Social media faux pas affecting your SEO

Using social media to improve your SEO requires that you do not fall victim to common faux pas. Social factors are becoming more heavily ranked, and do matter, so using social media properly can help you, and improperly can hurt you. Here are a few things to know:

Relationships- If you want a search engine to think you are relevant and important, you have to show them you are by creating relationships with people, who in turn verify your importance and relativity by interacting with you, bookmarking you, and more. If you want your social media to be successful, you need to focus on the relationship aspect of it. Do not use it merely as an advertising platform, but as a place to build community. You do this by following people, connecting with people, building friendships, and fans. Get to know the influential leaders in your industry, and get to know those who will like what you are sharing. You want to learn from these people, share with them, interact with them. If you post stuff that is of value, they will share it, retweet it, dugg it, stumble it, comment on it, and whatever other term there is for the various social media sites for passing it on.

Improper Linking- The next big problem people have when using social media is neglecting to do the obvious. If you have a social media profile, you should have a link back to your website on it. If you don't, this is improper linking. If you have tons of links, again that is improper linking. Don't forget the indirect links. You want to include links back to you in your posts, in press releases, in forums, guides, and other things you post.

Always Self-serving- The people who don't use social media marketing properly are the ones who use it to constantly promote themselves, and forget that it is not about just them, it is social. You should build your profile and followers by sharing a diverse set of links and information sources about a consistent topic. It takes work, time, research, etc. to provide quality information without being too self serving.

Spam- Be careful with automation, it can be considered spamming if you are not careful. You want to have your efforts be worthwhile, and automation can make things easier on your end, but they can result in your hard work going to waste if your profile gets shut down.

False Reality- It is always best to be yourself, and be true to yourself. Social media is a long term campaign, meaning that it is permanent, and keeping up a lie or a false persona is always going to be more work that it is worth. Remember that you are building a brand, so you want to be authentic, and straightforward.