Feeling a little lost online? Make your content discover-worthy using tools like influencer marketing, SEO/SEM, and social media planning correctly.
Are you struggling to get your business noticed? By shifting emphasis from a pushy outbound marketing strategy to a discoverable inbound marketing strategy, you’ll see a big difference with the right tactics. By effectively using a variety of important marketing mediums, including off-site content—such as social media, influencer engagement, and directory management—you can court a customer from a distance back to your on-site, search engine-optimized content. When it comes down to it, your content can be made “discoverable” by getting all of your digital marketing ducks in a row.
Starting an Influencer Marketing Strategy
An influencer can be identified as someone that is well-known and respected within your industry, well-known and respected within your target audience, or both. The idea behind building an influencer marketing strategy is to capture attention using that influencer’s voice or contribution, which in turn helps break down the wall of resistance some consumers have to traditionally loud marketing and advertising. Drawn in by the presence of someone they already follow and engage with, consumers are more likely to listen to your message if it is shared by an influencer.
Be aware that brand-influencer relationships can’t be a one-way street; HootSuite cautions companies that they need to bring something to the bargaining table when courting an influencer. What can you offer up to kick-start your partnership? Make a concrete list of benefits you have to offer in trade. If you’re working with a digital marketing agency, ask them for advice on building an influencer marketing strategy and what it would take to get those individuals to advocate for you.
Reinforcing Your Off-Site Brand Image
Your on-site content is likely very flattering to your brand, emphasizing the unique value proposition most likely to drive conversions. However, it’s only effective if a customer actually finds your website. 67% of a customer’s interaction with a brand happens off-site, which means that most people are learning about you by reading your social media profiles, online reviews, directory listings, etc. before they ever contact you.
To manage your off-site reputation successfully, take ownership of your brand on the platforms your target audience is using. This may include Facebook, Yelp, YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Angie’s List, LinkedIn, Yellow Pages, and more. This active management of your brand image is especially important for local businesses, as you will rely on local reviews to reinforce your reputation. Take the following steps to get started:
- Go through every profile and online listing you have to make sure all of the content is correct. If it’s not, correct it!
- Make sure each profile or listing has a link back to your website.
- Make sure your website has links to these pages.
- Start posting content to these pages consistently. Mix it up so you are posting about current events in your industry as well as what’s going on within your company.
- Respond to reviews, both negative and positive.
Taking initiative by starting the off-site conversations yourself will also drown out negative or slanderous content from a few bad eggs that could potentially damage your brand. Penning your own off-site content will also allow you to use Google-pleasing keyword concentration, giving you an additional touchpoint in your search engine management (SEM) efforts.
Utilizing SEO/SEM to Your Advantage
By now, you know that content is key to a successful digital marketing strategy. That’s because the first place where consumers start their research today is a search engine. Is your keyword strategy lacking? You have to consistently produce SEO-focused content to make yourself more discoverable. If you are ranking for a keyword this week, you may not be two weeks from now if you stop producing content optimized for that keyword.
Remember, however, not to keyword-stuff: use your target keywords across everything you “own” on- and off-site, but provide value behind the keywords. Your SEO/SEM efforts will not go unnoticed by search engines if you’re giving online searchers the content they want and need.
Breaking Through With Social Media
Know this: Not all uses of social media are necessarily “good” ones. Companies that use a set-it-and-forget-it strategy of delivering automated, endless daily posts about themselves are setting up their profile to be ignored. Business Insider points out that Facebook users typically spend more than 20 minutes a day browsing their newsfeed; if you’re struggling to capture a minute or two of that time, maybe it’s time to inject a little more personality and variety into your content. Scan social media sites for mentions of your name (@YourBrandName) or hashtags (#YourMostImportantServiceOffering) at least once a day, and respond with agility to compliments, complaints, and questions.
Note that Twitter also now has a partnership with Google, so your tweets and your followers’ tweets could end up in SERPs for queries pertinent to your business. Make sure the conversations surrounding your target keywords are ones in which you are actively involved.
Ready to supercharge your digital marketing efforts? Make your business more discoverable by talking to a digital marketing agency like Scale. Call 501-588-3199 to learn more about influencer marketing today.
