Saturday, 3 January 2015
Reaching Social SEO Outcomes With Four Action Steps
Listening, Content, Socialize and Measure could just as well be represented as a cycle, but I think the forward direction is important because you can’t reach outcomes without action.
Any good social media marketing effort needs to begin with some kind of Listening program. That means using social media monitoring tools to collect, sort and manage social content according to topics being monitored. Content is the glue that makes search engines work and content is a critical part of the social sharing experience within social media.
Speaking of sharing, socializing with other like-minded individuals as a personal experience can fold well with brand interactions as long as the needs of the buyer persona has been reconciled with business objectives. Successful efforts within the social web can be measured, and should be, in a variety of ways. Measurement justifies objectives and it’s important to identify the right tools for monitoring real time and web analytics.
Here are a few more details on each of these steps. Think about how your company is implementing these steps in your own social media marketing efforts. Are you taking shortcuts? Are you following through? Have you found more important steps to follow?
Listen
An essential start and ongoing component for a social media marketing and optimization effort is to leverage listening tools. As companies struggle to understand where the social web fits within their online marketing strategy, a social media monitoring program (listening) should be implemented immediately.
Collecting social web data, organizing and managing it is essential for tapping into the conversations, influencers and real-time marketing opportunities that abound in today’s internet environment.
Content
Content makes the Social SEO world go round. One of the biggest growth areas in Online Marketing is the business of creating, optimizing and promoting content. Brands are becoming publishers. It’s no longer enough to simply publish features and benefits information on products and services. Customers want more.
Marketers would do well to create a Content Marketing Strategy and inventory content assets such as web pages, images, video, audio, rich media and file types such as HTML, PDF, MS Office docs, Structured Data Feeds and RSS to assess what can be promoted via social channels and be ranked in search results.
Content can be searched when it is optimized and a well planned digital asset optimization effort that works in sync with social networking and promotions can efficiently get content to those that want it and also facilitate better search visibility. That is the essence of Social SEO.
Socialize
With insight into the appropriate social media channels, influentials and a rock solid content marketing optimization strategy in place, it’s important to have a plan on how to connect with the communities where customers and prospects spend their time. Three key pieces to socializing your marketing efforts include:
1. Publishing frequently to generate traffic.
2. Fostering sharing to increase discoverability.
3. Nurturing potential customers with Digital Marketing Tools.
Measure
Success comes in many forms and with social media marketing and social SEO... It’s the combination of social media monitoring and web analytics that provides the most actionable value. Social media monitoring tools are not only effective for initial Listening, but also to determine the social effect of your optimized content marketing on the social web.
Off site engagement can be monitored, measured and analyzed in combination with web analytics tools that provide insight into what social traffic does once they get to your web site. Leveraging monitoring and analytics to inform future content creation, keyword optimization and social promotion is essential for staying ahead of the competition and being effective at meeting customer needs.
Following a basic structure like the four steps listed above can help make a social media test or even a modest social media marketing program a lot more productive.
Please share your insights or experiences!
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Elynn Fish is the Founder and President of The Fish Firm of which specializes in using New Media To Turn Modern Marketing Into Money by helping small business owners and entrepreneurs increase online sales and attract new business.
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