Media Logic recently tweeted about this blog post How Social Marketing Lifts Organic Conversions. The post describes the impact social media may have on search engine optimization and vice versa, stating that marketers who engage in SEO and social media may have 58.8% higher conversion rates in organic traffic because their social media work has increased trust in their brands and products.  The breakdown of data provided in the post shows that SEO is more effective at attracting attention and ultimately converting people, while social media is more likely to increase positive thinking around a product and brand. Clearly, a social marketing strategy that includes both SEO and social media would be the best and most effective approach.

But more often than not, we see companies significantly concentrating on either SEO or social marketing… So how can they effectively integrate both in a strategic approach without expending twice the time and resources?  To help provide some direction, I decided to reach out to Media Logic colleague, Danny Dover, an influential SEO expert at SEOmoz, to determine a few key factors in developing an approach that effectively integrates search engine optimization and social media on a small scale.

After putting our heads together, we’ve come up with 4 critical success factors for an integrated approach to search engine optimization (SEO) and social media marketing:

#1: Listen and learn before jumping in

The biggest mistake we see companies that are new to integrating SEO and social media is starting before they know what they are doing.  There is a LOT of misinformation about SEO and social media online, and it is easy to hurt your potential rankings without even knowing it.  Our recommendation is to spend a considerable amount of time listening and reading before formulating your strategy.  A great place to start is the beginners guide to SEO and blogs like Search Engine Land, Logical Juice and some of the published social media whitepapers at mlinc.com.

#2: Test, test and test some more

Google says they update their algorithm roughly 400 times a year (this means more than once a day).  So companies need to be continually testing – including title tags, meta descriptions, content and linking strategies. Your best bet is to write good content and measure the results.

#3: Create useful, relevant content

Content is the key to earning links online.  People link to what they find useful or interesting.  This is important because link-related factors make up 70% of search engine ranking factors.  For us, SEO and social media always eventually comes back to people.  Content works because content is what people are online to consume.

#4: Be authentic

The importance of authenticity cannot be overstated. People are very good at detecting “marketing speak.” The surest way to get ahead online is to be real with people and do everything you can to deliver value.  Forget what you learned in your Business classes.  This is the Internet; people want to talk to people not faceless corporations. Look to Yelp, Zappos, JetBlue and Google as examples of companies that have done well with this.

Even small SEO and social media efforts in some niches can make a huge difference to the bottom line.  Businesses are made up of people who need information.  Search engines like Google, and social media platforms like Twitter are the best tools out there for finding information, so it is only natural that business relationships can happen online.  Other than improved rankings, traffic and conversions, the biggest benefit for any business owner is establishing new relationships with like-minded business owners and employees.  The Internet is the world’s biggest meeting place… All it takes to succeed is the ability to be found by other people.

The psychological profile of emerging adults is marked by “identity exploration, instability, self-focus, feeling in-between and a rather poetic characteristic [Arnett] calls ‘a sense of possibilities.’” Should this life stage be fully adopted by the professional and academic community, we may see policy changes in health care, education and social services sometime in our future, but there are real implications for marketers now.

As a result of this psychological profile, emerging adults “slouch toward adulthood at an uneven, highly individual pace.” For marketers, this means age alone can’t be used as a means to target. People in this age group reach traditional milestones at different times. “In 1960, 77 percent of women and 65 percent of men had, by the time they reached 30, passed all five milestones [completing school, leaving home, becoming financially independent, marrying and having a child]. Among 30-year-olds in 2000, according to data from the United States Census Bureau, fewer than half of the women and one-third of the men had done so.”

As we noted in our paper, The impact of today’s financial crisis on Generation Y, published in early 2009, “the needs of a 25-year-old who is single living in NYC has vastly different needs from a married 25-year-old with a young child at home.”

Thankfully, today’s media options allow for more acute and accurate targeting based on psychographics. Furthermore, it provides greater credence to leverage social media when addressing this audience; as social media provides brands with the opportunity to curate, create and encourage user-generated content, which individuals can then share with who they believe, are the appropriate peers within their social circle. Ultimately, social media allows individuals to self select into brand communities they feel are most relevant.

Whether or not Arnett’s emerging adult movement takes root, marketers are likely to face continued challenges in finitely targeting those in the 18 to 30 age group. However, marketers are now armed with a mix of media to meet the challenge and deliver relevant brand experiences to their intended audience.

Related articles:

• We’re Not Immature, We’re “Emerging Adults” [Kids Today] (jezebel.com)
• Divergent Perspectives on Emerging Adulthood (psypress.com)

How can this be? How can the most visited site on the Internet also be among the most despised?

