Get more website traffic with Flickr

by Sarah Santacroce

Photo: courtesy of Veronique Goy

When I asked my list subscribers this Monday what they would like me to blog about, several people asked me to write an other post on how to increase their website traffic. So that’s just what I’m doing :-)

This time I take a closer look at Flickr, a photo and video sharing website which is owned by Yahoo. If you are a local business, especially one that sells products (handmade bags, homemade birthday cakes, designer clothes or whatever it might be) or even some services (manicure, relooking, photographs or any other service that has an end product that shows nicely on a picture) Flickr HAS to be part of your Social Media Marketing Strategy. It is highly indexed and will increase your search engine visibility and hence drive more traffic to your website.

It’s easy to start working with Flickr. Just go to Flickr.com and create an account. Remember to use your company name for branding purposes.

A couple of things to boost your visibility (Search Engine Optimization):

• Titles: Use your keywords to create strong and descriptive titles for every picture. Think about unique ways to motivate users to click on your image.
• Descriptions: write descriptions with the user in mind. Put yourself in their shoes and think what would make them click on your photo.
• Hyperlinks: Add hyperlinks in your descriptions to relevant pages on your website
• Local place names: If you are a local business that only sells locally (no online sales) make sure you use local search keywords for communities you are targeting (for example, Lausanne, Switzerland, Suisse Romande) in your titles, descriptions, tags, and hyperlinks.
• Tags: Tag each photo with descriptive, searchable keywords. Include place names in the tags to attract local searches.
• Profile: Search Engine Optimize your Flickr profile page and Flickr photo "sets" with search-friendly titles, tags, fun and informative descriptions, and links.
• Flickr Groups: You can join relevant groups and post your photos there to get even more exposure.

Of course you will also want to use your Flickr photos and share them on other social sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin. Flickr makes social sharing very easy, all the buttons you need are right next to every picture.

Oh, did I mention that Flickr is totally FREE (unless you want to go Pro, then it’s $24.95 per year).

One last tip: If you are in the music, entertainment or art business, make sure you check out www.webdoc.com. It’s a very cool new tool for rich expressions. You can use pictures, videos, sounds, and apps to create your own mini-webpages for example for a concert, vernissage, exhibition etc. and share it all over your social network. Have a look and let me know what you think.

Vanity urls for Facebook and Linkedin profiles

by Sarah Santacroce

“Vanity is my favourite sin.” Al Pacino

This short post is not really about vanity or even less about Al Pacino. It’s about personal branding and using vanity urls for your marketing. I want to show you how to get your personalized url for your Linkedin profile as well as your professional Facebook page.

But first, let’s quickly look at why it’s important:

• it’s part of your branding
• it’s easier to remember www.facebook.com/simplicityadmins then www.facebook.com/123034980348mmm7
• it’s easier to communicate on written publications
• it just looks better !

So, let’s start with the vanity url for your Facebook page:

Before all things, you will have to get 25 “Likes” on your page. Facebook only allows “usernames”, as FB calls them, for pages with more then 25 people.

Once you have reached the magic number, you want to choose a username for your business.
Then you go to http://www.facebook.com/username/ and check if the name you have chosen is available for your page. If yes, congrats, if no, choose another one.

Your username for the vanity URL must be at least five characters long and be all alphanumeric characters (A-Z, 0-9).

A word of caution: Don't go for anything funny or cute. Play it straight. According to Facebook, "Once it's been selected, you won't be able to change or transfer it."

That’s all there is to it, really.

Now let’s have a look at your Linkedin Profile:

Select the “Edit Profile” tab, scroll down a bit and next to the “Public profile” link click on “Edit”.
On the new page, scroll down a wee bit and find the box that says “ Your public profile URL” (see picture below).

You then click on “Customize your public profile URL” and choose the name you like, preferably the same that you have chosen for your Facebook page.

If you would like to see if your username is available on all other Social Media sites, have a look at Namechk.com. It tells you at one Glance which names are available for which site.

E-mail Marketing basics

by Sarah Santacroce

If you are a Small Business owner who is still using Outlook for their e-mail marketing campaigns, don’t be ashamed. You are not alone. There are so many entrepreneurs who are in the same situation as you: pulling their hair because they just don’t know how to keep their e-mail lists and campaigns organized.

If I can give you one advice though: Outlook is not the answer for e-mail marketing campaigns. Here is why:

• Outlook doesn’t apply to the CAN-SPAM Act
• You could be penalized if you send e-mails to people who didn’t agree to receive them
• Your Internet Service Provider might flag you as a Spammer
• People cannot automatically unsubscribe from your list
• You will be bombarded with “Out of Office”, “Undeliverable” and other annoying messages
• You cannot track who opened your messages
• It’s an administrative nightmare !

You see, you really need to get things under control and switch to a system that has been specifically designed to handle mass mailing of commercial e-mail campaigns. You need to use a service that will help you verify that people want to be on your list, will help you easily remove people from your list when they no longer want to hear from you, and will give you information about email bounce rates, email open rates, link click through rates, and much much more.

And don’t worry, this service won’t cost you an arm and a leg. Some providers even offer a limited service for FREE. For more information about E-Mail Marketing tools, please read my previous post “Newsletter Marketing – Available Tools”. In this post I focused on newsletters, but the same applies for traditional e-mail marketing campaigns.

Now it’s your turn ? Which tool are you using ? Share your experience in the comments below.