Is it possible to get high page ranking with no social media activity?

[lindsayjhopkins]

I'm curious to know how much social media effects the chances of being more highly ranked on Google.

I appreciate it's important to 'be seen' by Google, but if articles/newsletters are being written, does it really matter if a business isn't using Twitter or Facebook, etc?

[KevinBudzynski]

If all things being equal between two sites, if one firm has social media, they will probably outrank the ones that doesn't.  This creates a domino effect where more firms will adopt social media marketing  to keep up. So as time increases, I can see it becoming more and more difficult to get ranked high for competitive keywords w/out social media.

For long-tails, I think you can rank high organically for many years/decades to come.

[donford]

Yes you can, social media is an indicator signal, and only one of many factors that allow a site to rank well in SERP's. Furthermore, some industries are not necessarily socially inclined. I would say if your industry is generally socially active then you may miss a lot of customers simply by not participating, but that alone would not be a reason why you don't rank well.

Both Duane Forrester (Bing) and  Matt Cutts (Google) have made it clear they do factor in social signals and can be quoted as saying "If you're not using Social Media, then you are missing out". That all said, my industry is not social adapt and while we plan on getting into the game, it is very low on our to-do list.

Hope that helps,

[TomRayner]

There's no doubt about it - you can rank sites on page 1 and number 1 on Google without any social media activity.

However, the strength of "social signals" increased a lot in the last year and there's every reason for it to do so this year.

Even if the social activity isn't some amazing, expensive strategy, you can do things little by little.  And as they say, every little helps.