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
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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
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447,621
visitors/month
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“List your
business” on
bottom of page
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Local Search
ZVents
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444,864
visitors/month
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Event posting
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Local Search
Eventful
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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:
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web page/landing page with a blog
 newsletter-sending capability
 Coupons
 Traffic reports, and more.

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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:
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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
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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:
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Create a personal Facebook account
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Join your regional/city network, invite your friends, organizations &
volunteers in your database
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Create an event (on the left navigation). Make sure to pick which
network to broadcast it to.
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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
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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
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Search Marketing for Nonprofits:
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Exhaustive List of Social Bookmarking Sites
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http://www.socialmediatoday.com
The Original Signal – Web 2.0 blog
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http://mashable.com/2007/08/08/social-bookmarking-2/
Social Media Today
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http://SearchMarketingforNonProfits.wordpress.com
http://www.originalsignal.com/
More Local Search Sites
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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
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Blogspot.com
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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
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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:
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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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