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Findability is the ability of brands and all their associated content to be discovered and interacted with by people.

More simply stated, findability is people’s ability to find and connect with content on websites. To find content, people need to be drawn to websites, and once on those websites, they require guidance finding the desired content.

Web promotion deals with drawing people, and website design with guiding them. Web promotion and website design — or usability — are the principal elements of findability.

Brands can maximize their findability by fine tuning the promotion of their websites and optimizing their websites’ usability, both important functions of a web marketing team or digital marketing agency.

Needless to say, developing high-quality and relevant content is crucial, but without findability, content has no value.

See also my other findability piece: What is Findability Convergence?

Now that you’ve found your way to the end of this findability article, please find the wherewithal to leave a comment about findability and to subscribe to my blog. 

I consider traffic, along with time, expertise and influence, to be a basic element of social media monetization.

Traffic is monetized by placing ads or sponsored content on blogs, social networking sites or other types of websites.

For years, I have resisted the idea of monetizing my traffic with commercial ads. To a large extent, I regard my blogs as professional work samples. My concern, therefore, has been the possibility that monetizing my blog traffic with ads might to some degree sully my image.

Last week, however, I accepted an invitation from Technorati Media to join their publisher network and placed their ad tags on my blogs and my business networking sites. I was ready for this change and happy to be getting started with a company I knew and trusted.

Of course, I’m not going to get rich from my social media traffic overnight, but ads give me another income stream that I can grow over time.

I invite you to connect and network with me on my new business sites:

• Small Business Networking – Networking and continuing education site for entrepreneurs and small businesses around the globe. Sign up there for free social media marketing training.
• NY Business Networking – Networking site with a local flavor for Greater New York Area business.

You don’t need your own business to participate.

I launched my two new business networking sites with several objectives in mind. One key objective was to make available free social media marketing training, as well as other free and low-cost training to a wide small business and entrepreneurial audience.

Register now for free social media marketing training on the Small Business Networking site.

Subjects will include social media marketing, social networking sites, small business websites, blogging, SEO and web analytics.

There will be strong branding opportunities for expert instructors who wish to participate in this free social media marketing training initiative or others on the way. For free social media training, make Small Business Networking your training resource on the web.

Social media and other types of media revolve around the findability and value of their content.

You could use a newspaper to wrap fish or fragile belongings (ideal), a book as a paperweight (sad), a radio or television program as white noise (even sadder) or a blog to switch to, so that the boss won’t catch you playing FarmVille at work (hopefully not my readers).

Kidding aside, media are published so that their content will be consumed, and social media marketing can only succeed if its content is findable, and if the people finding that content repeatedly consume it.

Am I stating simply the obvious? Perhaps, but consider for a minute the large number of web sites with little traffic and blogs with little traction. Do you not agree that my concern is somewhat justified?

Value and findability of content to and by stakeholders are prerequisites for social media marketing success, and the optimization of each must be at the top of our social media marketing content lists.

I started this blog, because I wanted to refocus the content of Online Social Networking on social and business networking, yet I still wanted to discuss other topics, such as New York business events, small business, search and social media.

Now that I’ve launched two new business networking sites, and both have blogging capabilities, I’m setting up a New York business blog on one site and a small business blog on the other.

In case this post has sounded so far like an Abbot and Costello routine, here’s a simpler breakdown:

• Greater NY Business – Join me on NY Business Networking.
• Small Business – Join me on Small Business Networking.
• Search and Social – You’re at the right place. Please subscribe.
• Networking – Visit and subscribe to Online Social Networking.

You might be wondering whether this article is merely a shameless plug for my new sites. Fortunately for me, there is a takeaway.

Although we might hope to build a web presence one time and then coast along, adding a blog post here and a social bookmark there, this online strategy isn’t at all feasible. Over time the world, technology and we too change substantially. These changes need to find expression in our web initiatives.

