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Boost Your Digital PR & Marketing Skills with Social Media Optimization

social media optimization PRSA 2011By now you know I’m as sold as one can be on the intersection of Social Media, SEO and Content Marketing. It’s the essence of the core principles of information Discovery, Consumption and Engagement that I talk about in Optimize and at conferences like PRSA International in Orlando this week.

Information production, sharing and consumption is accelerating faster than marketers (or consumers) can keep up with. A lot of that information is user generated content from social sharing and networking sites. Internet Marketers have long been savvy about creating, optimizing and promoting content that’s findable and relevant for target audiences.  Marketers aren’t the only corporate departments creating content in need of an audience though.

Public Relations, Media Relations, Corporate Communications, Investor Relations and many other groups part of corporate MarCom publish content to the web. Audiences may vary, from journalists and reporters doing story research to investors and potential business partners. Increasingly, PR departments are publishing direct to consumer news content, ala “brand as publisher”.

My presentation at PRSA International in Orlando focused on how PR practitioners can realize the emerging opportunities for shifts in consumer information trends, how PR content can be optimized and socialized, tools to scale and practical social media optimization tactics to elevate search visibility of social media and social news content. Here’s the embedded deck from Slideshare:

Here are the specific SEO tactics for social media in this presentation and links to other more in-depth articles on those topics:

Kikolani has some great social content SEO tips posted recently as well.

Also, here are the tools mentioned in the presentation:

  • RavenTools – Paid tool. For basic SEO project management & reporting.
  • SocialMention – Free social media search engine and social topic search tool.
  • Google Keywords Tool – Free. Basic tool for researching which words/phrases are most used on Google and how competitive they are.
  • Google Insights – Free. Shows trends and comparison of keyword phrase popularity (interest) over time plus geographic information.
  • Ubersuggest – Free. Handy tool that makes Google autocomplete suggested search phrases usable. Works for Google.com and Google News queries.
  • Scribe – Paid tool. WordPress plugin and standalone web service that provides real-time feedback on article keyword optimization.
  • Majestic SEO – Paid tool. Think of this as a clipping report for links, including information about quantity, quality and type. Has a historical feature that’s quite handy for trending.
  • SEMRush – Paid tool. Want to know what your site or your competitors’ sites are ranking for organically on Google? And their pay per click ads? This is the tool. Also has a trending and comparison feature.

There are many, many more Social Media Optimization and straight SEO tools out there – certainly many more that are advanced, private or for enterprise sized sites. These are basic, easy to use tools that are free or low cost that Public Relations and Communications professionals can use to optimize their news and social content for better keyword relevancy. More relevant (and links) means better visibility in search and a better user experience.

Thanks to PRSA for another great International conference!

About Lee Odden

@LeeOdden is the CEO of TopRank Marketing and editor of TopRank's B2B Marketing Blog. Cited for his expertise by The Economist, Forbes and the Wall Street Journal, he's the author of the book Optimize and presents internationally on B2B marketing topics including content, search, social media and influencer marketing. When not at conferences, consulting, or working with his talented team, he's likely running, traveling or cooking up something new.

Comments

  3. DC Marketing says

    Nice article. I am bookmarking this. Thanks for sharing the SEO tactics for social media and  putting together the links. Very helpful. 🙂

  6. Aaronjones079cv says

    i agree. there is a marketing strategy through social community building. it is really effective though. that is introducing your site to a group of people.. like in social networking sites.. many will hear about your site. if your site offers what they need so they will have the chance to test your product. 

  9. Robert Rupp says

    Thanks for the insights! I have tried a bit of social media marketing but of course its much more difficult to predict a user response than simple SEO.  I will try to use some of this information for good purpose.  Wish me luck!

  10. Ninna Stolarczyk says

    Thank you for sharing this post – great insights! I often meet companies that have been
    offline for so long that even though they have online activities, they often tend to limit their activities online because they tend to focus offline. I think that getting a more online mindset in general, would benefit a lot of companies as I think this is a major factor in online success and visibility! – and as you point out – many companies already have great content they just don’t share it or make it too complex if they do!

  12. Neteffects says

    Thanks for sharing another great post Lee!  Raventools and Majestic seo are my personal faves.  There are very convenient and useful in social media optimization process.

  13. SuzyChand says

    This
    is a fantastic resource, thanks for publishing. Another great set of
    free   browser based tools for managing online reputation along the
    lines of IceRocket and Social Mention but more instant are
    http://www.goodnewsbadnews.info/ and http://www.brandfight.info/ by Connexor.
    I use them whenever we have cleint pitches to do quick research on brand..the
    UI is really simple, and instant and the graphs very intuitive. Worth
    checking out if you’re after something that does what it says on the tin.