Social media has many benefits for online businesses, especially when it comes to local marketing services. Not only can it help to spread your marketing messages further, it can provide a valuable boost to your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts, and this influence is set to grow.

As the major search engines such as Google and Bing gradually shift their algorithms to place more importance on social ranking signals, businesses that adopt solid social media strategies early will have a clear head start on the competition. Whichever way you look at it, social media appears set to be integral to the future of digital marketing and search engine optimization.

So, what can you do now to take full advantage of it?

Brand pages

Launching your own brand page on a site such as Facebook or Google should be your first step into the world of social media (it should also be noted that Twitter has recently begun rolling out brand pages for businesses in the UK). You can use your brand page to generate interest and drive traffic towards your website.

Content made for sharing

Publishing content through your brand page is one way to spread awareness. But as well as this, any content you release on your own website or blog should be prominently decorated with buttons to enable web users to share it to their own social profiles, and bookmarking sites such as StumbleUpon, Digg and Reddit.

Social advertising

Most big social networks make their money through advertising, and it’s hardly surprising given the opportunity presented of getting your marketing messages out to thousands or even millions of people. Be sure to include a social element in your pay-per-click (PPC) ad strategies.