Advertising Websites with Social Media or SMO (Social Media Optimisation)

Demonz Media is a leading digital agency specialising in SMO (Social Media Optimisation) & viral marketing services.

This article explains some of the Social Media Networks we use for social media marketing and identifies some of the marketing potential of each. If you are interested in SMO or online marketing services, please contact Demonz Media or continue reading for the article.

Recently I have been inundated with requests to join social media networks. If you’re already part of a network, chances are you’re receiving news feed updates and application invitations. According to HitWise, 1 in 50 internet visits were to Facebook in 2007, representing a massive marketing opportunity. Competitors MySpace and Bebo also attracted a large amount of traffic representing broad networks of people.

This post is to look at some of the features of social network sites from a marketing perspective.

Twitter:

http://twitter.com/

This is a “Presence App” which allows members to leave short messages (similar to Facebook feeds) under 140 characters. It does not allow you to make a link in post, but it does link to your profile which could include business information. The purpose of Twitter is to tell people what you are doing now, but it is also used to gather news and press releases and can therefore be useful to PR and marketing agents who want to build relationships inside Twitter.

flickr

http://www.flickr.com/

Allows users to store and share photos. It is possible to market through flickr via an advertising program provided by Yahoo (Flickr is owned by Yahoo). It is also possible to create profile pages which could be leveraged for capaigns, e.g. photographs of a particular celebrity.

FaceBook

http://www.facebook.com

Facebook is the 4th most trafficked website in the world according to internet authority ComScore. Because of the way that users interact in Facebook and its open development tools, there is alot of potential to add Facebook applications and viral news/videos that will spread rapidly through the network. It is also possible to develop communities insid Facebook via ‘groups’ and ’causes’.

In addition to peer to peer referal, it is also possible to market to a particular demographic via Facebook’s internal advertising program, although this only leverages a small part of Facebook’s marketing potential.

MySpace

http://www.myspace.com

MySpace is an older social media network which allows the creation of profile pages system like FaceBook. One of the main differences is that MySpace allows users to customize page layouts. It has its own internal advertising program, and allows for the creation of business pages and groups (MySpace pages for political campaigns have been extremely successful in the past). Furthermore MySpace is almost synonymous with the promotion of bands and music, and is often used as a base for promoting music along with MSNs’ YourGigs, Yahoo’s Launch and more recently LastFM.

Like Facebook it is possible to develop applications for MySpace using Google’s OpenSocial framework. Although Facebook is becoming increasingy popular, Myspace is still a leader in the Social Media Network market and should not be forgotten for your marketing efforts.

Bebo

http://www.bebo.com/

Bebo joins MySpace and Facebook as a major Social Media Network based on user profiles. It has an open applications framework like Facebook, and allows users to customize pages - additionally partnerships with OpenSocial and Facebook have been announced. Additionally Bebo allows for video hosting and music channels similar to MySpace. Advertising space is available through Yahoo.

Digg

http://www.digg.com/

Digg allows users to submit and vote for articles submitted by other uses - users can also bury articles. Having a high ranking article means a link without nofollow on the front page of a PR8 site plus thousands of visitors, so Digg has both SEO and social media value. The types of content submitted to Digg sometimes include viral content spread via Flickr, Youtube and other Social Media Networks. It is also possible to buy advertising through Microsoft.

YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/

Youtube allows users to contribute and host videos, and has a specific interface designed for distributing videos on other sites. The primary means of advertising via Youtube is viral video marketing, and it is also possible to see Youtube videos ranking for keywords as part of Google’s Universal Search platform.

del.icio.us

http://del.icio.us

del.icio.us is a social bookmarking site owned by Yahoo. It allows users to store bookmarks and provide them with descriptions and tags. A hotlist of popular items appears on the front page. Recently there are reports that Yahoo is taking action to stop bots from other search engines including Google from indexing its content, although I can still find del.icio.us results in Google (punch site:http://del.ico.us into Google search field). *Update - since I wrote this I can no longer see results for del.icio.us in Google.

technorati

http://www.technorati.com/

Allows users to post articles into different categories. Users can then comment on articles and add or remove “authority” by voting for them. Allows links without nofollow. Posts with “Authority” appear higher up. Has its own internal advertising system.

orkut

http://www.orkut.com/

This is Google’s social media network. It allows for the creation of groups and incorporates Open Social.

These are just a few of the social media sites out there and the marketing opportunities they represent. Hopefully this article has demonstrated the various marketing methods that are applicable to each and the massive opportunity represented through SMO and Social Media Marketing.