Social Media Marketing for the Lean Startup
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Transcript of Social Media Marketing for the Lean Startup
Eric Krock Co-‐Founder, Voximate
@voximate http://www.voximate.com/blog/
What We’ll Cover Trademarking Blogging: Tools, Tips, SEO Basic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) twitter: Tools, Tips Filming Low Cost Video YouTube Video Search Engine Optimization (VSEO) Facebook Pages Site and Blog Promotion Tips
Why Would You Listen to Me? What Where Notes
Co-‐Founder, Voximate
http://www.voximate.com/ Solution for Agile project management & collaboration in private beta – ask for invite!
Blogger http://www.voximate.com/blog/
Tweep (twitter user)
@voximate @WeAreSaidMusa @WeAreShoaib @AIDSvideos
1600 followers / 7 mo. 580 followers / 2 mo. 872 followers / 1 mo. 390 followers / 1 mo.
Not-‐for-‐profit Vlogger
http://www.AIDSvideos.org/ http://www.youtube.com/AIDSvideos
2.4M views for 106 videos. Cost: $33k all-‐in including video HW, SW, creation, travel, translation
Facebook http://www.facebook.com/WeAreAllSaidMusa http://www.facebook.com/WeAreAllShoaib
Trademarking Your Company Name Nolo Trademark PDF eBook for $23.99: http://www.nolo.com/products/trademark-‐TRD.html
Do your own initial searches: http://tess2.uspto.gov/
Have trademark attorney finalize your best candidates: Price for formal search: $750 / mark searched Additional price for handling official USPTO application: $1250
International trademark filings cost extra per region & country
Why Blog? Raise awareness of company and offering Establish credibility in target audience Draw traffic via organic search engine results Raise relevance ranking of your domain on Google Attract prospects who may convert and become customers
General Blogging Tips Write well!
Read book: “Elements of Style” by Strunk & White Share useful knowledge
Gain audience by teaching Use a catchy title; it must be a “hook!”
Humor and irony work well Publish new articles frequently
Use Wordpress to Blog Why Wordpress?
Leading blog software Free and open source Supports Search Engine Optimization well Extensible via large plug-‐in library
Your choices: Hosted: Wordpress.com Self-‐Hosted: own site, plus Wordpress.org software
Read book: “Wordpress in Depth”
Customizing Look of Wordpress Use a theme
I use: ThemeHybrid from http://themehybrid.com Outstanding web support membership only $25/year!
Customize your theme with a “child theme” Lets you update parent theme later See: http://codex.wordpress.org/Child_Themes
Recommended Plug-‐ins Plug-‐in Purpose
Akismet Spam filter: $5/mo. single site, http://akismet.com/
All-‐In-‐One SEO Pack Optimize Search Engine Optimization of blog
cbnet Ping Optimizer Prevent duplicate pinging of blog syndication feeds
Google XML Sitemaps Automatically generate map of site for Google
Widget Logic Enable conditional content in sidebar
Enable Media Replace Enable easy inline updating of images
• Get plug-‐ins from http://www.wordpress.org/extend/plugins/ • Back up your Wordpress installation (HTML files) and database instance before installing or upgrading any plug-‐in!
URL Best PracFces All-‐lowercase file names Separate words with hyphens (-‐), not underscores (_) End URL with a / (not .php, .asx, etc.) so can switch CMSes later if wish to
Keep page name short enough that Google won’t split page name when it compresses the URL for display
Ideally, keep total URL 68-‐74 characters (less important now due to Google URL compression)
Other Wordpress ConfiguraFons
Have static company home page, put blog at YourDomain/blog/
http://codex.wordpress.org/Creating_a_Static_Front_Page
Pretty permalinks http://codex.wordpress.org/Using_Permalinks
Show only excerpt from post on blog home page to avoid duplicating content
http://themehybrid.com/support/topic/show-‐only-‐excerpt-‐in-‐homepage http://themehybrid.com/themes/structure
Put link to post at end of excerpt http://themehybrid.com/support/topic/how-‐to-‐change-‐at-‐end-‐of-‐post-‐and-‐make-‐it-‐an-‐active-‐link
Hardening security. (Update both Wordpress & plug-‐ins promptly!!!)
http://codex.wordpress.org/Hardening_WordPress
Blog Social Media IntegraFon http://feedburner.google.com/
Wraps your RSS feed in easy-‐to-‐use URL Have your blog’s RSS icon point at FeedBurner URL
Use royalty-‐free icons for RSS Subscribe and twitter Follow links
AddThis.com to provide social media Share link
Search Engine OpFmizaFon You are writing blog posts & web pages for TWO readers: Human beings Googlebot
Goal: Enable Googlebot to understand page’s content and focus without annoying human readers
Target Keywords & Key Phrases Create list of keywords / phrases you want to rank well for in search results. Tools: Google AdWords (free) Google Analytics (free) – where’s traffic from? SEOmoz.org Keyword Tools ($70/month membership)
Targeting niche keywords with less competition may be more successful.
