Last year (2012) after Google released the new penguin updates in July, Morgan Drexen needed to re-evaluate how we engaged with our online community. This presentation developed by our SEO was the basis of our new social media paradigm. Since we have introduced these new ideas about social networking we have doubled our followers, and increased social engagements by 300%.

3. The latest batch of penguin updates will:
Incorporate social networking into their
consideration of domain authority and
search engine results pages
What the Google algorithms are looking for is
suspicious behavior, or not naturally
occurring accounts. If the accounts are used
like regular people use their accounts, then
you are safe.
How do Regular people use their social
networking:
• They engage with their "friends" or "social
affiliates" actively by tagging or
mentioning other members in their
community.
• They diversify media and even re-tweet
and or share other peoples content.
• They monitor their followers, friends,
circles, etc.
Because these regular people actually live and
participate in their digital communities.

5. According to
Google, if a post,
update, tweet, etc.
occurs in a
vacuum, it might
as well have never
happened at all.
GOOGLE SEARCH RESULTS ARE FOR USERS
Under these rules
I don’t show up
on Google :/
Me either :P
Me too! 

8. RE – ACT:
re·act/rēˈakt/
Verb: Respond or behave in a particular
way in response to something: "Iraq
reacted angrily to Jordan's shift in
policy".
Respond with hostility, opposition, or a
contrary course of action to: "they
reacted against the elite art music of
their time”.
If you would not act on it, the online
community won’t REACT to it.
- Inspire yourself first. If you are
inspired, then the online community
will be inspired too!

10. SEO STANDARDS FOR SOCIAL NETWORKING
Unique, Descriptive, Interactive
Content: Provide Social Media
Specific Marketing.
Accounts should have content
that is released only on a
specific social network. (ex:
Facebook promotion deployed
through events with special
promo code and opportunity to
save, “behind the scene”
Images that are just released
through twitter, etc.)

11. Use "#" to create a keyword to connect tweets of similar topics and or follow the same thread of conversation. (use this as much as
possible, # are indexed)
Engage our community with the use of "@profilename”. When using this, you are essentially engaging this account in a conversation.
If you properly engaging them with quality content, then they should reply. These replies are priceless and give brands authority
with twitter and ultimately with Google. I suggest following the account that your brand wishes to engage; this makes the
content look more natural and organic. I follow the people I engage with in a personal account, it’s even more important for
brands to act this way as well.
Occasionally Re-tweet: please find some stories or quality information to retweet. Retweets should equal about 1-5% of content
distributed on twitter. Why? Because algorithms look at account behaviors for validation that this account is being used by an
actual person. An actual person diversifies their media….Normal people will occasionally re-tweet. Brands need to act normally.
Following VS. Followers: Generally you want more people following your brand than your brand is following on twitter, or we want the
followers # to be higher than the # of people we are following. I suggest un-following suspicious accounts everyday and
following a few new valuable accounts everyday.
Who to follow?:
You can use these guidelines to estimate the quality of the twitter account (do not
follow people who are not following most of the criteria below)
•They are directly related to your brand: media that we actively support and
want to engage.
•Not active account (has not posted in the last 30 days)
•The account occurs naturally, (not a robot, diversified media, etc.)
•If we were to engage them with an mention will they respond?
•If we follow them will they follow us? (an account with a really low number
of accounts they follow will not follow you back, UNLESS you are directly
related to them (see criteria #1)
•BEWARE: of accounts that only tweet links, only re-tweet, don't engage
other accounts, or are not actively managing who they are. Following these
types of accounts will get us dinged for acting “suspiciously” and are not
quality following candidates.

