What is hashtag marketing, and why should you use #HASHTAGMARKETING

So there are two questions

1) What  is hash tag  marketing ?
2) Why should you use hasH tag marketing ?

Hash tag  marketing  is a complicated marketing  strategy, which is easily  implemented  once planned.   The complicated part  is doing the SEO or Search Engine Optimisation, and then ensuring that the planned SEO work, fits into the total marketing  plan, in an integrated and managed  manner.

This sounds simple when written   here,  but believe you me,  there are many pitfalls that you need to be awear of, and I have discussed this with many different  marketing folks, who each have a different focal area, or a different  approach  to  solving the many different parts  of this equation.

Problems start  when different  perspectives of the purpose of SEO show  themselves  within your marketing   team.  You do need to remember that SEO  or Search  engine optimisation  is ALL THE WORK  done by your entire marketing  team  to ensure that your online content is discovered by your Intended target  market  audience, who then follow through, consume  your content and activate  your  CTA  or  Call To Action.

So before we discuss hashtags, we need to have an understanding of SEO, because  #HASHTAGMARKETING is a very special, and super powerful  #SEOTOOL  Now there are many SEO TOOLS THAT HAVE IMENSE POWER,   but none come close to the power of hash  tag marketing.

SEO has three distinct  segments which  are all three stand alone projects,  but they  work as a team to get  consumers  to consume  your online content. These three distinct r SEO SEGMENTS are

1) IPSEO  or In Page  Search  engine  optimisation
2) OPSEO  or Off Page Search Engine optimisation
3) OPSEO or Off Line Search  engine  optimisation

Segments 1 and 2 are well known and discussed  at great length by many  experts  within the interwebs these are the standard  SEO  things such as the stuff in the HTML  CODE  ( IPSEO )  and all the supplemental marketing   ( OPSEO  ) including  but not limited to
CONTENT  marketing
COPY WRITING
IMAGE CREATION  AND EDITING
VIDEO CREATION  AND EDITING
KEYWORD RESEEARCH
TECHNICAL ANALYSIS OF EXISTING ONLINE CONTENT
LINK BUILDING / LINK AQUISITION
SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

Then we  get the really  interesting   stuff in the OLSEO or Off Line Search engine optimisation, which is the space where you use your in depth  knowledge  of your intended target market audience to do off line marketing  of your online content.

So once again SEO or Search Engine  Optimisation is ALL THE WORK  done   by your entire marketing team  to ensure  that your intended target  market  audience  finds your  online  content  when searching for your selected  keywords within the online line environment, then select  your link in the  Search  Engine  Results  Page, then consume your  online  content, following  through  with clicking on your  DESIRED   ( primary  ) CTA or Call To Action.

It thus follows that the primary purpose  of Search  Engine  Optimization is to ensure that  your online content is

1. Found by your target  market  audience  within the SERP'a  of your intended  target   market audience's  favourite  Search  Engine 
2. Consumed by your Intended target market audience 
3. Activated  by a click on your  desired Call To Action within your online content. 

For your SEO  to be deemed successful you will need all three of these above purposes to be fulfilled.  SEO is not just about visitor numbers, but also  includes the aquisition  of high quality  Search traffic where your  conversion rate  should be included in the SEO  PLANNING 

Now coming  back to what is a hash tag.......

A hashtag  is a special element within the social media  environment which makes a string of characters clickable as a catagory selector, usually turning blue, to indicate that it is a clickable link.  When one clicks on an active  hashtag within the social media environment, a SERP  or search engine  results page is returned. This SERP  may be viewed in different  ways, such  as by time and date, or by relevance, or by popularity  depending on user preferences and social  media platform. 

Now the real nice  thing about hashtags, is that they are platform independent, and show up in organic search too.  So this is where  choosing  a product,  event or brand hashtag gets  interesting, and if you are lucky, you can come up with a unique  hashtag that is specific to your  marketing  needs..

