Leveraging Social Media for SEO / SEM

The CEO & CMO’s Guide to Social Media ROI
How Listening and Engagement Leads to a Better Social Media ROI

LEVERAGING
SOCIAL MEDIA
FOR SEARCH
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MARKETING T TER
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A Guide to Integrating Social OFIL
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Media With SEO/SEM

© 2011 MutualMind
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Leveraging Social Media for Search Engine Marketing
A Guide to Integrating Social Media with SEO/SEM

brand site, improve your search engine
Abstract marketing, boost conversion rates, and

I
n the good old days, interactive marketing
create a cohesive brand experience
was about using online ads to drive traffic to
across all channels.
your website. Yesterday’s banner and pop-up

1
ads evolved into today’s search placement
strategies and now includes both search engine A Brief History of
marketing (SEM) and search engine Online Marketing
optimization (SEO). Interactive marketing has
been complicated by the addition and First came the website. It’s a necessity.
exponential growth of social media, including After all, how else can your customers find
blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, your company online?
and more. Next came the means by which to drive
To create a strong online brand image, you traffic to the website: first with un-
need a comprehensive mix of all the right targeted banner and pop-up ads, and
elements, including a robust later, with more effective, keyword-based
brand website, aggressive ads designed to reach targeted users
search engine marketing, and on search engines like Google,
social media pages with Yahoo!, and MSN. These search
engaged audiences. placements evolved into search
More importantly, engine marketing (SEM), pay-per-
you need an click ads that appear in
integrated strategy search engine results
that addresses all pages (SERPs), and
these areas. search engine
optimization
Sure, you’ve been
(SEO): the
spending on search
process of crafting
and you’ve embraced social
your webpages to
media, but are all the elements of your
interactive marketing coming improve visibility
and page-rank
together to work effectively for you?
within the organic
For most marketers, these elements have SERPs. Interactive marketing
been compartmentalized into designated silos has become more complicated with the
with separate messages, promotions, and even exponential growth of social media, and
different “languages”. In this paper, you’ll see presents new challenges to maintaining
why interactive integration is imperative and brand status and consumer awareness.
how to leverage social for best business results
In general, though, you feel good about
– results that can increase the traffic to your
your interactive marketing.

© 2011 MutualMind 2


!
Your%interactive%marketing%efforts%should%be%fully%integrated%to%maximize%your%ROI.%%
!

2
Your web designers manage the brand
website. Your SEM firm or team manages your Why integrate
PPC campaigns and facilitates both off-site and SEO, SEM & Social?
on-site SEO, creating new content, posting You’ve embraced social media as a
product news in your company’s and other marketing tool, but have you made the
relevant blogs, and including back-links to your connections between those media
product website. Lastly, you have a social and your search engine marketing?
media manager who maintains your
With the help of today’s social media
Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts, all of
monitoring software, you can leverage
which have a substantial number of friends,
your social media efforts to improve your
followers and connections, respectively. These
search engine marketing, increase the
profiles are consistently updated with new
traffic to your brand’s website, generate
product information, industry news, promotional
higher conversion rates, and create a
offers and opportunities for your customers to
cohesive brand experience across all
ask questions and offer input on your products
these channels.
and services.
Consider a few of Google’s Top 10
You have a comprehensive mix of all the
Ranking Factors and how the proliferation
elements necessary to create a strong online
of social media can influence a search
brand image, but there’s still a problem. All of
engine’s organic search results:
these elements have been
compartmentalized into their designated • High Quality Links - Blogs, Facebook
silos. While the independent metrics seem posts, Tweets and YouTube Shares are
promising, you still aren’t sure how one element littered with links. These links are
embedded with and/or surrounded by
of the interactive marketing mix affects the
topic-relevant keywords: depending on
others.1 And therein lies the problem.
the context, they can bestow significant
You wouldn’t let your offline marketing credibility—think News-source blogs or
campaign launch before you carefully Influential industry leaders’ profiles.
coordinated the print ads, TV and radio spots, • Keyword in the Domain Name - A no-
point of purchase materials and direct mail to brainer for anyone who has created an
ensure they’re presenting a cohesive brand account on Facebook or Twitter: you
experience. So why do the various elements can actually elect to have your social
of your interactive marketing operate media domain contain the name of your
business, your slogan or your unique
independently? Why is the association of your
selling proposition.
“brand” and a common medium the only thing
that ties them together? • Unique, Optimized Content - Content
is key when it comes to SEM, and with



