Join us on January 9th at 1:30 PM as Schipul’s Kim Lange presents a Social Marketing Seminar.

Social Media and how to market yourself using it has been getting a lot of buzz lately. There are a lot of social sites out there and most people don’t know where to start. Kim Lange will layout what Social Media is and how you can use it to your advantage.

Register online Now!

Admission is free and seating is limited

Details on “Social Marketing Seminar”

This Houston Social Marketing Training Seminar will highlight pillars of success for a social media initiative:

We will cover the following:

1. “What is Social Media?” explained
2. What Social Marketing Venues are right for you? 
3. Learn Social Media before you practice 
4. Get the right people involved in your social media initiative 
5. Promote and Connect

Speaker Information “Kim Lange“

Kim Lange is the Production Team Lead at Schipul – The Web Marketing Company.  Before taking the position on the production team, Kim spent 3 years on the graphics team.

Kim now assists the Production Team Manager Kerry Gayle with innovation for the Tendenci software and production team.  Her duties include: project management, Tendenci web site support and Social Media Strategies for the a wide range of clients.

Social Media has made leaps and bounds in past year and thanks to Compete.com we can see who did better than others and why.

Linkedin Vs. MySpace Vs. Facebook

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Back in September of 2006 Facebook opened it’s platform for all and has nearly tripled its user database. Along with writing it’s own ad server technology, which attracted the likes of Microsoft, they have also offered users all over the world to connect with people in a fun and less obtrusive way than MySpace (Seriously, no one really wants to hear what song you are into at the moment so please turn off auto play!).

Linkedin, the Facebook for the business world, has been making strides lately to pick up the pace in the social network arena but as we see in the graph below they have quite a lot of catchup to do before they get anywhere near the worst looking social network site. Yes I am talking about MySpace, the annoying, ugly redheaded step child that simply outpaces everyone. Their numbers are a little flat the last six months but their foray into the mobile world next year should help them out.

Flickr Vs. Shutterfly Vs. Snapfish

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Simply put Flickr is the number one social online photo sharing site. I am a frequent user and it is indexed by the search engines regularly. The shear power of their software combined with savvy users has pushed Flickr to the top. Google’s Picasa is also an excellent option but nothing compares to Flickr. Owned by Yahoo! Flickr has had search marketing in its plans from the start. Users are given the ability to add tags to images which makes it easier for onsite searches and web searches. Users and businesses can also set up their own groups and have other users share photos like the Houston Zoo has done. They’ve invited anyone who takes a photo at the zoo to share them online with other users. This is free, grass-roots marketing that lets pays off in more ways than one.

Twitter Vs. Pownce

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Twitter and Pownce are online brain dumps or Micro Blogging sites. They are a great way to let your friends know where you are or what you are up to at any given time. Although they are web based you can receive email or text notifications. As we see in the graph below Twitter has taken off over the last year. Part of this is due to its coming out party at SXSW-Interactive this past March. Twitter was a new technology to most of the uber-geeks in attendance at the conference but with its ease of use and good marketing it started to take off. Twitter allows only 140 characters per message so if you are long-winded it might not be for you. Pownce laid dormant for the first part of the year while they prepared for their ‘invite only’ release in the summer. Although it is a better platform in many ways it still hasn’t been adapted as wide spread as Twitter has.

Wordpress Vs. Typepad Vs. Blogger

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If you’re a blogger then the names above are familiar to you. Two of them, Wordpress & Blogger are free blogging sites and Typepad is a paid service. As we see in the graph below the free ones are doing much better in usage than Typepad. Blogger, owned by Google is the most easily accessible blogging tool out there for people who are new to blogging. It is easy to set up, free to host and offers limited customization. Wordpress is also a free tool, free to host and offers customization as well. What sets Wordpress apart is that you can upload the software to your own server for free (hosting charges may apply) and customize your blog however you want. This works well with branding, in this situation you can declare your own URL such as http://blog.companyname.com. With the free hosted solution you cannot do this. Typepad is a paid service, although virtually inexpensive, that allows you to customize your blog and URL however you like.

Slideshare Vs. Scribd

Graph Link

Online file sharing has taken off this year, more so in the second half. Slideshare and Scribd are two of the top online document sharing sites. Slideshare seemed to get the most attention around these parts for it ease of use in sharing PowerPoint presentations but Scribd’s ability to accept a wider array of uploads including Word Docs, HTML, Images and Open Office to name a few has positioned itself way ahead of its competitor. Both sites give the user the ability to upload their documents and then provide them with an embed code which will let you place the presentations on any site or blog. Clearly usability is a big reason why these sites are becoming more and more prominent

Social Media Soup

Social Media had
it’s coming out party this year and greater things abound in 2008. Usability and marketing are going to be the key components to launching a new social service. There simply are too many and that is a good thing. Competition breeds innovation so hold on for one hell of a ride.

What’s new for 2008 – Mobile Web

Mobile web is the next frontier for businesses and advertisers. Google Adwords has been testing it’s mobile ad platform in anticipation of Google’s foray into the wireless world with it’s announcement of the Google Phone software. Expect everyone to jump on the mobile bandwagon full-tilt next year, are you ready?

Jason McElweenie

For more information please contact the Search Engine Marketing Team at Schipul – sem@schipul.com

Scoble Wants You to Steal His Content

Ever the maverick Robert Scoble is openly asking anyone and everyone to steal his content. Give him credit for or don’t he doesn’t care, well sort of. In a post that is refreshing to us that think sharing is better Scoble nails it on the head with his thoughts; ‘I’ve found that the more I give away my content, the more magical stuff happens to me anyway’ this is something we tell our clients; post your content often and for everyone.

As a frequent poster to Flickr I started off with all rights reserved on my images but as requests came in to use some of my photos I changed it to Creative Commons. Since then my photos have been used in various sites such the Houstonist, the Torontoist and on Wikipedia to name a few. Have I gotten paid for any of these? No but that’s not why I do it. The reason is exposure and isn’t that why we have websites? As Scoble points out the New York Times recently caved to the lack of traffic and offered their premium services for free their traffic is ‘going through the roof.’ Quite simply no one wanted to pay for it and they lost exposure. Does this work into their immediate business model? Probably not but it does help them out in the long run. If people can see what they want when they want they will come back. The biggest factor for sites such as NY Times is trust, in fact every site needs to promote trust. If users look to your site as the go to site in your market you will always do better than your competitor.

Sometimes this isn’t a viable avenue for everyone but when you can share and share a like, most people will give you credit. This could be in the form of a link back to your site such as here under Author. I didn’t get paid for this link, or pay for it but it is a link back to me and there are two currencies on the net; money and links so any good link you can get back to your site is great.

Sharing your content with others will only gain you more exposure and exposure is what keeps us in business.

Even if you are giving it away

Jason McElweenie

For more information please contact the Search Engine Marketing Team at Schipul – sem@schipul.com