Jack Dorsey created twitter in March 2006 and it launched in July that year. It now has over 190 million users.

Twitter growth - from digitalbuzzblog

400,000 tweets posted per quarter in 2007
100 million tweets posted per quarter in 2008
February 2010, Twitter users were sending 50 million tweets per day
By March 2010, the company recorded over 70,000 registered applications.[
June 2010, about 65 million tweets were posted each day

Twitter seemed to really take off in 2008 and now everyone seems to be on it, generating 65 million tweets a day and has over 800,000 search queries per day. These guys who set up Twitter were very smart. Apparently, the idea came up from a brainstorming session which was held by board members of Odeo, a podcasting company. Dorsey introduced the idea of a person using an SMS service to communicate with a small group. The name was twttr which was the 5 character length of the US SMS short code. Dorsey posted his first tweet at 9:50am 5 years ago and the rest, they say is history.

His first post was: “just setting up my twttr”.

Twitter keeps setting bigger targets. When Michael Jackson died, they set a record of 456 tweets per second, but this was overtaken on New Years Eve 2010/11 when the record was 6,939 coming just four seconds after midnight. The record number of Tweets in a day sits at 177 million on March 11, 2011 so far with March 12, 2011 the biggest day for new account registrations at over 572,000 in a single day.

I wish I had thought about the Twitter idea – Jack is only a few years older than me.

RSS feed

What is RSS
RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication” and is the technical format of a web feed. It is just one way for expressing feeds as XML. Another popular feed is Atom. Both feeds are made to be viewed for computers, but you can view them as plain text files.

Who uses feeds?
Most websites that have a lot of content. The BBC news, amazon, google, all big websites will allow users to subscribe to their feed. Smaller sites such as bloggers will also have feeds.

Can I publish my own feeds?
Yes of course you can. If you have a website you can have a feed on your site. Using a cms like wordpress, drupal or blogger, you can choose the theme that incorporates a feed and you will be publishing your feed automatically.

How do you get started with feeds?
To read the feeds, you have to use a news aggregator. One of them is Google Reader. You can go to one place daily and receive all the updates from the sites where you have subscribed to their feed. It is really simple and saves so much time.

There are also feed reader applications:

* NewsGator – FeedDemon 2.0
* NewsGator – Inbox for Microsoft Outlook
* NewsGator – NetNewsWire
* Firefox (via “Live Bookmarks” feature)

Online Services

* Google Reader
* NewsGator
(Online)
* My Yahoo!
* Bloglines
* Pageflakes
* Netvibes

Podcast Readers

* iTunes
* Juice
* Doppler
* FireAnt

So now that you have chosen you feedreader, go and visit your favourite sites and subscribe to their feeds by clicking on the image as shown above.

1) Integration between ppc, seo and social media
This has been discussed last year but 2011 is the year where people are going to sit up and take note of the positive effects you can get from combining all three as a digital strategy. Once a client has tracking on their website, it is possible to see the visits from paid and natural and social sites. Cost savings can be made on paid search if the site is ranking well for some of those key terms. Regarding social media, blogger outreach content can be optimised by the seo team, if the blogger is going to write about a particular product, they might as well include a couple of links back to that site

SEO predictions for 2011

2) Local search
With the introduction of Google Places in September 2009 and then the merger of the local business centre in April last year, local search is going to play an even more important role in 2011. If you do not already use places for your business, then you should start now.

3) Mobile
People have been jumping on the mobile apps and mobile site bandwagon. Mobile will be increasingly important in 2011. However, webmasters and marketeers will have a better understanding of a mobile app vs a mobile site and how to make these “seo” friendly. To me, it is making your site readable on a mobile device and when someone is looking for your store, they should find it on their handset, which ties back into the second point above, local search

Here are a few seo predictions from the industry experts like Rand Fishkin

#1: Someone Proves (or a Search Engine Confirms) that Clicks/Visits Influence Rankings

I’m taking a chance on this one, but I’ve been hearing from more and more SEOs that there’s some correlation between earning clicks and moving up in the rankings. In 2011, we’ll get confirmation, either through testing or an admission from an engine that click-through-rate from the SERPs, visit count outside of search (or diversity of sources), or other usage-based data is in the ranking algorithm (or a method they use to help ID spam).

