Social Media Strategy and Internet Marketing

A few days ago Ron Hudson of the Immediate Influence Blog created a pretty in depth list of what he defined as Powerful and Influential Men and Women in Social Media. As I was going through the list, I noticed that a lot of really influential people were missing. I read how he compiled the list and I realized just how flawed this list was.

In an effort to find some of these people I asked my twitter friends to nominate people who they thought were some of the most powerful and influential women in Social Media. It was no surprise that they quickly and enthusiastically responded with the list of ladies below.

By the way, we used Alexa to evaluate each person nominated for this list.

You can’t really use Alexa to rank Social Media influence, maybe link building and SEO skill but it has little to do with social media.

So instead, I’ve created this meme which is meant to tag the most influential and power people in social media.

The rules are simple. If you’re tagged please tag three more people you think are superstars in social media and either link back to this blog or tweet the link with the hashtag #topsmm.

Sometime in the middle of December, I’ll compile a list of people nominated and create a poll.

I’ll start out with three people I really respect and find to be absolutely brilliant social media marketers.

• Tamar Weinberg
• Chris Brogan
• Jeremiah Oywang

EDIT: You don’t have to be tagged in this Meme to jump in! Have a few Social Media Marketers, Consultants, or Mavens you think deserve recognition? Jump in and write a post and let me know.

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So it’s Halloween and we in the Internet Marketing know exactly how to do it. This year why not dress up like one of the stars of the SEO and SMM industry. I’ve taken a few pictures I found on Flickr and put together the main parts of what you need to be them for Halloween.

So you want to beMatt Cutts or Aaron Wall?

Matt Cutts is the head of Google Webspam’s team and has been a major part of our industry for several years. He’s definitely a star of the SEO world, and a huge fan of Halloween.

Dressing like Matt Cutts is easy too, all you need (based on this picture of him) is an awesome red t-shirt, and his eye glasses.

Aaron Wall is the author of SEOBook, a great site where you can learn all about Search Engine Optimization. Aaron is a really good SEO and I highly recommend his site. He’s also very well known, and seems like a really fun guy.

On top of being a cool guy, he’s got an awesome sense of style. That Simpson t-shirt he’s wearing is definitely a win, and is very rare. The only place I could find it was on e-bay. Just throw this collar shirt on top and call your self Aaron Wall.

So you want to be Barry Schwartz?

Barry Schwartz, better known as RustyBrick, is another superstar of the SEO community. An extremely active industry expert, he’s been published in Search Engine Watch, Search Engine Journal, SEOChat.com, SEO Today, WebProNews, LilEngine and SEMPO (Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization).

If you want to be Barry this Halloween, invest in a fake goatee, a blue dress shirt, and a cool jacket! Now you’re set to do it all.

So you want to be Lisa Barone?

Not all the best search marketers are men, there’s many women too! Lisa Barone is an awesome blogger and also the new member of the “We Build Pages” team. She’s lots of fun and has a great sense of humor.

On top of being a great marketer she’s very easy to emulate this Halloween. Just check out what she wore last year, all you have to do is invest in a Raspberry Girl Outfit! Now being as good a blogger as she is, that might be a bit harder.

So you want to be Tamar Weinberg or Jeremy Schoemaker?

Tamar is a great friend of mine and an awesome Social Media consultant. She writes her own blog as well as on Search Engine Roundtable, Mashable, and Lifehacker. Tamar’s a lot of fun, and extremely smart.

Being Tamar for Halloween is relatively easy. Just get a grey hoodie (I couldn’t find the exact one!) and some thick framed glasses.

Last but not least on this list of people to be for Halloween, is Jeremy Schoemaker better known as Shoemoney. His blog is a lot of fun because of its personal vibe, and he writes a lot about how to make money online. He’s visible in the affiliate marketing and ppc field, and has been known to create some SEO drama.

If you want to dress like him you could just invest in one of his Shoemoney t-shirts, and a bald cap. But if you want to go all the way and be him in the picture, get the Windows fleece (Sorry I couldn’t find this, Jeremy if you wanna let us know where we can pick one up, that’d be awesome) and maroon dress shirt. You’ll need fake glasses, and a fake bald head to seal the deal.

That’s that, hopefully you have a fun and safe halloween. If you really do dress like anyone please share some pictures!

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Ok the headline might not be entirely true, after all they are buying your product, but it’s an important idea to keep in mind. Your customer knows what they want and are willing to go somewhere else if you don’t give what they want, how they want it.

This morning a friend of mine was complaining about a professor he has in his marketing class.

The professor had taken the time out of his class to offer a survey on what he was doing well and how the class could be made better. Apparently, a majority of the students hated the fact that the professor read his slides.

Well, once the surveys were evaluated and after the professor looked over them. He simply said, “I know you don’t like the slides, but I’m going to do them anyway.” I was amazed that a professor would do that, no less a marketing professor. He had taken the feedback, and disregarded it.

You’d be surprised at how often this happens; I know I catch myself doing it from time to time. If you think only professors and small businesses do this, you’d be surprised at how often large corporations fall into this trap. When bureaucracy and egos are pitted against consumers and surveys generally the customer loses.

Tracking, taking surveys, and building a brand do little if change isn’t implemented. The customer always comes first, and they are always right. Bad feedback gives you a chance to make positive changes.

With the Internet at our disposal and consumers pushing to be a part of the marketing of products, businesses have the chance to bring customers into the brainstorming aspect of product creation. Marketing departments need to take advantage of the talent and ideas found within their customers.

An example of a company that did just that is Mountain Dew with the creation of their DEWmocracy campaign. The company not only used their consumers to create their next drink but to also market the site and the product.

Is your company using the web intelligently? Are you inviting consumers to be part of the system or are you ignoring their wants? Do surveys mean something and is change forthcoming? New age consumers require business to be attentive to their needs, the ability to evolve quickly can be the key to success.

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A few days ago the latest niche Internet marketing site was launched. This one is a video based site for Internet marketers called IMBroadcast. So far I’ve been playing around with it, and I think it’s great. Although still bare, it has the potential for a lot of great content; especially if what’s already there is any indication of what’s in store.

Why is it good? The fact that you get videos from Scary SEO, tutorials on search engine optimization, and channels based on topics make it stand out. Not only that, but because Internet marketers are really close knit and everyone knows everyone, you see a lot of fun videos and jokes. So if you’ve been wasting your time on YouTube looking for tutorials, now they’re all in one place.

The community around IMBroadcast is going to grow. Similar to how some have built a reputation around being popular on Sphinn, this site is another place to show you know what you’re talking about. With a video site, not only do you get to show off your logo, but people get to see you in your videos. This builds your brand as a person, as well as your company’s through their logo.

With all the good things I’ve had to say about IMBroadcast you’d think it’s perfect, but that’s not the case. It really is missing a few major things. The first and most important is a blog. Without one it seems to be a black hole of information. I don’t know what’s coming up, or leave suggestions on future features.

Another thing is that its really bare. If I were launching it, I would’ve kept it in beta a little longer so more videos were uploaded before going public.

Finally, I’m worried about the long term vitality of IMBroadcast. The fear is that over time the community might degrade. Hopefully, it doesn’t turn into something like Sphinn, which has a depressing spam to good content ratio.

If you haven’t checked out IMBroadcast, I suggest you do. You can find my profile there too, and I plan on uploading a few videos soon.

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