Hmmmm....interesting...

I'm officially confused!

I've taken part in countless courses/webinars/seminars to do with SEO type stuff which all encourage "social proof" - apparently social media is very important when it comes to being noticed.....or is it?

I've taken a month's Social Media "holiday" from a business perspective. Mainly due to actually taking a month off for a rest, and also due to the situation with the dear lady wife's health (which is now thankfully.....hopefully....under control).

I've noticed something odd which appears to go against everything I've been taught thus far!

Until the middle of October, I was posting regularly across Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, Google My Business.....you name it. At least three posts a week, all different content types (videos, blog links, how-to's....you get the idea). I even paid the book of faces for an advertisement (correctly targeted of course).

Just before I stopped posting, my position on Gooogle was dropping like a very big lump of granite - dramatically, from position 19 in the UK (page 1 locally) to position 50 (around page 3 locally).

Now....I'm aware that the mighty Google released a major update in the summer and it might have been a coincidence that said update hit me around this time, I dunno.

BUT, as I've already mentioned, I've taken a month "off" of social media. I've not posted anything to any of my business accounts for at least three weeks. My Google ranking is improving massively (OK, I'm still only position 30'ish nationally at the moment), and my enquiries and actual confirmed bookings have gone up!


Curiously, I've taken more bookings this November than in previous years (and November is normally very quiet in terms of enquiries for me).

Is there a connection? Is social media REALLY the be all and end all?

I'm genuinely curious, because having to come up with ideas for several posts a week, all formatted and written differently is a real pain in the bottom from where I sit. I'm now thinking a once-weekly gig-log type post will be more than enough just to keep the accounts up to date.

Anyone else seen anything like this?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Imagine

I'm genuinely curious, because having to come up with ideas for several posts a week, all formatted and written differently is a real pain in the bottom from where I sit. I'm now thinking a once-weekly gig-log type post will be more than enough just to keep the accounts up to date.

Anyone else seen anything like this?

---

< smug mode on > :whistle: < smug mode off > :D

( But only because that's all I can cope with ). :o While I know naff all about social media, it does appear to me that it's working for me in some way, especially as a showcase for the various rigs I can put out, and the positive reviews which come through various sites.

Re pictures, while having a site visit for a good paying wedding, we were discussing space, and the venue's reluctance to let me put my rig in early. ( And there's going to be a thread about that in Supporters soon. Well worth your £1 a month for that alone, I can assure you. :mad: ). I whipped out my M$ tablet, and opened Facebook photos for the disco page. I was zipping through, outlining what some of them were, and as I got to one of the rig used at a Monastery wedding, both client immediately said " that's the one".

I'm not convinced that the debonair and suave Davesounds being stood behind the rig was what swung it, but no matter. Proof that Facebook and cameras are now an indispensable part of a Mobile DJ's life.

Google looks at the quality of content being posted as well as the quantity :zip: :p

This is really timely - I had a phone call from Yellow Pages a few days ago who are apparently no longer in the business of selling advertising, but are now mainly focusing on SEO and taking commission from setting up Adwords campaigns. It got me thinking, so I took free trials of a few different online SEO tools and it's really interesting seeing all of the factors that can affect PageRank. Some are really expensive (£700/month!!) but others are quite reasonably priced (£50/month) and give a lot of insight into what you're doing right (and wrong) and also what you competitors are doing and how you compare....

I might actually be buying services from Yellow Pages yet... (never thought I'd say that!)

Julian

It's a bad time to be trying out any testing of the kind you're speaking about, as Google rolled out a major update only in September and there's the current BERT update:-

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SearchEngineLand

BERT will impact 1 in 10 of all search queries. This is the biggest change in search since Google released RankBrain.

---

My advice - if you only do one thing, use Google My Business. Claim your listing, get the short URL, urge customers to give you reviews and reply to any in GMB. If you install the GMB app on your phone you'll also get a contact call to action in your GMB results in SERPS.