As more and more marketing relies on the use of social media, and more and more customers use social media outlets as a primary means if communication, companies have to make more of a concerted effort to integrate their corporate identity into their different media outlets. It is no longer enough to just “Be” on Facebook or Twitter you have to be recognizable to your customers and potential customers but how to do it?

As social media has evolved so have the platforms on which they were built allowing users more and more control over the message they are sending. But not everyone is taking advantage of this personalization. Too many businesses make do with base templates rather than customizing the experience for their customers.

Blogging
WordPress is arguable the most prevalent blogging platform out there with literally thousands of free themes available to customize the look, feel and functionality of any given blog. Themes are easy to install, and easy to modify (OK, maybe easy is not the right word, and not all themes allow customization through the admin area but you can at very least change the header graphic to make it more in line with your current identity). Unfortunately, many site owners do not even get this far. Changing out that header graphic should be done at a minimum but with WordPress you can take it even further depending on your need.

Custom themes
So how do you know if you could benefit from a custom word press theme. Well, riddle me this, Batman – Do you have an established identity for your company? Wouldn’t it be great if a customer reading your blog KNEW they were reading a product from your company rather than having only a vague notion that they might have some affiliation with the writer (like their best friend’s sister’s boyfriend’s brother’s girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who’s going with the girl who is pretty sure she once had an out-of-body experience that possibly involved a company like the one who was writing all this great content). Well then what you might need is a custom theme. Custom themes can be as simple as a unique design and layout that is specifically created for your company and as involved as a great deal of custom functionality that allows you to show and maintain everything exactly they way you want it, in other words something that “ain’t your mammas blog”.

You can also take it a step further while you are at it. Word press has evolved into a full on CMS (content management system) and as such it is good for more than just blogging anymore. If you have a site and a blog hosted separately and would love to have it all under the same roof, now is the time. You can have a custom theme created to match your existing site (if it totally rocks) or if it is nothing to write home about and you are apt to put on your best John Cleese and say “now for something completely different”, you can just go with a whole new design. Either way you will be able to have the best of both worlds with your regular site pages and your blog posts all housed in the same easy to use CMS you have been used to. And depending on your functional requirements, the costs can be very reasonable too. Just think, a new site with built-in blog all while removing the need for a Web professional for ongoing updates. And if you are updating your site as often as is prudent for SEO that can begin to add up.

Twitter
I would bet that a day has not gone by of late when you have not heard about someone “tweeting” or how many followers someone might have but even if you were the one doing the talking, have you ever given any thought to what people see when they come across your brilliance while searching twitter for the absolutely most current info on your area of expertise? Chances are you are like far too many twitter users, you set up your account using the defaults and just started spewing your wisdom to anyone who would listen. This is not a bad thing by any means, after all as I have stated many times before, content is king. But in order to increase the number of subjects under your thought leadership you have to pay at least some attention to your identity so they when someone happens upon you, they’ll tell two friends or at very least be able to figure out how to learn more about their newest addiction…you.

In order to feed the masses chasing the dragon of your wisdom, you need make sure they can find your blog (I mean you can only get so much across 140 characters at a time) or better yet, your website so they can tell all of their friends about this great new resource for products and services. The best way to do this with twitter is by creating a custom theme for your twitter profile. There are a number of tools available to edit your account look and feel with something as simple as a color scheme that matches your corporate identity and something as involved as a custom background image that has your logo, photo and/or other pertinent information staring at your users as they soak up your brilliance.

Facebook
Many companies have bitten the bullet and setup a fan page for their company or product but like with their blogs, very few have taken the time to take advantage of all of the resources that are available to enhance the experience for their fans.

Profile picture
At very least, anyone with a Facebook fan page should use a custom profile picture that includes your logo as well as other pertinent company information so when someone arrives at you Wall page they know exactly where they are and how else to get in contact with you and although company info is available on the “info” tab, it is always better to make sure that your customers and potential customers do not have to hunt around for ways to get in contact with you.

Custom tabs
When a sweet profile picture is not enough, and getting them to the wall is not the goal, it is time create a custom landing page for your users. Making use of Facebook’s HTML Application allows you to add completely customized content to your fan page so you carry your corporate identity right into your fan page as well as add custom forms and more. And for those of you who want your fans and wannabe fans to land right in the middle of all this greatness, you are I luck because Facebook allows you to decide where they land.

