It’s frustrating that people continue to treat social media as an individual entity, a separate department, instead of a versatile tool.

We shutter up our Social Media teams in their own rooms and leave them to their tweets and Instagram photos while the marketing pros hunker down on the big guns: conversions. Landing Pages. Leads, Costs, ROI.

Sure, most pros acknowledge the power of social media in terms of brand awareness — it’s the flypaper that holds the customer still long enough for us to shove them down the sales funnel, where we cash them in profit.

But we often forget that social media is part of the sales funnel, a crucial element that often clinches the sale or conversion. It’s time to take off our blinders and stop focusing on the short-term conversions that occur “in-house” on our sites.

Conversion is a long-term process, and if you’re ignoring all the long-term factors that lead up to a sale, you’re failing your customers…and you’re failing your business.

The World Does Not Begin & End With Google Analytics

There’s no denying the power of analyzing your traffic patterns and conversion rates, but it’s not enough to cast your business’s net in only the small percentage of the population that lands on your site.

You have Twitter followers that have never visited your website. You have people who’ve visited your Facebook page twice without clicking “like.”

You have people out there that are interested in your industry, but they’re too busy checking out your competitors to take a look at your offerings. And finally, you have those potential customers  out there who don’t even know you exist.

It’s time to start casting your nets into bigger waters.

Fact: Sales Happen Slowly

We tend to oversimplify our sales process: I sell shoes. A customer needs shoes. They come to my site, browse my products and buy shoes.

Or more complicated:

I sell shoes. A customer finds my site and learns I sell shoes. They might not buy my shoes today, but they’re definitely interested. I’ll keep targeting them until they come back and buy my shoes.

But in truth, the sales process begins long before that initial visit — and even after that visit, sales are a long-term process with more opportunities to miss a sale than to close one. A customer may find your site and spend thirty minutes browsing your shoes…but two months later, he’s forgotten your site ever existed. He visits hundreds of sites each month. Why should he remember yours?

Or maybe a customer was killing time and wound up on eight shoe sites that day. Why should she remember your site over your competitors?

We often shop without a real intent to buy. We may be interested in a product in a general way, but without a clear reason (a sale, an upcoming event, a coupon), we’re not going to commit.

And if we don’t commit on that initial visit, we have no reason to commit to a sale in the future — unless you give us a reason to commit. And few places offer more reasons or opportunities than social media.

Let’s take a look at an example of a typical successful long-term social search funnel:

Informational Search > Social Q&A Site > Social Evergreen Resource/Linkbait Referral  > Retargeted Ad Click > Facebook Page Like > Facebook Discount Offer  > Ending Purchase on Your Site

1.  Informational Search

A customer types in “vegan shoes” in Google. This starts the research phase of the buying cycle.

2.  Social: Q & A Site

The customer finds a Yahoo! Answers thread about vegan shoes.

3. Social Referral

Within the thread, a vegan shoe company links to an article on how to identify vegan shoes. The article is an evergreen linkbait article created by the company a long time ago. The user clicks the link and reads the article.

4.  Search Retargeting

The company retargets the user through an AdWords Remarketing. The next day, the user sees a retargeted ad banner that leads to the company’s Facebook page.

5. Social: Facebook Page Like

The customer clicks the banner and likes the company’s Facebook page. The user now sees regular updates from that company on their Facebook news feed.

6. Social: Facebook Discount Post

Later that month, the user sees a post about an one-day sale the shoe company is having; the post offers a special discount code for Facebook friends.

7.  Social Referral via Facebook

The user clicks the link and browses through the sale offering. They find a pair they like, but they’re at work. The user writes down the discount code for later.

8.  Navigational Search

The user doesn’t know the exact URL, so they type in the brand name of the shoe company as a navigational search. The user finds the shoes, uses the discount code, and completes the purchase.

So what about that long path caused the sale? Most companies would focus on the navigational search. Looking at the path, others might argue that it was the Facebook promotional discount or the initial linkbait.

But that’s the wrong way of looking at it. Every piece of this process — from the first informational search to the final purchase — worked together to clinch this sale.

Harnessing The Power Of The Social Funnel

The higher in the funnel your customers are, the less aggressive you should be in your sales tactics. Social media marketing should never be salesy; rather, it’s about accruing a following, engaging your community, and influencing their actions.

So how does that all lead to a sale? You’re reaching a customer early in the sales process, meaning that you’ve likely reached them before your competitors. The earlier you reach them, the more history they’ll have with you when it’s time to make a purchasing decision.

We make purchases based on trust. The more you engage with your fans and followers, the more they “get to know” you and your brand, which breeds trust. You also become infinitely more memorable to your customers, since they now see you as a presence, not a product.

Through engagement, you show you’re invested in them — and in turn, they become more invested in you.

Finally, social media allows you to stay present in your customer’s minds. A post about a shoe sale may remind a customer that she has a wedding coming up and needs a pair of heels; a recent blog post may make a customer think of you when he remembers his brother’s birthday is right around the corner.

Quick Tips To Remember When  Crafting A Social Funnel

• It should be ridiculously easy to convert at any time. Don’t make your customers search for a URL that’s buried in your Facebook About page. Utilize banners, frequent links, even a Facebook store tab, if applicable. Make it impossibly easy for your customers to convert if the mood strikes.
• On the other hand, don’t bombard them with ads and banners. You are not pushing anything and you are not selling. You are offering – make sure your customers feel the same way.
• Social Q&A sites are amazing ways for your customers to find out about you in a “neutral” setting (i.e., not your site). Too many companies ignore them because they don’t see an easy return on results (unlike precise “subscription” or “following” numbers they see on social media). Don’t count them out — they work wonders in pointing future customers in your direction.
• Keep track of dips and spikes in your Twitter followers, Facebook friends, etc. Every time you lose a follower, you’ve let someone slip out of your sales funnel. Try to pinpoint what type of social content loses or gains followers.
• Do not post the same content on all your various social sites. You want people to have as many different points of contact with you as possible, so give people a reason to follow you on Facebook and Twitter and Google+ etc. by making your presences unique on each site.
• Offer as many opportunities for soft conversions as you can (mailing lists, newsletters, RSS feeds, likes, follows, etc.) to keep your brand as present as possible.

Social media followers can always play a huge part in your funnel, even if that subscriber never makes a purchase.

They can:

• Recommend you to friends, family, or colleagues,
• Share your posts/tweets/content with others,
• Buy your content or know-how (books, eBooks, etc.),
• Cause your company to show up in their friend’s search results through Google Social Search,
• Stay alert of ALL your brand offerings/sister sites/etc.,
• If nothing else, give you a number on your follower/friend count to encourage others of your authority.

