Social Media Catalyst

Individual-level Density
The degree a respondent’s ties know one another/ proportion of ties among an individual’s nominees. Network or global-level density is the proportion of ties in a network relative to the total number possible (sparse versus dense networks).

Flow betweenness centrality
The degree that a node contributes to sum of maximum flow between all pairs of nodes (not that node).

Eigenvector centrality
A measure of the importance of a node in a network. It assigns relative scores to all nodes in the network based on the principle that connections to nodes having a high score contribute more to the score of the node in question.

Local Bridge
An edge is a local bridge if its endpoints share no common neighbors. Unlike a bridge, a local bridge is contained in a cycle.

Path Length
The distances between pairs of nodes in the network. Average path-length is the average of these distances between all pairs of nodes.

Prestige
In a directed graph prestige is the term used to describe a node’s centrality. “Degree Prestige”, “Proximity Prestige”, and “Status Prestige” are all measures of Prestige.

Radiality
Degree an individual’s network reaches out into the network and provides novel information and influence.

Reach
The degree any member of a network can reach other members of the network.
Structural cohesion. The minimum number of members who, if removed from a group, would disconnect the group.

Structural equivalence
Refers to the extent to which nodes have a common set of linkages to other nodes in the system. The nodes don’t need to have any ties to each other to be structurally equivalent.
Structural hole Static holes that can be strategically filled by connecting one or more links to link together other points. Linked to ideas of social capital: if you link to two people who are not linked you can control their communication.

If you want to boost your online business then you must have a good website. You must have a website that looks superb and attracts visitors and customers. Frankly speaking, most of the visitors prefer the websites having easy layout and access of all things at one look. That is why; website design makes one of the significant elements for internet marketing and business.

Thus what is it that makes a good and profitable web design? Well, the answer for this can be that an effective website design is user-friendly and SEO friendly. These both points must be adequately impregnated into the making and processing of a website.

Features of SEO friendly web design:

Content Management: Content should be unique, attractive and very much relevant. Content makes a great impact on the minds of visitors hence it should be written in the interest of customers and upon the focuses of your website.

User-Friendly: Website must have user-friendly features that makes browsing and navigation easy along with less time consuming.

Presentation: In the times of Web 2.0, presentations and looks have been the key for internet marketing. Presentation involves everything that is graphics, textures, colors, tones and so on.

Technical Aspects: HTML coding, graphic designs, flash, multimedia, alignments and other things combine together to create a unique web design.

Importance of SEO Friendly Web designs:
Better Visibility at the Search Engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN etc.
Popularity and help in building a unique brand image
Direct interaction with visitors and potential customers
Good and Entertaining presentation attracts visitors’ attention

According to the modern Internet trends, SEO friendly web design is must to enhance one’s online business. Get it as soon as possible.

Betweenness:
The extent to which a node lies between other nodes in the network. This measure takes into account the connectivity of the node’s neighbors, giving a higher value for nodes which bridge clusters. The measure reflects the number of people who a person is connecting indirectly through their direct links.

Bridge
An edge is said to be a bridge if deleting it would cause its endpoints to lie in different components of a graph.

Centrality
This measure gives a rough indication of the social power of a node based on how well they “connect” the network. “Betweenness”, “Closeness”, and “Degree” are all measures of centrality.

Centralization
The difference between the number of links for each node divided by maximum possible sum of differences. A centralized network will have many of its links dispersed around one or a few nodes, while a decentralized network is one in which there is little variation between the number of links each node possesses.

Closeness
The degree an individual is near all other individuals in a network (directly or indirectly). It reflects the ability to access information through the “grapevine” of network members. Thus, closeness is the inverse of the sum of the shortest distances between each individual and every other person in the network.

Clustering coefficient
A measure of the likelihood that two associates of a node are associates themselves. A higher clustering coefficient indicates a greater ‘cliquishness’.

Cohesion
The degree to which actors are connected directly to each other by cohesive bonds. Groups are identified as ‘cliques’ if every individual is directly tied to every other individual, ‘social circles’ if there is less stringency of direct contact, which is imprecise, or as structurally cohesive blocks if precision is wanted.

Degree
The count of the number of ties to other actors in the network. This may also be known as the “geodesic distance”.

(Source: Wikipedia.com)

Let us have a look at the keyword research and analysis phase, the performance parameters of the keyword w.r.t the website traffic.

Once you have finalized your SEO service provider, you need to understand your requirement including the target audience for your website, objective etc. Based on this there will be an in-depth audit that will take place in your website for which the measurable parameters is discussed in the earlier part but implementing the suggestions put-forth by the provider depends on the package/agreement that you have with the service provider. The next phase in the process is the keyword research and analysis and their measurable parameters:

Keyword Research and Analysis: The success of a SEO process depends on the keywords targeted for the website which is the single most important process in driving the right audience to the website through SEO. During this process the provider will first finalize on the pages to be targeted after which they would work on the possible combination of the keyword phrases that can be targeted for the pages. Once it has been finalized, it will be sent for your review and make sure you analyze the keywords suggested using the below tools,

Google Keyword Tool – Make sure you insert the list of keywords provided to find its,
• Local Search Volume
• Global Monthly Search Volume
• Search Volume Trends
• Highest Volume Occurred (month)

These details will give you an idea about the keyword and its effectiveness. In addition to the above details, the tool would suggest various other alternate keywords which might also be considered.

