The majority of businesses now firmly believe that search engine optimization (SEO) is essential for expanding their businesses. However, many businesses overlook the massive importance in Social Media especially for B2B. This was apparent in 2020 when a pandemic struck and forced many businesses to go online. However, without proper SEO implementation and a social media presence their efforts are a struggle.
If your company neglects social media, you’re losing out a powerful tool that could be of great advantage! In this article we are going to learn how Social Media enhances your SEO efforts for Malaysian Businesses. The challenge is that Google’s algorithm constantly changes, and small businesses simply don’t have the time to create high quality content.
Some companies believe that social media is simply a bulletin board, and this is completely wrong. Social media is about increasing brand awareness, offering meaningful and memorable content, establishing trust, demonstrating your expertise, and eventually generating targeted visitors to your website.
Understanding Social Media SEO
Social Media SEO is a combination of social media marketing with SEO strategies to boost the position of your company in search results. This sounds like Google Ads, but it really isn’t because SEO is about organically boosting the search ranking. Without SEO, your website exists but no one can find them in Google’s almost infinite search result.
Social Media works hand in hand with SEO to improve your company’s brand awareness. Companies like Coca-Cola and McDonalds have already been so established that practically everyone knows who they are. But what about SMEs or local start-ups? This is where social media comes in play in building a strong online presence and creating an awareness of your brand.
How Social Media Impacts SEO
Think about it this way, your product may be excellent but the mass audience you are reaching out to simply have no idea who you are. Can they trust your business? Why shouldn’t they just choose another company they are familiar with? The reason is in basic human psychology, customers prefer products they know and trust.
You may be wondering “my company is small and new; how will it compete with big players?”. With social media you can make an impact to your community by simply being real and posting high quality content. This will eventually build an audience and convert visitors into leads. Below are some of the ways Social Media impacts SEO:
1. SEO Favours Brand Awareness
Your business may be a start-up physical store or an online service, and no one may know you at first. If no one has even heard of your brand name, how can you expect them to magically discover your business? Most people are unaware of the social media tools at their fingertips that they can take advantage of to promote their brand name:
- Creating brand hashtags – Do you realise why big brands use #Starbucks ? Hashtags points people of similar interest towards that keyword. You can also encourage your audience to #yourcompany in their posts through competitions and this further increases the exposure of your brand name.
- Commenting on posts – Each time your brand engages to your audience in social media it creates visibility and pushes your name even further.
- Sharing & tagging – You can also encourage your followers to share posts and tag their friends. For example, “share and tag your friends to win a free cup of coffee”. Who does not want something free?
1. SEO Favours Brand Awareness
Your business may be a start-up physical store or an online service, and no one may know you at first. If no one has even heard of your brand name, how can you expect them to magically discover your business? Most people are unaware of the social media tools at their fingertips that they can take advantage of to promote their brand name:
- Creating brand hashtags – Do you realise why big brands use #Starbucks ? Hashtags points people of similar interest towards that keyword. You can also encourage your audience to #yourcompany in their posts through competitions and this further increases the exposure of your brand name.
- Commenting on posts – Each time your brand engages to your audience in social media it creates visibility and pushes your name even further.
- Sharing & tagging – You can also encourage your followers to share posts and tag their friends. For example, “share and tag your friends to win a free cup of coffee”. Who does not want something free?
2. Building Business Credibility
Psychologically people tend to go where there is a crowd. A social media presence of followers increases the trustworthiness of your business and this in turns attracts more people. If your products or service cost more than what is out there, people tend to research before making a purchase. Let’s look at some of the ways to build your brand’s credibility through the social media:
- Encourage your customers to submit reviews of your product and service. This will work especially if you are confident that your product is really good. However, beware if certain flaws may also attract poor reviews. In our opinion, this pushes companies to strive to be their best and that attracts good reviews.
- Share your progress, statistics, and award ceremonies through posts in your social media. And you can also couple together this technique together with sharing & tagging to further enhance its effects.
- Create how-to contents that demonstrate your expertise on a subject matter. For example, if you were a coffee shop you can demonstrate the correct way to brew a perfect cup of coffee. Wouldn’t that tell your readers that you are experts in coffee making?