Therefore, since real world and corresponding social media changes are inevitable, we must expect them, accommodate them.. and grow with them.

We must grow with the flow.

I’ve been working very hard the past couple of weeks and finally launched my two new business networking sites.

A unique aspect of these sites is that they’ll serve to connect offline networking groups, facilitating communication among their group members and attracting new group members online.

These are my new business networking sites:

• NY Business Networking – Serving all business interests in the Greater New York City Tri-State area.
• Small Business Networking – Serving entrepreneurs and small businesses worldwide.

You don’t need to have a business to join either site. You can join for getting business ideas, searching for a new job or whatever else might make sense.

If you’re interested in business social networking, I recommend that you subscribe to my other blog, Online Social Networking.

I asked on Facebook earlier today whether every small business should have a blog. My Facebook focus group provided eight responses of which six were affirmative.

Fortunately, I’m not obliged to side with the majority on such matters, and although I praise blogs in 6 Easy Ways to Integrate Search and Social on Your Blogs and elsewhere, I see a blog as one of a variety of marketing tools at our disposal.

Starting a blog requires a commitment that is inappropriate for many small businesses.

You and I can talk about thought leadership, but when an entrepreneur is already wearing five hats in his or her small business, and there’s a family at home requiring attention, starting a blog could be the very straw that breaks the camel’s back.

Outsource it? That could be pricey and, in any case, I don’t know if that is thought leadership.

Back in April, I asked: Is Going Blogless Really An Option?

My answer: “Going blogless is an option. [With some creativity] you can accomplish with a standard website most of what you’d hope to accomplish with a blog.”

If anybody says your small business must have a blog, send them to me with boxing gloves on, and the two of us will duke it out.

The Business Development Institute is holding a free webinar on August 12, 2010 at 2pm ET that will discuss ways in which financial institutions are embracing social media to achieve their marketing and communications objectives.

The webinar will explain how major brands are connecting with customers, partners and employees through social media:

• A.J. Bosco, SVP Compliance, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, will provide perspective on social media compliance issues.
• Sarah Carter, VP Marketing, FaceTime, will share how financial brands are using technology and tools to effectively monitor and execute social media marketing strategies.

The Business Development Institute produces top quality events and training. I’m already registered for this one. Reserve your spot now.

This is a fairly lighthearted post, but it nevertheless outlines many social media marketing essentials.  If your online initiatives are weak in any area, you could be on the wrong track or missing key opportunities.

In the spirit of alliteration, and without further delay, here are the 10 F’s of social media marketing:

1. Fact-finding – Competitive intelligence and market research. Know your objectives and where you stand before you begin your social media marketing, even if the picture ain’t that pretty.
2. Forethought – Planning, market segmentation, positioning, keyword analysis, social media marketing landscape, etc. “The worst social media marketing advice is just jump in.”
3. Functionality – Web site design, navigability, the area above the fold, website widgets, lead capture, etc. Basic, right? Believe me when I tell you that most web sites are dysfunctional.
4. Findability – Maximize your use of SEO, SEM and social media marketing.
5. Follow-through – Building relationships and converting people into consumers of your content, customers and raving fans. Once you have your plan and your websites are up, this is where most of your social media marketing effort should go.
6. Fundamentals – Content, transparency, community, building trust, etc. Brian Kenny at the Harvard Business School says that we can’t connect via social media unless we understand the sociology of social media, which is different from the sociology of traditional media.
7. Focus – Cast a wide social media net, but when it comes to expending time and effort, live by the 80/20 rule.
8. Followers – Friends. Fans. People who adore your content. You need to love ‘em.
9. Facebook – Half a billion people log into Facebook each month, including me. You should probably be on Facebook too.
10. Friday – Have fun! Today is Friday, after all. Isn’t it? You can obsess about your social media marketing on Monday.

At the Search and Social Leadership Forum, Veronica Fielding, whose Digital Brand Expressions sponsored the event, presented case studies of several companies that had optimized their web marketing campaigns by creating synergy between search and social media.

