8.1 Social media marketing - academy.yoast.com

Ecommerce SEO course - Lesson 8.1

Social media marketing

Table of contents

Learning objectives

Introduction

1. SEO, marketing, and social media

2. Which social media platforms to use?

3. How to use social media

Key takeaways

Learning objectives

After this lesson, you’ll:

● understand why it’s important to market your online shop;

● explain why social media marketing is important for your online

shop;

● set up or improve your social media strategy.

IntroductionIn the previous modules, we’ve focused on ranking high in search engines.

And while that will help attract visitors to your online shop, you can do more!

So, in this module, we’ll focus on marketing your shop. Let’s dive in!

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1. SEO, marketing, and social mediaSEO and marketing are very much interconnected. If you do your marketing

well, you’ll get more backlinks to your site, and people will click on links from

your newsletter, like and share your social media posts, or engage with your

blog posts. And this all contributes to your site’s SEO.

Let’s start with the basics. Marketing is about getting more people to know

about and like your shop, products, and brand. And, to market your

products successfully, you should choose a marketing strategy that fits the

mission of your business. So, your mission – the goal of your company which

makes it unique – should always be reflected in your content.

Social media marketing is important

There are many ways to market your online shop. One very important way is

with social media. Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and the like have become

so popular that search engines can’t ignore them. This means that your

site’s popularity on social media gets increasingly important for your

shop’s SEO. Why is that? Well, if people talk about you, whether that’s online

or offline, you’re relevant to the topic at hand.

Social media is crucial because it can indirectly boost your rankings. You

will, of course, need to share relevant and high-quality content. When your

followers like what you post, they will click on your links. Not only that, but

most social media platforms allow people to share your posts with their

followers and friends easily.

Use the platforms wisely, and the traffic to your website will grow. Search

engines will notice that people tend to go to your site. They will see that you

are a brand people trust and like. Being popular among the people can

signal to search engines that they should give you a ranking boost.

What’s more, social media also pop up in the search results. For example, if

you search for Yoast, you will see links to Yoast’s Twitter, Facebook, and

Instagram profiles in the knowledge panel (Image 1 on page 3). And, a bit

further down, there is also a Twitter carousel with the latest tweets from the

Yoast account, right there in the search results (Image 2 on page 3)!

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Image 1: Social profiles appearing in the knowledge panel (outlined at the bottom

right)

Image 2: A Twitter carousel appearing in the search results (outlined at the

bottom)

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2. Which social media platforms to use?Ok, so using social media is important. But, there are so many platforms out

there. Which one should you choose? Should you just have profiles on all of

them? Let’s answer those questions and more!

Which social media platforms suit your company?

The first step in setting up your social media strategy is to check which

social media you want to be found on. In other words, which social media

platform suits the message and branding of your company and products?

And, on top of that: which platform offers the options and reach you’re

looking for?

For example, Facebook and Twitter offer ways to advertise and make your

brand and company known beyond the scope of your followers. With other

social media, this will be a bit more difficult. And, both Pinterest and

Instagram are very suitable social media to promote your products visually,

with pictures. So, think about what it would mean for your company to be

present on that social media platform, and make sure this aligns with

your mission.

Which social media does your audience use?

It’s also very important to find out which social media platforms your

audience uses. Different kinds of people use different kinds of social

media. For instance, if your company mainly works in the

business-to-business area, you should definitely be active on LinkedIn. And,

if you have a young audience, you should consider TikTok, Snapchat, and

Instagram. There are several ways to find out what your audience uses. Let’s

go through them.

● Know your brand

This is quite simple yet important to mention. Knowing your

audience has to start from you. You offer a product that you made

for a specific group of people. If you are selling and writing about

surfing gear, your audience is not likely to be over 60. Or, if you are

selling boy band shirts, you can expect that your customers will

mostly be teenagers. Knowing who you want to reach and why is a

crucial first step.

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● Use surveys

Surveys are beneficial because you do not have to guess what your

customers think. You can just ask. For instance, you can send a

survey via mail or put it in a visible place on your website. You do not

need to conduct extensive research. Just ask the most important

questions.

For example, you can ask what your customers’ location, gender,

education, profession, and age are. Of course, most importantly, ask

how, when, and why they use specific social media platforms.

The downside of surveys is that, often, the response rate is not high.

You may have a broad customer base, which will increase the

chances of a high response rate. Still, even then, you will not be able

to tell with absolute certainty that the responders are representative

of the entire base.

● Use analytics

There is a trend among companies to make data-informed decisions

and policies. If you happen to have the luxury of an analytics team at

your disposal, ask them to help you. Together, you can figure out the

social media patterns of your customers. The quest may be a little

harder for those with more limited means, but by no means

impossible.

Using research reports to decide what social media

platforms your customers are most likely to use

If you don’t have the budget for a special analytics team, you can explore the

vastness of the internet for information on social media use. Yes, searching

online will not produce tailor-made data specifically for you, but it could help

you narrow down your social media choices. Start by checking these

resources:

● Social media use in 2021

● 10 social media statistics you need to know

● Digital 2021: Global overview report

● Statista reports and statistics (some are behind a paywall)

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3. How to use social mediaOkay, so when you have an idea of which social media platforms you’d want

to use, what’s the next step? Well, you should set up a social media

strategy! How do you go about that? Let’s go through some general tips you

can use to set up or improve your social media strategy.

