Why You Should Combine Your Social Media & SEO Strategies
Social Media & SEO: Integrating Your Strategies is as Easy as Pie
As Google continues to change and adjust its algorithm, marketers are spending twice as much time troubleshooting and reacting to what’s happening to our SEO results. Meanwhile, people are turning to social media to search for content.
So, what does it all mean and what does it have to do with pie?
Your SEO and social media strategies shouldn’t be separate desserts. They should come together as one, hearty pie.
Here’s a recipe to help you think more holistically about your digital marketing plan.
- Find your recipe by starting with your goals
- Prepare your pie by gathering what you need to be successful
- Let it cook and don’t get distracted by competing priorities
- Taste test and adjust accordingly
Start with Goals
When it comes to baking, you can’t guess the ingredients. It’s important to follow the instructions so your crust is flakey enough and the filling tastes just right. The same goes for your digital marketing strategy. If you’re starting from scratch, be sure to create goals that touch on all your digital channels. Think about why you exist on the web and why each of those channels is important. Your overarching goals may encompass all channels but you may need to define success for specific channels.
If you’ve created your goals in a silo, take the time to review them together and ask yourself where do they overlap and check to see if anything is missing. These goals set a foundation, are how you will track your progress and, ultimately, will be how you show your success to your boss (and the C-suite).
What Do You Need to Succeed?
Now that you’ve reviewed your goals, it’s time to make sure you’ve got all your ingredients. For the SiteCrafting team, this means taking time to do research. Data helps us see what is working well and what isn’t. Here are some ways we take time to review digital channels:
- Conducting a competitive analysis
- Researching key website pages or blog posts
- Reviewing social media posts and seeing what people engage with most
If you have multiple teams managing your digital channels, now is also a good time to make sure you’re working together toward the same goals. This might mean reviewing monthly data together or collaborating when creating a campaign strategy.
Good Things Take Time
Results will take time. You’re not going to reach your goals with a single post or by optimizing a single page (and no, we can’t make it go viral). When you set your goals, you also need to decide what you’re tracking. For social media that might be engagement rate, sessions, active users or followers, and for SEO it might be tracking keyword rankings and website traffic. Define clear measurable metrics. We recommend creating reports with your key metrics and reviewing monthly.
Patience is key here. Sometimes, opening the oven too early will cause your dough to fall. The same is true for implementing your digital marketing tactics. We recommend waiting 4 – 6 weeks before reviewing and making adjustments to any major campaigns.
Taste Test
The most delicious goods are often the result of many trials and errors. By leaving some room for experimentation you might be able to find that ‘secret ingredient’. As an example, if a certain blog post or webpage is attracting a lot of attention create more content like that and see if there are adjacent keywords that could drive new user traffic. Run a small test and adjust accordingly. Take those successes and apply them to future campaigns.
Once it comes together, you’ll be saying “Yippie Pie Yay” (sorry had to). Thinking of your digital channels together and creating an overall digital marketing strategy will ensure that regardless of where people are finding your business online, they will receive a consistent brand message and keep you top of mind.
Need help?
There’s nothing wrong with a store-bought pie or consulting with a baking expert. We’re here to help. Send us an email, we’d love to get started reviewing your strategies.
