jeremiah speaks on social media

Jeremiah posts his interview with Jennifer Jones on his blog. When he asked for questions, one I asked was how long before blogs become as ubiquitous as Google?

He does a top-notch job of answering questions precisely, and then breaking down his answer so that everyone can understand his point.

My second question remains unanswered: how do you make the decision between how much resources to dedicate to social media vs. traditional internet marketing like PPC/SEO?

copying the experts: social media tabs for your blog and site

At the crayonville blog, you can see a post by Aaron Greenberger, talking about the recent FTC statement on word of mouth marketing.

You can also see a variety of colored tabs underneath his post. These are social media tabs that allow you the user to submit his post to a bunch of sites, saying, Aaron is cool.

The list:
blogmarks
co.mments
del.icio.us
digg
fark
furl
newsvine
simpy
spurl
tailrank
yahoomyweb

I am familiar (in the sense that I have heard of them) with digg, del.icio.us, and furl. And tailrank. So my plan is to figure out how I can put all those widgets on my blog. After all, crayon are the experts at this kind of thing. Why figure it out for yourself if you can copy the experts?

Here is the fun part- go to a Podtech post and notice the gadgets they have there. They use:
digg
del.icio.us
newsvine
reddit
tailrank
technorati
yahoomyweb

So if Podtech and crayon are both on the cutting edge of social media, why is each lacking some of these gadgets that could help spread the word about their blogs and their work?

I’ll ask Jeremiah, who works with Podtech. I bet he knows.

title tags and description tags: a case study | podtech.net

I was writing an email to Jeremiah giving some tips on his site’s metatags, but figured I would post it hear instead.

The site is Podtech.net, a podcasting website. See my previous post about what they do.

Right now, Podtech’s title tag and description tag are not optimized for search engines or for users. Search google for Podtech, and the first result you see is them. The title tells you something about what they do:

PodTech.net: Technology, Business, Media, and News Podcasts

But the description tells you very little:

Experience CES Las Vegas 2007 with PodTech.net at the Bellagio as we provide … SAN FRANCISCO, December 5, 2006 (PodTech News) — Search competition may be …

Looking through the HTML (I will save you that fun) you can see that they do not have a description tag.

How important are search engines to your business? If the answer is anything other than “not at all,” then you should put the effort in to making a title tag and description tag for your homepage. Yes, ideally they should be on every page, and all different, but that can take hours. Make those two tags for your homepage takes less than 10 minutes, and can have a long term impact on how many people click through to your site.

Consider Portent’s tags. Search for us in google under “internet marketing agency,” and our title tag reads

Seattle internet marketing and search engine optimization agency …

Read below the title, and it says

Portent Interactive, a full service internet marketing agency located in Seattle, combines web site design, search engine optimization, e-mail marketing and …

That real estate is crucial, and if you are not using it to market your company, you are throwing sales away.

What if Podtech’s read like so:

Technology, Business, and Media podcasts, served fresh daily | Podtech.net
passionate, authentic voices: PodTech Network is a growing network of audio and video podcasts for influencers and leaders in the global technology and media industries. Our rapidly expanding roster of top-quality programs can be easily experienced on a personal computer or portable media player.

Not all of that description would show up in a search engine results page, but you would have a much better idea of what they were about, and be much more likely to click through to the site.

Jeremiah, feel free to use that text. It is taken from elsewhere in your site, after all. And I bet you will see traffic go up as a result.

Anyone who wants a 1-minute title tag/description tag review, leave a comment, and I will post about you.

podcasting 101: what it is, why it matters, and how you can use it to build community

Jeremiah over at Podtech talked with me about podcasting and how it can help our clients.

Podcasting refers to mp3 files that are syndicated using RSS, so someone can subscribe to your podcast like they would subscribe to a blog or a newsletter.

There are three main benefits Jeremiah pointed out.

1. Anybody can podcast. In old media, like radio, some people controlled the medium. Now everyone has a voice.

2. Information is time shifted. The nightly news is on the TV at 11. But a podcast is on whenever you the user want to listen. This means that most advertisements are much less effective. Think Tivo. Any marketing that is effective has to provide real value to the user.

3. Information is location shifted. Podcasts are an ambient medium, and people can play them wherever they want. While most podcasts are listened to through a browser, people may also listen while doing almost anything. Unlike reading or watching a video, a podcast does not demand someone’s full attention.

So Podtech fits in by helping people and companies understand how to use podcasts to build their business and their community. They provide podcast production and video production, media talent (so even if your product is not the most exciting in the world, it will sound like it on your podcast), and distribution.

This last is the most important, in my opinion. Jeremiah points out that, as time moves on, my company will start producing podcasts, so the lasting value is in having the distribution channel.

As for building community, I can’t speak much to this just yet. What we plan to do is connect some of our clients with Podtech for interviews, which will then go on Podtech’s site. If you are setting the standard in your industry, and you want to talk about it, then Jeremiah wants to hear from you.

I am sure Jeremiah could send me to one of his posts detailing examples of building community through podcasts. It would be much appreciated.

To learn more, visit http://www.podtech.net.