As television was to the man walking on the moon in 1969, Social Media is to Commander Chris Hadfield's 5-month stint on the International Space Station (ISS).

Evan and Kyle Hadfield, Chris' sons, began preaching the merits of Social Media at a family gathering in 2009 and again when it was announced that Dad would be on the 5-month mission to the ISS.

It all began by setting up two social profiles, one on Twitter, the other on Facebook. In January 2011 he had 1,000 Twitter followers and 600 Facebook friends.

Today, Chris Hadfield has garnered almost a million followers on Twitter and falls into the 99.9 percentile of most influential Twitter users. He has over 336,000 likes on Facebook. And let's not forget his YouTube posts! Chris' cover of David Bowie's Space Oddity was published on May 12^th: on May 15^th there had been over 11 million views!

Utilizing Social Media Commander Hadfield provided us here on earth a unique view into his world aboard the ISS, exposed us to breathtaking images from above and provided interesting facts, did you know with the suit's low pressure, 4.2 psi oxygen, you can't whistle as the air is too thin (Facebook May 11^th).

By all accounts, Commander Hadfield embraced Social Media.

FINDING TIME TO DO SOCIAL Over the course of the 146 days aboard the ISS and between the 130 scientific experiments, he found time to connect numerous times a day. Now back on Earth, undergoing a barrage of tests that determine how his body reacts to gravity after being weightless for so long he still finds the time to connect every day.

So how is it that while orbiting in space, manning the ISS and conducting his research, Chris Hadfield was able to stay so connected? A well-planned, presence management.

The first step is planning your social media initiative.

* Determine how often you'll post. Depending on the framework you establish this could be daily, weekly, bi-weekly. * What you will you post? Will your posts be themed? Contain seasonal information? Announce upcoming promotions? Creating an editorial calendar will assist in keeping your planned content in order and will allow you to pre-compose content. Chris Hadfield's "Space Oddity" video was recorded on weekends during Chris' personal time. * Where to post? Once you determine the social networks you wish to have a presence on there are tools available, such as Buffer and Hootsuite, which allow you to schedule your posts. Don't forget to set aside time to respond to comments and questions….avoid being anti-social in your social media presence.

CHRIS HADFIELD'S BEST VIDEOS * SPACE ODDITY: although copies of the video are sure to stay around the license agreement between the Canadian Space Agency and David Bowie's record company allows the video to stay on YouTube for one year only. * FIRST SONG EVER PREMIERED FROM EARTH AND SPACE: written by Chris Hadield and Barenaked Ladies lead Ed Robertson the track is a cooperation between the Canadian Space Agency and CBC Music. It's not the first song from Space. That honor goes to Jingle Bells, a surprise performance by the Gemini 6 crew in 1965. * STAR TREKS' ACTOR WILLIAM SHATNER CALLS CHRIS HADFIELD: the man making space so attractive asks Chris what it's like to live in space. CHRIS HADFIELD'S MOST POPULAR PHOTOS * View from London all the way to the northern lights

Clear skies at last, from Cardiff to Belfast to Edinburgh to London, to the northern lights, and beyond. twitter.com/Cmdr_Hadfield/…

- Chris Hadfield (@Cmdr_Hadfield) February 15, 2013

* Earth and its moon seen from space

Tonight's Finale: The full moon rises over the only planet we have ever called home. twitter.com/Cmdr_Hadfield/…

- Chris Hadfield (@Cmdr_Hadfield) February 18, 2013

* Valentine heart

Seven billion hearts, but I can see only one. #ValentineFromSpace twitter.com/Cmdr_Hadfield/…

- Chris Hadfield (@Cmdr_Hadfield) February 14, 2013

* New York, New York

New York City shining by night. Central Park is visible from space, and maybe even the light on the Statue of Liberty. twitter.com/Cmdr_Hadfield/…

- Chris Hadfield (@Cmdr_Hadfield) January 25, 2013

* Chris Hadfield seen through a weightless drop of water

Weightless water. This picture is fun no matter what direction you spin it. twitter.com/Cmdr_Hadfield/…

- Chris Hadfield (@Cmdr_Hadfield) January 27, 2013

Post from: Search Engine People SEO Blog What Chris Hadfield Did Right (And You Can Too!) -- Written by Carla Barker,

BuzzStream has always been a great tool for collecting and organising your link prospecting and outreach. It did, however, suffer a little in the fact that you had to navigate away from it to qualify the sites that you had on your list.

This resulted in a lot of back and forth as you checked the sites and then returned to Buzzstream to pop in your newly discovered information.

This was addressed in March when the guys added a new tool in the BuzzBar allowing you to qualify possible outreach prospects without leaving the Buzzstream interface.

This short tutorial shows you how to integrate the collection of data from Link Prospector into Buzzstream and then qualify using the BuzzBar to find more opportunities in less time:

1. HEAD OVER TO LINK PROSPECTOR AND GO PROSPECTING For those of you not familiar with Link Prospector it is a tool that allows you to capture lots of data for potential linking partners and outreach. There are some great reviews and tutorials around the web that can help you out here.

For a quick introduction on collecting the prospects follow points 1 4 on the previous post that I wrote for Search Engine People about Link Prospector and Buzzstream. What follows expands on this technique with the BuzzBar.

2. MAKE SURE YOU HAVE SET YOUR GLOBAL EXCLUSIONS Exclusions are crucial and you will need to build these up over time. Making sure that you exclude any potential site that could clog up your prospecting will ensure that you don't have to remove as much from Buzzstream at the qualifying stage. You may even want to exclude at the prospecting level for sites in your vertical that you already have links from or are not a great fit for the project.

