I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about Social Media and the importance of having a home base which is fully in your control and all your own.

Sites like Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and Linkedin are all great and have amazing value. They shouldn’t be ignored, but they also shouldn’t be the only place where you cultivate content and audience.

Your Website and blog should be your main spot for posting content and growing a following, a readership and a reputation as a thought leader.

The idea of having a home base is rather simple. You have no control over Social Media sites. They can take your profile and content down when ever they want. They own the platform and have all the control. If you first post on your blog and link to it from your Social Media outposts you remain in control of that content.

Darren Rowse of Problogger has a great video explaining how he uses Social Media. It is very similar to how I use it as well.

So what do you think? Do you have a blog where your putting all of your original content before sending out to the outposts? If not, you might want to think about setting one up. If you would like to learn more about how Goldstein Media can help you with your Social Media plan, including setting up a home base for all your content, give us a call today at (215) 352-5216.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this subject. Post them below in the comments.

In this article, the author points out some very valuable information that I think is important to keep in mind.

The blurred line between social and mobile may be obvious in the case of mobile social networks like Foursquare and Gowalla, but the line applies to social networks with more reach as well.

Consider the following stats about mobile usage from networks that are likely part of your social budget, but may not have been accounted for in mobile:

• 50% of active users make mobile a regular part of their Twitter experience (Twitter CEO Dick Costolo)
• 200 million of Facebook’s 600 million subscribers access Facebook through their mobile device (Facebook CTO Bret Taylor)
• Mobile is Facebook’s top priority in 2011 (Bret Taylor)
• [Groupon has] seen significant growth in the last six months in terms of percentage of users who redeem from mobile. (Groupon VP/GM of Mobile, Mihir Shah)
• YouTube now exceeds 200 million views a day on mobile, a 3x increase in 2010. (YouTube)
• [Facebook mobile users] are more than twice as active as people who use Facebook just on a desktop computer (Bret Taylor)
• 30% of smartphone owners have accessed social networks via browser (comScore)
• Moms are active in mobile social: in terms of demographics, most mobile social network users are female, with the most active age group being 35-54 (Nielsen)

In other words, if you’re running a social media campaign in Facebook or Twitter, it’s very likely that your target is viewing it on a mobile device.

If your target is a Facebook user, it’s likely they’re engaging with your brand twice as much on a mobile device as they would be on a desktop computer.

If your business is doing a Groupon, it’s also likely that a growing number of your customers will never print out the Groupon, but redeem it at the local business with their smartphone.

If you consider yourself a video SEO or video marketer and are actively engaging your target audience in YouTube, your target audience is likely being engaged on their mobile device.

The author is totally correct. By concentrating on Social Media, you are indeed reaching a mobile market. Now this doesn’t mean that you can neglect getting your Website optimized for mobile, but it should help you decide where to put your money first.

Goldstein Media is a full service Web Design and Internet Marketing agency based in the suburbs of Philadelphia. If you have any questions about how we can help you develop both a mobile marketing strategy and a Social Media plan, please give us a call today at 215-352-5216.

This is the Daily Link Report for December 2nd

Please feel free to post your thoughts in the comment section below

To see all of our links please visit our Delicious page at Delicious.com/goldsteinmedia

• Microsoft Launches its own Twitter… in China – Microsoft is making its own Twitter… in China. They are capitalizing on the popularity of their Instant Messenger client in that country.
• Facebook’s Road to 350 Million Users – Mark Zuckerberg’s note about Facebook’s latest privacy changes also contained an announcement about another important milestone for Facebook: 350 million users.
• Facebook CEO: Prepare for Some Big Privacy Changes – In a rare open letter, Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has announced a series of privacy changes, starting with the removal of regional networks.
• What Will Comcast-NBC Mean for Hulu? – It looks like Comcast's purchase of 51% of NBC will not kill he online video site Hulu. Though we might be paying for the content in 2010.
• What Users Like/Dislike About Google Wave [DATA] – The good the bad and the ugly of Google wave
• Twitter Billboard Leads to Epic Fail [PIC] – A TV station in Alabama is learning that live Twitter billboards sometimes deliver unintended consequences.

  Editorial: Took me a while to get this one. Read the comments.

