(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — The early 1960’s ad office depicted in the TV drama “Mad Men” does a lot to show how far the US has come socially. And while it seems that people are more willing to shelf antiquated prejudices, it could be argued that an old guard of marketers has been having a similarly difficult time adapting to the realities of the new online world.
Indeed, in the past few years a social media strategy has gone from being a novelty to a necessity for nearly every competitive business. Further, it appears that our conception of the Internet as a global-scale network is also in transition.
Since its early days, the Internet has promised disembodied communications across borders – and this promise has arguably delivered on most accounts. Yet, individuals have seemed almost destined to use the Internet to enhance their interactions with the real world – for instance, the success of Facebook is partly due to the fact that most users interact with their real-world connections. In recent years, this trend of localization seems to have grown out of technology improvements (such as increasingly capable mobile phones and more interactive websites), as well as individuals’ acceptance of technologies into their daily life.
A handful of businesses has been cropping up to help organizations deal with this new reality. UniversalBusinessListing.Org, for instance, is a directory service that lets businesses post their business listing once and have it posted to all major online yellow pages, search engines, 411 directories and other vertical industry directories, making businesses visible to relevant local audiences.
With more than two decades of experience in technology, Curtis R. Curtis has become recognized as an expert in the Internet, hosting and online marketing industries. He is currently senior vice president of strategic partnerships of UniversalBusinessListing.org, and will be speaking on local search and optimizing social media at HostingCon.
His session takes place Monday, July 19, at 1:00 p.m.
In an email interview with the WHIR, Curtis explains the importance of developing an effective social media strategy, and how businesses can make the most out of localization.
WHIR: It appears that social media over the past few years have become invaluable to businesses of all stripes. How important is it for hosting companies in particular to participate in social media?
Curtis R. Curtis: I believe that it goes beyond important; it is critical for hosting companies to develop social media campaigns. At a minimum they should develop their Facebook Fan Page, Twitter and YouTube channels. The reason I say that for hosting companies it is so critical is because of two deep-seeded elements of hosting today.
The first being that hosting companies are competing in a highly commoditized marketplace which is resulting in downward pricing pressures for those marketing themselves like everyone else (PPC, banner ads, even traditional SEO).
Secondly, hosting is a highly support-intensive service; the better the level of support and customer interaction, the better the relationship with customers and their reputation for same in the marketplace. Social media offers hosting companies the ability to differentiate both their marketing and their engagement with the marketplace.
WHIR: In comparison to traditional marketing campaigns, is it more difficult to define objectives for a social media strategy? And how can a company determine the success of their effort?
CC: Developing the right social media strategies is not so much difficult as it is different. Defining objectives for any social media campaign requires a fundamentally different mindset; which may be difficult for those who have spent years doing things the same way year after year (AdWords, directories, banners, affiliate marketing, etc.).
Also, for marketers, developing marketing strategies has traditionally been about driving sales or lead generation; programs with definable ROIs, while social media is more about engagement. Most companies break all the rules of this engagement. They try to sell products or services instead of realizing that social media is all about developing communities.
Success of these efforts is the reaction of the marketplace. Do they have a large following, or a large fan base? How viral does the campaign go in the case of videos? Are they reaching the right marketplace? To do this the social media marketer needs to understand the demographics of their customer, where they hang out and, especially, what the rules of engagement are. Some places it needs to be highly informal whereas some place it may require more technical language and content.
WHIR: Do you think localization of online content is in its infancy? And what promise does it hold for businesses?
CC: Actually I would say that Localization has definitely grown out of the infancy stage and has become more like a young child, who has already learned to walk and talk and is now starting to run.
Everywhere you turn, geo-targeting and other local initiatives are making it paramount that those companies who figure localization of their content and other aspects of their business is for those with only local presences are missing out on a huge opportunity to get a jump on their competition.
As for promise I will simply give some statistics. YouTube is the second largest search engine. Sixty percent of 30-to-49-year-olds watch YouTube regularly and 40 percent of 50-to-64-year-olds. Already today’s youth, tomorrows next big wave of consumers are quickly becoming what I call the YouTube Generation, while for many people Facebook has become their second home. Twitter has become for many of us our favorite real time search engine and a serious source of feedback and reviews on any topic including products and services you want to crowd source.
Finally, 90 percent of all purchases were directly related to peer recommendations, not advertising. They can only get this from sources where there is the ability to interact; which is social media.
WHIR: What are some steps that businesses can take to improve their local search ranking?
CRC: For me local search is actually very easy, in fact it is why I have moved over to this arena. Unlike SEO, which is very complex and often times mercurial, local is about following some very basic steps.
a) Start by listing your company everywhere. Do not make the mistake of thinking Google is all you need – far from it. Google only makes up 30 percent of local searches. You need to make sure you are in every search engine, online yellow pages, directory, 411 assistance and mobile/GPS device. This used to be time consuming, and sheer drudgery. Fortunately companies like UniversalBusinessListing.org have developed a fast, inexpensive and easy way for businesses to list their business accurately everywhere they need to be.
b) Make sure that your information is consistent and accurate everywhere. This is critical to being both listed and being found; not to mention it is useless if someone is calling the wrong number.
c) Claim your listing in Google, Bing and Yahoo. If you are not comfortable doing this yourself, getting a local search marketer or using UBL’s claiming service is suggested.
d) Choose your domain carefully. It really helps to have your business name or part of it in the domain.
e) Make search that wherever you are listed, you correctly select those categories most accurate to your business and most likely to help you get found for whatever products or services you are selling.
f) Optimize your “contact us” and “about us” sections to make sure that your business information is listed and accurate and highly detailed. Optimize this information carefully for local. Same applies to the titles of many of your pages.
g) Get as many off-site reviews and citations as you can find especially in those places where you are already listed. Offer encouragements to your customers to do so.
Remember, local search is not your traditional SEO. It does require a different mindset and Google and others use different algorithms for Local than they do regular SEO. It is important you learn and understand that there is a difference. The great thing is; if you know these rules, local becomes very easy. Just follow the rules and you will do very well in local search.
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