Social media marketing is a term that covers both social bookmarking (example, Delicious, StumbleUpon, Google Bookmarks) and social networking (ex., Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn). Both are useful for extending your site’s visibility on the Web, gaining links to your site, and promoting your site to people with the same interests.
Here’s a case in point:
When Amy sits down at her computer, she might be looking for a recipe to add creativity to the family’s weeknight menu, exploring a locale she hopes to someday visit or getting up to speed on a particular parenting issue. Recently, however, Amy created her own Facebook page and discovered the Twitter craze. She now spends time each week keeping up with her “social” contacts.
Amy’s online behavior is fairly representative of many Internet users today. They’re searching for information via the Search Engines (“search” visitors) and/or they enjoy meeting new people with similar interests to their own (“social” visitors).
Generally speaking, social visitors are looking for an opportunity to connect with other people.
Given this common reality, is social media marketing worth your time? Yes and here’s why…
Any amount of link “buzz” you create via social bookmarking or networking is tracked by the Search Engines. It is part of their “off page” criteria used to measure overall search reputation and to determine your site’s page ranking. As a result, social media marketing isn’t just about the direct traffic it might bring to your site. Inbound links increase your site’s profile on the Net and improve its reputation at Google. The more variety of ‘off-page’ marketing you do, the more competitive and visible your website is.
What’s the bottom-line recommendation for social media marketing? Use social traffic as one of your strategies to boost the reputation and ranking of your content pages within Search Engines. This, in turn, helps to attract more high-value visitors.
These high-value visitors monetize better and that increases the overall profitability of your site.