Search engine optimization and social media marketing are two main points of focus for most digital professionals these days. They have co-existed for centuries, but are rarely used in tandem.
This is unfortunate because both industries have grown and matured quite a bit over the years. And they have a lot in common: both SEO and social media marketing aim to reach and connect with your potential customer.
Additionally, both SEO and social media have access to a wealth of marketing data collected over years.
So why not use this data to grow and inform both channels?
Let’s look at how SEO and social media can inform and direct each other so you can better understand and serve your customers.
How SEO can inform social media marketing
1.- Use keyword research tools to create more effective social media content.
Keyword research isn’t just for SEO (i.e. organic rankings). It’s important to remember that keywords are user-driven. Meaning they’re generated based on actual user behavior – what real humans are typing into the Google search box.
Creating an effective social media update isn’t much different from creating a successful article: you need to rely on your audience’s interests, struggles, and questions to find something that grabs their attention.
That's why using keyword research tools for both is a good idea. But it's really not just about keyword matching anymore. It's about finding topics and questions that make your target audience tick.
Serpstat provides more context to traditional keyword research lists by breaking them down into topics and subtopics for you to implement into your content and social media strategy. Run Serpstat’s clustering tool and share the results with your community manager. These results allow for closely related queries so you can see which categories and topics should be covered in your editorial calendar.
Serpstat
Source: Serpstat
TextOptimizer is another innovative keyword research and optimization tool that can help your social media team create a more informed editorial strategy. Take your main keyword (which is something your business focuses on) and use semantic analysis to extract related topics to include in your social media updates:
TextOptimizer
TextOptimizer
2.- Use personalization and analysis tools for audience research.
User interaction with your site offers gambling data singapore a wealth of information about what your audience is searching for and what appeals to them most. Who are my readers? How do my site users interact with my content section? Which of the calls to action seem to work best for my articles? What should be the primary CTA for my social media referrals? Should I use this CTA on my social media landing page as well?
All of these questions can be answered by the on-site analytics technology your SEO team is using to refine your search marketing strategy. And this is also the kind of information your social media team may find useful in creating and promoting your social media marketing assets effectively.
Google Analytics (or any of its possible alternatives) collects data about the age, gender and interests of your site users:
Google Analytics
Google Analytics
Finteza is an advanced (and free) analytics platform that gives you deep insight into how your landing pages and conversion funnels perform and how readers interact with your articles.
Use Finteza's funnel reports to better understand how to engage your customers and which of your calls to action should be implemented on your social channels:
Finteza
Finteza
How social media can inform SEO strategy
1.- Use social media listening for keyword research and content conceptualization.
With voice search on the rise, natural language research is becoming more and more important for SEO. It is no longer enough to match text search keywords to rank high on Google. SEO professionals need to know how people speak when searching for answers and products/services.
Spoken words are much less standardized than written text. A key difference between spoken and written queries is that speech is spontaneous, whereas writing is more carefully planned.
Spoken queries are therefore much longer and harder to predict than written queries, making content optimization difficult for SEO professionals.
Social listening and analytics can help SEOs better understand new voice- and mobile-driven search behavior. By viewing keywords in a real-time context, it’s easier for search marketers to identify natural language queries.
Since many people adopt a more casual tone on social media and post more spontaneously, compared to thinking of a search engine query, SEOs can understand how keywords may appear when used in voice search queries.
2.- Use social media ads to test content performance.
Facebook’s advertising platform is not only a great way to generate leads and sales. It’s also the fastest way to test any content asset and see how it can perform in the long run.
If you're looking to invest in a solid content asset for the long term, use Facebook advertising to boost a smaller asset on the same topic. It's a good idea to create multiple campaigns with varied audience settings to create marketing personas and better understand who will respond best to your content.
Keep in mind that you’ll be able to re-engage your engaged audience in these preliminary campaigns and announce your main asset when it’s available. This way, you’re already working to build an engaged audience before you publish your main content. Ensuring that it will build that initial awareness quickly to expand even further on its own.
3.- Use social media to discuss your content plans with your audience.
As natural language optimization becomes more and more important, why not discuss your content plans with your audience in a real conversation? Some ideas include:
Create a live event (live video interview or Twitter chat interview) and use the transcript to publish an optimized, natural language article on your site. This would organically engage many of your social media followers to contribute instant feedback.
Just ask (and maybe tag the people you want to hear from). Twitter comments can be very valuable when it comes to gathering feedback and opinions.
Set up a poll and ask your followers which of your content angles would be most interesting to their audience.
Now it's your turn
As you can see, there is a lot to be gained between SEO and social media. It just requires strategic thinking and a few tools. If you need help with your digital marketing efforts, contact us here today to find out how we can help you.