#2: Google Local/Maps Adds Filters and Sorting

The big reason Yelp is so much better than Google Maps/Local for finding a good local “place” isn’t just the reviews (which Google aggregates from Yelp anyway). It’s the filters that let me sort by features/pricing/proximity/open status/etc. Google’s been playing the silly game of forcing users to choose search queries to enable rough, imperfect filtering, but 2011 is going to see the search engine shift to a model that allows at least some important filters/feature-selection.

#3: Social Search Will Rise

There’s power in social media search, and Google/Bing’s efforts to date have been lackluster at best. I suspect in 2011, we’ll see the nascent beginning of search that leverages Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn connections to find results from your friends. It’s possible this will start niche-based only (search articles your friends have shared, ala Trunk.ly), but it could also be broader – possibly something from Facebook or Twitter themselves.

I am looking forward to SES London next month, when some of these predictions will be reinforced by other key speakers and industry experts. No one knows for sure what will happen in 2011, but based on the results from last year, we know there will be more developments in search and the fight between Google and Bing will continue.

Delicious has released a statement on their blog apologising to people about the stories.

“While we can’t answer each of your questions individually, we wanted to address what we can at this stage and we promise to keep you posted as future plans get finalized.”

Delicious also tried to assure their customers by answering the most common questions people have raised.

“Is Delicious being shut down? And should I be worried about my data?

- No, we are not shutting down Delicious. While we have determined that there is not a strategic fit at Yahoo!, we believe there is a ideal home for Delicious outside of the company where it can be resourced to the level where it can be competitive.

What is Yahoo! going to do with Delicious?

- We’re actively thinking about the future of Delicious and we believe there is a home outside the company that would make more sense for the service and our users. We’re in the process of exploring a variety of options and talking to companies right now. And we’ll share our plans with you as soon as we can.

What if I want to get my bookmarks out of Delicious right away?

- As noted above, there’s no reason to panic. We are maintaining Delicious and encourage you to keep using it. That said, we have export options if you so choose. Additionally, many services provide the ability to import Delicious links and tags.

We can only imagine how upsetting the news coverage over the past 24 hours has been to many of you. Speaking for our team, we were very disappointed by the way that this appeared in the press. We’ll let you know more as things develop.”

I am sure what will happen, but one thing is for certain, the search and social landscape is a constantly changing field where we all have to make sure we keep on top of what is a happening in the market place.

Tweet

On December 1st, Danny Sullivan, from search engine land published an interview he took with Bing and Google which confirmed that links shared through Twitter and Facebook have a direct impact on rankings. You can find out more here:

http://searchengineland.com/what-social-signals-do-google-bing-really-count-55389

Below is the interview by Danny Sullivan

Danny Sullivan: If an article is retweeted or referenced much in Twitter, do you count that as a signal outside of finding any non-nofollowed links that may naturally result from it?

Bing:

We do look at the social authority of a user. We look at how many people you follow, how many follow you, and this can add a little weight to a listing in regular search results. It carries much more weight in Bing Social Search, where tweets from more authoritative people will flow to the top when best match relevancy is used.

Google:

Yes, we do use it as a signal. It is used as a signal in our organic and news rankings. We also use it to enhance our news universal by marking how many people shared an article [NOTE: see the end of this article for more about that].

Danny Sullivan: Do you try to calculate the authority of someone who tweets that might be assigned to their Twitter page. Do you try to “know,” if you will, who they are?

Bing:

Yes. We do calculate the authority of someone who tweets. For known public figures or publishers, we do associate them with who they are. (For example, query for Danny Sullivan)

Google:

Yes we do compute and use author quality. We don’t know who anyone is in real life

Danny Sullivan: Do you calculate whether a link should carry more weight depending on the person who tweets it?

Bing:

Yes.

Google:

Yes we do use this as a signal, especially in the “Top links” section [of Google Realtime Search]. Author authority is independent of PageRank, but it is currently only used in limited situations in ordinary web search.

Danny Sullivan: Do you track links shared within Facebook, either through personal walls or fan pages?

Bing:

Yes. We look at links shared that are marked as “Everyone,” and links shared from Facebook fan pages.

