Triggers & Tips to Win at Social Media Optimization

Triggers & Tips to Win at Social Media Optimization

February 17, 2016 by Holly Rollins

newHMRDo you know if your social media is optimized? Just as Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is used to gain visibility for ecommerce sites in the search engine world, Social Media Optimization (SMO) should be used to position your site to rank high in social media searches. This practice can also increase visibility by specifically reaching target audiences. Also, since social media is now a viable e-commerce platform, both SEO and SMO efforts should go hand-in-hand. The basics of SMO are listed below:

Smart Sharing: Look at the Human Psyche

Gone are the days where publishing great content was good enough. Digital marketers should be creating content that is worth talking about, is easily shared and will meet a need or educate. Entrepreneur explains that in order to be successful with content sharing, marketers need to understand the triggers of the human psyche that truly motivate people to share content with others, such as:

  • Is the content practical?
  • Entertainment-is this really entertaining or only worth a yawn?
  • Does it provide: incentives, interest, beliefs and causes, aesthetics and social validation?

If you create content that aligns with one of these triggers, it is more likely to be considered share-worthy. In addition to creating the right content, sharing becomes easy when the right tools are set in place. Make sure to use social share widgets on blog posts and websites, making content easily shareable. Consider offering incentives for social sharing that will increase your reach and could potentially turn loyal customers into brand advocates. Tapping into your audience to understand their needs and desires is a great way to start creating content that relates to them. Also, pay attention to competitors’ content and what works for them.

Establish and Enhance Your Brand Personality

Social media gives companies the opportunity to be social with consumers and humanize their brand. Internet users are becoming increasingly attracted to brands and bloggers who have a personality. Even though each platform has a different audience, the personality of the brand should be consistently communicated across each outlet. While content from Twitter or LinkedIn should be tweaked for Facebook, the overall personality of the brand and message should remain the same.

Content Marketing Institute (CMI) suggests using each platform to start a conversation, instead of a lecture, with each individual audience. Consumers in the digital world expect brands to talk with them, not at them. Brands that start conversations, get involved and respond to consumer insights are viewed as caring and trustworthy. Establishing a positive and unique brand personality should help position you as a reliable industry leader.

Increase and Position Your Brand Profile

Creating a relationship with industry thought leaders and engaging with key influencers on social media helps increase your brand profile tremendously. It’s no secret that as the world shifted to social media, so did consumers’ purchasing decisions. Influencer marketing, or using key leaders to drive a brand’s message to the larger market, is both powerful and effective.

Misha Talavera, writing for Social Times, states, “Influencer marketing presents a glaring opportunity for brands to leverage the power of word-of-mouth at scale through personalities that consumers already follow and admire.” Making an effort to establish relationships with industry leaders can help communicate to your market that your brand is the best and position you ahead of competitors.

In addition to reaching new audiences, you can reuse and repurpose the content to impress your existing audience. CMI advises to also consider doing Q&As and interviews with key influencers to get exclusive information and up-to-date developments in the industry. This can increase your brand profile as the influencers are guaranteed to promote it.

Unlike SEO, SMO can be used to establish a presence in multiple places that will not harm your SEO efforts. Each of your social platforms can be individually used to publish content that will generate natural traffic to your website. With the evolving industry, digital marketers can no longer afford to ignore the impact of SMO on ROI.