Lebron James joined the Twitter generation yesterday so he can tweet his decision about where he’ll play basketball next year. Lindsay Lohan is busy tweeting about her legal problems and every day thousands of people join Twitter to see what all the buzz is about.

Twitter can be a very effective tool to help get your message out to the world if used correctly. Twitter can also be detrimental if used incorrectly. Most people don’t know how to use Twitter when they first join and often make mistakes. They think they need to tell us what they’re doing every minute of the day, sharing personal details that we don’t need to know. Some of the worst Tweets I’ve seen include:

I have the worst cramps!
I have a terrible headache
I’m going to the gym now
I have the worst hangover today

You get the idea. We don’t care about how you feel! We joined Twitter to participate in useful conversations and to connect with like-minded people. We don’t want to receive a barrage of auto-tweeted quotes or self-promotions. We want to engage in conversation with you and hear what’s really on your mind.

The other day I saw a Tweet from @willotoons complaining to someone about giving her a hard time about one of her Tweets. I started following @willotoons when I first joined Twitter a few years ago because she does a great job of sharing her thoughts as well as providing great resources. I highly recommend following her to see how to use Twitter effectively.

The reason @willotoons was complaining is because some guy Tweeted something like “do we really need to know that” as his first and only tweet. He made no attempt to engage @willotoons in conversation. He just complained about her sharing of some personal thoughts.

The proper way to use Twitter if you’re a beginner is to “listen” for a while before tweeting. Follow some people and see how they use Twitter. It’s best to share some personal thoughts, but not TMI, and share great resources, products, or services as you come across them. Engage people in conversations and have some fun. Don’t be a jerk and complain about people you don’t know or make a fool of yourself. Twitter is a very effective tool if used properly so join in the fun!

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Technorati Tags: @willotoons, Barrage, Basketball, Buzz, Conversations, Cramps, Great Resources, Hangover, Hard Time, Headache, how to use Twitter, Job, Lebron James, Lindsay Lohan, People, Personal Thoughts, Quotes, Reason, Self Promotions, Tweet, Tweets, twitter, Twitter etiquette, Twitter mistakes

I’m sitting in Starbucks waiting for my flat tire to be fixed so I brought my daughter’s new iPad to kill some time. Why not see how well the iPad works for blogging?

First I had to buy some wifi time at Starbucks since they’re free wifi doesn’t start until next week. No big deal because I’m traveling next week so I should be able to use the wifi elsewhere.

The keyboard is a little awkward with the iPad flat on the table. The docking station and keyboard should help when it arrives. There are a few quirks with Safari and Wordpress that i’m working through but nothing too major. I usually blog using Firefox so I’m not sure if its a Safari issue or an iPad issue. I’m sure there are some apps that will help Wordpress bloggers using iPads (let me know your favorite apps for blogging or start developing some!)

Overall blogging from the iPad is pretty easy but there are limitations.  But it sure beats lugging my laptop around! I guess this is one more justification for me to get an iPad (i’ve been self-justifying excuses why I need an iPad!). Overall blogging from the iPad gets a C+ rating. The external keyboard would make it an B.

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Technorati Tags: Apps, Docking Station, External Keyboard, Flat Tire, Ipad, Justification, Laptop, Quirks, Safari, Starbucks, Wikipedia, Wordpress

Okay Google what gives? First Matt Cutts tells me Google absolutely, positively does not read meta data from your website.

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/keywords-meta-tag-in-web-search/

Today I was reading the Google SEO reportcard and the report says they do read meta data from websites.

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2010/03/googles-seo-report-card.html

So who do I believe? Wouldn’t it be great if Google published a rule book for search ranking so we would know exactly what to do and didn’t have to rely on internet rumors? Of course they have the Google Webmaster Central which gives us some tips but it doesn’t give us all of the answers. They speak in general terms and don’t get into the technical details that webmasters really need to understand how Google works (plus Google isn’t willing to share how their search algorithm works).

For those who are just getting into search engine optimization, the search engines used to rank websites based on the meta tags you placed in your HTML code. Some examples of meta tags include meta title, meta description, and meta keywords. By placing your target keyword phrases in these meta tags you could rank highly in the search engines. Today the search engines use many other factors in your search ranking because everyone caught on to the meta tag trick and there are many more websites competing for the top ranking.