Google:

We treat links shared on Facebook fan pages the same as we treat tweeted links. We have no personal wall data from Facebook.

Danny Sullivan: Do you try to calculate the authority of someone on Facebook, either say via their personal wall or their fan page.

Bing:

We don’t do this on Facebook. On Facebook, we only get what’s public, only updates and things you’ve posted to everyone as viewable. We don’t get things only shared with friends, so we don’t know how authoritative you are on Facebook. There isn’t the whole convenient retweet mechanism we see on Twitter.

We do see valuable content shared by Facebook users, even though we only get what’s public. For example when Gary Coleman died we saw a video from Different Strokes, saying his favorite line “what ya talk’in ’bout Willis” gain popularity. It happened to be what a lot of people are sharing on the day he passed away.

Google:

Again, the treatment is the same as for Twitter. And we have no personal wall data from Facebook.

Danny Sullivan: Do you calculate whether a link should carry more weight depending on the person who shared it on Facebook?

Bing:

We can tell if something is of quality on Facebook by leveraging Twitter. If the same link is shared in both places, it’s more likely to be legitimate.

Google:

Same as question 5.

So what does this mean for seo? Well it confirms what we already knew and the same best practices of seo can be applied here.
Facebook and Twitter can be seen as an external link building channel. The more varied the links from the different Twitter and Facebook fans, the better. So you can’t go on retweeting a post x number of times from the same account, hoping to build more authoritative links, it just won’t work.

I am pleased Google and Bing confirmed the impact of social media on seo as it proves my point that integration is the key in this digital space.

New organizer for the meetup

It is important to integrate, seo, social media and paid search and therefore I was pleased when the organizer position became available to demonstrate how these three areas can be integrated. I think it is hard to think of each separately in this digital age. There is so much cross over between the three.

Blogger outreach – social media seem to have taken control of this. However, when bloggers are contacted and write content about a product/service, the seo team should become involved. They should work with the social media team to put together optimised content the bloggers can post on their blog. Optimised content, simply means links on keywords back to the site that is building up rank and traffic.

Keywords – paid search data showing the impressions and number of clicks can feed into seo work. When a new page is built, the seo team carries out keyword research to see which words have the highest search volume. Google keyword is sometimes used to view the search volume for the terms but it is often inaccurate. This is when the paid search data can be used to see the words that have the highest click throughs. If paid search are using certain terms that are performing well, then these terms can also be used on the landing page for that campaign. This also helps to improve the quality score of the paid search advert.

Buzz - the social media team monitor the amount of buzz generated for a certain client. However, it is the seo team that monitors the traffic and sales to the site that this buzz has generated. The seo team also record the rankings for its key terms and should see rankings improve. It is important to be able to assign a ROI to the buzz, otherwise it is very easy to keep spending money on social media with out seeing a return on the investment.

Integration is not just a new word, it is here and now and going to stay. The more people pay attention to it instead of treating PPC, SMO and SEO separately, then the more we will be able to reap the awards.

Sign up to SEO, SMO and PPC meetup on meetup.com to network and meet like minded digital people.

But how do you actually know you are getting a good ROI for your social media campaign?

social media landscape

1. Traffic
Before you begin the social media campaign, make sure you record the number of visits to your site. If you have Google Analytics, you can export the traffic to your site and the key terms driving the most volume. You will see an increase in the amount of traffic during and after the social media campaign has finished.

2. Rankings
Measure your rankings weekly during the campaign. You should notice an improvement in the rankings as people are talking more about your site and your product.

3. Links
With an increase in the amount of buzz from the campaign, you should also see more links to your site. Make sure you record the number of inbound links before the campaign starts, this you can do by logging into your Google Webmaster tools.

You can easily measure the effects of social media if you are just working on that area of digital. It gets more difficult to relate the change in traffic, rankings and links when you are also running paid search, affiliates and off line advertising campaigns. However, you should consider social media as part of your integrated search and seo campaign. It is a growing area of digital and the effects it can have in terms of traffic and buzz to your site and around your brand can be phenomenal.

To make a good facebook page, optimised for both customers and seo, you need to get your fans talking about the brand and the experience.

