Although TweetDeck and HootSuite are still known as “Twitter clients,” these applications can do so much more than update your Twitter. They can manage multiple social media profiles, allow you to schedule your updates, monitor your link analytics, do your homework, and listen to your wife while you watch the Super Bowl.

The only issue with these “Everything Social Media Clients” is that there are two major clients to choose from: TweetDeck and HootSuite. Which should you use? Well lucky for you, I’m about to tell you.

Let’s get on with this showdown!

Round 1: User Interface

In the beginning, TweetDeck’s dark, sleek interface was more appealing than HootSuite’s browser-based application. Now, if you’re lucky enough to own a Mac, Smartphone, or iPad, you can download a HootSuite application of your very own.

TweetDeck App:

• Standalone application for PC, Mac, Smartphones, iPad.
• Column-based system: All of the social media profiles are viewed in one window, but in separate columns.

HootSuite App:

• Standalone application for Mac, Smartphones, iPad.
• Desktop applications via Chrome, Prism.
• Hootlet Firefox Add On.
• Tab-based system: Each social media profile has its own tab.

Summary: It is easier to keep track of multiple profiles in one window using TweetDeck, whereas you have to click to different tabs in HootSuite.  Also, adding an update with a URL is much easier in TweetDeck, which automatically shortens any URLs you type in the box. When doing the same thing in HootSuite, you have to input your URL into a separate field in order to shorten them.

Round 1 Winner: TweetDeck

Round 2: Scheduled Updates

Both TweetDeck and HootSuite provide the ability to schedule your updates. However, in order to use TweeDeck’s scheduler, you must create a TweetDeck account.

HootSuite’s update scheduling tool is slightly more sophisticated than the competitor’s tool. You can schedule your updates in bulk, receive updates once the update is sent, and you can schedule an update for more social media profiles (Twitter, Facebook, Facebook Pages, LinkedIn, MySpace, PingFm, WordPress, Foursquare, and Mixi).

Round 2 Winner: HootSuite

Round 3: Speed

This round has a clear winner – HootSuite is by far the faster client to use.  TweetDeck uses Adobe Air to function, therefore it is a massive resource hog.  HootSuite’s interface (both in the browser and the actual application) is very snappy and clean.

Round 3 Winner: HootSuite

Continue reading “TweetDeck VS HootSuite: The “Twitter Client” Showdown”

What is a meta description tag? It is a brief summary of a web page’s content and most often used by search engines to describe the page on a SERP (search engine results page).  The meta description tag appears between the clickable page title and the URL like so:

In the early days of web search, meta description tags played a significant role in search engine optimization.  They used to be one of the main factors in determining a site’s ranking.  Today, meta descriptions have little to no effect on ranking!  As far as search engines are concerned, a meta description tag is just that—a description.

Why waste time writing one then?  A new eye tracking study determined that searchers spend more time focusing on the description rather than the title or URL.  As you can see in the example above, Google “bolds” the keywords searched in the title, the URL, and the description.  So, the meta description tag serves as a powerful advertisement for your website.

Meta description tags won’t do much for your search engine ranking. But, writing a persuasive description will have great impact on your website’s click-through rate.  While meta description tags are not an effective SEO tool any longer, they provide valuable space for marketing calls-to-action.  Just think of them as the “prime real estate” of organic search results.  If done well, it may make the difference between users clicking your website versus the competition!

Using social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter to promote your brand and its corresponding site is a great idea – it provides a variety of ways to spread awareness and it is an effective marketing tool for your business. However, you should tread lightly when using Facebook to spread the good word online.

In a recent Coca-Cola Facebook campaign, what started out as a clever and entertaining way to be interactive with Facebook users ended in a lot of negative word of mouth and the potential fall of the marketing agency Coca-Cola used. The social media marketing plan’s goal was to promote Dr. Pepper on Facebook through the use of some clever programming. A program was designed to override the Facebook status box of an opted in user with entertaining, embarrassing quotes that were randomly chosen.

It went smoothly until an inappropriate quote (“What’s wrong with peeing in the shower?”) appeared on a 14-year-old girl’s profile page. The reference was to adult material that did not belong on an account associated with Facebook or Dr. Pepper… let alone the account of a 14-year-old child.

