Social media monitoring (SEM) is perceived upon as an intangible signal to really determine a brand’s success. There are also opinions like no ‘Return On Investments’ (ROI) on Social Media. While the topic is debatable there are both no’s and yes in support of the idea. ‘No’ because it is very vague to find people becoming social only for game sake. ‘Yes’, because brands and products look for numbers and results for becoming social. Social media is serving as bandwagon of many reputed brands and unconsciously we too get engaged with them sometime or the other. So, it is very obvious that brands monitor social media for their own sake.

The SEM campaign cannot be monitored in the same way as an SEO analytics report. The action doesn’t always get reflected in the site referral stats every-time. The referrals are not always as expected and sometimes are not tangible. But that doesn’t mean that it is not working. The action is somewhere else. It is not that if you are trying to sell a product, it won’t sell. Sale will take place but then the number won’t look the same round figure as in an SEO report.

A lot of volatile signals serve as intangible factors when it comes to measuring social media. Intangible signals like ‘feel good factors’ for a brand can be ascertained by asking people about it, but then it would never show up in the referral stats. So, a better word would always be ‘monitoring’ rather than ‘measuring’ social media. Social media is not based on formulas and numbers. It is about “perception”, “engagement” and “emotions”.

Tags: monitoring social media
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Video marketing is growing at tremendous pace as an effective strategy to reach your customers. Videos engage the customers more than any other online medium and there is much more chances of users taking an action after watching video.

Video Optimization

Video optimization is still in its infant stage but it is developing on a rapid pace. The video search engine rely on metadata, inbound links and anchor text to find out what the video is all about. The search engine can also do flash detection that helps to identify adult content, face detection and screen text detection. The videos need to be optimized properly to promote your brand online.

There are many video networks online like YouTube, Google Video, AOL Video, Yahoo! Video, vids.myspace.com, MSN Video which allow video submissions and ways to share the videos . The web has become a massive store of content and videos. The competition is great and hence for a video to show in search engines results their optimization becomes essential. Below are some good practices that when considered help to optimize online videos.

Video Clips should be relevant – Video clips should provide informative information. Videos showing step by step procedures or emphasizing an opinion are always great.

Catchy Title – It is important to give a catchy title to a video that you want to promote. This is important for a catchy title can provoke users to view your video and hence visit your website.

Upload Videos on a Video Submission Website and Re-link them to your Site – First get some videos uploaded on a site like youtube and then re-link them to your site by providing links to content and videos that are relevant to your website.

Use Important Key Phrases to Optimize Your Video – Try to find out terms that users normally search for. Then optimize your video with those terms. Use these terms to tag your video and insert them in the file name of the videos.

Use Transcripts – Make use of languages like HTML and surround the video with onpage copy of such languages. This helps the search engine to index the video easily. When search engines get something to index on, it improves the ranking of the video.

Make Use of Short Videos – Avoid uploading long duration video because it becomes boring after a certain interval. Consider breaking the videos into short duration ones. It enhances the viewing pleasure and keeps users searching for more videos.

Sitemap usage – Sitemaps help search engine spiders to track content of videos available on your website. Make use of appropriate keywords in the anchor text links of videos featured in video sitemaps.

Videos Need to be Tagged- Make use of key phrases that are reflective of content to tag the videos.

Use Videos for Brand Awareness – Incorporate your brand logo in videos so as to generate brand awareness. Take advantage of this opportunity to popularize your brand by incorporating the brand logo in the videos.

Allow videos to go viral – Make videos that would reemphasize message of your brand name. Allow other users gain access to the coding of your video so that they can embed the video in their websites and blogs. This will help popularize your brand.

Insert Meta Data –Make sure that you use relevant keywords and keyword rich description in your video content. This will help you optimize your video.

Submit RSS and MRSS Feed – Submit RSS or MRSS feed to third party video sites such as Yahoo video. The basic method of optimization is to enter title, description, keywords, thumbnails, a category, and a full transcript. A full transcript is a means to provide fodder for a video search site.

Allow Videos to be Rated – It is good to allow Users rate your video. Ratings allow users to favorite and save videos. While ranking videos, search engines will definitely pay attention to this.

Video optimization is becoming a mainstream aspect when it comes to search engine optimization. The best way to optimize is to think about the users and who do you want to get engaged with your videos. Be judgmental and consider the audience, their language and needs before uploading a video.

Tags: SEO, video marketing, video optimization
Posted in Video Marketing | 1 Comment »