visited sites, Google and Yahoo! and turn them into your greatest source of advertising? SociaLight Media can help!
Whether you've been in business for 30 years or 30 minutes, Socialight Media can help position you at the top of Web 2.0 using tools like Social Networks, Social Media, Search Engine Optimization, and Google AdWords.
What's New in Social Media?
- Ignite Social Media Turns Two: Happy birthday to us!
We launched this blog on July 2, 2007 as the first public face of our new company. One visitor showed up. Not sure how s/he found us. Two years and a couple hundred thousand visitors later, we're having a lot of fun.
We've built a team (around 20 of us right now), written a book on social media marketing that made 3 Amazon best seller lists, had a lot of fun and, best of all, worked with some great clients.
Thanks to our clients!
Clearly there is no second birthday with no clients. Special thanks to (in approximate order of joining with us):
Detroit Renaissance
Comcast
The UAW
Nature Made (including SAM-e, which always puts us in a good mood)
United Way for Southeastern Michigan
Loobalee
Carolina Ballet
Emily K
National CineMedia (Fathom Events and Worship Solutions)
Gilbarco Veeder-Root
The Ad Council
The Body Shop
Intel
The National Endowment for Financial Education
UNICEF
Microsoft (Windows)
The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (EHP/NIH)
Silly Birthday Video Tradition
Since we did a video for our first birthday, we decided to do it again today. Just a little frivolity and a way to show the great team we've assembled here. It's our tribute to The Office. Enjoy!
Feel free to make fun of us in the comments below.
2 July 2009 | 3:38 pm - From Interactive to Social Websites:
Two of the most commonly confused concepts in social media are the idea of “social” versus “interactive.” Simply put, interactive means that there is stuff for people to do on your website beyond just reading. There are levels of interactivity, and for today’s post, I’m going to use Kashi’s highly interactive website as an example. Making something social implies that there is a heavy emphasis on the actual sharability ( I think I just made that word up, so don’t forget to give me some backlinks for it) of the content. The two concepts are not interchangeable, and you can have interactivity without the social component.
Enter the Kashi website. Kashi is one of those niche brands that has a solid base of true lovers. If you’ve ever been on a road trip and rescued from fast food damnation by one of their GoLean! Roll Bars, then you understand what I mean.
Their website, aside from being informative, also doubles as an interactive community. You sign up, sign in, and you have access to coupons, tips, recipes, and blog posts about wellness and healthy living. You can comment, participate in health challenges, and leave mini-status updates about your daily accomplishments.
I love this idea: the site is cleanly designed, easy to navigate, and is full of content that is pertinent to their target demographic. What I want for Kashi, though, is to make their brand more social. There are a couple of easy ways they can do this, just by expanding on what they’ve already begun.
Twitter
If I were Kashi, I would establish a Twitter presence just to witness all of the love. My Twitter search turned up tweet after tweet of praise for Kashi’s products and philosophy, so just imagine if a corporate Twitter account existed where they could direct all of these good vibes. Twitter would also give Kashi a direct channel for communicating, say, a product recall to people who are clearly consuming their products on a daily basis.
Facebook
Kashi’s Facebook account appears to be driven by someone who is affiliated with the company, however, because I couldn’t find any reference to it on their website, I wasn’t sure. This is one of the most easily fixed issues that I have with companies branching out into social media: if you’re establishing a presence somewhere online, please, oh pretty please, put a link to it on your homepage. It’s such a simple move, and saves your customers the confusion of trying to figure it out. I don’t want to follow Kashi on Facebook if it was created by some guy trying to sell his Acai weightloss pills.
Integration
The next step is to integrate these elements. At the very least, put a link to your Twitter profile on your homepage. At best, drop your feed directly onto your landing page so that people can browse your tweets without having to leave your site, meaning more time on site for you.