Blog
The Networked Blogging application allows you to syndicate your blog content so other Facebook users can subscribe to it while at the same time displaying it for your Facebook Fans on its own tab of your Fan page.

These are just three examples of ways to enhance the user experience with your social media. Identity consistency across all marketing mediums helps customers and potential customers to know they are in the right place right away so they can concentrate on the pressing business of engaging you in conversations that will help them while providing you with valuable interactions that will ultimately help you grow your business.

Just when you thought you were the last one to arrive at the social networking party, you realize that you got there just before your blog. Everyone talks about how you can leverage social media for your business but did you know that your blog can now take care of that all on its own? Thanks to one of the thousands of brilliant developers out there who make your life easier by developing applications for everyone’s favorite time suck, you can now syndicate your blog on Facebook allowing the teeming masses of yet undiscovered business potential to see your ramblings (good or bad) while they busily catch up with that varied list of butterflies that they try to keep up with daily.

Networked Blogs allows users to subscribe to your blog feed and have it displayed directly on their personal or Facebook Fan page. The best part is that rather than needing to go back and check out your favorite rantings (and/or astute business knowledge – tomato, tomato), the new entries post directly your wall as soon as they hit the net (you are there all day anyway, may as well make it time well spent).

And what is the bottom line of this wonderful new toy, you ask? Aside from the obvious user benefits, in essence, it allows your blog to have a go at social networking on its own. Just imagine what it can accomplish when left to its own devices in the worlds largest shampoo commercial. Think about it. You apply your brilliance to your keyboard and hit publish, but now instead of it just going to your Great Aunt Ruby and her Bridge club, you are now reaching John in Des Moines and Roxanne in Nelson, B.C.. But it doesn’t stop there because as the commercial goes, they tell two friends and so on and so on and so on…or at least one of their friends sees the feed and decides to read your post, and then one of his sees it when he subscribes and all of a sudden you have a whole new market of suburbanite professionals.

So who says that your social interactions actually require you? Just do with your blog what you have always done with you dog, make sure it is well fed and well-groomed, then head out in public and let it draw the chicks…uh, I mean people, to you.

Success in any marketing endeavor all starts from the same basic formula: define your objectives, determine your placement and measure your results. Simple, right? Then why does social media marketing seem so daunting? Well, it may look daunting but looks can be deceiving. Although social media does not necessarily conform to traditional methods of measurement, the basics still apply, you just have to adjust your thinking from the outset and everything will fall into place.

Define objectives
Social media is a different animal from most marketing because the objectives are drastically different. Rather than trying to convince someone to buy your product directly, social media is more about capturing mind share. So the real objective in most cases is simply to start a conversation with potential customers that allows you to display your thought leadership about a certain topic. Once engaged in this manner, potential customers begin to see the benefits that you offer over your competition.

Placement
Once you have defined the objectives for your social media marketing the next thing to determine is a proper venue. Blogging, Facebook and Twitter have great broad reaching appeal but make sure to look into smaller more industry or interest centric social networks as well to determine the best place to start your conversation.

Measure
Now that you have the what and the where, the how of success measurement becomes infinitely easier. Since your objectives and placement are different for social media than they are for your other marketing efforts you need to conform your measurements to fit situation as well and in this case you will conform your measurement to the individual venue.

• Members/Comments
  If you run a membership site or blog that allows users to comment on posting, you can use the number of members/comments as a barometer for the usefulness of the content. Not only that but the comments themselves can contain invaluable information related to your individual postings that can help you in other areas of marketing and product development.
• Fans/Followers
  The number of “fans” or followers on sites like Facebook and Twitter indicate the popularity of specific content you are providing. While growth in the number of these over a period of time can show how well your messages are penetrating your target markets.
• Social bookmarks
  The number of times your content has been posted to sites like Digg or Stumbleupon can indicate that not only is your message effective but that you are also building the mind share among potential customers.

And the list goes on and on. A unique measurement criterion can be determined for each type of if not each individual social media outlet but once the objective of your social media marketing campaign, the measurement metrics will very quickly present themselves for you.

