Making Social Media Work for You

Working on the social media side of SEO isn't as easy as it seems, and should not be used merely to get links. Firstly, it is very time consuming and secondly there is a certain way to go about it. Spamming forums or blog comment boxes with "I agree!" type comments isn't exactly giving you or your company a good reputation, nor will it earn you any traffic.

I am going to touch on 5 social media practises: forums, social bookmarking, blogging, article submission and social networking sites. Not everyone will agree that all of these topics fall into social media, and that's fine. The way I see it, all of these topics deal directly with people and therefore fall into the social media category. But enough of that and on to the subject at hand.

1. Forums

Forums are a great source of information. You will find a wide range of expertise on the subject matter of your choice, from beginners to gurus, and all levels of people use forums to share their opinions and knowledge.

Generally, there are a few things that you need to remember when using forums:

- You may only be using them to try and find information but they are a great way to get your brand out there and get some backlinks - that doesn't mean you should spam them with replies or threads that don't really contribute or are merely for advertising purposes. Start threads that will entice people to reply or click the link in your signature, when you reply, reply with something helpful. Ask your own questions. Using forums in this way builds a good reputation for you and your brand, earning traffic as well as links. If you spam the sites people won't give your contributions a second glance and you may even get banned.

- You should read the rules for the forums that you join, that way there is less chance of you being banned for something you might not have known you were doing that is wrong.

- If you do have links to your websites in your signature, try not to list more than 3 otherwise it looks spammy. I'm more inclined to only list 1 as it is more "authentic" but most forums suggest no more than 3.

- The most important thing to remember is that it's not just about getting the links, this is a good opportunity to find regular traffic and learn new things, make it count.

Some good forums are webmaster-talk.com, www.irishwebmasterforum.com and webproworld.com.

2. Social bookmarking

This is another good way to get links and if you use it, the right kind of traffic too. Social bookmarking is simply telling bookmarking sites that you like certain articles or stories, and sharing those articles with other members when you submit them. You can vote on stories that you like or don't like and leave reviews.

Of course you can submit your own blog posts or article submissions, but if people see only submissions relating to your site, you could lose valuable traffic because you look like you are spamming the sites.

There is no "trick" to using this kind of social media - all you have to do is not "pretend" to look authentic...but actually be authentic. You will receive worthwhile traffic and build a good reputation this way. Submit interesting articles you read, or blog posts you find funny, include a profile picture...do anything a real user would do - because that is what you should be. There is no quick fix. You need to act like a human in order to receive human interaction with your site.

Some sites you can use are StumbleUpon, Digg and Sphinn.

3. Blogging

By owning a blog you get to share your thoughts, ideas and business with a huge audience. If your content is useful enough you will get links and loyal followers too.

The trick here is to not make the blog about you, make it about your audience. If you have specials running, sure, share it with them...but don't make your entire blog about specials your company is running. That will encourage...nothing. No links, no loyal followers and no comments.

Make your content relevant and interesting to read. Comment on other blogs you find interesting too - people read those comments and you may get some extra traffic if you contribute something worthwhile, maybe even a link from the blogger whose post you are commenting on - if you get their attention. Interaction is key to making your blog successful.

Other ways of getting more traffic and links in this social media category is by guest posting on other blogs and sponsoring competitions (you will earn links from the bloggers running those competitions etc).

Some good blogs for SEO are mattcutts.com/blog, seobook.com, seo-scoop.com and www.interleado.com/blog.

4. Article submission

There are many online article submission sites you can use to showcase your articles. As with blogging, if they are interesting and helpful enough, they will earn you links and traffic.

Most of these social media sites require an article length of around 500 words - this is to help to ensure that the articles that are submitted are worthwhile reading. As with the other mentioned social media categories, making an article all about a special you are running won't earn you anything and will probably not be published - most sites have a waiting period of up to 7 days so that the articles can be reviewed.

There are many free article submission sites online such as eZineArticles and ArticleBase. You will be able to find lists of these sites on forums and in blogs - all you have to do is search.

5. Social networking sites

These sites put you in touch with people of similar interests. You are able to create groups that you can send updates to, network with other members and on some sites post articles that the members of the groups may find interesting. Some examples are LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

The thing to remember with social media is that pretending to be involved isn't enough to earn you the traffic you need. If you are interested, people will be interested in you - show them your interest. Let your audience know that you have opinions and knowledge to share, or questions to ask.

More importantly - make sure your business will benefit from this aspect of SEO as it is time consuming and hard work needs to be put in. Articles and blog posts need to be optimised for the search engines, profiles needs to be created, forums and blogs need to be checked and contributed to. But what's anything without a little hard work?