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Increasing engagement and turning your audience into paying customers doesn't just happen. You have to work for it. Specifically, you have to optimize social media pages to reach more people and increase brand awareness. We’ve rounded up 10 ways to do so for better reach, improved engagement, and higher conversion rates.
Before we proceed to the core of it all, allow us to explain why you need to do this.
Today, over 88% of businesses market on social media. This means two things: First, you can’t not do it; and second, you can’t do a horrible job at it.
With millions of brands competing for audience attention on various social media platforms, you can’t stay passive and wait for them to come to you. You have to step up your game to get noticed. One of the most effective ways to do this is to optimize social media accounts. Just make sure you have a firm understanding of cybersecurity for social media to protect yourself!
Here are a few tips to help you get started on the right foot.
Identify Your Social Media Goals
The first part of the process is to identify what your ultimate goal is for building and optimizing social media accounts. Once you’ve done this, you can start to list the steps that you have to take.
For instance, if your goal is to utilize your social media accounts to boost sales, you will have to take the following steps to increase it.
- Improve audience reach.
- Increase engagement and gain more prospects.
- Generate leads.
- Convert leads to paying customers.
Having an end goal in mind will guide you in figuring out the smaller milestones you need to hit in order to get there.
Don't forget to make your goals specific and give them numerical values (example: to increase online sales to $10,000/month) so that you're able to measure your progress.
Fill Out Your Profiles in Their Entirety
Our second tip — and one of the essentials you should cover when optimizing your social media pages — is to fill out your main profile pages front to back.
What is your page all about? In order to reach your target audience, you have to make your profile visible in search results. When optimizing it, remember to cover the basics.
Upload a High-Quality Profile Photo
Your brand’s image matters. Thus, you need a good profile picture so people will immediately recognize you. For businesses, using your company logo is an excellent option.
Let People Know What Exactly It is You Do
What kind of company are you? What types of products or services do you offer?
Your profile is supposed to give people insight into who you are and what you do, so allow them to know you. Fill out the information fields with your details, provide them information on what your business does, and so on.
Include Keywords
If you want people to find you easily, then you have to do keyword research and include the high performing ones in your profile. This increases your chances of getting seen.
Add Your Location
Providing your business’s location makes it easier for people who are looking for your products or services nearby to find you. This move can provide you more chances of appearing in local searches. Google loves it.
Determine Your Store Hours
This is more important — yet often overlooked — information. Setting store hours allows your audience to know when to expect a reply from you for their direct messages.
Use Hashtags
Hashtags are essentially SEO of social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram. Adding hashtags to your captions increases your chances of exposure. Please take note, however, that they’re not as effective on Facebook.
One thing you should remember when utilizing hashtags is to optimize them for the the social media account to which you’re uploading the content. Your hashtags for Instagram won't look the same as Twitter. Knowing how to use them right will help you succeed.
Here’s how to use hashtags for social media.
Twitter Hashtags are used primarily for searches. For instance, if you want to see tweets or conversations, all you have to do is to search for the hashtag in Twitter’s search bar.
Adding one or two hashtags per tweet is best practice. In fact, studies show that tweets with only one hashtag generate the most engagement.
Instagram uses hashtags to group images together. This platform allows up to 30 hashtags per caption, but most experts agree that limiting it to 11 relevant hashtags per post is ideal for the best engagement.
Other creative ways to use hashtags is in Instagram and Twitter contests and other campaign promotions.
Create Valuable Content That Solves Your Followers' Problems
Content is the key to your social media marketing success. It’s what draws your audience to you. People love things that provide value to them. Thus, your content, whether created or curated, should not be limited to plain promotional materials.
Furthermore, they should help your followers overcome an obstacle they have.
Here are a few ideas:
Infographics
They’re informative, visually appealing, shareable, and people love them.
Posts That Evoke Emotion
Emotions are an effective way to make people take action. This is the reason why posts that stimulate one’s emotions get a lot of shares, comments, and likes.
News
Sharing news is another excellent strategy on social media. People love to stay in the loop of the latest happenings.
Use Images
The right images can make a person notice you. This is something all brands need in order to increase engagement, especially with the enormous (and growing) amount of content lining up in every user’s feed, fighting for attention.
But with the number of images popping up on feeds, how do you make your content stand out?
Studies confirm that each platform has a different preference when it comes to social media content. What may garner a lot of attention on Facebook may not necessarily receive the same response on Instagram.
Include Calls-to-Action
Calls-to-action (CTAs) encourage your audience to respond to your content. They helps boost engagement and convert your audience into leads. Below are a few tips to make the most out of your CTAs.
