Social Media Marketing – The New SEO

Social media marketing is quickly becoming one of the most important search engine marketing strategies that can be engaged in. A good SEO campaign in conjunction with a well-run social media campaign is one of the best ways to get a product up the search engine rankings and seen by the greatest number of people possible. As importantly, a strong social media campaign can help improve targeted traffic returns.  If you have not been concentrating on social media marketing so far, it is high time that you started concentrating on social media marketing to promote your website.

You will be able to find both general social media sites as well as niche-specific social media marketing sites to work with and each carries with it a specific value. Some of the top social media sites include Twitter, Digg, Delicious, Flickr, Mixx, Stumbleupon, Technorati, and hundreds of other similar sites. The key is to identify where your target audience gathers so you can get your product in front of them where they hang out rather than hoping they find you on the SERPs.

Among the many benefits of using social media, you will be able to make your brand visible to the online community. If you are launching a new business or taking your existing business online, people will not know your brand online. You have to take the initiative and deliver it to them for the quickest results. Sure, great SEO will get them to you eventually, but who wants to lose potential conversions waiting for Google to update? Even the best SEO takes time to develop.

There is also a traffic advantage when you promote your website on the best social media websites. You may get a few people that look and leave when you drive traffic through social media, but you will also get people that stay, share and convert. The key is to make sharing easy for them. The increased traffic will also help you with getting your search results up and even page rank in some cases.

Search engines love social media sites, so having a presence on them is to your benefit. For many, social media is easy to ignore because it seems like too much work, but it really only takes being regular – meaning says 5 days a week making a few posts or comments as you go along. It also helps increase your reputation as an authority in your field.

Something else social media marketing can do for you increases your number of links on the web. People love to share something good – give them something good and you’ll see more and more links popping up.  By submitting your website to no-follow social media sites, you will not be able to get backlinks though you will be able to enjoy the other benefits such as online visibility. As you can see, there are numerous benefits associated with social media marketing and you should not ignore these benefits. Your competition is doing it and so should you.