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The Role of Social Media in Search Engine Marketing
Introduction
The Role of Social Media in Search Engine Marketing
Contents:
- The correlation between social and search
- Social media for backlink generation
- Crowd-sourced content
- Website stickiness
- Social ads
Introduction
Your host
Hi, I’m Dane Cobain!
- Social media marketing specialist of four years
- Strategist/Copywriter
- Industry speaker/commentator
- @DaneCobain
The Correlation Between Social and Search
Search and social are more intertwined than ever• Google+
• Twitter firehose supplying data to Google
• Search query volume increases
• Site engagement
• High visibility of social sites in SERPs
• Crossover potential (i.e. blogs, forums)
The Correlation Between Social and Search
Positive correlation
• Some social media activity does not directly affect rankings
• But there’s often a correlation between the two
• Last year, SearchMetrics examined 300,000 URLs
• Specific elements were measured on each page
• These were combined with the rankings of those pages in search
• This allowed them to determine the factors that the high ranking pages most often had in common
The Correlation Between Social and Search
But why?
Even though social activity doesn’t factor in to the algorithm, it helps in other ways:
- Increases reach
- Introduces influencers to the brand
- Increased search volume
- Encourages user trust (improving website ‘stickiness’)
- Social activity itself can be indexed
The Correlation Between Social and Search
Examples:
Example #1: Viral Video
- Originally created for social- Content is shared by the brand’s followers- News outlets pick up on it and start writing about it (including links)- People start searching for the video by name
Example #2: Influencers
- A customer posts a complaint on Facebook- The brand responds to the complaint and corrects it- The customer, who has a successful blog, goes from negative to positive- They write about the experience on your blog (including links)
Social Media for Backlink Generation
Passive backlink generation
By simply being active on social, you increase your odds of receiving backlinks
Include relevant hashtags on Twitter and Google+ to reach a wider audience
Also drives traffic in its own right
It’s likely that you’re already doing this
Social Media for Backlink Generation
Active backlink generation: Influencer outreachProactively search out influential (2,000+ followers) social media users
Could be either individuals or brands
Find people who are posting similar content and approach them
TOOLS:
- Twitter advanced search- SocialMention- Wefollow- Twitter lists
Social Media for Backlink Generation
Active backlink generation: URL monitoring
Use inbuilt social search tools to find people linking to your URL
Twitter dashboards are particularly powerful here
Find people who are linking to your content and request a link from their website
Particularly useful for high-value content
I.E. If someone links to one of your infographics, give them permission to use it on their site if they link back to you
Social Media for Backlink Generation
Active backlink generation: #JournoRequests
Key hashtags to monitor on Twitter:
#JournoRequest: Used by UK journalists looking for case studies/sources
#PRRequest: Used by PR professionals looking to place their stories
#BloggerRequest: Used by bloggers to request products for review
Extremely useful for generating high quality links
Also raises your overall profile
However, it can be time consuming
Social Media for Backlink Generation
Active backlink generation: #JournoRequests
Examples: Some of the organisations that have either linked to me or featured me as a source off the back of social media conversations.
Social Media for Backlink Generation
Active backlink generation: Partnerships
Let’s talk about YouTub’s ‘collab’ phenomenon
Can be used by brands with great success
Example: Canon LEGRIA mini launch
• New camera launched with four YouTubers
• Canon provided the reach with advertising
• YouTubers provided engagement (comments, likes, etc)
• Both the YouTubers and the brand grew throughout the campaign
Social Media for Backlink Generation
Active backlink generation: Partnerships
Partnerships don’t just apply to YouTube, although it’s the perfect network for them
Approach other content creators (both brands and individuals) via social
Choose similarly-sized brands in a related but separate industry
Example: A cheese manufacturer partnering with a cracker brand on cheese reviews
Or: A car manufacturer partnering with a record label to create driving playlists
Link to each other through combined marketing activity
Co-create content, or create content for each other’s site
Crowd-Sourced Content
Why crowdsource?
• Your followers provide the content for you
• Provides social media engagement and blog fodder simultaneously
• Uses natural language – important for searches
• Improves reach – participants are more likely to share
• Can improve website stickiness
• Two minds are better than one, but dozens are even better
• It’s easy!
Crowd-Sourced Content
Crowdsourcing ideas
• Gather your most frequently asked questions from social and write a blog post to answer them
• Ask real people how they’re using your product/service
• Combine with competitions – i.e. a photography competition
• Embed other people’s tweets in a relevant article (even if they didn’t tweet you directly)
• Internal crowdsourcing – ask your employees
• Search for content that people are already posting
Website Stickiness
What is stickiness?
Simply put, does your website include functionality to encourage people to ‘stick around’?
What’s to stop people from navigating away once they’ve read your blog post or filled out your data capture form?
Check your average visit duration on Google Analytics
Monitor stickiness over time
What pages do people spend the most time on? Why?
Website Stickiness
Common ‘stickiness’ features
• Gamification
• Comments
• Discussion forums
• Video content
• Games
• Interactive demos
• Social Connectivity
Website Stickiness
More on social connectivity
Apply common social networking elements to your own website – if it works elsewhere, it could also work for you:
• Profiles
• IM/Private Messaging
• Friend systems
• Social comments (i.e. Facebook/G+)
• Personalisation (think of Facebook’s pagerank)
Website Stickiness
More on social connectivity
Apply common social networking elements to your own website – if it works elsewhere, it could also work for you:
• Ability to like/dislike
• Social login (makes it easier to sign up)
• Easy social sharing on other networks
• User/content recommendations based on social feeds
• Leaderboards (most-followed, most-liked, etc.)
Social Ads
Why bother?
Social advertisements can allow you to do things that search engine advertising can’t:
• Sponsored social posts• Remarketing via social sites• Target imported e-mail lists
They can also help to:
• Reduce CPC• Generate additional organic impressions
However:
• Consumers are typically in less of a purchasing mindset
Social Ads
Sponsored social posts
• Available on most major networks (including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn)
• A paid investment boosts organic updates
• Can be combined with powerful interest/demographic data
• Pro Tip: Use only on certain posts
• Top 90% of performers• Including a call-to-action
Social Ads
Remarketing via social
• Some networks, Facebook included, allow remarketing
• Show Facebook ads just to users who’ve also visited your website
• Combine this with Facebook’s conversion pixel to track users’ end-to-end behaviour
• Highly effective when used in conjunction with search engine remarketing
• Most effective way to generate ROI
Social Ads
Target imported e-mail lists
• Facebook and certain other networks also allow you to import a custom audience
• If you have an e-mail list, you can import that list and target all associated Facebook accounts
• Run advertisements at this list that tie in/run at the same time as your e-mail marketing campaigns
• Or simply use this list to duplicate your PPC campaigns within Facebook!
Introduction
The Role of Social Media in Search Engine Marketing
We talked about:
- The correlation between social and search
- Social media for backlink generation
- Crowd-sourced content
- Website stickiness
- Social ads
Introduction
Your host
Please feel free to send me your follow-up questions if they don’t get answered today.
- Social media marketing specialist of four years
- Strategist/Copywriter
- Industry speaker/commentator
- @DaneCobain
fst ENGLANDRegatta House67-71 High StreetMarlow, BuckinghamshireSL7 1AB England
+44 (0) 1628 [email protected]
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fst ENGLANDRegatta House67-71 High StreetMarlow, BuckinghamshireSL7 1AB England
+44 (0) 1628 [email protected]
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fst SINGAPORE21a Haji LaneSingapore189214
+65 6291 [email protected] © 2015 fst marketing communications ltd