By Mikal E. Belicove|For Entrepreneur.com|April 19, 2011

When it comes to landing a top spot in search engine results, the world’s leading 200 consumer brands can’t be beat. But within the search pages on social media sites, a study out this week shows that the biggest brands often barely register.

Nearly 100 percent of top 200 Fortune 500 brands are either at bat or in the batter’s box when it comes to search ranking, according to a new report from BrightEdge, a San Mateo, Calif., software development firm. However, 70 percent of those brands didn’t have Facebook or Twitter pages in the top 20 results, says BrightEdge.

Brands regularly pour vast resources into social media, but they’re not making the most of it, says Jim Yu, CEO of BrightEdge. “Brands may be missing critical customer connection points if consumers can’t easily discover their social media pages in search.”

Indeed, no matter how engaging your Facebook page might be, if a consumer can’t see your link in the top 10 search results, that link might as well not exist. At the risk of sounding Zen-like, this seems like a case of the proverbial tree falling in the woods when no one is around. Does it make a sound?

Looking at the results from the big boys, you may be wondering what you can do — right now — to beef up your brand’s social media presence? For starters…

Continue reading Why You Should Optimize Your Social Media Presence