In the first part of this article we had a look at how it’s possible to blend SEO strategies and social media marketing to help to build a business brand.
We looked at the ways in which a business can use multiple social media profiles and incorporate keyword-rich content to enhance awareness and visibility. In the final part of this article we’ll have a look at the relationship between the social media and the main company website, and the importance of influence and quality content in promoting any brand.
Use social media platforms as a portal to your main website.
The whole purpose of blogging or posting on social networking sites is to encourage users to visit your website. Unless they do this, you’ll never get the chance to sell them the goods or services they ‘desperately’ need. When you blog, don’t give it all away at once: keep the sense of mystery and only drip feed your content. If you then include a call to action, users can visit your company site to read the rest and also see what else you have to offer.
If you include social media links on your main site, don’t give them too much prominence. Once you have users on your site, the last thing you want is to send them away again. Facebook likes are fine, but not if a user has to click away from your main page to activate this preference. Your main site exists to sell goods and services, and that’s what all the hours of SEO tweaking have been geared towards. It’s important to remember that your social profile should be secondary to your main profile: think of it as a gateway into the main site, not a back door out of it.
Try to influence the influencers.
Every walk of life has its top dog – you know the type – the sort of major player everyone looks to for advice and information. They’re the experts and their opinions count. Find out who these influential people are and try to build relationships with them. You can’t expect them to share your content with others if you’re not prepared to share theirs. Search engines value not just quality, but also authority and influence. Getting links from an active influential user will undoubtedly raise your profile.
Keep your content fresh, relevant and regular.
No one appreciates yesterday’s news: it’s been seen before and is therefore probably no longer relevant. Facebook, contrary to popular opinion, does have certain rules about the timeliness of content publication. Content posted to Facebook gets approximately 50 percent of its likes within the first 80 minutes after publication. However, it can take up to 22 hours for that same post to get 95 percent of its likes. Generally speaking there is 24 hour window for publishing content on Facebook, and its best to stick to this. There’s absolutely no point in publishing lots and lots of content as this will only serve to push your existing content out of the window. Similarly, publishing too infrequently can also harm your profile as you’ll lose that sense of engagement with your community. The final thing to remember about Facebook is that you should really get to know the preferences of your target audience, particularly about when they like to see content published. A recent study showed that those companies, who posted outside standard business hours, saw engagement rates 20 percent higher than their rivals.