The complaints against Facebook are familiar. There’s the well-founded privacy concerns, the confusing and repeated changes to the interface, the intrusive advertising and silly games. But these foibles amount to the quirky yet sometimes annoying traits of a creature we otherwise love. Facebook is like a beloved puppy that decides to munch on your new sandals for lunch, if you will. Facebook is the husband with a tendency to leave his sweaty gym socks on the bathroom floor. While these are not among our favorite traits, they aren’t enough to make us abandon puppy, hubby or social network for good.

Facebook has become an indispensible “social utility” to many people (approximately 500 million). A great achievement for Facebook but it’s hard to unconditionally love an entity that large and powerful. This is why the recent backlash is predictable, just as backlash is predictable against any “utility” of Facebook’s size. Perhaps the results of the ACSI survey only reinforce that fact that Facebook has become a permanent and essential part of life, just like cable TV and airline travel.

And while a “social utility” like Facebook clearly isn’t as important as say, the fresh water supply, it is a practical, efficient way to track down and connect with family, friends, acquaintances, colleagues and the like. Something this universally useful is not going to go away quickly, if ever, despite complaints about unsympathetic changes to privacy and user interface. Note the recent failure of Quit Facebook Day.

One could argue that Facebook has transcended “social media” and is now simply a regular, everyday part of life for people young and old, man and woman. It is for this reason that Facebook finds itself in the same boat as airlines, cable companies and the IRS, and why the (albeit sometimes tumultuous) relationship between Facebook and its users will continue to endure.

So many questions… But this much is clear: if there’s a company with the resources and talent to develop a real Facebook-killer, it’s Google. And given that social has proved to be the hardest nut for Google to crack, we have a few suggestions for those genius Google developers to consider if they are, in fact, building the next “super social platform”:

#1: Give it your best and seamlessly integrate Google’s greatest tools in Google Me

• Photo sharing – Allow users to easily upload photos to their Google Me profile via Picasa or previously established Web Albums
• Tap into Google’s renowned Search capabilities – utilize search in a more meaningful way by giving users deep, individualized results drawn both from the web and also within users’ personal networks… Searching on “New Zealand Vacations”? Results should include not just the typical tourism and travel agency sites, but also suggestions to contact friends and other personal network connections who’ve mentioned New Zealand in their profiles. Rich.

#2: Get granular for the gurus

• Analytics – give advertisers deep insight into traffic on their profiles or fan pages
• AdWords – provide advertisers with granular control over their audiences

#3: Play well with others and give users the ability to connect with their existing assets on other social networks. Allow users to quickly and easily import info, photos, notes, friends, etc. from their profiles on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Flickr etc. With so many people already deeply invested elsewhere, Google Me should let users try something new without starting over.

#4: Create clique-ability and let users easily establish groups for a variety of purposes – work groups to collaborate and share documents, mommy groups to share photos and parenting resources, team sports clubs to share schedules and workouts, etc.

#5: Keep good design in mind – Dear Google: we are so over your “Leisure Suit Larry” era icons. If you want us to socialize with you, please invest in some fresh design. Thank you.

#6: Be concerned with privacy and make privacy profiles simple and understandable. We’d love to see the ability for users to set up multiple privacy “identities” for designated types of connections, such as colleagues, neighbors, dart buddies, college friends, etc.

#7: Put ‘mobile first’ and deliver equal or enhanced functionality for mobile. Make sure there’s seamless interaction between Android (and other mobile devices) and Google Me. We want to see anything that can be done on Google Me online being done on a phone/tablet and flawless sync between web and mobile.

Still, even with all these features, it will be a tough battle for any new social network to face-off with Facebook… And convince loyal users to make a switch.

What do you think? What features would you like to see on a social platform from Google? What would make it worth your while to change networks?

Related articles:

• More Fuel Added to Google Me Rumors (mashable.com)
• Google Me, Facebook Competitor, Confirmed by Former Facebook CTO (The Huffington Post)
• Google Me to be the Googlish answer to Facebook? (engadget.com)

In Part 2, watch them discuss what these trends mean those trying to using social media as a marketing tool… Or, view Part 1 first.

Watch their conversation and hear their thoughts…

Stay tuned for Part 2 of this series, when Josh and Fred discuss the challenges and opportunities for companies trying to engage both individuals and communities in conversations about brands.

Just as eMarketer was making this prediction in January, Media Logic was ramping up a strategic social marketing effort with Healthways SilverSneakers Fitness Program® that would help prove its validity and demonstrate how social media can effectively engage the older adult crowd. By implementing a collaborative marketing approach and launching a site specifically designed to encourage information sharing in a safe, supportive online older adult community, SilverSneakers witnessed active engagement on its Facebook page grow from fewer than 500 fans in December 2009 to nearly 12,000 fans today.

The success of our work with SilverSneakers supports the upward trend of social media adoption among older adults while highlighting the value of social media as a marketing tool enabling conversation-centric, two-way models of communication for membership-based organizations.

