If you get re-tweets, it just might be! This was the buzz on the web just a few short months ago that has had traditional SEO companies scrambling to be sure that they have social media marketing solidly placed in their optimization game plan. These recent changes in Google’s algorithm have left many, including small and large businesses as well as search marketers, a bit confused on what direction to take their social networking and we hope to give some sound advice on the subject.
For those that aren’t completely clear on the announcements from Google, we’ll try our best to put it in the easiest to understand terminology we can. Basically the search giant announced that they will be adding author authority to their organic search algorithm. This means that content that is shared on social networks and then re-circulated by others within the network will get a higher ranking than content that is let’s say only on your blog and not hitting the social scene at all. More specifically this is content re-tweeted on Twitter and shared by friends on Facebook and other networks.
All of this sounds great right? Well, a lot of people mistook author authority for the number of people you have in your network. Don’t get me wrong, the larger networks do have a better pool for circulating their content, but the basic rule of social networking hasn’t changed; quality of followers beats out quantity any day. Oh and contrary to popular belief, content is still king.
It doesn’t matter if you have 3000 followers if only 3 of them are actually reading your tweets and sharing your content. Meanwhile your competition, who has probably taken the time to build quality relationships on their social networks but may only be connected to 300 people, those 300 connections are liking and sharing content on a daily basis. Get the connection? This too is where quality content comes into play as well. If what you are sharing in your social circles isn’t worth the read, then it usually isn’t worth a Like or a Re-Tweet.
Another twist in the Google algorithm is that who you follow and connect with as well as what you share on social networks has a direct effect on the search results you are served when you perform a search while signed into your Google account. This is a grey area still, but seems to indicate that the more people you network with and share content with, the more likely you are to show up in their organic search results. Mind you this is only when they perform a search while signed into their Google account. However as Google has introduced more social networking options themselves, more people have reason to leave their Google accounts open while doing other work online. This puts a whole new perspective on SEO and social media marketing which to date have been somewhat separate of each other.
So, our advice. Be socially accountable by building your social networks to be full of quality connections with as many quality connections you can without cheesing out and send out quality content that your connections will be willing to share with their connections too. Of course, the best way to build a quality network is to feature the FollowUs button on your website so that your website visitors know where to find you on their favorite social network.
