Turbo Social Media Marketing » blog | Turbo Social Media Marketing

Using Social Media to Find a Job

Tom Sullivan — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 22:39:50 +0000

With unemployment lingering at about 9%, the team at Turbo thought it would be helpful to discuss some of the best ways for job seekers to find employers who might be looking for their talents. Just like businesses use social media for branding and promotions, so can you. In this case we’re talking about self branding and self promotion. Here are several sites that can help you get your name out…

1) LinkedIn: By far the best website for job seekers. Make sure that you take the time to completely fill out your profile (including your photo and detailed descriptions about your previous job experience and accomplishments). Also, make sure you optimize your profile. What I mean by “optimize” is use keywords related to your job experience in the headline and description of your profile. For example, “medical device sales rep” or “software database engineering expert.” I would also add your location as well, for example “Chicago website graphic designer.”

LinkedIn also has a premium service for job seekers. It’s $29.99 per month and it allows users to contact recruiters and hiring managers directly with InMail messages, save profiles and organize your job search with Profile Organizer, get introduced to inside sources at companies, and much more. If you don’t have the budget for this you’ll notice that with just a basic profile you’ll see a box that says “Jobs You May Be Interested In.” LinkedIn is targeting jobs for you based on your profile.

2) Blogging, Facebook, Twitter: I decided to combine these three into one because by themselves I don’t think they’re enough (or equivalent to any other networks mentioned in this article). The first step is to set up a blog about yourself. You can do this pretty easily with WordPress and Blogger. Also, while I recommend the self-hosted version of WordPress (.org), the hosted version is easier to set up and there is no monthly hosting fee. Once you have a blog in place you’ll want to write articles about your skill set, your goals, and why you’re the best at what you do.

Once you’ve started to blog you’ll want to set up Facebook and Twitter. If you already have a Facebook profile, but it’s full of your college drinking buddies’ inappropriate comments, then create a new professional profile. Do the same for Twitter and then set up your blog to automatically update both networks. On Facebook you can also use the “Marketplace” to look for posted jobs. Facebook allows you to message the person who posted the job listing . For Twitter, you’ll want to make use of the hash tag (#) in searches for #jobs, and more specifically, jobs that you’re looking for: #softwareengineerjob. Also make sure your Twitter messages include links to your Facebook page, LinkedIn profile, and blog.

3) Jobster: This is an up-and-coming network that deserves to talked about more. Users can upload their video resume, showcase links to their website (or blog), add their picture, and “tag” their skills. You can also search for open positions, find out who posted the job, and add that person to your network and connect with them individually.

4) Plaxo with Simply Hired: This is a network that is similar to LinkedIn in that it allows you to create a profile and add a steam of updates from your other networks, such as Facebook and Twitter. The biggest benefit to Plaxo is that it keeps track of your location and where your contacts live. Since Plaxo is integrated with Simply Hired, a job aggregator that searches thousands of job sites and companies and aggregates them in a single location for you, you can search for jobs locally more efficiently.

This is just a simplified list. There are many others to look into, including Craiglist, Xing, MyWorkster, JobFox, VisualCV, Ecademy, and YorZ. Also, consider joining a Meet Up group in your area. They’re typically informal networking meetings that don’t require any membership or affiliation with an actual company. This in-person networking, combined with a strong presence online, will drastically improve the visibility of your talents to recruiters, hiring managers, or people who have connections to businesses that are seeking new employees.

If you’d like to learn more about how you can use social media to help land a job then fill out this form and we’ll get back to you.

5 Tips for Writing Quality Blog Posts

Tom Sullivan — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 23:31:50 +0000

Does it ever take you hours to write one blog article? Do you constantly dread thinking about writing blog posts because of the time it’ll take? Fear no more. This article will take you through 5 tips to write your blog articles in about 15 minutes.

1) Do keyword research: Check on the analytics of your website (if possible) to see which keywords are bringing people to your website. Also do some research on the number of hits certain keywords are getting per month, then analyze where you website ranks for these terms. From there you’ll have an idea of which keywords you’ll want to incorporate into your articles.

2) Plan out your topics: Every month or week you need to come up with ideas for blog posts. These topics will help you organize your thoughts and produce an article. Consider coming up with a title for each article, a question related to that title, a solution, examples and a call to action, all before you ever sit down to write the article.

3) Break up the text: Breaking up the article is crucial to keeping your readers’ attention throughout. Consider including images, video, and breaking up the text into bullet points or numbers. Also, remember to keep your paragraphs short.

