A lot of buzz recently in the SEO world has been about Social Media and how it can impact search rankings. I particularly appreciated this post by Jennita on SEOMOZ… but not because it offers a new trick. We all know that tweeting helps, right?
What I found interesting was this one line down in the takeaways section:
It appears likely that Google (and Bing) are using the concept they described in the interview on SELand of “Author Authority” to help weight the value of tweets (as we’ve seen that bot-repeated tweeting in similar quantities doesn’t have this affect) [sic]
Here’s the deal folks. And this is true with Social Media marketing and SEO.
Be A Real Person.
Be Authentic.
Be Who You Say You Are.
When I first started having to explain SEO in layman’s terms to people, I would explain that the meta data is what you tell search engines your site is about, and the text they crawl is what it really is about. Search Engines like it when you are what you say you are. They reward authenticity, and strike out against what we would now call SPAM or black hat techniques.
Now, the search engine algos are showing rewards for the same exact thing on Twitter and Facebook and other forms of social interaction. Don’t be fake.
It’s like High School all over again, isn’t it?
But here’s the trick, eventually that personal brand will earn you other’s recognition and respect. Eventually, that personal tweet that you send out will get retweeted because people know you’re a real person, because they know that you have original thoughts, and because they respect what you have to say and how you say it.
Welcome to the real world, people. Just take a deep breath and be yourself. It’s the best any of us can do.