SMM and Search Engine Optimization are usually given a separate space in the digital marketing arena.
And, quite reasonably, they are the two most decisive factors in the online marketing sphere.
But what we fail to understand is why many businesses do not acknowledge social media marketing as one of SEO’s most influential allies.
Do we intend to say that social media directly encourages your Search engine rankings?
The simple answer could be NO!
You must recognize that social metrics like Facebook likes and Twitter followers indicate social profile authority but have no hand in directly circumscribing the search engine rankings.
Surely, our straightforward answer is confusing. However, we completely believe that SEO and smo are powerful collaborators whose association must be leveraged for digital marketing success.
Let’s dig deeper and express how SMM can merit and warrant your SEO strategy.
The Relationship Between Social Metrics & SEO
Let’s assume that there might have been experiments conducted in the past that determine the use of social-media metrics such as social mentions and engagement level for search engine rankings.
But due to the unpredictable and unstable nature of smo and the weak signals generated, professionals might have dropped the attempts.
This was well elaborated by Matt Cutts back in 2014 in a Webmasters video. He was the Head of Google’s Webspam Team back then, and he revealed that social media provided incomplete signals.
Also, search engine algorithms can’t ascertain the reliability and authority of the smo posts and the profile.
Nevertheless, is there an Indirect way that social media influences search engine rankings?
And, this was embellished in the Cutt’s video itself.
He said that Google treats all social media websites like any other website on the Internet, which means that the same rules apply to Facebook, Twitter and so on as it applies to other websites.
Benefits of Social Media for Business
A Linkable Opportunity
As most social media consists of links to other websites, site owners and content creators can use it to promote their content.
You can employ a particular mixture of organic and paid promotions strategy to maximize your audience base.
Here’s how this happens-
As you use social media, there might have been countless times that some articles impacted you.
The impression an article made is evident in the things you share and communicate on social media. You might often use the information from the article in your other works, giving the source article a reference.
Understand that people cannot relate to something unless they know about it. Social media gives the perfect opportunity to content creators to prompt the audience and share link-worthy content.
You might well concede that SMM has given attention to many websites and individuals who were not known before. Creating Brand Mentions
Now, suppose someone or something (brand, product, service, individual, business, etc.) that has not yet been identified by Google suddenly notices many remarks online. In that case, it will influence Google to categorize them as an “entity”.
These are some unique circumstances that can boost your search engine rankings. This is bound to the context you are being mentioned or how people are talking about you online.
Understand that you are not adjudicated for how high you rank for a thing but what you entail as an entity.
So your website might not be getting a mention for a specific thing right now, but seeing the number of people who put trust in you, they can well start recognizing your business for that particular piece.
This is called the power of positive mentions.
Nevertheless, you need to make sure that positive mentions are not just on social media but on all public forums.
You can spring your brand marketing with your true audience base and inspire positive reinforcement and communication on social media.
Social Media For Searches
You cannot miss the fact that people use social media to search for a particular product or brand, and your audience base is just not limited to Google or Bing.
As you operate Twitter, you will realize that the social media channel with its trends, hashtags, insights and other tools give you a perfect opportunity to collude with the potential customers, making your content visible to the users.
You will find similar responses to Pinterest and Instagram.
Also, if anyone wants to know more about your company, he/she will likely ascertain your presence on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter channels- do a quick search and decide upon if he/she wants to deal with your business or not.
In 2016 Mark Zuckerberg had mentioned that “Now people are doing more than 2 billion searches a day between looking up people, businesses, and other things they care about.”- source Techcrunch.
Facebook had earlier retreated on a semantic graph search engine and launched a true keyword search, which landed in more search queries for media channel.
Twitter, since its onset, has been the leading destination for the population to flock for searches, especially in the event of big global news. Full post search appeared to have worked for Facebook and have expedited query volume.
Changing The Idea Of SEO
We have reached the phase where SEO is not just centered till Google optimization. We need to realize that search engine optimization is extending and converging on smo.
Also, if Google has been unclear about its stand, Bing, on the other hand, has been quite positive in including social metrics in its search engine algorithms.
You may well agree that the audience that reaches the company website, lurking through digital media channels, has already interacted with the company in a very pragmatic sense.
Also, digital media gives users the capability to engage more powerfully and compellingly. Hence, it will be only effective to broaden your social, media capacities and elicit brand awareness and growth.