Social media used to be a ‘nice’ add-on to a digital marketing strategy; a way of showing consumers you’re a brand with its finger on the pulse. But 2011 marks the year when social media has shifted from being nice to essential.
In May 2010, the overall visits to social networking sites took over the overall number of visits to Search Engines, clearly highlighting the reason why brands should be actively integrating this channel into their overall marketing strategy.
Social media’s public involvement means it’s a fantastic channel for market and product research and an ideal space for improving customer service, but it's also an excellent way to add variation to link portfolios and turns the public themselves into handy link builders.
By adding social functionality to share this linkbait, with the likes of Tweet functionality, and Facebook Likes, the content can travel further through a multitude of users and followers. Usually this is much further than could be achieved through solely trying to link to the content or placing it on a blog.
Social elements play a huge part in the traffic generated, but also add to the fact that these citations and “votes” in the form of Tweets and Likes go a long way to indicating to search engines that this content has value and deserves to rank for relevant keywords.
Want improved bottom line results May - Nov 2011? Use the new LinkedIn Groups marketing sites plan Call Will Corry, the UK Content Curator 01784 434 412 for more information will@themarketingblog.co.uk
