In the internet’s infancy, peppering a few keywords throughout your site was more than enough to get search engines on the side and achieve success. However, ‘modern’ SEO is a lot more complex and requires a consistent and dedicated approach from businesses.
Not to mention, it’s no longer simply top spots on the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) that brands should aim for. Businesses need visibility across the web to beat out the competition and achieve lasting success.
With 5.04 billion people using social media for an average of 2 hours daily, these apps are the perfect place for brands to get their name out there, communicate with customers, and solidify their success. But, SEO still comes into play, and can even help with your core website’s exposure and ranking.
In this guide, we’ll explore the social media SEO techniques that get results, and discuss the ins and outs of SEO on specific platforms like Facebook and Instagram. Let’s dive in…
Crafting a Social Media SEO Strategy
To start, it’s beneficial to create a dedicated plan for your social media SEO. This strategy will likely consolidate information from your existing brand guide and digital marketing strategy. You may already have an SEO strategy for your website that can be used as a foundation.
However, don’t be tempted to use the same SEO techniques on your social media as you do on your website. While basic optimization principles are the same, there are several reasons why this approach may harm your SEO, including:
- Keywords and phrases often have different search volumes on specific social media platforms. The wrong keyword may put your brand up against increased competition and reduce potential exposure.
- Social media algorithms prioritize content differently, offering a feed of content, as well as a search function. Using SEO techniques tailored to search engines may mean your content gets buried in crowded feeds.
- Character limits for social media captions and descriptions mean that SEO techniques tailored for longer-form content won’t drive the same results.
- Social media users expect content that is engaging, interactive, and relevant. Employing broad SEO techniques designed for traditional blogs won’t resonate with these expectations and behaviors.
On the other hand, a social media strategy devoid of all the techniques you use elsewhere will harm your brand’s consistency. It’s best to review the SEO techniques that are already working for your site, and then tailor them to your chosen social media platforms.
As for the content of your social media SEO strategy, it may cover little more than a page in your overall digital marketing strategy. At a minimum, it should outline SEO best practices on the platforms your business uses, the keyword/hashtags research for each platform, the techniques you’ve opted to try, and any goals you’ve set for optimization, traffic, or conversion.
SEO Strategies for Social Media Platforms
As mentioned, different social media sites have different algorithms that may require slight changes in your approach to SEO. Here are some SEO strategies to charm the algorithms of the most popular social media sites…
Facebook has two billion active daily visitors and, twenty years after its creation, is still the largest social media platform. Due to this user volume, SEO on Facebook will help your brand get exposure to, and connect with, your target market.
On Facebook, users can highlight the things they’re interested in, from lifestyle and beauty to gardening and DIY. This is done implicitly through the pages they follow, their friends, age range, gender, sexuality, and job, or explicitly through lists of interests from which they can select their favorites.
Fortunately for your business, this makes it much easier to appear on the feeds of potential customers. You’ll need to signal to the Facebook algorithm which category you’re in, and it’ll (hopefully) do the rest. You can do this through:
- Using keywords in your Facebook name, about section, and posts
- Changing your URL (About > Create Page Username) to include a keyword
- Adding and promoting a call-to-action button on your cover photo
- Updating your contact and location information
- Publishing one long-form post with relevant images or video, and one three-sentence update, per day
X (Formerly Twitter)
X has long since offered users the option to view their analytics for individual tweets. This is incredibly helpful for businesses, allowing you to see how many people have seen a particular tweet. From these stats, you can glean which types of tweets are successful, and which ones you should avoid going forward.
The more reach your tweets get, the more reposts and likes they’ll get. The more interactions tweets receive, the more feeds the algorithm pushes them to. Eventually, every time you tweet you’ll get a few new followers, and your brand’s visibility will increase. This cycle goes on until a specific tweet is no longer relevant and stops receiving impressions, but you should already have other popular tweets by that point.
According to SocialPilot, 93% of X users who follow brands do so because they intend to buy from them, so SEO on X is all about increasing your tweets’ impressions and interactions to draw in new followers. You can do this through:
- Tweeting about promotions, sales, and exclusive offers with a backlink to your website
- Adding multi-media content to every other tweet
- Keeping your tweets relevant to recent trends and events
- Encouraging replies with questions or polls. Don’t be shy about reposting or replying to your followers’ tweets too
- Tweeting topical, insightful, helpful, or humorous content between three and eight times a day
Likes and favorites from existing followers will push your content to their followers, and users with similar interests. If Instagram thinks a user might be interested in your content, your posts will appear on their feed as a “suggested post”. However, your content is less likely to appear in a user’s feed if they don’t follow you or your competitors.
To remedy this, there is an ‘explore’ page where users can view content tailored to their interests, or search for hashtags. The search function will recommend posts based on keywords, hashtags, and locations, as well as what the algorithm believes a user would like to see. Since this is based on previous activity on the app, it’s usually favorable to cast your net slightly wider on Instagram in terms of prospective customers.
Experts recommend tailoring your Instagram posts to existing followers while aiming to increase your discoverability among your target market. As media marketing manager, Monique Thomas, puts it, “It's the ultimate tactic for reaching relevant audiences and giving your content the visibility it deserves.”
