Posts by: TheGuerillero

Hi, I'm TheGuerillero, I created this blog and Market & Convert, a small digital marketing agency. You should add me to your circles on Google+. Here's a link to

Top 2 FREE WordPress Social Media And SEO Plugins

Opa, Guerilleros!

On my last post I talked about how to extend the life of your social media links with SEO, and one of the tips I shared was to have an attractive and easy-to-use Social Sharing plugin. Today, we’ll go over my two favorite social sharing plugins for WordPress. As you know, we’re huge fans of WordPress for SEO because of the extensive plugin availability and its flexibility.

1. AddThis

AddThis is available free, for any website, not just WordPress. Their API allows social media integration with pretty much any community, and they have a list of 338 services (and growing).  If you’re a developer, it’s a paradise. For us WordPress users, they have their own WP plugin. You need to have an account with them to enable the full set of features for the plugin, but it’s super easy to customize the look and feel of the buttons, it’s placement on the page (above, below, or both), and which services you want to show your users.

Their coolest feature, however, is the free analytics dashboard they provide. It tracks every time somebody uses the plugin, in the form of “shares”, and then it tracks how many clicks that shared link received, so you know what was your site’s ‘VIRAL LIFT’.

To give you a better example, let’s say a user clicks the “tweet” button and another clicks the “like” button – you now have 2 shares. Once the link goes to Twitter, it receives 3 clicks. The Facebook link receives 5. You now have 8 clicks out of those 2 share actions. Finally, AddThis calculates your Viral Lift, giving you a percentage increase in traffic due to shares and clicks.

AddThis-analytics-dashboard-wordpress

Reasons why we like it:

  • Very helpful Analytics
  • Weekly email reports!
  • Extensive list of services
  • Easy to use

Reasons why we dont use it all of the time:

  • It conflicts with a few other plugins in WordPress – not every wordpress plugin is tightly-coded, and sometimes we see errors. Always check your site after implementing a new plugin.

So, AddThis is awesome. It’s my favorite Social Media plugin thus far. I recommend it to anybody, specially if you have a bit more experience with code.

2. Tweet, Like, Share and Plus One

Another plugin I’m proud to recommend is the Tweet, Like, Share, and Plus One.  Despite its name, they offer 5 main buttons -Twitter, FB Like, Google +1, Linkedin and FB Share. On their homepage, they state, rightfully so, that 99% of social sharing is done with these services, so why bother with the other 1%?

TLSP1 also has a great support page and a few other neat plugins – I’ve used the scrolling version of their plugin in one of our sites, and it works very well.

Reasons why we like TLSP1

  • It does its job extremely well
  • It allows great developmental flexibility
  • It’s super fast to load
  • Rarely there’s any conflict

Why dont we use it all of the time?

  • It doesnt offer analytics

WordPress Social Media Plugins Roundup

Between AddThis and TLSP1, you have everything you could possibly want from a social sharing plugin. Give them both a try, and let us know how they fare in your Guerilla. Leave a comment here with your findings. And if you have a favorite plugin, we want to know about it. Is it better? Why?

How Twitter’s Thirst For Ad Revenue Needs To Be Quenched: Small Businesses

Is there a guerillero(a) that DOESNT love #Twitter?

There isnt much of a social media guerilla without Twitter and its 200 million users. But even the most beloved (or former most beloved tool, I should say) has its issues, mainly, profitability. Quite the issue that is, being it so that Twitter just received $800 million during its latest round of funding – those investors want their money back.

Twitter Ads Are Coming

Not quite so obviously, Twitter took well over 2 years to finally announce their new Promoted Tweets platform, which will place ads from a few select companies and non-profits at the top of your stream. These promoted tweets will only appear if you follow one of those entities, and can be easily dismissed with a click. Very similar to the small adwords placements on Youtube.

Several publications rushed to proclaim the apocalypse – Can Ad-Littered Twitter Keep Its Cool? best sums what everybody is thinking: Will we, Twitter users, stick around as Promoted Tweets go mainstream? Their main point is the now-famous line from The Social Network:

“You don’t want to ruin [Facebook] with ads, because ads aren’t cool” –Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake) to a young Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) in The Social Network.