Finally (& Most Importantly), Figuring Out Your Social Funnel Is YOUR Responsibility

I can’t write you a one-size-fits-all how-to post on your social funnel. No one could. Your business and your customers are wholly unique, and it’s up to you and you alone to figure out what helps to clinch the sale.

As a business, it is your job to try to figure out each and every single touchpoint a user might follow on a query– and you’ve got to make sure you’re present and active in each touchpoint. You’ve got to experiment, to test, to analyze and reconfigure. Because ultimately, every crack in your funnel is a chance for a lost sale – and a lost customer. And for every lost customer, you have no one to blame but yourself.

As a result, our RSS feeds have been absolutely bombarded with Pinterest guides, praise,  and how-to’s — including about eighty variations on using Pinterest for SEO. Get links! Increase your site traffic! Boost your social signals!

So hundreds of SEOs jumped on board the Pinterest train to take advantage of the dofollow links and heavy traffic referrals.

And…those same SEOs soon found themselves failing miserably.

Pinterest Is A Community, Not A Tool

These SEOs are failing because they still haven’t realized what every other social network has taught us in the past few years: in order to succeed on a social network, you’ve got to give as much as you try to take.

We call it a social media presence for a reason: you’ve got to be present and active in order to succeed.

If you’re only hopping on the Pinterest bandwagon for SEO benefits and nothing else, it’s time to hop off.

For Starters, Pinterest Links Are Now Nofollow

Most SEOs jumped on Pinterest to take advantage of the network’s dofollow links. As a result, new users pinned any image they could find on their site in order to take advantage of potential link juice.

Pinterest went nofollow in March 2012, but as Gisele Navarro Mendez points out in Why I’m Happy that Pinterest Links are Now Nofollow, that’s not such a bad thing :

“I’ve been an SEO long enough to know that every time a new social network offering dofollow links arrives, tons of ‘new users’ show up and start posting links without any intentions of adding value to the community” (my emphasis).

It’s common sense: Twitter accounts that retweet others, participate in tweeted discussions, and engage with new followers are vastly more successful than the Twitter users who only tweet their own links or blindly follow hundreds of users each day in hopes of gaining a few follow-backs.

Facebook users who post and participate on others’ pages receive more traction from the network than those who don’t.

Idle G+ pages flounder with little to no followers while active users have already amassed thousands of circle followers.

LinkedIn users who helpfully answer questions and participate in group discussions boast hundreds more connections than those who focus on shameless self-promotion.

So it’s common sense that Pinterest should follow the same principles…right?

Where Common Sense Still Fails

How many times have we had similar discussions over the years? Build connections, not links. Don’t spam. Join discussions. Be present. Get followers by engaging with others. Success takes time. There are no shortcuts — only hard work.

Yet we’re still having this discussion, and I’m still sitting down to write this post. When will we as a community learn that a SOCIAL network should be SOCIAL, and not just a tool for self-promotion? When will we learn that we must give value and quality to achieve valuable and quality results?

Not today, apparently. So let’s take a hard look at what Pinterest can and can’t do for your site and your brand…starting with the most important concept of all.

Use Pinterest As A Means For SEO Benefits, Not A Direct SEO Tool

There’s no denying that Pinterest does have some direct SEO power: a profile link to your website, traffic referrals, dofollow links to your root domain within the pin’s description, etc.

But these minor benefits pale in comparison to Pinterest’s real power: building a visual representation of your brand. Pinterest allows you to gain followers who are genuinely interested in your site, build targeted connections for linkbuilding, and increase your authority within your brand.

Instead of focusing on getting links from Pinterest, focus on getting links from other Pinterest users; instead of whoring your Pinterest out for traffic, focus on accruing a targeted, interested audience.

The Flighty Nature Of Pinterest Traffic

Yes, Pinterest sends massive amounts of referral traffic. But is that traffic helping or hurting your site?

As Tony Clark points out in Copyblogger’s Is Pinterest Traffic Worthless?, it depends on what you pin. In the case study, Clark reveals that Pinterest is the 3rd highest traffic referrer for the Copyblogger site…but the average user visit duration was just 32 seconds with a bounce rate of a whopping 91.7%.

Copyblogger experienced a lot of mainstream traffic from popular infographics like 15 Grammar Goofs That Make You Look Silly, but that generic traffic did little to nothing for Copyblogger Media.

By contrast, consider the success of Pinterest for StudioPress, a Copyblogger Media-owned site that specializes in premium WordPress themes. Though Pinterest is only the #29 referrer for StudioPress, the site’s visitors from Pinterest have an average duration time of 5:28 and a bounce rate of 49.9%.

The reason? StudioPress operates a concentrated, brand-targeted set of pinboards that appeal only to people interested in StudioPress’s products…giving visitors a clear reason to visit the StudioPress site.

Don’t grasp at traffic that will do nothing for your site. Don’t post a picture of a puppy or Ryan Gosling because you know it’ll get the repins. Aim on targeting the right eyes for your brand — it’ll do so much more for your site in the long run.

7 Constructive Ways For SEOs To Use Pinterest

1. Connect with relevant users. Comment on posts, cc users with @mentions, repin original content, or “like” pins when it’s not appropriate to repin. Engage with other users as you would on any other social media site. One of Pinterest’s huge advantages is its relatively young age — your outreach efforts may get much more attention on Pinterest than they would on a saturated network like Twitter or Facebook.
2. Use Pinterest for linkbuilding outreach campaigns. Thunder SEO’s Monique Pouget wrote a terrific guide on creating linkbuilding personas with Pinterest.
3. Optimize your page to get found by other Pinterest users. Trick out your Pinterest page by linking to your website and optimize your “about” section with relevant keyboards.
4. Expand your brand-controlled search results. When someone searches your brand, your Pinterest profile can appear in the SERPs along with your site and your other social media profiles, so you’ve now got another brand-controlled site to appear on the first page (always useful for brand reputation monitoring). Make sure your Pinterest page is set to show up on SERPs by ensuring “Hide your Pinterest profile from search engines” is switched OFF in your account settings.
5. Focus on targeted, brand-friendly pins that will result in click-through traffic. Pin only for your target audience and pin images that encourage click-throughs (partial infographics or infographics with small text are great for this). Optimize your landing page to encourage Pinterest users to hang around or check out your services.
6. Use Pinterest to curate useful content for your industry. Pinterest is an insanely effective visual bookmarking tool. Instead of pinning your own content, build your authority and add to the discussion by pinning relevant content from others.
7. Always measure your successes and failures. Analyze your site’s Pinterest traffic to see which pins are effective and which aren’t. You can also use tools like Pinreach to measure your Pinterest profile analytics.

