SOCIAL MEDIA PRO: WHAT ARE THE KARDASHIANS DOING RIGHT?
We’ve all seen one episode or a snippet or two in our attempts to keep up with the Kardashians, and based on what we’ve seen, we know they’re doing a whole lot of wrong.
With that in mind, what are they doing right? They’ve shot to stardom and their magic lies in their ability to make their way into your phones, tablets and computers via social media. The Kardashians have mastered the art of utilizing social media to grow their brand and the good news is: you can too, without putting on layers of makeup and fake eyelashes.
Know Your Platforms
Deborah Sweeney, CEO of MyCorporation Business Services explains the difference between networks, “The goal of every social platform is to engage followers; keep them clicking on links, discovering new things, and socializing with new and familiar people. The way in which they engage their users differs with every platform. Instagram engages purely with pictures, Twitter with short bursts of words, and Facebook with a combination of the two — with an added emphasis on lengthier posts, creating room for in-depth discussion.”
You also need to take into consideration the audience for each of the popular social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Snapchat and others. Understanding your audience will also help you connect with them on which ever platform(s) you decide to try. The Pew Research Social Media 2013 reported that:
- Facebook is used by more women (76%) than men (66%), and more 18 to 29 year olds (84%) than any other age range.
- Twitter is used by more black, non-hispanic internet users (29%) than white or Hispanic (16%), and more high-income earners (19%) than low (17%).
- Instagram is used by more urban internet users (22%) than suburban (18%), and more 18 to 29 year olds (37%).
- Pinterest is predominantly used by women (33% vs 8% of internet users who are men), and entertains a greater percentage of college graduates (25%) than any other network besides LinkedIn.
- LinkedIn is the only network used by more men (24%) than women (19%), and more 30 to 49-year-olds (27%) than 50 to 64-year-olds (24%).
Define Success
The first step to maximizing your presence on any social channel is defining success, and developing a content strategy that speaks to your audience in the language of the platform. If you think it’s not working, don’t just abandon ship. Try and figure out what not’s working—post different things and use analytics to see what people are responding to.
Create a Social Media Plan that Drives Results
The Kardashians have a marketing team that helps them acquire business and tout it on social media. They post pics that show off their “fabulosity” and are consistent. They have pretty consistent messaging in that nearly all of their posts are ads or selfies. When it comes to your own social media plan, you need to start with your own content and brand voice and develop a presence.
Unlike the sisters though, instead of touting your own company, use and build your online presence to develop depth within the industry. The content you create for your social networks should not sound like sales pitches. You can promote your brand on social by associating your brand with a lifestyle, and promoting and discussing that lifestyle. Start and participate in conversations about the industry, the aesthetic, the lifestyle.
Original content should be complemented by shareable and actionable content as well. It’s like having an in-person conversation…you wouldn’t talk about yourself more than half the time, would you? You talk about things you learned and share your experiences so that maybe the listener can feel inclined to participate and share your story with others.
Start with a strategy, implement, test and build. If the Kardashians can do it, so can you!
CHEAT SHEET: SOCIAL MEDIA IMAGE SIZES
Whenever we engage a new client or do a website or marketing makeover for a client, one of the included parts is the social media part, where we review the current social media strategy and our client’s use of the social media websites. After all, social media is very much a part of SEO nowadays, and you need a good social media presence to help with your website’s SEO. To make the most of social, you need great photos and great profile photos as well as great posts. So, here’s our list, er, cheat sheet of social media image sizes.
