Social Media Optimization is using social media networks to manage and increase brand exposure and engagement.
According to Investopedia, social media optimization can increase awareness of new products and services, connect with customers, and reduce the potential for the bad news.
The concept of optimization is similar to SEO. It would help if you found out what content your audience is looking for, see which social media platforms are suitable for your brand, and implemented marketing strategies accordingly.
This optimization aims to get your content in front of a larger audience. This optimization also provides several benefits for your brand.
Increase the visibility and reach of content to generate greater engagement (clicks, traffic, and so on).Assess your overall ROI and social media marketing results, such as sales and brand awareness.
Develop a consistent process to create content ready to perform well on your brand.
Step-by-Step Tips!
1. Analyze your audience
According to Alexa, the first step to doing SMO is to analyze your audience first. As mentioned above, you must choose the right social media platform, meaning the platform your audience uses the most.
In this step, your goal is to find out what social media platforms your audience uses and where they want your brand to be.
This is also an excellent step to find out the social media engagement you are currently using. What social media platforms are you currently using, and how are they performing?
Some may generate a fair amount of engagement, while others create a lot of direct traffic to your website.
You can use various tools like Alexa to do this analysis.
2. Do a competitor analysis
The next step for conducting SMO is conducting a competitor analysis. How much social media engagement do you see compared to competitors?
What types of content are effective (or ineffective) for your competitors or other brands in your industry?
It would help to find out how your brand fares against the competition. This will make it easier for you to design the most effective optimization strategy.
3. Build a strategy based on the results of the analysis
Strategy is the most crucial part of improving social media performance. Therefore, before managing a social media account, you must express your ideas, content, captions, and strategic goals in written media. Call it the media is the media plan.
A social media optimization strategy (Social Media Optimization) should focus on growing brand exposure (brand presence) and achieving measurable goals.
For example, to increase brand awareness and exposure, you should focus on increasing the number of subscribers, followers, or social media accounts used.
4. Strategy execution
After designing the strategy, the next step is to implement the plan. A team, including those behind SEO marketing and content marketing, run an SMO strategy.
They must work closely with social media and community managers to carry out this strategy.
Social media optimization is closely aligned with search engine optimization. So, this team needs to work together to achieve the same goals and ensure the message conveyed to the audience is similar on each platform.
When your brand posts content on Instagram, you can direct your audience to a blog post or website landing page if they want more information.
Here are the strategy you should do to optimize your social media for business:
Focus On Visuals
Social media is one of the media that focuses on visuals. Therefore, it must ensure that shared displays and content contain visuals that interest social media users.
Various social media platforms offer multiple types of content that can be maximized. For example, Instagram and Facebook provide the freedom to create images and video content. Meanwhile, Youtube and TikTok only limit video content as the main content.
For example, on Instagram content, you can use grids to create attractive visual patterns. You can add bumpers or other visuals on YouTube to complement and explain videos.
Therefore, focusing on visual design is an effort to increase engagement or interaction between businesses and their potential customers.
Profile Optimization
After optimizing the social media visuals, you must also optimize social media profiles. What should be optimized for these social media profiles? There are at least 3 stages of optimization that can be done as a big picture, namely:
Profile Optimization: you must optimize profile photos using simple but virtually memorable images. Ensure the profile photo has a logo to build brand recognition immediately.
Username: Business usernames must be consistent across each social media platform used. With username consistency, it will be easier for potential customers to find your business.
Bio: is a crucial part that will introduce the brand and business to users. Therefore, ensure your bio contains complete information about the brand and business, such as adding an address, website link, contact number, etc.
Content Optimization
The primary function of social media is to share content. Therefore you have to optimize the content. Social Media Optimization is almost the same as social media content optimization. To be successful on social media means to be successful at optimizing content.
Use Hashtags
Hashtags are a unique element in social media. Many users use hashtags to find specific topics or trends. One of the best Social Media Optimization practices is to utilize hashtags in promotional campaigns.
When using hashtags, the shared content will reach a wider audience. Besides, it will be easier for users to find posted content even if they don’t follow a social media account. This opens up more significant opportunities for other users to discover brands.
Create a Post Schedule
After optimizing the profile and content, it is necessary to be consistent in posting content. Post consistency or posting schedule is one of the essential elements in Social Media Optimization.
Therefore, you must find the right time to post content. For example, some social media platforms have specific times for posting content. Check social media insights and identify which times generate the most reach and engagement.
5. Analyze results and make adjustments if necessary
Once the SMO strategy has been executed, the results must be analyzed and adjustments made if necessary.
In your initial strategy, explain how often you will check the results. That way, you will be sure when is the right time to make adjustments.