The Importance of Social Media in SEO

How do your customers find you online?

It seems like an obvious question. They go to your website, of course. But if they’ve never heard of your business, how else would they stumble across your site?

This is where search engine optimization (SEO) comes in, a way for you to better your website so Google and other engines can find and share your content with their users.

A Brief History

There are many ways to optimize your site, but previously, the best way to get your page to the top of search results was through link building. This meant getting links to your site placed around the web to increase your PageRank (the level of authority Google gives your site). Then, as with most things, people went overboard with this tactic, trying to game the system by paying for links in a high volume of places.

To combat this problem, Google started assigning weight to these links. Low-quality (say, on a spammy page with nothing but a bunch of paid links) and higher-quality links (the New York Times linked to you, for example) were given appropriate values and the linked website was ranked accordingly.

Keywords were – and still are –important in helping Google decide if your website matches a certain query. But again, this was abused and keyword stuffing became an issue. Thus, Google had to change its focus again.

So how does Google determine value today? Weighted links and keywords are still taken into consideration, but the search engine has shifted much of its focus to providing value to users and creating a more personalized experience.

This is where social media comes in.

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Social Media Tips from @MiddlesexLounge

middlesex lounge

Nate Brown of @middlesexlounge has a lot to do. He’s the face and voice of one of Boston’s hottest bars and lounges that features regular live music and performances – so how does one juggle all of that and not sound like a robot? It’s no easy task, but Brown didn’t make our “Who to Follow” list for nothing! We asked for some advice.

 

 

 

1. Have social media be a part of someone’s job. not an afterthought or addendum to someone’s job. If its a marketing person, it should be one of the main duties.

2. Engage people, even if it’s a Foursquare check-in or you’re hashtagged and not directly communicated with, reply or retweet.

3. Cut down on links. More links away from Twitter make it a pain in the ass, and not all links are worth it clicking away for.

4. Give as much info as possible in 140 characters. Is it an event? Offer the time, date, cover fee, type of music/ artist, etc.

5. Have something worth reading. If you read your own tweets as if they were from a completely unknown account, would you follow that account?

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Social Media Tips from @mcslimjb

Social Media Tips from @mcslimjbMC Slim JB may sound like the name of your newest favorite Boston-based rapper, but in reality, he’s so much cooler than that. The local restaurant critic writes reviews for the Improper Bostonian and plenty other publications, all the while happily tweeting about food, Boston, and more. And if you were wondering, no, he is NOT the cat in his Twitter avatar. Find more Food & Drink Twitter accounts at our list of Who to Follow in Boston!

 

 

 

1. Find a niche and stick to it. Probably 85% of my comments relate to Boston food and drink, with a sprinkling of national food/drink stuff thrown in. That’s why people follow me.

2. Credit your sources, ideally with their Twitter handles. It’s not nice to pirate ideas. Nobody expects you to come up with original content all the time; they follow you because they take some interest in what you find interesting. So point them to cool, funny, interesting stuff besides your own; just tell people where you found it.

3. Go easy with the Tweeting of photos of what you’re eating. That dish might indeed be awesome, but if you’re like me, your smartphone-based photo of it is probably pretty pitiful, and maybe not doing the chef or restaurant such a great favor.

4. Be wary of reporting rumors, especially restaurant closings. False rumors can hurt a business and its workers. Better to be scooped than to get the facts wrong. Nobody cares if you got the news out first, anyway.

5. If you’re going to lob a dart at somebody in the industry for their self-aggrandizement, dumb restaurant name, horrifying marketing campaign, or shady business practices, consider using satire over sanctimony. For most readers, it’s more fun to see a scoundrel or ninny ridiculed than scolded.

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Social Media Tips from @BostonAttitude

86eBott8They say “attitude is everything,” which means that John Romard (aka @BostonAttitude) is everything Boston. Follow his account for tweets about “Living, Working, Playing in Boston!!” BA’s on our “General Boston” Twitter list for Who To Follow on Twitter in Boston, because, well, if you live in Boston, you better be following him!

Here are @BostonAttitude’s tweeting tips:

1. Pick something you know about to talk about.

2. Be consistent with the content in your posts. I tweet about Boston and major events. I try to keep my content honest, accurate and current.

3. Have fun and work with others, it’s not competition.

4. Never give up or get discouraged. You don’t build a following overnight.

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Social Media Tips from @OnTheBar

Social Media Tips from @OnTheBar@OnTheBar is one of the coolest apps to have if you’re living in Boston. It’s also one of the coolest Twitter accounts to follow — you can see where your favorite bartenders are working on any given night and plan your night accordingly. Plus, their tweets are beyond entertaining. Find more Food & Drink Twitter accounts at our list of Who to Follow in Boston!

