Humans + Robots

How does social media help search engine optimization? Why should SEO professionals build social skills in their practice? This week, Search Engine Journal posted a great piece about the imporance of social media skills for SEO professionals, emphasizing that you can boost your SEO efforts through solid social media tactics:

“The SEO skill set has evolved (and continues to). While being a great link builder, knowing how to write content for SEO and understanding best practices for optimizing a website are still incredibly important, they are not the only things we as SEO professionals need to understand in order to do our jobs well and produce real results for our clients. In today’s online world, having a solid understanding of how social media works and how it can be leveraged for SEO is critical to developing long lasting and quality SEO campaigns.”

According to the article, there are several social media components that SEO pros need to be aware of, including: 

• Understanding the Differences Between Social Networks
• How to Automate Tasks
• Leveraging Social Media as a Promotional Tool
• Understanding Social Signals

I’d also add that there is a lot of research and creative insight you can learn from using social media that can help your SEO efforts, like what content types work to build social momentum and gain more views - and inbound links, and more. 

Check out this article to learn more. 

And, if you’re interested in the overlap of SEO and Social Media, please check out our SXSW Panel Picker proposal: Humans+Robots: How to Create SEO+Social Friendly Content!

We’d appreciate your consideration, comments, and help spreading the word about this idea! Check out the Twitter hashtag #humansvrobots to join the conversation! 

Today, panelist Jenn Pedde shares her thoughs on the humans v. robots debate. Is Jenn #teamhumans or #teamrobots? You’ll have to read her post to find out! The good news is, she shares some great insights, so it’s worth your time! Here’s a sneak peek at what Jenn had to say. (Check out the rest on her blog!)

When I started community managing it was great - all social, all the time.  Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, blogging… I created content, I built relationships,  I didn’t have a real care in the world except that all the numbers on all the sites had to keep going up,  sentiment was positive, customers were happy, and job well done.  I would say that’s entry level community at it’s best.  But, as things are oft to do they grow and expand and of course they have to become justifiable.  Not only that, but you begin to the push the boundaries and see what you can do with all of these social tools and where it can bleed into for other departments.  That’s where SEO entered my life.

Oh. Well, because we couldn’t put a + in the URL on tumblr. 

But now that you mention it, it’s actually a great question. And there’s been a bit of a debate. So, if you have opinions, join in! 

Do the humans or the robots win?

Every day, humans (and hey, some robots) are creating countless pieces of content. Tweets. Posts. Videos. Likes. Shares. It’s all information that somebody’s consuming. Namely, humans and those robots we keep mentioning. 

Who are the Robots?

The robots we refer to are your friendly neighborhood search engines like Google and Bing, namely, their algorithms. Every day, these search engines are consuming all kinds of content as well as tons of other signals that tell them what’s important. All so they can deliver search results that humans will click on, and hopefully, find useful or enjoy. 

That’s one way to think about SEO. Which is an important way to make sure your content gets in front of more humans who are searching for things online.

Who are the Humans?

Really? Do we need to answer that?

All jokes aside, this is where we talk about all the social activity that’s going on every day as people share, like, and curate content. This is another important way to get your content in front of humans. 

And, as it turns out, robots. 

Because search engines are now incorporating social signals into their algorithms. In fact, Google and Bing have recently taken significant strides in the last month around social.

What is the Panel?

What we want to do is bring 2 SEO Humans and 2 Social Strategy Humans together to talk about what social search is, why search engine algorithm changes matter for content marketing, and how to create a strategy that will help you develop content that will make humans and robots happy.

Over the next few months, we’ll be sharing more about this concept. In the meantime, check out some resources some of our esteemed panelists have put together on the topic. 

Oh yeah. Speaking of that. 

Who is the Panel?

The Instigator

Tiffany Monhollon of ReachLocal

The SEO Humans

Matthew Egan of Image Freedom
Mike King of Publicis Modem 

The Social Strategy Humans

Jenn Pedde of 2tor
Holly Hoffman of Neovia Solutions  

Read More (Stuff for Humans)

• Bing, Facebook & Social Search: What it Means for Business Marketing
• Search Gets Social: Google Using Social Data in Ranking
• Social Engagement and SEO: Comments, Shares and Likes Can Boost Search Rank