Flickr Adds No Follow to Links

Flickr recently added nofollow tags to most of the external links within the website. Flickr has been one of the few social sites that have allowed potential link gain from including links within the profile, comments and other areas.

Is this a surprising move? In my opinion, No. More and more social media sites are adding nofollow tags to lower the amount of spam they get hit with. You can't blame them for trying to provide clean, valuable, relevant content to their visitors / users can you? Keep in mind, you no longer can gain any link popularity from links on Flickr. However it still can generate traffic to your website. There?s a lot more benefits to using Flickr than just for links.

Social Marketing Do's and Don'ts

Do's

1) Give Social Marketing time.

2) Do your homework on potential Social Marketing sites including users behaviors and popular topics.

3) Provide visitors with desired content / tools / etc.

4) Learn the communities.

5) Interact with other users and build your presence.

6) Leverage your co-workers, friends, etc.

7) Take advantage of adding links in at times.

Don'ts

1) Do not market!!!

2) Do not spam the community.

3) Do not break the community rules.

4) Do not expect results. Social Marketing is behavioral based. You are not able to predict whether an article will take off and drive a ton of traffic to your website or not.

5) Do not create multiple accounts.

Follow these basics to Social Media Marketing and you are on your way to ultizing Web 2.0.

10 Things to Keep in Mind with Social Media Marketing

1) Time! You must give Social Media Marketing time.

2) You cannot guarantee results. You can't predict 100% whether others will like or dislike your material or how they will react.

3) Provide informative, desired content on a regular basis to keep your presence active on Social Marketing sites.

4) Create an active, followed blog.

5) Publicize your blog and feeds making it easily found and subscribed to.

6) Ability to have influential presence on a variety of Social Marketing sites.

7) Provide your content to other bloggers so they can write about it as well and add to your overall reach.

8) Take advantage of all your networks. Co-workers, friends, etc.

9) Know the Social Media sites communities. Each one has their own language, guidelines and unwritten rules that must be learned from interaction. Don't break them!!!

10) You can never do enough research. Research, Research, Research!!!

SMX Social - NYC Oct. 16 & 17 Recap

Search Marketers, Social Marketers, Marketing Managers and Bloggers across the globe gathered earlier this week at the SMX Social Conference in New York City, as well as myself.

SMX Social was the first conference dedicated to Social Media Marketing. Overall the conference presented Social Media Marketing to those who had not yet gotten a total grip on the area as well as provided those already involved with tips and useful tactics. The conference covered Social Media Marketing all the way from the top dogs (Digg, MySpace, Facebook) down to the niches (WebMd, Etsy, etc.)

Linkbaiting

One of the topics covered most throughout many of the sessions was Linkbait. Developing the right content to maximize the number of other sites that decide to link to you because of this content. Check what's worked and what hasn't, watch trends, research your industry niches and a variety of other arenas to look at. Successful Linkbait categories include: Lists, How To's and Current Events.

Once you have your Linkbait wrote and begin submitting to the various Social Media sites many feel their job is done. However that is completely untrue. Social Media Marketing takes a large amount of resources to be done properly. You need commitment to the highest degree. Before submitting you need to have your friends / networks in place and be able to take advantage of them. You also need to be able to monitor the reach of the Linkbait. How many new links were achieved? From where? Is the site getting more traffic? Have your search positions increased? After submission, most of the real work then begins.

Social Media Websites

The list of Social Media websites is virtually endless. There are new bookmarking and news sites popping up on the web every day. If they'll become the next Digg or Facebook, I doubt it. But while trying to get on the homepage of Digg may be the ultimate goal, it is a huge leap. Only .7% of the stories actually make the Digg homepage.

The larger Social Media websites offer the ability to reach a large amount of people and gain traffic, but you have to also utilize the niche sites. There are many micro-communities or vertical portals that can provide you with precisely targeted traffic. These niche sites can point people who already are interested in your topic to your site, versus targeting a broad range of topics. Utilizing sites like Yelp, WebMd, Etsy, Care2 and many, many more can provide large benefits as well.

Time! Time! And More Time!

The overall "keynote" that was repeated across the board was unanimous ? Time! Social Media Marketing isn't simply submitting some pages from your website to some sites. You need to approach a Social Media Marketing campaign just as you would an organic search engine optimization program.

• Start Research and lots of it
• Create interesting and wanted content
• Optimize your titles and descriptions for votes
• Take advantage of your friends and networks
• Monitor results

Social Media Marketing when done correctly can not only drive traffic to your website, but build links, brand awareness and search visibility, ultimately leading to better rankings on the search engines.

Content - The Most Effective Linking Campaign

Never underestimate the power of content with the search engines. As many SEO gurus say "Content is King". They aren't kidding. Not only do search engines reward your website when new valuable content is added to your site, the opportunity to use this content for link building has become just as important.

With the rise of Social Networking, content has become even more important than before. Links from Social Networking and Bookmarking sites are extremely influential within Google's algorithms and why wouldn't they be? Social Networking and Bookmarking sites are users directly telling Google that they find a page important. It only makes sense that Google and the other search engines would reward this.

However, while writing good content is an effective component to your linking campaign don't neglect high quality directories like Yahoo, DMOZ, GoGuides and JoeAnt. These directories still have a great deal of influence with the top search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN). Traditional organic linking is still an influential piece of the pie. Quality directories and links from authoritative sites still play an important role with search engine positioning.

By offering content that is non-marketing in nature and offers valuable information to users, you are creating your own organic link campaign. You can drive traffic to your website, increase brand recognition as well as increase sales, all by providing content that is non-marketing. You're marketing by not marketing!

Getting Dugg on Digg

You don't need a lot of "diggs" to get a link from Google. Every article submitted to Digg will generate at least one link, many times more, especially if it gets dugg. To gain the most of your article on Digg, you need to make the article appealing to people. Easier said then done right?

Well here are a few tips to help get your article "dugg":

• Use a persuasive or catchy title
• Create a top 10 list
• Create how to's, must haves and other guides
• Have company employees, friends and family digg your article (Remember: every digg is another potential link in Google)
• Put the Digg chicklet on your article's page to encourage digging
• Make the content interesting, appealing - A catchy title alone won't do it

Social Marketing

Social Media Marketing Do's and Don'ts

10 Things to Keep in Mind with Social Media Marketing

SMX Social NYC - Oct 16 & 17 Recap

Getting Dugg on Digg