The power of BLAB needs to be harnessed!

The dawn of a new social media giant  #BLAB

The social media platform +blab  is a new entrant into the social Media space that really only got noticed by me in   July / August  2015.  

 

 #BLAB is quite a powerful tool with in the conversation expansion tool kit that any marketer, or business professional  should consider using,  to expand their influence within the public domain.

 

BLAB is a very powerful communication platform that needs to be understood and managed as part of your personal enrichment strategies, as well as a tool,  to extend personal and meaningful conversations into the public domain in a manner that any invited prospect or like minded person may join at any time.

Blab must not be underestimated as a tool to build your personal relationships with existing customers, colleagues  , friends or other acquaintances including  with new and unknown persons who can join your BLAB experience at any time.

A new platform #BLAB

To use #B LAB you need to have an active functional twitter account,  as Blab is associated with Twitter and you need a twitter handle to log into BLAB.

BLAB is basically a video chat app that allows you to chat with up to three other folks  at a time, with the options to record this conversation so that you may re-purpose it to,  extend the conversation into other spaces,  such as here on G+, in twitter, on Facebook, in your blog or any where else where it may expand your reach and influence your intended target audience, or educate the public.

BLAB is not a stand alone strategy, as BLAB does not yet have a clear way to invite outsiders (the public) to join you and your guest, or  guests without using other platforms or other media

It thus follows that you need to have an established network, and then use this network to get the word out about your conversation and where to find it within the BLABOSPHERE.

 about FUFISM based  marketing

The power of the BLAB social space must not be underestimated, and in my personal opinion, this will soon be used by Google and other Search engines to extend, focus and   strengthen their STFSEOVI (Semantic Trust Factor Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators) of individuals who make use of this platform to expand the conversations about their work and connected online resources.

The comment stream that is associated with each BLAB should also not be forgotten about, as this can, and should,  be used very effectively as a link building tool, to build a link profile of specific pages, blog posts or other online resources that are directly relevant to the blab in question.  This platform is thus a very unique opportunity to build your personal semantic footprint, and link it to your blog, your web site and other online resources,  where you are a contributor in very deeply connected and meaningful ways, that Google Hummingbird, and its cousins in other search engines can use with confidence to link you to specific topics, categories or industry specific fields.

Only those who have an interest in the topic in question for each individual blab will find and then perhaps comment, and this will allow for better understanding by search engines of who your intended target audience is ,  and what your industry specific niche is.  There is thus a very clear and distinct opportunity for marketers to use the BLAB platform to expand the online reach and related SEOVI (Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators) of any specific individual who makes use of the BLAB social media space , through clever and well thought through supplemental marketing  OFF PAGE SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION of your BLAB video conversations.

Info4u offers better marketing tips

If you do your marketing right by making use of your other social media platforms to market when you will be on blab,  supply the link to your blab, and ensure that these are well optimized and are highly placed within the SERP's for the topic and related key  words of the conversation that you intend to have on blab, along with who your co-host or guest will be , then you have a great chance of  random folks who have an interest in the topic under discussion.

These random folks who find your BLAB conversation should form the core of your intended target market audience.  Many may want to join the conversation directly, but be prevented from doing so due to the numbers issue.  Remember that only 4 people may be present in a #BLABCONVERSATION at any one time.   this is not a major train smash, as there is a comment stream that is live and interactive where these folks can inject their views and related links into the conversation.  also as soon as any one person leaves the BLAB CONVERSATION any body from the public may take his  /  her place.

Once again this is a very powerful communications tool, and its power within the SEO industry and related\  online marketing environment needs to be understood and managed so that it may be harnessed to promote you as an individual, as well as all the online resources where you as an individual are active or a contributor or some sort.

TAKE A PEEP SEE HERE    http://blog.blab.im/

BLAB is a very neat communications tool that I recommend that you evaluate for your self...

 

I like this tool, and suggest that you start working out how you will integrate your blabs into your other marketing from a #FUFISM based marketing perspective.

