SEO and Social Media Optimization: A Powerful Combination for Winning the Online Marketing Battle!

Do you know anything about social media optimization? Are you effectively using it for your online business promotions?

Or, better still, what do you think of online social networking sites?

Do you consider them as just some great place where you could speak out against the insensitivity of those in government? Of course, if that is your idea of what social media is all about then there are various options open to you right now. You could pack your sleeping bags and join any of the protest sites. Occupy Wall Street is a good idea here!

But, how about doing something more rewarding with social media? I mean, something that could really improve your life and move your business forward? That would be interesting, right? Then you will want to read this through.

Online social networking has grown from just a platform for college kids and tech gurus to become a powerful way for us to connect with each other. Whether it’s in the area of quickly and easily accessing breaking news or it’s about galvanizing mass support for a cause, social media is today a major player.  The recent happenings in Northern Africa and other happenings like Occupy Wall Street, greatly testify to this.

However, the social media revolution is not just in our social interactions. Businesses also have been revolutionized by what is happening in the social networking sites. Today social networking and social media marketing have changed the way businesses interact with their customers/prospects. And it is indeed right to say that social media has placed the power of business branding squarely in the hands of the customers! So if you’re neglecting social media marketing as an entrepreneur, you’re only digging the grave for your business.

The Fusion of Social Media Optimization and SEO

With its growing popularity, social media has gradually infused itself into search engine optimization (SEO).  Before now, Search engine optimization has been known to be a powerful way for businesses to generate traffic online. Based on some on-site optimization and off-site link building tactics, seo has been the “traditional” or “conventional” way of getting targeted traffic from the search engines.

However, in recent times the search engines realizing the power of social media have incorporated it as one of the determinants for ranking a webpage in search engine result pages (SERPs). Bing appears to be the first to do this when they announced a social SEO partnership with Facebook in May 2011.

Google, the “Grand Daddy” of search, after a carefully structured adoption first by partnering with Twitter to present real-time search results then later by introducing its own social signal, the +1 button also in May 2011, has now finally launched its own social media platform, Google+ (G+).

It was not surprising when Google Plus took the social media world by storm by reporting a growth of about 10million users in just about 16 days of launch!  Industry watchers immediately recognized that Google was determined to play a major role in the social media game.

Now, the waiting game is over for Google has just announced, about 2 weeks ago, that they are officially infusing social media into their search algorithm. In an official blog post Amit Singhal of Google wrote on 11/03/2011:

“Given the incredibly fast pace at which information moves in today’s world, the most recent information can be from the last week, day or even minute, and depending on the search terms, the algorithm needs to be able to figure out if a result from a week ago about a TV show is recent, or if a result from a week ago about breaking news is too old.

We completed our Caffeine web indexing system last year, which allows us to crawl and index the web for fresh content quickly on an enormous scale. Building upon the momentum from Caffeine, today we’re making a significant improvement to our ranking algorithm that impacts roughly 35 percent of searches and better determines when to give you more up-to-date relevant results for these varying degrees of freshness.”

With this official announcement, the use of Google’s +1 button as a ranking signal in Google’s algorithm to determine how well a site ranks in the SERPs has finally been confirmed.

This Is A Big Opportunity for Businesses That Are Adept At Using Social Media Marketing

As the situation stand now, there is no doubt about it. Social media optimization is imperative for your online business.  The traditional ways of generating traffic online through search engines have gone beyond just optimizing your site for the search engines (SEO). You must have in place a system to infuse social media optimization to your traditional search engine optimization (SEO).  And so if you're marketing online and you’ve not started implementing a social media optimization strategy, you'll do yourself some great good if you start right away!

This subject is definitely in its infancy but if you get in right now you’ll stand a better chance of winning the game.  Because of my interest and enthusiasm about SEO, I’ve been studying the subject of social media optimization for some time now. Right now, the results from my studies have been enough to literally force me to renew my interest in social media marketing.

Like I mentioned in one of my posts, I’ve recently renewed my interest in using twitter. One of the first things I did was to change my twitter handle to @IncomeMC with plans to increase my use of the platform. The WebIncomeJournal Facebook fan page is also receiving more attention than before. You can take a look at our fan page here. (We'll be glad if you can post your comments and suggestions on how we can improve the page).

Besides, I’ve recently created a profile on Google Plus and LinkedIn.  Before now, I’ve really not paid much attention to them but with these revolutionary SEO social media changes, it will be foolhardy to be an onlooker!

So, the question right now is, are you paying attention while the search engines are pointing out the direction marketing is taking online? Are you really listening? Do you have in place a system for optimizing your social media marketing right now? Or, do you want to wave it off as one of those things?

You Need a Social Media Optimization Strategy

One of my popular saying is:

“Without A Strategy You Will End Up In Tragedy!”

Now, I must say, when it comes to social media optimization, this is very true.  You need a strategy. This was something that was missing in my earlier attempts at social media marketing. The end result of that lack of a strategy was that my efforts ended in frustration.

But I’m now ready to remedy that. To this end I’ve been updating my knowledge about the subject of social media marketing and I’ll want to share some of the wisdom gleaned so far with you. This post is actually a prelude to a series of posts I will be doing on this subject in the coming days. As usual you can be assured that I’ll hold nothing back. Every detail will be presented in an understandable voice as to help you structure and implement your own social media optimization strategy.  That is, if you do not have one right now.

There are some resources that are really helping me along this line. One of them is this free ebook, “The Definitive Social Media Guidebook – Ways to Integrate Your SEO and Social Media Marketing.”  I must say that for a free ebook, this one is truly amazing. Instead of trying to convince you on why you should read it, I will simply point you to where you can download a free copy right away.  So, click here and get it. You can thank me later!

If however, you want something more in-depth and that present a step by step formula, then getting a copy of “The Social Media Bible: Tactics, Tools, and Strategies for Business Success” is just the right choice. At $17.46, this is actually a giveaway. Considering the power of social media optimization and what it can do for your business in today’s economy, an investment of $17.46 is really nothing. You can easily recoup that once you begin to implement the strategies learned.  Click here to get a copy of “The Social Media Bible” at Amazon.com.

Conclusion

Ignoring social media optimization in the face of the changing trends in search engine optimization is definitely an entrepreneurial suicide. Your business, online or off-line, will be stunted without the nourishment provided by social media nutrients. You could decide that social media is all about hosting protest and speaking out against the ills of the society but remember, your competition is using social media optimization right now. If you neglect it, your competition will simply leave you in the dust!

Over to You:  As always I love to read and reply to your comments so do not hesitate to share your views on the subject of social media optimization below. Are you already implementing a social media optimization strategy or do you think it is not really necessary? Let’s have your say.