Keyword Research for Social Media

Keyword Research for Social Media David Lakins info@keymultimedia.co.uk www.keymultimedia.co.uk/seminars Follow me: twitter.com/davidlakins

Keywords, keywords, keywords Keyword research plays a vital role in marketing your website. A keyword, a coined phrase or keyword phrase is used by people on search engines in looking for information or data online. A perfect example is dorchester restaurant, or dorchester cafe these words or word combinations are used to key into search engines like Bing or Google. 2

Keywords, keywords, keywords The more targeted and precise your keyword, the better are your chances in getting more free traffic to your site. Thus, when doing keyword research, you need to search for keywords that follow these criteria: Keywords must be related to your website content Keywords should be targeted and geared towards your niche Keywords should neither be too short nor too long. Keywords must have high monthly search volume. 3

Why keywords are important for Social Media Keyword research is also highly effective for social media marketing. Whether your target audience is sharing content on YouTube or Flickr, or they re Tweeting, your social media marketing efforts should start with determining which keywords your audience is using. To be more specific, conducting keyword research for social media enables you to discover the needs and wants of social communities by: Tracking popular and trending topics Determining search/query frequency Gauging market interest for products or services Identifying demand for keywords Better understanding user intent Discovering relevant points of engagement 4

Why keywords are important for Social Media By researching and identifying keywords, you gain a much clearer picture of how to construct and communicate your message effectively. Applying this level of keyword insight to all your social media optimization efforts (from optimized video, to image tagging, to social bookmarking, to targeted Tweets) gives you the maximum pull and value out of your social media marketing efforts. 5

Keyword Research for Social Media It is easy to think that keyword research is a one-size-fits-all process. We assume that the same keyword data they apply to their pay-per-click advertising or search engine optimization efforts will be just as effective for their social media marketing strategy. 6

Keyword Research for Social Media However, there are some major differences between search and social, which include: Query variances: The most popular queries in Google aren't the most popular queries in YouTube. Behavioural differences across platforms: Not only do query types and user behaviour differ between Google and social media sites, but there are dramatic differences from one social platform to another. The behaviour exhibited by users on the photo sharing site Flickr are often dramatically differently than micro-bloggers on Twitter. 7

Keyword Research for Social Media However, there are some major differences between search and social, which include: Query vs Conversation: Social engagement is more than just typing a query into a search engine. Searchers are looking for an answer to a question or an unmet need, while social media users want to engage in conversation, share ideas and interact with one another. So thinking just in terms of query strings is limited and can lead to completely misunderstanding user intent and expectations. 8

Keyword Research for SEO Research which keywords you will target. Think about which words and phrases your customers use to search for your business and its products or services. The most commonly searched keywords are also often the most competitive, and the more competitive it is, the harder it will be to achieve a decent ranking on search engines. 9

Keyword Research for SEO The best keywords are those which are regularly searched for by customers, but are not being heavily targeted by competitors. To find these keywords, it helps to do some keyword research using the Google keyword tool. 10

Google Keyword Tool First, identify your keyword or phrase for example Dorchester restaurant Search for this term in Google, and note the number of results listed under the search bar (in this case 2,370,000 ). This is your competition. 11

Google Keyword Tool Go to the Google keyword tool, and enter your keyword again. Note the number of local monthly searches for your keyword (in this case 1,300). https://adwords.google.co.uk/select/keywordtoolexternal 12

Working out Keyword Effectiveness Keyword effectiveness index. Local monthly searches 2 / Competition = Keyword Effectiveness Index Keyword Local Monthly Searches Competition KEI Dorchester restaurant Dorchester restaurant s 1300 2,370,000 0.71 880 2,240,000 0.35 13

Keyword Research for YouTube Videos are one of the hottest and fastest growing ways to connect with your potential customers online. YouTube continues to dominate the search space as the second largest search engine in the U.S. behind Google. 14

Keyword Research for YouTube For marketers, the goal of researching keywords for YouTube online video marketing is to determine: How users are searching Which queries are being performed more than others How to get your content found 15

Keyword Research for YouTube Two methods for conducting keyword research specific to video marketing in YouTube which are: YouTube Suggest 16

Keyword Research for YouTube YouTube also has created their own YouTube Keyword Tool that marketers can use for video keyword research. The user interface is the same as the Google Keyword Tool, with the objective of mining and discovering the most popular video queries on YouTube. 17 https://ads.youtube.com/keyword_tool

Keyword Research for Twitter There are countless listening tools that can help you conduct keyword research for Twitter by tracking popular hashtags, trending Twitter topics and eaves dropping on conversations Hashtags.org - Provides graphs on Twitter #hashtags and hashtag use; find the most popular and newest hashtags Twitter Search - Track the hottest trends on Twitter and click on a stream to pull up a feed of the public conversation 18

Other Twitter Research Tools Trendistic - See the top trending keywords in Twitter TwitScoop - Search and follow what's buzzing on twitter in real-time TweetVolume - Enter your keywords and see how often they appear on Twitter TweetScan - Incorporate Twitter search and historical search to access more than 220 million Tweets TweetGrid - Create a real-time Twitter Search dashboard TweetBeep - Save target keywords, receive email alerts you tweets containing your keywords 19

Keyword Research for Facebook Targeting potential customers on Facebook is not as easy as with social networking sites like Twitter. You can't access the profiles of potential customers unless you get permission, but you can promote your business on fan pages, group pages and with paid advertising. 20

Keyword Research for Facebook In the meantime, the social networking giant has upgraded their internal search functionality, which allows for advanced keyword research for Facebook. You are able to view the messages, links and notes of everyone who uses Facebook to see which keywords people are using. Start your research by running a query for a target keyword in the internal search bar. Then, click on the option "Posts by Everyone." 21

Summary Remember that user behaviour varies from search to social and from platform to platform and thus your approach to keyword research must also adapt. 22