SEO

Search Engine Optimization

Up until the point I looked up what this phrase was, roughly five minutes ago, I had no idea what Search Engine Optimization entailed. I now know that it is defined as the process of maximizing the number of visitors to a particular website by ensuring that site appears high on the list results returned by a search engine. Knowing this, it comes as no surprise why being towards the top the results is an integral part of a company. Based on the article “Tips for SEO” from the Business Insider, if a company wants to find itself on the top of the results list there are a few things that need to happen. One of the biggest things is to have relevant and original content. I can see how this would be important attribute. The more original your content is the easier it is for others to find you. Another tip is to have good description and keywords.  Using keywords that describe what your companies do in as few words as possible can help the consumer to find you more easily. Think; less is more.

http://www.businessinsider.com/seo-tips-for-search-engine-optimization-2011-7

As I was doing my research on the topic of SEOs I decided to see how social media has an impact on them. I found some what I think are some interesting ways. The first way is the creation of link potential. If a reporter decides to write about a feature within the company and they link it back to the brand’s website, it becomes more accessible since others will have seen the link too; thus bringing us to the next way social media effects SEOs. It can increase the volume of traffic going to your website. This ties back into the linking potential.  The more times an item is looked at or shared on a social media platform the higher up it will start to appear in the results of search engines.

http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2342211/7-legitimate-ways-that-social-media-impacts-seo

In a face-paced social world, people do not have, nor care, to have to dig to find what they are looking for online; thus Search Engine Optimization appear to be an important aspect of being able to get a company noticed. From my personal experience I would have to say the links listed on the top ten of a search engine is about as far down I will look.

Aggregators

With so much technology and social media platforms in the world, how does one go about managing all of their accounts? Are they kind of like me and decide when they want to check another account or post the same thing on a different platform they have to first log out then log in to the other platform to say what they want to say? I can tell you from personal experience that having to log in and out of different accounts is complete overkill. By the time I have logged out of one and in to another I have all but forgot what I was wanting to post. This is where aggregators come in to play, but first let’s define what it means for all of you non-social lights out there. According to Google an aggregator is a website or program that collects related items of content and displays them or links to them. More simply put an aggregator takes out the hassle of needing to log in and out of platforms to get the same message across. Honestly, I did not know what an aggregator truly was until I looked up the definition. Although I have few social media platforms I am active on, it turns out I have been it to link out all of my messages.

In one of the articles I read I found something that I thought was interesting. As a business, it may be stretched across numerous platforms. On one platform the user may want to target one audience and target a different audience using another platform. What makes an aggregator an effective tool is the business can choose what platforms the message gets linked to. With that being said there doesn’t exist an aggregation tool that can seamlessly manage all of your platforms. An issue developers are running into is what exactly an aggregator should do because social sites are used in different ways by various groups of people.

http://smallbizlink.monster.com/benefits/articles/254-drowning-in-your-social-media-aggregators-to-the-rescue

Through my findings I have learned there exists many aggregating apps and websites with many of them targeting specific platform areas. An example of this is the tool called Tweetdeck. This tool was designed mainly for people who considered themselves to be tweeters. Since its creation, it has evolved into a comprehensive platform which services Facebook, LinkedIn, and MySpace.

http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/7-social-media-aggregation-tools-simplify-your-streams

Aggregators are a huge milestone achievement in social media. It has given people to ability to link out what they are saying across platforms; thus saving finger cramps from repetitive typing among other benefits.

Organizational Uses

With technology becoming more and more of the mainstream in society, the presence of social media within any business or company is becoming more vital. This is becoming more prevalent with small and medium size businesses (SMBs). Combined the roughly 1.3 million SMBs generate more than 5.5 trillion dollars of annual revenue and social media has become a vital axis on which they turn.

In the first article I read it discussed how small businesses are using social media to stay in the mix with bigger named businesses. There were some pretty interesting findings. The one I liked the most is a study that was conducted found ninety-four percent of SMBs use social media as a marketing tool and forty-nine percent use it for educational purposes. What makes this intriguing is ten years ago the thought of a business using social media for learning probably would have got someone fired. Companies trained their employees in classrooms through the use of instructors. Now it has become more frequent for a company to have its employees use social media to educate. This probably cuts down greatly on costs to have outside trainers come in train employees. This new take on social media has shifted the budgets of many businesses to put more into social markets.

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/231515

One has to think there are many benefits for a business in using social media. One of top benefits I think exists is being able to get instant feedback from customers. No longer are the days of being put on hold for numerous hours to get your complaint out in the open. Social media has made it possible for a person to state an issue within a company and anyone has the capability of seeing the statement forcing companies to respond rather quickly as to avoid a potential issue. Another is social media has opened the door for companies to established meaningful relationships with their clients. I know I would feel good inside if I saw a business said my name on of their social platforms. It would make me think the company actually cares about me.

http://blog.hootsuite.com/social-media-for-business/

Companies are shifting over to social media as its main use in the public sphere and it is a great thing. With technology continuously changing at an increasing rate being able to keep an edge on competition will come down to social media.

Class Cloud Assignment

The class cloud assignment was a great way to witness how and why people react to various tweets. I feel that I learned a lot about what drives a person to create tweets. I will use myself for my first example. At some point in the class a comment was made regarding Jennifer Lawerence in which I responded to the person by saying “you got that right.” We proceeded to high-five each other and the class thought it was funny. Then he said I should put it on Twitter. Once it was on Twitter though, the tweet received very few likes. This showed me even though a group of people found something to be funny it doesn’t necessarily means the others are going to be able to understand what the context of the tweet is, which is probably why there were not more likes and retweets. Something I found interesting is how often does get the chance to be in the same location as someone who is tweeting about the same topic? Probably not too often, so it was cool to be able to watch an individual say something in the class then ten seconds later it be up on the Twitter feed. One of the best moments of the class was when the professor showed a video from YouTube of his daughter’s one year birthday party. By the time the video was over and he refreshed the Twitter page, the same video had already been linked out. As funny as his reaction was to seeing it on Twitter it definitely brought to light some disturbing facts. For example, the speed at which the video was linked out was less than a minute. That just shows how quickly a person can post an image or video. I think it is kind of scary to know that someone can post something that I am in and there is a chance I would not know about it. Chances are a person never expects to get a tweet back from a celebrity and or a big name company. I have never seen it occur until the class. One of the students tweeted to Jet Blue and the company tweeted back to her. I looked them up and they have over 1 million followers. For them to be able to take the time to send a tweet to a specific person tells me there are companies  that care greatly about what their customers have to say. As for myself I sent a tweet to Facebook asking why they chose to make the process of uploading videos go through a “middle man”. I did not receive a response. At the same time I wasn't expecting to get one. This assignment was great exercise. It definitely opened my eyes.

https://twitter.com/blackman_PHD/status/572895675689521152

https://twitter.com/blackman_PHD/status/572888711991455744

https://twitter.com/blackman_PHD/status/572668168872714240