More realistically, Forrester Research marketing analyst Sean Corcoran reminded us that Promoted Tweets have been around for a while, but limited to twitter.com and search results within a few 3rd party twitter apps. Corcoran spoke with Adam Bain, president of Global Revenue at Twitter, and Bain guaranteed that “user experience is the No. 1 priority” … BLAH BLAH BLAH…

promoted-tweets-marketing

So How Can Twitter Generate Revenue (for Itself and for Your Business)?

Fellow Guerillero Mitch Joel was quick to raise the point that Biz Stone and Jack Dorsey have been debating all this time: Is Advertising The Future Of Twitter? Mitch raises a really good question – are we limited to advertisement to create revenue? Does Twitter really have only this most-obvious path to create revenue or is there some more creative, less intrusive method of making money?

One of the coolest ideas – at least the one with the coolest name – revolves around Deep Data Mining – accessing (or granting access to) endless amounts of user data to … target better ads? Anyway, the name of the idea sounds cool.

But quite honestly, ADS ARE A NECESSARY EVIL. Okay, as a marketer, I’m clearly biased, but the truth is users are very much aware that Twitter (or any service) cant be awesome AND free at the same time. See Pandora, Spotify, or any other “FREEMIUM” service out there. Did you ever hear anybody say “I’m quitting Facebook because it has ads” ?

Give Small Business a Tweet AdWords

Imagine you run a cupcake shop and you’re able to show an ad to users 20 miles around your store that used the keywords “birthday” or “party” or even “cupcake” within their tweets? Your ad is shown in that user’s stream moments after they tweet, from your own twitter account, and it’d look exactly like one of your regular tweets. Both highly targeted and extremely timely.

No “Stickyness” – no need to keep the ad floating on their timeline permanently. No annoyance, just a very well-timed display placement. Having an option to repeat such tweet every hour or so (as long as not more frequent than hourly) would guarantee a real impression.

If Facebook did make $1.86 Billion, as mentioned in Fast Company’s article, I bet at least 50% came from small businesses spending a few $1000s within their Facebook Ads. Small businesses are the driving force within Adwords, and it made Groupon a multi-billion dollar company. I love using Twitter for local Social Media campaigns, and having a tool like that would benefit a huge amount of businesses.

Am I totally wrong? How bad would Twitter (or any other social network) have to fill its stream with ads for you to stop using it? If that happens, do you plan on switching to Google+? Let us know in the comments.

The Dumb-Proof Guide To Google+ (in Under 30 secs)

Guerilleros, this is a quick post based on a flash of inspiration sparked by fellow Google+er PlusCrunch Jay. Jay had JUST posted about his recent 170-second guide to Google+, which is itself a response to gazillion other guides to G+ out there.

As a great content skimmer that I am after midnight (actually, all the time), I told him his guide was still too long. And then I gave him my 3-second guide:

Put family in the family circle. NEVER share you lolcatz or +Robert Scoble ‘s discussions with them. Put friends in the friends circle. Put co-workers in their own circle. Follow the same advice for every social circle you can think of, and then forget where you put JOE and share all of your content in PUBLIC mode

Isnt it just perfect?

Yeah, I’ve just posted about small businesses using Google+ , and of course, there’s a lot more to it than my 3-second guide shows. Clearly.

Jay’s guide is a great start to get your G+ Geek Mode on. Make sure you read it, comment on it, and then add him to your circles on G+.

Not on G+ yet? Leave me a comment below (use a real email!) and I will send you an invite. If you’re on G+, find me there.

Should Your Small Business Invest On Google+?

Should Your Small Business Invest On Google+?

Google’s most eagerly awaited social networking product finally came out not even a month ago and it has already reached 18M+ users, and has been ALL the rage on tech blogs everywhere. Clearly, the least thing you want is to have to learn yet another set of jargons (people are just now getting used to “Facebook Me” and “Like Us”).
Read More…

How To Create Customized Facebook Fan Pages With FBML

Guerilleros, I’m sure by now you have a Facebook Fan Page. If you dont, then you’re really behind in the game.