4) Let the facts speak for themselves: In order to be effective with your time you’ll want to write clear, concise sentences. That being said, don’t get too bogged down in writing overly compelling paragraphs with unnecessary esoteric overtones. You’re not writing a novel, you’re providing solutions with facts.

5) Write a series: Often times you can’t quite say everything about a topic in one article. No worries. Simply create a series with the same title; just add “(part 1)” or “(part 2)” after the title for clarification. This is a great strategy if you’re really trying to publish a lot of content about a specific keyword (an excellent SEO strategy, by the way).

Consistently updating your website with blog articles is crucial for maintaining and growing your search engine rankings. However, it shouldn’t take you more than 15 minutes. Follow these key steps and start to time yourself.

Also, remember to have a strong call to action at the end of your articles. Drive people to your Facebook page, your Twitter page, your contact page, list your phone number (877-673-7096), or simply encourage comments.

What’s better, a blog within your website or a standalone blogsite?

Tom Sullivan — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 16:30:40 +0000

Over the past 10 years blogging has grown tremendously in popularity. More and more businesses are investing in blogs to publish content, engage with prospects and customers, and generate leads. One question that I’ve encountered lately is whether or not a business should add a blog within their website or on a separate domain. This is a very good question that warrants further explanation, as there are advantages and drawbacks to both options.

Advantages to adding a blog within your website (yourwebsite.com/blog):
1) Creation of the blog: Adding a blog within your website is easy because you simply need to add a new page and copy the CSS from the rest of the site. The blog will then match your website’s look and feel.
2) Increased backlinks: If you optimize and syndicate your blog articles appropriately you will start to get backlinks from social networking, social bookmarking, and other external sites. These backlinks all point to an article within your website, thus increasing the total number of backlinks of your website. Over time, increased backlinks leads to higher search engine rankings.
3) Driving traffic to you website: Your website is likely the most expensive piece of real estate that you have online. If you have a well structured site with a good “call to action” then why wouldn’t you want to drive traffic to your site? Conversely, see #2 below…
4) Simplicity: Keeping a blog within your website means fewer things to keep track of on your part. You don’t need to buy a new domain or hosting for a separate blogsite, and you don’t have to worry about maintenance on multiple sites.

Advantages to creating a separate “blogsite” outside of your website (yourwebsiteblog.com):
1) Dominate for a specific keyword: If you’d like your business to dominate page 1 of Google for a specific keyword phrase you’ll need multiple websites. Sure, you can count on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn occupying 3 of the spots on page 1, but if you truly want to dominate you’ll need multiple websites. After your website (and your social networking accounts) you should create a separate blogsite.
2) Better for lead capture: The reason landing pages are so great for lead generation is that, if configured properly, they give the user 2 options: opt-in for the special offer or leave the page. If you’re driving traffic to your website you might lose people who get caught up in all the information on your website. However, if you create a standalone blog there there’s likely to be significantly fewer pages, making it less likely the potential customer gets lost in all the information and then leaves the site. This is not always the case, but studies have shown that less information is better for lead capture. Thus, people link to landing pages instead of websites when they set up paid advertisements online.
3) Dynamic home page: Creating a blogsite means that the home page serves as your blog. Therefore, the home page will constantly be updated as you add new posts. This is great for SEO because you are constantly adding new content to the home page, which is the first page search engines index.

As you can see both there are advantages to both options. Typically I would recommend adding a blog within your website because the fresh content will help with the site’s SEO and search engine rankings. Furthermore, having a blog within your website is simpler for both the business owner and visitor to the site. As a business owner it’s nice to keep all similar content together and not have to pay for additional domains and hosting. As a website visitor if I’m very interested in the business and I want to learn more, having a blog within the site provides me with a ton of more information; all within one click!

The only time I would recommend creating a standalone blog outside of your existing website is if you are either trying to dominate for a specific keyword (difficult to do unless the keyword is your business name) or if your blog focuses on a niche aspect of your business. If you really want to go all-out with your online presence then create a main blog within your website and then create additional blogsites that focus on niches of your main business. This way you’re reaping the rewards of all the benefits mentioned above.

If you have any questions about creating a blog contact Turbo Social Media to review your strategy and your options.

WordPress.com Passes 200 Million Posts

Zack — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 16:08:26 +0000

Two weeks ago I wrote a blog post about Twitter and it’s 15 billionths tweet. The purpose of that blog post was to outline, just how big Social Media Marketing is. if Twitter is seeing 2 billion tweets per month, then that just goes to show you how often people are sharing information online.

This last week, we heard another milestone has been surpassed, as WordPress.com has seen its 200 millionth Blog Post! Again these are staggering numbers. With the installable version of WordPress (which we use for ALL of our clients) releasing version 3.0 this last week as well, it is quite obvious that WordPress means business, and is a powerful platform.

