Clients often ask us whether to prioritise social media activity or content marketing in order to improve their online presence and search visibility. To this, we respond by trying to explain the symbiotic nature of social media and content which, put in its simplest terms, comes down to the infuriatingly circular chicken and egg debate. Content would not be consumed and shared without the friendly leg-up offered by social marketing, while even the best laid social plans fall apart without high quality media as their backbone.
The impact of wider social influence on the way Google ranks your web presence is becoming less debatable with time. But even while amassing a sizeable Twitter following may not directly affect PageRank, it certainly increases the likelihood that content such as blog posts, articles, white papers and so on end up in front of the decision makers it needs to be seen by.
In the ongoing quest to balance resources effectively between content production and supporting social media activity, here are some tips to ensure both work together fruitfully to turbo charge your content marketing.
Support business blog activity
1. Firstly and most importantly, start blogging for business. Maintain an active blog on your company website and be sure to turn on commenting to encourage people to engage with each post.
2. The first rule of blogging for business is to do everything in your power to make it as easy as possible for people to find and share your blog. Add social sharing buttons enabling people to ‘Share’ on LinkedIn , ‘Like’ on Facebook, ‘tweet’ to Twitter, ‘bookmark’ on StumbleUpon and so on.
Encourage social connections
3. Linked to this, add social “connect” buttons on your website’s homepage to direct prospects to your social profiles.
4. Distribute up-to-the-minute content on your relevant sector to establish your brand as a credible and authoritative commentator and news source.
5. On Twitter and now on Facebook too, use #hashtags to make it easier for users to discover your content via searches. When your activity starts to gain traction, consider launching your own hashtags for specific campaigns – this will also help you track brand mentions.
6. Tweets are concise by definition, but aim to also keep Facebook status updates short and snappy to grab people’s attention.
7. Don’t promote any content on social media unless it is relevant, timely and in some way valuable to your target audience.
8. Always use a clear call-to-action, whether that be to encourage people to ‘like this if….’.’comment here’, click here to ….’ . People need clear signposts in order to take action.
9. Join the conversation. Of course it’s important to publish frequently, but social media activity is as much about sharing and interacting as distributing your own content. So retweet on Twitter, participate in LinkedIn discussions, re-pin images on Pinterest and so on.
10. Vary your content. This applies particularly to Google+, where text-heavy updates need to be switched up with images (consider infographics if you’re short on product visuals) and video to keep people engaged with your page.
If readers take just one thing away from this post, I hope it is to no longer see their social and content strategies as sitting in separate silos. Rather than questioning which to prioritise, focus on producing the highest quality content possible across all channels and aim to promote your valuable resource with fully-optimised social activity.
For a no-strings attached chat about how we could make this work for your business, drop us a line.
Source: tips adapted from the Content Marketing Institute eBook: 58 Social Media Tips for Content Marketing
Photo: Jason A Howie
