Inbound Marketing and What It Means for You
Why is everyone talking about “Inbound Marketing?” Who cares about the “Real-time Web?”
Several years ago when Google modified its Pagerank Algorithm, and started factoring in how other influential websites link to yours, few people really could imagine the explosion of social media engines like Linked-in, Facebook, and Twitter. Your search engine visibility is determined not only by the quality of the content on your website, but by who is linking to you.
Just recently, Google has launched the real-time web. Now more than ever there is an extraordinary opportunity for small businesses to carve out a niche in their social media marketplaces — effectively creating their own channel to communicate with their customers and prospects.
In an article in Huffpost by Manish Mehta, the Vice President, Social Media and Community at Dell Inc. (who can attribute $7 million in sales to Twitter for doing nothing at all!), Mehta affirms “Social media isn’t a means to further a corporation’s strategy, it’s a means to help determine it.”
Sometimes pictures (or mindmaps) are better than words, so I’ve created a Mindmap that illustrates a general Inbound Marketing/Social Media Strategy.
Inbound Marketing / Social Media Strategy Cashmap for Small Businesses
It’s anchored by strategic marketing: (with introductory offers to acquire new customers, upsell/cross sell them into higher margin/higher value products, and convert them into customer advocates), and it includes what I consider the essential elements of inbound marketing strategy, which dovetail with Google’s Pagerank Algorithm: (1) a web presence that is search engine optmized, and empowers real-time expression (2) content generation to display thought leadership / attention to customer’s problems and (3) off-page optimization strategies which are essential to building followers and getting other influential websites to link back to yours.
For those who’ve been sitting on the social media sidelines hoping the whole fad might go away…, social media is not a fad, and it’s not going away. It’s going to be a critical way for you to reach your customers and prospects, and it’s more important than ever to get connected.
On the web, the time is literally now.
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Tagged with: Customer Advocates • Optimization Strategies • Realtime Web • Search Engine Visibility
Filed under: Big Ideas • Inbound Marketing
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I really enjoyed this article and gives me a new approach to work with my small business clients. Lisha