Instagram SEO strategies include:
- Including keywords in your name, bio, images, and captions
- Crafting helpful, informative, or entertaining captions (within the 2200 character limit) with two relevant keywords or phrases included throughout
- Adding between ten and thirty hashtags in the first comment on your posts, varying the hashtags you use each time
- Partnering with influencers/followers and tagging them, as well as locations, in your post.
- Posting once a day, or once every two days, depending on your niche. Try to always have something on your story as well
TikTok
Just four years ago, TikTok was the new kid on the block among established social media platforms. Now, it’s one of the most popular choices for funny, inspiring, helpful, innovative, and persuasive video posts.
With such a broad range of content on the app, it’s become an easy place for users to quickly access everything from tutorials and local recommendations to current events and medical information. One in every ten Gen Z-ers is more likely to use TikTok as a search engine than Google.
Aside from its search page, TikTok is a little unorthodox in the way it presents posts on its home page, known as the ‘For You Page’. This feed combines content from pages a user follows with videos that align with their previous likes, favorites, and personal data. As such, brands on TikTok should spend some time researching their target audience, and craft content tailored to their niche and related niches.
Basic TikTok SEO tips include:
- Using a keyword in the description of each video, adding up to seven relevant hashtags, and choosing an on-trend sound
- Replying to as many comments as possible, and eliciting further comments through questions
- Keeping videos between 30 seconds and a minute, while including a human face and overlaying text on top
- Creating looping videos or saving some key information until last to ensure viewers stick around until the video is complete.
- Building a linktree to place in your bio that can direct users to your other social media and main site
Tips for Top-Notch Social Media SEO
Now that you’ve got your social media SEO strategy, and know how you’ll employ it on different platforms, it’s time to get to work. Here are some final tips to make sure your social media SEO is as good as it can be…
Explore - The best way to find out how people use a certain social media platform is by doing so yourself. Search relevant hashtags, scrutinize your competitors’ posts, and take notes on how quickly/effectively the algorithm presents content that aligns with your interests. This information will allow you to plan SEO strategies tailored to certain algorithms.
Links, Links, Links - Traffic to your site will boost its optimization. Conversely, traffic from your site to your social media will increase your pages’ visibility. Where possible and relevant, add links to each. It’s always best to put something engaging at the end of these links to reduce the bounce rate and ensure your SEO is the best it can be.
Local Tags and Trends - According to Statista, 32% of consumers used search engines to find a local business multiple times a week in 2023. Local SEO works on social media too, with algorithms often determining content relevance through location. Add your location to your pages, and if you don’t have physical premises, tag the location of your offices or the locations you ship to.
Alt-text - Alternative text, more commonly known as alt-text, is an accessibility measure for people with cognitive dysfunction and difficulty seeing. You can add alt-text to your posts on social media platforms to provide context for what’s depicted in an image, which a screen reader will then relay to users of differing abilities. However, you can also up your SEO and increase your reach by optimizing this text. Don’t hesitate to add keywords and phrases to alt-text, but try not to compromise your post’s accessibility in the process.
Two-Way Engagement - Don’t forget that social media is social! All social media algorithms boost content that garners interactions, so use comments as an opportunity to strike up a conversation. It’s also a great place to assist customers and potential customers with any questions they might have. Some social media sites like Facebook also allow users to post reviews of businesses, so be sure to keep on top of those too.
In Conclusion…
While SEO may have been optional in the early days of the Internet, businesses must now make use of all the optimization tools and techniques available to them. Likewise, in the current business landscape, a presence on social media is vital for companies who want to build their brand and achieve exposure to millions of potential customers.
To succeed at combining social media and SEO, spend some time using the platforms you want to build a presence on, researching your target market and hashtags in your niche, and crafting a dedicated social media SEO strategy. For best results, mix common techniques like backlinks and driving traffic with the algorithm-specific techniques listed above.
However, the shift from website-centric SEO to a comprehensive social media SEO strategy is not just about visibility. Remember to place a focus on the intricacies of user preferences, trends, and quality content. With a concerted effort, your site and social media optimization will become symbiotic, with users moving between the two, improving your brand’s legitimacy, and contributing to stable success. Good luck!
Sources and Resources
- https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2020/02/28/an-abbreviated-history-of-seo-and-what-it-tells-us-about-seos-future-role/#
- https://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo/seo-history/
- https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2024-global-overview-report
- https://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/14624/7-ways-to-integrate-search-engine-and-social-media-marketing.aspx
- https://forgeandsmith.com/blog/social-media-seo-business/
- https://www.semrush.com/blog/social-media-seo/
- https://blog.hootsuite.com/facebook-seo/
- https://www.facebook.com/business/news/new-facebook-tools-for-online-marketing
- https://www.statista.com/statistics/346167/facebook-global-dau/
- https://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users/
- https://outreachmonks.com/twitter-seo/#
- https://help.twitter.com/en/managing-your-account/using-the-post-activity-dashboard
- https://www.socialpilot.co/blog/twitter-statistics/
- https://blog.hootsuite.com/instagram-seo/
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- https://meetedgar.com/blog/tiktok-marketing-guide/
- https://sproutsocial.com/insights/tiktok-seo/
- www.onthemap.com/blog/local-seo-stats/
- https://www.statista.com/statistics/315709/online-local-business-search-frequency-us-canada/
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