Social media has revamped the Internet through its ability to not only build influence, but also humanize a brand or individual. This counts as much in a content sharing environment as it does to the ability to impact online reputations. What’s more is that publishing to social networks is both simple and cheap. However, as great as social media outlets are there is also a battleground mentality present for people who are targeted by negative content. No matter how this information is published—a blog post, article, press release— it affects success.

Understanding how social media factors into reputation management is key. Remember, social networks are a veritable arsenal for the savvy user. They are free tools that will give you the ammunition you need to fight back against any negative post that may surface on the Internet. But in order to make it work, you have to know the tricks used by online reputation management pros. Read on to discover some winning strategies that produce positive results.

1. Picking the Right Social Media Platforms

You don’t have to be Mark Zuckerberg to understand that some social networks are more powerful than others, which impacts rankings. For this reason, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Pinterest are the best platforms. From there, you might want to check out Crunchbase and Quora. Neither is currently the “cool kid” amongst their social networking peers, but both rank well and allow for the profiling of tech companies and professionals as well as the posting of questions and answers, respectively.

2. Up the Ante on Your Social Media Activity

So you have to do more than simply create the account. Social media is about user engagement and content creation; you have to stay active if you want the account to work for you. Google ranks compelling, updated content higher than stagnant material. For this reason, a Facebook profile that has daily activity will rank higher than one that has been long forgotten. But it can’t just be all about hyper-promotional content either. Finding a good balance between sharing information, education and inspiration also assists in driving traffic and creating great backlinks, which serves to strengthen existing, positive assets.

3. Use Keywords Wisely

It’s a foregone conclusion that search engine optimization is an essential part of using social media to improve one’s online image, but recent Google updates have also impacted this, namely in the world of keywords. A few rules of thumb: Use the keyword in the page name or in the Twitter handle for best results. Additionally, planting the keyword in static content on a page or profile works best, i.e. look to the “about” section on a Facebook page.

Let’s face it, social media is about much more than just sharing pictures of your dog. When considered as a whole, social networks are a fantastic tool in online reputation management. By using these tactics, negative information can be suppressed and positive information will be promoted, which will assist in controlling the brand image that you want the public to see and remember.

Source : Social Media Tricks

A month ago, I covered how Matt Cutts of Google said guest blogging can be good. But shortly after writing that, a client emails me about where they should place links in their guest blogs. Should they place two or one.
I sent him the video and they respond, "okay, so how many links." It is like I want to bang my head against a wall.
Now, Matt Cutts created another video about "spammy" guest blogging and how Google will take action against it. Here is the video, watch it:



Source : seroundtable

Do you want new tools to simplify your job?
We asked a group of social media pros for the hottest social media tools they use today.
Check them out to see if these social media tools are a good fit for you!

#1: Unlock to Share Plugin

My favorite social marketing tool of all time is the unlock to share plugin. What is it? It’s a simple plugin that “unlocks” additional content when your web visitors share your stuff on Facebook, Twitter or Google+.

Why is this so valuable? Well, today everyone has a Like button on their site. But if you want your audience to share your stuff, you need to give them a little incentive! That’s exactly what this plugin does.
In my most recent experiment, I had 452 people land on a page where they had access to royalty-free music they could use in their videos. If you shared the post, I gave you an additional five music tracks. Out of those 452 visitors, 379 shared to unlock those five extra songs! That’s 84%!
These unlock to share plugins are everywhere. The one I used was found over on CodeCanyon.
James Wedmore, co-founder of Video Traffic Academy and founder of Video Sales Magic and Video Copy Pro.

#2: SlideShare

This isn’t a “new” tool, but I’m amazed by the number of marketers who still don’t use SlideShare as a main staple in their social media distribution. According to the latest research from Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs, just 23% of B2B marketers and only 7% of B2C marketers leverage SlideShare (which now sees approximately 60 million users per month).
We continue to integrate SlideShare into our visual storytelling, and it’s now a key part of our lead generation process. It’s a true sleeping giant.
Joe Pulizzi, founder of the Content Marketing Institute and author of Managing Content Marketing and co-author of Get Content, Get Customers.

#3: Commun.it

I use Commun.it to help build and nurture relationships with supporters, influencers and potential customers on Twitter.
The basic service, which is free, keeps track of your most valuable followers and interactions, rolling up the data into an action-driven dashboard. One glance and you’ll know whom to follow, whom to thank and to whom you need to respond—all of which you can do directly within the tool.
Another big plus: You can quickly spot your most active conversation buddies. Commun.it tallies up the number of exchanges between you and other Tweeters, indicating whether or not you’re following each other.
In addition to the dashboard, Commun.it has reporting functionality. I love the way it lists hard-to-find stats in one handy place, including new followers, the handles of who stopped following you, RTs of your content, direct messages and total reach.
Commun.it also records this social activity for your Twitter handle, so you can keep tabs on your own contributions and connections in the Twitterverse.
Shelly Lucas, senior marketing manager and leader of social media at Dun & Bradstreet.

