How To Optimize Your 5 Top Social Media Channels

Search Engine Optimisation is the art and science of getting Google (and other search engines) to find your website, blog, video and your other web content and rank it high so that when people enter key words that are relevant to your company they will find you  or your company on the first page of Google and with hard work, diligence and skill place in the top 3 or 4.

So how do you optimize your social media so that it helps in this increasingly important objective of being found online as easily as possible? In this post my aim is to give you some simple tips and resources on how to optimize the 5 top social media channels.

1. Facebook

Facebook has 3 types of ways you can participate, Profile (Personal), Groups (clubs and associations) and Pages (companies and businesses).

The primary goal of having a Facebook “Page” is to get fans (or subscribers) and invoke interaction. The secondary goal is drive them to an offer page or get them to your target website. How do you do get more fans and visibility within Facebook? By pushing content out tactfully. The Wall within a Page is the same as a Wall within a Profile. Therefore Page Admins can publish stories, news, and offers to their Fan’s home page streams. The other internal way to communicate with Fans is by direct messages to their inboxes, which is reportedly being used less and less. Who uses email these days anyway right, right?. Here are some ideas to get you started

• Use a group or page profile for your business rather than personal as they are much more transparent to search engine crawlers
• Choose a vanity URL that contains your keywords (such as facebook.com/widgetwholesales)
• Exclusive offers for Fans only is great Fan bait
• When you post content, always include video or imagery. Facebook users are very visual.
• Publish fresh content at least 2-3 times per week
• Analyze, iterate and optimize using the Facebook Insights Tool to get “high-level demographic and geographic insights about your Fans”, and to “analyze the number of interactions and overall engagement with your Page and posts.”

Some more resources

Mashable “5 Tips for Optimizing Your Facebook Presence“

SEO Expert ” Optimizing Facebook Pages“

2. Blog

Blogging demonstrates true commitment and passion to your industry that you really can’t fake long-term.  Most won’t be able to sustain it over long periods of time with frequency, but those who do so are rewarded in spades and stand out from the crowd. So here are some tips on optimizing your blog

• Buy ( I know that says get your credit card out) your own domain name not a subdomain or name under typepad or wordpress .. buying a homebase is a lot better than renting one.
• Purchase a theme such as WordPress Thesis theme that can be optimised for SEO such as URL’s and  meta descriptions
• Post content regularly (at least once a week) .. Search engines love new unique content
• Promote your Blog on Twitter regularly (Google now has real time search feed into Twitter API)
• Include share buttons to other social media channels on  each blog post so visitors can add your blog and posts

Some more resources

7 Reasons Why Companies Should Blog

20 Reasons You Should Blog Before You Twitter

10 Essential Elements Of A Business Blog – Video

3. YouTube

The  increasing impact of   Social Media “Online Video and its importance to getting found online because of the facts and figures emerging that can’t  be  ignored… in fact its hard to get your head around them. Comscore announced in August, 2009 that over 25.4 Billion video views ocurred in the USA alone (Yes…. Billions not millions). This is up from 14.3 Billion In December 2008. This is a 78% increase in just 8 months. Google’s sites such as YouTube  had a 39% market share with the closest competitor being Microsoft sites with 2.2%. (Google owns YouTube by the way). Here are some tips to get you started

• Create your own YouTube Channel
• In your description section for your video, always put your link to your blog or your website to make it easy for people to link back to your site
• Put the category such as [Social Media Marketing] in Brackets before each Title of your video
• Put “Tags” in your video tags section, make them relevant to your video title, fill up your tag allotment quota allowed and optimize them
• Again promote your YouTube video on Twitter and place them on your blog in a Video or YouTube Channel section

Some more resources

7 Ways to Optimize Your YouTube Tags

Optimizing for the YouTube Search Engine

YouTube Search Engine Optimisation

4. Twitter

Twitter became mainstream in during 2009 and has continued to provide ways to connect, communicate and promote your content from your website and blog.

• In the account settings, be sure to add your website’s URL
• Write a great title (approximately 42 characters are factored into each tweet’s title tag, including the account name, as well as the initial characters of each tweet. Keep in mind that your full tweet and all its characters are still being indexed by major engines).
• Place a retweet button on your blog articles and integrate your Twitter URL within your site’s Global Footer, which appears at the bottom of every page of your site. Both of these options offer usability to your site visitors and help drive your Twitter URL up in the search engines.
• Include “Follow me on Twitter” buttons on your emails and blog
• Leave at least 20 characters spare (make your tweet no longer than 120 charcters), so that it allows room for people to “Retweet” your “Tweet” with comments like “Great post”
• Almost always include a link back to your blog posts in your tweet (don’t waste a Tweet), this is a significant traffic driver for bloggers.

Additional resources

The Top 10 Twitter SEO Tips

Twitter SEO: 4 Simple Tips to Help Your Twitter Profile Rank

4 Ways To Optimize Your Twitter Background

5. LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network which started up in 2003 and now has over 55 million members and growing rapidly (It is one of the top 5 social media channels). LinkedIn connects you to your trusted professional contacts and helps you exchange knowledge, ideas, and opportunities with a broader network of professionals. So how do you optimize this platform to enhance you and your companies brand.

• Create a public profile (don’t lock it away) This is an easy way to start building an on-line presence for yourself, since LinkedIn ranks high in the search engines
• Use the questions and answers feature to start conversations, create community, and position yourself as a subject matter expert. By answering questions, you are simultaneously endorsing your candidacy and expertise this can also be used to drive traffic to your blog when you leave your answer or when you place your question.
• In your homepage activate your Twitter and LinkedIn interfaces.
• Activate your blog feed to your homepage on linkedIn (where your last blog posts are displayed). Use the questions and answers feature to start conversations, create community, and position yourself as a subject matter expert. By answering questions, you are simultaneously endorsing your candidacy and expertise
• In your settings (in the edit my profile section) make sure your websites and blogs (you can enter 3) with relevant customised key word descriptions. (mine includes My Company, My blog (jeffbullas.com) and My Facebook “Page” URLs

More resources

Win new clients by optimizing your LinkedIn profile keywords

Video-4 Minutes to Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile for SEO

3 Easy Ways To Optimise Your LinkedIn Profile

So how are you optimizing your social media?