SEO and Social Search: Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter
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The webinar discussed optimizing presence on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter for social search. It noted that social search determines relevance based on user interactions rather than just links. The presenters advised treating the social networks as part of an SEO and lead generation strategy by leveraging profile real estate, encouraging employees to populate their profiles, and recognizing that social search is becoming more important. Recency and sharing help determine prominence in search results on the real-time networks. Different goals may warrant distinct strategies on each platform.
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SEO and Social Search: Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter
- 1. The Big 3 Search on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter with Gary Angel and Scott K. Wilder
- 2. Introductions Gary Angel, President of Semphonic Co-Founder and President of Semphonic, the leading independent web analytics consultancy in the United States. Semphonic provides full- service web analytics consulting and advanced online measurement to digital media, financial services, health&pharma, B2B, technology, and the public sector. Gary blogs at http://semphonic.blogs.com/semangel Scott K. Wilder – SVP – Social Media Architect, Edelman Digital Currently SVP/Social Media Architect at Edelman – Digital. Founded and managed Intuit’s Small Business Online Community and Social Programs. Before Intuit, Scott was the VP of Marketing and Product Development at Kbtoys / eToys, the founder and director of Borders.com, and held senior positions at Apple, AOL, and American Express. Scott is also a founding Board member of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association. He received graduate degrees from New York University, The Johns Hopkins University and Georgetown University 2
- 3. Overview What we will cover: Introduction Facebook LinkedIn Twitter Summary – Final thoughts… This will be a good webinar if….you‟ve gained insight into how to optimize your presence on the Big 3 Social Networks 3
- 4. It’s an Art and a Science “Can’t manage what you can’t measure” 4
- 5. Definitions • Social search or a social search engine is a type of web search method that determines the relevance of search results by considering the interactions or contributions of users. • Earned Search: Based on content you create! • Real-Time Search: material where there‟s practically no delay between composition and publishing. > For the most part, Blogging is not real time 5
- 6. A Three Ring Circus Hey, what about me, Googlebuzz? 6
- 7. Why should you care? You are your own media company 7
- 8. Lets take a look at Facebook 8
- 9. Facebook – The obvious and the not so obvious • More than 400 million active users • 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day • More than 35 million users update their status each day • More than 60 million status updates posted each day • More than 3 billion photos uploaded to the site each month • More than 5 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) shared each week • More than 3.5 million events created each month • More than 3 million active Pages on Facebook Source: Facebook 9
- 10. Facebook Average User Figures • Average user has 130 friends on the site • Average user sends 8 friend requests per month • Average user spends more than 55 minutes per day on Facebook • Average user clicks the Like button on 9 pieces of content each month • Average user writes 25 comments on Source: Facebook 10
- 11. Facebook: Impacting your Search on FB • Name of page: www.facebook.com/scottwilder > Can't be changed > Need to have a 100 fans > Impact of other URLs • Profile Info: > Fill out all information > Photos should have captions, events with descriptions.. maybe even discussion forum, important cause all pages are indexable (also important to get users to comment and like your content > Use „info‟ tab for keywords – help with Google too. > Photos should have captions, events with descriptions.. maybe even discussion forum, important cause all pages are indexable (also important to get users to comment and like your content) 11
- 12. Facebook: Fan Page vs. Group Page debate Source: http://www.allfacebook.com 12
- 13. Facebook: Fan Page • Plan out your approach – and the intention of keeping some items locked in and some evolving • Choose a name for your Fan Page and don‟t change it • FB will disable generic names (Kleenex) • Leverage the „About‟ text box – with key words / phrases • Photos should have captions, events with descriptions – “text is key” • Discussion forums create „Search engine juice‟ cause all pages are indexable (also important to get users to comment and like your content) 13
