Basic information flow issues for FUFISM based marketing

FUFISM INFORMATION FLOW PATTERNS

FUFISM  is a marketing philosophy where the social media forms the core element in your marketing strategies and is integrated into your total marketing plan as the main communication platform which is dictated by company policy. 

#FUFISM is an acronym for Functional User Friendly Integrated Social Media, and is a very far reaching  marketing strategy which includes all the different aspects of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and is extremely target market focused. A FUFISM based marketing campaign originates with the management deciding on a  product / service or idea that they want marketed, then giving the marketing team a directive to develop a strategy that would achieve the purpose, aims and objectives within the company's marketing policy framework.

The marketing team will then establish a target market audience and generate some content around the product / service or idea that the management has instructed them to market, which is target market specific.  Once they have the content and have established a content marketing strategy, the marketing team would start by establishing a web page or group of web pages where the target market focused call to action statement and the conversion funnel end point are accommodated.

Next step is to write one or more blog posts marketing the web pages in question, which is followed up by using the social media to market both the blog posts associated with the web pages as well as the web pages themselves.  This is then backed up with the necessary social media links and social media platform specific logos being added to both the web pages and the associated blog posts.

You would now have a three pronged marketing strategy with 

1. a web page or group of web pages as the base
2. A blog that backs up the web page / pages and interacts with your social media platforms.
3. One our more social media platforms that promote and interact with both the blog and associated web pages in ways that the intended target market can reach out to your staff and communicating directly with the appropriate  employees in your organisation through online based forms in your website, on your blog or through the aspects of the social media platform that you have used.

Meetings and record keeping help with FUFISM accountability

The advent of the social media revolution has impacted on many company's communication systems, but few have actually taken time to write new communication policies that accommodate  these changes, and even fewer have adapted their marketing policies to include the drastic changes in the online marketing arena.


This leaves the marketing professionals stuck between a rock and a  very hard place, with the weight of ROI (Return ON Investments) squeezing in on both sides. There are no mechanisms for those lower down the ladder to complain that the marketing management is not doing their jobs properly, or that the main company management is operating and enforcing out dated communication policies that do not accommodate the new  systems which have evolved with the social media revolution.

FUFISM or Functional User Friendly Integrated Social Media policies can start the ball rolling down the hill of incompetency, then ask the management to inspect the damage.  This will force management to take some action to rectify the situation.

You are obviously asking how, so an explanation and an example is needed.

The first steps are to get everybody at marketing meetings where FUFISM, SEO, Social media and marketing are discussed.

The main topics on the agenda should be

1. what is online content 
2. what is content marketing
3.  what is Search Engine Optimisation
4. what is Social media
5. what is Social Media Optimisation
6. what is FUFISM
7. what is the relationship between 

• content marketing
• social media optimisation
• search engine optimisation
• FUFISM

 This meeting will give the junior marketing staff as well as IT staff, web site development team, blogging team and public relations team an opportunity to explain  a wide variety of issues including but not limited to

• SERP's (Search engine Results pages) and how the social media is included in many search engine results pages, with many posts within the social media being much higher up in the SERP's for many of the key words and key word phrases than  the company's web pages
• how the Social media may be used to promote the company web site, the company blog and other online company information in various different platforms.
• how face book business pages can be manipulated higher into the SERP's by allowing company employees to use Face book.
• how Google Plus  business pages can be promoted higher into the SERP's by allowing company employees to use G+ as a social platform.
• Other benefits of using G+ as a social layer internally within the company
• the company's communication policies, especially the impacts of these policies on the company's marketing efforts
• Information sharing, focusing on the SERP's and the coloration between social media promotions and  changes in visitor statistics including where these web site visitors came from.
• the impact of high levels of social signals on organic SERP's for your web site and blog.

This meeting will get many mangers hot under the collar, and many SEO specialists will be in for a  tough time, being stuck in the middle with no answers. The answers need to come from top management, who are actually in the dark about these issues, because they have not been informed of the impacts of the social media on all communication strategies, at all levels. Some serious forethought needs to be put into the agenda, and everybody needs to be given an opportunity to express their views on FUFISM and how putting a FUFISM policy in place will impact on their input to the total marketing plan.

The changes in general community communication patterns as a result of the social media revolution also need to be brought to the attention of top management in a non combative way, explaining why management needs to take note of these changes and how the company can benefit from adopting a user friendly approach to social media, which encourages all company employees to make use of the social media within the work place.

In South Africa where I live, work and play, most company mangers see the social media as a problem which takes up productive time, and so many companies have policies which prohibit the use of social media within the work place. Many South African companies have gone so far as to block / ban all social media sites within their internal online networks through the use of firewall technologies and routing tables. This puts the marketing of online materials in a rather awkward position, as top management is not up to speed with the changes in the communication styles and methods that have been necessitated by the advent of social media.