In Short: Pinterest Is Not Your Social Silver Bullet

…so stop treating it like one. Respect the medium. Add value to the community. And for Pete’s sake, stop acting like Pinterest is your SEO godsend. It isn’t — and you look like just another self-promoting SEO polluting a community for his own benefit.

Google recognizes that one personal endorsement from someone we know easily outranks endorsements from 10,000 strangers. The same applies for a trusted authority: a blogging link shared by Darren Rowse or Brian Clark carries more weight than something a casual user shares.

So as a result, we have Google Social Search: meaning a site can jump from #30 to #3 in the SERPs just because someone in your Google+ circles shared the link. Getting an RT from The Huffington Post can jump your blog post from #8 to #1. It’s a brave new world of social SEO – and it’s one that no SEO can afford to ignore.

Leveling The Playing Field

Under traditional SEO practices, a modern startup would have no chance at ranking for highly competitive keywords. The other sites have been down in the trenches too long; it’d be nearly impossible to knock them off their SERP pedestal without years of campaigning.

Social SEO makes it easier for smaller fish to compete with the big guys. A tweet that receives a viral-size number of retweets can mean as much as a link from a top-ranking site; a +1 from a friend can send your site to the top of the social SERPs for that friend’s entire network.

Social media should already be a part of your business strategy. Now it’s time to harness the power of those social media accounts for your SEO strategy – or risk falling behind while your competitors cash in on their social chips.

Social Strategies To Start Employing Today

1.  Ramp Up Your Google+ Presence

It’s the most obvious one on the list, but it still needs to be said. Like it or not, Google has made it clear that G+ is here to stay – and it’s become too useful for an SEO not to take advantage it.

Though the network is still a lightweight compared to sites like Twitter and Facebook, Google+ is emerging as a champion heavyweight in search results.

As seen in the screenshot below, casual G+ posts are even showing up in search results:

Think Google+ search results are just limited to social search? Think again. Related Google+ users and pages show up in standard Web search, too:

From authorship to +1s to shares to circle numbers, Google is injecting social G+ results into nearly every Google Social search. Jumping to a first-page ranking solely because someone put you in a G+ circle? That’s a benefit no site can afford to ignore.

2.  Put A New Emphasis On Building Relationships & Increasing Followers

Everything you write or share can pop up in your followers’ search results – even if they’re not a member of the social site you shared the link on. The relationships we forge online now have a huge impact on our search results.

Every new follower you get may see your brand’s site in his or her SERPs in the future, so it’s in your best interest to ramp up your follower count. Host a giveaway (entrants must follow you on G+, for example), increase your outreach efforts, or give away an eBook exclusively for your followers.

3.  Start Posting Your Articles Immediately On Social Media

As Mitch Monsen of White Fire SEO pointed out, tweeting your content actually helps your content get indexed faster (especially vital if you’re posting time-sensitive material). Set your articles to automatically post on Google+, LinkedIn, etc. and you’ll get indexed even quicker.

4.  Focus On Shareable Content

Social shares have always worked in a SEO’s favor by granting us endorsements similar to direct inbound links. Now, shares have another benefit: if someone (even someone that doesn’t follow you on any social media sites) shares your content, the sharer’s entire network may see the post by searching for relevant material in Google Social Search.

Getting someone like, say, Newsweek to share your material? In addition to getting a nice boost in your rankings, you’ll also have access to that power user’s network.

5.  Add +1 Buttons To Anything & Everything

Have you noticed that Google’s even added +1 buttons to their ads? The +1 has turned into an Internet-wide Facebook like button.Don’t turn down the easy endorsement: slap the +1 button on your site wherever you can.

6.  Use “Rel=author” &  “Rel=me” Tags To Link Your Work To Your Name

Searchers can now see thumbnails of the person who authored the article they’re about to read. If they liked what they read, they can simply return to the SERP and click “More by ________” to see the author’s entire catalogued body of work.

To clue Google in that you’re the author, you’ll need to use “rel=author” tags in your posts. Not sure how? Joost de Valk’s already written a comprehensive guide on the subject – and so has Google.

7.  Get On Pinterest 

I know it’s rapidly becoming a cliché to write about Pinterest, but the newest social site on the block has well-earned its praise due to its sheer SEO power.

This simple graphic from The Wall Street Journal nabbed the website nearly 1500 shares on Pinterest (and countless more traffic):

You probably already know Pinterest sends nearly as much referral traffic as Twitter (and more than YouTube, G+, and LinkedIn combined), but did you know Google now crawls pins and boards?

Optimize your pins for relevant search keywords; further optimize for Pinterest searches by hashtagging relevant keywords on each pin.

8.  Add  A “Pin It” & A StumbleUpon Button To Your Site

Take the shares anywhere you can get them. The aforementioned Pinterest has killer link traction, while the social bookmarking powerhouse StumbleUpon is second only to Facebook in terms of referral traffic.

Slap both “Pin It” and StumbleUpon buttons on your content right next to the Facebook, Twitter, and +1 buttons.

A Brief Word To The SEO Traditionalists

Am I suggesting social SEO practices are rapidly replacing traditional SEO methods?

Absolutely not.

Am I suggesting social SEO is better than traditional SEO?

Absolutely not.

Traditional SEO isn’t going anywhere any time soon. However, as social becomes increasingly integrated with search, it’s time to add social media as a permanent tool in our SEO arsenal.

Whatever your stance, I think it’s easy to agree that gaining links from trusted authorities is desirable for any site — but that doesn’t mean the rise of social shouldn’t affect our outreach methods.

We’ll start with the obvious: social sites allow you to network and build relationships with industry players and authorities. Someone who’s gotten to know you over social media is going to be more receptive to a link request than someone receiving a random email from an outside party.

Further, social media offers a quick way to see that you’re a legitimate source with an active interest in the field — you’re not just out to spam any email address or Twitter account you can get your hands on.

However, social media also offers an ideal way to find and target industry users for specific linkbuilding outreach campaigns, too. Of course, before you can start targeting, you’ve got to identify who you’re trying to reach.

Courtesy of Hubspot.com

Identifying Your Target Audience

There are three main strategies for choosing your linkbuilding targets:

1. Industry Players: These are the active, trusted people who rank well in your industry and can give your site a hefty SEO boost.
2. Audience Platforms: Reaching out to larger platforms can give you access to your target demographics (a mommy blog with a strong following in your demographic, for example).
3. Natural Sharers/Curators: These are the people who’ve amassed an audience based on carefully selecting and sharing content from outside sources (MariaPopova from Brainpicker is one example). You may find them more receptive to linkbuilding campaigns since they have a strong interest in finding high-quality links.

