Social Media Portal interview with Greg Jarboe at SEO-PR

Profiled - Greg Jarboe, President and co-founder at strategic Internet marketing services firm SEO-PR

Social Media Portal (SMP): What is your role at SEO-PR?

Greg Jarboe (GJ): Greg Jarboe, President and co-founder, SEO-PR.

SMP: Briefly, tell us about SEO-PR, what is it and what does it do?  

GJ: SEO-PR provides strategic Internet marketing services, including: search engine optimization, online public relations, online video marketing, and social media marketing.

SMP: Can you tell us what event you?re moderating at SES London?

GJ: At SES London 2012, I?ll be participating in the Meet the Experts: Round Table Forums on Tuesday, 21 February, from 4:30-5:30 p.m., and on Wednesday, 22 February, from 12:00-1:00 p.m. On both days, I?ll be at the Video Optimisation table.

On Wednesday, 22 February, I will be holding an Express Clinic from 2:00-3:00 p.m. It?s entitled, ?Your Video ain?t Viral ? YouTube Marketing Mini Critiques.?

On Wednesday, 22 February, I?ll be moderating the session entitled ?Why Content Strategy Is Crucial for Social Search,? from 3:45-4:45 p.m. 

On Thursday, 23 February, from 12:45-1:45 p.m., I?ll be speaking at the session entitled, ?Developing a Video Optimisation and Marketing Campaign.?

SMP: Who are the ideal target audience for the session and what can they hope to take away from these presentations?  

GJ: The ideal target audiences for these sessions are search and digital enthusiasts from the UK and Europe who want to learn the Search and Social Marketing tips and strategies that aren?t covered online.

SMP: How would you summarise what content strategy is and why is it crucial for social search?  

GJ: Search has changed dramatically over the past five years, since Google announced in 2007 its critical first steps toward a universal search model that incorporated social media ? including YouTube videos, Flickr photos, and breaking news on blogs ? into a single set of blended results.  After the ?Panda? algorithm change in 2011 improved the ranking of ?high-quality content,? your content strategy should be focused on what I'd call ?quality content optimization? or ?QCO.?

SMP: What are the low moments of what you?ve been doing so far? 

GJ: The low moments have to be the long recession, which is sometimes referred to as the Great Recession.  It has affected the entire world economy and has made far too many companies risk-adverse at the very time they needed to invest in online video marketing and social media marketing.

SMP: What are the high moments of what you?ve been doing so far?  

GJ: Helping clients like Parents magazine, SES Conference & Expo, and the Rutgers Center for Management Development generate measurable results.

SMP: What do you feel the next big step for social media / networks are and what may be the impact upon social search (and content strategy)?  

GJ: Conversations are better face-to-face.  And Google+ lets you join a video hangout from your computer or mobile phone to catch up, watch YouTube videos together, or swap stories with up to 9 of your friends at once.

SMP: What?s going to be the most interesting aspect regarding social media / technology throughout 2012?  

GJ: I think the most interesting aspect regarding social media in 2012 is Pinterest, a site launched in March 2010 that describes itself as an online pinboard to organize and share things you love.  Pinterest recently emerged as one of the top 10 websites within the Hitwise Social Networking & Forums category.

SMP: What are your top five predictions for social media throughout 2012 (please use one to two sentences for each prediction, or write more if you wish)?  

GJ: My top five predictions for social media for 2012 come from Yogi Berra, a former American Major League Baseball catcher, outfielder, and manager, who said, ?It?s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.?  Here they are:

• ?When you come to a fork in the road, take it.?  For a decade, search engine optimizers have been too focused on creating content primarily for search engines, with humans a secondary concern.  Google?s ?Panda? algorithm change now requires SEOs to focus on delivering the best possible user experience on their websites and not to focus too much on what they think are Google?s current ranking algorithms or signals.  And Panda was just one of roughly 500 search improvements that Google rolled out to search last year.  So in 2012, I predict that SEOs will focus on developing high-quality content rather than trying to optimize for any particular Google algorithm.

• ?It?s déjà vue all over again.?  Back in August 2009, Yossi Matias, Niv Efron, and Yair Shimshoni of Google Labs, Israel, posted a paper entitled On the Predictability of Search Trends. Their paper included the following observation: Over half of the most popular Google search queries are predictable in a 12 month ahead forecast. Based on the findings in this paper, Google introduced a forecasting feature in Insights for Search.  In 2012, I predict that social media marketers will begin using this forecasting feature to create what YouTube calls ?tent-pole programming,? content around search interest in predictable major events like the Olympics and holidays. 
  

