Debra Mastaler of the Link Spiel looks at the value of link building within general social media sites like MySpace or Facebook as opposed to participation link building in niche social networks.
On General Social Networks:
- Social media sites aren’t good for much else when it comes to linking.
- Places like MySpace and Friendster allow a clean link in your profile or through their blogs but other than that, link opportunities don’t exist.
- … All you’re doing to wasting time building a handful of MySpace pages no one will see.
Debra brings up some good points, but the proactive MySpace marketer would create a profile which attracts natural links and loads of friends.
And by doing so, the links in the profile itself would have more value than Google juice. The links would drive traffic to sites which appeal to the other MySpace users, a practice we usually see with Ringtones, Porn, and webcam affiliates.
Essentially, like link building in the early days of online marketing, link building on MySpace and other social networks should have a short term conversion oriented appeal as opposed to a long term SEO appeal.
A well publicized MySpace profile however, can attract a lot of inbound links. For example, take Tila Tequila. Her profile is a bit of an incredible example, with its millions of friends, has over 3,000 external links pointing in her direction, including links from GigaOm, Wikipedia, and PCWorld.
Debra then looks at the value of participating and link building in niche social networks, for those of us who are not as popular as Tila Tequila:
If you want to play in this space you need to pick a social community that’s going to give you the biggest bang for your buck and work it.
For example, if you think a weight loss site like LosingIt has the demographic you’re targeting, get involved. Budget a couple hours a week to posting and going through the site until you can find an opportunity to build links. They’re there , you just have to look.
