In Case You Missed It: My Most Important Issue Ever!

In case you missed it... This is one of my most important (and most requested) issues I've ever written.  Although with the holidays and vacations summer brings, some folks have missed it. Heard about it from friends and colleagues, and have been emailing me asking for a copy.   So I decided to resend this compelling issue, again, with hope that all subscribers get to read it this time. If you read it already, read it again. I'm sure you'll discover something you didn't catch the first time. I also added a few new insights for added value and timeliness.   If you missed the original issue, please check this out. I can't stress enough how important content marketing, social marketing and search engine marketing is ... especially in today's online world.   All marketers, publishers and business owners owe it to themselves to get the most information as possible on the subject matter to increase visibility and ROI. Enjoy (again)!      Yours for success and profits,    Wendy Montes de Oca, MBA ~President, Precision Marketing and Media, LLC. ~Publisher, Precision Marketing eNewsletter ~Bestselling Author, Content Is Cash:  Leveraging Great Content and the Web for Increased Traffic, Sales, Leads and Buzz [Que Publishing, 2011, Paperback] ~Blogger, MuscleMarketing(dot)Blogspot.com

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What Social Sites Should YOU Be Using?: The Who, Why and How You Need To Know! Most people know about mega-popular social sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. However, I get a lot of questions about other, underutilized sites that are on the tipping point of mass popularity-specifically, how these sites can be leveraged for marketing purposes.     But before I go into that, I'd like to clarify the differences between various "social"-type sites: Social bookmarking, news and tagging are sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Delicious and Pinterest. These websites allow users to "bookmark" things they like-content, images, videos, websites-and allow others in the community to see what's been bookmarked and "follow," if they wish. This is the epitome of viral marketing and community interaction. When groups of people are like-minded, it's fun and easy to share feedback of things of common interest. For business purposes, it's also a strong way to bond with your audience through content, news and images that are synergistic and leverage those interests for increased website traffic and more. Social networking sites are communities like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google Plus. It's a way for groups of people to meet and stay in touch with each other, for personal and professional purposes. People can friend, follow or fan someone based on affiliation or interest. Another new site is Quora.com, which is a social question and answer site. Users can view by category and post questions or answers on virtually any business-related topic. Social media refers to sites like Youtube, Flicker or Tumblr, where groups of users share media content such as video, audio or pictures (photos). There's also new sites like Spotify.com, which are social music sharing sites, where users can listen to mp3 files themselves, as well as with friends, via Facebook. The following are some social sites that you may want to include in your online marketing mix as well as some other tactical tidbits: Pinterest.com is a social community where users "pin" (think of a bulletin board) things that they like. Quite simply, it's a virtual pin board. Users can re-pin (which promotes viral marketing) or follow someone with the same interest. Pinterest is a fun site because it focuses on the visual element. You can leverage your keyword-rich content when you add your descriptive text to your "pin." In addition, Pinterest asks for your URL, which will be a back-link to that webpage. This will encourage search engine marketing, branding and webpage traffic. Pinterest uses graphics, images (pics) and video pictures. And that's what will grab community members' attention, along with well-written descriptive text.   Important Tip! For marketing purposes, you can use Pinterest to promote your business or websites related to your business, such as landing pages, squeeze pages, product pages and more. What's important to know is that if your website, or the webpages you're thinking of pinning are flash (dynamic) webpages, you will be unable to "pin" it, as there's no static images on a flash page for Pinterest to "grab" for posting.   So if you're thinking about using testing Pinterest in your social marketing plan, make sure to pick websites or modify your own webpages to be graphic-, image- or video-rich. Also, like any marketing tactics you're testing, make sure it's in sync with your overall marketing plan and target audience. If you're target audience is an older crowd, then this may not be the best website, or channel, to reach them. Quora.com is a great online resource community of questions and answers. If you want to reinforce yourself as an expert, you can search questions related to your area of expertise and post responses that are useful, valuable and actionable. If you have a legitimate question about any topic, you can post by category and view replies from others who may be versed in that field. Quora is a great way to create visibility for yourself. As well, it allows you to upload relevant back-links which encourage website traffic and link-building. Important Tip! It's important to keep a steady presence on Quora. Stick to your areas of expertise (categories and topics). Make sure you have a keyword rich descriptive bio about yourself and include back-links to relevant websites. As with most all search, social and content marketing strategies-relevance and usefulness is key. All of these things help with credibility and branding. In addition, Quora's pages are indexed by search engines and do appear in organic search engine results pages (SERPs). That, in and of itself, can expand your reach and visibility, which can lead to increased website traffic, which can then be parlayed into leads or sales. Digg.com.com is one of my favorite content bookmarking sites. You can upload content "snippets" or news nuggets. The site will also pull in any images and well as back-links appearing on the same page as your content. Content can be given a "category," so that the right readers will find it. The more popular your content (number of "digs"), the more people in the community it gets exposed to. Viral marketing and traffic generation (to the source website in the "digg") are typical outcomes from this website. Reddit.com is a similar site, which allows users to upload a content excerpts (article, video, picture) and link to the full version. This is a great site to increase your market visibility and extend reach. It's also a powerful platform to drive website traffic.   Important Tip! Use content that is "UVA"-useful, valuable and actionable, something newsworthy and/or interesting to your target reader. It's very important to have a strong, eye-catching or persuasive headline that people in the community will want to read. There's so much background noise on Digg that you want your content/headline to jump out at the reader. Also, include a back-link in the body copy you are uploading. This will help with branding, link-building and traffic generation. With Reddit, your content excerpt space is limited, so make sure to pick content that will not only resonate with the target audience, but also screams out to the reader to "click here" to read more. Then link to your full article, which should be posted on an inside page of your website.  Google+. Google Plus is Google's attempt at social networking. It's not as popular ... yet ... as behemoth Facebook (900 million users as of April 2012), but it's got "teeth," at around 90 million users. And because it's Google, there's some great search-friendly benefits built right in. For example, it's indexed by Google, so your messages can get found faster. This helps with search engine visibility and website traffic. Important Tip! For business purposes, you can share relevant information and personalize your "social" circles; thereby, targeting your message better for each group. It's easy to share and rank (a combination of Digg and Facebook) content such as posts and messages. And there's also a variety of sharing options like content, video, photos (similar to Pinterest, Flickr and YouTube). With social marketing, it's a matter of matching the content type to the most synergistic platform and audience. Social marketing may not be for every business. But I believe it's certainly worth a strategic test. Just remember an old copywriting rule of thumb, which is "know your audience." If you know who your target reader (prospect) is, then you can craft enticing messages and pick social platforms where those prospects are likely to congregate. Most any social marketing site can be leveraged for marketing and business purposes. But make sure to keep your messages fun, entertaining, engaging and interactive. Because, after all, that's what the "social" in "social marketing" is all about

