Talking about Social Media to increase SEO for Vote From Abroad, photo by Democrats Abroad Cambodia

I’m just back from the Democrats Abroad Asia Pacific Regional Meeting in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. I was representing Democrats Abroad Malaysia and gave a short talk on using Social Media to increase site traffic to our online voter registration tool, VoteFromAbroad.org

One of the main points made in my presentation was that regardless of how people found you, they’re here now. Many organizations are warming up to the idea of embracing conversations about their ‘brand/product/company’ off site. We can’t assume that because we built a great website with community tools that people will always come to our site to talk. Conversations happen where people happen to be that’s increasingly on communities like facebook, youtube, forums, etc.

This is incredibly valuable because the authority (popularity/traffic/page ranking) of these sites and their links back to you provides a boost to your own search result rankings. When Youtube, Wikipedia, Facebook and blogs are all linking to you – google notices.

For a site like Vote From Abroad, the main goal is to be discovered by Americans living overseas and helping them with the process of registering to vote.

This requires a sustained social media campaign using social media optimization and SEO techniques.

Some of the recommendations I’ve made include:

• Link to votefromabroad.org in relevant profiles, media descriptions, web posts, forums & wikis.
• Use of micro-blogging tools (Twitter).
• Cross posting (TubeMogul, Ping.FM)
• Join or create Democrats Abroad groups on social networking sites (and link to votefromabroad.org).
• Community promotion of sites through social bookmarking (Digg, Reddit, etc.)

I also encouraged people attending to start a blog and touched on WordPress. WordPress can deliver great SEO results when configured correctly and provides all kinds of plugins and widgets for mixing in data from your social sites. Folks living abroad have some natural topics to blog about; living overseas, travel, exotic foods, culture.. The easiest way to start is by reading blogs. Should you find yourself following many blogs, look into an RSS reader to have all your blogs delivered in one shot for offline or easy reading later.

Note to Americans living overseas. Register to vote, your vote matters. Join Democrats Abroad to connect with some of the most dynamic, progressive and thoughtful Americans you’ll ever encounter. This is a great way to meet and socialize with other American expats while living abroad.

• Americans in Malaysia – Americans Abroad for Obama
• 50 ways to use social media for marketing

Here’s an informative post over at ReadWriteWeb on how to use Friend Lists feature on facebook.

• Top 10 lists about blogging lists
• New facebook design

eMarketer predictions for 2009 are out. According to David Hallerman, online video will steam ahead rising by 45% in 2009 to reach $850 million. Traditional media (TV, Newspapers) are in for some hurt. Retail e-commerce growth rates will decline however Debra Aho Williamson predicts b2b marketing is coming to social networks.

Expect both MySpace and Facebook to enhance their self-serve advertising systems to allow consumers and businesses to buy and sell real-world goods and services.

With US ad revenue growth slowing, smaller and niche social networks will have a tough time gaining traction and several may close up shop or be acquired by larger players. In addition, marketers that have built standalone social networks tied to their brands will either close them or migrate them to existing social network platforms where they can reach a broader audience.

I’d like to see some eBay alternatives out there and facebook would be very interesting in this regard. Who are you more likely to buy an unlocked iPhone from – an anonymous seller on eBay or a friend of a friend on facebook?

• Facebook weak in Asia, Malaysia still on Friendster
• eBay dark humor and the undertakers iphone 3g

photo by

According to a recent survey that Dynamic Markets did for AT&T in Europe, employees say that social networking increased their productivity, extended their abilities and enhanced creativity.

A pan-European survey of more than 2,500 people in five countries shows that the use of social networking tools as part of everyday working life has led to an increase in efficiency. The study shows that 65% of employees surveyed in Great Britain, France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands say their company has adopted social networking as part of their working culture. The research also reveals that the rate of adoption is most popular in Germany, leading the way at 72% while Great Britain lags behind with 59%. The study also reveals:

• 65% of employees surveyed say that social networking sites have made them and/or their colleagues more efficient
• 63% say they have enabled them and their colleagues to achieve things that would not otherwise have been possible
• 46% say they have sparked ideas and creativity for them personally

Read more at the Gilbane Group Blog.

Social networking is helpful in the workplace in the same way that other forms of communication are, the telephone for instance. That said, spending the whole day on facebook is about as appropriate as spending the whole work day on the phone with friends. If you are lucky enough to have an employer that allows of even encourages use of social networking, show some appreciation by limiting the amount of ‘personal time’ on social networks and explore business sites like LinkedIn.

An easy way to leverage social nets at work is to talk (or twitter) about what kind of projects you’re working on in your facebook status or join in discussions with others in your field. Experts or those looking for valuable insights should go on LinkedIn Answers and build up your reputation or learn from others in your field.

