What is Social Networking?

If you were looking for information online over the last few years the only reliable way to find that information was to use a search engine.

The advent of what we call Web 2.0 (interactive websites that operate as social networks) the way people find information has changed. People use these websites to find information and websites that have been recommended by other users.

One of the most recent instances of this are social bookmarking websites such as Digg and Del.icio.us, which allow users to share their personal bookmarks (favourite websites) with other users. Users of these sites tag each bookmarked website with keywords they feel are most relevant.

Other variations on the social networking scene include blogging social networks such as Technorati.com which indexes blogs based on the number of incoming links and the tags associated with their posts.

One of the most popular social network is Myspace which enjoys over 20 million unique visitors each month.

Two other powerful new social networks that have revolutionised the audio and video market are: YouTube and blogTalkRadio. These major networks allow filmmakers and broadcasters to share their visions with the world. Few businesses have yet to realise the full potential these media networks have to offer.

How Will Social Networking Help My Site Traffic Grow?

Two out of three people online in June 2006 visited a social networking site. In fact, 1 out of every 20 website visits is to a social networking website. Experts say that social networks are starting to eclipse traffic from the major search engines Yahoo! and Google.

So if your company is not present on any of the major social networks, you're missing out on the easiest, fastest way to access 67% of internet users.

How Do I Get Involved in Social Networking?

Working with social sites is similar to working with the media. Give them a good enough story, secret, tip, or resource that they can sink their teeth into and you’ll have an army of talkers spreading the word about you and your business.

And this translates into referrals, which convert into sales on an average of 667% better than cold leads (search engine results). So even if you reach less people through social networking, your conversions will be far higher.

We target various social networks through a variety of methods:

Article or Blog Promotion

We manage several blogs for our various clients (as well as article pages) that contain posts written purely to capture the imagination and interest of our client’s target market.

For instance, if you sell pet beds, gifts, and items, we will develop a series of blog posts or articles that discuss a controversial or “hot off the press” topic that pet lovers either find highly valuable as an information resource, or highly intriguing or emotionally stimulating. We will then promote it to various social bookmarking and blogging networks, as well as popular bloggers – who will then circulate the story and generate traffic back to your website.

Social Promotion

Particularly effective for clients who target teens, young adults, musicians, or other highly active social groups, we implement social promotion campaigns on networks like MySpace, FaceBook, Catch27, and CraigsList to spread the word about your business. Even if your business does not target the “myspace crowd,” we can almost always devise a creative campaign to get the net buzzing.

How Does Social Networking Work With SEO?

As more and more internet users begin to use tags to find information (a tag is a keyword that a human associated with a website, vs. a keyword that a search engine attributes to a website), Search Marketing professionals cannot ignore the growing dominance of the social networks.

However, we view the partnership between social networks and search engines as an excellent and balanced marriage. Sure, social networking gets you in front of people who no longer use search engines in lieu of finding their information through referrals or bookmarks/tags.

But the added, and perhaps more exciting bonus, is that while you grow in popularity with social networks like Digg and MySpace, your search rankings will continue to increase as a result!

Your popularity signals Google that you are an authority in your market according to your human audience.

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