Seems like there’s a constant slew of g…

Seems like there’s a constant slew of great posts about what works (and what doesn’t) on Facebook and Facebook Pages (like this one: 5 Things That Don’t Work on Facebook Pages), but what’s missing is the analysis of “why”…

But the why is just not that hard… at least no harder than the why behind Search Engine Optimization, which is why I’m so intrigued by this concept of Networking Engine Optimization (NEO). And after presenting the idea of NEO to audiences in Atlanta and Portland in the last few days, as well as the numerous conversations whose opinions I respect, I’m more convinced than ever that savvy internet marketing people are already thinking this way, we’re just missing the appropriate language. As things settle down next week, I’m definitely hoping to explore this some more!

But in the meantime, would love your thoughts on how a better understanding of the algorithms being the major social networks (twitter, facebook, etc.) could help us improve the content we create…

8 responses

  1. Unfortunately I know nothing about algorithms, which does not change the fact, that Facebook pages which refuse to work are very frustrating…

    1. Max: How are they not working for you?

  2. For me, social media (to include facebook, of course) is a way to extend my marketing strategies, not the sole effort. I’d love to hear more about this NEO and how to best implement that to support my main site. Thanks for the post.

    1. I’ll definitely be posting more about NEO in the near future… I presented the idea to a group of real estate agents earlier today and got everyone nodding along. It’s an idea that seems to make sense to most when I present it, but not sure I’ve figured out enough to get people super excited…. yet!

  3. After talking about this with you the other day, and overhearing a conversation today about how Facebook’s “post quality” is related to the amount of time spent reading each post (which as we know is not correct), I’m more intrigued than ever to try to figure out exactly what Facebook is using to come up with their post quality score.

    You’d think there would be more information out there on what it is, and how it’s calculated, but there’s very little from what I’ve seen. Of course, FB isn’t just going to release the secret algorithm so that we can all game the system, but come on, throw us a bone here!

    We should dig into this a little deeper next time you’re in town, and maybe do some training on it. Judging by some of the conversations I heard today, it is much needed!
    -Jeff

    1. Agreed completely Jeff! Let’s definitely dive in a bit deeper soon. Maybe I’ll even record me giving a brief explanation of it since that’s when I seem to get the most people interested!

  4. Dustin, when it comes to SEO or NEO I think we are in the midst of a constantly moving target, which those of us who are marketing geeks really love. Let’s face it, we are thriving and thoroughly enjoying the challenge of leaving our competition behind while building successful businesses that reject the traditional stuffy ways of doing business. We are the new entrepreneurs. With that in mind, I believe that we are also all about being the solution to the needs of consumers. Rich content is the key, and it will be optimized whether we call it SEO or now expand that to NEO with the growth of social media like Facebook and Twitter. I believe that the abbreviated social media will be tools to connect and socialize while the content-rich blogs and websites back on the farm will be the source of our knowledge and substantive resources. One author calls of these places “social media,” but they do have different functions. One could argue that SEO and NEO are themselves driven by different sub-algorithms, and the techniques for optimizing one are different than optimizing the other. I am certain Google views it this way. If our goal is to connect with others who help us enrich our lives (in business that means more money), then we need to master the tools within their respective niches. If we can do that, I think there is a synergy that exceeds the sum of the parts. Right now, many are good at blogging while other are good at the mini-social media sites. The masters of business in my humble opinion, will master both. It will be like speaking English well, Spanish well, and dabbling in Russian. Sort of.

    1. Chuck: thanks for the insight… I agree with just about everything you say, although I’m not sure I’d put such a strong importance on the distinction between blogging and social media. I’ve been finding it much more useful to make a distinction between the audience you’re trying to reach with the various tools… and most simply, that means are you trying to market directly to consumers, or your referral network. The biggest mistakes I see people make are using tools that are awesome for referral networking to reach consumers directly.

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