How Search Can Inform Social Media Strategy Session Recap

Submitted by admin on Sunday, October 16, 2011 / 0 Comments

Discover how your company’s search history can be used to actually lay the foundation of your social media strategy.

Whether you’re revamping existing efforts, or starting from scratch, developing a strategic and sound social media strategy can intimidate even the most experienced online marketers. From selecting the right social channels to engage in, to determining the holistic objective for your social program, there are layers upon layers of research and considerations that need to be taken into account.

Knowing where and how to start might be the biggest hurdle of all when developing a social media plan. aimClear® CEO Marty Weintraub shares that brands are actually closer to starting their social media program than they think, and it all starts with finding their audience through keywords.

Keyword Techniques to Try

1)  Identify Top Keywords-Use Google AdWords and Google Analytics to identify the top performing keywords for paid and organic search.

2) Use Facebook Internal Search -Leverage Facebook search (yes it’s also a search engine) and enter your top performing keywords to see what pages are connected to that phrase. Be sure to click the magnifying class to gain access to ‘All Results’.

3) Gain Deeper Insight with Google Search-Enter the Google search query with site:facebook.com/note “keyword here”. Unlike Facebook internal search, which does not display notes and videos, Google search will yield deeper results.

 4) Perform Twitter Search-Enter your top performing keywords in Twitter search. Use Twitter Advanced Search to filter out brands and identify individuals with discussions surrounding your keywords.

5) Expand Your Keywords-Leverage tools like Ubersuggest to enter your keywords and discover other related keywords. Take your expanded list and start back at step 2.

Keywords Lead You to Your Audience

 Where do these steps take you? You are now in the process of developing your social audience. The people and organizations that align with your keywords are the very same people and organizations (filtering out competitors) that are likely to align with your brand. That is, a Twitter user with a history of discussing their favorite cereal is likely not only a fan of the breakfast item, but also someone receptive connecting and engaging with a brand that produces cereal. 

Let the Conversations Begin

How you proceed and begin meaningful social engagement will depend on your social media objectives. A brand with an objective to funnel traffic from social to their site will message and interact differently than a brand with a primary objective to drive sales within each social channel. Regardless of objective, don’t forget what got you hear. Your audience was built based on their common connections to keywords that resonate with your brand. Stick to themes and discussions that relate back to your keywords.

By utilizing keyword research to build your audience and by committing to consistent, relevant messaging, you have taken the first critical steps to building your social media program.

Stay connected to the MIMA Blog for posts from the afternoon session.

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A special thanks to Brian Larson, a MIMA volunteer, for this post.Brian is an account manager at TopRank® Online Marketing. He has a degree in Broadcast Journalism from the University of Wisconsin-River Falls.You can find him on LinkedIn or follow him on twitter @bslarsonmn.