Top management have also not been briefed about  the changes in Search Engine Optimisation strategies which have been forced upon the marketing industry as a result of the influences of the social media on most search engine algorithms, and because of this lack of knowledge, those involved at top management level  have been making many poor decisions about their communications strategies. This meeting that we recommend, will give the management a heads up to their short falls, and allow them to be brought up to date.

More discussing the advent of The Google Hummingbird Update will be coming soon.in the mean time take a peep see at the Humming bird algo infographic.

What's the value of a Google+ +1?

What's the value of a Google+ or a +1? Now this is a good question that needs some explanation.

Social signals are the new buzz word in SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and are quite a scary bunch of things affecting page rank and SERP (Search Engine Results page)

What is the value of social signals?

The value of social signals in terms of SEO (search Engine Optimisation) is a growing concern amongst many webmasters and web site owners. The number of social media websites has grown exponential over the last year or 2 and is still growing rapidly.

Social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest G+ and Linked in all add value to your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) efforts. Using all these platforms is hard work that is extremely time consuming, but is really worth the effort.

These social media efforts are all long term efforts that should not be rushed, the choice of usernames is a big issue, and when ever possible should be brand names and names associated with your web site. These social media platforms should not be seen as competition for your web site, but looked upon as complementary efforts that send visitors to your online call to action pages.

This article called "your guide to social media signals for SEO" is a must read for any web site owner / webmaster / SEO specialist

The value of social media signals in terms of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is not truly understood, and is growing rapidly as more and more companies are using the social media to promote their brands, products and services.

How we as SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) professionals treat these social signals amongst our selves will be evaluated by the SE (search Engine) operators, and we will  need to be aware of their reactions to our efforts. The SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) crews and the Search Engine engineers need to have a common platform, but this is just wishfull thinking, as there are far too many cheats and BH (Black Hat) SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) crew members.

When the SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) professionals start behaving rationally and work within the system without trying to gain unfair advantage through some form of skulduggery or trickery then we may be able to truly understand the value of  social media and the value that social media actually adds to our efforts.

The current trend to buy social signals from vendors to push the effects of the SEO value of these social signals through to higher SERP's (Search Engine Results positions) should be avoided as Search Engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing, ask and many others will soon be writing changes to their algorithms to punish these cheats and BH ( Black Hat) vendors and all their clients in ways that will surprise many and catch many others unawares when their pages just simply drop out of the organic listings.

So we as SEO professionals need to harness the value of social signals as organically as is possible, or face the prospect of being dropped from the organic listings of all search engines. The SEO value of good social signals should not be under estimated, as it is a growing force that needs to be harnessed and nurtured to ensure it's impact is not short lived or negative to the SERP's (Search Engine Results Positions) of our collective client bases.

How do you measure the impact of your social media efforts?

Measuring the impacts of your social media efforts is a difficult task at best, but how do you connect this to your bottom line?

In my opinion all social media efforts are in place to funnel online activity to your call to action pages that are manged out side of the social media arena. Others will have different opinions and explain why they think the way they do.

Social media is a very powerful marketing tool, but there are difficulties in measuring its success. having  a large number of Facebook followers does not necessarily translate into a large number of people buying your product or using your service, and the correlation between face book likes and feet in to physical stores is quite difficult as followers may live in foreign countries / out of state .

That is why target market selection is critical in your social media efforts. FB adds can be very effective if you use the Geo-targeting tools made available, but still extremely difficult to measure. Other  social media operators also allow for Geo-marketing but none offer any tools on how to measure the effectiveness of your social media efforts.

how do you tie your social media efforts to your bottom line? read here and then decide which way you want to go, and what actions you can take to convince your boss to spend more on social media marketing.

I firmly believe that your social media efforts need to be seen as promoting  your existing online sales and marketing efforts which need to be managed as a collective entity keeping your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) policies and principles in place and ensuring complete integration of all your marketing / online sales channels.

If you do this  you will have the tools to measure the success of your marketing efforts and keep tabs on the separate parts with out loosing the fact that they are part of an integrated system.  read this and think about what I have said here today

Is SEO dead?

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is not dead, and will never die, as SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is the collective work done to ensure that your online information is found by your intended target market . So as long as you have online information of any sort you need to do SEO

The very technical stuff that used to be done by technical SEO experts is taking a bit of strain, and under serious pressure, from Social Media experts, and this may be what some experts are referring to as the death of SEO.

Once again SEO or Search Engine optimisation is a collective effort that needs to be integrated into your entire online marketing strategy. The "Link building" and Social "signals" that are generated when others quote your work are one of the most essential parts of any SEO effort, as this offers the search engines an insight as to just how useful your audience has found your online offerings.