Working Social Marketing Into a Mature Network
As far as membership organizations go, the award-winning SilverSneakers Fitness Program was thriving – offered to Medicare Advantage plan members through their health plan clients at more than 9,400 participating fitness and wellness centers across the country, SilverSneakers provides an innovative blend of exercise classes, health education and social opportunities to help mature adults maintain active, independent lifestyles. Studies have even found that older adults who participate in SilverSneakers are admitted to hospitals less frequently, have lower overall healthcare costs and experience a significantly reduced risk of depression.

SilverSneakers was already a hugely popular program, but the strategic use of social marketing has provided the organization with new and effective ways of connecting with potential members, and perhaps more importantly, encouraging loyalty to the program, ongoing member participation and involvement.

“The program is an inherently social experience,” according to our client and Healthways’ senior manager of Member Engagement Marketing, Michelle Eckert. “Introducing social media has allowed our participants to further enhance their social connections by sharing stories, photos, tips and notes of encouragement to others. Our experience supports the research that shows older adults citizens will adopt social media and participate, provided they see content and groups dedicated to their needs and interests.”

Managing Social Media Without Breaking a Sweat
While SilverSneakers began experimenting with social media late last year, the program needed a systemic approach, guidance, and support to create stronger interest and active participation. In January, the organization partnered with us and deployed Zeitgeist & Coffee^sm, our social media management suite specially designed to help organizations ramp up their social media marketing efforts, making them more effective and easier to implement and sustain.

Since implementing Zeitgeist & Coffee, SilverSneakers has realized…

• A significant spike in Facebook fans
• A dramatic increase in fans’ levels of engagement
• More fans who are potential SilverSneakers members visiting the Facebook page to learn about the program
• Friends and family members of SilverSneakers participants are joining the Facebook page to lend support and enthusiasm

SilverSneakers’ experience with Media Logic and Zeitgeist & Coffee has meant the difference between having a Fan page and having an active community.  By providing the methodology, marketing expertise and technology to fully leverage social media as a marketing a tool, we’ve made it easier for organizations to engage older adults and foster a meaningful social presence with the mature audience.

Related Articles

• Engaging the Aging: Creating Conversation for SilverSneakers (logicaljuice.mlinc.com)

No matter the platform, there are literally dozens of apps to choose from, making it a painful finger stroll through any given app store. To make things a bit easier for you, we’ve compiled some of our thoughts on a few of the Twitter apps currently available.

Here is an Apple and WebOS view from a self-admitted Tweet-oholic, Media Logic’s Sr. IT Coordinator John Jordan.

Hi, my name is John, and I have a tweeting problem. I’m ALWAYS connected to a number of social media sites, the main one being Twitter. Whether I’m at work, home or on the go (or sometimes in my sleep!), I’m using one of many mobile clients to communicate with friends, family, and complete strangers all across the Twitterverse.

I’ll start off with Apple’s popular iPhone. Let me start off by saying that I myself have never owned an iPhone, as I’m not a big fan of AT&T and their spotty service in the areas I travel most (Apple? You there? Offer the iPhone on Verizon or Sprint!). I do, however, own an iPod Touch – which allows me to use the same great apps as iPhone owners. Over the past year, I’ve used a number of the available apps trying to find the one that works best for me. In this time, I’ve come across some that are great and offer a number of features. I’ve also come across a number that were just mediocre. For the iPhone/iPod Touch, I’ve found that out of the 50 or so available, I really only enjoy 3 different apps. They are TweetDeck, Twitterrific, and Tweetie. All three are well built applications that not only have excellent interfaces, but also provide the user with an experience better than any other.

Palm’s WebOS is the newest to the game, but has already generated a lot of buzz and in doing so some great Twitter apps have been developed. I’ve tested out those available (currently at 14 with a few in development), and have come to the conclusion that Twee (available as a free download or $2.99 in the Palm app store for a more feature-filled version) is by far the best currently available. It is fast and has a great interface as well as some features that other Twitter apps do not offer, such as the “nearby” feature. This feature has to be one of my favorites, as I’m able set a radius of anywhere from 5 to 100 miles, and then see tweets from local users that I do not follow. Other WebOS contenders are Tweed, Spaz, and the newly released Bad Kitty, which has received a lot of praise among the WebOS community.

So what about Twitter apps for Google’s Android platform? For that, we tap into Media Logic’s Director of Media Integration and unapologetic Android supporter, Patrick Boegel.

I like my gadgets, but I also like ease and function. I don’t necessarily need a high-rolling bell and whistle app, just something that gets me through the ABC’s. Twidroid is the most similar app, in my opinion, to the aforementioned Apple fave Tweetie. The application is available in both a limited free version and a pro version, the biggest distinction for the average Twitter user being that the pro version offers multiple accounts management. I am not sure exactly how many users have multiple accounts, but if you do, it would come in handy. Personally, I have yet to justify $5 to go with a pro account, but would have to imagine that for a user on the Android OS with multiple accounts to service, $5 pays for itself rather quickly. If you are a conversation manager of multiple communities, it is a pittance.

