March Report: Search Meets Social Media

Social Media has become all the buzz for its ability to build an audience and create buzz. But how do you get the viral action going? This was the topic of the Search and Social Media iBreakfast.

By now, most Business users understand that Social Media is a way to build a network that was either difficult or verboten under the traditional Catch-22 Permission Market rules of email list building. You can't spam but if you ask people for their permission to market to them, they are likely to say no.

Kevin Lee showed how Didit.com's relationship with Dun & Bradstreet enables companies to be found on the search engines in conjunction with D&B. This is a classic piece of brand leapfrogging but it works and the cost is relatively low: you list you company's Power Profile on their site and you look all the more credible for it.

Chris Winfield shared some of his secrets for building lists for publications - get them listed on recommendation engines. Digg, deli.cio.us, Stumebleupon are all sites that people have become used to sharing their online finds. By directing your website and press releases to these sites as newsworthy.

It just so happens that one of the companies that presented at the iEvenign for Start-ups, GenGreenLife.com found itself in the public eye with upcoming coverage in Forbes and Entrepreneur magazine, precisely because they got noticed on StumbleUpon.com.

Lee Odden, CEO of TopRank and leading Midwestern SEO company talked about using all these techniques for building your own professional and corporate visibility. The key is using metrics from sites like buzzlogic and quarkbase to keep you on track of the viewers.

The bottom line with getting picked up on Social Media and recommendation sites is that if you're not popular be useful, that will get you picked up.

Be sure to read the Social Media Council Report on the iBreakfast Blog .