Iron Out Your Persona

If you’re building links for an outside site (a client’s site, for example), you’ll need to build an appropriate online persona to match. Obviously you won’t do well reaching out to a fashion blogger with your SEO Twitter account. No matter what social site you’re using (Twitter, Delicious, etc.), your account should match the industry you’re reaching out to.

If you’re trying to build links for your own website, you’re the primary source and voice of your linkbuilding efforts. There’s no need to build a separate persona: just use the social media accounts you already have.

Only Use High-Quality Content

Choose the highest-quality content you have for your linkbuilding efforts. You’ll get better results by promoting informative content (an infographic, a comprehensive case study, etc.), not your homepage link.

The content you choose should be highly original and offer real value to your target audience — something that’s exciting, something they haven’t seen before.

Here’s a look at the various outreach methods for social networking and bookmarking sites.

Search Twitter Directories & Search Engines To Find Applicable Users

Aside from searching Twitter for relevant keywords or hashtags, several sites make it easier for linkbuilders to find and analyze relevant users:

• Directories: Twitter directories such as Twellow and WeFollow are perhaps the easiest way to find relevant Twitter users. Search by relevant tag (“writers,” “SEO”) or user location. Twellow also has “Twellowhood,” a searchable map which lets users find Twitter users near them.
• Search tools:  Sites like Listorious and Followerwonk allow you to search Twitter bios for desired keywords. Followerwonk also lets users analyze a Twitter user’s followers, so if you find one applicable target, you can easily search the other accounts that target is following.

Search Klout For Industry Influencers

Klout lets you easily search influencers by category (“SEO,” “bloggers,” etc.). Better still, Klout lets users connect their profile to a variety of other accounts, including their WordPress site — meaning minimal research for linkbuilders is required. Keep in mind that you’ll need a Klout account in order to access the site’s search services, however.

Search Delicious For Like-Minded Users

Delicious requires more legwork than Twitter or Klout, but it’s a unique way of finding users already prone to sharing. There are three main ways to search Delicious:

• By tag: Enter in your keyword and you’ll the most popular links from that category, or “tag.”

• By site: Enter in a competitor’s URL to see the users who’ve bookmarked it in the past. Alternatively, use tools like Quantcast.com to find out your site demographics — Quantcast has a section to see which other sites rank well with your site traffic (Wall Street Journal readers also tend to read Smart Money, for example).

• By related article: Find an article that’s relevant to your content? Search that article on Delicious and peruse the users who’ve saved it.

Most professional users will have their website clearly listed on their profile. For better luck, try investigating the users who enter in a unique description for the site you’re bookmarking — you’ll have a higher probability of finding the serious users over the casual ones.

Stumble Categories For Guest Posting On StumbleUpon

If you’re sick of paging through “Write for Us” Google results, StumbleUpon offers an attractive way to quickly discover new blogs. Simply enter in your targeted topic and you’ll be able to click through relevant stumbled blogs in a matter of seconds. You can also comment, network, and discover new ideas for content while you’re stumbling.

Search Newsroom Leaders On Digg

Digg currently has a beta feature called “Newsrooms” that collect the most influential topics and users by category. If your subject falls under one of Digg’s Newsroom categories, you can browse through the Newsroom’s “Leaders” (the top Digg users in that particular category).

Search Google+ For Relevant Users

As Google+’s role  in Google search increases, it’s doubly important to start courting major players on the network. Find PeopleonPlus.com is a useful G+ directory, but don’t forget you can also search the site through a simple “site:plus.google.com” search.

Search & Analyze LinkedIn Profiles, Groups And Answers

A networking powerhouse, LinkedIn contains three fantastic ways of finding relevant targets:

1. Advanced Search: Search member profiles by keyword via LinkedIn’s Advanced Search feature (located in the top righthand corner of your profile). You can tweak your searches to include only certain industries or groups as well.
2. Answers: Check out the Answers section to browse through LinkedIn’s “Top Experts” or “Category Experts.” For a more tailored response, search for applicable questions that relate to your industry and target relevant responders.
3. Groups: Searching for relevant groups or looking for leads in group forums can often pull up some terrific targets.

The Golden Rules Of Linkbuilding Outreach Campaigns

No matter how you choose to contact your newfound targets, always remember the following four “golden rules” of linkbuilding:

1. Have a purpose. Whyare you contacting that specific person? Tell your target exactly why you’re reaching out to him.
2. Tell them how you found them. Showing your research helps showcase why you chose that particular target.
3. Keep it short and sweet. Your targets are busy people — get to the point quickly or risk wasting their time.
4. Call them by name. The quickest way to get your message deleted is to lead with a “Dear Sir or Madam.” Do your research and learn your target’s name. It’s the simplest rule, but it makes a huge difference.

Conclusion

Remember, like any part of linkbuilding, social linkbuilding research takes time. These methods may give you new and original ways to find targets, but they don’t cut any corners. The same rules apply: build your networks. Build trust. Start communicating and sharing relevant content.

Do the legwork, assemble your contact list. The links will come — but it’s going to take some real and serious effort on your part.

In the world of Internet spam, scams, and shams, we’ve learned to be wary of what we find online.

Search engines are no different. Too often we forget that search engines aren’t just a tool to help us find news articles or guacamole recipes. Search engines are running a business—a business whose success relies on providing you legitimate, relevant results.

Fail to give their searchers what they want, and they’re fast on their way to joining Dogpile and Ask Jeeves in the search engine graveyard.

Naturally, Google, Bing, and Yahoo all want to ensure they’re only returning trustworthy and legitimate search results to their users. To ensure quality, the engines work to determine a site’s credibility.

Theoretically, the more you please and earn trust from your past visitors, the more likely you’ll please and earn trust from new visitors. But how do the searchbots measure an abstract human concept like credibility?

Factors To Improve Upon & Measure Your Site’s Credibility

The search engines evaluate a variety of factors when determining your site’s legitimacy. We’ve known about certain tried-and-true factors that can boost your site’s credibility for years, including:

• In-Links: The search engines see in-links (links leading to your website from external sites) as signs of your trustworthiness. In-links are the virtual equivalent of someone “vouching” for your site. The more successful and credible the other site, the better you look to Bing and Google.
• Out-links: Contrary to in-links, out-links are the links on your site that link to external sites. If your links are broken or the external site is irrelevant or outdated, your search rankings can take a hit.
• A clean, error-free site: Broken/missing images, spelling mistakes, or 404 errors are all poor signs of a site’s credibility.
• Traffic: Theoretically, the more traffic you get, the more relevant you are to searchers.
• An easy-to-navigate website: A site that’s easy to navigate can reassure new visitors that your site contains the information they need. If your site is difficult or confusing to navigate, your site’s bounce rate (the percentage of users who immediately leave your site) will be higher— indicating to the search engines that your site wasn’t a successful match for those search queries.
• An XML sitemap: Just like your site must be easy to navigate for humans, it should be similarly easy to navigate for the search spiders, too. An XML sitemap acts as a “road map” that leads bots down each interconnected page of your site, allowing them to index your page more quickly and accurately. Most websites have two sitemaps: a text-based list of pages within the sites and an .xml file for the spiders.

