Social Media Business Forum in Europe, Istanbul Turkey

It has been a while since I was able to write my blog post. I had many ups and downs during that time. I truly enjoyed the holiday season but it was not as relaxing as previous years. I put my heart and my knowledge in preparing a forum in Social Media and its effects in business world. There is a study conducted by researchers Nora Ganim Barnes and Eric Mattson, and the study looked at 148 of the 500 companies on the 2009 list. Respondents were asked about their usage and familiarity with six types of social media tools, including blogging, podcasting, online video, social networking, message boards, and wikis. While Twitter and other social networking sites have seen significant growth in comparison to previous years, some older social media tools such as message boards and podcasting has declined. The important part for me is; many companies that have not yet incorporated social media in their business operations say they intend to do so in the future. For example, 44 percent of companies without a company blog say they plan to start one, and 36 percent intend to use some form of online video.

That was quite interesting, it was a great study to show us the growing interest. My aim is to combine my years of knowledge and experience in traditional marketing with presently famous social media marketing in order to leverage the unified marketing efforts of my company.

The idea to carry this and starting a series of events to show "the relation and correlation between social media and business" ended up with an event named "Social Media Business Forum In Europe". I met and become friends with amazing people in social media environment during this journey. I partnered up with a great woman Elif Dagdeviren who was in written, broadcast and online media and entertainment business for the last 15 years in Turkey, both national and international, experienced in how to be a brand in those fields.
I have great speakers, who believed in me, who come along in this journey and be a part of a great team that I believe we'll work so many years together. Shelly Kramer, Tim Moore, Ty Downing, Jacob Morgan, Patrick O'Malley, David Steel, Darren Monroe Last but not least I want to thank my coworkers in Promin Group without their support and understanding none of this would happen especially my angel and lucky charm Candan Ustun Demiral. I want to thank you all. This is already a great success to me and hopefully we'll make it a global success together.
So why Turkey, Because I love Turkey. But more than that I truly researched similarities and differences between two countries cultures. Not only in Social Media but in general. This event will be a nice bridge between two countries business worlds, and show us how we can integrate social media to build up a different bridge that is already established in cyber world. So please if you are in Istanbul February 10, 2010 come and join us. If you are in another part of the world, join us with your hashtag #smforum and be a part of this journey with us.

5 Free Google Tools That Will Help Boost Your Ranking

Author: Kyle Pearce

Google wants to make it easy for webmasters that create compelling content to rank well on its search engine. Using these free Google tools you can optimize your website, improve your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) efforts and gain new insights into which keywords people are using to find information on Google.



Google Keyword Tool

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal



The Google Keyword Tool is an indispensable tool for any online marketing campaign. Using this tool, you can find the estimated search volumes, Adwords advertiser competition and popularity of keywords. It is an excellent tool for finding new keywords since it provides extensive lists of related keywords and suggestions to help you generate new keyword ideas. You can then use they keywords in article or blog posts and target them to improve your rankings.



Google Webmaster Central

http://www.google.com/webmasters/



With a free account on Google Webmaster Central you have access to the important data that Google stores about your website. It can allow you to easily identify problems that the Google crawlers are having indexing your content. You can also view top search queries that visitors used to find your website on Google, backlinks to your website and even the code that the Googlebot sees when it visits your website. On the settings page, you can choose the Geographic Target for your website to specifically target search traffic in your local area. A new, recently added feature gives you data on how fast your website loads, which is a new ranking factor that Google has added to their search ranking algorithm.



Google Insights For Search

http://www.google.com/insights/search/



This is a tool that is similar to Google Trends but provides additional data that may be useful to your Search Engine Optimization efforts. When you enter a keyword into Google Insights For Search, you are given important data related to that keyword such as: search trends over time, regional interest in the keyword displayed on an interactive map and top related search keywords. If you are looking for ideas for creating a new blog posts, this can be a very useful tool.



Google Analytics

http://www.google.com/analytics/"



Every webmaster needs to know how visitors find, navigate and interact with their website and this is where Google Analytics comes in. This tool provides extensive data on your visitors such as bounce rates, popular content, keywords used to find your website on Google search, referring websites, unique visitors and average time spent on your website. You can also set conversion goals for when visitors fill out a form, make a purchase or visit a specific page on your website, which allows you to identified from which traffic sources you are getting your most valuable traffic.