Once you go through the process once you will have it down. Then all that you need to do is rinse and repeat with the basics for your different campaigns and don’t be afraid to tell people about your success. Who knows, your success with one campaign could be the source of another success just by spreading the word.

Companies spend years building their reputations but all of that work can be for naught if they don’t know how to manage it. I know what you are thinking, you have a great reputation for excellent products and outstanding customer service, but the reputation you have cultivated with your loyal customers over the years may not be the same thing that potential clients are seeing online. The main reason for this is that once something gets loose on the Net it is almost (if not completely) impossible to remove.

All it takes is one negative blog posting on a popular site and new prospects might overlook you out of hand because that negative posting about your inferior quality products or your non-existent customer service is showing up with higher rankings than your well designed, fully optimized corporate site. This type of information can hang around long after they are posted whether or not they were ever true or have since been fixed. And although these things may never go away completely, there are things that can be done to mitigate their impact:

1. Control the message
   The key to any reputation management plan is to control the message. Make sure that all of your online communications follow the same guidelines. Wherever the company is mentioned, it should always be portrayed in the same light which means knowing what is being said on Blogs, Twitter, Facebook and other online outlets is a must. It is a big job but you need to set aside time to review these sites every week.
2. What to monitor?
   Find a group of blogs or other social medial outlets to monitor. Not just your company but competition, industry as a whole and messages to see what is resonating. You can usually start this with a simple Google search to see what is going on in your space. But don’t stop there, it is also a good idea to keep en eye on employee blogs and personal websites to identify possible internal risks to your online reputation as well.
3. Making sense of it all
   Not all conversations will affect the company. Focus on the ones that impact perception. Make note of the audience impacted using each platform as a guide (Twitter=followers, Facebook=Fans, etc). Know what is being said and to whom so you can determine the best way to respond.

Once you are set controlling, monitoring and interpreting, you will be ready if things go south and you suddenly find yourself facing some high-ranking negative information. If this happens, you can use social media to set it right again. Time is of the essence and with the recent roll out of Google’s Caffeine, and the fact that you have been paying attention, you can now make a bigger impact even faster. Keeping track of your online reputation allows you to take out those negative blips before they fester into any significant business impact by pushing them down to the level of insignificance in the search engines.

Regular content updates have always been key to any successful organic SEO campaign but not it is more important than ever with the recent roll out of Google’s new indexing system, Caffeine.

Big deal, right? What could possibly be so different that it will have any real impact on your already strongly positions site? Well, let me explain. The old indexing system was set up in layers, some would update faster than others but essentially it had to analyze the entire web before new updates would be seen causing significant delays between the time new information became available and when it would start to show up in a search. Now enter Caffeine. With Caffeine the system analyzes the web is much smaller segments allowing for new updates to be added to the index on a continual basis thus constantly refreshing results with the most up to date info for a given search.

From a searchers perspective, picture a deck of cards on a table and the only way to get to the card they want is by going through each card individually and sometimes upon reaching the bottom of the deck they realize that their card was not in the deck. Frustrating right? Now picture that same deck of cards but in order to access the card they want, they just through the deck in the air and the card they want lands in their hand while the other cards fall neatly back into the pile. That is essentially the difference between the way the old system worked compared to Caffeine. And with Caffeine’s faster updating, a person could just keep picking up the deck and throwing the cards in the air over and over and although sometimes their card would not be there, eventually it would. You can check out the differences for yourself at CompareCaffeine.com and if you don’t see anything significant right away, just wait a few minutes, I am sure one of your competitors will be catching up with you shortly.

Wow! Faster searches, and more relevant information, the Hell you say! I do and so what does this mean to you? It means it is time to get back into the game. No longer can you sit back on your rankings laughing gaily at your competition who is desperately trying to unseat you from your top ten Mt. Olympus. You need to get in shape and fight to keep that position. Thought Leadership is the name of the game and if your content does not support you as the authority, then some young upstart with better formed and more regularly updated content will unseat you in a quiet coup taking all you have gained.

