The Social Media Marketer

How To Optimize Your Social Media Content

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Social media content is the crux of smart content marketing. But not everyone does it right.  It takes a thorough understanding of why social media works and how its content can lead or lag behind the competition. Read on and gain insight on how to optimize your social media content for your brand and your content marketing campaign.

Tippingpoint Labs' own Drew Davis notes that content equals currency in today's cyber marketplace. Site owners, online businesses, and those of us interested in web analytics, need to read between the lines of our content and see it as an extension of our brand. Does your brand add value to the cyber marketplace? Is there an air of authority that comes with it?

In other words, does your brand engage Internet users? The best way to address these questions is through optimizing your social media content in two ways: Search engines and brand storytelling.

Optimizing your social media content for search engines is the easier of the two. However, it does require a basic understanding of search engines and plenty of forethought. Recall that a search engine finds, groups, and catalogs content into databases. But, with so much junk...er, content in cyberspace, a lot of it gets muddled in the mix.

Too many cyber businesses get caught up in keyword counts, forgetting to read between their content lines. They can't see the forest because they're too busy counting trees. This is not what you want to be doing. It's a waste of time, energy, and lost profits. Online consumers can spot a fake and a farce quicker than two rights clicks of the mouse. Potential web shoppers don't care about keywords counts and, quite frankly, get turned off by reading through product and services that read more like their to-do lists and less like a description.

If you're in the business of selling "red apples", you're probably one in a million. So, consider every factor, quality, and quirk that makes your red apples different from the other 999,999 red apples businesses in the cyber marketplace. Perhaps your red apples are "organic" a "family tradition," and you offer "free-delivery." This type of forethought helps you zero in on an SEO list that is search engine friendly and brand-defining. You wouldn't label your products and services as generic, right? Your SEO keywords shouldn't be either.
 
Remember all the folks counting trees earlier? Let's assume they are so bogged down by numbers that they forgot all about why social media works. Social media works because it's the platform where consumers and online businesses stand together, side by side on equal ground. More importantly, thought, it's the platform where your customers get to talk about their experiences with your products and services; essentially, your brand.

In the foreword to Social Media Geek-to-Geek: Practical Insights for Technology Marketers (Jamison & Schmidt Jamison), Brian Solis writes, "everyday people, not businesses, embraced social networks." Why? Solis continues, "at the moment, social media represents something new, something we understand personally but have yet to comprehend professionally." The social media platform is a powerful place but only when your customers know it's there via savvy SEO marketing, and only when they're compelled to come over and stand on it because they like your story.

Rebecca Garnick Ast, Vice President of Tippingpoint Labs, explains that a brand engages its consumers when its products and services tell a story, creating emotion and connection among everyone on that social media platform. Yet, similar to forging together an SEO keyword list, there's an okay way and a better way to piece together a story that defines your brand and beckons potential consumers over to your social media platform.

Brand and business stories should be authentic, come from several voices within the company (not just the president or new media developer), and though rooted in content, should be adaptable to other media, such as podcasts and videos that are easily shared, liked, and linked in the cyber marketplace, enhancing your brand's image, enriching consumers' experiences, and increasing your ROI.

Optimizing your social media content takes forethought and finesse, so keep these essentials in mind:

1. Use SEO keywords that are both search engine friendly and that define your brand, product, and service.

2. Understand that consumers drive social media when there's a platform. Keep your platform open.

3. Engage consumers through authentic stories that define your brand.

Finally, ask yourself what value and authority your brand presents in the marketplace. You may have a guess, but consumers drive the answers.