Ello
Header Photo – 1800 x 1013
Avatar – 340 x 340
Facebook
Cover Photo – 851 x 315
Profile Photo – 180 x 180 (displays as 160 x 160)
Tab 111 x 74
Link Image 1200 x 627
Image 1200 x 1200
Highlighted / Milestone Image 1200 x 717
Twitter
Header 1500 x 500
Profile Photo 400 x 400
Image Display Size 880 x 440 (recommended)
Google Plus
Profile Photo 250 x 250 (visible face required)
Cover Photo 2120 x 1192
Shared Image 800 x 600
YouTube
Profile Photo 800 x 800
Channel Art 2560 x 1224
Custom Video Thumbnail 1280 x 720
LinkedIn
Profile Photo 200 x 200
Cover Photo 646 x 220
Pinterest
Profile Photo 600 x 600
Pinterest Pins 600 x (infinite height)
Board Thumbnail 222 x 150
Instagram
Profile Photo 161 x 161
Image on Desktop (Lightbox) 612 x 612
Image Feed 510 x 510
Foursquare
Foursquare Check-In Photos / Local Updates
Website Activity Feed 346 x 224
iPhone App Check-In/Update Detail 584 x 274
Website Activity Feed 530 x 224
Foursquare Tip Photos
iPhone App Activity Feed 530 x 112
Website Activity Feed 530 x 112
And for those of you who are still stuck on using MySpace, here is all of the dimensions you need to build out your MySpace profile:
MySpace
Photo Requirements (Max size is 20mb):
MySpace Stream Images:
Best Size: Highly subjective
Minimum 1×1
MySpace Cover Images:
Best size 2048×1152 (16×9)
Minimum 800×600 pixels
MySpace Profile Images:
Best size 2048×2048
Minimum 140×140
MySpace Mix Cover Images:
Minimum 1024×768
MySpace Song/Album Images:
Minimum 600×600
MySpace Animated GIFs:
Best Size: Anything over 300×300
10mb Max file size
All of these image sizes are mentioned as Width x Height, and are in Pixels. In our list, I’ve added a few social media websites that aren’t included in lists that others have included. Here are a few other websites that have put together their social media image size cheat sheets. They don’t include Foursquare and MySpace, though.Constant Contact Social Media Image Cheat Sheet
Social Media Sizing Cheat Sheet / 2014
Sprout Social also has an “always up to date” social media image size post, where Kevin posts the current image sizes.
Bill Hartzer is Globe Runner’s Senior SEO Strategist. Follow him on Google Plus. You can also follow him on Twitter as @bhartzer.
WORLD CUP 2014 MARKETING: USMNT SOCIAL MEDIA MENTIONS QUADRUPLE IN 7 DAYS
What sport will people be talking about a month from now?
From the past week’s social media mentions, it’s going to be soccer, specifically the 2014 World Cup, and most particularly the US Men’s National Team’s upcoming match against Ghana in the Group of Death.
Social mentions of the US Men’s National Team (USMNT) leapt to 15,426 the week of May 10, a gobsmacking 476% increase over the previous week’s mentions of 2,675. Majority of these mentions were on Twitter — something to note for anyone conducting World Cup 2014 marketing campaigns for their brand.
The figures were derived from SociaLitmus, an omnibus social media command center that will run only throughout the 2014 World Cup. The social media command center will be keeping tabs on World Cup 2014 marketing promotions and activity online for the US, popular athletes and teams, trends and key developments.
The most dramatic spike in mentions was on May 12, when team coach Jurgen Klinsmann announced his 30-man roster for the World Cup.
Sentiment about Klinsmann’s picks was largely positive, as social media data from May 12 show:
The numbers may seem negligible, but multiplied into impressions, the reach is not shabby. On Twitter, the USMNT earned over 73 million mentions in one week. Any brands looking for endorsers?
Sports network ESPN predicted last month in an AdAge interview that social buzz over the 2014 World Cup will outperform those of the 2010 World Cup and even the 2012 London Olympics.
The World Cup is fertile ground for marketers targeting fans of the Beautiful Game. Categories that will be out in full force are the usual suspects: Beer, fastfood, men’s personal care, sports brands (the Adidas vs Nike rivalry is a sport unto itself) and technology.
It will be interesting to see whether new categories, such as e-cigarettes, will see the same opportunities and make a play on social media.
