The Best Way To Use Wikipedia To Promote Your Small Business:Tips by Linchpin SEO

Wikipedia articles rank high in search results for keywords,yet this medium is only partially utilized.The main reason for this strange phenomena is prevalence of unskilled copy writers.The SEO operations of most of the companies is outsourced and vendors(in pursuit of profit maximization)  rely on low skilled data entry operators for content creation and online PR Management.Wikipedia requires high quality articles with reliable references.I came across a nicely written blog post on blog of a digital agency Linchpin SEO.I would like to share some of their tips on use of Wikipedia for Small and Medium Businesses.

Wikipedia, the popular community-edited website, is not considered a reliable source of information when writing papers or fact-checking information. Most believe that because anyone can create and edit the information on the site, the information can easily be biased and/or inaccurate. But that doesn’t mean that Wikipedia doesn’t provide value, especially when it comes to promoting your business.

Every article, or “page,” on Wikipedia is required to have a list of cited sources at the end of the page. These sources are cited in-text, allowing the reader to see the source of the information provided. And this is precisely how small businesses can spread their content they have written and marketing their small business. While the links are “no follow,” meaning that they don’t really count toward link-building in the eyes of the search engines, having your research article listed as a cite, with a link to the content is valuable.

While Wikipedia is community-edited, the community can be fickle about what is and is not acceptable for citing. As such, a business owner cannot simply write a research article, find a corresponding Wikipedia page, and post a link to their content. The following guidelines will help you use Wikipedia to promote your content and establish your credibility online:

Become A Contributor:

Wikipedia is more time consuming than other means of article promotion. This is because the community has its own specific style guide that must be strictly adhered to, or the links will be removed. Take a half hour, or an hour, and familiarize yourself with the Wikipedia style and code. Edit a few articles about topics in which you care, so you can see how the user interface works.

Add Meaningful Information:

As mentioned earlier, it is not enough to just add a link to content that supports information that already exists in the article. Rather, the editing community at Wikipedia expects that something new will be added to the information in the article, with your link to your business article as the citation. The easiest way to add new information is to read the Wikipedia article, find one or two bits of information that you supply in your business article that aren’t in the Wikipedia page, and add those to the page. This may be as little as one or two sentences, or as much as a paragraph. Just make sure to add an in-text citation with the link back to your information on your site.

Use Credible, High-Authority Sources:

When the Wikipedia editing community looks through new additions to pages, they want to see that the newly added information and link is high quality. Make sure that you list at least three resources to .edu and .gov sites at the end of your research article to support your research or business findings. Also, cite sources within the body of the business article whenever it makes sense. This is as easy as saying something like, 

“According to a 2010 report issued by the Department of Health and Human Services…” This tells readers you have done the research that backs up the information in your page. In return, this also demonstrates to the Wikipedia community that the research you linked to has supporting documentation, and indeed adds value for their readers.

These suggestions will help you establish links and credibility on one of the most read websites in the world. While citing your content on Wikipedia takes more effort and time than promoting on social networks or commenting on blogs, the value over time is strong and worth the time. Combining several of the promotion techniques is the best way to get the most from every piece of content you publish.

Good Product Manager Vs Bad Product Manager!

People always accuse me for getting involved too much with product. I want to know basic of every component of product development before suggesting improvement in other’s work. Moreover, I would always wish that my team respect me for my domain knowledge and not for position, i am holding. I recently came across a post on goodproductmanager.com  and would love to share experts from the post, which mostly endorse my ideas on product management. I hope you will find the post useful. Let me know your inputs through comment section.

If you want to be a bad product manager, have someone else do the dirty work for you. You’re important (your title includes “manager,” after all) and you’ve got important things to do, like go to meetings and create presentations. You can’t be bothered with doing the “little things” like following up on customer questions, maintaining communication with partners, or interfacing with all the different functions within your company.

