Most marketers today consider social media to be one of the most powerful tools for improving brand reputation. In Saleforce.com’s ExactTarget Marketing Cloud 2014 State of Marketing study, which surveyed more than 2,660 mid-to-senior managers from various industries, about 66% of marketers admitted that networking sites Social networks indirectly affect the performance of your business. The importance of custom ranking results, rel-author results being displayed more prominently in Google search, and #searches incorporating G+ hashtag queries as part of Google search mean that social signals they can significantly affect SERP rankings. Although social signals are evolving as a crucial factor when it comes to achieving their online marketing goals, businesses still don’t know if success with social media optimization is determined by shareable content or active engagement. on social networking sites.
Improve quality content from social signals
Matt Cutts has emphasized that if you develop compelling, high-quality content, people will naturally link to it, share it on Facebook, or +1 it. Quality content would definitely generate a lot of social signals in the form of likes, shares, +1’s, tweets and more. Discussions on Cre8siteForums about customers who don’t want to use social media say that marketers who are uninterested, confused, busy, or unable to engage in social media activities simply need to create good content that gets shared across sites. social networks. This, it is pointed out, will drive traffic from Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and more without your involvement in the day-to-day activities of these sites. Marketers can post quality articles on their websites and add social buttons to them so visitors can share the posts they like on their social network:
It is very important to regularly post high-quality content on social networking sites. Entrepreneurs who hate social sites, but still want to generate social signals this way, can rely on tools that can automatically share blog posts with these sites. Here’s a look at some of these tools:
- Twitter feed – Once you sign up for Twitterfeed and select your Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn profiles, the tool uses your blogs’ RSS feed to monitor new posts. When a new post is found, it will automatically share it with all selected profiles. You can choose whether to share the title or description, or both, and use keyword filters to add or reject posts that contain specific keywords.
- Hoot Suite – This tool not only publishes blog content automatically, but also allows you to schedule updates, monitor mentions and conversions, create search streams, and track your activity on various social profiles. Because this tool supports LinkedIn Company Pages and Google+ Pages (not personal Google+ profiles), you can share posts on more networks than Twitterfeed. Although the content cannot be customized for individual posts, you can configure different settings for each social network.
- Snap-Pro – SNAP Pro supports a wider range of social networks than the tools mentioned above, including StumbleUpon, Delicious, and Pinterest, although setup will take longer. The paid version allows you to set up auto posting to an unlimited number of social profiles, including Google+ personal profiles and LinkedIn company pages. Compared to other tools, SNAP allows full customization of your posts.
Why is active participation important for a winning social optimization strategy?
Although there are several ways to share high-quality content on social media profiles and generate social signals without being socially active, industry experts say it’s imperative to stay active on social media sites if you really want these signals to work for your customers. search engine optimization efforts. Here are some of the reasons why active social engagement is important for your SEO:
- Direct interaction with customers – You must interact directly with your audience on social sites to attract and maintain interest in your products or services. Suppose you sell ceramic materials and your interesting article about your latest ceramic cookware is making the rounds on social media. Although people like your article and share it in their social circle, they may want to ask you questions about it, such as is it eco-friendly, how to take care of kitchen utensils, etc. You can answer their questions only if you interact with them online or else potential customers would think you don’t care and even take it as poor customer service. They would even think that your product is not authentic. Being socially active allows you to provide timely and appropriate responses to all customer inquiries, which in turn creates a positive image.
- Share industry knowledge – By participating in important conversations on social networks, you can learn about the latest industry news and expand your knowledge. At the same time, you can share your industry knowledge with your peers so others will consider you an expert in your field. This would also make them consider your content authoritative. You would miss those conversations if you are not socially active.
- Keep track of the competition – It is very important to understand how your competitors use social networks so that you can use similar or better tactics to interact with your target audience. Being active on social networking sites allows you to study their social networking profiles, content, and promotional campaigns.
The bottom line is that in addition to creating high-quality shareable content, you need to bond with your fans and followers to be successful with social media marketing. Your social media optimization strategy should facilitate timely and appropriate interactions with customers and not just focus on improving content reach.
The importance of social media is growing and most companies consider it a very strong means of improving brand reputation. According to Saleforce.com’s ExactTarget Marketing Cloud 2014 State of Marketing study, about 66% of marketers say that social networking sites have an indirect impact on their business performance. Custom ranking results and rel-authored results with Google search imply that social signals can have an indirect impact on SERP rankings. One question businesses are asking, however, is whether success with social media optimization depends on developing shareable content or being active on social media sites. The answer is ‘both’. Let’s see why.
It is an indisputable fact that quality content can improve social signals. Matt Cutts has already stressed that high-quality content naturally generates a lot of likes, shares, and +1s. Therefore, people who are not interested, confused, busy, or unable to engage on social networking sites simply need to produce good content that others will share on social networking sites. This would allow even those who’s who on social media to get traffic from social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and more. There are also several tools available, such as Twitterfeed, HootSuite, SNAP Pro, and more, to automatically share blog posts with these sites. Many entrepreneurs who hate social networking sites and still want to generate social signals rely on such tools.
However, industry experts point out that if you really want social signals to work for your search engine optimization efforts, it’s not simple enough to get your content circulating through social sites. It is imperative to stay active on these sites. If you don’t interact directly with your audience, they will lose interest in you. Let’s say you’re into floor mats, you’ve written an article about your latest floor mat, and people who like your article are sharing it in their social circle. If you think your job is done, you are wrong. Readers may want to ask you questions about the rug, such as is it allergy-free, how can water damage be handled, etc. Providing answers to these questions is important to show that your audience matters. If you don’t answer these questions, potential customers will take it as poor customer service and even think that your product is not authentic. Being socially active ensures that you can provide timely and appropriate responses to customer inquiries and create a positive image.
Participating in important conversations on a social network allows you to share your knowledge with your peers and other users who would consider you an expert in your field and view your content as authentic. You would miss those conversations if you are socially inactive. It would also limit your opportunity to understand what your competitors are doing so you can modify your strategy accordingly.
In essence, success with social media marketing requires you to produce good quality and also be socially active. Engaging with your fans and followers and responding to their inquiries and comments in an appropriate and timely manner is indeed the key to a winning social media optimization strategy.