Enticing visual content is imperative, especially after Instagram ousted the chronological news feed. Companies and influencers are put to the test to compete for who will show up most frequently in users’ feeds.

Here are 7 reminders to help you better navigate this year’s increasingly competitive social media and SEO landscapes.

1) Invest in your captions

If you can draw your audience in with an interesting story snippet, they’re much more likely to check out your other posts, and possibly respond to your call to action.

Don’t rush your caption because you’re short on time and you’re determined to stick to your publishing schedule. As you are captioning, keep your SEO efforts in mind. Be sure to keep your caption keyword-focused.

Also, when appropriate, use plenty of keyword-centric hashtags as well. Remember that depending on the platform you’re using, different social audiences react differently to content.

Confirm that you’re using the right format and tailoring your captions for the right audience by investigating Audience Insights in Facebook, Twitter or Instagram Analytics.

2) Be honest with your brand’s social media performance

Your priority is ensuring that whatever platform you’re on, you’re benefiting your business. By analyzing any given section (from the past year, past month, past few days), you can gauge the effectiveness of each platform in helping you achieve your business goals.

If you can leave the vanity of the likes and follows behind and objectively decide whether or not a platform is serving you, it’ll help you enormously in the long run.

Analyze your return on investment and set realistic expectations for 2018. It’s liberating to know you don’t need to be spending hours on 6 different accounts.

3) Make sure you’re not over-posting or under-posting

However, if you’re walking the line in the middle, it can be tough to tell whether you’re generating enough original content or if you’re bothering people.

Focusing on quality rather than quantity is unbelievably effective. It might seem counter-intuitive, but sometimes posting less will increase social media engagement.

Reducing your post frequency might lead to more people interacting with the posts you do make more sparingly.

Building up the anticipation for a post (especially if the subject matter is particularly interesting/thought provoking, etc) has its perks.

4) Encourage all users to interact and respond

For example, cosmetics brands who receive negative comments about testing their products on animals or promoting unattainable standards of beauty still respond calmly and empathetically to their concerned customers.

Suggesting a resolution for negative comments is helpful as well. You can never control what people comment, but you can always control your company’s response.

As we have mentioned, social media doesn’t have a direct impact on search engine rankings, but the increased visibility that can result from a popular post can definitely contribute to generating backlinks.

After all, successful SEO serves as the solid foundation for any holistic, integrated digital marketing campaign.

When you create a post always add a call to action at the end of it, it’s a great way to promote sharing and linking. People are more likely to share a post if you ask them specifically.

Also, keep in mind user experience. the user experience of the landing page is just as important as enticing them on social media with the right messaging. Make it seamless for new visitors to navigate from the world of social media to your landing page or website.

5) Switch up your types of content

Spicing up your social presence doesn’t have to mean a ton more work for you and your team.

Video editing tools are becoming easier and cheaper. Most importantly, social media users are starting to expect it more and more. To make your life easier, repurpose content that you already have by reformatting it or updating it and posting it in a new way.

Most of the major platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.) have ways to target audiences based on what type of content they spend the most time on. Use this information to guide you on which kind of content your audience enjoys most.

The content you create should cause people to want to re-post it and link to your website.

6) Make sure your social media and business goals are aligned

Wanting to simply create a stir and promote awareness about something is different from wanting to foster genuine engagement with prospects/current customers.

Neither strategy is better than the other. However, you need to determine ahead of time which approach to social media marketing you want to take.

For example, if your business wants to increase sales, prioritize how you’re going to make it as easy as possible for your social media account to be the first point of contact for potential clients/customers.

Once you firmly resolve to align your social media marketing with your business goals, you won’t waste as much time on frivolous posts that don’t contribute to meaningful outcomes.

7) Don’t spread yourself too thin: link locally

Google’s Webmaster Tools are a great resource you can use to check where your links are currently and who is using them. From there you can see what is working in which market, and adjust your strategies and goals accordingly.

Localizing your social media marketing outreach will help you raise brand awareness in the right markets. This is important to ensure the quality of the traffic your links bring. To do this correctly, every part of your social media campaign should be focused on gaining meaningful engagement and increasing your click-through-rate.

Some final thoughts….

Even though social media isn’t an official ranking factor for SEO, it can still greatly contribute to your website’s/business’s online authority.

At the end of the day, social media and SEO should go hand in hand: sharing content and utilizing engagement metrics as data for future content creation. Build your social presence, aim for engagement, and add authentic value to your content. You’ll be happily surprised by the results.

At Chainlink , we’re here to help you come up with the best social media plan and ensure all of your site’s web pages are optimized.

Want to learn more about our uniquely effective social media marketing services?

Reach out to us below to learn more about how we can help your business grow online. We’d love to give you a free consultation.

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