Where to Use Keywords? Domain name Account names on twitter, YouTube, Facebook Blog title, category names, tag names Page URL (68-‐74 characters) Page TITLE (60 characters), Description (160 characters), Excerpt
H1 – H6 Image file name & ALT text First sentence of paragraph Bullet items Strong / emphasized text
Avoid “Duplicate Content” There is no “Google penalty,” but if same content is on two pages, they divide links, clicks, and “page equity.” Single page will rank higher in Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) than two separate pages.
Ideal: one piece of content = one page = one URL Blog post lives at pretty permalink URL Blog home page, category page, tag pages show excerpt only and link to full blog post at permalink URL
If syndicate articles, ensure each syndicated copy includes link back to original
Put Images in Blog Posts Posts with images rank higher than posts without them
Use stock.xchng (sxc.hu) for royalty-‐free images Use image editor (e.g. Mac Paintbrush) to compress image to small JPEG so don’t increase page load time
Give image SEOed file name, SEOed ALT text
Inbound Link Campaign Get other relevant sites to link to your web site Have them use targeted keywords in their link text
GOOD: project management solution BAD: click here to see a project management solution
twiTer Tips Great tool for:
Listening and learning from others Finding your audience Engaging with customers, prospects, others Promoting blog posts Posting shorter comments
twiTer Basics Use bit.ly to shorten URLs Use search.twitter.com to identify hash tags used by your audience: #agile, #pmot, #prodmgmt …
Keep tweets less than 120 characters so others can re-‐tweet easily
Embed relevant hash tags within your tweets Use HootSuite to schedule tweets in advance and follow relevant hashtags
Follow people with similar interests & see if they follow you back; give them time to decide
Tweet Tue – Thu between 9 a.m. – 3 p.m. Pacific Time
Key twiTer Rules No “aggressive following” No “mass unfollows” Don’t follow the same person repeatedly Can follow maximum of 2000 people; after that, can only follow 10% more people than follow you back
No inappropriate (spammy) use of hash tags No excessive @username tweeting Avoid extremely high ratio of follows to followers
Unofficial twiTer Good PracFces Not official rules, but:
Only follow people likely to be interested in your feed! Don’t follow more than 125 people per day Give people 7 days to follow you back before unfollowing
Should get at least 1 new follower for every 4 follows if you are targeting correctly
Don’t “autofollow” followers! Don’t send an automated thank you message to new followers unless it’s a substantive call to action.
Unofficial twiTer Good PracFces Not official rules, but:
Not all tweets should be blog posts Retweet more than you tweet Thank people for retweets Create useful lists to categorize users on twitter
How to Find PotenFal Followers? Follow opinion leaders, who they follow, their followers, and users on their relevant lists
search.twitter.com: who’s posting using your target hash tags?
WeFollow.com Tlists.com
Blog Post + tweet Sequence Pick blog post page name Create draft blog post in Wordpress Use bit.ly to shorten URL Draft 120 character tweet, including hash tags & shortened URL
Write post Find relevant image, retitle it, upload it, make it featured image for the post
Use Wordpress to schedule post for next day @ 9 a.m. Use HootSuite to schedule tweet for next day @ 9:15
Filming Low-‐Cost Video: Equipment $350: Consumer HD camcorder with Flash memory and audio input port
$19.95 Radio Shack lavaliere microphone, or $1000 Sennheiser wireless microphone / receiver set
$837 Lowel Rifa eX 44 Pro, TO-‐83 Hard Case lighting kit (two lights, plus hard carrying case)
$1099 PrompterPeople.com Flex Series Teleprompter $162 Libec T68 75mm 2-‐Stage Aluminum Tripod Macintosh computer Final Cut Studio (or even Express) for video editing
Notes on Filming Video Good lighting is critical for making people look good. Good audio is MUCH harder than good video! Film in room with closed door. Use lavaliere microphone! Make sure microphone is turned on & battery is charged!
Won’t look like Francis Ford Coppola filmed it. Doesn’t have to; costs much less!!
Be Agile. Film and publish many videos cheaply, see what draws interest, and iterate!
Video Search Engine OpFmizaFon What to SEO?
YouTube account name Video title (50 characters to display without break) Video description (make long and detailed, and include links to your site!)
Video tag list (up to 500 characters total) Script for video (upload as a caption file; YouTube will automatically synchronize English caption file to video)
Playlist titles
More Video Tips Promotion
Make your videos replies to other popular related videos
Create playlists including your videos and other popular related videos
Use YouTube animations to cross-‐link videos Syndication
Use TubeMogul.com to syndicate videos to multiple sites
Facebook Pages Many corporate sites have few “Likes” and are fairly useless
Reserve Facebook Page with your trademark name early
Consider making it live later on when you have enough interest
Have a strategy for your Facebook Page, not just a page for the sake of having a page
Site & Blog PromoFon Tips Register your blog in technorati Link LinkedIn profile to twitter feed so your tweets are automatically copied to your LinkedIn feed
Remember to cross-‐post your blog posts to Facebook Comment on relevant blogs & include a link back to your own site (won’t affect PageRank because of NoFollows, but humans will see and click links)