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Google Analytics is rolling in reports to help you answer this question.  Well… kind of.  

Check out the Social Sources report:

First thing you’ll notice are two graphs to compare against each other.  The top is your social referrers (that is, traffic from all the sites that Google buckets out as a social site), which is detailed deeper in 1 – 10 detail list further down the page.  

Let’s drill in one step deeper.  Click one of the listings (ie, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, etc).

Clicking the social platform you to compare takes you into that profile.  You can change between different pages now with a new selector that appears above, which looks like this:

So what are we comparing?

We’re comparing Visits via Social Referral (blue) with All visits (orange).  So, it’s a quick view of how much social traffic contributed to your overall traffic.  Are you doing a lot of social media work?  Did you have a bump on a Friday, and wanted to see where it came from?  Go to this report.  Set your date range and you’ll be able to see pretty quickly.  

But it gets more interesting.  Click the Activity Stream tab: 

Now the comparison changes to show Data Hub Activities (blue) vs. Visits (orange).  These are the same “visits via social referrals” that were in the first snapshot.  So what’s this Google Data Hub?  Google says, “The social data hub is a free platform that social networks and other social platforms can use to integrate their activity streams.”  Sounds like Google’s version of Facebook’s social graph.

So this makes sense.  If you notice in the Activity Stream, there are far less sites than Google was originally reporting.  Missing for me are Twitter, Linkedin, and Facebook, etc. Why?  Because they’re not playing ball with Google and the data hub.  Google doesn’t have information about shares and retweets here.  In other words, they’re not behind the wall. They know Twitter is a social network, and buckets it that way, but they don’t have accurate data out of the Twitter firehose.

But what we can see from the sites participating with Google is what traffic you receive from social engagement.  For example, here’s what it looks like filtered to Google+.

By looking at the graph above, I can see that on Monday, May 7, a link from my site was interacted with 4 times (blue), and led to 2 Google+ referrals (orange).  For you data junkies, if you have enough data you can put together your own value of social with your own KPIs per platform.  You can determine that spending most of your time on one network, vs. another, is a wise or dumb move.  Or, you can rely on the “conversions” report right below the sources report (if you use “goals”).  Do you have to be more social for your KPIs? Or do your current circles, say Google+, just not give a damn about the latest kind of content you’ve been sharing?

What Sites Are Data Hub Partners

AllVoices
Badoo
Blogger
Delicious
Digg
Diigo
Disqus
Echo
Gigya
Google+
Google Groups
Hatena
Livefyre
Meetup
Read It Later
Reddit
Screen Rant
SodaHead
TypePad
VKontakte
yaplog!

Where’s YouTube?  Hopefully more will be coming. I haven’t heard of most of these. But if I were a betting man, I’d say when Google really decides to do something bigger with social signals, these are the sites worth pursuing.

All in all, I think this can help marketers really decide if spending their day playing in social networks is valuable.  True – lots of missing social data, but some fuel to start making smarter assumption.

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Tweet for link love.  Tweet for the world.  Maybe Google isn’t into Twitter, but Twitter is still a great marketing platform that you can’t ignore.  

Here are a few reasons why you should keep Twitter part of your daily iMarketing Mix:

• Link prospecting / link negotiation
• Content inspiration
• Brand Exposure / Mindshare
• Referral Traffic (remember, Twitter has a search engine)

Link Prospecting / Link Negotiation

If you’re a link builder, you probably have some tools that you use to find relevant link partners.  Maybe Blogdash or Ontolo?  Maybe it’s just Google.  But by following and watching on Twitter, you can find some other authoritative authors.  You don’t even need to dig for their email – you have their Twitter handle.  Use Twitter daily to make some friends.  Find and talk to the cool kids in your industry.  Share and CC them on the relevant information you curate through Twitter.  If you’re awesome at what you do, and they’re awesome at what you do, you two can become mutual friends through Twitter.  

Expand the full conversation thread and start following anyone in the conversation who you think might be good to know.  Try FollowerWonk to search by the content in their bio – a lot of time Tweeters will add their area of expertise in their bio.  Create lists to organize them so you can listen to them without noise.  

In SEO, I have a lot of virtual friends through Twitter, some of which are pretty authoritative authors.  I’ve interacted with them so many times that we feel like we know each other at conventions when we finally meet face to face.  At any time I believe I could reach out to a few of them and ask for some links, some public support on an SEO project, or even a recommendation.  If Google starts to really value authorship markup the way I believe they will, having these brilliant authors as friends may come in handy.  You should use Twitter to start building a portfolio of your own, in your industry.