3. Content Amplification for Ranking & Indexing
New businesses struggle with organic SEO because they need to compete with big names. Your website may be beautiful but if it’s at the 15th page in Google Search Index, its less likely you will be discovered. Unless you have a really talented Content Writer or SEO specialist, it’s going to be almost impossible to push to the first page. Does that mean you should just give up ? Here is where Content Amplification comes to the rescue:
- The pages you share from your site onto social media gets traffic regardless of what your ranking on Google are. So if you need people to checkout a particular product from your website, you can share that page alongside your content on social media to get traffic direction there.
- When you share content that generates traffic, it creates a ripple effect that tells Google’s Crawlers that your website is popular. Businesses can also share their posts into public group to increase exposure.
- Did you know that followers on social media are a highly targeted audience? They chose to follow your page because your content type, products, or service fits into their demography. This makes them highly targeted as they are most likely to engage with your posts. Businesses can use this to their advantage by directing traffic to older pages to revive its indexing.
3. Content Amplification for Ranking & Indexing
New businesses struggle with organic SEO because they need to compete with big names. Your website may be beautiful but if it’s at the 15th page in Google Search Index, its less likely you will be discovered. Unless you have a really talented Content Writer or SEO specialist, it’s going to be almost impossible to push to the first page. Does that mean you should just give up ? Here is where Content Amplification comes to the rescue:
- The pages you share from your site onto social media gets traffic regardless of what your ranking on Google are. So if you need people to checkout a particular product from your website, you can share that page alongside your content on social media to get traffic direction there.
- When you share content that generates traffic, it creates a ripple effect that tells Google’s Crawlers that your website is popular. Businesses can also share their posts into public group to increase exposure.
- Did you know that followers on social media are a highly targeted audience? They chose to follow your page because your content type, products, or service fits into their demography. This makes them highly targeted as they are most likely to engage with your posts. Businesses can use this to their advantage by directing traffic to older pages to revive its indexing.
4. Back linking Through Social Media
Google’s algorithm scores a website by its popularity. One of the ways they do this is by crawling into backlinks that were found on other sites. When a website posts links about your site; it tells Google that your website has quality, value and trustworthiness. While social media sites will not directly backlink into your website, your posts that link to your website will work in the same way.
- Businesses can use a variety of platforms to backlink such as Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube. Based on the type of content, each platform carries its advantages. For instance, Twitter is very effective with short and precise content whereas Youtube can be used to push video-based content. We have seen many how-to videos on Youtube that links to website from their video description and this is effective to attract audiences.
- The content amplification method is effective to push out back links without spamming your social media page with irrelevant links. Even video content can be created through this method, don’t forget that video content auto-plays when users scroll through.
5. Local SEO Awareness
Did you know social media pages are also indexed by the search engine? Every time someone searches “coffee shop near Kelana Jaya”, your social media page will also show up. This is especially useful for industries such as cafes & restaurants, small hotels, and businesses that depends on exposure to the local community.
How does this work?
- Google Search uses location awareness to filter businesses that are closest to the person searching. Since social media pages lists business address, the search engine will pick up this information for display.
- Using hashtag to tag your posts with locations, example #coffee #kelanajaya. This will identify your posts as relating to coffee and Kelana Jaya.
- Take advantage of Google Business because it is a powerful tool that integrates with Google Search. The moment you have successfully verified your address it will automatically be the first result when someone searches for your business name. It also registers your business onto Google Maps which makes it convenient for people to navigate to your premises.
5. Local SEO Awareness
Did you know social media pages are also indexed by the search engine? Every time someone searches “coffee shop near Kelana Jaya”, your social media page will also show up. This is especially useful for industries such as cafes & restaurants, small hotels, and businesses that depends on exposure to the local community.
How does this work?
- Google Search uses location awareness to filter businesses that are closest to the person searching. Since social media pages lists business address, the search engine will pick up this information for display.
- Using hashtag to tag your posts with locations, example #coffee #kelanajaya. This will identify your posts as relating to coffee and Kelana Jaya.
- Take advantage of Google Business because it is a powerful tool that integrates with Google Search. The moment you have successfully verified your address it will automatically be the first result when someone searches for your business name. It also registers your business onto Google Maps which makes it convenient for people to navigate to your premises.
There are much more to learn about Social Media SEO, be sure to follow us on Facebook to stay up to date with our latest blog articles.