Posts Tagged ‘twitter’

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Experts are wrong: Twitter and Facebook help SEO

Tuesday, July 21st, 2009

By Robert Lockard

On Wednesday, July 15, 2009, I attended one of WebMarketing123.com’s free webinars, called “Increase Sales Through Social Media Optimization.” I highly recommend you attend these wonderful webinars. They teach a lot about search engine optimization, paid-search campaigns and other important ecommerce topics that can help your bottom line.

Free-Google-search coupon

At this particular webinar, the speakers talked a lot about optimizing websites to get the best results on search engines. That’s a topic I also covered in my seven-part SEO series a while back. The part that really caught my interest was when they talked about social media and its relation to SEO.

The speakers said Facebook and Twitter are not useful at all for gaining first-page ranking on search engines, like Google or Bing. Any links posted on these two websites have a “nofollow” tag in their HTML code, telling search engines to disregard them in their algorithms. The good news is links on other social networks, such as Digg, LinkedIn, Technorati and Propeller, actually do count toward SEO for your website.

I also took away from the webinar the fact that Facebook and Twitter are great for generating qualified leads. You can tweet about company offers or post links to landing pages on your Facebook wall to invite interested customers to your site. They can definitely help increase traffic to your website, though not through the search engines.

I think the webinar speakers got one thing wrong, though. They said Facebook and Twitter offer absolutely no help with SEO, but I think that’s only partly true. Yes, they don’t offer direct SEO because the links on them don’t attract search engines’ attention. But one of the reasons you post a link on these sites is to get other social-media users to find it and post a link to it on their own blog or website. And that does help with SEO because inbound links are powerful.

I think Twitter and Facebook are useful SEO tools, even though they might not seem so at first glance. I’ve been talking a lot about Twitter and Facebook in the last week. My last eHarbor blog entry was called “Is Twitter overhyped?” but now I’m starting to realize Twitter is more helpful than I previously thought. Both Twitter and Facebook are fascinating tools and they can be useful when incorporated into an overall marketing strategy that includes SEO and other online strategies.

The photo of the free Google search coupon is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of Bramus.

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Posted in SEO, Social Media | 2 Comments »

Is Twitter overhyped?

Friday, July 17th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

I read an interesting discussion on Reddit with the heading, “Anyone else think media exaggerates the usefulness of Twitter?” The author makes a strong argument that Twitter is not as effective as many say it is. He starts his diatribe by saying,

Everywhere I look, it’s Twitter this, Twitter that. I feel that Twitter, although a nifty little social networking tool, is simply the medium of choice for the “old” and “non-tech savvy” to try and relate to the younger technical audience.

How Twitter took over the worldThis person goes on to compare Twitter to other social-networking sites, such as Facebook and MySpace, and find it wanting. This discussion caught my eye because I have been hearing nothing but good things about Twitter, so it was refreshing to hear a different take on the subject.

Twitter is well-known as a way for people to talk about mundane, everyday tasks they are currently doing. Remember the time traveler describing Twitter to people in the past? In that light, it seems like a silly waste of time. But others tout it as a great way to stay in constant contact with clients. For instance, Twitter is an excellent way to talk about new product releases, special deals, real-estate listings and other marketing information.

You can build a network of like-minded businesspeople and customers interested in your products or services, without the usual cost of traditional advertising and marketing.

But Twitter’s usefulness is limited. It might be good for instantly delivering news, but the credibility of anything reported on that site is extremely low. Twitter can easily be used to spread false ideas and unfair rumors. I have to take many things I read there with a grain of salt because there is no quality control or other way to make sure what is said is true without outside verification.

I’m not sure if I totally agree with the author of the discussion on Reddit, but I appreciate his courage in bringing some debate to the idea of social media.

I’ve been covering a lot of stories on social media and Facebook and Twitter, in particular, this week. I hope you’ve enjoyed my discussion on these important Internet marketing tools. We’ve got plenty more ecommerce topics to talk about in the eHarbor Blog, so keep coming back.

The photo of “How Twitter took over the world” is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of renaissancechambara.

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Posted in Social Media | 3 Comments »

Google can’t keep up with Twitter

Monday, July 13th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Have you noticed there is no definitive search engine for Twitter? There are certainly many attempts to search this social-networking site, such as Collecta, OneRiot, Scoopler and Twitter’s own search engine. But none of these delivers a structured, comprehensive view of what’s being said on Twitter.

Twitter's Over Capacity logo

The conversations are simply too fast to keep up with right now.

Google is a great tool for searching most websites, but it’s completely inadequate when it comes to finding or following a conversation on Twitter. Bing, Microsoft’s new search engine, is at least making an effort to jump into the social-networking arena, according to an article in ComputerWorld, entitled “Bing beats Google to the punch, launches Twitter search.”