Reader Questions On Content Syndication, Duplicate Content and Back-Links As a subscriber you've likely read about the SONAR Content Distribution Model and how it uses quality, original content through strategic, synchronized and targeted distribution on organic online channels. Readers of my ezine as well as my book, Content Is Cash, often email me questions about 'SONAR marketing' and I thought it would be helpful to publish these real-life questions, as it may be something that was on your mind. So here goes... Q:  Do I have repurpose the original content every time I add it to a new SONAR site or do it only by individual SONAR categories?    A: Yes. Your original 'catalyst content' should be the source content that goes to your in-house audience first (i.e. blog, email), then you should take that source and repurpose and reuse it -- adapting it accordingly -- to each SONAR site you disseminate it to as well as for each target audience within those select SONAR site. SONAR's key is using quality, original, content that is useful, valuable, and actionable.  For each site/audience, you can repurpose it in many ways: --add new sentences, remove sentences --add/change headlines, subheadings and intro copy --change closing paragraph/call to action --modify bullets, mix them up, or add/delete to existing ones A press release of your repurposed version is a completely different format as the original source. It's written in third person and using quotes. It also should have a headline that is newsworthy and gets readers attention quickly. This version is different from a version that is, let's say, used in article marketing (article) or in social networking sites (content blurbs) -- yet all of these uses originated from the same source. Q: If I have two Social media bookmarking sites, like Digg and Reddit, do I have to repurpose the article for each site or use the same content for the SONAR Social Media Bookmarking sites? A: Yes, but it doesn't have to be heavy edits. You may change headline and add/remove sentences or paragraphs based on each audience and headline being used. It needs to be relevant and make sense to your target reader. That's what makes SONAR unique -- it's targeted and relevant -- it also leverages high quality content and is uploaded to synergistic website's where that audience would find it relevant. Q: Wouldn't Google pick up that the back-link found in each repurposed articles as the same link as the original content and declare them the same? Read my blogposts (below) on what is duplicate content and what isn't. If you target the content for each audience and repurpose it -- as long as it's quality content, relevant to each site and audience, and are on different domains -- it's not duplicate content or spam.  Your press release is targeted for one audience type; and your article marketing or social marketing blurb is targeted to another audience.  Google's updates like Farmer, Panda and Penguin are targeting sites that use irrelevant links, poor quality content and that are spammy.  SONAR's uses are relevant to each audience/site it's on. It's not the same article over and over again, it's repurposed and modified. It's also not on the same domain -- it's all over the web in targeted locations that you're hand selecting.       I like to mix up back-links as well. So some repurposed versions may link back to your source content. For example, your online press release may link back to the press release on your website or blog in the 'Press' or 'Media' section of your website; I also put in two other links in my press releases (in the About Us section, including social media account and free ezine sign up page -- for lead gen purposes). Your article (full or excerpt) may link back to the original article in your 'Newsletter archives' section. Your social media blurbs may link to 'Newsletter article', home page', or 'ezine sign up page', and so on.   Your links should be strategically chosen based on your call to action Extra reading: http://www.musclemarketing.blogspot.com/2012_03_18_archive.html  http://www.musclemarketing.blogspot.com/2012_05_06_archive.html