Social: The New Factor That’s Increasingly Affecting Your Credibility

For a long time, SEO and social were two entirely separate departments. A successful company had a social team and an SEO team and the two rarely mingled. It made sense: SEO was all about being found, and social media was about keeping those who’ve already found your brand. SEO set the bait and social kept ‘em on the hook.

Today, SEO and social are inseparable. Customers can just as easily find a company through Twitter as they can Google — and those social media links are busy boosting a company’s SEO signals.

As Rand Fishkin from SEOmoz noted, social now has the ability to affect your search results — meaning that all that traditional SEO legwork you put in could be displaced because a searcher’s Aunt Myrtle shared a related link.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing, however—after all, if Aunt Myrtle shares your link, it might be your own site that gets a free pass to the top of the search rankings.

Social Puts The Human Back In Search

Incorporating social into search has one huge benefit for users: it lets humans, not algorithms and search spiders, have a say in search results.

Generally speaking, which link would you rather click: one chosen for you based on keyword density, or one deemed relevant by 10,000 other users?

Hence, the Google +1 button: it gives any user with a Google account the opportunity to publicly vouch for a link. The same applies for social media: before Twitter and Facebook, only content creators and site owners had the power to send in-links to other sites; today, anyone with a social media account can share (and thus “vote” for) any link.

Naturally, now that Google and Bing are bringing social to the SEO party, users now have a variety of social factors to play with when attempting to boost site or brand credibility.

Granted, social SEO is still a new concept, but it’s assuredly the direction where search is heading. Below you’ll find some of the emerging social factors that can boost your site or your brand’s credibility.

Author / Social Authority

The search engines have recently started evaluating a social media user’s credibility just like they evaluate a site’s credibility. Google and Bing have both admitted to considering an author’s authority when incorporating social signals into search results.

Take it from Bing, in a Search Engine Land interview with Danny Sullivan from December 2010:

“We do look at the social authority of a user. We look at how many people you follow, how many follow you, and this can add a little weight to a listing in regular search results. It carries much more weight in Bing Social Search, where tweets from more authoritative people will flow to the top when best match relevancy is used.”

Google also considers a user’s authority when ranking search results. In the below screenshot, a Google search for “blogging” reveals an article by ProBlogger’s Darren Rowse—along with Darren’s Google+ profile picture and the number of G+ Circles Darren appears in.

To make a quick (if imperfect) analogy, author authority is similar to Klout. On Twitter, for example, the search engines might consider such factors as:

• Follower to following ratio
• Number of postings a day
• Number of lists the user appears on
• Number of @mentions a day

The Retweet Factor

Retweets from a power Twitter user can affect your search rankings just like in-links from an authoritative, established source.

As Jennifer Lopez revealed in her case study on SEOmoz, a retweet from the power user Smash Magazine about the SEOmoz Beginner’s Guide to SEO led to the site receiving significant traffic for the search term “beginner’s guide”—a term that had never brought the site traffic prior to the Smashing Magazine RT. The SEOmoz guide still ranks #2 in the Google search rankings for “Beginner’s Guide” to this day.

Search engines can also consider a tweet’s retweet rate. If a link tweeted to 1000 followers gets 100 retweets, it’s got a 10% retweet rate—and that link may do better in search rankings than a link with a 3% retweet rate.

Network, Network, Network

It’s not what you know, it’s who you know—or rather, who you’re engaging with on social media. Interacting with Twitter power users boosts your own credibility.

Of course, that doesn’t mean a food blogger should start tweeting Lady Gaga or Anderson Cooper. Relevance matters: if that food blogger starts a Twitter conversation with Wolfgang Puck or Anthony Bourdain, the blog’s credibility as an authoritative source for recipes may get a huge bump.

Build Your Links and Your Social Presence at the Same Time

Why do companies launch linkbuilding campaigns?

• To increase their visibility and credibility.

What do shared links on social media do?

• Increase visibility and credibility.

In-links (via BOTH social media sites and “traditional” external links from sites) are incredibly valuable to search engines, since they prove a user found it useful, not a searchbot.

The more shares you get, the more people are “voting” for your site. As I wrote previously, going viral can boost both your SEO signals and your credibility.

Encourage Sharing (& Trick Out Your Sharing Options)

If you want people to share your content (and thus boost your credibility), you’ve got to ask for it. A simple “If you found this content useful, share it!” can do a world of sharing good for a website.

Likewise, the more sharing options you include on your website, the easier it’ll be for users to share your site. It’s much easier for readers to click one link and instantly share your content than to go to individual social media sites.

The Obvious Downside of Social Credibility

In theory, credibility works the same way in the virtual world as it does in the real world. Before search engines will list your site or bump you up in the search rankings, they’ve got to trust you—similarly, your customers have got to trust you before they’ll buy from you.

The bright side of building your social credibility is that you’re building trust with both the search engines and your future customers at the same time.

However, in the real world, no one will instantly trust your brick-and-mortar business: you’ve got to earn your customers’ trust through quality customer service, word of mouth, and good publicity (staying in business for a long period of time helps, too). Online credibility is built in the same slow, eventual way.

Establishing your credibility takes time. There’s no shortcut. There’s no get-trust-quick scheme. Do good work over a long period of time and you’ll establish credibility. It’s as simple—and as difficult—as that.

As search engines pay more and more attention to social signals, going viral is rapidly becoming one of the best ways to build links, attract attention, and establish authority and legitimacy in your field.

How Social & SEO Are Linked

Let’s start with the obvious: social media builds links. In fact, viral content serves the same purpose as a link building campaign: gathering endorsements that establish authority and legitimacy in your field.

If one site is getting thousands of social shares, it sends three clear messages about your site to search engines:

• Your site is active
• Your site is current
• Your site is invested in the needs of your audience

Search engines boil down to one basic concept: helping users find what they’re looking for. Large amounts of social shares indicate that a mass amount of people not only found what they were looking for on your site, but also liked your site enough to share it with others.

Viral content is like the mass endorsement of the public; a giant thumbs-up formed from thousands of hands.

Viral Content = Valuable Content

By gaining a massive amount of social shares, you’re not just boosting your SEO signals—you’re also creating content with value for your customer base. Viral content is a win-win for both your brand and your search rankings. Like anything else in life, however, value takes time and talent to create.

