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Chris Sherman, an internationally known expert on Search, spoke today about the growing importance of Social Media. Although it will not replace traditional SEM efforts, Social Media, Social Networks and Vertical site directories are certainly impacting the landscape. Chris pointed out some of the big brands that have MySpace accounts. But it’s not just participation in Social Networks that gives rise to some successful branding, it’s the ‘attitude’ that the brand brings. As Chis points out, the most popular Social Networking sites “have attitudes that are very much ‘anti traditional’ marketing.” Some brands aren’t even recognized easily. To effectively leverage the power of Social networking for branding, linking, creating buzz, etc. a certain bit of ‘edginess’ is usually required. If it’s not compelling and relevant, the back button is 1 nanosecond away. Even worse, companies that are identified as spammers can easily have their efforts backfire, generating negative associations with their brand.

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I find it quite amusing that Wikipedia has done a wholesale negation of all of its links because of an SEO contest.

For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about (and who really does?), SEO (search engine optimization) success has a large deal to do with who links to whom. Getting a reference link from an authority makes search engines improve their view of that website. For instance, anyone wishing to land a decent job has to provide references. Strong professional references from a known authority help validate any claims in one’s resume. The same is true for search engines.

When a respected authority website such as Wikipedia links to another site, it essentially is casting a vote in favor of that website. However, since Wikipedia (notice the lack of link!) is frightened that SEO ‘spammers’ might wrongly influence the links of their authority website, they put a barrier up so that NO ONE can have an outbound link that can be seen by search engines. A few bad apples certainly ruined a good thing. In my favorite terminology of SEO professionals, Wikipedia now prevents the passing of ‘link juice’ by putting a link condom on all of their outbound links. Actually, it’s more like a site wide vasectomy. (more…)