Bing has gone through and selected a number of Tweeters with the most followers and added their most recent tweets to their search results when you search for them. For instance, if you search for “Tony Hawk Twitter” you will find Tony Hawk’s latest tweet at the top of the page.

These are just baby steps into a whole new world of social media. The Internet was a big jumble of information before search engines came along to create some sense of order from the chaos. Chaos seems to rule social-media sites at the moment, but some structure could be coming soon. The algorithms will have to be even more complex and extremely fast to keep up with the instant nature of Twitter.

Search engines will have to find a way to rank Twitter results by the authority of the tweeters, how new the tweets are and how many people are talking about a specific topic, among other things. Important conversations could easily slip through the cracks if no one with much authority is talking about them and search engines focus too much on that aspect in their rankings.

There needs to be a balance between the chaos of conversation and the order or rankings. We’ll see what happens.

You can follow eHarbor, Inc. on Twitter to stay updated on all of our eHarbor Blog entries and other important ecommerce news.

The fake Twitter “Over Capacity” logo is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of Mykl Roventine.

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Posted in Search Engines | 2 Comments »

Do you hate customer service?

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009

By Robert Lockard

You’re not alone if you do. Customer service has gotten a bad name in recent years, but customers are trying to fight back. According to a CNN article, entitled “Customer service ‘vigilantes’ target executives,” customers who receive poor customer service from a company are turning to social media to vent their frustrations and get service.

"No Whining" customer service signThe CNN article includes several funny and interesting stories of people’s attempts to get the attention of companies’ management in order to solve a problem. One person tweeted an executive on Twitter, while another person made a YouTube video and sent it to a company to get a response. Some people taped conversations with customer-service representatives and posted them online. This could be good or bad, depending on your level of customer service.

Do you want to do business with a company that seems to ignore your service requests or that takes too long to respond to your messages? Customers want to be respected. Companies depend on happy customers to stay in business. Word of mouth is more powerful than almost any other form of persuasive communication, so it’s essential to cultivate positive feelings in customers so they will react positively to your brand when speaking with family members and friends.

This topic harkens back to my discussion of earning online shoppers trust. We must be vigilant if we want our customers to use our services or buy our products.

I think it’s strange that any company could forget to take care of its customers, since they ought to be their central focus. Perhaps stress, limited resources and other factors can lead to poor customer service, but companies that make an effort to please their customers and work out problems kindly often live longer than companies that don’t.

The extra effort is worth it.

So do you hate customer service? Hopefully, if you’re in the ecommerce industry, you love it. Even more than that, your customers should love your customer service.

eHarbor, Inc. prides itself on strong customer service. If you call us or any of our affiliates, you’ll be pleasantly surprised by our high level of care and attention.

The photo of the whining sign is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of yummiec00kies.

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Posted in Ecommerce, SEO | 2 Comments »

Social media doesn’t equal SEO

Tuesday, May 26th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Social media is a great tool for businesses to communicate with customers. It gives marketers an opportunity to establish close contact with people in ways seemingly unthinkable until just a few years ago.

Winnie the Pooh and tiger too

Despite social media’s strengths, it should not be considered an end unto itself. Without other marketing strategies, such as search engine optimization, advertising, etc. a company’s efforts in social media could fall flat. A Brafton article entitled “Does social media increase SEO?” caught my interest and inspired this blog entry.

This is not the first time I’ve talked about social media and its effects on ecommerce in the eHarbor Blog. In one of my blog entries, I noted companies are increasing their spending on search engine marketing, despite the recession. In another, I point out companies are also reducing their social media spending slightly this year, after greatly expanding it over the last few years.

It seems like many businesses have learned the virtues of social media, but they are also prudent in their decisions to try to maximize return on investment. By getting to the top of search engines, companies can reach a wider number of Internet users than by using social media. Both are useful tools and should not be considered superior to the other. But it appears businesses are choosing the broader tool than the more personal one to help them through this recession.

In the Brafton article I mentioned above, Warren Cohen, CEO of SEO-focused Greenlight, said social media would probably not have a noticeable effect on SEO for a company’s website. SEO is built slowly by creating a search engine-friendly website, populating it with relevant content and building connections with similar websites.

A presence on Twitter, Facebook and other social sites is great and it can add to search-engine rankings, but it probably won’t have a significant impact.

Tried-and-true principles are your best options for getting to the top of Google, MSN and Yahoo. If you would like a more in-depth explanation of SEO and how to use it to your advantage, check out my blog entry “Search engine optimization at the drugstore” or my seven-part series on SEO tactics.

The photo of Winnie the Pooh and “Tigger” is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of JoshMcConnell.

