Working around traditional SEO strategies.

[Turtleknife]

I have been ranking on certain poker keywords in the traditional SEO way for years now, but recently got into social media via Twitter in large part.

One of the things I have found is that you can get quality traffic, at least in spurts, to your blog pages. What I have noticed is that when done with the intent of offering true value, my conversions for getting new people on my lists have indeed been very solid. How much more? Well I am not sure, but would like to hear about other's exp in this.

What I do notice is that I can send from 10 to 50 viewers to any page of mine whenever I tweet something interesting, and that from a very modest following list of less than 2,500. Sending that much traffic, really has very little to do with SEO, and the SEO make-up of my page.

A recent example of this is when I made a video about RUSH poker (see post) the day it was introduced, and I ended up tweeting about it several times that day, of course without ranking anywhere near the front page for that term.

It just seems to me that some social media strategies can potentially usurp some SEO strongholds in this way.

[doovde]

Does the traffic convert though? Even if it doesn't I suppose atleast you're getting expose for you content which could potentially generate you links.

How did you go about getting followers in the first place? Do people just naturally find you on twitter or do you need to give your Twitter account exposure in some way?

[Ridge]

I'm not sure I fully understand your post, but I think I do.

While I agree social media sites can bring in traffic, and even $$$$ traffic. SEO vs Social Media are two very different issues.

I view SEO is a foundation for establishing my websites in the SERP's long term. Which means once established they rank and grow.

I have done some limited things with social media such as Stumble, Facebook, Social Directories, etc. Some went very well. I remember on one occasion a PAL members stumbled an article and I got 20k visits in a few days mostly from stumble and it actually made some money. Once the affect wore off the article fell into nothingness.

So, if I understand what you are saying, then yes I do agree that social media has value. However I disagree that it can be better than SEO as I think we all want long term results. Social stuff seems like a lot of work lol - Again I dunno though



Note:

1. I'm not 100% sure what you meant in your post

2. I'm not a social media guru

[Turtleknife]

While I agree social media sites can bring in traffic, and even $$$$ traffic. SEO vs Social Media are two very different issues.

So, if I understand what you are saying, then yes I do agree that social media has value. However I disagree that it can be better than SEO as I think we all want long term results. Social stuff seems like a lot of work lol - Again I dunno though

Yes quite, 2 different facets of marketing, certainly not in dispute in my OP.

I am also not saying one is better than the other either, but I am saying I have been able to get traffic for MAJOR keywords via twitter whilst NOT ranking very well (at all) via SEO strategies.

I was just wondering if any of you were using some of the social media strategies outside of your normal SEO practices. Kind of just learning myself too.

[Turtleknife]

Does the traffic convert though?
How did you go about getting followers in the first place? Do people just naturally find you on twitter or do you need to give your Twitter account exposure in some way?

As mentioned, my conversions are up (subscribers), but I haven't nailed it down by how much. I can however see (sign-up) jumps in time segments after I tweet.

For specific Twitter strategies I use:

I started exploring more social media outlets including Twitter, Facebook, BlogTv and SideWiki to such an extent that I have really cut down my participation in THIS forum. My Twitter account has over 1,800 followers in a short time and here are some tips I have developed with experience:

1- To get followers, forget about using auto-follow software because all you will get is other marketers who are more or less like Amway-in-your-face. Instead use automated searches related to your niche, and simply just start responding to questions and statements, like you were opening a conversation.

2- You do NOT need to sell anything. I have yet to put up a link to a clickbank page or any other affiliate offer. Instead, when I do post links in Tweets, I send them to videos or articles that are posted beside one of my sign-up forms.

3- Respond and search to a variety of topics, not just your niche. If you were at a party would you ONLY talk about your work? My Tweets are not only about poker, but also sports and team, music and artists, software and computers, Red Bull, Soup, my dogs, my daughter, funny SPAM mail I get... etc. etc. Tweet like you would "talk" at a party.

5- Follow people and tweet them at the same time. The way to get followers is to say hi. (Just like you would at a social event). Do NOT DM them, that is useless on Twitter because DM`s are full of SPAM. Eg. I have a search for Full Tilt Poker. So if someone uses that term in a tweet, I can respond by saying something like, "Great job in the tournament. Congrats. Brian have you tried the Midnight Madness tournament?" 9 out of 10 times, they will follow you back and ENGAGE you at the same time.

6- Slow is good. This may sound like a slow process to you but it really isn't. You would be doing the same thing in sales job, or as a business owner. People take you more seriously, and think you are more friendly this way.

