Social Networks – perhaps you’ve heard of them before, but are not quite sure what they are. Why is it that the “seo experts” just love using social networks to help their sites get “top rankings” in the major search engines?
Social networking is the online grouping of individuals into specific groups or niches, like real estate activities or home business entrepreneurs. Social networking becomes interactive, whereas Social Bookmarking is really just creating a library of links or letting others know they should visit some content that you have bookmarked a link to.
Just like Social Bookmarking, the search engines love Social Networks. Sign up for some high profile social network sites and it will boost the page ranking of your business website and blog, not to mention the direct exposure you can get from the potentially millions of people that may read your profile.
While there are a number of social networking websites that focus on particular interests, there are others that do not. The social networking sites without a main focus are often referred to as “traditional” social networking websites and usually have open memberships (e.g. MySpace, Facebook).
This means that anyone can become a member, no matter what their hobbies, beliefs, or views are. However, once you are inside this online community, you can begin to create your own network of friends and eliminate members that do not share common interests or goals.
Social networking is based on the premise that people should both express their individuality and meet people with similar interests. This approach means that social networks will allow you to set up profiles, friends, blog posts, widgets, and perhaps something unique to that particular social networking website — such as the ability to ‘poke’ people on Facebook or high-five someone on Hi5.
When you join a Social Network you will find the following sections you either need to set up or should get active in.
Profile: This is the section where you set up your “About Me”. Profiles contain basic information, like where you live, what you do, how old you are, and in some cases personality questions (e.g. Social networks dedicated to a special theme like music or movies might ask questions related to what kind of music you like).
Friends: This where you can make friends with people and this is one of the major ways to develop business contacts. Friends are trusted members of the site that are allowed to post comments on your profile or send you private messages. You can also keep tabs on how your friends are using social networking, such as when they post a new picture or update their profile. Friends are the core of social networking.
Groups: Almost all social networks allow you to use groups to help you find people with similar interests or engage in discussions on certain topics. A group can be anything from “real estate bloggers” to “People Who Like Cats” (which rules me out of that group) to “Marshall Tucker Band Fans” to “seo experts”. Groups are a way to connect with like-minded people, a way to identify your interests, and a way to gain exposure for your business.
Many Social Networks also have other neat features that can really boost your exposure on the Internet and help you get “top rankings” for your business.
These include:
- Blogs – where you can create your own blog entries,
- Discussions – for creating interaction between users,
- Widgets – where you can customize your social networking profile with web widgets.
Social Networking is fantastic for meeting people with similar interests and is a very effective business technique for business entrepreneurs that are looking for more sales leads and customers.
When you set up your Social Network sites you will be setting up backlinks to your business site, which the search engines love and also gaining direct exposure to potential customers. This is truly a fantastic “low cost seo” tactic for “getting traffic” to your site and getting “top rankings” with the major search engines. “Seo experts” love this strategy and you should too!
Here are just a few of the top social networking sites:
- http://facebook.com
- http://myspace.com
- http://friendster.com
- http://bebo.com
- http://hi5.com
And the list goes on and on.
HINT: Just like Social Bookmarking, you can use Onlywire and Ping.fm to simplify your social networking efforts. Once you set up Onlywire and Ping.fm you can syndicate your content and articles to the web’s top social bookmarking and networking sites with a single button click. Go to http://onlywire.com and http://ping.fm and sign up for your free accounts.
Setting up your Social Networking empire can take a lot of time (a lot more than setting up your Social Bookmarking network) but is well worth it in the long run. If you need some more info on Social Networking and Bookmarking give me a call. I offer a variety of services to business owners whereby I will set up your Social Bookmarking and Networking spider web. My conversations are on the house.
BIG HINT: Sign up for either RoboForm (www.roboform.com/php/land.php?affid=m1953&frm=frame10) or LastPass (https://lastpass.com/) to help you manage all the Usernames, Passwords and demographic data you will need to enter when you sign up for all the Social Bookmark and Networking sites. Either of these tools will make your job a lot easier. Both offer Free versions.