#4: YouTube’s Audience Retention Report

You’ve probably read that YouTube search is now optimized for time watched. Effective YouTube marketing demands that we understand (and create better videos based on) how our videos are watched, at least as much as we “optimize” them for SEO, etc. Those “gurus” who tell you to buy thousands of 5-second views to bump up your view count … yes, that does the search damage you always knew it would.
This is why audience retention is the new view count.
The new Audience Retention Report in YouTube is, without a doubt, the most important social media marketing tool to come around in a long time. You can now see what kind of retention you’re getting from your videos and how it compares to everyone else’s. Want to get to the top of the results? Study this Audience Retention Report like a hawk and update your video making strategies accordingly.
The following video walks you through a couple of reports and offers some insights on how to respond.

Paul Colligan, education czar for Traffic Geyser Inc. and CEO of Colligan.com.

#5: Cyfe

While there are a number of enterprise-level listening and monitoring tools available to assist brands, a new tool that I’ve been a fan of is Cyfe. It provides visibility into social channel and search metrics that typically only admins of those channels/tools have access to.
For example, we’re able to set up a visual real-time dashboard for GoToMeeting, which provides brand-specific Facebook Insights data, YouTube Analytics, Twitter and Twitter Search information, SEOMoz, Google Trends, Google Analytics and a number of other social or search data points.
As a social media team, we’re often asked for such information from team members who are curious about the community, channel interactions and other related questions. Cyfe has enabled to us to make that data easily accessible to our team members.
Going one step beyond social and search, Cyfe also enables you to bring in your CRM, email marketing and blog data, with new integrations shipping on a regular basis.
Justin Levy, strategic advisor on all social media activities at Citrix Online and editor-in-chief of Workshifting.com.

#6: Cloze

The newest tool that I’m most excited about is Cloze, recommended to me by Jascha Kaykas-Wolff of Mindjet.
Imagine an aggregation and curation system for your social network and that’s what Cloze provides. I’m able to view the activity of people by date in my network and then check them off, respond to them, like them or retweet them directly from the Cloze interface.
It’s absolutely genius and is already saving me tons of time, increasing my interaction with those most important to me and reducing the clutter and wasted time of having five channels open that I’m constantly trying to stay abreast of. This is the inbox of the future! Cloze is currently in beta.
Douglas Karr, founder and chief blogger at the Marketing Technology Blog, founder of DK New Media (an inbound marketing agency) and author of Corporate Blogging for Dummies.

#7: AgoraPulse

There is no shortage of social media marketing tools these days, that’s for sure. But despite the overwhelming number of tools out there, it’s still very difficult to find the ones that will really deliver while remaining accessible for a small-business budget.
When it comes to managing our Facebook Page, I’ve been very impressed with AgoraPulse. It focuses on Facebook (at least for now), but provides everything your Facebook Page will ever need.
In addition to contest and promotion applications that are a “must-have” for every Facebook Page, AgoraPulse offers unique features that really make a difference, such as:

• Detailed benchmark with competitors
  
  
  

  AgoraPulse shows you a detailed benchmark with your competitors.
• Fan ranking and qualification
  
  
  

  The fan management feature shows you fan ranking and qualification.
• Advanced statistics and personalized content recommendations
  
  
  

  You can also track average users reached by day of week.

They also offer a ton of other great features such as advanced statistics, automated moderation and even admin rights and workflow management. These are the kind of features that used to be only available in expensive enterprise-level solutions. Getting access to such advanced and useful features for a price that every small businesses can afford does make a big difference.
Aaron Kahlow, CEO of Online Marketing Connect and chairman and founder of the Online Marketing Summit and its related educational arm, the Online Marketing Institute.

#8: GaggleAMP

One application that I’ve recently been exposed to and am excited about is GaggleAMP. I talk to many marketers who say, “If only our sales and business development team would share our social media postings, it would help us reach a greater—and more relevant—audience in social media.”
This is especially relevant in B2B companies where you traditionally have a large sales force compared to a small number of people in marketing. That sales force represents a potential army of internal brand advocates who can help make a company’s social media marketing efforts much more effective.
With the emergence of GaggleAMP, social media and marketing directors can now utilize the reach of their internal staff to help spread their message in social media, and internal employees have complete control in deciding exactly which messages they would like to share on which platforms and how frequently.
Companies simply sign up to GaggleAMP, create a “Gaggle” (a group revolving around their content), and then request that interested employees join the Gaggle. Employees then authorize their social networks and decide which content they would like to share with their network.
GaggleAMP can send notifications when new content is available to be posted, and there is even a “point” system to gamify social sharing and reward those internal employees who are good sharers.
B2B companies are sitting on a goldmine of brand advocates who work at their company. By using GaggleAMP, they can organize and leverage their internal tribe while ensuring control over social media messages that are sent out externally.
For employees, it’s internal content curation served up on a platter to give them more timely and relevant content to share with their networks and maintain mindshare on whichever social networks the company’s customers or clients are on.
I expect to hear about more companies adopting GaggleAMP in the months to come!
Neal Schaffer, founder of Windmills Marketing, is a leading social media strategist and teaches social media marketing at Rutgers University.