3. ADD THE SEOMOZ DATA (A NEW ADDITION) AND EXPORT I thought I would mention this new feature from Link Prospector - although you don't need to add it as Buzzstream will add for you when you import your prospects.

Export your data.

Depending on how deep you have gone and the type of prospects you are looking for will determine whether you should export domains or paths. In this example we will export domains so that we can check for possible link and outreach opportunities at a high level.

If you are looking to qualify the prospects a little bit more before uploading to Buzzstream I suggest you have a read of these posts by John-Henry Scherck on his blog.

4. HAVE A LOOK AT YOUR SPREAD SHEET AND GIVE YOURSELF A PAT ON THE BACK Nice.

5. IMPORT USING THE CITATION LABS OPTION There are a number of options here making it easy to import in a number of ways. Choose Citation Labs.

6. HAVE A CUP OF TEA

7. MARVEL AS BUZZSTREAM DOES ITS MAGIC Let Buzzstream do its magic as it imports the data, tries to find contact details and social media sites associated with the sites in question.

8. CHOOSE TO VIEW IN BUZZBAR Choose the sites that you want to qualify by clicking the tick boxes on the left. If you want to filter them before so that you aren't wasting any time you can filter by a certain Page Rank or via a range of MozMetrics. Intelligent filtering will allow you to leave some duds on the cutting room floor.

Then comes the nifty part.

9. QUALIFY YOUR PROSPECTS WITHOUT LEAVING BUZZSTREAM Historically you had to go back and forth to qualify the sites and get the data into the records in Buzzstream. Not any more. The BuzzBar allows you to do it all within the tool itself. When you are checking dozens (or hundreds of sites) it drastically cuts down the time you spend adding the information that you need for outreach. Here is a quick overview of the interface:

a. See the website right inside the Buzzstream app (just click the button in the top left to go back and forth between the sites)

b. Get some top level metrics for the site clickable for a few more

c. Conduct outreach whilst looking at the site (press the button, choose from your templates and write an email whilst the site is fresh in your mind)

d. Adjust where the BuzzBar details appear on your screen

e. Click here to visit the site you are looking at

f. Adjust project details (edit the status of the site there and then)

g. Add discovered contact info whilst you are looking at the site (just one check and you have the details in your record)

h. Add details for any of the custom fields that you have created in Buzzstream

i. Add notes about that site for when you conduct outreach (just so you don't forget)

That's it! You then need to make sure that you have something of high enough quality to promote and the sparkling personality to get it featured via your amazing outreach!

Post from: Search Engine People SEO Blog Using Buzzstream's BuzzBar With Link Prospector -- Written by Wayne Barker, Boom Online

We no longer create websites that have fixed size layouts of 960px wide. With an ever-growing range and variety of different screen sizes we now create websites that visually look great no matter what device they are viewed on: Responsive Design.

What are the current trends in web design that would give your website the edge amongst your competitors?

Here is a collection of new web trends we can expect to be on the rise:

1. LANDING PAGE TWEAKS

A hero shot, product benefits, rich content, social media functionality, and above the fold, clear call-to-actions are effective ways of constructing a great landing page to capture the user's attention. Here are a few tweaks to implement on your next landing page for better conversion:

_BIG HEADLINES_ - Headlines should be the biggest copy on your webpage that visitors quickly notice. Make sure the main headlines are clearly visible and laid out in a way that helps you highlight the value of your service or product.

_OVERSIZED BACKGROUND IMAGES_ - Large photos are an excellent way of clearly drawing the user's attention to your core products/services/offer as soon as they view your page. Also having big, bold and high quality visuals can often help seal the deal.

_CLEAN & MINIMALISTIC_ - Less clutter on the page and a lot of white space will drive fewer users away. By using flat design, you will help convey a clean professional landing page with concise content. * 13 Little Landing Page Tweaks That Can Make a BIG Difference 2. MOBILE INTERFACE ENHANCEMENTS

One problem with mobile devices is the screen size.

In a responsive view all page elements need to be arranged underneath another or they must be hidden from the user.

Off-Canvas layouts are new techniques that utilize space outside the browser's viewport to hide elements until the user clicks to see them. Various apps and websites are already using this technique like Facebook, The Next Web, and Mashable.

* Implementing an off-canvas navigation A mobile navigation toggle gives you the ability to hide or reveal a website menu. You want to give your users access to all your important links without flooding the page and taking up screen real estate.

Creating big fly out navigation makes a much better user experience in terms of readability and tap gestures. Of course, there are various techniques but there is no right or wrong way. Just choose a solution that fits your responsive design nicely.

* How to build a big responsive multi-level menu

3. HTML5/CSS3 IMPROVEMENTS

You no longer need Flash to create web animations and interactivity or different images for hover statements.

CSS3 makes it possible to animate, create call to action buttons that look like image buttons but aren't, and hover effects or validated styled forms. These are all possible without the use of JavaScript. Just remember not all browsers support all of these features yet.

CSS3 is also used to handle all the media queries to adjust the responsive behavior for desktop and mobile screen resolutions. Using CSS3 and flat design principles in combination work well together to bring you new features like interactive presentations, web-based applications, and quick startup websites.

* HTML5 Showcase: A gallery of the best html5 sites in the world 4. RETINA DISPLAY TECHNIQUES

Using one single file sprite with different sizes is a thing of the past; SVGs (Scalable Vector Graphics) are becoming widely supported.

SVG offers a truly scalable resolution-independent graphic and is a great solution no matter the zoom level or resolution your device is using. Again, keep in mind that not all browsers support the SVG format right now and you can always use PNGs as a fallback.

