If you’re a frequent peruser of SEO marketing blogs, you know that every day your reading list is packed with many different voices giving you varying and sometimes contradictory advice on every imaginable topic. Sometimes, you’ll even find someone calling themselves “The Best Local SEO Company!” giving advice that any SEO professional with real experience would laugh at.
At Big Red SEO, an SEO and web design company in Omaha, we know that sometimes it’s hard to tell the good advice from the bad, especially if you don’t run an SEO or internet marketing company.
You’ve heard that search engine optimization is important to your business’s online marketing strategy and you’re eager to jump into the process of making your business more visible to potential customers online. However, you’d be wise to take advice from so-called “experts” with a grain of salt because many simply don’t know what they’re talking about.
Today, our team of blog writing specialists will talk about a subject that’s become all-important to any company’s Internet marketing efforts: how to use social media to your marketing advantage. Since there’s so much misinformation and just plain bad advice being tossed around, though, we’re going to look at the topic from the opposite direction. We’ll tell you the kinds of social media advice not to take so you can be on the lookout for those sources of misinformation yourself!
“Be on ALL the social networks!”
When you think social network, you probably think of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and maybe a handful of others. The truth is that there are over 200 different social media platforms devoted to many different kinds of media, all catering to vastly different audiences.
So when someone tells you that your company should have a presence on all social networks, you’d be right to raise an eyebrow. A better strategy would be to pick and choose which social networks make sense for your business. Do you run a hip downtown restaurant? You should probably have a company Facebook page, Instagram profile (pictures of your food make followers hungry!), and Foursquare account. Not so, though, if you happen to run a heating and air conditioning company!
The bottom line here is that you want to work smarter, not harder. Don’t spread yourself too thin by trying to juggle social media accounts that don’t jive with your business.
“If you have good social media presence, you don’t need to worry about SEO!”
This couldn’t be more false. Though it’s more than good for your SEO efforts, there’s a lot more to getting on page 1 of Google than what you put into social media. Things like building quality links and creating great original content that provides a singular value to your potential customers are still the backbone of SEO. You have to structure your social media around these things, and if you don’t, people will wonder exactly what it is you have to offer them.
A quick word about link-building—when we talk about quality link-building, what we really mean is establishing long-term relationships with other industry leaders. You need to put the time and energy into having conversations (via guest blogs, interaction on social media, etc.) that advance the dialogue in your industry. This kind of interaction breeds new ideas and in turn helps establish your business as an authority.
“To make things easier, you should automate your social media!”
There are many programs available to automate your postings to social media, and these can be helpful for those who don’t have time to implement a manual social media strategy on their own or the budget to hire a professional to help. It’s important, though, to really stop and think before you go this route.
What’s the point of using social media for your business in the first place?
The answer lies in one word: social. Automation programs miss the point of being on social media by removing the human element of social interaction. Though there are legitimate uses for programs that automatically schedule and post your content, many businesses (especially larger ones) use this system for tasks that shouldn’t be automated, even going so far as to use pre-written templates to respond to their customers’ comments and complaints.
In short, people like talking to other people on social media, not robots. If your followers catch you using surrogate robots to talk to them, there will be blowback.
Contact Big Red SEO Today at (402) 522-6468!
As an SEO and internet marketing company in Omaha, Nebraska, Big Red SEO is the best local SEO company for any and all of your business’s internet marketing needs. Our team of professional blog writers hopes that this article gives you some useful tips for implementing your social media strategy.
While interacting on social media is only a small part of your business’s search engine optimization efforts, it’s becoming more important all the time. If you have any questions about how these two areas come together to give you more online exposure and conversions, give Big Red SEO a call today at (402) 522-6468!
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