When the girl’s mother saw the status update in her account, she contacted Coca-Cola. “MrsRickman” (the mother’s username) submitted a complaint to the company … and as a response Coca Cola offered her free theater tickets and a hotel stay as an apology. Offended, MrsRickman took her complaint to a UK mom’s website. She received 1300 replies and caused quite a stir for Coca-Cola – so much so, that the marketing agency they used (Lean Mean Fighting Machine) is facing hard times ahead because of it.

According to New Media Age, Coca-Cola claims, ““We were unaware of the meaning of this line when the promotion was approved and have launched an investigation into why it was included. We take full responsibility and will be reviewing our promotional procedures.”

“We have stopped all our ongoing work with Lean Mean Fighting Machine and are reviewing our relationship with the agency. We will take all steps necessary to ensure this does not happen again.”

What you should take away from Coca-Cola’s debacle is this – it is good to become involved with your company’s profile page by updating it with media, statuses, and interacting with users. However, one needs to be diligent in protecting their company’s reputation and brand while employing social media marketing tactics. Any inappropriate status or media that’s posted for an adult audience could easily wind up being seen by minors… and then snowballing into a situation that will cause your company harm, no matter how many people are searching for your business because of the incident.

Read about some of the benefits of social media marketing.

Guest blogger: Megan Jeffery

The SEM community has been really generous in sharing it’s knowledge and expertise. There are many places where you can find viable tips and information to point you in the right direction. It can be a little overwhelming, as there is so much information out there, so I have complied a list a some of the sites, articles and blog posts that might be of help.

1.    Anita Campbell is the founder of Small Business Trends, and a great friend of TKG. She often speaks at TKG’s  Search Made Simple seminars. One of her recent blog posts included a “reading list” as it were. A compilation of a number of blog posts that are a great read for anyone using SEO to promote their site. This reading list was compiled by a panel of SEOs that presented a webinar for the Verizon Small Business Center on SEO  strategies for small business.

2.    Mashable.com promotes itself as “ The Social Media Guide”.  Several sections are devoted to “How To’s” and guidebooks for Facebook and Twitter. If you need help getting started in this area, this is a great place to find a tutorial on just about any social media application.

3.    SEOmoz.org has a remarkable number of tutorials and tools for anyone trying to increase the rankings for their site. The daily SEO blog and free tools make this site a regular stop in my daily browsing.

4.    The SEO Book of course has many tools and posts that you will find quite valuable in your efforts. The Link Building guide is very helpful, and  one of my favorite posts from this site is a link building article called 101 Ways to Build Link Popularity. It’s a bit on the older side, but still has a lot of really pertinent ideas.

5.    Any good SEO campaign starts with a great keyword list. But, perfecting that list can be daunting. Search Engine Land has a great blog post with every keyword generation tool you could ever want  – sweet! So hopefully you’ll end up with the appropriate phrases for each page you’re optimizing.

As always, TKG is here to answer any SEM questions you might have, so if you haven’t gotten quite what you were looking for in this list, drop us a line – we’d love to be your go-to resource!

I recently learned that Google Maps is doing away with the “community edit” option on local business listings. This is great news for business owners that have been fighting to keep their Google Maps listings spam-free and professional. Prior to this change, it was possible for anyone with a Google account to edit a business listing and the changes would automatically go live unchecked. This gave competitors, ex-employees, unhappy customers, etc the opportunity to “get even” with a business owner by making whatever changes they wished to a listing. These changes are to blame for false information which, for some, ended up costing companies that were affected a lot of business.

However, now any changes that are made will be manually checked by Google Maps staff to determine if the edits are correct or not. I am not sure how many edits Google will be reviewing or what their process is, but I would expect that there will be a few days lag between submitting edits and getting approval. Hopefully, the edits won’t take too long to approve! Business owners should sleep easier knowing that their listings are no longer at risk; just make sure that you claim your business listing! All of these new updates to Google Maps have left me wondering what they will think of next!

