Social Media and SEO Discussion

The first #seochat of the new year turned into a community effort.  Enjoy the summary of crowdsourced wisdom on Social Media and SEO.

Guest: Laura Fitton – the CEO/Founder of http://www.oneforty.com and co-author of Twitter for Dummies.  Twitter for Business consultancy: http://pistachioconsulting.com.  Laura (@pistachio) is the girl who fell in love with Twitter. Details: http://speakertext.com/videos/604 .

Most active contributors: @kmullett, @SEOAware, @JadedTLC, @aknecht.

SEO benefits of Social Media

• Quality traffic interested in subject, product, service
• Quality link building: twitter scrapers, citation via bios, name, address, phone, link etc.
• Content discovery faster than a site map.  Twitter has VERY strong google juice. Google has a direct tie into Twitter’s firehose = search signals. Google news now sorts by shares.
• Realtime search benefits
• Increased and affordable visibility. Google & Bing know about URLs and reference them as a link indicator.
• Beginning or establishment of trust

In addition, it forces the technical types to focus on building relationships. With social media, it is easier to promote link bait.  Networking with webmaster bloggers helps to obtain inbound links.

There is no seperation of SEO & social media, different facets of the same coin.  SEO today means creating a plan that integrates many facets of online & offline marketing. Bing + Facebook deal puts things your social circle is saying right in the SERPs. Blurring the line further between SEO and Social Media.

How does a small business effectively use Twitter?

1. to keep up to date on what’s happening within their industry in a extremely timely manner.
2. great way to network, exchange idea and lurk for tweets etc. on problems & respond when you have the solution.
3. small business can create an environment where their clients can stay up to date on the topics of interest and communicate on their own time.

Any small business needs to be consistent in how it uses Twitter. Use search to identify target audience needs, and craft a response.  Make sure your business has authentic, personal interaction with followers. It’s useless to businesses who don’t.  Listen. Learn. Care. Serve.

People exposed to brands in SM are about 2.8x more likely to search for them http://scr.bi/dNZFrn.

Tactical guidance, tips & tools for small business: http://oneforty.com/search?query=small+business

Best ways to monitor your social media activity.

• URL shorteners like bit.ly. Even better – your own URL shortener, like YOURLs.org.  If you host with GoDaddy, Yourls.org’s shortener is now an app they offer.
• Get a username as soon as you know about a new SM platform. You want to be consistent so your followers know where to find you
• Social Mention scans quite a few social media sites for keywords. Google Realtime or even Twitter search is superior because Social Mention misses a lot.
• Watch followers who are not bots, and fans via facebook and who comments and engages with your brand.  You have to talk to them too.
• Use your brain to make an overall decision.  Don’t depend on only Social Meida tools to monitor influence and/or success.
• Do not limit analytics to traffic. Look also to conversions via that traffic, mentions, awareness, offline interactions.  Set a goal and monitor success.  Tag every link you use in social media to see if it generates traffic and conversions.

List of tools to monitor Social Media activity http://oneforty.com/category/group/Business-Marketing

Tools to monitor your social media activity http://bit.ly/gd90q

More Tools

• trackur
• PostRank
• at the VERY least you want search columns in your twitter client or a business dashboard
• brandseye
• “SEO site tools” extension for Google Chrome.  It shows social data in Google Analytics.
• Google Alerts
• Twitter search

Mongoose Metrics was on the of Promoted Tweets pilot and posted their results http://14t.me/fd2xqz

2011 predictions about Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc.

• I predict more people and businesses will sign up for Twitter, but few will take the time to learn to use it effectively.
• I hope someone protects consumers from @Facebook’s dangerously aggressive privacy moves
• The Social Media Bubble will get even bigger & then implode in 2012 when they realize many of the companies make no money.

Post on predictions > 7 Online Marketing Predictions for 2011

Lyena Solomon is an internet consultant who helps businesses make money through effective websites and profitable online marketing and advertising. Lyena is a website analyst and strategist with extensive development and website usability experience. When helping companies, her main focus is on return on investment, profitability, goals, targets and visitor engagement. She has been in internet business for 15 years.
Website: http://www.netspritner.com

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