Social Media Optimization

Even though more than a few people are learning to use social media effectively, and social media consultants are popping up like weeds; most are not incorporating Basic SEO 101 tactics and thus leaving an enormous amount of money on the table... money that's not going into the clients cash registers.



Local Google Advertising
If you, as a social media consultant, want to use your social media skills to "get your small business client" represented on social media, that's great. Every business would benefit from having a web presence, having a web presence is much better than not having one. If that local business is wanting to get more customers, more inquiries, more leads, make the phone ring to put more money in their cash registers: they need to use these two tools:

1. social media
2. web presence

But use them towards the aim of Local Google Advertising.
By itself having a twitter account for your company or your clients company (and NOT SEO optimizing it for local Google search results) is NOT likely to put much money in the cash register for your client.
Having a company Facebook page for your client and not SEO optimizing it for local Google advertising is NOT going to have that company Facebook page show up in local Google search results... just being on Facebook isnt' gonna pull that off... Having a company Facebook page CAN produce local Google advertising IF you use Basic SEO 101 Tactics.
Basic SEO
Google Ranking How and Why
Everybody wants to be #1 in Google, that goes without saying, attempting to be #1 nationwide for a broad search phrase (aka keywords, search phrases are keywords) is going to take a whole lot of work (@$100 per hour which is what our SEO/ Social Media Optimization in Frederick Md team charges)
Some social media people think it's all about creating a sense of participation within a social network community. That is ONE good reason to participate in social media but to combine social media with SEO is one killer marketing combination.
So how does one Optimize their social media for SEO?
Treat each social profile you get a profile on as if it were a page within your website's domain. The titles you use for each blog post, for each graphic or photo you upload has to be the keywords you want that company to show up in Google search results for.
The same thing you do to SEO a website can be done to SEO a social networking profile!
You've got to choose which keywords you want to be found under, and often what the business owners *thinks* he or she wants to be found under and what their prospective clients are really typing to to find what they want to purchase have little in common.
Here's a "for example"
A doctor or a lawyer or plumber or landscape company would like very much to represent to their prospective customers that they are the sole provider of said service in a geographical area.
Customers are not stupid. No one searches for lawyer, the search for lawyerS plural they want to choose from a field of companies, they are NOT looking for just one.
You're much better off getting a SEO client to do keyword research for you than a social networking consultant. We charge $100 per hour of keyword strategizing and keyword research.
Google organic search results update roughly every 6 weeks, There is a finite quantity of Google Juice available to any one site at any given time.
... therefore we advise you choose no more than 3 keyword phrases for a 6 week period
When you Google your company name you *should* also see your company twitter and company Facebook and a few other social media profiles right next to your Google listing for your company website.
Increasingly, we're finding out, where a large part of the ROI in social media is when the keyword phrases your company needs to show up in Google for is filled not ONLY with your company website but ALSO in the same Google search results page your prospective clients see your company Facebook page and your company twitter and so on and so on...
Effective Area Denial
There are only 10 open slots in any Google organic search results page, if your company occupies 4 or 5 of the 10 available... that means your competition has to fight over the few you left open.