Cleaning Your "Cyber Closet" With Social Bookmarking

What is Social Bookmarking?

Have you ever found the greatest website in existence, got distracted by life, and when you finally had the time to enjoy it you could no longer find or remember the link? Well if this sounds like you I have the perfect solution! Social Bookmarking.

            What is Social Bookmarking you ask? Well it’s a revolutionary new online tool that allows users to save links to websites, articles, or media and save it in their own personal library for a later date. This is the bookmarking part of it. The social part comes from your ability to share your bookmarked links with friends or the public. As well as being a great communication tool social bookmarking has several other benefits:

Social Bookmarking Can Help Promote Your Business

Because the links you post to your library can be made public, you can use this to your advantage and self-promote. Post links to your own personal website or on related topics. The more bookmarks you make the greater online visibility you will have. No publicity is bad publicity. Right? An added benefit to this is because social bookmarking sites are known for containing fresh information search engines are always accessing them, so there is a possibility that if you are consistently bookmarking your website it will be higher ranked on search engines such as Google.

Social Bookmarking Can Keep You Organized

If you are a messy individual such as myself, social bookmarking can help you out. I mean it won’t clean your room or anything for you but it can organize your links and online resources. Whenever you save a link you have the option to tag keywords to it, this is important because if you have thousands of links saved in your library you will have an extremely difficult time trying to find it. But by attaching keywords to it you can search your library in seconds and find the link you are looking for. Bam! Instant Organization at your fingertips.

Social Bookmarking is a Collaboration Tool

If you are a student or even an employee that does projects with multiple people, social bookmarking sites allow you to set up groups with specific people. So if you are trying to share and coordinate information with multiple people, social bookmarking is a fantastic tool for that.

Recommendations

Twitter and Pinterest are actually considered social bookmarking sites; these are helpful if you are trying to promote a business because there are so many active users. But if you are looking more for a streamlined personal site that allows you to regulate your level of privacy I would recommend Diigo. Diigo is very simple and easy to use.

Useful Links 

http://www.submitedge.com/learn-seo/What-Are-The-Top-Benefits-Of-Social-Bookmarking.html

http://www.geekworldnews.org/benefits-of-social-bookmarking.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zn4aL9obmyw

Content Is Like Fruit; The Best Is Fresh

 The 3 Pillars of Inbound Marketing

The definition of inbound marketing can be interpreted in many different ways, one of these ways is Permission-based online techniques like blogs, e-books, webinars, videos, tweets of information, etc. that are used to draw people to you. This is slowly replacing Outbound marketing which uses things such as print ads, newspapers, and radio and television commercials.

                Inbound Marketing is set up using “3 pillars”. These pillars include SEO or search engine optimization, Content Marketing, and finally Social Media.

1.) SEO (Search Engine Optimization): SEO is how your website ranks in search engines such as google. This does not include the paid advertisements that you see, it is strictly based on how much web traffic your website receives. Although there are some ways in which you can control and maintain your SEO a majority of it is believed to be out of your control. A rough estimate is 25% of your SEO is based on the keywords you chose to link your website to, the URL itself, and the copy and content of the page. These things can all be controlled by the creator. Unfortunately about 75% of SEO is based on how other webpage’s are linked to your website. Anytime your website is linked to another the search engine views this as a recommendation of sorts so therefore the more recommendations you have the higher on the search engine you will be. SEO is very important because most consumers don’t have the time or the mindset to sort through thousands of links so naturally they chose the first one that they see that fits what they are looking for, so if you are near the top you will obviously get more traffic than if you were near the bottom.

2.) Content Marketing:  The content that you have presented on your web page may be the most important aspect of inbound marketing. First and for most we live in a Web 2.0 society meaning that the content on your page must be interactive and it must serve as a communication tool between the customer and yourself. (Examples: live chats, comment pages, emailing lists). The content on your page must also be constantly updated and current; people do not want to read the same information over and over again. And although your webpage is professional the content on your page should sound human not like a robot. People are tired of hearing all the corporate lingo that has acted as a mask for businesses throughout the years. Real people are reading your webpage and they would like to read “real” content from a “real” individual.

