There’s nothing more useless than 1000 Facebook shares that come all at once. It’s particularly odd if you have a 100 page site and just one page on the entire site gets 1000 shares. The shares also drop to zero for weeks following that burst. It’s unnatural but that’s the landscape right now for the social share market. Very few do it right and that’s why very few get results for their clients.
What’s also useless is a bunch of links from the same core domain like this:
Or how about a promotional tweet with 3 views?
People often take a random blurb that is out-of-context and spam that as the text. No wonder Google ignores it. For an SEO professional to offer true value from a tweet, it should be hand written by the person posting it, so that it looks natural. There’s nothing in that tweet that screams natural. It screams spammy promotion.
The ideal social share campaign for a new blog post
Unlike what the Fiverr experts claim, you only need a few social shares to actually get the attention of Google.
1 Facebook post
A link on a public Facebook profile or page. The page doesn’t need to be famous, but it needs enough engagement to get at least 2-3 likes on the post.
1 Tweet
This also doesn’t need to be a page with 100k+ followers. As long as the post gets likes and retweets, it doesn’t really matter the size. Ideally the account is aged and has thousands of quality handwritten tweets.
1 YouTube video
YouTube videos are pretty easy to make. Make one and stick the blog URL in the description. Get some views and likes and you’re good to go.
1 LinkedIn post
LinkedIn can be from a page or profile but in my opinion, I think a profile is perfectly fine. As long as the profile is legit, filled out with a full resume, has connections, etc. Post a little paragraph recommending your followers to read the blog post and what you found interesting.
1 Reddit comment or post
This can be a post or a comment. Reddit is tricky which is why Google values it so much. You need to be creative and natural in your linking strategy. It’s very easy for a creative marketer to find a way to naturally link but impossible for the average mind. Just be sure the subreddit you choose has at least a few recent posts or comments that are non-promotional. Post from an aged account.
Conclusions
That’s it! Crazy right? Just 5 social signals can rank a blog post. I have a number of sites that get tens of thousands of organic visits from this simple strategy. Even the largest blogs on the internet don’t get more than half a dozen social shares in the first month, so why oust yourself by doing social shares the wrong way?
