Social media is the popular kid on today’s marketing block.
For your business, it’s one of the most integral tools at your disposal.
Social media helps get you noticed – and stand out, if you’re creative enough to do your own thing, and mix in a little bit of social media platform knowledge on top of it.
It’s useful for promotion, engagement, and building a following.
The one key benefit social media does better than any other tool, for a business?
It humanizes your brand. It puts a face and a voice to a name. It makes you approachable, relatable, and trustworthy.
However, this is only possible if you’re using social media the right way.
Let’s talk social media & a nutshell guide on boosting your business for more ROI, customers, and action from your time there.
A Nutshell Guide to Boosting Your Social Media Presence for More Business & Return
If you want your business to have a voice and a presence, you’ve got to jump into social media and get going. Here’s how.
You’re a human being, and your audience wants to see evidence of that. If you don’t personally engage, you’re not providing that evidence.
Of course, you can’t engage without being approachable and friendly. Don’t keep yourself at a distance from your followers. Be real and be human!
This ties in nicely with my next tip…
2. Get Your Hands Dirty
To engage and be human, you have to get in there.
In short: do some work to build that relationship.
Get your hands dirty.
Start conversations yourself. Ask your followers questions, comment on others’ posts, and follow up personally.
A great example of this in action is the Twitter chat we host weekly, Tuesdays at 10 a.m. CST. It’s called #ContentWritingChat and it’s a fantastic way to talk to people about a topic we’re passionate about. Rachel, our Content Specialist/Social Media Manager, even writes weekly recaps on our site about the live chat hour.
It’s a favorite method of mine to nurture a lively, active community around a single social media event. Anybody can join in and give their opinions, advice, or insight.
To get conversations going, start your own Twitter chats surrounding a relevant topic. Engage industry voices as well as customers. The interaction that comes out of it will surprise and delight you.
Tag people in your posts – Tagging people in your posts is a good way to respond to their content and keep the conversation going. On Twitter, this is how you stay engaged.
Don’t forget to log in, yourself – Don’t let a “tool” be YOU. Don’t fall back on your scheduled posts via software, and let that be it. Remember to manually log in to your accounts, check your notifications, and respond to people.
Comment – Respond to people through comments, and start conversations through engaging with comments.
[clickToTweet tweet=”Get more customers + boost your business on social media with these tips from @ExpWriters!” quote=”Get more customers + boost your business on social media with these tips from @ExpWriters!”]
3. Set Goals for Interactions
If you find yourself forgetting to log-in or neglecting your business accounts for social media, start setting goals.
For instance, you might create a simple objective to have at least five interactions on social media each day of the work week. This forces you to pay attention to how you’re engaging and how much. You’ll understand where you need to improve and what you need to do it.
As you get better and more consistent about engaging, you can up your ante. Make your goals harder and keep track of your progress. Pretty soon, you won’t need goals to stay active and interactive on social.
4. Start Talking
It can feel intimidating to jump into social media and put yourself out there. This is especially true if you’re introverted or haven’t done much interacting online.
Don’t worry, though – you just need a place to begin.
To start engaging, you have to start talking. Here are some ideas:
Jump in on Trending Topics
If you want to get in on a larger conversation, post about trends and use hashtags. More importantly, tie together the trends with topics in your industry.
Take a look at how Denny’s used the Kentucky Derby to post and poke a little fun at the trending event at the same time. Plus, they reinforced their main draw: They have really good breakfast and really good pancakes.
Within the seated sections of Churchill Downs, the upper-crust don hats of elegance & style, a millinery of all shapes, tastes, and sizes. pic.twitter.com/pfkTV0MEJU
Along with casual events like Twitter chats, you can also host and celebrate any other event or holiday you like.
For instance, celebrate your business anniversary with a themed post and a coupon code for your online store. Or, honor a noted figure relevant to your industry with a post.
