As the internet has evolved there has been a very strong force taking over a lot of the traffic and content. It’s called social media.
From Facebook to Twitter, social media is dominating the web. Millions and millions of users are interacting every second, building more complex relationships and diving further into the internet social web. That gigantic traffic bank has to be tapped into and incorporated in the daily activities and life of your online site. SEO for social media is fairly simple but takes some effort to keep updating and be relevant with the fast moving pace of these sites. Some larger corporations have full time staff just for social media, building and maintaining quality relationships that turn happy clients into evangelists.
Now there have been some suggestions that using social media for SEO has destroyed some social media sites, like twitter, with massive spam campaigns pouring through millions of tweets. So be smart about your interactions, do not spam, and keep things useful.
Focus on trying to ADD something with value and uniqueness to the social media site whenever you make diggs, tweets, stumbles, and plurks.
But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a place for SEO in social media, look at Facebook, which now has PPC advertising and business pages. It’s probably the most underrated and undervalued online advertising out there and smart companies are jumping on it as soon as they hear about it. You can better target demographics through facebook then any other ad system, but demographics doesn’t necessarily get your marketing reach to individual looking for your product, unless your based more on geography, sex, or age..
Social Media SEO benefits
- Quality backlinks from sites with high page rank and traffic
- Reach consumers without the search engines; maybe millions of them
- Start a following or find groups that are interested in your market
- Become the first authority user/profile in an area that is too competitive in search engine rankings
Top SEO Social Media Sites
- Youtube
- Google Plus*
- Livejournal
- Myspace
- Yelp
Google Plus – the latest push for social media integration into Google, similar to Facebook pages with profiles, friends, and a like system. Look for it to be released late 2011.
Social media in SEO is more than just backlinks, it’s creating relationships, networks, and content that defines the web presence and reputation of your company. You’ll need to interact and exchange ideas, concepts, and more with your consumers for the best results. Setting up a blog for discussions is an excellent tool for any business website, great for SEO and transitioning those social media contacts to blog readers and eventually buyers.
