MKT 380 Introduction to social Media Marketing

Week 7

Chapter Objectives• Discuss the distribution of social media content• Distinguish between the different types of social media

content• Explain how marketers develop and organize social media

content• Discuss how marketers use search engine optimization and

social media optimization to meet marketing objectives• Describe methods of promoting social media content

The Social Publishing Zone

The social publishing zone includes those channels that allow people and organizations to publish content including

• Blogs – websites that host regularly updated content• Microblogs – like blogs except content is limited to short bursts of

text (Twitter)• Media sharing sites – websites designed for video-sharing, photo-

sharing, audio-sharing, and document sharing

Click here to read Technorati’s state of the Blogosphere

Publishing Content

The unit of value in a social community, akin to the dollar in our economy.

Publishing Content

Types of ContentContent appears in a variety of different formats such as:

• Blog posts and feature articles• Microblog posts• Press releases• White papers, case studies, and ebooks• Newsletters• Videos• Webinars and presentations• Podcasts• Photos

Channels of Content DistributionBlogs. Blogs have been around for more than a decade. They began as simple online logs posted in reverse chronological order, and developed into a widely used publishing venue for individual and corporate use.

Media Sharing Sites. Media sharing sites enable individuals and organizations to publish content online. Media sharing sites are earned media because their environments are not directly controlled by the person or organization posting the content.

Content Producers: What Is “Authentic?”Content can take so many forms that it’s sometimes difficult to categorize.

• An editorial message is objective and unbiased; the source expresses an opinion or provides information and does not intend to carry out the agenda of an organization.

• A commercial message such as an advertisement makes it clear that the intent is to persuade the reader or viewer to change an attitude or behavior

Content Producers: What Is “Authentic?” - continuedToday we are witnessing an explosion of consumer-generated content (CGM)

Two types of content:• Organic content –

content a person feels intrinsically motivated to prepare and share

• Incentivized content – content that is encouraged by the offer of an incentive

Content Producers: What Is “Authentic?” - continued

Consumer-solicited media (CSM) – invited but non-compensated citizen advertising

Sponsored conversations – paid consumer content

Click here to see how bloggers work as spokesbloggers

Counterfeit conversations – content planted by an organization that masquerades as original material an actual consumer posted

Developing and Organizing Marketing Content

We characterize content in terms of its originality and substance according to a value ladder.

• Flagship content – authority-building content. Seminal pieces of work that shape the way people think

• Pillar content – typically educational content that readers use over time, save, and share

• Authority-building content – original content that positions the sponsoring entity as a authority

• Filler content – information that people copy from other sources

Social Publishing Strategies

There is a twofold goal for social publishing:

• To increase the exposure to the brand’s message

• To use the content to drive traffic to the brand’s owned media

Social Publishing Strategies

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of modifying content, site characteristics, and content connections to achieve improved search engine rankings.

Social media optimization (SMO) is a process that makes it more likely for content on a specific social media platform to be more visible and linkable in online communities.

Level 1: Social Publishing and Search Engine Optimization

SEO is the key tool used for search engine marketing (SEM).

• SEM refers to a form of online marketing that promotes websites by increasing the visibility of the site’s URL in search engine results, both organic and sponsored.

How People Use Search ResultsA search results list will lead off with sponsored (paid) links

The next search results will be organic – sites that do not pay, but are based on the search engine’s model for delivering results

How Search Engines WorkSearch listings are produced by search engines using indexed data and an algorithm that determines a listing’s relevance to the search query.

• Web crawlers (spiders or bots) are automated web programs that gather information from sites that form the search engine’s entries.

• Indexed data include tags and keywords taken from site content.

On-Site Optimization

The primary on-site variables are keywords embedded in the page’s tags, title, URL, and content.

• Meta tag – code imbedded in a web page• Title tag – An HTML tag that defines the title of a page• Heading tag – An HTML tag that sections and describes content• Title – The headline• URL – The website address

Off-Site OptimizationThese off-site indicators include the number of links to a website from other sites, the credibility of those sites, the type of site promoting the link, and the link text (anchor text) these sites use.

• Link – the building blocks of social publishing. Two approaches:

1. Publish related content and links across other sites

2. To encourage other, unaffiliated sites to link to the brand’s content

Level 2: Social Media Optimization

Social media optimization (SMO) employs tactics to increase the likelihood that others will share and promote content.

SMO seeks to leverage the network effect to spread endorsements of a brand with links to the brand’s content.

This is accomplished through on-site and off-site tactics

On-Site TacticsMany on-site tactics can be used to encourage endorsements and sharing. Including the title, share tools, RSS feeds, the social media press release, microblogs, and social news and bookmarking sites.

TitleLinkbaiting is the careful crafting of a title that markets the content.

• Resource hook – content written with the intent to be helpful to the target audience

• Contrary hook – refutes an accepted belief• Humor hook – show that the content will entertain• Giveaway hook – promises something for free• Research hook – offers a claim about something of interest

Share Tools

Share tools are plug-ins that appear as clickable icons on a website and enable the viewer to bookmark or share the page with others.

RSS FeedsRSS feed is a tool to automatically feed new published content to subscribers.

The Social Media Press ReleaseThe social media press release should have an optimized title, good keywords and tags, links to the main site landing page, RSS feed options, share buttons, and embeddable multimedia content that can be shared on several networks, in addition to the typical press release content.

MicroblogsMicroblogs share headlines (Twitter is an example)

Social News and Bookmarking Sites

Social news communities share and promote online news.

Social bookmarking sites save your bookmarks online so they are always available wherever you have online access.

Planning a Social News Campaign

Choosing the communities to seed and target can be difficult.

Planning a Social News Campaign continued

Consider this list of community characteristics when evaluating the desirability of a community target:

• What is the community’s focus (general news, specific topics)?

• How many active users are involved in the community• How active are the top users on the site?• How many comments on average are generated for each new

submission?• How many votes are required to earn front page status on the

site?• Are stories on the site’s front page recent? How rapid is story

turnover?• Are there limitations for branded content in the community’s

Terms of Service?• What have others said about the social news site?