Is Social Media Important for My Business?

FAQ 4 – Is Social Media Important for My Business? [pause] In this video we’re going to talk briefly about social media and its importance for your business.[pause] Using social media is a very loaded question and one that we could devote an entire hour to discussing. So let me say this. Social media may or may not be a way to grow your sales and bring in new leads but what I can say for certain is that participating in social media is good for your SEO.[pause] So strictly from an SEO perspective, Google has said, as of 2012, that social media signals in and out of a website will be counted as pluses for a site. [pause] What this means is that let’s say you have two similar sites but one has Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter or Google + links in to the site and social media links out to other sites. The search engines now will regard the site with more social media signals as more important, more engaged, more timely and relevant.[pause] So from an SEO standpoint there are two ways to participate in social media on your website, and while I recommend both, it’s important to understand the two ways. [pause] The first is the far more involved method and that involves actually having a business Facebook page, a YouTube site, a Twitter account, a LinkedIn profile and a Google+ page. [pause] But not just having them, but actually participating in them --- posting regularly, linking to your own site from all these social media properties which the search engines can detect. [pause] These are the social media signals I just mentioned --- links from your site to Facebook, links from your YouTube channel to your site and tweets on Twitter and posts on Google+ to all of it.[pause] For some business owners this is a non-starter. For others it’s the new marketing.[pause] But if this all seems a bit much, then the second way to participate in social media that would have a benefit to your SEO is by putting social media share buttons and widgets on your site so that your visitors can do the sharing, posting, tweeting for you.[pause] Of course this means you have to have content worth sharing, which is the subject of a whole other video, but obviously, the best way is to max it out and do it all --- participate as well as enable! [pause] Yes, you’ll have to create content and conversations with your clients, customers and prospects but isn’t that what marketing has always been about? Telling a story? Now, social media allows any business to basically be a broadcast network pumping their messages out to thousands of followers, i.e. leads, prospects and clients.[pause] But from an SEO standpoint it’s a no brainer. It’s an online marketing tactic that is being rewarded by the search engines by returning social media-engaged websites in the search engine results early and often. So from that perspective alone, where more social media earns you better search engine rankings , yes, social media is an important aspect for your business.[pause] Thanks for watching.[pause]