Search Engine Optimization

Twitter is one of the Big 3 of social networking (alongside Facebook and LinkedIn) and a valuable component of any social media marketing strategy. There are probably hundreds of blog posts out there telling site owners to get a Twitter account because they are “supposed” to. But what are the real benefits of incorporating Twitter into the online marketing mix? Can Twitter actually help your SEO or is it just another place to make noise and hope someone notices?

Here are 3 ways Twitter affects your SEO:

Social Signals
Both Google and Bing have admitted that social media signals are being incorporated into the search algorithm as a ranking factor. While we can only speculate as to how important social signals are, it’s probably save to say very much so. Bing patterned with Facebook to create a more personalized, social SERP and Google launched its own social networking platform. I doubt the two search behemoths would do so if they weren’t assigning some value to social signals.

So how does Twitter play into this? Content shared on Twitter can be indexed by the search engines and actually rank in the search results. The more time a piece of content is Tweeted and reTweeted, the more important it becomes in the eyes of the search engines. Just like your site thrives off of quality links, so do social signals.

Author Authority
Author authority is why it is important to take the time to actually build a Twitter profile and connect with real, human users. The search engines know that when they announce a new ranking signal, the spammers come out of the woodwork and try to manipulate it. If Google says reTweets are important, you can bet that black hat companies are creating hundreds of dummy accounts that exist solely to reTweet their content. Author authority aims to put a stop to that.

The search engines don’t just look at how many times your content is being Tweeted, but who is doing the Tweeting! How long has that person been active on Twitter? Who are their followers? What kind of content do they usually share? They want to make sure that spam profiles don’t artificially inflate the popularity of a piece of content. Having a dozen real profiles Tweet your blog post or article is worth much more than having 100 bots do the same.

Brand Awareness
If you think the only goal of SEO is to rank number one, you’re missing the bigger picture. Of course you want to rank well, but SEO is also designed to increase your overall online presence and brand awareness so your target audience can more easily find you. Twitter is a great way to increase your brand awareness. It allows you to connect with your customers in a new and personalized way. When someone Tweets about your brand/products, they are broadcasting your message to their social network as well, increasing your reach.

As social media has matured over the last few years, it has become more obvious that social media marketing has to power to make or break a brand. When handled correctly, social media marketing allows companies to connect with their consumers in a new and personalized way, learn insights directory from their target audience, and develop a strong and loyal network and much, much more. However, when mishandled, social media also has the power to completely ruin a brand’s online reputation.

Because of Twitter’s instantaneous nature, bad news spreads just as fast as good. While you may think your tweet may go unnoticed in the sea of information being created, are you really willing to risk it?

Don’t become a social media flop. Learn from the misfortune of others.

Kenneth Cole
While history was unfolding in Egypt, fashion powerhouse Kenneth Cole tweeted “Millions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is available online…” Twitter users around the globe were quick to respond, denouncing Kenneth Cole’s tweet as “in bad taste.” Kenneth Cole was quick to apologize and deleted the offensive tweet, but the damage had already been done.

Lessons learned: While a sense of humor will take you a long way in social media (check out this clever Red Cross social media mistake turned success ), you have to be careful when dealing with sensitive topics. Making light of a serious situation can land you it serious trouble.

Gilbert Gottfried
The comedian is no stranger to making fun of serious situations, but his comedy took it a step too far for the social networks when he tweeted “Japan is really advanced. They don’t go to the beach. The beach comes to them.” His off-color comments about the tsunami that devastated Japan got him canned from his long-time position as the Aflac spokesman.

Lessons learned: While your Tweets may be in line with your general personality, you also have to think who else your personal brand is connected with. Companies/clients don’t want to align themselves with someone who has a bad reputation and poor public image.

Anthony Weiner
The former New York Representative Anthony Weiner learned the differences between a direct message and Tweet the hard way when a lewd photo was posted to his Twitter account. Weiner, at first, denied the photo was sent from him, claiming the account had been hacked. Over the next few weeks, it became increasingly obvious that the Weiner photo was just the tip of his social media mistakes iceberg. Eventually, Weiner stepped down from office.

Lessons learned: Check out this Brick Blog post!

These are just three recent examples of Twitter usage gone awry. There have been plenty of other stories of employees accidentally posting personal grievances from public accounts (like the Chrysler f-bomb tweet ), social media interns sabotaging their temporary employers and more. Don’t letter a rouge Tweet run away with your brand!

Twitter as most of us especially if you are in the online world knows how easy it is to use twitter. And how it can turn from our daily normal routine to update or tweet to making use of twitter power to have some bucks out of it. But then we do have few mistakes we committed that might end up being spam out of twitter. WebProNews posted points on how can a spammers have your email harvested and such a way that this spammers can use to promote their non-sense products and the like.

The post actually reminds everyone who post, update and use services not just twitter but other sites to not divulge any private information for spammers to capture and be used for their malicious act. As a reminder, don’t divulge personal and private info like your credit card and bank information to anyone, you might end up being broke without you knowing it.

Back on twitter, some spammers can also tweet different username list by just directing the promotional tweet to any username on twitter. Better yet, if there is a link included on the tweet or update, don’t click on it unless you know the user who sent it and you are following the user who sent you the update.

We can’t blame twitter about it because other sites are not excluded on this spammers with their malicious act. We just need to take some extra precaution while we surf online.