Hurry, these are going fast and are only good for the rest of this year.

1. Article Syndication – Syndicating articles to build links is still very much a staple for SEO’ers around the world. There are ways to leverage your efforts here to increase the ‘spread’ of the articles you write that can significantly increase the value from a single article and we’ll likely have more to say on this over coming months.

2. Get Social – taking the content you’re writing and pushing it out through social channels will get you links. You can both simply republish or promote content on your social media profiles and you can intentionally invite people to push the ‘like’ button etc. In recent blog posts where I ‘asked’ people to press the Facebook like button I got 10x the number of “likes” as when I didn’t.

The direct links you’ll create via Social Media will likely be ‘no-follow’ (and so not worth much) but it seems your presence on these properties is being watched by Google anyway. Plus, the flow on effect of being profiled in Social Media will gain you links both from relationships you’ll create and even from the scrapers that take this stuff and republish it.

3. RSS Feed Submission – This is a little techy, but it’s a lovely ‘do once, get benefits for life’ type deal. Here are the steps involved:

a. Create an RSS feed of your content in an Abstract form (e.g. publish only part of each content item or article). Be sure to include a link back to the full article in your feed.

b. Then take this abstract RSS feed and submit it to RSS Feed Directories like feedage.com (just do a search for “RSS Feed Directory” and you’ll find plenty of similar sites).

c. These RSS feed directories will then republish your content and include your link back to the original source. So every time you publish content you get an instant backlink.

Again, this is a little techy, so perhaps worthy of a full post on it’s own, but I’ve found this approach particularly helpful for large sites with lots of pages that aren’t being fully indexed by search engines. Remember, if a page isn’t indexed, it won’t drive any organic search traffic.

4. Forums – Find a handful of the big, high profile forums in your industry and get involved. Make sure you fill out your forum profile completely and put a link your signature file. Then, participate in the forum. Don’t spam the other members, but instead, help them out.

If you stick around for a while (or even better do some research at sites like Yahoo Answers), you’ll find that the same topics and questions get raised over and over again.

A great tactic is to prepare a list of common questions with answers and then watch the forums to see when these common questions get asked (an RSS feed is often available on forums which makes it easy to watch new posts being entered).

You can then swoop in each time there’s a question you can answer. Note, it’s best to put each response in slightly different words to avoid annoying users of the forum. It’s also OK, to say “here’s a short answer, I’ve written a longer post on my blog about it….” and then link back to your blog.

5. Being good at what you do – OK, so this isn’t really a link building strategy as much as a ‘how do to life’ strategy. In general, if you do good work, people will link to you. Particularly if you do good work and get in the habit of asking those you work with to give you link you’ll get some.

We aim to sell a good product and MarketSamurai.com has attracted over 2.3 million links without any formal ‘link building’.

6. Publishing content on your site – Again, not a traditional link building suggestion, but internal links are valuable. It’s simple maths that a site with 1000 pages has more internal link ‘juice’ to share than the site with 20 pages (you’ll also pick up a stack of long tail traffic by publishing lots of content).

Building more content on your site is a killer traffic strategy.

In addition to the above there are many other link strategies you can follow including Social Bookmarking (great for helping pages get indexed), directory submissions, begging (e.g. ask those you do business with to link to you), competitive research, where you use tools like Market Samurai’s link profile report to see what links your competitors have and see if the link source will link to you and much more.

Pro: Circles Is Slick – it lets you keep your groups separate. Many people feel its Facebook’s missing piece.

Pro: Google+ Hangouts – Everyone seems to love Hangouts. Slick interface and its just cool.

Con: Noise in the Stream – too many feed updates cause bloat and an annoying distraction.

Con: Doesn’t Work With Google Apps – can’t use this with your Google Apps account, although its assumed that Google is working on that issue. Its way too blaring of drawback to ignore.

Con: Lack of Search – Another major issue I’m assuming Google is working on. You can’t be the largest search engine and not have search on your main social media platform.

(review of mashable.com article: http://mashable.com/2011/07/01/google-the-pros-cons/)

Share your experiences in using Google+ here… Thanks!

Understanding The Sobe Social Workflow

Social Media Marketing companies do things differently. Sobe Social uses an 8-step process that begins the initial consultation. Each step is designed to translate your brand into the language of social media.

The process begins with how to build your business story and position your business as an authority then looks to build and then measure an overall social media marketing strategy.

Call for a free consultation and we will take you thorough this exact process and adapt it to your business: 800-935-9256

Mashable is proud to present the fourth annual Mashable Awards (formerly known as Open Web Awards). The Mashable Awards celebrate major innovations and achievements in the digital and social media landscape by companies, people and projects via an open, multilingual, international, community-nominated voting platform. Millions of votes will be cast in 25 categories ranging from “Best New Gadget” to “Best Music Discovery Service” to “Must-Follow Brand.”