GLOBE RUNNER’S SOCIALITMUS: FIRST OMNIBUS SOCIAL MEDIA COMMAND CENTER FOCUSES ON 2014 WORLD CUP
Globe Runner is proud to announce the launch of SociaLitmus, an event-specific omnibus social media command center for the 2014 World Cup organized by FIFA. The command center technology will be provided by MutualMind.
The 2014 World Cup runs from June 12 to July 12, 2014 in Brazil and will be attracting a potential audience of 3.2 billion soccer fans across the world. In a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll, survey findings showed that over 100 million Americans plan to follow the World Cup.
What is an omnibus?
Most people think of omnibus as the historical term for the passenger vehicle, but it can mean anything from an anthology of written works to a group of objects.
The common thread is collective benefit, where groups work more efficiently than an individual.
SociaLitmus adopts the same philosophy with its social media command center powered by Mutual Mind.
Like a bus where all passengers pay fares to share a ride, SociaLitmus allows multiple brands to share a social media command center by paying an access fee. The cost is significantly lower than the investment required in building one from the ground up.
And like a bus with a fixed route, SociaLitmus will only run during a specific period: The 2014 World Cup in Brazil from June 12 to July 12.
It will be designed specifically for this event, preloaded with hashtags, event sponsor and partner brands, popular teams, etc. that are relevant to the 2014 World Cup alone.
The benefit for brands: Real-time social media research that is cost-efficient, focused and actionable.
Event- and location-specific = More signal, less noise
SociaLitmus’ 2014 World Cup social media command center will cover only the USA so brands targeting the growing US soccer market will get meaningful, focused results and analysis.
And as it will be preloaded with relevant terms, the hours needed to research and populate a traditional social media command center are effectively eliminated.
For an additional fee, participating SociaLitmus brands can create customized dashboards with their own keywords and hashtags. This ensures privacy for the brand in designing and tracking their social media campaigns.
Beautiful, insightful graphics + downloadable reports
Get real-time visibility on 2014 World Cup social trends, developments and chatter with SociaLitmus’ elegant dashboard. Zero in on and analyze the campaigns and promotions that are getting traction. See what people are talking about online when and where.
For campaign planning, all data can be exported into CSV or Excel.
Cost-effective research = Better ROI
Do any of the below describe your brand?
- Serious about social and invest in it, maybe even more than or in lieu of traditional
- Have a distinct social media voice, with a solid following on different platforms
- Experienced in organizing social media campaigns
- Looking to build brand and grow sales among US soccer fans
- Fanatical about ROI
- Punches above its weight; a challenger brand
Then Globe Runner’s SociaLitmus is for you. For details, costs and other information, get in touch.
TOP 100 TECH INFLUENCERS ON TWITTER FOR 2014
Business Insider has released their list of the top 100 most influential tech people who are on Twitter. This is the updated list for 2014. There are some surprises, as it’s interesting to see several people from the search industry make the list this year.
For example, Rand Fishkin @randfish comes in #73, while Matt Cutts @mattcutts came in 32nd in the list. Danny Sullivan @dannysullivan beat out @mattcutts and Danny is 22nd on the list.
