Since I've listed a couple of SEO analogies lately, I thought I might as well do the same for social media. After all, the two genres of online marketing are not all that different. They are both ways of connecting content creators with relevant and interested audiences. They just use different methods. 

Social media is more of an immediately human process than SEO. Its all about direct communication between individuals who share a passion or interest. For this reason I think it has a lot of similarities to another medium that has been around for much longer than the internet itself. And that's talkback radio. 

Of course talkback is voice, when social media is primarily text based (although it can involve sound and vision in sites like YouTube and Google Plus Hangouts). The other main difference is that radio is a broadcast medium, while Twitter, Facebook and the like are narrowcast. 

Other than these differences, identifying what makes a good talkback presenter and applying it to your own approach to social media will be useful.

Firstly, you can't be silent! Remember that if you're tuned into your favourite broadcaster and no one's calling in, he has to keep talking himself. If he doesn't the channel is totally quiet. Obviously, it's very bad for ratings if this happens even occasionally. 

Similarly, if you're on Twitter and have a break for a week or two, well you're as good as not being there. Some people may find you via lists, etc. But your following won't grow much, if at all. And while the people you've connected with already won't forget you completely, you're probably going to get unfollowed by quite a few of those newest in your network. So, clearly you've got to keep popping up in their streams, if not daily then at least a few times a week. (On the flip side you don't want to go overboard in the other direction. Still, that is hard to do on Twitter, and easier on Facebook.)

Another thing that good talkback hosts do is to be topical, and ask good questions about these current issues. Local ABC personality Geoff Hutchinson, for example, starts his show framing the subjects he wants to discuss, then asking listeners to respond.

If you're on social media keep an eye on trending topics and post thoughtfully about them, including questions to increase engagement. If these stories have their own hashtags, be sure to use them. 

Hutchinson also polite to callers. He lets them have their say. Being affable and welcoming, his popularity is assured. This approach should also be taken when interacting with your networks online. 

That said, not all talkback hosts are like this. Some have become successful by being rude. But that's an unpleasant way to achieve success. Who would want to do it?

I suppose it is possible to achieve some sort of notoriety by simply being unpleasant all the time on social media. You could become well known as an uber-troll. But while you might achieve a kind of infamy, it certainly wouldn't be useful if you wanted to promote something aside from your own obnoxious personality! 

While it's important for broadcasters to be polite, that doesn't mean they shouldn't be controversial. You can do both. While this approach is rare in Perth's radio landscape, there are many examples of this in Sydney. The so-called "shock jocks" Alan Jones, Ben Fordham, Steve Price and Alan Bolt are all good examples of this. Hardly shocking, they just politely call things as they see them. And more often than not their view is politically incorrect. 

Social media users should heed this example. While controversy can be much more useful in a field like political commentary, it can also be a great way to lift your profile in any other online niche. The key is to be polite and sincere. Don't just say things to offend people and attract attention. Be thoughtful, critical and also be prepared to defend your arguments when they are opposed. That way you'll stand out from the social media pack, lift your profile and also garner respect, even from some of your opponents. 

Search engine optimization is a process. It's definitely not set and forget. For this reason you can gain insights into it by comparing it to other processes. For example earlier I wrote that it was similar to creating a quality feature film. At the risk of going overboard on the SEO analogies -- I know a lot of people have -- I thought I'd share another one that can be made from that creative field. And that is to say that at least when it comes to your overall intention with your website, the process of search engine optimization has some similarities to the craft of acting.

Obviously acting requires different skills, and there are many ways ways to define what makes a good practitioner of the craft. But clearly the main thing that you want to achieve when playing a character in a theatre production is to be convincing to the audience.

Characterization aside, the main way you achieve that is through your emotional commitment to your role. If you do your preparation and work out what your character really wants in his journey throughout the play, then commit to that on a deep emotional level, you will be a compelling presence on stage. All your words and actions will seem to arise out of your character. The audience will believe you are real.

Your fellow performers will also benefit. You'll be affecting them with the power of your emotions and they are much more likely to respond in kind. If all the actors are similarly committed then it will create a self-reinforcing process that will lift the entire production. That's why the phrase "there are no small actors, only small roles" is so often quoted by directors. 

On the other hand, if you aren't quite sure what you're character is trying to achieve emotionally, or know but don't make that commitment, while on stage you'll be doing everything from your head instead of your gut. You'll be merely saying your lines, rather than having them arise out of the emotions you're feeling. Rather than being in the moment, you'll be anticipating cues. 

If the other actors are any good and have created a convincing world on stage then you'll seem like an impostor -- a wooden presence holding onto the furniture, whose words and actions ring hollow. You'll suck the energy out of the ensemble and could even end up ruining the whole production. In short, if you spend all your time worried about the mechanics of your performance, rather than absorbing and embodying the character's emotional journey, you will came across as false to the audience. 

