For most of you who have looked into Social Media Marketing for Small Business, you might have heard of the word “SEO”. SEO is an abbreviation for Search Engine Optimization. Small business owners/webmasters “optimize” their websites so that they are more search engine friendly – read, so that they will turn up ideally, on the first page of search results for targeted keywords. It might surprise you to know that keywords are as important to your social media marketing strategy as to your small business website’s SEO. To get started with your social media strategy, it is advisable to have a list of keywords to target. How do you obtain this? One quick, easy and most of all, FREE, way is the Google Keyword Tool.
To find a good set of keywords here are a list of guide questions, so you have an idea what to query the Google Keyword Tool for when you build your keyword list:
What specific products do you sell?
Where do you sell them?
What are name variations that your customers might use to refer to your product?
Put yourself in the position of your customer. What type of keywords would you use to “google” your store?
Now you have a keyword list in hand. What do you do with it? Why are keywords important in social media marketing? Here are some reasons.
- It gives shape to your content. Let’s say you were going to send a tweet to tell people about your business. You want to use a keyphrase or a combination of keyphrases on your list so that when someone searches for information related to your business on Twitter, they find your tweet.
- Search Engines love Social Media websites! There’s a chance that your social media content will be spidered by the search engines, making them more quickly searchable via Google or Yahoo, if you use the keywords the right way.
- Customers find you more easily. Think of keywords as the key to the door of your business. Make the verse, “Seek and you shall find” true for your customers, so that when they type in keywords on social media sites, they find you!
Maximizing social media for your business is not difficult at all. Don’t forget to lay the foundation for a good social media campaign with a good keyword list and strategy!
