The major content communities carry a lot of weight with the search engines – the more notice your content gets on any of them, the higher your profile will appear in the rankings.
Let’s use Digg as an example. Users don’t just post links to content on Digg – they can also vote a particular bit of content up or down. If you are able to get just 100 votes for one of your articles on Digg, that translates to an additional 1,000-2,000 hits on your website.
The same holds true with other content communities like stumbleupon, del.icio.us and reddit. With others, like YouTube, your search engine ranking will depend on how many people watch and comment on your videos.
Social Networks: Social networks are where the real fun begins because there are so many things you can do with them. Let’s start with the basics.
First, do you have social network accounts? If not, you need to – but you need to set them up using specific steps so you can get the most return on your investment of time. Here are some general guidelines:
Consistency matters! You don’t want a potential customer becoming confused because your business is “Hanks Dog Wash” on Facebook but “Houston Dog Wash” on Twitter. Use the same image on all of your accounts so people start associating your image with your brand.
Link your social media accounts together in a chain, but don’t link any every account one account to all of the others. For example, link your Twitter account to your Facebook and your Facebook account to your LinkedIn. Be sure that your blog has links in your articles to related pages in your business site as well as a link to your site’s main page. Create a link on all your profiles pointing to your main blog or about page on your website.
Create different profiles for each account, but relate all of them back to a different aspect of your business. One profile could center around your location in Houston; another on how you serve busy dog owners by taking on grooming chores for them. You could even talk about how your business promotes good human-pet relationships because most dogs hate being bathed!
When you are asked to list interests, choose those that are related to your brand and your business. That will help people find you.
Post your status updates about once per week. More often and people become annoyed; less often and they may think your account is dead and “defriend” you.
Make your social networking accounts work together – Digg your Facebook posts, post links to your blog on your Twitter account. If someone asks a question that’s related to your business on Twitter, create a blog post with the answer – and post the link with that post on your Twitter account as a response to the question.
A List Of FREE Profiles When Starting Your Social Media Campaign
http://Digg.com
http://StumbleUpon.com
http://FaceBook.com
http://Twitter.com
http://Reddit.com
http://Delicious.com
http://LinkedIn.com
http://MySpace.com
http://Flickr.com
http://Mixx.com
http://youTube.com
http://LiveJournal.com
http://Tagged.com