TOP TEN WEB HOSTING (2009)

Social Media Marketing

Mobile area merchants should familiarize themselves with social media and quickly learn to participate in the growing trend of off-site Web development. I’m sure you caught the buzz words off-site, meaning it’s not your website you’re working on, and web development – you are using the Web but again, not just to host your website.

Businesses should be developing their internet presence outside of their own websites.  This will help attract customers. You are, in essence, posting a lot of signs on the web pointing to your business.  the more signs you have out on the web, the more likely potential customers are to find you.

Gulf Thunder Corporation allocates considerable time and resources into managing the effectiveness of our clients’ Facebook presence.  We do the same for their Twitter profiles, blogs and RSS feeds.

Below are five places to develop your brand:

1. Discount sites:
   Consumers like discounts sites. One trend with a growing influence is coupon sites. RetailMeNot.com attracts more than six million visitors per month and just watch what it does by the end of the year. Consumers visit to find coupons to products.  If you can, consider coupons.  Other coupon sites to get to know  are Groupon.com, FatWallet.com and CouponCabin.com.
2. Facebook:
   Millions of Facebook users update their statuses with news or offerings from brands, but you can’t just announce products on Facebook; you have to give people a reason to share. That means special offers and discounts. Also, make sure your Facebook presence is customized to your brand – with your logo and special sections of the page specific to your brand and industry. Don’t limit yourself to your own page – there are plenty of special interest organizations and other “clubs” on Facebook where you can make your presence known.
3. Twitter:
   Twitter is an excellent place to connect with users who are accustomed to spreading messages. This is where you want to “tweet” your sales, discounts, coupons and any other special you may offer.  Just like at Facebook, make sure your Twitter ID is representative of your brand, your logo is consistent and identifiable and that your messages provide true value.  With Twitter lists, your tweets can extend far, far beyond Twitter itself and onto blogs, websites and other social profiles and networks.
4. YouTube:
   Online video is big; really big.  Video is appearing in more search results and videos are easily shared through Facebook, Twitter, e-mail and more, but the supreme leader is YouTube. Businesses should create videos for their products and services. The videos can be users manuals or explanation of your products features.  Lots of viewers will enjoy a video that introduces your business and your products – especially if you can make it fun.  Optimize your videos with keywords in the title and links to your website or product page in the video description.
5. Q&A sites:
   More people use the Internet to research products and services than any other type of research. Take a good look at your business, your services and your products and write down a list of questions your customers might ask when considering your offer.  Then, check out Q&A sites like Yahoo! Answers and any forums for your products or services. Be subtle but be sure to include your sales message in your answers. You should also consider doing some guest-blogging on an industry related website – this one act has huge results – it positions you as a trusted authority figure.
6. Blogs:
   A blogger’s lifeblood is his or her readers. Catch the attention of just a few widely recognized bloggers and your business brand will end up on Facebook, Twitter, Digg, and possibly thousands of other blogs and websites. Take the time to identify top bloggers in your industry and send them some free products and follow up.

Social Media Optimization

Your website is the most important contact point for consumers this holiday season. That’s true all of the year but most important during the holidays.  More and more, consumers seek out and expect to find your business at their convenience, whenever and wherever they might be online. Be sure they can find you and make it an experience they will not forget.

Now that you know the importance of participating in social media marketing, what can be done to get with the program?  Gulf Thunder Corporation advises attention to the following areas which we call Social Media Optimization (SMO).  You may like to see a partial map of our procedures flowchart.

1. Increase your linkability
   This is the first and most important priority for websites.  Many sites are “static” – meaning they are rarely updated and used simply for a storefront.  To optimize a site for social media, we need to increase the linkability of the content.  Adding a blog is a great step, however there are other ways such as adding original content, or bringing together information about your specific industry or business type.

2. Make tagging and bookmarking easy
   Add linking  features like quick buttons to “add to del.icio.us” are one way to make the process of tagging pages easier, make sure your web pages include a list of relevant tags, suggested notes for a link (which come up automatically when you go to tag a site), and making sure to tag our pages first on popular social bookmarking sites (including more than just the homepage).
3. Reward inbound links
   Inbound links are at the top of the most desired characteristics of a site.  When other sites are linking to you, it becomes evident that what you have to say is important to others as well as yourself.  To encourage more website owners and bloggers to link to your site, make it easy for them to link to your site and provide clear rewards.
4. Help your content travel - Social Media Optimization is not just about making changes to your site.  When you have content that can be portable (such as PDFs, white papers, charts, spreadsheets, video files and audio files), submitting them to relevant sites will help your content travel further, and ultimately drive links back to your site.
5. Encourage the mashup – It pays to be open about letting others use your content.  YouTube’s idea of providing code to cut and paste so you can imbed videos from their site has fueled their growth.  Syndicating your content through RSS also makes it easy for others to create mashups that can drive traffic or augment your content.