With businesses going digital, social media is an important digital platform that businesses can’t afford to miss in 2021. Proactive businesses have realized the importance of social media for businesses and have taken this opportunity. But today, being on social media is not sufficient. The business also needs to optimize their social media accounts, similar to using SEO (search engine optimization) to rank their website higher on search engines. Before diving deep into how a business can optimize its social media accounts, let’s first understand why it is important for a business to make this prerequisite effort!
WHY A BUSINESS NEEDS SOCIAL MEDIA OPTIMISATION (SMO)
Statista reports that “Globally, over 3.6 billion people use social media and the number is only projected to increase to 4.41 billion in 2025.”
Another insight shared by SproutSocial is that, after following a brand on social media, consumers engage with the brand in different ways, such as visiting the website or application or sharing/recommending the brand to family/friends. It has been observed that 91% of users visit the brand’s website after finding them using social media.
Backlinko reports that India has the highest percentage of people using social media for work-related purposes, i.e., 47%, followed by Canada and Australia at 31% and 30%, respectively.
It makes it pretty evident how aggressively businesses are moving towards using social media to grow themselves. A well-optimized social media account will help it stand out from the crowd and help meet its social media goals.
The key benefits of optimizing social media account for businesses are three-fold:
- Increase in visibility and reach of the social media account.
- Obtaining better ROI in terms of set goals- awareness, engagement, content reach, etc.
- Add value to social media plans.
SOCIAL MEDIA OPTIMISATION TIPS FOR BUSINESS
Here’s how a business can optimize its social media accounts to make the most out of it.
1. Profile Optimization
In order to generate profile visibility and drive high-value users to the profile, whether it’s on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc., it’s important to optimize the profile. The main areas where the profile needs to be optimized are:
- Username: The username needs to be consistent across all social media platforms to make it easy for people to search. With that, it should be professional, i.e., omitting the need to belong or having too many special characters.
- Profile Photo/Cover Photo: Profile photo preferably needs to be the logo of your business that is cropped well to the dimensions specified. Likewise, a cover photo is also important. The cover photo reflects your business’s products/services and gives a broader picture of your business.
- Bio/About: The bio/about section speaks to your audience directly. It needs to be up to date, talking about how your business can help the brand. The bio needs to have relevant keywords relevant to the business. It’s important to add a website link here to direct people to learn more about business.
- Contact Details: Contact details relevant to a business, such as mail id, contact number, and business address, should also be mentioned to optimize the profile.
2. Content Strategy Optimization
Businesses get overwhelmed when posting on social media due to the bucket of choices available to them. A well-optimized content strategy comes to the rescue. In order to optimize content strategy, the business needs to:
- Identify the right platform(s)
- Determine what content format works best- text posts, images, or videos
- Plan and execute consistent publishing frequency and volume of posts
An optimized content strategy can help the business stay structured and share content that aligns with the business’s goals. It also helps the business make the most of every social media platform.
3. Post Optimization
Every post is unique and has been shared, keeping a purpose in mind. Therefore, each post must be optimized. Posts can be optimized using:
- Captions: Captions need to reflect upon the post shared. Captions build the personality of the brand. The style of caption differs from business to business. Therefore, the business needs to identify its right style for captions. Another important factor for caption writing is the inclusion of relevant keywords to optimize the post.
- Call To Action: Call to action phrases help direct the audience to perform a desired action such as commenting, liking, sharing, visiting the website, etc. It’s important to include a call to action in the post to encourage the audience to take action and build two-way communication.
- Hashtags: Hashtags make it easier for users to find the content. It’s important to integrate relevant hashtags into the post. It helps in expanding post reach and driving new leads to the business. Hashtags, thus, need to be carefully researched to get the best results.
4. Optimizing Content Sharing
Content sharing schedule can depend on factors like- social media platform, posting frequency, and audience. What’s the point of content creation if it didn’t reach the audience? The audience isn’t always online. It’s therefore important to determine the time they are active the most and share our content accordingly. It’s also important to maintain buffer time in between the posts shared. Optimizing content sharing will help in reaching the audience at the right time and right place.
5. Monitoring Social Media Analytics
Social media optimization is not limited to optimizing profiles and content. It’s also important to monitor social media analytics to identify how the posts are performing and take care of deviations. Tracking metrics like shares, likes, retweets, mentions, etc., can help analyze the performance of content or business on social media in general. It can also help in building the content strategy in the future.
Here were a few but not limited to tips on optimizing social media and boosting their business. Social media is an integral part of a digital marketing strategy. If you want to make the most of your presence on social media platforms, Ecliqs Consulting is there for you.
Our social media experts are there to take your business to new heights with social media management and optimization strategies that work best for your business.
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REFERENCES
https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-optimization/
https://www.webfx.com/blog/social-media/social-media-optimization-tips/
