The IPO was not as successful as some had predicted. Facebook shares closed the day lower than at the opening bell.

This week Facebook hit Wallstreet. The first trade was made . . . → Read More: Fa$ebook post IPO]]>

This week Facebook hit Wallstreet

The IPO was not as successful as some had predicted. Facebook shares closed the day lower than at the opening bell.

• Find out the number one challenge Facebook must address…
  

This week Facebook hit Wallstreet. The first trade was made at $42.05 and by the end of the day the value of a Facebook share was $38.25. Apart from making Zuckerberg and several other Facebook employees billionaires, the story is not all that positive. Facebook has not received an overwhelming amount of “likes” for its IPO. I am not surprised. Facebook obviously has the advantage of having a huge subscriber base, but at the same time there are several issues that could easily bring down this social giant.

The combination of satisfying investors and social users is a fine line. I personally don’t have a clear picture how Facebook can monetize their platform, as the investors undoubtedly want to see, while keeping its users happy. I wrote in a previous post about the fact that Facebook is already testing ads admits the status updates of those users who live in New Zealand. It is unclear if Facebook is going to roll out this feature world wide, but I am convinced that this test is only the tip of the iceberg. If Facebook wants to appease investors they will have to come up with monetization strategies that will be acceptable to the social user as well.

One area where that may become noticeable in the near future is in Facebook’s mobile strategy. People spend more time checking Facebook on their smart phones and tablets  than they do on their regular computers. Despite this interesting statistic, Facebook is still not monetizing mobile. With the shift in focus towards investors that may very well change in the near future.

Another issue for Facebook, in my opinion, is the fact that the search function is severely outdated. Have you ever tried to find a piece of information on Facebook? If it is not displayed on your wall in the most recent status updates, it is hard to find anything at all. In other words, once it disappears from your timeline, it is very hard to find again. To correct this, Facebook does not only need better technology, but it is also going to cost a significant amount of money to upgrade the system. I have been told that Facebook is using an outdated and not very flexible database as the basis for its platform.

At some point in time they will have to bite the bullet and upgrade. Will they be able to do this without major interruptions? And if not, what is the impact on the users going to be? Will they look for alternatives? Will Google+, for example, benefit, and take more market share away from the social networking giant? Will it cause a “MySpace effect”?

This, of course, assumes that Facebook will be able to pull it off at all. Will they be able to change the database setup, without loosing the data it has collected so far. Their database must be huge. It cannot be easy to change technologies at this point. But will they have a choice? And how play investors in this decision making process. It is going to be interesting to see how Facebook is going to do, now that it has investors watching their every move.

What do you think of the IPO? And where you surprised that the price went down, not up? Or do you think that that is a temporary thing and do you expect the price to go up next week or at least in the very near future? Feel free to share your views in the comments.

Facebook has done extremely well. It is grown at record speed. Will this all change when they go public and have to deal with shareholders?

I am sure it . . . → Read More: Is Facebook changing now that it goes public next week?]]>

Facebook has grown to 900 million subscribers

Facebook has done extremely well. It is grown at record speed. Will this all change when they go public and have to deal with shareholders?

• Check out what they are testing in New Zealand
  

I am sure it is no new news to you that Facebook is going public next week. I am sure that it will be financially very beneficial for those involved with Facebook. But what is it going to do for us, users of the platform? After all, Facebook will have to worry about keeping shareholders happy. A worry they did not have until now. And it seems that Facebook is taking this new responsibility seriously.

They are testing a new system that lets users pay to make their status update more visible. In essence you can pay a small fee to Facebook to have a status update show up on your social network in a more eye-catching way. Facebook Highlight, as it is called, will take priority over the posts from your closest Facebook friends or others who have made a significant amount of comments and/or likes on your wall. Not only will they be displayed before other posts that would usually be ahead, the Highlights will stay on top longer also, so more people will have a chance to see it.

Apparently, different price points are being tested. Ranging from $0.40 to $2.00 per update. It is not entirely clear what the differences are between regular posts and these Highlights, but some people have reported multiple options whereas others have mentioned a yellow background. The reasoning behind this latest development within Facebook lies in the fact that status updates are being replaced by new updates so frequently that on average only 12% of your “friends” will see the update. Highlights would definitely help solve that problem. The question, obviously is why paid?

Since it is a paid service, lets compare with the advertising that is already taking place on  Facebook first. Having your ads in the news feed, will give a lot more attention without a doubt. The Highlight ads will be much more visible. Even more so on mobile devices, where sidebars don’t exist. So from an advertiser standpoint this latest development could be a good thing. From a user perspective this is not the case. I hate the idea of having someone else control what shows up on my feed. The question immediately arises how many of these Highlights can be on my feed at one time. And if they are drawing all the attention, what will it do to my Facebook experience.

