Indeed, syndicated links can provide some ‘link juice’ which can be seen as a potential SEO advantage.  For those of you unaware with this concept, the idea of syndication is that RSS feeds (which do not have the ‘nofollow’ tag) can in fact be used to provide some RSS value to the links you post in Twitter.

I have made an effort over the past couple days to find a single URL that has been indexed as a result of a single syndicated RSS feed.  So while some people, as I have said before have had some varying amount of results providing direct SEO value from Twitter, it proves to be an inefficient venue.

This means that syndication of Twitter is not a widely developed idea.  It might be a great idea for someone to develop a chatter application, but even then we are limited to the potential hope that this will be picked up by the search engines.  In short, it seems like a lot of effort to propagate a link, and resources are probably better utilized if your goal is SEO.

Hope for the future?  Absolutely.  One potential, most likely move, is Twitter will begin to use bit.ly exclusively for their URL shortening services.  For those who are not aware of this relationship, bit.ly is a product of Summize, which has been purchased by Twitter.

This as I understand will have some serious SEO chops. Bit.ly analyzes all shortened URLs through Open Calais (developed by some friends of mine at a company I used to work for), and making this data available in public RSS feeds.  As Thomson Reuters, and Bit.ly, look to find other ways of presenting this content and creating toolkits for development teams through Open Calais, the possibilities could be mind-boggling.

There is a serious future for it.

That said, Twitter remains primarily a way of building your relationships online.  As an SEO tool it remains pretty inefficient.  Would I say not to use it?  Never.  Twitter is a valuable marketing tool, and its influences will grow over time.  There is no doubt about that fact in my mind.

However, I would, as a seasoned Product Manager, suggest tempering value vs. effort when pitching it as an SEO application in your organization or to a potential client.  I believe that you risk creating expectations, or potentially creating a project where effort exceeds the return.

This question came to George via Twitter last night about the value of using Twitter as a part of your SEO strategy.  Twitter is a great social networking tool to create relationships with your ‘followers’ about the activities of your business.

From a structural standpoint, Twitter creates a “nofollow” tag advising Search Engines to ignore all posted links.  While it is not primarily an influential SEO tool, it is an invaluable SMO (Social Media Optimization) tool.

Twitter and other social media tools, like Twitter, are primarily extensions for your branding and awareness strategy, which will allow you to manage your credibility as a source for influencing the generation of SEO opportunities.

From a traffic perspective, many bloggers and businesses are using Twitter as an incremental source of traffic and link juice with varying degrees of success.  Twitter’s primary benefit is the ability to create a viral marketing tool delivered to a willing audience.

Take, as an example, @ricksanchezcnn.  In July Rick Schanchez of CNN began to use Twitter as a means to communicate with and market to his viewers.  As a result he has claimed to have seen a rise in his ratings as a result of the interactivity between himself and his viewers via Twitter.

Rick Sanchez has been able to convert his Twitter activity to an increased audience.  If you follow Mr. Sanchez, you will notice that his posts are not just questions about news items.  Often times you will find him posting about his family time, or impressions of something he just saw on TV.

Social Media tools allow you to put a personality behind your brand, learn more about your customers through interaction.  When thinking about Twitter as a source of traffic, think about how your personality builds the type of goodwill and awareness into business.

It is telling how the further we stray from the corner store, Social Media has inserted those concepts and values that made the corner store the engine that drove our commercial decisions.

In short, Twitter is not an SEO tool. Twitter is one of the great online PR and marketing tools that can be used to build your brand and client base through “word of mouth” and personality.

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A multi-level marketing organization (MLM) counts on those relationships, established and newly formed, to build a bond from person to person. But what happens when “someone heard about the product, but didn’t have anyone to buy it from and couldn’t fin the product in stores?”

I asked that question yesterday of Jus International. Jus, as the name would suggest, offers a drink with 23 berries combined into a rich tasting concoction. Based in Boise, they have created buzz that has been heard all the way over in Japan.

So I asked the question quoted above and the answer was they’d have to search for us to find us. Search. They’d have to find a distributor. “How?”, I asked. Search.

Now those not familiar with an MLM may not know this, but a distributor is running their own business much like a franchisee. Their support materials, web site, business cards, training, etc. are created by the corporation. Distributors are prohibited from creating their own web site including blogs, etc. This makes search engine optimization on the organization’s web site all the more important. Quite frankly, if it is not found then their competitor will be,

The net of this post is simple. Regardless of your organization’s construct, scale or method of marketing, getting found is critical to your success.

