I spend quite a bit of time on a few different social networks. Most recently I’ve been reviewing Cre8Buzz here. Yet I don’t spend a lot of time on social networks because I think they’re productive, so as you can guess I think maybe I should be spending less time there. In general I think you get significantly more benefit from writing a blog post or page on a web site you control, as opposed to writing it on a social network. Still, like the proverbial glass of wine with dinner, most non-alcoholics won’t be too harmed by a moderate use of social networks, and may even derive a certain health benefit.
From a search perspective, content on a social network site has an important limitation that content on your own web site does not. This limitation is that your content may appear several links away from the main page. Because of this, even your profile page not be indexed by the search engine for some time after you’ve been active — let alone any brilliantly conceived blog posts you’re letting loose on the world. I’ve yet to see my Cre8Buzz Profile get indexed by either Yahoo or Google, for example.
In addition to being indexed slowly (if at all), although the the community may have collected considerable page rank, being several links away from the home page means that this value is likely to be watered down fairly thoroughly by the time it gets to you.
Let’s take the example of a blog. Let’s see how far away from the home page your blog appears in three different scenarios:
Scenario: Stand alone blog.
Links: 0. (By definition, in this case your home page is your blog).
Scenario: Integrated web site and blog.
Links: 1. (User comes to your home page, clicks on “Blog Link”, and there they are.
Scenario: ActiveRain. Assume you’ve been posting enough there that you’re on page one for your county. Otherwise add links.
Links: 4 Home –> State –> County –> Your Profile –> Your Blog
On the positive side, if you choose a real estate community (as opposed to a general community like Cre8Buzz), you get an advantage from being part of a huge site that has a great deal of “thematic content” about your subject. This would not be the case if you participate in a general community like Facebook or Cre8Buzz. I have also noticed that the search engines don’t seem to index content on the more general social networks as readily as they do the content on more theme-based sites.
The other positive benefit you derive from posting on social networks is the opportunity to provide some link love for your main web site or blog. However, it’s easy to overstate the benefit from this, since traditional wisdom is that the search engines like to see incoming links from a variety of sources. Thus, 10 blog posts on your main site with 10 incoming links from your ActiveRain blog are likely to receive less of a benefit than would 10 blog posts with 10 different sites linking to them. And remember, incoming links only count for reputation — in terms of page rank, a link is a link is a link, and a page on your web site or blog will naturally have a lot more internal links to different pages on your site, and fewer links pointing to the rest of someone else’s site.
Tags: Blogging, SEO, SEO Benefits of Social Networks, Social Networking, Social Networking Criticism, Web 2.0, Web 2.0
November 13th, 2007 at %I:%M %p
Hey man, nice assessment. Ya make some good points. Social Networks do have a lure, that is for sure. Unfortunately, or fortunately, people are still learning how to use them to derive greater benefit. Obviously, I’m a bit biased to cre8Buzz. However, besides the obvious reasons, I’m a fan because it combines the “thematic” value of a vertical site like Active Rain, with the general and broad audience of a Facebook, (ok we’re not that big yet, but hey). cre8Buzz chose to rate and rank everything to push the best stuff forward and give it the best placement on the site. (Like a pagerank) The purpose was for searchability. Someone going on cre8Buzz or someone in general looking for Real Estate content is only two clicks away from the best Real Estate information. Going both vertical, and horizontal allows for more people to find more stuff, therefore providing a greater return to those who put the effort into our site. Your point re: search engines is a good one. However, it is still about being found. If a social-network is designed to reward and showcase the best content by interest area (cre8Buzz community) which in turn drives more traffic to you, your blog, and your business then hasn’t it performed the same function as a search engine?
November 14th, 2007 at %I:%M %p
Hey antman,
Appreciate your comment. I’m a little bit of a Web 2.0 heretic in that I make a distinction between being found and being found by people who are ready to buy something. That is to say, I make a distinction between traffic and qualified traffic. That might be less of an appropriate distinction on a marketing blog like this one, where the people kicking around on a social network might also be just the ones looking for a solution, but in real estate the distinction is typically a fairly real one.
But anyway, as you know, I still support your efforts.
November 15th, 2007 at %I:%M %p
Hi John, I found your comments on this site most interesting. So far, I like Cre8buzz as a possible real estate social networking site and I like that right now they are invitation only, but your point about being found vs. being found by somebody who wants to buy (or sell) is why we as agents are on the internet. Frankly, the more time I spend in this type of social networking is less time I spend working on getting prospects to my site. I’m thinking we’re spending more time hoping these days that somebody will give us their contact info through clicking through on all these social connections, vs. keeping our sites current with the latest search technology. That led to my topic post on Cre8buzz because my blog gets a lot more hits than my other site (which does get changed beyond my control) where I used to get leads in the hot market but far fewer now. Keeping up with internet traffic thing and knowing where people go for info is a big thing! Thanks for your post.
November 15th, 2007 at %I:%M %p
Hi Julia,
Yes, I think Web 2.0 might be summed up as having two times as many places to spend time, but a lot of it is pure busy work.
I’ve spent a lot of time competing with others on ActiveRain that could have easily been spent whipping one of my other local sites into shape for example.
I was intrigued by your post on Cre8Buzz. My most successful site is an integrated blog / web site. I really think that given the competition for keywords, having a mega-site is often the way to go.
November 15th, 2007 at %I:%M %p
It’s something for me to think about; I don’t have an exact date, but I think I’ll be making changes in the future–it’s another project to find a new method and/or provider and to decide on a new platform!
November 17th, 2007 at %I:%M %p
Thanks Julia,
Let me know if I can be of any help or if you want to discuss your requirements.
I realize I don’t have much of a storefront here yet, but hopefully my success on some of my own sites tells you something. I need to get in here and really put up some service offerings and prices, etc., but real estate keeps cutting a whole in my whole day.
March 6th, 2008 at %I:%M %p
Have you checked out Propertyqube.com? It seems to offer a lot in the ways of promoting my own stuff, by importing my content to their site rather than me posting on their site and sending them all my traffic. I can keep my content mine, and “advertise” on their network… plus they incorporate the buyer/renter with the agent/broker in one social network…
What are your thoughts?
http://www.propertyqube.com
March 7th, 2008 at %I:%M %p
Hi Dave,
It looks interesting and I think it’s neat that you write about your home improvement projects there. Admittedly, lately I’ve been a bit too focused on ways to get paid for writing one way or the other to find much appeal in doing it for free, but if you get to write about stuff you’re interested in and chat with some pals, that’s not a bad thing.
I wouldn’t think it has much appeal for a Realtor(r) trying to market themselves, though, would you? Kind of peripheral.
March 24th, 2008 at %I:%M %p
I can’t say for sure if it offers the best value for a Realtor, I think right now, 90% of people looking to buy a home will not look online to a social network to find a realtor.
However, if we see another boom like we did 5 years ago, the facecbook generation will look exclusively to sites like these for opinions from friends, recommendations, and to find specialty services.
I think for the upcoming generations, in order to sell them on your services as a professional, people MUST enter these sites and embrace them.