an infinite amount of space and millions of Ranking Factors (SRF) conducted by
content creators who maintain blogs and SEOmoz, it was found that Page Level
regularly investigate developments in their Social Metrics weigh in at 7.22% of SRFs.
field, social media far outpaces traditional More to the point, the experts surveyed in
content providers in uncovering the latest and
the SEOmoz study predicted that Social
greatest on the web.
Signals, both at the Page Level and the
• On-Page Optimization – While social media Domain Level, will continue to increase
marketers have no control over the domain
in importance in the coming years. As
hosting or meta tags on the back-end of their
Google and Bing place higher levels of
social profiles and pages, they can pack
keywords into the content, photo captions, importance on the influence of these
and links found within the site. growing media, it’s easy to see why
integrating your search and social
Social media can do much more than simply
marketing initiatives will soon become
affecting the results of a search engine.
imperative in order to maintain the status
As one example, Facebook’s recent integration of your online brand.
efforts have resulted in “social sharing”
Search engine marketing campaigns
buttons across over 2.5 million websites.
can be difficult to get started. Selecting
These buttons allow visitors to instantly share
the keywords and keyword phrases for
purchases online content, promotions and
which to optimize and purchase on a pay-
videos with their Facebook friends. More
per-click basis is easier said than done.
importantly for marketers, this integration lets
Marketers often have a handful of
visitors place an inbound link from Facebook to
keywords and keyword phrases that they
any article, content or purchase they “like”. This
associate with their brand, products, and
lets social media users actually contribute to
services, but these terms may not be
your search engine optimization without ever
very relevant to the brand in the
leaving your website. Facebook has provided a
consumers’ minds.
way for your brand to receive free search
engine optimization from the very customers If the marketer’s set of keywords have a
you are trying to reach! low search volume, then it is likely that
their customers find their site with entirely
Despite the often-rocky relationship between
different search terms. Conversely, if the
the online powerhouses, Google, the world’s
keywords have a very high search volume,
largest search engine, could hardly ignore the
as is common in very competitive verticals,
force behind the Facebook phenomenon. This
the number of search terms, the ad
recognition is reflected in recent changes to the
position, and/or the number of
search algorithms at Google as well as
impressions delivered per search may be
Microsoft’s new search engine, Bing. Both
limited by budget or the sheer volume of
search engines now take social media
competition.
signals into consideration when ranking sites
on their SERPs. In a 2011 survey of Search Finding the most relevant mix of keywords



and phrases, which have
both sufficient search
volume and offer an
efficient cost-per-click,
can prove costly and time
consuming. This is one area
where social media, if
correctly monitored, can
prove invaluable to the Having accurate, up-to-the-minute keyword analysis helps uncover related
questions and topics your customers are interested in. Source: MutualMind.
process. The organic
conversations taking place
on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and blogs are
teeming with the keywords and phrases your
customers and your competitors’ customers
use in their everyday communication when
3 Boost Your SEM
With Social Media
Monitoring social media mentions of your
brand as well as your competitors’ is a
referring to brands, products and services.
strong starting point for search engine
“Listening” to these conversations provides an
marketing. While search volume sources
array of relevant keywords that will serve as
like Google AdWords will show you the
a great starting point for an SEM campaign.
highest-volume and most-frequent
According to eMarketer.com, many companies keywords in your industry, those same
are looking to achieve a greater return on keywords and phrases are the most
investment in their paid advertising efforts, and competitive—and therefore the most
are embracing the integration strategy in order expensive—to purchase on a PPC basis.
to maintain a cohesive brand experience They are also the most difficult to “rank
across all of their media channels. This trend for” by using SEO strategies. However,
should start with the integration of social media monitoring social media mentions of your
and search marketing. By monitoring online products and brands (as well as those of
“buzz” through social media monitoring your competitors) provides a wealth of
technology, you’ll be able to tailor your search quantitative data to lay the groundwork for
marketing to changes in the way your your SEM strategy. Your search engine
customers discuss your brand online, including marketing takes on a new level of
social media mentions, keyword search volume, relevance when you can match your SEO
and more. You’ll also be able to see customer and PPC campaigns to authentic
response to new advertising, promotions, and language that’s already being used in
product launches in real-time—and be able to reference to your products and product
quickly avoid costly mistakes and category.
inappropriate marketing strategies.
Social media provides a wealth of new
data that can be harvested directly from



the customers you hope to reach and engines alter their SERPs to account for
whose loyalty you seek. Unlike traditional search social media, it’s clear that having a
marketing references, social media provides strong social media presence can only
help your brand’s ranking—and will be
both quantitative and qualitative data. While even more important in the future.
consumers may frequently associate a
• Measures Brand Experience Across
particular keyword or keyword phrase with your Multiple Channels. This lets you view
brand, if the sentiment is negative, it would be the full scope of your marketing efforts
counterproductive to optimize for that keyword. and understand how they’re being seen
Sentiment patterns found in social media by others—giving you the ability to make
quick, precise adjustments to your
monitoring can indicate alternative keywords or marketing strategy.
phrases associated with more positive
• Measures Market “Buzz” for
consumer sentiment. Specific Products & Services. Social
media lets you discover exactly how

4 Maximize the ROI your customers feel about your products
—even opening up opportunities to
of Search + Social provide great customer service or
By using social media effectively, you can uncover issues before they escalate.
significantly boost the performance of your • Competitive Intelligence. A high-
performance social media monitoring
search engine marketing. Using the right kind of
platform will also let you investigate the
social media monitoring tools will help you keywords and phrases your competitors
streamline and refine the integration of your are using—allowing you to use their
Search and Social efforts and lead to a better market research for your own campaign.