A Fan page is the most flexible application for business on Facebook, it allows you to integrate it to your wordpress blog, to twitter, and even to Youtube.

But showing visitors your “wall” may not be the best practice for business, since you have to change that message constantly. Today, I’ll show you how to create a unique landing page for Facebook using FBML.

1. On Facebook, search for Static FBML

You’ll find the application page. Look over on the LEFT UPPER corner, right below the logo.

2. Click on “Add To My Page”

Add To My Page On Static FBML

Add To My Page On Static FBML

3. Pick A Page

Pick A Page To Show Static FBML

Pick A Page To Show Static FBML

That’s it – you’ve installed the application on your Fan Page. Now, let’s get it to work!

Make sure you’re logged in as the page admin. Visit your page and then click on Edit Page.

4. Find the Static FBML App

FBML application for facebok fan pages

FBML application for facebok fan pages

5. Edit The Page

Warning – you’ll need some HTML knowledge to edit the page. Leave me a comment if you need some help with that.

Click on edit and you’ll see this:

FBML page Set Up

FBML page Set Up

6. Add The FBML Page To Your Fan Page Tabs

Back on the “Edit Page” screen, find the FBML application and click on “Permissions”. The screen below will appear:

Add the FBML as a TAB

Add the FBML as a TAB

Make sure that both box and tab say ADDED, which means that there’s a navigation tab just for the new page you created within your regular Facebook Fan Page.

That’s it! Feel free to leave me any questions or suggestions on the comments.

Your guerilla is my guerilla!

P.S – Tomorrow I’ll show you how to make sure your visitors land on the new page you’ve created instead of the regular wall! Stay tuned.

What To Do With Your Social Media Traffic?

Confused In Traffic?

Guerilleros, if you’ve listened to interview I had with Marnie Swedberg about Social Media Marketing for Local Audiences, you’re probably already applying some of the tips I shared and creating more exposure (read web traffic) to your brand.

Now, what are you going to do with that?

The biggest point I wanted to make clear was the fact that Social Media is not about you OR your company – the focus is on your Customer, or better yet, on that person that you’ve just met that MAY or may not become your customer.

Since I’m sure you’ve already understood that, being the great guerilleros(as) that you are, you should also know that if you send your newly generated social media traffic to a corporate-looking website, you’re losing the boat.

Keeping The Traffic (And The Conversation) Alive

When people see your activity on Facebook or Twitter, or they become interested in your content on Digg, they’re engaging that conversation you created – whether by posting helpful information, or a cool video, or simply sharing exciting news, those visitors ended up on your site because you connected with them.

If you send them straight to a site with cookie-cutter copy that talks continuously about your company, you’re completely ignoring that conversation and forcing them to swallow the same old commercial pill we’re tired of seeing on TV and Radio.

Become A WordPress Fanatic

That’s where a blog comes in ultra handy – I’ve mentioned before that WordPress is to Social Guerilla what GPS is to a country driver in Manhattan, and that’s one of the reasons why.

Let me make it extra clear by painting you a picture:

You’ve paid somebody like me to create a cool video, post it on an optimized Youtube profile, and you’re getting good hits.

When they click on the link right next to the video and land on your site, they see a blog post talking about the video, along with 5 other related posts and even more videos.

At the end of each post, you add a compelling, but gentle, call to action: “Like these cooking tips? Sign up now and get a 40% discount at our next cooking class”

The difference is that once they came to the site, their experience with the video was extended by the blog posts, and then the call to action came in for an attractive ending (which begins the real sales funnel).

If you haven’t gotten a blog started yet – what’re you waiting for? What’s your biggest obstacle?

———–

If you’d like to know more about generating traffic through social media, there’s a new web marketing guerilla course coming up on March 18th that I highly recommend: Traffic Ultimatum

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