Increase Your Shareability With The Meebo Bar

Today we installed the Meebo Bar WordPress Plugin on this site.

If you look at the screenshot below you’ll see it adds a “bar” along the bottom with several social and sharing functions…

Hovering the “Share Page” button on the bar allows visitors to your site to quickly share the page…

We also setup the ability for visitors to ask us questions when they are on the site. If you are reading something and have a question about it – just ask us! We’ll try to get back to you right away.

We also added the RSS, Twitter, Facebook, and StumbleUpon buttons using the easy configuration tool provided by Meebo. The RSS button pulls the latest from our RSS feed. The Twitter button pulls our latest tweets. The Facebook Button shows off our fan page widget. And the StumbleUpon button lets you share it to the SU network.

If you have any questions about the Meebo bar and integrating it into your website, jump into our forums or leave us a comment here.

Intersection of Search and Social Media

A video with Aaron Goldman about the future of search and social

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Using Data To Better Connect With Your Customers

Are you making data driven decisions?

“Attracting the right customers to your website will help you finish off 2009 strong and charge ahead in 2010. Few marketers realize that there is free data available, which is easy to access and can help you better target your advertising.

Avinash Kaushik leads a discussion to share ways for Using Data to Better Connect with Your Customers. You’ll learn how to find and use data from Google Trends for Websites, Insights for Search, and Ad Planner. Avinash offers tips for using this data to focus on your most relevant audiences and maximize your return-on-investment immediately. And you’ll walk away knowing how to make the most relevant decisions to drive your business forward.”

via YouTube and Think2010

Facebook For Business

Twitter Marketing

Learn more about Twitter marketing…

Can You Measure Social Media?

Short Answer: Yes, using the proper tools. And that’s what our Web Strategy Academy is for – to show you how to use the tools. But for now focus on listening and engaging your community and you will see results.

Check out this slide deck from Pop Labs Social Media Bootcamp to get started…

Getting Started in Social Media

Here are 40 key elements to help you get started using Social Media from Michael Fruchter.

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5 Steps to Finding Your Community

So you have a business, a blog, and a Twitter account… Now what? One of the first recommendations we give to our web strategy clients is to find their community and engage them in value-added conversation.

The first rule in Social Media Marketing is to add value to your community and NEVER use it as a marketing soapbox. As an example, do not broadcast “Check out our awesome widget! Buy it today!” on Twitter. This is not adding value to your community – it is simply creating noise and gives your community the perception that you are here to use them. Don’t use them, engage them.

But this assumes that you have found your community… Here are 5 steps to help you find your social communities.

1. Use Twitter Search

Use Twitter’s search to find people talking about the topics which interest you or are related to your company and product. As an example we seek out people who are talking about web strategy – so we can learn more and be there as a resource for beginners. In this instance, we have subscribed to “web strategy” on Twitter Search.

2. Use Twellow

Twellow is often referred to as “Twitter Yellowpages”. Basically it helps you find people based on their interest, business, expertise, etc. Let’s say you have an online store that sells knitting supplies. If you search for “knitting” on Twellow you will find all the people that knit or are interested in knitting. Following them on Twitter will likely give you an idea of what kind of products they are looking for and where they are currently getting their supplies…

3. Use Google Blogsearch

Google Blogsearch does exactly what it says – searches blogs. It is essential to identify topical bloggers in your niche when you seek out your community. Not only will they give you ideas and thoughts on your own business – it gives you an opportunity to have a conversation in the comments on focused topics of which you are an expert in.

4. Use SocialMention

SocialMention is a tool that scours the “social web” for topics.  It searches blogs, microblogs, comments, Twitter, bookmark sites, FriendFeed, etc, etc. Again – if you are looking for the knitting community online, simply search “knitting” and you can track the conversation across all social media outposts.

5. Use BackType

BackType is a service that searches comments left on blogs.. This is a great way to find people that are leaving a lot of comments on your topic and where they are commenting at. If you want to find the top commenter on “knitting” posts, it’s an easy search. Finding these commenters gives you the ability to join the conversation around your niche by targeting some top commenters.

REMEMBER: Don’t use social media as a marketing blowhorn – it will come back to haunt you.