• September 16, 2019
• on Marketing, SEO
• by TLj Creative Marketing

Social Media Optimization: Use Your Social Presence for Traffic Growth!

Digital marketing has many branches. And one of them is social media optimization (SMO).

It’s a vital part of your marketing efforts.

It’s as important as SEO. Only problem is, many businesses tend to ignore social media optimization.

We don’t recommend that. SMO is key to growing your business, and we’ll show you how below!

How Social Media Optimization Benefits Your Business

Let’s start with the basics – gaining traffic.

Your target traffic doesn’t ONLY spend their time on Google’s search engines. They mostly do so for brief searches.

Instead, they’re on social media. They’re on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and the like.

They’re sifting through posts, trends, and memes – while posting their own content.

At the end of 2018, Facebook had close to 2.32 billion active users – or the majority of world’s adults (source).

That number is slowly inching to 2.5 billion, which shows how much of a utility Facebook is.

And how about a visual platform like YouTube? YouTube’s numbers are equally impressive with 1.5 billion active viewers per month (source).

And those viewers aren’t there for brief moments. On average, viewers spend at least 1 hour on YouTube!

YouTube aside, the actual overall use of social media is much higher per individual. People spend up to 2 ½ hours per day on social media sites (source)!

As is obvious, social media is a massive pool of traffic, and people allocate to it a lot of their day.

It’s where your potential business is. And it’s where you should be to get more viewers!

Second Benefit – Branding.

Want your brand to appear popular and trustworthy? If so, you need to be on social media.

Almost all social networks provide popularity metrics – such as the like button, the share button, and number of followers.

Assimilate a high count on each, and you have something to show off on your site!

In a way, social media popularity helps you signal your reach. It shows new clients that you are experienced and trustworthy.

It makes marketing easier, where you can focus less on cold calls and hustling for traffic!

Branding Stats for Social Media.

Let’s start with the purchase habits of women.

A poll in 2016 showed that 53% of women made purchases as a result of influencer posts (source).

And if you didn’t know, influencers are always popular brands on social media!

Women aside, it turns out that this habit is shared by men too. Overall, 54% of social media queries focus on product research (source).

Basically, ½ the people who spot your social pages are interested in your products. And branding is a vital part of getting a purchase!

Third Benefit – Increased Sales.

As we’ve mentioned before, at least ½ of social media searches are done for products.

Plus, the majority of people are heavily influenced by influencer opinion. And this means that a popular page gets you more sales, (especially on a platform like Facebook).

In just a single year (between 2014 and 2015), the platform managed to increase its influence over buyer decision by 18% (source).

Influence aside – social media can lead to recommendations too!

Around 71% of your customers will recommend social media to friends/family if they feel satisfied by their experience (source)!

Multiple Benefits.

Social media has its unique quirks that improves your branding, your traffic count, while getting you extra sales.

Those benefits make it a vital part of your marketing strategy. In fact, it makes it as important as your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) efforts!

Reading Suggestion: How to Do Basic Keyword Research

The Differences Between Social Media Optimization and Search Engine Optimization

You’re probably wondering…

“Isn’t SEO enough? Shouldn’t Google’s algorithms get my website the traffic I need?”

And the answer is a “no.”

SEO shouldn’t be a standalone tactic. While it is important, it can never make up your entire marketing approach.

You need to supplement SEO with other forms of marketing. And below we’ll show you how, by listing the difference between SMO and SEO.

Difference #1 – Engagement.

A key part of proper marketing is to create talking space for your followers.

That’ll usually be a comments section, often on your social media presence. And this makes SMO best for creating engagement.

Now, you can have engagement on your site. But the problem is, it’s difficult to organize.

You’ll need to create a blog. And you’ll need to find a way to create a thriving comments section (that isn’t repulsive).

This is difficult to accomplish if you rely on organic SEO only. But with SMO, you can pull in social media traffic for more interaction!

Difference #2 – Keeping Track of Long-Term Clients.

You need to remind followers and previous buyers of your presence. And there are 2 methods to do that…

1. Email newsletters.
2. Social media.

Email newsletters are difficult to set up. Plus, you need to allocate time to write and send useful (and non-spam) emails.

But with SMO, it’s easier to maintain the attention of followers. Whatever you post shows up in their notifications, and without extra marketing!

That’s not an advantage you get with organic SEO. In fact, organic SEO is more for gaining new clients, rather than appealing to older ones!

Difference #3 – SEO Has Wider Applicability.

You can apply SEO to almost all other forms of digital marketing.

You can use it for on-site marketing by adjusting your own posts. You can use it for backlink marketing on other sites.

