I have built a Facebook page for this site as well as for my one about SEO. I've discovered that one of the best methods of promoting these is to interact with other Facebook pages, so I've been furiously searching for as many pages related to these two niches as possible.

Anyone with a website is mad if they don't have a Facebook page these days. And social media and SEO are closely related, of course. So you'd expect there to be about the same number of them in each field. But this doesn't seem to be the case.

Many FB pages about social media

What I noticed was that pages about social media were far more numerous than ones related to SEO. Sure, it stands to reason that Facebook, being a social site itself, is more likely to have such pages. Still, I don't think this could fully explain the imbalance in the relative numbers of such sites since it was quite marked.

Also, many of the businesses that offered SEO services included social media packages -- and vice versa. Clearly the two fields are seen as mutually inclusive. That's to be expected, what with all this talk about "social media being the new SEO".

But from what I've seen on Facebook it doesn't seem like both fields are equally important in this process. It seems that, in market terms at least, social is slowly devouring search. There are just so many sites offering promotion and expertise related to Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and the like. They wouldn't exist if there wasn't a huge demand for them.

Social becoming the main traffic method for business?

From this phenomenon it seems that social is already being seen as the major way to bring visitors to sites, with SEO coming in second. And if we're not at this point already we are certainly very close to it.

Much of this trend is due to the current buzz around social media. But I think it's also got a lot to do with the fact that Google is becoming a lot more sophisticated in its algorithms, making SEO a much more challenging field to succeed in. Now that it's more difficult to gain traffic this way, perhaps an increasing number of SEM companies are going out of business, and fewer than before are starting up in the first place?

Join me on Facebook!

It seems that many people who run businesses are curious about social media but are reluctant to participate in it themselves. They want their staff to do it, or outsource all the tasks to a specialist company. Obviously this is a sensible option if you run a sizable operation. But if you are, say, a sole trader keen to build your business then it's really important to do it all yourself, in my opinion.

It's understandable that the thought of this is daunting to so many people. They believe that it will be difficult to learn and take too much time. But really, it's so easy once you get into it. And while you do have to do some work, you don't have to spend several hours a day at it. You just have to be persistent, participating regularly. And the time you spend on it tends to fly, since the activity is often so enjoyable.

When you get down to it, social media is not so much work as recreation. It's just socializing online with people who share your interests, "shooting the breeze".

While ultimately your participation may have commercial goals, it's mainly about you as a person. Just as it's great for demonstrating that you know a lot about your field, it's also a way of showing your good character. That's why it's really important to have a decent photo of yourself in your social media profiles. Everyone you interact with will associate this with your activity which will definitely help make you professionally attractive to them.

The process is akin to what politicians do in building a public profile and gaining trust. While they are part of a team (unless they are independents) and must toe the party line, they must still be known by the electorate as living, breathing, unique individuals. They have to get out there and get people to warm to them personally to some degree. Otherwise they won't get elected. That's why they're always on the lookout for mainstream media coverage and are keen to present themselves as well as possible every time they do get it.

Given this, it's no surprise that pollies are well represented and very active on sites like Twitter and Facebook. They've seen the benefits of participation in social media and have embraced it wholeheartedly. While presidents, prime ministers and opposition leaders might be too busy to personally write all their updates and tweets, they'll still do quite a few of them. And most ministers and senators do control their own accounts completely. These are very busy people, remember. So if they don't outsource their social media work, surely those in business can do the same.

A lot of people are tentative about getting into social media because they believe it will take too much time and effort. This is especially so for a lot of business people. who are usually time poor. They think they'll have to spend countless hours producing a lot of their own content in the form of tips and how-to guides, etc.

But the truth is that you can still build a good following on social media simply by sharing content written by other people that's of a good quality. So you hardly have to write anything yourself. You just have to be an effective guide. And you can do this quite quickly and easily.

That said, it's obviously a good idea to include your observations and advice in the form of tweets and status updates, as well as links to your own blog posts and articles if you can. Doing so will add greatly to your credibility, of course. But it's not absolutely vital.

In the same way that a critic isn't creative himself, but guides people to the best creations by others and thereby commands respect for his opinion and knowledge, you can gain credibility on social media by consistently pointing people towards quality content.

If you do this it will take a bit of work, of course. You do have to find that good stuff, and consistently. But it's not nearly as time consuming as producing it all yourself. And it's amazing how much quality content you can find online in a short space of time. As well as Googling, there's social media itself. If I find a really good article on Google Plus, for example, then I'll share it on Facebook and Twitter.

Doing this consistently keeps you in the minds of your followers and fans. Before long you'll have a reputation as someone who has a great deal of knowledge about his niche, which is obviously a great thing for anyone in business.

It's a good idea to think of your social profiles as websites in their own right. Being on highly trafficked and active websites with high page rank they will automatically rank reasonably well for name searches. But they will appear higher in results if you build links to them. Getting them onto page one can help your reputation, because people searching for your name will most likely see your social profiles, and not what other people have written about you (some of which may not be very complimentary, particularly if you are a political blogger!).

As well as building links to these profile pages, it's recommended that you participate often and thoughtfully in the networks themselves. This activity will also help lift your profile in the search engines. I know this from personal experience. I've seen my Linkedin and Twitter profiles rise up the rankings for searches for my name after I was active on them for a while.

To this end, commenting on blogs is also worth doing. So many blogs now have boxes to put your Twitter handle in. I assume that the majority of such links are "nofollow". But some would be "dofollow", which would help lift the site being linked to search engine wise. (In any case, some blog readers are bound to click on those links and end up following you. So it's worth doing just for that.)

It goes without saying that you should be polite when using social media. There are a whole lot of good reasons for this.

For example, if you make a habit of being rude and obnoxious on sites like Facebook and Twitter it could effect your personal life, or even your career. Everything you post on such sites is findable now.

But being well mannered is also good for business. You just get more followers, fans, likes and retweets, etc if you are polite and helpful. And if you're widely perceived as being approachable as well as knowledgeable, there's a much greater likelihood that you'll receive interview requests and guest posting offers.

Here's just one little example of how being polite has helped me: Recently I posted a question on Linkedin Answers. I got several responses. You can rate the answers as "good" and "best", which I did. So I assume those people were notified.

But there were others I hadn't acknowledged. I hadn't used this facility before and thought there might be some sort of automatic thank button, like on Quora. But there wasn't. So I sent e-mails to all those who'd answered my question, thanking them for their valuable input.

Pretty soon after that one of these people, who's very well established and has a big network, sent me a connection request, which I immedaitely accepted. One of the other users who answered -- again with a big network -- e-mailed me to say he was happy to offer his advice, and not to hesitate to contact him for any other questions. So, a conversation has started there.

Such developments are hardly remarkable, of course. But I wouldn't have made those connections had I not made a point of saying thanks. Clearly, being polite on social media can result in immediate benefits.