With the introduction of real-time search into the SERPs and with Google’s algorithms evolving to become ever more complex, it has never been more important for an SEO expert to be practiced in the art of marketing through social media.

More and more people are taking an interest in social media thanks to the rise of sites such as Twitter, Facebook and MySpace in the world of online marketing and social networking.

The rise in popularity of mainstream social media sites has been meteoric in recent years and this has changed how people interact with, and utilise, the internet on a daily basis. With the launch of the iPhone and Google’s Nexus One handset, it has never been easier for people to access the internet, wherever they are in the world.

Apple is due to release its iPad within weeks and interest in this digital phenomenon has hit epic proportions ever since Steve Jobs unveiled its potential to stunned onlookers in January. With the launch of these types of devices, companies like Facebook and Twitter have launched mobile versions of their software making it easier for people to engage in social media anywhere, at any time.

With social media continuing to grow in popularity, SEO marketers have had to give serious thought to the role it can play in digital marketing campaigns. They are now looking to link bait sites like Twitter to generate traffic for their own website, and use social media to generate sales for clients.

With Twitter’s announcement that 10 billion tweets have now been sent through the network, and the imminent launch of the firm’s advertising platform, it has never been more important for companies to have a presence.

SEO marketers use this medium to create brand awareness by following Twitter pages that have a lot of followers. Although we know Twitter is one of the top three social media sites, it does have a limit on the amount of characters you can use per post. This means that SEO marketers cannot use the site for linking building for two reasons:

1)      The links are ‘nofollowed’ which mean they will not hold real link building value.

2)      The limit on characters means SEO marketers cannot input most company URLs. As a result, if an SEO marketer wanted to post a link on Twitter they would have to use a short URL which would hold little to no value and could discredit the site.

These are some reasons why SEO experts generally tend to avoid social media sites when it comes to link building – however, this can, in some instances at least, be a mistake. Below are a set of rules that an SEO marketer would look to stick to when using Twitter as a medium to bring traffic to a website:

1)      Create a Twitter page.

2)      Make regular updates for a number of weeks and develop a following.

3)      Use Twitter’s real-time search engine to find related results.

4)      Make posts as engaging as possible to encourage user participation.

5)      Make regular posts about industry news e.g. your market sector, deals, company news, events, new products, competitions, related blogs, newsletters, discounts and topical news that could drive traffic to your site.

6)      Post comments on other related Twitter accounts to grow the brand name and increase awareness.

7)      Include interesting photos on your Twitter posts.

8)      Conduct online reputation management and follow your brand exposure as it is moves and develops on Twitter. Respond to any negative publicity in a timely manner.

9)      Feed Twitter posts into your website and add a call to action e.g. “See what offer we have via Twitter.”

10)   Try and limit the amount of people who you follow. It would be best to keep this value below the number of people currently following you.

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