Sure blogging takes a little more time than a 140 character tweet or a quick Facebook update, but the blog post itself is a great way to dish out information, intrigue interest of others and help you build a larger network. You can then link your blog up to Twitter and Facebook and build your network even larger! Blogging is essential to your business and social media marketing, so again, it comes as no surprise to see a blogging platform as wonderful as WordPress reach such an awesome milestone!

To learn more about Social Media Marketing and the Importance of blogging, click the red button at the top of the page to watch our free video series or give us a call at 877-673-7096.

Thank You, and I encourage you to leave and comments or questions below. To learn more about the video series, Medical Professionals should click here and Entrepreneurs should click here.

Article by Zack Zucker, Manager Client Services, Turbo Social Media

Tools for Making Social Media Easier and More Effective: Disqus

Zack — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 15:05:10 +0000

Scroll to the bottom of this blog post. What is that you read at the end of every post? No not that amazing bio about me… I am talking about the call to action. At the end of all of my blog post, many of you will notice I always direct you to leave questions and comments (and thank you to all who do) as well as click on other links for more information. Whereas this is great practice for all of you writing your own blog posts, we have found a new tool that makes this more interesting and helps you use Social media to its fullest at the same time. This tool is called “Disqus.”

Disqus (pronounced “dis-Kuss”), is a new tool that you can integrate to your blog for a stronger user experience on your site. Disqus allows users to log in with their Facebook, Twitter or OpenID accounts (and a couple others) to interact with other viewers of the blog. When logged in on Facebook and Twitter, you can also share your comment with your profile. Go ahead and try it! At the bottom of this page log in with either your Facebook or your twitter account and leave a comment as to how fantastic we are. Then go and check your account and you will see it right there on Twitter/Facebook for everyone to see!

Disqus is a great example of how social media can be used to really tie everything together and be linked up. It is very important to be as visible as possible from all facets of social media and this tool does just that, but allowing you to comment on one blog, and sharing that comment with your friends and followers, all at the same time.

“Disqus is all about changing the way people think about discussion on the web. [They're] big believers in the conversations and communities that form on blogs and other sites.” We have to say, that we completely agree with them

To learn more about Social Media Marketing, click the red button at the top of the page to watch our free video series or give us a call at 877-673-7096.

Thank You, and I encourage you to leave and comments or questions below. To learn more about the video series, Medical Professionals should click here and Entrepreneurs should click here.

Article by Zack Zucker, Manager Client Services, Turbo Social Media

Get The Most of Web 2.0 While Using WordPress 3.0

Zack — Wed, 19 May 2010 16:36:32 +0000

For those of you WordPress fanatics out there, I am sure you have heard by now that WordPress 3.0 is on its way out. Originally they wanted to release it at the beginning of this month, but they help back as they worked out a couple of their bugs. For those of you who are not as fanatical about WordPress, or are using another site to house your blog, you may want to consider making the change.

Here at Turbo Social Media we have been preaching about the greatness of WordPress for a long time. We enjoy its ease of use, the plug-ins available and the tools it possess’ to help make your website/blog as great as it can be. We believe that WordPress has the ability to help you make your site great, and now with WordPress 3.0, it is being taken to all new levels.

Some of the new updates to WordPress range from the ease of “custom” templates and built in support, all the way to easy menu navigation control and custom link shorteners (really like this one). For a full list of all the great additions and some of the walkthroughs of these new tools, check out this blog article here.

When building a website for your company, you always want to make sure there is a nice design, it is easy to use and that you possess all the tools necessary to help your site be found on all of the search engines. WordPress gives you all of this, and with their launch of version 3.0, they make it all even easier

To learn more about Social Media Marketing, click the red button at the top of the page to watch our free video series or give us a call at 877-673-7096.

Thank You, and I encourage you to leave and comments or questions below. To learn more about the video series, Medical Professionals should click here and Entrepreneurs should click here.

Article by Zack Zucker, Manager Client Services, Turbo Social Media

Building a Personal Site to Find a Job

Zack — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 00:04:30 +0000

Over the last few years, the economy has been on a steady decline. As of right now, it is slowly starting to work its way back up. Many people have been out of work for quite awhile and are ready to re-join the workforce. However, getting hired is not the easiest thing to do right now, which is why setting yourself apart from others is the best way to be found and land a job. And thankfully, social media is the perfect way to make yourself visible.

