Speaking at the Domain Roundtable conference being held at Atlantis March 1-4, Robert Moore, chief executive officer and co-founder of New York-based Media Labs Inc addressed delegates on the topic of Leveraging Social Media–Turning Traffic Into Revenue.

“The bottom line is that more traffic equals more money and the question to ask is: what do you have to invest in to drive that traffic to your website,” explained the digital marketing and technology expert. “The key is to build social media links around your product. Once you get the traffic up, you can figure out how to make money.”

According to Moore, social media links enhance search engine optimization (SEO), as well as generating organic traffic. “Google and Bing put significant weight on social links and connections when ranking pages. They look at diversity of sources, surrounding content and engagement levels of users.”

Vital to being successful, Moore explained, is to remain focused on promoting your product and becoming an “expert” in a very particular and relevant field. “Search engines also consider social status when ranking–the quality and importance of friends and followers, as well as topical relevance. It is crucial you stay relevant to the brand you are trying to promote.”

To generate the kind of traffic that appeals to advertisers, however, Moore stressed that you have to be consistent and remain true to your brand. “Social media management starts with a word cloud that can be closely associated with the brand you are promoting. Use that cloud as a base to create content or ‘curate’ content by linking to other relevant sites and impart knowledge. To succeed in the social sphere, you need to be constantly sharing information. ”

Referring to Twitter and Facebook, Moore suggested that to remain “relevant” you must post information at least 25 times a day across all your social media assets and to see real results could take anywhere from six months to a year. “You have to be in it for the long term and you have to be dedicated. Twitter, for example, is like going to the gym–you know you should do it, but there are million reasons why you don’t do it. But once you start, you start to feel better, and then you start to see results and you become addicted to it.”

The Domain Roundtable conference, organized by domain solutions company Thought Convergence, continues through March 4.

scotterill@dupuch.com