Keeping your ranking, now more than ever, means making a commitment to regularly creating valuable content. This can be done in a variety of ways but the simplest way is by starting a blog because Caffeine checks news sites and blogs more often than it does regular site content. Got your blog set up already, great! Now make sure to augment your highly prized pros with effective cross linking through your other social media outlets like Facebook, Twitter, Digg, del.icio.us and Technorati to further establish dominance over your competition.

Grab that scepter of authority and begin regaling your followers with tales of wonder with your unique content. And once you have begun, set a schedule and keep to it because although no every update will appear immediately in this brave new and highly Caffeinated world, the more regularly you make valuable updates to your content, the faster your site will be crawled going forward thus allowing you to tame the Organic SEO beast.

When it comes to SEO, content that is regularly updated is a MUST. I know what you are thinking, “yeah, yeah, you’re one to talk”. True enough but just because I have not been heeding my own advice of late does not mean that it is not sound all the same. One of the keys to any successful SEO program is regular updates. Just like with a city, you can lay all of the scalable infrastructure you like but if you do not do anything to maintain what you have created all your good work will eventually break down leaving nature to reclaim your land. The same is true of your SEO and you don’t want all of that effort to go to waste. You spent time researching keywords, optimizing your content, and tagging all of your images but unless you are regularly updating your content your rankings are slipping day by day while your competitors, who are updating their content regularly, are slowly but surely erasing your existence from the top tiers of “The” List.

Competition is fierce for decent Google placement and you need to make sure you are doing everything you can to ensure you stay where you belong – at the head of the pack. So what should you be doing?

1. Update – In order to maximize your visibility you should be updating your content at least once a week (although in this case more is better). Why do you ask? Because as I may have mentioned before, the more often you content is updated to more often the search engine spiders come back and more opportunities you have to push your competition down in the rankings while boosting yourself up on their backs at the same time…this is what we in the marketing business call a Win-Win Scenario. A blog is the perfect vehicle to help bring the Win home.
2. Diversify – Make sure that you are not putting all of your eggs in one basket. Make sure to make your updates work for you by making use of Social Media in your update process. Don’t just blog it and forget it, make sure that Tweet about your new blog posting and update your Facebook to reflect the information as well (and don’t stop there, you can keep telling two friends across a multitude of other social media networks like Digg, Del.icio.us, Technorati and more). This allows you to kill multiple birds with one stone and there are tools out there to help you automate this process. So essentially, all you would need to do is update your blog and you are able to multiply the impact of that single act across multiple networks, hitting multiple audiences (and overlapping with some) with your efforts ultimately culminating in higher search engine rankings to boot. And all it took was setting aside 30 minutes a few days a week. What a Bargain!
3. Rinse and Repeat – I may have mentioned this before, even in this posting, but it does no good to lay the foundation and leave it out from the elements. Set aside the time to make these updates on an ongoing basis and your results will build over time with not only higher Search Engine Rankings but also with higher conversion rates.

You don’t want to get left behind and you certainly do not want to be playing follow the leader. You know what they say, if you are not in the lead, the view never changes so get out in front and see what is out there.

Whenever you set out into new online marketing territory you need to make sure to consider the old when developing the new. Whether you are venturing into blogging, Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Technorati, del.icio.us or any of the other myriad of social media outlets out there you need to make sure to always maximize your exposure. There are multiple ways to do this but whenever possible it is always best to get back to basics.

URLs
No matter what you do with your online marketing, the rules for SEO remain the same. The structure of your URLs in your social media endeavors are just as important as they are with your website. The more keyword rich your URLs are, the higher these items will rank on your chosen keywords in the search engines. Optimize your URLs to not only be descriptive on their own but to also include keywords that are used in the title and body of the content to further enhance your keyword density.

Keyword Density
As with your website, in order to maximize your exposure, you need to make sure that your social media content is keyword rich. Using the same keywords that you are trying to rank on for your website will give you additional links in the search engines that will help push up your rankings on the information you want out there. Not only that but while you are at it, these same social media entries will help push down the rankings of anything negative that may be floating around about your company, products or services. The more real estate you control in the search engines (with positive information of course) the better off you will be. So the more areas that you are pulling from to populate those listings the greater your chance of success in achieving the rankings you obviously so richly deserve.

