SEO + SMO= The future of online marketing.

Most internet business owners are very familiar with the term SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). They may have spent thousands of dollars to ensure that their business would rank highly on the Google search engine directories or with one of the other search directories that are used regularly by millions of people. But, as with any market that becomes saturated, SEO is not a panacea for guaranteeing that an internet business with grow and thrive and other methods for reaching a target audience must be explored.

With the growing use of social networking tools such as Facebook, Twitter, etc., a new marketing avenue has been introduced to business owners to reach their audience through Social Media Optimisation. This type of marketing will increase a business’ ability to reach their potential customers on a more individual and personal level and will also provide instant feedback to the owner of what their customers want or need from their products.

Developing an effective marketing strategy using Social Media Optimisation will require internet business owners to learn a new method for connecting with their customers. While articles and advertising work very effectively as marketing tools for SEO, there is a more personalized and targeted method for reaching customers through social media outlets such as Facebook. In order to be effective, an individual will need to search social media blogs, chatrooms, forums, etc., that discuss the specific product or service that is being offered on their website. The social media network is not one that will respond to a global mailing to every source of advertising. The approach is much more personalized and will require a dedicated amount of effort to establish and maintain.

While social media optimization may add an extra tool to the internet business marketing strategy, it has been indicated by Facebook and Twitter advisors that it will be most beneficial when used in tandem with other internet marketing strategies that are employed.

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Miss spellings are common place in internet search, however, one company; www.comparethemarket.com, came up with a solution and a funny word play on this problem that has taken them, and their sister website www.comparethemeerkat.com to unbelievable new heights. This stroke of marketing genius could only have happened in the UK.

Alexsandr Orlov, is the host of www.comparethemeerkat.com. His creation includes a long family line, a tradition, work ethic, fashionable clothes (for meerkats), and all of the tags that humans subconsciously associate with “life”. This, coupled with Alexs’ personality has created a marketing fever in the UK which has increased the popularity of the car insurance company’s website considerably since his first appearance.

From the introduction of the Alexsandr Orlov campaign by www.comparethenmarket.com, there has been continued growth beginning with a 100% increase in traffic in the first five months of the campaign. Internet advertising costs of the “cost-per-visit” have been reduced by 75% however with the increased traffic, “comparethemarket” has increased their insurance quotes by 100% also. Market share has tripled and continues to rise.

Compare The Market on Google Insights

Besides his world wide popularity and the creation of meerkat cults around the world, the Compare the Market Insurance Company has also become well known and has grown in visibility and popularity as quickly as Alex. When visiting Alexs’ site individuals are directed from the first scene to the last to the www.comparethemarket.com website and encouraged to visit that site following the performance being given by Alex and his staff. In addition, Alex has photos and a page dedicated to his family which draws the observer further into the fun world of meerkat manor.

Alex has a daily following of several thousand fans on both Twitter and Facebook as well as media advertising throughout the UK. But, in conjunction with this popularity and fan following, Compare the Market has also gained fans along with Alex.

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Some of you maybe glad to hear or possibly sad to hear that I AM NOT moving to America to work with Twitter – It’s an April fools! Haha Gotcha!

This said it’s a nice lesson in friends, expectations and belief that we can all take from.

It’s really made me smile throughout the day that many of my friends are not actually shocked to hear such great things! That’s a lesson for us all. It’s good to aim high and nothing is ever out of reach! Not for anyone, always bare that in mind and aim for your goals, anything is possible!

Thanks to all who wished me well, special shouts to Wio (email) and Charlotte (Facebook) who got it straight away! As I said I’m staying put to be the coolest geek on the net!… lol However if Twitter are reading this then I’m open to offers! Although it’d have to be a good one to beat the deal I’ve got at the moment! lol

As for the Playboy Mansion party?!… Ahhhh if only, but trust me on this one! The next post I write on the Playboy Mansion WILL be about me attending! And that’s not a wind up! Believe me, watch this space…

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I’ve been a bit cold on the blogging scene recently but I’ve been very busy, nevertheless I though I’d keep you all up to date as to why I’ve been keeping a bit quiet busy… I’ve landed yet another job! Climbing this work ladder is easier than I thought! lol

This time a pretty huge relocation is in order! I’m off to the land of the free and home of the…. fast food! Yes that’s right folks! I’m off to the good old US of A! I landed a job with everyone’s favorite little hyped up dickey bird micro blogging platform – Twitter! I’ll be relocating to the United States in the next few weeks! I really loved my time in London, short and tweet sweet, but times change, things move on and of course, I’m really looking forward to this huge upheaval!