One of the better features of Twidroid is that it allows users to send images directly from their phone without leaving the application – nearly instantaneously. Newer apps such as Seesmic (discussed below) are clunky several-minute load times, while the very recent addition of HootSuite seems to make this function a bit of a breeze. An area where Twidroid is lacking, from a user experience, is a central part of the Twitter experience: viewing a user profile. A lot of the benefit of Twitter is user discovery, and the user profile on Twidroid is simply not appealing. The ability to easily follow (or in some scenarios un-follow) a user is buried off the primary touch screen. This might sound like a petty issue, but remember we are talking about using this service on a device that fits in your pocket. Ease of use is paramount.

Here is where Seesmic comes in.

I have to say straight off the top, I have tried the various versions of Seesmic’s desktop apps and they never quite did it for me. I was eager, however, to play laboratory gadget rat with the Android app and they do an excellent job maximizing the mobile environment. The interface is smooth and easy to navigate. Profile views are clear, which is increasingly critical as you make new connections. The overall UI allows for easy, visible touch screen access to items (such as search and lists) that you are used to taking care of on the desktop Twitter environment of your choice. Seesmic only just came to the Android platform and has already rolled out an update which includes the addition of multiple accounts offered on their desktop clients. Overall, I would score it a slight notch above Twidroid and it will be worth keeping an eye on how they add features in future updates. If you are most comfortable with basic twitter interface or a desktop app such as Tweetdeck, Seesmic is going to be the most familiar and easy-to-navigate app for you. It is also, dare I say, the one application on the Android platform of any kind that is the most iPhone app-like. Curious, because Seesmic is not available for iPhone.

HootSuite just launched their app suite for iPhone and Android a little over a week ago. It is feature-rich and comes in Lite (free) and regular (paid) versions. The primary difference between the lite- and full-featured version is a 3-account limit (lite) versus unlimited accounts (full). The full version also includes click-through statistics tracking.

Everyone is trying to provide various utility; I suspect for power desktop users having a similar and interconnected interface will be a primary factor in deciding which apps to use. In my opinion, HootSuite, much like TweetDeck on the iPhone, has tried to take too much of the desktop product into the mobile environment. Like I said earlier, I like simplicity… for my on-the-go access needs, Seesmic provides that in spades.

So there you have it. A few of our favorite mobile Twitter apps that help to keep us connected to you. Do you have a favorite? Let us know below, by sharing your thoughts in the comments section. We always look forward to hearing what our readers think.

Related articles

• First Look: Seesmic’s Upcoming Windows Phone 7 Twitter App [PICS] (mashable.com)
• Will Seesmic for Android be the Tweetie of the Android Market? (techzulu.com)

In her excellent recent article for Advertising Age, Kunur Patel outlined the struggles big-name social media pioneers have faced trying to implement effective social media content creation and approval processes.

One of the companies, Ford, stumbled on something really remarkable.

What the automaker found lines up nicely with what we’ve discovered ourselves: that the act of collaboration between marketing, advertising, PR and product development necessary to meet the real-time demands of social media has turned out to be an end in itself.

In Ford’s case, in order to create good social strategies and promotions, the company had to pull together people from R&D, PR, merchandising and marketing. In doing so, Ford forged connections through Scott Monty, its head of social media. It found it could leverage these connections through the social web to collaborate and respond to all kinds of business challenges, whether product-related, politics-related or promotions-related.

In the process, Ford’s collaborative media, PR and creative collective (what the company has dubbed “Team Detroit”) found itself at the natural center of strategy; newly empowered as the social hub – the “conductor” as some have taken to describing the role – of a wide range of marketing, product, PR and policy discussions.

A great example of the power of social collaboration is the organic evolution of The Ford Story, a site that started its life as a political advocacy effort and then quickly evolved into Ford’s frontline face. This, folks, is the new company “homepage.”

Ford’s story comes as no surprise to us. At Media Logic, we have found that solving for the social media problem leads to rapid evolution and a new, more strategic role for marketers. All of this is driven by the demands of the social web. But what is perhaps underappreciated is that all of it is possible because of the communication tools necessitated by the social web.

A range of applications for managing Twitter, Facebook and blogs – like HootSuite, CoTweet, Vitrue’s Social Relationship Manager and our own Zeitgeist & Coffee – are evolving into full-fledged collaboration tools that not only meet the communication demands of social media, but unleash the potential of social business.

Learn how to integrate, manage and maximize your company’s total social marketing universe. Request your Zeitgeist & Coffee demo now.