Effective use of social media marketing via the social web means focusing on building your brand and your reputation. There are no magic bullets when you're striving for maximized search engine optimization. It's pretty much a mixed bag between using good on-page optimization techniques and maximizing your brand through the use of social media sites.  These can range from the more general sites like StumbleUpon, Digg, and Propeller and the more specialized sites like LinkedIn and ActiveRain.

Social Media SEO is About Branding and Reputation

Again, we're focusing on building your brand and reputation.  It's not about achieving spikes in web traffic from one or two carefully worded blog post titles sent up through your networks.  What it takes is time - time to seek out the social media niches where your potential customers are  to be found, and then proving yourself as both a consistently valuable resource and a thoughtful community contributor.

As your brand and reputation grow, you'll see connections begin to form.  The contacts you make will begin recommending your blog or website to others, and you will see your overall traffic increase over time through naturally occurring - and long lasting - backlinks.  As you grow your presence, you'll be practicing what experts call organic SEO (as opposed to the wham-bam type referenced above).

Brand Building Works - Take Google's Vince Update for Example

Earlier this month, Google issued what Matt Cutts referred to as an algorithmic modification called the Vince update.  A quick Google search for Vince Update will provide you with the particulars.  The key here though, is that this update apparently gave a bump to some of the major brand names out there - ones who have, by virtue of their "time of service" on the web, garnered the social trust, authority, and significant PageRank.  What spurred on more than a little chatter, is that the major brands apparently got more of a push than long time "lesser" brands.   Take a look at what Matt Cutts had to say about the Vince Update:

Tend Your Brand and Reputation Garden by Nurturing Others

I've long been a believer in the idea that you need to cultivate and nurture your clients in order to forge natural, meaningful, organic relationships.  Social media marketing is all about paying it forward.  Putting the needs, interests, and strategic goals of others before your own - at least some of the time.  I say this, because it would be silly to say that we shouldn't always be looking after our own interests.  Just be sure that you take time out to keep the social part of social media alive.

Remember in the "olden days," when Gurus used to tell you to collect clipped or photocopied newspaper or magazine articles your boss might find useful, and then give them to her so that she might start to look at you as an intuitive, informed, and valuable employee?

Your approach to social media marketing (i.e., marketing) is like that which I just described... only now - you're sending links through Twitter and peppering relative hashtags in with your tweets so that other like minded folks may benefit from the little golden nuggets you find!

Each "hey, thought you might like to read this after our last conversation" brings you one step closer to "Hey she's a darned useful member of my network-ville!"

As you move forward with your social media marketing and SEO efforts, consider developing a routine.  I like to look at my social network as a neighborhood.  On a loose, yet fairly orderly schedule, I swing by and say howdy to folks, drop off bits of news and information, and then get the heck out of their way.  It's never about making the sale.  At least not overtly.  You'll get to the bottom line of your bank book over time.  For now - just sew the seeds in quality soil (carefully selected / targeted contacts) and water, water, water!  Oh - and a Sunny Disposition always helps!

In closing, look at brand and reputation building as an important part of your long term (long-tail) SEO efforts.  Stick with it, and you're sure to see results that stick with you!

CALL TO ACTION: Have you experimented with social media marketing?  Have a story to share? Comment here so we can all learn together!

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