100. Rupert Murdoch Handle: @rupertmurdoch
99. Zeynep Tufekci Handle: @zeynep
98. Hilary Mason Handle: @hmason
97. Jim Dalrymple Handle: @jdalrymple
96. Keith Rabois Handle: @rabois
95. Bill Gurley Handle: @bgurley
94. Kontra Handle: @counternotions
93. Evelyn Rusli Handle: @EvelynRusli
92. Jeff Weiner Handle: @jeffweiner
91. Emily Chang Handle: @emilychangtv
90. Tristan Walker Handle: @tristanwalker
89. Kathy Sierra Handle: @seriouspony
88. Brooke Hammerling Handle: @brooke
87. Rafat Ali Handle: @rafat
86. Gabe Rivera Handle: @gaberivera
85. Baratunde Thurston Handle: @baratunde
84. Ben Bajarin Handle: @benbajarin
83. Rory Cellan-Jones Handle: @BBCRoryCJ
82. Mat Honan Handle: @mat
81. Alexia Tsotsis Handle: @alexia
80. Sarah Lacy Handle: @sarahcuda
79. Dennis Crowley Handle: @dens
78. Dan Primack Handle: @danprimack
77. Joanna Stern @joannastern Handle: @joannastern
76. Steve Silberman Handle: @stevesilberman
75. Peter Kafka Handle: @pkafka
74. Andy Ihnatko Handle: @Ihnatko
73. Rand Fishkin Handle: @randfish
72. Geoff DeWeaver Handle: @geoff_deweaver
71. Marissa Mayer Handle: @marissamayer
70. Ryan Hoover Handle: @rrhoover
69. Martin Bryant Handle: @MartinSFP
68. Joel Gascoigne Handle: @joelgascoigne
67. Christopher Mims Handle: @mims
66. Nilay Patel Handle: @reckless
65. Christopher Soghoian Handle: @csoghoian
64. Lance Ulanoff Handle: @LanceUlanoff
63. Bill Gross Handle: @Bill_Gross
62. Chris Dixon Handle: @cdixon
61. Ruhani Rabin Handle: @ruhanirabin
60. Bryan Kramer Handle: @bryankramer
59. Joshua Topolsky Handle: @joshuatopolsky
58. Charles Arthur Handle: @charlesarthur
57. Marco Arment Handle: @marcoarment
56. David Pogue Handle: @Pogue
55. Kevin Rose Handle: @kevinrose
54. Steve Case Handle: @SteveCase
53. Chris Sacca Handle: @sacca
52. Jon Russel Handle: @jonrussell
51. Chris Ziegler Handle: @zpower
50. Mike Isaac Handle: @mikeisaac
49. Paul Haddad Handle: @tapbot_paul
48. Mark Gurman Handle: @markgurman
47. Ed Bott Handle: @edbott
46. Horace Dediu Handle: @asymco
45. Mary Jo Foley Handle: @maryjofoley
44. Mike Butcher Handle: @mikebutcher
43. Rene Ritchie Handle: @reneritchie
42. Hiten Shah Handle: @hnshah
41. Marc Benioff Handle: @Benioff
40. Tom Merritt Handle: @acedtect
39. Kim Dotcom Handle: @KimDotcom
38. Brad Feld Handle: @bfeld
37. Loic Le Meur Handle: @loic
36. David Heinemeier Hansson Handle: @DHH
35. Mark Suster Handle: @msuster
34. Chris Pirillo Handle: @ChrisPirillo
33. Fred Wilson Handle: @fredwilson
32. Matt Cutts Handle: @mattcutts
31. Arianna Huffington Handle: @ariannahuff
30. Tom Warren Handle: @tomwarren
29. Alex Wilhelm Handle: @alex
28. Paul Thurrott Handle: @thurrott
27. Farhad Manjoo Handle: @fmanjoo
26. Scott Hanselman Handle: @shanselman
25. Tim Cook Handle: @tim_cook
24. MG Siegler Handle: @parislemon
23. Dave McClure Handle: @davemcclure
22. Danny Sullivan Handle: @dannysullivan
21. Chris Hadfield Handle: @Cmdr_Hadfield
20. Kara Swisher Handle: @karaswisher
19. Tim O’Reily Handle: @timoreilly
18. Hunter Walk Handle: @hunterwalk
17. Paul Graham Handle: @paulg
16. Dave Winer Handle: @davewiner
15. Nick Bilton Handle: @nickbilton
14. Jim Roberts Handle: @nycjim
13. Marc Andreesen Handle: @pmarca
12. Walt Mossberg Handle: @waltmossberg
11. Ezra Klein Handle: @ezraklein
10. Anil Dash Handle: @anildash
9. Bill Gates Handle: @BillGates
8. Benedict Evans Handle: @BenedictEvans
7. Mathew Ingram Handle: @mathewi
6. Elon Musk Handle: @elonmusk
5. Robert Scoble Handle: @Scobleizer
4. Om Malik Handle: @om
3. Aaron Levie Handle: @levie
2. Jeremiah Owyang Handle: @jowyang
1. Jack Dorsey Handle: @jack
For the full list along with commentary about why each person was picked, you can see the list on the Business Insider site: https://www.businessinsider.com/100-influential-tech-people-on-twitter-2014-4?op=1.