Sobe Social Media Management was nominated for “Best Social Media Management Company for Small Businesses”. Thanks to all of our clients, friends and supporters.


Goals of the Mashable Awards

• Create conversations around technology and innovation
• Encourage engagement within the Mashable Audience
• Set the standard for innovation around competition
• Identify and celebrate the best of the best!

This Year

• Mashable’s community is more than twice the size it was in 2009
• Mashable will be implementing new technologies to encourage and enhance the experience
• Mashable will be hosting our second ever Mashable Awards Gala event live

About The Past Mashable Awards

• The first Open Web Awards in 2007 achieved more than 250,000 votes and more than 20 million page views combined, between Mashable and our 50 international blog partners.
• The second Open Web Awards in 2008 included more than 26 categories, saw more than 100 Blog Partners (from 25 countries and written in 10 different languages), 50,000 total nominations, 80,000 total votes in the first round, and 90,000 votes in the final round.
• The third Open Web Awards in 2009 included 50 winners, achieved more than 440,000 nominations with over 70,000 nominees and 780,000 final votes.

Every Business Has A Story To Tell

The first part of the process in an initial consultation is finding out the ‘what’, or ‘what the business does’. For example, sell this product, offer that service, etc. Then we go a level deeper and identify the ‘how’. How a business offers their ‘what’ is an opportunity to set themselves apart from the pack. Identifying the ‘how’ is a great way to build out a powerful value proposition when you make sure to combine it with the benefits your business provides the end-user, customer or client. So far this is the easy part. Even still many businesses don’t bother to clarify the ‘how’ as well as they should and thus fail to differentiate themselves from their competition.

The greatest potential a business has to be as unique as a fingerprint is their ‘why’. Why are they in business? Why did they go into this particular line of business in the first place? What driving passion is behind the answer to their ‘why’ question? The ‘why’ is where you truly have an opportunity to tell your business story. The business story is potentially the most relatable aspect of a business. It helps to personify and, if done correctly, ties it into our human psychology at a very high level as an identifiable ‘reason for being’ or ‘raison d’etre’ for that business.

Answer the ‘what’, ‘how’ and ‘why’ of your business and make sure it taps into the driving passion that started it all. Make sure that the ‘why’ not only answers questions about how it came to be and its passion but also its future aspiration. What sort of goals does this passion intend to accomplish. Is it shaking up the status quo by introducing an innovative approach to social norms? Does it provide a solution to make people’s lives better by changing the way the think.  Every business has a story to tell and the most powerful venue to tell that story is social media. If you’re a business and want to know how to right way to introduce yourself to the world of social media, get your business story down pat.

Resistance to Social Media is pointless. Millions of people can’t be wrong and if you are not participating it is easy to see that you are missing out.  Your competitors are there.  Your customers are there.  If you’re not there…you’re only tricking yourself!

There are many myths that surround social media and here are just a few:

MYTH: Social media is free
BUSTED: The majority of the tools are free so why should you pay for a Social Media Consultant? Just like an advertising agency or a web designer, you pay for the time and knowledge someone else has at promotion, branding and content. Unfortunately, many companies don’t want to pay for Social Media Optimization Plan. This is a big mistake, “We need to be on Twitter or Facebook” is not a plan, it is a statement. It’s not just a matter of setting up your accounts it takes times effort and resources to do it well. The effort up front with an organized and effective social media optimization plan will be a huge internal timesaver in the long-run.
Remember, just because something seems free doesn’t mean it won’t cost you!

MYTH: Anyone can do it
BUSTED: This is the biggest Social Media Myth out there if you ask me. My ten year old cousin knows how to drive a car so I dare you to hand him your keys. Hey, that new promo guy has a ton of friends on Myspace so let’s have him do our Twitter and Facebook Fan Page. This goes back to the first myth. Those who don’t understand how social media works, assume it’s easy. The, ‘if you build it, they will come” mentality is what I call this. Fast-forward a month later when you only have 25 friends or fans and then you assume social media doesn’t work.

MYTH: Social Media is a CURE
BUSTED: Social Media is fantastic for online reputation management but it is not a Cure-All. The problems you have with your product or service will not be solved with social media marketing. Honestly, Social Media is not glamorous. It takes time and involves discipline. You can compare it to being a vendor at a trade show or bridal fair. You would consider what your display looks like; who will be manning your booth; what they are wearing; how they represent you; what content will be available at booth; and what impression you want to leave visitors about your product or service.

MYTH: Social Media is a waste of time
BUSTED: I love this tweet from Avinash Kaushik “Social media is like teen sex. Everyone wants to do it. No one actually knows how. When finally done, there is surprise it’s not better.” There are great analytical programs for Twitter and Facebook. You can track, monitor and measure social media activity, and many are free. Every day new social media analytics tools are created to measure your Social Media participation with amazing insight about what’s happening within the Social Media World and how that affects you.

