How Social Media and SEO Work Hand in Hand

When it comes to growing your business, most companies now recognise the importance of search engine Optimisation (SEO). However, many still overlook the significant potential of social media, especially in the B2B sector.

If your business neglects social media, you’re missing out! Social media can greatly boost your SEO efforts.

We understand the challenges. Recent algorithm changes and the race to emulate TikTok have made it difficult to achieve organic results on social media. Creating high-quality content takes time, something many small businesses lack, especially when only a small fraction of their audience might see their posts. If you don’t have the tools to produce videos, it can feel like a futile endeavour.

But social media isn’t merely a platform for promoting your business by sharing articles and images. This misconception is the issue. Social media is about establishing brand recognition, sharing valuable and memorable content, building trust, showcasing your expertise, and ultimately driving targeted traffic to your website.

Doesn’t that sound remarkably similar to SEO?

Why Social Media Matters for SEO

SEO aims to optimize your website for search engine visibility, attracting potential customers and convincing them to visit your site. Social media serves a similar purpose by putting your name and content in front of individuals interested in your offerings.

While most business owners recognise the significance of SEO and the need to align with Google’s guidelines and ranking factors, they often prioritise SEO over social media due to limited time, resources, and budgets. However, SEO alone doesn’t foster customer conversations, encourage user-generated content, or engage with potential customers on their preferred platforms.

The reality is that neither SEO nor social media can fully address all digital strategy goals!

Interestingly, social media platforms now function much like search engines. Major social media apps employ their own Optimisation techniques using hashtags and keywords to categorise content. Users can follow hashtags or topics just as they follow accounts, and each interaction they have on the platform informs it about their interests. As a result, the app shows them similar content, including yours, even from accounts they don’t follow.

Here are some compelling statistics highlighting how social media aligns with the same objectives as SEO:

• 54% of social media users research products on these platforms.
• Social media users tend to trust product and service recommendations from other users more than those from celebrities.
• A positive experience with a brand on social media can lead 71% of consumers to recommend the brand to their friends and family.
• Including pictures from social media, such as content featuring real people using the product, can make consumers six times more likely to make a purchase from a product page.

However, where social media truly excels is in its social interaction. SEO directs people to a website but doesn’t actively gather information from them. That task falls on your website’s user experience, integrations, and forms.

Social media, on the other hand, provides opportunities for audience research. You can pose questions through posts and polls, engage with customers in the comments, and gain valuable insights into their preferences and needs. This engagement also allows you to respond to questions and concerns effectively.

With all this valuable information at your disposal, you can enhance your offerings, including the keywords you target and the SEO content you create.

How Social Media Influences SEO

Let’s delve into the ways social media impacts SEO, highlighting five key aspects:

1. Content Amplification: Social media helps your content reach a broader audience, especially when it’s not prominently featured on the first page of search results.
2. Brand Awareness: It builds your online presence and familiarity, so that when your name appears in search results, it’s recognised by users.
3. Trust and Credibility: Social media supports your reputation within your industry, particularly when individuals are researching your business online due to referrals.
4. Link-Building: The more places your content can be found on social media, the higher the likelihood of earning SEO-friendly inbound links (backlinks) when referenced on other websites.
5. Local SEO: It enhances your local presence and ranking through business profile data and customer reviews.

Each of these areas has an indirect influence on your SEO and ultimately affects your search engine ranking. This underscores the importance of social media for businesses of all sizes and across various industries.

Additionally, keep in mind that:

• Your company’s social media profiles appear in searches for your business, often appearing right beneath your website. This presents an opportunity to dominate the first page of search results and leave no room for competitors.
• Search engines index tweets, which can appear in search results for your business and even for specific queries.
• Google frequently experiments with new features like “Perspectives,” which showcases top social media posts on a given topic in a search results-style format.

How SEO Benefits Social Media

Let’s shift the focus from social media SEO to explore how SEO benefits social media. This partnership isn’t one-sided either!

Increased Social Following: When people come across your content in search results, they may be more inclined to seek out and follow your social profiles.

Google Indexing: Google rewards your efforts in maintaining a social profile by indexing it in searches for your business name. This indexing is verified by matching your Name, Address, and Phone (NAP) information to your website and Google Business listing.

optimized Social Content: You can leverage your SEO keyword research to create better-optimized post captions and identify relevant hashtags for your social media content.

Data-Driven Insights: Google Analytics provides valuable insights into the content and topics that resonate most with your audience through traffic and engagement metrics. This information can guide your social content creation.

In summary, social media SEO is a powerful partnership that you shouldn’t overlook. It offers an opportunity to build a community, humanise your brand, and elevate your message and work while also reciprocally supporting your SEO and marketing efforts.

I hope you’re now fully convinced of the benefits of social media SEO. Happy optimising!