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By now, you probably already know that social media affects SEO. The ultimate goal of the search engines is to provide users with results that are highly relevant to their interests. By incorporating social signals into their algorithms, the major search engines are now able to provide results that are more personalized to the individual searcher.
But what exactly are the social signals that are important for SEO? And what does all of this mean for you? Read on to find out, and share your own thoughts by leaving a comment at the end of this post.

Sharing and participation amongst friends
If you’re signed in on Google and perform a search, you’ll notice that many of the search results have annotations showing which of your friends shared this link on various social networks. In the eyes of Google (and other search engines), a search result has more relevance to you if one of your friends liked it than if no one you know has liked it.
Simply put, people trust their friends and other people in their social circles. Whenever you’re looking for a recommendation for a good restaurant, you’re more likely to go to the place one of your close friends recommends than the place some restaurant reviewer you’ve never heard of gave 5 stars.

Level of influence
Not all sharing is created equal. The whole premise of incorporating social signals into search is that a link that people share must be valuable, and if that link is shared by users with high influence, it must be even more valuable. In other words, a link that’s Tweeted by someone with 10,000 followers will be seen as more important than one shared by a guy with 5 followers.
Level of influence matters when it comes to social media and SEO. What does this mean for your SEO efforts? It means you need to strive to get your content shared by the influencers in your niche. That requires building relationships with them over time, so that they’ll begin to notice you, read your content, and share it with their followers.

Volume of shares
Finally, the total number of times a link has been shared across the various social media sites influences its ranking. It makes sense when you think about it. If one link was shared 500 times and another was only shared 2 times, it’s a strong indication that the first link has more importance and relevance than the other.
This means you really need to focus on making your content easy to share, interesting, unique, and relevant to the needs of your audience. And you have to put in the work to really promote it on Facebook, Twitter, Digg, ReddIt…you name it. The more your content gets shared, the better it will be for your SEO efforts.

How do you think social media affects SEO? Share your thoughts by leaving a comment below.

While you might cringe any time you hear a cliché, the fact of the matter is we use clichés in our everyday lives because they make it easier for us to explain something. Clichés are pretty much understood by us all, and they can be used to explain just about anything—even social media marketing.

Here are 6 clichés that will help you become a better social media marketer.

Good things come to those who wait — We’ve all heard this one a million times. It’s about patience. Patience in social media marketing really is a virtue. Too many companies launch their Facebook and Twitter pages, expecting to see instant results. That’s rarely how it works. Social media marketing is about building meaningful relationships, and that takes a lot of time. So, good things really do come to those who wait.

Content is king — You know this cliché makes you want to drive your head through a wall every time you hear it, but you also know that it’s true. To be an effective social media marketer, you have to provide your audience with great content. You need to have a sharp understanding of what your audience is interested in, and you need to focus on building content around those interests. Great content spreads, gets you noticed, and starts conversations.

Take it one day at a time — Social media marketing is a marathon, not a sprint. You have to put in the work every single day if you expect to see results. Each day will be full of new challenges, but if you take it one day at a time, you’ll start to gain momentum and build your brand.

Keep your nose to the grindstone — Social media marketing is hard work. Too many people take the “if you build it, they will come” approach to social media, and that just doesn’t work. You have to spend time each day creating content, interacting with your target audience, promoting your pages, etc. While doing all of this, you need to focus on the bigger picture and bigger goals, keeping your nose to the grindstone the whole time.

Think outside the box — There is no simple formula for social media marketing success. You’ve probably seen a few brands successfully pull of viral campaigns online, and you want to experience that success too. It requires creativity. You have to be unique. You have to stand out from the millions of other social media marketers who are vying for the attention of your customers.

You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours — Social media marketing is all about the give and take. If you want others to RT your content, share your links, and help spread your message far and wide, you need to do the same for them. You can’t expect others to help you if you don’t return the favor.

What are some other clichés that describe social media marketing? Share your favorites by leaving a comment below.

