Happy Friday all. In the past I used to occasionally write a Tech Roundup post on Fridays. I’m resurrecting the same concept today, but rather than straight technology I’ll try to share “news you can use” with a focus on social media best practices.
The first thing that got my attention was Facebook’s launch of the “Journalists on Facebook page this week.
This is interesting on a lot of levels. Here are good discussions from Journalistics and GigaOm, and three ways this can be viewed:
1. A jealous swipe at Twitter, because it has gotten so much visibility through use by the news media;
2. A sincere acknowledgment of the sea change in media and a great thing for individual journalists;
3. Trying to make Facebook a primary source of “real” news, not just updates from your friends, in a way taking a page from Google News.
On first review I think it’s a bit of all three. And since I’ve been a blogger since 2008, I’m going to set up a journalist page and see if it helps the Triple W reach new readers. I’ll report back on that in a later post.
SEO was the topic of an excellent article by Simon Heseltine I read in Search Engine Watch. There are so many scam artists that its given the whole discipline a bad name. He highlighted this with an amusing and telling Google search, letting the search algorithm suggest the final search term:
Granted I work in b2b not consumer, but it amazes me how companies always want a magic shortcut. Why not just publish quality content on a regular basis, and tag it appropriately? But true SEO results take time, so many companies go with someone who “guarantees” that you will be showing up on page one of Google within 30 days.
I’m no idealist when it comes to human nature, and I know there are a few bad apples in every industry. But as Heseltine writes, there’s a perception that in the case of SEO they have taken over entirely.
As I talked about in February in a post about Google going after content farms, gaming Google’s algorithm is a slender reed upon which to build a business model. Companies need to just say no to consultants who promise how easy it will be, and do it the right way. Strategic Communications Group has many clients who have found success simply by publishing quality content over a period of time.
What new social media tool has worked for you lately? Drop me a comment. And here’s hoping the government doesn’t shut down.