Social media has become an increasingly popular tool for online marketing. SEO practitioners have come to appreciate the engagement and influence possibilities of social media. The following are the basic stages of social media optimization.

This will give you a clear idea of where you are in terms of social media integration.

Stage #1: SEO with Social Profiles

Many SEO practitioners began their SEO journey with news and bookmarking services such as StumbleUpon, Reddit, Delicious and Digg. Promoting content via these channels can make content go viral and achieve high levels of traffic. This enhanced exposure results in more subscribers and links.

Social bookmarking profiles and services allow the inclusion of back links in content, thus creating an opportunity for generating more link traffic. In this stage, SEO success is measured in terms of rankings, traffic and links.

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Stage 2#: Social media optimization

At this stage, marketers enhance their social profiles into more productive sources of information. This involves optimization and expansion of social networks. Blogs are usually the center of social media optimization in terms of link acquisition and content promotion. It is important to spend time in building email lists and blog subscribers. Content created should be useful for the target audience. The headlines need to be well written so as to encourage sharing.

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In this stage, SEO success is measured in terms of traffic, links and conversions. Social stats such as friends, followers and fans need to be checked, as well as metrics like interactions and comments.

Stage 3#: Social media plan and integrated content

At this stage, keyword research is incorporated into the planning of social content. Social media planning allows social promotion and content marketing. Skills in content creation and engaging prospects and customers online are vital at this stage.

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To create an effective content marketing plan, you need to research social topics and keywords that represent customer interests. This will significantly enhance the findability of your content. Social content which can be found easily will result in the growth of your social network. As the network grows, your content will be shared more, thus attracting shares, comments and links. Ultimately, this will result in an improved search engine ranking for your blog or site.

Author Bio:  ZK is the co-founder of Internet Marketing Blog where accomplished writers and bloggers share their tips, strategies and stories. Follow him on Twitter at @webtrafficroi.