Why SEO is Important for Your Social Media Marketing

One of the biggest shifts I’m predicting in social media for 2023 is content that lives longer, so we can all get off of that dang hamster wheel. BACK TO BASICS. Let’s streamline things. It’s about time, amiright?

First things first, QUIT creating content that’s going to expire in five seconds. That’s right.

Instead, create content that’s optimized for SEARCH ENGINES first — and that’s not just Google, it’s also Pinterest and YouTube.

Find the magic spot in your Venn diagram — what’s easiest to create? How does your community like to consume? But mostly, the former. We’ll get to the latter.

Video = YouTube
Audio = Podcast (and throw those transcripts onto your blog too)
Written = Blogging + Pinterest

This is going to get your content onto a platform where it can live a heck of a lot longer. Once it’s on YouTube or your blog, you can pull out little snippets of that content for your social media. (That’s exactly how we do it around here and it’s been game-changing.)

Bonus: it’s way less scattered, more intentional, and you’ll find yourself not wanting to copy other people in your niche.

Your Guide to Getting Found on Social Media
(You don’t have to be an SEO sorceress to figure out your keywords. Here’s what to do)

We can get technical, but these two things will get you SO SO FAR. Like, it’s-pretty-much-all-we-do-here kind of far.

• The best way to boost your SEO is to post steady content. It doesn’t have to be long or complicated — in fact, the more you just blahhhh with ‘Your Person’ top of mind, the better it’ll perform. The more relevant your content is to the search term, the higher you’re going to rank. And that brings us to:

• Do your keyword research.
  • Make a list of broad topics relevant to your business. (ie social media marketing, email marketing, Pinterest marketing)
  • Fill those buckets with niched-down phrases — put yourself into your customers’ shoes and think, “What is she searching for?” (ie consistent posting on Instagram, what to put in an email newsletter, how to get started with Pinterest)
  • To find MORE ideas, pop one of your phrases into Google, scroll to the bottom of the first page, and check the suggestions there
  • Or type it into Pinterest and see what she suggests
  • If you want to get REALLY nerdy, type your big keyword into Wordstream (look for high search volume & low competition) or QuestionDB (generate content ideas for you (based on what people are searching for))

How To Make Your Instagram Content Searchable

• Optimize your bio — your name and description
• Use text on your images AND in your captions (don’t “stuff” your content with keywords but sprinkle them in for sure)
• Curate your hashtags carefully — use only 3-5 and make them specific for individual posts

The Customer Journey
Attract

• tiktok (algorithm is mind-bogglingly clever so it’s great for attracting new people who are interested in your niche)

• youtube (think about how you use youtube: it’s actually a search engine, great for teaching content if you’re a service provider!)

• pinterest (the visual search engine,

• google (the best one because they’re actively searching for a solution and that is you and they’re going to hop on board so much more quickly because they’re already ready to buy)

Nurture

• tiktok (sorta; but mostly it’s a great place for new eyes and you kinda want to move them over to a selling platform)

• IG (remains a phenomenal place to grow – slowly – and connect with your community; still my first love)

• email marketing (funnels, regular juicy content, forever the most guaranteed way to “own” your community – gross)

• youtube

Sell (you obviously want to do this on the original platform OR use one platform to move people over to another one)

• IG
• email marketing
• google (aka, your website)

Start slow and MESSY so you don’t burn yourself out, okay? The number one way that we burn ourselves out is by thinking that we have to do everything, with all the systems, and add on the extra mile while we’re at it. Slow. Steady. Easy. Breezy. I’ve been trying to implement this system for as long as your toddler has been alive, and we’re finally getting a handle on it. It’s simple, but it takes time to figure out something that really works for you.

And get help.

SEO for Social Media

Every major social media app uses hashtags and keywords to help categorize & suggest content to their users. (Some algorithms – I’m lookin’ at you TikTok – are more clever than others!)

As a geriatric millennial I also find myself turning NOT to google, but rather to IG when I’m looking for help with something. I LOVE user-generated content; it feels more genuine to me – even though logically I know that the entire internet is full of shit. 🤣

Google will show you Pinterest and YouTube results, but bite-sized social media isn’t ranking. EXCEPT for TikTok. TikTok shows up in a Google Search (see gif below) but Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn are NOT. There are rumours about Instagram leveling up their algorithm for search as well, but I haven’t seen any of that yet.

One of the complaints about social media for a long time has been that the shelf life is so dang short. That’s shifting already and the algorithms are going to get smarter and smarter. Optimize your content for keywords. AND your images.

Start Big, Get Smaller

“Omniscient” Repurposed Content

Rather than creating fresh content for each platform, create content that you can tweak to suit its location.

Starting point?

a) youtube for video, podcast for audio, blogging + pinterest for written content – lean into your strength

OR, if that feels like a lot

b) instagram – you can do a little bit of everything there (well, except audio)

3 Easy Ways to Repurpose IG Content

If you don’t have a blog, podcast, or YouTube channel, Instagram is a great place for your content “hub.”

That’s because it’s got a little bit of everything – text, images, and video… which has you covered on every other major platform as well.

• Repost old stuff
  If you’ve got content that’s performed particularly well a few months (or even a year or two) ago, you can rinse & repeat! Cut & paste the caption with a new photo OR re-use the entire thing. And yes, you can repost an entire story. Not even your mom will notice, I promise.
  
• Recycle an old caption
  Got a long caption with bullet points wasting away in the archives? That’s a gold mine for shiny new carousel content!
  
• Recycle a static post into a video
  You can do this literally the same day that you publish your post – recap the content in a quick face-to-cam video. Even better, share a new angle on what you’ve already shared.
  Have I posted this more than once? You’d never know, would you? 😉 Hit save for the days when your creativity

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