I probably should have named this blog post something like, "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" because the introduction of SEO into my social world was the equivalent of a bomb. If you had told me 8 months ago I'd be writing a piece now about how not only have I come to appreciate SEO, but that I'll be speaking on a panel at sxswi in Austin, TX 2012 regarding "Humans vs. Robots, Social + SEO Friendly Content" (please vote here to not make me a liar: http://bit.ly/humansvrobots), I probably wouldn't have believed you.
When I started community managing it was great - all social, all the time. Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, blogging... I created content, I built relationships, I didn't have a real care in the world except that all the numbers on all the sites had to keep going up, sentiment was positive, customers were happy, and job well done. I would say that's entry level community at it's best. But, as things are oft to do they grow and expand and of course they have to become justifiable. Not only that, but you begin to the push the boundaries and see what you can do with all of these social tools and where it can bleed into for other departments. That's where SEO entered my life.
For those that don't yet know, SEO stands for "Search Engine Optimization" and that simply means making your website play nice with Google's search algorithm so you can organically climb the ranks and be in that coveted #1 spot on a first results page that gets you so many eyeballs. A number of community managers out there will tell you that what they do, has nothing to do with SEO - and if they are telling you that - they're terrible community managers.
Social and SEO are blending now more than ever. Every word you put in a blog post matters. Titles first, headings second, content itself third. Tweets are being indexed. Facebook shares matter. Links flying left and right all over social networks and guest blog posts might as well be it's own form of currency. Keywords, thousands of incredible keywords, determine how successful your business can be. If you're managing a community and aren't aware of even just the basics, you're already behind the curve.
There are arguments to be made about internal and external community and that community should only exist on owned properties (your website vs. Facebook). We can talk until the end of time about the word community and the responsibilities that come with the job and if that should be for one person or a team and how far into SEO strategies the role can get. No matter how you slice the community pie, each person should be made well aware of how their actions are determining search results. They should know optimal ways to share content, and what it means and how to expand the reach.
The same goes for the SEO folk out there that are completely behind the scenes. Your information and knowledge is invaluable, but you have to be able to speak plainly, build relationships, come up with social content and ideas, understand the space that your managers are operating in, and be just as active as your social counterparts.
The marriage of SEO & Social is a beautiful thing and I for one rarely see it done well, together, in a strategy. Merging these two areas is no easy task either. There will be training on both sides of the table, an incredible amount of research done on what are the best tools to manage all of the efforts, and getting down to the nitty gritty of what is important out of a social media strategy at the end of the day.
How are you blending Social & SEO in your strategies?
Follow http://humansvrobots.tumblr.com/ for more Social + SEO content leading up to sxswi, and please make sure to vote on http://bit.ly/humansvrobots so myself and the other panelists can discuss these topics at the SXSW Interactive Conference in March 2012 before August 31st, 2011.
When I started community managing it was great - all social, all the time. Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, blogging... I created content, I built relationships, I didn't have a real care in the world except that all the numbers on all the sites had to keep going up, sentiment was positive, customers were happy, and job well done. I would say that's entry level community at it's best. But, as things are oft to do they grow and expand and of course they have to become justifiable. Not only that, but you begin to the push the boundaries and see what you can do with all of these social tools and where it can bleed into for other departments. That's where SEO entered my life.
For those that don't yet know, SEO stands for "Search Engine Optimization" and that simply means making your website play nice with Google's search algorithm so you can organically climb the ranks and be in that coveted #1 spot on a first results page that gets you so many eyeballs. A number of community managers out there will tell you that what they do, has nothing to do with SEO - and if they are telling you that - they're terrible community managers.
Social and SEO are blending now more than ever. Every word you put in a blog post matters. Titles first, headings second, content itself third. Tweets are being indexed. Facebook shares matter. Links flying left and right all over social networks and guest blog posts might as well be it's own form of currency. Keywords, thousands of incredible keywords, determine how successful your business can be. If you're managing a community and aren't aware of even just the basics, you're already behind the curve.
There are arguments to be made about internal and external community and that community should only exist on owned properties (your website vs. Facebook). We can talk until the end of time about the word community and the responsibilities that come with the job and if that should be for one person or a team and how far into SEO strategies the role can get. No matter how you slice the community pie, each person should be made well aware of how their actions are determining search results. They should know optimal ways to share content, and what it means and how to expand the reach.
The same goes for the SEO folk out there that are completely behind the scenes. Your information and knowledge is invaluable, but you have to be able to speak plainly, build relationships, come up with social content and ideas, understand the space that your managers are operating in, and be just as active as your social counterparts.
The marriage of SEO & Social is a beautiful thing and I for one rarely see it done well, together, in a strategy. Merging these two areas is no easy task either. There will be training on both sides of the table, an incredible amount of research done on what are the best tools to manage all of the efforts, and getting down to the nitty gritty of what is important out of a social media strategy at the end of the day.
How are you blending Social & SEO in your strategies?
Follow http://humansvrobots.tumblr.com/ for more Social + SEO content leading up to sxswi, and please make sure to vote on http://bit.ly/humansvrobots so myself and the other panelists can discuss these topics at the SXSW Interactive Conference in March 2012 before August 31st, 2011.
Jenn,
ReplyDeleteI completely agree. Social and SEO are so close now that all Community Manager's and Social Strategists must be aware of the best practices. Between optimizing blogs and social sites, SEO is something that all social media marketing plans need to include to really see the results. I have to say I was excited when I started to learn more about the process. It's interesting how it is always changing. I love how content really is king as it pushes people to write better posts.
Nice post!
Alicia
Good points here, Jenn! I think it's interesting how the marriage of search + social can come together in community management. I think more and more, we are starting to see how these different tactics can help each other, and how best practices can blend together. It's not one or the other, so we should learn from each other in this always evolving digital space so our clients and employers are seeing the best results for all their efforts.
ReplyDeleteExcited to get to talk more about this with you all!
Empty post with no-real content... Why do you need 5 pages (except to increase your Google rank) to write a simple thought as "social media are useful for SEO" ?
ReplyDeleteAlicia - Thank you! Are you a fellow community manager?
ReplyDeleteTiffany - I can't wait to discuss this in more depth in March as well :)
"Anonymous" - 5 pages? What 5 pages? For my personal blog I don't much care about Google Rank. Hence why I haven't shifted over to wordpress yet. And your takeaway of "Social media are useful for SEO" isn't really at all what I said. My guess is that you're not a community manager or an SEO strategist otherwise you would understand that the two worlds are very separate amongst the masses at the moment, and that most community managers haven't understood (or become aware) of the recent changes to Google's algorithm to be put into their practices. So speaking plainly and not in depth was the goal here (though it will be elaborated on at sxsw).
And forgive me - but why post anonymously only to criticize? That's no way to relationship build.