Introduction
Facebook. It would appear as though everyone on the face of the earth has their own page. A multimedia social networking site that can provide infinite opportunities for corporate marketers. Advertising appears all over the internet and not even the wonder that is Facebook can still escape this. This article is going to outline the strategies involved with social media marketing in line with SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and PPC (Pay per Click) advertising.
Marketing through social
SEM (Search Engine Marketing) is the concept of marketing through the search engine and has two main elements SEO and PPC. A SEM campaign relies on the perfect keywords being selected in the SEO. If the keywords aren’t reliable then the right results won’t come up in the first place. Social media offers a greater awareness of the best keywords to use and what people are looking for.
Modern social networking sites such as facebook, twitter and MySpace can be used to monitor what terms are being used more and what businesses or companies are being mentioned by the users on the sites. Use tools such as Google trends to get an idea of what terms are growing in popularity. In other words, find out what everyone is talking about and then be the first to take advantage of that knowledge. Once you know the target terms, build new content around it onsite through forums, FAQS etc.
Implementing new terms into product collateral is another more in depth strategy. This is in conjunction with using the keywords insight to raise the standard of the product and the customer service. This can create the comfort of being able to anticipate common customer complaints being able to address them and offer support.
Social profiles, business and rankings
Corporate websites can gain a positive influence in their Pagerank in Google through the unique, yet effective opportunity to gain a greater awareness in the search results in Google. This is because most popular social networking sites have a solid Trust Rank with Google. Profiles which are open can rank in Google for related searches. For example, you could search for a company in Google and the results could show a facebook or twitter page for that company.
Google LBL’s (Local Business listings) found in Google maps are perhaps the most absolute form of search mixing with social media. Google LBL places are basically a yellow page listing but with a map on the internet too. Once the business owner has claimed the business it can be listed within the “lucky 7″ local results.
A company located in the lucky 7 listings has a much greater chance of receiving more traffic and phone calls from customers. This is because once there the company can display business information like a short description, company provided photos, videos, phone numbers etc. All of which is displayed on the map for the convenience of the customer. Google is very prestigious and will not just let any company into the lucky 7 and so a business must meet certain criteria. For instance, a company must have good reviews and feedback. Google only want to display the best.
A well optimised social profile will rank well in search engines as well as internal searches (such as in YouTube). Branded terms like a company name should easily rank within the top ten in Google. Using more in depth and advanced optimising techniques, it is possible to make social profiles for unbranded companies to be visible in the search results (a specific hotel for example).
The search behavior can be altered by having an integrated social search strategy. Using key search phrases found in social profiles can produce a larger volume of consistent results. Because of this, the visibility of corporate side results can be improved and social platforms can appear in branded and unbranded searches.
If a company makes full use of the social media they can create their own reputation in a sense. This is called ORM (Online reputation management). Because of the methods in which Google works regarding the real time search and social platforms, it has become possible that through social profiles and ORM a company can push the less desirable and negative listings of their company below the positives listings that the company makes themselves through the social platforms.
PPC with social and paid search
Through these social networks a company’s peers, customers and even competitors can talk about the company. This paves the way for the utilisation of the opportunity for development and optimisation for paid search campaigns.
Social networks are a very cost efficient way of getting to know all of the desired keywords and phrases. The social network is free and the only cost lies in the licensing of the programs being used to pick up on popular words and phrases relating to the company. Any successful PPC campaign has the foundations of highly targeted keywords.
Contrary to the belief of many, just finding the correct keywords never guarantees success in paid search plans because it is also key that appropriate messaging is identified. This can also be done with the various media monitoring tools available for free on the internet. These tools can be used to identify the relevant messaging in the text on ads and text within the social networks. This technique can be used to identify market needs that are not currently being addressed by the competition. This can give your company an edge on the competition.
Using the social network sites can produce solid and reliable research as to what the customer wants. In example, a poll could be published asking possible customers what kind of special offer on a product they would prefer. This would give immediate quantitative data. Whereas picking up conversations over facebook would only give vague qualitative data.
If a PPC campaign does well through using social media, it can directly influence the social networking sites from there. In basic terms, if a PPC campaign is successful, they will advertise more and more on social networking sites and so users will see the adverts for these services more and then are more likely to talk about that, which other companies will pick up on and try and adjust themselves for that. It’s like a cycle.
Conclusion
The strategies mentioned in this article may seem just theoretical, however they are tried and tested and there is a lot of evidence on the internet of results getting to page one simply through their facebook fan page. All in all, it is highly recommended that anyone using the internet as a means of marketing and SEO must make use of the social media aspect and develop strategies around it. Doing so would allow a greater chance of success above the competition
