Looks like social media is the new public relations darling. This month at SMX East, the leading search marketing conference, I had the privilege of guest blogging for Bruce Clay’s Blog; covering select search and social marketing sessions lead by true online marketing experts. One of my favorites was the session: Facebook, Twitter & SEO.More Likes + Better Search Results = Even Better PR
Horst Joepen, CEO of Searchmetrics, kicked things off by talking about the connection between search and social visibility. A higher rank in the SERPs often translated into more Likes on Facebook. A search engine results page (SERP), is the listing of web pages returned by a search engine in response to a keyword query He used Search Engine Land and the New York Times as two examples of this phenomenon and emphasized that social media will continue to influence search.
Tweets and Like Button for PR
To back up Horst’s words, CEO of BrightEdge Jim Yu crunched some numbers for us. Users are flocking to social sites in tidal waves. One billion people use Google, Facebook is up to 750 million users, and Twitter has their 250 million users and growing. Yu talked about the opportunity of the Tweet button and Facebook Like button. Websites with a tweet button garnered 7x the social interaction than those without and web site with the Facebook Like button netted 3 x more engagement.
Socially Acceptable Automation
Figuring out the best time to Tweet is like figuring out the science of sending a press release, only less characters and more options. Atlas Web Service president Michael Gray shared a few strategies, tips, and tools on how to automate your social media and search engine marketing without coming across like a spam bot. Michael recommends developing a list of answers to the most frequently asked questions and see how you can recycle content you’ve already produced. He recommended the use of evergreen content for automation, AKA content that is timeless and useful can easily be scheduled in advance. @Graywolf likes the use of automation but emphasizes humans should be the ones looking at Tweets,he says schedule what you can in advance so you are not chained to a desk. He underlines the 80/20 rule.
Public Relations Ranking Factors
Public relations is all about being the expert source, thought leader in your space and “go to” person in your industry. Distilled’s John Doherty talked about how to build rank and authority in the social media scene. Using sites like Klout and Tribrr, you can determine the type of topics where you have influence and to create a strategy around that. He also touched on the importance of measuring the effect you are having on search and social site.
PR pros have a lot to gain from social media, but also have tons to learn from social media marketing experts on the messaging, style and optimization factors.
Follow @graywolf @brightedge @HorstJoepen @dohertyjf
