Social Media For SEO

Social media for marketing and brand promotion is a topic which divides opinion throughout the internet community. A quick Google search will bring up endless discussions and debates over the matter with – generally – the younger, more technology keen business owners and SEO’s saying that social media is a must in any marketing strategy, whilst more traditionalists say that social networking is what their kids do after school, and that printed leaflets served them well 20 years, and always will.

Those who dismiss social media as more of a 'toy' and should be seperated from business however, are in my opinion, taking a very narrow minded view, 1 dimensional view, and potentially restricting their business from finding many new clients. If you're one of those people, then I tell you, social media marketing holds some great advantages which you should really take note of, for example:

1. One To One Communication – If you're running a multinational company which serves thousands of customers worldwide, its going to be near on impossible to keep in casual contact with them all and answer every tweet or comment, however, for smaller companies, if people see you giving 1 on 1 attention to every enquiry, it will give you a very friendly and caring image – and customers love feeling important.
2. Helping Your Rankings – Those of you in touch with SEO and search engines will know that Google recently updated their ranking algorithm to bring about some pretty hefty changes, and all search engines are constantly tweaking theirs to incorporate new ways to provide the best quality results, and cut out the spam. With all these changes, has come the rise of social media in SEO, which is playing an increasing role all the while. If links to your website are being sent around social media sites, and people are involved in heavy conversation about you, Google will pick up on this and - if positive - recognise you as something of an authority figure, boosting your rankings.
3. Managing Your Reputation – As the name suggests, social media, is for being social, and you can be exactly that even on a business account. Witty status updates and humorous tweets are much more likely to get people to warm to you than being inundated with spammy pre-composed sales emails.
4. Boosting Sales – Many social media sceptics can be found muttering 'we want sales not friends' however, in most cases, friends means sales. If people see you have plenty of friends, they are more likely to trust your service and go to you with their business, plus recently released statistics have revealed that people are 67% more likely to give their business to a company they have encountered in the world of social media - and everyone loves statistics, 74% of people know that!

Those are just 4 of many possibilities that social media can provide to your business, and whether you are a sceptic or not, you cannot deny that they very nice positives. I'm not saying put all of your eggs into one basket and rely completely on social media, but its a very nice alternative outlet to have, and its looking unlikely that it will go away any time soon, so its probably best that you get on board.