Icon fonts offer many features compared to bitmap image icons. One problem with bitmap images is that they get pixelated when scaled up. Icon fonts have all the same properties as a normal font, which means they are completely scalable to any retina/Hi-DPI devices.

* Create your own icon fonts 5. FLAT WEB DESIGN Flat design is in and Skeuomorphism design is out! What is Skeuomorphism!? (pronounced: _skyoo-uh-mawrf_) It means applications are designed to look like their real-world counterpart.

Apple embraced skeuomorphism in a majority of their apps.

Today, flat design is becoming popular and many others are jumping aboard. For example, Microsoft Windows 8 interface uses flat colors, no drop shadows, the focus on typography, simplistic interfaces and the use of color contrast encourages specific user actions.

* Download a free Flat UI Web User Interface Kit OTHER TRENDS TO MENTION * Content first * Social media integration * Bigger call-to-action buttons * Website frameworks * Content marketing * A focus on typography CONCLUSION These trends don't apply to everyone -- but there are few that can optimize and increase conversions on your website in a big way.

You can give your company credibility and the leading edge amongst other companies who fall behind. Review your own website or landing page and see what you can improve.

What trends are you predicting to be the most popular in the age of responsive design?

Post from: Search Engine People SEO Blog "Use It Anywhere, Anytime" Web Design : The 5 Power Trends -- Written by Nigel Ayow,

Businesses will frantically look around for new consumer behavior trends. Will the mobile be the future of the web? How will mobile consumption patterns evolve? What products and services are making it to the top of the consumer mind share? How do you explain eco-trends, more-ism, emerging markets, and new technologies? Or as Trend Watching nudges us to think: what's the full-frontal mega-trend of transparency? What are App-scriptions?

Trends are a sure way to latch your content development work on. This kind of content is sure to grab attention, cover new stories, give an interesting twist to your content marketing strategy, and help provide a platform for your customers to base their thinking on. Developing content based on trends also makes you a thought leader and a trend watcher -- a sure sign of "moving with the times".

So, how do you develop content on such trending topics without coming across as irrelevant? How do you create relevant, engaging content that doesn't add more to the mucky spam flooding the Internet?

Here are a few ideas:

HAVE RESOURCES: MAKE LIST - FOLLOW - LATCH ON The first step to creating great content based on trends is to actually "follow trends". Pick your choice from micro-trends, macro-trends, geo-specific trends, global trends, or trends based on the niche your business is related to. Start with Google Trends and social media hotspots such as trending topics on Twitter (the ones with the hash tags).

Apart from leading news publications such as _ComScore, IDB, Bloomberg Business Week, The WSJ_, AllThingsD, ReadWrite, and TechCrunch, there are many more sources for you to catch-up with. Since the list grows forever, trend sources are moving targets. Start with McKinsey Global Institute, Trend Watching, Global Trends, The Economist, Time, and scores of other sources to keep you updated.

No read. No write.

CONTENT = MESSAGE + HOOK + STRUCTURE + PASSION

Call it content marketing, online marketing, or blogging -- essentially you are communicating. Your content is a piece of message that tries to educate, teach, evoke action, persuade, excite, remind, engage, inform, or maybe just make someone's day.

In any case, you'll need a message, a hook, and a structure to your content. These are essentials. While the message you want to communicate embodies all of the content, it must always begin with a hook. Andrew Davis of Content Marketing Institute has an interesting post on _why you should start your content with a hook__._

Decide on the message, intrigue or attract your readers with a hook, base your content on intelligence, experience, analysis, and credibility.

Pour passion into your content because "boring" doesn't cut it.

USE VISUALS. CREATE NEW VISUALS IF YOU HAVE TO If the growth of _Pinterest _didn't give you anything to think about yet, it's this: the growth of visuals as communication aid is growing on the web. Visuals are a fresh break from the standard text.

Visuals are refreshing, impactful, and great story-telling tools. Research has it that humans retain about 65% of a message when delivered with visuals. That explains the growth of posters, memes, info graphics, and video. Use visuals to spread the message, narrate your brand-story, and drive a point home, to inform and to educate.

Show them the picture. Make your content work for you.

RELEVANCE. KNOWLEDGE. FRESHNESS FACTOR. CONTENT MIX DEEP DIVE Seth Godin and Randy Gage can write a blog post that's not more than 350 words and still create an impact. Steve Pavlina - a veteran blogger - writes lengthier posts compared to Seth Godin but he's been around and still gets his readership. Most of SEOmoz's posts are long and information rich (combined with visuals and videos). The things that are common with each of these examples are that they are always relevant, knowledgeable, fresh, and they all go deep into their content (except Seth Godin who prefers to run podcasts and write books instead).

By going deep, there's a visible content mix in their strategy for using content marketing. Seth Godin has his blog, top selling books, and a series of podcasts. Randy gage has books and his blog. Companies such as _SEOmoz, KISSmetrics, HubSpot_, and many others have long-form blog posts, eBooks, Whitepapers, reports, emails, videos, and much more.

In fact, it's the content mix with the right ingredients that make for writing great content.

What's your mix going to be like?

OBSERVE AND LEARN. FOLLOW AND GET INSPIRED

Hugh McLeod - a cartoonist, owner of GapingVoid and an author - has a fresh approach to cartoons. He scribbles on a card-sized canvas and that's where his content comes alive.

The Oatmeal is a books and comics publisher and it's apparent that they use graphic-rich, visually oriented, and highly creative content to appeal to their readers.

Are you looking for examples of websites that actually make "trend following" the core of their business? SpringWise has "crowd-spotters" who report in regularly on new business ideas from all over the world.