Social media marketing, in simple words, refers to the use of social media as a tool, to promote or market a particular product or a service. Today, business owners use sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to spread the word about their business. The primary and most important reason for a businessman, to outsource social media marketing would be to save time. Let’s take a look at some of these reasons in detail:

Outsourcing Social Media Marketing Saves Time
Social media marketing’s biggest drawback is that it can consume an incredible amount of time. It’s not something that can be done once and then you sit back and expect results to start pouring in. It is marketing that needs to be nurtured over a period of time in order to be effective. Big businesses like Microsoft, Dell and HP have been using social media marketing in a very effective fashion. Although, we have to remember that they have budgets to specifically fund a section of their staff to exclusively handle and manage these marketing campaigns. Many, especially small/new businesses don’t have this advantage. So the best bet would be to outsource!

Lack of Experience
Another very effective reason to outsource is the experience level or the lack of it. If neither you nor your employees have a sound understanding of how to influence and use social media to pass on professional messages then outsourcing is the right solution for you. There’s no point in being all out at sea over something that you don’t know much about. There are social media companies that can help you achieve exceptional results.

Branding and Strategy
When you pick a reliable social media partner, they can also help you with building your brand and identity on these sites. Therefore, you can push your entire marketing strategy forward by dealing with a single provider.

Bang for your Buck
Smart businesses will always want to calculate their ROI so they’ll know if it’s been a wise investment. A professional social media agency will use specific tools to do exactly that. In the long run, you will know to know whether it’s been worth your while to invest your resources in social media marketing.

Stay on the Pulse
A good and responsible marketing agency can work wonders for a business. By regularly communicating with you, they can tweak social media strategies as your business thrives. They’ll know when to capitalize on new opportunities and overcome challenges that appear on the horizons. They stay up to date with newest technologies and can use it to the advantage of your business.

With so much competition around, the biggest mistake you can make is to use traditional marketing tools in order to attract potential clients. Social media marketing can help you grab and retain the attention of current and prospective buyers.

Boost Your Small Business with Strategic Blogging

Blogging is not just for ranters anymore. More than a soapbox, when properly utilized, blogs become a powerful marketing tool. They can drive traffic to your site, develop leads and contacts, and establish a sense of rapport and community with readers who them become customers. Here are some ways to get the most out of your business blogging.

The personal stuff

1. Establish a blogosphere presence. Gain credibility. Read related blogs and make insightful comments. Become a part of the community by spurring and participating in discussions. The more you post insightful (as opposed to self-promoting) comments, the more aware of you and your blog both the authors and readers become. With your consistency, they will identify you as a voice of authority in your chosen niche. Most importantly, do so with character. Be positive. Be respectful. Never berate another person or use profanity. Both are unprofessional and reek of immaturity. Rudeness is a sure-fire way to send readers running the opposite direction. Nothing turns off another reader faster than anger and insult. It’s okay to disagree, but do so in a way that invites discussion, rather than the reverse.

2. New discoveries are good. Your discoveries are good. Be excited about them. No matter the subject you choose, be brave enough to write original content. Don’t talk about ‘what’s out there’. Write from your own particular viewpoint. Share things you have learned personally. However, remember you are writing a business blog, so keep out the clutter of your day-to-day. Think to yourself, “If someone asked me how my day went, what would I share?”

3. Reveal your own personality. The business is not writing the blog. Neither is the computer. You are. Allow your personal voice to sound in the readers’ heads. It amazes me how intensely readers come to not only identify with but also feel a sense of ownership to compelling, genuine bloggers. Those are who they follow, whose blogs they must check every day with their morning coffee, whose comments sections they delve into and add to repeatedly. These are the blogs they share on Facebook and Twitter. These are the blogs they personally endorse. Whether you’re writing about marketing strategies, use instructions, or the best way to utilize a particular product or service, be yourself. Know what you’re talking about, but don’t sound like a technical manual. Who actually reads technical manuals anyway?

4. Sound intelligent. Take the time to edit and re-write. All writers live for the times when the words simply flow from their fingertips, as if they are taking dictation. However, I have found that when this happens with me, what comes out is not always coherent. I need to to proof the grammar, spelling and content for it to make sense. What you have to say is important. Do not distract your readers from your ideas with bad spelling and poor sentence structure. Proof your work, and your message will take center stage.

The strategy stuff

1. Redefine your perceptions of blogs. Give blogging grown-up status in your marketing tool kit. Blogs are accessible 24/7/365. They do not intrude on your customer’s time or blare white noise which is easily tuned out. However, they do provide an excellent means of disseminating information. Again, referring to popular keywords, set a content calendar. List different ways each category means something to your business or product and write about it. Set aside time to research and write your blog, rather than ‘when I get around to it’. Add compelling calls to action.

