Social media marketing is now playing a vital role in digital marketing. Many companies now use social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn to promote their brand and increase sales. But there’s much more to social media optimization than simply posting content and hoping people see it. It takes strategy and planning, and you should do it systematically.
In this article, I will give you a brief overview of the basics of social media optimization.
What Are the Basics of Social Media Optimization
Social Media Optimization (SMO) uses social media platforms to build a business’ online presence. Successful social media marketing campaigns can help companies reach out to potential clients and expand their customer base.
Social media marketing (SMM) has become the main driver behind many companies’ Internet presence. Social media marketing involves creating content that attracts and engages audiences via a social platform such as Facebook, Twitter, and others. Social media channels allow marketers to create and share content quickly, easily, and very low cost. They also enable businesses to target consumers based on their interests and behaviors.
If you’re not already doing some basics of social media optimization, then you are missing out on one of the most effective, powerful tools in modern marketing. Here’s why:
- Increase Brand Awareness
You will get better rankings on major search engines by optimizing your company’s web pages with social media optimization techniques.
- Improve Customer Experience
If your customers have a positive experience while browsing through your site, they are likely to keep coming back. As a result, you’ll gain loyal repeat buyers who may even recommend your service to others.
- Build Relationships With Customers & Prospects
Your target audience shares information about themselves by liking posts from friends and family members. You can also leverage such dynamics by asking them questions that help create trust between both parties.
- Generate Leads For Sales Team
When you optimize your sites, you ensure that all relevant details are clearly listed, so prospects know what exactly they need before buying your goods or signing up for your services. As a result, these leads are generated easily without having to waste time sifting through irrelevant information.
- Gain More Exposure To Potential Clients
The internet provides a wide platform where businesses can market their products and services. However, only those websites that appear at top positions in search results receive maximum exposure. Therefore, if you want to attract new clients, you must invest in SMO strategies.
Social Media Optimization Tips to Boost Engagement
Social media optimization is still one of the best ways to drive more attention towards your business or brand name online. It’s also a great method to create rapport with new customers and improve retention rates among existing clients. Here are some ways you can use SMO to boost online engagement.
Audit Your Social Media Accounts
Ensure that all your social media accounts go well with your business and objectives. This requires a general review of your social profiles focusing on branding and marketing messaging, including any content that may be inconsistent with your business on social media networks.
Keeping a successful social media campaign requires you to start with a strong social media presence foundation.
There are three main areas you should optimize in any social media platform
- Your social media profiles should include your company logo. This cover photo is one of the first impressions your audience gets of you.
- Your username should be unique and consistent across all social sites. This makes it better for people to find your company on social media.
- Make sure you provide complete information about your company. Include keywords that relate to your business, too. Also, make sure you add a link to your website so people can learn more about your business and contact you directly.
Increase Your Searchability
Similar to search engine optimization, keywords play a vital role in your social media marketing efforts. Understanding how your audience searches on social media platforms can help you optimize your social media presence to get more people to see your content.
- Start by performing keyword research for specific industry and brand-related keywords you can use to sprinkle throughout your content and then optimize your social media posts
- Include relevant keywords and hashtags
- Ensure key details such as username, address, and contact options (email, phone number, etc.) are consistent across all social content, so you can easily find them when you need to.
- Fill out the bio section of your social profile. These are important details since some services may require them before they let you create accounts.
Optimize Your Social Media Content
The social media platform is a great means to share your content. However, it would help if you were sure that your social posts were shared and optimized for the right audience. An ideal social media strategy combines branded content and curated content.
Test your headlines to check which ones resonate best with your audience. Write captions that reflect your company’s current promotions and initiatives. Include the right hashtags, keywords, and call-to-actions for each post.
Optimize Your Performance
To perform better, you need to start with analytics. You’ll be able to see the impact of your content, including how much engagement you’re getting on different types of content. You can uncover common denominators between your most engaging content and links. These insights can help you develop new strategies for reaching your audience on social media.
Make Your Social Media Content Shareable
Creating meaningful web content that people share on social media can increase website traffic and community growth. Add social media links to your web pages so that users can easily share the content you’ve created with other people. Each social network manages the sharing of content differently, so you need to check out each site’s developer site to see how to customize these buttons.
