Social Media Tip #6 Interconnect Your Channels.
Do You Want Google to See Your Brand Everywhere on Social Media?
Today I am going to show you many different social media profiles. These profiles will help Google, Bing and other search engines recognize your brand. This technique will also help you build authority in your desired niche online.
The great thing about what I will teach you today is that it is only time intensive the first time you set up your profiles. Once your profiles are set up you can stop by them occasionally for maintenance or if you are a go-getter post to them.
First thing you need to do is set up accounts, if you don't already have them. I am going to break this down by order of importance. If anything I mention here is too advanced for you please search Youtube for the answers. That is how I learned.
Set Up Your Google Properties.
Click Here to See Randy Hilarski Google Plus Profile Then Click About
- Set up your personal Google Plus profile. Believe me I have heard it all. I don't really care about peoples opinions about Google Plus. Get on it, use it and dominate. I know this may seem obvious but wouldn't it make sense to use the social media platform the king of search built?
When you click on About I want you to notice all of the links on my profile. You don't have to use all of the profiles I use. The ones I post here on Steemit are the ones I want you to focus on.
Set up your Youtube profile. Notice the Social Media channels on the far right of my channel image. I want you to do the same when you finish setting up your social media. From left to right I have GPlus, Blogger, Twitter, About.me and Diigo. Why these social media channels? These are some of the most important identifying channels for your brand to Google.
Set up Your Blogger. Once again it would make sense to utilize a Google property for blogging purposes. This could be a place for you to repost your Steemit articles with a citation at the bottom saying the original post was on Steemit. You can have multiple blogs on blogger. The one we are using here is my Panama blog where I post Panama related content.
Look at the right side bar and scroll down to My Social Profiles. This is a widget called, "Link List Gadget" on Blogger. Add all of your social media channels here. As far as I know you can add as many as you would like.
Social Media Profiles that Google Loves.
About.me- A simple yet beautiful online business card. You can add all of your social media channels on this one as well. Make it look visually appealing because you would be amazed at how many people will find your profile.
Diigo- A social bookmarking site that saves your favorite links. You can see how it allowed me to put in some of my social media profiles on the left side. Whenever you have the opportunity to interlink your profiles, do it!
Gravatar- This website is similar to About.me. It give you a chance to attach all of your social media channels. It is part of the Wordpress community.
Wordpress.com- Set up a simple Wordpress blog and add the Gravatar widget to the right sidebar and set all links to public. Also add the About.me widget to the right sidebar and add your About.Me url.
Personal Blog- If you own a personal blog make sure to add it to all of your social media channels. If you use a Wordpress.org like I do then set up your Yoast SEO to interconnect with Google Plus, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.
Twitter- This one might be obvious but there are a few tricks that need to be enabled. First make sure you have your website or Steemit link where Twitter allows you to enter a link.
Then in the text area I want you to add a few hashtags that are important to your brand. Then I want you to add your link again. Notice I have my website and my Steemit blog there. I know it seems redundant but when someone hovers over your profile they can click on your links. If they are not there people would have to come to your profile to find your link. Remember the less friction you give users to make a decision the better.
Second Tier Sites That I Recommend to Add to All Of Your Social Media Profiles.
Facebook- I don't care if it is a Facebook page or Facebook Profile, they both work. The only reason I add Facebook is because so many people use it. I personally prefer my personal profile for this task. My wife uses here Facebook page. Add your website or Steemit blog to your About section.
Pinterest- This is a social media platform that I use to quietly help our clients rank using imagery. See Guide to SEO "Optimize Your Images" for Google on Steemit in order to SEO images properly. Always post images with a link to a blog. No link means no SEO value.
Instagram- A platform I despise but use to help build my brand. You have one opportunity to add a clickable link here. I would recommend your personal website or use Steemit. It is located in the About section.
Also if you use IFTTT.com you can automatically send your Instagram images as Native images to Twitter, Tumblr, Blogger, Facebook or Pinterest with ease. You can also put a text link under the image that will be clickable on the other platforms. Can you say, "making something out of nothing?" You might as well make the most out of your time.
Tumblr- Tumblr is a powerful social blogging platform. Choose a blog template that allows you to add your social media buttons. I chose "Sandy". I send RSS feeds and Instagram posts here.
LinkedIn- This is one of the most important profiles you can have. I recommend you set up your profile professionally. Also add projects you are working on. This one does not offer much SEO but possible business connections will go your LinkedIn profile before they go anywhere else.