Out of Print did something like this in celebration of Cormac McCarthy’s birthday. They didn’t use the opportunity to self-promote. Instead, they created a graphic quote that appeals to their book-loving audience. It’s an interesting one that invites conversation. Plus, it’s totally shareable:
For the Best Social Media Conversations, Don’t Overthink It – Just Genuinely Be Yourself, & Be Present
All these social media tactics have one thing in common…
They’re fun.
If you’re not having fun chatting, sharing, and conversing on social media, you’re missing the point.
The point is to build relationships and enjoy interactions.
Be yourself – and be present!
If you don’t interact with a healthy bit of this friendliness and lighthearted attitude, it’s going to be harder for you to build trust. This means you won’t be using social media to its full potential, and that’s a shame.
And, if you don’t show up consistently, you won’t get anything real from it – just like in a real relationship.
In short, don’t overthink social media. If you go at it with the intention of enjoying the interactive elements, you’ll pull your audience in naturally. This means lots of interesting conversations, engagement, and time well spent for your business.
If you need a new playbook for your social media game, Express Writers can help. Check out our social media services that can lay the foundation for better engagement.
If I asked for a show of hands to see who researches their keywords by highest search volume, I’d see a pretty unanimous answer.
If you’re a true nerd / geek / SEO’er, you might have even had dreams of climbing the search results to #1 by optimizing for those keywords.
(Kind of like a new pop artist who hopes to crack the Billboard Top 100 with their first single.)
When you pick a keyword, what do you go by?
Are you using the best metrics? Every business wants to show up at the top of the SERPs (search engine result pages).
But knowing how… that’s a skill that involves, at the core fundamental, knowing how to pick out a great keyword. And not everyone has that skill.
Keep reading for an in-depth guide on what matters most when you’re choosing best opportunity, high-ROI keywords. (The answer, surprisingly, is decidedly not keyword search volume.)
Keyword Search Volume: The Skinny
Everyone wants that coveted top organic #1, #2, or #3 hit in Google.
However, what you may not realize is top brands have already cornered those keywords. This includes multi-million-dollar corporations. These are brands you are not going to be able to compete with, especially if you’re a small business.
What do those top-ranking keywords look like?
Nine times out of 10, they’re broad keywords – short phrases that aren’t specific. For example: “cake,” “baking,” and “baking cakes.”
If you’re a small-town baker and you try to rank for these terms, you’ll be out of luck. Instead, you may find yourself competing with the likes of Cooking Light, Food Network, and Epicurious.
Let’s face it – you’re never going to win, here.
So, what can you do, instead? What’s the smarter strategy?
For good results for your particular business, you don’t need high traffic from high search volume keywords. Instead, you need the right traffic.
Forget Search Volume – Get the Right Traffic with High-Converting Keywords
Throw search volume out the window for now. Yes, it was once the be-all, end-all of keywords, but nothing in this world is static, right?
I’m not saying search volume is completely irrelevant. But, I am urging you to look at other avenues for driving people to your site.
Let’s start by defining what we mean when we talk about the “right” traffic.
You’ll have an easier time converting customers if they’re in an ideal state of the buying process. This is the “right” traffic – the people who are looking for you, but don’t yet realize you exist. If they knew you existed, they would be ready to jump on board and fish for their wallets.
Broad keywords do not drive this kind of traffic to your site.
What will?
Long tail keywords!
Long tail Keywords: Specificity and Relevancy for Search
Long tail keywords are just that: longer, more specific, and relevant to the customer’s needs.
For instance, a person who needs a specific type of cake will not search for “cake.” Instead, they might search for “wedding cake chocolate swirl Rhode Island.” Or, “birthday cake yellow with sprinkles.” A search string that is becoming even more common might look like this: “Where can I get a yellow birthday cake with chocolate frosting in Rhode Island?”
All of these have a few things in common, though they vary in subject matter. The people searching know what type of cake they want and where they want to get it. If you’re a baker and you optimize your site for long tail keywords like this, you’ll strike gold.
Why? Because long tail keywords have less competition than their broad counterparts. You have a far better chance of ranking for “wedding cake chocolate swirl Rhode Island” than “cake.”