• ?Nobody goes there anymore.  It?s too crowded.?  According to the DoubleClick Ad Planner, Facebook.com had 970 million unique visitors worldwide in January 2012, YouTube.com had 870 million, and Twitter.com had 170 million.  However, when you mention ?social media,? far too many marketers think of just Facebook and Twitter.  In 2012, I predict that most marketers will start launching YouTube marketing campaigns because it?s too crowded to ignore.

•  ?You can observe a lot by watching.?  If you watch a lot of YouTube videos, you can observe some things.  But, one hour of video is uploaded to YouTube every second, so you can?t watch everything.  Now, you can read the 73-page YouTube Creator Playbook, which compiles important tips, best practices, and strategies to build greater audiences on YouTube.  Or, you can read my 474-page book, YouTube and Video Marketing: An Hour a Day.  In 2012, I predict that many social media marketers will start doing a little reading in between watching a lot more YouTube videos.

• ?It?s ain?t over ?till it?s over.?  Of course, there are a lot of things that I can?t predict.  This includes which of the almost 100 new original channels that have already started to appear on YouTube will go on to be successful in 2012.  Manny in the mainstream media are betting that it will be channels created by well-known personalities and content producers.  But I?ll bet that it will be the channels created by some of the most innovative up-and-coming media companies as well as some of YouTube?s own existing partners.  They don?t need to read the YouTube Creator Playbook.  In many cases, they created the plays.   

SMP: What are your top five social media tips?  

GJ: My top five social media tips are:

• Identify who matters most to your business ? Use a combination of free and paid resources to understand your influencers based on their reach, resonance, and relevance to your market.

• Follow influencers? contribution on your issues -- Gain insight into what your influencers say about your brand, products, competitors, and market.

• Build engagement strategies based on intel -- Learn where influencers are talking, what they are saying, how they feel about your topic, who they are influenced by, and more.

• Engage the most relevant influencers and optimize returns -- Build relationships with the right influencers to maximize the impact on your products, brands, and business.

• Measure the results of your outreach campaign -- Track the success of your outreach campaign with data-rich feedback, including engagement metrics, website traffic, brand mentions, and sales.

SMP: Best way to contact you and SEO-PR?  

GJ: You can call SEO-PR at 415-643-8947, send me email to greg.jarboe @ seo-pr.com, or contact me on Twitter @gregjarboe.



SMP: What did you have for breakfast / lunch?

GJ: Oatmeal with blueberries, orange juice, and coffee.

SMP: What?s the last good thing that you did for someone?  

GJ: Helped a couple of friends in the UK become members of the faculty at the Rutgers Center for Management Development.

SMP: If you weren?t working at SEO-PR what would you be doing?  

GJ: Pretty much what I?m already doing: Writing, speaking, teaching, and figuring out how to measure the return on marketing investment.  And if I had more time, then I?d also be working to re-elect President Barack Obama.

SMP: What is it that you?re most looking forward to do in London, apart from guest speaking at SES?  

GJ: My oldest son, Andrew, will also be in London that week.  He?s a PhD Candidate in World History.  His research looks at the deployment of some 138,000 Indian soldiers to the western front during the First World War.  

His contribution to his soon-to-be-published book compares the treatment that wounded Indian soldiers received at hospitals in Britain with the treatment they received from German captors at POW camps in Germany and Romania.  He has accessed a variety of primary sources created by those ?from above? -- the internal memos of the British Foreign Office and India Office -- as well as by those ?from below? -- the letters written by Indian soldiers during the war to friends and loved-ones back home.  If I can?t join him during the day at the Imperial War Museums, we will at least get together in the evening at a pub to discuss his research.

SMP: When and where did you go on your last holiday?  

GJ: The Ring of Kerry, Ireland.

SMP: What?s the first thing you do when you get into the office of a morning?

GJ: I filled out this questionnaire.

SMP: If you had a superpower what would it be and why?  

GJ: If you?ve seen Mystery Men, the 1999 comedy film based on the Dark Horse comic book, then you?ll understand what I mean when I say I?d like to have The Shoveler?s superpower.  As he told his wife, ?I shovel well.  I shovel very well.?

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