Tandem Interactive Furthers their Trendy Online Marketing Solutions at the 2016 Pubcon SFIMA Masters Group Training Session

Team Tandem is always a major part of not only Pubcon, but also the South Florida Interactive Marketing Association (SFIMA), attending all events and lending our volunteer services in any way possible. Part of what makes Tandem so great is our commitment to evolving as the world of digital marketing inevitably transforms.

Yesterday, the 2016 Pubcon SFIMA Summit began with Masters Training Sessions that included four workshop tracks to choose from: SEO Organic Traffic Optimization with Tandem Interactive’s President Joe Laratro with Bill Hunt and Eric Enge, Social Media Campaigns with Jabez LeBret, Lisa Buyer and Melissa Fach, Paid Search with Brad Geddes and Frederick Vallaeys, and Social Media Advertising with Dennis Yu and Larry Kim.

The Social Media Campaigns track that I sat in covered social media 2016 for business, visual and videos on social, social on mobile, analytics for social, influence and hacks, optimization and planning essentials and tools, as well as covered best practices for each social media platform like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+ (which was barely covered due to its un-popularity).

The following is a recap of what was covered in the Social Media Campaigns track at Pubcon SFIMA:

Lisa Buyer on Social Media in 2016:

“Mobile isn’t killing our desktop, it’s killing our free time.” – Rand Fishkin

• Mobile is not taking away from desktop search and time, it is just causing us to be on devices all day, rather than simply saving our time for desktop searches during the era where there were no smart phones and mobile apps.
• Video is going to be critical this year. Last year, we really saw it coming into the market, but this year video needs to be part of your strategy; doesn’t have to be big spend but definitely should be considered.
• ‘Moments’ on Facebook should be considered. Market for moments and experiences – experiences help define social identities
• Fastest growing demographic on snapchat is actually 25 and up. 
• More customers are turning to Facebook and Twitter to leave their comments, questions, and reviews on companies
• Facebook is becoming more and more focused on their search results
• Instagram is owned by Facebook and organic still works with it, you can optimize using keywords and hashtags.
• Live streaming mobile apps are big this year - Periscope, Facebook live.
• Lisa's PR secrets: being first whenever possible - breaking a story, watching industry news, competitors, be the source of that news to your following.

Jabez on User Generated Content (UGC):

• The number one reason to focus on UGC for social is that the users create the content for you – saves you time!
•  Z Gallerie example - on Instagram they asked people to share their personal photos of their furniture in their home, tag them, etc. and then Z Gallerie shares it. 
• Send a picture with your pet and say why you are excited to go to conference, how your animal likes your new couch, etc. 
• Find hashtags that your customers use
• Have people send in their own stories in relation to your industry
• Where in your industry are things happening frequently that you can share, have consumers engage in, and build your brand for you.
• Engage with your most active commenters, say thanks for the support and being an advocate

Melissa on User Generated Content (UGC):

• If someone comments you on social media, screen shot it and share it, you can also engage and ask questions in the comments in order to get more out of it. 
• Mentions.com will email you alerts for anytime you are mentioned on social media
• Repurpose everything, embed social comments in content, do the same in emails, link to articles
• Take things that people say and link to it in content, link to a relevant old piece of content like an old blog post that relates, old article, etc.
• search for "posts about____" on Facebook and you can see what people are saying about that topic and then target them.
• Quaker Oats "send us your recipe" contest - they receive 12,000 recipes that they can now use as content
• DO NOT WRITE ALL PARAGRAPHS
• Use lists, bullet points, multiple headlines with photos, etc. People are not taking the time anymore to read long-form content. 
• Long-form is okay, but it has to be broken down with headlines or photos. This is not only a benefit for your consumer, but also for Google, to make it easier for Google to crawl as well.

Lisa Buyer on When to Post

• Analyze general best times and then best times for your particular business
• Use BufferApp to take into consideration time zones, least competitive times, worst times, network times through Facebook, etc., peak times for each network and your brand
• The worst time may actually be the best time to get through the clutter organically on social media.
• "Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday are the best days to post" – Jabez
• "During the week, I see more retweets; but on the weekends, I see more clicks during off hours" – Melissa

Lisa Buyer: Social Data Tips

• Find your best content through Analytics and repurpose or re-share
• Find your best post types and use them more often
• Find your best writers based off of best content created and shown through Analytics, have them be point on content or specialty clients
• Third-party content analysis to create ideas or ‘better than them’ content
• Most mistakes on Facebook ads or promoted content are made around segmentation, you want to target well, rather than a large target audience. Spend very little, but get the most clicks out of it. 

