Online Marketing 201: Local Search & Social Media

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Learning Objectives

After this training you will: Understand what local search is, and how to register

in local search engines Know what social media/Web 2.0 is, and why you

need to be involved Understand how to leverage social media to

encourage volunteering Be able to measure your success from local search

and social media activities Understand how blogs work, and know how to start

a blog

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Monologues are over, no more: I’ll publish and put it out there and you’ll consume and you better not complain!. It is now a dialog.

- Avinash Kaushik, Occam’s Razor

The Web Has Changed

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What is Web 2.0?

Web 2.0/social media refers to a perceived second generation of web-based communities and hosted services — such as social-networking sites, wikis and folksonomies (also known as collaborative tagging , social classification, social indexing, social tagging ) .

These sites aim to facilitate collaboration and sharing between users.

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What is Local Search?

Why Local Search? More online searchers are looking for local

information “volunteer in Camden, NJ Local search results are displayed FIRST in

search engine results Recommendation engines get more traffic

than your site– Yelp.com has over 4 million visitors per month

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Local Search:Building Links from your Friends

Start off by getting links from your friends Convention & Visitors Bureaus Traditional Media Sites - newspapers, radio, TV Local city guides (search city name + “city

guide”) Local Business Associations - Rotary, Kiwanis,

Chambers of Commerce, etc.

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Local SearchGoogle’s Local Business Center

Sign in, create a listing, Google will mail you code, input code, you’re done!

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Local SearchYahoo! Local

Sign in, create a listing, input the code, you’re done!

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Local SearchTrueLocal.com

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Local SearchLive Search Maps

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Local SearchLive Search Maps

Go to the Local Listing Center Click on “Help” in Bottom Right Click on “Local Listing – Add a Listing” They will send you a letter with a verification

code Input the code You’re Done!

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Local SearchInsider Pages

How: http://www.insiderpages.com/advertiser/sign_up.html

Tell your story! Add photos, special offers & coupons, and a "message from the owner". Update hours, directions and contact info - it's ALL FREE, takes only a few minutes, and drives more customers to your non-

profit.

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Local SearchCraigslist.org

Over 30 million visitors/month

Volunteer section Community events

section Confirm posting via

email

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Local SearchKudzu.com

447,621 visitors/month

“List your business” on bottom of page

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Local SearchZVents

444,864 visitors/month

Event posting

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Local SearchEventful

564, 445 visitors/month

Can post events & groups

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Local SearchYelp.com

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Local SearchYelp

Do a search for your organization’s name and zip code to find out if you’re already in Yelp’s system.

On the bottom of the search result page, you’ll see a red button titled ADD BUSINESS which leads to a simple form where you can add your business.

Keep an eye on your reviews, but be restrained in firing back responses.

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Local SearchMerchant Circle

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Local SearchMerchant Circle

It offers a set of online marketing tools These tools include:

web page/landing page with a blog newsletter-sending capability Coupons Traffic reports, and more.

Simply click “join now” and you’re off and running!

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Local SearchSuperpages.com

8 million people/month

Listings provided to: About.com Lycos

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Social MediaIdealist.org

269,110 visitors/month

Post events, campaigns, volunteer opportunities, etc.

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Social MediaFacebook

34 million users

Create group profile, post events, join local networks

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Social MediaFacebook

Here’s how to get started with Facebook:

Create a personal Facebook account

Join your regional/city network, invite your friends, organizations & volunteers in your database

Create an event (on the left navigation). Make sure to pick which network to broadcast it to.

You can either use Facebook's guest list feature, or put the 1-800-Volunteer.org URL address for the volunteer opportunity in the "Description" field to track folks who have signed up.

Very simple. You've just reached out to a portion ofthe 34 million users that use Facebook.

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Social MediaGather.com

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Social MediaGather.com

Register as an individual Create your nonprofit as a group Invite your friends, encourage writers you

know to join, contribute & send their earnings to you

More detailed information here.

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Social MediaMeetup.Com

2.5 million users

Search in your area

Join existing groups, or start a group

Post your projects/events

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Measuring Success

Increased number of visitors from social media

Number of comments on your posts/blog Set up Google & Yahoo News Alert for your

Brand name Position of Brand Name & number of

mentions in Search Engines Number of Volunteer Referrals/Sign ups

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Learn More

Search Marketing for Nonprofits: http://SearchMarketingforNonProfits.wordpress.com

Exhaustive List of Social Bookmarking Sites http://mashable.com/2007/08/08/social-bookmarking-2/

Social Media Today http://www.socialmediatoday.com

The Original Signal – Web 2.0 blog http://www.originalsignal.com/

More Local Search Sites http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060831-090409

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Joining the Blogging Community

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So You Want to Start a Blog

Approximately 120,000 blogs are created every day

A blog is a website that needs to be promoted, or it won’t be found.

Technorati currently states it is tracking over 112.8 million blogs

What do I want to get out of maintaining this blog?

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Pick your Tool

Blogspot.com Easy to use interface, need to add Google

Analytics Wordpress.com

More advanced options Can create “pages” as well as posts Can host on your website Comes with watered down analytics

LiveJournal.com

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What are the Elements of a Good Blog?

Optimized for Search Engines Has an About page will help convert more

new visitors into loyal readers. Has social media links under each post Has an RSS feed using Feedburner Displays a blog search tool

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Promoting Your Blog

Your blog is a website – everything you learned about search marketing applies!

Post content using keywords & tags frequently

Submit to directories: http://www.stuntdubl.com/2006/01/16/blog-

promotion-tools/ Build Links Measure!

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Keep the Conversation Alive

Create an editorial calendar for your posts Start a dialogue with bloggers in your niche Ask someone to guest-post on your blog Thank your readers Participate in the comments on your blog

posts Stumped for Ideas? Brainstorm list here.

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Measuring Blog Success

New vs. returning visitors, length of stay RSS Subscribers Conversation Rate = Number of Visitor

Comments / Number of Posts Citations – people who link to your blog

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Blogging is a lot of work!

Don’t just blog for the sake of blogging.

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Questions?

Katherine Watier

Watier Creative

Nonprofit Search Marketing Consultant

301-793-6121

katherine@watier.org