Social Media is the Buzzword...

Social media is the buzzword in the web marketing and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) industry today. Forums, social blogs, Wikipedia, micro-blogging, podcasts, photographs, video-sharing, ratings and social bookmarking – Social media comes in many different forms.  Websites are increasingly resorting to using web-based technologies or social media for establishing brands, increasing traffic to their site and getting better ranking in the search engine result pages (SERPs). 

As per a recent Nielsen study, 18% of all searches begin from social media sites. Furthermore, with the number of people using the Internet increasing by the day, investing time and a little money in managing social media sites is sure to go a long way in popularising websites. Social media complements SEO, resulting in a fair and substantial increase in SEO success. 

By incorporating social media in their solution, SEO providers can ensure effective distribution across the world web. Social media is proving to be an effective web-marketing tool for SEO companies, enhancing social image and brand name and improving search engine organic ranking. Using those with a professional touch to interact on social media platforms can avoid overt marketing techniques and messaging, which should be resisted. 

A relatively inexpensive strategy compared to traditional media, social media enables anyone to publish, exchange or access information, and can do wonders to the “reach” of your audience, driving traffic to your website. Other advantages of social media are accessibility, usability and ease of content editing for updating latest information. Social media can prove to be a reliable platform in obtaining impact. 

Influence in social media can be achieved by participation in Wikipedia, that verifies user-generated content, sharing valuable fresh content via social networking sites such as Facebook and article distribution through sites such as Ezine Articles; and providing answers on sites such as Ask.com and Yahoo! Answers. 

Social media influences buying decisions based on the comments presented in various social sites. So the pictures shared on Flickr, the videos uploaded on YouTube, the wall posts shared in Facebook, the recommendations given in LinkedIn, the Twitter tweets, the links bookmarked in Delicious and the votes cast in Digg – all leave a huge impression on the minds of customers influencing his decision making.