Lisa Buyer: Facebook Tips

• When uploading a link or video - remove the link after the target pops up. This way, your entire post is clickable and delivers your target. Boosts CTR and you can edit the description to have a call to action instead - only under business profile.
• If you respond to 90% of Facebook messages within 5 minutes, you can receive a badge that marks your brand as "responds efficiently" 
• Facebook Notes is making a comeback and not a lot of businesses are taking advantage of it just yet. Repurpose blog posts into notes.
• Customize posts meta descriptions and titles
• Facebook posts should be custom, not auto-populated exact copy like from Twitter and Pinterest, even Instagram. Hashtags don’t work as well in Facebook and native posts through Facebook (not Hootsuite) perform better. 

Melissa Fach on Twitter: 

• Share industry news, even if it is not directly related to your business - aka share diabetes break through even if you are a heart surgeon.
•  Retweet brand mentions
•  Twitter update 2/10/2016 - when you open twitter after being away for a while, the Tweets you are most likely to care about will be at the top of your feed
• Twitter update 2/18/2016 80% customer service requests are happening on Twitter, brand new Twitter customer service tools - every brand should be checking Twitter daily to respond to customers
• You can now send a customer service feedback survey, or add a comment. 
•  Followerwonk breaks down your most influential followers

Lisa Buyer: Instagram

• 30 billion photos shared
• 300 million monthly active users in 2014
• 17 second videos
• Avoid posting irrelevant photos
• Avoid ignoring your followers
• You don’t have to post frequently, but make sure you are posting quality photos and visuals
• If you are not in retail, auto, travel, or finance, your industry has the potential to dominate Instagram right now
•  Instagram is great for brand awareness and being a part of a community
•  Build an Instagram plan: types of photos to share, who to target, specific hashtags determined
•  Interact with like-minded people and grow your circle

Lisa Buyer on Pinterest:

• Already 5 million costume pins for Halloween this year
• Renovations are popular when buying a new home
• People go on Pinterest for ideas and to get help completing a task
• 71% of Pinterest users are women
• However, 1/3 of new signups are now men
• There’s a tool that will tell you everything that has been shared off your website or blog
• Optimize the source URL and descriptions and captions
• Avoid pinning duplicate content
• Create boards around exact match keywords
• Make sure that you have ‘Pinable’ images on your website and blog
•  Keep track of Pinterest traffic in Google Analytics and make sure it is increasing

Jabez on LinkedIn

• Requests for help and comment - most popular LinkedIn content found by average number of likes per post
• LinkedIn will not give weight to identical content shared on its network, has to be unique and you can link back to original. 
• LinkedIn just does not have a good ROI, even for job postings, you can run a sponsored ad on Facebook and filter out the leads, as well as add a photo and get more from that job ad than LinkedIn.

Lisa Buyer: SnapChat

•  hire a snapchat influencer to take over your Snapchat account and take it to levels fast that starting from the bottom won’t
•  Ex. guy who Snapchatted for Disney, Stride Gum, and others-      
•  Figure out how your industry can be useful on Snapchat and start dominating it.

 "Snapchat is going to be huge!" - Jabez LeBret

Lisa Buyer: Avoiding PR Disasters with a Social Media Policy

• be real during a tragedy
• stop automated posts
• be respectful and make room in the newsfeed for tragedy posts by respectful news sources
• confirm sources before sharing news

If you were unable to attend the 2016 Pubcon SFIMA Summit Masters Group Training, Tandem Interactive will be giving you exclusive, live-tweeting coverage via @TandemTweets. 

4 Reasons You Can't Even..

Today’s millennials “can’t even” anymore. They can’t deal with minor day to day struggles that older generations would have given an arm or leg for. Millennials are lucky to have any piece of information or answer to there every “oh so important” questions; “Is there really a bacon shortage predicted for 2017?” With Google, Wiki, WebMD, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter there really isn’t ANYTHING you can’t find out today. Let’s face it, the children of today’s millennials will have a very difficult time getting away with anything. 

