I recently had the distinct pleasure of speaking to one of the Masters of Social Media, Brent Csutoras. He’s a leading internet marketing consultant who primarily specializes in social media, viral and search engine marketing strategies.
Not only does he enjoy speaking on the topic, but he has a deep understanding and provides a mountain of great information you can use. I felt like that good hour we spent could have easily turned into days. I have attempted to distill our conversation about social media marketing into key learning points and some things you can do to get started today.
I should add that Brent is not only a tactician (”eats his own dog food”) but believes in good planning and sound strategies before starting any campaign online, whether SEO, PPC or social media.
Social media is *not* about just bookmarking your sites all over the place and joining Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter, and posting some “pitchy” links. I hope that’s not what you’re doing. Social media marketing (SMM) is serious business, and you must have the same attitude about everything you do.
I asked him about “how to go viral,” but it became evident quickly that it’s not just a checklist thing, but rather deep understanding of your marketplace, people and community strategies, and a lot of work. Brent works 12 to 14 hours every day, 365 days a year. (He gets a “break” when he speaks at search marketing conferences such as SES.)
He not only researches and tests all the models and tools but provides services to a number of high-profile clients (whom he will not, understandably, reveal). Brent has a massive passion for this field, wants to give back to the community and is considered one of the best.
Brent is also speaking at the upcoming Search Engine Strategies show in San Jose, coming up August 18. I’ll have summaries from that trip, too.
J: What is social media?
B: Social media definitions exist. However, I say it’s what people think of last: “links.” I think of social media as modern day link building. As you do your research, think about how to acquire quality links. While many social networks, tools and blogs have “no-follow” tags applied, there are “do-follows” out there. For example, at current time, Reddit follows links. That’s powerful. However, while links and early links are important, there is a phased approach to this. I call this the “wave model.” The first wave is all about the social community penetration and expansion into your community. The second wave is about the “links that really matter.” These are the page rank 8 to 9 links that most would sell their car for! I explain this further under “Social Media Builds Traffic” below.
J: Can you give me some background on how you got started and how social media impacted you?
B: I began in SEO, worked for a company in the health-care section and did the online marketing for about 50 to 60 clients. I listened to Webmaster Radio almost every day for a period. SEO Rockstars Todd Friesen, Greg Boser are top guys, and they seeded the right thoughts in my head; they got me wanting to be an internet marketer. I would listen, write down the information, study and learn every day–even in my car. That hasn’t stopped. It was at PubCon 2006 when I received a faster ramp-up when I met BOTW guys Greg and Brian Prince, and later in 2007 with additional network support in Todd Malicoat (SEO), Chris Winfield (SMM) and Neil Patel (SEO/SMM). Danny Sullivan invited me to speak as well. I was impressed with their credentials, but my personal style and approach [are] to be humble, and I listened and watched carefully. The interesting thing is that real world networking helped me before social media did. I often say that the rules of social media are very similar if not the same as the real world. You must conduct and act the same in order to succeed. Quality information prospers, however, just like anything on the net. I was accepted and so does Google, apparently 
(search for “brent” in Google).
J: How does a brand new person start with social media?
B: OK, assuming you have a plan with clearly defined objectives and goals (you must!)–consider social media, but also PPC, SEO. Include these as a whole picture, not just in parts. All activities need focused and ongoing attention, i.e., it never stops, and you must consider expenditures (people, resources, etc.) versus return. Social media can have high returns, but you must bring all of the tracks back to your original plan and measure it along the way. SM is not something you do on the side: You must dedicate an employee 100 percent or get a new one hired in, or outsource to an established expert.
Here’s a high-level starter plan you can use for social media:
Phase One: Write good, quality content! After strategy signoff, start by participating in the communities. Provide real and useful comments, no spam obviously. Do not try to game this; build your presence online over time. You might benefit looking at the smaller communities, befriend some of the (top) profiles there, and start looking at how you can provide good content for that community. Then, start pushing: “Butter the network,” as I call it.
Phase Two: Make your site social media-friendly. No funky popups or hard to read/use sites. Blogs are commonly used, but make sure it’s professionally designed. Lately, I’ve found that authoritative sites can and will do better–and even commercial sites. Think about this: “Where do you want to be sourced from?” Even unique content on a crappy site will not get the respect it deserves.
Phase Three: Continue researching and networking. Continue to build quality content for your own sites and the communities. This can take a long time, but the results are worth it!