Google Insights: With this tool you can find the search volume patter across specific regions, categories, time frame and properties. You have options to filter based on the search engine, year, location and category.

The above tools will give you some info about the list of keywords targeted in the process however in addition to the above the SEO provider will be using various other tools and would do an in-depth analysis on the keywords used by your competitors. It is always a good practice to coordinate with the SEO provider and do a complete round of review on the keywords until you are satisfied but make sure that you don’t command them instead listen to what they say and decide.

The most important factor here is prior to the process ensuring that you provide your complete requirement with all detailed information.

Converting a lead is never an easy job for the sales person in any industry with no 100% guaranteed results and even if you guarantee people will come up with a link saying that “No one can guarantee results” how come you? But still the industry is getting more and more clients with great potential. If you are thinking of an industry that would best match with above phrases, yes you are right it is SEO industry.

The first process that most of the SEOs would do is carry out a simple audit in the website to understand its indexing status, link popularity, traffic stats, rank etc.
Once the above process is completed an in-depth analysis will be carried out in the website. This is a list of suggestions to make the website search engine friendly.

Website Design: An effective SEO audit would start with analyzing the website design to find whether the design is search engine friendly i.e.: all the links, content, images etc are search engine crawlable.

URL Structure: The process starts from identifying the canonicalisation in the website. Then this would lead to the URL structure analysis to find whether the website URL is search engine friendly. If this is not the case, we need to make sure that we optimize the URL structure targeting the keywords.

Niche Specific: The advanced audit process includes analyzing the products displayed in an ecommerce website. This includes competitive analysis in pricing, products, coupons and more. This tends to vary based on the website niche and target. A detailed product audit includes the analysis on the navigation path, images, content, pricing, reviews etc. In case of a travel website this would vary to analysis over a booking process etc. These suggestions are vital which play a major role in the website conversion.

The above details are some of the examples how an SEO based website audit will be carried out. This is mainly focused to ensure,
• Search Engine Friendliness
• Conversion Rate Improvement

These points will go a long way in ensuring that the SEO campaign is successful.

Twitter has suddenly become a rage in the social networking world. Starting a blog is easy but putting up a post on it seems difficult. Even more difficult to make sure that people read it and for that it has to be interesting. If you are not a celebrity, it is remotely possible that your every day would be eventful. Then what could you write on your blog. Micro-blogging comes to your rescue. Twitter has helped people in that.

Thus what is that that people use twitter for:

1. Keeping I touch with friends
2. Updating your status message
3. Find news
4. for search
5. for fun

Twitter has helped people be aware of what is happening with the lives of their friends and business colleagues. Celebrities are using it as a PR exercise to make people understand what a celebrity’s life is like.

Twitter is indeed Value-Adding, but not ultimately disruptive

Twitter is similar to the user “Status” features on Facebook. Many features and notifications on Facebook are able to be extended to mobile devices. Even though Status isn’t among that group, it could be. If Facebook were to extend Status to mobile devices it would duplicate the functionality of Twitter within the context of a more robust social networking platform and give it an instant user group of 18 million people.

I bring up Facebook because Twitter faces a wall in the adoption curve between early adopters and the early majority. The appeal of Twitter isn’t disruptive enough to convince mainstream technology users to adopt it. It is limited to the demographic of tech enthusiasts who already use Web 2.0 tools and services.

Twitter’s biggest contribution to the development of social technology will not be its widespread adoption, but rather its demonstration of the value and nuances of persistent presence. The lessons learned from a case study of Twitter can be applied, implemented, observed in other social platforms already in widespread use like Facebook; Myspace etc

The principles of Twitter will surely be absorbed by other platforms.

A six year analysis of Internet Activity Index was conducted. Can you guess which of the five areas (Commerce, Communications, Community, Content and Search) has grown the most—and which has shrunk?
The most surprising results actually aren’t in Community and Communications. Yes, email (i.e. Communications is down), the only area to fall over those six years. And Community is up, largely because it wasn’t being tracked in 2003.

No, the big winner here looks to be content sites and search. Percentage wise, search has actually grown the most, with a 111% increase in time spent on site over the 2003 numbers—but the raw numbers aren’t nearly so impressive.

Note, too, that total Internet time has increased 59% in those three years. Content sites now receive the most time on site (over half total Internet time), but communications is still the No. 2 activity. Community sites get one sixth of our online time.

