Millions and millions of people are connected worldwide through Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Youtube, and LinkedIn (to name only a few.) In fact, the first thing most people do in the morning is check their profiles, tweets, and status updates. What better way to reach all of these millions and millions of people than through social media sites?

The power and allure of these sites is that they aren’t just a space for you to tell the world about yourself or upload your photos. Rather, they are communities. Communities that have an on-going dialogue with one another about politics, religion, hobbies, music, and just about anything else you can think of. The SEO world has begun to take notice and use these social media sites to reach out. Social media is quickly becoming one of SEO’s favorite suggestions to websites with low-budgets. It’s free to join most of these sites and when used to their full potential have many benefits for websites.  Let me elaborate…

* Link building- Social media sites are an excellent way to reach out to others in your industry. Links are an important aspect of website optimization and connecting on social media sites is a low-hassle way to build them. “Friending” or “following” companies you respect and making insightful comments on their profile/wall/twitter are great ways to connect your websites. Of course, remember to attach a link to your comment- this might not work 100% of the time but it doesn’t take very long and is completely free, so what do you have to lose?

Posts are another way to get the attention of someone you would like to link to your website. Keep in mind that links coming from relevant, high-quality sites are rated higher by search engines than those coming from low-quality non-related sites. There is literally no limit to how many people you can “friend” or “follow” so don’t hesitate to get your name out there and start building a reputation. 

* Speaking of reputation… social media sites can be incredibly helpful in keeping yours impeccable. They are quickly taking the place of traditional customer service. Social media allows you to have a dialogue with your customers and ensure that they approve of your site/service/product (whatever the case may be). Consider this: one of your customers is very unhappy with the service you have given them and they tweet or write a status update about it. Because you are plugged in to social media,  you can immediately address the issue and try to resolve it. You might have just saved your site from a potential loss of customer while at the same time establishing a positive reputation. And remember you just did all of that for free!

I love the story about Apple. A man purchased a MacBook computer and within a few months it was no longer functioning. He took it to the Apple store and they wouldn’t honor his warranty because they believed he had spilled water on it. After repeated complaints to customer service and innumerable assurances he had, in fact, not spilled any type of beverage on his computer, he had still not gotten anywhere with Apple and still had a non-functioning laptop. In his frustration he filmed a YouTube video where he smashed his worthless computer to bits. It got millions of hits and garnered the attention of none other than Steve Jobs himself. Within weeks the once un-happy customer was typing away on his brand new (free) MacBook. Another victory for social media! 

*Keeping an eye on your competitors- so often it seems that there is an all out war between competing companies. It doesn’t have to be this way. Yes, you are competing, and yes, you do want to be the top dog in your respective industry, but no, it doesn’t have to be a bloodbath. In fact, you can learn quite a bit from your competitors. As I mentioned before, social media is community forming- and it is always nice to be part of a community. Join your competitors in open discussion forums, comment (positively, remember your reputation…) on their blogs, friend them on Facebook, follow them on Twitter. These are all excellent opportunities for gaining respect in your industry and keeping up with all the latest developments. And, if you are completely set on war, then it is also a great way to keep an eye out. 

• Let’s talk brand awareness- if you are new to the game (whatever your game is), then taking advantage of social media is a great way to get your name out there. You can create quite a lot of buzz by establishing your website or company on different social media sites. Quick note, I would recommend using several sites in conjunction. Most people are only members of one or two, so you want to make sure you are reaching out to as many people as possible (i.e. don’t put all your website eggs into one social media basket.) Even if your site isn’t ready to be launched or your product isn’t quite ready for the masses, go ahead and start marketing it: sometimes all you need is a little buzz and anticipation to make your site or product a success. If you are simply trying to earn some brand recognition then friend or follow as many people as you want, post comments on blogs, and make interesting videos. All of these things help make your brand recognizable to the public. Did I mention this is free???? T.V. ads cost a lot, PPC ads can cost a lot; Facebook (which does offer advetising that isn’t free- but you don’t need to pay to use it effectively) and Twitter are free. 

I’m not guaranteeing that social media is the holy grail of promotion (yet), nor am I saying this is all you have to do to be successful online. What I am saying is that social media is an effective low-cost first step to marketing your site, creating brand awareness, earning a positive reputation, finding new customers, and keeping them satisfied. So start requesting friends, following tweets, and building links – I’ll meet you there.