#9: SproutSocial

I’ve been enjoying the statistics and tools available on SproutSocial, and am using it to get good Twitter and Facebook overviews of my accounts and for some of my clients’ statistics.
You can also do some Twitter account comparisons, schedule content, bring in your Google Reader to watch for content and share accounts with others.
If you manage many accounts, you can easily create nice-looking reports that give a good overview of activity and growth and SproutSocial is reasonably priced.
Andrea Vahl, social media coach, speaker and strategist and Facebook community manager for Social Media Examiner.

#10: Reachli

Reachli (formerly known as Pinerly) is the hottest new Pinterest analytics tool. Similar to Facebook and Twitter apps such as Buffer and HootSuite, Reachli allows users to pre-schedule pins and view feedback data such as click-through rates and number of repins. Creating social campaigns on Reachli is easy with its clean and simplified design.
Although the site is optimal for Pinterest analytics, it also allows users to post on any social platform and benefit from similar analyses. Boasting comprehensive capabilities, Reachli is an ideal page-management tool for any brand or community manager.
Social media analytics are essential in providing users with optimal content, as well as discovering hard data to support social initiatives. Offering real-time analytics and best practices data, Reachli helps you optimize your Pinterest content based on the analysis of click-through rates and repin feedback. This beneficial information can result in more effective scheduling and more engaging content.
For a low cost, brands can also employ Reachli advertising, a service that uses a unique algorithm to match content with its most relevant online audience across the social sphere. As Pinterest grows in popularity, brands will find the capabilities of Reachli to be extremely beneficial in most effectively leveraging the social platform.
Dave Kerpen, cofounder and CEO of Likeable, author of Likeable Social Media and the forthcoming Likeable Business.

#11: Instagram

For the team here at Sony, one of the new platforms we are most excited about is Instagram. When we launched our brand channel (@sony) 4 months ago, we couldn’t have imagined the wealth of beautiful, funny and creative content we would find. We’ve seen everything from the cutest pups and kitties with Sony products to gorgeous, artistic shots taken by professional Sony photographers.
But the best thing about all of this content is that the community has been more than willing to let us share their work (crediting them, of course).
We’ve asked hundreds of Instagrammers if we could share one of their Sony-related photos and have never once been declined. The result is that we get access to authentic and cool content while honoring this community of artists.
We’re also exploring holding contests on the platform and have just recently launched our very first #SonyX contest. Although we’re only two days in, we’ve already received a lot of enthusiasm from the community and are building awareness for our new X headphones via the photo entries and the use of the hashtag.
Callan Green, senior social media specialist for Sony Electronics.

#12: Buffer

Buffer is to social media marketers like what a wand is to Harry Potter—it’s one of the coolest and most useful social media tools I’ve ever used.
As you know, in order to benefit from social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, you have to actively be posting things—an account with no life is not going to be very interesting to those who follow it. With Buffer, you can schedule your tweets and posts ahead of time and create a consistent social media presence on your accounts.
Often, I’ll schedule a week’s worth of tweets, which will automatically drive traffic back to my site or keep my audience engaged throughout the week, without lifting a finger.
Of course, it’s best practice to follow up with those who reply and you may have specific time-sensitive tweets to share in between your scheduled posts, but anything that allows me to be more efficient in my business and ensure that I am posting stuff when I might not have the time otherwise is gold in my opinion.
In addition, the team behind Buffer is always friendly, responsive and looking to improve, which speaks highly about the tool and what kind of company created it, and where it’s headed in the future.
Pat Flynn, founder of the Smart Passive Income Blog.

#13: SocialToaster

I’m excited to see some of the advancements in using social media to increase brand advocacy. SocialToaster is making great strides in combining gamification for sharing brand-related content with superfans to drive reach and engagement.
Brands like QuickenLoans, JustFab and the Baltimore Ravens are leveraging these tools to connect with fans in an authentic and mutually beneficial way to increase brand loyalty and advocacy. It’s exciting to see social media used in a way that drives and enhances brand passion.
Nichole Kelly, president of SME Digital, a division of Social Media Explorer and author of How to Measure Social Media: A Step-By-Step Guide to Developing and Assessing Social Media ROI.

#14: Pop-Ups

In the past, pop-ups were hated by many marketers, and rightfully so due to their unprofessional look and feel, plus the fact they were so disruptive to readers each time they came onto the site.
But if you look around today, some of the most professional websites—like Social Media Examiner, Content Marketing Institute and others are using pop-ups for lead capture.
The main reason for this shift and “acceptance” is as follows:

1. Pop-ups today can be set on delays and scheduled. In other words, you can set a pop-up so that once a viewer closes it out, it does not reappear on their screen again for whatever amount of time you’d like—be it a week, a month or forever.
2. Now pop-ups look much more professional than in the past. Great visuals can be added, they can fade in and fade out depending on how long someone has been on the site, and their custom options are plentiful.

I added a pop-up feature to The Sales Lion a few months ago and the results have been exceptional. Instead of getting 15-25 signups a day for people downloading my eBook and subscribing to the newsletter, I’m now getting 25-40 a day, which is a huge increase.
At the same time, I haven’t had any long-time readers complain that they had to see a pop-up one time, which was a fear I initially had.
If you’re looking at adding a pop-up lead capture to your blog, you may want to consider Pippity, PopUp Domination or others.
Marcus Sheridan, co-owner of River Pools and Spas, founder of PoolSchool.us and founder of the popular sales/marketing blog The Sales Lion.