If you recall, back in September I wrote a blog post about using video resume’s to set yourself apart from the field. Aside from a video resume, which not everyone has the resources to pull off, another great way to set yourself apart is to create a personal site. Now by personal site I do not mean a Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn account. You should already be using those tools and you should be integrating them with your new tool in the personal site.

The personal site is a site about yourself, a site that dictates what you are good at, moreover as an extension of your resume. If you are a developer or a graphic artist this is a great way to show off some of your skills. If you are not so skilled in those areas, such as myself, you can use a simple DIY site builder to create something simple that really works (you can check out my personal site here!) such as WordPress. If you look closely at my site you will notice there is something missing: a blog. A blog is a key component for helping yourself out as it allows you to constantly update your site and keep your name fresh in the world of Social Media. Plus companies now are doing preliminary background searches by searching your name on Google, just to see what they can find.

Your own personal site can become very beneficial to you if you utilize the proper use of keywords and meta data, and really configure your site towards SEO. If you then properly integrate your site with your Social Media sites, you have made yourself much more visible to anyone doing a Google search on those applying for positions

To learn more about Social Media Marketing, click the red button at the top of the page to watch our free video series or give us a call at 877-673-7096.

Thank You, and I encourage you to leave and comments or questions below. To learn more about the video series, Medical Professionals should click here and Entrepreneurs should click here.

Article by Zack Zucker, Director of Operations, Turbo Social Media

WPTouch iPhone Theme: Plug-Ins and Ad-Ons Making Life Easier

Zack — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 17:41:23 +0000

Do you ever find yourself sitting on the bus or train, or stuck in a boring meeting wishing you could read your favorite blog posts? This is now quite possible via WPTouch. WPTouch is a plug-in for your WordPress account that allows you to make your blog accessible via the iPhone or other smart phones such as the Blackberry, Palm and Android.

The internet has come a long way in the last few years and steps like this are ground breaking, even for Social Media Marketers such as ourselves. These new ways of reaching your audience means more traffic for your site, as the mobile internet is now changing the way we and everyone else is doing business. Since implementing this on our site many of our faithful followers have been able to catch up on the latest Social Media news via their phone.

This easy to install plug-in allows you to customize many different facets of its appearance and allows you to deliver a quick, and user-friendly version of your site, directly to your phone. With these new ways of reaching people, you are increasing the need for a well thought out a designed SEO. Everyone is always on the go, the mobilizing your site becomes a key way to reach a larger audience

To learn more about Social Media Marketing and SEO, fill out the form on the right to watch our free video series or give us a call at 877-673-7096.

Thank You, and I encourage you to leave and comments or questions below. To learn more about the video series, Medical Professionals should click here and Entrepreneurs should click here.

Article by Zack Zucker, Director of Operations, Turbo Social Media

Does The Web Design of Your Site Affect SEO?

Zack — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 16:27:58 +0000

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has become a great tool for all of us marketers out there. When using WordPress as your platform (as we use with all of our sites), it allows us to optimize our websites to be found much easier by the masses. Why? Because WordPress takes care of a lot of the inital processes that we would do before optimization. To understand more about this, check out Matt’s article on Blogs and Websites and the differences. We use keywords and powerful descriptions to drive as much traffic to our website. The final part of this process is converting leads while on your site through a clear crisp web design. But does the actual design of the site do anything for the SEO?

In my opinion: No. Web design and SEO are two separate categories that do not really help one another. However one without the other is lost. What this means is, is SEO is not helped in any way by the design of the site, until the very end. SEO refers to process of optimizing your site to get as much traffic to the site, once they are there, it is up to the design to take over.

If your site is not eye catching or is a bit confusing you may have a hard time keeping people on the site, which renders all the work done by the SEO as useless. Meaning that they do not help each other but in the end one without the other is lost. Here are a few tips and ideas that will help out with your web design:

Having an attractive website. Nobody wants to be looking at dull boring colors and no pictures or videos. Make it eye catching so users want to check out more.
Have a clear Call-to-Action. Without a call-to-action, there is nowhere for anyone to go on your site; give them a purpose
Do not get too complicated. Many times you find a site that is too busy and has way too much going on. This makes it very difficult to find what you are looking for.

So in the end, the actual design of your site may not do anything for SEO, but it will help the entire process for what you are trying to accomplish. Think of SEO and a good web design as a package deal: without the other one, there is not much of a point.

To learn more about Social Media Marketing and SEO, fill out the form on the right to watch our free video series or give us a call at 877-673-7096.

Thank You, and I encourage you to leave and comments or questions below. To learn more about the video series, Medical Professionals should click here and Entrepreneurs should click here.

Article by Zack Zucker, Director of Operations, Turbo Social Media