I wrote about TOPSEO’s earlier this month. Since I’m new to TKG, I asked around to see if we would’ve gotten involved with this organization years ago and the consensus was “no.” So I spent some time on the site to determine how our content could have made it onto the site. Just by looking at our profile and seeing the character encoding errors, it is likely that the content was scraped from other sources. We’re pretty thorough professionals here at The Karcher Group. If someone from within our company submitted company information and a case study, I would expect them to have noticed the wacky character errors before having it published. There is little doubt that we would have let this pass, especially if this was a paid listing.

Take a look at our company profile listing:

Notice the yellow highlighted character encoding issues.

It looks as if they scraped the content from ClevelandSEO.com (a reputable local organization that we affiliate ourselves with).

Earth to TKG – Contacting Ourselves

I attempted to send a lead to TKG from our TOPSEO’s company profile. I clicked a button that clearly stated: Contact The Karcher Group:

Note how the text reads.

After clicking the link, a modal window popped up with a contact form. Once again, the heading read “Contact the Karcher Group.”

Personal details blurred out, but notice the heading once again.

I entered my personal email address, my personal phone number, and a message that read:

I’d like someone from the Karcher Group to call me ASAP. I need help with a $500k project with LeBron James. Thanks!

After submitting the form, I was taken to a confirmation screen that once again acknowledged that the email was sent to The Karcher Group:

My original intent for this whole test was to see how TOPSEO’s would go about contacting TKG. Would they send the company an email through our sales email address? Would they try to call us? Would I get a response to my personal email address? I was a little surprised with what happened next…

I received an email from a local web marketing company, SageRock. The email reads as follows:

Hello,

My name is Sage Lewis. I’m the president of SageRock… a leading Web Marketing agency located in Akron Ohio. We’ve been doing high end Web marketing since 1999.

I’m involved with TopSeos.com. That’s how I got your message.

Is it possible that I might be able to help you?

Thank you,
Sage Lewis

http://www.sagerock.com

Conclusions

From a client perspective, it would be frustrating to think you’re contacting one company when they reiterate it over and over again, only to receive a response from another company. Users should be able to trust TOPSEO’s because they call themselves an “Independent Authority on Search Vendors.” But when they pass your details on to another company, how can you trust them to be “independent?”

There is a rumor circulating that Google is taking Street View off the streets and bringing it inside of businesses. Oh Nuts, a nut and candy shop, tipped off SearchEngineLand with news that a Google photographer came into the New York City store and took pictures of products, displays, etc. This could allow users to shop before they even reach a store – talk about planning ahead! Another bonus is that businesses listed on Google with this new feature should expect to gain some publicity and, ultimately, an increase in visitors. That is especially important in this economy – businesses need all of the help they can get!

It is important to take this news with a grain of salt; no other businesses have claimed that Google approached them with the new feature. Why would Google contact a small candy store in NYC before any other businesses? It seems fishy to me that Google didn’t start with big, well-known brands; I mean there are plenty of those in the Big Apple. Terrence O’Brien from Switched.com also noted that the Google photographer was “lugging around a pretty standard looking camera on a tripod” not the 360-degree camera that Google Street View is known for. There is plenty of mystery surrounding this story, but Google is so far staying quiet. No statements have been issued and no questions have been answered.

I guess all we can do is wait…. and hope

President Barack Obama gave his first State of The Union Address to the nation on Wednesday night. During the live broadcast and for a long while after, the #SOTU (State of The Union) hashtag and several other related phrases were trending topics on Twitter. The President has his own Twitter feed @BarackObama that had live updates with direct quotes from his address to the nation and to Congress.

During the State of The Union Address, I kept an eye on Twitter through my phone. There were several quotes I wanted to Tweet, but I had trouble typing them and paying attention to what he was saying. I thought I had found a solution to the problem: the @BarackObama Twitter feed. However, to my dismay, I was unable to RT (retweet) his posts because of the 140 character limit. I’m not a fan of the new RT features on Twitter and I’m not alone. Very few people that I follow employ the new retweet feature. The new retweet feature is confusing to those seasoned Twitter users who are used to the original retweet, “RT @mikehalvorsen blah.” In addition to this, the new RT feature does not allow additional comments, such as “I love USA RT @BarackObama I never said change would be easy…”

At the end of his address, I checked out the Twitter feed on my desktop and to my shock, almost all of the Tweets made from his account during the address were near the 140 character limit. Out of 12 Tweets posted during the State of The Union Address, only two were RT-able using the old school retweet method.