“The best websites are designed by those who think like publishers … who start with a content strategy, and then focus on delivery” David Meerman Scott

3.) Social Media: Social Media wraps SEO and content marketing up and turns them into one cohesive action. The term “Social Media” does not refer to specific applications such as Twitter or Face book but rather how they are applied and the return on investment they receive. You must first make a strategy and then follow through with it; you must make sure that all the social media applications in which you are using are linked to one another. And you must remember that your ultimate goal in this is to form long lasting relationships with the consumer as well as seek out new ones.

http://davemorse.net/  (Blog I used that was very helpful)

http://www.whitespace.on.ca/Blog/bid/89127/3-Pillars-of-an-Effective-Inbound-Marketing-Strategy 

Social Media Leadership vs Traditional Leadership

 Social Media Leadership vs Traditional Leadership

Social Media is a game changer when it comes to advertising and promoting your business, most business professionals are aware of this change but are unable to fully grasp the concept of it. They know that in order for them to maintain and grow their business they will need to become part of this culture but lack the knowledge and understanding on how to implement such practices. The following quote is a good example on how social media must be used in a strategic way or else it is seemingly useless.

“Would you pick up a phone and randomly dial 10-digits? Unless you’re prank calling, probably not. The phone is a tool for communication, just like social media is a tool. Before making a phone call, sending a tweet or launching a blog, strategy is essential. It will guide the decisions you make, the platforms you use and how you interact.” (Quote by Sarah Evans)

Half the battle when it comes to social media strategies is finding your market of consumers. Social media comes in all shapes and forms from Face book and Twitter to Blogs and Social forums. Finding where most of your audience is coming from and actively communicating with them is where the real challenge lies. The best way to find your audience initially is by doing a trial and error process; first by creating several different social media applications and then tracking your progress and internet traffic on a site such as google analytics. Then from there you can see where your marketing has proven must successful and focus your attention on that site and audience.

Leadership is more difficult in social media because your audience is unknown at first, and they are global. It is also more difficult to monitor the behavior of your employees, because they may have personal social media accounts that can affect your business. As employees of your company they are constantly representing your product and business, so your company’s reputation is constantly at stake. As compared to traditional type businesses where leadership skills come in at a more direct level and you have a more direct control on employee behaviors.

Some people argue that social media doesn’t even have a strategy linked to it yet because it is still too new for people to fully understand its capabilities.

“Social-media strategy” is over-rated if not a downright oxymoron. The goal is to do more business. Social-media is a means to that end. Maybe you’ll use it to establish warm and fuzzy communal feelings. Maybe you’ll sell excess inventory. Don’t focus on some kind of high-level strategy because no one really knows how to use social media yet. Focus on tactics: Get more followers, make them happy, promote your stuff to them every once in a while. That’s all you need to know about strategy right now.” (Quote by Guy Kawasaki) 

http://www.toprankblog.com/2010/04/strategy-tactics-social-media/ (Link to blog in which i used for information)

Social Media Marketing vs Traditional Marketing

 Social Media Marketing vs Traditional Marketing

Traditional forms of marketing have been around since there were products to sell. Traditional marketing includes print ads, billboards, television commercials, and traditional “salesman tactics”. But over the past few decades our technology has evolved and we now find ourselves in a world that is run by social media marketing. There are several major differences between traditional marketing and social media marketing that can either make or break a business.

Now that a majority of people are constantly connected to the internet in one form or another whether it be a computer, tablet, or mobile device they expect new and better forms of marketing and advertising. According to Colleen Dilenschneider’s blog she states that social media is 12.85 times greater than that of paid traditional media. This fact supports the idea that social media marketing highly influences the market.

            One reason as to why it may be so much more influential is because of the easy accessibility it possesses. Because people can access it anytime they want to they have a minor sense of control. Also it is updated 24/7 in real-time. Traditional marketing was a static occurrence and was rarely if ever updated. Because social media is always monitored it has become a powerful communication tool between consumers and business. Consumers can directly give feedback, comments, and information right from the business. Traditional marketing does not have the same communication ability; they sometimes struggle in order to find out what the consumer actually wants because they have no way of asking them directly.

            One of the best ways to market is to implement a strategy that combines both types of marketing. If a business is trying to promote themselves and they have a Facebook, Twitter, or blog that they are using they can incorporate the link into print ads such as flyers. Business can also use QR codes which are digital codes that can be placed on anything from cups, to business cards; an individual can instantly link to the businesses page just by using their smartphone. And the simplest yet most effective way to incorporate both social and traditional marketing is having an email list, where individuals sign up to receive promotions and information about your business. (Kehrer)

Link to Colleen Dilenschneider’s Blog: http://colleendilen.com/2013/06/18/5-key-reasons-why-social-media-strategies-are-different-than-traditional-marketing-strategies/

Link to Daniel Kehrer's Article: http://www.score.org/resources/7-ways-blend-social-media-and-traditional-marketing

(Video done By Craig Collins)