These examples feature content that's unique and aided with visuals. They are also spot-on, trend-based, and highly informative. They stay relevant and they inch towards supremacy in information. They are authoritative and they publish with an attitude.

While you might not publish all trends for your business, you'll still get the drift. Timely, accurate, and trend-based content marketing for your business is a failsafe recipe for great content marketing.

When it comes to publishing based on trends, there's the factor of application. As a business, you'll not only stay abreast of the new developments, and "foresee" what's coming but you'll also be able to apply some of what you learn from this information flow.

You educate and still learn. You'll inform and you'll apply some of it yourself.

Business is too precious for spam; there's no time for irrelevance. You get one shot at it.

How will you approach?

Post from: Search Engine People SEO Blog How to Write Content for Trending Topics without Being Spammy -- Written by Pratik Dholakiya, E2M Solutions Blog

Twitter users originally used hashtags to categorize and identify their tweets. It became so popular that Twitter decided to integrate it into their platform and improve upon it.

Hashtags are now used to categorize tweets, to help twitter users find tweets on certain topics, and to identify trending themes. They are also a great way to get _your_ tweets noticed.

If you didn't know yet, a hashtag is a word or phrase that is written without any spaces and prefixed with a '#' symbol. Like so: #example

With hashtags used in almost every tweet how do you make sure your tweets stand out? Here are a few tips on using hashtags in your tweets to catch fellow tweeters attention.

FOLLOW BASIC HASHTAG ETIQUETTES Don't use more than two, _maybe_ three, hashtags per tweet as it can make your tweet seem spammy.

It is understandable that you want your tweet to show up in as many search results as possible on Twitter but your tweet will have little value if you use up most of the 140 characters for hashtags.

Also, you need to use hashtags that are relevant to your tweet. There may be trending hashtags and you may want to use them badly in your tweet but you will end up annoying your followers and other Twitter users with unrelated tweets.

USE HASHTAGS THAT ARE OBVIOUS

Sometimes Twitter users end up abbreviating names and using them as hashtags but the abbreviation may not always be understandable. As a result, numerous tweets often get published on the same topic but the hashtags never trend as people end up using variations of the hashtag in their tweets.

Create and use hashtags that are easy to understand so that anyone else tweeting on the same topic can understand and use your hashtag easily.

To make your hashtags more comprehensible avoid writing the whole hashtag in lower case. Use upper case characters to give more sense to your hashtag. Example: #BigEvent

FIND THE RIGHT HASHTAGS

Sometimes it is best to use an existing hashtag instead of creating your own hashtag and waiting for it to trend. Finding trending topics is a difficult task even for long-time Twitter users.

Twitter does display the most popular hashtags but how do you find the hashtags that are just beginning to trend?

Some of the most popular tools to identify trending hashtags:

TWUBS

WHAT THE TREND

HASHTAGS.ORG

TRACK HASHTAGS

Tracking hashtags can help you find and choose which hashtag to use in your tweet.

Tracking a hashtag can give you an idea of how popular the hashtag will be and there are various tools that help track hashtags.

Real time tracking is offered by these tools:

TWITTERFALL

MONITTER

BE CONSISTENT

Hashtags are best used when promoting events, conferences, etc. Many events take place every month or year; using the same hashtag for every instance of the event is a great way to build a buzz around events. Take for example #SXSW, which represents South by Southwest Interactive, Film and Music Festival that takes place every year. The organizers use the same hashtag every year and it creates a lot of buzz almost instantly.

Use the hashtag that you have chosen for your event on other social media platforms too. Although hashtags may not mean much on every site it will help people identify your hashtag when they log into Twitter.

Remind followers about your event by using the hashtag frequently in your tweets.

USE HASHTAGS OFFLINE

Hashtags are universally recognizable and smart companies are using them off the web too.

Using hashtags in print advertising will make people want to get on Twitter and find the hashtag.

Some hashtags have even been painted on the pitch by sports teams so that even people watching the sporting event on their televisions will be aware of the hashtag.

CREATE Q&A SESSIONS

Hashtags are a great way for users to ask you questions and it is one of the easiest ways to build a buzz around your brand. Many celebrities and famous personalities have used hashtags to answer questions from fans and answering questions hardly takes any effort or time. Users can ask you questions by using the designated hashtag in their tweets and you can use the hashtag to find their questions.

Post from: Search Engine People SEO Blog How To Really Use Twitter Hashtags -- Written by Jessica Davis, Godot Media

As social capabilities mature they become like any other business process or work flow and need to be documented as such.

Let me first start by saying there is such a thing as good process and bad process. I recently read this post on being a slave to process over on Overit.com and a lot of it resonated with me. I highly suggest giving that a read as you're building out your own process documentation. It should help you avoid some pitfalls.

Even in smaller organizations process is important and worth investment. Processes are designed to increase efficiency, ensure consistency and provide guidance and empowerment to staff. As the writer at Overit emphasizes however, flexibility is key to any process. No two situations in social will be the same and enabling your employees by building flexibility into the plans and culture will help prevent your team from becoming a slave to any process.

With all of that said, let's take a look at some of the processes you may want to build out and document for your organization in order to increase efficiency, maintain consistency and aid in turnover or attrition.

LISTENING One of the most powerful aspects of social media is listening and the associated insights. All too often we see organizations set up a listening effort but with no formalized reporting structure the information goes nowhere. The insights are not digested and spread throughout for all to take advantage of.

There are really two components to listening that require action:

a. INSIGHTS: You've got your listening tool all set up and even reports built out. Your dashboards are simply gleaming. Now. Now what do you do with it?

