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Optify Refreshes SMB Social Media Marketing

The latest release from Optify merges social media and SEO, allowing businesses to increase their Web traffic, create and manage social media marketing campaigns, and track and share marketing results via high-power reporting tools.

"Today 86% of SMBs see social media as the biggest driver of an increased customer base, and we're riding that wave," said Brian Goffman, co-founder and CEO of Optify, in an interview. "These SMBs need software that helps them build repeatable, expandable processes in marketing. The sales process has been standardized in many ways, with CRM and the like, but marketing's been virtually a [free-for-all]."

With the latest release of Optify, companies can engage in "closed-loop social media marketing," Goffman said. "You can focus on Twitter to generate leads, score leads, and see who your leads are. You can integrate Twitter with Salesforce.com. You can go full circle, moving from a Tweet to a lead to a bonafide customer."

The key today, Goffman said, is engaging in real-time Web marketing, which means you can react to news and events instantly and engage in ongoing dialogs with customers and prospects. Strategically aligning your SEO and social media efforts helps you do real-time marketing effectively. There's no ignoring the fact that social media is influencing search algorithms. Case in point: Google and Bing's recent integrations of social media into search results. And hiring an SEO strategist isn't going to be enough for most companies, Goffman said.

Here are some of the features built into the latest release of Optify:

-- Keyword reports and other SEO enhancements. These help companies identify gaps and opportunities in their keyword strategy across multiple search engines and social media channels, including Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

-- Facebook "Likes" integration. Optify's integration of Facebook "Likes" data provides an interactive view that allows users to track how much exposure each page is getting via Facebook and to compare shares, "Likes," and clicks side-by-side with traditional search traffic.

-- Twidget. This dashboard widget, designed specifically for the Twitter for Business application, allows customers to tweet, assign, and schedule campaigns, and to monitor traffic, leads, mentions, and retweets from the Optify Dashboard.

-- Social media reports. These show results such as number of page views, visitors, leads, and conversion rates from social campaigns, allowing businesses to compare and analyze results across multiple sites, including LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.

Goffman said that 80% of Optify's customers are small and midsize businesses, although the hosted software is used by companies of all sizes. Optify is available in four editions--free, Professional, Premium, and Enterprise.