1. Keep your account(s) alive

The most crucial advice in social media is that you need to keep your

account ‘alive.’. Once you’ve picked a platform, or a few different platforms,

make sure you post regularly! But remember, it’s better to be active on one

platform than have inactive accounts on ten platforms.

So, what exactly should you post there? Well, each platform is unique. For

example, Facebook offers many possibilities to share content in various

formats like photos, videos, or post links to your products or your blog.

Conveniently, people there can easily share your content and help you grow

your base.

Some platforms, like Twitter, are excellent for engagement. You can easily

spot when someone is mentioning you on Twitter and jump into the

conversion. If you decide to go on Twitter, put effort into engaging with your

audience by commenting, replying to comments, retweeting, reposting, and

joining in conversations with hashtags or replies.

Just a word of advice: when engaging with your customers, don’t try to sell

them something immediately. Play the long game and try to establish

friendly relationships. It may cost time, patience, and effort, but it will be

worth it. The more visible you are, the more people will know about you, and

the easier it will be for them to find your website and use your product.

What if you want to post mostly photos and videos? You can do that too! Use

Instagram, Snapchat, or YouTube. If you need a more formal approach,

LinkedIn can be a great way to join various groups related to your business

and participate in conversations.

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2. Diversify

What’s more, you could think about what kind of content best fits the

different platforms you’re using. Make sure you don’t post exactly the

same message across different platforms because things like caption length

and vocabulary differ per platform. It would look a bit silly to ask people to

retweet a post on Facebook, right? Also, on Twitter, you can post a short

message several times a day, but that wouldn’t work well on Facebook or

LinkedIn.

If you have a lot of accounts, writing separate posts for each platform can be

very time-consuming. Yet, you can’t just copy and paste the exact same

content because each platform works differently. For example, take a look at

the Tweet that appeared on Yoast’s Twitter account (Image 3). We use

relevant hashtags there, and we’ve tagged the guest of the podcast to

engage with her and make it easy to share the tweet!

Image 3: An example of a tweet on Yoast’s Twitter profile

On Facebook, we’ve shared the same information but changed the message

slightly (Image 4). Since Facebook doesn’t have character limits like Twitter,

we’ve made the message a little bit longer. And, we don’t use hashtags or tag

the guest of the podcast because that would make no sense on Facebook!

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image 4: An example of a Facebook post on Yoast’s a profile

3. Use great visuals

For most platforms, it’s all about the visuals. For example, posts on

Instagram and Pinterest mainly consist of images. And TikTok and YouTube

are all about videos. So, make sure your illustrations, photos, videos –

whatever you decide to use – are awesome and of high quality!

Moreover, take a look at the sizes and shapes that different platforms

require. For example, you need square-shaped visual content for Facebook

and Instagram posts, whereas, on Twitter and LinkedIn, landscape

orientation works best. And, for Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn stories,

4. Respond to comments

If you share stuff on social media, you’ll likely receive comments. Make sure

to respond to comments fast, regardless of whether they are positive

or negative. When you respond fast, people will feel like you listen to them,

generating positive feelings associated with your products and brand!

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5. Be part of the community

If your online shop sells books, make sure to be part of the books

community. You can do that by finding relevant groups book lovers join or

the hashtags they use. If you’re active in a specific community or niche,

you’ll soon discover important people that your customers follow. Follow

them too, and interact with them.

6. Add metadata

The final tip is: use the right hashtags (where appropriate). Using hashtags

can help you grow immensely! For instance, if you’re at an event, include the

hashtag for that event in your post, so everyone searching for that term will

come across your post. There are hashtags for literally everything. But, don’t

go overboard! Only use the most relevant ones. Nobody likes a post that is

filled with all kinds of random hashtags.

Okay, time to wrap up! By now, you know that SEO and marketing are

interconnected. We’ve also seen that your mission should always be

reflected in your marketing content and that a social media strategy is a very

important part of your marketing strategy!

Control what your site looks like when it gets shared on

social media

Social media lets you write compelling messages and engage with your

customers. But, it’s also a place where people share information and links.

So, wherever you, or someone else shares content from your site on social

media, you want to make sure it looks good. Yoast SEO (Premium) gives you

control over how your pages appear when they get shared on social media.

It lets you preview and edit the image, title and description for each

individual post or page.

But, If you have a large site, it’ll cost you loads of time to set up the social

appearance of all the different types of content. To make it easier, you can

use the Social media templates in Yoast SEO Premium (Image 5). The

templates give you complete control over everything. You have more control

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over images, titles, and descriptions. So, you’ll be sure that when your site’s

content gets shared on, people will be tempted to click on it!

Image 5: An example of a social template in Yoast SEO Premium

● Read more: Social Previews in Yoast SEO

Key takeaways

● Social media marketing can have an indirect impact on your

rankings.

● When deciding which social media platforms to use, think about

your business goals, and research on what platform your

customers are most likely to be.

● The best practices for using social media are:

○ keeping your account active;

○ adapting the content to the specific platform you are posting

on;

○ replying to comments;

○ using high-quality images;

○ being part of a community;

○ using hashtags.

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