Digging Deep into your Social Network.

The recent projects I’ve been developing at work means that I have been looking at the importance of Social Media and Search.

In fact, Social Media has such an influence on Search and getting content indexed and found through Search browsers, that it’s impossible to ignore it’s influence on getting traffic to your site.

The problem though is that I’ve never been very active on Social Platforms, in fact I’d go as far as to say I’ve avoided Facebook and Twitter, simply because I don’t think I have as many interesting or fascinating things to post up in a day.

I think I could be described as a passive observer in Social media, as it always amazes me how there are posts about bungee jumping, crossing off challenges on personal bucket lists, doing the Ice Bucket Challenges and all the other wild and interesting activities that my friends and peers get up to.

I feel a bit of a bore posting up things about what our family get up to – who really cares that we went to the dentist or got our hair cut or took our cats to the vets?

At any rate most of my daylight hours are spent in an office and there are lots of stories of people posting things they will regret later, such as calling their boss something unprintable and then shouting about it in social media, that I think writing anything that you may regret later is best avoided.

Blogging on the other hand is completely different, it’s a space to be creative. To express an idea, write an article about something that’s inspired you and can be drawn from your experiences whether they are in the present, past or the future.

So the prospect of having to connect up the blog to Social Media channels was somewhat daunting.

However knowing how important it is in terms of search, I’ve made a start.

Firstly, the most important step I made was just to set-up the accounts. The social media platforms that have the biggest in terms of audience size and reach and order of prominence are as follows:

1) Facebook

2) Twitter

3) Google+

Whilst Google+  is not as big in terms of audience size, I think G+ is more important than Facebook or Twitter, due to its relationship and direct impact on Search. Once you have a Google+ account, your profile, the content you post in Google+ will be indexed and ranked for search purposes.

Since Google’s Search Engine’s algorithm is based on a number of factors, posts within Google+ get indexed almost immediately, there’s a great article about it here .

I like things simple, so for now I have in WordPress Settings connected my Google+ account to the blog so that when ever I create a post, it will automatically get posted onto G+. At the time of writing, Google+ does not make the post public, so I go into my account about once a week and re-post so they become public.

4) Pinterest – similarly has a relationship and impact on search engines and rankings. This article about the relationship between Pinterest and Search provides a good explanation of the why and how.

I’ve set-up a Pinterest account so that I can pin images from my blog to Pinterest boards that I’ve set-up.  I keep back a few images. Once a week, I check the boards. I also use Pinterest for pinning images that I find interesting or inspires ideas for future posts, so it’s quite useful in that respect.

5) Instagram, 6) Tumblr

There are of course lots more beside, the above I think represent the core ones to focus my efforts.

I still have a long way to go in terms of social media and connecting and creating a community around the blog.

For now, I am focussing on getting the blog discovered through search and using the social platforms as a way to do this.

I hope this post was helpful. Do let me know if you’ve been successful in setting up a Social Media Strategy to help increase awareness for your blog.