Throughout their lifetime, it is estimated that the average person will spend more than five years on social media platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter. Per day, the average person spends nearly two hours on social media. As a business owner, this is important information to keep in mind but, more than that, to utilize to your advantage. Simply having a website or starting a blog isn’t enough – you need to meet your customers where they spend most of their time. On social media. Keep reading to learn about the benefits of incorporating social media into your marketing strategy and to receive some tips for doing it.



What Are the Benefits of Social Media Marketing? 

Marketing is the business of promoting or selling products or services and it is driving force behind a business’ success. Without marketing, a business will never attract the attention of their target audience and therefore won’t make any sales. Marketing isn’t just about spreading the name of your business around, however – there are many different aspects of marketing which can produce specific results. In our modern world of technology, many businesses have begun to prioritize an internet marketing strategy that includes everything from building a company website to developing and maintaining social media profiles. In fact, social media marketing is an important aspect of internet marketing that can make or break your business – here are some of the top benefits of social media marketing:

  • Increased brand visibility and brand awareness
  • More inbound traffic, especially from new customers
  • Improved search engine rankings
  • Higher conversion rates and more sales
  • Improved customer satisfaction rates
  • Increased brand loyalty among customers
  • Better brand authority in the industry
  • More cost-effective than other marketing methods
  • Opportunities for marketplace insights

Now that you understand the benefits of social media marketing, you can probably already think of some of the ways to implement a social media marketing strategy. The ultimate goal is to use social media sites to gain traffic and to promote sales. Keep reading to learn some specific tips for boosting SEO through social media marketing.

Social Media Marketing Tips to Boost SEO

There are many ways to use social media to your business's advantage, but you’ll want to start off small with a few simple things and then build from there. Here are some simple tips for getting started with social media marketing:

  1. Create your business’ vanity URL. A vanity URL is something that Google+ offers to business pages as an alternative to that long string of random characters. When creating your vanity URL, be sure to include your business name – if it’s already taken, try adding your location.
  2. Fill out your “About” section. For whichever social media platforms you decide to use, don’t forget to fill in the “About” section – this is where potential customers will look for key information about what your business does. Be sure to include a few target keywords here.
  3. Include geo-targeted keywords. Though it varies by the type of business, many businesses target customers within a specific radius so you can boost traffic by including geo-targeted keywords in your social media efforts.
  4. Create content that users want to share. Not only do your social media accounts exist so both current and potential customers can find you, but they also exist to spread your name – creating content that your followers want to share will help you increase your audience.
  5. Keep posting new content. Your followers will forget about you if you stop posting new content but, unless the content is relevant and interesting, they’ll get bored and stop following you.

Once you’ve taken care of the basics listed above, you can start to implement a more detailed long-term social media marketing strategy. Here are some things you should try:

  • Make sure your social media marketing and content marketing strategies are in alignment. When you post quality content, make sure to share it on your social media accounts and encourage your followers to spread it further. This is how you will grow your audience and reach more potential customers.
  • Establish yourself as an authority in the industry. Keep your social media accounts professional and up-to-date with reliable, high-quality content. You want to let your customers know that you are a leader in your industry and that they can trust you. The more you establish yourself as a leader in the industry, the more people will share your content and that will drive traffic and improve sales.
  • Interact with your audience and create a community. Not only do your followers want to find useful information in your site and your social media accounts, but they want to feel like they are connected to your brand. Show your audience that you aren’t a robot! You can do this by incorporating humor into your posts and by replying to comments and questions – not just the negative ones. You can also run surveys and like or share some of the posts from your followers to show your appreciation.
  • Incorporate a variety of media types. Your followers are going to get bored if all of your posts consist of a single line of text. Try to switch things up by posting pictures, videos, and even podcasts. An ever-changing social media profile will capture your target audience’s attention and keep the attention of your current customers.
  • Turn your current customers into brand advocates. Potential customers want to know that your brand is one they can trust and there is no better way to do that than to have your satisfied customers advocate for your brand! When you set out to start using brand advocates, be sure to set some guidelines for the kind of posts you want and track the metrics to see which posts get the best responses and which ones could use improvement.
  • Run a cross-channel campaign. An effective social media marketing strategy will not be limited to just one platform – you want all of your social media accounts to work together and to play off of one another. Use all of your social media platforms to share content, to run surveys and contests, and to link back to your website.
  • Keep track of your metrics. In addition to incorporating a variety of different types of posts and content in your social media marketing strategy, you also need to track your metrics to see what kind of content gets the best response. Once you have this information, you can update your existing content to improve performance and create better content in the future. You want to track important information like the age, location, job title, and income of your audience as well as the type of content that gets the most likes and the highest conversion rates.

It is unfortunate but true that a majority of new businesses fail within the first year or so. While there is no guarantee that having an online presence will protect your business, a strong internet marketing strategy can only benefit your business. If you are looking for ways to boost your traffic, drive sales, and increase your audience, consider implementing some of the social media marketing tips above to boost your SEO and grow your business.