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Both Aran and Keri have given great responses! One thing I want to add about using FB comments, is that I believe that you lose all your previous comments once the FB comments are implemented. But perhaps Aran can verify that. One post I always refer to on the subject is this one from Jon Henshaw over at Raven: http://raventools.com/blog/facebook-comments/. Not only is the post helpful, but the discussion in the comments is valuable as well. I'd definitely give it a read. I agree with Keri that while it can be frustrating to see more comments on FB than on the blog. But at the same time remember, you're not just building a blog, you're creating a community. Some members of the community are simply more comfortable using FB than they are commenting on the site. Since your site has such a wide reach, I could see my mom wanting to comment but only understanding how to do that on FB, so that's where she'd do it. It takes more work to moderate comments on both the blog and on FB and perhaps Twitter and anywhere else for that matter. But people are actively talking about your "brand" and getting your name out there. Please let me know if you have more questions! Jen

Good question, especially now that Google+ is so important for the Search Plus your World. First of all, brand or personal page. If we are talking about a business company, then I suggest you to use both. Take SEOmoz as an example. If you analyze it, SEOmoz use its brand page (as in Facebook and Twitter) in order to officially communicate things and dialogue with its circle of friends. But SEOmoz employees (i.e.: Jennita, Joanna Lord, Casey, Rand...) use their own account to promote stuff by SEOmoz. Ah... remember to link your site and profile both with the rel="author" and "rel="business" tags (links here: https://developers.google.com/+/plugins/badge/config  here and here. If you are a freelance, like me... then you may try to start using your personal G+ profile (but create you "business" page anyway). Maybe in a second moment you can try to offer a more official presence to your business. About how much content... I suggest you to not vomit content into your G+ pages. It's not the quantity of the things shared, but the quality... and the people you are able to engage into a discussion and into sharing your content that counts. I say this because these seems to be at the base of what we may call the "Google+ Edgerank". And, finally, be active entering in dialogue with others and, if it is the case, citing your content if it is relevant to the discussion... remember, Google+ right now is composed mostly by a public like me and you, who sniff a spam attempt more fastly than any other in the world. And, to conclude, my tip: be a curator. Don't share just content created by you, but also by others and cite the source. This way you may become considered as an authoritative source about your topic, you are noticed and circled by those ones you cite and may have new opportunity of outreach. Ciao

Google has said that this is just an approximation of the number of results. Think of the extra computing power that would be required to give an exact count of the number of results for each query, and think of how very few people care of the exact number of results. Don't worry about it, and devote your time to something that will make you money.

I live in social media and I dare say I still don't understand Twitter except in very limited circumstances. My thought is that you have no business outsourcing any of this until you get an actual grasp on what it is these consultants are actually doing. Until you do, you'll hear all sorts of tales spun, reports generated showing upward trends, etc. Invest some time in speaking to different people, do a little bit of research to get an understanding of what these guys do generally and then make an educated decision.

If a person with 2 different facebook accounts likes the page, would that count as "one talking about this"

Thanks guys Something to consider

I also like the idea of adding the like button to your site. Don't forget that you can get Facebook Insights for your site as well! I wrote a post earlier in the  year that talks about how to set it up: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/4-facebook-marketing-tactics-you-might-not-know-about. This gives you access to data regarding what people are sharing and liking on YOUR site as opposed to what's happening on your FB page. Hope this helps! Jen

The first step is getting people to open it, I'd head to CopyBlogger and check out there How to Write Headlines articles.

I know you may see it as a "cop out" and others might as well, but the recent stint was by a 3rd party, and was taken swift action upon the news..... So I am not sure How "Blackhat" gaining one follow link from a blog in the grand scheme of Google's over 400 million backlinks is......... But in this I understand we may not see eye to eye and it can be seen as hypocritical. And i agree in General that paying someone to review something and implying it should be a good review is unethical and un-helpful, but not really "Black-Hat" that is a word that gets thrown around alot. The first reaction from any client/CEO to anything new usually is "Ugh"... come on man. When do challenges in business ever stop...? I think we will just have to agree to disagree on this But i will definitely research the other Blackhat claims as I had not heard of them. And I was not trying to say you do not do well in SERPS, just that alot of people seem to have an axe to grind with Google cause they feel they should be doing better, even though there are millions of other sites out there. So that brings alot of anti Google sentiment that really is just all about competition. Have A great Night! Shane

I'm assuming they're enforcing it when they come across it and feel like enforcing it. But I haven't seen any official documentation. (BTW, Facebook also has rules against giveaways, and as we know, they happen a lot.) Not that I would ever encourage anyone to break the rules...

I love SproutSocial, but the only other Twitter platform I've tried was Tweetdeck. I might never have looked beyond, but TD stopped working on my desktop and it wouldn't uninstall correctly ...blah blah. I've used Sprout for a while now, and love a lot of the features. The ability to post to Facebook or not for any give post is nice ... and I like the clean up feature. Search tools are great and I find it easy to find new folks to follow.

Hi Hugo Check out the introductory blog post entitled "Introducing Social Analytics in SEOmoz Pro" by Miranda Rensch which is specific to the Pro Tool in SEOmoz Pro Tools. There is a Webinar entitled "Introducing the SEOmoz Social Analytics Dashboard" by Casey Henry which is also specific to the Pro Tool. There is an upcoming Webinar on January 17th entitled "Understanding Your Audience Using Social Media" which will be presented by Mike King. Hope that helps, Regards Simon

Do you have that content yet?  If not, then visitors will laugh and leave. If you have that content then submit to reddit, slashdot, digg and similar sites.  If your content is any good then that will launch your visitor stream.

Sure they are no-follow but since I was pushing people to share the different longtail pages I have seen a raise in the longtail rankings so I'm under the impression these share did have part to do with that. I'm under the impression the Panda update changed quite a bit...

My favorites are Share Bar and Smart Youtube PRO. Otherwise we are pretty much on the same page.