Social Media Marketing

5 Amazing Social Media Optimization Tips & Techniques

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Social media optimization is the latest buzzword in the online world. It is an essential tactic for businesses and brands so that they can be found on ever-growing and hugely crowded social media platforms. 

But it sounds daunting. What is it and how to do it? 

First of all, it’s nothing you won’t be able to do yourself. And, if you follow a couple of simple social media optimization tips and techniques outlined here, you’ll soon start reaping the rewards of a more engaged audience and growing follower count. 

What Is Social Media Optimization?

Social media optimization (SMO) is a set of techniques individuals and organizations use on their social media platforms to grow and manage their message and online presence. These techniques are used across platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and Pinterest.

On a practical level, it demands a careful analysis of your social media content and profiles – and how followers engage –  to evaluate their effectiveness. Then, optimize these elements as needed.

Unlike Search Engine Optimization (SEO) you don’t have to be a technical wizard to do it. What it does require is knowledge of the latest tips and techniques available to polish and publish your content so that it works for you.

Benefits Of Social Media Optimization

No business can afford to randomly post on social media. It may do more harm than good! 

By ‘working the system’, social media users stand to reap the many benefits offered by the platforms. The main benefits are:

  • Increased brand awareness
  • Improved reach on social media
  • Better quality of leads generated 
  • Stronger connections with the right audience
  • Strengthened online presence
Woman working on her laptop and smiling

5 Amazing Social Media Optimization Tips

There are many ways to optimize your social content, but if you’re new to this, start with these five sure-fire social media optimization tips. 

1. Use A Social Media Scheduling Tool

Social Media scheduling tools will help you stay organized and save a ton of time. There are many types of scheduling tools available that help you compose posts, curate content, organize workflow, and queue up content. 

Scheduling tools are a must for large organizations with a presence across many social media platforms. Jumping back and forth between networks, copying and pasting as you go, can quickly become a disorganized nightmare and a huge time drain. 

By using social media scheduling tools you can queue and share content to multiple platforms with a single click. 

Another way it optimizes your SMO is it will automatically post content when your audience is most engaged. 

Pro Tip: If you’re an Instagram guru, give Prepper’s Instagram Scheduling Tool a try. It allows you to plan and create content easily and then automatically post it for you. Great social media optimization!

2. Polish your Social Media Bios

Organizations tend to neglect or overwork their bios on social media. Yet these small pieces of content are a huge part of SMO and are one of the first pieces of content a new visitor or potential lead looks at when they visit your social media profile pages. 

Make sure you include this essential information:

  • A clear profile image
  • What you do
  • Who you help
  • Where you are
  • Links to your web properties
  • How to get in touch with you

Note that every social media network has different requirements and restrictions for composing your social media bio. For your Instagram bio, for instance, you may not have as much space to play with as you have on LinkedIn. 

Also, consider your audience. Instagram is less formal than LinkedIn, so you may want to adjust your tone and use of hashtags and emojis. 

Companies and brands should always pay attention to professionality, which means consistency in social media optimization across social media platforms. 

Using keywords in content has resulted in social media accounts starting to appear on SERPS. That means optimizing social media for search should be a priority. 

Instagram, for example, has its own search function that is similar to Google. On the Explore Page, you can search for specific keywords and find accounts in your industry that have good discoverability and visibility. Take a look at what keywords and hashtags they used and use them in your content and captions.

Don’t keyword stuff your posts to try to boost your social searchability, though. It won’t work. Rather, perform keyword research for your product, service, or industry and use those keywords naturally throughout your social content. Use them in your social bios and About pages too. 

There are many keyword research tools on the Internet, some paid, some free. If you’re unsure, start with Google Keyword Planner

Woman working on social media

4. Optimize Your Content

There are a couple of ways you can optimize your content so that it’s more discoverable and shareable. One of the most important is ensuring the content has value for the user. This means it either evokes an emotional response – such as laughter or empathy, or it is highly relevant and informative. Either way, it has something new to offer. 

Whatever you do (and it’s not a bad idea to mix things up), make sure it is relevant to your audience. There is no point in posting about declining shark numbers in the Pacific when your business is about selling auto parts.

Other forms of popular content are a limited-time or special offer to your followers only, posting a poll, or providing teasers from a report or newly published research relevant to your niche.

Experiment With Your Headlines

A catchy headline or caption that draws attention and makes the user want to read more is vital for your content optimization strategy. 

Follow best practices for the length and experiment to see what looks and works best. Feel free to ask a question and/or get personal with the use of pronouns such as You, We, and I. Numbers always draw attention in a headline, i.e., ‘5 life hacks I learnt through meditating’. 

Test your headlines across your networks to see which works best and how your audience responds to them. 

Use Different Types Of Content 

There are generally two types of content: original content and curated content. In an ideal social media optimization strategy, your content will contain both created and curated content.

Original content reflects your or your company’s unique thoughts, achievements, discoveries, etc., presented in text, infographics, a report, a video, a podcast, or any of the multitude of content forms out there. The key is you created it yourself. This form of unique content takes time and money but is highly popular – when done right. 

Original content can also be repurposed in different forms. For instance, an Instagram Story can be converted into a Reel, which means it doesn’t disappear after 24 hours. Or a podcast can be repurposed into a bullet-form Facebook post to highlight the most salient points for those who didn’t have time to plug in. 

Curated content is content shared from various sources around the web. Trending topics and viral videos will be shared and commented on quickly. Also, consider memes such as the popular ‘How it started vs how it’s going’ that still has life after two years. 

5. Monitor Your Social Media Pages

All the big social media platforms offer ways to track basic metrics on any account. If you run a campaign, it’s vital you monitor it to ensure it’s paying off in terms of your strategy. If not, it’s time to change things up, in other words, optimize your social media campaign so that it can perform better. 

Things to monitor, depending on the social media platform, are the number of shares, follows, likes, retweets, comments, and conversions. 

Insights into these metrics help you see which posts resonate most with your audience, thereby informing your social publishing strategy. You can also use it to compare it to your competition on any given platform, seeing what works for them and what doesn’t.  

A team collaborating and having fun

It’s Time To Boost Your Brand By Optimizing Your Socials

See? We told you. It’s not rocket science. In fact, optimizing your social media can be a lot of fun. 

Done right and consistently, it will give you the confidence that you’re not posting blind and that everything you put up on social media is part of your broader marketing strategy.

Begin by optimizing static content, such as your Bio and About pages, and then continuously apply these social media optimization tips and techniques to content as you progress through the year. 

The result will be continued growth and being able to jump through the noise to the top of your field on whichever social media platform you’re on. 

Account Manager | Contentellect - Intelligent Content Creation

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