Social, search, and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups

Like a sweet Reese's peanut butter cup of marketing joy, search engine optimization and social media are converging, and they do taste great together!

Why the convergence of SEO and social media?

Google has always been hyper-focused on providing the best search results for its customers (the actual individuals searching the web - sorry, as a company seeking a Page 1 Google listing, you're not the customer Google is looking to please).  While we've watched numerous questionable tactics come and go, from keyword stuffing to link farming, one thing that I've always recommended to our clients is to focus on working with Google - they have the pick of the top engineering talent on the planet, so you're not going to outsmart them, at least not for long.

This means the key is to help Google learn as much about your brand and website as you can, so it can connect you with the right "searchers."

Real-time media = the most current results

Now that virtually any company with a credible marketing strategy is doing some level of SEO, one issue Google increasingly has to contend with is the thousands of marketing teams vying for the coveted first page. In particular, mega-brands will spend millions to retain their placements - with the potential result of a stagnant first page of results, which is a negative for Google - after all, providing up-to-the-minute results is important to their business.  And with Facebook and Twitter edging in on the paid-search market through various efforts at real-time keyword-based advertising, Google is under even more pressure to prove that it can give not only relevant results, but results that are relevant this minute.  

Many of the most authoritative pages on the web have attained that authority over many years, with hundreds of thousands of sites linking back to them as reference sites (think NASA.gov).  But today's searcher also wants to know what's happening now, so Google will be looking to integrate pages that have momentum today, as well as those with historical authority.

Google refers to its judgment on the validity of a social post as "author authority," which it states is "independent of PageRank."  Since we know moving a PageRank is generally a long-term play, author authority may be a way to have a quicker effect on placements for topical or "trending" searches.  Bing uses something similar it calls "social authority."

What have we observed on our social media projects?

One site we worked on in Q4 of 2010 was a great example of a search-social synergy.  We assisted the client's own marketing team to implement a multi-faceted approach:

• Social media marketing, including Facebook advertising, Youtube promotions, and consistent sharing on Twitter
• A unique campaign to "deputize" brand fans to generate backlinks (sorry, details are confidential on this one)
• Detailed keyword research, including review of the historical data set for successful and unsuccessful keywords, as well as traffic analysis
• Best-practice on-page semantic optimization including meta tags for titles and descriptions, headers and sub-headers, proper URL structure
• Additional "trade-secret" custom on-page tweaks (with an assist from an excellent 3rd-party SEO advisory firm)
• Aggressive organic placement into key directory sites (we don't espouse the "link-farm" approach, but do find appropriate directory placements valuable)

Through the synergy of all the above approaches, we attained several page one national keywords with tens of thousands of monthly searches, as well as increasing the brand's overall exposure.

What does this mean for marketing & social teams?

First and foremost, no single SEO strategy can be expected to produce miraculous results.  Google is ever-vigilant for tactics designed to "game" its algorithm.  So the goal should be to build an increasing presence in all possible media and provide the most current content possible.

Second, many firms look at social media either as only a direct sales driver or conversely, as only a branding vehicle; neither is entirely correct. Social media builds brand and can produce direct response, but it does lack the immediacy and purpose-driven approach of search-based advertising.  On the other hand, social media marketing, done well, can also have a beneficial effect on those all-important search tactics.  If you think the oddball video campaign or crazy contest (what we shudderingly call "viral marketing") are dead, this is something important to consider before abandoning those tactics.  Lots of back-links, built rapidly from the right sites, can indeed impact search ranking positively.

How can you take advantage of this trend?

We recommend several key tactics, all of which we can help with if you'd like - feel free to get in touch!

• Have current, well-maintained pages on all the key social networks: Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Linkedin (for B2B campaigns)
• Create content especially designed for the social space - think creative, unique content that is prone to being shared
• Keep your website constantly updated - we recommend the Drupal site development platform as it makes highly complex sites a breeze to update without programming
• "Write once, publish often" - syndicate your website content across all your online properties (tweaking it for each usage) and re-publish it in the bookmarking sites such as Digg, Reddit, Stumbleupon, and Delicious
• Incorporate social networking into your own website where appropriate

Like like classic mix of peanut butter and chocolate, these two techniques (SEO and social media) each have their value and taste great on their own - but together they are even sweeter!

Next steps:

• Learn more about our social media philosophy
• Learn more about "near-sourced" social media services
• Learn more about social media training
• Contact us today - no fee, no pitch, let's talk and see if we're a good fit!

SEO and Social Media References:

"This week in search 12/17/2010," Google blog

"Google + Bing Confirm that Twitter/Facebook Influence SEO," SEOMoz, 12/2/2010

"How Will Twitter Integration Into Google, Bing Affect The Tweecosystem?," Search Engine Land, 10/9/2009 - an older article but notable for it's prescient quote from Larry Page about the dominance of the real-time web

Harley Orion
CEO & Creative Director