Photo: Cathy Browne | Flickr

In this second part of my Enterprise 2.0 recap, I’m sharing some key takeaways from Chris Breikss’ presentation.

Chris is the President and Co-Founder of 6S Marketing. His talk, titled “The New Social Media Impact on SEM“, focused on best practices in creating integrated online marketing initiatives.

My knowledge of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM)  is fairly basic, but I found Chris’ talk informative and helpful. He communicated his points such that regular marketers would grasp them without dumbing down the content.

Essentially, his presentation had 5 main key takeaways:

1. Socia media affects your search engine rankings.

Chris said that social media heavily influences SEO rankings of websites. This isn’t the only reason why one should use social media, of course, but I think it’s an important point.

According to Chris, Google has explicitly admitted in the past that there is a “search signal” from Facebook profile pages. Simply put, that means that having a Facebook profile page gives your website some points in search, making it more likely to appear at the top.

2. Customizing your message for each social media platform is good practice.

Being on different social media platforms isn’t enough if you’d like to optimize your search engine rankings.  It is best practice to share your content differently on each platform.

For Facebook, Chris offered the following tips:

• Use keywords at the beginning of posts and updates.
• Write content that has good keyword density.
• Don’t just copy content from your website. Write content that’s relevant to your Facebook audience.

When posting on Twitter, consider the following:

• Use keywords in your tweet that link back to your website.
• Use keyword descriptive hashtags.
• Optimize your company bio – description, URL.

Photo: Cathy Browne | Flickr

3. You need to be on Google+.

“Google Plus is disruptive. It will revolutionize the social media industry.“ – Chris Breikss

Chris passionately talked about Google’s new(ish) social network. He predicted that by Halloween, Google Plus will have 100 million users. He’s probably right because just a few days after Social Media Week Vancouver, a new report came out that reveals that sign ups for Google Plus have spiked up considerably since it was opened up for the public.

Google Plus company pages aren’t available yet, but marketers should think about using the site now to get familiar with it. “Google+ is a huge generator of traffic, ” according to Chris. “It’s like old school Delicious on steroids.”

Chris said that he expects brand pages, personalized URLs, and Sparks rankings to come to Google+ soon.

I’ve revealed my love for Google+ in a previous blog post, so it’s great to hear from an SEO expert that the site is likely here to stay.

4. You need to add the +1 button on your website.

Related to the third point, marketers need to start thinking about Google’s +1 button. According to Chris, the Google +1 button affects SEO: Google knows if the +1 button is on your website.  Make sure your landing pages have the +1 button. Add it to your home page, product pages, and blog posts.

If you run Google AdWords campaigns, you also need to consider adding the +1 button on your landing pages. Chris said that +1 data will serve as a signal of relevance for AdWords. He added that for the first time, it might make sense to click on your own ads — or at least the +1 button when you see your ad appear in the search results.

From a competitive standpoint, your competitors likely don’t have the +1 button on their websites yet, so it makes sense to be ahead of the game and do it now.

5. Measuring ROI is easier than ever because of new and upcoming tools.

For those obsessing about social media ROI, Chris revealed that measuring analytics now is easier than ever.

Google Analytics multi-channel reporting allows you to see if social media has assisted on conversions. Just switch to the new version of Google Analytics and go to “My Conversion”, then to “Multi-channel funnels” to see this feature.

Twitter is also expected to launch analytics soon and this should significantly help marketers measure their social media ROI.

For more info, please see Chris’ presentation below. You can also follow Chris on Twitter and Google+.

© 2011, KC Claveria. Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Please link back to kcclaveria.com