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THE SOCIAL LANDSCAPE
CMOs will invest more in social media this year than ever before, yet this is a scene that constantly shifts and changes. Here to help you better
leverage these major social media sites is CMO.com’s 2nd annual guide to the social landscape—updated and revised for 2011.
GOOD! OKAY! BAD!
CUSTOMER BRAND TRAFFIC TO
WEB SITE COMMUNICATION EXPOSURE YOUR SITE SEO
A central and open Using pages as a persona allows For many Web sites, Facebook Google and Bing have both indic-
communication portal, Facebook companies to position their has emerged as one of the top ated that they are using "social
is the hub through which brands on other relevant pages. traffic sources. While the "viral signals" as part of their ranking
businesses want to drive social For example, Starbucks' page potential" is lower on Facebook algorithms, pointing to Facebook
A social-networking site where interaction. Positive or negative, itself can now post on large than others, nothing is more and Twitter, in particular. While
users can add friends, send companies can use Facebook to coffee-lovers' pages. consistent at driving a steady the links themselves are “no-
messages, and build their own get their messages out and to flow of traffic to every message follow," the search benefits exist,
receive customer feedback. or post. especially in instances where
profiles
"Query Deserves Freshness."
Twitter is the ultimate outbound It isn't what you're saying on The prevalence of noise and As with Facebook, Twitter has
messaging tool. Inbound Twitter that exposes your spam have reduced Twitter's been singled out as a component
customer communications are brand. It's what you can get ability to send direct traffic. of Google's and Bing's social
quick and to the point, allowing others to say about you that However, it is an exceptional component. The links are
A microblogging site that for simple monitoring and has the real impact. Getting tool for assisting with traffic "nofollow," but the social
enables users to send “tweets,” management of conversations. retweets and interactions can generation from other sites, component is real and expected
do more for brand exposure like Digg, StumbleUpon, and to become more prominent over
or messages of 140 characters
than any other social site. Facebook. time.
or less
As a PR tool, Flickr gives Flickr's improved search Even if you get tens of Flickr is very much indexed in
company-sponsored events rankings and integration with thousands of visits to a photo search engines and passes links
a pictoral home that can be other social sites makes it the with your URL hyperlinked and page rank. It is also a major
more professional and better high-quality image posting below, the click-through rates part of Google's and Bing's social
An image-and video- hosting organized than on other social service of choice. Bulk images are among the lowest around. search component—photos
Web site where community image- sharing sites (including should go on Facebook. Quality All links are "nofollow." liked by individuals can be seen
members can share and Facebook). images should go on Flickr. more prevalently in their friends'
searches.
comment on media
Not the primary focus, but you LinkedIn is great for personal LinkedIn continues to Very high page rank, almost
can potentially engage branding and showing the improve its standing in traffic guaranteed to be a ranking on
customers by encouraging professional prowess in your generation by encouraging the first page of search results,
employees to answer organization. Encourage sharing through every new especially for your individual
A social-networking site for industry-related questions employees to maintain feature it has rolled out employee names. High SEO
business professionals people post and become known complete profiles to show off during the past year. It isn't as value for vanity search for your
as an expert in the field. your solid team. consistent as Facebook or as name, but that is about it.
viral as Digg, but it's getting
better.
Whether you seek to entertain, Your YouTube branding is YouTube is growing in the Very good for building links
inform, or both, video is a second only to Facebook when traffic-generation segment, back to your site because the
powerful channel for quickly people are researching your particularly through in-video videos rank very well. YouTube
responding to customer company. Be certain that the messaging through annotations channels are a tried-and-true
A video-sharing Web site where complaints and showing your messages are frequent and that and URL branding. Clicks on way to send some really good
social-media savvy. It is also the they align with what you want content links are still minimal, exposure and SEO back to your
users can share and upload
best venue for reputation as your perceived company but even those numbers have brand.
new videos "repair" if things go wrong. persona. seen a recent rise.
Customer interaction is Brands have an opportunity to Digg went through a rough Very good in that even if your
nonexistent on Digg, but the gain mass exposure on Digg, spot in 2010, but seems poised story doesn't become popular, it
intrinsic value of exposure particularly through the most for a rebound in 2011. Even will still get your page indexed
that is possible through a Digg interesting stories posted about with the decrease in traffic, very quickly. Also, if your story
A social-news site where users front page story can highlight your company. It is a venue for it is still the most consistent does become popular, this is
can discover and share content other sites where customer content discovery—brands that viral-traffic generation site that likely the best site in terms
communication is strong (such do well on Digg can do well can send tens of thousands of of getting the attention of
as your blog). anywhere. visitors to individual posts. bloggers who will link to you.
StumbleUpon is not a tool The paid campaign can be good StumbleUpon is the social Very good if your story makes it
that is useful for customer for brand awareness, especially media equivalent of a traffic to the top page for its tag. Due
communications. There is a after you have attempted Grand Slam—it doesn't happen to StumbleUpon's large user
random chance of getting getting free, organic traffic to often, but when it does, it's base, many people can find your
A social-news community a message to your current your home page. You can target huge. Keep discoveries diverse. stories and link to them. For
where members discover and customers and the user base is very accurately, but keep in You never know when you'll vanity searches, your profile
growing, but it's still very slim in mind you are paying $.05 per get hundreds of thousands, page ranks well, too.
share Web pages
comparison to other social sites. visit ($50 CPM). even millions of visitors from
StumbleUpon.
Only the extremely adept Attempting to build your brand Reddit has emerged in the past If you make the front page, a lot
can use Reddit as a customer on Reddit is like trying to sell year as the best social news of sites will pick up your story,
communication tool. Any time whale meat to Greenpeace. It traffic-generation site on the generating valuable back links.
you open your company up to won't happen, and it's likely to Internet. Quality and originality Many of these stories are picked
A social-news community the growing masses at Reddit, turn very ugly if you try. are paramount—if your up by reputable sites, giving
where users post links to the there is a chance it can backfire. message isn't viral, Reddit will more trust to your site.
site’s home page Occasionally, everything goes not approve.
better than expected.
The growing segment of Tumblr Tumblr's simple platform Images can get traffic. The blogging nature of Tumblr
users and the ability to ask and and extreme ability to have Otherwise, there is no real allows for extremely high
answer questions makes the site content shared on it make it a traffic potential yet. In the potential from a link-building
a potential darling for customer viable branding tool. GenY is coming months, it may expand, perspective. The sites
A social-networking site where communications. As the site's migrating to Tumblr to share but currently almost all activity themselves also rank very well
users can ask and answer exponential growth continues, opinions—if that demographic happens directly on Tumblr in the search engines.
questions expect it to rival Twitter as a is important to your business, itself.
top-2 communication tool. your Tumblr presence must be
strong.