If you want to be a good product manager, be comfortable getting involved in all aspects of your product. Ignoring issues which demand further scrutiny is a sure-fire way to miss important details, hurt your credibility among the product development team and other internal stakeholders, and reduce your overall effectiveness as a product manager.

Product managers should know how to and spend time with activities like:

• Follow up with a customer after a salesperson reports a customer complaint during a sales call
• Getting to the root cause of strange problems being reported by customer support
• Working out details of the implications of product plans with internal groups like finance, legal, and sales operations
• Conducting customer interviews personally (as opposed to delegating this to other internal or external resources)

Often product managers do not get involved in these activities because either they do not know how to do them, are not comfortable doing them, believe that their other duties are more important, or feel though they are “above” doing some of these activities.

This is not to say that a product manager should be involved in all of the “none of the above” tasks at all times. Often, product managers fail because they are perceived as the person who should do all of the miscellaneous work, or they spend too much time in tactical responsibilities rather than delegating those. However, product managers should get involved in some details from time to time for a number of reasons:

1. It will help you identify things related to the product which you would not find out if someone else carried out the task. Yes, a customer service representative can follow up with a major customer to find out more details about the error they received, and they will do a good job of it — but they may only be focused on identifying more out about the error and when it occurred. If you follow up, you will (should) also probe more to learn the scenario which led to the customer performing the task which caused the error, how often that customer performs that task, the broader scenario surrounding that task, the value your product provides by solving the customer need, and a long list of other information which you would not have learned by delegating the follow-up to someone else.
2. It will give you credibility with your colleagues. There is nothing which turns off colleagues more than responding to a request they feel is completely reasonable with a response that you do not have time for their request, that their request is not important, or that the request is “not my job.” Implying that you are “too good” to do something (but your colleague is not) is a recipe for disaster for product managers, whose success depends on influencing people over whom they do not have authority. When you can go the extra mile and help them out with a problem, show them that their request is important, act courtesly and respectfully, and finish what you started in a timely fashion, your colleague will be more than willing to return the favor at some point in the future. (Bonus points if you genuinely thank them for the opportunity to get involved and for their assistance along the way.)
3. It will help make you a better product manager by teaching you about other areas of the business. By “rolling up your sleeves” and diving into different areas within your organization, you will make yourself more knowledgeable about the overall operations of your company and about the various aspects of business in general. The more you learn about the manufacturing operations, the supply chain, the CRM system, or the human resources policies (yes, even HR), the more well-rounded you will become, making you a more valuable product manager for your organization and a more marketable product manager overall.

Finding the right balance is important — too much time spent in the details will take time and attention away from important strategic responsibilities, though avoiding all of the details will shield you from important information which can help enlighten your strategic responsibilities. Product managers who are comfortable getting involved in all aspects of their product and can devote the right amount of time to these details will undoubtedly be more valuable and successful product managers in the long run.

What Google+ Business Profiles is going to be?

Does anyone know what Google+ Business Profiles is going to be? Currently only the Beta testers and Google are aware of what that is; however there has been some speculation as to the likely outcomes. Considering the clout of Google’s Search engine it is very much predictable that Google Business Profile will be of immense importance for small businesses. Google may assign good weightage to Google+ business profiles in their search engine ranking. Although people have started writing off the Google+, I still have some hope that it will get a major boost with launch of business profile page.

While that is not a detailed breakdown of what the profiles will look like, or the precise functionality, there are a number of hints to the goal that Google has in mind for Business Profiles.

1.   Brand-Consumer Communication: Google has always had the interest in providing information to the world. The relative transparency is one of the many aspects of Google the not only fan boys, but the general public have appreciated. By encouraging businesses to have the simplistic communication channel through a Business Profile, they are encouraging the same information transparency. It may not seem like much, but the goals are reached one step at a time.