Employers and managers need to have a social networking policy. Your employees are using already social networking at work. If you don’t see it then they’re doing a good job of hiding it from you. Trying to block access to social networking may seem like an easy fix but would you block telephone access at work? Chances are employees will figure out a way to get around your attempts – probably by using their mobile phone while privately thinking how much you suck for limiting their communication with friends, family, coworkers and peers. Don’t suck, embrace.

• Small business social media use increasing
• Social media for finding a job

The global recession is turning out to be a global catalyst for accelerating changes in technology, marketing and advertising. Social media will be one of the beneficiaries of this change along with metered access to multi-tenant cloud environments like SaaS / PaaS / HaaS.

Word of mouth marketing (WOMM) works by leveraging blogs, online video, social networking, micro blogging and social bookmarking, aka social media. Social media happens to be dirt cheap when compared to traditional and mainstream advertising and PR campaigns.

Facebook is where the cool kids are today and by the looks of things that’s where many companies are also trying to maximize their ad dollars.

eMarketer today came out with the report, Retailers Get Social with Facebook

Facebook is the social media site of choice for many US online retailers, judging by an August 2008 study by Internet Retailer and Vovici. Nearly one-third of responding businesses said they had a Facebook page, compared with 27% that had a MySpace page and just over one-quarter that had a page on YouTube.

Here are 7 facebook applications for the enterprise.

1. Worklight creates an intranet within facebook allowing members to publish and share news within groups.
   
2. Faceforce is CRM for facebook.
   
3. Convio brings online fundraising, email Marketing, advocacy, event fundraising to facebook.
4. Buxfer allows for payment facilitation and money management within facebook.
5. Alfresco Facebook Platform makes the Alfresco CMS all facebooky.
6. Filefactory lets you share files at work on Facebook Fridays.
7. Zoho Office enables office document management in facebook.

I’m curious to see what will happen with LinkedIn apps now. With 70% of businesses allowing social media in the enterprise, I believe we’ve reached a tipping point.

• Social Media 2009 – eMarketer predicts transactions for social networks
• Facebook weak in Asia, Malaysia still on Friendster

photo by

According to Nicholas Guan, an OgilvyOne social media researcher, the best social network reach Asians is not always Facebook but on alternative social networks. Does that mean you should advertise on Friendster instead of Facebook if you are selling electric scooters in Malaysia? Of course not because online marketing often about targeting influencers much of whom I suspect are on Facebook. If you are targeting a mass audience your ad dollar might not always be best spent on a social network anyways. Interesting research though.

via PaidContent

• Social Media 2009 – eMarketer predicts transactions for social networks
• 7 Facebook apps for Enterprise 2.0

Anyone received a job offer initiated through facebook, LinkedIn or others? As we all know the best way to get a job or a client is by referral from a friend or associate within. Social networking is just another form of communication although it certainly helps keep you in the thoughts of others when an opportunity comes up. People looking for jobs still use job search sites but they also increasingly put the word out on their social nets that they are available – or that a friend of theirs is looking.

Social Networking is growing, but use of Job Search Engines, isn’t – and therefore, people are finding, more and more, jobs using their network of friends, and often, bypassing traditional job search engines, as they don’t offer the richness of experience that a social network comprising of friends, has.

via Webmetricsguru

• Social Media 2009 – eMarketer predicts transactions for social networks
• hi5 fastest growing social network

Nice use of social media. A friend posted this video via facebook. I now add to the tail and submit it to you.

BustinBoards

• Social Media 2009 – eMarketer predicts transactions for social networks
• 7 Facebook apps for Enterprise 2.0

I’ve made an account on most of the social networks however I’m not on hi5. My 4 year old is already fan of the other hi5. My theory is that whenever the adults show up, the cool kids move on to the next party. Maybe the hi5 keg was just tapped?

Facebook and MySpace get most of the press, but another social network out there is growing much faster than either: hi5. The social network is the world’s fastest growing among the top-10 networks in that category, according to June data from analytics firm comScore.

Hi5 grew 79 percent in the first half of 2008 — twice as fast as any of the other top social networks. The site’s unique visitors grew from 31.4 million in December 2007 to 56.4 million in June 2008. Interestingly, hi5, which is headquartered in San Francisco, Calif., says that over 80 percent of its users are outside of the U.S.

via VentureBeat

• comScore: India has fastest growing net population
• India VC up 120 percent

Photo by Vanderlin

Head over to new.facebook.com to see the changes.

via Mashable & ReadWriteWeb

• Friend lists add privacy on facebook
• Ping.fm – sync status across networks + invite