It's time to layout your reporting structure and cadence. Who needs to see what, and how often? Document this to help ensure it happens. Make sure the recipient is involved as well. They can help you determine what is actually helpful information for them and how often they are going to want to see it. Give them too much too often, and suddenly your hard work turns to noise and has zero impact.

b. ENGAGEMENT: One of the core components to having a social presence is to listen AND engage with your audience. People are out there talking about your products or brand and you should be there to engage with them when they do.

Much like what you'll do for your Crisis Management procedures it's best to try and document different types of posts you're likely to see and respond to. This allows you to then craft typical responses that will provide guidance to the community managers.

You want to take your brand voice and level of personality your community managers are allowed but giving them suggestions on how to handle different engagements will help ensure consistency.

ADVOCATE/INFLUENCER Advocates and Influencers are two different animals. They're like unicorns and narwhals. Only…you know…less mythical. Equally different and shocking similar. A somewhat popular infographic that attempts to distinguish the two can be found here. I do think that it over simplifies things and there are nuances that it skips over as well as marginalizing the influencer. however, it does give you an idea of the differences between the two.

c. IDENTIFICATION: Document the process of finding each of these types of users.

The processes may be similar but they will be different. You may use different tools and will surely use different criteria.

Documenting this process will also help you solidify what is important and (perhaps more importantly) WHY its important to your efforts.

d. ENGAGEMENT: While every influencer and advocate will be different you ought to document at least your approach in outreach if not the exact methodology. (This is where that flexibility will come into place, particularly on social since there are so many potential channels this outreach will take place on.)

Having this documentation will help you scale your efforts, and help you create a paper trail for regulatory and organizational purposes.

e. ACTIVATION: Documenting the program itself and how you actually plan on activating these groups is critical.

The FTC has recently made very clear their stance on disclosure. You'll want to be familiar with this before outlining your program.

But a part of protecting your business will definitely become documentation of your outreach efforts.

f. REFRESH: Part of any documentation and process should be a review process. Whether this is done on a quarterly or annual basis depends largely on your business and the program you have set up.

Regardless however, you will want to build this in to ensure your identification criteria are still helping you meet your goals, your program governance aligns with your goals and your target advocates/influencers are still on point.

CONTENT LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT Content marketing has been getting a lot of attention lately. If you're just getting started I highly recommend checking out Content Strategy for the Web. There is a great deal of information in that book that will help you begin to define your overall content strategy. In terms of process only however, I suggest taking a look at:

a) INPUTS: What data points are you using to make content decisions?

If search and social data aren't both in there you might want to review that process.

b) SUCCESS METRICS: Different content on your website will map to different points in the sales funnel.

Know which pieces of content are designed to do what and how you intend on measuring that. Mapping this process out can save you major headaches and chaos down the road.

c) CONVERSION RATE: This is very closely related to the previous. Now that you know what success looks like for each page or content type, how is it converting on that goal?

Have a documented process in place to ensure you know whether or not our content is converting. This begins to form the basis for your test:iterate model.

d) FRESHNESS: There's little else more frustrating for a user than landing on a piece of content that is out of date, or a product page for an item that's no longer available. While this isn't strictly social in nature, there are definitely social implications.

Consider the freshness process you have for product pages and the like and how you could translate that to other content on your site. Where you might 302/301 a product page, you're going to want to come up with a different solution for, say, blog content. But it will need to be addressed regardless. _(Hint: Don't delete obsolete blog posts, rather add an update pointing to a more up to date/accurate post.)_

PRODUCT FEEDBACK (CLOSED LOOP) There is a lot of research and process that goes into capturing product feedback that we're not going to address here. however we do want make particular note of the role social media can play in gathering and engaging with your customers around their product feedback.

a) LISTENING: The easiest way to gather this feedback is to leverage the listening processes you've already put into place.

Listening tools such as Radian6 or Sysomos are perfectly suited to capture and analyze conversations around your products. Build this into your existing workflows (with some minor tweaks to profiles for specific product language) and you're on your way!

b) CO-CREATION AND IDEATION: This particular tactic can be as simple as requesting feedback via a form, or as complicated as creating a web portal or forum where customers can interact directly with product managers around feedback and feature requests.

The most important thing to remember is the importance of closing the loop. Asking for feedback tells the customer you care and want their input. Ignoring that information and not closing the loop with them will leave them experiencing a lack of faith and trust. Don't do that. Build the feedback into the process.

CRISIS MANAGEMENT Perhaps one of the most important processes to document (and socialize) is the crisis management plan for your company. Now, most companies of a medium to large size may already have a crisis communications plan in place. Smaller companies tend to less frequently, but that's not to say it isn't just as good an idea or just as important.

a) IDENTIFICATION of a crisis event. What are the thresholds you are looking for? How are you monitoring so you know when you hit them?

b) ESCALATION. When you've identified the event and the level of severity you next need to understand the escalation path and who to get involved.

c) RESOLUTION AND RESPONSE: This process will be very similar to the engagement workflow but will likely involve folks higher up in the organization depending on the level of severity. Having processes in place to get executives involved at the right time is key.

d) RECOVERY: This is perhaps the most difficult portion of crisis management to document because it will greatly depend on the event and the repercussions.

Being aware and honest with leadership that there will be a recovery period, and building this into the documentation plan can go along way towards gaining the latitude needed to take required action. It's worth noting that it may be the case that no action is the best action.

Knowing when to stay quiet is just as important as knowing when to make a statement.

e) PREVENTION: After a crisis has come and gone it is time to visit the event for learning's.

Having this built into the process in a documented fashion will help to ensure that some sort of post-mortem does officially occur and the organization is able to learn from the findings. This forces prevention to be built into operations.

