Haven’t read this Viral marketing document yet from Facebook but if you are using facebook pages, you may well be interested in the Facebook Pages Insider Guide to Viral Marketing.

Having appropriate links to your website can only be a good thing… or can it?

The idea is that the more relevant links you have coming into your website the more authority you have.

About five years ago, the main strategy for building links was for webmasters to swap links (reciprocal linking) . I wasn’t doing it myself but I got the odd e-mail to some of my sites along the lines of, “If I link to you, will you link to me?” So, you ended up with lots of websites with ‘links’ pages. The problem is that so many of these ‘reciprocal’ links simply weren’t relevant.

Of course, search engines rely on giving good results so their criteria for who they place at the top of their search engines, as their algorithms have improved, has become more focussed around the basics - quality and relevance.

They still put a lot of emphasis on incoming links, as well as out going links, but the quality of the sites you are connected to can also help or damage your own reputation.

And, arguably, it doesn’t stop there, with the search engines creating the connections once, twice, or more times removed, ie. the site that’s linking to the site that’s linking to you, could affect your ranking.

For instance, if you have a reference article from an industry magazine website this could be good, depending on the anchor text and general content of the site. Compare this to a link from a spammy website (with low page ranking) about something off-topic.

No following

Some websites have got around this, in terms of their external linking, by using a tag called No follow (looks like this). It tells a search engine not to take the link juice with it when it follows the link, hence, not adding weight to the target page.

This stops people trying to abuse links.

Laws of attraction

With the advent of user generation through blogging and social networking, a more effective link building strategy now in my opinion is in content generation, with the added bonus that the search engines love new fresh content.

Here, we are talking Blogging, article writing and any aspect of your website, including tools and games, that ‘attract’ people - both physcially, in terms of visitors, and arguably more importantly, through links.

The one key important thing to remember is your website goals and traffic funnel.

Via All Facebook comes a Compete profile for August for the social networking site of the moment. I am playing with Groups at the moment but obvsiously, people being people, the voyeuristic journey takes over.

My belief is, in terms of marketing online, creating the happy accident of discovery for your group is one part of the equation, the other being to offer members of that group a reason to stick with you, potentially buy from you, but more importantly increase the chance of more ‘happy accidents’ of discovery.

I had a conversation with a disgruntled website owner today. His website used to deliver him traffic and business a couple of years ago but one fine day, Goggle made a big change to their search algorithm with Jagger it changed everything for him.

His ranking slipped, and his once competitive website began to slip. We built a new one for him but to no avail, the traffic is becoming harder to come by.

This highlights two major points for me:

1. Relying on a search engine for your business is a dangerous thing. Companies have tried (and failed) to sue Google when these things happen but their business is not yours - we all need to become less reliant on one source of traffic.
2. Search, and the internet in general, is become ever more competitive. Bigger players are entering the market with larger resources. SEO is so mainstream now, a new ‘edge’ needs to be found - with a more diversified approach to relevant markets.

It can be done but it takes hard work. Small niche businesses are thriving on the web but are maybe too reliant on search, a problem larger eTailors don’t seem to have.

So, that gives us content, and content propagation. ie. Write some good relevant articles and then tell the world about them. Social sites (such as Digg, Del.icio.us, etc. all the way through to Facebook) are good for this or you could try buying into some Directories. Of course, you could try making your own site more social and, if you are a small business, or one man band, you could, yourself, become more social online.

An interesting development for Facebook group as Techcrunch reports the coming introduction of being able to sort your friends into groups and send appropriate messages to them:

It shows the steady maturity of Facebook from a college network to a full on world network, where friendships, business contacts, family and other types of relationships need to be more fully described. And this is also as much about privacy as it is about organization - users will be able to limit the information that certain friend groups receive

I am trying my first foray into group messaging with Facebook today with the Truly Scrumptious Group. The owner Claire Killick (my wife) is already reporting that people are actually booking appointments by messaging her in Facebook. As the Facebook messaging becomes more comprehensive, there is every chance it could become the e-mail application of choice for many people.

Of course, it needs to fit the profile of customers. I can’t see it working for [say] a ball bearing manufacturer.

That said, with the right business model, and with the news of friends sorting, there is even more value in being able to target messages to specific groups of people, if you can sort them easily and quickly, ie. customers, prospects, suppliers, friends, etc. and, as a small business, the low cost of zero makes it a worthwhile marketing tool to explore. More to follow…

I am dying to try the Facebook Flyer Pro advertising with a chance to set some targeted adverts on Facebook and only pay for the click-throughs. Starting at approx 5p per click (10¢) it seems a great platform to experiment with.

Facebook Flyer Pro allows for a different type of targeted advert than Google pay-per-click (currently) inasmuch that is profile related rather than search ‘keyword’ related’ (see diagram).

The problem is, and it’s a known problem (I had a reply to my querying e-mail), the Facebook system simply won’t accept a credit card coming up with a ‘field entry’ error on the entry page - one after the other - and I know my card is okay.

I am assuming it’s a UK problem as Rod on Innovation Creators talks about his experience with the platform (he might not have used Pro but I can’t get that to work either).

Come on Facebook - sort it out - I have dollars to give you.

Honest, I do know this stuff but I’ve had a massive wake-up call this week. Don’t get me wrong - I get it - I just haven’t been doing it very well.

When it comes to social networking and, with so many social tools at hand, I get the whole idea of talking about stuff and linking, but I was missing one important key… I wasn’t been very sociable with my social networking.

The point is, with social networking, that it’s all about people connecting - not websites, blogs and Myspace pages.

Since I restarted my Blog a couple of weeks ago, I have discovered that I can actually speak to people when I put my mind to it and, people tend to speak back - a real two-way conversation and a growing network to boot.

MyBlogLog has helped me do this quite quickly but a bit of interacting through e-mail, pro-actively seeking out like-minded people through sites and a little bit of commenting on blogs, has actually helped me in a number of ways (and I am sure the same could happen to you):

1. I’ve found people who understand my commercial frustrations - the empathy is very soothing. Some agree and some open my eyes to different (intelligent) viewpoints that make me have a better understanding of my trade.
2. Through these people, I am finding more people as my net spreads wider - take point (1) and multiply.
3. People are finding me (see point (2) and flip the process).

You don’t have to be a geek to do this, you just need to work at it and get stuck in. You’ll make mistakes, like I did (and continue to do) and you’ll work out the way social media sites and networking can benefit you, and, not just from a business sense either.

My wife runs a beauty salon in Farnborough. It’s a business I really love and I do the website and online marketing.

When it comes to Facebook, I have never really seen the value until she recently created a group for her salon and invited her friends to join. She also managed to find a few of her clients on Facebook and invited them to join too.

It’s worth mentioning that her client-base are potential Facebook users, which helps, and she has managed to get 69 members so far. She has also created an event already and invited her members to attend.

Now Facebook may well be a fad. It may also be causing a stir in terms of privacy at the moment and face a back-lash, but from a small business point of view, creating a growing audience of members in less than two weeks (at a cost of £0.00) has value for any small retail business.

In a world where leveraging a quality client-base has more value than attracting an ongoing stream of new clients for short-term gain, Facebook does offer a real opportunity at the moment.

Group members will soon be having updates about:

• Events happening at the salon
• Monthly offers
• Discussions and links to treatments
• Links to blog posts and “How to” videos

Of course, these people are in control of the messaging, they can always leave the group. The key is two-fold:

1. Don’t abuse their trust by “overselling”
2. Give them a reason to have joined with personalised offers

The very way Facebook works, should also see new (relevant) people joining by association - watch this space.