The eCommerce space is becoming increasingly oversaturated, which means businesses need to be going above and beyond to stand out. Chances are, you’ll already have an SEO strategy and a separate social media plan, but have you thought about how the two could intersect?
If you get it right, blending your organic search and social strategies can supercharge your marketing efforts and ensure you get the most out of every tactic you use. So, in this article, I’m going to break down how you can achieve this by repurposing your content, promoting your content marketing, building relationships, and more.
If you’re just getting started with your socials, Bulk.ly has a guide to help you out! Their article all about social media for small businesses covers the dos and don’ts of social media marketing. Topics include choosing a platform, creating content, automation, post timing, and more.
Now let’s get on to how you can combine your social and SEO strategies to get the results you’re looking for on your SEO reporting tool.
Repurpose your content wherever possible
Reusing your content isn’t a bad thing. It’s a great time-saving technique that also ensures a wider audience will see your content. Think about it: not everyone you market to is going to connect with your product or brand in the same way. That’s why companies create separate strategies for advertising through different mediums, whether it’s on the web, through the radio, or on TV.
So, when you’re looking to combine your SEO and social media strategies, the first thing you should consider is how you can make your content work for both.
Infographics are one of the best tools for this. These designs allow you to get a lot of information across in a fun and engaging way. Plus, not only can they be inserted into the written guides and blog posts you publish on your website, but they can also attract a lot of attention on social media platforms like Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.
They can help you to build links back to your website, too, because they’re especially shareable. If you’re able to create an infographic that others in your field love, they might publish it on their own websites, and provide a link back to your website. This will then signal to search engines that your business is an authoritative and trustworthy source of information.
If you aren’t sure where to start with creating your own infographics, Venngage offers a wide range of free infographic templates you can simply insert your data into.
There are other ways to reuse your content for SEO and social media purposes, too. For example, you could turn a blog post into a video that will work well on a number of social platforms. Or you could turn a comprehensive guide into a Twitter thread and add a link at the end so people who want more information will visit your website.
Check out Bulk.ly’s guide to aligning your content marketing and social media strategies for more help. They cover the importance of creating a content calendar, keyword mapping, defining your audience, and mapping out your buyer’s journey.
Share your content marketing on social media
In addition to repurposing your content, you need to make sure you’re always sharing your guides and blog posts on social media. This will help you to get a lot more eyes on them.
When you share your content on social media, you’ll provide yourself with the opportunity to get more shares and likes, which could help you reach a wider audience each time. You should also consider that different segments of your target customer base will consume content in different ways. So, one demographic might do more research through search engines, while others may spend a lot of their time scrolling through their Instagram feeds.
You’ll want to reach as many people as possible, so you need to provide as many touchpoints for your content as you can.
It’s important to note that social likes and shares aren’t considered to be an official search engine ranking factor. However, research by Optinmonster has shown content that receives a lot of social shares tends to perform better on search engine results pages. Of course, a correlation doesn’t necessarily mean there’s a direct link, but this does support the idea that you should be aligning your social and SEO strategy.
There are a lot of businesses that do a fantastic job of sharing their content on social media.
Take a look at how Pixpa created a Facebook post to share their blog post on the principles of design, which is sure to appeal to the company’s target audience that is primarily made up of creatives who do a lot of their work online.
Of course, the article itself goes into much more depth about the topic, but the post gives the highlights, so Facebook users can get a good idea of whether they’ll enjoy the content if they click through. Pixpa has also included relevant hashtags, which are just starting to gain more traction on Facebook, and this format makes it easy for followers to share the post on their own profiles.
SEMRush does a great job of sharing their website content on their Twitter page, as well. Same concept, different platform. Here, they sum up their article with a few quick lines, some numbered emojis, and an image. It’s just enough information to get the idea from a quick Twitter scroll, and has a link for anyone wanting more information.
For more information on scaling your website content to post on social media, take a look at Bulk.ly’s piece on the subject. It includes tips on recycling content and using automation to make things easier for you.
Use social media insights to better understand your audience
If you’ve set up a number of social media accounts for your business, you will have given yourself access to a whole range of new analytics that will help you to understand your audience.
Platforms like Instagram and Facebook will allow you to collect information about your followers’ ages, genders, locations, when they’re online, what posts they prefer, and more. Not only do most social media websites have built-in analytics tools, but there are a variety of free and paid tools that will give you additional information about who is looking at your content.
There are plenty of great options, including Google Analytics and Keyhole. Using these tools can help you to figure out which platforms you should be devoting most of your time to, which types of content get the best response, and what your social media return on investment looks like.
