Are you wasting your money and time getting fake Likes and Tweets? Can you Fake Social Signals?
You are. I acknowledge that Google says that these are included in its ranking algorithm and that they are valuable. What I doubt is whether bloggers like you or I can ever get enough of them to make much difference to our ranking.
Likes and Tweets
Each social networking site appeals to different group of users, so you need to look at each one separately.
Facebook Likes
The people who actually use Facebook do so in order to keep up with friends and relations. These users are not remotely interested in your latest blog post or article. They are not interested, will not visit and even the few who do will click away almost instantly.
Facebook pages do have their place to help you to establish and communicate with your user base.
Twitter Tweets
Twitter is the most over-hyped site on the Internet. The people who use Twitter only Tweet their own doings and rarely read others’ tweets. If your marketing tweets are not going to be read then there are better ways to spend your time. Twitter is a way for the famous to ‘talk’ to their ‘followers’. People on Twitter loathe marketing messages and are not even remotely interested in your latest blog post.
Automated Twitter systems are a total waste of money because no genuine user will ever read or act on your messages.
How CAN You Use Facebook?
Facebook can be useful to grow your user base, but you are going to have a very low conversion rate. Very few people who are attracted by your initial message will bookmark or revisit your site.
If you have a Facebook widget on your site it encourages your visitors to leave. Is that what you really want? It’s what Facebook wants and they encourage you to send them your visitors by persuading you that it is in your long-term interests. Huh?
Facebook needs to send you more visitors than it takes away for you to benefit from the relationship.
In many ways Facebook acts as a parasite, sucking visitors away, sucking away the lifeblood of your site.
How CAN You Use Twitter?
I don’t think you can. Even if you are on Twitter full-time, building ‘relationships’ those people are never going to actually stay on your site, even if they ever visit it. They are Twitter users first and Internet users second.
Twitter is designed for the texting generation who flit from subject to subject like leaves blown in the autumn wind.
Twitter is a substitute for real communication.
Your Response?
I realise that this post is contentious and that it goes against the acknowledged ‘expert’ view, but the people selling Twitter and Facebook are usually also trying to sell us some ‘tool’ that will make the job easier.
Have you had any success with either Facebook or Twitter?
Would we be better off spending our time writing new material than tweeting and liking?
How do we promote our sites?
Are social networking sites parasites on the Internet body? They produce no new content, after all.
Written by Phil Turner, an ex-teacher from Ireland. Phil believes that to succeed in anything you have to help others and share your own knowledge. He makes a living mostly by writing on his own sites, which include HowToMakeExtraMoneyWriting.com and 21CWoman.com.
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