J: Generally speaking, what do you consider “must-have” sites/profiles to establish?
B: Depending on your business, you might consider Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Digg, Reddit, Delicious, Sphinn, Propeller, StumbleUpon, but this is the order of importance at current time: Reddit, Digg, StumbleUpon, Twitter, Facebook, Delicious, Propeller, Sphinn and LinkedIn, listed last because it is just a static resume, not a wide network reach.
All articles should have references to these profiles. (Jon: Check a recent poll at Lee Odden’s TopRank Blog–Social Networks Influences)
J: How much time should a person spend on social media?
B: Let me answer it this way: What is your dedication? Have you made a firm to decision to proceed? If you only have an hour or so per day, don’t even try Digg or Reddit–you’d be better off spending some time on Sphinn, StumbleUpon or bookmarking services only. However, make sure to set up complete profiles for your company or brand on the sites you target. You will not get a lot of traffic or brand recognition at first, but you must/should start today.
However, as with any marketplace online, it depends on your niche. In any case, you do want to become the top dog in your industry, which will take time, as I mentioned. You may find yourself in six months of full-time, dedicated work, trial and error, until something sticks. What works for one will work differently for another. I see 99 percent success, and most of the time, but you never know when an administrator on an important network gives you a thumbs down, and you’re gone!
You must always be researching while online, look at the competition and find the sites with best-result-opportunities ratios. Then, you must discover the community that supports your business, and find the topics within it.
A tip to find out what people are talking about within your niche, do this: Go to Google and type ‘site: “digg.com” keyphrase.’ You can also go to most social media news sites and sort by most popular, etc. Your end goal in research is this: What has been successful? Then, build on that.
Update: Google just released its insights search tool, to help find patterns and analytics in search: Check out the Google Insights tool.
J: Word on the street says that social media builds traffic, but does not provide good ROI.
B: I don’t agree. Link building, which is the most important aspect to social, has an ROI. You can test your landing page to tune up the conversions, always–and you should. The people in SMM are not typically in a hot buy mode, true. However, the conversion is there, but it’s long term–certainly not gained in the first tier of traffic. However, as you build, you would hope to get the highest, best portion of the linkerati : the top bloggers, the central journalists for your niche, etc.
Let me explain how social media traffic works, in a tiered model. It builds on the “social media wave model” mentioned at the top.
First Tier Traffic – ‘Wave 1′: This is people who are not in your niche and not likely to be interested in anything more than the single article they have landed on. This is not the traffic or movement you want, but it is necessary and you don’t get to the 2nd tier without it. Google wants links and content. You can be ranked for a number of days short term and be visible across the board – but it can sometimes drop off. People providing blog posts, video posts, etc – will get you social community site links, but you need to look for natural links. That comes next.
Second Tier Traffic – ‘Wave 2′: RSS Feeds, bloggers, journalists – those that go back and write about you a few days or a week later, or even those who are looking for current stories to write about for their deadline in a few hours. The highly sought after PageRank 8-9 can be attained this way. These are the highly trusted links with the quality and authority that you want. (Jon: This is big, I missed this myself until I spoke to Brent).
As an example, imagine you hit the front page of Digg about your Dog business – having a unique and different story listed, pointing back to your blog about Dogs. If a major pet company picks up the story, and they link to you, you’ll receive potentially massive traffic and it will be highly targeted. You will be ranking well for your keywords for a longer time and as you continue building, more and more success will be created from your trust within the communities and search engines. If you have good quality content, people will naturally link to you. If you sell something, try to build focused, single keywords to promote. Build content around that.
J: How can I write viral content around boring products? For example, if I was a sink company, how would I drive massive traffic and build authority around it?
B: The “Top 10” type of lists work very well. People online often don’t read the entire article – they scan. Fun, controversial and useful tips and lists work all the time. You could create the “Top 10 most expensive sinks – ever”, or “How to unclog any sink in less than 10 seconds”. Make sure to get your keyword or phrase in the title. You may consider videos and images to complement your article. But, before you start crafting that killer piece, participate in the communities related to your topic. Research the commentaries, what type of content and write quality copy. All of social media is a huge time commitment, and you should have 100’s of people in your network, be recommended by others, seen as an active participant and add value and involved in the site – continually.
J: What are some of the tools of trade?
B: This is human intensive. And why not – it’s all about the communities and the people! To use automation tools and try to software-enable this will not work. There are however, some resources and tools that can help on the basics. You may consider creating some internal tools for yourself to help organize.