For anyone using Twitter as a way to spread their brand or message, you must cover all bases. If you want your message to be spread around the Twittersphere, you must fully understand its limitations 140 characters at a time.

For those in charge of handling Barack Obama’s Twitter account and that of The White House, give us a call at 1-800-310-0317 for free Social Media consulting. Make sure you ask for me.

For the last several years, businesses have been looking to the web for less expensive advertising & marketing options.  With the current state of the economy, local businesses are now investigating online opportunities  & jumping on the local search bandwagon!

“With yellow pages being out of date before they’re even off the printing press, it’s no surprise that Local Search on the Web has taken the place of dusty old “yellows” as the preferred method for finding local products and services. “

Some benefits of local search include:

• increased Search Engine visibility
• increased local traffic to the site
• inexpensive local visibility & awareness
• increased traffic to your local brick & mortar business

“When it comes to Web Marketing, local businesses actually have certain advantages over businesses with a national presence.  Instead of having to compete on a national scale, local businesses can focus their web marketing efforts on a more targeted geographic area and even find success a bit easier.”

Read about how local search works, best practices and tips on how to integrate social marketing into your local web marketing strategies.

As some people feel their way through the sometimes confusing world of marketing and SEO, it may make sense to think of SEO as GREEN marketing! I know people are probably already tired of hearing “green” this and “green” that, but let’s think about this: traditional marketing uses an awful lot of resources, both natural and man powered.  Television commercials that aim to reach a tiny percentage of their viewing audience cost thousands, if not millions of dollars to produce. They use a lot of energy, from production to the actual broadcasting of the commercial. Much the same can be said about a radio spot, they cost money and natural resources to produce, and broadcast, with a very small ROI.

Do you get the Sunday paper? I enjoy looking at all the ads, but almost never rush right out and make a purchase based on what I saw in one of them.  I may clip the occasional coupon, but many times loose track of it before I get a chance to redeem it. But I throw away stacks of ads. I know, I know,  we should be recycling them, but even when they are recycled, they still take an environmental toll. All the paper, ink, expense, energy to create and print.  Thrown out with the trash, or somehow recycled into another throw-away product. Same can be said for all the local ad magazines that arrive on your doorstep.

On and on it will go, flyers, pamphlets, those nifty marketing postcards that  you spend lots of money designing and mailing.

I’m not trying to bash traditional marketing tools, because some of them work. They are costly, but they can bring  some customers through the door. So why not market your company in a new, greener fashion?  What I am getting at, in a roundabout way, is the fact that SEO and Search Marketing are more cost effective, targeted, and actually great for the environment! An email ad campaign produces no real paper to throw away.  A special  such as free shipping, with a code to punch into your keyboard is not a coupon you have to clip and loose, or end up in the trash heap.  SEO and SEM focus on the customers that are trying to find you, rather than blanketing the population of the tri-state area with flyers, hoping 20 people will come in on tenterhooks hoping to win a car with a magic plastic key (are those keys even recyclable?), and talk 4 or 5 of them into purchasing a certified pre-owned vehicle.

Instead, how about optimizing your already existing site for the specials or products you would like to promote? Get some good advice, optimize your pages for the phrases most likely to draw prospective buyers to your site.  Offer free or reduced shipping, or some other incentive. While good SEO does cost money, the ROI is much higher than traditional marketing, and the cost to our environment is much lower. Everyone wants to “go green” and many of today’s consumers are very aware of what companies have “green” policies and products. Make a point of mentioning your green policies on your site! The same people who use the web to shop for goods and services are many of the same people who are conscious of the choices they make and how they affect the world around us. Don’t have a site? Well, I am sure you have customers who have searched for you online, just in the expectation that you would have one.

Why not make 2009 the year you take your company, and your marketing GREEN!