Social Media Marketing for SEO: Where to Start
Posted by Yvette | Under SEM 101, Starting Up Tuesday Jan 26, 2010
Last week we talked about why you should implement social media marketing into your SEO plan, this week we’ll talk about how.
Social media marketing can be a huge undertaking. There are hundreds of social media sites and if you don’t have a clear plan you can waste away countless hours without seeing your desired results. Follow these steps to get your social media marketing plan off the ground.
Define your audience. Think about who you want to reach, the best way to reach them, and what messages you want to convey about your company. It’s important to understand your target demographic and then to utilize the types of social media that are most likely to reach them.
Get a crash course in the most popular social media channels. Once you know who you want to reach, you need to know which channels will provide the best way to reach them. For instance, many people see Facebook as being something for kids to keep in touch. While 18-24 year olds still make up the lion’s share of Facebook users, the fastest growing age demographic on the site is the 35-54. Most likely you’ll end up using a variety of channels to reach your target demographic, but this will still keep you from aimlessly creating social networking accounts with no clear objectives.
Think about content development. Social media allows you to use blogs, videos and social networking sites to create content about your company and its products. However, if you have a product that’s quirky, shocking, or solves a commonplace problem then it’s possible to have consumers themselves generate a good amount of online content for you. The makers of Vibram Five Finger shoes understand this concept. If you Google them you’ll see results for their website, blog posts reviewing the shoes by independent consumers, a link to their Wikipedia page, and links to retailers selling the product – all on the first page of search results. You’ll get similar results with the keywords “five finger shoes,” “individual toe shoes,” and “finger shoes”.
Keep track of your progress. Companies like Context Optional provide solutions that allow you to keep track of your social media campaigns and measure their effectiveness.
Get going. The best way to sink your social media marketing plan is to not get started at all. Follow these steps to create a comprehensive plan and then get in the conversation.
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