Google Website Optimizer

www.google.com/websiteoptimizer/



The Google Website Optimizer allows you to test different version of your website to see which version is most effective at conversing visitors. It gives you hard data on which images, descriptions, headlines and layouts that are most effective in grabbing your visitors attention. If you want to keep your visitors engaged, this can be a useful tool along with Google Analytics to analyze and improve how your website is presented.

About the Author:
Kyle Pearce is an Internet Marketing Strategist at SmarttNet, a Vancouver Internet Marketing company. For more information on the latest Search Engine Optimization tricks and techniques, please visit our website at http://www.marketingsmartt.com

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - SEO Tips - 5 Free Google Tools That Will Help Boost Your Ranking

IKEA's successful Facebook marketing

Social Media has grown tremendously this year. We start to see whoever dares to use Social Media Strategies in their marketing efforts also started seeing the results. IKEA has put together a very successful Facebook campaign to promote a new store and at the end of the day, it was a huge success.

The Swedish furniture company opened a new store in Malmo, Sweden and rather than just using only old marketing methods they decided to go directly to the people using Facebook. They uploaded several images from the Ikea showroom over the course of two weeks. Finally the interesting part was that the first Facebook user to tag his or her name on one of the products in the picture won it.

So if you dare to use it, you can enjoy the results :)

Social Media Optimization

Social Media Optimization – 5 Major Rules Must Have

Author: Kenny Gregg
Social Media Optimization or SMO is a set of methods for generating publicity through social media, online communities and community websites. It is in many ways associated as a strategy to viral marketing through the use of networking in social bookmarking, video and photo sharing websites instead of having the word of mouth created through friends or family. It is also considered as an integral part of an online reputation management or search engine reputation management technique for individuals or organizations that care about establishing their presence online.
As of today's marketing industry, SMO has been widely used by marketers to give their business a boost in authority for their websites. Through SMO, they were able to raise their site's performance and visibility in the entire internet marketing world. In relation to this, many are still wondering how SMO works. Below are the 5 major rules that can assist you while conducting SMO:
1. Boost your exposure through links. As you will notice in the internet community, many sites appear to be rarely updated. So if you want to optimize your site through social media, you need to update the content then use the links of your content to be visible on different social media sites. Adding a blog is a great step.
2. Use the power of tagging and bookmarking. You should add content features to your site like quick buttons which your audience can click if they like what they have read on your site. Be sure that bookmarking and tagging on your site is easy to find and navigate. Remember, typical visitors want a quick process.
3. Reward inbound links. Inbound links send visitors to your site. So it will be a good act to reward them since it helps to boost your site. You can encourage more inbound links if you are known to be someone who provides rewards back.
4. Aid your content travel. When your site has content, submit it to relevant site article directories. This way, your content is being noticeable to many sites and will help you to boost your own site if you provide a link in the article back to your original article.
5. Allow others embed your content. Letting others embed your content is a great way to prove your existence online. It also helps your content travel further and a more tendency of showing up to different sites.
Actually, SMO is easy. You just have to know the basics. After that, you will notice that you are increasing your site's visibility. And now that I have revealed the five (5) major rules, start from there. I will be updating these rules in future articles as these ideas get more sophisticated.


About the Author:

Kenny Gregg is a Kung Fu Genius with regards to MLM Secrets. Kenny is an expert on attraction marketing in the MLM profession, and if you want to learn and master his secrets to growing a Network Marketing Empire, visit his MLM SecretsFormula

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - Social Media Optimization – 5 Major Rules Must Have