#15: LinkedIn’s Skills and Expertise Page

What if there was a social media tool that could tell you:

• The best keywords to use in your social profiles?
• Who the key influencers are and how to get in touch with them?
• The exact companies you should be targeting with your particular skill set? What kinds of groups you should join for optimal relationship-building?
• What companies you should work for and who you know at those companies?

Of course by now you’ve probably guessed that I’m talking about LinkedIn. But the tool I’m talking about in particular is LinkedIn’s Skills and Expertise page. After entering “Facebook Marketing” in the search box there, this is what came up:
Keywords: “Related Skills” show up on the left-hand side of the Skills page when you search for a skill to add to your LinkedIn profile. Think of them as relevant keywords. LinkedIn will also show you the popularity of those particular keywords (the higher the number, the more people are using that skill) Hint: Use the less popular skills too!
Influencers: LinkedIn will show you the influencers in your particular skill set by name, picture and title. It will show you how you’re connected to them. If they are a first-degree connection, send them a message. For a second-degree connection, ask for an introduction. Outside of your immediate network? You can still reach them through InMail or a shared group. What a powerful way to build your network and find mentors or advisers!
Companies, Groups and Jobs: The Skills page will also highlight the companies, jobs and groups that are recognized by LinkedIn as being relevant to your skill set. This can save you an enormous amount of time when you’re looking for companies to offer your services to, for groups to engage with to build your strategic relationships or jobs that will suit you. And of course, because this is LinkedIn, you’ll see who is already in your network and can give you access to that company, group or job!
Skills is truly a doorway into stronger connections and better business.
Viveka von Rosen, known internationally as the “LinkedIn Expert” and author of LinkedIn Marketing: An Hour a Day.

#16: Scoop.it

I originally thought Scoop.it was just another curation tool, a platform that allows users to gather together great content that they’ve discovered online. A Scoop.it button on the browser window can now rest besides those for List.ly and Pinterest, so that as you go around the Internet and find great content, you can simply click and share.
When you “scoop” a tweet, a blog post, or any other content, you’re creating a post that is added to a category, or a “topic.” You can easily create new topics that others can follow. In turn, you can follow the topics of others.
At any point, a post can be re-shared through a number of other social platforms. People can add comments to a post, or give it a thumbs-up. Combined, these features make for a robust content curation tool that allow you to build community around topics, and to nurture relationships with influencers by sharing and discussing their content.
When you create topics, Scoop.it suggests content for you to add. You can manage how Scoop.it recommends content based on keywords or the feeds of particular users. Those feeds can include their blogs, Twitter feeds, Twitter lists, hashtags, and Facebook.
In this way, Scoop.it becomes a powerful social discovery tool and if focused on an individual, can even act as an influencer outreach management tool.
If you’re a HootSuite user, you can now integrate your topics right into HootSuite. With or without HootSuite, though, Scoop.it can act as a central hub to discover great content, build community around that content, and nurture relationships with influencers.
Ric Dragon, CEO and co-founder of the digital marketing agency DragonSearch and author of Social Marketology.

#17: Pocket

The hottest social media marketing tool I’ve discovered in the last 6 months is Pocket (formerly known as Read it Later). At first glance you may think that Pocket is simply a private online bookmarking tool, but it’s actually much more than that. Pocket is a centralized mobile content curation and social media sharing control center!
You can save and tag content from anywhere (your smartphone, tablet or computer) to your Pocket account. You can even save content to Pocket from Google Reader and Twitter using the browser extensions.
The real power of Pocket, however, is that it integrates with over 300 web and mobile apps. This means that you can collect the best content you discover on any device and share it whenever and wherever you wish through Pocket.
Pocket drives my entire social and mobile content curation and social sharing system, whether I’m sitting at my desk or on the go.
Here are three tips for using Pocket:

1. Download the Pocket app to your mobile device and/or tablet and install the bookmarklet to your web browser. If you have a Mac, be sure to install the Mac application. (You can now share content to your social networks directly from the new Pocket Mac Application.)
2. Save the content that you want to share with your social networks to Pocket from your computer, mobile phone or tablet. Be sure to add the tag “Share” to the particular articles you save that you later want to share with your social connections (you can add as many tags as you like).
3. Each day, login to Pocket on your smartphone or tablet and push the articles tagged with “Share” to Buffer (my personal favorite), or literally to almost any social network of your choice. Don’t forget to insert your own insights or comments when you share!

Note: Typically I share from Pocket to Buffer because it integrates with Bit.ly and enables me to track the links I’ve shared. Buffer also distributes my social shares at optimal times so that they can be more visible with my network connections.
Pocket is a smart content collection and distribution tool that allows you to become a master social curator!
Stephanie Sammons, founder and CEO of Wired Advisor, a digital strategy and marketing agency for financial advisers, business professionals and professional services firms.