5
ROI for both.
Social media monitoring has many benefits How MutualMind
for businesses of any size. These include: Can Help
MutualMind Removes Noise To Find
• Keyword and Keyword Phrase Insights.
Social media can help identify relevant Actionable Information.
keywords with less competition—saving MutualMind, an enterprise social media
money with every click.
management system, lets companies drill
• Authenticity & Relevancy. Social media
down on specific keywords as they
monitoring will let you pick up on the
language used in natural conversation online appear across social media channels. The
—leading to meaningful campaigns and unique filtering system sorts through
promotions your customers appreciate. thousands of brand mentions and quickly
• Keyword Tracking… Before Spending On categorizes them by keyword, channel,
PPC. Social media analytics let you test out and consumer sentiment—saving the time
keywords and see what works before starting
and effort of manually sorting and
a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign.
analyzing each of your social media
• Improves SERP Ranking, Even As
Algorithms Change. As the major search channels.



MutualMind Combines Quantitative and
Qualitative Information into Useful Reports.
Key Takeaways
MutualMind’s customizable reports show you
not only the frequency with which your brand, • Integration of Search Engine
Marketing and Social Media is
products, keywords and services are
imperative.
mentioned, but also determines the sentiment
in which they were referenced, on a per-channel • Monitoring Social Media is the
basis. These reports can help show you where first step to integrating your
to apply future efforts to improve your interactive marketing.
interactive brand experience.
• Your Social Media success
MutualMind Detects Search Patterns. directly affects the success of
your Search Engine Marketing.
In a real-time monitoring study of the 2011
Super Bowl ad spots, MutualMind software was • Social Media Monitoring
able to immediately determine which ads software, such as MutualMind,
garnered the most “buzz,” see how many provide quantitative and
mentions each ad received, and ascertain qualitative data that can be
whether the sentiment behind the brand and used to improve your Search
campaign mentions was positive, negative or Engine Marketing Strategy.
neutral. When applied to a specific brand, this • Full integration of your
powerful listening capability allows ad agencies marketing efforts will improve
to make adjustments in ad length, tag lines or your search engine marketing,
other edits that will generate more “buzz”— increase traffic to your brand
leading to a significant improvement in response site and generate higher
rate when the ad next airs. conversion rates while
building a cohesive brand
MutualMind Provides Key Business
experience across all
Insights for Marketing Teams.
channels.
The data collected through MutualMind’s
proprietary software allows for customized
reports that can demonstrate how well your
offline marketing elements drive traffic to social
media and search engines. By monitoring the
number of times a commercial is viewed on
YouTube or shared across Facebook, Twitter
and MySpace, you can see how your broadcast
elements compel consumers to share and
discuss your brand in social media.



Join the conversation your customers are already having.

MutualMind brings detailed, up-to-the-minute measurements and analysis to your entire
social media campaign, giving you the clear, actionable insights your business needs to
leap ahead. Built from the ground up to empower campaigns of all sizes, MutualMind’s
proprietary software maps consumer sentiment across the Web, ﬁlters out the noise, and
delivers relevant metrics and information directly to you.

MutualMind’s proprietary social intelligence engine integrates both listening and
engagement insights with built-in, best-in-class tools for managing multiple social channels,
one-click engagement and followup, team-based collaboration, and social customer
relationship management.

To learn more about how your business can unlock the social web, visit MutualMind.com.

Sources
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ited June 15, 2011.
1. eMarketer.com, (2011), “Companies Integrating Market-
6. Chalton, Graham, (2011), “The Future of Social
ing Efforts, Questioning Effectiveness,” eMarketer.com,
Search: the experts’ view,” Econsultancy.com,
May 26, available at:
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http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1008407, Vis-
http://econsultancy.com/us/blog/7643-the-future-o
ited May 30, 2011.
f-social-search-the-seo-experts-view-2 Visited
2. Facebook Statistics, (2011), Facebook.com, available at:
June 15, 2011.
http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statisticsVisited
7. Fishkin, Rand, (2011), “2011 Search Ranking
May 25, 2011.
Factors,” SEOmoz.com, available at:
3. http://www.seoservicesu.com/blog/2011/04/google-top-1
http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-fact
0-ranking-factor-or-how-to-get-google-top-10-ranking/
ors#overview , Visited June 15, 2011.
4. Stein, Gary, (2011), available at:
8. Resource Nation, (2010), “Search Engine Optimi-
http://www.clickz.com/print_article/clickz/column/207546
zation: Optimize Online – How to Build your Page
1/serp-position-goes-fold
Rank,” ResourceNation.com, available at:
5. Crispin Sheridan, (2011), “SEO + Social Media + Blog-
http://changetheworld.tradepub.com/free/w_reso1
ging: When Will Big Business Catch Up?” ClickZ.com,
3/ Visited June 20, 2011.
June 1, available at:
http://www.clickz.com/print_article/clickz/column/207502


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