Walt Denny Inc. Blog

Protect & Grow Your Business with an Effective Social Media Policy

 

A recent study examining online employee management indicates the number of exposure incidents via social media sites has increased from 2008, now affecting almost 1 in every 5 businesses.  According to Deloitte LLP 2009 Ethics & Workplace Survey, 30% of employee respondents do not take into account how management, co-workers or their clients will be affected before posting information online.  

Social networking is a key element to a communications strategy, however engaging without a social media policy can damage a business.  Establish a social media policy to protect your business, provide guidelines for employees and to effectively participate in online discussions.

According to recent comScore, Inc. research, Facebook and Twitter are attracting colossal numbers of monthly unique visitors, 95.5 million and 20.8 million respectively.  With the ability to include employers on profiles, companies are experiencing an increase in company spokespeople, and only 17% are prepared with a policy to handle the risks of social media engagement.

Reap More Value from your Marketing Efforts

How SEO and SMO work together

Gain the most out of your online marketing efforts by using search engine optimization (SEO) and social media optimization (SMO) together.  Increase your business’ visibility and attract more traffic to your company’s website.  To attract qualified prospects, it is critical that your marketing strategy deliver top-notch, relevant content.  

Distinguishing the differences and similarities between SEO and SMO is imperative for a successful publicity mix.  SEO and SMO are meant to bring your business to the top of search engine result pages (SERPs) and the forefront of online conversations.  To achieve this, several elements should work in conjunction with one another to maximize results.

Link-Building     

    According to a recent Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey, 90% of respondents from over 50 countries trust the online endorsements of their peers.  Online recommendations can be a Facebook update with a link to your company’s website, an e-mail linking to a product description found on your website or a tweet mentioning your business’ superior customer service.  Link-building fosters the creation of inbound links to your company’s website through third-party individuals.  Write informative case studies and you will find people tweeting links to the study.  Post interesting photographs on your website or Flickr account, and visitors may share your projects on their Facebook profiles.

With SMO, inbound links are a result of successful content and they benefit SEO.  Consider implementing social features on your company’s website.  Adding a “share” button to your web pages allows for users to share directly from your website.  Search engines also use comments, bookmarks, votes and reviews to determine relevancy.  

Create a Facebook Fan Page and Build a Following

 

With the potential to reach the more than 600 million active users, Facebook Fan Pages allow for companies big or small to have a presence on the social media juggernaut.  Added advantages include the ability to monitor consumer opinions of your products or services and increase traffic to your website.  You can also gain valuable data by creating a Fan Page which provides insight to the demographics of your visitors.

Everyday, more than 8 million Facebook users are subscribing to Fan Pages, also known as becoming a fan.  The Fan Page can contain your provided content, links to websites, photos, a discussion box and applications in customizable tabs to engage visitors. 

Vitamin Water, which recently added an application to its page via a customized tab, allowed fans and others to vote on the taste, labeling and ad copy for a new flavor of water.  The Coca-Cola owned company is also using traditional media outlets, such as television ads to drive people to the Fan Page to vote.  The Vitamin Water Fan Page launched in February of 2009, and has over 1 million fans.