These projects were very complex and required expert execution. However, less complex ways exist for you and I to realize similar synergies, each of us according to our own levels of expertise, by integrating search and social on personal or company blogs. Here are six easy ways you can integrate search and social on your blogs:

1. Content - Post to your blog very frequently. Blogs are social, and they’re content generators. You write; others comment. When you post to your blog, you’re supplying content that attracts both search engines and humans. When you post frequently, your content is fresh. Readers like to find fresh content, and it’s like caviar for Google and other search engines, since searchers crave it.
2. Comments – Elicit comments, interact with readers and build your community. Consider making your comments dofollow to increase reader participation. Comments augment content and attract both readers and search engines, just like blog posts. Similarly, frequent comments help even more. Some search engines interpret comments as votes for you and for your authority.
3. Followers – Make it easy for visitors to follow and subscribe to your blog. The more people following and reading your blog, the more authority being conferred upon you by your audience and by search engines.
4. Widgets – Install Google Friend Connect and other widgets on your blog to increase followers and your perceived authority. Website widgets can help build your following.
5. Social – Build relationships with readers on and off your blog. I like to connect on Facebook, Twitter, by phone and face-to-face. Always keep in mind that social media is.. uh social. People who like you and your content will often refer others to you and link to you. Inbound links translate into authority with search engines.
6. Search – Fine tune your search engine optimization. You may receive more visitors from search than from social, and search visitors tend to be searching for something you have. The search engines close the loop by sending new visitors who read, comment and follow your blog, helping you all over again with search engine positioning.

I’ve enjoyed our brief visit. Now it’s time for you to subscribe and leave me a comment.

At the Search and Social Leadership Forum, hosted by the Business Development Institute and NYU Midtown and sponsored by Digital Brand Expressions, Julie Sun presented a fascinating MTV Movie Awards case study.

Julie documented her team’s successful orchestration of a combined social media and PPC search campaign to engage stakeholders and win share of voice the night of the event.

A key part of the MTV strategy was to make it simple for people to join the conversation, especially those people who do not readily share. This was achieved by directly embedding the conversation in the event’s web pages.

The night of the awards, not only did Julie’s MTV team monitor sentiment online, they also looked for breaking news on the ground. Stories were immediately posted online, thereby fueling the enthusiasm and feeding the social media conversation.

Julie also pointed out that MTV’s social media success was due as much to months of preparation as it was to expert execution the night of the event.

There were so many fine speakers at Social Convergence and the Enterprise: Case Studies and Roundtables, hosted by the Business Development Institute, that I didn’t come away with any one favorite. However, I did especially enjoy the fast-paced and data-filled keynote of Brian Kenny, CMCO of the Harvard Business School.

Brian discussed enterprise social media convergence at HBS and presented three other enterprise social media case studies, those of NASA, Intuit and Threadless. He also discussed the state of social media and the direction in which social media is heading.

Rather than attempt to summarize Brian’s keynote speech, which would be too difficult an undertaking, I’ll share with you a few of the points he made that were takeaways for me:

• The Facebook, Twitter and YouTube social media sites are all experiencing tremendous growth, however, it’s Mobile that’s truly exploding with 6B mobile apps to be downloaded in 2010.
• Mobile is the platform of the future. The iPhone is the smartphone of choice, at least at HBS where the iPhone is the de facto standard.
• We can’t connect via social media unless we understand the sociology of social media, which is different from the sociology of traditional media.
• Twitter is the preferred social medium among Forbes Fortune 100 companies.
• Social media enables the enterprise to create communities, leverage existing ones, accelerate message distribution and collect research data via crowdsourcing.
• It’s the marketing function that’s leading the social media revolution.
• The three dimensions of enterprise social media convergence are across functions, audiences and platforms.

There’s no longer any time for your enterprise to sit on the social media fence, and social media marketing late adopters beware!

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