#18: Crowdbooster

What if you had a system that informed you exactly when your best times to tweet are in order to reach the maximum audience, based on how your followers respond? And what if the system showed you the Klout scores of new influential followers so you can follow up? And how about spotlighting @mentions that you hadn’t responded to yet?
Look no further than Crowdbooster!
But this awesome tool doesn’t just analyze Twitter. You can also dig into your Facebook Fan Page metrics to analyze your top posts, number of impressions, fan growth, top fans and more. You can even schedule posts via Crowdbooster for both Twitter and Facebook.
You get one Twitter account and one Facebook Page for free. Upgrade levels include up to 10 or 30 total social accounts (currently only Twitter and Facebook Pages) for a reasonable fee. Give it a try and see what you think.
The nice thing about Crowdbooster is the team is super helpful, friendly and approachable… and they’re always iterating, so stay tuned for even more awesome features in the pipeline!
Mari Smith, leading social media strategist and premier Facebook marketing expert. Co-author of Facebook Marketing: An Hour a Day and author of The New Relationship Marketing.

#19: Lithium

We use Lithium for our new community platform. Its phenomenal capabilities allow for a lean team to rally users, influencers and our own associates to participate. From an organic growing knowledge base through the ability to reward frequent contribution, it is state of the art with WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) functionality and a truly object-oriented environment that makes it easy for a layman to customize.
Lithium also has the capability to do private moderation areas so we can all learn what FAQs need answers, solution creation both by us and by users to populate the knowledge base with good content and the ability to co-create content with guest bloggers.
Kat Smith, director of social media and commerce at Petco.

#20: Tweetbot

Tweetbot is a Twitter app that allows you to do everything you can do on any other Twitter app with an extra killer feature: the ability to filter out tweets.
This app allows you to focus on the tweets that matter in your Twitter stream. It’s available at the Apple App Store.
Michael Stelzner, founder and CEO of Social Media Examiner.

#21: PostAcumen

Facebook is one of our brand’s primary social channels. Our goal with that channel is to deliver content that begs to be engaged with. We’ve had tools to measure how well our own content performs, but we also wanted to know how well we performed relative to the competition.
Thanks to a brand-new tool called PostAcumen, developed by the same folks who made EdgeRank, we’re now able to perform extensive competitive analysis on Facebook posts. We can see how our content resonates with our fans and how those metrics stack up against our competitors for Likes, Comments, Shares, etc.
There is a nominal cost for the service, but so far it’s provided great insights, is easy to use and understand and helps us get better at delivering engaging content to fans.
Liz Phillips, social media manager at TaylorMade-Adidas Golf, where she manages social media for TaylorMade, Adidas Golf, and Ashworth brands.

#22: Facebook Pages Manager App

My favorite social media tool is the Facebook Pages Manager App. This tool allows me to manage multiple pages while on the go. Not only can I post, comment and engage with my fans on multiple pages, but this app does so much more. I’m also able to create Facebook Offers directly from the app, which allows me to promote my programs and services anytime, anywhere.
In addition, I can instantly get a greater reach for my most important posts by buying Promoted Posts on-the-go directly from my mobile phone.
With these features, I can make real-time decisions for my pages based on my fans activity and my current marketing goals. If you’re like me and often on the move, this app is one you don’t want to go without!
Amy Porterfield, co-author of Facebook Marketing All-in-One for Dummies and a social media strategist.

#23: Vocus

One of my favorite social media tools is Vocus. Vocus is a suite that helps manage your social media profiles, monitor what is happening in real time and other key functions.

One of the key elements that makes it different than other services is that it incorporates the very popular Help A Reporter Out (HARO) website. HARO is a site where reporters can post their requests for information and interviews anonymously, and where you can respond. If it’s a good fit, the reporter contacts you. It’s a great way to get additional free PR. Combined with the rest of Vocus’s platform capabilities, this provides a powerful one-two punch.
Michael Crosson, founder and publisher of SocialMediopolis.com and founder of the fourth-largest LinkedIn group, “The Social Media Marketing Group.”

#24: Quozio

Can’t find an image to pin on Pinterest? No problem! I recently came across a simple, slick tool that allows you to take some text, like an inspirational quote or a particularly helpful blurb from a blog post, and turn it into a beautiful, pinnable image. The tool is called Quozio.
You can use Quozio to create cool quotation pins for Pinterest, but it also solves a common problem.
When you find a great article, or blog post, you want to pin it to one of your pinboards. But sometimes when you use your Pin It bookmarklet to try to pin it, the bookmarklet can’t find a pinnable image on the page. This is where Quozio can come to the rescue.
All you need to do is highlight a snippet of text from the blog post you want to pin, copy it, then use Quozio to create a pinnable image from that text. You can pin your new image directly from the Quozio interface.
To make sure your new Quozio pin links back to the original blog post you want to share, you just need to edit your pin after you’ve posted it. You can click on the “edit” button in the corner of any of your pins to edit that pin’s settings and add the URL of the original blog post.
Then just click on “Save Pin” and viola! You’ve got a beautiful pin that links back to an awesome blog post.
Beth Hayden, author of Pinfluence: The Complete Guide to Marketing Your Business with Pinterest.

Who are these social media pros?

