Social Media Optimization: A Full Guide

In digital marketing, optimization does not have to be a scary word. Perhaps the term conjures up images of search engine optimization (SEO) and stringent keyword criteria.

While most businesses embrace social media, several still fail to implement simple changes that could substantially improve their game.  Reports from Hootsuite and We Are Social stated that there are approximately 3.5 billion active social media users globally. That is why if you plan to reach a massive amount of active users, you should definitely try social media optimization.

The reality is that social media optimization does not require you to sacrifice your brand's identity. Today, let us go over simple social media optimization techniques for both large and small businesses.

What is Social Media Optimization?

The practice of leveraging social media to grow your company’s online presence is known as social media optimization (SMO). While some businesses believe that simply having their own presence on all social media sites is enough for a strong digital presence, SMO offers a completely different perspective.

In order to start your way with social media optimization, you must deliberately develop your marketing plan in order to interact with your target audience deeply.

A well-planned social media optimization strategy can assist you in strengthening your brand, lead generation, improving your brand awareness, and interacting with your target market or community.

As a business, you should concentrate on using social media techniques that will help you be distinct and leave an impression in the virtual environment. Your social media performance will peak and transform to be more prominent in the business if you use the appropriate social media optimization strategy.

What is the Connection between Social Media Optimization and Search Engine Optimization?

Search engine optimization (SEO) was the leader in digital marketing for many years. While both search engine optimization and social media optimization share the same goal of increasing brand awareness and web traffic, SEO is the process of improving the quantity and quality of website traffic by raising the visibility of a webpage to search engines.

Recently, social media marketing has been what everyone's been raving about, sometimes overlapping with SEO and, sometimes, even completely displacing it as the most successful brand strategy to generate leads, increase awareness, and communicate with the targeted audience. Social media platforms can be efficient tools that can be utilized for SMO in marketing.

With everything said, SMO can be arguably as important or even more as SEO if we consider its constantly growing influence. As increasing numbers of users utilize social media to stay linked and engaged with people, social media optimization is now deemed to be essential.

Examples of Social Media Optimization

The kind of messaging that you want to put out on social media platforms can be customized to have a more significant effect on different segments of the population. Marketing professionals who use social media for their digital marketing efforts can craft more personalized content to target their specific demographic profiles.

Listed below are three examples of organizations and people who have social media pages that are perfectly optimized.

1. NASA

NASA is the best example of an organization with optimized social media pages. Their social media pages mirror each other containing a brief description of their organization and their mission and vision – which encapsulates all the important keywords, information, and contact details about them. This translates to perfect consistency and optimization across their brand outlets, resulting in a seamless experience. Along with that, their display pictures also showcase eye-catching and encouraging images that make their profile visitors want to learn more.

2. Amy Porterfield

Amy Porterfield demonstrates how keeping things clear and simple can work wonders for social media optimization.

Porterfield's Twitter profile briefly describes her bio, which can be seen both on her bio box and her header as well.  She employs a variety of industry-related keywords and explains the value that she could provide for her audience and clients. 

Describing your brand rather than yourself is key! More so, it is equally crucial to include links to websites and CTAs to capture leads from social media. Important, too, are prominent links to her website. Don't forget about those CTAs for capturing leads from social media!

Keywords, consistency, CTAs, and client-audience-centered profile are all important factors to a successful social media optimization.

3. Lifehacker

Lifehacker has social media pages that successfully defy logic. Instead of presenting an interesting and insightful bio, they rather crafted a clever and funny one-liner: "Do everything better." However, not everyone can do it. Since Lifehacker is a seemingly known brand, they do not need to describe themselves thoroughly as their reputation already speaks for itself.

It would be quite unreasonable to apply this social media optimization strategy if you're still a budding small business. Nonetheless, if your brand following has grown, you may potentially exploit this strategy.

Strategies for Social Media Optimization

Companies that utilize several social media platforms may leverage on internet-based solutions to optimize content organization and distribution. These digital platforms enable a social media content creator to plan material across numerous platforms at the same time, as well as respond to any interactions on the postings, such as comments or messages.

Users of social networking sites may post material on the internet nearly instantly. As a result, many businesses attempt to generate content that people will share with their friends and contacts. This method, known as viral marketing, aims to reach a wider audience by encouraging interested users of the social media platforms to share materials rather than depending on users to locate the contents by themselves.

Benefits of Social Media Optimization

1. Broadens Audience Reach

Social media optimization enables you to reach out to a certain target. The medium enables you to present the brand in front of customers on their terms. With mobile, video, and audio accessibility, your consumers may reach out to you from anywhere, at any time.

2. Creates Leads

Although social media is best utilized for starting a buzz and for improving branding, it is also exploited to generate leads. Using social media platforms may dramatically improve lead generation initiatives.

3. Ensures Strong Web Presence

Social Media Optimization ensures a solid digital presence for the company and builds the brand's internet authority. It not only exposes consumers to the company but also aids in branding by increasing brand awareness and recall.

4. Increases Traffic

Social media optimization is a terrific way to lead traffic. It allows you to reach your targeted audience and potential and current clients all around the world just via social media platforms. Ultimately, this is all possible without the need for further investments, as most social media channels have free registration.

5. Improves Search Engine Ranking 

Social media optimization has grown in popularity among marketers since search engines began gathering data from social media platforms as well and displaying it in the search results.