I find the label “Communications” versus “Community” interesting. Most people, I find, are on community sites to communicate—whether with one friend or as many people as possible. Taken that way, the combined total time on those categories is 7 hours and 55 minutes—which beats content sites.

What do you think? Have you seen a decrease in communications and email, or do you think that’s kind of a false distinction from community sites? The point I feel thought is that you cannot compare email to social networking since they do not do the same jobs. The most important thing which makes email a winner over social networking is that attachments cannot be transferred over social network sites.

Nowadays it is a fashion statement to be on Facebook or twitter or any other social networking website. So if you’re a Twitterer or a Facebooker, do you have something of value to say or we are just following the herd? Are we doing any value addition so as to help broaden the mindset of your followers with your information?
For me the social networking scene is good for my business, but am I contributing enough for others in my circle?
When the Facebook platform first became popular, it was primarily with college students who socialized about things that interested them: parties test scores, campus events, etc. After a while (like these days), you can find a lot more diversified audience of moms, freelancers and a host of businesses who connect to their own websites and product lines. According to Facebook’s statistics page, there are now over 200 million users on Facebook and that is a lot of people who have something to say!
With Twitter, it’s quite flattering to get a “ding” in your inbox announcing that someone is “now following you on Twitter.” We never tire or get bored with reading who’s following you because we want to learn more about them. I think that’s one component of Twitter that’s pretty good. And since Twitter responses are more succinct than Facebook’s (generally speaking), when you Tweet, you better be sure to have something to say, say it quickly (or succinctly), and move on. But what if you are of the ‘know-it-all types and like to explain things in detail?
These are only two social networks that I’ve mentioned, but there are countless more with new ones popping up all of the time. They certainly are here to stay, but are you as an individual, a business person or a corporate representative getting any value from those sites? Are you finding that they enhance your business knowledge, or do you find that you’re trudging through a lot of unnecessary information to get to the pearls? The answers to these questions will decide whether you add value to others or not.

6) Risk of the unknown. Human conversations are great; you never know where they will turn. For companies that are very logical, planned and methodical there are some elements of the unknown. One thing is for sure, the more you get involved with a conversation in the start, the less risk you’ll have over time.

7) Social Media goes deep in the organization. This tool will change how executives communicate to employees and the public. Support teams will start to engage customers using social media, Middle Management will integrate these tools into program plans, and the rank and file will often be first generation adopters, it’s often bottom up and distributed. Social media is already beginning to be a line item in the 2007 budget.

8. Social Media goes wide in the organization. It’s not just about marketing or PR, the Internet, Extranet and the Intranet will be impacted. You can reduce support costs; build better products with engineering in near-real time. Decrease the sales cycle through education, and even reduce recruiting costs and attract the top talent. This web by nature is global, there are more Chinese internet users than all of North America, and for some time, Japanese is a more common language in blogs than English.

9) Social Media spans time. Savvy companies are learning how to use these tools across all phases of the customer life cycle. Awareness, engagement, education, pitches, negotiation, deployment, support, product research, customer feedback, market and competitive intelligence, and then repeats. This public conversation will be archived through as long as the internet is accessible. Google is the memory.

10) Social Media is neither magic nor voodoo. Use these tools to open and reach out, use these great web tools to reach and connect to customers, everyone can contribute. Learn the tools, experiment internally.

Evolution of social media:

2006 was about “What is social media” and “Why does it matter”. Business blogging, flogs, podcasting and second life were the hot topics.
2007 is about “How do I deploy social media”. Companies will start to integrate Social Media up and down and side to side in the organization, both externally as well as internally.
2008 was about how I get in touch with my customers directly for feedback and help in innovations.
2009 was about using social mass media like facebook, Orkut, twitter into the fold.

Social Media (Blogs, Forums, Wikis, Podcasts, Video blogs and other tools) are appearing in every industry.

Below are some strategies for 2010:

1) Social Media is about people. Customers and Prospects and Partners are connecting, sharing and growing with each other, never forget this. Do it authentically, openly, and knowing the world is watching. Prospects trust consumers more than you, now they are talking to each other using Social Media tools.

2) Communities are the goal, conversations are the verb. Social Media can be used to reach and connect with customers, you can participate in communities. Obvious outputs of this community are the digital and real life conversations that will manifest. You can read, join, and even measure those conversations, this is your currency.

3) Let go to gain more. The participants of these tools are in charge; typically customers are using these tools long before corporate types do. Thereby, you must participate to be in charge. The more a corporation controls the less effective this will be.

4) Measurement will be important. It will be important to measure the interaction between people. Such terms such as Engagement, Participation, and Attention are rising. Qualitative responses that happen are what is important, not page views or downloads. Teach executives that Web Marketing has left the corporate .com site and has now spread globally and to small islands of conversations.

5) Organize internally. As much focus on internal communication about community should empower a fast, coordinated response. Some employees will be more passionate about one area over others, reward them, and support them.