- 14. Facebook: Fan Page • Create 'Static FBML' boxes and tabs to place lengthy content and more static pages • FB allows owners to create addtional boxes or tabs > Each can contain static text, links, images > Good for FB search, but not for Google cause it is a separate url • Links to your page from FB and from the web • Fan Count (or group or application numbers) 14
- 15. Facebook: Fan Page • Google Juice: > Link from your home page to your FB page (reputation management -- links like Google) - Inbound links important > Profile Page searched by Google. > Make sure as much content is open/available to everyone > Set Privacy settings to Public (at least double check) > Note: On Facebook itself: - If people have chosen to make their content available to everyone, you also will be able to search for their status updates, links and notes, regardless of whether or not you are friends. Search results will continue to include people's profiles as well as relevant Facebook Pages, groups and applications. 15
- 16. Facebook: Search • Search powered by Bing (just renewed) • Real – Time results (As of August 09) • Site indexing completely automated – no human intervention • Ranking algorithm looks at: web page content, number/quality of websites that link to your webpages and relevance of your websites content to keywords • Branded keywords or branded events might have greater impact > Theory: Advertising might help you steal some FB search traffic • Updates from your friends, which are not usually public, come before updates from everyone - All updates contain rich content in-line from videos to music to thumbnails 16
- 17. Lets now take a look at LinkedIn 17
- 18. LinkedIn - What’s the Business Strategy? • LinkedIn is professional networking site – one of it‟s main functions is personal job search. This makes it a double-edged sword for businesses. • Because LinkedIn is a professional network – participants are generally comfortable getting and distributing business information – it doesn‟t have the “content conflicts” that Facebook may. • Likely Business Strategy: > Optimize access to your public-facing people > Optimize job-seeking capabilities > Use Groups for professional marketing 18
- 19. LinkedIn: Types of Search Types of Search > People Search > Jobs Search > News Search > Forum Search > Group Search > Company Search > Reference Search > Address book Search > Answers Search 19
- 20. LinkedIn - Basic Facts • Goal: Optimize Access to your Public Facing people • Basics: > People Search on LinkedIn is the default option and almost certainly dominates all search on the system > Search is keyword based and faceted. It searches all entered fields. Advanced options allow for numerous facets. 20
- 21. LinkedIn - Social Advantage • Goal: Optimize Access to your Public Facing people • Social Advantage > LinkedIn suggestions are based on your existing network – so people and companies are surfaced first if you are closely connected. 21
- 22. LinkedIn - Strategy • Goal: Optimize Access to your Public Facing people • Strategy > Create a standard for all public-facing sales/marketing/communications employees. Make sure that key fields are filled out (company, website, company info, industry) in a standard fashion and that strategic keywords are used in basic profiles. > Make sure your company profile is accurate and has appropriate keywords. > Make sure that employees join key groups. > Encourage broad networks for the appropriate people. 22
- 23. LinkedIn - Basic Facts • Goal: Optimize Job-Seeking Capabilities • Basics: > Linked-In Job Search is keyword based. > Listing are posted for 30 days and are not sorted (by default) by listing. 23
- 24. LinkedIn - Advantage • Goal: Optimize Job Seeking • Social Advantage > Nearly all LinkedIn Members are open to job postings. You can use your employee networks to get qualified eyeballs on your postings. 24
- 25. LinkedIn - Strategy • Goal: Optimize Job-Seeking • Strategy > Keyword Stuff your posts. The search algorithm is basic and rewards heavy density of keywords. Notice that very few listings are shown and since date isn‟t the key sort a keyword dense listing will pull many more eyeballs. > By default, LinkedIn populates the search with the searchers zip code (assuming they are logged-in). Make sure your job listing is targeted to the area from which you expect the best pull. > Make sure you have a corporate image uploaded – it really adds visual snap to the listing. 25
- 26. LinkedIn - Basic Facts • Goal: Using Groups for Marketing • Basics: > User Groups are Keyword matched but not sorted by keyword relevance or user group communications. > The default sort is by Group Size. 26
- 27. LinkedIn - Social Advantage • Goal: Using Groups for Marketing • Social Advantage > Most group sign-ups are social based – so search is definitely a fall-back tool. 27
- 28. LinkedIn - Strategy • Goal: Using Groups for Marketing • Strategy > Target secondary core words if there are already large groups in your field. > Since this is a “rich-get-richer” search system, aggressive recruitment is definitely rewarded. 28
