The Impact of Social Media
The impact of social media on online business marketing can no longer be ignored as more businesses are tapping network giants such as Facebook and Twitter to boost sales, increase public awareness and test marketing campaigns.
Inbound links
Any off page SEO strategy necessarily involves getting as much inbound links from other websites because these tend to drive heavy traffic streams to your site. In addition to reciprocal linking and leaving comments in blogs, sharing links in Facebook (FB) and Twitter should now be part of your continuing strategy. It’s quick and simple and has the ability to reach a wide audience with a minimum of effort.
Social proof
Internet marketers who constantly strive to infuse a viral quality in their campaigns are now using the two biggest social networks, Facebook and Twitter, to influence a massive audience via a phenomenon known as social proof.
Social proof is the psychological effect that the action of one or more persons has on others similar to the bandwagon mentality. Most people on FB click the “Like” button to express their approval of a comment, photo, link or video while Facebook promotes this behaviour by displaying the number of people who ‘Like’ something and who they are. When a person sees someone they know ‘Like’ something, he or she is most likely going to ‘Like’ it as well. And so on, and so forth.
As a result, social proof in these networks is now incorporated into the algorithms or criteria that search engine spiders use when indexing websites and is believed to boost SEO.
Social media tips for SEO
Create a distribution channel: Start a Facebook fan page and create a Twitter profile. Add some people from your immediate network first and build your ‘fan’ base or network gradually by inviting people in your extended network to join your group. Weak ties count as well in Internet marketing because you’ll never know who among them will create inbound links or are potential clients or buyers unless you reach out.
Add sharing buttons:
Depending on your location, add sharing buttons for the 3 biggest networks (usually FB and Twitter) before and after every post in your website. Sharing options allow readers to ‘share’ or ‘tweet’ your article almost instantly to everyone in their networks.
Synchronize updates:
FB allows you to import entries from your blog or website so your fans or followers are automatically notified of new posts. An excerpt of each post will then appear in the ‘Notes’ page of your Facebook fan page along with its corresponding link to your website, providing opportunities for creating numerous inbound links.
Since their respective launches, FB and Twitter have undergone several changes, not only in the look and feel of their platforms, but with the addition as well of features that strengthen ‘ads and pages’. Get a good grasp of all the features of Facebook and Twitter and unleash their online business marketing power.
Any questions? just ask