Disclosure: George Seybold is the interim Chief Marketing Officer of Jus International.

Here’s the relevant kernel of the article:

In fact, as we each carve out our individual niche on the Web, the logic of search may well flip inside out. Since we are essentially meta-tagging ourselves through our social networking memberships, shopping habits and surfing addictions, it’s conceivable that the information could attempt to find us—the old concept of push media, but in a far more refined way. As new content enters the Web, it could tumble through the various filters that you set up around your identity and then show up on your home-page news feed, or in your in box, or pop up on a ticker that follows you around as you browse from page to page.

I made a version of this argument myself in early 2007. My question was: Would we use search as extensively if other tools (e.g., feeds, personal start pages) help us discover information more efficiently?

Comparing Google and Facebook today, one could argue that Facebook (other than its “communication” tools for some) hasn’t really become indispensable. If you’re younger than 27 you might have a different view. But it’s still mostly about some form of entertainment, broadly defined. Google and search more generally, by contrast, is about getting things done as well as entertainment. Search is used billions of times every month for a range of purposes.

Now Facebook could add web search (as most other networks have) and Microsoft, its partner, would probably like that very much. And Facebook could grow and evolve into something more indispensable. If I were Sheryl Sandberg, the former Google VP who’s now COO and effectively running Facebook, I would look at making it into a version of My Yahoo or iGoogle. Accordingly, there are ways to make Facebook quite a bit more “useful” than it is today, in my opinion.

And while it’s very true that word-of-mouth has moved online and people care very much about what their friends and other contacts think about things, those “recommendations” are not a substitute for search. Indeed, I recently spoke the other day to one of the founders of Socialight, an internet and mobile-social network. One of the interesting things the company has discovered through experience is that people don’t just care about their networks’ recommendations. It turns out — and this is common sense — that expert and top-down editorial content matter equally and in some cases more than what their friends may think.

Then there’s the question of monetization. While social networks offer a range of interesting advertising opportunities for brands and others, they turn out, so far, to be relatively inefficient monetization engines — unlike search. There’s also a question of their efficacy as advertising vehicles at all. People love social networks but they may not be paying very much attention to the ads on them.

Without question, search will need to grow and change, and it is. Social media is having a big influence on the internet in general but also search. Google has aggressively embraced community and social media across a range of properties (e.g., Maps, Reader, iGoogle, YouTube, Calendar, OpenSocial) and itself in the process of transforming into a giant network of sorts.

Clearly we can say that search and social media are influencing one another as both evolve from where they are today. But will social networking “kill” search? I wouldn’t bet on it.

Weary of his job as an urban planner for the city of Portland, Ore., Sloan Schang dreamed of making a living as a writer. How, exactly, he wasn’t sure. But he quit his job, sold his house and, with the proceeds, some savings and his girlfriend, set off on a trip that took him to Asia, Europe and across much of the United States. Today, not two years later, Schang, 32, is a published travel writer with a busy schedule of decently paid freelance gigs. “It’s worked out well. I don’t really plan to go back to urban planning,” he says.

A decade ago Schang’s transition almost certainly would have been more difficult. But there are more opportunities than ever for aspiring writers to get published. Schang credits his breaking into the travel writing business to 8020 Publishing, a San Francisco-based magazine publisher with a unique twist on the conventional model: its paper pages are filled entirely with content submitted by readers through its Web site.

The Internet, of course, has given citizen-journalists, amateur artists and Wikipedia warriors a virtually limitless platform for exposure. It has also roiled the traditional magazine business, which in recent years has seen circulation and ad revenue drop as more readers shift their preference for media consumption from paper to pixels. But 8020 may have found a way to take advantage of the move to online. Funded by CNET.com founder Halsey Minor, the company, which was started in June 2006, is pinning its future on actual newsstand sales of content that originates online. “Magazines are great at inspiration, whereas the Web is really good at data. But people tend to think only in terms of the Web versus print magazines,” says Paul Cloutier, chief executive of 8020. “We say they can come together to become an even better magazine.”

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Is this process effective and how can you begin planning your drip marketing campaign?

The phrase drip marketing comes from the common phrase used in agriculture and gardening called “drip irrigation.” This is the process of watering plants or crops using small amounts of water over long periods of time.

It was developed in response to the “Law of 29″ in which many marketers believe that an average “prospect” will not turn into a client until they’ve viewed their marketing message at least 29 times. While I do not necessarily agree with the Law of 29, I do believe in the need to stay in touch with your current and prospective clients in order for them to purchase from you.