The 24 social media pros who contributed to this article are all speaking at Social Media Marketing World–Social Media Examiner’s mega-conference.
It takes place at the waterfront San Diego Marriott Marquis & Marina in San Diego, California on April 7-9, 2013.
Social Media Examiner recruited the biggest and best names in the world of social media marketing for this conference. Only the best for you!
All of the experts you’ve come to respect and admire will be in one place. Be sure to check it out.

Why Attend Social Media Marketing World?

Join 1,000 fellow marketers at the mega-conference designed to inspire and empower you with social media marketing ideas—brought to you by Social Media Examiner.
This is a historic opportunity for you to connect face-to-face with the top social media marketing experts while breaking bread with like-minded peers from around the globe.
You’ll pick from 49 expert-led sessions covering social media tactics to content creation to social strategy. Plus, hear from brands such as Sony Electronics, Ebay, Cisco, Zappos.com, Sharpie, Petco, Dell, AT&T, Whole Foods, SAP, Citrix, Dun & Bradstreet, Taylormade and San Diego Zoo.
This is just a sampling of what’s in store for you at Social Media Marketing World in San Diego on April 7, 8 and 9, 2013.
Want to save some money? Reserve your spot now, before prices go up! Click here for details.

What do you think? What’s your favorite? Have you found any useful social media tools recently? Please share yours in the comment section below.

Tags: agorapulse, buffer, cindy king, cloze, commun.it, crowdbooster, cyfe, facebook pages manager app, gaggleamp, instagram, lithium, pocket, pop ups, postacumen, quozio, reachly, scoop.it, slideshare, social media tools, social toaster, sproutsocial, tweetbot, unlock to share plugin, vocus, youtube audience retention report

If you want to increase exposure for your business (beyond optimizing your website for search and growing your social media audience), then guest blogging and blogger outreach are avenues you may wish to explore. When you connect with bloggers in your industry, you are given platforms for communicating with your potential customers like never before.
The following are 35 resources to help your guest blogging and blogger outreach — including networks specifically created to help you connect with bloggers, guides for guest blogging and blogger outreach, and guest post opportunities for marketers.

Guest Blogging and Blogger Outreach Networks

The following networks will help your business connect with the right bloggers in your industry for guest blogging and blogger outreach.

• MyBlogGuest – My Blog Guest is a free community that connects guest bloggers to blog owners. Join for free and start getting exposure from guest posting.
• GuestBlogIt – Guest Blog It intends to be the ultimate guest blogging resource. Submit your content or find content for your blog for free. Gain high quality relevant back links.
• BloggerLinkUp – Join the BloggerLinkUp list and you will get an email each Monday, Wednesday and Friday. These emails will list bloggers looking for expert sources, requests for guest posts, bloggers and web masters offering guest posts, and PR reps and others seeking reviews of products. When you see a request that you can fulfill, just respond directly to the requester.
• BlogSynergy – BlogSynergy is essentially a social network for the blogging community. Bloggers use BlogSynergy to follow, connect and share guest blogging opportunities with one another.
• Guest Blog Genius – Guest Blog Genius is an outsourced guest blogging service for SEOs and website owners looking to accumulate high quality links from authoritative blogs within their niche.
• Guestr – Website owners can find guest posters; bloggers can find guest blogging opportunities and promote their blogs. Browse hundreds of sites.
• GroupHigh – GroupHigh provides software that helps public relations, seo and social media professionals reach out to bloggers.
• BlogDash – Find, engage and pitch to bloggers – all in one place. Filter through 109,847 bloggers by keywords, categories, Klout score, gender, location, and much more.
• PostJoint – PostJoint is a smart new platform that connects advertisers and bloggers to make content marketing more productive and targeted than ever before. Advertisers produce quality content and bloggers offer to publish their guest posts. PostJoint matches up the audiences and takes care of quality control.
• Copy for Bylines – The mission of Copy for Bylines is to bridge the gap between writers and online publishers and to work simultaneously with these creative individuals to produce better content online. They believe that because of the glut of worthless information available over the Internet, web content needs to be revolutionized — it should be quicker, personalized and beneficial to the online community.

Guest Blogging Guides

Need some motivation to get excited about guest blogging or some pointers on how to get started? Be sure to read the following guest blogging guides.

• The Ultimate Guide to Guest Blogging – This article looks at exactly how you can get guest blogging opportunities and make the most out of them.
• 21 Reasons You Should Write Guest Posts – As Penguin and Panda (the latest Google updates) have shown us – times are changing in SEO. Fortunately, there is an easy way to bridge the gap between great people-pleasing content and the necessary elements of SEO: guest posts.
• Why You Ought to Build an Online Brand Through Guest Blogging and Not Just Chase SEO Tricks – In general, content marketing is a great way to build your brand and guest posting is the content marketing tactic you want to use. Ask any online celebrity how they got the success that they have and they will likely tell you that they built up their brand by guest posting.
• How to Write a Viral Guest Post for an A-List Blog – Want to write a guest post for an A-list blog? This article will teach you not only how to do that, but how to increase your chances of going viral.
• How to Evaluate Guest Post Opportunities – As smart content marketers, we all need to make sure we’re standing out with our outreach and keeping a keen eye on our quality radars when we are out placing guest posts on the web.
• The Ultimate Guide to Successful Guest Blogging – Though guest posts can be a great way to expand your blogging presence, it takes a pretty large chunk of time to do it, especially when you first start out. To help you make the most of awesome guest posting opportunities, this article sets out five steps you should follow.
• How and Why You Should be Guest Blogging [With Case Study] – Guest blogging can grow your online efforts into something sought-after, authoritative, and even profitable. But what is it? And where do you begin? This article looks at the basics of guest blogging and considers some ways to get a mutually beneficial community started around what it is you already write.
• 17 Foolish Mistakes to Avoid as a Guest Blogger – Review 17 of the most common and egregious mistakes guest bloggers make when submitting contributor content to other blogs.
• The Ultimate Guide to Guest Blogging – This article is intended to be a complete guide with the best and most practical information for guest blogging.
• Putting Guest Post Outreach Theories to the Test [With Some Real World Data] – A business that systemizes a great deal and monitors a lot of processes puts some of its data to use to try to prove/disprove any commonly held theories about outreach, based on a sample of 400 guest posts they placed for clients over a three month period.

