On Tuesday June 9th, Apple announced updates to their mobile operating system iOS which will update all of Apple’s mobile devices (iPad, iPhone, & iPod Touch) with over 200 new features. This announcement will completely change how users share and receive digital content. In addition, over the past year, search engines have made it clear that quality digital content cannot be ignored when considering a SEO campaign.
As business owners looking for fresh approaches to market your business, you face even more challenges when it comes to planning marketing budgets. With varying opinions on whether or not your marketing strategy needs to include Social Media Experts, Apple’s decision to include Twitter into their operating system sets a precedent for social media’s long term staying power.
Tweet This
Of the 200 new features, one feature really stands out for digital marketers: Twitter will now be fully integrated within iOS. Through virtually any application on your device, you can share content directly to your Twitter account without using a Twitter application. Although there are already a number of Twitter applications available for iOS devices, full integration within the operating system could encourage more users to share more content online. According to a recent comScore study, Portal websites such as Search Engines are steadily becoming less popular with Social Media activity growing rapidly over the past year. Although Facebook is still the social media leader, its rapid growth over the past year is a sign of the times as it has moved into the #1 website people spend time online.
Recent data on online usage suggests that users are becoming more interested in engaging collaboratively with others online and less interested in browsing content autonomously. Social media sites and online marketers face unique challenges as they struggle with staying relevant in a constantly changing market.
Don’t Tweet This
With seamless integration – comes greater responsibility. As our lives become more social online, businesses need to be sensitive to what is being tweeted from their business accounts and public employee accounts. Take for example a Chrysler Social Media Expert who accidentally posted his opinion about Detroit drivers to the official Chrysler Twitter account, a comment that was meant for his personal account. In more recent news, Rep. Anthony Weiner’s reputation and career was tarnished because of one spelling error in a Twitter post when he mistakenly posted a provocative photograph to his public Twitter feed. Michael Fertik, CEO of Reputation.com, says that this type of mistake happens “millions of times a day,” – suggesting that these types of mistakes are common.
To maintain a positive reputation on Twitter, clear-cut social media guidelines should be developed for all employees, including employees outside of the social media department. In the early days of Social Media, websites like Myspace were used for personal expression but as more businesses take advantage of Social Media, the methodology is changing. In Social Media Marketing, you need to balance marketing messages with a personal touch as your followers won’t find value in your tweets if they feel like that are being sold to.
Twitters Impact On SEO
Google and Bing conceded that they use signals from Twitter when displaying Twitter posts and web pages in search engine result pages (SERPs). Both search engines try to calculate a Twitter handle’s authority based on followers and mentions. Like traditional link building, the higher the linking Twitter handle’s authority is, the more authoritative the link is considered to search engines. In turn, this means that content in a highly competitive search space has another opportunity for ranking well in SERPs through Twitter. To take advantage of all that Twitter can offer for your SEO campaign, your strategy should include creating resourceful content and promotion.
When creating a new piece of content, always think about why a user would want to read or watch this. What are they getting out of the content? Would they share this content with a friend or colleague? If you cannot answer these questions, then it probably does not belong on your website. If you content is resourceful and helpful to your online community, then Twitter is a method for letting everyone know about it. By adding a link to your Twitter account on your website, you can let people who are already interesting in you know how to stay in touch with you as you grow but what about people who don’t already know about you?
Social Media is all about connecting to like-minded people. Depending on your interests, you may find a large community of users talking about and sharing information you are interested in, it’s just a matter of finding them and connecting. The same can be said for promoting your content – there may be a number of users looking for the content you have but don’t know who you are. Researching and cultivating interest in your brand and content online is one way businesses can utilize Social Media Experts.
