General description
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) remains a key strategy to strengthen online visibility and improve reputation with major search engines (Google, Yahoo, and MSN). But getting results with SEO strategies alone could be a lengthy process. Due to this, most of the businesses are adopting SEO along with one or more social media strategies to improve online visibility in less time. Be sure to consult a professional or do your research to assess whether these strategies are relevant to your business and then come up with a plan to execute these strategies.
History
A few years ago, social networks were popular among people to interact with family and friends and stay in touch. It was not the norm for companies to have fan pages and build their network online. Therefore, companies allocated their marketing dollars to paid search marketing such as Google AdWords and search engine optimization (SEO) to improve organic search rankings. As we are aware of the fact that search engine optimization is a long-term strategy, it took some businesses much longer than others to achieve search engine rankings, even after aggressive link building and marketing strategies. of content. This is no longer the case, as companies now have the option of adopting social media strategies into their marketing plan, based on proven results in the industry relevant to their business.
Actual trends
Now, businesses can allocate resources between Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Social Media Optimization (SMO)/Social Media Marketing and achieve results in less time. By participating in optimization, it is now also easier to adopt marketing strategies.
If you’re the kind of company that doesn’t get involved and doesn’t have the resources to manage profiles and strike up conversations with fans, SMO is the best option for you. Once you have the SMO plan in place and have the resources to manage profiles on a regular basis and to respond to the fan base in a timely manner, you can engage in marketing activities.
Tips to optimize social networks
If you’re the kind of company that doesn’t get involved and doesn’t have the resources to manage profiles and strike up conversations with fans, SMO is the best option for you. Optimization takes work, initially. Once you’ve done it a few times, it becomes a habit. However, if you want to be really consistent with your tasks and be effective, you must set the Campaign Guidelines, which are to follow:
- Optimize your social media profiles, with content keywords and ALT tags for images in the image gallery. Some of the popular platforms are LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Blog.
- Design a project/calendar for social media activities that need to be done daily/weekly/monthly. This is the schedule that must be followed by the resource Responsible for executing the Social Media Plan. If you are going to use internal resources, be sure to train them to do the job effectively. You also have the option of outsourcing the effort.
- Happy union. The content can be in the form of text, video or images. For example, if you are writing two blog posts a month, when you publish the blog posts, distribute these posts across multiple platforms and bookmarking sites. There are tools/plugins available to automate this process. If you have scheduled one video per month, optimize the video with SEO friendly tags and descriptions on YouTube and distribute the same video to multiple video parking sites. Content syndication generates many quality links and contributes to SMO.
- Be sure to measure the results of all activities.
Social Media Marketing Tips
Once you have the SMO plan in place and have the resources to manage profiles on a regular basis and to respond to the fan base in a timely manner, you can engage in social media marketing activities.
- Before you start your marketing campaign on one or more social media platforms for your business, find out where your target market is active.
- Have a social media policy for employees who can participate in online conversations about your brand. This is critical to setting a standard for responding to fans and avoiding any negative publicity. If you find yourself in such a situation, be proactive in handling it in a timely manner to prevent major damage to your brand.
- If you’re going to use internal resources to manage social media profiles for your business, make sure you train them to do the job effectively. You also have the option of outsourcing the effort.
- In addition to scheduled SMO activities for content syndication, you can also consider ad-hoc tasks to surprise your fan base and generate excitement for buying your products and services.
- Take advantage of paid social media campaigns like Facebook ads to build brand awareness and build your network.
- Be sure to measure the results of all activities.
Benefits
By running SEO, SMO and Social Media Marketing effectively, you are harnessing the power of the internet to:
- Improve online visibility
- Strengthen brand awareness
- Build credibility online
- Build a strong following online
- Generate leads by viral marketing
- Be the source of information, when consumers are ready
