Today, social media is an essential aspect of marketing your business online. Not only is social networking gaining in popularity with those who use the internet, search engines are now using signals from sites such as Facebook, Google+ and Twitter for determining where websites get placed in the search engine results. Is your content properly optimized to make the most of your social media marketing efforts?
The fact is, the fundamentals that apply to optimizing your social media content are much like those in the SEO (search engine optimization) process used in blogging, writing articles and developing web pages. Whereas with SEO the focus is placed on both on- and off-page elements such as inbound links, meta tags, titles, keyword optimization, etc., social media optimization relies mainly on keyword relevancy.
Here are a few pointers to keep in mind so that your social media campaigns help you attract more potential targeted leads:
Keyword research. Yes, as much as we’d all like to avoid this task, it’s still important to discover those keywords that our potential audience uses to find products/services. Additionally, you don’t have to be concerned with highly competitive keywords as you are when developing an SEO strategy for your website, blogs and other content.
Keyword integration. After selecting your keywords, how you integrate them into your social media marketing makes a difference. For instance, personal walls and group discussions are not searched by Google, but Facebook Fan Pages are. Be sure your page is keyword optimized using a combination of specific keyword phrases and those that grab the attention of users.
Optimize your updates for timing & frequency. When you have multiple updates, avoid posting them at the same time (this is particularly true with Google+). Posting too many updates simultaneously on Google+ could overwhelm your followers’ Google+ feeds. Stagger your updates throughout the day on Facebook and Twitter as well. Do some testing to determine when your updates appear to have the most effect. You can use tools like Crowdbooster to figure out what are the highest converting times for your social media posts.
These are just a few of the many ways you can optimize your social media content for generating leads, attracting potential customers and growing interest in your business. As with everything else on the internet, content is king!