You can use a lot of this information to inform your overall content strategy, which should help to improve your SEO and grow your social followings over time.
Use social media to build relationships (and then links)
If you’ve been working on your SEO for a while, you might have heard of backlinks. Google and other search engines will use links back to your website to determine the authority, trustworthiness, and expertise of your brand. So, if you can convince a lot of high-quality websites to link back to your content or services, this can have a fantastic effect on your search engine rankings. Also, explore Page Experience Report tips to ensure your website not only gains backlinks but also delivers a seamless user experience.
But where does social media come in? Social media platforms offer a great way to meet people, journalists, influencers, bloggers, and other companies within your niche or industry. By interacting with these individuals and their social media accounts, you can forge relationships, and the people you regularly speak to might be more likely to offer you a backlink.
You don’t just have to sit around and wait for the backlinks to roll in, either. Link building is a relatively popular SEO tactic, which involves contacting website owners to offer a guest post or ask for a link in an effort to secure more authority for your site. Cold outreach can be very difficult but, if you’ve engaged with relevant people and businesses on social media first, they’ll be far more likely to agree to your plans. Or you can join a community focused on guest blogging, such as Digital Marketers World and get the best outreach advice and expand your network.
Ready to get noticed? Check out Bulk.ly’s tips on influencer outreach. This article covers how to find influencers in your industry (particularly through Twitter and Google News), how to get on their radar, and how to automate the process.
Ask your customers what they need through social media
Even once you’re providing your customers with regular content, you need to be reaching out to them every so often to ask for feedback. Social media is a great place to do this.
SurveyMonkey and Google Forms are easy-to-use tools that allow you to create professional-looking surveys you can then post on social media. Doing this on a regular basis will give your audience frequent opportunities to really engage with your brand, and they’ll feel like they have a say in what happens behind the scenes. So, not only will the feedback you receive be very helpful, but the process of collecting it can also ensure your customers feel more connected and loyal to your brand.
Certain social media platforms like Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, also allow you to create polls to collect opinions. So, you could use these to ask your customers what kinds of content they like to consume, how they tend to keep tabs on your business, and whether they want anything new from you.
If you need more inspiration when it comes to different types of social media posts you should be creating, Bulk.ly has all of the social media inspiration you need. Some of their suggestions include expert content, “share to win” contests, personal stories, and contextual humor.
Target relevant keywords across the board
No matter what platform you’re creating your content for, you should be targeting relevant keywords.
To a certain degree, some social media platforms have become mini search engines in their own right. Think about it: have you ever typed a particular topic into your Instagram or Twitter search bar to see what people are saying about it? Other users will be doing this, too, and you’ll want your content to pop up for searches that are relevant to your business.
This means you should make sure your social media posts are optimized with keywords. So, if you’re planning a social media post, before deciding on the wording, use a reputable keyword search tool to see what people could be typing into their search engines or bars — then let this inform the way you phrase things.
It’s a good idea to always have relevant lists of target keywords on hand to make your life as easy as possible when writing content for both your website and social media. For help with this, check out Loganix’s guide to building SEO keyword lists, where we cover topic ideation, keyword data, the different types of keywords you should be paying attention to, and more.
If you would like to learn more about the basics of social media marketing, check out Bulk.ly’s guide to getting started. Of course, everyone’s strategy will be completely different, but this will help to give you a good idea of where to begin.
Optimize your social media profiles
In addition to optimizing your website for SEO, you need to make sure that your social media profiles are as well-optimized as possible. Google indexes profiles from popular social media platforms, including Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn, and ranks them highly in their search engine results pages.
When someone searches for products or services like yours (or even your business itself), you’ll want your ideal audience and prospective customers to be able to find you easily. Optimizing your social media profiles is just another way to get more organic traffic and potentially new customers.
You can optimize your social media profiles in a variety of different ways, and the more tactics you use the better. You want your page to look as professional as possible. Use the same handle across platforms, with your business name, description, contact details, and website link in your profile. Use branded photos and logos for your profile pictures, too — they’ll enhance your sense of legitimacy and professionalism.
Optimizing your profile can really help with lead generation through social media, but there are other steps you can take, too. For further reading, take a look at Bulk.ly’s article on social media lead generation, which covers topics like hashtags, going live, paid advertisements, and more.
Final Thoughts on Social Media SEO
By blending your company’s social and SEO strategies, you can open yourself up to a whole new audience base and potentially a lot of new customers. Don’t let an opportunity like this go to waste.
And, if you need help with creating a concrete strategy for marketing your business, take a look at Bulk.ly’s article all about marketing in 2021. They cover SMART goals, developing a brand voice, SWOT analysis, and more.