See this pinterest  pin discussing hash  tags 


So HASH TAG MARKETING  is the art of using these ultra powerful

What is the purpose of repurposing content ?

WHAT IS THE VALUE OF RE-PURPOSING YOUR EXISTING ONLINE CONTENT.

The topic of re-purposing content is coming up a lot these days,  and this recent post by  +Neal Schaffer  is just one example.

Most folks do not realize the SEO benefits of re-purposing your online content, and the value that this adds to your #SEMANTICFOOTPRINT

The term re-purposing is also just another way of saying that you are doing content marketing.....   just saying that words are confusing to folks who are not willing to understand the context of conversations.

Your original content is already within the online environment, and re-purposing your content allows you to do all the basic SEO tricks such as but not limited to

• CONTENT MARKETING
• CROSS MEDIA MARKETING
• SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING
• LINK BUILDING
• SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING
• SEMANTIC MARKETING

Most online marketing folks use a host of tricks and big words to confuse management and business owners into believing their version of online marketing is different and has more value than others.  These are quite often the same  folks that use the phrase "SEO IS DEAD"  and similar attention grabbing or click bait tactics to enforce their new version of online marketing where Search Engine Optimization is vilified and   made to appear as irrelevant or irrational.

SEO or Search Engine Optimization has evolved from a links and keywords only issue, way back in the late 1990's,  into a vast complex set of issues that are all interconnected and impact on each other through strange and mysterious relationships within the semantic environments of the inter-webs.

Re-purposing your content and linking the new work to the original content in a manner that it expands the conversation,  in different platforms,  is not a difficult task, and the powerful influence of this within the semantic marketing space, where the depth of your semantic footprint is the issue at stake, must never be underestimated.

Search Engines are now using these issues in complex algorithms, to determine the intent of your online content,  so that they may match this intent with the intent of search queries.  This  matching of intent  is a very complex issue, but one that has become essential due to the vast amount of data and information available within the interwebs.  It thus follows that re-purposing your online content and linking the different aspects of the conversation around the actual intent of the original piece of content is very benificial to your SERPs or Search Engine Results pages.

This re-purposing will also give you more than one avenue of getting discovered in the search engine, as each piece of content will have an opportunity to feature within the SERP's, and if your marketing is done well,  you will dominate the Search Engine Rankings for your desired set of keywords and semantically related topics, with many different platforms featuring within the SERP's. 

Folks will be able to find your content within the different platforms, using the internal search engine features of each separate platform,   and if you have ensured that your social media marketing is within the public environment, then you will also have multiple listings in search engines,  making your brand, company or business seem much more important.  Multiple listings in the SERP's will elevate your marketing to unimaginable heights.  

Re-purposing your content has been around for quite some time, never being  spoken of as re-purposing but as content marketing, social media marketing and other confusing terms, specifically to make the folks who use these tactics, seem more important than they are.   SEO or Search engine Optimization, is in reality just a very complex integration of all your online marketing efforts into a single well managed online marketing effort.

I have been using the term #FUFISM or Functional User Friendly Integrated Social Media   for some time now, and am thus greatful to all them online marketing folks who are now begining to move away from the idea of marketing silos where each marketing platform is seen as a stand alone platform to the apparently new concept of #INTEGRATEDMARKETING

How do your potential customers discover your online content?

How do your potential customers find your online content?

There are three basic ways that your intended target audience can use to find your content within the online environment.

The first is, where your intended target market audience will type your URL directly into the browser address box, because he / she knows your web address.  This is usually due to some OFF LINE MARKETING TACTIC where you inform your intended target market audience of your web address, such as news paper adverting, flyers or billboards.

The second is by pure luck or serendipity, when your intended target market audience discovers a link to your content while browsing  the internet.

The third  way that your intended target  market audience may discover your online content, is through the use of a search engine.

The first option can become  quite expensive, as you need to keep paying every month for newspaper, magazine and other expensive off line advertising, where you specify your web address and hope customers type your main landing page address (home page) into the browser's address bar.

