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Social media signals have become a huge part of how Google measures a site to determine its significance for page ranking. Have a look at this article on Learn How To Blog and you will soon realize the significance of social media signals in online marketing.

Along with relevant, quality content, social media signals have become a major player in determining a site’s ranking.

Having a blog or a website is great but you need to create social media signals by interacting with your visitors on your blog or website. In fact, no business should be without at least a Facebook page and a Twitter account.

But now there is something that really put a bee in my bonnet: people selling followers on social media!

We received this e-mail and a whole pile of others (all seemingly people selling the same thing) over the weekend:

I don’t want to give them any credibility at all, since

1. they don’t deserve it,
2. if a link to their site appears on this site, I can guarantee you that it will come to haunt us at some point and
3. our readers shouldn’t be tempted in to following these bad practices.

However, I feel strongly about warning you about this ‘easy’ way of getting Facebook likes, Twitter followers and other forms of social media signals and social proof for your blog or website.

Let me explain it to you this way. When ranking your page, one of the things Google looks at is your social proof, the so-called social media signals. The more likes, comments and shares on social media you get, the higher your ranking will be, right?

Allow me to just go off course for a second: another practice that really makes my skin crawl, are those Facebook pages who post pictures of abused children or animals, even if it has nothing to do with their page. They are trying to get Facebook likes or comments to raise their social media signals. Wake up and don’t like them; you are being manipulated!

In principle, more likes and comments mean a high rate of social media signals. However, if you think you can take the easy way out and buy these, you are sorely mistaken.

These ‘followers’ and ‘likes’ aren’t real. They are computer generated and come from bogus online accounts. The only thing that is going to happen with your site is that, after the next Google update (whatever cute animal it will be named after) Google is going to hit you hard.

There is no way to bypass Google’s algorithms by adding a laundry list of bogus Facebook likes, Twitter followers or whatever scheme they will dream up next, to your social media accounts. In fact, 50 real followers who interact with you will eventually turn out to be worth a lot more than 1000 computer-generated followers that will see you pull your hair out when the next Google update hits.

My advice? Do the right thing. Don’t try and manipulate anything by buying social media signals. Be active on your own blog but also interact with others where possible. It takes time to build a real social media following but at the end of the day the guy or girl who is willing to do it the hard way, is the one whose site will keep climbing through the ranks of Google and who will still be ranking high ten or twenty years from now.

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