In the world of search engine optimization, social media can be vital to ensuring the success of your off-site search engine optimization. But how does one go about launching a successful social media campaign? The internet can become a bit daunting when it comes to presenting you with a relative guide to social media strategy, and for first time internet marketers, finding some credible resources across a vast social media wasteland can be difficult. Here are some straight to the point tips to get you on the right path:

  1. Social Media Strategy – It’s number one priority to ensure success. In any form of marketing, research is required for success. The same concept applies to social media. Research what’s available to you, isolate what’s relevant to your business niche, provide a scope and target accordingly.
  2. Ensure Linkability – Don’t create static websites that function primarily as a store-front for content. Aggregate content from wherever you can, and present links to such content to be as enticing as possible. Images are great for this, as they attribute to the overall presentation and can be linked back to other destinations. Nothing can add value to your site’s linkability like a blog, where absolutely anything can be linked in-text. For drastically increasing linkability of your site, a blog is imperative – so create one!
  3. Ergonomic bookmarking – So you’ve enriched your social media campaign with a blog, now make it easy for your readers to bookmark posts. The resolution? Simple. Install a social media bookmarking plug-in.
  4. Shareable content – This is a common sense principle. If you want your content to go viral, with the aims of promoting your goods or services, make your content easy to copy and circulate. Add pdf files, videos, image feeds and display destination URLs if possible. If not, create links back to the social profiles where this content can be found.

    If applicable (given the nature of your social media campaign), allow mashups – let the users do whatever they want with your content. People are going to reuse your content if it is valuable, and rather than fight this inevitable outcome, embrace it. You will receive the credibility in the end.

  5. Make your content useful – If your content gives value to the people consuming it, then the higher the chance of it going viral. It’s this notion of the user that matters. Users bookmark sites that they find helpful and would like to refer back to, and the higher the user-index of your content, you will receive a subsequent increase in your search engine visibility.
  6. Rewards = Retention – Try to reward helpful users if you can, and always offer incentives. A London web design firm known as moon fruit embraced this concept and as a result, it paid tremendous dividends. Moonfruit drove a laptop giveaway promotion over Twitter, and the end result? Thousands of Twitter followers, being indexed on the Twitter main page as a trending topic, and sending the Google Page Rank of their landing page through the roof – a very well calculated ROI strategy. Obviously, if you’re starting smaller, a simple and direct ‘thank you’ message can go a long way in formulating a relationship with users.
  7. Participate – In any form of marketing, interacting with the consumer is a key selling point. Keep the communication flowing in your social media campaign, and ensure regular interaction, this will help keep your users engaged and prolong the benefits of your social media activity. Participation forms the crux of any social media campaign.
  8. Target demographics – This should be outlined first in your social media plan, but putting it into practice is a different story. You will find that in your social media campaign, your strategy will constantly evolve to suit new discoveries and trends on the internet. Constant research into your target market is essential, as you need to make your ideas as compelling to a niche as possible – play the part of a user when doing your research and construct a marketing idea from your experiences.
  9. Fresh content is vital – If you want to stay alive and kicking, you need to entirely devote yourself to the creation of new content on a regular basis. New articles, new images, new video media. Do whatever you can to enhance the user experience and keep the buzz about your site or blog. As for the content itself, ensure that it comes directly from the source – you. Be genuine and objective. Being too forceful or abrasive can easily cause damage to your reputation, making it extremely difficult to re-build your online credibility. If you are pro-active in providing fresh content, you will reap the benefits.
  10. Be wise about your actions – Consider the cause and effect of ANY activity online. Failure to acknowledge the implications of certain actions will entail a reckless and virtually pointless, social media campaign. Don’t undo all of your hard work, keep things simple and genuine.