Oddly enough, both small and large companies often have problems getting their digital marketing strategies to effectively integrate SEO, social media and content marketing. More often than not, this is because key stakeholders don’t understand how these three pillars of effective online marketing work together. Have one or two but not all three, and an online strategy that could sizzle will fizzle.
Don’t believe me? Consider this:
- Company A invests in killer content that positions their business as industry experts who have unique insights that they know their competitors can’t match. Awesome! But then they don’t invest in an equally killer social campaign to promote their content, so instead of getting hundreds of leads, they get a handful.
- Company B puts together an SEO attack plan that targets critical keywords and phrases that should crush their competition. Yes! But then they don’t back up their plan with a sound social strategy that gets SERP-boosting backlinks from social media must-haves like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
- Company C creates a smart, fun social media campaign that rates a 10 on the click-bait scale. It’s so effective, in fact, that 50% of people exposed to it click through to their site. Boom! But the campaign ultimately fails because they didn’t invest in equally rockin’ content for their website, so none of the click-throughs turns into leads.
What do these companies all have in common? They all had digital marketing strategies that failed to pay off because although they each had great parts, they didn’t consider how each part impacts the whole.
The Online Marketing Circle of Life
There are three steps that nearly every successful digital marketing campaign follows:
Create ► Optimize ► Promote
- Create high-quality content that is relevant and will resonate with your target audience.
- Optimize your content using sound SEO strategy. (No black-hat tactics!)
- Promote your content using social media.
What do you do after that? The same thing. Do these three things repeatedly and consistently, and your digital marketing can do great things. If you’ve got great, optimized content, social media can help you both get the exposure it deserves and build up a solid backlink portfolio. Plus, great content paired with the exposure that social media offers can position you or your company as an industry expert and thought leader.
Why You Can’t Forget the Social
For a long time, just having the right keywords at the right ratios was pretty much enough to give websites the SERP results needed for success, but that’s no longer the case. And for those who are knee-deep in SEO and the technical aspects of search engine optimization, it can be easy to forget how important social is in the equation. Before you dismiss social as irrelevant to SEO, remember:
- Social media creates backlinks, which is good news for SEO.
- Google factors in social media influence, which is based on social signals like Facebook posts, shares and Tweets.
- If you’ve got great content, social media can help you do the “heavy lifting” of promoting it and getting it out there long after you’ve stopped actively promoting it.
Ready to add social media to your digital marketing mix? Call us at 414-208-0700 or fill out our contact form today for a free consultation!