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Posted in Ecommerce, SEO, Search Engines, eHarbor | 6 Comments »

Marketers cut social media presence when they need it most

Wednesday, May 20th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

I have discussed the growth of ecommerce many times in the eHarbor Blog. You can find lots of information on marketers joining ecommerce in my blog entries, “Bucking recession, ecommerce keeps growing” and “Strong sales attract retailers to ecommerce.” I will continue my streak by talking about ecommerce, though in a slightly different way.

Scissors cutting ethernet cable

The main reason companies keep moving into ecommerce is the revenue growth this industry is experiencing each year. During this recession, consumers have cut back on most spending, but they continue to spend more online, making it a popular alternative for businesses to thrive in hard times.

However, according to an article in B to B, a magazine for online marketers, companies are starting to spend less money advertising their services and brands in social networks, such as MySpace, Facebook and Twitter. The article I am referring to is entitled, “Social network ad spending projected to contract this year.”

The growth of advertisement spending on social-media sites has slowed in recent years, from a 129-percent increase in 2007 to 33 percent in 2008, and now an estimated 3-percent loss in 2009. To put it in real numbers, $1.18 billion was spent on social-media advertising in 2008.

Social media is an excellent way for businesses to interact with customers and even gain new ones, so it makes sense for them to jump into this arena. Maybe with all of the cuts businesses are making to compensate for the decline in consumer demand for many products, social media just doesn’t seem as important at the moment.

Ironically, it seems like social-media spending is one of the best investments a business can make, especially in a struggling economy. Consumers are shifting their time and money online, making social networks popular places to reach them. Companies that shy away from social media might be shooting themselves in the foot.

I discussed social media’s many strengths and weaknesses in my blog post, “Facebook’s growing pains could transform social media.” There are plenty of reasons to stay connected with your customers online. Keep trying and stay positive!

The photo of the scissors cutting an ethernet cable is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of nrkbeta.

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Posted in Ecommerce, eHarbor | 4 Comments »

Too much information is bad for you

Tuesday, April 28th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

In the digital age, information is not only plentiful, it’s downright endemic. We have Web analytics tools that can glean information on people who visit our websites.

Fat cat lies comfortably on chair

I will compare information gathering to eating. The more food we eat, the more weight we are likely to gain. If we eat everything we find, we’re not living a healthy lifestyle. It takes discipline and wisdom to choose the foods that our bodies need the most and then eat appropriate servings of them. A little variety doesn’t hurt either.

If we constantly eat and never do anything with that energy, even if the food we eat is good for us, we’ll probably become obese. People who become obese have a greater chance of premature death, just as ecommerce companies that become saturated with information and don’t do anything with it can die prematurely, as well. Not to mention suffer indigestion.

Information is a great thing, just like food. But we must use it wisely. We should gather information pertinent to our needs and then put it to good use in our online marketing decisions, product pricing, customer service, etc.

By the way, I got the idea for this blog entry from an article in Ecommerce Times, entitled, “Drowning in Data: Web Analytics and Information Overload.” That article has lots of insights into information gathering, and I took a piece and ran with it.

This leads me to some things I learned at a recent Webinar by Hubspot and Brent Leary, entitled “How to Use Social Media to Attract More Customers.” I promised I would talk more about this Webinar in my blog entry on Facebook, and I’ll keep my word now.

I highly recommend clicking on the Webinar link above to watch the hour-long presentation. You can also download the presentation slides in a PDF file to save time.

In the Webinar, I learned about websites I can use to both gather and organize information from social-media sites like Twitter. Here are the ones Leary mentioned:

- TubeMogul – distribute online videos and analyze viewers and impact.

- CoTweet – organize your conversations in Twitter.

- Salesforce – measure results in Twitter, Google and other online media.

- Bit.ly – shorten links and keep track of who clicks them.

- Favotter – another Twitter measurement site.

- Twitalyzer – in-depth information on your Twitter account.

I find these sites helpful in my efforts to focus the social-media exposure of eHarbor, Inc. and its affiliates. In fact, eHarbor’s affiliates help not only to create a website for you, but track and gain more visitors through search engine optimization and other strategies.

These companies include: Magellan Commerce, Real Estate Promoter, Submit Solution, and Direct Home Find.

Remember, you are what you eat – but it’s what you do with your time and energy that truly defines you.

The photo of the fat cat is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of brokinhrt2.

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Posted in Ecommerce, eHarbor | 2 Comments »

New York Times struggles to stay afloat

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009

By Robert Lockard

I read a Bloomberg article that said the New York Times is facing a large drop in revenue and is trying to cut back on its expenses to stay in business. The article is entitled, “New York Times Sees Further Ad Drop After Loss Widens.”

Tiger staying afloat in water

The New York Times is learning the hard way that ecommerce and online media are changing the way people gather information and the way marketers advertise their products to customers. They’re trying to stay afloat by cutting jobs, reducing their staff’s salaries and selling property and other assets to try to make up for lost advertising revenue.

