Five Easy Steps to Achieve Social SEO
Posted on: February 12, 2013 | Social
Social media has proven to be a powerful tool for marketing because of the environment it creates. Social media thrives on the interaction of people, on communicating with each other, establishing new connections, and on sharing content. It is every marketer’s dream and it’s natural for marketing professionals to take advantage of social media as another avenue to bring its message across to people.
The impact of social media has become very significant that search engines give a lot of authority to positive social media activity – tweets, retweets, likes and Google +1s; and whatever search engines set their sights on, expect search engine optimization experts to be one step behind.
Social SEO is becoming an important part of not just SEO strategy but also digital marketing because social media activity now carries a lot weight and it is also one of the most effective ways of disseminating content to a wider audience.
So how do you achieve social SEO? Here are five ways you can do it:
Create meaningful content
I believe the be-all and end-all of social SEO lies in content. Although you can attract people to visit your site because of snazzy web design or a cool promo, there’s no way you can make them stay if you don’t engage them with content that is interesting, thought-provoking, and, yes, even controversial. Take the time to think up of content you want to create for your website, taking into consideration your audience and what you think they will want to read. You can take advantage of various analytics tools to get a feel for what people are talking about and find out what topics are heating up the internet.
Creating compelling content is the first step. But you have to make sure that the content you create is one that people will want to share with their social connections. This is easier said than done so do your research, use analytics data and be aware of what’s happening in the world. Staying constantly informed is crucial if you want to develop content that is timely and interesting.
Allow opportunities to easily share content
Now that you’ve engaged people what you want them to do is to share that content to their own social connections. Make it easier for people to share your content by providing them with various social share buttons and other social plugins on each article page. Sharing content should be extremely easy for the reader so they won’t have any reason not to share it with their own networks. You need to ensure that you increase the chances of your content being shared because it helps build your online presence, strengthens your authority and increases your page ranking.
Establish your social media presence
You need to make your own ripples in the social media space that’s why you need to create and nurture your own social media presence. Your social network pages will serve as your platforms for publishing and sharing content. Make sure that all of the social network pages you create are always abuzz with activity by posting messages, sharing images and other content and engaging people who like and visit your page.
There is an ongoing debate on whether you should create a presence in all social networks or just target social networks that will have a bearing on your brand. For example, if your brand is purely consumer-related, do you really need a LinkedIn social presence? It is my opinion that it won’t hurt your branding to have accounts in various social networks because it is really all in the matter of how you will utilize that network. Let’s take LinkedIn, for example. Even if you have a consumer brand, you can still set up a LinkedIn company page that can help grow your company following. There are also various features in LinkedIn that you can explore to entice your target market even if they are in LinkedIn. It’s really just a matter of perspective and knowing how to turn something into an opportunity.
Engage your audience through your social media presence
Put the social in social media by engaging your audience. Social networks are the great equalizer, allowing the consumer to speak to big corporations on an even playing field. Being able to communicate with your audience is an opportunity that you should take advantage. Answer questions, make replies to comments and provide information to your audience. When your audience sees that there are people behind your brand and that they really care, expect brand loyalty to follow.
Engaging your audience also means implementing various marketing strategies to deepen their investment on your brand. Run various promos and contests from within your social network and watch your numbers go up.
Do you know that the mere act of liking the posts of people who have subscribed to your Facebook page is a great step towards building a stronger relationship with your audience? Try it.
Share content through your social networks
As I have previously mentioned, use your social network presence to share content. Showing that your social network presence is active is a reassurance to your audience. Have you ever visited the social account of a company that hasn’t updated their Facebook page in almost year? You probably have felt that the company has either closed down or has been extremely sloppy with their social presence. Either way, it’s a negative perception and one that you wouldn’t want for your own brand. So keep all of your social network accounts active.
Share your content across your social networks to ensure that you provide maximum social media coverage. You want your content to reach as many people as possible and you can do this by tapping the different connections you’ve made in Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc. Remember that you create unique connections for each social network because people use social networks differently – some prefer one over the other. Covering all your bases ensures that your content will reach more people. You want your content to go viral and this is how you can do it.
These are just five basic tips that can help you achieve social SEO. These tips can help you take that first step towards implementing a social SEO strategy for your business or company. But its simplicity can be deceiving. Social SEO requires a lot of time, work and effort to make it work. That’s why many businesses look to digital marketing companies like AllFamous Digital to take care of their social SEO needs. You need the assistance of experts to craft an effective social SEO strategy that will meet your objectives.
