Ideally, social media should be integrated with other marketing channels and, in particular, with search marketing. One of social media's strengths is in reinforcing keyword tactics and landing pages to drive traffic and increase leads.
“Search engine rankings go up and down, but the focus [of search] is about rewarding those sites that have unique, engaging, valuable content,” said Mike Jarvinen, VP-marketing strategy at the Search Agency, a search optimization company. “That is serviced with a strong social media outreach.”
Both organic and paid search are driven by reviews and referrals. In particular, Jarvinen said, social media—done well—allows people to trust certain content. That is the path being followed by Dun & Bradstreet Credibility Corp., a Malibu, Calif.-based company that helps build businesses' credit worthiness.
The company's search efforts also are aided by content created by Chairman-CEO Jeffrey Stibel. He blogs for the Harvard Business Review and maintains an active Facebook page and Twitter account.
“We have a process of conceptualizing ideas with our executive team,” said Alex Staikos, head of online marketing at Dun & Bradstreet Credibility Corp. “Jeff writes, then passes the articles to the online marketing team to optimize them, with keywords in support of unique content to make sure they get found on the Web.”
But optimization doesn't trump content quality, Search Agency's Jarvinen said.
“Quality content is key,” he said. “It's hard to market content that's not interesting. You want to create something that people will share with their friends and be excited about. Jeff's content is interesting and sometimes controversial.”
The company also works to identify the most influential people in its small-business niche and endeavors to make them fans of the company. Dustin Luther, head of social media at Dun & Bradstreet Credibility Corp., said building this list is one of the most valuable initial steps he took on behalf of the company.
It's a process similar to evaluating the company's website for inbound links, he said.
“I first found 50 people I wanted to reach out to, and I subscribed to their blogs, "liked' them and helped ingratiate us [with] them,” Luther said. “In turn, we promoted these people, engaged with them and retweeted them.”
The company now stages a series of “video conversations” with this growing cadre of influencers on topics of interest to the small-business community.
For social to support search most effectively, Jarvinen advised marketers to enhance the credibility of home and landing pages with lists of associations and prominently displayed authoritative content, such as studies. He also suggested that companies claim their listings on Google Places and the Bing Business Portal.
“The search engines are placing bets on their ability to archive and push traffic to the long tail for businesses on the Web, and these are places to aggregate reviews,” he said. “These are pushed to the top of search queries.”
Jarvinen also recommended:
- Getting involved in the big three social sites (Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter);
- Building a “hub-and-spoke” strategy for sharing content, with videos on YouTube and white papers on the website;
- Updating social plug-ins for enhanced usability that allows for viewer feedback;
- Creating ad extensions for Google AdWords paid search ads, expanding on the standard text ad with address, phone number, other links and product images.
“And build one piece of content that you want to tell your network about,” Jarvinen said. “Sometimes we create things we might not like but think the market will. Instead, find something that excites you and personalize it to raise its quality.”
THE CONVERSATION (add your response in the comments): How are you optimizing social to enhance search results?