TERMINATION GOVERNANCE Whenever an employee exits the organization there are going to be processes involved. Usually this involves handing over of technology, exit interviews, termination letters and the like. With the increasing use of social media at work there are other considerations at play and processes need to adapt.

While you're already looking at the tools they had access to, take a deeper look at social accounts they may have had access to as well. Make it a regular process to evaluate this and change credentials when necessary.

One of the most important components to nearly any process is that it has an owner. If there isn't a dedicated person/team responsible for creating, and owning the actual process it will die. If it's everyone's job, it is no ones job. Make it someone's job.

So you're not sold on why you should invest all of this time documenting these processes? Here are some good reasons: People quit, then get fired, people get promoted out of roles, law suits happen, federal regulations change, investigations are brought, and waste happens. Take the time and safeguard your investment, people, company and customer.

Post from: Search Engine People SEO Blog Increase & Strengthen Your Social Efficiency By Documenting The Processes That Work -- Written by Kristy Bolsinger, Social Media Blog

Perhaps one of the more troubling conundrums that SEO's face is canonicalization. Running a close second is pagination.

HERE'S AN EXAMPLE You have an e-commerce website and you want to rank for "beach towels". Currently, you have a category page that points to a section where all your beach towel products are organized and displayed. Technically, this is archived and updates whenever you add a new towel that is beach related.

Starting out, it is just one page. But as you begin adding more products, the page lengthens until, you have a page 2…then page 3…then page 4….and so on. The problem becomes technical because although page 4 is relevant to page 1, page 1 (the one you are optimizing for "beach towels", isn't getting the ranking love. Each page could technically be ranked for beach towels.

To make it even more complex, a typical user can drill down deeper into your website by using parameter based filters (beach towels under $10, blue beach towels, etc.)

Finally, and equally important, pagination could create potential issues in regards to crawl depth and thin, near duplicate or duplicate content.

SO WHAT IS THE SOLUTION? There are a few options to consider.

* ADD A "SHOW ALL" LINK AND THEN REDIRECT ALL THE PAGINATED PAGES TO THE PAGE WITH ALL THE PRODUCTS ON IT. The caveat to this is it must load quickly. I've seen hard line recommendations for the page to load within 3 seconds. This isn't for SEO though but user experience (which is equally as important) * If your website is using AJAX don't cut the search engine crawlers off AJAX allows the visitor to never leave the page when they click to the next page producing a seamless effect. (It's also responsible for things like infinite scroll) This is a bit trickier as a crawler will not follow anything beyond a "#" hash tag. Technically, the user sees the pagination but the crawler doesn't have to index page 2, page 3, page 4, etc. because the items are all seen as one page. More on this can be found here. * Utilize HTML 5's latest rel="next" and rel= "prev" The purpose of this canonical property is when you have a series of pages all directly linked to each other in terms of likeness. So, if you have 5 pages which all serve your list of "beach towels", this fix would make all 5 pages synonymous with page #1, potentially helping the crawlers understand that the first page is the one that should be listed in search. * Add "NoIndex, Follow" to sibling pages in a series Another option would be to make it so the pages after your page that is optimized for "beach towels" aren't indexed at all. This can be done with the "noindex" command. The problem comes that you still want the links within the pages that aren't indexed to be followed by the crawlers (hence, the follow command). SO MANY CHOICES, WHICH ONE TO FOLLOW? The truth is that fixing pagination and canonical issues is subject to different criteria and therefore an SEO's challenge is based case by case. Here are a few scenarios for you:

* _All the content is relevant (a series) but aside from the first page, none of it needs to be indexed._(SOLUTION?- Noindex, follow) * _All the content is relevant (a series ) and needs to be indexed_. (_solution?_- If it loads within 3 seconds, rel="canonical"…if it doesn't, "rel="prev/next". * _All the content is relevant (a series) but thin, duplicate or near duplicate content_- (SOLUTION?- create a one page view all page and then point them to the page using rel="canonical") * _All the content is relevant and unique within the series_ (SOLUTION?- "rel=prev/next). * The website uses parameters/ filters in search- (SOLUTION? "rel=prev/next". If the parameters change the results, canonicalize to non-parameterized URLs) RESOURCES * Implementing Pagination Attributes Correctly For Google * Duplicate Content: Block, Redirect or Canonical * 5 common mistakes with rel=canonical * Conquering Pagination " A Guide to Consolidating your Content Post from: Search Engine People SEO Blog Canonicalization & Pagination 101 for e-commerce Websites -- Written by Leo Dimilo, Leo Dimilo

Different social media sites provide a different benefit for users. Having a well rounded approach to your use of these networks is key to properly utilizing them, which means targeting each with a specific approach. You have to optimize content, making sure it is shareable based on each demographic that you will be aiming for on each site.

The new kid on the block is still Pinterest, and many people are confused about how to use it. Luckily, optimizing content is as easy as focusing on improving photo quality. Here is a step-by-step guide on optimizing images for Pinterest.

STEP ONE: MAKE SURE THE IMAGES ARE YOURS Now, don't get me wrong, repinning images from around the web is (usually) acceptable with proper credit. Pinning from within the site is also a good way to gain followers by using content already there. But the bulk of the images you provide on Pinterest for a professional account should be your own. This will give you the best shot at having an image go viral, which is what we should all be aiming for.

Here are some ideas for you to creat your own viral images:

* HOW TO: Quote Using Text-to-Image Tools * HOW TO: Re-package Your Content into a Viral Image STEP TWO: SLAP ON A WATERMARK Hey, guess what? People steal photos from Pinterest, all the time. This isn't usually malicious, or anything. But it can be hard to tell if the original photo came from the link it is anchored to, or if it has been reuploaded and used.

