The world of social media is vast and often confusing, especially if you’re trying to use it as a tool to grow your business. With users being bombarded with never-ending content, how do you make your brand stand out from the rest? How do you ensure your social media content is supporting your other marketing efforts?
At Performance Driven Marketing, we suggest starting with a simple question: Are you trying to boost your SEO, increase engagement, or both? When you have a clear goal in mind, you can tailor your strategies to your needs, whether you’re partnering with a professional marketing company like PDM or not.
In this blog post, we’ll explore the important differences between social media for SEO vs. engagement and help you identify which is the best for your business.
What’s Your Goal?
Like with any aspect of marketing, it’s important to identify your goals and create a strategy that will help you achieve them.
Boosting Search Engine Rankings
If your primary goal is to drive traffic to your website, boost your search engine rankings, and support your other marketing efforts, an SEO-driven strategy is what you’re looking for. These informative posts are designed to drive traffic to your website, create backlinks that show search engines like Google that your website is valuable, and position your brand as an authority.
Increasing Engagement
If you want to gain followers, rack up likes and shares, develop a unique voice, build personal relationships with customers, and set your brand apart from the competition, an engagement-based strategy is the right choice for you. This strategy may include video content, glimpses behind the scenes, employee features, updates on current projects, or your own spin on current trends. It’s a more personal, casual, authentic approach to social media that helps your audience feel more connected to your brand.
The Best of Both Worlds
In most cases, the ideal social media strategy includes content geared toward both boosting search engine rankings and increasing engagement. By combining both types of content, you can build that authentic connection with your customer base while showing search engines why you should be at the top of the results page.
Social Media for SEO: Trust the Experts
At PDM, we handle the SEO aspects of social media management on Facebook and Google My Business/Google Business Profile. Although Instagram is not the best platform for SEO because it does not support clickable links, we can also create Instagram posts by request.
Our SEO-optimized posts consist of a website content excerpt, a CTA, a link to the appropriate website page, and a photo. The main goal of these posts is to drive traffic to your website, showing search engines that your content is valuable and relevant. However, that’s not the only way these posts contribute to SEO success. Shares, backlinks, and increased brand awareness are also important aspects of SEO that can be achieved through this content.
Social Media for Engagement: Best Managed In-House
A marketing agency like PDM, no matter how skilled, will never be in the middle of the action. We’re not coming along with you to job sites or visiting distributors or unloading new products. Therefore, we can’t effectively manage the more casual, personal content that shows the day-to-day goings-on of your company or communicate with your customers.
That’s why we recommend in-house social media management if engagement is your ultimate goal. When a member of your team is in charge of posting content, answering DMs, and responding to comments, it feels more authentic and personal. This helps you build a better relationship with your customer base and cultivate real connections.
Furthermore, your employees are the experts on your company. They know everything there is to know about your products and services, the company culture, and what your customers are looking for. They are best equipped to answer specific questions, post about product features, capture everyday moments, and share behind-the-scenes content.
Not Sure Where to Start?
If you’d like to increase engagement on social media, gain more followers, and develop your brand’s unique voice, we can help you get started. Our social media experts can provide training to help your team understand the purpose of social media management, how to develop effective strategies, and best practices for encouraging engagement. We’ll help you navigate the complexities of different social media platforms and give you all the tools you need to begin building your audience. Plus, if you run into questions or issues along the way, we’d be more than happy to advise you.
Harness the Power of Social Media with PDM
At PDM, social media is an essential part of our multifaceted SEO strategy. If you’d like to learn more about how we can help you take your business to the next level with the power of social media, contact us today to schedule a free consultation with one of our marketing experts.