Unfortunately, with access to the all-knowing Google at our fingertips, Millennials can’t even face-to-face anymore. The need to do business face-to-face, look for answers from peers, or seek additional information from others has more or less died. But I am going to tell you, yes you the Millennial reading this on their new super-sized mobile device, why you can even attend PUBCON SFIMA Summit 2016 here in sunny south Florida.

Millennials seek out things that are useful and can enhance their lives. Although a conference is useful, it is also time consuming and out of the way. Why attend a conference that you will eventually be able to stream or read from your hand held device? Here is why live face-to-face settings such as Pubcon SFIMA, is both useful and “cool.”

1. Networking: Pubcon SFIMA Summit is two days of constant informal face-to-face meetings with people in your industry, competitors, and clients. Do not shy away from competitors but learn from their mistakes or relish in their accomplishments. Seek out new connections and advice from other areas in the industry. And lastly, put a face to your clients you have only virtually met. Getting to know someone on a personal level can be a huge business game changer!
2. Education: SFIMA meets monthly and hosts large conference such as Pubcon SFIMA Summit 2016 where creative juices are replenished and incredible brains are picked. This association provides endless information for all members new and existing with keynotes like Scott Stratten, Brad Geddes, Dennis Yu, and Tandem Interactives favorite; Joe Laratro.
3. TandemInteractive: Yes, that is right, all members of Tandem Interactive will be present at Pubcon SFIMA at one point or another. Yours truly will be attending Thursday taking in new information and making new connections as well as keeping up with old ones. If you want to come hangout with the coolest boutique online marketing agency register for Pubcon SFIMA Summit 2016 today or join SFIMA’s monthly gatherings every second Thursday of the month! From one millennial to another, SFIMA is not something you “can’t even.”
4. It’s Fun!: Believe it or not, you are in the “coolest” line of business. No one knows how to have a better time than online marketers. Isn’t our moto “work hard, play hard”? If not, it may as well be! Mix in with SFIMA’s social gatherings and see for yourself. Doing business should not be stale and boring. Get off the internet and start living! Accessing industry information via internet is nothing like live interactions. J

There is a huge benefit to connecting with people in similar and vertical industries that has been over looked by the recent generations. Joining an organization such as South Florida Internet Marketing Association is great to boost your social media profiles and resumes but why not get every penny out of your investment? Engaging and participating with SFIMA members may be just the thing your business or career is lacking. Don’t miss the chance to have live meetings with renowned marketing gurus who make time for you to come pick their brain!

Still not convinced? Still “can’t even”? Just approach one of Tandem Interactive's fun and friendly members and we will show you otherwise. As long time members we will introduce you to the right people and point you to the keynote speakers you should be sitting in on for your personal growth!

Better Link Building for Your Business

Between the Penguin update, selective publishers and other changes in Local SEO, many businesses are reevaluating their link building efforts in the New Year, while other companies have abandoned the strategy all together. Fact of the matter is, link building STILL MATTERS and our boutique digital marketing agency, Tandem Interactive, wants you to better understand how to optimize your online marketing efforts with these updated tips for link building for your business.

1. Connect with local bloggers – Build relationships with people in your area that regularly write about local businesses to gain a mention and/or link to your company. For example, if you own a barbeque restaurant, you’ll benefit from building a relationship with a local blogger that is likely to write about the best barbeque joints in the area.

2. Go after local awards – Almost every city awards local businesses for specific efforts put forth in the community. Find out what awards are up for grabs in next year and if your business is eligible for any. Cities and local organizations usually always post awards results online and link to recipients.

3. Build out a local resource page – Put thought into the information you provide on this page to give visitors insight into things they actually want to know. For example, if your local spa is located in Fort Lauderdale, our South Florida digital marketing agency suggests creating a list of the best beaches to visit in South Florida. If it contains useful information, you’re likely to gain a decent amount of links to your site.

4. Utilize local networking sites – Websites, such as Meetup.com, are the perfect place to head to find groups that have commonality. Target a specific group you think may be interested in your business and invite them to host a meeting at your location. If they agree, you’ll not only drive traffic to your physical location but also score a link to your site.

5. Seek links from reputable resources – Gaining links from high-quality publishers increases your authority with search engines, such as Google. Work on earning these inbound links by creating content that is too good to ignore.

6. Hire a reputable digital marketing firm – Experts will always have the upper hand when it comes to properly marketing your local business. Tandem Interactive includes a team of skilled SEO managers that specialize in link building, Local search, pay-per click advertising, content creation, reputation management and more. Contact our team to learn more about optimizing your local business’ marketing efforts online today! 

