Facebook SEO: Keywords in Info Tab
Just as I had begun writing this, Facebook went and changed Facebook Page format, so I needed to take a moment to reflect on the new changes. Upon reflection, many of the factors I initially mentioned on my first “Facebook SEO Tips” blog post are still applicable. With that being said, the next topic I am going to discuss is the importance of using keyword rich descriptions in the Info tab on your page. The info tab is the place where you can put all kinds of information about your company, yourself, etc. Why is this important? What are the key areas on the info tab? Read more
Facebook SEO: Choosing the Right Name for Your Page
In my previous post, I introduced the concept of Facebook SEO for Pharma and I decided I would write a series about this topic as I believe it could be a very interesting sequence of articles that may change some perceptions. In the current pharmaceutical marketing environment, social media engagement is the hottest topic (as it has been for about the past 2 years). In my 4+ years in the pharmaceutical marketing profession, half of that time has been spent talking about WHETHER pharma should get involved via social media and another half talking about HOW we should do it. I think those discussions are rather well saturated, so I’m taking a step beyond that and assuming that pharma is ready to take that step as we have seen several do in recent years. Read more
7 Facebook SEO Tips for Pharma
In 2010, Facebook was able to be the first site in many years to surpass Google in total volume of traffic in a month. This is an impressive accomplishment, considering the fact that Google traffic volume continued to increase over years previous. Last year, many pharmaceutical companies started setting up shop in the social media world, and I personally anticipate that we will see more of that in 2011. If you are engaged with a pharma brand that is considering engagement within Facebook (or if you are already engaged), this post may help you with a few considerations that can help you increase your visibility within search. For the record, when I say search, I am talking about both traditional search engines like Google and Bing as well as within the internal Facebook search results. Read more
PharmaSEM Facebook Page Created
Last year I created a pharmaSEM facebook page. I didn’t promote it much as I wasn’t sure I knew what I was going to do with it. I have decided that I’m going to try to keep this facebook page updated and fresh so wanted to officially announce the launch of this page to my few readers. If you’re interested, I’ve provided the link below.
Disclaimer: The postings on this site are my own and do not necessarily represent the opinions or positions of Intouch Solutions.
Facebook Muscling in on Google Ad Revenue?
Thanks to a @dannysullivan tweet today, I found an article on AdAge.com entitled “Facebook Books $1.86B in Advertising; Muscles In on Google Turf“. While the article brings up some interesting facts, I found it interesting that the actual headline is completely misleading. If you read further into the article, there is a specific quote that pretty much spells out the facts.
That doesn’t mean that Facebook is taking any significant market share from the search titan; indeed, Google makes more than $2 billion in advertising revenue in a given month. But Ms. Williamson believes there’s an emerging duopoly in the self-serve online-ad realm. The social network now accounts for almost 5% of total online-ad spending, and its share may increase to as much as 8% in 2011. Read more
Think Social Search!
Over the past 2 years, in case you have lived under a rock, the bulk of pharmaceutical marketing conversation has revolved around social media initiatives like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc. The value of social media channels can’t be argued…this is where the people are and marketing basics tell you that you should go where the people are. I’m a huge fan of leveraging social media channels as a part of an integrated marketing strategy, but I’m not a big fan of putting all your eggs in one basket. I’m an even bigger fan of the concept of social search. The fact is, search marketing and social media initiatives can be improved and empowered by an integrated approach. Add additional online marketing channels – like display media, mobile media and e-mail – and you will find a very powerful online marketing strategy.
FDA Issues Warning to Novartis for Social Sharing
While I was out on vacation completely ignoring work and focusing on my new baby girl, the FDA issued a warning letter to Novartis for Tasigna®. This letter was issued because Tasigna.com uses a Facebook share social media widget which allows users to share Novartis-generated content via their Facebook status or updates. Based on the issuance of this letter, many pharmaceutical marketing experts have come out with their specific opinions and recommendations. This post is ONLY my opinion on the matter, but I felt like much of the issue is focused on the smaller piece of the concern rather than the real concern as I see it.
Many briefs I have read focus on the fact that social sharing widgets are based off of meta data and for that reason much of the “blame” for this warning letter has been associated with inappropriate or misused meta data. While in some cases meta data may be in non-compliance – particularly in examples represented in this notice of violation letter – in my opinion the meta data is not an issue that should be focused on as a solution. I have seen various recommendations, ranging from completely generic meta data to simply leaving those fields empty. From a search perspective, these options are not beneficial and would actually likely result in decreased search engine rankings and lower visitor engagement. These are not simply factors that concern SEO…they concern user experience and web best practices. Read more
Twitter Launches “Promoted Tweets” Ad Model
Yesterday, Twitter announced on their blog the anticipated launch of advertising on Twitter that they are calling “Promoted Tweets”. Digital marketing experts have been wondering for a long time whether Twitter would announce something like this and it has finally come. This initial phase of promoted tweets will be used with just a handful of selected beta companies (like Starkbucks, Sony Pictures, Best Buy and others).
