Did you miss our event with CEO of Eyeflow, Phil Laboon last month? Not to worry! Here is his first-hand advice on building your company’s online presence through social media.
Why and How You Should Use Social Media for Your Business
Social Media has become a term many people are familiar with. In the world of SEO, it is a key piece in the algorithm. With 74% of all Internet users maintaining at least one social networking profile, social media sites provide businesses with the unique opportunity to build their brand.
Creating and maintaining your social media sites is extremely important to your business’s success. With Google constantly shifting towards an improved user experience, social engagement has become a top ranking factor that Google looks for. If you are still not convinced that social media is crucial, here are a few more reasons why you need social media to increase your SEO.
Social Media Extends Your Brand’s Reach
Social media sites allow you to interact with your customers on a daily basis and keep your brand directly in front of their face. You want your audience to not just read your posts, you want them to engage by liking, sharing and/or replying to your post. You also want to be interacting with your followers. Do not just post something and never go back to it. Social media sites are a way for you to interact with your customer base on a more personal level, so make sure you are replying to their comments and sharing content that they post as well. Your customers will be more likely to interact with your posts on a regular basis. You need to be posting to your social media sites on a daily basis.
Improved Search Rankings through Social Signals
Back when link building was the “cool” thing to do, a single link represented a site’s popularity. The more links you had, the more popular your site was, the higher it would rank in Google.
The new way to gauge your website’s popularity is social signals. When your followers engage with your site’s content, your social signals grow and work to boost your rankings. Whenever your content gets shared across social media, search engines use this as an indication of quality information that should be ranked accordingly. The key here is to get your social media followers to visit, share and engage with your site’s content.
How Your Business Should be Using Social Media
Now that I have given you a couple examples of how social media affects SEO, here are five of our favorite tips on how to make the most of your social media efforts.
- Post Timely
Do research on the different social media platforms that you are using such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc. Most platforms will have slightly different days and times that seem to have the best engagement. For example, when posting on Facebook Thursday and Friday in the early afternoon seem to have the most successful posts. This does not mean that you should only be posting on Facebook on Thursdays and Fridays, but maybe leave your best content for those days. For businesses, Monday through Friday morning and afternoons seem to be the most logical days and times. It also depends on your target audience, so just make sure to do your research!
- Use Images and Short Videos
People respond really well to images and short videos, such as Vines. They are easy to look at and digest. People are more likely to engage with a photo or video. If you do decide to post an image or video, make sure it is high quality and professional.
- Do not Use it as a Sales Platform
As a business owner, I am sure this is your first instinct is to sell, but in this case that is exactly what you do not want to do. Social media is all about building and nurturing relationships with your customer base. It is a platform to provide information and entertainment for free. Instead of pushing the sale, strive to build relationships and let the sales follow.
- Build Social Media into Your Business Plan
Whether you are just starting out or have been in business for years, social media is necessary in today’s age if you want to be successful. Having social media implemented into your business plan forces you to set goals for different time periods. You then can look back and see if you have met your goals and this will allow you to see if social media is working for you. If not, do some research, find out what you could improve upon and adjust your game plan. Continue this process until you find a strategy that works for you.
- Grammar Definitely Matters
When it comes to social media, there are a ton of slang and shortcuts when writing content. DO NOT USE THEM! Grammar matters. Remember you are a business and are communicating to your customers. You want to represent your business well and present yourself as an educational leader in your industry. Embarrassing typos can haunt you, so triple check your spelling and grammar before posting your content.
There are many more tips and tricks to making your social media sites successful. Just do some research and see what works best for you. Do not give up on it. Make it a part of your daily routine because it is necessary for your business to be successful online.