How to Effectively Optimize Your Social Media Marketing For Success!

Optimize your social media marketing

If you have read my previous post you will understand that I’ve recently developed interest in the subject of social media optimization! This is not for no reason!

If you have been following what is happening in the search engines lately you will notice that within a few months Google announced three major updates.  First was the Caffeine update which was actually an infrastructural movement in preparation for the recent happenings.

The second was the much talked about Google Freshness update. This was a major algorithm change. The Panda update was a total overhaul of Google’s search engine algorithm affecting mostly blogs/websites that were nothing but content farms. The official announcement of the Panda update pointed out that the update affected about 12% of search results!

Now, the third update, announced a couple of weeks ago, is the Google Freshness update. This, like the Panda update, is an algorithm change. With this update Google is now officially using social media as a major parameter in ranking webpages.  Now the interesting thing is that while the panda update affected only 12% the Panda update is covering about 35%! If you were aware of the effect of the Panda update which was only 12% then you should understand what this 35% is about!

Doesn't that ring a bell for you? If you still have not gotten it, then let me put it very clear to you. If Google’s Freshness update covers as much as 35% it is something you should take note of!

Do you now understand why I’m passionate about this? You got it, because I’m always passionate about search engine optimization (seo) and it is definite that seo is moving on a new direction!

Now, as I mentioned in the previous post, it is important that you have a social media optimization strategy if you’re going to make any good of this. In my studies and from my personal experience I have come to realize that there are some essentials if you truly want to have a workable and effective social media optimization strategy. And this will be my focus in this post.

5 Essential Elements for a Successful Social Media Optimization Strategy

1. Decide On What You Want To Achieve

I’m putting this as #1 because from my personal experience, except you know what you really want to achieve with your social media optimization your efforts will only be in vain. There should be an aim to everything you do on the social networking sites. As many have confessed, social media could be addictive. This is why you should have a purpose. Without a purpose and plan you could be sucked into a whole lot of activities and at the end of the day you’ll end up achieving nothing.

Here are some reasons you may want to optimize your social media marketing

(i)    Build your business online

(ii)    Connect with potential customers

(iii)    Connect with existing customers

(iv)    Build links back to your business website/blog

(v)    Generate traffic to your website or blog

(vi)    Build relationships with similar businesses

(vii)    Etc.

You should therefore from the beginning decide on your social media optimization purpose as this will guide you on every other thing you do.

2. Decide On Your Audience

One fact you must get into your mind from the onset is that you don’t have to reach everyone out there. Of course, this is not possible! So, the ideal thing is to decide on who your audience will be and then focus on them. It is definite that if you have been able to decide on your purpose from #1 above, deciding on your target audience will be much easier.

3. What Content Should You Share?

When it comes to marketing online, content is definitely king. This is more so when it comes to social media marketing. The content you share determines your brand and so it is important that you should be selective.  It is indeed true that the social media sites are first and foremost about social interactions but if you’re there for business promotions, then every content you put out there should be that which will help your brand. For example, twitter’s simple question is, “what are you doing?” Now, if your twitter account was set up to promote your business you should be careful the way you answer that question. In fact, it is important that instead of answering that question you should turn it around to read, what is of interest to you right now? Or, what is of interest to your audience? 🙂

In this way you would be able to put out content that will build your brand and enhance your business success. It is glad to know that most of the social media sites now recognize the importance of tailoring your content to your audience and they have introduced features to help with this. For example, twitter and Facebook now have lists and Google+ have what it calls “circles”. You can use these to segregate your audience so that you can tailor your content to each group with more effectiveness.

4. What Time Is Available To You?

This is crucial. If you are a one man (please if you’re a woman read woman!) business, you definitely don’t want to spend all of your time on the social networking sites. This is where you again need to be careful of the addictive nature of the social media sites. One way to take care of this is to determine how many hours a day or how many days a week you would devote to social media interactions. This will help you to be focused every day.   The big fortunes companies can afford to hire freelance or career social media workers to help them manage their social media updates. But since you know this is beyond you, at least for now, managing your time is necessary. Again, it is clear that there are various tools in the market today that help you to automate most of your social media activities but you should be careful about using them. Social media is not about machines. It demands the human touch. So having a workable plan based on the time available to you and sticking to it will be of great help.

5. What Social Media Platform Should You Use?

At the moment there are a plethora of social media sites online. But the truth is that you don’t have to be on every one of them.  There are some dedicated to specific niches but except these ones are directly focused on your target niche, the best option is to stay with the big ones.  These are Facebook, Facebook, LinkedIn andTwitter. Creating an account with these ones is not enough. It is important that you study these different platforms to understand the target audience of each. While there may be some overlapping in the way they operate, you will have more success if you know what each is all about and use it that way. The good thing is that there so much information about these social sites and how to use them for marketing online. A simple Google search will to do the trick. Learn as much as you can and you will definitely succeed with your social media optimization.

Conclusion

Social media is here to stay and the astronomical growth of the social media sites in recent times is a testimony to its effectiveness in promoting businesses online. As a business entrepreneur you can’t afford to ignore social media optimization. Use these tips to plan out your social media optimization strategy and you’ll have a workable and effective system in place.

Is This Asking Too Much?

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18 Comments
  1. Very informative post Chadrack!

    I’ll be the first to admit that I often don’t fully understand a lot of what Google does. Kind of over my head in some areas. I did understand the recent Panda update. I also knew that they would be implementing social media into the search results including the +1 feature.