How to Remove a Massive Google Penalty in 5 Easy Steps

It may be surprising to some business owners that a Google penalty from spammy backlinks can greatly affect their SEO and, in time, can greatly affect their business. For those who may not be familiar with what link building is, it is links on the internet that form a relationship between pages and sites that are important to both search engines and marketers. For instance, Google uses links to crawl the web, discover new pages, calculate the popularity of those pages, and also determine the relevancy of results to a searcher’s query.

So, you can only guess how important it is to link to a reputable website. Tandem Interactive is constantly checking and ensuring the quality of a perfect link.  But, for those who have been suffering from a manual Google penalty from spammy backlinks, here are 5 steps to recovery.

1. Creating a penalty removal sheet. 
The first step needed is to collect all incoming links pointing to your business’ website. When doing this, it is important to download all links from Google Search Console. The process is fairly simple and it involves supplementing with links from Majestic.com and sorting them on a simple Excel spreadsheet.

2. Identifying artificial links. 
Distinguishing artificial links is your next step. Unnatural links can include spammy keyword articles, link directories, bookmarks, blog comments, malware, guest posts, keyword footer links, and scrapers. Typically anything where content exists to influence rankings more than genuine content. Also, unreliable link directories or places where key-word stuffing is involved, or even giveaway links where users leave comments in return for a chance to win paid services are generally artificial.

3. Submission to Google. 
Once submitted, Google will start the process of revoking the penalties and will return links that are deemed artificial by Google. The Webspam Team will show you specific links that were sent, that are deemed official by Google.

4. Identifying the Returned links. 
If Google returns with links that are artificial, then it is best to go over these links and ensure that they are official and okay to link to. Distinguishing good links from bad links can be difficult, but general rule of thumb for Link Building at Tandem Interactive is: if it looks spammy then it is!

5. Second Submission. 
The last and final step is to submit the corrected links and any other explanations. In return, Google will revoke all penalties.

How to Read and Understand Majestic for Link Building

The first Initial reaction most people have when introduced to Majestic is usually that of confusion. While many expert Majestic users find it easy to understand, some still struggle with the ability to read it correctly. Thankfully, Majestic was designed with the user in mind. With the help of this Site Explorer, Tandem Interactive has utilized all the data collected from Majestic to perform awesome link building tactics for franchises.

Majestic is a backlink analysis company that constantly analyzes domains on the Internet. It provides a detailed analysis to backlink information surrounding a specific domain, sub-domain, path, or URL.  We have broken down the website’s features into sections for an easier way to grasp the Majestic concept.

Starting at the Majestic homepage, you will find a search box where you can enter the domain, URL, or search phrase you wish to analyze. On top of this search engine box, there is a compare button you may press to compare multiple URL’s. Once you have entered your domain, the site explorer results summary page appears. Here you will find a summary of all the data collected for that domain.

Trust Flow Chart. At the top of the summary page you will find the trust flow and the citation flow, which is analyzed through a pie chart.  The numbers shown from 0-100 tell us the relative quality combined with the trust & quantity of citation of links to that URL. It is broken down further in the Topical Trust Flow section where you can see the trust flow by category or topic.

The Domain Information. Underneath the trust flow charts is the domain information center. This area provides an overview of the backlink figures collected from Majestic’s data. You will find highlights such as how many referring domains or backlinks the URL has or how many links the URL currently has from specific topics.

The Link Profile Chart is located next to the domain information. This section maps out the two key link evaluation metrics: the citation flow and trust flow. These easy to understand numbers from 0-100 show how effective a URL is based on the flow of links.

The Backlink History Chart plots the creation of new backlinks split between external backlinks and referring domain figures. Selecting either chart takes you to the backlink history tool, which allows you to compare up to five domains and to record backlink data side by side.

The Backlinks section shows your most valued backlinks sorted by the URL flow metrics scores, trust and citation. Here you will see the source URL, Anchor text, and target URL, as well as the citation flow and trust flow scores, any flags, and the dates in which the links were first indexed.

At the top of the page where the tabs are located, you can find individual tabs to all the sections in the summary page. Each page goes into further detail about the URL.

Our link building reports for franchises are measured with the help of Majestic and we continue to find trusted backlinks for our clients through this site explorer.