Most businesses understand that social media is important to their brand, but trying to source answers as to how they will achieve that target is an entirely different equation. Apart from the basic practices such as posting images, videos and articles, there is a subtle science to scoring big on social media.
The target for all brands is to build visibility online, as the knock-on effects of that ensures your brand can remain sustainable in the short-term and prosper in the long-term, where people will engage in your product or service in the digital sphere and the word will spread.
Here are 5 key social media strategies, that work for both big and small brands, to increase your search ranking.
1 Pack out your profile
A very simple and straightforward way to boost visibility and credibility is to include all your brand information in your social media profile. Fill out your contact email, number, location, URL and even business hours. Search engines need consistency, so using the same details that are applicable across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter will satisfy those requirements. Any field that is different from one network to another should be viewed as a break in the chain.
2 Think in links
Promoting hyperlinks on your social accounts ensures that organic traffic can be garnered as you source followers to find anything from articles, images, videos and many others. Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts should be viewed as their own entities, as each has its own individual communities. The capacity to drive traffic becomes self-sustaining if you each profile collectively and search engines will see this as completely legitimate and organic.
3 Network to boost inbound links
Having other sites link back to your site―especially ones high in authority and respected within your nice―does good for your brand. One way to get these inbound links through social media is to see what your consumer base is engaging with on platforms like Facebook or Instagram. For instance, forum-type pages on Facebook can earn you organic brand recognition by responding to people and including a link back to your website. You will get cut-through by being proactive in this space.
4 Breakdown your posts
All the posts sent out from your account should be targeted to a specific market, as targeting a generic audience won’t work. Make sure each post is catered to a demographic using the appropriate hashtags, keywords and multimedia. Apart from using social media for recognition, you are also providing value for the end user. Social posts with high traffic will be ranked highly by search engines―so avoid generic posts and breakdown the target.
5 Optimise to localise
Location targeting across all social media platforms is all the rage today, as brands are able to integrate their marketing to the community at large. Local participation is the goal, where customers and neighbouring businesses are encouraged to engage with what you are promoting. This strategy really taps into the mobile market, a segment that is rapidly growing, so it is vital for your brand to have a go at this to optimise your social media platform to its fullest potential.
By Lucas Bikowski, managing director and senior SEO strategist at SEO Shark