I realize that the same must have been the case with radio and television in the early days. People must have said the exact same things about the commercials when they first came onto the scene. And we have not stopped watching/listening because of them. If Facebook were to implement this new way of advertising (and Facebook has not said they would), we will probably get used to it. That does not mean that I would be happy with this latest development. Not even as an internet marketer.

For the same reason as I hated it when Facebook started placing these large banner ads on my wall, I am sure it will irritate me when ads will be the main eye catcher on a page that I consider mine. I guess that is the whole issue, we consider our pages “ours”, but in reality they are not. Facebook owns the platform and can do with it whatever they want. Up to a certain point, of course. If we all feel that Facebook Highlights are not acceptable and are going elsewhere, Facebook will have to make a decision as to whether they want to continue this kind of advertising or not. But before 900 million  get up and leave a lot of bad things need to happen.

As long as Facebook makes sure that any new feature is not disrupting the existing successful features too much, I guess they will continue to dominate the social networking market. What is your opinion? Is paid advertising on your news feed a big deal or not? Would you use it if you could to advertise your business? Let us know in the comments how you feel about this latest Facebook test.

Social bookmarking has been a big favorite of mine for many years now.

Those of you who have . . . → Read More: Reddit on the go]]>

4 out of the 7 top social media sites in the US are social bookmarking sites

Social bookmarking has been a big favorite of mine for many years now.

• Find out why Reddit is so easy to use these days
  

Those of you who have been long standing visitors to my blog, know that I am a big fan of social bookmarking. And I am not alone, given that 4 of the top 7  social media sites (StumbleUpon, Reddit, Pinterest, Digg) here in the US are social bookmarking sites. StumbleUpon is still in second place, but their popularity is declining ever since they did an overhaul of their site. Pinterest is rapidly climbing the popularity ladder and is now in third place. Reddit has been a steady player and is very popular with many.

If you are an avid Reddit user you will appreciate this article about 5 free apps that will improve your portable Reddit experience, provided you have an Android device. If you are not familiar with Reddit, I suggest that you take a look. And now that Reddit has all these easy to use apps, using Reddit has become even more user friendly. Here they are:

I especially like Reddit sync, because of the fact that my bookmarks are available to me when I am offline. This way I store them whenever I come across them and read them at a later time. No need to burn bandwith.

I hope that these apps will help you in your social bookmarking efforts. Do you know of any other Reddit apps? I would love to hear about them. As always, I would appreciate it if you could share your findings with us in the comments.

While most people have read about the “Panda Updates”, not many have adjusted their internet marketing strategy

One of my readers, who read my post about one-way and two-way backlinks, . . . → Read More: Unlimited traffic from one way backlinks after Panda]]>

Panda has changed SEO

While most people have read about the “Panda Updates”, not many have adjusted their internet marketing strategy

• 7 ways to create easy one-way backlinks in the Panda era
  

One of my readers, who read my post about one-way and two-way backlinks, asked me this week how exactly to get one-way backlinks. A great question, given that I talk about the fact that posting comments on a blog post is always considered to be a one-way link, but in reality could be either. If you post a comment on a blog and the owner of that blog reciprocates you have a two-way link, whereas it is a one-way link if you are the only one commenting. Does that mean it is hard to get one-way links. Not at all. Especially not since the birth of social media.

Before I give you some examples of one-way links, I would like to point out that the anchor text you need to choose for your link is important. And the game has changed here somewhat after Panda. We used to say, make sure you link with your keyword, and not with a meaningless phrase, such as “click here”. But in reality, if you are not an internet marketer, you will find a variety of link texts, such as “click here”, the url, your keyword, and also words related to the keyword (called lsi keywords). For example, if you are writing about plants, there is a good likelihood that you will also by talking about gardening. Some of your anchor text should reflect that.

Enough about that anchor text. Let’s take a look at easy ways to get one-way backlinks. Here are .. examples:

1. Blog comments. I have to start with this one, because I cannot stress enough how important it is to be in the habit of leaving a comment underneath blog posts you read. Even if it were just an acknowledgement that you have read the post is already good practice. If you can add value to the post, your link becomes invaluable. Regardless, whether your link ends up being a two-way link or not, this is one of the best routines you can have online. It will pay big dividends in terms of link building and online reputation.

2. Create a mobile site that links back to your website. This is an oftentimes overlooked opportunity. Needless to say that you need a mobile site, for reasons besides links.

3. Write guest posts on related blogs. You are helping out other bloggers by writing some content for them, you are creating one-way links to your site and, to top it off, you are tapping into a whole new audience. This is one of the better ways to get new visitors to your site, when they click on the links in your guest post.

