Marketing your brand and business online might be a bit intimidating, especially for entrepreneurs who are used to traditional marketing (print ads, billboards, flyers, pamphlets, radio). Those who find the prospect of building and designing their business website daunting, but still wish to have their business reach the online market often go for social media.
Say, for example, you have a business making personalized planners based in Charlottesville, VA which has grown exponentially due to the nearby academic institutions nearby. You decide to expand your brand’s reach by setting up a social media page, complete with brochures and testimonies. Your loyal and satisfied customers even provide positive reviews on your page. And yet, when you search for “personalized planners Virginia” in the social media’s search engine, numerous other businesses are showing up, and yours isn’t among the top results.
So, what should you do to get to the top? Consider using tactics employed for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO is the practice of optimizing a website so that it would rank higher when people search for content/products/services related to that website via a search engine such as Google or Bing. Although social media and search engines differ, there are common strategies that can be used:
Know Your Market, Know Your Keywords
The foundation of SEO is keywords: to know the actual words people use to search for. If people search for “personalized planners” to find the product, and your social media page’s information and posts only mention “customized planner”, then you’re less likely to show up at the top of the search results. Once you identify what your target customers are typing in, create or modify your social media page and its content to include those keywords.
Create Consistently, Create Quality
This is the next big step. Make relevant and interesting content often, while organically inserting keywords. You can even think outside the box and make actual viral content as long as it’s still relevant to your business — like posting a love story involving the personalized planner you’re selling.
Don’t just spam your page to include keywords. First off, the social media search engine could deem your content irrelevant and rank it lower on search. Secondly, actual people would find it unnatural and forced and possibly turning them away from your page.
And don’t “clickbait” either; clickbaiting is the practice of posting a title/text or picture that would make people curious, but whose content is ultimately unsatisfying. Social media platforms such as Facebook has taken steps to reduce clickbaiting in its platform.
Promote Backlinking
Backlining is the SEO practice of having other websites provide links back to your website. It’s like the search engine’s version of “word of mouth”. The more websites share your websites or its content, the higher it ranks on search engines. The same goes for social media. People share the more your social media page or content is shared, the more “popular” it becomes; subsequently, your page would naturally appear higher on social media search.
But why restrict your business’ scope to social media? Although social media has proven to be an effective medium for marketing your business, you may still want to consider taking the next step. Perhaps it’s time to build your website; a more stable foundation of your business’ online presence for millions more of potential customers to see. Yes, it’s intimidating, but you don’t have to do it alone, there are SEO Agencies that are ready and willing to push your website and business to their full potential.
