by Gunnar Engblom July 24, 2009 1

Impacts of Social Media in business

A non-birding post!

Birders you can stop reading NOW! This will be boring for you. I am just trying to sort out what has happened to my business since I started using Social media actively some 7 months ago when starting blogging on the company web-page for Kolibri Expeditions. If you are interested in what Social Media can do for your business keep on reading.

Google Page-rank 5 thanks to blogging.

Yesterday, I read a cool article about Google Page rank on Social Media Today. It explains a little bit about the google page rank logarithm and how to link within the webpage and about backlinks. When checking our own PR for www.kolibriexpeditions.com it had risen to 5 after being 4 for many years. I don’t know when this happened, but it is mainly due to my blogging since December last year. We have done some tweaking improving titles, description and keywords for the pages on the commercial site, but it was most likely the blog that achieved this sudden jump, since also the blog also has PR 5. Seven months ago the blog had only PR3. Albeit being critical for lousy click-through numbers when participating in Blog Carnivals, blog carnivals are often hosted on high page rank blogs which helps. Increased traffic in general comments and blogrolls added on other web-pages may also have help.

What does a high page rank mean?

A higher pagerank will help to achieve better positioning in searches on google for all individual pages on our homepage. This should give more business as more people will be able to find you through searches. Furthermore, your friends and followers in your social network not only become important in mouth to mouth reference, but also provide direct reference to you as a person. Social Media humanize the business and should be the perfect way for small business to grow. The increase in page rank is a measure that the Social Media effort has paid off.
In fact, it complicates a decision I need to take. Our company wants to start offering regular non-birding trips to Peru. The idea is that, if we are capable of something as complicated as arranging birding trips, regular tourism trips should be quite easy, as the traditional circuit Lima-Paracas-Nazca-Arequipa-Colca-Titicaca-Cusco-Machu Picchu is very straight forward to organize with all the necessary infrastructure already in place. Dealing with social media for only a year, but already having somewhat of a good position compared to other tour operators in Peru, social media could become our platform to get better known for also arranging regular tours to Peru.

I could use some advice!

The question is, should we get a new web-page with a smart search engine optimized title such as MachuPicchu-Cusco.com (taken, but there are similar available) or rely on the PR5 on out main-page which would almost immediately give PR4 to a Peru tour page on the second level? I am tempted to do the second. If I could get PR5 for my blog in 7 months, it may be possible to get high page rank for a tour page in relatively short time. What do you think?

How to sell something without trying to sell.

Social Media would not work if you constantly only send people offers to buy your stuff. You would soon see your followers and friends numbers drop. But if you think more of your friends and followers than the stuff you want to sell and try to provide value to them, you will soon find that you get kudos in many places for the cool things you do and for being a nice guy. The idea is that when someone is looking for a product you can provide, you may well get that business because you have been a nice. Sounds simple doesn’t it? But hey, hold on…You cannot fake it. Either you like to provide value to others or you don’t. To do Social Media well, you have to be a social person.

Social media changed my business signature!

I’m not new to being social on the internet, even though I was slow to hook on Facebook and blogging . I have participated in list servers in my field birdwatching since beginning of their existence in the early 90s. I even created new lists on Yahoo for birding in Peru in English and in Spanish which are still running. I have been very active on many such birding lists and to a lesser extent on forums. On the birding lists it has usually been OK to use a business signature which includes a line with the name of the company and the web-page. In the forums such use of “commercial” signature is somewhat frowned upon.
Having done a lot of social media lately such as Facebook, Twitter and blogging in an environment in which most people would not dream of signing off with a commercial signature, I recently made some humble intents also to become more active in some forums. I soon realized that the commercial stuff should be in the user profile rather than in the signature. On the other hand the blog and twitter url could favorably appear under my name. About a month ago, I changed my signature on all my emails. How could I send a message referring to my blog if it was followed with a blunt commercial signature.

Which do you like best? Before or after?

Here is my signature half a year ago:

Gunnar Engblom-Lima, Peru.
Kolibri Expeditions
https://www.kolibriexpeditions.com
www.birding-peru.com – checklist and data-base. Record your sightings on-line, forum, pictures, identification, Expedition Birding, etc.
Tel: +51 1 273 72 46 (office). 273 71 98 (home) cel: 51-1-988 555 938 or 999007886
Follow me on www.twitter.com/kolibrix

My signature today:

Gunnar Engblom-Lima, Peru.
Gunnar’s Blog – updated frequently. https://www.kolibriexpeditions.com/birdingperu/blog/
Follow me on www.twitter.com/kolibrix
https://www.facebook.com/Gunnar.Engblom/

Seriously, which one do you like best? Is it a good idea not to flag the business details here? Do business details in a signature bother you?