2. Identify your blog’s purpose. Is your blog meant to drive traffic to your business website? Use traffic data to determine the best keywords and content to use in your blog. Are you blogging to generate leads and conversions? Blog about products and services and include links to forms and other calls to action. What about community? Do you want your business or product to get talked about? Write blogs that invite discussion. Be friendly. Ask for comments. Get people believing in you and they will share with their friends. Social Media Examiner delves deeper into this subject.

3. Use captivating headlines. Keep it short, concise, and snappy. Some bloggers take an irreverent approach. If that suits your personality and your target demographic, go for it. However, establish a line you won’t cross and stick with it. Know your audience. Show off your expertise. Don’t call your (or your company’s) maturity into question. Be fun, but not foolish.

4. Get the word out. Use social bookmarking to bring readers to your blog. Every time you post, submit that information to social bookmarking sites, such as Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon and Furl. Remember Twitter and Facebook as high-traffic sites. Include a short but compelling description and the URL.

5. Increase your exposure through guest blogging. Contact bloggers in the same niche and invite them to post on your blog. Ask to write posts for theirs. Make sure links to your blog are included on their page to drive traffic to your site and vice versa. You can find out more about guest blogging etiquette here. Guest blogging can be a win-win situation, but make sure that you choose bloggers of like mind. Again, it goes back to character. In the information age, once data gets out there, there is no calling it back, and it can stick around for a very, very long time. Research your counterpart before you to commit to a blog you will later come to regret. It’s your and your business’s reputation. Protect it.

To sum up

Believe in your business and say it through blogging. Share your excitement by using the mediums both familiar and comfortable to your clients. More and more customers research their decisions, so put your product information at their fingertips. Use keywords and popular content to get grabbed by the search engines, but find new and innovative ways to go about it. Tell the world something it doesn’t know. Remember, your viewpoints are unique, and that is something no other blogger can provide.

One of the biggest goals for many bloggers is to write a post that hits the front page of Digg. Unfortunately, most bloggers will never sniff the front page of Digg, and in fact, they’ll never even get close to that level of success.

The truth is hitting the front page of Digg is pretty hard. Not only does it take quality content, but it also takes a lot of luck. Since you can’t control the luck factor, let’s talk about things you can control—the
content.

How can you make your content more Digg-able?

Here are 7 simple tips you can use.

1. Start with a good headline — A boring headline will instantly kill your chances of Digg success. Remember, the headline is the thing Diggers see when your post is submitted and listed. The headline alone is what determines if a Digg user will click on your post and up-vote it. The headline needs to be catchy, clear, clever, and compelling.

2. Make it pleasing to the eye — Sure, the post needs to be written well, but it also has to look pleasing to the eyes. Diggers tend to really favor posts that have good images and videos mixed in. Also, make sure you format your post with nice headings throughout as it helps the post look a little better.

3. Keep it easy to scan — If your post is a huge block of text, no one is going to Digg it. Online users get overwhelmed by big passages of text, because they tend to scan content rather than read it word for word. With that in mind, you need to make your copy easier to scan by using short paragraphs, bullet lists, numbered lists, and bold headings throughout.

4. Get rid of the text ads — Digg users don’t like blogs that are blatant advertisements. It’s all about content first, and your ads shouldn’t interfere with that. So, if your blog is full of those contextual AdSense ads, you’re really limiting your chances of Digg success. The ads just look unprofessional and spammy.

5. Do something different — “Me too” content doesn’t tend to hit the front page of Digg. Why should someone get excited about voting for content they’ve seen a million times before? You have to be different. Talk about things that no one else has talked about, or cover old topics with a fresh, new, or funny angle.

6. Write with a personality — You can’t bore people into Digging your content. So you have to really let your personality shine through in your writing. Don’t worry about being so formal. Write like you talk, and feel free to be funny or sarcastic.

7. Add Digg buttons to your post — Finally, you need to make your posts as easy to share as possible. By adding social media buttons to your blog, someone can Digg your post with one click on the button, helping you attract a lot more Diggs.

What are some other things you can do to make content more Digg-able?