 

1.  Try to mix it up. We’ll sometimes throw in cultural references that are not immediately related to what we do / our mission. If we’re just, “cocktails, cocktails, cocktails!” all the damn time, we’d be both boring and drunk.

2. Have a sense of humor, but don’t be a jerk. We take a pretty irreverent tone from time to time, but we never (or very, very rarely) speak negatively about a person or thing. Usually if we’re making fun of something, it’s ourselves. People seem to dig that. Corporate accounts are usually stodgy as hell.

3. Talk about others more than yourself. Our job is sorta easy here because we have all these amazing bartenders creating really cool content about what’s happening in their bar or what drinks they’re making, etc. We get to share this via Twitter and Instagram, and we love hyping our community members. Like that @sahildmehta guy. He’s great. You should follow him.

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Social Media Tips from @BriteBoston

Social Media Tips from Sara Steele-Rogers of @BriteBostonSara Steele-Rogers can tell you what’s up in Boston. As the Boston Metro Marketing Manager for @BriteBoston, Steele-Rogers tweets about and attends some of the coolest events in the city. Find more Event Twitter accounts at our list of Who to Follow in Boston!

 

1. Be consistent. Every week, I schedule my tweets on Mondays and Thursdays for the next few days to keep accountable.

2. Eventbrite Boston is all about showcasing Boston’s best events and live experiences, not just events on Eventbrite. Be sure your tweets aren’t 100% self-promotional. Branch out and give others in the community some love, too!

3. Know what your followers are looking for. The Eventbrite community particularly loves free events, as well as fitness, food and drink, and tech events. Also, anything out-of-the-box or super unique is always very popular!

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Social Media Tips from @PeteMFBoyd

Social Media Tips from @PeteMFBoydLocal bearded tweeter and “purveyor of beer” Pete Boyd is a Narragansett rep who tweets about the best of the Boston beer scene. His tweets cover great events in Boston (and beer, beer, BEER!). Find more Food & Drink Twitter accounts at our list of Who to Follow in Boston!

 

 

 

People need to engage in conversation, not just retweet everything. A simple retweet can let people know that someone hollered at you. Engaging in conversation will lead to a much more open dialogue. It can give people a better idea of who you are or what you meant, rather than limiting them to your 140 character blast.

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Social Media Tips from @lukeoneil47

lukeHow many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop? The world may never know. ….but Luke O’Neil does. Follow him on Twitter to find out. And the answer is NOT 47. Luke’s always tweeting and it’s always funny. Caution: don’t be drinking milk when you see a tweet by Luke. So maybe just avoid drinking milk while at the computer entirely. Whether it’s for his snot-rocket inducing blog PTSOTL (Put That Shit on the List), @BostonGlobe, @Esquiremag, @BULLETMedia, @VICE or @Slate, you know this crackpot freelancer will be tweeting, and that his tweets will stand the test of time. That’s why we included him on our Who to Follow on Twitter in Boston Guide.

Here are some Twitter tips from the man himself:

I’m not sure I really qualify to give advice on getting followers on Twitter, since I don’t really have all that many compared to others. Like the old saying about guns: I’ve got more than I need, but fewer than I want. I suppose the most I’ve ever had was like 25,000, but the problem is they were never all there at the same time. I lose about as many as I gain every day. Twitter is like a bailing out a row boat with a hole in it, but worse because you never had a particular direction in mind in the first place and the oars are jokes and the analogies are bad.

That said….I’d say a pretty good place to start is…

1. Try not to be so woefully, predictably banal. Or, failing that, be ironically, predictably banal. It’s a pretty cool trick that let’s you say all the same day to day personal shit that no one cares about, but it’s through a presumed lens of irony, so you can still come out looking cool in the end.

2. Be attractive. I find that being a generally physically appealing human has done wonders for me in that regard. Not just on Twitter but in life in general. Definitely look into that.

3. Maybe… I don’t know, find… a community of likeminded people? With whom you can share a common interest? And talk about that a lot? People like to like things and like people who also like those things.

4. Starting fights with people seems to be a pretty popular way to get noticed. But it has to be the right people. Try to fight with people dumb enough to RT you to their dumb followers when you troll them, that way all the other people hate-following them will see and think you’re good and smart.

5. Don’t manually RT anyone. This is fucked up and the same as being a literal Nazi such as Hitler. It’s like putting a toll booth in front of someone else’s joke. No one likes toll booths, especially the roads.

6. Lastly, I’d say the best thing to do is follow me first, then we’ll take it from there and see how you do after your initial review period. Think of it like an internship. You probably won’t learn anything, but on the other hand, you definitely were there, and someone probably noticed, and you can’t deny that. You definitely got noticed.

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