There are way too many competitors out there, not to.

The method of drip marketing can help you avoid the sell-produce curve. An effective way to use drip marketing is to consistently do something each month to keep your name in front of your current clients and prospective clients. By doing this you diminish the sell-produce curve and will find that you will have a steady amount of business coming in the door.

The best thing about drip marketing is it requires a plan of action. By creating this plan and following it throughout the year you can guarantee that you will be consistent with your marketing all year long. I suggest that you develop your drip marketing campaign when planning your yearly marketing calendar.

It all sounds great, but where do you start? To help you I’ve listed a plan of action to get you well on your way to developing a productive drip marketing campaign:

• Step 1: Develop your Plan (Plan something EVERY month)
• Step 2: Strategize the Execution of Your Plan
• Step 3: Decide who your Target is.
• Step 4: Create consistency by developing your slogan or phrase. Then place it on every promotional and marketing piece.

What methods can you use for your drip marketing campaign? Here are a few that will get you started:

• Postcards
• Newsletters
• Email Newsletter (You’ll have to be careful of spam filters)
• Promotional or Sales Brochures

Think of your drip marketing campaign as a way to nurture your current and potential clients. You campaign should keep them aware of your products and services. With this thought in mind your campaign will succeed.

Possible replies:

Information is just nice to have unless it is actionable – that is the problem with email. If you are like me then email comes in, it’s scanned for task items, categorized in some manner and filed. In social media the feed is just there – searchable when needed, but current and living. There is no need for a constantly connected feed.

The right tools for you will feel helpful in time, not like a burden. Experiment for awhile with new tools and stick with the ones that deliver you the most high-quality information, whether those tools are high-quantity or not.

Check out tools like AideRSS and FeedHub – just two examples of services aiming to improve the signal to noise ratio.

Times change and so do information paradigms. Get used to it. The amount of information you had access to 3 years ago was infinitely more than people at any other point in history and we’re in the middle of another huge leap right now.

Concession:

If you think consuming all this new information is a challenge, wait until you try to find the time to make sense of it!

2. So much of what’s discussed online is meaningless. These forms of communication are shallow and make us dumber. We have real work to do!

Possible replies:

Much of it is not meaningless, but if you feel overwhelmed with meaninglessness – try subscribing to a search for keywords in a particular service and using that as your starting point for engagement.

Having a presence and starting a conversation is rarely a bad thing – bring quality conversation to a space and you’ll find others ready to engage.

Personal information can be very useful in understanding the context of more explicitly useful information.

If learning how the market feels about your organization, engaging with your customers and driving traffic to your web work – all very realistic goals for social media engagement – aren’t work, then I don’t know what is. Even in the short term, strategic engagement with online social media will have a clear work pay-off.

Concession:

The signal to noise ratio will be easier to maximize if you can find an experienced guide to learn from. Just jumping into social media and new tools on your own will not necessarily lead to a meaningful experience. It could, but it will take longer. Noise is noise, but relevant noise is gold.

3. I don’t have the time to contribute and moderate, it looks like it takes a lot of time and energy.

Possible replies:

If you aren’t going to eat that lunch of yours, I’d be happy to, thanks.

With practice, familiarity and technology fine-tuned with a little experience you’ll find the time required will decrease.

You might consider this time spent on marketing or communication with existing customer base – perhaps there’s something else in that department that isn’t working well and could be replaced with online work.

Concession:

Doing anything well does take time and energy. You’ve obviously been thinking about this stuff a lot, it is important – and it’s going to take time and energy.

4. Our customers don’t use this stuff, the learning curve limits its usefulness to geeks.

Possible replies:

You might be surprised to learn how many of your customers do already use these new tools. Even more will do so in the future.

The best designed tools are designed like good games – you can get small rewards right away and then learn more advanced skills to win bigger rewards. Among online services that are intended for general audiences, only poorly designed ones are too geeky.

Many of these tools provide value vastly disproportionate to the literal number of people they reach. These are like high-value focus groups where you’ll gather information and preparation to engage with the rest of the world.

Try asking someone near you to give you an in-person demonstration of one of these tools. You’ll find it much easier to learn once you’ve seen the right paths taken to show what it can do.

5. Communicators [bloggers, tweeters] are so fickle, better to stay unengaged than risk random brand damage. We don’t want hostile comments left about us on any forum we’ve legitimized.