Since most people are innocently doing this, you will want to make it easy for them to see who the picture belongs to. Put a simple watermark at the bottom of all of the images you upload onto Pinterest, giving yourself credit. This could be the link to your website, or just a quick copyright notice with your name. People can still remove it/cut it out. But if they are going to those lengths they are probably going to need to be dealt with legally anyway.

Read: How to Watermark Your Images and PDF Files for Brand Awareness and Copyright Protection

STEP THREE: PROPERLY NAME YOUR FILES

EACH PHOTO YOU UPLOAD IS GOING TO BE TITLED ACCORDING TO THE FILE NAME:

YOUR FILE NAME => PIN TITLE

Even though you change it on Pinterest and add a description, that initial file name is what will be used for searches. So if you have a file named DC75883768273_041, it isn't likely to get a lot of search traffic. Ditto for any images that have real file names, but aren't named properly to reflect what is in the image.

Make sure every file has a clear, concise description of what is in the picture. If it is an infographic about optimizing images for Pinterest, for example, it would be titled "Pinterest_Image_Optimization_Infographic.jpg".

STEP FOUR: ADD THE TITLE TO THE IMAGE WHEN SOMEONE REPINS YOUR IMAGE, THEY CAN CHANGE THE DESCRIPTION TO ANYTHING THEY WANT.

They can even change it to something like "LOL worst image ever WFTBBQ!". So if you have an image that isn't really clear in context, the description you upload it with won't really matter in the slightest. Only some of the users who put it on their boards will bother keeping it intact.

A simple way to get around this is to actually add text to the image itself to describe what is in the picture or link it goes to. If you have an image of a piece of carpet with a stain, but it represents a larger article on using natural ingredients for household cleaning, you might want to overlay text that says "10 All Natural Ingredients For Cleaning". It will catch the eye, immediately convey the context of the image and keep it clear what it is about no matter what the description says.

STEP FIVE: DON'T FORGET TWITTER One of my favorite tips for optimizing Pinterest images is the inclusion of Twitter hashtags in the image data. I try to provide it in two places, when possible. The first is in the description of the image, but this can still be erased, as stated before. The second place is in the image text I include, which has been really great for announcing Twitter chats especially.

STEP SIX: PROPERLY ORGANIZE YOUR BOARDS While it is great to have a single image go viral, that isn't all you are working towards on Pinterest. You also want to gather plenty of followers, which means getting them to follow your main account, or one of your boards. To make this more likely, you will need to properly organize all of your boards and make it easy for Pinterest users to look through them.

Create very specific board titles, with a good image for the cover. Then only fill these boards with directly related imagery, and avoid putting in anything else. For example, my own Pinterest has five different boards for recipes. Each one covers a specific type of recipe, such as Healthy Meals, Vegetarian Meals, Guilty Pleasures and so on. Since organizing the boards this way, I have seen a significant rise in followers.

CONCLUSION Optimizing images for Pinterest doesn't take that much work, just a little know-how. This is the fastest growing social network on the web, so learning how to best use it is critical in having a well developed social media strategy.

Also read these further tips on image optimzation for Pinterest.

Have any tips? Leave them in the comments!

Images: 1, 2.

Post from: Search Engine People SEO Blog Step-By-Step Guide on Optimizing Images for Pinterest -- Written by Ann Smarty, SEOsmarty.com

Let's say you are a small business owner who wants to make their brick-and-mortar store popular online. Or, let's say you are a local SEO consultant who is helping the said owner with Internet promotion.

What marketing tools can you use to perform the task faster and easier? Well, as there are quite a few tools in the market that do similar things, I decided to break them down into _5 major types of tools_ that are essential for effective local biz marketing.

1. KEYWORD RESEARCH SOFTWARE

People search for products and services using keywords and key phrases, so, the first thing to do would be to identify what keywords are popular with the users searching for your type of business.

Google AdWords Keyword Tool

Google's AdWords Keyword Tool is probably the most popular SEO keyword tool out there, but if you're going to use it for local keyword research, there are a few things to remember.

* Use location markers in your initial keyword list (such as _pizza NEW YORK_) * For relevant results, specify the Location and the Language that apply to your potential customers * For more exact results, use Broad match and Exact match options in the tool * A big share of local searches comes from mobile devices. So, get separate data for keywords searched for on mobile (by default, the tool shows stats for desktop/laptop devices)

You might also want to check out this article about _How to build up keyword phrases when your research tools fail_, which_ _was_ _posted on our blog some time ago - it has a big chunk dedicated to local keyword research.

2. CITATION FINDER

Citations are often called "the life juice" of local SEO, and for a good reason. By "citations" local SEO folks mean different type of online mentions of a business.

For example, since Tom Hanks is a celebrity, you find his name on many webpages. Google uses the same logic to determine how popular a local business is with online audiences. A few things to remember about citations:

* To help search engines correctly attribute citations to a biz, make sure the same_ Name-Address-Phone Number-Zip Code _is used across all its mentions. * Not all citations help your site/listing rank higher. Citations from low-trafficked, low-PageRank websites won't do much good, and may lead to your site being in bad standing with Google. Whitespark's Local Citation Finder

This app is one of the best of its kind. It has been topping the charts for local SEO tools for years now. The software will help you accomplish 2 tasks: find your own online citations and get new citation ideas for your biz.

As you can see from the screenshots, the app can either find your top competitor and let you explore their citation sources, or it will let you see your own citation sources, including the type of website they come from and the domain authority of the site they come from.

GetListed

GetListed (initially provided by David Mihm) is a great tool to quickly see if your business is cited on the most important local business websites such as YellowPages, CitySearch, Yelp, Localeze, etc.

