Top Ways to be Found Online
Everyone wants to be found online, but what are the best ways to be found?
Businesses want to have their companies/ websites/ blogs/ products/ services found and job seekers want themselves to be found.
1) You need to have a great strategy to be found online.
Easier said than done. You need to think about where "your people" are and how they might go about finding you (or your business). Then just assure that you have a presence there. Again, easier said than done.
2) Profiles: Create profiles everywhere
Create profiles for yourself and your company at LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Google, Plaxo, etc.
Also create business listings for your company in Yellow page sites for businesses, especially the "Local" search engine site: Google, Bing, Yahoo.
See "Increasing Your Online Visibility- Facebook Vanity URLs & Bing, Google, and Yahoo Local Business Listings" for how to do this.
Cool resource for many more yellow page sites (including international ones and social local neworking sites like Yelp): http://www.locallytype.com/pages/submit.htm.
3) Create Content and keep creating it
What do I mean by "content"? - Any text or item(s) that people want, e.g., things they want to know or learn "how to" do, blog posts, tweets, eZine (electronic magazine) articles, website articles, videos, podcasts, etc.
Here are some places you can post this content: Flickr (photos), Slideshare.net (presentations and documents), Twitter, YouTube (videos), your blog (using WordPress.org, WordPress.com, or Blogger/Blogspot), your website.
Tip/Trick: Keep the emphasis on "valuable" content. What do people want to find/know? Answer that question, given your company's or your own expertise and then write about it in interesting and engaging ways.
Hint: Use great tags so people can easily find your great content.
Note: Extra credit for supplying solutions for what people need...and are trying to find. One way to do this is using Google Suggest. Remember Google's "Parisian Love" Superbowl ad?
4) Announce what you created
Tweet about it on Twitter, do status updates in Facebook and LinkedIn...as the content applies to "your people" (and those people).
Note: If you send it to them and they're not interested, you risk them ignoring your posts, or worse yet unfollowing/unfriending you.
Example: Write a blog post (content), then post a Twitter tweet about it and a LinkedIn status update.
Tip/trick: LinkedIn works with Twitter, and vice versa with the "#in" hash tag at the end of your Twitter tweet.
5) Comment: Leave valuable comments everywhere.
Comment on blog posts, podcasts, etc. Especially things which are hot topics which people are trying to find.
Tip/Trick: Great ways to find hot topics/trends?
Google: Google Trends
Twitter Trends: 15 Fascinating Ways to Track Twitter Trends
Technorati: Top Videos & Hottest blog posts
Forums: Boardreader's popular internet: videos, instructions, articles, etc.
6) Show what you know
It sounds simplistic, but if you "show what you know" and if you're showing what others are seeking then you'll be found...and thought of as an expert.
Experts are more becoming more trusted than "peer recommendations" according to today's Los Angeles Times opinion piece by Gregory Rodriguez: "Talk about your Buzzkill: Breaking through the noise of social media," which cites Edelman's 2010 Trust Barometer.
This means that being an expert is cool again.
How do you become an expert? Know your subject and post about it: valuably, frequently and consistently.
Note: It may help to have some credentials, but the LA Times opinion piece said that experts and academics were gaining influence, so there is a distinction between being an expert and being a person who studies/teaches the subject in a college or university.
Re: Social media: And yes, the rumors of the death of Social Media are a bit early with this barometer, as social media is really about disclosure, transparency, authenticity, and trust. For more on this see "For more information" below...
7) "Just do it"
Nike had it right. By just doing it, you're getting your "expert" voice out there where it can be found...and establishing your "expert" .
For more information on "How to be found Online":
Download: "The Power of Social Media: Gaining the competitive edge through LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook!" (click link & scroll down for download links)
Or see:
Of course there are many other ways to be found online.
If you have any favorite ways to be found online, please leave a comment below...
Tell a friend!
Tags: amp, content note, electronic magazines, extra credit, google, job seekers, local business listings, local search, online visibility, profiles, search engine site, site google, superbowl, tip trick, twitter, urls, vanity, yahoo local business listings, yelp, youtube videos