All of this is prolonging the inevitable. Old media will have to adapt to changing conditions or go the way of the railroad.

For better or worse, Facebook, Twitter and other social-media sites are revolutionizing communication and information distribution. Marketers are shifting their advertising dollars online because it is much more cost-efficient to do so. Print faces serious challenges because of this.

One quote in the Bloomberg article stuck out to me above all the others. Thyra Zerhusen, managing director of Optimum Investment Advisors, said the New York Times has “to do a better job monetizing their online revenues.”

This seems to be a common theme for companies looking to make a profit online. Online marketers save money by hosting a website instead of renting space at a mall, but they need to understand doing business online is a big change from the old way of doing business and it requires different approaches to earning a profit.

I recommend going to Magellan Commerce’s redesigned website to find resources that can help you succeed online. These include search engine optimization, website design, and more.

You can also go to other eHarbor, Inc. affiliates: Submit Solution and Real Estate Promoter.

The photo of the tiger staying afloat is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of fPat.

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Posted in Ecommerce, Media, eHarbor | 5 Comments »

Facebook’s growing pains could transform social media

Thursday, April 16th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Facebook is one of the highest-profile members of the social-media revolution that took hold of the Internet four years ago. One question on many people’s minds is: Is Facebook on the verge of becoming profitable and going public? That might be a giant step for the social-media industry.

Man with a book for a face

I read about Facebook’s amazing growth and current struggles in a Fortune magazine article, entitled “Is Facebook losing its glow?” The article points out a lot of interesting statistics about the company, such as:

- 850 million photos are uploaded to Facebook every day.

- 8 million videos are uploaded to Facebook every day.

- 70 percent of Facebook’s users are outside the United States.

- Facebook’s revenue in 2008 totaled $280 million.

Those are impressive numbers. And to think that in 2004 hardly anyone had ever heard of Facebook. Or Twitter, MySpace or YouTube, for that matter. Clearly, these websites are doing something right to become so successful, and people around the world want to be a part of them.

But Facebook has yet to make a profit because it relies mainly on advertising for its revenue. And online advertising is cheap, as any newspaper or other traditional media provider will tell you. I’m not sure how social-media sites will earn a profit without eventually charging their customers a fee for some services.

Online consumer spending is expected to increase in the next several years, and a growing number of marketers are climbing onto the ecommerce bandwagon. Maybe social-media sites can take advantage of this trend, too.

But they might lose a large number of current and potential subscribers. Facebook bases its whole business model on generating new customers, so it might be difficult for it to transition to developing the quality of its customers instead of quantity.

Speaking of social media and marketing, on April 14, 2009, I attended Hubspot’s largest Webinar ever, which was called “How to Use Social Media to Attract More Customers.” Brent Leary, co-founder and partner of CRM Essentials, led this awesome presentation. I hope to discuss the lessons I learned at this Webinar in a future blog entry.

I just can’t help pointing out that the Fortune article had several obvious spelling and grammar mistakes. I pointed out mistakes in the Wall Street Journal and New York Times, so I think it’s fair to do the same in Fortune magazine.

- Most of that came directly from banner ads, and a substantial chunk was still coming from a deal with Microsoft in which the Internet behemoth sold traditional banner ads, which cost as little as $0.15 cents per one thousand ads shown to users.
This is a common mistake. $0.15 cents is equal to $.0015. When people say this they usually mean $0.15 or 15 cents, not both.

- In 2008, the company brought in an estimated $280 milion.
In Spanish, this would be the correct spelling of “million,” but not in English.

- More than 131,000 users became a fan of the national pizza franchise saw traffic to its site jump 253%.
This is a clear case of rewriting a sentence and forgetting to make it fit together properly.

I have another really cool thing to share from this article, but I’ll save that for another blog entry. Be sure to check the eHarbor Blog to stay posted on good news in the world of ecommerce, search engine optimization and other topics like these. You can also follow us on Twitter.

You can take advantage of SEO tactics and succeed in the world of ecommerce with the help of eHarbor and its affiliates, which include Magellan Commerce, Real Estate Promoter and Submit Solution.

The photo of the “facebook” is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of _Max-B.

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Posted in Ecommerce, Media | 7 Comments »

Worst time traveler ever

Friday, February 27th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

You know how in “Back to the Future Part II,” the future (2015) was going to be an awesome time when everyone would have flying cars, hoverboards, self-lacing shoes and self-drying clothes? Things have turned out a little differently.

Just imagine how people in the past would react if one of us went back in time and told them some of the silly things we use our advanced technology for. I think it might go something like this (Click on the photo below to see a larger, clearer version):

Time traveler explains Twitter to 1950s people

We’ll talk about ecommerce topics in the next post on the eHarbor Blog. I just wanted to share this picture because it makes me laugh – a lot.

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Posted in Fun, Movies | 4 Comments »

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