Pinterest and FUFISM

 FUFISM back ground info

#FUFISM or Functional User Friendly Integrated Social Media has many facets and covers a large spectrum of different strategies. Each social media platform has its own traits and needs to have its own set of in-house rules that need to be made available to all people working on your marketing team.

This means that your marketing management team need to determine a platform specific policy for each social media platform which your marketing team should have access to.  Each Member of your marketing team actually needs to have a copy of  each separate social media platform's policies and procedures after being work-shopped on the main purpose of using that platform within your total marketing strategy.

To some this may sound like a bit of over kill from managements directives, but if not done,  the results will not be any where near what they should be.  One must remember that the purpose of using social media as a marketing tool is to get the end user or your intended target market to specific pages within your website, where he / she will be expected to follow your call to action statement.

So how does PINTEREST fit into this picture?

Pinterest is a picture / image sharing social media platform that has many unique characteristics and we will focus primarily on the ability to have themed pin boards for pictures in selected categories. If you are not familiar with pinterest then you should take a short detour to www.pinterest.com and have a peep see what all the fuss is about before reading further.

The first step in this process of using pinterest as a marketing tool is to write up the purpose of using pinterest along with a set of aims and objectives as well as an in-house policy document on how the rest of your marketing team should interact with your pinterest profile and boards.  Each specific marketing campaign should have its own separate documentation for your pinterest profile, and share the pin boards that you have in place.

To be able to write up the purpose of using pinterest as a marketing tool one needs to understand what pinterest does and how this is done.  see http://business.pinterest.com/whats-pinterest/ for details

PINTEREST purpose related issues

From a FUFISM perspective pinterest is an image sharing platform that allows your marketing team to use a single  image reference in ALL other social media platforms in a way that it will funnel your intended target market back to the page where that specific image with its associated call to action live, in anticipation, waiting for your intended target audience to be enticed into clicking on your call to action statement.  This means that the original image MUST be enticing,  and clearly depict something that your target audience will relate to, such as your product or a very descriptive image that reflects your service or the idea that you are trying to convey to your intended target audience. see http://www.pinterest.com/pin/100275529177237087/  Remember that once an end user clicks on your pin he / she will be taken back to the original page where the image was first pinned.

Use a URL shortening service and generate a user friendly URL that will help you entice an end user to click on the link to your pin. example http://bit.ly/hashtag-marketing   this link  opens a page discussing hash tag marketing (#hashtagmarketing) in this blog.

Pinterest is a powerful social media platform that is growing into a must have marketing tool, as it adds very large volumes of SEOVI (Search Engine Optimization Value Indicators) to your online work. Pinterest has a large domain authority that spreads an awful lot of SEO value and is instrumental in elevating many web sites higher into the SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages)  If you can get others to re-pin your pins and share them, then the social signals associated with your pin will add further SEOVI to your pinterest profile, which in turn will boost your other SEO efforts. Pinterest adds true value to your semantic profile within all search engines, and this is of extreme importance within Google with the advent of Google Humming Bird Algorithm which has a very large focus on semantic issues.

IMAGE NAMING and descriptions

Referencing your pinterest pins in posts within other social media platforms adds extra value to your pinterest profile as a whole and the specific pin in particular.  You need to make use of this through using an integrated approach, and ensuring that you mention your pinterest pins in the correct context within your social media posts on all other social media platforms.  This is not such a difficult thing to accomplish when your marketing campaign  is put together from a FUFISM perspective, where the big picture is properly in the central marketing focal area, and your pages where your call to action statements are properly constructed using the image which you will pin within your pinterest profile as a visual hook with the in page assembly, using well thought through

• image file names
• Image descriptions
• image titles
• image alt text
• image key words

PIN BOARD NAMES within pinterest.