Blogger Outreach Guides

Blogger outreach – when done correctly – can bring a lot of great traffic and visibility to your brand. See the following guides on how to do blogger outreach the right way.

• The Five Stages of Blogger Outreach: Attraction, Ambivalence, Commitment, Intimacy, and Proposal – A five-part series about building and sustaining relationships with bloggers and the outreach process, in general, based on the “five stages of dating.”
• 21 Better Ways to Do Blogger Outreach – There are better ways to do blogger outreach. In fact, there are 21 better ways.
• Scale Outreach Using Pareto’s Law – This article tells how to identify influencers vs. lower level targets and scale outreach accordingly, focusing on strategies for the low and mid-level bloggers.
• Outreach Specialist’s Bible – Whether you are doing blogger outreach, guest posting, or old fashioned public relations, you need to know where to start and how to pitch, as well as some tools to help you scale your efforts efficiently. The goal is to give you a source of information you can use to train your team to expand your connection creation efforts.
• 4 Pitches That Any Respectable Blogger Will Always Ignore – Are you not hearing back from the bloggers you pitch? You might be committing one of these common pitching errors.
• Blogger Outreach: 9 Tips You Need to Succeed – If you haven’t used blogger outreach, it’s a great tool to add to your marketing toolbox. This article describes 3 reasons to use blogger outreach, 4 ways to use blogger outreach effectively, and 9 steps to develop a successful blogger outreach program.
• Required Research for Better Blogger Outreach Pitches – Successful blogger outreach starts way before you send a pitch. Learn the 4 research stages that will help you provide a mutual benefit and place your content.
• 35+ Tips and Tools to Help You Find the RIGHT Contact Info – Improving your ability to find essential contacts in the blogger outreach process can give you a significant competitive advantage over others who are trying to get their content published.
• 9 Essential Tips for Warm Blogger Outreach Pitches – While there are many ways bloggers and brands are working together, there are a few best practices that have been set along the way to make those working relationships win-win. This post shows 9 ways to prepare pitches that will benefit both you and the blogger.
• How To Contact Bloggers – Get the guide to blogger outreach free. Learn how you can drive real traction for your brand or product through blogger outreach.

Great Guest Blogging Opportunities for Marketers

Last but not least, if you’re in the online marketing niche, the following are some great guest blogging opportunities to check out.

• KISSmetrics – If you’re interested in submitting a guest post for KISSmetrics, please read on and we’ll let you know what we are looking for and how the process works.
• HubSpot – The award-winning HubSpot Inbound Marketing Blog has over 100,000 subscribers and attracts more than 800,000 monthly visits, so if you have exceptional blogging skills and would like to share your internet marketing expertise with a large audience of marketers and business owners, consider becoming a guest blogger.
• ProBlogger – ProBlogger provides guidelines and suggestions to help you with your writing in order to increase the chances of the site being able to use your post and to help it get your post ready for publishing.
• Copyblogger – Writing content for Copyblogger is hard. But it’s not hard like climbing Everest or launching eBay. Copyblogger lets you know what makes a great Copyblogger guest post.
• 202 Internet Marketing PR3 – PR8 Blogs That Accept Guest Posts – This is a list of 202+ high quality Internet marketing / social media / make money online / affiliate marketing / blogging tips / WordPress / SEO blogs with a Google Pagerank of 3 and above (at the time of the writing of the post) that are active and looking for high quality guest posts.

There you have it! Be sure to read the best practices for both guest blogging and blogger outreach, try out the various networks to connect with bloggers in your industry, and start measuring your success! If you have done guest blogging and blogger outreach for your business, please share your experiences in the comments!

Source : The Ultimate Resource Guide to Blogger Outreach and Guest Blogging

Negative SEO is the practice of attacking other websites using techniques that are likely to result in known SEO penalties, rather than taking a proactive approach to investing in one’s own website. As an example, somebody using negative SEO might direct these same low-quality backlinks to point at a competitor’s website, rather than taking the time to build high-value links back to his own site.