The second  is just plain unacceptable from a business perspective, cos you have no control or management  over the serendipity or luck of  your intended Target market audience, and relying on this for your business success is just plain stupid.

The third option, using a search engine, is the most cost effective, but takes quite a bit of effort on your part.  Understanding  the basics of search engine optimization is thus an essential component  of current management skill sets. Taking a FUFISM based  marketing approach will ensure  better marketing success, as this marketing philosophy has a core focus on SEO and related marketing issues.

FUFISM or Functional User Friendly Integrated Social Media is just plain old school marketing, extended into the internet. Knowing your customers needs, and supplying a solution, but within the online environment, is one of the cornerstones of the FUFISM MARKETING PHILOSOPHY.

Using the social media as an online supplementary marketing  tool for your web site or blog is not a difficult  thing to do, however doing this with high precision, and targeting specific keywords and related semantics, starts to get a bit complex in nature, so you do need yo have s clear well documented plan of action

Failure to document your plan makes it difficult  to measure success or failure of your marketing. A written plan also makes it easier to enlist the help of others, as your aims, objectives and intentions will be easily understood, and less likely to be misinterpreted.  Having a written plan also makes it easier to integrate the three seperate components of the SEO space.

IPSEO or in page search engine optimization is all the technical stuff that is included in the HTML of your page, and this gives search engines the basic Context and SEMANTICS of your online content.

OPSEO or off page search  engine  optimization is all the supplemental marketing,  mostly within the SOCIAL MEDIA ENVIRONMENT, and link building strategies.

OLSEO or off line search engine marketing is all your standard old school marketing within the off line environment, such as newspapers, magazines, radio, flyers  and bill boards, where you introduce your event,  product or service  specific keywords  and related semantics to your intended target  market audience.

This is why keyword  research, and related topic selection is so important, coz you need to inform your copy writer and other technical SEO team members which words and related semantics they need to focus on. Here we are talking about things like alt tags for images, anchor text in links, schema markup and other tactics.

Your off line marketing needs to focus on this same set of keywords, topics and related semantics, to ensure that your intended Target market​ audience uses this same set of criteria when formulating their online search query

IPSEO or in page search engine optimization includes  all the technical stuff that is included in the HTML of your page, and this gives search engines the basic Context and SEMANTICS of your online content.

OPSEO or off page but still online search  engine  optimization is all the supplemental marketing,  mostly within your SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING , and link building strategies, such as blog posts or online adds.

OLSEO or off line search engine marketing is all your old fashioned  physiological marketing tactics to get your intended target  market audience to use specific words (your keywords) in their search queries

SEO has evolved from a only links and link building strategy way back  in the late 1990's to a very complex state of affairs where we now need to understand our target market audience  and their approach to using online search to surface our content.

Creating quality content on its own is no longer an option, we now need to do an awful lot more, and ensuring that your Target market audience is exposed to your selected key words within the off line environment is now an essential part of your SEO strategies. How else can you ensure that your intended Target market​ audience types your selected  keywords into the search box of a search engine?

#ISPEO, #OLSEO, #OPSEO

Social litenimg with the @MENTION TOOL

SOCIAL LISTENING is the key to social media marketing

success, and the MENTION SOCIAL LISTENING TOOL will help you manage your SOCIAL LISTENING STRATEGIES

Purpose  of social listening

Social listening has a multitude of purposes, with the primary purpose being to stay in touch with your intended target market audience and join conversations where  you and your products as well as services are the topic of discussion.

Aims of social listening

Each company  will  have its own long  list of aims when it comes to social listening, but there is a core area where  every social listening tactic has an impact. That is the ability to be informed when your input to a conversation is needed or required, by your intended target market audience. So one of  your primary aims within the social media space  should be to keep informed of when, and where, your input is required, needed or requested.