Well after digging deeper into the ongoing debate about whether or not meta tags are used by the search engines here is what I’ve concluded. I can’t tell you with 100% certainty that this is what the search engines do because none of them are willing to come out and just say “we do use meta tags in your search ranking” or “we do not use meta tags in your search rankings”.

1. Google does read the meta tags (meta title and meta description) in your website but they do not affect your search ranking

2. Google does not read the meta keyword tag in your website (Matt Cutts discusse this in his video)

3. Google uses the keywords in your meta title as one of their search ranking factors

4. Google uses the meta description in the display of the search results for your website

5. Yahoo and Bing still read your meta data and they use it to rank your website. They also use many other factors to rank your website which can be found in their respective webmaster guidelines.

Search engine optimization is a moving target so you have to keep up with the latest trends. The Bing/Yahoo venture will change the search landscape soon and the emergence of Facebook as the most popular internet website may change the way we search in the future.

Subscribe to my blog updates and I’ll share the latest search engine news as it evolves. Also please comment on this post and share your take on the use of meta tags.

Until next time,

Ted

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Technorati Tags: Algorithm Works, google, Internet Rumors, Matt Cutts, Meta Data, Meta Description, Meta Keyword Tag, Meta Keywords, Meta Tag, Meta Tags, Reportcard, Search Algorithm, Search Engine Optimization, search engines, Search Google, Search Ranking, Search Rankings, SEO, Target Keyword Phrases, Technical Details, These Meta Tags, Video 3, Web Search, Webmaster

Here are some more questions from the Sitecore 5 Ingredients of Social Media for Your Website Webinar.

Q: How can we use facebook for a non-profit company, what are your recommedations of what kind of info we should display on facebook?

A: There are hundreds of Facebook Groups and Fan Pages for non-profits. I would start by searching Facebook for Non-Profits on Facebook and check out the Fan Page that has almost 300,000 members. There is a lot of great information that will get you started.

Q: How do you ensure that the content people put on your website is in good taste?

A: Unfortunately you can’t control what people post in forums and on your social media pages so you have to have someone delete inappropriate content. By inappropriate content I mean spam or offensive material. You should not delete negative comments about your product or service. Address those comments in a reply and contact the person offline to resolve their complaints. Most of the time when you respond to them in a timely fashion they will be satisfied and will post a positive reply on your website.

Many content management systems have modules that will detect and not publish spam and offensive material. Wordpress uses a plugin called Akismet that blocks spam comments.

You should also use social media monitoring tools like Trackur or Radian6 so you will be instantly notified when inappropriate comments or complaints are posted. Responding quickly is the key to heading off an online disaster.

Q: How do you use Facebook for business?  I use it personally.

A: Keep your business and personal Facebook pages separate unless you are a consultant or professional service provider and your name is your brand name. Look at the Facebook pages of the companies we talked about in the webinar and see how they’re using Facebook. Also search for any major brand name and see how they’re using Facebook.

Q: Is it better to have your blog as a different url than your company website?

A: This is an ongoing debate with many SEO experts. Some say its better to have your blog and website on the same URL because you’ll have more focused content on one domain name. Others say it’s better to have the blog on a different URL and on a different webhost so you can generate a lot of links between the two sites.

Personally I’ve tried it both ways and I think it’s best to keep the blog and website on one URL. It’s hard to maintain two different web properties unless you have staff to keep the content fresh on both sites. Google likes to see a lot of related content on one URL so it will help your search rankings by combining them.

Q: What is the best free social media monitoring tool out there? What is the best very low cost one?

A: If you’re on a low budget you can set up Google Alerts to monitor specific keywords you are targeting. Every time Google finds those keywords you will receive an email (or a daily digest so you’re not overwhelmed by emails). You can use tools like TweetDeck which is a free program that lets you monitor Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

You can also search Google for “free social media monitoring tools” to see what’s out there. I recommend using a paid service because “you get what you pay for” and Trackur seems to be the best low priced tool I’ve seen.