Now, to SEO: It may seem like a long bow to draw but each website is not unlike a role to be played in that it has qualities, characteristics, and most importantly an ultimate goal. That might be to tell people about a product or service or convince them that you're an authority in your field.

Sure, it's not an emotional one, like Stanley Kowalski in Streetcar Named Desire. But your site is going to go on a journey nonetheless. And not unlike a character in a play it doesn't exist in isolation. It will grow and accumulate content as well as interact with other sites, and on social media. 

So, like the prepared and committed actor, you need to know what those intentions are for your site. Needless to say, they don't include page one rankings in search engines. They will be a welcome benefit; a result of your good work.

If you commit to  your website goals and pursue them with focus, all your actions will come as a result of that. Among other things you'll add quality, relevant content and comment thoughtfully on related blogs. People who see it will be impressed by your authority. They'll share your content, link to it, etc. Google will pick up these signals and reward you accordingly. 

Now, if you as a webmaster are like the bad actor who is lazy or uncommitted or both (and who is basically on stage for the glory rather than for the love of the creative process and the satisfaction of creating something compelling) you will be fixated on the mechanics of SEO. Rather than doing the things that will inevitably result in genuine social shares and backlinks, etc, you'll be thinking: how do I get those backlinks and social shares? You may even end up buying them, and in bulk. You'll be doing everything the wrong way around. 

Sure, you will almost certainly get some SEO benefit, and you may even snare a couple of those page one positions you craved. But will they last? Odds are you'll be beaten in the long run by pages that were created by those more committed to quality and relevance. Like the audience rolling its eyes at the bad actor in stage, Google will ultimately deem you an impostor. Definitely an outcome you want to avoid. 

I wrote earlier about how I think you should have a passion for whatever it is that you're promoting or selling. That will make the whole experience much more enjoyable than if it were lacking. You'll be likely to stick with a venture for a while until it starts to pay off, too. (I've certainly found this with various blogs that I've had over the years, a few of which have made me some money. I've I'd been completely dispassionate about them I wouldn't have kept going.)

Emotions are powerful, of course. And hunches can be really effective ... They can be a total waste of time too. (Well, not completely. Finding out the harsh reality can be a valuable lesson in itself.)

Here's an example from my own experience: As this site describes I offer online marketing lessons to people in Perth. I also distribute flyers for them. The whole idea came out of my own need for leads for the lessons. I figured I'd be promoting them with flyers because I know it works, so why not get paid to do it for someone else simultaneously?

Anyway, several months ago now I had this hunch that to maximize efficiency I should focus on distributing them in commercial and industrial areas such as Wangara, Malaga, and Bibra Lake. Since almost every address in these areas is for a business, and all businesses have websites (well, they're crazy if they don't!) then it would be a gold mine for people who would be interested in the lessons.

Also, there are a lot of businesses in these areas that are B2B. And they would want to me to distribute flyers in areas like their own. So I was sure I'd win on both counts and make better money as a result. 

Turned out that this was half right. I did this for several months -- gave it a red hot go, as they say. There was no lack of people wanting B2B flyer drops. But while I did get a few sales for the lessons, there were far fewer than I expected.
I actually got about the same number of calls per thousand from residential drops. And I can do heaps more of them in the same amount of time because there are many more letterboxes per street. 

I'm not sure why this is but I have a theory: It's about time. People in business are usually just too busy to take on new online tasks themselves. Or at least they feel that they are ... 

This sentiment did come through from the lessons that I did do. When I explained that a long term, persistent approach was required in social media (and SEO to a lesser extent) they would often roll their eyes.

I explained that you certainly had to do a lot over an extended period, but if you could absorb, say, regular tweeting into your daily schedule then you really wouldn't notice it. In most cases I don't think they were convinced. I got the strong feeling from several of them that they would much prefer to pay someone to do this kind of stuff for them. 

In retrospect I think I would have had better results if I simply offered to do this kind of work, rather than showing business owners how to do it themselves. Offering social media management services would have garnered more sales, I'm sure. But that's just not something I'm considering doing, at least not for the time being ... 

In any case this realization is useful for any future approaches I might take. I'll give the commercial areas a break for a while. If I do get back into them, I'll promote some service or product that can be bought outright and saves time, as opposed to using it up! 

And I'll focus on doing flyers in densely packed suburbs close to the Perth CBD. My ads will still be seen by some business owners with websites -- they don't spend all their time at their workplaces and have to live somewhere! -- and there are other kinds of people who can benefit from my lessons. Social media can be used for many things, after all. Examples include using it to pursue a hobby or interest, promote a cause, or get an ebook you've written known by potential buyers far and wide. 

As well as this locally oriented blog, I have another one called the Real Perth Blog. I basically started it because I'd returned to this city after several years living in Sydney and I was amazed at the changes going on in this once very laid back "big country town" that I grew up in. I wanted to document them somehow. 

I also did it as a bit of an experiment. Among other aims related to SEO, I wanted to see how much traffic I could get by targeting locally oriented keywords.