Viral content is quality content. It’s passionate, it’s well-written, it’s eloquent, or it’s hilarious. If you want the thousands of shares, you’re going to have to put into the hours to make something with real value for your audience.

These 21 viral ideas are fantastic ways to attract tons of shares—but if you’re not willing to put in the time to put out something good, don’t bother. Fluff does not go viral.

Image Source: Will Lion via Flickr

21 Types of Successful Viral Content

1.)  The Manifesto

The Manifesto is the viral equivalent of preaching to the choir. Write a passionate, eloquent, or well-researched argument that your niche will wholeheartedly agree with. Since you’ve already got an army of believers who agree with you, they’re already primed and ready to share your argument.

Example: Why I’m a Vegetarian, Dammit, an essay on a vegetarian recipe blog,  received over 14,000 shares on StumbleUpon alone.

2.)  The Controversy

The opposite of the Manifesto, the Controversy is all about stirring up some dissent in your niche. Write a well-written rebuttal to another argument, challenge a popular opinion, or spark a controversial discussion and watch the reader comments fly.

Example: Stop Coddling the Super-Rich, Warren Buffet’s August 2011 op-ed in the New York Times, straddles the line between a manifesto and controversy: it went against everything we expect the super-rich to argue, true, but it was also something the general public agreed with. As a result, the controversial-but-popular article landed the NYT a ton of coverage and shares.

3.)  The Promise

Give your readers a timeline or promise for improvement: “Seven Days to a Better Body,” for example, or “23 Tips That Will Make You a Better Photographer.”

Example: 31 Days to an Organized Home received an overwhelming amount of shares on Pinterest since it offered a target audience (primarily crafty, DIY-minded women) a step-by-step walkthrough to achieve a desired result (an organized home).

4.)  The Urgent Attention-Grabber

Create a “must-read factor” in your headlines that implies readers will miss out on important information if they don’t read, such as “13 Mistakes That Are Ruining Your Blog.” Time-sensitive material like “Five Events in 2012 You Don’t Want to Miss” is another fantastic way of attracting shares, since they imply a “before it’s too late” sense of urgency.

Example: A Box You Want to Uncheck on LinkedIn had a title that made readers curious (what does the box do?) along with valuable information that users felt compelled to share with others (I should warn my friends about this).

5.)  The Epic

Why do a top 10 list when you can do a top 100? Go for gold and craft a mega-list relevant to your industry. Examples of epic titles include “50 Must-Have Firefox Add-ons,” or “101 Tips for Increasing Productivity.”

Example: Magazines have been doing this for years: just look at the Time 100 or women’s magazines with covers like 341 Budget Beauty Secrets Inside This Issue.

6.)  The Ranked List

Ranked lists (Top Ten, Best 50, Greatest 100, etc.) have the benefit of being both controversial and interactive. Every ranking sparks an internal discussion within your readers: is #28 truly greater than #26? Does the #1 ranking really deserve the top spot? And how on earth did ________ not make the list?

Example: Few sites embrace lists like Time.com, which goes so far as to release a massive “Top Ten of Everything” series every year, featuring everything from the “Top Ten Tweets” to the “Top Ten Oddball News Stories.”

7.)  The Man of the Year

Instead of creating a ranked list, cut to the chase and just announce your #1 selection.  Take a stand with your own niche: App of the Month, Best Industry Site of 2011, Blog of the Year, etc.

Example: People’s Sexiest Man Alive, Oprah’s Book of the Month, Time’s Person of the Year, Oxford Dictionary’s Word of the Year…

8.)  The Directory

Why make readers sift through mounds of data when you can do it for them? Collect the best links from around the internet and share them with your readers. Gather the best advice for your niche, the top news stories, the leading Twitter accounts in your field, or a simple collection of interesting information.

Example: The Most Interesting 50 Articles on Wikipedia combed through a massive directory of interesting Wiki articles to present only the most interesting stories.

9.)  The Quiz

Quizzes are popular for several reasons: they’re interactive, they’re fun, and they’re user-focused. They can also start a discussion (I got this result! Which one did you get?). Example: There are three main types of quizzes: user-focused (Which Superhero are You?), test-your-knowledge (Name All 50 State Capitals in 10 Minutes), and just-for-fun (Rapper or McDonald’s Menu Item?).

10.) The Pop Culture Tie-In

When you embrace the latest craze sweeping the Internet, be it a meme, video, trend, or movie, you’re capitalizing on the thing-of-the-moment. Create your own meme or tie a post into something current (the Muppet movie, Herman Cain’s political debacles, etc.). Just make sure you’re not posting something that’s already oversaturated (the world does not need another Charlie Sheen joke).

Example: A current example is the Pepper Spraying Cop Meme.

11.)  The Expert In viral content and in life, it’s not what you know, but who you know. Name recognition is a powerful thing. When Mark Zuckerberg talks about Facebook or Mario Batali talks about food, people listen. For even more viral impact, gather a group of experts: “15 Published Authors on Writing,” for example.

Example:  The previous Warren Buffet example made headlines because it wasn’t an average Joe writing his opinions for the NYT…it was a mega-rich celebrity.

12.) The Viral Video

From Snakes on a Plane to the Old Spice Man, the road to viral marketing has been paved with viral videos.  Make a trailer for an upcoming product, film a demonstration, or create something downright goofy. Just make it original or make it good—Internet users have no shame about stopping a boring video 15 seconds after it starts.

Example: Evolution of Dance, any video by OK Go, etc.

13.)  The Visual Aid

Visual representations of mass amounts of data are easy-to-digest while still containing a lot of “meaty” content. Infographics aren’t the only example of this—think graphs, informational videos, or interactive maps, too.

Example: Visualizing the World’s Food Consumption

14.) The Tutorial

From simple articles to complex ones, step-by-step instructions and how-to articles are always popular. Craft larger tutorials like “Beginner’s Guide to…” or a “Complete Guide to…” or keep it simple with a basic how-to article.

Example: It doesn’t have to be complicated: 37 Ways to Tie a Scarf received over 43,000 shares on StumbleUpon alone.

15.)  The Freebie

Create something of significant value and give it away for free– and encourage sharing. You’re positioning yourself as an authoritative brand, someone a reader will return to for more information in the future.

Example: Seth Godin’s free eBook “Unleashing the Ideavirus” is the perfect example of a successful viral freebie: it was packed with information, completely free, and Godin encouraged people to share.

16.)  The Create-Your-Own Activity

Like a cross between the freebie and the quiz, the Create-Your-Own is all about letting a web visitor create something unique, personalized, and (generally) brand-related.

Example: MadMenYourself.Com, South Park Studio, or OfficeMax’s Elf Yourself.