Make Offers That Your Audience Wants
This a popular and effective strategy for increasing engagement. Giving away eBooks and other resources in exchange for their information is an excellent way of converting leads.
Be Specific
Do you want your visitor to like you on Facebook? Sign up for your newsletter? Enter your contest? Tell them exactly that.
Make Them as Simple and Short as Possible
Don't make people work too hard to accomplish your CTAs — like by asking for a ton of information. CTAs should be quick and straightforward.
Use Attention-Grabbing Headlines
Headlines matter and can make or break it when it comes to getting your followers to stop for a second look.
Here are some tips.
Start With Numbers
Headlines that start with numbers resonate most with people. An example is the title of this article: 10 Ways to Optimize Social Media.
Don’t Be Afraid to Go Negative
Using negative words like "worst" and "never" can sometimes have better results compared to positive words. So, titles like "3 Things You Should Never Do On Social Media" may receive more engagement.
Be Active on Social Media Sites That Add Value to Your Business
You don’t have to be present on every single social media platform to increase awareness and promote your brand. You need to choose only the platforms that will benefit your business. Now, the question is, which platforms should you utilize?
Below are some recommendations for each social media platform.
With over 2.27 billion monthly active users, Facebook is undoubtedly one of the leading social media platforms today.
Every business should have a Facebook account regardless of what industry they belong to. Why? Because search engines consider Facebook as a local SEO signal. They check your profile when filtering out their local search results.
Therefore, if you want to be more "searchable" when users include the area where you do business in their search, then you have to have a Facebook business account.
Instagram is a great social media platform for businesses that can gain a lot by relying on visuals. Examples are fashion, travel, and food.
Twitter is perfect for news and information, but it can also be utilized for your company’s support or customer service.
Did you know that 87% of Pinterest users purchased a product because of the platform? It’s one of the social media platforms with the most successful conversion rates.
Ideal for businesses that deal with arts, crafts, and events, Pinterest is an excellent platform for brands that have visual products. (To be clear, though, you can be outside of these industries and still see massive success on the platform.)
LinkedIn is the platform that’s most ideal for B2B, or business-to-business, transactions. If you’re selling products that are targeted to other businesses, it’s recommended to include LinkedIn on your list of main social media platforms.
Only choose the platforms that can help you best promote your brand, products, or services so you can focus your attention on the things that matter for your company. Choosing only two or three that perform well is better than having five that don't.
Optimize Your Posting Schedule
If you’re posting high-quality content but you’re still not getting results, then one of the possible reasons why is your posting schedule. You have to schedule your posts during the time when your audience is most active online.
This will be different for each brand. Furthermore, it can differ from one platform to the next. The best you can do is test different times and measure the results.
Track Your Progress
The only way to see if your social media accounts are properly optimized is by tracking your progress. See how much engagement you’re getting. Take note of the number of times your post was shared, the number of comments each post received, the number of likes, etc. before you change any part of your strategy.
This will help you determine the strategies and methods that work for you and those that don’t.
Once you have credible, data-backed information, you’ll be able to make better decisions and more effectively optimize social media accounts.
What social media optimization strategies have you tried so far, and which ones worked best for your business? Share your experience with us in the comments.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is social media optimization?
Social media optimization is the process of improving the visibility and reach of a website or web page on social media networks. This can be done through optimizing the website content, design, structure, and layout for social media sharing, as well as developing and implementing an effective social media marketing strategy.
Why social media optimization is important?
Social media optimization is important because it can help drive more traffic to your website or blog. When you have a good social media presence, it shows that you're an authority in your field and that people should trust what you have to say. It's also important for creating connections with other people in your industry. When you share someone else's content, they're likely to return the favor, and this can help increase your reach even more.
What is the difference between SMO and SMM?
SMO is an acronym for social media optimization. It's the process of optimizing a website or blog for the purpose of increasing visibility and driving traffic from social media channels. SMM is an acronym for social media marketing. It's the process of using social media to achieve marketing objectives, such as generating leads, increasing brand awareness, building customer loyalty, and driving sales.
Which is better SEO or SMO?
Both can be very useful to a business. SEO is focused on driving organic traffic to your website. However, SMO is more focused on driving traffic to your social media accounts. There is no best option as it will depend on the specific business model and audiences.
The Bottom Line
Have you tried any of these tactics to increase traffic from social media? If not, give them a try and see how they work for you. Social media is a powerful tool that can help your business grow if used correctly. By optimizing your profiles and using the right techniques, you can drive more traffic to your website and increase sales. Try out some of the tactics we’ve suggested and see which ones work best for you. With a little effort, you can boost traffic from social media and improve your bottom line.
