19th Day of Christmas

Looping The Conversation

You may have heard industry pundits advising you to loop the conversation. Then they will go on about keeping it real and relevant. You, meanwhile, are still scratching your head over what in the world you are looping, let alone its relevancy.

Here is an example of the ultimate looping of a conversation: You participate in a lively discussion on LinkedIn by answering a question and in doing so put a link to a page on your site where you have supporting information. Someone clicks on your link. He finds the material appropriate and helpful. He feels compelled to write a comment on your site telling you his thoughts. He then is motivated to share the information to his network. He tweets and likes it on FaceBook. He subscribes to your blog.

Here is the return loop. He goes back to the LinkedIn discussion and tells the others that your link was worth the visit. His WOM encourages others in the discussion to visit your site too. The ball is rolling.

He decided that you were so smart and helpful that he began to follow your comments on LinkedIn. He got to know you better and added you as a LinkedIn connection and began following you on Twitter and then he liked your FaceBook Fan page.

Let’s look at what this did to your SEO rankings. You gained powerful SEO points with an inbound link from a reputable source that was USED! Just putting a link in a discussion does nothing. But when it is clicked it adds more weight to your SEO ranking. You gained points for comments to your blog and points when your blog is shared. You gain even more points as your URL becomes viral. Every used link back to your site is tracked and adds to your rankings. You can see the source of your inbound traffic in your Google Analytics’ report.

The real winner is your reputation. You added value to the LinkedIn group you were participating in and walked away with someone who is actively interested in you. Notice I did not automatically say you made a sale. This form of marketing is focused on the early stages of the sales cycle. You are building awareness about you and your services. This is online networking. You connect with lots of people; some are your peers, others are influencers, some are just curious, others want to sell to you and in there some place will be a potential customer or a lead to one.

I have mentioned several times commenting on forums and participating in the discussions on blogs as part of your marketing strategy. The above example is extreme. But it illustrates the concept of looping a conversation. LinkedIn is just one of many sites. The more specific the site is to your business, the more likely you will be engaging with your target audience.

Your gift today is an engagement workout session. You are to participate in a discussion on one of your forum outposts. Demonstrate your expertise. Choose a discussion that you can add value to by answering a question or providing a different perspective. Important: you need to participate on a topic that has supporting material on your web site. This is NOT sales!

If you do not have this type of information on your web site, then maybe this is what you should be busy creating in 2011. This is powerful lead generation marketing. Practice makes sales.

Please, share your experiences, thoughts, and any comments you may have with looping the conversation.