Multimedia Content
Multimedia is an often overlooked area of SEO. And while it does not do as much for you as keyword rich content, it is a great way to increase your visibility. Using multimedia content in your social media posting can add a new dimension of ranking within search engines by expanding your rankings to not only work in regular website search listings in Google, Yahoo, Bing and more but also in the media listings those same search engines already offer for images, audio and video. At the same time this type of content helps open your site up to some of the media specific search engines out there like PicSearch , Blinkx and PodScope that you may not have otherwise been able to breach allowing you to increase the link popularity for your site.

The basic premise here is that when you move into other areas of online marketing, you should always remember lessons learned and try to apply them wherever you go. Leveraging this overlap between social media and SEO will enhance your SEO results and allow you to maximize your exposure.

When you set off to make your mark in social media there are three things that you can do to help maximize your impact.

1. Know your audience
   As I may have mentioned in previous postings, the number one thing that you can to in any marketing endeavor, online or off is to know your audience. Knowing who you are talking to with your communications will shape the information you provide along with the manner in which you provide it. The best way to do this is to sit down and create analogs of your target customers with everything from age and gender to marital and parental status. There is a reason why so many marketing research firms are located in malls and are constantly trying to entice unsuspecting people into their lair where they are forced to answer lengthy questionnaires. The information matters, plain and simple. And that information helps businesses like yours shape their marketing messages and even the manner in which the messages are delivered and that includes social media.
2. Be a resource
   The best way to build an audience and enhance your exposure with social media is to provide information that your audience will find useful. Don’t use your social media outlets just as a veiled way to push your products or services. It is certainly ok to mention your products or services here or there but that should not be what it is about. Strive to Become a thought leader in your chosen space. Becoming a true resource that offers value to your audience without expectation (whether through informational blog postings, ebooks or other free resources) can have great side benefits to your business. Offering free resources on topics close to you helps build relationships with your network. These types of relationships foster evangelism among your network that can turn into an unpaid salesforce for your products or services.
3. Have a conversation
   The idea behind any good marketing program is to start a conversation that will ultimately end in a sale. Blogging as well as using resources like Facebook and Twitter can be the best conversation starters in the world. Open up communication and be willing to hear feedback from your social network. Everyone can see the value in good feedback, but you need to take the good with the bad because you never know where things will lead. Never underestimate the power of conversation. You might get some negative feedback about your company but you can turn that negative feedback into a win depending on what you do with the information. Someone relating a negative experience may give you insight into issues that may effect more than the single individual. No only that but it can afford the unique opportunity to act to change the underlying issue and turn a negative experience into a life long customer that in turn can become an evangelist for your products or services.

Whichever way you decide to go in the social arena whether it be blogging, Facebook, Twitter, Digg, or any of the other budding networks out there as long as you keep in mind that social networking is less about you and more about your network, then you should be a in a pretty good position to maximize your impact.

An important part of any company is a cohesive brand identity. This is an area that is sorely lacking in many small businesses. Sure, their print collateral is tied to their print ads but does that design identity follow to their website? Maybe, but in most cases that is where it stops. Once people start venturing into social media they just take what they are given identity be damned and that is a huge mistake. It is important to make sure that while you are venturing into new and different areas with your marketing efforts that your brand is working for you.

Print
Even if you have had your print identity in place for years, as you venture out into new areas it is always a good idea to take a look at everything and make sure that everything is still relevant. The one main constant with any identity is going to be your logo but you need to look at the whole package to make sure that the image you are portraying will still make sense if it is transmogrified into a different medium. Your primary concern should be with anything that might have a direct counterpart in another medium (brochure, sellsheets, ads, etc).

Web
Marketers often fail from an identity perspective when moving to a new medium because of “shiny and new” syndrome. Often marketers abandon a well thought out identity in favor of bells and whistles associated with the shiny new toy. With as important as it is to ensure that your print identity is relevant to new mediums, it is equally important that your web identity conform to your existing standards. You can still make use of the new toys (insofar as they are relevant) but you have to temper that with the grounding of an established brand.

Social Media
The most ball dropping on the identity front these days is done with social media. As I said before, some businesses have their print and web together act together but rarely do you see equally clean integration of social media. Some companies have forayed into blogging but are still using the default design settings or tired templates that have absolutely no relationship with their existing brand (assuming they have bothered ti even brand with a logo). At the same time they are using the default theme in their Twitter profile and have not taken the time to “Pimp” their Facebook fan page (and yes, it will always be a Fan page to me, but that is another post…) with as much as a logo.

