Best 6 Ways to Improve your Social Media Optimization

Do you know all your acronyms well enough? SEO, CMS, CPC, PPC, DM…the list goes on. Here’s one you need to add ASAP: SMO.

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Social Media Optimization isn’t talked about enough. This is ironic since it can determine the outcome of many business projects. But the focus on this aspect of digital marketing is now growing, so it’s time you get on board. Some say this is your #1 tool to reach the customers you want—and a lot of them.

Can you see its value? Then let’s get you sorted.

1. SMO in a Nutshell

In short, social media optimization is using your social media channels optimally to attract the maximum level of traffic.

Why is it SO Important?

You can’t simply carry on doing social media marketing (SMM) the way you do, because if you don’t focus on using these channels correctly you’ll lose the followers you have. That’s even worse than not attracting more customers because you’re losing out on potential sales that simply slipped through your fingers.

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Here’s a frightening statistic: You can lose 20% of your followers if you disappoint them with posting repetitive content. And that’s only one thing you may be doing wrong at the moment. You can’t take that chance.

So, let’s help you audit and upgrade your social media activity in 6 (mostly simple) steps.

Your New SM Tactics

Can You Be More Engaging?

Let’s start with what we just mentioned: Your audience expects you to be engaging.

Remember, they’re spoilt with quality information, graphics and videos from across the globe. Why should they interact with your content if it’s not on par? That would label you as somewhat outdated and not really interested in what’s important to the average consumer in 2018.

Basically, that means you must use modern mediums (such as podcasts, GIFs and more) to catch their attention. The text isn’t enough anymore.

However, this is quite a broad subject, right? Different individuals will find different aspects of your social media content engaging.

So, while your step 1 in SMM optimization is to be motivated to create attractive content, you’ll need the following steps to make it happen.

2. The Simpler the Better

Before you feel too daunted by this new—very important—approach, we’ll give you the good news: Keeping it simple is part of being more engaging.

For starters, if you want people to engage with you, you need to relate to them. And do all consumers go around using big, complicated words? Of course not. Then you shouldn’t either. Using simple, easy to understand words and well-known references will make you & your brand seem approachable.

Even putting together, a post doesn’t have to be difficult. Consumers love quick solutions, so don’t waste their time and they’ll come back for more. Here’s your recipe:

• State your readers’ current scenario
• Describe a better future
• Show what will help the consumer reach this goal (this is where your product, service or business comes in)

3. The Small Details You Didn’t Think Would Matter

Even if you play around with images and videos, you’ll always still use text. But are you complementing yours with the right features?

Firstly, you have no idea how a few punctuation marks can liven up a post. While an exclamation mark communicates urgency, a question mark is even better as it sparks someone’s curiosity. In some cases, when using these correctly, you can expect 20% more engagement on a post than usual.

Also, asking questions adds dynamics to a post as you’re drawing your reader into the conversation, rather than simply throwing facts at them. That means you’re more engaging. Remember our first point above?

But the new digitally focused world brought us much more than simply punctuation. Are you using emojis optimally?

No, these faces and images aren’t silly features teenagers use. This is how you can communicate:

• Emotion
• Importance
• Post details

A picture of a palm tree and a smiling face will do much more to conjure up a feeling of vacation, relaxation and happiness than simple text describing a new holiday destination.

Part of their power lies in the fact that the human brain processes images much faster than it takes to digest the text you read. You can have an impact even if someone sees your emoji for only 13 milliseconds.

That means you can share your message of a luxurious holiday even to those just skimming through texts or those too lazy to read everything.

With these small additions, your normal posts will make much more of an impact than usual, optimizing your SM impact.

4. Keywords Always Matter

If you know anything about SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), you must know about keyword use. Important: This still matters in SMO!

Your social media profiles are also online pages that should feature in search engine lists. How will they if you don’t include appropriate keywords in your content in your:

• Profile information such as your ‘About’ section on Facebook, your biography on LinkedIn and your descriptions on Twitter or Instagram.
• Content and posts you create.
• Hashtags you use.

5. Use Modern Tech to Your Advantage

You’re privileged to operate in an era where there’s an overload of information. Consumers may feel overwhelmed by this (not knowing what to give attention to), but you simply have to filter out the important data:

• AI’s machine learning technology can help identify your best performing posts. This will tell you what your audience responds to more (what they find most engaging) and you can try to use those same elements in future.
• This same tech can also predict future responses based on current data. Say you uploaded new posts and now you want to boost them. Don’t waste money boosting all of them, because the bad ones will impact negatively on traffic and statistics. Let AI tell you which ones are worth investing in.

6. Be Personal

If the tech talk is overwhelming, here’s a simple tactic anyone can attempt: Your audience isn’t a group of robots, but people. They love social media because they love interaction & conversations. Show them you’re the entity that can give them what they NEED even though you’re communicating via the net:

• Personal content containing words such as ‘you’ and ‘your’ instead of abstract references.
• Reply to all comments to start conversations and show you care.
• Research your audience so you know their interests and behaviours—now use that in your posts.

It’s like getting to know a new friend.

And you’ll love the outcome of the effort you put in.

Conclusion:

The last word: your SMM optimization is becoming just as important as your website’s SEO. Why not strengthen both and add social media buttons on all your pages? Make it easy for your audience to navigate between all your platforms and you’ll enjoy their optimized engagement everywhere.

Easier than you thought right? If you have some suggestions, why not leave it in the comment section below.

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