We've all heard of blogging but micro blogging is still new in the social media industry. It has really found an appeal with web 2.0 users and this type of social media can be seen in networks such as Twitter. Twitter, one of the most successful micro blogging networks, is the third largest social network on the Internet today. It has only been in existence for three years – it was launched October of 2006 – and there are between five and six million users ‘tweeting' on it every day with another 55 million visitors logging in simply to read the ‘tweets'. Twitter has taken the world by storm and has opened up another line of communication for businesses looking to reach out to their customers.
While many marketers are attempting to figure out how social media like Twitter will help bring in traffic to their sites, search engine optimization professionals are using the way social media marketing works to their advantage. They are using micro blogging to enhance their networks and the way they deliver communications while still interacting with customers on a human level. This is helping companies build a stronger and more durable relationship. When you get people to follow your ‘tweet' on Twitter or your blog somewhere else, you are getting your message out to bloggers, reporters, journalists, correspondents and more in addition to your current and potential customers who may otherwise have never heard about you.
Micro blogging sites are starting to change as well, just like other websites. After all, in order to keep up with the ever changing computer world, you have to update your websites and processes. Search engine spiders are even keeping a track of these changes. Sending out a micro blog post or ‘tweet' is the quickest way to get your message to the masses and indexed. In a way, micro blogging sites are no different than sites that put out press releases or news wires which gives them huge potential when it comes to using them as internet marketing outlets. Viral marketing is becoming the spine of the social media marketing industry thanks to micro blogging.
The only downfall to using Twitter as a marketing tool is that you cannot utilize one of the best SEO practices out there: link building. There is a ‘nofollow' attribute built into user submitted Twitter links that keeps the search engine spiders from doing their job. This keeps your ‘tweets' from being counted in page rankings. The off page benefits of Twitter and other micro blogging sites, however, make up for this one small problem and you can expect this aspect of the marketing industry to simply keep growing.
