With the advent of Web 2.0 (interactive, dynamic websites that promote or operate as social networks), people can now easily find information and websites that other human beings recommend.

Websites like Twitter, Facebook, and Digg allow users to share their personal favorites (bookmarks), short information (micro blogging) and interact with others. Users tag each bookmarked website with the keywords they feel are most applicable. They also can vote to promote best content. This amounts to a human referral or vote for the site and its relevance to the subject being searched.

Other versions of social networking include blogging social networks – primarily Technorati.com. Technorati indexes blogs based on the amount of incoming links those blogs have, as well as the tags associated with their posts.

The most popular social network is Facebook. This online giant ( with over 400 million members) enjoys over 127 million unique visitors every month!  This is more than Yahoo gets. Some expert predict that  Facebook will overtake Google soon.  Another popular social  site – Twitter gets over 21 million unique viewers.

Lastly, new powerful social media networks have emerged that are revolutionizing video: YouTube, Google Video, Metacafe, and Dailymotion – just to name a few.  These mega networks allow citizen filmmakers to share their visions with the world and spread the word about what matters to them.

Now more and more business owners realize that these media networks are potential goldmines – potential broadcasters of your marketing message. These incredible resources are a must for any serious website owner nowadays.

How will social networking help my site traffic grow?

According to Forrester Research the number of social networking users has doubled since 2007 to 2009. Experts predict that social networks are starting to eclipse traffic from the major search engines Yahoo! and Google. Some people think that social networks are mainly used by young people and kids. This is not true. Over 55.6 million adults – or just less than 1/3rd of the population – in the US now visit social networks at least monthly  (2009)

· 64% of Twitter’s users are aged 35 or older.

· 61% of Facebooks’s users are aged 35 or older.

According to a 2008 Rosetta study, in April of 2008, less than 1/3 of US e-retailers had a Facebook page.  By November 2008, that number had doubled.  Last quarter (2009), Softpedia reported that 86 percent of US online retailers have a Facebook page, and they expect that number to reach 99 percent soon.  (Source: compete.com).

However it is important to know that social networks should not be treated as a direct selling resource.

They are extremely useful to stay in touch and interact with the client.  Social networks are great to build an online reputation and create authority.

So if your company is not present on any of the major social networks, you’re missing out on the easiest, fastest way to access such a big group of internet users.

Microsoft had announced that they integrated Facebook status updates and Twitter tweets into Bing search results. Google did the same with Twitter.

Google went even further introducing social search. Google Social Search gives results posted in your social circle (by friends) such as videos, photos, blog posts and status updates on social networking sites.

How Do I Get Involved in Social Networking?

Working with social sites is similar to working with the media. Give them a good enough story, secret, tip, or resource that they can sink their teeth into and you’ll have an army of talkers spreading the word about you and your business.

And this translates into referrals, which convert into sales on an average of 667% better than cold leads (search engine results). So even if you reach less people through social networking, your conversions will be far higher.

We target various social networks through a variety of methods:

How Does Social Networking Work With SEO?

As more and more internet users begin to use tags to find information (a tag is a keyword that a human associated with a website, vs. a keyword that a search engine attributes to a website), Search Marketing professionals cannot ignore the growing dominance of the social networks.

However, we view the partnership between social networks and search engines as an excellent and balanced marriage. Sure, social networking gets you in front of people who no longer use search engines in lieu of finding their information through referrals or bookmarks/tags.  Links that are created from such sites will also improve the rankings of your corporate website.

But the added, and perhaps more exciting bonus, is that while you grow in popularity with social networks like Facebook, Digg Twitter, LinkedIn or Friendfeed, your search rankings will continue to increase as a result!

Your popularity signals Bing, Yahoo and Google that you are an authority in your market according to your human audience.