17.)  The Collaboration

Sometimes it takes a village to make something go viral. Collaborative content feels like a group effort—or, in the case of memes, like a virtual flash mob. As an added benefit, you’ve got a head start on the viral sharing snowball effect: users naturally want to share and promote content they’ve helped make.

Example: Submit-your-own memes like Paula Deen Riding Things, submit-your-own-picture blogs like Cake Wrecks, and serious posts like 21 Readers Tell What They Wish They’d Known About Photography are all collaborative examples

18.)  The Incredible Story

The Incredible Story reflects all those human interest news stories we all love to share: the dog who traveled 30 miles to return home, the man who pulled someone from the subway tracks. These stories impress us; we feel compelled to share them with others.

Example: Christian the Lion video or the massive response to the “Force is with Katie” story.

19.)  The Knee-Jerk Reaction

Why has a video of a baby panda sneezing gained over 124 million hits? Because it’s short, simple, and straightforward: a baby panda sneezes, and it’s cute. As Seth Godin writes, “Nietzche is hard to understand and risky to spread, so it moves slowly among people willing to invest the time. Numa Numa, on the other hand, spread like a toxic waste spill because it was so transparent, reasonably funny, and easy to share.”

Example: The aforementioned Sneezing Panda; Dramatic Chipmunk.

20.)  The Ridiculous

It’s bizarre, it’s off-the-wall, it’s never been seen before, and it’s hilarious. Content that catches your audience by surprise and then makes them laugh is some of the most successful viral content out there.

Example: Old Spice’s The Man Your Man Could Smell Like or (more recently) Guy on a Buffalo.

21.)  The Hybrid

Hybrids combine several different aspects of the other types for one superpowered piece of viral content.

Example: Boston.com’s 50 Scariest Movies of All Time was a ranked list (#6), invited the audience to share their own opinions (#17) and let users create their own top 50 list in an interactive game (#16).

Conclusion

I’d argue that creating your own hybrid trumps every other type on this list. You’re creating a strategy that’s uniquely targeted to your own brand and audience—and you’ll be doing what “going viral” is all about: doing something remarkably different from everyone else.

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I’ve written many times on using social media to promote linkbait-style content for traffic and virality and how to reap the benefits of that social media traffic. Sometimes you can do a social promotion, of a piece of content, and get a lot of traffic from social media but not a whole lot of benefit if social shares, links, pageviews, etc fall flat.

Fortunately, there’s a way to capitalize on that seemingly lost and sometimes perceived “useless” traffic.

Another conundrum I’ve run into is that clients want to work their sales pitches into linkbait so badly, as they fear the social promotion alone won’t reap enough benefit to them.

They sometimes have a hard time putting informational, resourceful, entertaining, or educational material out there without a direct tie-in to sales or leads. As it is free to users, it can be costly to a publisher or client to create and develop.

While there are many things wrong with that thought process, using remarketing can be the missing element a client is looking for from turning educational content into commercialized advertising.

Remarketing allows you to follow the visitors of your informational content with a transactional message across the Web with ads to attempt to bring back. It’s a way go beyond the benefits of traffic, brand recognition, links, social shares, CPM ad revenue, virality, etc and help contribute to bottom line a bit more by tapping into reciprocity a bit.

If you’ve provided someone a valuable resource they are bound to trust, you have become more of an authority in your vertical. And if you remind them of what you’ve provided them, while asking for a call-to-action, then the chances of them clicking through and paying attention are much higher.

The best way to demonstrate this concept is by an example. Here, I have a linkbait article on The Controversial History of Xvid (Xvid is video software). By setting up retargeting on this page, by cookie or pixel, any users coming to this page can then be followed across media partner networks with ads.

After a successful social media promotion, I now have a very large group of people that I know are interested in Xvid enough to read about it to target transactional ads to in attempt to get them to convert and download the Xvid software from the same site they read the linkbait on.

While this isn’t the perfect ad, to give you an idea, the ad might looks something like this:

Then for the results, hopefully the ad reminds them of the content and sparks their interest into checking it out from you. While this isn’t the best example this concept can be used many different ways.

Ultimately, the social media promotion provides you a large group of fairly targeted users, that have already broke the interest barrier, to advertise to. The obvious key here is making this profitable and not a large loss of ad spend. Have fun experimenting with this concept and let me know what kind of results you had in the comments here.

Like t-shirts from http://www.likebuttonshirt.com/

The Like button is now a recognizable symbol, and while it is used millions of times each day, the fact remains that the Like button cannot be used in every occasion.

Users need more variation in order to both adequately express how they feel about content posted on Facebook and why they are endorsing a specific product or piece of content via their Facebook profile.

For instance, multiple pages and groups are asking Facebook to add a “Dislike” button option (the biggest page has over 3.3 million fans, even though it is not updated).

Besides having the freedom to state a negative or positive opinion on Facebook, many users are hesitant to “like” a piece of content online in order to share it, as “liking” something implies they condone it.

For instance, if someone posts something horrific like an abuse story or an obituary, users are hesitant to “Like” or “thumbs up” that content, as nobody wants to “like” someone else’s death or tragedy.

However, they may want to share it with others, so the option to share a piece of content without having to say a person “likes” it may help increase exposure for all types of stories, not just ones that tend to be positive or garner likes (such as a humorous article about a dog who can water ski).

As mentioned in a previous Search Engine Land article on social rating, it is important to give people flexibility to share their true opinion, as not everything — especially when it comes to opinions on online news, products and content — can be answered with a simple yes or no, as the Boolean voting system requires. Options are crucial to allowing users to rate and share content more in accordance with how they really feel about it.

While promoting a piece of content by “liking” it may not be ideal in many users’ subconscious, because that is currently the only option available (since Facebook no longer supports the “share” action buttons as of February 2011), it is morally OK to hit “like” on content in order to share it.

Regular Facebook users and content readers understand that liking an external link doesn’t mean a person necessarily supports the actions of story, but instead wants to promote it or share it with friends via their Facebook profile.

Facebook most likely recognizes that only having the Like button as an option isn’t ideal, which is why it has been speculated they are going to release Facebook “Gestures,” which gives users choices on how they share and comment on internal and external content that is shared via the Facebook Like button. Users can show they “watched” or “read” a piece of content, instead of having to say that they “liked” it.

This is a crucial development in the social sharing space, as millions of websites and blogs are using the Like button to allow visitors to share content and products. As the online social experience continues to grow and evolve, users will continue to expect more intuitive and descriptive ways to share content, products and entertainment that is interesting or important to them.

While Facebook hasn’t announced “Gestures” yet as expected (as of press time), it is still a speculation that with the new navigational display changes and the upcoming Timeline profile layout, the way users will share content internally and externally via Facebook will have to change as well.

