Following the trend of its social media counter-parts Facebook and Google+, Twitter has recently announced the launch of branded, business-specific pages on its site.

The new Twitter business pages are an effort to provide a more concrete and tangible fan-base in which brands can have more interaction with their consumers.

What's New About Twitter Pages for Brands?

The new Twitter pages for brands offer a rich and sophisticated user experience. The new pages offer more interaction for users and have become much more presentable from a marketing point of view. In essence, the new Twitter brand pages have become an ideal platform to lure customers.

We have found a number of benefits of the new Twitter pages. Some these include:

• Large, Customizable header images - probably the first thing you would notice about the new Twitter brand pages. This enables brands to a logo or image, as well as a tagline or any other visuals that format to the new 835 x 90 header space.

• You can move a Tweet to the very top of your profile page’s timeline to emphasize your most engaging and vital content.

• Also nice for business are the rich media (photos and videos) links embedded in Tweets. Instead of sending a visitor away upon clicking the tweeted link, a sub-window will expand to show that media within your page.

• The look and feel of the new Twitter brand pages has been optimized for mobile with a consistent across many popular smartphone platforms.
• Twitter brand pages are available to the global public and do not require visitors to log-in to a Twitter account to see your company's page.

Marketing Advantages of Twitter

From a marketing standpoint, this is a great leap by Twitter. Earlier, brands preferred Facebook over Twitter, as it allowed more customization and interaction. The move by Twitter now integrates such features into the new Twitter brand pages.

Brand pages for several large companies like American Express, Chevrolet, Coca-Cola, Dell, Disney, Intel, and Nike have all been customized and offer a more unique, customized feel. These new branded pages provide an elegant platform for consumer interaction and promotional presentation. In short, Twitters new pages hint at the future of advertising and marketing from more social platforms.

Quality, highly relevant content is an essential aspect of the SEO game. Gone are the days when keyword stuffing could produce higher organic search rankings.

After Google released its Panda update in 2011, many websites were penalized due to overly keyword-stuffed content. Now websites are focusing on link building, which is considered the greatest factor to better search engine placement.

+1's Will Slowly Replace Backlinks 

Just like copy was abused with mind boggling word repetition, now link building is becoming an automated and unnatural sub-service to organic SEO. In short, the web will soon be scummed up by way of "gray hat" link building.

So what does this mean for the organic SEO game of 2011?

Backlinks will soon loose their credibility to Google "+1's," and relevant, compelling copy will be MVP. 

Think about it. What better way for Google to overcome poor quality websites holding top rankings on competitive SERPs?

The answer is by hinging a ranking system based on its own in-house mechanism: The Google+ social network.

In addition, what better way for Google to take over Facebook?

SEO and Internet marketing are two very influential practices, especially upon the masses. Once one hundred Google +1's replace the the PR4 backlink, the professionals of the media world will be swaying society that if your not on Google+, your not in "the game."

Moving Forward

So how does a website prepare for this momentous shift in 2012?

It all comes back to content and how well it is marketed.

The strongest of the organic SEO strategies will include masterful content marketing combined with a spread of social media.

In essence, for businesses to catch the big fish, they must lure in the +1's by compelling users with their awesome content.

Rank on.

Business blogging is the modern way of building your brand by sharing knowledge, insights, and providing commentary about the things you specialize in.

Blogging has become an effective medium for businesses to attract customers and generate leads. Many organizations rope in their key executives and technical experts to write (or provide insights to writer) for their blog in an effort to generate a positive impression and instill confidence in customers.

Advantages of Blogging

Whether for a law firm or ecommerce store, the benefits of blogging offer a number of advantages and opportunities. Below are some of the key advantages of business blogging:

Increase Inbound Traffic

Blog topics can include a wide range of relevant topics, such as the latest updates on a product or service, news on recent occurrences, or commentary on emerging technologies by the subject matter experts.

To promote more inbound traffic to a blog, and thus to your site, blog posts can be linked through ads or social network tools like Twitter and Facebook. Most organizations should considering creating a Twitter page or a Facebook business page for two reasons: to build links to their blogs and to share their blog stories with a relevant following.

Market watchers, analysts and customers are solid sources of inbound traffic if the blogs are up-to-date and the content is compelling and contains useful information. For this reason, it is not only important to market your blog well, but also generate great copy that users can appreciate.

Promote Brands

Blogs can promote your brand with ease. They are the natural choice for advertising your brand by providing valuable knowledge on your products and services to your target audience. You can build the brand image by creating more buzz around the products, services, and offerings by creative ways including videos on product demos, commentary and white board sessions.

A solid blog with popular following is a brand by itself. In addition, blogging habits are niche by itself, because they underscore the building and promoting of the brands.

Creating a Fan Following

Blogs can generate a list of followers as users subscribe to feeds (such as RSS.) Blogs which are simple, intuitive and useful for the online community, generate positive word of mouth for an organization. Thanks to advent of social bookmarking tools, a business blogs can be easily shared and bookmarked with other users.

This creates lot of readers through positive recommendations and the blog by itself becomes a great resource among Internet users. In summary, business blogging offers differentiation and a niche for organizations to create a positive brand image and provide consumer enlightenment.

Social media marketing has introduced many opportunities in the way companies conduct business, with Facebook being one the biggest players in the social media arena. 

You can easily reach out to your potential customers and advertise your products to existing customers through your Facebook page. Lately, Facebook has introduced new changes that have made it easier for business owners and brand marketers to obtain maximum benefits from the Facebook platform. Below we highlight 4 recent Facebook changes that can heavily impact businesses and their social brand presence.

Expanded Profile Eye Candy

Facebook has allowed brands to change the appearance of their profile image, similar to the new Facebook Timeline format. Profile images for businesses are now much more prominent and clearly visible by those who visit a brand's page. 

For business storefronts, the cover image can display the building where it is located, which may help in directing customers to a store. This can be highly advantageous for small business in bustling metropolitan areas.

Alternatively, some businesses use this large banner space on their Facebook page for copy, such as a company's slogan or message to visitors. This can help to engrave those catchy phrases and jingles into the minds of the target market.

Some creative companies use this space to showcase products and services to entice visitors, or give newbie’s an idea of what the brand is all about. The trick is to get creative and use this vast profile image space to really highlight what the brand stands for.

Highlighted Posts

Facebook has changed the way business posts appear on individual user timelines. If a business uploads a video or link, followers will be able to view it without clicking into a new page.

Now, brands can highlight posts that are of the utmost importance for easy viewing access for visitors who land on the page. In essence, highlighted posts help businesses communicate their focal messages both faster and more efficiently.

Brand Milestones

Brands can now share company "milestones" with their Facebook followers. Facebook milestones are simply events or points in time that are significant to the brand or business, and now Facebook has made it easier for companies to update and thus notify followers of such events.

Once the marketer of business selects the milestone option from the brand's Facebook page, Facebook takes that individual through the entire process smoothly and without complications. From there, he or she can fill in the template that appears on the page, and upload any relevant photos to share with fans.

Facebook Offers

Businesses can now share special offers through their branded Facebook page. Facebook has introduced an option for "offers" where companies can send messages about new or currently available discounts, promotions, or seasonal sales. 

In essence, social media marketing has never been simpler. Savvy marketers make use of the newsfeed and inform followers on these available offers. This could quite possibly be the most cost-effective form for advertising and promotion for a small business.

Businesses and brands of all types need to take advantage of the new Facebook changes. Spend time on your business's Facebook page and ensure that your existing customers as well as potential customers learn about your brand and all it stands for. Get creative and exploit the benefits of these recent Facebook changes.