Use Facebook Connect so that when people enter their daily accomplishments, they automatically update their status as well. And Twitter, too, while we’re at it. On the current Kashi site, the only way to share content is to email it, but by adding the ability to share on Facebook or Twitter, you are allowing your interactive members to become ambassadors of your brand in the social sphere without doing any additional work.
Kashi’s little polls would make excellent Facebook discussion board topics, and they just need a little “Tweet This” button under their daily tips to exponentially increase their reach. What is so great about a website like Kashi’s is that they have already laid the groundwork for social media. Now all they need is the genius little bit of strategy, and they’ll be the 7-Grain darlings of the social world.
30 June 2009 | 5:16 pm - Social Media Example #18: Rubbermaid: Number 18 on our list of 26 Social Media Marketing Examples is Rubbermaid. I was pretty excited about researching Rubbermaid because I’m secretly an organization freak! I love buying new organizational supplies and finding ways to organize anything and everything. An organized house makes for an organized life - too bad I don’t use that same motto with my car or desk at work.
Rubbermaid.com
Back to our social media example. Let’s jump right into my observations and recommendations, shall we? The Rubbermaid site is primarily focused on ecommerce. Each individual link a) provides a way to purchase products, provides full details about a specific product, b) provides tips and tricks on how to use the product or c) both a and b. While I understand an ecommerce section to the site is pertinent, as that’s how they garner online sales, I think the site could be more effective and user-friendly by driving traffic to one specific ecommerce portion of the site and and then dedicating the remainder of the site to building a more interactive atmosphere.
However, I got excited when I saw the "Tips & Solutions" section. I thought "Oh! They’re going to show me how to get organized. YES!" Unfortunately, that was not the case. Again, just more detailed content about the products and their uses that read like a big sales pitch to me. There was one cool thing to note about this section, however, and that is that there is actually a RSS feed and a sharing option. The ability to share content is one of the fundamental benefits to social media, but it’d be far more useful to the consumer: if the content were more share-worthy (i.e. genuine tips and tricks I’d like to share with friends/family).
Adventures in Organization
"Adventures in Organization" is Rubbermaid’s blog, and it’s apparent to me that they know their audience. They’ve featured mom bloggers, organizational bloggers and frugal mom bloggers on the Adventures blog. Besides that, there are a number of other specifics that I like about the blog. The multiple authors give you a sense of each individual personality behind-the-scenes, and the fact that they spotlight these same personalities on Facebook and Twitter makes it that much more appealing. I feel as if I know something intimate about each personality like how Lauren’s refrigerator at home is very well organized and how Jim now believes that everything he learned about social media came from Mister Rogers and Mr. Hooper of Sesame Street.
The use of other influencers, such as the Consumer Queen, draws a large crowd that is searching for the how-to tips. Unfortunately, I believe there are a number of issues that keep this hidden treasure away from the masses. The main issue, so simple yet so essential, is that the blog is buried in the "new products" section. By simply calling the blog out on the homepage, you can draw a significant amount of additional blog traffic.
The other issue I see is that over 75% of the content feels like a sales pitch. It seems to restate product information already on the site. Don’t get me wrong, I would read the blog to learn about the products as well, I mean it is Rubbermaid, but what I’m interested in is not learning more about the quality but instead seeing more "how-to" articles and videos that provide tips on how to get organized and suggestions on what products are most useful for that specific project. The remaining 25% of posts that are "how-to" articles and videos, guest posts, interviews with professional organizers, etc. are much more appealing (to me and likely the vast majority of the readership).
@rubbermaid on Twitter
Though I’m not blown away by the main Rubbermaid site, I am pretty excited about their Twitter account, @rubbermaid. Jim Deitzel, one of 6 Rubbermaid bloggers, is currently tweeting for Rubbermaid. The first thing that caught my eye is how humanized the presence is. Deitzel is very active with the Rubbermaid followers, responding to their questions, concerns and even fun comments. He consistently @replies to consumers who tweet things of interest to him, and he retweets content that is relevant.