I wrote an article for Search Engine Land: “Tools for engaging in Social Media”, start with that. (Brent’s Social Media Tool List)
Here are some tools that I use:
- Digg alerter – must use
- StumbleUpon
- Propeller
- ShareAholic – powerful
J: Thanks, Brent – and in closing can you tell me what you will be speaking about at the SES show in San Jose?
B: I will cover things like a) what is social media, b) what is it good for, c) what sites give you the biggest bang and the all important d) “I get it, but why is it good?”
Dear Reader, as you have come to understand,social media is a lot work if you do want to get to the mountain top for your business. So, don’t just do what you must, but develop your plan, take complete action and go full force!
Brent, see you at the 2008 search engine strategies show – should be exciting this year…
This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 6th, 2008 at 3:25 pm and is filed under Linking, Traffic, social bookmarking, social marketing, social media, social media marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.35 Responses to “The Inner Secret To Social Media With Guru Brent Csutoras”
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August 6th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
Great interview and awesome information from Brent!
August 6th, 2008 at 4:31 pm
Brent, I am sorry I didn’t get a chance to suck your brains dry at SMX Local so thanks for the opportunity to do so here.
August 6th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
Great interview, covered a lot of important points about social media.
August 6th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
Great interview Brent. Thanks for sharing this!
August 6th, 2008 at 11:39 pm
Hi Brent readers n posters yes yes great interview and those excellent surfing pictures “better than a 1000 words” awesome information included … it has been said by many Social Media builds traffic only to be understood its not a magic pill you really really have to interact as you say “It’s a great way to finesse people from your social sphere into your business”
In the beginning I found this social networking hard to adapt to? in the way of how much time is needed to have a enough input, (then would you believe some one has invented an easier way to stay in tune with every kind of social networking media) … BUT again as you have pointed out you must always be researching while online, look at all the competition around trying to get your click but don’t hang around to long it really can suck up your days input which brings me to my biggest question I hope you can answer Brent … how long in a normal days work would you put into socially social networking to be satisfied you’ve done enough to be well? satisfied! you’ve done enough in a days toil … or is that the silliest question ever … the one question no body dare ask???
All my best to you and your social-time-management
Phillip Skinner
August 7th, 2008 at 9:06 am
Brent – well done! tons of great info here… and very well said – Matt
August 7th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
[...] Brent Csutoras is interviewed about social media, and he provides some really great tips. [...]
August 7th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
Excellent interview – please, more like it!
August 8th, 2008 at 1:18 am
[...] Brent Csutoras is interviewed about social media, and he provides some really great tips. [...]
August 8th, 2008 at 8:42 am
[...] Rognerud has an interesting conversation with Brent Csutoras about social media [...]
August 8th, 2008 at 10:38 am
Not to be difficult, but social media isn’t at all about truthful trustworthy link building, from an SEO standpoint. Participation in social media that’s motivated by a rankings driven link building goal is 100% doomed to fail. You don’t use SM for your own self-serving goals, you use it to reach like minded people to share, illuminate, educate, laugh, scream, cry. Not to improve rank.
A little link analysis finds thousands and thousands of stumbleupon accounts abandoned after a single corporate stumble. How illuminating.
We keep getting these awesome new social mini-mediums, and then the first thing most online “expert” marketers do is game, loot and pollute them for any potential link juice they might have?
How is it I can get content driven client sites top rankings without ever setting foot directly in SM? Because the engines know which links matter, and they are the ones you have to actually earn.
August 8th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
@Eric
Could not disagree with you more. In fact the mention of getting links from social communities just shows the misunderstanding so many have about social media marketing.
Social media marketing for link building is extremely successful because you are using social media communities as a platform to gain visibility for your content or product.
Visibility + Good Content = Lots of natural quality links.
When you have content that becomes popular on sites like Digg, Reddit, or Delicious, you get in front of the largest body of linking individuals on the web. Most journalist, media, and bloggers/webmasters watch the front page of these top social news and bookmarking sites to get current and popular content to use for their own site, magazine, newspaper, or show.
By having your content in front of this group of people, you are likly to get a lot of natural links to your content. Sometimes you can get links up to a PR9 level such as TBS, MSNBC, AOL, Wired, Huffington Post, all of which i have personally received off of successful campaigns.
So when you look past mining social communities for the sake of profile and community links, which most ‘experts’ don’t care about, you can see the potential for amazing results from social media marketing for links.