This article - What is SEO and who cares is a very interesting read

This article  Mobile SEO – Just How Different Is It   is also a bit of a surprise, but not entirely new or alien to SEO

Managers need to understand that SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is a very big issue and it needs to be integrated into the company marketing policy and managed from the top in a co-ordinated and integrated fashion. SEO is no longer the stand alone department that it used to be, but should now be an integral part of any online  marketing strategy.

Facebook Adds and SEO

Facebook Advertising is the new buzz word in social media circles and needs some serious attention from the SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) crew, but first we need to determine the value of your Facebook marketing and placing adds within Facebook for your situation.

Read the whole post first then  read the 2 links at the bottom of this post to better evaluate what is written here

This evaluational is a complex task  that can only be done by your own marketing team, because of the list below...

• they know what they have done, and others can ask about what is missing, and why it is missing after looking at the complied list of what has been done and what has been left out - 
• others=
• SEO(Search Engine Optimisation) team
• Web publishing team
• Social media team
• they know where they have placed adds, others can ask why the specified location and not else where
• they know what SEO related tasks have been done to promote those adds they have placed, and your SEO team can discuss what is missing, then add to their own independent SEO efforts accordingly
• They know your target audience and their preferred platform of use, as well as how to get a call to action functional within that platform.
•  They have selected the action call, associated images, key words and key word phrases accordingly
• They have the tools to determine 
• the ROI (Return On Investment),  
• the popularity of your Facebook adds
• actions taken by viewers and subsequent results
• impact on brand retention and brand recognition

Marketing, web publishing, SEO  and Social media need to be integrated for any one of them to be successful.

If there is or is not  a related web site associated with the Facebook marketing efforts is the next critical question, with additional questions being how many links from within the related Facebook marketing pages to this web site are there and what key words and keyword phrases were used in these related Facebook

• adds 
• posts
• fan pages
• apps 

Next you need to evaluate your web site, blogs, and other marketing avenues using the same or similar tactics and tools. Then you have a fair means of evaluating  the face book add and its value to your complete marketing strategy, which should include but not be limited to

• inputs from your marketing team
• inputs from your social media team
• inputs from your online publishing team (web master and crew)
• inputs from the SEO team - separate from online publishing
• inputs from production staff
• inputs from management and PR teams
• inputs from your sales team showing sales graphs and related statistics so that these can be interpreted  correctly taking Social media signals and SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) efforts into account and linking these to peaks and troughs in sales. Often sales and sales data are not part of this picture, due to the lack of integration because of marketing staffs selfish attitudes

Remember that Facebook does not allow the editing of their HTML nor insertion of  any META DATA into  their pages, so  only extreme basic SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is performed on your Facebook pages, including your Facebook Adds. Unfortunately your marketing staff do not consider SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)  and SEM (Search Engine Marketing) as part of company marketing strategy for some obscure reason.

Facebook adds create great value within Facebook for your :

• likes
• friends
• shares

These social signals (likes, shares and friends)  are interpreted by most popular search engines today  and add value to the SEO JUICE  factor which is included in the SE (Search Engine)  SEA's (Search Engine Algorithms) and passed on to the linked pages from the specified profiles / fans pages

The greater the SEO JUICE factor of a page the better a linked to page scores within SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages / listings) and thus the closer to the top of the SERP's. Unfortunately Facebook Adds do not link directly to a website out side of the face book domain, so you need to ensure that the landing page of your advert within the Facebook domain contains at least one link, and preferably more to your sales pages within a domain that you control and can optimise for the search engines using the carried SEO JUICE to your best advantage.

The Facebook adds landing page needs great care when the basic SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is done as this SEO is extremely limited to the on page selection of keywords and  key word phrases as well as the in-page copy and any inbound links that you have generated from other domains to the Facebook landing page (The page your Facebook add refers to)

Facebook has their own internal linking structure and tools, which you need to understand and use as well by placing posts and fan pages within Facebook with carefully planned links, linking to the URL of your Facebook add. This very basic SMSEO ( Social Media Search Engine Optimisation) practice improves the value of the add within the Facebook SEA (Search Engine Algorithm)  and subsequently improves the quantity and quality of the SEO JUICE carried over to your pages from the Facebook add.

What this means is that you must use the Facebook adds to funnel your prospects from Facebook to your sales pages in your own domain, and use this strategy as part of your overall SEO strategy to improve your SERP's (Search Engine Results Page Listings) within Search engines to catch all searchers looking for your product / service / information thus improving your overall marketing and ROI (Return On Investment) of your total marketing budget.

face book sponsored results
integrate Social Media and SEO


REMEMBER THAT ALL YOUR MARKETING EFFORTS NEED TO BE CO-ORDINATED AND INTEGRATED HOLISTICALLY

SEO (SEARCH ENGINE |OPTIMISATION , SOCIAL MEDIA, BLOGS AND FORUMS ALL FORM PART OF MARKETING AND NEED TO BE INTEGRATED INTO THE COMPANY MARKETING STRATEGY CAREFULLY, EXCLUDING ONE OR GIVING ONE MORE VALUE THAN THE OTHERS IS VERY SHORT SITED.

