Imagine that someone is in the market for a new pair of white sneakers. Traditionally, the first few steps in their search journey might have been to open Google, type “white sneakers” into the search bar, and scroll through the plethora of web results optimized for these keywords until something catches their eye. Recently, we have witnessed a trend that signifies that Google might not necessarily always be the go-to search engine when an individual embarks on a purchase journey. Users are also treating social media platforms as search engines, oftentimes looking to historically non-traditional sites such as TikTok, Pinterest, and Instagram to gather the information they are seeking regarding a certain product or service.
Social Media SEO
With the rise of social media platforms as search engines comes a whole new category of SEO. With users opting to use social platforms over Google as their preferred method of search for certain information, brands must optimize their social content and profile to become discoverable in desired search results (similarly to how they have to optimize their website in order to rank organically on traditional search engines such as Google and Bing).
So, what does optimizing content for social media SEO look like? The answer is a lot of different things, and best practices are typically dependent on a given platform’s unique algorithm and features.
Here are a few tips that we recommend to improve your brand’s social media SEO:
Optimize your profile by including high-priority keywords in your account username, display name, and bio/about section. The information that can be provided about your brand within your profile varies by platform; we recommend populating every applicable portion of the profile page to boost discoverability (e.g. location, business category, links).
Incorporate relevant keywords in the post caption. Each social media site has a different purpose, so be sure the optimized copy will still resonate with the platform-specific audience you are aiming to reach and is written in your brand’s tone of voice.
Layer in related hashtags within captions and/or comments to enhance discoverability. Be intentional when selecting the hashtags you are using, as certain keywords see an overwhelming amount of posts per day and are therefore highly competitive. Get specific with your hashtags to increase the likelihood of your brand being discovered while also being mindful of when a hashtag might be too niche to be effective toward your social SEO strategy.
Add alt text to your social posts whenever possible. Not only does this feature make your content more accessible by attaching written descriptions of the images/videos to social posts, it also has the potential to make your posts more visible within relevant search results on the given platform.
Include closed captions in video content. Similar to alt text, closed captions are imperative to making your content more accessible. Closed captions also have the added benefit of giving the platform’s algorithm more context to work with when it comes time to populate search results. Includes various keywords in the video’s audio in order to maximize the impact of closed captions on social media SEO.
The Relationship Between Social Media SEO and Traditional SEO
The increasing importance of social SEO does not diminish the importance of traditional SEO in digital marketing. In fact, the two sectors can work in tandem to strengthen your overall strategy.
Let’s revisit the white sneakers example. Say a user searches for "white sneakers" on Instagram, where Brand X appears in the top results due to their content being optimized for social media SEO. Intrigued, the user explores Brand X's post and profile but ultimately ends up resuming their regular scrolling. Later, they continue their search for sneakers, this time on Google, and find a link to Brand X's product page. Remembering the positive impression from Instagram, they make their purchase on Brand X's website.
As this hypothetical scenario demonstrates, strong social media SEO can have a positive impact on brand visibility and recognition, therefore increasing the likelihood that users will engage with your brand on other channels (such as on traditional search engines like Google). Increased web traffic as a result of social SEO can directly improve traditional SEO by pushing Google to recognize the value and authority of your domain, and therefore ranking it higher in search results.
https://blog.hootsuite.com/social-seo/
https://www.semrush.com/blog/social-media-seo/
Photo: ©Delmaine Donson