Transcript Slide 1
Online Marketing 201:
Local Search & Social Media
Learning Objectives
After this training you will:
Understand what local search is, and how to register
in local search engines
Know what social media/Web 2.0 is, and why you
need to be involved
Understand how to leverage social media to
encourage volunteering
Be able to measure your success from local search
and social media activities
Understand how blogs work, and know how to start
a blog
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The Web Has Changed
Monologues are over, no more: I’ll publish
and put it out there and you’ll consume
and you better not complain!. It is now a
dialog.
- Avinash Kaushik, Occam’s Razor
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What is Web 2.0?
Web 2.0/social media refers to a perceived
second generation of web-based
communities and hosted services — such as
social-networking sites, wikis and
folksonomies (also known as collaborative
tagging , social classification, social
indexing, social tagging ) .
These sites aim to facilitate collaboration and
sharing between users.
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What is Local Search?
Why Local Search?
More online searchers are looking for local
information “volunteer in Camden, NJ
Local search results are displayed FIRST in
search engine results
Recommendation engines get more traffic
than your site– Yelp.com has over 4 million
visitors per month
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Local Search:
Building Links from your Friends
Start off by getting links from your friends
Convention & Visitors Bureaus
Traditional Media Sites - newspapers, radio, TV
Local city guides (search city name + “city
guide”)
Local Business Associations - Rotary, Kiwanis,
Chambers of Commerce, etc.
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Local Search
Google’s Local Business Center
Sign in, create a listing, Google will mail you code, input code, you’re done!
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Local Search
Yahoo! Local
Sign in, create a listing, input the code, you’re done!
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Local Search
TrueLocal.com
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Local Search
Live Search Maps
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Local Search
Live Search Maps
Go to the Local Listing Center
Click on “Help” in Bottom Right
Click on “Local Listing – Add a Listing”
They will send you a letter with a verification
code
Input the code
You’re Done!
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Local Search
Insider Pages
Tell your story! Add
photos, special offers &
coupons, and a
"message from the
owner". Update hours,
directions and contact
info - it's ALL FREE,
takes only a few minutes,
and drives more
customers to your nonprofit.
How: http://www.insiderpages.com/advertiser/sign_up.html
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Local Search
Craigslist.org
Over 30 million
visitors/month
Volunteer section
Community events
section
Confirm posting via
email
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Local Search
Kudzu.com
447,621
visitors/month
“List your
business” on
bottom of page
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Local Search
ZVents
444,864
visitors/month
Event posting
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Local Search
Eventful
564, 445
visitors/month
Can post
events &
groups
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Local Search
Yelp.com
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Local Search
Yelp
Do a search for your organization’s name
and zip code to find out if you’re already in
Yelp’s system.
On the bottom of the search result page,
you’ll see a red button titled ADD BUSINESS
which leads to a simple form where you can
add your business.
Keep an eye on your reviews, but be
restrained in firing back responses.
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Local Search
Merchant Circle
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Local Search
Merchant Circle
It offers a set of online marketing tools
These tools include:
web page/landing page with a blog
newsletter-sending capability
Coupons
Traffic reports, and more.
Simply click “join now” and you’re off and
running!
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Local Search
Superpages.com
8 million
people/month
Listings provided
to:
About.com
Lycos
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Social Media
Idealist.org
269,110
visitors/month
Post events,
campaigns,
volunteer
opportunities,
etc.
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Social Media
Facebook
34 million
users
Create group
profile, post
events, join
local networks
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Social Media
Facebook
Here’s how to get started with Facebook:
Create a personal Facebook account
Join your regional/city network, invite your friends, organizations &
volunteers in your database
Create an event (on the left navigation). Make sure to pick which
network to broadcast it to.
You can either use Facebook's guest list feature, or put the 1-800Volunteer.org URL address for the volunteer opportunity in the
"Description" field to track folks who have signed up.
Very simple. You've just reached out to a portion of
the 34 million users that use Facebook.
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Social Media
Gather.com
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Social Media
Gather.com
Register as an individual
Create your nonprofit as a group
Invite your friends, encourage writers you
know to join, contribute & send their earnings
to you
More detailed information here.
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Social Media
Meetup.Com
2.5 million
users
Search in your
area
Join existing
groups, or
start a group
Post your
projects/event
s
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Measuring Success
Increased number of visitors from social
media
Number of comments on your posts/blog
Set up Google & Yahoo News Alert for your
Brand name
Position of Brand Name & number of
mentions in Search Engines
Number of Volunteer Referrals/Sign ups
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Learn More
Search Marketing for Nonprofits:
Exhaustive List of Social Bookmarking Sites
http://www.socialmediatoday.com
The Original Signal – Web 2.0 blog
http://mashable.com/2007/08/08/social-bookmarking-2/
Social Media Today
http://SearchMarketingforNonProfits.wordpress.com
http://www.originalsignal.com/
More Local Search Sites
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060831-090409
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Joining the Blogging Community
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So You Want to Start a Blog
Approximately 120,000 blogs are created
every day
A blog is a website that needs to be
promoted, or it won’t be found.
Technorati currently states it is tracking over
112.8 million blogs
What do I want to get out of maintaining this
blog?
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Pick your Tool
Blogspot.com
Easy to use interface, need to add Google
Analytics
Wordpress.com
More advanced options
Can create “pages” as well as posts
Can host on your website
Comes with watered down analytics
LiveJournal.com
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What are the Elements of a Good Blog?
Optimized for Search Engines
Has an About page will help convert more
new visitors into loyal readers.
Has social media links under each post
Has an RSS feed using Feedburner
Displays a blog search tool
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Promoting Your Blog
Your blog is a website – everything you
learned about search marketing applies!
Post content using keywords & tags
frequently
Submit to directories:
http://www.stuntdubl.com/2006/01/16/blogpromotion-tools/
Build Links
Measure!
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Keep the Conversation Alive
Create an editorial calendar for your posts
Start a dialogue with bloggers in your niche
Ask someone to guest-post on your blog
Thank your readers
Participate in the comments on your blog
posts
Stumped for Ideas? Brainstorm list here.
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Measuring Blog Success
New vs. returning visitors, length of stay
RSS Subscribers
Conversation Rate = Number of Visitor
Comments / Number of Posts
Citations – people who link to your blog
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Blogging is a lot of
work!
Don’t just blog for
the sake of blogging.
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Questions?
Katherine Watier
Watier Creative
Nonprofit Search Marketing Consultant
301-793-6121
[email protected]
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