There are more sites but this will suffice for now.
What Do You Do Next?
It is up to you whether or not you want to actively use the profiles. I use many tools to post to my profiles. The main objective of this training was to get you set up and all of your social media platforms interconnected. Google will now pass more authority to your brand.
This whole process could take 2-3 hours per profile for a beginner. I recommend learning how to set up each platform individually and properly. Then once they are completed you can go back and interconnect them.
This is the beginnings of what is called a link wheel. I build these for clients. To do one from scratch takes up to two weeks. Building out the platforms is just the first step, interconnecting them is the second step and then using them is the third step.
Shameless, Self-Serving Plug.
If you would like me to build one out for you feel free to contact me at himgpanama@gmail.com. We can do it with a personal blog , Youtube channel or Soundcloud channel. The cost is $1200 (Bitcoin, Dash and SBD accepted). The build takes about 3 weeks to complete.
I will have to watch it on you tube to get the hang of it but never thought of adding to Facebook and instagram.
They only have one link available each but if you use IFTTT they can actually become of some use.
I will check it out thank you
Lots to think about here and I'm enjoying your series. So do you actually get engagement from people on all those platforms? I know they won't be the same people, but I see so many posts made to different platforms with no engagement, not even any Facebook likes, for example, for post after post after post. And if you do get engagement everywhere, how are you managing it from a time perspective? I have a hard time just with Steemit and my YouTube channel.
I've also read that Google penalized our SEO if we duplicate content, like just copying our Steemit posts to our website. Is that true?
Thanks
The amount of engagement is based on how much you put into each individual platform. The purpose of this training is signify to search engines that you exist. The secondary objective is to let know what subject matter you are talking about.
As far as duplicate content you will be fine as long as you give a citation at the bottom saying that the original content came from Steemit.com. My content goes to about 20 places when I write a blog post on my main blog. I only take an occasional post from Steemit and repost.
Thanks for stopping by!
Thanks for replying. The amount of engagement is what is so intimidating about having a lot of different platforms. I'm trying to work out what kind of engagement will be best for the different platforms I'm on. Your tip about putting the comment that the original post came from Steemit is helpful!
Definitely give the credit to the original article to avoid penalty. Also pick just a few platforms to focus on and put the engagement energy there. Spreading to thin is not good as well. If you have a business then outsourcing platforms you are weak on could make a big difference.
All great tips -- thanks again!
Great timing! I'm actually about to work on something for my wife and will be creating all of this for my own company in the coming weeks.
In your opinion, is it even worth having your own website if you're not even selling anything?
For my first two years online I did not have a website. I used my social media channels to build my brand. If I was starting all over today it would be the first thing I set up because it is the only blog you own 100%. For example if Steemit goes belly up we lose our content.
Well Steemit.com could go belly up, no problem. If the Steem blockchain ceased to operate however, then we'd lose our content because the blockchain is the database where all content is stored.
nice post youhave lots of followers lol hehe
It took five years and lots of work. ; )
Wonderful article. Very helpful. Thanks for posting
I appreciate it Stephen!
Thank you for this post. Really good info, I will try out your suggestions
I know it looks like a ton of work but believe me it is worthwhile.
Thank you for the post, I was just thinking of getting started with this!
It is so worthwhile!
I spent a period of my life in the digital advertising space, and I am very much a sucker for good writing on the topic so Steemit authors can learn to grow their follower base to monetize. I love the series.
I have upvoted this content and will feature it on my daily hidden gems blog. I love the series and decided to follow you as well. Thanks for taking the time to write these articles.
Thank you for the support @lpfaust.
Thanks for giving me a road map; some of these I knew I should be doing, but not others. I was introduced to this concept when I edited a book several years ago for someone who helps CEOs increase their positive web presence; I went on different platforms to understand and better edit her text.
I had set up Google+ several years ago but never did much with it; I have more of a reason now. I need to get everything I have updated and integrated and add more, which means I need to become more efficient
Just keeping up with Steemit is difficult, and I have spent less time on Twitter as I have spent more time on Steemit. I'm still trying to figure everything out, including time allocation and formatting, and I haven't written much yet, but I'm making progress. Now I need to start back at number 1 and get organized! Too bad I have to work my regular gig today.
Time is something we all struggle with. That is why I rely heavily on tools to help manage my accounts. I know I could be doing 3-4X the effort but clients come first. If you just focus on the most important accounts you should see a nice bounce in traffic.
Thanks for the encouragement.
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