Content Inspiration

Got writer’s block?  Ask the Twitterverse.  Get their feelings on a topic, and write a solution or summary of the issues.  Ask them what they’d be interested in (but provide the relevant parameters).  Polling has been a great way for marketers to learn about their products and the needs of the public.  There’s no difference here – in content marketing you’re looking to create an article that satisfies a need.  In this case, your product is text.  

Twitter is a great way to learn about a niche that you may not be an expert in.  Example time – by using Twitter I learned about Jorts (a nickname for jean shorts).  Not only did I learn they are completely out of style and I look like an ass wearing them, but it was language my apparel client wasn’t even familiar with.  This term has 18,000 estimated US searches, and low competition – a pretty damn good section for a website.  

Brand Exposure / Mindshare

Brand exposure is a big deal. If you’re an authority on Twitter, and you’re pulling your brand with you through all your updates, you’re bringing awareness to your company.  No – this is not always measurable for ROI  Welcome to the fluffy side of digital marketing, where not all things are measurable.  Yeah, I said it.  

But by putting your brand out there and tying a human face to it, you can have discussions.  You can answer people’s questions (whether you were directly asked or not), or maybe even start a controversy.  You can inspire people to write content where you will hopefully get a link or shout-out.  Google will see these links.

You can ask your new Twitter friends and followers to help push out your brand and content.  Hell, I’m going to do it myself as soon as I hit publish.  Asking people to RT – especially if they respect what you do – can have a big reach.  Just don’t be a menace. Remember folks – there’s nothing wrong with asking for shares not only in Twitter, but Facebook, G+, Inbound.org <<< Hint Hint.

(Bonus, non-Google item) Referral Traffic

SEO doesn’t have to just mean Google and Bing.  Twitter has a search engine, and a lot of third-party apps use it as well.  The terms people use to search in Google are often the terms they used to search through Twitter.  By using these keywords in your tweets you have the likelihood of being served.  Will you probably get huge referring traffic by SEO’ing Twitter?  Probably not, but if you distill it down to a niche, you might get a decent amount of qualified referral traffic.

Now, off to trademark “iMarketing Mix” if it’s still available.

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If you haven’t visited inbound.org, try it. It’s a nice aggregator of digital marketing and design news.  User submitted, and user promoted.  Sound like Sphinn?  Yup.

I bailed on Sphinn pretty early.  Back then the SEO rockstar thing wasn’t as big as it is today, but it was still in play.  I’ve been blogging since 2008, and never got anything “sphunn” up to a visible level, even though I had a few really good articles.  I received thousands of visits off Google for a post I did about SEO friendly link shorteners (before SEL came and did the same article… bastards!)  It was a highly searched topic, and I was first to market, but on Sphinn, I was shit.  I pretty much determined it was because I wasn’t endorsed by a regular Sphinner.

This happened a few more times.  I couldn’t break in to get any traffic.  I couldn’t get any endorsements.  Now I don’t have heaps of empirical data, but I have come to the conclusion that it became a popularity contest.  That reminds me of High School, and I hated High School.  More bastards.
 

Let’s not let this happen again.  Here’s what you – the community – can do to prevent it.

1. Click the “Incoming” button.  Don’t just troll the “What’s Hot” – I promise you that plenty of awesome content lives there.  I promise you find so many more posts that are relevant to your interest.  Give them a vote.  Unlike the SERPs, there is life on the second pages.  In my opinion, the “Incoming” page should be the homepage.  How’s that for a twist?  Give all the people the same power!

2. Don’t submit low quality.  If it’s not something that’s new, or a fresh perspective, pass on it.  Even if it’s written by your favorite repeat SMX speaker.  Is it actionable?  Is it something that’s going to get people thinking?  Is it something that will garner a lot of comments?  A lot of the rock star SEOs post the same generic stuff over and over because they’re flushed for ideas.  This is a great way to build your real-life authority as a curator.

3. On the same tip… don’t vote something because the person who submitted it is a rock star.  It doesn’t make you a rock star by default.  It makes you a sheep.

4. Please don’t try to game it.  It’s not a sophisticated system.  History shows that all these “gamed” voting sites end up blowing up after they’re manipulated to hard.  

5. Please don’t spam it.  I’m pretty sure I don’t need to say this, but my OCD wanted me to make this a Top 5 list.  So there you go.

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I’m a firm believer that social media has very few – if any – actual rules (and minimal “best practices”).  Somehow many companies are still sitting and waiting for other companies to try something first. They spend so much time watching and not doing. Reading recipes and not cooking.  Worrying so much about the returns that they don’t dip their toe.

This not a good plan.  What works for others may not work for you, even if it seems like an obvious match. That’s about the only thing I’ve ever picked up watching others engage in social media.