Objectives of social listening

Social listening is a very complex business where there are a host of marketing  objectives, however the primary role of all social listening should fall within the PR or Public Relations space, here  the main objective should be to establish a set of conditions whereby you will be informed / notified when you, your products or services are discussed within the social media, so that you may join the conversation and lead your intended target market audience deeper into your conversion and sales  funnels.  It is the PR FOLKS DUTY as a servant  or errand boy to ensure that the correct folks within your company get to join the conversation which the PR FOLKS STARTED ON YOUR BEHALF  so that your company  / organisation may service the needs of its customers, clients or patrons.

The Mention tool will give you the online ability to establish a social media listening platform, to suit your online marketing and sales needs.

Now the    PR folks are really not gonna appreciate me saying this, but their job, as outlined above from a slightly different erspective,  is just to ensure that the marketing and sales folks have a conducive and freindly, pre-prepared  environment to work in.

Many folks think that PR or Public relations work is outside of the marketing and sales arena, and a stand alone company function.  This is a gross error in terms of FUFISM based marketing, as PR or Public Relations  is deemed to be a primary  role player  within the marketing environment, being a subsection within the sales space, which is subservient to your marketing strategies, but also informs your marketing policies and directives, as part of your  sales feedback loops. PR FOLKS have an important role to play, however PR or Public Relations is not the lead marketing role player, nor captain of your marketing team.

 The PR FOLKS need to understand their subservient position, and not try to lead, but rather take their proper position within the SEO environment seriously, as these are the folks who make the most use of the social media environment to do their work. PR stuff is complicated  and has tentacles that reach every corner of your business, so their role should never be under-estimated.  That being said, when talking marketing or sales, then PUBLIC RELATIONS is a servant in the team.

The other issue to consider here is the power that search engines are currently (July 2017) giving to social media connectivity, AS A PRIMARY SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION VALUE INDICATOR, along with the SEMANTIC CONNECTIVITY, and #SEMANTICFOOTPRINT of your social media following, and the multi tiered relationships between
Social media business pages
social media profiles
Websites and Blogs
 authors and publishers
you and your intended target market audience
Your other digital assets

One needs to remember that the purpose of all marketing is to improve the bottom line in the company or organisations ROI (Return On Investment )   This investment and associated return is not always in the  form of hard countable cash, and within the  online marketing environment many of these Returns On Investment are in the form of positive #SEOVI which have rather lucrative  spin-offs in the #SERPS, placing your online content closer to the top of the list, or even at the number one spot.

 Hard countable cash can not easily  find a route to pay for these supprisingly powerful returns, as they come from properly prepared and well managed social media conversations,  where the knowledge bases and SEMANTIC FOOT PRINTS  of the folks in the comment  streams are the source of these very significant, and extremely lucrative  ROI’s within the SEO environment.

GOOD SEO GETS GOOD SERPS

One must remember that the Search Engine Results Pages or SERP’s  are your entry portals to your online marketing  content.

 When the end user, or your intended target market audience, click on a link in the SERP they open that specific page, which is usually not your desired landing page, or ideal site entry point.  So you do need to understand how, and where your intended target market audience  first gain access to your online content.  This is a very complex issue that needs time and team effort to have any meaningful input within your online marketing strategies. Afterall how many places does your marketing exist, and what triggered the online search which resulted in a clickthrough?

 Which one of the following is the guilty culprit that generated the intentions  of the search query? or was it a combination of these, or perhaps something quite diffetent where you had no input ?

• news paper and magazine adds
• Local Radio or TV adds
• your flyers distributed locally
• Your street signage or billboards if you can afford them
• a hashtag marketing campaign (new or old )
• a social media marketing campaign
• What you had to say at that speaking event you attended last week?
• something else not in this  list?

SEOVI or Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators are those variables which Search Engines like Duckduckgo, Bing, Yandex, Baidu or Google use to evaluate online content with the intent to be able to match that exact content to future search queries in a manner that best serves the needs of the person entering the query.  This is by no means a simple or easy task, and the engineers at Google have hinted at using in excess  of 500 different SEOVI within their vast array of different algorithms which inspect and evaluate online content.

