This is a follow up to my previous YOUmoz post on understanding the value of a link. Because of the positive feedback from that post as well as new research emerging from SEOMoz regarding social media's effect on SEO, I've decided to expound on social links.

When Rand posted his data and findings of social media's influence on Google, the wheels in my head really got turning. I've always been of the opinion that the whole search getting more social deal was really overblown. It probably still is as I believe content that is popular in social media is probably already popular with search engines, independent of how many shares, likes or tweets it may receive.

But no one can ignore the growing connection between very popular social content and very high search rankings. And since Google and Bing both confirmed the use of social signals in rankings, it's time we do an in-depth analysis of social links and how to value them.

What Social Media Links Are Even Worthwhile?

It should be pointed out that just as in non-social link building, not all links matter for much. You can find a million social bookmarking websites out there, but that doesn't mean you need an account with each one. It's very likely that Google is not looking at all the activity on all the social media platforms out there.

So which ones are they looking at?

I believe search engines are at least looking at the following sites: Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Reddit and StumbleUpon. These are established, trusted social media platforms with large user bases. They also all have public profiles, so search engines can index anyone's profile and learn about that user.

Obviously users share links differently across these different networks. Digg and Reddit are pretty similar, but Facebook, Twitter and StumbleUpon are all quite different. However, I believe search engines have a link valuation method which they apply to all of these sites. Here is a helpful graph to illustrate how I view value of a social link:

Authority

I believe user authority, or user trust, is the single most powerful link metric when it comes to social links. This is mostly because Google and Bing both have said they incorporate authority elements into how they value social links.

But just how do they incorporate these elements? Obviously it differs from site to site. With Facebook, your user profile is public. Search engines can see your wall and info and put that data into their index.

This means they know how active you are, they know the topics you tend to be interested in, and they know how popular you are within the network. If a lot of your activity revolves around health and fitness, your authority on Japanese nuclear reactors may be limited.

The same goes for Twitter. Search engines can see your tweets. They know about your followers and who you are following. While Kim Kardashian may be popular on Twitter, she may not be viewed by search engines as an authority on anything. Rand Fishkin may be less popular on Twitter, but surely he is viewed as an authority on SEO by search engines.

On the flip side, I may also be viewed as an authority by search engines on SEO, but because I have fewer than 100 followers and Rand has nearly 30,000, he is viewed as a more trusted authority than I am.

With social news websites, search engines can see what type of content you share, like and subscribe to. They know what topics you are an authority on and they can see how trusted you are on that topic.

With StumbleUpon, you can actually review the collection of favorites of any user. You can also review their individual discoveries. It should be no trouble to find what topics you are interested in and how trusted you are on those topics.

Something important to remember here is that if you have a unique username and use it across various social platforms, search engines may be able to know that the same user is behind all those different accounts. So being consistent on all social media may influence your authority overall.

Key Takeaway: The best way to gain authority in social media is to connect with other industry authorities, share valuable and popular content and grow your network.

Recency

Recency refers to when the social link was shared. Recency plays a huge role in social media. If I share this link about the Giants winning the World Series, you don't care and neither does anyone else. If I had shared a link about their win two minutes after they won, then you might be interested in checking it out.

Bursts of social media links tend to boost rankings in the short term. A quick Google search of "Michael Jackson death" brings back a guess on the date from Google, two Wikipedia pages, CNN, news results, image results and then TMZ.

I'm guessing on the day he died, TMZ was showing up on the top. Why? Because they broke the story, so naturally they had a lot of social links come their way in a very short time. They have probably not received many since, and more authoritative domains have moved to the top of the results.

This seems to be backwards from traditional SEO thinking. Normally we tend to think the more aged a link is, the better. It shows it has really been established. Not so in social media. If all your social links are old, then you are old news.

Key Takeaway: Find a way to sustain consistent social link growth. A large burst may help in the short run, but in the long run social links will help most if they appear regularly.

Frequency

Like we always say, its more about link quality than link quantity. This is true with social links, but it doesn't mean that quantity doesn't matter. If your content is frequently shared, this can be a great thing.

However, some search queries will return results that have very few social links. In the SEOMoz study, only 62% of the websites in their 10,000 or so searches had been shared on Facebook. In some instances, only a few social links may go a long way if no one else in the top ten has any.

Another perspective here is the frequency that you share content. If you are constantly sharing content, your links may not be valued quite as much. If you only occasionally share content, it may be more valued. This is obviously due to spammers and is a way to combat them.

A different thought would also be the frequency you share the same content. If you share the same URL over and over again, it will receive no value. This is what spammers do. Do what spammers do and you get treated as spam.

Key Takeaway: Don't repeatedly share the same content. Don't share 100 new links every day. Make it easy for people to share your content so that you can generate larger volumes of social links.

Influence

Influence refers to how well received your social link is. If you share something on Facebook and a lot of people like it and others share it as well, then your link had a lot of influence.

The same is true of retweets on Twitter, votes on social news sites or thumbs up on StumbleUpon. A non-influential link is one that receives no likes, no retweets, no votes or a lot of thumbs down.

It is critical to understand your audience when sharing content. If your network consists of a lot of SEO folks, then a link to something related to SEO is likely to have more influence than a link to a blog about kittens.

Key Takeaway: Only share content that is valuable and relevant. I would be sure to also like, retweet and recommend the links of others as they will be more likely to reciprocate in the future.

Conclusion

Obviously the collision of search and social is still new and there is a lot we don't understand. Google has added their +1 button and the ability to block websites in search results. They are obviously looking at user data and finding ways to incorporate some of those signals into search.

I still believe at this point that social links have a lot more impact on real-time, news and discussion results than they do on normal web results. But I don't think we can deny their growing impact on traditional search results.

The key to success with social links is to be authentic and avoid being a spammer. Spammers have shallow networks, share lots of links, repeatedly share the same links and tend not to participate within their networks. If you simply look at how your non-SEO friends use social media and follow their example, you will be fine.

Just a word of caution: acquiring social links is essentially predicated on having appealing content. To get social links you need other users, and you will never motivate other users to share a terrible website regardless of your authority, trust or influence.

And just think, if you have trouble getting others to share your website, imagine how hard it will be to convert your visitors into customers. Great rankings and social media success can never compensate for a website that fails to convert.