Ranking Social Media By Search Engine

Whether you understand how to use them or not, social media does play an important role in the success of your Internet marketing efforts. This is not just because you can connect to a wide variety of potential customers but because the signals that are picked up by the search engines from your social media campaigns can actually help you rank better. These are called "social signals" and refer to the indicators that the search engines use to value your social media network.

Google & Bing Discuss Social Signals
Let's discuss what social signals really do count and what you should be aiming for – for the best impact. A while back Google and Bing were asked to discuss how they use social media data from Facebook and Twitter and how it influenced web search results. This is the summarized data for you, below.

Search Engines Looking at Trust Factors

The search engines have admitted that they have ways to determine if someone seems to have trust on Twitter. If a business or website seems to have a lot of dedicated followers, the algorithms pick up on it and seem to give them some "authority." The authority of a Twitter page that is trustworthy in the eyes of the search engines could provide credibility to other webpages that they link to.

For example, let's say that "Bob's Building Business" is deemed trustworthy by the search engines on Twitter and that Bob's website provides a link to local graphic designer's website. The graphic designer's website could potentially get more credit from Bob's link than say a link from a less trustworthy or authoritative voice. Bottom line is to get mentions or links from other relevant industry players from their social media outlets for improved trust.

Social Signals
Facebook also carries similar signals from the search engines. When the search engines were asked if they track links shared within Facebook they both said yes, with Google saying they treat them the same as the re-tweeted links. The person who provides the link also comes into play as the more notable or authoritative the author the more weight given. So it seems that social authority keeps coming into play when it comes to the weight placed on links provided in Facebook and Twitter. Both companies said that if an article is re-tweeted or referenced a lot in Twitter they use those indications as signals.

Bing's Unique Signals
Bing is the only of the two search engines that has personal wall data from Facebook, so Google seems to favor the signals from Twitter more. Worth noting, is that Bing mentioned that if a link is shared on both Facebook and Twitter it may be considered more legit and thus receive more authority.

Google Looks at Numbers & Quality
Google said in an outside video that important considerations regarding followers had to do with the number and quality. They are looking for industry relevant followers, not just bots or software programs who are involved in your social media campaign.