You can even use it with social media marketing.

In a sense, SEO is a form of fine-tuning that complements other marketing channels!

Difference #4 – Promotional Posts.

This applies the most to businesses selling seasonal products. As a seasonal business, you want posts that gain tons of visibility in short-time.

This is difficult to accomplish with organic SEO. Because you’re seeking first-page results amid much competition.

As a result, your posts might not appear in-time to get you sales.

Plus, organic SEO doesn’t push your posts reach out to “long-term clients” like SMO does (which is actually our next point)…

Integrating Social Media into Your Website

The end goal of Social Media Optimization is to get you sales. And this means leading followers back to your site.

Doing that can be difficult. After all, you have to post promotional material, and some struggle with ideas.

But do note – this is the critical point of your SMO marketing.

All your efforts to attract clients and grow your popularity metrics lead to a website backlink. So you have to know the right way to funnel followers to your site.

Below, we’ll mention some ways to accomplish that. Take note, and apply them to your marketing!

First – The 80/20 Rule.

You shouldn’t spam promotional posts on your social media account.

Sure, promotional posts are excellent for getting clicks to your site. But done in excess, it can repel your followers.

The key here is to create balance. And for that, we recommend 1 promotional post for every 4 engaging posts.

That way, you give viewers enough content to keep them engaged. And, you don’t come off as too pushy!

However, you can break this rule – if your posts aren’t frequent. That is, if you’re posting once a day or less, you can equalize the ratio a bit!

Second – Use Videos/Images.

On average, graphical content gets more clicks, engagement, and attention than text posts.

Statistics show that video content provides a 66% increase in leads. It also provides a 54% increase in brand awareness (source)!

Plus, a user spends 88% more time on a site/page if there’s a video on it (source)!

As you can see, it’s a tactic guaranteed to get you clicks. And you should adopt it for the majority of your content!

But Aren’t Graphical Posts Hard to Make?

Yes, they are. But the ROI is worth it.

Plus, there are easy ways to frequently post images and videos without much effort, such as…

• Posting funny memes.
• Designing quick online brochures to showcase products.
• Making good quality “presentations.”
• Delivering content in-person, through video.

Your options are endless. And the amount of value you get makes this an excellent way to capitalize on Social Media Optimization!

Third – Hot Offers.

Don’t promote for the sake of it. Instead, put out promotional posts for “extremely enticing offers.”

Basically, if you have a large sale, then advertise that. Or, if a new product/collection is about to hit stores, promote that.

But don’t pick and spam random items. Users won’t appreciate it, since they won’t see a clear selling point!

Fourth – Write Quality Content.

Sometimes, posting text is a good idea. And it’s good for important announcements, or a message you’d like to send out.

Make your content high quality. Avoid jamming in language that’s too promotional, and focus more on relating to your followers.

With quality content, you want to create engagement. You want to use this as an opportunity to show the ethical side of your business.

It’s a necessary complement to marketing posts. And it’ll help viewers trust (and click) on your links often!

Fifth – Use Keywords in Your Post.

We mentioned before that SEO is a complement to Social Media Optimization. And using keywords is an excellent way to make that a reality.

Research keywords, and find ones you’d like to rank for. Then, use those as backlink anchors to your website!

Not only will you rank for a keyword. But if you have a high quality social media page, you’ll rank even higher for the backlink!

And on the topic of backlinks…

Influencer Marketing: Another SMO Strategy

Your Social Media Optimization strategy shouldn’t focus exclusively on your own social presence.

That is, don’t try to do everything yourself. If your social presence is still new, then you can contact popular pages for a boost.

They’ll provide links and promotional posts to your presence – and often for a fee!

Influencer Strategy – Product Review.

If you have a product, try contacting an influencer to test it for you. Send them a free sample, and ask for a video review.

Have them post the review on their channels, while linking back in the video description!

Another Strategy – Collaborations.

Know an influencer selling a complementary product to yours? If so, contact them for a video collaboration.

You can discuss how your products synergize together while trying them out. And you can take the time to share your experience with the public.

Naturally, such content will go on both your pages. And this means that you get a crossover of clients, which benefits you!

Final Word.

Social media optimization is a wide domain. And in this article, we’ve provided the info on how it works, and the basics of its success.

But, we don’t recommend exploring social media optimization alone. You’ll need a variety of skill-sets to succeed in this domain.

So be sure to contact an expert before starting your social media journey!

 

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Take a closer look at the Marketing Built For Success.

For assistance with website strategy or social media marketing, contact Tisha Littlejohn at 312 798 9332 or info@tljcreativemarketing.com.

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