Who Needs Author Authority Anyway?
0That means everyone needs author authority to get traffic!
If what you are publishing on the Internet isn’t getting shared through the social media sites then you have no author authority. So basically you need to do something that catches the attention of your human audience so that they start talking about what you are saying and publishing across the Internet.
The general consensus is that for you to benefit from social linking there are only a couple of options open to you, either:
- Get people that have already gained significant author authority interested in what you are doing i.e. they tweet, like, +1 and re-tweet your stuff.
- You have to establish your own author authority by creating great content people are interested in.
Neither of these options is particularly easy to achieve following set rules, there is not a specific science you can apply to it. Social media adoption is all about perceptions, what people think of you and whether in fact they like you or what you represent.
It has been suggested that you can analyse the data associated with what the ‘authorities’ on the Internet are sharing so that you can get a handle on what they are interested in. The idea being that you can tap into particular topics they might be more inclined to share i.e. you are trying to con a respected internet authority into sharing your publications.
My personal opinion on that is it would be a recipe for disaster, imagine trying to write on a topic simply because you think someone with a good on-line presence might share it through social media. Do you not think there is a chance they might see through that little ploy, or that it might come across as slightly insincere. You might as well put a sign up saying desperate for friends, but only important ones! Far better to write about something you are passionate about or have expertise in and let nature take its course.
If people like you they are going to be more forgiving of your mistakes, more inclined to help you out and more likely to respect and share what you are saying.
The reasons people like other people are multifaceted, they may simply be of a similar mind, they might consider you to be an expert in your field, highly amusing, entertaining, hard working, passionate about your subject and so on. Nothing much has changed in that respect, if you want to build author authority, you have to follow all the old rules of producing high quality information that appeals to the audience in your chosen niche.
What has changed is that you can no longer ignore the social media influence on whether what you are publishing gets read, shared and seen by lots of people. This influence is starting to be called the ‘Social Signals’ factor, a means by which search engines can assess the human response to what is being published.
The reasons why someone gains author authority are, if you think about it, the same reasons why you got page authority from back links that came organically. People see what you have written and decide to link to it, they will have their reasons, but the main thing is that they do link to it because they found value in it.
It is perhaps, at this junction, appropriate to change some of the terminology, describing the chosen niche as preferred social circles would probably be a more relevant term when it comes to interacting on social media sites.
That’s what is happening in reality, companies and businesses are taking a lot more notice of what social circles they are mixing in. It is also to an extent why you need to be careful about what social circles you are mixing in. They need to be clearly defined, consistent and respected. Watch out for the guy that makes friends with everyone and anyone, just to get his numbers up, that may be considered a little spammy in nature. Far better to take a considered view of who you follow, what they are actually discussing and who they are friends with. You cannot always prevent someone following you, but you can for sure decide if you follow them back.
What does all this mean in practice? Basically that you make it as easy as possible for genuinely interested visitors to share and comment on your content and published articles.
Use social sharing buttons in prominent places and maintain a significant presence on your preferred social media sites. Remember to keep it in context by making sure you genuinely engage and don’t just follow for the sake of following. Select the sites that work for your content and where you are happy to spend some reasonable time. You cannot possibly fully engage on every social media site out there, so be selective. Being an authority on one or two sites is better than being a non-entity on hundreds.