Wall Street Journal Going Social

Since the traditional newspaper industry is running out of readers, and thus money,  The Wall Street Journal is gunning for the LinkedIn crowd and all its monetization opportunities — jobs, ads, and, a marketing pool for WSJ subscriptions — with a new social network called WSJ Connect, according to TechCrunch. Apparently, they’re even calling it “LinkedIn Killer” internally.

Instead of building it internally, like they did with its existing WSJ Community, they’ve tapped another arm of parent company News Corp. — Slingshot Lab. WSJ Connect is still in the planning/conceptual stages, but if it moves forward, it would leverage the WSJ brand as a separate property with out a need for a paid subscription to the newspaper.

Just another example of a traditional brand embracing social media as an alternate revenue source, and of course, another nail in the traditional newspaper coffin.

Moms Rule the World

Many Super Affiliates are vying for a multi-billion dollar market: moms.

Why are moms so important? Moms are enterprising. According to BSM Media Inc., mom spending is already over the trillion dollar mark. That’s more than the budget of some third world countries.

Also according to BSM Media Inc., almost 90 percent of moms consider themselves the financial head of the home. Her husband may bring home most of the bacon but it is the moms who decide how to spend it. They shop for everything related to the household: kids clothing, appliances, electronics, outdoor furniture, accessories and home improvement items.

Any husband that shops for these things is going to consult their wives before buying them. Why? Wives do the research into these products to find the best on the market. Moms influence as much as 85 percent of the purchases for the home. That’s over 70 million women we are talking about here. It doesn’t get any bigger than that.

Think about all of the tasks that moms handle in a day. They take care of the housework, shuffle kids from school to sporting events to other activities, cook dinner and manage the finances. In order to keep everything straight, they employ a wide variety of technology. It’s not uncommon to see a mom sitting in the park watching her kids play while listening to an iPod or browsing the Internet on her iPhone.

Moms are also savvy on the Internet. The trend for many years has been moms coming out of the workplace and starting their own businesses at home to spend more time with their kids. To that end, moms have developed a network of blogs, websites and forums designed to teach moms everything from designing websites, starting Internet businesses, marketing to other moms and managing their homes all the while. Their buying power increased exponentially with their knowledge.

And here’s the good news for affiliate marketers: Traditionally the only products marketed towards women were household products and cooking items. This goes back to the archaic thought that a womanís place was in the home. That has been a huge detriment to many companies as they are beginning to see.

Moms are influenced by other moms. Several generations of moms are coming together to influence the spending habits of major corporations. In the future the trend will continue. As moms become more “connected’ in the world, their spending will increase. No product is off limits to mom advertising.

Moms do rule the world. Market and gain the approval of savvy moms with your products and your business will reap the benefits.

SEO vs. SMO

My main forte at work is SEO. Clients come to me asking for assistance in generating more organic, relevant search traffic which, hopefully, converts. But my company’s main offering is social media optimization. But does social media create conversions? What’s the difference between SEO and SMO?

I read in interesting article recently by Jeff Casmer, an IMer and consultant. Here are a few takeaways:

Humans, for the most part, have a need to feel connected, to relate and interact with others. Social media optimization thrives on that need. Social media is all about communication. Its about sharing opinions, and experiences with others via blogs, wikis, message boards (forums), and videos.

While SEO is still an effective means to gain traffic, the web is no longer two dimensional. It has evolved. It’s become increasingly interactive, taken on a three dimensional shape. One that caters to our visual and audio senses, and allows web browsers to have more control over what they see, hear, and, what is now.

Social media optimization, according to Wikipedia, is a way to optimize web sites so they would be more easily connected or interlaced with online communities and community websites, also called social media sites. Methods of SMO include adding RSS feeds, adding a DiggThis button, and incorporating third party community functionalities like Flicker photo slides and galleries or YouTube videos.

The four characteristics of Social Media Optimization are:

Participation- Consumers are not afraid to participate in communities by generating content and engaging in conversations about topics that interest them. Web masters who know this are constantly encouraging user participation on their own sites and blogs.

Conversation- Consumers today do not want to be marketed to. Blatant advertisements are not as effective as they used to be. Instead, consumers wish to be communicated with through conversation that is being stirred up on blogs, wikis and forums. Consumers now have methods to express their thoughts, recommendations and complaints and they are doing so. Webmasters can now communicate with their target audience in real time, and can take these concerns, recommendations to better serve their audience.

Openess- To build trust with their target audience in order facilitate conversation, webmasters must first be open with them. They need to let them know who they are right off the bat. Pretending to be someone your not is the surest way to lose trust. And because any good business is first built on trust its crucial to be open and honest with your market.

Community- Social media conversation is not pulled out of thin air. Every form of social media is based on the fact that we all want to belong to something; they all have a community component to them. Social media sites are micro-communities that allow people with similar interest to share insight, advice, and recommendations about products and services. Before a webmaster can begin to monetize they must first become an accepted member of the community. This is why the first two characteristics are so important.

Many web sites are still static, meaning they are rarely updated and are used as a storefront. Setting up a blog or adding unique, interactive pieces to sites like Digg is a great way to increase linkage to your website. Site owners can encourage visitor participation by facilitating the conversation that is happening virtually everywhere. Consumers are already talking about products and services and buying them; brands need to help them get their attention on theirs. By not joining in, brands are silencing themselves. And that is pretty un-social…