• Tweetie 2.1 For iPhone Now LIVE in the App Store – Tweetie 2.1, the latest version of the popular iPhone Twitter client, went live in the app store today.
• Twitter Ads Are Evil: Here’s Why – Advertisers are frustrated. You’re all having direct conversations with friends on Twitter, Facebook, blogs and the rest while totally bypassing the mass mediums they understand. Rather than consuming content all day on TV, in newspapers and on the radio, you’re engaging, one-to-one, with individuals you trust. They can’t get in the middle of that. They hate it.
• Google Profiles Turn Into OpenIDs – As part of its push to go more social, Google has been attempting to unify its various account profiles into one Google Profile. And now it’s more useful. Google’s Brad Fitzpatrick has just tweeted out that Google Profiles can now be used as OpenIDs.
• Small Businesses Look to E-Mail and Social Media – eMarketer – Three-quarters of small businesses will increase their spending on e-mail marketing in 2010, while nearly seven in 10 will put more dollars toward social media, according to VerticalResponse data.

Back in the late 19th and early 20th century, salesmen used to travel across the country selling all kinds of potions and contraptions. These salesmen would make wild claims that their wares would cure everything from a constantly icky toe to the measles. Often times, like today, when a customer bought these items they did far less than what was promised.

Fast forward more than a century and you’ll find that not much has changed. Their are still people hocking their wares, claiming to be able to solve all of life’s mysteries. Now, you’re probably asking yourself what does this have to do with Web design or Internet marketing. Sadly, the Internet trades are not immune to these slithery, slimy characters. If anything, the Internet is the new frontier, where these vermin thrive.

Recently, I was courting  a client for a Website design. Like most of my customers they were interested in being found on Google and the other search engines. They already had a site made for them by one of the ma-bell outfits. They didn’t know much about the Web, but did they know that things as they weren’t working. So like many brave business owners they ventured out into the frontier of the Web and began talking to Web designers and Internet marketers to see what options they had to offer.

This is when we first met.

We met at a local cafe and I explained to them my philosophy of design and development: Clean, schematic, and readable sites that promote natural rankings in the search engines. They looked at me dumb founded. “Naturally?” they asked. Apparently they were led to believe that somehow a Website and Search Engine Marketing (pay-per-click) were one in the same — you couldn’t do one without the other.

I explained to them that even though they were in a competitive keyword and market they could still rank high in the natural listings. They were shocked and felt betrayed by the other designers and salesmen who steered them wrong.

When I first heard what they were being told, my blood boiled. Yes, there is a place for PPC in every Web design and Internet marketing strategy. PPC isn’t always a waste of money, if it’s done correctly. But it certainly isn’t the be-all-end-all.

I explained to them that I could do a number of things for them. Besides building them a custom site, coded correctly, I could get them ranked for keywords that were being searched for regularly and without PPC and in the end these prospective customers became clients.

A few tips for going at search engines naturally

• Going after a competitive keyword like, let’s say, Pizza Shop, you are competing with more than 36.6 million other listings. Remember that a broad search term like this is pulling up listings from all over.
• What you can do is go for Pizza Shop Philadelphia or Pizza Shop Yardley. The first one might still be hard to break into, due to the fact that others have been there much longer and the fact that Philadelphia is a large area, but the second one is definitely attainable.
• If you have a small company that is regional or even local, don’t go after the broad key terms. You’ll never be able to compete with the giants in that space. Go after your surrounding zip codes and local towns.
• If you have a regional or even national company, you can go after the broader key terms, but be prepared to spend lots of money and time getting there without any guarantee of success. What you can do though is go into the more regional or local spaces and compete on those levels for those key terms. It might be more work, but you’ll have a better chance of ranking.

The moral of the story beware of the low hanging fruit and those snakes that tell you to eat the apple. Do your homework and be an educated consumer. If something sounds way too good to be true it probably is and sometimes doing a little extra work pays off in dividends later on.

This is the Link Report for November 8th through November 12th:

Please feel free to post your thoughts in the comment section below

To see all of our links please visit our Delicious page at Delicious.com/goldsteinmedia

