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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.

If you’ve spent any time at all on Facebook, Twitter, or any other social networking site, you’ve undoubtedly come across that guy. You know who I’m talking about. The nuisance. The tool. The d-bag. The guy who just doesn’t seem to get it. The guy who you still wonder why in the heck you’re following him.

Then again, maybe you don’t know who I’m talking about. Maybe you don’t know because you’re that guy (or girl). Not sure if you are? Here are a few characteristics of the Social Media Tool.

1. It’s all about you, you, you – Self-absorption is a classic characteristic of the Social Media Tool. Every new post is about them. It’s not about starting a conversation. It’s about promoting a sale, pushing some offer, patting themselves on the back…you get the idea. The truth is nobody really care about you all that much. Social networking is about conversations. And to have a meaningful conversation, you can’t just talk about yourself all the time.
2. You post at a rapid-fire pace – There’s nothing wrong with having an active social media presence. It can be a good thing. However, there’s a very thin line between being active and being an obnoxious tool. If you post dozens of times each hour, you’re overdoing it. You shouldn’t be clogging the feeds of your followers. They’ll quickly grow sick of you and eventually disconnect from you.
3. You post the same messages over and over again – Occasionally, it’s okay to repost your messages at different times of the day to make sure all of your followers have a chance to see it, but if you’re constantly reposting the same things over and over again, you’re a spammer. And spammers are tools.
4. You think you’re an internet A-lister – What’s up with these people who get a few followers and suddenly think they’re some sort of internet celebrity? Let me clue you in. You’re not a celebrity. Nobody really knows who you are nor do they care. You’re insignificant in the grand scheme of things #realitycheck. You refer to yourself as a ‘social media guru’—Ugh. Do I really even have to explain this one? “Social media guru” is code for “social media tool.” In fact, if you refer to yourself as any type of “guru”
5. You think number of followers is all that matters – The Social Media Tool is always bragging about how many followers he has on Twitter or Friends or Likes he has on Facebook. What he fails to understand is that those numbers don’t tell the full story. Who cares if you have 10,000 followers if they’re mostly low quality followers? Give me 100 people who are truly interested in what I have to say over 10,000 who couldn’t care less.

Do you know any social media tools? What are some other key characteristics I left off the list? Share them with us by leaving a comment.

Looking to get more from Twitter? You don’t have to spend a lot of time on Twitter to get positive results for your business. Here are 5 simple things you should do every day on Twitter.

1. Read through your feed — You’re never going to be able to keep track of everything that everyone you’re following Tweets. Twitter is going 24/7, nonstop, so that’s impossible. But you should spend a few minutes scanning through your timeline to see if there’s anything interesting you can respond to.

2. ReTweet something interesting — ReTweets make the Twitter world go round. ReTweeting is a good way to share interesting content with your followers without actually having to think of anything new on your own. It’s also a good way to engage the person you’re ReTweeting. They’ll see it, and you may be able to have a conversation with them to start building that relationship.

3. Interact with your followers — Social media is all about interaction. If you’re not interacting with your followers on Twitter, what are you doing? To generate sales and build customer loyalty, you need to build relationships, and you can’t build a relationship with somebody if you never interact with them. Spend a little time each day starting and joining in meaningful conversations.

4. Try a little promoting — There’s nothing wrong with self-promotion on Twitter, in moderation. Each day, you can do a small bit of promoting. Maybe, you can drop a link to a recent post on your blog, or you could let your followers know about a special deal you have going on right now. The key is to pick your spots carefully for promoting your company. Nobody wants their stream to be clogged with ads 24/7.

5. Check the trending topics — The trending topics are the hot issues everyone is talking about at the moment. It’s always a good idea to keep an eye on the trending topics so you can jump in the conversation if there’s something of value you can add to it.

Are there any other daily Twitter tasks I overlooked? Share your thoughts by leaving a comment.

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.