In light of Rand's post on the confirmation that Google & Bing are both peeking at social media metrics and using them to influence rankings, I decided to write a post about how I plan on solving the issue of why so many SEO practitioners have chosen not to participate in influencing social metrics for their clients & often themselves. I think by now most people that have some experience are aware that there is an impact from the social graph, and that it is likely to grow as an indicator of true authority and relevancy.  The problem I had as an SEO practitioner with spending effort effecting the social graph is that I still don't think my clients will get more benefit from this in comparison to other more traditional SEO activities.   When a client has a finite budget, anything else I add to the equation means I am taking it away from something else. So how can we get 2+2 to equal 5 in the case of effecting the social graph without having a negative impact on link building efforts? Here is my answer.

By far the most effective way I have seen to gain increased social media exposure and authority without neglecting link building  is to incorporate it as an amplifier or accelerant for link building initiatives. What types of link building get the strongest kick in the social media realm? We monitor social mentions of clients brands and noticed increased activity while we were implementing certain types of link building campaigns without even attempting to influence social media. Our clients were seeing dramatic increases in mentions, follows, and re-tweets. We did this accidentally, but after noticing the increase we dissected the results to try and identify how to start a social graph fire. We came up with three important factors that had to be accounted for in order to achieved dramatic increases in activity. The way its presented is little hoakey, just go with it.

Fuel

Just like a fire, the best types of link building activities for influencing social media  have some form of fuel. That means that link buying, article directory submissions, blog commenting, directory submission, and other types of push style manifested link building are out.  Link building initiatives that were found to be great fuel were interviews, info graphics, case studies, giveaways, contests, and other forms of link bait, and creating heated debaet or discussion and inviting experts to chime in. This makes a great case for SEOmoz style link building where creating value is key. It is unquestionable that creating real value has even more impact when considering social media.

Accelerant

I look at social media as an amplifier or accelerant. If you have nothing to accelerate (i.e. no fuel) it isn't going to do a whole lot. Engaged Twitter followers are like potential energy. They have no use until they are utilized. Once you have great "fuel" such as an interview from an authority in the industry, you will need to have a way to increase the impact of the fuel. Creating a case study is great, but if you don't have a plan and time or a budget  to let people know about it. It can sit there for years and not provide you any value. A company with a fully developed audience makes this very easy to do, but if you are in the unfortunate position of building an audience it can be a bit more challenging. Think of how quickly a great post on SEOmoz spreads now that Rand and his team have built up a considerable following and authority. We are their accelerant! Now think of the same post 6 years ago. It was the same fuel, but with no "accelerant".  For sake of this article I am only going to mention a few forms of "accelerant".  Community engagement is a great one. If you have created something you know your market would be truly interested in, all you have to do is take the time to let them know about it, and let them know what you would like them to do if they think it is valuable.

Note: Engaging these contacts before you ask them for assistance makes this process much more effective. That is why interviews work so well. You are asking them to help promote a piece of content that also promotes them (That reminds me… Rand, I want an interview ). The guys over at Ontolo have wrote an amazing guide for this type of link building.

Another form of accelerant is prizes, or giveaways. Most bloggers, love to let their readers know about things like giveaways and prizes that are relevant to them. Most quality blogs have at least connected their blog to post to Facebook and twitter. Many try to increase reader engagement by  using giveaways to create visibility themselves. This is popular in the graphic design blog niche where printers will attempt to giveaway free business cards or vector graphics. Bloggers will tell readers to comment or tweet the contest in order to be entered. This chain reaction can create a lot of social mentions for your company. While this may not be your cup of tea, the key is to think about how you plan of accelerating your content. The better the fuel, the easier it will be to accelerate.

Trigger and Timer

The timing of your activities can have a big effect on how much reach your campaign has.  Making it on hot lists, such as most active discussions inside of LinkedIn can have a considerable effect on the reach your campaign has. Think about the radio and how pop stations generally play top 20 and may be top 30 songs. You get no visibility if you are number 21, but if you can break the top 20 a whole new set of markets will start playing your song. Social media is the same way. Make sure you have a well planned approach for how you plan to trigger your link building and social media explosion. Each time you do it, you will have more authority, and acceleration  of you fuel (content) will become easier.

Of course there are other ways of using social media that are effective, but these tactics are unique in that they accomplish and increased social graph without trying to accomplish an increased social graph. It allows SEO providers to focus on link building as the core metric for increasing rankings, but it does a nice job of building an authoritative social graph. Now, help me build my authority by hitting the thumbs up on this article.