 These  SEOVI come in many different disguises, and plenty of  marketing folks focus on individual components, and sell these INDIVIDUAL  SEO COMPONENTS  as stand alone services, which should in reality be subsets within the greater SEO environment.

Here we are talking about issues such as but not limited to the list below, which from a #FUFISM  based marketing perspective are each subsets within the greater SEO environment :

• copy writing
• Content marketing
• Social media marketing
• technical IPSEO (the real hardcore SEO )
• Link building and link earning outreach programs
• Influencer marketing
• Blogging  and associated website interaction tactics
• Search Engine Marketing
• Paid search marketing
• Cost per click marketing
• Online classified ads and associated networks
• Online banner ads
• web site navigation  and outbound linking issues
• PR or Public Relations activities
• many different Off Line Marketing tactics
• Hashtag marketing campaigns

When looking at the list above remember that these are just some of the  subsets of the 2017 and future SEO environment, where search engines  are using social media SEOVI (Search Engine Optimization  Value Indicators ) as primary variables within their complicated SEARCH  ALGORITHMS.  This means that social media signals now carry very high end specialised SEOVI through into old algorithms such as PANDA, PENGUIN, PIGEON, HUMMINGBIRD as well as into new algorithms like FRED and many other un named algorithms.

Things like but not limited to the list below are currently rather  important within the SEO environment.
author credibility,

• author expertise and area of focus
• Publisher issues along with links to authors
• Context and semantic related connections
• Social media coverage and social media profile related knowledge recognition systems
• #IPSEO or Inpage Search Engine Optimisation where things like, but not limited  the list here are evaluated
• Geo data and language
• copy writing and contextual stuff
• linking and navigation issues
• Schema markup and similar issues
• Image ALT TAGS and EXIF DATA
• keywords  and  related SEMANTICS
• Stuff in your <HEAD SECTION> like
• Page titles
• Keywords
• Page description
• Authors, publishers and contributors
• Geo tagging
• Language
• #OPSEO or Off Page Search Engine Optimisation
• #OLSEO or Off line Search Engine Optimisation

There are many different definitions for SEO or Search Engine Optimisation, but the fact that technology is growing and reaching deeper into old areas, as well as discovering new areas and new techniques to use within the search engines ever improving algorithms, leaves us as online marketers at a clear and distinct crossroads. We need to make new decisions, and review past SEO practices and strategies, so as to ensure that we take the correct road forward.  Search engines are leaving many false clues that lead us down the road of banishment for violations of SEO GUIDE LINES.

Social interactions and comment streams now have a very significant impact on your SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages ) and the SEMANTIC FOOT PRINTS  of your online content, which is linked to from within your comment streams.  The comment streams  of those folks who talk about you within the social media environment  without you knowing that they are talking about you, are included here also,  and  when others link to your online content from within their social media posts as well as related comment streams. These  social interactions, which you may not even know exists, can have a very significant or influential SEO  impact on your online content, so evaluate this carefully.

They could be saying either  good or  bad things about you, your products or the services that you offer.  You thus need to have some means in place to develope a notification system which will inform you when these conversations are happening, and supply the online link to specific social media posts so that you, or a member of your team may join the conversation. 

 The #MENTION LISTENING TOOL can do this for you.

HTTP://BIT.LY/MENTION4U your link to access the mention tool.

You can read more about #FUFISM BASED MARKETING and related marketing strategies  in our blog at http://4ubrand.blogspot.com

#AUTHORED BY #FRANKIE2SOCKS FOR THE 4U BRAND BLOG at http://4ubrand.blogspot.com

Published by INFO4U for Frankie Two Socks enterprises as part of our FUFISM BASED marketing education strategies

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Social media metrics

Social Media metrics and issues to consider  when evaluating your social media impact.

