• Tweet

• Tweet

The following is a guest post by Emma-Julie Fox. More about Emma you can read at the end of this post. Click here if you want to become a guest blogger for Reviewz ‘N’ Tips! 

Social media has emerged as an equally important aspect of businesses’ marketing strategy, irrespective of the industry and size.

Having a social media presence is no longer enough, you need to engage with your target market, create a buzz around your business, inspire brand loyalty, find collaboration opportunities and convert your fans into customers.

The following is a list of advanced strategies that can help you do all this and more.

1. SEO works for social media too

Facebook has announced the limited beta release of Graph Search. In simple terms this means, this is going to be a search engine that sifts through information on Facebook to provide personalized answers to search queries by Facebook users; this includes people, place and picture searches.

What does this mean for your Facebook page?You need to optimize it right, so that your page gets greater visibility in search results. The good news is that Facebook has shared the key on page optimization strategies that businesses can implement:

1. The About Section is what will help people find your page. So, if one were to interpret this in SEO terms, your About section must have your full business name as well as the keywords you want to be associated with. Having said that the About section should make sense and not appear keyword-stuffed.
2. Update your address if you have a local place page. The graph search will provide personalized results for local searches, this means if you have a local business, make sure you provide the complete address on Facebook.
3. Focus on acquiring the right fans and encouraging ongoing content interaction. To put in simple terms, this could spell the end of Fan buying. From now on, it has to be all about creating great content that gets people to engage with you on a regular basis.

Other than these tips, it would also be a good idea to use classic SEO techniques on your Facebook page including:

1. Using targeted keywords in your Facebook posts in a natural and engaging manner.
2. Optimizing all your videos and pictures by using the targeted keywords in their descriptions.

Having said that, remember never to optimize your page at the cost of user engagement. When it comes to social media engagement is the key!

2. Tie In Content Marketing

Think from the customers’ perspective about what’s in it for them. Tweak your social media strategy to offer incentives to your fans on social networks, as a way to express your gratitude towards them. But don’t go overboard and make it seem like you are bribing them.

A great cost-effective way to do this is to create information products using your existing content and offer those as incentives. There’s no cost of delivery and you only have to create the product once.

To give you an example, you can use the blog post and or transcripts of your webinars (if any) to create E-books and even podcasts. The same can then be offered as incentives for signing up for your mailing list, or you could offer these products through a tab on your Facebook page, create advertisements to promote the same and generate new likes.

Another effective way to tie in content marketing with your social media is by guest blogging. Posting blogs on high PR sites associated with your niche gives you access to their subscribers and regular readers.  In addition to that having a post published on these sites, gives you an opening to forge connections with well-known bloggers and online business owners.

3. Aim at the local customers

The best thing about social media is that it lets you concentrate on a niche, specific audience. The Internet is also the best way to market your business locally, and you can leverage social media to focus on improving your business at a local level too.

You can do this by listing your business on Google Maps and other local business websites like Yelp and Foursquare, providing your contact information on all your social accounts, and becoming a part of local communities.

A good way to do this is to study your competitors local link profiles and see where all they are listed.

4. Allocate Time For One-on-One Engagement

In the race to acquire new followers and increase the social influence, most businesses overlook one-on-one engagement with their fans.

While it’s not possible to engage with every follower or fan, it makes sense to keep track of your followers, identify the ones that you can collaborate with and seek out opportunities to communicate with them, and forge a rapport.

Final Words

These tips should hopefully help you take your social media strategy to the next level for better results. Now on to you! Do you agree with the list? What other strategies can you add up? Let me know your two cents!

Image Source: http://denmark1977.deviantart.com/art/Colorflow-Facebook-148130350

Emma-Julie Fox writes for Pitstop Media, a Vancouver based SEO company. Pitstop Media has been helping businesses across North America successfully increase their search visibility. If you want to invite the author to guest post on your blog please contact www.pitstopmedia.com