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HubPages is one of the "newer" social media content sites – and in my opinion, one of the most exciting. The most fascinating aspect of HubPages is the algorithm that determines an author's and an article’s "HubScore."

The HubScore is a number between 45 and 100 that "grades" an author’s social media influence and the influence of their hub (i.e. page of published content). What I find so fascinating about this HubScore is how accurate is in gauging the social media IQ of a Hubber and the social media value of his or her content.

Unlike other social media sites where new users are left to flounder around, wondering how to create effective content and how to become more influential, HubPages gives you a grade to let you know how on target you are in terms of being effective at social media. Your HubScore is calculated in real time. In fact, the HubScore can and does fluctuate several times a day depending on various factors.

Though HubPages doesn't specifically spell out the details of their algorithm, they do offer some critical tips for how to boost your HubScores. Putting these tips into practice not only increases your score on HubPages, but also provides social media newbies with valuable information about what it takes to become effective in just about any social media sphere.

Some of the things that will boost a HubScore include:

• High quality original content: The longer and more original the content, the better the HubScore.
• Including at least 3 outbound links in on your page: Linking out is an important part of building relationships, which is essential in the social media sphere.
• Including a few videos in your Hub: Adding videos keeps visitors on the page longer. According to many theories, search engines are well aware of how long visitors spend on your page and use this as a way to gauge the value of a page.
• Commenting on other’s Hubs: Commenting is an essential part of building relationships on social media sites. This also encourages others to leave comments on your Hubs.
• Then number of comments of your Hub: In the world of social media, comments are currency. Comments serve as social proof that real people are reading your content and finding it useful.
• The number of backlinks to your Hub: One of the essential ingredients of higher search engine ranking and greater visibility is acquiring backlinks. To put it in the simplest of terms, links from other sites are considered by search engines as "votes" for the quality of your page. HubPages has created a Hub called "Project Backlink" where Hubbers are sharing their strategies about how they drive traffic to their hubs.

Putting These Strategies to the Test

If you’re new to HubPages, Mark Knowles' post "How I Got My Hub To Rank on Google’s First Page" is the very first place I recommend visiting. I followed his guide for writing my hub on writing and submitting SEO press releases and boosted my HubScore from the initial 45 that everyone is initially given to 85 in just a few days.

Each time I engaged in the recommended social media activities such as leaving comments and joining groups, my HubScore increased. As those efforts began bringing my hub comments and traffic, my HubScore increased even more. I put out a press release linking to the Hub and the score rose again.

It has been 7 days since I published the Hub and I’m not yet seeing it in the search engine results, but have little doubt that it will eventually rank for the keywords. I’ll keep you posted on my experiment with HubPages and it’s results in the SERPs.