If you are one of those companies who think what others do will determine your appropriate steps, Flowtown released this infographic that might help you realize just how behind you are.  Granted, this doesn’t really speak to strategy, just platform usage, but it’s indicates that after the last 3-5 years, social has pretty much validated itself as worth continuing.

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Check out my latest article for Search Engine Journal:

Can’t Get Those Rankings?  Maybe Your Social Circle Can Help!

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Search Engine Journal posted an article I wrote.  Check it out:

The Thinning Line Between SEO and Social Media

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Twitter Search Queries Up 33%, 24 Billion Searches Per Month (SearchEngineLand) – that’s pretty huge!  Just a few months ago they were up to 11 billion.  What a leap.  Why?  Well because Twitter isn’t going away; Google’s bringing it a lot more visibility, and it’s so easy when you give it a chance.  It’s a human run search engine.  Whether you go to search.twitter.com, or search through any one of Twitter API powered apps or sites, you’re going to quickly find fresh results.

Last week at a friend’s party, a drunkard mumbled, “Twitter is for idiots.  Nobody cares what you’re doing!”  Well, I don’t get offended that easily.  But I wasn’t about to bother explaining – he clearly enjoyed his obstinance.  But what I could have told him is Twitter is only what you make of it.  It’s a connecting tool between friends (like a status update on Facebook), or a news aggregator (follow those who post nothing but up to the minute news).  Maybe it’s an entertainment tool?  I know I like to follow people that make me laugh every day.  Maybe it’s a customer service tool (@ComcastCares).  I practically IM my coworkers with DMs using ChromeBird.

Granted, the 24 billion searches are probably from Twitter power users, of which I am one.   I routinely search for content and links via Twitter.  I think Twitter is one of the most useful social properties on the web, hands down.  You get used to the 120 (oops – 140… thanks Jack… I was asleep at the wheel there) characters, I promise.  Besides, we all have short attention spans anyway.

Are you a power user too?  Follow me @bill_sebald

Update:
So the word now is that these searches are inflated.  Apparently sporadic API calls from all the apps (like my ChromeBird) that ping the search command are included in this announced total.  Well, yeah… technically that’s a search, but really Twitter?  A little deceptive to put the number out there without that caveat.  You still have an incredible achievement to be proud of.

Related: Small Business SEO Services

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After my divorce, I got lots of advice from single friends on dating.  I was pretty clueless.  I learned that waitresses weren’t really that into me (they were just being nice), and not all women are into video games.  They also didn’t seem to care about SEO.  Hmm…

But one friendly lesson stuck with me.  ”When in a club, don’t look too eager.  Women notice that!”  This hit me – not because I was necessarily being one of those Night At The Roxbury guys, but I realized I did notice it when I was out; single guys craning their necks to target every woman.  Like throwing a flurry of darts with reckless abandon.

Many businesses who get into social media remind me of this.  It’s a sea of people, and instead of learning to speak the language, make friends, and nurture relationships, they start aggressively firing shots at potential closers.  When they don’t convert, they blame the night club (platform), or the girls (customers).  It’s too frantic.  In online social marketing, your customers expect you to engage with them.  They know when you’re desperate.  They see businesses do it all the time – the only rookies in the social media space are the businesses still going for instant gratification.

Unfortunately, bad pick up lines with your customers are just as bad, if not worse.  They destroy your chances and put you in a much worse light.  Cheap engagement tactics and sloppy execution without sizzle and value make businesses look even more desperate, and turn a flat “no” on the dance floor to blatant giggling and pointing.  Put some thought into what you should really do when taking your chances.

I had to learn to shape my conversations to my new audience (and not talk about video games).  Businesses need to do the same.  Forget a conversion rate if you can’t do this.

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I’m fascinated with Domino’s new campaign. The Crispin Porter & Bogusky backed push confronts – in an entirely public forum – their customer’s disdain for Domino’s Pizza. Brave move. Most companies who spend the time to learn what customers are saying, tend to keep this under wraps. Emails marked “confidential” start flying! But Domino’s are attempting to use it to their advantage.

This is a very social media thing to do. I think you should be doing this in the social world. It is, after all, still marketing.

The new world media gives businesses a face (if you didn’t create a face for your business in 2009, you’re already a year behind). This year I truly believe it’s about practicing your communication skills. When you’re writing your emails to your friends and colleagues, think about whether you can share it with your consumers. Does what you’re saying feed into the big picture? It’s probably valuable enough to have inspired you to write it – so should you share it? Possibly. That’s what your social consumers want from you anyway. They want to know how you feel about a market trend. They want to know if you have a plan. They want to know, well, if you realize your pizza sucks.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AH5R56jILag

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I provided an article to SmartBlog on Social Media. Check it out…

Click here to read the article

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