“Fun” and “run” have never belonged in the same sentence, as far as I’m concerned.  I just shake my head when I see a “Fun Run” advertised.  For me, running is daunting and that first mile can be brutal. But runners will tell you that if you gut it out and focus on technique, you will overcome the initial pain and find that it is actually replaced by pleasure.  I find this analogous to Social Media Marketing.  You may have attended a seminar in which you were told that you are missing out on a significant opportunity if you don’t jump on the Social Media bandwagon today.  But that first mile is overwhelming.  Where do I start?  What should I focus my time on?  How does all this socializing turn into business? Over 98% of every blog that’s been started has been abandoned for this very reason.  Facebook and Twitter pages suffer the same fate. Business owners need a social media running partner and that’s where WSI comes in.

Taking advantage of social media to maximize business results doesn’t necessarily mean you have to spend all day Tweeting or catching up on Facebook.  In fact, we find that 95% of our clients do not have the time to blog on a regular basis, much less spend time on Twitter or LinkedIn.  Over the last 2 years, we have developed a social media formula that places the onus on WSI, the social media experts, to do the heavy lifting while the business owner addresses social media from the 10,000-foot level.  One way we do this is through Social Media Optimization (SMO). SMO involves using a network of social bookmarking and social news portals like Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon, and others to post content and links about the business in an effort to drive people and search engines back to the business website.  We also use blogging to turn the company website into an information resource through a strategy we call Content Marketing. At least weekly, we write and post articles on the site blog and then immediately syndicate the content to approximately 100,000 potential visitors. Search engines pick up and index this information very quickly make it possible to be found in regular searches, driving in even more traffic.

The results have been staggering.  Many of our clients enjoy a dramatic lift in traffic to their sites.  Additionally, they see a linear increase in leads and sales from the site.  By gutting out the first mile of a consistent and calculated social media plan, businesses are able to outpace their competitors and enjoy the rewards of competing in the social media race.  With WSI as their running partner, it just might be a “Fun Run” after all.

Every item or part of a comprehensive search engine marketing solution can be learned by anyone willing to spend the time to do so. The problem is, doing so is incredibly time-consuming. The algorithms that govern the search engine's organic rankings change constantly (hundreds of times per year). The major PPC platforms go through what seems like an endless string of revolutions. Social media sites are still in their infancy and as they become more mature, so will the tactics required to leverage them. Developing proficiency in each area of search engine marketing takes an enormous amount of time and dedication.

An SEM expert will design a search engine optimization campaign that pushes your website to the top rankings for your chosen keywords. They can also launch a pay-per-click, PPC, advertising campaign that further improves your exposure. Social media marketing tactics can be integrated to complement the rest of your search engine marketing solution. Even though you could launch these strategies yourself, do you have the time to learn and apply them?