Stock image from Shutterstock, used under license.

However, several things are put into effect in order to make virality happen.

The content first must be well written, original, and be something that readers will want to share with others. While there is no set formula or guarantee that content (no matter how well it is written) will go viral, the following are some suggestions on how popular content gets its footing.

Outline The Benefits Or Incentives

One of the easiest ways to convince a reader that content is good enough to be shared is to let them know why it would be harmful not to follow its advice or instructions. Once the reader has decided to heed its suggestions, they will most likely also want to pass it on to as many people as possible.

Some title examples of using this method of writing include “How to Prevent a Company From Collapsing” or “The Best Ways to Keep All Your Data Safe”. Describing the problem and then explaining the solutions will not only educate the reader, but using this “crisis” perspective will make for more motivated readers.

Oftentimes, the word crisis is brought up with a negative connotation. However, these types of urgency-themed messages can also be utilized from a positive standpoint, such as “Want 50% Off The Social Media Week Tickets?” or “Clearance Sale Ends Tomorrow on These Products”.

For the most part, positive crisis spins are shorter because there aren’t necessarily any problems to solve that take time to explain.

Be Controversial Or Interesting

Saying something that isn’t the popular opinion, or bringing up topics in a new light that hasn’t been mentioned before is one of the easiest ways to become viral. However, it is usually the most time-consuming because it takes a lot of ingenuity to write a piece of content that is something no one else wants to bring up or has thought up in the exact way before.

Playing the devil’s advocate will always stir up interesting and traffic. It can also help drive discussion in the blog comment area. Constructive criticism and discussion can help drive viral content just as much as the original piece of content.

Oftentimes, it helps to write down an idea for a blog post or piece of content right when they are thought of, instead of promising to write it later. Having an original thought about a topic is often hard to remember later. If a piece of paper is not handy, send an email with the idea or save it in a spreadsheet.

Appeal To The Ego

It is human nature– people love to talk about themselves. So directing a blog post’s title and content towards the reader can generate interest and make the reader personally invested.

Good examples of involving the reader by using the 2nd person include, “How to Download Your Photos From Facebook” or “10 Ways to Tell if You’re an Entrepreneur” instead of “Facebook Photo Download Instructions” or “Signs of an Entrepreneur.” Simply using the word, “you” can make a title standout and garner interest.

Make It Easy To Share

Even if a piece of content is original, strong, and has great points, if it isn’t easy to share, it isn’t going anywhere. Use sharing widgets like AddtoAny or many of the WordPress plugins (for self-hosted WordPress blogs) will help readers share and distribute content.

Normally, having share buttons at the top and bottom (or along the side, if they scroll with the content) allow readers to click “Share” at almost any place they are in the article.

In addition to sharing options for the top social networking and bookmarking sites (like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Digg, and Google+), there should also be options for printing and emailing the blog post.

Get Established

In a true “cart before the horse” metaphor, it helps to be an established blog or website in order for content to go viral. If someone is respected in their field, their content is much more likely to be shared often and regularly. But without well written (and usually viral content), a writer won’t become respected or well-known in their field.

There are ways about this, such as guest blog posting on other more popular blogs can help drive traffic to the author’s website and to get name exposure.

Additionally, consistently providing high-quality and thought-provoking content will make even the newest blogger more popular with every piece of content they publish. Keep in mind, consistently updated blogs are also more likely to be picked up and indexed by search engines.

In conclusion, even though the following guidelines don’t guarantee content going viral, it can help. Appealing to user’s needs, egos, and the desire to share and promote good content are all components of building a high-traffic blog with regular return traffic and email subscribers (of whom hopefully translate into customers).

Focusing on the quality of a piece, instead of its potential to go viral, will always help it more in the long run than any share buttons or mentions of “you” ever could.

These types of questions lead to the question of how much content is actually consumed versus how much of it is being shared. Sharing content to share it is a legitimate strategy for some — just look at Guy Kawasaki. As a co-founder of news aggregation website Alltop, he has become an Internet marketing legend, with over 364,000 followers on Twitter as of June 2011.

However, the line between becoming a credible news resource and one that simply spews links is sometimes a fine one. Guy Kawasaki does a great job of promoting appealing content that is interesting to most online users, but for social media users in a niche industry, it becomes harder and hard to attract a bigger, loyal following on links alone.

Blind Links

Blind Links are social media posts that are simply an article title and a URL:

While this seems like a relatively harmless way to share information (and the majority of Twitter users are likely guilty of it), blind link overload can lead to devalued credibility and social influence. This is because most tweets with shared links should include the opinion of the person tweeting it.

Of course, many article titles speak for themselves, but otherwise commentary (not always for businesses, more so when it’s on a user’s personal Twitter page) by the user provides their opinion and personal insight on the subject.

When it comes down to it, not all links need to include commentary, and blind links shouldn’t necessarily be avoided. It is too much of one thing that can generally cause users to ignore all tweets.

Personal tweets about experiences and events thrown in with tweets that share links and information is a good mixture of credibility and humanization—allowing readers to benefit from a user’s knowledge and what they’ve seen, while also allowing them to see the user’s personal life.

Perils Of Blind Re-Tweets

Another type of blind sharing, called blind re-tweets, occur when a user re-tweets a link/tweet without actually reading the article that the link goes to.

A Mashable article from April 2011 by David Spark discusses this phenomenon and even provides a graph of data showing the discrepancy between actual visits to a blog or webpage versus the number of times the URL was shared via Facebook/Twitter/Etc.

But how can a blind re-tweet affect a user’s online credibility? Actually, in a number of ways. For starters, if a user shares a link that they hadn’t checked, it may turn out to be a spammy link that doesn’t go to the information the title alluded to.

Questionable Sources

Besides sharing spammy links, the users that are being re-tweeted (and in turn @ mentioned) themselves may also pose a credibility risk to the user who is re-tweeting. If a user is flagged for spam or has posted a lot of spammy links in the past, a person who is reading a re-tweet may click on the @ mentioned user’s name and see their profile and recent tweets.

If some are questionable, this may cause them to unfollow the person who was re-tweeting the information. In these instances, sources are just as important as the links and information they are claiming to provide.

Is A Good Balance Possible?

What seems like information overload to some may seem like just the right amount to others. Many blogs and articles have discussed under-posting on Twitter and Facebook (as well as over-posting), but for those that want to have an active social media presence without spending all day searching for content share, sometimes scheduled tweets and blind links are a must.

A steady stream of information is sometimes the most consistent approach rather than 10 tweets between 8-8:30 am with nothing else said throughout the day. A few tweets each day, varying between personal commentary, links with insight, and blind links may be the best approach to produce a well-rounded Twitter account.