When most companies start working on their SEO, building up their social media is the last thing on their minds. After all, there is no obvious connection, so why bother?
Well, prepare to have your mind blown. The two are actually intertwined, and understanding how they work together can give you a great advantage over your competition.
In this article, we’ll lift the veil on this seldom-used strategy and show you how to use social media to boost your website’s ranking and traffic and achieve SEO success. But before that, we need to answer one single question…
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What is the Connection Between SEO and Social Media?
As mentioned, the connection between SEO and social media isn’t immediately obvious. Social media doesn’t directly contribute to your site’s ranking, yet there is a link between the two – the links themselves!
Upon scrutinizing more than 23 million social media shares, CognitiveSEO identified a noticeable correlation between likes, shares, and the SEO of companies, particularly in the realm of logo design. Based on their research, we can conclude that social media increases brand exposure and influences search engine optimization in 6 significant aspects:
- Extensive Content Distribution
- Longer Post Lifespan
- Improved Online Visibility & Organic Traffic
- Increased Brand Recognition
- Better Brand Reputation
- Boosted Local SEO
As a case study, Semrush details Matt Howard’s article on the “Unhealthiest Foods” that went viral on Facebook. After 31,500 shares, 68,000 likes, and 34,280 comments, the article blew up to #1 in ranking on the first page of Google for several keywords.
Tips and Tricks for Using Social Media Trends for SEO
As you may imagine, leveraging social media to boost your SEO isn’t something you can intuit from just the concept alone. So, we have assembled these 7 tips and tricks to guide you through growing your page ranking via your social media channels.
- Let Social Media Topics Inform Your Content
Social media platforms are naturally the main drivers of most online discourse. Consequently, they are an invaluable resource for tracking and anticipating emerging trends long before the rest of the internet has a chance to catch up.
However, manually monitoring social media trends can be time-consuming and inefficient. That’s why you should use some of the many social media tools available to help you track and analyze the most relevant and popular topics on different platforms.
By paying close attention to your target audience’s discussion, you can gauge their current values and interests and adapt your content strategy accordingly. Use these insights to create articles your customers are likely to search for, and you’ll see your traffic and ranking rise sooner rather than later.
- Drive Website Traffic by Spreading Content that Converts
Continuing from our previous point, you can maximize your efforts by sharing and spreading your trend-optimized content with your brand logo design on your various social media platforms. This offers you a great opportunity to grow your audience on those specific channels and drive even more traffic to your website via links.
Best of all, the effects of this strategy tend to compound. The more people see and resonate with your content, the higher the chance they’ll be compelled to share it themselves.
With a bit of luck, you might strike gold and see your article or blog post go viral online. We have outlined the effect of this earlier in the article, and though it is not something you can safely bet on, you can always dream.
- Tailor Your Social Media x SEO Strategy to the Platform
As the popular saying goes, “Don’t put all your content on one social media platform”. The uniqueness of each social media platform is reflected in its personality, use case, and tone of voice, which is why leveraging appropriate hashtags becomes crucial. This is because diverse content types experience optimal performance across various platforms.
On Twitter, you’re best off packaging your content in short, bite-sized snippets to peak people’s interest. You might get away with longer, more comprehensive posts on Facebook and LinkedIn. In fact, as per Linkedin statistics, LinkedIn Posts with 1900-2000 words have the best performance and engagement rate. Though it is still best not to test your audience’s attention span too much. When managing multiple sites, it’s important to keep these nuances in mind to ensure that your content resonates with the audience on each platform.
Oh, and images and animated infographics? They work almost anywhere. So keep these nuances in mind when repackaging your content, and you’ll see it resonate and succeed anywhere and wherever you post it.
- Optimize Social Media Content for SEO
Staying on the topic of tailoring your content, it is finally time to discuss SEO. We all know that optimizing articles and blogs for SEO on your site is essential, but did you know the same applies to the various social media platforms?
Although not identical to Google’s SEO Guidelines, each social media site has its own set of rules for displaying and recommending content to potentially interested parties. And if you want your organic traffic and ranking to really blow up, you’ll need to learn how to play the system.
Keywords are a no-brainer. Engaging images and videos too. Finally, hashtags get a hearty #maybe. But there is much more to consider than these examples to consider, so don’t be scared to put on your detective hat and start digging. it is sure to pay off in the end.
- Leverage Social Media Influencers for SEO
Influencers, thought-leaders, and social media personalities are another resource you can get nowhere else but on social media platforms. These people (ideally) have a loyal and enthusiastic fanbase – one which they are hopefully willing to share with you for the right price.
Start by searching for influencers and UGC creators acting within a similar space like you. You’re looking for someone with a significant cross-over in topics, audience interests, and demographics. Create a list of viable partners and start reaching out to them via cold call or cold email to see if they are willing to collaborate.
If all goes to plan, you’ll be able to broaden your audience, increase engagement, and possibly even reach new markets. Just remember to not overextend yourself in terms of budget, as the bigger, more recognizable names tend to carry a hefty price tag.
The cheapest way of doing business is quid-pro-quo, so look for opportunities where you could leverage your existing audience and platform. But where that won’t suffice, the dollar surely will.
- Measure Your SEO Success with Social Media Metrics
With all that said and done, it is time to gauge your performance and hopefully reap the fruits of your labor. Thankfully, most in-app social media analytics feature, where you can get a comprehensive (and understandable) breakdown of your recent activities.
The statistics available vary, but statistics will account for likes, shares, comments, impressions, reach, and more. Understanding these will allow you to identify further improvement opportunities, including increasing your visibility and brand recognition.
Just remember to identify your needs and desires ahead of time and choose the most important metrics accordingly. Many companies fall for the trap of vanity metrics and end up chasing numbers that have no bearing on their company’s performance.
Conclusion
As we have demonstrated, despite first appearances, SEO and social media are closely related. Furthermore, their alignment can have an immense effect on your site’s SEO performance in terms of ranking, organic traffic, and more.
This fact often goes unappreciated by most, but that alone gives you a head start on your competition, should you leverage it to your advantage. Though, make no mistake, you’ll still have to work for it.
So, in conclusion, be patient, don’t be afraid to trail-blaze new trends, respect each social media platform’s unique aspects, don’t forget your virtual event SEO basics, and collaborate with like-minded people (ideally) without breaking the bank. The rest will come itself.
Author bio:
Zuzana Hudecova is a marketing specialist for CloudTalk, helping to create compelling messaging in support of the next generation of cloud communication and call center softwares.