This post is an except from Finger Candy Media. For the full post click here http://fingercandymedia.com/3111-trick-or-tweet-social-media-myth-busting

Let’s begin with the latter, marketing as renting. When you place an ad in a newspaper for several thousands of dollars, you get your 30 days and however many eyeballs view your ad. However, once the 30 days are up, your ad is over and your money is gone, just like when you pay rent. This is not to say that traditional advertising is wrong for every business but I think the point is clearly illustrated how in many cases, its similar to renting.

Now look at social media marketing, and how you grow your base of friends and followers over time. If you’re actively marketing on social media, your target audience should be growing so at the beginning of any given month, you start with your totals from the previous month. In other words, you have a captive audience that you can freely market to, just based on the investment you’ve already made to get those friends and followers. Whether you’re investing your time, money or both, you’re creating an asset that ‘forcibly appreciates’ with your continued investment, similar to the home improvements you’d make to increase the value of your home.

When a business develops their social media campaign, they are building an infrastructure that is directly related to their brand’s value or ‘goodwill’. If and when an owner decides to sell their business, their social media infrastructure comes along with it and deserves a premium. Again, its similar to building out a new room or extension in a house in order to increase the value of the home and the selling price that comes with it.

Here’s a TED talk to start you off with that you’ll never forget:

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action.html

The concept of ‘People Don’t Buy What You Do, They Buy Why You Do It’ is a game-changer for every business that wants mass-market success. It makes sense on all the important levels in fact Simon Sinek go to lengths to explain how this concept is aligned with how our brains are biologically engineered to work.

The philosophy behind what Sobe Social does when it helps businesses tell their story is precisely to get them to explain their ‘why’ versus their ‘what’. This TED talks about why that is such a powerful concept.

Instead of a business offering ‘what’ they can get for less and charge more to make a profit, they should be asking themselves ‘why am I doing this?’. If the answer is a compelling enough reason that people can believe, they will buy from you and you will be successful. Neither innovation nor inspiration happens when you look at ‘what’ exists.  It happens when you look at either ‘why’ this or that exists or ‘why’ doesn’t this or that exist.

Sobe Social exists because we ask ‘why’ don’t more businesses ask ‘why’ instead of ‘what’. This message is so ingrained into the story of our company that it basically has become our ‘why’. In other words, if you as a consumer feels that you want to know more about why a business does what it does so you can have a chance to relate to what that business believes on a higher level, then your beliefs are aligned with the mission of what Sobe Social is determined to do. If you are a business who takes note this question and the answer consumers are giving us, then you will want to re-examine what you stand for and the message your business is putting out. People are listening, what is it that you are saying?

A special thanks to the brilliant Ahmad Sahar on this post.

Field Trip! yeah when ‘The Social Network’ came out on Friday, it did technically fall into a ‘work’ related event so the company went to the movies this weekend. In case you missed it, ‘The Social Network’ is about the supposed story of how Facebook was created.  Today Facebook, the most popular social network in the world, has over 500 million users and it’s main founder Mark Zuckerberg is the youngest billionaire on the planet.

The movie begins with a peek into life at Harvard. What started as a emotional blogging rant after a breakup quickly turned into an online frenzy throughout the Harvard community, which basically amounted to the first inception of Facebook. In it’s middle stages of growth, Zuckerberg describes it well when he says “ I want to take the entire social experience of college and put it online“.  As the concept continued to grow and develop, enemies surfaced and friends ended up betraying each other.  By the time, Facebook hit it’s one million users mark, venture capitalists came into the picture for big money.  By the end of the movie, even the perceived ‘loser’ ended up achieving more then most ever will.  Overall, the cast did a terrific job, notably Timberlake who never seems to disappoint.

Although the plot centered around the story of Facebook, and without being able to know what’s true and what’s not, I took it as more of a movie about what happens when you mix entrepreneurship, ambition, greed, strong personalities and old lingering emotional hangups. What I found most interesting is that while Facebook took on a life of it’s own, it was never something they could put their finger on and say Facebook is this or that.  Zuckerberg and company let Facebook shape itself instead of forcing it to become something that it wasn’t meant to be. He allowed it to flourish while it remained in a sort of loosely defined state. I think this was one of the main reasons for it’s ultimate success. Not to be understated, most entrepreneurs would have been far too attached to the money of a new hot idea to let it evolve on its own. The fear of losing something that’s hot would lead most entrepreneurs to hold on too tightly and end up ruining the idea. Zuckerberg’s seemingly internal detachment from financial motivation, at that time,  was integral to the success of Facebook and it added another layer to why Zuckerberg was the right guy at the right place at the right time to start it all.