Stacy, good comment. I think your views are actually pretty consistent with Alton's to be honest. He's focusing on social media's core benefit as "online reputation management" while you referred to utilizing it for "building relationships". Both of those are part of the up front customer service angle in my book, whereas the sales come later. So I think if you can simply appreciate what your efforts are trying to accomplish (it might NOT be immediate sales, but rather maintaining your image, engaging customers, keeping your name out there, and building your brand), then social media can be of great value.

Sunshine makes a great point too. You CAN take your SMM approach to the next level by offering Facebook only promotions, for example, which can lead to more direct results (sales).

I think another thing that might be worth considering is what you're selling and what it takes to sell your product. For example, I co-own an upscale hair salon on the side at http://www.ellemariehairstudio.com. Women love talking about their hair, they like to stay current with the latest trends, and they always have another appointment down the road. So from a social media perspective, it's in their best interest to stay in the loop with what we have to share. We might post a Facebook only special for them to use at their next appointment or one of our stylists might post that she's added some last minute hours to her schedule and if anyone has room to come in today she'll give them a free haircut with their color service. So it can be both fun and in your best interest to follow a company such as a hair salon. A company that sells refrigerators, for instance, well, I might not be so quick to jump on that bandwagon so their approach to social media would probably be a little different.

Good stuff, Zeke! I've actually been meaning to do a little more research in this area so this gets the ball rolling quite nicely.

Couple quick questions...

Do we submit the top-level domain name one time for the entire blog, or do we submit the URL for each specific blog article separately?

Also, to take that a step further, I typically use the Joomla CMS when building web sites for clients. I utilize both a "Latest News" component and a "Blog" component. Both of them are combined on the homepage - for example, see http://www.ellemariehairstudio.com. Separately you could navigate to "Hair Studio>Blog" to filter and see only the blog posts (stuff relevant to the beauty industry) whereas the "Latest News" component (displayed only on the homepage combined with the blog) includes news specific to the salon. So, would you suggest I submit the URL's of both component's, or just the homepage where both are combined?

Great article, Lindsay.

I don't suppose your, or someone, could clarify this question I've been struggling with. While I don't condone keyword stuffing and am well aware that there's a tipping point where excessive use of keywords can penalize you, my approach has been to provide more content (as opposed to "less is more"), yet provide that content in a visually organized manner - as separate modules. For example, I've been including blogs right there in the homepage of my sites (see http://www.ellemariehairstudio.com).

I'm definitely all about "less is more" and keeping things simple and visually pleasing to the eye, so I'd be more than happy to move the blog to it's own section of the web site, but then I assume the SEO for both the homepage and blog will be cut in half. Is that correct or do links in to supporting pages of a web site still count towards the homepage.

This seems like a basic question that I should know the answer to, but I've simply never heard anyone address it yet. Any help from anyone would be greatly appreciated.

I noticed this event on my calendar the other day and was looking forward to it. Unfortunately I attend so many educational webinars that I assumed this was one as well. So, it's 10am and you've surely noticed by now that I'm not there. I'm so sorry! I would love to hear about a second event should you hold one.

I co-own Elle Marie Hair Studio in Mill Creek. Our salon is closed on Sundays. It's an 8-chair salon with plenty of space to roam around. It's located on the corner of 180th and Bothell-Everett Hwy. So if that's not too far for you, I'd be more than happy to open the doors to your group.

Thanks for the informative article, Rick. Well done! Definitely an article I can reference with clients.

There is something that I've been struggling with regarding your point #2 however - visibility and credibility. Sometimes I feel like people go out of their way to post SOMETHING just to get that visibility and I think at times it can clog up the Web 2.0 universe. For example, is it really that important to post "Nice article, Rick" when 30 other people have basically posted the same comment? My guess is people, especially those who don't know you personally, are simply trying to bolster their # of posts to gain their own credibility. There are surely some very informative comments posted above, however I didn't read through them all because I just don't have time. The list of comments is ginormous at this point. Hopefully Web 3.0 will offer an option to "Show all comments" or "Only show comments with a little meat to 'em".

For the record, I don't mean to sound overly-cynical here. I'm not calling out anyone that DID just post a short message because I'm sure many of them were posted with the best intentions. I'm just curious what others think about this overall concept.

Another thing to consider is data file management. I work out of my home and therefore have various worlds that overlap while I use the same computer. So I'm using Outlook 2007 and I have 4 data files: "Personal Folders" for my personal e-mails (this is also the default inbox), "Elle Marie Hair Studio" for business e-mails related to the hair salon I own, "Socializers" for business e-mails related to the events company I own, and of course "Archive Folders". I have 9 e-mail addresses that are accessed when hitting Send/Receive. Once e-mails come into my Personal Folders inbox (the default), I have rules setup to automatically distribute them to the root level of the various data files. Then I can manage my time appropriately and only focus on certain data files during certain hours of the day to stay on task.

...but let's be honest. I'm not that disciplined. I'm always checking all of my data files regularly and am constantly overloaded with e-mails...which is why I read this article to being with. So I'm not saying my strategy is right. I'm just saying that's what I do.