Social Media exploded in 2009, with Facebook having a firm grounding already, Twitter's celebrity endorsements saw the micro-blogging site hit the big times.

But Social Networking has been around for some time and quite a few versions of them too, from MySpace, Bebo, Flickr, the list goes on, but 3 of the main networks that have grabbed the attention of the corporate's and engaged in online marketing that hasn't previously been seen are Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

So is it really a marketing gold mine or just a passing Fad like MySpace was?

Well calling MySpace a passing fad might be a bit strong, the networking site is still going with a good 60 million active members, so it shouldn't be ignored, however the flip reversal it has had in comparison to Facebook over the past year is why MySpace is not being considered as an investment area due to Facebook more than doubling MySpace users, where as it was the other way around end of 2008. Facebook growth has been staggering, doubling its numbers within 6 months and estimating 250 million users at the start of 2010.

Twitter on the other hand seems not to tread of Facebook toes so much, but are now being linked together by 3rd party Apps, and even Facebook Apps. Twitter no estimating 1.2 billion tweets at the start of 2010 is staggering!

So why and how is all this useful to corporate?

Its not so much about the direct Social Networking the corporate can undertake through Facebook and twitter, we're pretty sure they don't want to share their photo's of ex-girl friends or be messaged by the old school bullies, but the true benefit of social networking is how content can get generated on the web, through your network, and how this content gets pushed to users and potential customers that could never be reached before.

The network of socialising, allows your content to be passed to one person, who in tern passes it onto their friends, and the pyramid of data transverses faster than wildfire. Create topical, interesting content, and you will be astonished the power social networking has. Have a look at the 2009 UK christmas number 1, all because of a Facebook campaign, made Rage Against the Machine surprising number 1!

The other benefits which are to be embraced

Connecting with customers and potential customers! The social networking game has allowed the next generation of customers engage in ways which haven't been open before. Complaints, enquiries and wanting to find out more about a company, can now be directly engaged by enabling key personal at corporations to communicate directly with end users. The human need for direct face to face interaction is now being bridged with social networking, where the over 50's are embracing the web through computers and the next generation is logging on through mobile devices.

Our Opinion

The online marketing strategies of corporations and small businesses, should use the power of social media to generate traffic and content across the web. The risks of not being able to control the content will always exist, however when managed with right procedures, the return of investment and increase in raw profits and sales can be mind blowing. In 2010, Pepsi removed their Super Bowl sponsorship budget and spent it on social networking and online marketing instead... the market leaders are leaders for a reason.. because they are first ones to embrace new tech!

So what is SEO or Search Engine Optimisation?

Well as Wikipedia says,

"Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" or un-paid ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results as opposed to search engine marketing (SEM) which deals with paid inclusion. Typically, the earlier (or higher) a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine."

Of course, this simply means, the higher your website ranks in a search result, the more visitors your website is likely to have. So much so, research has shown that people rarely go beyond the top 30 results listed from a search, which is only the first 3 pages based on the standard default 10 results listed per page. In fact, the top 30 results get over 90% of search traffic and the top 10 results receive nearly 80% more traffic than those from position 11 to 30. So getting on the first page of a search can make a huge difference to your website and business.

So which Search Engines should you target and why?

Well Google is a household name as much as Microsoft and the stats from statcounter.com show this too.

With Google commanding just over 90% of all searches in the UK, the focus is definitely on Google rankings. Google has provided the general DO's and DON'Ts for web developers to follow when building a website and this is the core building blocks to good SEO practices. At Spin Box, we have made compliance standards our core fundamental and ethos for all developments.

But building a well coded website is only the start of SEO and does not guarantee top 10 results. There is a lot more it and get it complicated. The good news is, if you follow guidelines for Google, you are 99% following guidelines from other Search Engines such as Bing, Lycos, Yahoo etc, so you don't need to double your efforts.

What is the Key to Improved Search Engine Rankings?

The technology which defines where your website gets listed in a search is all to do with information captured by "Spiders". Spiders are programs that crawl the web, jumping from website to website through hyperlinks, collecting data on the content they read on a website. They take this data back to the search engine and log it. So the more information they have about your website or about your business from different sources, the higher the search engine will rank your website.

But the spiders are clever, so be careful! Many developers have tried to trick the spiders by flooding content, hidden keywords and duplicated websites, and so the search engine such as Google, have build rules that if they detect this "cheating", they will actually punish your rankings and drop them down very quickly!

But the multiple sources and links to your website, is one of the oldest and still one of the strongest ways to improve SEO rankings. Having other websites linking to your website, so a warning to the wise, be careful of cowboy SEO providers promising top 10 results in a short period of time, they are lying! SEO is an art, and like every masterpiece it takes take, costs a lot along the way, but the end result yields amazing returns.

What you can check Google has on you?

In Google, by adding a keyword before your search, you can change the results and receive some interesting information. Try the following keywords, after the colon (:) enter your website address or a specific URL in your website:

Link: all websites that link to you that are indexed in Google will show

Site: shows all pages in your website that are indexed by Google

Cache: Shows you your website as Google See's it

Want to see more details?

Google has build some great tools to help you see your website performance and combined with some knowledge, well a lot of knowledge, you can change your website to improve your SEO rankings. Some web developer tools are available, but Google Analytics is the big daddy on providing information about your website in terms of how people are using your website and how your website is performing on keywords.

More to come on SEO with some free hints and tips, as well as a look into what Analytics has to offer and every growing need of SEO! But if you want to undertake a full SEO campaign, have a reasonable budget and want organic/ natural listings near the top and understand it will take a little time, please contact us using the contact page or call on 01604 521220.