- 29. LinkedIn - External • A content rich site! • External search engines such as Google love LinkedIn (note: Facebook and Twitter are quickly getting the love!) • Keyword strategy important: > Search will be done in all profile text including summaries, job descriptions, school names, job titles, > Fill in all fields > Consider carefully job titles, descriptions, etc. • Links into your page / links externally 29
- 30. Lets take a look at Twitter 30
- 31. Twitter • Growth: • November 1, 2008: 1 million Tweets • November 1, 2009: 5 million Tweets • March 4, 2010: 10 million Tweets • Check out the Gigatweet.com counter 31
- 32. Twitter • Real-Time Publisher • Items that could negatively impact your placement on Search Results page > Repeatedly posting duplicate or near-duplicate content (links or tweets) > Abusing trending topics or hashtags (topic words with a # sign) > Sending automated tweets or replies > Using bots or applications to post similar messages based on keywords > Posting similar messages over multiple accounts > Aggressively following and un-following people • Some challenges: > Finding your Tweet from the past 32
- 33. Twitter - What’s the Business Strategy? • Twitter is a huge community but the format is quite limited. Companies have engaged with Twitter in quite a few different ways: > Evangelistic Engagement > Customer Support > Brand Management > Crisis Management > Marketing • As will all social networks, search is a secondary mechanism after network building – but your goals will impact how you choose to optimize for search. 33
- 34. Twitter - Basic Facts • Goal: Optimizing Your Search Presence • Basics: > Search is very primitive – creating a recency ordered list with NO relevancy ranking at all. 34
- 35. Twitter - Basic Facts • Goal: Optimizing Your Search Presence • Basics: > Popular Hashtags can get swamped from a search perspective > Re-Tweets count equally so a popular tweet can dominate search results 35
- 36. Twitter - Social Advantage • Goal: Optimizing Your Search Presence • Social Advantage > Every Re-Tweet brings your message back to the top of search. 36
- 37. Twitter - Strategy • Goal: Optimizing Your Search Presence: Evangelistic Engagement • Strategy > Hire an evangelist or make sure your evangelist is engaged with Twitter. Even if the short term value is small, the value in a crisis situation is huge. > An evangelist can build up a large community of willing re-tweeters allowing you to dominate search threads at key times. 37
- 38. Twitter - Strategy • Goal: Optimizing Your Search Presence: Crisis Management • Strategy > Tweet often and engagingly. Encourage re-tweets. The more you push out, the more you will show in search. > Prepare by building a network with evangelism. 38
- 39. Twitter - Strategy • Goal: Optimizing Your Search Presence: Marketing • Strategy > Go after the mid-tail. Results on secondary terms can often persist for quite some time. > The core words for SEO may be totally inappropriate since they are too popular and will be quickly swamped. > Test timing carefully – since recency is key. 39
- 40. Twitter - Strategy • Goal: Optimizing Your Search Presence: Marketing • Strategy > You can‟t own the long tail with your marketing or evangelical teams – but your product teams might be able to… > These tweets can last for quite a long time. 40
- 41. A word about: Social Search • Social search or a social search engine determines the relevance of search results by considering the interactions or contributions of users.. (Wikipedia) • Benefits: > Reduces link spam > Users determine relevance > Leverages network of trusted sources > Each web page has been endorsed by one or more people > Pages / Results become more relevant > Adopts quickly to changes in peoples tastes, etc. TouchGraph via their Facebook application --- Source: http://blogs.oracle.com/retail/2009/03/sears_and_social_search_1.html 41
- 42. Final Thought – (before summary) • Think of creating a content as part of your lead generation strategy > You implement key words so people can find you > You reach out to friends, family and experts to help be found > Consider what you want them to do when they find you: 42
- 43. Summary: • Think of the Big 3 as BIG part of your SEO and lead generation strategy • Remember: The criteria for getting a prominent spot on Search Results is evolving • Leverage the real estate on your profile, fan and other pages – (can‟t hurt with search results) • Recognize that Social Search will become increasingly popular • Remember: If you work at a company, mobilize your employees and motivate them to populate their profile, fan and other pages. 43
- 44. It‟s an overused cartoon now, but it still applies… 44
- 45. Thank You.. Questions? • Gary Angel: > gangel@semphonic.com > Blog: http://semphonic.blogs.com/semangel/ • Scott K. Wilder > scott@wildervoices.com > scott.wilder@edelman.com 45