7- QUALITY FOLLOWERS. Forget about following those massive Twitter users. They suck and never respond to you anyway. You are just a Twitter digit to them. The QUALITY FOLLOWERS have less than 200 followers, and the BESTEST BEST have only 50 or so. That's because they are using Twitter for its social aspect entirely, they are NOT marketing. They are also MUCH, MUCH, MUCH more likely to respond to your Tweets because they do not use software and probably still use their original Twitter stream when online. Anybody with 100's of followers do not watch their own stream anyway, and are trying to PUSH sell to YOU.

8- ReTweet is good for business. Have a saved search as RT@yourusername and make sure you reciprocate at a later time.

9- Do Not spew out numerous Tweets in succession or have an automated D, or automated follow. You will get nixed from many followers who gave you the benefit of the doubt to start.

10- Add your tweets to other platforms like Facebook and Google SideWiki. When I Tweet something that I have an alert set up for and re-post it to another platform, it gets picked up by Google in minutes.

11- Finally, use a third party software to manage different accounts. I have tried many, and Seesmic is the way to go.

With what I have done so far, I can INSTANTLY send anywhere from 50 to 200 viewers to one of my pages with any given Tweet, if I write a Tweet with some humour, charm, conviction or curiosity. You can plug in your own conversion math for sign-ups and eventual sales from there.

Yes, Twitter is worth it, but only if you are invited to the party because people like you, and what you have to say.

[Randy Ray]

It's good to hear that you're having success with your Twitter campaign. That's only one of many different social media strategies that can send traffic to your site. The trick is determining which activities have the best ROI for you and your site. I'm better at SEO than I am at social media optimization, so it takes me less time and effort to get results that way. Getting traffic from sources besides search engines is an excellent strategy though.

[Turtleknife]

Yes Randy. Even with the limited Social Media experience I have, I absolutely feel it will be a major part of ANY online marketing strategy, whether you do it by design or not.

The reason I focus on Twitter is because outside of my Youtube channel, I have had the most "social" success with it, in terms of finding new people, contacts, and subscribers. I mean I have facebook too, but it hasn't had the impact of Twitter. The only other one I have used is SideWiki and it helps me create backlinks, blog posts, and revive old posts to get indexed again.

[Ridge]

Ah yeah that's good stuff. I've never done any twitter stuff, but it sounds like you have a good system going. I'm guessing with live search (which seems tailor made for twitter) then this could and maybe should be used more and more.

I just do not understand enough about it to get into it. I guess it seems like a lot of work, but if you are socializing and meeting new friends, then its probably like a forum kinda thing for many people. Forums are a ton of work, but it can have great perks and you make a ton of friends.

Please keep us updated on this, I find it really interesting and I think you are breaking into a whole new marketing area with this. I know lots of adsense and product selling guys have been doing this for months, but I think your method may have more long term benefits for you than some of the other things Ive seen.

[CorryC]

Like most of the people on this thread (or so it seems), I have a hard time figuring out the social networking, and the true value of it. In the past month or so, I have been really trying to figure it out - because it does seem to be extremely big for those who know how to take advantage of it.

One thing I have noticed, is that it could be very useful for SEO itself. Connecting and communicating with other webmasters via twitter and facebook could definitely help when it comes to promoting sites and requesting links. Not only that, but having lots of site/blog owners as friends, will allow them to easily link to your really good pages.

Example:

I noticed the other day that Randy had posted an article on this forum (a really long and good resource on one of his sites), asking people to digg or stumble or whatever else.

Surprise surprise - that is exactly what people did. Although people on this forum definitely have a much tighter relationship, we are all direct competitors (I realize this specific example, it was not poker related, but if it was people still would have helped out). So I think having thousands of followers that have that one thing in common (they are webmasters/web marketers), would really help with promoting good content, which would in turn help with good rankings.

I would think you would want to take a personal approach here, and use your name for this.

Then of course, you could also use the Social Networking for going after potential customers or leads - using your sites name or something related to your niche, etc.

Maybe I am all wrong here, but this is the approach that I am in the process of making an attempt at.

[addaminsane]

like randy said, social media really has hardly any conversion potential for an affiliate site, especially for one with a negative overall public perception such as poker...and on top of that alot of people will be pissed that they landed on your page from a site where they expect to find interesting stuff they wouldn't find elsewhere.

good keywords convert in search engines where players are looking to take action to begin with.

Now if you have an adsense based site and you manage to get 20k visitors, you've probably made a good chunk of change even with a low click through ratio.

By the way turtleknife, are you meaning to straight link all of your affiliate codes/banners to your revenue sources? i made a php redirect tutorial if you want to more easily manage your links and not contribute to your revenue sources' search engine results.