The page needs to be kept fresh, full of relevant content and be kept active.

Here are a few tips:

• Relevant and timely content
• Special offers/ promo codes unique to facebook fans
• Ask your fans when you have a question – feedback is important
• Multimedia: add photos, videos, events
• Use facebook ads to drive new fans to your page
• Advertise by targeting your competitor’s fans
• Make it conversational, not salesy or spammy
• Use Facebook to build relationships with current customers, not to get new customers.

Optimising for seo

1.Choose the best name for your Facebook Page and stick to it.

Don’t put too many keywords in the title as it will be seen as spammy and will stop the viral growth of your Page.
Don’t make the facebook page too generic. Facebook want all pages to authentically represent business, brands or celebrity.

Use your business’s real name as the name of the Page.

2. Select the best URL (Facebook username) for your Facebook Page

The URL is one of the most important SEO opportunities on Facebook.
When you choose a Facebook username for your Page, your Page’s URL becomes www.facebook.com/YourUsernameHere. Facebook recently launched the ability to choose the vanity URL.

Once a username and URL is selected for your page, it cannot be changed, so choose wisely, use the business name with generic keywords which represent your company.

Facebook requires that your Page have at least 100 fans before it becomes eligible to select a username.

3. Use the “About” text box to place keyword-dense prose near the top of your Page

Place keyword-dense prose as close to the top of the Page as possible. There is a limit of 250 characters.

4. Include important keywords, priority links on the “Info” tab

Complete all the fields on the Info tab with keywords and links to other parts of the site. Make sure you also include your company address, company overview as this will all help to increase the content score of your Facebook Page for many types of Google searches.

Address, City, County, Post code are important fields for local searches

Company Overview, Mission, and Products are important fields for product searches

Make sure you choose the category that best suits your business as the different fields are dependent on the category.

5. Post direct links to your website (or other relevant sites) in your Page’s stream

Status updates are a great way to place direct links at the top of your Page’s structure and it can boost your Facebook Page’s link score.

There are two ways to put post links into your Page’s stream:

- Include the raw URL in the text of the status update itself

- Use the “attach link” feature in the Facebook publisher

6. Add photos with captions, events with descriptions, and a discussion forum

Always share interesting content on your Facebook Page.
Make sure that all photos and videos have titles and captions
When you post events, include text and keywords in the event description. Add a discussion forum to your Page.

7. Get more inbound links to your Facebook Page from the web

Post links to your Facebook Page on all your websites

The more inbound links you have to your Facebook Page, the more it will boost its PageRank.. You can do this with anchor text links and the “Find Us On Facebook” badge which it encourages Page owners to use.

8. Get more intra-Facebook inbound links from your fans

Facebook places links to Facebook Pages on the default version of Facebook users’ profile pages.
These links are visibile to search engines which is great for seo. The more fans you get, the more links you will have to your Page within Facebook.

And there you have it, a few tips to make sure you are top of the facebook search results and Google.

I work closely with social media who produce monitor the amount of online mentions or “buzz” for a particular brand. The seo guys use these buzz reports to see which bloggers and twitters are talking about the brands. The social media team contacts the bloggers but the seo team people give them the optimised content. This means that when the bloggers write about a particular product we have asked them to review they are linking back to our destinated web page on our key terms.

Facebook ties in with social media, but it also has an impact on seo. If your client wants to have a facebook page then they need to make sure it is optimised for seo. They must make sure that their key terms and links are on the facebook page and that they have an optimised URL.

Paid search and seo go hand in hand. By monitoring paid search adverts, we can see the number of impressions and click throughs for certain campaigns. If there is a high number of clicks on key terms and then we see through tracking that there is a high bounce rate, it may be that the landing page does not have enough content or that people cannot find what they are looking for. A new landing page will need to be created and the keywords that generated the highest CTR will be used in the page title, meta description and on page copy.

Another example of working together is when there is a brief for a new landing page to be built. Paid search will carry out keyword research to check the volumes around particular terms. This research can also feed into the seo recommendations.

The next time a client asks you just to do their paid search for them, look at their site and see if they have optimised it for seo. If they have not, show them the great opportunities there are with the integrated search strategy.

Integration is the key to unlocking traffic and high rankings.