Creating buzz around a product on an external forum or blog can be very effective, especially if the blog is full of relevant links to deep product or service pages on the brand site. But it’s not always easy…

It’s also not hard – just time consuming, and you need to know what [...]

Two Frequently Asked Questions by SMEs
 

How do I make sure UGC is optimized and ranks well?
Are there strategies I can use to get the most out of my UGC from an SEO point of view?

The simple answer is that the optimal solution will likely be different for each business and/or site, but in [...]

While less than 9% of internet users contribute the majority of user generated content (UGC: Rubicon 2008), many people who use the internet on a regular basis have at one time or another contributed to the web in the form of a blog comment or product review – that’s UGC.
 

 
Online UGC is something that [...]

I went to the BazaarVoice Social Commerce Summit last week in Austin, TX – what a great city… It was the best conference from a pure learning’s perspective I have been to in ages, and I have to admit the party events they put on were stellar.
 
I only made it to the Bat Cruise [...]

I read one of the most thought provoking posts on social media use I have read in a long time today by Steven Hodson. I rarely if ever comment on blogs, so the fact that I nearly bored poor Steven to death with a ve..ee..ry long comment says quite a bit.
 
Before I go off on [...]

There is so much misunderstanding of these two terms, how they relate to each other, and which to target. I’m going to try to diffuse that dichotomy. 
 
It’s not a case of the chicken-before-the-egg or vice versa. They are two completely different disciplines, though each can benefit from the other much as SEO and paid search [...]

I was interviewed today by Global TV News Calgary. It was a terrifying experience. I can only be thankful that it wasn’t live, and for the discretion of the both the cameraman Danny and the reporter himself.
After over an hour of interview time the actual live segment was less than 6 minutes long, but the [...]

SMM needs input from a variety of sources. This post hopes to bring numerous diversely related thoughts together.

In some of our past articles there has been a good amount of discussion around twitter. People have been trading their twitter names, following and asking to be followed – it’s practically a social economy.
To make it a bit easier, I made a list of everyone with a twitter I could find in various discussions. [...]

This post is the second in a three part series and follows yesterday’s post on 4 Reasons Many Big Brands Downplay SEO.
 
In my opinion there is no better time, nor ever has there been a greater arena, for harnessing the consumer impulse associated with brand identity, than through the new web, the social web, the [...]