My parents want to learn how to use Instagram search.
They ask me “how does Facebook track my likes?” and, “What does ‘YouTube is a search engine’ mean?” and, “how do I leverage social media marketing and SEO?” (Okay, they didn’t say that but let’s agree it got pretty close, deal?).
Today, I’m going to be going into how to improve your social profiles when it comes to search engine optimization. I’ll be using YouTube and Instagram for my examples. We’ll be talking about the feedback loop between them and how to boost yourself locally to get your profile shared globally.
Before we dive in, let me tell you why it’s important: Social platforms are search engines now (I didn’t need this feature to like cat memes but I guess we’re just here now).
Here are all the topics we will cover in this guide
Understanding the Feedback Loop
There’s a feedback loop that exists between social media and SEO. Each influences the other, so understanding how is important to getting found online.
More shares and mentions on social platforms can help with SEO with your brand’s authority and trustworthiness increasing, getting more website traffic, and increasing the number of links that push to your brand.
Having a website with massive traffic and pushing your audience to follow your socials and have you pop up on their feeds when pushing ads to this feedback loop.
How Social Media Algorithms and SEO Are Interconnected
- Social Signals: This (unnecessarily) technical term groups your likes, shares, and comments. There’s no direct SEO impact, but a popping social profile can mean more website traffic, which is what actually improves your SEO score.
- They matter more when using the search feature on the social platform itself.
- Instagram will consider the word being searched as the keyword, look at your account name first, then your bio, then your captions and hashtags, and also considers any geo-tags you’ve added to posts (the location you add to the post).
- YouTube is bit more complicated, it looks at:
- Relevance: which includes everything from title, tags, description, and video content itself (this is why people tell you to adjust your transcript with your targeted keyword).
- Engagement: Which is the like/dislike, how much of the video has been watched, but it also factors in how much of a video has been watched for a specific search term. If you (and millions of other people) searched ‘cookie recipe’ and you all watched the same two videos, but all of you watched video A to minute 13 and video B to minute 7, Video A is eventually placed higher in search results for ‘cookie recipe’ and B could find itself falling lower in search results.
- Quality: This isn’t ‘production-quality.’ What YouTube means by ‘quality’ is EAT: Expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. This is very similar to how google search works with ranking websites on its search results pages.
- Content Discovery: This is quite simple, go viral -> get more links to you. Having your content shared widely on social media attracts more links and more mentions which play an important role in SEO. On YouTube, this would help with your ‘Quality’ score. On Instagram, you’re more likely to show up in search and help your website rank higher since your brand is getting a bigger digital footprint.
- Local SEO: Social media can help people in your local area find you. Geo-tagging posts, keeping your content relevant to your local scene and niche, and optimizing your text and visuals helps you get found.
Geographically Targeted Content
This is your local hack to get more local followers.
Creating geo-tagged, targeted content is a strong way to integrate your social media marketing with local SEO.
Creating and Sharing Geographically Targeted Content
This is quite easy to do, and it comes down to two things:
- Use ‘Near Me’ Keywords: Include ‘near me’ keywords in your posts’ captions and hashtags. This will help users who are out and actively searching for your goods/services find you, and they’re high-intent leads – they want to find you near them, now.
- Geotagging Posts: Geotag your posts with your location. Include posts with your street, posts with your neighborhood, and posts with your city.
Ensuring NAP Consistency
No, not taking naps consistently (for the risk takers who think they can sleep 30 minutes instead of for the rest of the day).
NAP refers to Name, Address, and Phone number. It seems obvious to make sure these are consistent across your website and social profiles, but some businesses just don’t put them or fall into issues of the social name they want already being taken.
So let’s take a look at what we can do:
- Uniform NAP Information: Make sure your NAP is consistent in your social bios and website.
- If you’re launching a new brand, check if your brand’s name is free on the socials you’ll be targeting and grab it. You’ll save yourself trouble from the get-go.
- If you’re an already existing brand, you have two options:
- Option one is contacting the account owner and looking to see if they’d be willing to sell it to you. The account under that social name becomes a piece of digital real estate, and you’ll have to negotiate out the price for it.
- Option two is getting creative. If you’re launching a new consumer line, your account name can be that line, like ‘hbyhamawi.’ you can also look to add something like ‘my’ in front of the brand name like ‘myauraglam.’ you can also add special characters, but please note that those can impact brand perception online.
- You’d look at @nike and @.nike or @nik3 different.
- Consider it with a random name like, @coffee or @.coffee. or @coff33.
- If you’re an already existing brand, you have two options:
- Google My Business: If this is something you haven’t done, do it ASAP. It’s an easy way to help boost yourself in local search results, especially when it comes to Google Maps.
Case Studies and Examples
Let’s take a look at some real-world scenarios so you can see how to successfully boost your social media marketing with SEO:
Real-World Examples
- Local Businesses: Let’s take the example of a coffee shop. People might search for ‘coffee near me’ or ‘cafe near me’ or simply ‘coffee’ or ‘cafe’ or they’re very specific with their drinks and want a ‘matcha with milk near me.’ Geotagging your posts about matcha (with and without milk) and using the near me keyword will help your brand pop up when a user is searching.
- Personal Brands: Let’s take an example of a personal trainer who wants to get new clients and build their fitness network. They might start with sharing workout tips, meal prep ideas, and even some full routines. For every one of those posts, they’d want to add a geo-tag, using keywords like fitness, exercise, and gym with the near me keyword, and they can do something a little extra that a business might not be able. Going to other businesses, like a supermarket, and recording there in a place that is locally relevant to their local audience. They wouldn’t need a whole production set, they’d only need their phone, expert advice, strong opinions, and an image or short clip of the venue they go to.
Conclusion
Integrating social media marketing with SEO is a powerful strategy that can enhance your online visibility, drive more traffic to your website, and ultimately boost your business’s success.
By understanding the interconnectedness of social media and SEO, creating geographically targeted content, ensuring NAP consistency, and using local SEO strategies, you can leverage both channels effectively.
Key Takeaways
Let’s go through everything one more time, real quick:
- Understand the Feedback Loop: Recognize how social media and SEO influence each other.
- Geographically Targeted Content: Use “near me” keywords and geotag your posts to target local audiences.
- Local Backlinks and NAP Consistency: Gain local backlinks and ensure consistent NAP information across all platforms.
By implementing these strategies, you can create a cohesive online marketing plan that drives real results for your personal brand or business.
Book a complimentary strategy session with us and let’s see how we can help you build a unique personal brand or get your business’ socials to boom.