Hashtags
Many people use hashtags to search for interesting and relevant topics- and you can also use them to help your posts get more reach and improve social presence. To ensure you’re reaching the right leads, include relevant hashtags in your social media optimization strategy. For example, look at the hashtag usage of industry influencers. Then, consider using those hashtags for your posts.
Twitter Cards and Facebook Open Graph Markup
Add Twitter Cards and Facebook Open Graph markup to your web pages can help you control how those pages and posts appear when shared on social media.
Twitter Cards are simply a few lines that allow you to specify images, videos, and other data that appear when a page appears on Twitter. There are several types of Twitter Cards, such as the apps card and summary cards. Facebook Open Graph Markup lets you use metadata tags to describe the object being posted. This information helps search engines understand what it is about your page that makes it interesting. It also gives visitors more context as they navigate through your site.
How to Optimize for Facebook
Facebook is, without a doubt, one of the most popular social media sites worldwide to promote your business. There are numerous ways to optimize your page for Facebook.
Your Facebook page title tag should contain the name of your business. Make sure your website and blog URL match each other correctly. Every time you make a new post, there is an opportunity to get more traffic to your site via SEO keywords. Be sure to include them in your blog content. But don’t overuse them!
The ‘About’ field on Facebook pages acts as the meta description. This is your opportunity, using some keywords, to describe your Facebook page, keeping in mind you are limited to 140 characters.
A call to action button on your FB page will help people know how to get in touch with you. It will also help them share your individual blog posts and increase your reach when they click through to your site.
Video is increasingly becoming important for social media marketing efforts, and Facebook is playing catch-up. Facebook prioritizes posts that come directly from Facebook over those that come from YouTube and other sources. Therefore, try to post videos directly to your Facebook profile instead of sharing them from YouTube or anywhere else.
How to Optimize for Twitter
There are many ways to optimize Twitter as a traffic driver to improve your social presence.
You must take time to ensure that your Twitter profile is updated regularly with tweets that contain valuable links to articles you’ve written or images that you’ve uploaded. In addition, every time you tweet is an occasion to work in the use and placement of target keywords. Also, don’t forget to take advantage of Twitter Cards.
For page titles, companies usually use the formal company name as the title tag for the Twitter profile/user name, which appears as the page title in the search. For the Twitter page meta description, the “Bio” field on your Twitter page is the best place to put a keyword-rich description of your website.
How to Optimize for LinkedIn
A properly optimized LinkedIn profile with a good number of likes, shares, follows, and comments can be extremely beneficial to your business. A great way to have the attention to your blog posts on LinkedIn is to become a valued member of relevant groups. Engage in genuine discussions and then post helpful articles. Be thorough in completing your entire business profile for your blog. If you write a well-written description of your company, you can include keywords related to your business or blog.
How to Optimize for Pinterest
One of the basic Pinterest optimization best practices includes internal links for those who want to follow them. It would help if you created boards based on keywords that people are searching for and include the same keywords throughout your pins to ensure they are found when someone searches for them. Also, make sure that your pins link back to your website so that people can easily access the content from there.
Make sure your Pinterest profile is public so search engines can easily find it. If you’d like to make certain boards private without blocking the entire Pinterest profile to search engines, you can do so by choosing the board you want to be private and click the edit board button. Then, set the board to secret.
How to Optimize for YouTube
YouTube is the go-to site for posting videos online, so if you want to get your video out there, you need to optimize your website for YouTube.
It’s best to stick with your company name. This will also ensure people will find your channel when they search your company. Add target keywords and include them in your channel description. Add nofollow links to referrers.
Every new video post should include an optimized title and description. Keyword tags are important for YouTube, especially when you upload videos from other sources. Don’t forget to include them in your description to give it maximum visibility.
How to Optimize for Instagram
Instagram does not have many features outside its mobile application. But there is one feature that can help you increase the visibility of your Instagram page while also making your blog posts more attractive.
You can share any Instagram posts (images) on WordPress using the Instagram embed code. Copy the code and paste it whereever you want on the page.
To Conclude
Now that you’ve learned the basics of social media optimization, we are pretty sure you will no longer find SMO daunting. But do you need some help with your social media optimization strategy? We are here to help you. Connect with us so we can assist you.