This set of target market orientated image expansion tactics needs to be well thought through and be  well documented so that your copy writers who construct your other social media posts can use the same set of key words during their efforts to entice your intended target market to click on the link back to your page. The description of your pin within your pinterest profile should also contain as many of these words in well constructed sentences or partial sentences as you can so that they make clear and meaningful impacts on your intended target market should they read them.  This is also very critical from a semantic perspective as these efforts will add tremendous semantic value to both your pin and the original web page where your image and related call to action statements reside.

You will need to take some time and effort in evaluating the naming process of your different boards within your pinterest profile, and ensure that each individual board is named  and described with your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) tactics in mind. These pin board names and descriptions must fit into the rest of your marketing plan, as they will be associated with your web site, blog and other online marketing avenues.

For more help in setting up your pinterest profile and related in-page SEO issues  contact our friendly staff at pinterst.help@info4u.co.za,  visit our Google plus page or ask your question in a comment on this post.

what is the value of Social Signals in SEO

SEO or Search Engine Optimisation has come a long way since it first became a necessity in getting your information listed near the top of SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages) In the beginning it was purely in-page SEO, and that was fine.

but things have changed drastically see video at bottom of page

Along came the advent of Facebook and the social media revolution which changed the way that we as people communicate in ways that are still being investigated and documented. Many other social media platforms jumped up and started having an influence on information sharing and information flow between people at alarming speeds. People were suddenly sharing a whole lot of stuff online that did not make sense to businesses as it was purely of a social nature with people discussing things like

• where they would be spending the week end
• what we will be eating for lunch
• who is having an affair with my cousin
• what colour dress should be worn to a party
• what music is pleasant and what is crappy to listen to
• their personal love life
• their personal thoughts and social affairs
• whats going on at the office when the boss is out
• what movies to watch
• where I waste my spare time

This information was indexed in search engines and because of the size of the base web site that the social media platforms operated, and the size of the user base of these social platforms, results suddenly started appearing at the top of SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages) for many keywords and keyword phrases, which carried very little value to the person making the search request. 

Soon the marketing world stepped into the social media arena and started direct online marketing within the social media with alarming  results. These results were at first confusing to many within the search industry, especially those involved in SEO for web sites. The major search engines picked this up and started adding the value of social signals to their algorithms with strange results as they were very experimental.

As the search industry came to grips with the impact of the social media on search patterns things started to settle down and an understanding of how social signals should be interpreted by search engines began to emerge. At Info4u we realised that these changes required an integrated approach to all online marketing, as most SEA's (Search Engine Algorithms) use a large variety of issues from different locations to determine the value of any specific page before placing it in any SERP (Search Engine Results Page)

Info4u thus coined the acronym FUFISM or Functional User Friendly Integrated Social Media  to describe the our approach to all online marketing, as the Search Industry now requires a lot more information from you to place your online information anywhere near the top of its SERP's.

This short video by slingshot (www.slingshotseo.com) found at http://www.business2community.com  discusses some of the related issues focusing on social media issues around social signals and SEO

How do you use social media to promote your business?

I FOUND A SOCIAL MEDIA REPORT BY SOCIAL MEDIA EXAMINER WHILST DOING SOME GENERAL RESEARCH ON SOCIAL MEDIA ISSUES THAT I WOULD LIKE TO SHARE WITH YOU.

This report can be found online here  I also found a few videos that I thought were worth a watch which I have embedded below for you to appreciate as well.

In this first video Marcus Sheridan, founder of The Sales Lion shares how businesses can use social media to develop relationships with potential customers and increase sales.

In this video, Jason Falls, co-author of the book No Bullshit Social Media shares some excellent tips and explains how social media can impact your business.



Remember that the SEA's (Search Engine Algorithms) are now giving much more value to social signals, so choose a SMP (social Media Platform) that best suits your client / customer / user base and ensure that your SMG (social Media Group) gets the info that they want about your brand, product or service with plenty of links splashed in to your  call to action pages where your sales will be concluded and payment accepted.

Do NOT be pushy and act like a sales person in your SMP (Social Media Platform) but remember to supply links to your sales pages and other call to action pages using the correct key words near the links as determined by your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) representative within your marketing team.