Bill Hartzer is Globe Runner’s Senior SEO Strategist. Follow him on Google Plus.
GOOGLE RECONSIDERATION REQUESTS: ARE MANUAL REVIEWS REVIEWED BY HUMANS?
Google’s “manual review” process of websites who have been penalized for violating Google’s Webmaster Guidelines is far from being a “manual” process. In fact, based on the response to a recent Reconsideration Request, I am now convinced that “manual reviews” are far from that: even the Manual Review process at Google has been algorithmized and automated. Google needs to immediately change the wording on what they call a Manual Review. Because it’s not manual: humans aren’t obviously not manually reviewing websites, and they do not personally review reconsideration requests. Calling the process a manual action or implying that they manually review websites is deceptive and dishonest if Google’s employees or subcontractors don’t manually review websites.
Google needs to immediately change the wording on what they call a Manual Review if they’re not reviewed by a human.
I’m going to go out on a limb here by saying that Google’s “manual reviews” of websites are not manually reviewed by Google employees, their subcontractors, their sub-subcontractors, or even humans. Based on the results of a recent “manual review” of a Reconsideration Request based on a site’s “manual” penalty for having inorganic, unnatural links pointing to their site, there is no possible way a human reviewed the request.
Google gets about 5,000 requests for reconsideration every week:
Let’s take a look at an example of a recent Reconsideration Request I was involved in. This particular website was given a manual penalty or technically a “manual action“, or “partial match”:
Unnatural links to your site—impacts links
Google has detected a pattern of unnatural artificial, deceptive, or manipulative links pointing to pages on this site. Some links may be outside of the webmaster’s control, so for this incident we are taking targeted action on the unnatural links instead of on the site’s ranking as a whole.
So, what does this really mean? The site has links that need to be removed because they violate Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. The site is “trying to rank” for certain phrases, so they got links placed in articles on blogs and were involved in some “guest post” type of activities. Google doesn’t like that, it violates their guidelines, so needs to be cleaned up.
Fine. I get that.
So, one of the things that we do here at Globe Runner is clean up these messes, and get manual link penalties removed or “revoked” as Google likes to call it. And we’re good at it. In fact, just yesterday, we got a positive response to a Reconsideration Request, where a manual action was revoked on a site that needed its links cleaned.
Here at Globe Runner, we have a very in-depth process of identifying and cleaning up a site’s links. In fact, some other SEO companies have called our process “overkill”. But that’s fine. We always go above and beyond what could be done to remove a manual penalty from Google.
So, why do I think that Google’s “manual reviews” are not done by humans? Let’s take look more at this particular site’s reconsideration request and the what we did for this website, and then you can decide. The following is from part of a lengthy letter we made available to Google via Google Docs. We used the Reconsideration Request form in Webmaster Tools to request a review:
Overall, after gathering all of the links to the site, we ended up with:
52,252 Total Links
217 referring root domains
693 Healthy Links
709 Inorganic Links
569 “live” inorganic links to get removed (including nofollow links)
What We Did to Clean Up the Links
We manually reviewed all of the 569 links that were still “live”, which included links with the “nofollow” attribute as well as links without the “nofollow” attribute in the link.
We looked up the site owners of all 569 links, using a combination of whois lookups as well as manually visiting the sites to find the site owners. We began contact website owners on February 5, 2014, and requested that the links be removed. Around February 8, 2014, we sent second requests for link removal after we hadn’t heard from site owners who didn’t remove the links. On February 17, 2014, we sent a third round of requests for link removal after we still had not heard from site owners who didn’t remove the links.