I’ll be joining the marketing team @Twitter, and I’ll looking at ways forward for Twitter as a business to develop, I will be helping develop the site along side the marketing plan and business model! Sure, there’s a long road ahead but I know it’s the right path. Have no fear, I will remain the Coolest Geek on the Net! And I will maintain this blog tracking my move over to the United States! After chatting to the guys, I’m especially looking forward to the Twitter staff party, as rumor has it we’re all heading to the Playboy Mansion for a champagne pool party! Suits me!

Don’t wanna miss that one! Don’t worry! I’ll be taking my camera! You won’t wanna miss that blog post trust me!!! Follow my journey into Tweety land! – @Swimace and wish me luck!

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The news seems to be full of Twitter at the moment! I think I’ll add a few more Twitter bits and pieces to my blog during the course of the next few days keeping an ear to the ground on the latest developments of Twitter and the “Twitter Search” platform. Keep an eye out on my blog, let me know if you find anything interesting and check back for updates… enjoy!

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This morning there was yet more publicity on the popular short text service “Twitter” if you don’t yet know what Twitter is, where have you been this past year?! This service seems to be taking the world by storm and has plenty more potential up its sleeve; however the reviews in the magazine “Shortlist” (a free London publication given out at tube stations) seemed to be less than optimistic with Twitter and its potential for success focusing more on its gimmicky side.

The reviews in Shortlist were written by Tech columnist at the Guardian, Paul Carr and Brent Hoberman founder of lastminute.com. Guardian doesn’t have a twitter account, which is strange to me as most of the main newspapers do? And lastminute.com is more like “lastdecade.com”, that said they had some interesting reports on the twitter business model and came to the conclusion where will it go now? And how will Twitter make money?

My current feeling is that with the idea of integrating Twitter into some form of search platform will establish the future within internet search. Real time search supported by a form of solid indexed search will be the next steps in my opinion.

Twitter is a search engine (the test).

I integrated the current twitter search results within my Google browser though a Greasemonkey script in Firefox. (I’ll explain how in a later video blog). The link and post on how to do this is available at mt-hacks.com

The results of this test have been incredible. It reminds me of the 1st time I used Google many moons ago before the trillions of spammy pages were indexed and when AskJeeves.com ruled UK search.

Over the three days I’ve been using the add on, each and every search I have ran so far on a specific niche has returned the best results in Twitter not Google. This in my opinion beats any of the “static” Google results pages in terms of both content and relevance.

My Twitter Search example

I realised how powerful this actually is when I wanted to step up my twittering. My Facebook account was linked to my twitter account, so each time I updated my status on Twitter, all of my Facebook friends were getting annoyed notified though a Facebook update.

Being Coolest Geek on the Net I really wanted to tweet about topics and issues that I knew would drive some of my “normal” Facebook friends crazy so I wanted some way of filtering what tweets update my Facebook updates.

I ran a long tail search in Google in the hope something might come up. This is my normal course of action when running a “niche” search. I then see what results are returned and retarget my search relative to the results.

My search was

“Separate my Facebook and twitter status update but keep them linked”

As you can see, long tail, the Google results were vague and uninteresting, not specific to what I wanted but sure enough the Twitter results were a totally different story!

Twitter showed me results on was what other people were looking for at that moment in time and after just one search I found the application “Selective Twitter Status” from the top twitter result.

This is not to say I’d not have found this program elsewhere with a bit of in depth searching but the point it, I didn’t need to! Twitter returned the results I wanted over anything Google had to offer! Twitter was my search engine!

The Twitter searching went on throughout the week and each time I’ve found more interesting and relevant results in Twitter search.

Twitter Search Engine Outcome

This is not to write off Google! Even though Eric Schmidt referred Twitter to a “poor mans email system” but I think everyone is overlooking (or playing down) the potential.

This really does highlight the forward path for search and I have to disagree with the writers of the Shortlist column. To think linearly about what this technology has to offer not the way forward it’s not simply that people will have to receive ads though Twitter. This is a very old advertising thought process.

Why not allow “the people” to build the content of the search engine and then monetize the search engine results pages just like Google do? Twitter Real Time Search Engine – This in my opinion for the future of Twitter.

Follow me on Twitter @Swimace

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