• Change the Windows 7 Taskbar to Work Like Vista :: the How-To Geek – While many think the new taskbar feature in Windows 7 is a great improvement, others may not want to use it. Today we take a look at how to get the Vista style taskbar back on Windows 7.
• Security Fix – Poking at Google’s new privacy Dashboard – Google this week unveiled a new feature called Dashboard, intended to give users a way to view — and in modest ways limit — the breadth of information the search giant collects about our online lives.
• Why Twitter is underhyped and is probably worth five to 10 billion dollars – scobleizer’s posterous – …saying that Twitter is winning. Is winning big. Bigger than any of the tech blogs have admitted to yet. My new price for Twitter? $5 billion.
• Social Media, Meet Search – ClickZ – We knew it was going to happen eventually, but many digital marketers were taken somewhat by surprise when it happened all at once. Seemingly overnight, the era of social search dawned. Bing just started to incorporate tweets into search results, with Google right on its heels.
• Social Status Generator – Choose a keyword from the tag coud, and the generator will automatically give you a message you can add to Twitter, Facebook, Friendster, …
• Google Dashboard: Now You Know What Google Knows About You – There’s no two ways about it: if you use a lot of Google services, then Google knows a lot about you. Google has received a solid amount of criticism because of this, and they’ve decided to alleviate the issue by launching Privacy Dashboard; a one-stop-shop with all the information that Google knows about you and your online habits collected in one place.
• MYTH BUSTED: Internet Use Doesn’t Lead to Isolation –
• Google Dashboard: A Closer Look – PC World – Google showed Thursday it's getting more serious about privacy when it launched a tool called Google Dashboard that aims to give you more control over your personal data stored on Google's servers. From your Google Dashboard you can view the company's privacy policies, easily access your most recent activity for each Google service you use, and manage settings for those services. My initial impression is that Dashboard is a quick and easy way to get greater control over your Google Account activity, and even clean up any services you may have forgotten about.
• YouTube Gives Partners More Control Over Video Blocking – Basically, there are two new buttons in the interface for partners. One says ‘Block by Country’ and provides content partners with the ability to geo-block a single video rather than an entire account, an oft-requested feature that allows partners to restrict the geographical rights for specific videos.
• Do Follow – Search Engine Watch (SEW) – Most blogs are "No Follow" meaning no link juice is passed from the blog to the linked site. But some blogs are "Do Follow" read more to find out more.

This is the Link Report for October 31st through November 2nd:

Please feel free to post your thoughts in the comment section below

To see all of our links please visit our Delicious page at Delicious.com/goldsteinmedia

• Facebook Revamps its Privacy Policy – Earlier this year, Facebook was hammered for changes it made to its Terms of Service. The result was an uproar that eventually led to the Facebook Democracy, an initiative by Facebook to let users vote and comment on its governing documents.
• Rand Fishkin: SEO, Mentors & What Pisses Him Off » aimClear Search Marketing Blog – Rand Fishkin is a singular personality and, to those in the SEO industry, needs little introduction. Having “started playing” with Microsoft FrontPage WYSIWYG web page software in 1993 as a high school student, he’s grown his company SEOmoz to take its place amongst the most recognized brands in search.
• iMedia Connection: How to be a good social media listener – At this point, most digital marketers understand why they need to monitor the conversations that are happening on the social web. But in doing so, are they really listening? It's one thing to know what is being said about your brand on social networks. But it's quite another to draw actionable insights around which future campaigns and communications can be crafted.
• Mobile And Social Platforms Want To Be The King Of Local Search – The study shows that the web generally, but in particular mobile and social network search, are increasingly factors fueling growth in the overall search market. This grew to 21.9 billion total US searches in June 2009, a year-on-year increase of 31%.
• 10 Small Business Social Media Marketing Tips – Begin by outlining clear goals for your social media marketing efforts and figuring out how you’ll measure success. Once you’ve outlined your goals, let’s look at 10 great ways you can begin to leverage social media for your marketing efforts.
• Why Branding Matters to Small Businesses – Search Engine Guide Blog – The power of branding and why branding is key to success.
• How to Earn Respect in Social Media – Search Engine Watch (SEW) – Just because you sell a product or a service that is the top selling or highest rated in the industry doesn't mean people will listen to you when you arrive. Announcing your arrival doesn't gain you immediate respect. You won't suddenly have a band of followers once you strike up a conversation or answer a question or two on a topic.
• Facebook’s ‘Reconnect’ Strategy is Brilliant – Recently, in addition to giving you suggestions to which friends you might add to your profile, Facebook also started enticing users to reconnect and engage less active users. The campaign has partly backfired, as some of the recommendations were dead people and ex-lovers, but I still think it’s brilliant, and a good sign that Facebook has a clear strategy laid out for the future.
• Similar Images Search Graduates from Google Labs – Back in April, Google launched a new search feature in Labs that allowed users to find similar images.

  Initially rolled out for select images only, the capability is now being rolled out for what seems to be the majority of images in Google image search. This is particularly useful when search terms include homonyms, we think; and we applaud Google for removing a major pain point in our searches for pics of Tesla the band as opposed to Tesla the scientist or Tesla the automotive brand.

• BuddyPress.org – BuddyPress is a suite of WordPress plugins and themes, each adding a distinct new feature. BuddyPress contains all the features you’d expect from WordPress but aims to let members socially interact.