5 Tips To Use Social Media To Boost SEO
- Increase content quality
- Make content sharing easy
- Make your social media profile stand out
- Optimize visuals
- Write compelling captions
As in-person marketing methods are quickly becoming a thing of the past, medical device manufacturers have begun shifting a larger portion of their marketing dollars to digital channels promising a greater ROI. As a result, more Medtech companies implement marketing campaigns via email, social media, and other digital channels than a few years ago. These companies understand the importance of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM), the value of paid advertising, and content marketing. However, most of them struggle to bring it all together, create a comprehensive marketing strategy, and leave out critical tactics, resulting in unrealized potential business opportunities. One such tactic is using social media to improve SEO.
Yes, Social Media Impacts SEO - Here Is How
It is not by mistake that social media is the number one channel marketers are leveraging in 2022. However, most med device marketers are unaware that social media can deliver even more value by improving their site's organic traffic and search engine rankings. Unfortunately, by not making the connection, they implement social media and SEO strategies independently from each other, missing out on an effective method of boosting their SEO performance. Learning how to use social media to effect SEO can help increase the chances of appearing in search results.
Although social media does not directly affect SEO, it indirectly impacts some elements that play a role in search rankings. For instance, sharing links to your content across social media platforms can drive traffic to your site, extend the lifespan of your blog posts, increase your brand recognition and boost your online visibility.
Content Is At The Center Of Social Media For SEO
Publishing consistent, original, high-value content is at the core of this strategy. When you offer surgeons whitepapers, case studies, reports, and eBooks they can use to educate themselves, their peers, and patients, they will naturally share them with their social media followers, driving more traffic to your site. This is why posting links to your most valuable content on social media is an excellent strategy to help increase organic traffic, generate backlinks, and increase brand visibility. So consider posting links to your podcasts, medical device explainer videos, and infographics on LinkedIn, Twitter, or other social media platforms most used by your audience to positively impact your SEO performance.
Pro tip:Videos are the most popular content formats in 2022, with the highest ROI. In the context of social channels, video format is prioritized and ranked higher than posts with images, which are ranked higher than text-only posts. Thus they are promoted, which makes them more visible. Social channels have moved away from showing all content in your feed chronologically and instead decide "what" content to show based on the perceived relevance and engagement of the post itself. So why not include medical explainer videos, demo videos, and 3D medical animations into your content marketing strategy and see how they impact your SEO?
5 Tips To Use Social Media To Boost SEO
As you can see, social media and SEO are interconnected. Don’t underestimate the traffic that comes from social media channels. Instead, begin tracking your social media campaign performance and improve it to turn social media into a source of quality traffic. Those in the know invest heavily in social media marketing, using it to their benefit to move up the search rankings.
Here are our top tips to make social media work for you to improve your SEO.
1.) Increase Your Content Quality
As mentioned above, content is truly king when using social media for SEO. Although search engine algorithms are quite complex, the bottom line is that they want to ensure searchers are satisfied with their search results - which is why they place particular emphasis on intent, relevance, and quality. With that said, your content must:
- Answer the searcher's questions (intent)
- Be clear and relevant with a high on-page SEO (relevance)
- Show expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (quality)
Finally, avoid keyword stuffing and create helpful, well-researched, evidence-based content.
2.) Make Content Sharing Easy
The most widely used social media platform among doctors and surgeons is LinkedIn. They are there to network, share information and stay on top of industry news and trends. Encourage your audience - including your website visitors and social media followers - to share your content. Include social share buttons with your blog posts and compelling CTAs with your social media posts.
3.) Make Your Social Media Profile Stand Out
Most Medtech marketers are unaware that lack of profile optimization adversely affects social media's use for SEO. It is a good idea to review your social media profiles and optimize them to make it easy for your target audience to find you. Don't forget that maintaining consistency across all channels is also critical. You can achieve that by aligning your social media profile with your brand message and website. Finally, be creative as you craft your profile and make it compelling. You can apply the same concepts if you are in charge of your company's social media profile.
4.) Optimize Your Visuals
Science has proven that the human brain processes images 60,000 times faster than text. In addition, 90 percent of information transmitted to the brain is visual. It is also worth noting that, according to research, pages with images or videos draw an average of 94 percent more views than their text-only counterparts. As a result, visuals are powerful content marketing tools that many Medtech marketers use with great success. Just make sure you optimize them for SEO and social media. Doing so can make videos and images vital to your SEO success.
Here are a few tips to make sure your images are formatted correctly:
- Decrease file size to speed up load time
- Use keywords in image file names
- Make your images responsive
- Use keywords in alt text and title text
5.) Write Compelling Social Media Captions
Use storytelling to break through the digital noise and capture your audience's attention. Telling a compelling story enables you to do just that and engage your followers on an emotional level. Your goal should be to hook your target market and encourage them to click or share your post. Keep your SEO focus in mind, and use keywords in your captions.
What Should You Do Next?
Start by increasing your content quality if you are ready to take your social media strategy to the next level and use it to boost your SEO performance. Develop a content marketing calendar to plan your blogs, videos, whitepapers, podcasts, eBooks, and special reports. Then create your social media calendar and decide on the social media platforms you want to use and the frequency of your posts. Be consistent and keep posting links on social media. Rest assured, Google uses these social links to help index your blog/posts, which can lead to more search traffic and improved rankings.
