9 Steps to Your Social Strategy: Step 2 - Keywords & Hashtags

9 Steps to Your Social Strategy: Step 2 - Keywords & Hashtags

Which Keywords and Hashtags do you want everyone using?

Now that you know how you are going to measure your success, which platforms you are going to use, and who is going to be following you, people need to find your posts, and you need to choose your keywords.  Keywords are an important variable in how people find your online world. 

Keywords

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We need to figure out what keywords your customers will most likely be using in search engines to find a product or service similar to yours. A great way to find out what keywords you should be using is by simply asking some of your favourite clients what keywords they would use to search for your business in Google. Once you have determined what relevant keywords apply to your business, you can start lacing your keywords in all of your posts, tweets, online descriptions, categories and other searchable elements, whether on websites, in social networking profiles, blogs or other online presences. Your content needs to be keyword rich.

Proper use of keywords, labels and tags are very important for you to be found online. They help the search engines match you up with your target audience. Use the same keywords for your website, landing pages, online ads, online groups, Facebook pages, Facebook profiles, LinkedIn profiles, YouTube channels, and online directories.

Now that we have determined what keywords you will be using to make your business found on search engines, it is time to start a Google Adwords campaign! First we need to open up the Google Keyword Planner (if you do not have a gmail account, now is the time to make one). Now you want to sign in and create a campaign, from here you will enter how much you want to spend per day on google's advertising, how much you are willing to pay per click to your website (Google can maximize results for you, or you can manually set this) you will be able to choose where you want your link to appear, and the keywords you want to use to have your ad show up on Google.

For the keywords section of this, Google can suggest similar keywords to the ones you have come up with, or you can stick to your original keywords. When you type in your keywords into the Keywords Planner, it will show you how many times this keyword is searched for in a months time frame. 

Hashtags 

If you are a local store, and you’ve decided to use Twitter or Instagram as one of your online marketing platforms, you’ll want to find out at least which hashtag your local tourism or twitter community use to identity your city and some hashtags to identify your products or services if appropriate.  

In a community, when you all use the same local unique hashtag to identify your location, it makes the collective very powerful online. You can all collectively listen and engage with your current and potential clients. You definitely need to educate your staff to use the correct local hashtag in the appropriate Tweets’ or Instagrams’ you’d like to showcase in your community’s search results.    

In the following example, this person tweets how much they enjoyed their meal in London Ontario by using the #LdnOnt hashtag, she mention’s the Café’s handle as well. Immediately the café she mentions gets notified, and they retweet it. Now in addition, the local Tourism or any local London foodie might now also see it and choose to retweet it.

You have the tools now to grow your business and expand your reach, try choosing your own hasthags and keywords that will suit your organization!