SONAR Marketing: More Comprehensive and Targeted Than Content Marketing Alone (Really!) Here's a great article about content marketing, from a strategic standpoint with SEO. http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2186953/Why-Content-Marketing-is-a-Great-SEO-Strategy-Not-a-Short-Term-Tactic?wt.mc_ev=click&WT.tsrc=Email&utm_term=&utm_content=Why%20Content%20Marketing%20is%20a%20Great%20SEO%20Strategy%2C%20Not%20a%20Short-Term%20Tactic&utm_campaign=06%2F26%2F12%20-%20SEW%20Daily&utm_source=Search%20Engine%20Watch%20Daily&utm_medium=Email It's important to note, especially to the naysayers of content marketing, that SONAR marketing and the SONAR Content Distribution Model are similar to content marketing, but more comprehensive and targeted ... it's like content marketing on steroids. SONAR is organic and combines SEO/SEM, social marketing, viral marketing, online PR, and more.  It's just as effective as article/content marketing, only better. And it incorporates the same staple strategies as search engine marketing and keyword selection. Of course, the major difference is that it's a systematic, synchronized methodology. Quite simply, SONAR is a manual way of disseminating quality, re-purposed content on the Web in targeted, strategic locations based on audience, website objectives, content, and SEO keywords. The key to success with SONAR is to truly educate your marketers and SEO folks on it's core principals and how to deploy it properly. It's proven. It's organic (free). It uses high quality content for natural relevant back-links. And it hasn't been negatively affected by search engine algorithm updates like Farmer/Panda, and recent, Penguin. If done correctly, SONAR will work and make a difference to your site's traffic and visibility. If you or your SEO folks have questions about SONAR and how it can be, and should be used correctly, to get the most out of YOUR high quality content, feel free to drop me an email at support@precisionmarketingmedia.com.

You Heard It Hear First... Recently, I did a wonderful and informative interview with LA-based radio host, Rey Ybarra or NewMediaRadioHour. We chatted about my SONAR Content Distribution Model as well as social marketing, duplicate content, Google updates, content creation, and more! I really think it's a 'must listen to' for any marketer, entrepreneur or business owner. To hear the full interview, visit: http://newmediaradiohour.com/author-interviews/content-is-cash-author-wendy-montes-de-oca-m-b-a/   Enjoy!

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See What All The Buzz And Accolades Are About...     If you haven't read my book, the former #1 Amazon web marketing bestseller, Content Is Cash. You really should check it out. You can read free chapter excerpts here: http://www.amazon.com/Content-Cash-Leveraging-Increased-Biz-Tech/dp/0789741083.      Content Is Cash: Leveraging Great Content and the Web for Increased Traffic, Sales, Leads and Buzz [Que Publishing, Paperback], which in less than 10 hours skyrocketed to #5 in Amazon's Internet Marketing book category as well as #3 in Amazon's Hot New Releases. Content Is Cash has been an Amazon bestseller for over 10 weeks. It's gotten 4 out of 5 stars and 42 reviews. On Sept. 26 it hit #1 for 'Internet Marketing' and #13 in 'Business & Culture' books. Content Is Cash has also been featured by Newsmax.com and Target Marketing Magazine as recommended reading for web marketing and business enthusiasts. It was also named 'Hot Reads for Marketers' by Websitemagazine.com as well as '25 Top-Selling Ecommerce Books in August 2011' by Practicalecommerce.com.  Quick Links... http://twitter.com/#!/PrecisionMktg    http://www.musclemarketing.blogspot.com http://www.precisionmarketingmedia.com/ http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Florida/Precision-Marketing-Media-LLC/139310392787888 https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Content-Is-Cash/262572457102646 https://www.facebook.com/WendyMontesDeOcaMBA (new! author fan page)   Like what you've read? Feel free to retweet it on Twitter! RT @PrecisionMktg