4. Post on Facebook, Twitter, Google + and all the other social media sites. Posting a little blurb on any of these platforms is so easy to do and it does create a lot of links back to your site. Here again, you can build links, while establishing your reputation and increasing your visibility online.

5. Post your pictures on Pinterest. Not a lot of people seem to realize yet, that if you post a picture from your site on Pinterest, that it has a link back to the page on your site that contains the picture. An incredibly easy way to create more one-way links and more traffic.

6. Post your videos on social video sites like YouTube and Vimeo. Even though most people are now aware of this option, it is still a very underutilized option. It continues to be very easy to rank on page one for videos. Creating one-way backlinks through video, with the added bonus of easy page 1 rankings make this option an easy one also.

7. Produce new profiles on social media networks. Each profile should contain a link back to your site. Another easy way to create a one-way link back to your site from a high PR website.

I am sure that your juices are flowing with ideas of how to create more links back to your blog. The list is endless with social media. The above 7 examples are just that. And I have not even toughed on the traditional link building strategies, such as article writing, article submission, RSS feeds, PR releases, forum commenting and many many others.

What is your favorite way to build links? And how are you mixing up your anchor text to make sure it comes across to Google as natural. Leave a comment below with your experiences and create a one-way backlink to your website at the same time

Most people have their own blog these days, but most are not sure what SEO is needed to get traffic to their blog

Last week I . . . → Read More: Blog SEO tips for unlimited traffic to your website]]>

SEO has changed with the Google Panda updates

Most people have their own blog these days, but most are not sure what SEO is needed to get traffic to their blog

• Find out the 5 things that will result in unlimited traffic to your blog
  

Last week I told you about the latest changes that Google has implement and the obvious conclusion that Google is getting closer and closer to being able to detect whether you are a human writing your own articles and getting your own backlinks or whether you are publishing duplicate content and automating your SEO and your backlink creation. Does this mean that SEO is dead? In my opinion the answer is a clear no. It still pays to be on page 1 in Google and to get there you still need SEO. That has not changed. It is just increasingly more difficult to achieve this goal by cheating.

I hope you agree with me that SEO still matters, so let’s take a look at what it takes to rank well in Google. I will share with you my own strategy, which has resulted in many page 1 listings for very competitive keywords such as ‘two way backlinks’. This keyword has about 1.6 million results, and I have held the top spot in Google for several years. No Google update has changed this. Because I have always played by the rules and provided unique content.

Here are the 5 steps of my SEO strategy:

1. Keyword research – SEO starts with solid keyword research, so that you know how hard it will be to rank for a specific phrase. Now, I don’t go overboard with this either. Typically, what I do is I decide what I want to write about and then I check to see what phrase for that topic is easiest to rank for and usually that is what I will target. I do not let the keyword dictate what I write about. For example, for this post I wanted to write about SEO tips, so that is what I type into the Google keyword tool. The only change I make in the settings is that I change the keyword match type to “exact”. It turns out that blog seo has low competition and about 4-5K searches every month. A great keyword for me that I hope to rank for following the tips that I am writing to you in this post.

2. Original and somewhat optimized content – For me the emphasis is more on original than on optimized. I don’t waist much time on optimization, except that I make sure my keyword is in the title and in the URL. To that effect I change the permalink from the full title to just the keywords if I can. If I have already made a blog post with that exact keyword I will add on a few words, but I will try to keep the keywords as close as possible to 100% of the permalink structure. This seems to be very effective for me.

3. Web Page Optimization – This is the part that generally gets the most attention when you read about SEO and, funny enough, this is the part I pay the least amount of attention to. I am going out from the idea that WordPress has me covered here. The themes these days are fairly well optimized for the search engines and that is good enough for me. I don’t change the text, I don’t add extra subtitles or add tags to all my images. And I guess Google has figured that most people don’t, so if you do have all your i’s dotted and t’s crossed here, you cannot be a human being.

4. Article Syndication – I write a new post every Monday and it goes on my blog first. Then at some point I syndicate these posts on other social networking platforms. I should be writing press releases also, but truth be told I hardly ever do.

5. Social Bookmarking – Last but not least, I do a lot of bookmarking. I have found this by far the most effective way to get attention to my posts and it can be done very easily. Ever since I started using social bookmarking I have increased the visibility for my blog and most posts do reach page 1 in Google at some point in time.

I know that all this sounds like a lot of work, but it is not all that bad. Especially since I use SeNukeX for most of the hard work. I love this software, because you completely mimic a real person. You can syndicate with many social networks and space out the social bookmarking, unlike with sites like Ping.fm where all bookmarks appear at the exact same time. I love it also, because all you have to do is set it up and it will run for weeks at a time. It provides a constant influx of new backlinks.

