I just finished a successful week at the Search Engine Strategies Conference in San Jose. While traveling home to Southern California on the Amtrak train.. I had some to reflect on what on what I took away from the conference. The hot topic was social media and social networking.
Social Media Break Down
Social media is a user centric platform that connects people around the globe for the purposes of sharing and discussing information.
Social media can be broken down into several different categories.. each with it’s own unique purposes applications.
- Social News: Blogs, Podcasts, Livecasts
- Social Sharing: You Tube Videos and Flickr Photos
- Social Networks (personal & professional): Face Book, Linked In
- Social Bookmarks: Digg, Deliciou
- Social Micro Blogging: Twitter
Social Media & Search Engine Marketing
Define your audience.
Defining your audience is the most important step in any marketing campaign.. don’t just jump in headfirst and start publishing before figuring out who your readers are, because the audience will dictate what you publish and how you do it. Your audience can be broken down in the following ways.
- Creators
- Commenters
- Critics
- Spectators
- Inactives
Social Media / Networking Tips
- When publishing content to a social network only post to relevant communities
- The more you engage, the more people will engage with your content.
- Keep engagement authentic
- Create high quality content to make it link worthy
- Social media needs to integrate with your online marketing
Social Media Optimization
- Pick a username that has a connection with your business or product
- Tag and name videos & images with keywords
- Link your social profiles from your main website
- Set up your profiles and optimize them with rich keyword content
Getting Started
- Sign up for the various social accounts to claim your name space
- Start by publishing to one platform and beta test
Social Networking & Link Building
Social networking is about engaging a community. To engage a community you need to have good content that is inviting and useful. Social networking is a great way to garner releavant inbound links to your website, blog etc.. but don’t go in with the thinking that social networking is going to replace your link building stratgy.. links are a by-product of social media. Social communities will notice the transparency of your linking and oust you for it.