What I also like about this online app is that it allows you to quickly check if your business name, phone number and address are consistent across different listings.

Point is, you don't have to get your business listed in each and every directory under the sun. It'll be enough if you list it in key directories, from which tons of _other_ directories and social networks get their data.

Another thing I'd like to note is that, Yelp, a popular review platform, reportedly powers over 20% of Siri search results. Hence, it probably would be wise to make this leading review site one of your priorities.

3. WEB DESIGN SOFTWARE

Luckily for local business owners, quite often there is no need for them to have crazy complicated websites, as their web presence will most likely be scattered across a large number of different platforms anyway.

For example, you'd probably want to pay decent attention to your Google+ Local listing, your Facebook page and other vital social media sites (including review sites) in your niche.

Along with it, it's important to have a neat-looking _website of your own_ that contains all the key information people might want to know about your biz such as its store hours, location, the people behind the business, etc.

WordPress

WordPress is open-source content management system that lets one set up a site in just a few simple steps. It's deal for people with little to no web design background.

Don Campbell's SmallBiz Theme

If you are planning to create a WordPress site for free, it's worth mentioning that the way your site looks mostly depends on the theme you use. WordPress offers a number of free themes, however there are more professional ones designed for WordPress which you can buy, and they come relatively cheap.

One such theme is SmallBiz by Don Campbell. It's only $97, and the price includes email support. What's also great about this theme is that it automatically adapts to mobile screens, which is a huge advantage for local businesses.

4. REPUTATION MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE

In local online business, the impact your online reputation has on the way your business performs in search is particularly great. Negative reviews can have an adverse effect on where search engine rank your website.

Reputation management basically consists in:

* "Listening" to what's being said about your business online * Dealing with negative feedback * Promoting positive sentiment about your brand Google Alerts

Google Alerts is a super-easy-to-use service that will deliver rumors about your business straight to your door - for free. All you have to do is create alerts for your target keywords and listen away.

Besides, you can create alters for mentions from particular sites. For example, if you create an alert for "_Hilton Hotel" site:Yelp.com__, _you will be alerted only for Yelp mentions. By the way, quotes marks "" are there for a reason, too - they prompt Google that you'd like the results for that exact phrase.

BuzzBundle

BuzzBundle is Link-Assistant.Com's SMM and online reputation management tool. Using BuzzBundle, you can track brand mentions across a wide variety of social sites (Facebook, Google+, etc.) in one place and reply to people right from the dashboard.

5. LOCAL SERP TRACKER

As many small businesses choose to leverage Google local search and also organic search for Web traffic and sales, it's important to know where your local listing or your website show up in Google. There are quite a few tools that include local SERP trackers.

PlacesScout's Rank Tracker

PlacesScout is a relative new all-in-one local SEO toolkit that has a local SERP tracker among other things. Its Rank Tracker checks rankings in both Google Places and Google Web search.

What I also like about their Rank Tracker is that it also offers the Map View of your local rankings, which is convenient for estimating your local SEO progress at a glance:

However, if you'd rather use a stand-alone local SERP tracker, you might want to try Rank Tracker by Link-Assistant.Com. In addition to supporting local and web search, it also has advanced search settings that let you specify language, location and safe search settings for your rank check.

CONCLUSION

Of course, the list of local SEO tools you can use does not boil down to the software pieces mentioned in this post. The purpose was rather to articulate the most helpful types of local SEO tools one can use for small business promotion.

Flickr image courtesy of Ed Yourdon.

Post from: Search Engine People SEO Blog 5 Essential Local SEO Tools for Marketing a Small Business Online -- Written by Alesia Krush,

Websites need to be clear for two audiences; for the search engines so they can make sure the site is ranked high enough for people to find it, and it has to be interesting enough for us humans that come to those websites to stay and contact the site owner.

Google changes their requirements up to 500 times a year so trying to build your site around what Google wants would be a very difficult task so this old dog would instead like to make some suggestions on how to keep people on your site and encourage visitors to contact you.

HOW TO KEEP PEOPLE ON YOUR SITE Think of your site as an art gallery. Visitors enter the main doors of your site full of hope. They hope you have the answer to their question. That they will be able to solve their current problem.

When they land in your front foyer and have no idea where to go to get the answers they need- they will turn on their heels and walk out (or in other terms, hit that dreaded BACK button). You don't want that!

CLEARLY STATE WHAT YOU DO Think of the top three questions people will ask when searching for your product or services and make sure you answer them easily and clearly right there on the home page.

If you are a dentist say "Family Dentist", "extended hours" "Automated insurance submissions". If you are a custom home builder say "over 100 happy home owners live in our homes" "built on time and on budget" "Design, permits and construction services all in one shop"… Does that make sense?

PUT YOUR CONTACT INFORMATION UP FRONT Now that you have their attention, make sure you direct the visitor to where they can get more information.

Clear navigation; phone number in the top right corner so they can call you; address under the phone number if they will need to come to you; a request info form so they can ask you to contact them.

SHOW THEM YOU CAN BE TRUSTED Now they know you do what they need, and can contact you easily; you should let them know that you can be trusted. Include some testimonials of clients or logos of reparable companies you do business with.

CONCLUSION NOW you have a website WORTH paying attention to. Visitors will now feel comfortable to browse around your site and find out what ELSE you do. You have given them a clear information booth and tour guide to your business and they will want to do business with you.

_WHAT'S THE BEST THING YOU'VE DONE FOR YOUR SITE?_

Post from: Search Engine People SEO Blog Website Foundations That Make Customers Come In And Stay -- Written by Pamela Taylor,