In case you missed our webinar here are links to the webinar recording, podcast and slides.

http://mediacontent.sitecore.net/5IngredientsSocialMedia/5IngredientsSocialMedia.html

http://mediacontent.sitecore.net/5IngredientsSocialMedia/5IngredientsSocialMedia.mp3

http://www.slideshare.net/sitecore/5-key-ingredients-of-social-media-for-your-website

Ted

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Technorati Tags: Brand Name, Content management system, Content Management Systems, Diffe, Disaster, Facebook, Fan Page, Fan Pages, Good Taste, Inappropriate Comments, Inappropriate Content, Media Tools, Monitoring Tools, Negative Comments, Non Profits, Offensive Material, Positive Reply, Professional Service Provider, Profit Company, Service Address, Sitecore, social media, Timely Fashion, Wordpress

We had a lot of questions from yesterday’s 5 Key Ingredients of Social Media for Your Website webinar that I didn’t have time to answer so here we go.

Q: Are the social media components on “the knot” available via the Sitecore Developer Network?

A: You can use RSS which is available in Sitecore CMS to pull content into your website. Twitter has an RSS feed so you can display your Twitter stream on your website and LinkedIn has a public RSS feed so you can display LinkedIn updates and Answers on your website. Facebook turned off it’s RSS Feed last year so you can’t display your Facebook News on your website but you can install Simply RSS in your Facebook account and pull in your blog posts, LinkedIn updates and your Twitter stream. LinkedIn lets you pull in RSS feeds so you can display your blog and Twitter updates on your LinkedIn profile. This diversifies your traffic and automatically updates numerous social media properties.

Q: My biggest issue is, I have two kind of posts on our fb-fanpage. 1. I love the company, you’re the best or 2. This product is broken, damaged etc. and questions concerning customer support. I have trouble getting customer service involved with FB and don´t know how to handle those messages as an it proffesional. Any tips?

A: Since customer support doesn’t want to get involved with Facebook, you can create an Support tab on your Fan Page that contains ways to contact customer support. Search Facebook for play.com and you’ll see their extensive Customer Support list under the Info tab.

Q: how much impact do custom tabs (canvas tabs) have (programmed with Facebook Markup language). are they alot more effective than “normal” facebook sites

A: I’m seeing more Facebook pages using the Facebook Markup Language which allows you to create Fan Pages that look like your website. This extends your brand to Facebook and lets you add newsletter opt in forms and custom content.

Q: For your customers to develop content on your website, what are some recommended platforms to develop that?  I have looked into Google Friend Connect as one way, but it doesn’t do everything.

A: There are solutions for any open source or .NET content management system. For example, Joomla has Community Builder which lets you build your own online community. If you’re running on .NET you can look at www.onesite.com. Another option is to use a hosted service like www.ning.com which is very customizable.

Q: Have you found a tool that aggregates the various social media metrics in a way for more easily created reporting?

A: Social media monitoring is an evolving market and there is a range of products for different price points. You can look at tools like www.trackur.com which is low cost but high in features and www.radian6.com on the higher end. Do a Google search for “social media monitoring” and you’ll see many products. MarketingProfs.com has some case studies that review social media monitoring products.

Q: Help me understand how to apply SN to a Local Service company doing Bathroom Renovations

A: You could create a Facebook Fan Page and upload before and after photos of your work. You can also upload those photos to www.flickr.com and to your website. People love to look at pictures and they love to share their photos. You could even do a Twitter campaign where you encourage people to Tweet a picture of their bathroom and the person with the ugliest bathroom would win a discount. Then you could feature them in a Before/After campaign on your website and Facebook Fan Page.

I’ll answer more questions in my next post.

Thanks for attending our webinar and here are links to the webinar recording, podcast and slides.

http://mediacontent.sitecore.net/5IngredientsSocialMedia/5IngredientsSocialMedia.html

http://mediacontent.sitecore.net/5IngredientsSocialMedia/5IngredientsSocialMedia.mp3

http://www.slideshare.net/sitecore/5-key-ingredients-of-social-media-for-your-website

Ted

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Technorati Tags: Blog, Canvas, Cms, Custom Tabs, Customer Service, Customer Support, Developer Network, Facebook, Fan Page, Fan Pages, Fb, Info Tab, Knot, Linkedin, Lot, Markup Language, Media Components, Media Properties, Profile, Sitecore, social media, Support Search, traffic, twitter