Bloggers often feel that it is sufficient to provide regular and timely content to their readers. What they often overlook is the need to blend their social media networks into their blogs. While it may be great to have well written content, unless people are finding, reading and sharing it, you might as well be talking to yourself when you blog.

Why Social Media Matters

There have been numerous accounts of how Google’s Panda update impacted blogs, writing sites and even high-powered websites. Many of these sites screamed that their content was original, timely and relevant. However, Google went a step further and rated content based on how much traffic it was able to attract. Today, bloggers who fail to share their content on their social media sites will typically find their traffic staying at the same levels for days, weeks or even months at a time.

Incorporating social media

Bloggers often feel that incorporating their social media activities into their blogs means they are going to have to learn how to do all types of fancy programming and that it has to be time consuming. This is no longer the case since social networking sites have made it easier than ever to link blogs to social media accounts. There are several options available, some depending on the platform that the blog is created on including:

• Plugins – WordPress platforms work best with high-quality plugins. These are generally created by independent programmers and available for a small fee or donation to the developer. These plug-ins vary from those that will allow readers to share content with others to those that will automatically notify social media sites of new posts.

• Badges – Many of the popular social media sites offer users the ability to obtain code directly from the site and insert it into individual blog posts or along side-bars. These badges link the readers directly to the bloggers social media sites. These are especially good for those who maintain fan pages on Facebook, Groups on LinkedIn or have an active Google+ account.

• RSS Feeds – Perhaps one of the most overlooked tools for bloggers is the RSS feed. These feeds allow bloggers to do numerous things including (a) setting up an interactive newsletter, (b) making a “sticky” post of social media feeds or (c) feeding new posts directly to social media accounts.

Today, webmasters must prepare their blog and social media campaigns carefully in order to draw attention to their websites. Whether a business is providing services or products, all of the pieces must be carefully integrated for maximum success. Not too long ago, many business owners felt that having a website to display their products or services was enough. Today, this is not the case as users are growing more demanding and Google as well as other search engines are putting a higher emphasis on the value of social media.

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• July 28, 2011 — Digital Influence Group CEO Glenn Engler to Host New Episodes of Market Edge

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