Facebook & Twitter - Essential for All Businesses?

It's true that there is going to be a big change in Online Marketing in 2011. For a start, both Google and Bing have come clean and told all that they will be taking Tweets and Posts/Likes into account when deciding what site to rank first in the SERPs. Then there is the case the power of the blog is set to increase, especially if you can harness this to get more links to a site.

However, some of the things I have been reading are saying things that I have difficulty in agreeing with. The basis of these comments are that ALL businesses MUST have a Facebook and Twitter account. Now while I can agree that having a Twitter account for all is a good idea, Twitter being very easy to use. It also does not take huge amounts of time to use and there is a lot of software out there to help. Twitter also is easily spidered (and is by Google all the time).

So Twitter is a good thing to have in my view, the amount of effort being well worth the effort.


Facebook is however a different kettle of fish in my view. Yes I'm sure it can be useful and could bring in traffic, however, for the small to medium size business will it bring in the level of traffic and SERP's bonus points necessary to balance the amount of effort?

In my view, whereas for the BIG businesses, Facebook is a MUST, for the smaller one, the only reason that I would recommend investing the time / money is in support of a Signal Creation programme, this being associated with a Blog on the customers site. We believe in this so much that we are launching a brand new product in Feb 2011, but more on that later.

To get back to the point, I do think that Facebook has a role for Big business, as for them it is essential to track their brand reputation and see what people are saying about them, moving to defuse any negative comments before they gain to much momentum and following (Twitter should be used this way too by the way).

So, yes for Big business, Facebook is a must, but for the smaller ones, without a big brand to protect, is Facebook necessary?

My view (and one that may well cause some comment) is that for the SME, that Facebook is not really worth investing the time and money that it would take to make it count. Sure, if they are going to be using a blog to push their site, then Facebook is a key part of the Signal creation process, but other than that, I'd keep away from Facebook (unless you are interested in it and would like to invest your spare time as it can't do any harm).

More on Social Media and Signal in the next few days

Are you in the right race with your website?

It is said that the Internet offers a level playing field, one where anyone can have a presence, a presence that gives them access to huge potential market. The trouble is that this level playing field is a myth, yes anyone can have a site, but getting traffic to it is a very different matter.

Getting traffic means marketing, whether this is by getting rankings for the right keywords on Google, or by building up a huge following on Twitter or Facebook. The simple truth is that doing any of the former is just not easy and each route will take a lot of time and or money.

The best advice I can give to anyone thinking of starting this journey is to choose the right race to join. After all, if you were into car racing you would think twice before entering F1 when you only had enough money to buy a Ford Fiesta. The same thing applies to Internet Marketing, in the end it will be the availability of time / money that will define what market place you are really able to join.

So, talk to your SEO / SEM / SMO adviser and get them to show you the level of competition in your market place and more importantly what are the niches you could attack.

That way you won't be trying to win a race that you can't possibly succeed in.

Best of luck choosing your race!

Is 2011 The Year of the Blog?

In the distant past (in Web Terms that means just a few years) it was Google Page Rank that ruled the roost. It was that algorithm that controlled which page was ranked first for any key phrase. But nothing is constant but change, and it was not long before things like the Meta Keywords tag were in turn handled the chalice of power.

Later still it was the words on the page that had the main effect on SERP's rankings. Each of these changes were tracked by the Search Engine Optimisation experts of the day, who in turn then made changes to the pages they controlled to get the best results.

On the other side of this 'battle' were the Search Engines who were busily changing the 'rules' so that it was they and not others who would 'decide' what pages would get what rankings. It was thus the change in the rules that concentrated the 'power' in the number of links came about.

Sure getting rankings is more than just about links, but in 2010 at least, they represented the most powerful part of the ranking equation.

However as I mentioned above, 2011 is going to see yet another change and this one it seems is going to centre on Blogs, the links to these Blogs and the interaction with the Social Media networks.  These links, the Blogs and the Social Media posts that point to them are often called 'Signal' and getting rankings is going it seems to be all about that this year.

So for 2011, you will need two things:-

1) A Blog (hosted in a folder on your site, or in a sub domain).

2) Some Social Media presence in the form of a Twitter account and perhaps a Facebook page.

3) The time to write the blogs and then alert the Engines to the changes on the Blog using Tweets and Social Media posts.  

More on these changes (as they become clearer) over the next months