2.       Targeted Search Ads: While Facebook makes overwhelming amounts of money from its personalized ad targeting, Google essentially invented targeted web advertising. The analytics engines and ad engines are in place to offer a competitive compliment or alternative to Facebook ad budgets. Google’s true power over Facebook, in regards to ads, is the search memory that it can apply to ads. Facebook is only able to target individuals based on their submitted interests. Google will be able to harness what they searched for as well.

3.   Optimized Google Application Integration: While not all products launched from Google have been successes (Google Wave, Catalogs, Video), others have by overwhelming margins. The cloud nature of Google Docs or the ease of function and navigation of Google Maps have made the search giant much more than a search giant. Google can provide these integrations into Business Profiles so that users can easily get information from business profiles.

Reference: This blog post is written by Vinaytosh Mishra for www.saltsocial.com a leading Social Media Marketing Product Development Company from Bangalore, India. 

SlideShare Media Creation Tips!

If you want to search/share serious content around a subject SlideShare is the best place to be. Professionals from many niches upload their content, while other viewers consume the content either landing directly on website or through search engines.

Features of SlideShare:

 1.       Members can have their content uploaded to the site and embed their own personal website or blog

 2.       Content can also be shared privately

 3.    Can be used as an effective marketing tool in helping to promote or advertise an event

 4.SlideShare openly promotes users getting together to create their own groups so that they can interact with people who share the same niche interest as them.

Advantages of SlideShare Coverage:

1.       The single most important aspect and advantage of utilizing SlideShare is that every piece of media uploaded to the site can be viewed by their over 70 million viewers per month.

2.       Users can niche network by creating or joining existing groups. This can help increase contacts, and therefore opportunities.

3.       While being a part of a group can have many networking and marketing benefits, SlideShare user groups can also collectively modify and even enhance current online content.

SlideShare Media Creation Tips:

1.       Go Visual: Use a lot more visual markers and easy to understand symbolism as opposed to more text. Plain and simple, human beings prefer to be visually engaged if the other option is mounds of jumbled text.

2.       Keep it Short: Try to get to the point of your content quickly. Rambling discourse and biased opinions are unlikely to garner increasing views or ‘word of mouth’ consumers.

3.       Precision Tagging: At the end of each upload users are given the opportunity to choose their content descriptions as well as adding their tags, or keywords. Use keyword tools such as Google’s keyword tool to find the best keywords to describe your content or product.

4.       Call to Action: If your content is one of your marketing tools you will definitely want to supply a ‘call-to-action’ at the end of each presentation. A link to click or short advertisement for your product is sufficient and over promotion may have negative impact. 

References: This blog post  was written by Vinaytosh Mishra for Webbazaar.com .The blog contains experts from www.digitalbrandmarketing.com,www.techcrunch.com,www.slideshare.net and www.mashable.com 

SlideShare Launches New HTML5 Website!

Everyone is preparing for the mobile and tablet revolution, it seems. On this blog we shared our thought on motive of Amazon’s tablet friendly site. Now it’s turn of SlideShare. The new HTML5 SlideShare site now renders 30 percent faster and users can view, share, and interact with presentations. The latest version of the SlideShare site uses a patent-pending document conversion technology that renders all the details of a PowerPoint or Word document using nothing but HTML5.

The site also allows visitors to take advantage several features that were previously available only on the desktop version of the site including the ability to copy and paste text; keyboard navigation; full-screen view; and the ability to view embedded documents. Registered users can also view private content, to view content from friends, and favorite content. Any user viewing a slide view page now has visibility into metadata such as the number of views, embeds, and favorites for each presentation, as well as related content and content by the same author. And the homepage now displays a list of featured presentations.

SlideShare continues to see growing engagement, and expects the HTML5 platform to increase usage as well. The selection of HTML5 over native application made sense because the company wanted a lightweight experience for users and wanted documents, fonts, and more to look the same on various browser types. 

Reference: This blog was written by Vinaytosh Mishra for Neev Technologies .

1. www.techcrunch.com 
2. www.mashable.com