The Internet has revolutionized the way businesses go about attracting new clients and customers, with new techniques and strategies such as viral marketing and search engine optimized content. However, in recent months, a new phenomena has swept across the web -- social networking. Sites such as Facebook have become increasingly popular, especially in Canada.
The fact is, "word of mouth" marketing is quickly becoming "word of click" marketing. Like search engine optimization (SEO), social media optimization (SMO) is about optimizing your online presence so your business is more visible through searches not just in Google, but within the various forms of media available at online communities and social networking sites.
Did You Know ...
Facebook Marketplace
Facebook Marketplace is a classified ad board where registered Facebook users can post ads for just about anything, ranging from help wanted, articles for sale, apartment rentals, etc. These ads are often more popular than traditional print and online ads. In one example, there are currently 542 postings for housing or rental opportunities in the Facebook Ottawa network. In comparison, the Ottawa Citizen's website had 449 postings.
Facebook Flyers
Facebook users can make a "Facebook Flyer", a small ad that will appear directly on other users' homepages. These ads cost $10 per 5,000 postings, up to a maximum of 75,000 postings per day. This is an excellent way for businesses to advertise directly to the college or university community.
Other Popular Social Networking Sites
Craigslist: A local classifieds site serving 450 cities worldwide. There are more than 25 million users and 20 million new classified ads being posted each month.
Friendster: The most popular social networking site in the Asia Pacific; Friendster has approximately 48 million users.
Orkut: A social networking site powered by Google, this site is most popular in India and Brazil. Orkut publishes feeds from any site connected with the Google search engine. The site can be searched and indexed just like Google.
Posting an ad or listing on any one of these sites is completely free of charge. There may be charges to enhance its viewing potential, but these costs are minimal.
Content Sharing
Engaging content like blogs, articles, images, streaming video and power point presentations that are posted on your website can be easily shared and exported to social networking sites. Features such as "share with a friend" or "export to another site" make content sharing extremely simple -- increasing your overall online exposure is only a couple of clicks away.
As well, linked web content increases search engine ranking. Search engines look for text, links and dates when indexing rank. The more updated content, the more there is for a search engine to index.
Online Video Advertising
One of the most popular online activities is watching videos. Most television networks, news sources and social networking websites operate some form of online streaming video channels. Companies can advertise on these channels just like they would on TV -- before a video clip is played, advertisements run before and / or after the selected video. Companies can also upload their own produced videos to popular video streaming and sharing sites such as YouTube.
Online Video Facts and Figures:
The Decline of Newspaper Advertising
While online advertising continues to climb, advertising revenues at newspapers in the United States fell 8.6 percent in the April-to-June period of 2007. As well, print-only advertising at newspapers slumped 10.2% to $10.5 billion in the second quarter of the year, marking the fifth consecutive quarter of declines, according to figures compiled by the Newspaper Association of America.
In comparison, online advertising at newspapers continued to grow, rising 19.3% to $795.7 million this quarter. A media investment firm, Veronis Suhler Stevenson, predicts that overall Internet advertising spending, including the ads on websites of traditional media outlets, will overtake print newspaper advertising in 2010 as the largest advertising category. (Canoe.ca, 2007)
The Internet is designed to spread information and connect people to this information. Internet users are actively engaged when searching and seeking information online and are therefore more likely to receive your message and share it with others. Therefore, a combination of online viral marketing, search engine optimization (SEO) and social media optimization strategies is crucial to staying competitive in today's digital market.
Boost your online presence! Click here for more about our Ottawa SEO web marketing services or contact our Ottawa SEO and website research team to learn more about our search engine marketing, Google AdWords advertising, web marketing, web design, graphic design, online advertising, social media, Facebook advertising, video production, and search engine optimization (SEO) services.
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