Over the last couple of years chipping away at it I've learned that there's a great deal of of easy to get, geo-specific traffic out there that you can catch with blog posts. They're also really easy to write. If you live here, you just have to report on what you see. And you can easily enrich your content by taking photos and making videos and embedding them in your posts. There are heaps of people within Australia as well as some overseas who find this stuff really interesting and are constantly Googling for it. 

The other thing I noticed is that once I had a lot of city-specific content up there, I had some substantial heft in Google for general "Perthiness".

For example, I built a page under that domain advertising lessons in how to make money from home. (They are a bit like what I offer from this site -- just more oriented towards people starting up local services like dog walking, baby sitting, tutoring services, etc.) 

Now, almost immediately after I built that page it ranked on the first page for "make money from home in Perth". Now that's not a hugely competitive phrase with massive search volume, of course. So it wouldn't have been all that hard to get there. But it usually doesn't happen so soon. And there were no backlinks to that page from from other sites. I don't think I even shared it on social media. So clearly it got there because it was an established domain, with lots of locally oriented content associated with it.

This is heartening. It means that I can add pages for other services I might want to offer. Odds are that they will rank pretty well for searches for them plus the keyword Perth. This won't apply if the phrase is super-competitive like "jobs Perth" or "Perth SEO". But for something specific, like "English tutor Perth" which is something I might eventually do, it could work quite well. I know that at the very least I will be hitting the ground running as opposed to starting from scratch. 

So, doing something similar could be a good approach for residents of this city who have a range of products or services they might want to promote to locals. 

If you are in this boat, here's a suggestion: Buy a domain name that includes your name and Perth. Then get good reliable hosting. Make sure that you have a blogging tool included so that the posts come off the main domain. Then just start writing about your city. When you work out what sort of services you want to offer, just build separate pages for them. 

This isn't the traditional way to do things, of course. It's almost back to front. And it doesn't suit everybody. But as well as its SEO advantages, it's another way of giving yourself lots of options. It's also enjoyable. The content comes easily, after all. 

It also helps for personal branding and reputation management. When people search your name you always want to have profiles and pages about you that present a good image. And a website like this will certainly rank highly for searches for your name, surely a good thing. 

It certainly beats building a static five or ten page site around a limited number of highly competitive "money" keywords. This can be lucrative tactic if you do manage to rank highly for them of course. But it can take countless hours of work to get there. And given Google's propensity for constantly changing its algorithm, there's always the very real fear that your search engine traffic could dry up overnight. 

One thing I've realized from offering my lessons is just how many people have little or no sense of connection to their business websites. And they really can't see their potential. Many believe that a website is like a sign that they hold up in front of people. They think it's like an extended advertisement and that's it.

For this reason they often hand over complete control of it to other people. They let them decide what to put on it, how to market it. Often these online marketers can do a good job. But they frequently deliver sub-standard services, for which they overcharge, too. And sometimes they can permanently damage the site's reputation in Google. That's why I believe it's usually better if you can do it yourself. 

I think an analogy is useful here. A website is like a phone -- specifically in the sense of what a phone used to be before it morphed into a technological Swiss Army knife! By that I mean that it's basically a tool you use to communicate with other people. 

You can use a phone to market stuff. Sure, many businesses will pay a telemarketing company. But you can also do that inhouse. Particularly if you are in B2B you can be proactive about it. You can find businesses' numbers, call them, speak to them. 

There's a lot of rejection, yes. But if you make a strong connection it can result in ongoing sales. Sure, this process takes a while but it's not complicated, and you or your staff can do it. Unless you're some big company it would usually be best not to outsource it. Why pay for people to talk on your behalf?

You are the best person to communicate with clients because you have all the details. You know what you are offering. You're the expert in your field. You know how long it's going to take to do jobs, etc.

Now, just as a phone was, and remains, a straightforward tool to use to find, connect with and communicate with customers, so is your website. It's just a tool to facilitate a human process.

But this truth is often forgotten. Unfortunately, as well as seeing their website as a sign, I think a lot of people see it as a primarily technical machine. They think it's so complex that all management and use of it must be carried out by bespectacled web ninjas.

They mistakenly believe that to be found in search engines, for example, they have to either be experts in SEO, or hire people who are. But the truth is quite different. You just have to know a bit about SEO, and be an expert in what you do. Then demonstrate that expertise on the site and Google will eventually figure out you're quality and reward you accordingly. 

Similarly, on social media, geeks don't set up technical mechanics that send out your ad to squillions of people. Social networks are just ways of connecting and communicating with others who share your interests and/or are in your target demographic.

You're using your website as the tool that enables these processes. And they're pretty straightforward. So why hand them over to someone else? Why not seize the reins of it yourself? 

It's like when the hired help is doing a lousy job of talking to clients. And the boss says, "Gimme that phone. I'll talk to them!" That's what more business people should be doing, I believe.