In an insightful article for Search Engine Journal on how we now “accept, follow, connect, press, like, share, stumble, update and friend’ our way through social media, and the effect these “social signals” have on the search rankings of a given website, SEO expert, Robbie Williams, writes that all these social media announcements “are just further confirmation of the convergence of social and search, and signal the growing importance of social media marketing for business.”
Citing all-things-digital website, Mashable, Williams notes:
“Facebook has released an update that fundamentally changes the button’s functionality to that of a Share button. Now after hitting the Like button, a full story with a headline, blurb and thumbnail will be posted to your profile wall…Previously, only a link to the story would appear in the recent activity, often going unnoticed by users.
“In short, we invest ourselves when we ‘like’ something,” Williams observes, and “(m)arketing and SEO companies who understand this fine tuning, can help clients use it to an advantage.”
With traffic volume on Facebook now matching volumes on Google and Bing, a company’s search engine optimization strategy must include a social media strategy or risk missing a very sizeable, and desirable demographic: young, socially-attuned and digitally literate consumers.
“People are discussing, liking, sharing, linking, re-tweeting and blogging about their preferences on a daily basis,” Williams notes. “This constant stream of marketing information is being shared at an incredible pace, so much that search engines can’t help but to notice and start joining in the fun.”
And just as search engines do not want to miss out on the “fun” – and profitability – of social media, neither do companies whose name brand reputation and/or online marketing strategies are increasingly important in a “wired” business world
Barry Byers, Wolf21.com’s Chief Operating Officer, notes that “there are untapped streams of revenue that are clearly business critical for companies, large and small. Tapping into these potential revenue streams is now a matter of managing a company’s social profile on platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, and not just relying on strict search optimization strategies.
These are still valid, but they are rapidly evolving, so that they must now take into account what end users (i.e., potential customers) are attuned to on a host of social media platforms, but most particularly Facebook Twitter, and perhaps LinkedIn.”