The Impact of a Social Network on Search Rankings

by Dennis McAdams

Through social networking one can expand oneâ€™s business, and increase social contacts by making connections through other individuals. It refers to structural characteristics such as proximity to others, frequency of social contact and the type of relationship one is in. Social networks represent both a collection of ties between people and the strength of those ties. Social networking establishes interconnected Internet communities that help people make contacts that would be good for them to know, but that they were unlikely to have met otherwise.

Through social networking sites people not only interact to each other, they also share photos, music, TV clips. In this way social networks are used by companies in order to promote their brands or products. Joining a social networking site is one of the best and easiest ways of advertising your business absolutely free. It is a great method of increasing your client base and you are not even restricted by geographical boundaries. So while you can make a community of local businesses in order to garner your local target customer, you can also join communities of other similar businesses in order to be visible to the overseas buyer who is in another country or continent.

There are several advantages of social networking in an internet marketing exercise.

- Most social networking websites are free of charge so there is less financial strain when you are trying to reach out to a larger audience.

- This is a great word of mouth promotion. The internet is a vast and potentially powerful tool when dealing with the masses.

- People who use social networking as a promotion tool, have complete control over their style or image that is created.

However, you need to aware of the obvious disadvantages of a social networking exercise before you venture into it -

- The target audience is not always selective and there can be a distinct lack of privacy.

- If not used properly to build a positive image it can be your downfall, as word of mouth can also be viewed as a negative reaction if the niche groups are not harmonious. It can be very difficult to retract a negative image from the public.

Friends Win, Social Networking on Steroids!