Social media as an SEO ranking signal defies logic

[scottb]

A prominent SEO personality says that postings to social media accounts is an important signal to search engines simply because they indicate website activity.

But if I post articles to my website, search engines already detect website activity. Meanwhile, posting to social media accounts takes precious time.

I know from work with clients that only certain business categories get clicks from social accounts to websites. Others get very little. So what is the benefit of maintaining social media accounts if they don't drive clicks, sales or SEO ranking signals?

[goodroi]

1) Don't blindly follow any SEO personality. Do your own research.

2) I've succeeded with social media so yeah it's possible. How? First, have the right motivation & goal in mind. Primarily I do this because I want quality traffic that does not depend on Google. That's not to say SEO isn't involved because there are most definitely SEO ranking benefits. Easier to explain the indirect SEO ranking benefits. Going viral on Reddit has driven huge amounts of traffic grew awareness of my brand & lead to sites linking to me. Once I had some popular Reddit posts, my site was then talked about on blogs & forums without me doing anything. Gaining a big following on Twitter, makes me appear to be a market leader which has led to journalists contacting me for news stories which also grew my backlinks. Not to mention my social media activity has led to people contacting me via different social sites with information that turned into free full page UGC for my site. So, there are real SEO benefits if you can succeed.

3) Every business can succeed in social media. Yes, every business but it takes creativity & pushing the right buttons in the right order. For example, you'd think why would someone follow a blender appliance company but then they start doing crazy "will it blend" videos & it is social success. Creativity is rare and not easy to fake. Every business can succeed but not every person can. It takes real creativity to win the social game. Most attempts will not make you rich or perform SEO magic.

4) Keeping it profitable is the trickiest part IMHO. Not every creative idea is profitable nor is every social media site. Do your homework. Look for timesaving services like scheduled posts or auto responses. Pay close attention to the analytics and adjust the strategy & tactics. For many people, social media is not the best option. We all have finite time & budget, so we all need to triage our marketing situation.

[saladtosser]

I have a page that has 3.7 Facebook shares and 12+k likes. The sites ranking above this article have zero Facebook shares and 1-2 page likes if that... Make your own assumptions on social signals directly impacting google organic rankings! What's worse one of the sites above isn't even mobile-friendly, go figure!