White Paper. What is SMO? Optimize For Success: Social Media Optimization PAGE 1

Transcription

1 White Paper Optimize For Success: Social Media Optimization Many marketers today know the importance and potential of social media yet don t feel or know if they are getting the full value from their efforts. It is common for far more effort to be spent on creating and developing an experience or property than is spent on promoting or driving traffic to it. In the current crowded digital space, the Build It And They Will Come methodology no longer exits; if you want to get noticed in today s social sphere you have to be proactive. Social moves fast and is often event-driven, which means timing is of the essence and early audience participation is crucial to success. It is for these reasons that smart brands are optimizing their social media experiences and gaining more control over traffic and engagement to maximize their social return. While many brands are excelling at social, there are still a number of missed opportunities. For example, 56% of customer tweets are being ignored by brands. Many don t take into consideration that social media is a two-way conversation. We all know that social media is not only about posting updates and links to articles, but about a mutual exchange with our audience, yet many struggle to make good on this expectation. Meanwhile, more B2B brands are also embracing social. According to Arberdeen, 84% of B2B marketers use social media in some form; they too struggle with gaining an audience and justifying their social efforts. Marketers can t solely depend on their audience to spread their content and messages, but instead they must optimize their efforts as much as possible. The process of doing this is called Social Media Optimization (SMO). Social media has the infinite potential to reach people other than just your social media followers, which in turn will boost and amplify your social media efforts - and the sooner you ignite that process, the farther it will go. Let s take a look at a few statistics that show just how much opportunity lies in social media: 34% of marketers have generated leads on Twitter 80% of social media users prefer to connect with brands on Facebook 23% of social media users check Facebook 5 times a day 625,000 internet users join Google+ everyday The +1 button is used 5 million times a day 65% of B2B organizations have acquired customers on LinkedIn What is SMO? Let s start with a simple definition of SMO or Social Media Optimization. Social media optimization is a method used to drive more traffic to your web properties, increase brand awareness, and boost sales through social media platforms PAGE 1

2 by optimizing each of your social media profiles and the content you share within those profiles. It is an effective way of getting your content to as many people as possible. For example, instead of posting articles and updates at random, SMO dictates that you conduct keyword research in order to use words that will result in your content being found. It s important to remember to create content that will give people a reason to share, but also content that is right for your audience. The chief ingredient to boosting your followers across social platforms is the amount of people sharing your content. To ensure that the right people are getting a chance to see your content/messages, do research and find your social media influencers. Social media influencers are people with the capacity or power to be a compelling force on the actions, behavior, opinions, etc. of others. Once your content is available to these influencers, you have a better chance of getting your content shared. When it comes to the most shareable content, the more visually appealing the better; however, this doesn t mean that all of your content must be a visual masterpiece. According to HubSpot s, The Future of Social Media Management, 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual and visuals are processed 60,000 times faster in the brain than text. Make sure your images are as great as your messages, especially since most of your content will travel well beyond your current audience. Great content is the best way to amplify your social media audience. Social Media & SEO Social media and search engine optimization (SEO) must always be considered in tandem. Social media helps to improve your SEO efforts with important elements like outbound links and fresh content. Social media has also been a ranking signal for both Google and Bing for some time now, and a brand or website s social media authority continues to hold an increasing amount of weight for search engines. The ranking signals come from real engagement through your social media profiles - which means more than just follows, likes, and shares. According to The Social Business Textbook, there is almost no limit to the types of reciprocity and return on engagement your brand can create: Thank social users when they give feedback, share a status/photo, or give praise Answer questions asked by social users Acknowledge social users to prove you are listening and attentive Provide bonus content or valuable add-ons to conversations taking place about you or your industry Share content from customers and industry accounts to help foster a scene of social community Comment on or about relevant conversations whether they are on your own channels or direction on other relevant channels like blogs or social pages The more people gravitate to and like your content, the more Google will want to return that same content to the search engine results. As long as you are providing great new marketing/social media content, Google will reward you for it. PAGE 2

3 Not only can new content be used for social media, it can be repurposed for other parts of your marketing program. For example, a single piece of content can be used for lead generation efforts (i.e. blasts), social media, your blog, etc. The idea here is that great content can go a long way, so be sure to put effort into creating and/or repurposing it. Just as important as creating the content is choosing the right social platform for it. While automating tools that crosspost content to multiple social media sites are a handy trick for a budget-strapped marketing team, it s best to create content that corresponds to each platform s personality. This means understanding user demographics the Facebook audience is younger than LinkedIn, the vast majority of Pinterest users are women, etc and planning accordingly. Similarly, you may find that your audience favors a particular platform. Because of the SEO benefit of social media in general, this doesn t mean you re allowed to simply ignore the other platforms; however, it does mean understanding where your time and focus should go. B2B companies are generally most successful on LinkedIn, where the users socialize not just with friends but with their entire professional network. A detailed LinkedIn strategy, then, can be a crucial component of a B2B company s social ROI. This means joining relevant groups, connecting with professionals in your industry, answering questions in group discussions, and becoming a thought leader for your product or industry. Social Media & PPC As we know, social media also supports paid efforts. It s an element of social media that most people don t use because they either don t know how to correctly implement it or don t see the benefits. Social media and paid media can be used in conjunction in order to amplify any promotion you re focusing on through your normal social media platforms. The use of paid media is a great way to ensure that your message is served to a specific audience, even those who are outside of your usual social media audience. Paid, owned, and earned media all work together in order to achieve the goals of building brand awareness and amplifying your messages, as well assuring user intent. Optimized owned content drives earned media and can be promoted using paid media, all of which combine to exponentially grow social reach, engagement, and conversations. Let s take a look at some viable paid options offered by the top social media platforms for business, which are Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn: Facebook Promoted content Social / mobile ads Sponsored stories Twitter PAGE 3

4 Promoted tweets Promoted accounts Promoted trends LinkedIn LinkedIn ads In conclusion, marketers spend a lot of time strategizing, implementing, and creating content for their social media efforts, but many don t see optimal returns. This is due to only performing half of the necessary elements needed to succeed in social today. The first half, which most companies understand, is the creation of the social experience; the second and less practiced half is promoting the social experience through search and paid media. It s not just about creating the right content for the right audience; it s about driving the right audience to the right content at the right time to ignite a viral effect or spur the desired action. Social media has become one of the most effective and inexpensive ways to market your business or brand, but using social media for marketing does come with hard work. Social media should always have a place in your overall marketing plan and should always be optimized in order for you to achieve maximum success. So here are some key things to remember: Social media fails without the use of great content and optimization Success may take a while, but it will be worth it Social media content has a very short shelf life, so you have to always come up with new things and repurpose content as well Monitoring your profiles takes a lot of time, but social media is a two-way conversation so engage with your audience PAGE 4

5 Sources: 1. htttp:// 2. HubSpot 3. The Future of Social Media Management The Social Business Textbook PAGE 5