Social media metrics is a very confusing area that needs careful planning and plenty of insights as to what you are measuring, why you are measuring what you are measuring and how to interpret the actual figures that get produced as a result of your measuring.

 On 13 may 2014 the guys at +Stone Temple Consulting held a HOA (Hangout On Air) discussing this very complicated issue which is embedded here for you to watch.

Take your time and watch this HOA before proceeding

When measuring the impact of you social media efforts there are many issues to consider, and if you do not have a #FUFISM based marketing plan in place then things get rather murky very fast.

The biggest benefit of  having a  FUFISM based marketing plan in place is that you know your target market and how they are expected to interact with your social media posts.  If you know,  or have an idea of how your intended target market is expected react to your call to action statements then you would have an idea of how you would measure the effectiveness of your call to action statements within your social media posts.

To understand these issues you will need to have a fair understanding of  some terminology.

Read about SEO here if you are not sure of what SEO is .
Read about FUFISM or Functional User Friendly Integrated Social Media


Social media signals for Google Plus

Followers - the number of people who follow your social media profile
shares = the number of times that your content has been shared
comments = the number of individual comments on your post

Social media signals for FaceBook

Like = the numberof people who have clicked the like button
Shares = the number of people who have shared you post
Comments = the number of comments that your post has received

Social media stats are very much similar for all social media platforms, actual follower numbers are not that important, how ever your view count, which is  often difficult to locate, is the real issue at stake, coz if nobody sees your stuff how can they click on like or share your stuff?

#FRANKIE2SOCKS

What is the semantiuc value of EXIF DATA when thinking about SEO ?

Well as you all should be aware by now  #SEMANTICFOOTPRINTS are getting more important in terms of your online marketing each time search engines check your online content.  This means that search engines are getting better at understanding the intent, aims, objectives and purpose of every piece of online content.

now EXIF DATA is that set of text data that is sneakily added to your online image by your digital camera,  or in the case of a designed image, your digital image creator,  where a host of image relevant data is attached  to the image, and hidden from open view,  specifically for image editing folks to understand more about things like

focal length
exposure
make and model of camera
ISO speed
resolution


There is an opportunity here for those in the know to add a host of extra EXIF  DATA that is relevant to your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)  here we are talking of things like, but not limited to:

Image title
image description
image aims
image purpose
Geo location attached to image
image publisher
image creator

now if your SEO and marketing team have done their work properly,  and discussed these issues with your web design and social media marketing team,  as well as other relevant persons , then there is an opportunity  to embed a host of powerful   EXIF attributes to your image that will enhance the semantic value of your online content within the exif data of your online images.

For this to have any value within your SEO efforts  you will need to be very specific with the exif attributes and ensure that they match up with other stuff within your SEO efforts such as the stuff in the head section of your web page or blog post.  here we are talking of those areas where many SEO folks have told you that you do not need to worry about, such as page titles, page descriptions, page key words.  If your EXIF DATA within the image matches up and confirms the semantics within the head section and the semantics of your EXIF data there is a very big and powerful influence that pushes your pages considerably higher in the search engine results pages. #SERPS

This is where #FUFISM or Functional User Friendly Integrated Social Media  starts to get interesting and your online content starts to appear in semantically validated search results.  You will suddenly start to see search results for keywords that you never imagined your content would rank for, purely because of the semantics of your content and the semantics of the search query.  Most marketing folks will not tell you about the Google Humming Bird algorithm, because they have no clue what it does, how it works and how it impacts on your online content.

Getting your entire marketing team to make use of the EXIF DATA within your images is thus (or rather should be )  a rather essential part of your online marketing strategy, and you should be aware of how to integrate the contents of image EXIF data into all other areas of your marketing, so as to get maximum SEO value from your exif data.  The main things to look at here are  GEO LOCATION, image titles, image descriptions and image keywords, making sure that these match other data such as but not limited to

the meta data in the head section,
any XML mark up
any image alt tags
the actual page content that the viewer will see (in page text)

this   article by  Tim Brookes  will help you understand these issues better