As of February 24, 2014, we have heard from 296 site owners. Of those site owners who responded:
– 12 sites refused to remove the links
– 257 links were successfully removed based on our email requests
– 27 links – site owners requested payment to remove the links
– 2 links – we were unable to contact site owners
– 274 links – site owners were completely unresponsive after 3 contacts
– 256 links were removed as a result of our link removal efforts
We prepared, and uploaded, a new disavow file that includes the links whose site owners were unresponsive, site owners we were unable to contact, and site owners who requested payment for removal.
So, after hearing from 296 site owners who responded to our numerous emails, we got 256 links removed. Keep in mind that is of the total 52,000 links we found: but in reality many were site-wide links and links that no longer existed, so there were actually only about 4000 links total. And we provided a spreadsheet of every single URL and included all of the email responses we received, close to 300 emails!
Google denied this reconsideration request. In fact, not only did they deny this reconsideration request, but they were “helpful” and included sample URLs that they had a problem with. They provided 3 sample URLs. Google does this to help point out the types of links that they have a problem with.
The 3 sample URLs provided were URLs included in our spreadsheet. Not only that, the sample URLs included domains where the site owner specifically told us that we must pay to get the link removed. Which is documented in the reconsideration request, along with copies of the emails we received. Not only that, all of the sample URLs given to us by Google in response to our reconsideration request were disavowed because we could not get the links removed (again, documented in the response).
After seeing the efforts that we went through to get hundreds of links removed, documented, and even included the actual emails, Google told us that URLs they had a problem with are ones that we couldn’t get removed.
I’m convinced that there Google’s so-called “manual reviews” of websites are not actually reviewed by Google employees. If that were the case, then would they have included sample URLs that we documented that we could not get removed because a site owner wants payment? I realize that Google gets over 5,000 reconsideration requests every week, and there are a lot of sites to deal with. So part of the Reconsideration Request process has to be automated. But to continue to deceive website owners into thinking that a human at Google is going to manually review their request is misleading.
As for this particular site, I believe this is an isolated incident, as we get plenty of positive responses to our reconsideration requests based on the work we do to clean up links. We’re working on finding more “bad links” and “inorganic links” to this site, and will continue to get more links removed. And at some point we will file another reconsideration request once we’re convinced we’ve gotten all the links removed or taken care of in some way (perhaps by disavowing them and documenting why they’re disavowed).
Whatever the case, Google claims that every reconsideration request is reviewed by a human. Here’s some further reading if you’d like to see what’s been addressed in the past:
Google Reconsideration Responses – SE Roundtable
Google: We Get 5,000 Reconsideration Requests Per Week – SE Roundtable
Bill Hartzer is Globe Runner’s Senior SEO Strategist. Connect with him on Google+ or on Twitter as Bhartzer.
Update: 5:16pm CST March 5, 2014
Google confirms that they do, in fact, manually review reconsideration requests. Here’s the tweet by Nathan Johns:https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=441350840603779072&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fgloberunner.com%2Fgoogle-reconsideration-requests-manual-reviews-reviewed-humans%2F&theme=light&widgetsVersion=219d021%3A1598982042171&width=550px
WHAT’S HOT ON GOOGLE+ REMOVED, REPLACED WITH EXPLORE TAB
Google Plus continues to make changes to their interface by making feature changes and moving content and options around. I am not surprised, as Google is constantly tweaking their search results pages for a better user experience. So why shouldn’t they do this with Google Plus?
The What’s Hot and Recommended on Google+ feature, which previously was available on the “Home” drop-down menu, has gone away. Now, this content appears on the Explore tab.
As you can see, my personal list of tabs is “SEO” and “Dallas” circles, and then it shows the “Explore” tab. By clicking the Explore tab, you’ll see the most popular posts on Google Plus, from other users (other than from your own circles).
What’s interesting to note is that while Google+ has removed the What’s Hot page (option), they have not updated their online help for this option. It still says that you can find the What’s Hot content by going to the Home drop-down list:
To see What’s hot: Choose Explore What’s hot from the Google+ navigation menu.