Mentioning Google and their stance on social media links; what could be more perfect than for a site or company to produce very high quality content and have it become very popular on the web only to then get picked up by numerous authority sites who naturally link to it.
Isn’t that exactly what Google wants? High quality, natural links to good content?
You come on here saying it is 100% doomed to fail and that all SMO experts do is game, loot, and pollute.
It is clear you just have no idea what social media marketing really is.
Your statements are no better than people saying SEO is all evil and link building in general is email spam.
August 8th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
It’s difficult to follow an act like Eric Ward but I’ll put in my two cents. Any motivation that leads an individual to participate in a social media outlet is a good thing as long as the contribution is beneficial to the community.
I don’t care if you’re link building, branding yourself, or trying to meet new people. If your input is helpful, topical, thought provoking, humorous or educational, you’re welcome in my book.
August 8th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
[...] Brent Csutoras is interviewed about social media, and he provides some really great tips. [...]
August 8th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
[...] Brent Csutoras is interviewed about social media, and he provides some really great tips. [...]
August 9th, 2008 at 4:07 am
Hi, Great interview,
Yes it is true that top 10… are powerful but isn’t it better to write a post in point form without saying top 10..100 lists in the title.
If everyone uses this method all the time, it will become redundant.
August 9th, 2008 at 9:16 am
[...] vehicle used by newbies hoping to gain status and recognition, while professionals use them for marketing and link generation. Those who realize the game rarely waste time on social media sites beyond satisfying the criteria [...]
August 9th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
Brent, to say I don’t have any idea what social media marketing really is, is, well, a hoot and more funny than StumbleBot is unfunny. Funnier than the 1 million fake digg accounts in use. Funnier than the 10,000 spam links wikipedia has to delete EVERY DAY.
The entire internet is social media, and has always been, my good and eager fellow. Therein lies the danger of the marketing first mindset. We didn’t come here to get pitched.
But never mind that. Given that I’m in the middle of executing SM driven content publicity projects for the USOC, NBC, PBS, and even a couple mom/pop ecom’s, I assure you I “get it”. What’s doomed to fail is SM participation where the impetus to do so originated in a desire to improve rank. There’s so much wrapped up in what I just wrote there. I use SM for clients every single day of my life. But NOT for SEO. I use it to connect people. One litmus test I use is to ask if you would be doing what you were doing within the SM communities if there were no search engines. If you can’t say 100% yes, then the strategy is flawed, IMO.
Then again, some folks think the WalMart fake blog fiasco or the BMW paid links bust was all good, since the resulting buzz about the truth resulted in tons of links. Not me.
I have no problem with using the internet as a means to reach out and connect a company with a specific objective and goal to the audience they want to reach. Geez, that’s exactly what I’ve been doing all these years. I’m just saying there’s a right way and a wrong way. We should just agree to disagree. I’m sure you are awesome at what you do.
Some folks think I have a clue or two as well. We just each have strong feelings about the finer points and nuance of the link dev process, that’s all.
All the best,
Eric
August 9th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
[...] vehicle used by newbies hoping to gain status and recognition, while professionals use them for marketing and link generation. Those who realize the game rarely waste time on social media sites beyond satisfying the criteria [...]
August 10th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
[...] vehicle used by newbies hoping to gain status and recognition, while professionals use them for marketing and link generation. Those who realize the game rarely waste time on social media sites beyond satisfying the criteria [...]
August 10th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
@ Eric…
“to say I don’t have any idea what social media marketing really is, is, well, a hoot and more funny than StumbleBot is unfunny. Funnier than the 1 million fake digg accounts in use. Funnier than the 10,000 spam links wikipedia has to delete EVERY DAY.”
Funny… Not Funny… But completely True..
The more you speak the more apparent it is..
The entire internet is social media.. Now that is a funny statement.
August 10th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
Brent, your interview was a great read and very insightful for someone just being introduced to SM. Specifically your comments on generating interest with a relatively boring product/service confirmed a great deal for me and coming from an authority like yourself was very helpful.
Thanks, Ed
August 10th, 2008 at 8:49 pm
Wow,that post is awsome.Thank’s for posting that. There is a lot of great ideas there and I’m glad I had a chance to read this.
August 11th, 2008 at 11:26 am
Tune into Fox on December 25, 2008 to see Eric and Brent go head to head on SEO Celebrity Boxing.
Until then, thanks for the two differing points of view. I have a lot to consider.