PS. If you are interested in using SeNukeX I can get you in the back door and save you $39 a month. Just click  this link.

On the surface it appears that the latest Google algorithm changes were done to de-index all low value blog networks

We were all forced to change our page to the new timeline. The look of the page has changed, but the news feed is still what it used to be.

Guy Kawasaki does not think so. You can just dive in….

I was reading Jay . . . → Read More: Do you need a social media strategy?]]>

Should entrepeneurs hire a consultant and develop a social media strategy?

Guy Kawasaki does not think so. You can just dive in….

• Find out why Jay Baer disagrees with Guy Kawasaki and why the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.
  

I was reading Jay Baer’s latest blog post “Is social media strategy required or redundant”. In that post he writes the following:

Jay’s and Guy’s statements are pretty much complete opposites. I cannot say that I side with one or the other. The truth for me lies somewhere in the middle. I believe that it is a good thing for a company to hire a social media consultant to help the company with their social media strategy. That consultant has to be make sure to familiarize him/herself with the overall marketing strategy of the company. Without that knowledge the consultant will fail in putting together an effective plan.

Once the plan is made and bought into, the company needs to start executing the strategy. The biggest mistake I see here, is when companies hire a social media manager from the outside to execute their social media strategy. I don’t believe that that manager can do a good enough job representing your business, unless this person has strong ties with your company e.g. if they have worked there previously. Without the inside knowledge it is next to impossible to represent the business appropriately.

Guy Kawasaki believes that you can do it all yourself by simply diving in. I agree that it is very possible, provided you are given the time to do it right. But more often than not, employees are asked to add this to their to do list, without being relieved from other tasks. That is why I disagree with him that hiring a consultant is not necessary.

Jay on the other hand claims that there is no such thing as a Twitter strategy or a Facebook strategy, and that the only thing that is in existence is a social media strategy. The activity of Twitter is merely a tactics that helps accomplish the social media strategy. I don’t agree with that statement either. Depending on the business, you can have a Twitter strategy, for example, that has the objective to generate leads for your business. In this particular case your Twitter strategy can feed into your social media strategy, which feeds into your overall business strategy.

What I do like about Jay’s statement is the fact that he sees social media as a way to improve your business:

“The goal is not to be good at social media. The goal is to be good at business because of social media. Never forget that.”

What do you think? Who do you agree with? Jay or Guy? Or are you, just like me, somewhere in the middle. I would love to read your thoughts in the comments below this post.

Every year there are events that you want to stay on top of. What is better than to have your own countdown timer to remind you of the event?

On March 30 you will be forced to switch to the new Facebook Timeline layout.

When you are active in social media, you know that things . . . → Read More: Are you ready for the new Facebook timeline?]]>

Your Facebook page is changing again

On March 30 you will be forced to switch to the new Facebook Timeline layout.

• Find out what you need to do to be ready for the change
  

When you are active in social media, you know that things change constantly. All the major social media platforms have made significant changes in the last 6 months. Twitter changed their layout and is providing a lot more information about your tweets (such as how many re-tweets), YouTube revamped the layout of  channels and LinkedIn has started separate business pages. But Facebook is the champion when it comes to change. It is hard to keep up with every change Facebook makes. But whether you like it or not, you will have to pay attention to the new timeline.

I have to admit that I was upset when I first read about these latest changes. I had just finished a new product that helps small businesses set up a welcome page on a separate tab, when Facebook announced the disappearing of the tabs as we knew them until now. I had a hard time seeing past this devastating news. But, as so often, a little time went by and I had time to think things through and I have to say that I am very pleased with the changes the new timeline is bringing.

I believe that this is a great opportunity for any business, small or big, to show case their brand and their business. The new banner at the top of the page is a great way to express what your company is all about. And there is so much more that you can do to grab peoples attention. You can now pin a post to the top of your timeline for a maximum of 7 days. This is such a great feature. If you are having an event or a promotion going on, you can now simply pin that info to the top of your Facebook fan page and leave it there.

Before this latest change, you had to post a new status update on a regular basis to make sure that people would see your message. This would almost be spamming your own wall! Now all you have to do is pin your message to the front of the page and you have free advertising on your page for anything you would like to promote to your fans.

Furthermore, the alternative positioning of the tabs is so much more visible that it easily makes up for the fact that you can only showcase 2 on your home page. I love the fact that it is now displayed using an image above the fold. It catches peoples eye instantly. So, this change is not as bad as I thought it would be.

What do you think of the Facebook Timeline? Do you like it? Have you switched yet? Let us know what you think.