12. Tags:
Tag any other relevant "friend" when posting content that is relevant to them. It’s relevant if they are in the
media/story/picture/etc., or if they think that the media/story/picture/etc., is interesting or funny. This means you have to
spend the time to get to know the "friends" for your brand account. Watch what they post, follow the newsfeeds and
engage.
Get “Like” happy:
Much like mumbles dancing feet in the movie “Happy Feet”, Facebook “likes” are contagious. The more likes you give out, the
more likes you get.
Think about it, if someone, who never engages you on Facebook, posts a new update are you going to break the ice and
comment on it? Maybe yes maybe no, either way you are going to hesitate right? Why, because even though we have
agreed to view the most intimate details of each others lives, we are still not actively engaging each other. There is an
unspoken agreement “I engage these individuals regularly” anything outside of that agreement could be violating privacy.
A simple “like” however is a harmless, and most people enjoy the attention. It’s a simple harmless way to engage your
community.
Share:
Find updates to share. Maybe it’s our favorite charity announcing their next fundraising event or a great financial tip from a
“friend”. This is part of diversifying content.
Comment:
When you think that you can add value to a thread. Engage when you believe that engagement will be successful (resulting in
“likes” or furthering the conversation. The search engines that crawl websites are smart enough to know when you are
being topical and adding value (even if people don’t engage you). This is also part of diversifying content.
Updates:
Valuable content should be generated right here in the update. Be real and tangible. People get excited by your excitement,
express yourself on behalf of your brand. What are you proud of, excited about and what emotionally stimulates you? Get
this message across to your users.
BEWARE: Avoid certain types of posts ex: only links and videos. Avoid doing anything in a vacuum, all updates being generated
for the sole purpose of engaging the brand’s online community.

13. Updates: (including images and videos) should be focused around providing value to the
online community. Value looks like: free gifts, highly unique valuable information,
user interactivity agents like surveys, videos, and events.
If it is not adding value, it should most definitely engage or include some sort of call to
action (ex: image of $, with a caption that reads “If you enjoy the smell of money…”
sure this seems sly, but its has worked for 1000’s of strong brands like petco and
petsmart)
Event: Create events with reasons why people should engage now (ex: a limited offer, free
gift with enrollment, etc.). Create events inviting the online community to share in
your brand real world activities.
Milestone: When your brand reaches a new goal, or is proud of certain big events in the
history of the company, the brand can announce them with “milestones”. Milestones
are equivalent to “life events” on normal pages. Ever noticed how when your friends
change their relationship status* and the update is placed at the top of your news feed
for an unusually long time? That’s because “life events/milestones” are indexed
within the social network as having more importance than status updates. This
increases the amount of traffic that views this post, and because of this is more likely
to engage the online community.
Question: This is a Facebook survey. Use this to poll your brand’s audience. Brands can ask
useful questions or ask silly questions, use this tool to express the attitude of your
brand or engage with your audience in new significant ways. In addition to engaging
your audience, the users who respond to your question will post their activity onto
their wall and their friends, family, etc. will see that they interacted with your brand.
Share: Make it a point to share other people’s valuable posts. Your brand is not the end all
be all of (enter product or service), and there are businesses who do what your brand
does better than your brand does. Sharing can be what what makes your brand
unique. Acknowledging this through shares or re-tweets creates a much more
believable, approachable brand. Also, its looks unnatural to Facebook and Google if
we don’t

14. Google search engine robots prefer an active and engaged Google+
account, go figure. Since we are seeking a certain end result from
Google we should probably humor them.
Note: Most people and companies completely forego Google+ accounts,
usually to their own demise, so the expectations here are a lot more lax.
You can use Google+ to distribute articles just like you would with a
Facebook and twitter account.
Unique Tools: Hangouts, Communities, G+ pages,

15. LinkedIn is B2B social networking only. Because of this, LinkedIn ranks
higher than other social networking sites.
When people endorse your brand for skills, your brand needs to approve
this before it shows on your brand’s profile and search engines will
then be able to index your LinkedIn profile for these endorsements.
Keep posts relevant to business or job creation almost exclusively. Part of
what
Google is looking for here is an account actively used, relevant, and
topical. Posting several times a week will continue to improve your
brand authority.

16. YOUR COMMUNITY: USE IT OR LOSE IT

18. THIS EXAMPLE WAS COVERED BY A
TECHNOLOGY MAGAZINE, MASHABLE.COM

19. COVERED BY EVERY MAJOR NEWS NETWORK ON 11/26/2012

21. KLOUT.COM