These seem like very small things but when it comes to your company identity, all of the different areas really matter. If you have one look in print, a totally different look on your website and then the defaults for your social media presence, what kind of message doe that send to your client/prospect? I will tell you, it says you have no real direction and that kind of negative “vibe” can have very real effect on your bottom line.

“New” is great, and it is good to make use of everything available for marketing your company but you need to make sure that the message you are putting out there is cohesive. There is a reason why fortune 500 companies use identity guides for their marketing efforts. They are designed to ensure consistency in communication no matter who is doing it. It is all about thinking it through from the beginning and executing from a well-considered plan.

Now it is time for you to take a little stock. Line up your marketing channels and see how you fare. Are your print materials in-line with your website, have you taken the time to make sure your blog and Twitter theme are consistent with those other more established areas? If not, there is no time like the present, after all the customer you save could be your own.

It is your identity so in the immortal words or Tim Gunn, “Make it work, people!”

With social media, as with many things, it is best to wade in slowly and get used to the water rather than just heading straight for the high dive and hoping for the best. There are many places where you can get your feet wet and it is best to just choose one or two to start and see where it takes you as you begin to develop your full social media plan.

Blogging
One of the biggest booms in Internet development recently is blogging. One of the reasons for this boom is accessibility. There are a number of FREE platforms out there including WordPress, Blogger, TypePad and more) just waiting for you to decide to post but the real trick is how to make the most of it. There are many ways to start blogging. Some experts suggest that having both a personal and a corporate blog is the way to go but that can be a bit overwhelming for a novice user (or even an experienced one for that matter). I would recommend starting small and work your way up. The trick with blogging is the content. You don’t want to use it as a platform simple to push your products or recent press. The best use for a corporate blog is to use it as a forum to establish thought leadership for your company in your industry. If you start talking about things that holds both yours and others interests, it becomes a win-win. You will have a place to discuss things that are important to you and while you are at it you can begin to develop a following that sees you as an authority on the topics you discuss which can lead to great things for your company.

Twitter
Twitter has bust into the scene was the place to go to learn about just about everything 140 characters at a time. If you asked any grow of people you run across you are likely to get widely varying opinions that run the gamut from “who cares what you had for dinner last night” to “this is the best thing to happen to me in years” and everything in between. But what the nay Sayers neglect to see is that as with many things in life, Twitter is what you make if it. If the only people you follow are home bound relatives, then your experience is likely to be poor, but if you follow people you find interesting, your experience will drastically change. Twitter offers the ability to mix a little more business with pleasure. You can follow industry luminaries while at the same time being able to hear what happened at that party you missed. It is a great platform for sharing blog postings (like this one @GraphicTechniq for those who are interested), PR for all the great new happenings with your company, product information, personal observations and you can even “re-tweet” interesting things put out by the people you follow.

Facebook
Facebook is the ultimate online social gathering. Where else can you connect with family and catch up with people you have not even thought about in 20 years? But Facebook offers a great deal for business as well. Companies can set up “public” profiles that allow you update your “fans” about what is happening with your company (you can check out the <a href=”http://www.facebook.com/pages/Graphic-Technique/80536624725″ target=”_new”>Graphic Technique</a> page as an example). At the same time, Facebook provides a perfect platform for customer interaction that fortune 500 companies pay big bucks to get. Interactivity is the key here. Facebook is the best example of a place where social media should be a two-way street. Offer valuable information to your fans and take their comments and use them to help you improve your products or business as a whole.

Pod Casting
Pod casting is a good way to distribute additional audio and video content such as interviews, presentations, product demonstrations, conference panels and more. And if you have regular content like a radio show or the like, you could get your audio content added to iTunes so it is very easy for your followers to find, and even synchronize you to their iPod. For video content you could set up your own channel on YouTube for easy access and these are all things that you can cross promote with other social media avenues.

There are many more social media outlets out there beyond these basics. Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to determine which of these individual options (or combination there of) makes the most sense to your business. And once you figure that out, unlace those shoes, peel off those socks and come on in…the water is fine.