Possible replies:

If you need to, you can require that any comments left on your own site be approved before they appear. This slows down the conversation but if it makes conversation possible for you then do it.

There are far fewer people who will take the time to say hostile things, even on the Internet, than you might imagine.

Engage – you’ll be appreciated more for it. People are going to say what they are going to say – you can either let any criticism go unanswered or you can be the bigger person/brand for responding well.

Conversations are going to happen online, better to be engaged than to have it happening behind your back.

It’s ok, no one believes that anyone is perfect anymore. Swing for the fences sometimes – you might strike out, but sometimes you’ll hit a home run.

Even if you’re not responding publicly, you should watch closely so you know what people are saying. Maybe you don’t have a blog, but subscribe to a blog search feed or alert for your company’s name. Maybe none of your people are on Twitter – you can subscribe to a feed for a search via Terraminds.

Concessions:

Some of the critical things that get said about you online might not warrant a response. Just decide which ones do and file the rest away somewhere.

Communicating in this different context is very new and challenging for traditionally trained business people. Good luck.

6. Traditional media and audiences are still bigger, we’ll do new stuff when they do.

Possible replies:

They already are, from blogging to online video to social networks to mobile to micro-blogging – big, established brands are already doing all of it. They may be experimenting, but they will bringing all their market dominance into the most useful social media sectors as soon as it suits them. Will that be too late for you? It might be.

Traditional media audiences are also more passive – online audiences can engage with, rebroadcast and otherwise amplify your communication efforts.

Concessions:

That’s true and fair, if you think your business can thrive while taking that attitude towards a period of intense social and economic change then you just rock on with your bad self. I’ll be taking my love of innovation to the employer down the street.

7. Upper management won’t support it/dedicate resources for it.

Possible replies:

A lot of technology adoption has for some time had to happen despite this reality. People adopt new tools on their own at work, without permission. They discover powerful ways to solve their problems and then they share them horizontally.

Compared to other expenses, meaningful engagement with new online technology does not have huge costs.

Concessions:

Meaningful engagement with new technology does require some expenditure of time, energy and money. If you’re not willing to do this then you’ll be unlikely to see big benefits.

8. These startups can’t offer meaningful security, they may not even be around in a year – I’ll wait until Google or our enterprise software vendor starts offering this kind of functionality.

Possible replies:

The skills you build and the connections you make will remain with you, though. This is a paradigm shift underway more than it is about any particular tool.

Chose your tools carefully – expect data export as an option so you can back up or switch services whenever you need to. This isn’

t widespread yet, but the best tools allow it.

Concessions:

You do need to be careful, but if you do so intelligen

tly then the benefits can really outweigh the risks. It is very possible that any one of these services might shutter in a year or two, but you’ll get a lot out of them in the meantime and hopefully won’t lose access to your data if that happens.

9. There are so many tools that are similar, I can’t tell where to invest my time so I don’t use any of it at all.

Possible replies:

A little experimentation goes a long way.

Try asking people in your field who have some experience what tools they are using.

Try searching for keywords related to your work in various sites. You’ll find out that way which sites are best suited for you.

Concessions:

It’s true, it can be very confusing and very few people are able to keep up with all the new services that are launching. Don’t worry about it, just do your best.

10. That stuff’s fine for sexy brands, but we sell [insert boring B2B brand] and are known for stability more than chasing the flavor-of-the-month. We’re doing just fine with the tools we’ve got, thanks.

Possible replies:

Some of these things, RSS and Wikis for example, aren’t passing social fads – they are emerging best practices and the state of the art.

ROI is very hard to measure, but try allocating a little energy over time to experiment and see what kind of results you get. From connections between people and projects, to search-friendly inbound links, to early access to important information – the benefits of engaging in new social media go on and on.

Conclusion

Finally, remember that social media is about people and their impact on your brand and your impact on their lives. If you are relevant, add value, and have an open and honest conversation with your customer, then you will reap the rewards. And that, my friend, is ROI.

That’s how much marketers spent on WOM — as it’s known to its practitioners — in 2006, according to an independent research report on the field that will be unveiled during a session at the annual Word Of Mouth Marketing Association conference in Las Vegas. The analysis, believed to be first in-depth look at word of mouth, reports that spending on the emerging discipline has increased from $76 million in 2001 to $981 million in 2006 and is expected to grow to approximately $3.7 billion by 2011.

“It’s starting to be recognized as an established industry,” said Leo Kivijarv, Ph.D., VP-research of PQ Media, which performed the analysis.

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