We’ll agree that the most fantastic thing about social media is how it brings people together. But over the years, it has evolved to do more than bring people together. Social media has created an environment where you can do anything, including reach your customers.

An initial limit exists to the volume of people reachable via your brand’s social media. You’re primarily limited by the number of social media connections, contacts, followers, or friends. What’s the point of managing social assets when there is a cap on your reach and engagements? 

Fortunately, you can easily bypass that momentary restriction. You can get your customers to seek your brand out on social media with the right strategies.

Try search engine optimization! It sounds like a concept beyond the scope of social media platforms. But, you can optimize for searches on social media platforms. Here’s how to do just that.

Understand the Connection Between Social Media and SEO

‘Is there a relationship between search engine optimization and social media?’ ‘I thought SEO only works for websites?’ Fair questions! 

It’s tricky to imagine any correlation between SEO and social media. Some SEO experts may tell you search engines don’t prioritize social media in their rankings. 

Furthermore, conventional reasoning identifies the meeting point between social media and SEO as a gray area. As a result, it’s not easy to define the point of correlation between them, if there’s any. 

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But then, social media exists primarily on the internet, and search engines are pretty much the navigational devices on the internet (there are approximately 63,000 search queries per second.) 

For illustrative purposes, say social media is a country, and search engines are the GPS devices showing all the places in the world. So, if these GPS devices can find a country (social media platform), they can find all the country’s regions, states, localities, and interesting places.

So, there is a correlation between them, after all. But most people are yet to understand the full capabilities of GPS devices (search engines). Therefore, they can’t use it to find / mark the places (pages) they’d like to visit. 

Eventually, they discredit or debate the connection between social media and SEO. Let’s examine some facts proving the relationship between SEO and social media to clear all your doubts.

Social Media Profiles are Gradually Becoming a Staple on Top SERPs

This point may seem debatable but consider branded keywords for a minute. Think about keywords that are pretty much synonymous with specific brands.

Try searching specific brand keywords on any search engine. You’ll most probably have the official brand website and social media pages among the top 5 results. So, you practically get to preview the brand’s social media presence and maybe some of their affiliate marketing endeavors on the SERPs. 

Google Analytics Credits Social Media as a Significant Means of Traffic Engagement

Part of Google Analytics’ functionality enables you to monitor the effectiveness of your social media efforts. For example, it helps you determine how the organic traffic on your social media engages with your content. 

With Google Analytics, you can use test automation best practices to finetune your social media efforts. It also enables you to measure the volume and quality of your social media engagement. 

Some may argue that this function is only for the sake of organization. However, Google paying such regard to the opportunities social media presents is telling enough. 

There is a valid connection between social media and search engine optimization.

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Social Media Links are Viable Traffic Funnels

Very few brand managers pay attention to the potential snowball effect social shares can have in organic traffic generation. All it takes is one like, comment, and share/retweet by one influential individual, and your engagement can skyrocket. Moreover, it sometimes works so well that it gives you more interactions than a referral software program might give you.

Nonetheless, social shares don’t affect your search engine rankings (at least, not directly). However, they can incite the relevant traffic to search you out and continuously engage with your content on social media and other platforms.

Not to mention the backlinking potential social media platforms possess. Having relevant content on your social media can encourage relevant websites to link to your pages. 

How To Get More Organic Search Traffic on Social Media

Before we move on to the recommendations and tips, let’s first clarify what we mean by organic search traffic. Organic search traffic refers to the volume of users who naturally get to your page. It doesn’t include paid results, i.e., traffic from direct clicks on your ads. 

So, the direct responses to your Facebook and Instagram ads don’t count in this case. With that in mind, what can you do to optimize your social media pages for better rankings on searches?

Incorporate Keyword Research

Keyword research is the single, simplest, and most fundamental ingredient in all SEO campaigns. It applies to all things SEO. 

Every brand uses keyword research, from outbound contact centers to SaaS companies. Get the keywords right, and you have your SEO campaign on the right track. It’s the first tip you’ll find in any SEO handbook. 

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However, while keyword research is the most fundamental principle for nailing SEO, it’s also quite easy to get it wrong. Many businesses start their SEO campaigns by competing for SERP spots using obvious mainstream keywords. 

Yes, they’re the common keywords people search for, but the pages trying to rank for mainstream keywords are too many. That’s one of the many mistakes that can harm your SEO ranking and reduce your chances of getting the best results.

So what do you do? You do a deeper dive through keyword research. For example, stop trying to rank using short keywords like ‘call conferencing.’ Instead, use longer keyphrases like “affordable call conferencing tools” in your social media content.

Also, try to understand the discrepancies between what users are searching and what you’re trying to rank for. The differences often occur in the exact words and phrases the audience uses to search. 

Say you find out your audience is searching for how to optimize notifications for MacOS. Then, fix that loophole by incorporating those keywords and the answer to that query into the content you put on your social media pages.

Write and Share Content on Social Media

A popular saying among marketing specialists is that content is king. Your content includes everything you post on your social media page. It primarily involves what you put up for your audience to interact and engage. 

We don’t need to tell you that your audience will leave if they can’t resonate with your content. You need the proper content format to attract your target audience to your brand’s social media page.

Written blogs are some of the cheapest and best content for attracting inbound traffic. Your keyword strategies will also work better with blog posts than videos or images. With proper keyword research, you’ll get insights into your audience’s interests, and you can craft engaging content based on them.

Then, use image and video teasers to promote the links to these content pieces on your social media pages. Make sure the content is engaging so it can prompt the reader to click on the link, which should lead to your website.

Identify Your Target Audience and Focus Your Content on Them

Whatever your niche may be, there’ll be a particular target audience for what you offer. First, you can identify your target audience based on your current consumers and interested users. 

Then, you can study the habits of this group and use them to curate social media content that they’re likely to appreciate. You can also determine their peculiarities, doubts, and desires, then work on those to add a personal touch to your interaction with them.

For instance, say you discover that some of your audience check their emails a lot (you can get such information through surveys). You can encourage customers to sign up for your newsletter or accept an offer via mail.

But never forget that the goal is to get them to interact more with your social media pages. So, all your email strategies should include CTAs that lead customers to your social media pages. 

For example, you can check-in through email by informing your email subscribers about the opportunity to participate in a live social media QA session with the brand. This strategy will inevitably generate organic social media traffic for your brand. 

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Use Two-Way Targeting

Two-way retargeting involves targeting customers who have already had contact with your brand. Do you remember that when you checked out a product on a website, you later saw an ad for the product on your social media? That’s basically what retargeting is.

Social media platforms provide excellent features that enable easy retargeting. LinkedIn’s Lookalike audience is an excellent example of a social media retargeting tool. 

LinkedIn also uses an interest-based targeting feature to help brands reach audiences based on the topics they show specific interest in. Therefore, you can leverage these retargeting features to get users to interact more and search for your brand on social media.

Get More Engagement Through Social Searches

You can get people to interact with your pages more by optimizing for social media searches. With the right SEO strategies, you can get people to engage with your business. It’s all about leveraging keyword research and using alternative media channels like email to drive more organic traffic to your pages.

Author: Grace Lau – Director of Growth Content, Dialpad

Grace Lau is the Director of Growth Content at Dialpad, an AI-powered cloud communication platform for better and easier team collaboration. She has over 10 years of experience in content writing and strategy. Currently, she is responsible for leading branded and editorial content strategies, partnering with SEO and Ops teams to build and nurture content. She has also written great articles for Soundstripe and Causeartist. Here is her LinkedIn.