We are Thankful, cause we have too much to share

Its been a while I couldn't update my blog. So many things happened past couple weeks. First my partner in Turkey got sick, later myself and my family. Some forms of H1N1 and bronchitis, sinus infection. We postponed our event. So time to time, I feel sad, disappointed. But during those times, I felt how much I've been cared. So many friends shared their concerns, they helped me to ease my pain. They showed me one more time that, life gets easier when we share. I was thinking, "God this must be a curse" and a great person that I know from Twitter told me that "who knows that curse may actually be a blessing :) " It was true. It turned out to be a blessing.
It was couple days ago, I met a friend through my grocery shopping. She told me that one of our common friends is in the hospital with a late stage of cancer. She might not see the Thanksgiving. Three little kids, a very young age and a nice career. She worked so hard, too much stress. She is such a nice person and I'm praying for her and asking for your prayers.
We have so much to share, we share our knowledge through Social Media, we share our success stories through Social Media, and we share our friendship. I'm so Thankful this year; I have so many friends that I can ask their prayers for my friend.
Happy Thanksgiving :)

Instant gratification by Jemma @cousinslowpoke

Twitter is my new bff. I have been on twitter for just a few short months and I already cannot live without it. I would have chuckled if I had heard someone say this a bit ago but here I am saying it to you. We are in an era where we are always waiting for the next new and improved something or other. Most are dependent on some type of tech gadget like an iPhone, Blackberry, etc. Ever see someone misplace their phone and have a full blown panic attack from withdrawl? I thought so. I'm only 35 but I feel ancient remembering what life was like before computers, cell phones and cable tv. We are fortunate to be spoiled with so much technology to keep our ever growing appetites fed. Although I was never part of Myspace I assume their users experienced the same euphoria that I feel now with Twitter just as I did in my first few months of Facebook. I haven't resorted to Twitter being my set home page when I turn on my lap top but it is definitely the second site I check after my email. My hubby loves to make fun of me for always being on Twitter and I actually see @ signs when I close my eyes at night. So it is safe to say I am a Twaddict. Hello my name is Jemma and I'm a Twitter addict.

Now that I have made fun of myself I would like to tell you why Twitter, Facebook and the internet in general is so important to me. I was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis also known as ALS or Lou Gehrig's 5 1/2 years ago at the age of 30, right in my prime techie years. As a result of ALS I have lost the majority of my speech. So although most cannot understand me in person I am definitely heard online. It keeps me entertained from an otherwise mundane day due to my illness. ALS is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that will eventually leave my body paralyzed. So I am very grateful to technology for making my life easier and more fun while living with such an awful fate. While I cannot just pick up a phone and call a friend to chit chat I can still sign on to Twitter and chat away with my new friends until I lose the function of my right hand and my typing finger. Twitter is an open forum unlike Facebook that only connects you with friends and family you already know. I've "met" quite a few amazing people through Twitter and call them my friends. I am just hoping they are legit users and not men in a creepy basement wearing only boxers posing as my friends. Whether you are looking for friendship, business contacts, social media tools or all the above it's amazing how you can connect with people for a wide variety of reasons. I'm only on for the entertainment value and it has definitely lived up to what I expected of it.

No matter what kind of mood I'm in I can sign on to Twitter and find someone that shares my temporary state of mind. Amazing right? Feel like complaining about something or want to share exciting news with someone, well then jump on Twitter and express yourself. What a concept. Instant gratification. Now that's my kind of site. It also opens your eyes to others, other's issues, other's feats, etc. I've met people fighting a battle just like me. People that need the support and ear of someone that understands. It's not just about being silly it's also about learning of people and causes in need. Twitter is amazing like that because information can spread like wildfire. It's an online support system. Let's just hope Twitter isn't just a fad and forgotten like cameras with film because I'm not ready to lose my bff.

by Jemma @cousinslowpoke

Thank YOU Jemma, you are such a great inspiration, I'm honored to call you "my twitter friend" :) Jade

Give Unconditionally !

Help someone today who can never help you...you will both feel so good! Thank you @Joebees
It just made me think about how important this is :) Truly, how many of us help someone without expecting anything in return.
This should be it. Than you really feel good, its like without self-pity and prejudice, you are giving to somebody who can never return your favor. I send my positive attitude to universe sometimes, or say hi to somebody that I never met in my life, who knows may be thats only what she needs that day. A warm hi :) A hug, little smile, answer a question, or just wait when you say "hi, how are you?" may be there is something they want to say in return :)))
So please help someone today who can never help you :)