August 11th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
Brent – you are right. I know nothing about social media. What was I thinking? How could I dare to post anything here other than rah rah rah go go go SMO? I’m going back now to read every word you ever wrote. Maybe then, and only then, I’ll be better equipped to, as you say, “butter the network”, y’know, because, like, the network is popcorn, not people.
August 12th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
what do you think of people picking out the best stories on digg and reddit? and making a site about that, ive seen a good one of those already will it sink or swim?
August 12th, 2008 at 10:43 pm
Here’s a very real problem I have with Social Media vs. Link Building: there’s no way to deny that the social media people are more fun!
Take this typical experience. You go to a search conference, and hang in the corner with a bunch o’ link builders. Learn a trick or two, and …yawn. Then the social media guys show up.. breezing by on the way to a big screen mixed martial arts pay per view in someone’s personal living room in an hour, and YOU are invited. Not only that, but they want to know if YOU are coming? “Awesommmmmmmm….” You just can’t help calling the social media guys “dude” and saying things like “awesommmm” when you’re around them. Oh, and note that I wrote out MMA and PPV because, well, not every one in search knows those search acronyms (but does everyone in social media?).
If everyone asks you for links all the time, which one are you more likely to support?
August 13th, 2008 at 7:00 am
Wowsie. LOL
This little tidbit by Eric Ward says it all:
“How is it I can get content driven client sites top rankings without ever setting foot directly in SM? Because the engines know which links matter, and they are the ones you have to actually earn.”
Brent; While I appreciate a good interview and a real good sales job of SMM, it’s very true that this SM stuff has been out there for as long as I’ve been on the internet… over eleven years now. Do you know about discussion forums? If they are not SM as well, I have no idea what it is. How long did it take a quality search engine like Google to discount signature links in forums? Not long. That doesn’t mean that SM sites like forums are not SM. It just means that “quality” se’s know what the scoop is, and why we are seeing SM site links being de-valued on a daily basis. You can keep on doing your thing with digg, stumble, spin/sphamm, etc, but in the end; only a quality site that is trusted, and has unique content that visitors want to come back to is going to win.
I urge everyone to read Eric Ward’s couple of comments in here a few times. I think he needs to write a detailed article on this exact same thing.
August 17th, 2008 at 7:01 am
[...] Entrepreneur.com – Blog Network – SEO World Interview on Social Media with Brent Csutoras (tags: interview csutoras social media) [...]
August 21st, 2008 at 9:42 am
[...] vehicle used by newbies hoping to gain status and recognition, while professionals use them for marketing and link generation. Those who realize the game rarely waste time on social media sites beyond satisfying the criteria [...]
August 27th, 2008 at 6:05 am
[...] [For the full article go to http://seoworld.entrepreneur.com/2008/08/06/social-media-brent-csutoras/ [...]
September 2nd, 2008 at 1:15 pm
@ John… haha.. You were welcome then and anytime your in the city. We actually will gather next weekend at a buddies for the UFC fight, drinks, and networking..
Cheers…
Brent
September 2nd, 2008 at 1:26 pm
@ Doug
It is the same thing I keep stating over and over.. Please go back and actually read my comments.
Forums are definitely social media and so are blogs, Facebook, and social news sites. If you are hoping to get links from those places then you are not as likely to find value from them, although you can depending on the site.
I have stated over and over this comment so I will separate it so it is not continuously missed.
Social Media Community Links are NOT the Links we are talking about getting. We are talking about social media being a visibility tool that allows you to get in front of website owners, bloggers, and journalist, who will then naturally link to you on their own accord from their sites.
So when you get popular in social media you end up getting high quality natural links which is EXACTLY what search engines wants.
If I write a news break about Google Chrome and it’s features and then push it in social media to get visibility. If i then get a link from Wired, Techcrunch, or some other high authority site, then those links are natural and they are of very high authority.
This is how using social media marketing can be a successful link building strategy.
In the end, old school link builders can fight and complain about social media all they want. When you guys can get over 10 PR8 links and over 5000 PR 4-6 all in a days work… you come let me know.
Also I think every company, without questions, should be doing natural old school link building as well.
June 30th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
[...] has also been mentioned in Forbes.com, interviewed for Entrepreneur.com, and was recently recognized as one of the Top 25 Most Influential Online Marketers of [...]
January 13th, 2010 at 12:37 pm
[...] Csutoras, in a comment on SEOWorld put it well: When you have content that becomes popular on sites like Digg, Reddit, or Delicious, you get in [...]