One of the most common questions I hear from clients is,  ”What about Social Media?”  My response is  that your South Jersey business needs to have some sort of social media component worked into your internet marketing campaign. The two reasons you need to have this worked into your campaigns are one, the obvious, your clients or potential clients are using Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and two, because from an SEO perspective, testing is showing that companies with a voice in social media are starting to see an increase in rankings on Google. 

Now for some companies this component will be a larger portion of their Internet Marketing plan than others, but understanding the right level of exposure is the first step towards an effective Social Media Marketing Campaign.

What do I mean by exposure. Exposure is the amount of face time you are putting on any given social media network. Look at your business, what kind of business are you operating? What sort of client are you trying to attract in Camden County? Gloucester County? Or Anywhere in South Jersey. Do you think comments or thoughts about your service are the types of things they would want to read on their facebook update? Twitter Roll? LinkedIn updates?

The key to a successful social media campaign is to generate or add to a conversation that gives your business more exposure.  Developing the right content, whether that be text, video, answers, insights or whatever, and then distributing that to an audiences that is receptive to the type of content you are putting out there is the key.

In simple terms, market your content to the right social media platform. Chances are that someone waking up and looking at their Facebook update may not be really in the mood to read about the latest technique in your industry, they just shop at your store, but that person on LinkedIn may be really interested.

But it all starts with an audience, in my next post I will show you how to increase your audience in the Social Media world.

Yesterday there was a buzz around the SEO community about  a published report on search Engine Land  about a  Bruce Clay and Universal Business Listing  joint venture.  The venture was a new marketing vehicle called – Local Paid Inclusion. This story was quickly denied by Google, Yahoo and Bing and in my mind, caused serious damage to the reputation of two online marketing agencies. The joint venture even pulled their website as of last night, 1/31/12.

The story stated that for a fee, this service with the help of Google,  Yahoo and Bing, would place your ad above the Local places listings and just under the PPC ads in their search results.

Now if you have been looking at the search results as of late you can see that being listed in Google Places is a huge advantage. But to gain this advantage, it takes quite a bit of work. Sometimes that work can take months and it is an ongoing process.  So when you hear that you can eliminate  that for a fee and Google, Yahoo and Bing support it well hey,”SIGN ME UP!”

Here is a visual of what they were talking about..

The website  created for this discussed the fees and what the Cost per click would be.  Their angle was, cheaper than PPC and more effective, of which I totally agree. To me, if you are a local business ranking for keywords that are showing a Google local result, there is a growing chance of getting a Click Through than that of a PPC ad.

This is also where this story becomes fraudulent and a flat out lie. For one, Google is not going to work with an agency to help improve paid listing revenue, they will do it themselves, in house, as will Yahoo! and Bing. If you think about it, Google is already doing this with Google AdWords express.  Why would they partner with two agencies exclusively and not offer this platform to current adword members? To even put this story out there is just hard to comprehend.

I am also having a hard time wrapping my head around  how this story ignited a fire storm on Twitter last night. This come down to business 101, and this story should of been dismissed immediately, even if one of the names attached to it is fairly well known.

In summary, I do think Google’s first page will eventually be 50% paid  and 50% organic when looking for local listings, but we are not there just yet. My advice for Philadelphia Pennsylvania and South Jersey companies is to have a combination of a local SEO campaign, a Google Places campaign and a smart Google Adwords Express campaign. This way, your website is positioned for any changes in the coming future.

One of the most under utilized free tools that small business owners in Philadelphia and South Jersey do not use is claiming their Google places page. You know you have seen the Google places page, go to Google and type in, say appliance repair or appliance repair in Haddonfield New Jersey. Here are the results you will see.

Notice the three balloons in the middle of the page? That is called Google places and to get listed there is 100% free. What you need to do is go to Google and type in Google places. Once there, look for your business, see if Google already has a listing for you. If not create one and fill the entire thing out. (You will need a Google account to do this) Once you are done, they will either call you with a recorded message with a pin code or they will send a card to you. The call is instant, the card takes a few days to get to you. That is it, you now have a listing on Google local and depending on the competition for your service in  your area, you can expect to rank fairly quickly.

Now here is the tricky part, if you are in an area where there is competition and you currently see around 7 local listings, that is where  you will need to bring someone in to optimize your places page and start a Google local campaign. While this is not a free service, the ROI on this type of service can be amazing.