Always be aware that your SMA (Social Media Activities) are part of your marketing strategy used to funnel your social groups online actions to your call to action pages that should be managed within your company web site.

Many thanx for reading Our blog. check out our Google Plus page and leave us a note telling us what you would like to know more about and we will do our best to accommodate your request.

Looking forward to hearing from you soon.

SEO and what it really means

SEO or Search Engine optimisation is clearly a misunderstood concept, and this is very evident when you talk to marketers who use FB (Face Book) to promote their products or services.

The first question that needs to be cleared up and put on the table for discussion when dealing with Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is who is your target market and how do you expect this group (your target market) to find your information, product or service on the Internet.

Next step is which platform do you expect your intended target market to use to locate your information.

• will they use a social media platform
• will they use a search engine like google, yahoo or another found here
• will they go directly to your page cause they found your link in the printed media
• will they go directly to your page cause they heard it on radio or saw it on TV
• will they access your page through a link found in their email

This is one of the most important steps in any SEO (Search Engine Optinisation) effort, if you fail to do this your are planning to ensure your pages get no (zero) visitors. Your copy (the words you use in your article or post) are chosen according to the platform as well as  your intended target market, with their language use and vocabulary base

You also need to remember that every social media platform (SMP) you use has its own built in search engine that uses an algorithm to supply you with the best matches in their data base for your search.

How these internal search engines allocate points or establish a ranking order for the matches within their system is a mystery, just as the algorithm used by Google, Yahoo and others is a mystery. But be sure there are methods and tricks to ensure your information is placed higher up in the SERP's (Search Engine Results Positions) than others.

In face book the number of likes (often called social signals) is a prime factor, and the more likes a specific post has received the higher up the author and related information gets in the SERP's (Search Engine Results Positions). Other factors in FB include but are not limited to

• the number of friends one has,  
• the number of common friends one has with the person who placed the article
• your likes of similar articles or posts
• the number of your listed friends who have liked the relevant post or article
• the total number of posts you have made
• the total number of external links to the relevant article and their positions within other search engines.

So how do you get likes in face book?  simple answer is write what the public want to hear about, and they will like your post. If that fails then you need to specifically request individuals to read your post and click like. The same applies to all other social media platforms, just likes are replaced by terms such as" PIN IT" in pinterest, follow or re-tweet in Twitter, +1 in Google Plus and similar in other SMP's (Social Media Platforms)

Facebook does look at links from other SMP's (Socaial Media Platforms) for their SERP's (Search Engine Results Positions), and so does twitter and pinterest, but what  the value of this is unclear as their algorithms are kept secret, just as in Google, Yahoo and others.

Bottom line is that good, well written copy, that is unique to your product, service or related information is essential to your viewers. All the search engines understand this, even the internal search engines within the many SMP's (social media platforms).

So a clear definition of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) would be

The techniques and methods used in generating good copy written with the intended target market in mind and the related subsequent online promotion of the copy once it is placed within the desired platform so as to ensure good SERP's (Search Engine Results Positions) within that specific platform.  

 The purpose of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is to ensure that your information is found by your intended target market when they use their preferred search engine on their preferred platform.

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is not only for big business and big websites, and if you do not use basic SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) in your online marketing then your online marketing  will fail and you will have wasted your time and effort.

Once again SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) starts with defining your target market, and this should be the first step in any marketing campaign, thus by default your marketing strategy already includes the first steps of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) Once you have come to grips with this very elementary statement you will soon realise the value of basic SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and just how easy it is to perform the very minimum SEO which requires no technical skill at all.

The related subsequent online promotion of your posts on any social media platform are essential to ensuring better SERP's (Search Engine Results Positions) in all platforms. Web sites allow for more technical SEO techniques and methods than social media platforms (SMP's) and Web Site search engine optimisation (WSSEO) needs to be treated very differently to Social Media Search Engine Optimisation. (SMSEO)

 search for the term  #info4u2use in twitter for posts containing links to SEO and related posts by staff at Info4u.