Reasons for social media integration!

I have been a bit busy with the issues around the IMPLEMENTATION OF THE IWPA (ISIMANGALISO WETLAND PARK AUTHORITY) IMP (INTEGRATED MANAGEMENT PLAN) AND RELATED PPP (PUBLIC PARTICIPATION PROCESS / PROCEDURE)

This issue is very problematic and full of political interference from many levels. There are many thorny issues that need to be discussed honestly in the public domain, which the iSimangaliso Wetland Park Authority are deliberately sidestepping. See this blog for details http://iwpappp.blogspot.com/

So lets get back on track and discuss the value of integrating your social media efforts with your other marketing efforts, keeping in mind how your prospective customers first find out about your products or services. If you operate in a closed community then you have no problems, as everybody will be aware of what your products / services are, what they cost and how to contact you for more info or adsvice.


If on the other hand your business relies on the public or a niche market, then you know that your customers / followers / clients first find your web page by using a search of some type. Most used Search system (called a search engine) is Google. others are improving and a list can be found here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_search_engines 


Search engines are tricky things to master, and no search engine will volunteer their algorithm that they use to sort out the returned list of possible matches that you need to evaluate and choose from. So what should you as an owner of a web site, social media profile or blog do to ensure that your information is located by your  intended target market ?.


The answer is quite simply apply SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) techniques when creating your pages and writing your copy. I am sure you are thinking  "I don't know what that is!!!" but you are wrong, because you use many of these techniques already in you basic marketing plan any way.

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) starts with defining your target market, and using words that your defined target market are familiar with when writing your copy. If you do this you are over half way there already. The next step is to ensure that your information has some inbound links, that is ensuring that other websites, blogs, social media pages or forums link to your information in some way. In Facebook clicking a like or share button does this automatically for you. So by loose definition, the more likes a post has in face book the more inbound links the post has. placing a link in Facebook to some remote page  (out side of the FaceBook domain) creates an out bound link in face book which is an inbound link at the remote page you referred to.


The search engines use this data and much more information that they collect about your information by using what they commonly call spiders that crawl the web, looking for webpages and collecting all types of data from the page and storing this data for the Search Engine algorithm to use according to the search engine engineers instructions. 

When you type a word or combination of words into the search box and press enter the search engine processes this request according to the instructions in their algorithm and displays a list of probable matches for you to choose from. 

So taking the above info into account and evaluating what needs to be done so people find your information you need to ensure that you have at least 2 but preferably more places where you discuss your business online, and link these together by cross referencing  your various online information portals.

example : you have a website, a facebook profile and a twitter profile.

step 1 is to create a fan page in FB and write about this fan page on your  wall and link to it on your wall.
step 2 write about your fan page on twitter and place a link to your fan page in your tweets


Step 3 write about your twitter profile on your facebook wall and place a link to your twitter profile on your face book wall.


Step 4 write about your face book profile in your website, and link your webiste to your FB profile with a FB badge 

step 5 write about your twitter profile in your website and place a link to your twitter profile with a twitter badge / banner


step 6 write about your fan page in your website and place a link to your fan page using a FB badge.


step 7 write about your web site in your face book pages, and refer back to your twitter posts.


step 8 repeat steps 2 to 7 on a regular basis, and keep adding extra pages to your website. ensure that each new page in your webiste gets a mention in your facebook effrots as well as in your tweets. keep mentioning your tweets and facebook posts in your web site and update regularly (at least once a week - preferably more often)


Step 9 get your friends and others to mention your info in their facebook pages
step 9 get others to retweet your tweets about your FB pages and your web pages.


step 10 regularly go over what you have done and check for errors that may have crept in. adjust and repeat steps 1 to 9. then repeat step 10 as often as is needed.


If you do this then you will have some success. once you have the hang of this you can expand and really improve your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) by using HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) in your website and in all your social media where you are allowed to. this will improve your SERP's (Search Engine Results Position / placements)  drastically


The value of integrating your social media profiles with your web site and SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) efforts  will become evident as your online business picks up due to the organic listings generated in many search engines by your hard work and thoughtful use of your key words as used by your target audience.


before purchasing a domain name for your website, or when purchasing a new domain name to expand your online branding consult with at least 3 or 4 different SEO specialists and ask for branding advice related to domain name purchases. If the SEO specialist does not ask you to define your target market before discussing further, be weary as he / she still needs to learn a lot. The primary issue when doing SEO is to know the target market and their vocabulary and terminology used within the target market group.


When integrating your different online marketing segments remember to keep you intended target market in focus and write your copy accordingly. this will generate the most value for your efforts.