    Let’s face it, they are a search engine and if millions and millions of people are on social media sites interacting and sharing information, don’t you think Google wants those results in the search results as well! Just makes good content that much easier to locate. I can see why it’s important.

    Staying on social media sites all day long is not productive and it really doesn’t take a whole lot of effort in order to get your content shared. As my post shares today, you just need to help enough people get what they want and it will come back to you. You can do that through sharing other content on your wall for your friends too!

    Thanks for researching this and taking the time to share this information with us. I know I for one appreciate it!

    ~Adrienne

    • @Adrienne,

      The simple way to really understand Google is to look at them from the angle of a search engine and a marketing outfit. Everything they do is done from that angle. All the tools and resources they give away to us to help us with our online marketing, is all done with the mind of helping them better understand the market and then place them in a better position to further dominate the search engine niche. I think I can see them applying just what you mentioned in your post about building a successful business, help as many people as you can and you’ll succeed 🙂 Google know that secret very well and they are using it to their advantage.

      When G+ was launched and many bloggers were writing about the rivalry between Google+ and Facebook, wanting to know which will dominate the social media market, I wrote a post and made it clear that the competition is not about Google+ and Facebook but Google as a business entity against Facebook and I said then that it will all work out for a better experience for all of us. Here’s that post:

      http://webincomejournal.com/3753/google-plus-vs-facebook.html

      I think we are now really seeing Google’s plan gradually unveiling. I believe there is still more to come.

  2. If your business is new in socail media . Grab some Real profiles Testimonials and paste on your site footer or sidebar. It will really boost your sales, Authority , Thrust . It just worked one of my friend’s site.

    • @sureshpeters,

      That is really a savvy way of using social media to build trust, a very powerful and necessary ingredient in marketing online. I think I might just working on that. Thanks for the comment.

  3. Social Media is very crucial these days, it helps you to build your brand and impress them to buy your products and services. It does take longer time to show some outcome but still very powerful way of business promotion.

    • @Aanchal,

      You’re definitely right. Social media marketing takes a little longer to show results but once the results starts coming in, it could be “forceful!” Thanks for the comment.

  4. Your tips are very substantial and it is not too much. I agree with you that your final aim or result should come the first as when you know what you want to reach you will work more effectively. Social media is a great way of promotion now as the opportunitie of social media are huge and the success of promotion will depend only on the site or blog owner.

    • @DiNaRa,

      Must say I’m glad to have you around once again. Thanks for adding your voice to the conversation.

      One thing I’ve learned is to always begin with the end in mind. This way you can be able to set out steps that will take you to that “end.” It’s just like taking a trip, you need to know where you’re going and the purpose so that you’ll be able to know what you should take with you and what route to take.

  5. Very well written post. Social media is one of the influential media of spreading your business or services. Millions of people are doing this and naturally if one know the good marketing policy then their will be a huge chances of getting your business a boost.

  6. Nowadays it is used widely to promote your business with the product or services it has, and many people are taking advantage of it. Social Media Sites like Facebook and Twitter are the best to use in this way.

  7. Thanks for sharing this great article. I really like to read about this because social media is really important. Social media is really important for business these days without a business can’t survive anymore. Keep on the good work!

  8. This is the right blog for anyone who wants to find out about social media optimization. You realize so much its almost hard to argue with you. You definitely put a new spin on a topic that’s been written about for years. Great stuff, just great!

  9. You’ve explained so nicely that in order to understand Google really we have to look at them from the angle of a search engine. Google is making developments at such a fast rate that in order to understand what it is up to we have to stay updated.

  10. Hey Chadrack,

    Pretty cool insights on Social Media.

    I think you hit the nail on the head when you mentioned “to be careful of the addictive nature of the social media sites”.

    Frank Kern said it best, he doesn’t understands either twitter or facebook, so he got rid of both accounts (he created a newer account on facebook and he DOES USES IT!) but of course, not everyone can be Frank Kern either.

    I mainly use twitter and facebook to engage with others and build relationships, not precisely for a specific goal per se, but to network with them.

    I actually enjoy sharing my point of view with others even if there’s not a monetary gain out of it.

    The problem about this, is in the addiction like you mentioned on your article and the common misconception that being all day on Facebook or Twitter, is equal to being productive because you are “networking”.

    I think if we understand properly what is leisure time from what is actual work, there’s not a problem to use twitter, facebook, linkedin or even google plus (I hardly use the latter one but I will make some time for it in the near future).

    Again, great post, really enjoyed it, take care and have a great start of week! 😉

    Sergio

    • @Sergio Felix,

      Hey, you have really made some very good and insightful comments on the subject of social media here. The truth is that right now, social media is more in connection with marketing than networking. 99% of those using the social media sites are there more for marketing than networking. This is the more reason why there are more of marketing pitches on these sites than real discussions!

      It will interest you to know that it’s only a few (just like you) who are on the social media sites without a monetary gain in mind. I must also say that your point about understanding “properly what is leisure time from what is actual work” is really a great insight to succeeding with this social media of a thing.

      If you’re able to differentiate this two areas and work on them with the right mindset, it will go a long way to helping one avoid being sucked in by the noise going on in the social media sites.

      Thanks for such an insightful comment.

  11. There are a lot of business owner used social media in promoting their business and this article is helpful for those business owner..Great post and keep posting..

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