For a long time, Google denied that negative SEO could have an impact on the natural search results, though several conclusive case studies demonstrated that this type of attack could be used to dramatically lower a competitor’s rankings.
As a result, the best way to prevent negative SEO is to stay informed about the tactics that these spammers use and to monitor your site for any indications that an attack is underway. Here’s how to do it:

Step #1: Monitor Your Website’s Backlink Profile

Since we’ve established that negative SEO is a viable tool for damaging a competitor’s rankings, it’s imperative that you be proactive about preventing these tactics from influencing your own site’s performance. Really, the time to take action against negative SEO spammers is before you see your site’s listings start to slide down the SERPs!

Currently, the primary tactic being used in negative SEO attacks is the low-quality backlink, pointed at a competitor’s website. It’s cheap, easy to do, and difficult to trace, as Google has no way of knowing whether you or your attacker pointed that “10,000 links for $10” package at your website.

As a result, you best course of action for preventing negative SEO attacks is to monitor your website’s backlink profile for evidence that malicious links are being directed towards your site. There are a number of different tools that will give you this information, although if you’re seriously concerned about the potential damage a negative SEO attack may cause, I’d recommend using a paid program like Raven Tools or SEOMoz PRO.

While there are free tools out there that will give you some data on your site’s existing backlink profile, using a tool that allows you to sort links according to certain criteria will make the process of monitoring for negative SEO attacks much easier. As an example, if you decide to run a negative SEO check weekly, using a tool that either flags potentially damaging links or allows you to filter out only those links that were created in the last week will make the process of identifying malicious links go much faster.

As you peruse your site’s backlink profile, keep an eye out for any of the following indications of negative SEO:

• Links from “bad neighborhood” sites (including backlinks from gambling, adult, and other illicit types of websites)
• Links from foreign language sites
• Links from pages that appear to have been created for the sole purpose of spamming the search engines
• Links from pages that have more than 50 links in their body texts
• Links from pages that trigger malware warnings within your browser

Now, keep in mind that seeing a few links that meet these criteria doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re the victim of a targeted negative SEO campaign. There are plenty of different black hat SEO techniques out there that could result in low-quality links being pointed at your website, so the presence of a few bad backlinks doesn’t conclusively prove that a competitor is gunning to bring you down.
But no matter what caused the creation of these potentially negative links, your next step is the same…

Step #2: Use Google’s Disavow Tool to Report Suspected Negative SEO Attacks

In the past, the process of repairing negative SEO attacks required that webmasters jump through a series of hoops in order to determine which low-quality backlinks were actually causing damage (based on the absence or presence of no-follow tags) and persuade link hosting webmasters to remove those that were identified as being harmful.
Fortunately, Google has made the process of reporting potentially harmful backlinks much easier with the recent release of its Disavow Links tool. This service, found at https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/disavow-links-main within your Google Webmaster Tools account, can be used to create files that let Google know which backlinks you suspect come from spammers.
To get started, navigate to the link above and select your website before clicking “Disavow Links”:

You’ll then be required to confirm a notice from Google on the potential damage caused by inappropriately disavowing links (which we’ll discuss in more detail later on):

In the next step, you’ll be prompted to upload a text file that contains the links you’d like Google to ignore:

Therefore, before carrying out this final step, you’ll need to create a “disavow.txt” file listing the information you plan to submit to Google. This text file should contain three types of information only:

1. Full URLs of specific pages you’d like to have devalued (listed on their own lines)
2. The phrase “domain:” followed by any full domains or subdomains you’d like to block entirely (use extreme caution when doing this)
3. Comments on your link devaluation requests following a “#” character

As an example, the finished “disavow.txt” file you upload might look something like this:

Now, here comes the caveat emptor part of this article…
The first thing you need to know about reporting negative SEO attacks using the Google Disavow Links tool is that you can do some major damage to your site’s natural search performance if you accidentally misinterpret legitimate links as malicious in nature. If a suspicious-looking link is actually passing valuable PageRank to your site, requesting its removal may lower your rankings unnecessarily.
As such, you shouldn’t undertake this process unless you’ve actually experienced a negative impact in your site’s search performance (for example, a “bad links” warning within Google Webmaster Tools or a measurable decrease in SERPs rankings). While you shouldn’t wait until a competitor has tanked your rankings entirely, holding off until you have conclusive evidence of some negative effect occurring will minimize the chances that you overreact and remove otherwise valuable links.
(And even then, you’d be well-advised to consult with an SEO professional who can help you to conclusively determine which links are likely “diseased” and need to be disavowed versus those that simply look suspicious.)
In addition, be aware that Google hasn’t officially stated what effect reporting suspicious links will have on your site’s performance, so there’s no guarantee that using the Disavow Links tool will actually restore your pre-attack rankings. At this point, it’s best to think of it as one single tool that, along with others like the Google reconsideration request process, might help you to regain lost rankings over time.
While most webmasters will never experience negative SEO attacks, it’s important to monitor websites for evidence of this malicious practice, as prompt attention to perceived threats can mean the difference between minimal SERPs disruption and total business failure.
Though it’s unknown whether or not future Google algorithm changes will continue to foster an environment in which this type of attack can thrive, it’s important that all webmasters know the signs of a negative SEO attack, as well as what they can do to prevent harm from coming to their sites.

Source : How to Prevent Negative SEO

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