Top Social Media Strategies. A presentation given by Simon Rouillier (NVI) at HostingCon in Washington DC on August 12th 2009.

1. INTERACTIVE STRATEGY - 55, AV. MONT-ROYAL O., SUITE 999, MONTRÉAL (QC) H2T 2S6 T 514.524.7149 NVISOLUTIONS.COM SOCIAL NEWS SITES ADVANCED CONTENT & SEO

2. SOCIAL NEWS SITES THE BIG BOYS... DIGG.COM STUMBLEUPON.COM INTERACTIVE STRATEGY – NVISOLUTIONS.COM

3. SOCIAL NEWS SITES ... AND THEIR SMALLER COUNTERPARTS INTERACTIVE STRATEGY – NVISOLUTIONS.COM

4. WHY SUBMIT TO SOCIAL NEWS SITES NEW MARKETING CHANNEL TO LEVERAGE YOUR > Overall traffic > Brand awareness > Rankings (SEO) INTERACTIVE STRATEGY – NVISOLUTIONS.COM

5. SEO CONTENT STRATEGIES & SOCIAL CONTENT: ESSENTIAL FOR SEO > Establishing yourself as a resource site > Attracting links > Ranking for longtail traffic > Feeding pagerank BLOG: A PLACE TO PUT IT > Frequent updates > Looser content restrictions SOCIAL: THE CATALYST > The SEO content strategy on steroids > Quick and natural link accumulation INTERACTIVE STRATEGY – NVISOLUTIONS.COM

6. SOCIAL NEWS SITES - THE BASICS LIVE AGGREGATION > The day’s best content from around the web gets submitted CONSUMPTION & EVALUATION > Users read and vote depending on how much they enjoy the content PROMOTION > Each social site has a mechanism to give extra coverage to the stories that seem (algorithmically & manually) to be the strongest, based on user evaluation > The result is a notable traffic spike LINK ATTRACTION > With the traffic spike comes a roughly proportional amount of backlinks, crucial to any search engine optimization strategy INTERACTIVE STRATEGY – NVISOLUTIONS.COM

7. SOCIAL MEDIA USERS DIFFERENT PARTICIPATION LEVELS > Creators, Critics, Collectors, Joiners, Spectators, Inactives EDUCATED > 87% of Digg users have gone to college SUCCESSFUL > Digg users’ average household income: $85,000 PASSIONATE > They don’t like their time wasted, and have little patience for commerce INTERACTIVE STRATEGY – NVISOLUTIONS.COM

8. LINK ATTRACTION INTERACTIVE STRATEGY – NVISOLUTIONS.COM

9. LINK ATTRACTION ...AND THEIR FRIENDS! INTERACTIVE STRATEGY – NVISOLUTIONS.COM

10. SOCIAL NEWS SITE STRATEGY ACCOUNT CREATION, DEVELOPMENT, AND MAINTENANCE > Continuous integration within the social community PLATFORM CREATION > Development of social friendly setting (topic, social buttons) CONTENT CREATION > Crafting a fun, informative, relevant piece VOTE SOLICITATION > Requesting support from social site friends, which they act upon depending on how much they enjoy the content INTERACTIVE STRATEGY – NVISOLUTIONS.COM

11. SOC IA L CONTENT KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE > High quality to maintain the integrity and value of their favorite social site > Catering to the interests of social user demographics > Not just social site promotion-worthy, but link-worthy after > What works with them will work for much of the web population at large, and not vice versa INTERACTIVE STRATEGY – NVISOLUTIONS.COM

12. CONTENT – BLOG & SEO CONSIDERATIONS Keyword Use > Blog titles for backlinks with great anchor text > Page titles can have more keywords than article titles Interlinking > Feeding pagerank from strong blog pages to main pages as thematically accurate as possible > Waiting until after the push to interlink Maintenance > Keeping the blog version updated > Responding to comments and exchanging links with similar blogs > Posting regularly to dilute marketing vibes INTERACTIVE STRATEGY – NVISOLUTIONS.COM

13. SOCIAL MEDIA METRICS – LINKS & TRAFFIC INTERACTIVE STRATEGY – NVISOLUTIONS.COM 20 – 50 6 – 19 1 – 5 Total Minus Social Sites and Repeated Domains Success Level Total Y! Site Explorer Links Total Minus Social Sites Estimated Traffic Minimum Success 100 – 300 15 – 50 10 000 – 15 000 Good Success 500 – 1,000 50 – 100 15000 – 50 000 Strong Success 1,000 - 10,000 100 – 200 50 000 – 100 000+

14. ONLINE BUDGET SPLIT FOR COMPANIES SMALL COMPANIES ($2 000 – $5 000 / MONTH) > PPC: 25% > SEO: 50% > SMO: 25% > AFFILIATE: 0% MEDIUM COMPANIES ($5 000 – $25 000 / MONTH) > PPC: 20% > SEO: 50% > SMO: 15% > AFFILIATE: 20% LARGE COMPANIES ($25 000 - $100 000+ / MONTH) > PPC: 15% > SEO: 40% > SMO: 10% > AFFILIATE: 35% INTERACTIVE STRATEGY – NVISOLUTIONS.COM

15. THANKS! For more information view our article in Search Marketing Standard magazine “ Don’t just StumbleUpon Content For Social Media News Sites” (p. 40) > Site: www.nvisolutions.com > Blog: www.nvisolutions.com/blog > Email: srouillier@nvisolutions.com > Phone: 1-514-524-7149 x222 INTERACTIVE STRATEGY – NVISOLUTIONS.COM