Business Relationship Optimization - BRO!

It’s no secret that the road between social media and SEO is becoming one connected entity that needs to be dealt with in an overarching content strategy. No more separate silos of operation, search and social is clearly now about relationships and the strategy behind building those business relationships. I call this, “Business Relationship Optimization” or BRO.

Every person on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram or Google+ has an audience. So, how can we identify the brightest thought leaders to connect with and how can we use these relationships to drive buzz, increase SEO back links and rankings, along with providing the search engines with strong social signals? These following tactics and resources will help you optimize these business relationships over time. SEO is about your Bro’s. It’s Brocial Media! (Wait, that was horrible, wasn’t it? let’s just roll with it.)

Business Relationship Optimization : The New SEO Skill

We know that social is about relationships. And SEO used to be about algorithms. Well, now, more than ever… SEO is about relationships. Business is about relationships. So, to succeed in today’s web, you need Business Relationship Optimization, BRO!

Interactive Marketing in a SEO Zoo

In the past year or so, Google released two major changes to search engine result pages… the Panda algorithm and the Penguin algorithm. Back in the day, you would optimize the on-page of your site, then you’dspend a majority of time building links and growing your link profile. Some companies built these links in spammy fashion and Google had to create these algorithm to fix these exploits in rankings. In fact, SEO’s are always seeking these exploits and Google is always updating algorithms, until we’ve reached a point where a large portion of traditional SEO, no longer works.

Content Creation Ecosystem

To succeed in search rankings in 2012, you need content. To be more specific, you need sharable content. You need to have a system in place to facilitate the continual creation of this content. You need blog posts, optimized press releases, SEO named images, video & video SEO, infographics, tweets, statuses, Instagrams, pins and one of the most important and oft overlooked tactic, you need guest posts.

Guestposting SEOcial Strategies

Publishing your articles on the blogs/websites of influencers is a great way to make your brand stronger, which can lead to the kinds of social and SEO signals that Google is now paying attention to. But where can you find influencers?

Here are some ideas on how to brainstorm a list of targets:

Internal brainstorming: You should always do this first. Spend 30 minutes to an hour with the key members of your staff. They probably already know many of the thought leaders that you to develop relationships with. They may already be reading the blogs of some of these people. Make a list of these blogs operated by influencers to start in an excel document.
Use Search Engines: Try some search queries using search terms for your market space. Add some phrases like “news” or “announcement”, or “tips” to try and uncover blogs covering the space. For extra credit, append the phrase “guest post” (including the double quotes) to try and uncover sites that have accepted guest posts. Bing will provide different results than Google, so you can often get additional ideas by going here, as well. Remember Yahoo’s search is actually a partnership with Bing, so those two will give you very similar results.
Use GroupHigh: A new tool has arrived on the scene for guest blogger outreach, Grouphigh. They were probably stoned when they came up with the name, but, for my money, it’s the best in class.
Use BuzzStream: This is another great guestblogging tool, BuzzStream, is a bit less expensive than Grouphigh, but gives you very similar results. Definitely worth trying out.
Use Google Blog Search: This is the same concept as using the search engines for research, but this tactic will only return blog only results.
Talk to your network to get ideas: You can talk to connections you already have. You can go to conferences and ask people there, or see who is speaking. Or, if you can’t go to the conference, see who writes about it or who appears on the agenda as a speaker. This is a very solid tactic. Meeting your peers face-to-face is a smart tactic to find influencers.
Use other blog search tools: Technorati curates the top blogs of many niches, so it’s a great way to find new influential bloggers and journalists.
Find other guest posters: Inevitably, you will find someone else who guest posts on similar type topics. It’s a good idea to go see where they have published guest posts. Try the query string: “FirstName LastName” “guest post” on Google and Bing to return a list of potential sites to post on

Use Journalists to Help Publicize You or Your Brand

Journalists are always looking for sources for their stories. If you position yourself in the right way, these journalists will start coming to you for a money quote. But where are these journalists?

Muck Rack www.muckrack.com (US, UK, CA, AU)
Help a Reporter Out www.helpareporter.com (US)
Flacklist www.flacklist.com (unspecified)
Media UK www.mediauk.com (UK)
Journalisted www.journalisted.com (UK)
PressPass www.presspass.me (US, UK)