From a Pharmaceutical marketing perspective, this offers an interesting opportunity for pharma advertisers already engaged in the Twittersphere. The key thing to consider about this new Twitter advertising model is that these are not specifically like traditional advertising platforms. Promoted tweets will be specifically highlighted within Twitter search results, but they are still organic Tweets that would already exist. What I mean by that is that these are Tweets that already exist (or would exist) without the Promoted Tweets platform. An advertiser identifying the tweet as a promoted tweet simply escalates and highlights that Tweet to a wider audience.
How Promoted Tweets Will Work
For starters, Promoted Tweets will follow the same guidelines as any other Tweet – meaning the ads will have to fall within the 140 character limitations. For those wondering, that should be sufficient space to seed an adequate message. Search marketers are used to dealing with fewer characters (95 characters on Google adwords plus 35 characters for the URL without the benefit of shortened URLs). Tweets identified as promoted will be displayed within Twitter search results pages and will be highlighted to identify those tweets as promoted. Promoted Tweets will use something akin to “Quality Score” used by search engines for their paid search advertising platforms. Tweets that don’t have a high level of engagement (favoriting, replying or retweeting) will automatically disappear from the results over time.
This just launched today so don’t have a lot of insight just yet. As it evolves I will be sure to post updates.
Promoted Tweets are LIVE
Disclaimer: The postings on this site are my own and do not necessarily represent the opinions or positions of Intouch Solutions.
Top 5 Twitter SEO Strategies
By recently engaging in partnerships with the big 3 search engines (Google, Yahoo and Bing), Twitter SEO has effectively become something that should be tactically considered. As a search nerd, I think it is exciting that Twitter is feeding real-time results directly into Google (and Yahoo/Bing) search results now. Below is my initial list of the top 5 things I view as the most important aspects for Twitter SEO:
- Consider Your Handle/User Name: Your username is what will end up being in your twitter page (i.e., I chose semdave as my username so my Twitter URL is http://twitter.com/semdave). If your goal is to promote your brand (either your personal brand or your business brand), consider using this in your username. If you have a topic-specific purpose for your twitter page, do some keyword research and find out your best options (i.e., say you wanted to have a Twitter Account for the general topic of “american obesity”. Find a highly search keyword and use that as your username. In the screenshot here, I chose the phrase “American Obesity” as my Twitter username. There are around 18,000 monthly searches for this phrase. Seeing that the username is available, I’ll take that and move on).
- Optimize Your Bio: Once people click into your Twitter profile (or once a search engine navigates there), your bio is one of the first items that will be visible/read. There is limited space for this bio, so you need to make sure you are incorporating optimal keywords into this space to help improve opportunities for your Twitter Profile to be displayed in search results.
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Write Keyword Rich Tweets: The recent partnerships with search engines has enabled real-time display of what is being said in Twitter, directly from the search results. In the example seen here, I have highlighted the area that I am specifically talking about. This highlighted area shows a real-time feed of what people are saying on Twitter in relation to childhood obesity. As with any other level of SEO, Twitter SEO would require the engagement of some keyword research prior to writing your Tweet. From the pharma sphere of influence, this could be a large potential opportunity if you are able to optimize Tweets based on what people are searching for and what is a hot topic in Twitter.
- Include Shortened URL links to Your Content: While not imperative to all Tweets, including links to your site, article, or related content is one big key to the value of Twitter for business purposes. Using URL shorteners (like bit.ly or ow.ly) you can drive people directly to your content and hopefully engage the user almost immediately. This provides more opportunities for additional potential links driving users to your content that is ideally highly relevant and highly optimized.
- Make Your Tweet “Re-Tweetable”: Part of the value of Twitter is the ability to have other people “re-tweet” your message if they think it is important or relevant. This means that in addition to trying to use keywords people are searching on, its also important to keep it “re-tweet” friendly. Keep it a bit shorter so that if someone likes the message they can blast it out to their circle of friends without removing anything important.
Disclaimer: The postings on this site are my own and do not necessarily represent the opinions or positions of Intouch Solutions.