Apparently now Google+ doesn’t want us to know that this content is hot, they want us to Explore the content. It’s not a really big difference between the two, but there is a connotation that the “What’s Hot” content is more “exciting and thrilling”, because it’s “What’s Hot” rather than actually content that is something that we should just “Explore”.
What I’d like to know is that when they made this change from What’s Hot to Explore, has the number of shares and +1s on this content gone up or down?
Here’s a tip: If you go to your Explore tab on Google+, then these are the hottest or most-shared recent posts on Google+. To build your following and connect with influencers, you’ll want to share this content and connect (and follow) these people. You can also look at the Ripples of these posts and see who the influencers are and connect with them, as well.
Bill Hartzer is Globe Runner’s Senior SEO Strategist. Connect with him on Google+ or on Twitter as Bhartzer.
HOW TO: ADD DO FOLLOW LINKS ON LINKEDIN
I’m really a big fan of LinkedIn now. I’ve been on LinkedIn for about 10 years now, even when it was not “cool” to have a listing on LinkedIn. Sure, I have a lot of connections, and I admit that there certainly were “tricks” or “tips” to building your LinkedIn network. But that’s really not why I’m so much of a fan of LinkedIn. In fact, it’s because LinkedIn has become a social network of sorts, where you can add updates to your home page when you log in. It’s those updates that are actually bring traffic to sites. If I share an article from my blog, for example, if the post is good, I can see the traffic that comes from LinkedIn. Especially if it’s a good post. So, posting on LinkedIn can bring you traffic. But what’s one of the other benefits? Adding a link. And, if you add the link in a certain way, you can actually make that link a “do follow” link. Here is how to add a “do follow” link to LinkedIn.
Once you log into LinkedIn, your home page will like something like this:
Notice the form filed where it says, “Share an update”. This is just like Facebook, Twitter, or Google Plus. You can actually share an update, post something, or, if you prefer, say something and add a link to a news article, your website, or, like I do, a post on your blog. Once I post a blog post, I usually go over to Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, and, now, LinkedIn to add a link to the blog post I just wrote. In fact, I’m going to do just that when I’m done writing this post. But I digress.
In this case, on LinkedIn, it’s important to make sure that you have some sort of image in the post or article that you’re going to share. People like to see a small thumbnail of the post or something interesting–it helps with the important “click thru rate” on your update.
When you share your update, say something unique about the blog post or the article that you’re linking to.
In order to make the post’s link be a “do follow” link, simply add the URL of the link right after whatever you say about the post. Let’s look at an example of this.
In a recent post, I shared a blog post that I posted on the Globe Runner blog. Here’s what I posted:
Is content marketing on your wish list this year? Well, here is how to take advantage of content marketing for your site and how to promote that content. https://globerunner.com/content-marketing-wish-list/
Notice that what I actually posted includes a full URL at the end of it. LinkedIn automatically changed that link to http://lnkd.in/bPJPNGj which is really not a big deal. That short URL actually 301 redirects to the URL that you added in the share/update. But, I’m not too concerned about the fact that it’s a 301 redirect. What’s important here is that if you look at what I posted you’ll see that the “short URL” is actually “do follow” link.
I have a Firefox add-on installed on my browser that puts a red outline around all links that have the “nofollow” link attribute attached to them. In this case, you’ll notice that the link in the share/update, the short URL, has no red outline. But, the link below that DOES have the red outline, meaning that it’s a nofollow link.
Just to clarify, there really is no such thing as a “dofollow” or “do follow” link. Those are just links that do not have the “nofollow” link attribute added to them. It seems that many SEOs have adopted the terminology of “do follow” or “dofollow” to make it clear that it’s a “good” link.
So, if you you want a “do follow” link on LinkedIn, all you have to do is post the URL at the end of what you say about the URL.
Bill Hartzer is Globe Runner’s Senior SEO Strategist. Follow him on Google Plus.
