This small tutorial may help many of you to understand how a trackback actually works. The value Tac describes in his blog post is very real from an SEO standpoint and more so from a relationship development standpoint. I often comment on blogs leaving an orphan of knowledge in the blogosphere that at times I need to retrace my steps to find. This method of “commenting” actually allows your thoughts to be retraced more swiftly and share your thought lineage with your audience.Take a read here and learn the how to create a trackback link..

PageRank is specific to Google.

If you are wondering how it is derived please consider the following explanation excerpt from Google’s webmaster help.

PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at considerably more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; for example, it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves “important” weigh more heavily and help to make other pages “important.” Using these and other factors, Google provides its views on pages’ relative importance.

Of course, important pages mean nothing to you if they don’t match your query. So, Google combines PageRank with sophisticated text-matching techniques to find pages that are both important and relevant to your search. Google goes far beyond the number of times a term appears on a page and examines dozens of aspects of the page’s content (and the content of the pages linking to it) to determine if it’s a good match for your query.

Some companies live and die by word of mouth marketing. The relationships the seller builds with the client is transferred to the product or solution offered by the company. Interestingly enough, when a seller parts ways with a company the client often goes with them because the glue the relationship has binding it is that strong.

A multi-level marketing organization (MLM) counts on those relationships, established and newly formed, to build a bond from person to person. But what happens when “someone heard about the product, but didn’t have anyone to buy it from and couldn’t fin the product in stores?”

I asked that question yesterday of Jus International. Jus, as the name would suggest, offers a drink with 23 berries combined into a rich tasting concoction. Based in Boise, they have created buzz that has been heard all the way over in Japan.

So I asked the question quoted above and the answer was they’d have to search for us to find us. Search. They’d have to find a distributor. “How?”, I asked. Search.

Now those not familiar with an MLM may not know this, but a distributor is running their own business much like a franchisee. Their support materials, web site, business cards, training, etc. are created by the corporation. Distributors are prohibited from creating their own web site including blogs, etc. This makes search engine optimization on the organization’s web site all the more important. Quite frankly, if it is not found then their competitor will be,

The net of this post is simple. Regardless of your organization’s construct, scale or method of marketing, getting found is critical to your success.

Disclosure: George Seybold is the interim Chief Marketing Officer of Jus International.

I’ve had the opportunity of late to work with some C-Level executives who seek to employ new media tactics to gain awareness of their products and services. Being an advocate for new media venues. I tend to lean in this direction anyway, but some of these folks are pushing into this venue like a category 5 hurricane.

The reference to a hurricane is deliberate because they effort their way into the space and do not care if they are relevant or if their target audience exists within the community they are aggressing or not.

Contextual Relevance
Communities are formed online by those of like mind. They exist to provide information, validation and entertainment. When businesses begin “efforting” to create a place for themselves in communities, where they are not a natural fit, then they are irrelevant. The product or service lacks relevance in the context of the conversation.

Here’s a scenario. A company makes ear buds targeted a teen demograpghic.. They have a great new product and they are preparing a launch. They decide it is so exciting that they are going to use lots of new media venues to create awareness. The IT department because of their personal exposure recommend Digg, YouTube, Joost.tv, Facebook, iTunes, Second Life, etc,

Immediately the marketing manager takes off like an unstoppable train creating video and audio and articles about this wonderful new technology. The efforting continues as they are actively deployed online. The traffic doesn’t come.

Why?
These communities do not want to be marketed to. They can sniff out insincerity and they will shun that which is not in context.

All is not lost.
New media can be used effectively to promote your product. It simply needs to be above board and in context.

In Digg
Submitting a great product within Digg is fine, but playing the popularity game by notifying all your friends to “Digg it up” is not. Diggers do not like those who will game the system and they will penalize these efforts. Let your product gain ground based on its own merits.

In Facebook and MySpace and ..
Social Networks are great for staying in touch with people. Advertising on these platforms has not been all that successful primarily because the ad units are not placed in context to the subject matter of the page. Think about it this way, if you created a page in MySpace for the product and then sought to “friend” as many people as you could find would you get much response. Look at it form the reverse angle. Would you want to be the friend of an ear bud?

YouTube and Joost.tv and ..
Creating a commercial spot for these venues is expensive. Repurposing a commercial that will be aired on TV for these venues is cheap. If your commercial is “buzz worthy”, by the way you don’t get to decide if it is, but if it is buzz worthy then it will become viral on its own and be distributed beyond your imagination.

Twitter and Pownce and …
It has become very common to announce a new blog post or media spot posted online. One announcement is fine in that you are announcing to your friends so they can go learn more about you. More than one tweet is not acceptable so be respectful of the sheer volume of info these folks are consuming.

Enough on venues, I’ll close on context.
When a consumer is seeking the ear buds or your product, whatever that might be, they will likely begin their search for information within a search engine. Immediately after a product launch the likelihood you will have natural positioning within the search engines is nil. So advertising on the engines is your next best bet. You will get immediate positioning and it offers a means of getting found in context to an active search.

But what about joining the conversation? Well the reality is that you can successfully use the new media spaces to continue telling your story. Use the tools in parallel and allow entry at any singular point. This may look like [search ad > landing page > YouTube video > web site > transaction]. The key is to be visible (search engines), be on point (landing page > YouTube video > web site) and finally make it easy to transact with you. Use new media to tell the story .. perhaps I could have said it all with this one line.