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.

Even the most well intentioned businesses can make simple mistakes in the social network that can earn them the label of Spammer and like permanent marker, this label will take a good bit of time and scrubbing to go away.  The truth is, you can never really know how your audience will receive your message, but you avoid common mistakes on the social platform.

For starters, don’t go social just to get links to your website.  Do something more constructive like article marketing to gain links.  If you aren’t going to maintain your social profile and interact on a networking site, then you probably shouldn’t start an account at all.  To get the most out of your social efforts, you have to actually be social. 

Most people can spot social spam from a mile away.  Twitter accounts that consist of nothing more than RSS feeds and links to one website and Facebook fan pages that only run off the Twitter account and blog are all pretty good indicators that there isn’t really a human behind the account.  What is even funnier is that the followers and fans you get from a social network account run on spam are usually spammers themselves so all your spam isn’t really bringing home any bacon anyway.

Which brings us to followers, fans and followings; social media isn’t a popularity contest.  Or at least it shouldn’t be.  Don’t hop on ship and start following everyone and their brother so as to get their brother and everyone to follow you.  You need to have a vested interest in your followers and fans.  Interact and communicate with your peeps on an individual level and as a whole.  You should post real posts with no links and no sales at least once a day if not more.
 
If you go to all the trouble to send people to your social networking profiles, via the free FollowMe button from SocialFollow of course, don’t just send a bunch of spam and sales pitches.  Keep your interaction real and reap the true rewards of social media marketing which are a loyal customer base and a strong reputation.