Social Networking Is Key For Successful Online Projects.
The evolution of social networking brought it to a position of great importance for a web presence. There are so many interactive services and activities that are available to not only the individual user but business interests as well. Online projects and endeavors need to integrate social networking into their overall strategy to best utilize their internet presence and grow. These are the places where customers gather to share their ideas, likes, and dislikes. Being a part of that allows a business to grow better relationships with their customers in addition to facilitating the spread of relevant information.
SEO and Social Networking
Any doubts about the importance of social networking to an online presence should be dispelled when looking at the search engines. Major search engines such as Bing, Google, and Yahoo are all taking steps to better integrate social information into results. Bing was the leader of the pack by drawing on Facebook Likes and Fan pages to help gauge popularity of a subject. Yahoo and Google are following similar suit to take advantage of the dynamic nature of social networking to find the most relevant results for a search.
As it currently stands, social network ratings do not have a huge impact on SEO efforts. The industry seems to be in the phase of figuring out how to best draw on and utilize the information in a way that will be appropriate. For example, Bing offers a social oriented search which uses data from entities such as Facebook to help determine what appears on search engine result pages. However, you can also plug the information into a regular search query to generate a result that draws from traditional SEO practices.
Looking To Future Projects
A very apparent trend is the embracing of social media values to help determine what is relevant, authoritative content. The approach closely mirrors traditional link-building except on a much faster pace. Social networks simply move at a quicker pace than any other locations we may frequent on the internet. Users can update, Tweet, or tag on the go as often as they want. That provides the potential to simulate viral marketing and make an impact on a large audience in a relatively narrow timeframe.
A good, recent example of this was the “HOPA” girl who stuck it to a boss that referred to her in a derogatory way through text on white boards. She gave the impression she was standing up for herself while pointing out that the network activity showed her manager playing Farmville for several hours a week on the clock. That story and accompanying video spread faster than wildfire because of social networks. It wasn’t until a few days after the fact that it was discovered it was a staged marketing ploy to attempt to simulate viral marketing.
Preparing For Tomorrow
Your business, product, or message can benefit from the same kind of exposure especially as social networking is better integrated into the general internet experience. We are looking at an environment that is already starting to use the weight of some social page PageRanks to help contribute to results placement. Search engines are not releasing details but it is an activity that is confirmed.
A business cannot solely rely on traditional methods to generate online success. A business needs to have a social networking presence if they want to compete in the ever evolving online environment of tomorrow. Doing so will not only provide benefit in terms of search results but provide a great opportunity to better integrate with participants to facilitate the spread of information. There is no downside. The sooner a business gets onboard the better off they will be a year from now either through better rankings or exposure.