HOW TO REALLY PROTECT YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA CONTENT
Facebook has changed its policies and everything you post will be shared with everyone! Ok, not really. But there’s no doubt you noticed the panic that spread throughout Facebook earlier this week. Stock status updates were being shared by seemingly everyone in a desperate attempt to protect their control over their own posts. The problem was, it was all a hoax.
The Terms of Service document you approved of (but didn’t read) when you set you your account is what counts, not some viral status update.
What that panic illustrated, however, is how suspicious we remain about our privacy on the Internet and with social media networks like Facebook. We love the idea about sharing everything we want to share, but are terrified at the idea of that information getting out of our control. Luckily, these social networks offer many options to protect our content and provide multiple layers of control over sharing. Let’s take a look at some of these security options for some of the major social networks.
Twitter:
Twitter is pretty cut-and-dry: You can have a public Twitter account where everyone can see your tweets, or you can have a private Twitter account where only those you allow to follow you can see your tweets. That’s all, and it’s pretty easy to set up. Just log in to your Twitter profile, click on Settings and then check the box next to “Tweet Privacy” that says “Protect My Tweets.” Then, you’ll have to approve each person who follows you, and only those pre-approved people will be able to see your tweets.
LinkedIn:
LinkedIn has become a huge social network for professionals. In fact, it’s quickly replacing traditional resumes and becoming the first stop for recruiters. For that reason alone, it’s good to know who can see what on your account and what you choose to post there.
To review your account’s privacy settings, log in to LinkedIn and go to Settings. Then, at the bottom of your Settings page, you’ll see options that allow you to control who sees what on your profile and shared posts, when you update your profile, and even what people see when you view their profile.
It’s pretty robust, and simple to set up. However, keep in mind that the more locked down your profile is, the harder it will be for friends, colleagues, and potential employers to find you.
Facebook:
So, earlier this week, Facebook posts started popping up claiming immunity from some new Facebook policies that gives them control over who sees (or profits) from your content. The problem is it was a hoax. But, even though Facebook has a sketchy history of putting your privacy first, they’ve made great strides in giving you plenty of options to do so. Let’s take a look at 4 biggies.
1) Prevent people you don’t know by mutual connection from seeing what you like or commenting. One of the big complaints that the bogus Facebook status update was supposed to fix is that your content can be visible to people you don’t know by a mutual connection “Liking” or commenting on your post. But in reality, this is all controlled in your privacy settings.
When logged in to Facebook, look for the downward-pointing arrow in the upper right-hand corner. Click that, then click “Privacy Settings”.
From there, you can control how you connect with others, what get’s posted on your timeline from others (photo tagging, etc.), Apps connected to your profile, and even block people from your profile altogether.
2) Organize your friends into lists. Some of the previous settings are made even more powerful by creating lists and assigning friends to them. For example, if you have a list of old high school friends and a list of work friends, you might not share the same content with them. Or, maybe you want to keep your family from seeing those pictures from last weekend’s party. After sorting your contacts into lists, you can choose which lists will see a particular post when you add content to your wall.
3) How do others connect with you? How can they find you on Facebook? From the main Privacy Settings window, select “How You Connect.” There are a series of dropdowns that allow you to customize how people can find you (or not) on Facebook, who can send you friend requests, who can send you private messages, and who can post on your wall. These settings are very easy to set up, and very powerful.
4) Edit your Ads Privacy Settings. This one ties into the copyright concerns that were floating around a few days ago. If you’ve noticed that Facebook shows you what your friends have liked on other pages, then you’ve noticed Social Ads. If you want to make sure these things aren’t shared on your behalf by Facebook, go back to that little arrow, but this time click on Account Settings. Go to “Facebook Ads”, and you can change settings for “Ads Shown By Third Parties” and “Ads and Friends (Social Ads…)”.
Really, the only way to make sure that your social media accounts are private and locked down is to never “Like” anything, never share anything, or delete your profile altogether. Since that probably won’t happen, using these options provided by the different social networks under their terms and conditions will do a lot more than posting some silly viral status update.