There are a number of tweets about Rubbermaid products and promotions, but could you really expect a brand like Rubbermaid to be on Twitter and never say anything about their products? I certainly appreciate the heads up about their sales. If I’m looking for Rubbermaid on Twitter, it’s not because I want to make a new friend. I’m interested in organizational tips and the products that can be used to execute those tips. The combination of personal interaction and product-related info is perfect because it provides followers with utility and personality for your brand.
Rubbermaid on Facebook
The final stop during my research was the Rubbermaid Facebook fan page. One thing I noticed about the page is that it serves as a one stop shop. The wall only lists a series of links from Rubbermaid’s blog posts and links to bloggers that are either reviewing Rubbermaid products or are doing Rubbermaid giveaways. There’s no interaction with fans.
They have some good content in other tabs on the page, but in order to really lure fans into engaging with your content, it’d probably be beneficial to begin by interacting with users within the wall tab because this is the first thing users see when they visit the page. This could encourage more people to become fans and will also likely encourage current fans to further explore what the page has to offer like discussions, opportunities for fans to share tips and tricks, etc.
I think the fan page could be extremely beneficial to its fans but needs to be much more inviting. I would recommend transforming the positioning of content and information. Continue to add links to posts on the fan page, but don’t congest it with only that information. I think they should bring forth some of the discussion topics to the wall, share tips in the notes section, prompt fans to get in on the action by sharing their own tips, and possibly even provide fans the opportunity to ask questions and get expert and fan advice.
Final Thoughts
I love the multiple voices and personalities of Rubbermaid. Through stories and images I feel as if I know each one individually. But am I the only one that has perused their content only to be disappointed by the lack of information and the redundancy of product information? I think it’s obvious they’re not afraid to utilize social media, and they’re definitely giving it a valiant effort, but they should veer a little further away from the "marketing talk" and really focus on engaging the consumer. What do you think?
26 June 2009 | 7:01 am
FaceReviews: Facebook Applications Reviews and Facebook News
- Facebook Launches Persian Version Amongst Iranian Unrest: Since the Iranian election last week, people around the world have increasingly been sharing news and information on Facebook about the results and its aftermath. Much of the content created and shared on Facebook related to these events has been in Persian - the native language of Iran - but the users have had to [...]
18 June 2009 | 11:47 pm - A Must Attend Social Media Event For Business: Gravity Summit: This is an event that I am producing. We have had 2 previous events at UCLA and Stanford that sold out and the feedback from attendees was phenomenal. We educate, inform and empower the attendees by having tier 1 presenters that share actual case studies, best practices and lessons learned.
This event is different from [...]
11 June 2009 | 3:48 pm - Hey Amigo Check Out this Amazing Friend Feed iPhone App: Amigo for FriendFeed Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
I have been working with David Hinson who is an amazingly talented developer and i had the privilege of being one of the beta tester of his latest iPhone creation: Amigo for Friend Feed.
I did some of the testing of the app and watched it [...]
11 June 2009 | 5:05 am
- You Can Get a Pingdom Account Free Now: This week I got an email from the Pingdom CEO mentioning that they are now offering free accounts. That is good news for all small bloggers out there.
You Can Get a Pingdom Account Free Now
4 July 2009 | 7:01 am - Video: How to Build a High Traffic Blog: Over the last WordCamp San Francisco Tim Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek (name of both his book and blog), gave a presentation on "how to build a high traffic blog without killing yourself."
Video: How to Build a High Traffic Blog
3 July 2009 | 2:56 pm - Now You Can Use Dynamic Subject Lines for Your Feedburner Emails: This was probably the most requested feature in the history of Feedburner. Until yesterday, if people subscribed to your blog via the Feedburner email service, all the subject lines of your emails would be static, containing either the name of your blog or some other text that you would specify.
Now You Can Use Dynamic Subject Lines for Your Feedburner Emails
2 July 2009 | 1:28 pm