Plus, customers use long tail keywords like this when they have a higher buying intent. They know what they’re looking for, what they need, or what they want. If you have it, there’s a very good chance you’ll close the deal.
Basically, these keywords fall right into your sweet spot for driving traffic.
Take a look at the brands who have successfully ranked for the above long tail keyword example. There’s only one multi-million-dollar corporation on this list (Ben & Jerry’s). The rest are small bakeries or boutique shops. That’s the power of the long tail keyword in action.
How Do You Choose the Right Long Tail Keywords?
According to Search Engine Journal (SEJ), one of the keys to driving conversions from search results is to engage people at the perfect time. It’s a two-way street. Their intent needs to match up with the keyword, and the keyword needs to be relative to their intent.
This is that sweet spot we mentioned earlier. Hit it, and you’ll see ROI.
Here are some other keys for choosing the best long tail keywords for you. They have to do with relevancy and uniqueness.
1. Relevancy, Relevancy, Relevancy
When a keyword is relevant to you, it ties back to your particular brand. This includes what you do, who you are, where you’re located, or what you sell.
The relevance of your keywords is the brunt of what makes long tail types work. If you’re not using relevant long tails, you won’t be taking advantage of their conversion power.
2. Use What Makes You Stand Out (Your Differentiation Factor)
A highly unique keyword could net you a buyer every time someone searches for it. Wow! That’s a BIG deal.
At the same time, that particular keyword could have next to no search volume because of its uniqueness.
Fact: this is common for keywords with good opportunities.
In other words, it’s not a problem because the conversion value is so high. The more unique your keyword, the more you’re targeting a specific buyer – the one looking to pull the trigger and make the purchase!
These types of keywords don’t work well for everyone – but they work great for you. The opportunity is personal, and that’s a big bonus.
Why Broad, Short Tail Keywords Are on the Way Out
Short tail keywords do have their uses. They haven’t gone the way of VCRs and rotary phones – they aren’t relics quite yet.
They’re good for optimizing basic pages on your site. Your “about us” page is a fine example. Over time, your long tail keyword content can help improve your rankings for those general terms. Your content will build authority, and that can give your general pages a boost.
Time, however, is the clincher here. For keywords with tough competition, it may take years for you to crack the top 100, let alone the top 50.
Ranking shouldn’t be your main concern, anyway.
Ranking for broad terms may drive traffic, but it won’t drive traffic that converts.
Instead, you’ll get a mix of people at all different stages of the buying cycle. Some, if not most, will not need what you’re offering. Neil Patel has an excellent chart that shows the difference:
As the chart shows, people who are looking to browse will use the broadest keywords of all: “Las Vegas,” “spyware,” and “television.”
Meanwhile, the people looking to buy tend to use the most specific terms possible: “Panasonic 43’ Plasma TV HVD3002 best price.” That’s one hefty long tail. You can tell this buyer is locked and loaded.
Draw the Locked and Loaded Buyer – Not the “Just Browsing” Variety
According to Forbes, a few years ago, most businesses online attempted to target small numbers of “sort-of” relevant keywords. These were traffic-drivers alone, and it worked well enough.
Now things have changed. There are millions more people online, and close to a billion websites. The competition to rank for broad keywords is more cut-throat than ever. In fact, it’s nearly impossible unless you’re a huge corporation or you pay.
You can rank well, and organically, for long tail keywords. These aren’t searched as often, but the people who do are far more likely to buy from you.
Who would you rather guide to your site – the casual browser, or that buyer who’s locked, loaded, and ready to whip out their credit card, because you’ve got what they need?
So, when it comes to keywords, redirect your focus.
Switch your tactics – shake things up.
The times, they are a-changin’, as Bob Dylan so eloquently put it. Pretty soon, short tail keywords may be thrown out with the bathwater. The long tail is the future of keywords.
Are you ready?
To start building your path towards more high rankings with long tail keyword-optimized content, Express Writers can help. Take a peek at our custom blog plans or content planning to see what we can do.
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