I know, I know — admitting this makes me look like I’m fresh off the boat. I just joined SEMpdx, and my first event as a new member was Ian Lurie’s talk on using social media successfully.
Those of you who already know Ian won’t be surprised to hear his insights were delivered with an engaging deadpan humor. References to bee stings, raccoons, chocolate and 52-miles-per-gallon spiked Ian’s talk, underlining his hard-won advice on good social media practices.
Ian’s overarching point: Each additional friend or follower in your social network increases the value of every other friend or follower in that network. Caveat: These must be quality followers and friends. The 50,000 Twitter followers you just bought for just $19.95 don’t qualify.
Why does each follower add value? It’s the multiplier effect. Every follower who shares your tweet or post helps you reach a much bigger audience. Even better, when your friends or followers discuss something you’ve published, their chatter gets picked up by others — and by search engines.
“Even if people don’t link to you, their chatter can have an impact on your rankings,” Ian says. That’s true even though Twitter doesn’t follow links.
There’s more to social media than writing pithy, insightful tweets and posts that inspire people (we hope!) to re-tweet and link. Ian advises us to find blogs where people are discussing things we care about, and post comments there.
That doesn’t mean writing things like, “Great post! Couldn’t agree more!” and including a link to your site.
Instead, Ian advises you to offer your opinion and tips that could help the community on each blog. It’s not bad to refrain from including any links to your site. After a few weeks of active participation, if the blog hasn’t linked to you, you could let the blog writer(s) know you’ve posted something relevant on your own site, and ask (nicely) if they would link to it.
Ian pointed out that social media etiquette is no different from gracious behavior in the non-digital world. In this spirit, he recommends Highrise, a social-media CRM (customer relationship management) package developed by 37Signals. This tool helps you track people who give you nice comments or link love, so you can return the favor within a reasonable amount of time.
“I have the social skills of a fungus,” Ian says. “My kids have to wear name tags. This helps me nurture relationships.”
More recommended tools:
* HootSuite helps you manage multiple social networks and schedule tweets and posts.
*Majestic SEO lets you see links to your website over time. Compare your site with competing sites.
* SEOmoz’s Open Site Explorer lets you see who’s linking to your site and to your competitors.
I could go on and on about Ian’s talk, but as someone who believes all wisdom can be delivered in 500 words or less, I’ll stop now.
Tagged as: Business, Internet Marketing, Online Marketing, Online Visibility, Social media
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